Southern France / Pyrenesse trip introduction

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As a Christian who tries to travel a lot, I like to see places that have something of value to my faith in Christ.   I spent a few years living in Israel, and have also visited Morocco, Turkey, China, Norway, Canada and other places since then.

This trip was different.  One of my bucket lists was to go and see all the baby countries in Europe.   Now depending on how you define a baby country, this could be a population of half a million or less or just a physically small enough footprint and yet be independent enough to have their government, international telephone code, internet top level domain and car licence plate.

So I had two days off work, and years ago a friend wanting to go to Andorra.   I’ve already been to Gibraltar, Iceland, Malta and Monaco, Andorra is between France and Spain so this should be quite simple, right?  Actually, it was a lot harder with a few hidden surprises.   I find microstates, small countries quite interesting, most of them seem to be a place for buying cheap booze or a tax haven for a business people who want no questions asked banking. In the case of Monaco when I went in 2005, it has the added appeal to me as a young man who likes cars of being the motoring obsessed mini-state of the world, its own royal family and the main streets become a race track on certain days.

Andorra has a similar kind of charm from what I have read.

Introduction – Newspaper danger – Occitane, little known district of France & wannabe new nation

 

My Barcelona trip

In spring of this year, I was working for a big telecoms company and they needed to send me out to install new computers in their European offices in Lisbon, Stockholm, Vienna, and finally Barcelona.   A group of other London based IT pros in my office got to go out to Zurich, Paris, Dublin, Madrid, Frankfurt and some other places.   This was a really interesting couple of months.

So in Barcelona, I came here before quite a few years ago when a friend was living out here.   After getting the project done well just straight on the deadline, I took a look around the town.

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Walking around the city, I have this Freddie Mercury song stuck in my head for some reason.   Much of Barca looks a bit like a US city seeing as the streets are in a perfect parallel grid fashion.

After working for a Christian charity in Israel for four years, it’s funny that people I used to volunteer with find themselves in new and different places but in this case, two different friends of mine were in Barcelona at the same time.   One was in a hotel 20km away from me also on a long project.   This was a difficult journey to get there with taxis on strike (maybe upset about impending Uber expansion?)  so using the bus was fine but required 30-40 stops and another 30 mins of walking to see my friends on the outskirts of the city.

 

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Deli shops with jamon (ham) hanging from the ceiling at common here.

My other friends who were volunteering back in 2009 and studying IT at Uni, now have a successful IT business in South Africa.   It was great to see them after so long.  We met up at the La Ramla, a popular tourist strip.   This was a little disappointing as I ordered a Paella which was 15 Euros and arrived somewhat small and not very inspiring.   The beer was 8 Euros a glass, so I ordered a lemonade and not checking the prices, found out it cost me 7, bah.

The strip is a funny old place with African men with blankets of fake handbags and sunglasses, and more traditional touristy shops as well.    The top of the strip has some more interesting places to see including a kosher Jewish restaurant.   Later the Jewish restaurant caught my eye again in the news in August as in this street is where someone rammed a car and killed 13 people.   Palestinian style attacks now are happening in Europe, this is so sad and frustrating when it seems often Europe isn’t prepared for these threats like Israel is.

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From a Christian perspective, I didn’t get to find out if there is anything in the way of evangelical churches in this part of Spain.   It’s a big place with a lot of young people.

 

Could Kurdish independence be part of prophecy?

Few times I’ve pondered over this scripture passage

Isaiah 19 : 23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. 24In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. 25The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

I was wondering if a new forthcoming Kurdish state could be whats called Assyria in the bible.   It’s interesting that Kurdish people seem to have a good relationship with Israel.   I’ve met one Kurdish guy in the UK who found Christ.  I don’t expect this to be an easy to make another new nation in the always turbulent middle east, but I would welcome a new nation for the Kurdish people.

This article I read today from Charisma magazine has some similar thinking.   I think this is well worth a read if you are interested in end times and middle east peace from a sensible non-hysteria point of view.

https://www.charismanews.com/opinion/standing-with-israel/67304-12-reasons-syria-may-fulfill-god-s-isaiah-19-promise-for-israel 

A few years ago I wrote about another aspect of Isaiah 19 regarding the 1973 Yom Kippur here.  

 

 

 

How the Hebrew language reveals the trinity – part 2

This is a follow up to what I wrote a year ago:-

Has anyone told you that the Trinity isn’t true?  There’s a fair amount of people with this kind of idea in the theological mixed bag of the internet.   Unfortunately, this confuses people and does much damage and I’ve had to counsel people whose walk with Lord has been derailed by this sort of stuff.

Genesis 1:26
Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

trinity in Genesis1To flatten this constantly repeated lie, head to biblehub.com. This is a brilliant web site for thorough drilling down into the scriptures looking at multiple translations and the original Hebrew and Greek.

Look at multiple versions, what do you see?   You can do a Control F on your computer as I have shown, see every single translation is the same old and new.  But what about the original Hebrew?

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֱלֹהִ֔ים נַֽעֲשֶׂ֥ה אָדָ֛ם בְּצַלְמֵ֖נוּ כִּדְמוּתֵ֑נוּ וְיִרְדּוּ֩ בִדְגַ֨ת הַיָּ֜ם וּבְעֹ֣וף הַשָּׁמַ֗יִם וּבַבְּהֵמָה֙ וּבְכָל־הָאָ֔רֶץ וּבְכָל־הָרֶ֖מֶשׂ הָֽרֹמֵ֥שׂ עַל־הָאָֽרֶץ׃

My Hebrew isn’t good enough to translate all of this.   You can look up the Hebrew here.

This particular word is familiar to Jewish people.  One of my Israeli Messianic Jewish friends in Jerusalem showed me this whilst I was learning Hebrew in her kitchen;

Elohim / אֱלֹהִ֔ים

Anyone who knows Hebrew will know that if you add ים / im on the end of almost any word, it makes it a plural, just like adding S on an English word.  

For true followers of Christ, the trinity is 100% genuine concept.   It is not a word found the bible, but it is a tool or a measuring item to show the Godhead.  Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one but also three separate parts.

 

 

Should believers post Christian parody sites?

I like comedy, and like a lot of British people I am a bit sarcastic and use irony a bit.

I am not really a fan of Joel Osteen.  I don’t like the prosperity theology movement.   Pastors making huge amounts of money is embarrassing and a poor example of the gospel.   I am glad that this type of movement isn’t really popular in Britain but it does creep into some churches I’ve seen here.

Christian parody sites like the Babylon Bee, used to have some funny stories that highlight common things in a satirical way which is amusing especially if you have worked in a church or ministry.    Nowadays I think they step over the line.  In fact it often smacks of bearing False Witness.

https://hellochristian.com/9089-does-this-babylon-bee-article-on-joel-osteen-go-too-far 

However, I agree with this article here.  I have grown tired of Christian parody sites as they end up slandering various churches and ministries and cause a lot of problems.  It really looks poor in front of a non-believing world, if we post such things on social media.

The Babylon Bee has in the past made gags about the Holy Spirit.  For serious believers in Christ, this is treading on dangerous ground.   This is really really very very bad, please don’t do it.

 

Three words in the bible indicate crucial prophecy – “knowledge will increase”

From the prophet Daniel:-

Daniel 12: 4 But you, Daniel, keep this prophecy a secret; seal up the book until the time of the end, when many will rush here and there, and knowledge will increase.”

Knowledge is a wonderful thing, we have libraries and encyclopedias, and these days we have the internet.   Its easy to look up something in an instant.

About 5 years ago, I was travelling on a bus in Haifa Israel, and accidentally went past Google’s R&D labs.  I remember few years back, Google doubled their whole efforts in Israel.

So with the gospel coming out of Israel, and part of the hi-tech big names setting up shop there, its no coincidence Israelis are find their Messiah mostly through the internet, which is why I love all these testimonies happening from OneForIsrael.

https://www.oneforisrael.org/bible-based-teaching-from-israel/at-the-last-count-in-2016-over-23-million-have-seen-our-videos/ 

 

 

 

Books on examples of Jewish evangelism in Israel

Ok, taking a break from my European travel writing, instead going back to my focus on the Holy Land and things I’ve seen and experienced.

I’ve been to a couple of places where there were congregations of Messianic Jews worshiping together who had some books on the testimonies and ministry work that brought Israeli Jewish people (and also Arab people and other groups) to Jesus.  I have two books from these places which have some of the most heart warming stories of Israeli finding their Messiah.

Let’s quickly make up this map:-

david davis bookThe first one at the top, is David Davis Z”L (he died in 2017) who is a pastor of a congregation in Mount Carmel, who wrote about his life in this book from being an actor and moving from New York.

The second is in the extreme corner of the bottom of Israel in Eilat from John and Judy Pex at The Shelter Hostel, which is also a meeting place for local believers on Fridays.

dscf8621Some people are told its illegal to spread the gospel to people in Israel.   This is a lie.  Israel has freedom of religion, albeit with some restrictions, you cannot convince child to adopt another religious without parents permission, and you can’t coerce someone to follow another religion in return for a gift or bribe.

Conventional evangelism in say, Jerusalem tends to not work well and its socially frowned upon, as in walk-up giving out leaflets.  In Judea and Samaria (aka the West Bank) the number of believers is very small and congregations are probably limited to meeting in people’s houses.  The most common way people accept the gospel is through a Youtube videos which then results in people privately contacting the group like OneforIsrael for more information and a meet up.

I had a flash of inspiration the other day….

Maybe, revival of the Jewish people will happen at opposite edges of Israel and work its way back to the middle when Jesus will come back to Jerusalem!!

One the left, the blue symbols I’ve marked for “WhyMe?” which is from Tel Aviv based evangelist Jacob Damkani, and also for “Leave me alone I’m Jewish” by Pastor Ron Cantor also from Tel Aviv.   I’ve not seen these books but I need to get them soon.

Mount Carmel congregation https://britinjerusalem.com/2011/03/13/from-karmiel-to-mount-carmel/ 
The Shelter Hostel Eilat https://britinjerusalem.com/2015/07/31/come-stay-celebrate-the-story-of-the-shelter-hostel-in-eilat-israel-book-by-john-judy-pex/ and https://britinjerusalem.com/2009/12/23/journey-to-the-red-sea-%E2%80%93-part-two/ 

I’ll maybe write a part 2 to this part as theres some scripture that points to certain parts of Israel getting revival first.

Multiculturalism in Vienna Austria

Austria has immigrants like a lot of European nations, a lot of Turkish people just like next door neighbour Germany.  I like to see a mixture of different nations in my neighbourhood, but I am uncomfortable with rushed unvetted immigration which can and has been catastrophic to any country.

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This busy market has Russians with grocery items popular with the ex-Soviet nations.

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This stand had middle east spices from an Egyptian family who were running it.  I ask if they had some Ras el hanout spice mix so I could make some more Taboule (popular Arabic dish) when I got home.  After some chatting to other men, they came up with the exact ingredient for 2 euros.

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This is a Indian convience store, I think the people are Catholic but love this proudly displayed picture of Christ and scripture in German in their store.

1. Around city centre of Vienna Austria – 2. The Jews of Vienna Austria – 3. Multiculturalism in Vienna Austria

The Jews of Vienna Austria

Vienna seems quite multicultural but has preserved its Christian and Jewish history.

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IMG_20170620_171512551Theodor Herzl was the father of modern Zionism.   This word can trigger all kinds of strong emotions among those hostile to Israel and Jewish people.   If you steer clear of rhetoric, Zionism is a framework for Jewish people to stay connected to their heritage when many become secular or intermarry.

Strangely enough Vienna is also the birth place of Adolf Hitler, and Jospeh Stalin lived there as well.

Right, Juden Gaffe is the name of the street from Vienna’s Jewish community.

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I saw this Synagogue (which had armed police opposite)   There are many wonderful churches with spectacular architecture as well.   I only had two evenings free to explore Vienna and there was so much more I wanted to see.

My background in living and working in Israel as a Christian made me want to see some of the Jewish history of old European cities.

1. Around city centre of Vienna Austria – 2. The Jews of Vienna Austria – 3. Multiculturalism in Vienna Austria

 

Around city centre of Vienna Austria

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What do you think we you hear about Vienna, Austria’s capital?  Classical music? a historical place that looks similar to Germany and borrows their language?

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IMG_20170620_170013506Vienna is quite a lot what I expected to be; Old, grand, magnificent, a place to see a live performance of music by the experts, Beethoven, Mozart and Strauss.

Second hand shop with LPs of classical music.

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Something slightly odd, Austria is land locked and has no coast.  That doesn’t stop Wieners (Vienna people) from sun bathing on this erzats beach on a concrete island in a river, which means they can get tanned like a sausage!

This river is much more famous, the Danube!

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This sign reminds you of gateways to other European capital cities, Budapest Hungary and Bratislava Slovakia.

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1. Around city centre of Vienna Austria – 2. The Jews of Vienna Austria – 3. Multiculturalism in Vienna Austria