Dear Pastors:
Today I write from our home in Piedmont, Oklahoma, where GOD, in His goodness, allowed me to come back to the bride of my youth yesterday from Baltimore, Maryland. Dr. John Seay and the good people of Frederick Baptist Church were ‘more than gracious’ to this ole man during my stay there for their Missions Conference. Dr. Seay publicly invited me to return every year for their Missions Conference till this ole body "puts out," or until our MESSIAH comes.
His church is a very easy church for me to speak to, because John is such a "Lift up thy Voice like a Trumpet" preacher. Oh, my soul, what a blessing I had in the last several days in spite of a terrible chest and head cold and an atrocious sore throat.
Now, let me direct your attention to a news story from WND on the explosions at Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility:
The explosions at Iran’s Fordow nuclear facility Jan. 21 killed at least 40 people, including two North Koreans, WND learned Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Islamic regime is labeling WND a "mouthpiece of the CIA" for its exclusive reporting of the blasts.
The bodies of 11 of the technicians and scientists are beyond recognition, a member of the security forces at the facility told WND. According to the source, 60 others are in critical condition and have been transferred to the central base of the 27th Division of Mohammad Rassool Allah. The base, between Tehran and Qom, is equipped with a modern medical facility.
At the time of the explosions, the source said, 203 Iranian scientists and technicians along with 16 North Koreans had been logged in at the site, though the initial report listed 240 people.
The day before the explosions, the North Koreans had brought in new equipment, described by the source as touch-screen monitors the size of TVs that were installed in the monitoring room and some new parts that were installed in the centrifuges before the start of the enrichment process.
Get the inside story in Reza Kahlili’s "A Time To Betray" and learn how the Islamic regime "bought the bomb" in "Atomic Iran."
The explosions were reported exclusively by WND Jan. 24, with updates Jan. 27, Jan. 29, Jan. 30 and Jan. 31. WND previously reported the trapped workers included 16 North Koreans: 14 technicians and two military attaches.
The source said many of the centrifuges have been destroyed and rescuers have still not accessed the reserves of the stock of 20-percent enriched uranium to assess the level of radiation.
The International Atomic Energy Agency has not visited the site since the explosions despite media rumors, the source said. Because the regime’s Ministry of Defense covers the project at Fordow, officials of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization were allowed to visit it Jan. 5.
In an unusual move, the IAEA issued a brief statement Jan. 29: "We understand that Iran has denied that there has been an incident at Fordow. This is consistent with our observations."
IAEA spokeswoman Gill Tudor emailed that response to reporters. However, when pushed by WND, Tudor could neither confirm nor deny the incident had taken place and did not say whether inspectors had visited the site after the explosions, despite media reports.
Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, representatives of the supreme leader and intelligence officers from both the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards have visited parts of the site that have been cleared as secure. A counterintelligence committee has been formed to investigate the incident, which already has been called an act of sabotage, with Israel the prime suspect.
The regime is debating how to explain the incident at a later date depending on the level of destruction, the source said. But because of internal rifts among President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Majlis (parliament), Ahmadinejad or others connected to his team will soon reveal the incident.
Regime media have solely based their denial that the explosions occurred on a statement by White House spokesman Jay Carney, who told reporters Jan. 28: "We have no information to confirm the allegations in the (WND) report, and we do not believe the report is credible."
The Fordow nuclear site was central to the regime’s nuclear bomb program, built 300 feet under the belly of a mountain where over 2,700 centrifuges were enriching uranium to the 20 percent level. That level could within weeks be further enriched to nuclear-weapons grade.
In a letter to the IAEA two days after the reported explosions, Iran said it planned to install thousands of its upgraded centrifuges at the Natanz facility. The source stated the move was a direct result of the explosions at Fordow.
Our position in these current events concerning Israel should be the same as Cyrus the Great, Ezra 1:1 Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying,
2 Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
3 Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the LORD God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.
4 And whosoever remaineth in any place where he sojourneth, let the men of his place help him with silver, and with gold, and with goods, and with beasts, beside the freewill offering for the house of God that is in Jerusalem.
Harry Truman was pro-Jew as our President, because of WWI side-kick and his study as a boy, Cyrus, in the set of books entitled "Great Men and Famous Women." Astyages, Cyrus’ grandfather, was King of Media. He was warned in a dream that the offspring of his daughter Mandane, who at the time of the dream was yet un-married, would be destined to pose a danger to his kingdom. So, he married Mandane off to a Persian named Cambyses, who took her to his country.
Another dream warned him his daughter’s child "was destined to reign in Astygages' stead." So, he sends for his daughter, and when the baby was born he gave it to his trusty lieutenant Harpagus to carry the child to his own house and kill it.
Harpagus took the ‘baby boy’ home, but moved by the ‘merciful pleadings’ of his wife about ‘not murdering that baby,’ he called one of his herdsmen and ordered him to expose the child on the bleakest part of the mountain and leave it there to perish, threatening with the most terrible penalties in case of disobedience. But, the herdsman and his wife were no more proof against pity than Harpagus and his wife had been, and while they stood swayed between their wish to save the child [Cyrus] and their fear of disobeying Harpagus, the Lord provided an escape for them. The wife of the herdsman had a stillborn baby boy. They determined to substitute their dead baby for the living baby. So, they put the clothes of Cyrus on their stillborn baby’s body, exposed that body to the terrible cold of the mountains, and then showed it to Harpagus. Harpagus was thus enabled to assure Astyages that Mandane’s baby, Cyrus, was dead.
When Cyrus came to manhood, the mighty Kingdom of Assyria, in its greatest estate had stretched from the Indus on the east, to the Mediterranean on the west. But, when Nineveh, the capital and chief city of the empire, had been destroyed by the Medes [a subject people to them living on the north-eastern borders of the kingdom, but who had risen in rebellion against their rulers], Assyria was broken in pieces, and several minor kingdoms rose on her ruins.
Of these the chief were Media and Babylonia in the east and Lydia in the west. Babylonia rose to a great height of power and splendor under Nebuchadnezzar. The Medes, a brave and warlike people, never attained to so high a degree of civilization as the Babylonians, nor did they ever have a Monarch whose fame equaled that of Sardanapalus, the King of Assyria; of Nebuchadnezzar; or of Croesus, King of Lydia; but under a succession of astute and hardy warriors, who held the throne for something over 150 years, their dominion was gradually extended until it reached from the Indus to the center of Asia Minor. Their greatest achievement was the destruction of Nineveh in B.C. 606.
Astyages punished Harpagus for allowing Cyrus to live, and when Cyrus was grown, Harpagus assisted and advised him in taking the throne from Astyages. Cyrus had the wisdom to spare Astyages in the overthrow of his kingdom and made Harpagus his lieutenant, and much of Cyrus’ success owned to that man’s wisdom and bravery. Rehoboam lost Solomon’s kingdom because he would not listen "to the Old Men."
Not only is Cyrus one of "my heroes" because of his stand with, and for, the Jews, I enjoy reading history about his "victories" as the leader of the famed Persians. Cyrus defeated Croesus, the brother-in-law to Astyages, and leader of Lydia. Had Croesus been less arrogant, the doom he wrought for himself might have been delayed, but it could not have been totally averted. Croesus surrounded his forces around Sardis, an impregnable city by assault of that day. Sardis was so strongly fortified on all sides, three by their garrisons and one by nature, since it abutted on the very edge of a steep precipice, thought at the time as "just being too steep for anyone to climb."
History records that, after 14 days of siege, a Persian sentinel saw one of the Lydian-Sardis descend "that precipice" and ascend the same after his helmet had rolled down the steep decline. No sooner had he thus unwittingly showed the way, than Cyrus’ sentinel followed with a number of his fellow-soldiers and, reaching the top of the cliff in safety, attacked the guards, all unsuspicious, and gained an entrance to the city. The gates were opened to the Persians, and Croesus with all his vast store of treasure, became the prey of Cyrus the conqueror. The fall of Sardis and the Lydian monarchy was followed by the subjection of the Greek cities of Asia Minor, a task which Cyrus left to the hands of Harpagus, while he himself turned eastward to pursue his conquests in Upper Asia and in Assyria. His greatest achievement, found in the 5th chapter of the Book of Daniel, was the taking of Babylon under the reign of Belshazzar. Cyrus did this by the turning of the Euphrates River, which ran through the middle of the city, out of its course; and when its bed was dry, he entered the city by this road and captured it with little resistance.
Daniel 5:30 In that night was Belshazzar the king of the Chaldeans slain.
31 And Darius the Median took the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old.
PRAY FOR THE PEACE OF JERUSALEM, MY FRIEND, BECAUSE THIS OLE MAN BELIEVES THEY ARE RIGHT ON THE BRINK OF WAR!!!!
JIM VINEYARD
YEDIDIM OF ISRAEL
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