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Fires Over Lebanon

Fires Over Lebanon

By Anthony Shadid, Scott Wilson and William Branigin
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, July 14, 2006; 3:38 PM

BEIRUT, July 14 — Israel pounded Lebanon with airstrikes and artillery for a third straight day on Friday, bombing the headquarters of the radical Shiite Muslim group Hezbollah and the residence of its leader in the capital’s southern suburbs.

The leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, subsequently threatened to engage in “open war” against Israel. Hezbollah’s television station, al-Manar, reported that Nasrallah, his family and his aides were safe after the separate attacks on his home and the Hezbollah headquarters in the Haret Hreik neighborhood late Friday afternoon.

Read more here…

The Middle East and its activities have always been highly significant to God’s people, whether those people live here in the United States or another part of the world. Again, I call for loyalty and patriotism. At such critical times as these, we must put aside political differences, seek the face of God, and pray sincerely for our leaders. There are those who believe we are at the beginning of World War III.

I am not a panic-crier, but neither am I one to ignore such significant developments as these. God help us, everyone. I say that not lightly, but with all sincerity.

By Shirley Buxton

Still full of life and ready to be on the move, Shirley at 84 years old feels blessed to have lots of energy and to be full of optimism. She was married to Jerry for 63 years, and grieves yet at his death in August of 2019. They have 4 children, 13 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren...all beautiful and highly intelligent--of course. :)

36 replies on “Fires Over Lebanon”

Thomas, I grieve with the beautiful people of Lebanon, whom I am given to believe want Hezbollah defeated. It was Hezbollah who sent rockets into Israel, killing men and taking captive two others. How can this not be called aggression?

It’s a terrible, complex situation, and I recognize that all those countries have warred with each other for centuries. In all likelihood, they will continue so.

The only peace we can count on is through God, through the Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you for visiting my site.

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We are speechless when looking at the atrcities. But even worse than the bombs are the lies and false inforamtion we receive about the real situation. It is easy to call an organization “terrorist”, and organization that has build more hospitals and schools and involved into Lebanese political as a democratic party for several years. Hezbollah is by no means radical islamic, it has agreed to the sharing of political power in lebanon with other Christians parties for the sake of Lebanon. The only problem with hezbollah is that it never agreed to disarm its militia as long as the bombs and war-planes of Israel threatens Lebanon. Ever since its withdrawal from lebanon in 1982 and 1990, Israel has continued to attack Lebanese ground, blowing up electric power stations, overfling the country almost daily with their war planes. Is it a surprise that Hezbollah found great support among the people of Lebanon for their attitude? But, sure, for the US and for Israel, this gives enough reason to call them terrorists and to attack lebanon and killing hundreds, and destroying homes of thousands, and to almost erasing Lebanon from the world map.

If you want to express your solidarity with lebanon, you may add a free Lebanon banner on your website. You can download the html-code at http://www.airpot.ch or take it here:

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Thanks Sam, for coming by and reading on my site today. I agree with you that people can make differences in each other’s lives, and I appreciate that you respect others’ personal values. I also agree that we shouldn’t try to force our views on other people. Instead, in a kind, logical way, we must speak what we believe to be the truth. I don’t know about you, but there are many things in this world that totally confuse me, and at the end of some days, I’m left gasping with bewilderment.

One thing that I just cannot understand are the views of terrorists and their extreme disregard for human life. It seems they would just as soon snatch life away from your babies and from mine, as to let them live. They regard life so little, that to give their own life, is considered the mark of a hero. Life is so precious to us here in America, and despite our diverse thoughts on war, most of us cringe at the sight of the fallen.

And yes, because I believe in God, I ask for His mercy and His help…for you, for me, for the world.

Please come again.

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How does that go? “To sin by silence, when we should speak, makes cowards of men…”

I don’t beleive in a God in the same way that you do, but I do believe that people can make a difference in one another’s lives – that through compassion and in living our lives in a way that reflects our personal values (as opposed to forcing our views on others) is an effective way to make a difference. Unfortuntely it seems ego all to often speaks on behalf of Christ.

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How can somebody in one breath call the President the “personification of evil” -the name given to the devil-who is the central embodiment of all evil, then in the same breath say that they don’t hate the representative of that pure evil?
Romans 12:9-10 says: “Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.”
If we are to “hate” that which is evil, how is it possible to keep “the embodiment of evil” in one’s prayers? I believe this to be obliquely disingenuous. Personification is an all inclusive term. It clearly has been used to describe a person who is completely devoid of goodness.
Perhaps Helen would like to retract her statement, back-off on the criticism of her country and utilize language that more accurately represents what it is she means to convey.

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Good morning, Daniel. I don’t think that count is accurate. WordPress has been having quite a problem with stats over the last few days. I didn’t get enough daily hits to have such a total, and I suppose it will all be resolved. It seems the other problems on the pages have been corrected–at least here on my site. Thanks anyway for noticing.

Have a wonderful Sunday. Hope you’re off to church, as am I in the next hour or so.

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Shirley
Thanks for defending truth.

Speaking the truth in love, first of all, is not holding back parts of the truth.

Speaking the truth in love is not watering down the truth seeking to dilute and weaken it.

Speaking the truth in love is not being so obscure that the hearers do not understand. Some people are skilled in circumlocution. After patiently listening to them, you realize that what they have said cannot really be decisively understood.

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Hi Shirley,

I should have known that you’d visist my blog.

It is obvious to me that you are the real deal, a sinner saved by the grace of God, and one who allows others to form opinions that may be your own and yet does not judge. It is God before whom we all will stand.

And while I won’t send messages to Bezu through your blog, I want to make sure that you understand that I do not hate President Bush.
He is in my prayers.

But I am praying that he will send big boats to bring our soldiers home. Not only for the sake of the soldiers, but also for his sake because leaders will be judged not only for their personal actions but also for those they have taught (sent, whatever).

And our nation – the country we love – will be judged, not according to what we think but according to what God thinks concerning the deaths of soldiers and citizens of other coutries where we have taken weapons, along with many other issues. America will have to answer.

Flying flags will never make us “one nation under God,” if we forget about “justice for all.” We must never ask God to bless America at the cost of “the world.” God loves the world so much, He sent Jesus . . . to save us, to teach us to live.

We cannot minister to dead people

Every “enemy” we kill is lost. I don’t think that pleases God, Who wants evry person ever born (and some who didn’t get to be born) to enter His Kingdom.

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I believe I often have the ability to see two sides to a story–or even perhaps to understand the opposing views of a difficult situation. However, I just cannot understand this hatred of President Bush, and of likening him to such evil dictators are Hitler and Bin Laden. I just don’t get it.

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Of course, that’s true, Bezu. Anyone with an honest mind and a modicum of intelligent understanding will look at pages of history, and without equivocation, acknowledge America to be the greatest country on the planet. We have contributed unselfishly–and have paid a heavy price–to the freedom and liberation of peoples around the world Pray that we continue so.

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Portrayals of Bush as Adolf Hitler or characterizations of him as the “personification of evil” — as we saw and heard in the “human-rights” protests — betray an ignorance of liberty, an ignorance of right and wrong, an ignorance of commonsense.
“The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty.
It is equally important to recognize who the liberator is. Those who march against the U.S. and the U.K. today, those who condemn Bush and Blair and remain silent when it comes to Hussein, Bin Laden, Khatami , Hamas, Al-Qa’ida , Hizballah , PFLP , Al-Jihad , People’s Mojahedin , and Abu Nidal are in league with the wolf’s view that the shepherds are destroying liberty.
It is worth remembering what those in the former Soviet republics know and what the anti-America blame-America hate-america Western street has forgotten: It was, and is, U.S. and British resolve that truly liberates the oppressed and that defends the lives and liberties of the free against the appetites and ill-will of the world’s dictators.

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With the decline of the authority of Judeo-Christian values in the West, many people stopped looking to external sources of moral standards in order to decide what is right and wrong. Instead of being guided by God, the Bible and religion, a great number of people have looked elsewhere for moral and social guidelines. For many people today, those guidelines have been replaced by subjective and emotional” feelings.” It seems as though personal feelings have supplanted universal standards.
Aside from reliance on feelings, how else can one explain a person who believes, let alone proudly announces that “War is not the answer”?

Almost every great evil has been solved by war — from slavery in America to the Holocaust in Europe. Auschwitz was liberated by soldiers making war, not by pacifists who would have allowed the Nazis to murder every Jew in Europe”

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Mick, in regard to your previous post, we surely are merely at odds only concerning semantics, for of course God is in control.

The decision making that we as humans have, the control we have on this earth, the dominion, is only ours as long as God permits it. God is in control.

A very puzzling scripture to me, and I can’t think where it is just now–will find it and post it–is where “God sets up whom He will.”

It’s hard to imagine He “set up” Hitler.

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Does Helen really believe that President Bush is the personification of evil( a biblical name given to Satan)? The intensity of her hatred for our President seems exceedingly contradictory to Christian values. Many of her comments seem very odd. I will pray for her.

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To Bratboy:

I believe Bratboy is attempting to refer to Newton’s Third law of Motion.

“For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.”

It clearly doesn’t say “Every action has an equal or double the reaction.”

When you sit in a chair, your body exerts a downward force on the chair and the chair exerts an upward force on your body.

Of course, this scientific law is meant to help us understand and explain such things as the flying motion of birds, the propulsion of a fish through water,the motion of a car or gravitational, electrical and magnetic forces.

It should not be quoted and referenced as a proof of some sort of mutually exclusive quid pro quo between competing ideologies. That’s a bit sophomoric.

I would like to pose this very profound and meaningful question to Bratboy:
What came first; the chicken or the egg?

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To say that, “God is in control” is not altogether true. He has given dominion over earthly affairs to mankind. God is in control only to the degree that we yield control to Him.

Gen. 1:26, 29 (to mankind)” I give you dominion over … every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Mt. 16:19 (to mankind) “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.”

God only indirectly controls human affairs by his ability to use his “creatures” (free will) to affect gradual (virtuous) changes in the hearts of men.

Luke 15-“What man among you having a hundred sheep and losing one of them would not leave the ninety-nine in the desert and go after the lost one until he finds it?

And when he does find it, he sets it on his shoulders with great joy
and, upon his arrival home, he calls together his friends and neighbors and says to them, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’

I tell you, in just the same way there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance.

Ephesians 4 “…being darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardening of their heart… that ye put away, as concerning your former manner of life, the old man, that seeks corruption after the lusts of deceit; and that ye be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new man, that has now been created in the righteousness and holiness of truth”

Put to death therefore…. uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry….. wherein ye once walked,.. Now Put on therefore, as God’s elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering;… And let the peace of Christ rule in your heart.”

Philippians 4-“Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.”

“Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus”.

Acts 10:34 Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.”

Romans 2:11 – For God shows no partiality.

Both the Americans and the Germans in World War II thought that God was in control and was on their side. German soldiers even wore belts that had Gott Mitt Uns [God with us] stamped on the buckles. This German Buckle had the Gott Mitt Uns inscription stamped around images of an eagle perched on a swastika, and it clearly indicated a belief that God was in control and fighting on the side of the Germans. I can remember hearing a speech by President Franklin Roosevelt made on D-Day 1944 in which he prayed for God to be with our soldiers who were fighting on the beaches of Normandy. Despite the prayer, 9,000 American soldiers were killed in an assault in which God was presumably with the invading army, and the Germans, who thought that God was with them, lost 20,000 during the invasion. In these statistics, we see again the irony in this misguided belief that God is control. Allied forces landed on Normandy, thinking that God was in control, as they were fighting German soldiers who thought that God was with them. In Iraq today–even though hundreds of our soldiers are being killed–many in this country believe that God is in control as our soldiers fight Muslim “insurgents” who think that Allah is on their side. What a testament to human ignorance!

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My dear, sweet Helen, it hardly seems fair or consistent to say that Bush started a war, when we had been attacked by the enemy on our own soil.

But, although I detest war, and it deeply grieves and even frightens me, I cannot understand calling our President evil because he has taken this stand.

I believe you and I will have to agree to disagree on this one.

On one principle (and many others) we stand united: We need God!

Blessings tonight.

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Hi Shirley,
Concerning your first comment: Yes, God is in control. Yes, we live in a fallen world. Of course, God did not want those people to die. Evil men flew the planes. And yes, God, who is a God of mercy, will rise up in fury, if we do not change our ways.

Some of us wish we could stand behind the country we love, but we cannot with “evil in high places.” We cannot support the evil, war-like ways of President Bush.

After 9/11, the world was on our side, because we were attacked senselessly. But then Bush started a war. You can’t fight evil with evil. You can’t fight terrorism with bombs. It takes the moral right of Godly men to fight evil. I don’t just disagree with Bush. I think he is the evil personified.

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One more thing. While I maintain that at such dangerous times, we must try to avoid partisanship, I in no way mean to apply that we should not speak against evil. We Americans have become too complacent about many things, and our eyes must be forced open.

However, even if I disgree with some of President Bush’s decisions, this is no time to camp on those. Rather we must show the world a united front–united against evil, and standing stalwart for good.

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Hello everybody. I’ve been gone today–speaking on the subject of “Friendship.” Can you believe it?–a much easier and tidier subject than the one with which we are faced here.

My take on this issue is:

1. Yes, God is in control. It is dangerous to think otherwise, and of course would be nonsense, for how could He be God and not be in control?

2. We live in a fallen world, and although God is in control, He could fell us all with one swipe of His mighty hand. He has chosen to let man live out His life, choose either good or evil, and determine his own fate by those decisions.

3. Of course, God did not direct those planes to kill certain people. Those people were killed because of evil men who flew their planes into the Twin Towers.

4. Remember, though, God IS in control. Today, He is a God of mercy. One day, He will rise, and pour out His fury on this world.

Again, I say, God help us all.

Thank you who have come and commented here.

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Thus said the verses of Nostradamus

“Stained with murder and enormous adulteries,
Great enemy of the entire human race:
One who will be worse than his grandfathers, uncles or fathers,
In steel, fire, waters, bloody and inhuman.”

Whoever brings such terror, has forgotten the basic laws of science. Every action has an equal or double the reaction.

God be with them.

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Time and again those who profess to be good seem to clearly outnumber those who are evil, yet those who are evil seem to prevail far too often. Seldom is it the numbers that determine the outcome, but whether those who claim to be good men are willing to stand up and fight for what they know to be right.
When good men do nothing, they get nothing good done. To be good, one must do good. The Lord commands his people to do good (Luke 6:35; Eph. 2:10). Christ “gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14).
In the parable of the talents, Jesus described a man who did nothing. When he received his Lord’s money, he “went and digged in the earth, and hid his Lord’s money” (Matt. 25:18). When his Lord returned, he returned to the Lord just what he had been given (Matt. 25:25). Notice, the servant did not do any outright evil, such as stealing the money, but then neither did he do anything good. He did nothing and he got nothing good accomplished. Jesus said he was a “wicked and slothful servant” (Matt. 25:26).
Too many Christians and too many churches do nothing. They are standing idly by, they are mere spectators. They sit on the sidelines instead of actively participating and working for the good. If good wins, they join in the celebration though they did nothing to produce the victory. If evil wins, they will complain long and loud though their own apathy helped produce the undesirable result.
When Jesus found a fig tree with “nothing thereon, but leaves only” He cursed the tree and “presently the fig tree withered away” (Matt. 21:19). What will He do with those who claim to be good and yet who do nothing? John the baptist warned, “And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire” (Matt. 3:10; John 15:2).
When good men do nothing, evil triumphs. Evil, sin and sinful men must be opposed. God commands those who are good, not just to avoid evil but actively oppose it.
Christians are to not only to “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but (also) reprove them” (Eph. 5:11). Those who do nothing about sin and evil, help the sin and evil to prevail. One who is silent when there are those around him in sin becomes a partaker with them (Eph. 5:7).

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Is God in Control?
Has God been demoted from Supreme Ruler to Comforter-in-Chief?
On September 11, 2001 millions of people watched in horror as the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center. Why did God allow it to happen? Many were praying for God to protect their loved ones. And yet they watched the horrible destruction occur. Many people asked questions. Why did this happen? Did God not love those people in the towers and in the planes? Did God not have the power to stop it? Christians would certainly say he had the power to prevent it. But he chose not to.
What about the thousands that died that day? Where was God’s protection? I’ve heard the recurring response: “Perhaps God had some mysterious purpose in letting them die, or perhaps their time on earth was done.” Some would even tell me he allowed it to punish the people in those planes, or to punish their nation. We are told that God–who has reasons we do not understand–worked his own plans. But I find that unbelievable. Imagine the details that God would have had to control to assure that only those people whose time had come were killed. What if the planes had hit several stories higher or lower? What if the flights had been delayed 10 minutes? What if somebody in the towers had gotten stuck in traffic that morning? What if the planes had hit at a different angle? What if the North Tower had collapsed first? All of these things would have altered the death toll. If God had planned for certain people to die that day, then he must have guided all of these details. He must have guided the planes to hit the buildings exactly where they did. In other words, God would have had to have been in control of those airplanes, and the terrorists were merely doing what God directed. All of this is of course absurd. And so I conclude that the reason these people died had nothing to do with God having a purpose in them dying. It just happened. God was not in control.
If God was in control of what happened to the people in those planes on September 11, and if he wanted them to die this way, then this event was not a tragedy. It was God’s will. But we all agree that it was a tragedy. We seem to be admitting that it was not God’s will, and he was not in control.
It appears that God was not in control of the circumstances when those planes hit the towers and he’s not in control of what’s happening in Lebanon!

“Then God blessed them, and said to them, Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
– Genesis 1:28

Perhaps we should be looking, not for might or power (from God), but for a still, small voice.

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“We have been warned, so “God help us,” indeed.”

Warned????? By whom????

Helen: Please go hide your head back in the sand and leave the difficult tasks to serious people.

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