Saudi Arabia Intercepts Houthi Missiles as Conflict Spreads Across the Region
Middle East / Yemen · November 10 · Reuters
Saudi-led forces reported intercepting two missiles directed toward Riyadh, another ballistic missile aimed at southern Saudi Arabia and a drone over the kingdom’s oil-producing Eastern Province. Houthi-controlled media separately reported Saudi airstrikes against facilities in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, including a fuel-related installation. The competing accounts have not all been independently confirmed. reuters.com
So What?
The Middle East is not one war with two sides.
The region contains overlapping rivalries involving governments, armed movements, religious identities and international powers. Understanding those differences matters more than forcing each conflict into a simplified prophecy chart.
Matthew 24:6 acknowledges wars and rumors of wars, but does not identify modern Yemen, Saudi Arabia or specific missile attacks as signs of an imminent date for Christ’s return.
Nicanor is the main character in our short historical fiction episodes showing how the Book of Revelation may have first traveled from Patmos in the Aegean Sea in the first century to the churches in Asia Minor—and eventually to the whole world and people in every age since.
During this “Armchair Apocalypse” series, we’ll follow Nicanor on his travels to better understand the Book of Revelation by exploring the people and the times in which it was first revealed.
Nicanor and the Sound of One Trumpet
By midday, Smyrna had disappeared behind the hills.
Nicanor followed the northbound road toward Pergamum with the scroll secured beneath his cloak. Elder Justus had arranged for another believer to travel with him—a Jewish cloth merchant named Matthias ben Levi, who knew the road and the questions asked at Roman checkpoints.
As evening approached, they left the main road and made camp beneath a stand of pine trees. While Matthias divided their bread, Nicanor unrolled a small portion of John’s letter and read by the fading light:
“Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him.” — Revelation 1:7, KJV
“John speaks of the Lord’s coming many times,” Nicanor said. “But when will the faithful be gathered to Him? Before the suffering—or when He appears?”
Matthias looked puzzled. “Why would those be two different arrivals?”
He explained that the prophets had taught Israel to expect a day when God would openly judge evil, raise the dead, restore His people, and establish His kingdom. Daniel had written that those sleeping in the dust would awaken. Isaiah spoke of a great trumpet gathering God’s scattered people. Zechariah described the Lord coming with His holy ones.
“None of our fathers expected the Messiah to arrive secretly,” Matthias said. “When a king comes to claim his kingdom, he does not sneak through the back gate.”
Nicanor thought about the rest of John’s vision: the seventh trumpet, the resurrection, the Rider appearing from heaven, the Beast defeated, and the kingdoms of the world becoming the kingdom of Christ.
“Could the Lord come unseen for His people,” he asked, “and then appear to the world later?”
“John never said that.” Matthias tore the bread in half and handed a piece to him. “He gave the churches one hope: endure until the King comes. The dead are raised, the faithful are gathered, evil is judged, and Christ reigns. Why split one victory into two?”
A trumpet sounded faintly from a Roman watchtower somewhere beyond the trees. Both men fell silent until its echo died among the hills.
“To our people, a trumpet calls the assembly,” Matthias continued. “It announces the king. It warns that the day of decision has arrived. No one hears it and wonders whether something secret just happened.”
Nicanor smiled. “Especially not that one.”
As darkness settled, he remembered the believers in Smyrna listening to John’s warning: Be faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life. John had not promised that they would disappear before Rome tested them. He promised that even death could not steal their victory.
That changed how a person prepared for the Lord’s return. The faithful did not spend their lives searching for an escape hatch. They cared for prisoners, fed families who had lost their income, refused the emperor’s incense, and reminded one another that Rome’s power had an expiration date.
At sunrise, Nicanor and Matthias returned to the road. Somewhere ahead stood Pergamum, a city of temples, imperial power, and what John had called “Satan’s seat.”
Nicanor tightened the strap holding the scroll.
The hope written inside was not that Jesus would quietly remove His people from the world and return again later.
It was that the risen King would appear once—openly, unmistakably, and in power—and gather a faithful people who had been waiting for Him.
New Research Examines Where Teenagers Turn When They Doubt Their Religion
Religion researcher Ryan Burge is examining a Fuller Youth Institute survey of nearly 3,000 American teenagers ages 13–17, conducted in 2025. The newly published analysis explores how adolescents handle religious doubts and how relationships shape their responses.
Burge emphasizes that most national religious surveys exclude people under 18, leaving an important gap in understanding the next generation. The publicly accessible summary does not yet establish which people teenagers consult most frequently or how often they change beliefs. religionunplugged.com
Contrary to what some folks might think, there are lots of young people who aren’t rejecting Christianity. Instead they’re just asking questions churches aren’t answering – difficult questions about suffering, biblical reliability, morality, science and the meaning of life.
Church poohbahs and youth pastors that treat sincere questions as rebellion are missing opportunities to provide real answers from the Bible to real questions that matter.
So What?
Acts 17:11 commends people who examined religious claims carefully rather than accepting them without investigation. Skepticsm isn’t rebellion.
Acts 17:11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.
Biblically based faith should never shy away from the hard questions, because the answers are in God’s Word, even if those answers don’t agree with the traditions of churchianity and the doctrines of men disguised as truth.
We are called as God’s people, and we are each called individually. But what is it that we are called to?
I always come back to something I read in the Os Guinness book, ‘The Call’: “…we are not called to something or somewhere, we are called to Someone.“
When I think about that truth, I picture a child playing in the backyard on a sunny day, and a father coming outside through the back screen door of the house into the yard, opening his arms and calling to his child by name.
The child stops playing, turns his head to his father’s voice, and runs joyously across the yard straight into his father’s arms.
And I see my whole life as running across the yard into my Father’s arms. That’s what we’re called to.
So What?
What you do in life isn’t as important as who you are in life.
You can have the desire and talent to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a plumber, or a dancer, or an engineer, or whatever, but your career or job isn’t really your calling. Your calling is to Him.
Your life is a journey. It’s not a dead end, it’s a race across the years God is giving you and it will end up with you leaping into His loving arms. Hold that picture in your mind’s eye every day.
New Associated Press reporting examines the victories of Christian clergy and religiously outspoken Democratic candidates in the midterm elections. James Talarico in Texas, Adam Hamilton in Kansas, and ministers Sarah Trone Garriott and Lindsay James in Iowa were among the successful candidates. They emphasized neighborly love, compassion, religious pluralism and public service.
It will be revealing to see how those on the left who screech loudest against “separation of church and state” and “Christian Nationalism” react to their own candidates’ new roles as simultaneous preachers and elected government officials.
In the meantime, AP polling also found continued strong Republican support among white evangelical voters. Analysts caution that economic dissatisfaction and broader political conditions were major election factors; religious messaging alone does not explain the results.
So What?
Jesus isn’t registered with either political party and Christianity is not the exclusive property of conservatives or progressives.
Different Christian traditions emphasize different biblical teachings when discussing government, poverty, morality, religious liberty and individual responsibility.
The challenge is to examine whether a politician’s character, actions and proposals are consistent with the principles they claim to represent and whether their proclaimed interpretaiton of the Bible is consistent with clear Scripture.
Jesus said people would be known by their fruits (Matthew 7:16), not by their campaign slogans.
The election may change how both political parties engage religious voters and how Americans understand the relationship between Judeo-Christian identity and political ideology.
Here are four quotes from four different voices on the Book of 1 Corinthians.
Augustine of Hippo (354–430) — On Love
“Love, and do what you will.”
Homilies on the First Epistle of John, 7.8
Augustine’s famous statement captures the spirit of 1 Corinthians 13: Genuine love transforms our motives and guides our actions.
John Wesley (1703–1791) — On Christian Unity
“Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike?”
Catholic Spirit, Sermon 39
A fitting reflection on Paul’s appeal against division and factionalism in 1 Corinthians 1–3.
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) — On Holiness
“Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”
Mere Christianity, Book IV, Chapter 8
Lewis’s observation complements Paul’s teaching that believers belong to Christ and should honor God with their lives (1 Corinthians 6:19–20).
N. T. Wright (1948–present) — On the Resurrection
“What you do in the present—by painting, preaching, singing, sewing, praying, teaching, building hospitals, digging wells, campaigning for justice, writing poems, caring for the needy, loving your neighbor as yourself—will last into God’s future.”
Surprised by Hope
Wright’s reflection echoes 1 Corinthians 15:58: Because Christ is risen, our labor in the Lord is not in vain.
These four voices provide a useful way to introduce 1 Corinthians as more than a collection of church corrections. It’s Paul’s challenge to live differently because Christ is risen.
UN Special Rapporteur Mai Sato has highlighted Iran’s limited responses to international inquiries concerning its treatment of Christians. According to her account, Iran answered only one of eight communications from UN human rights experts about Christians since 2011.
That response characterized Christian converts as a national-security threat. The report also discusses the seizure of a Tehran church as part of wider concerns about religious freedom. Christian Daily International
Iran’s Christians are not the Iranian government, and that distinction matters, particularly when military and political tensions dominate the headlines.
Iran has an ancient Christian history, and Iranian believers include members of historic churches as well as converts from Islam.
So What?
The biblical command to remember persecuted believers (Hebrews 13:3) applies regardless of nationality or denomination.
As international attention focuses on Iran’s nuclear program and military activities, religious minorities face challenges that can disappear from public discussion.
The Rapture Debate, Part Three: How Many Times Does Jesus Return?
The pre-tribulation Rapture requires two future arrivals of Christ. First, Jesus comes secretly for the Church and takes believers to heaven. Seven years later, He returns publicly with those believers to defeat evil and establish His kingdom.
Supporters usually call these two stages of one return. Critics might reasonably respond: if the events are separated by seven years and completely different things happen at each one, that sounds suspiciously like two returns.
So, what sequence does the New Testament actually describe?
In Matthew 24, Jesus places the gathering of His people after the tribulation:
“Immediately after the tribulation of those days…they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.” — Matthew 24:29–30, KJV
He then sends His angels “with a great sound of a trumpet” to gather His elect.
Paul uses remarkably similar language in 1 Thessalonians 4: the Lord descends from heaven, a trumpet sounds, the dead rise, and living believers are caught up to meet Him in the air. In 1 Corinthians 15, resurrection and transformation occur “at the last trump.”
These passages share the same basic elements: Christ appears, the trumpet sounds, the dead are raised, and God’s people are gathered. Nothing in them clearly says Jesus performs a secret removal years before His visible return.
Revelation adds that when the seventh trumpet sounds, heavenly voices announce:
“The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ.” — Revelation 11:15, KJV
The passage also speaks of judgment, reward for God’s servants, and the time of the dead. Is Revelation’s seventh trumpet identical to Paul’s “last trump”? Possibly, although similar language does not prove they are the same event. Revelation is a symbolic vision, not a train schedule in which every scene follows the previous one chronologically.
Still, it is difficult to place the Church’s final gathering before Revelation’s judgments when Jesus continues warning His followers to remain watchful deep into the vision. In Revelation 16:15—during the bowl judgments—He says, “Behold, I come as a thief.”
If Christ had already come secretly and removed the Church several chapters earlier, who is this warning for?
Revelation 20 makes the timing question even sharper. Those killed for refusing the Beast are raised and reign with Christ, and John calls this “the first resurrection.” Christians disagree over whether that resurrection is literal, symbolic, or part of a larger resurrection event. But calling it “first” presents an obvious challenge to a system requiring another resurrection of believers years earlier.
So What?
No single verse settles every detail. Yet the most straightforward picture across the New Testament is one great, visible return of Christ involving resurrection, transformation, gathering, judgment, and victory.
The Christian hope is not that Jesus slips in unnoticed, quietly removes His people, and returns properly later. It is that the King arrives—and when He does, nobody misses it. A singular event.
In Part Four, we’ll look at where the modern pre-tribulation system came from and compare the major Rapture positions.
A peer-reviewed study by Hebrew University researcher Hila Dayfani, published in Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, reexamines readings from the ancient En-Gedi scroll, a charred manuscript containing portions of Leviticus.
The scroll was discovered in 1970 and digitally reconstructed decades later using advanced imaging technology.
Dayfani proposes alternative readings in portions of Leviticus 2 based on paleographic and material evidence. The findings suggest that the history of the biblical text may be more nuanced than earlier descriptions of the manuscript’s relationship to the later standard Hebrew text.
The proposed readings remain scholarly interpretations, not settled consensus.
So What?
Has the Bible’s text changed over time? That’s a legitimate question, and Christians shouldn’t be afraid of it.
The Bible wasn’t delivered as a modern printed book. Its writings were copied, preserved and transmitted through centuries of scribal work. Textual criticism helps researchers distinguish original wording, copying variations and later editorial developments.
The existence of manuscript differences doesn’t discredit Scripture. Nor does an ancient manuscript prove that every biblical text remained letter-for-letter identical.
This research contributes directly to understanding how the Hebrew Scriptures were preserved and transmitted, particularly the textual history of Leviticus.
God’s desire is to dwell together with his children forever in His perfect creation.
Our job in that relationship is to love and glorify our Heavenly Father and to take care of and add value to the creation He has given us.
The original creation and state of mankind was in perfect harmony and fellowship with the Creator and all was well with the universe.
The Rebellion
Then disobedience, rebellion, and sin cut mankind (Adam and Eve) off from their relationship with God.
Adam and Eve hid from God in shame. God’s perfect garden of delight was ruined, brought forth thorns and weeds, and was no longer the joyous place for Adam and Eve to tend and enjoy.
So Along Came Jesus
Then, after the fall and ruin, the whole purpose and plan of God is to restore that original relationship with His people and redeem the creation from the wreck of death and decay brought about by the rebellion.
The way He has done and is doing that is through His only begotten son, Jesus Christ, who through love and obedience has made it possible for us to once again live God’s original purpose.
So What About Us?
What is our part in all of this today? Where do you fit in?
Well, our purpose is to help God in bringing about the redemption of His people and the final restoration of His creation. YOUR individual purpose is to help God in bringing about the redemption of His people and the final restoration of His creation.
So, we can either believe we are just tiny specks of dust with no purpose or meaning floating around aimlessly in a cold and dark universe, or we can believe that we are actually workers together with the Creator of the universe to accomplish His everlasting purpose.
I choose the latter. The challenge is to understand and believe it to the point of action. How do we do that? We’ll dig deeper next week.
