Current Events & Trends: September/October 2025

Iran has remained defiant with its nuclear program

The United States and Israel dealt a devastating blow to Iran in taking out nuclear enrichment facilities on June 22, 2025. Nevertheless, Iran has remained recalcitrant, saying it would continue its nuclear program.

Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reemerged in July with renewed threats against Israel (“Khamenei: ‘Israel Is a Cancerous Tumor, America’s Dog—We Can Hit Back Even Harder,” Ynet News, July 16, 2025).

Furthermore, “in an unprecedented and chilling escalation, Iran’s theocratic regime has issued a religious decree—an official fatwa—calling for the assassination of President Donald J. Trump, marking the first time in modern history that a sovereign state has openly called for the murder of a sitting or former U.S. president” (“Iran Issues Call for Trump Assassination, Offers $1 Million Bounty: A State-Sanctioned Threat of War,” Harbinger’s Daily, July 28, 2025).

As of the time of this writing in mid-August, Iran was still not permitting a delegation from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit any of its nuclear facilities (“Iran Refuses to Allow Inspectors Into Nuclear Facilities,” Israel National News, Aug. 4). There are hopes a deal can be reached in negotiations by late August, a deadline set by the United States and European allies that will have passed by the time you read this.

Writing at RealClear Energy, Ali Safavi of a Paris-based committee of Iranian resistance comments: “For over thirty years, the Iranian regime has operated on three pillars: denial, deception, and duplicity . . . Since the early 2000s, Iran has used negotiations not to resolve tensions, but to buy time. Time to enrich uranium. Time to build secret facilities. Time to advance a nuclear weapons program under the cover of diplomacy . . . This is not speculation. It’s documented fact . . .

“The regime’s intent is survival—not peace. And nuclear capability is its insurance policy . . . Regime Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared, ‘We cannot give up enrichment. Its an achievement of our scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride.’ Let’s be clear: this is not national pride. It’s regime survival—at any cost” (“Iran’s Nuclear Deception: The World Must Stop Playing Along,” Aug. 7).

Safavi and others believe only regime change by a popular uprising could change things there. For further background on the Iranian situation, search at our website for a July 10 article “Iran: How Did We Get to This Point?” And for broader understanding of the region and where things are ultimately headed, request or download our free study guide The Middle East in Bible Prophecy.

New calls for Palestinian state, as Israel blamed for starving Gazans

Israel has taken a lot of blame for not feeding the people of Gaza even though they’ve brought in much food and aid. A major problem is that Hamas is still very active in the territory:

“Continual interference by Hamas, with soldiers embedded among the civilians seeking help, complicates the distribution of critically needed food. Worse yet, as Jed Babbin explained in the Washington Times, ‘Food is being withheld from Gaza because the United Nations insists that Hamas participate in the distribution of it, rather than legitimate US aid groups or any independent agency. Hamas has threatened the lives of anyone who distributes food without its participation.’ If Hamas is involved, it is stealing the food and selling it back to the Palestinians at exorbitant prices” (Dave Patterson, “Israel, Gaza, and the US—Is There an End Game?” Liberty Nation News, Aug. 11, 2025).

Hamas is even taking much of the food for its own operatives in well-stocked underground tunnels (“Hamas Terrorists Caught Feasting Underground on Lavish Meals While Exploiting Gaza Civilians Suffering Above,” Breitbart, July 23). If Palestinians are starving here, Hamas is largely responsible.

But in fact, “dramatic evidence was produced . . . to illustrate the hijacking of the Western media by Hamas in its attempt to turn Israel into the pariah of the world and accelerate the destruction of the Jewish state. The German publications Bild and Suddeutsche Zeitung revealed that Western media outlets had been publishing images purporting to be of starving Gazans but which were in fact staged and manipulated by Hamas as part of its propaganda offensive” (Melanie Phillips, “The Media Front in the War on Civilisation,” Substack, Aug. 8, 2025).

“Images of skeletal children published by The New York Times, The Guardian and other media outlets were fraudulent. These children weren’t skeletal because they were being starved in Gaza. They were either suffering from dreadful congenital diseases, or the pictures had been taken in Yemen. The giveaway was that adults and other children in the pictures were obviously well-fed” (Melanie Phillips, “Gaslighting Is Not a Jewish Value,” Substack, Aug. 1).

One genuine horrible image of a starving, emaciated person is that of Evyatar David, an Israeli hostage still held by Hamas—a recent propaganda video showing him as a “living skeleton” digging his own grave.

“Hamas has only one bargaining chip—the hostages. Reports claim that only 20 of the 50 held by the terrorists are thought to be alive . . . Hamas will continue to try to use the hostages as leverage . . . They believe that if they hold out, world public opinion will force Israel to agree to its demands . . . Hamas wants all of the Palestinians held in prison by Israel to be released and for the IDF to withdraw entirely from Gaza. They will then release the remaining hostages. That leaves Hamas with some level of control over Gaza. That is not going to happen” (Patterson, Aug. 11).

But world opinion has turned decidedly against Israel—and various Western leaders are issuing calls for Israel to stand down and for the creation of a Palestinian state. Israeli officials and supporters of Israel have decried these leaders as effectively rewarding and emboldening terrorists. Some of these leaders maintain that Hamas can have no part in such a state, but they can’t answer who will get rid of Hamas.

And the Palestinians don’t want to get rid of Hamas: “According to the latest public opinion poll from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, 64% of Gazans and 85% of West Bank residents oppose disarming Hamas. A staggering 73% overall reject the idea that the war would end even if Hamas released Israeli hostages. In other words, most Palestinians appear more committed to the continuation of armed resistance than to securing an immediate ceasefire . . .

“Support for a two-state solution remains weak at just 40% overall . . . Only 12% of Gazans blame Hamas for the humanitarian crisis. The majority blames Israel or the United States . . . These findings complicate the widespread narrative that Palestinians are simply victims of Hamas rule” (“Poll: Most Palestinians Say No to Peace If It Means Weakening Hamas,” Legal Insurrection, Aug. 3, 2025).

God says He will bring judgment on the nations for scattering His people of Israel and because “they have also divided up My land” (Joel 3:2). Something to ponder.

To better understand the situation in this war-torn area, read our free study guide The Middle East in Bible Prophecy.

Man-made laws and regulations out of control

A major problem with human legal systems is a vast proliferation of rules that are hard to keep track of. We find this throughout the nations of the world, but we note here observations concerning the growing breadth and complexity of American law as a prime example.

In a recent book titled Over Ruled: The Human Toll of Too Much Law, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing with coauthor Janie Nitze, observes that law is multiplying in the United States, and “its demands are growing increasingly complex . . . Less than a hundred years ago, all of the federal government’s statutes fit into a single volume. By 2018, the U.S. Code encompassed 54 volumes and approximately 60,000 pages. Over the last decade, Congress has adopted an average of 344 new pieces of legislation each session” (2024, p. 14).

All these laws have created a massive burden for citizens, who collectively spend 9.78 billion hours a year completing federal paperwork, according to Gorsuch’s book, “making it difficult for people to enjoy fundamental rights . . . to obtain licenses and permits, to obtain life-changing benefits, or to avoid crushing hardship.” Not only that, but “just finding the relevant law, regulation, guidance or form can pose a serious challenge . . . Anyone wanting to find the federal laws and rules that govern them must consult (at a minimum) the U.S. Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. Both sets of books are behemoths, unmanageable for any single person to read” (p. 141).

Thankfully, things will not be this way when Jesus Christ returns to set up the Kingdom of God over the nations.

Bold acknowledgment of God at the U.S. Capitol

On the eve of the July 4, 2025 celebration of America’s founding, some remarkable comments were offered on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives by House Speaker Mike Johnson after the passage of some major legislation. He said this:

“As friends and colleagues . . . let’s put the politics aside for a minute, and let’s reflect on our blessings—no kidding, really. Tomorrow is the 249th birthday of our nation . . . We are so blessed. We should not take it for granted . . .  We live in the most free, the most successful, the most powerful, the most benevolent nation that has ever been on the face of the earth. And there’s a reason for that.

“The reason we are the greatest nation is because we are built on the ultimate foundation . . . We unite under that—the bold declaration that we do ‘hold these truths to be self-evident . . . that all men are created equal.’ It does not say, ‘born equal.’ It says, ‘created equal.’ And . . . it is our Creator that gives us our rights.

“See, the powerful thing about that is, we’re the first nation in the history of the world that acknowledged that our rights do not derive from government. They come from God Himself.” At this there was great applause. Then pointing to the focal point of the chamber he continued:

“You see . . . those words up there, that motto, it says, ‘In God we trust,’ right above the Speaker’s Rostrum. You know, a previous Congress put that there in the early 60s in the height of the Cold War. There’s a little visitor’s guide that . . . explains why that’s there. And it says Congress voted to put that there as a rebuke to the Soviets’ worldview at the height of the Cold War. Why? Because communism, socialism find their root in Marxism. And Marxism begins with the belief that there is no God. It’s wrong. And this Congress made a stand those many years ago, and we should do it again: We’re different, we’re distinct, we’re exceptional because we acknowledge that right there, our motto.”

Following further applause he went on: “It doesn’t say, ‘In government we trust.’ It says, ‘In God we trust.’ And we better remember that.”

Some would mock such sentiments as empty pretense—and perhaps it is for some. But there is a world of difference between publicly acknowledging God with a semblance of following Him and just speaking and acting as if there is no God or as if God is irrelevant. A vital principle for any nation to remember is God’s declaration in 1 Samuel 2:30: “Those who honor Me I will honor, and those who despise Me shall be lightly esteemed.”

God has indeed blessed the United States—even far beyond what people generally understand. To discover the amazing roots of this story and where things will proceed, request or download our free study guide The United States and Britain in Bible Prophecy. Sadly, failure to live up to the national motto of trusting in God will ultimately lead to some terrible times. Yet God remains merciful, and will ultimately intervene.