What happens when man thinks he knows better than God and His law? Gambling offers an important case study.

McKay Coppins believes gambling is wrong. But he gave it a go, using his employer’s money, to produce a lengthy feature article for the Atlantic.

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America has embraced sports betting and “prediction markets” that allow gambling on just about any news event. “Practically overnight, we took an ancient vice—long regarded as soul-rotting and civilizationally ruinous—put it on everyone’s phone, and made it as normal and frictionless as checking the weather,” wrote Coppins. “What could possibly go wrong?”

For one, America is struggling with an invisible but dangerous addiction. A gambling addiction is “easier to hide, at least at first—the addict doesn’t have glazed eyes or slurred speech, and no one can smell it on him,” wrote Coppins. “Plus, the compounding financial pressure of the habit can quickly turn a private vice into a full-blown crisis. One in 5 compulsive gamblers will attempt suicide in their life, a higher rate than for any other category of addict.”

It’s yet another addiction that preys on young men: Men make up 98 percent of online sports bettors who are “problem gamblers.” Nearly a third of all 11-year-old boys said they’d gambled in the last year, and betting companies are salivating over the next generation of gamblers primed for exploitation.

It also turns the community event of watching a spots game into what Coppins called “a hyper-individualized, every-man-for-himself portfolio of micro-bets”—with everyone fixated on the minute aspects of the game he happened to have bet on.

The vast funds this practice has unleashed have corrupted sports, with college and professional players being indicted for throwing games for money. It has also corrupted legislatures, with gambling companies unleashing what Coppins calls “a lobbying blitzkrieg.”

It has directed torrents of anger and hatred at the players as bettors lose hundreds or thousands on players’ mistakes, or even their successes. Coppins described the way he “was filled with an irrational hatred for this person I had never met,” after watching a player celebrate too early and cause his team to lose the game. Receiving death threats from gamblers is now a normal part of a supposedly fun recreational activity.

It’s not just sports. Emanuel Fabian of the Times of Israel describes receiving a torrent of credible-sounding death threats aimed at getting him to change what seemed like a minor detail in one of his articles, all because a major payout on a “prediction market” site hinged on that detail. “After you make us lose $900,000, we will invest no less than that to finish you,” one message read.

Coppins wrote that now “[e]verything in American life—politics and culture, art and war—becomes a Las Vegas table game, tantalizing in its promise of profit, rigged against regular people, destined to demoralize and crush those who play.”

“[A]s a society, we are making an enormously risky bet: that we can reap the rewards of a runaway gambling industry without paying any price; that the litany of social ills long associated with this vice—addiction and impoverishment, isolation and abuse, cheating and chasing and corrosive idleness—can, this time, be kept in check; that, unlike every civilization that came before us, we can beat the house,” he wrote.

Coppins went into his gambling experiment with significant guardrails, gambling only with a limited amount of his employer’s money, and possessing a personality generally immune to these kinds of addictions. He ended up addicted.

In 1 Corinthians 5:6, God likens lawbreaking to leaven. Put a little yeast in a loaf and the whole thing fills with air bubbles. It spreads and permeates. Break one law and you suffer all kinds of unintended consequences.

Law-keeping is the opposite. Keep the law, and you receive all kinds of unanticipated blessings.

Is Germany Siding With Iran Against the U.S.?

On Sunday, U.S. President Donald Trump called on Europe to help keep the Strait of Hormuz open. However, Europe’s leading nation is rejecting the request.

“It’s only appropriate that people who are the beneficiaries of the strait will help to make sure that nothing bad happens there,” Trump told the Financial Times on Sunday. “If there’s no response or if it’s a negative response, I think it will be very bad for the future of nato.”

Not only is Europe one of the main beneficiaries of trade going through the strait, it is also the most concerned about the future of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

In January, Trump threatened to annex Greenland by force to ensure U.S. national security. Outraged, Germany claimed this would effectively end nato and expressed its resistance by sending a small group of troops to prepare a nato mission there. This was meant to show that nato can keep this strategic area secure. Now, Trump is requesting nato’s help, but Germany is refusing to lend a hand.

• Former German Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg criticized Trump’s request as “a little short of blackmail,” but he also noted that German interests are at play.
• “This war has nothing to do with nato. It’s not nato’s war,” Stefan Kornelius, a spokesperson for German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, told reporters in Berlin on Monday. “nato is a defensive alliance, an alliance for the defense of its territory,” he added. “As long as this war continues, there will be no involvement, not even in an option to keep the Strait of Hormuz open by military means.” This means Germany may send warships to the region, but only after the U.S. ends its military operation.
• Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, also rejected the idea of expanding an EU naval mission in the Middle East to the Strait of Hormuz, for the time being.
• “What does … Donald Trump expect a handful or two handfuls of European frigates to do in the Strait of Hormuz that the powerful U.S. Navy cannot do?” German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius ⁠said in Berlin. “This is not our war; we have not started it.”

During his March 3 press conference with President Trump, Merz took a different tone. At the time, he said, “We are supporting the United States and Israel to get rid of this terrible terrorist regime.”

• However, even then he said: “This is, of course, damaging our economies. This is true for the oil prices, and this is true for the gas prices as well. So that’s the reason why we all hope that this war will come to an end as soon as possible.”

The Iran war is exposing the dire state of the nato alliance; it may not survive even on paper much longer. Europe’s break with America is the subject of our latest Trumpet issue.

“This growing enmity between the U.S. and the EU is important to watch,” we wrote. “The Bible contains dozens of prophecies warning about the destruction of the U.S. and Britain by a German-led superstate. Mr. Armstrong used these prophecies to forecast Britain’s exit from the EU, and we can use them to forecast America’s exit from nato.”

Even war with an evil terrorist regime is failing to bring the alliance together.

Israel Intensifies Lebanon Ground Invasion

Israel escalated its war with Hezbollah terrorists with a new ground incursion into Lebanon starting Sunday. The invasion encompasses a broad area and is combined with continued air strikes on Beirut and other Lebanese targets—all aimed at routing Iran-sponsored Hezbollah.

• The scale of the conflict is huge. One fifth of Lebanon’s population—a million people—are estimated to have been displaced.
• Several European countries have peacekeepers in Lebanon. French President Emmanuel Macron has offered to mediate between Israel and Lebanon.
• Today, the Lebanese military confirmed that one of its soldiers was killed in an Israeli air strike. The Lebanese government is not an active party in the conflict and has blamed Hezbollah more than Israel for the current escalation. Israel says it is looking into the situation.

“Europe should support any effort, any effort, to eradicate Hezbollah now.”
—Isaac Herzog, Israeli president (Agence France Presse, March 16)

Based on prophecies in Daniel 11 and Psalm 83, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has predicted that Hezbollah (and by extension Iran) would lose its hold on Lebanon and the country would align itself more closely with Europe. This was partly fulfilled through events over the past two years, but watch for the current conflict to contribute to a more pronounced shift in allegiance.

Serbia Braces for an Attack

Serbia has purchased Chinese supersonic CM-400 air-to-ground missiles and is preparing for war, President Aleksander Vučić said last week. The missiles were reportedly first used in combat by Pakistan last year, and Serbia is the first foreign country after Pakistan to buy them. Vučić said that Serbia plans to buy more Chinese missiles and that Serbia’s arsenal includes weapons that they “do not show.”

The purchase comes in response to a military cooperation agreement Croatia, Albania and Kosovo signed almost a year ago. “They are waiting for a favorable moment. We are preparing for their attack,” Vučić told state media last week.

• Serbia has been the largest arms importer in the western Balkans for years, spending roughly six times more than Albania (the runner-up) on imports between 2020 and 2024, according to recently released data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.
• In January, Vucic announced plans to double Serbia’s military capacity within the next 18 months.
• Serbia also reintroduced conscription this year, after having suspended it for more than a decade.

Croatia, which has also reintroduced conscription, responded to Serbia’s missile purchase by calling it a threat to regional stability and a signal of an arms race. Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic said Friday that he briefed nato about the purchase.

Growing tension between Croatia and Serbia plus increased military cooperation among Croatia, Albania and Kosovo are causes for concern.

However, as the Balkans again becomes volatile, the most important nation to watch is Germany.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry writes in Germany’s Conquest of the Balkans, “First of all, the Germans want to control Europe. To do so, they must gain control of the Balkans, where their fiercest enemy is the Serbs. For the most part, the Serbs have been silenced.”

Watch for Germany to intervene to ensure that Serbia does not affect its imperialistic ambitions for the Balkans.

IN OTHER NEWS

Are the U.S. and Iran talking again? U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have reopened a direct communications channel, Axios reported on Monday, citing a U.S. official and a source familiar with the matter. If true, it is the first known communication between the two since the war began. Some, especially in Israel, fear that the Trump administration is willing to fight only until Iran is willing to talk on U.S. terms. Yet as long as Iran remains capable of fighting, it remains a threat to Israel and the world.

Iran war is most expensive in Israel’s history: Israel has spent approximately $7 billion on its military during the first two weeks of the current war with Iran; this figure does not include economic disruptions, lost productivity or damaged infrastructure from Iran’s counterattacks. Israel has a powerful military but lacks a large manufacturing base and relies heavily on weapons and supplies imports. For the past several decades, Israel’s main sponsor has been the United States, but a growing number of Americans are demanding that their politicians not only wind down the current war but stop sponsoring Israel altogether. Bible prophecy indicates Israel will be looking for a new sponsor soon—to its own detriment.

German president visits Central America: “Latin America is not just anyone’s backyard,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier stated during his first visit to Panama on Monday. His comment was clearly directed at the United States, following President Donald Trump’s reassertion of the Monroe Doctrine and capture of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro in January. Steinmeier is also visiting Guatemala and Mexico this week to promote economic partnerships—and, ultimately, to turn Latin America into Germany’s backyard.

Cuba energy grid goes down: Yesterday, Cuban officials reported an island-wide blackout as the country’s severe energy and economic crisis worsened. Cuba’s aging power grid has deteriorated markedly in recent years, resulting in frequent outages well before the U.S. restricted Venezuelan oil deliveries through sanctions, enforcement actions and the executive order in late January that authorizes tariffs on goods from other nations that supply oil to Cuba. In exchange for easing or lifting sanctions, the U.S. is demanding the release of political prisoners and concrete steps toward political and economic reform. President Donald Trump has stated that he wants to conclude U.S. military operations related to Iran before devoting full attention to Cuba, but many believe that Cuba’s current dictator, Miguel Díaz-Canel, will lose power before 2026 is out.

Is President Trump losing young voters? The Washington Post reported yesterday that President Trump’s war against Iran is losing him the support of young Americans. More young voters cast a presidential ballot for Donald Trump in 2024 than any other Republican candidate in 20 years. But a Washington Post-abc-Ipsos poll of 2,589 adults last month said 70 percent of 18-to-29-year-olds disapproved of the way Trump “is handling his job as president.” This could prove disastrous in the upcoming midterm elections. Only 51 percent of 2024 Trump voters in this age group said they are certain to vote this fall, compared to 77 percent of those who voted for Democrat Kamala Harris. An interactive Washington Post poll of about 1,000 people released a week ago found young voters are the most likely to disapprove of Operation Epic Fury.