With events in the Middle East these days, who knows what’s going to transpire in the near future? The answer is that while a lot of self-professed experts in the faith and out of it really don’t, God does.
I’m not at all a fan of Joe Biden, but I admire him for standing with Israel in these difficult times, to date at least, rather than caving to the wokeness movement which has sided squarely with the Islamic world. Thank you, President Biden. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely your doing that your election wasn’t above board.
I see and hear people and mainstream news media in my country of origin, the United Kingdom, blaming Israel for the ills of the world, just as Hitler did. He said that the Jews were a “vermin” on the earth, and attempted to wipe out the entire race in the space of a few years. Now, while Israelis are trying to hang on to a tiny piece of land known as “Israel”, which they had as long as three thousand years ago, a majority of fashion-conscious, un-educated, and gullible Europeans all under the spell of herd mentality, swallow enormous lies emanating from the devil’s own mind, and accuse Israel of genocide by attempting to root out its mortal enemies.
If Israel wanted to commit genocide, they could have done it within a couple of days, or even hours. The fact that it’s taken so long for them to subdue Hamas is due to their will to not harm Palestinian civilians.
I’ve written about this before and will do so again. I’m working on an updated study of this subject, and will post it probably within the next two or three weeks. At this point, I want to draw your attention, if you are in the pro-Islamic, anti-Israel camp, to the fact that you’re in process of fulfilling Bible prophecy. However, you cannot and will not achieve your wishes in any lasting sense. Here’s what God says about the situation:
“I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that sends all the surrounding peoples reeling. Judah will be besieged as well as Jerusalem. On that day, when all the nations of the earth are gathered against her, I will make Jerusalem an immovable rock for all the nations. All who try to move it will injure themselves (Zechariah 12:2-3).
Jerusalem and Judah have not previously been besieged by “all the nations”: this event or series of events is yet future. “All nations” are not yet opposed to Israel’s existence-just most of them. But the general movement of the nations, in thought, word and deed is in the direction of the fulfillment of the above prophecy, and others related to it.
The first coming of Christ caught almost everyone unawares-it didn’t happen as people thought it would. according to their understanding of Scripture, or how they wished it would happen. Perhaps the second coming will be equally unpredictable or unexpected. Isn’t that how Jesus said it would be? Didn’t he tell his followers to pay close attention to what was going on, so that they would not be taken by surprise?
The people who certainly will be taken by surprise will be those who are haters of that tiny nation of Jews, the only nation of Jews on the earth, struggling to live and to be left alone. Opposers claim to be loving: what they really love is anything in opposition to the will of God.
There is no way of knowing, yet, whether the recent attack from Iran on Israel, Israel’s coming response, and the war on the Hamas terrorist organization are directly related to end times events. I’m not one of those who will say daft things like “The total eclipse of the sun is a sign that end times events are about to begin”. However, with all that’s been foretold, I personally am still, after 43 years, convinced that the time is close, when taking Biblical warnings into consideration.
For example, did you know that one of the leading members of an end-times attack on the state of Israel, according to Ezekiel, will be Iran? Iran in Ezekiel’s book is called “Persia”, as Itan was called for millennia, up until the twentieth century. Iran, or I should say the Iranian Islamic leadership, not all of its citizens, has vowed for decades to destroy the nation of Israel, and has been funding, supplying and training such groups as Hezbollah and Hamas. Ezekiel has as one of Iran’s allies a huge nation to the far north of Israel. Look at a map of the world and look far north of Israel, and you will find Russia- a nation currently allied with Iran. Other allies in the invasion, according to Ezekiel, who wrote these warnings down over two and a half millennia ago, are also allied with Iran in our time, and are solidly anti-Israel. They plot its destruction.
All of this must be considered alongside the fact that the future invasion from Iran and its allies will come against a land recently regathered from all nations of the world, as is the case with modern Israel. So much of what we see happening mirrors the predictions, the prophecies and the warnings in Scripture.
I’m not going to say that what’s happening now in the Middle East is a start of the fulfillment of what Scripture teaches, but I’m convinced in my own mind and heart that everything is gearing up for those times. The only alternative is that what has been happening over the past several decades concerning Israel, and even over the past two thousand years, would have to be an incredible and far-fetched set of coincidences, if it is indeed only coincidentally similar to prophesied events. Considering other factors also, such as the level of deception coming from all directions in our culture, there’s plenty of reason to be vigilant.
I think, believing as I do that the Bible really is the Word of the living God, that it’s much wiser to recognise what’s going on as requiring our attention. We can’t stop prophesied events from happening, but we can be ready spiritually, as individuals, for what will likely take place before too long, and as Jesus Christ said, to watch for His coming.
If you are one who has not yet turned to Jesus, being ready for His coming requires you to turn from your sin and to ask forgiveness for it; to believe-that is, to trust in and to love- the one and only son of God-Jesus Christ-and to believe the gospel, or the “good news” about him. The creed contained below has been confidently dated to the middle of the first century(1). Here’s that good news as the apostle Paul taught it:
Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born (1 Corinthians 15:1-8).
Thanks for reading!
NOTE 1: Gary R Habermas “The Historical Jesus: Ancient Evidence for the Life of Christ” (College Press Publishing Company, Joplin, Missouri, © 1996 Gary Habermas) p 153.
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