Israel on History’s End Time Stage
WE MUST NEVER ALLOW OURSELVES TO INTERPRET THE BIBLE BY HISTORY. RATHER, WE MUST ALWAYS INTERPRET HISTORY BY THE BIBLE.INTRODUCTION
When it comes to Israel and Jerusalem, many ecclesiastical fellowships today have the prophetic awareness of a petrified rock or a budding apeman in the Tarzan Series. Bible prophecy and historical fulfillment makes about as much sense to many religionists as hastily spray-painted graffiti in a New York subway. I have seen their faces when I try to prophetically engage them in conversation, and they look like they are chewing on a cold burger and drinking a cup of bad coffee.
How could we not be aware with a profound sense of urgency and sharpness of how the pieces of the Bible’s prophetic puzzle have been and are right now snapping into place quicker than we can catch our breath or blink our eyes? It is stunning that our generation has witnessed right in front of our very noses some of the most phenomenal Biblical prophecies that could have ever been written, and that with incredible accuracy and rapidity. Frankly, as in no age before, modern earth is the most eschatologically exciting and the most prophetically fresh planet that it has ever been in the history of the world.
ISRAEL BECOMES A NATION
Eight years after I was born, Israel, after thousands of years of dispersion, in 1948 A.D., became a nation again. If we meet that truth with a ho-hum, dead-panned look on our faces like a policeman in Manhattan stepping over just another dead body, then we don’t have a clue as to what the God of Biblical prophecy is up to in these last defining days of planet earth as we know it. Then we miss everything, and our religion is as worthless as the dead religions of the Aztecs and the ancient Greeks.
Amazing!!! From 70 A.D. and the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple by the Roman Empire, to 1948 A.D., the Jewish people had no homeland or a city they could call their own. They had no political or cultural center and no national voice in world affairs. But all the while the God of Israel was riding on His White Horse across the battlefields of history toward His earthly home on the eastern end of the Mediterranean Sea.
You see, the world, and even much of the church has ignored, forgotten or misinterpreted the prophecy of Ezekiel in Ezekiel 37:1-3 which reads as follows:
“The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out by the
Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the
valley, and it was full of dry bones.”
“And He caused me to pass among them around about, and behold,
there were very many on the surface of the valley; and lo,
they were very dry.”
“And He said unto me, ‘SON OF MAN, CAN THESE BONES LIVE?’
And I answered, ‘O LORD GOD, THOU KNOWEST.’”
I have heard that passage from early childhood preached on and referred to in every conceivable, or should I say, inconceivable way – from regeneration to resurrection to renewal to restoration, but never including anything prophetic in terms of the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. For you see, that is exactly what, and only what Ezekiel 37 is about. Frankly, those bogus interpretations of Ezekiel 37 are about as astonishing as standing at the foot of Mt. Rushmore and not seeing the faces of the presidents.
Every time I read Ezekiel 37:1-3, I am brought face to face with a World War II earth seemingly completely spun out of control. A world of unspeakable barbarism and barbarians who were sent forth under the spell of their demon-possessed Fuhrer to impale, burn, and extinguish anything and anyone that was Jewish. Scenes so horrific, that no matter how Steven Spielberg seeks to duplicate them, still the representations in his films, no matter how graphic, in comparison to reality are no more than crude, barroom theatrics.
I am graphically reminded of those black and while films, nightmarish, garish, horrible films of the bleached, parched, whitening bones of hundreds of thousands of dead Jews wasting away under gray, smoke-filled skies. Then they were piled high into bone hills as huge machines would come along and brutishly push them into huge, mass burial pits at Auschwitz, Dachau, Treblinka, and Buchenwald.
So a young child who saw one of the films asked his Dad, “Dad, aren’t dead people suppose to wear clothes when they are buried?” In a world where, when death is so hideous and brutal that people lock themselves into a denial mode, it takes a child to cause us to confront the undeniable.
And as we in numbed paralysis watch these concentration/death camps of the Third Reich, we see and hear the words of Ezekiel’s prophecy, as the question of the Lord and the cry of the prophet come echoing down through the ages,
“CAN THESE BONES LIVE? O LORD, ONLY THOU KNOWEST.”
Never has any race of people, any ancient tribe, or any other peoples of the earth been so scattered, scarred, scorched, and shattered. Never has a nation’s identity been so absolutely obliterated as the people and nation of Israel. Frankly, no sociologist would have given even the odds of a million to one that Israel throughout history would have been amalgamated like the rest of history’s tribes and completely lost her identity. That same sociologist would have given odds no better than a billion to one against the nation of Israel ever realizing her national identity again, let alone the dignity of Jewish personhood.
But neither the sociologists, nor for that matter many religionists, read Ezekiel’s prophecy closely enough if they read it at all. For the Lord God went on through Ezekiel, and we hear Him say to the prophet in Ezekiel 37:12,
“Therefore prophesy, and say to them (the dead, dry, bleached bones), ‘Thus
says the Lord God, behold, I will open your graves and cause you
to come out of graves, my people, and I will bring you
into the Land of Israel.’”
In 1948, the Union Jack of England came down, and the Flag of Israel went up, as a newborn, baby nation was born and that against incredible odds. And suddenly, multi-thousands of years were completely wiped out, and Israel became a nation again. The Jewish people were scattered throughout the entire earth. These are such incredible prophecies and awesome fulfillments, and it is all so absolutely contemporary, that the writer of this article has outlived and is older than modern day Israel.
It is critically important to note that much of modern Churchianity no longer views Israel as God’s chosen, covenant nation. The words of Jeremiah dispel that myth, as we read in Jeremiah 33:25 and 31:35,36,
“Thus saith the Lord, ‘If my covenant for day and night stand not, and the fixed
pattern of heaven and earth I have not established….’ “
“Thus saith the Lord, Who gives the sun for light by day, and the fixed order
of the moon and stars for light by night….”
“If this fixed order departs from before Me,” declares the Lord, “Then the offspring
of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.”
As Arnold Froese writes, “The message is clear, as long as the sun continues to rise, and the moon and the stars are still visible at night, Israel will continue to be a nation before God. This is important because Israel was not a nation, and the Jews were scattered all over the world for 2,000 years. However from God’s perspective, it was only a minor intermission in His eternal plan of salvation. Israel never ceased to exist as a nation.” (Arnold Froese, 119 Most Frequently Asked Questions About Prophecy)
THE PROPHETIC BEAT GOES ON
What God predicted would happen to Israel continues to be fulfilled with pinpoint accuracy. Fulfilled right down to the very real estate that God promised Abraham way back in Genesis 15:18,
“On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, ‘To your
descendants I have given this land, from the River of Egypt
as far as the great river, the River Euphrates.”
Don’t get all fogged up by the media and by politicians. Why? This is why:
“BECAUSE THE BORDERS OF ISRAEL ARE DETERMINDED BY
GOD, NOT BY THE UNITED NATIONS, NOT BY BARACK
OBAMA, AND NOT BY BRIAN WILLIAMS.”
The parade of returning Jewish exiles begun in the Zionist Movement is still going on today, for God said it would, and therefore it is. We are reminded of the prophecy in Zechariah 10:8-9,
“I will whistle for them to gather them together, for I have redeemed
them and they will be a numerous as they were before.”
“When I scatter them among the peoples, they will remember me in
far countries, and they with their children will live
and come back.”
And not only that, but now that they have and are coming back, they are there to stay. We read in Isaiah 11:11,
“Then it will happen on that day that the Lord will again recover the
second time with His hand the remnant of His people
who will remain.”
And again, Jeremiah 24:6,
“For I will set my eyes on them for good, and I will bring them again
to this land, and I will build them up and not overthrow them,
and I will plant them and not pluck them up.”
And Ezekiel 36:11,
“And I will multiply on you man and beast; and they will increase and be
fruitful; and I will cause you to be inhabited as you were formerly
and will treat you better than at the first. Thus you will know
that I am God.”
The Jewish people have moved home to stay. The days of the Gypsy Jew are over. In short:
“THE JEWISH PEOPLE WILL NEVER AGAIN BE COMPLETELY DRIVEN
FROM THEIR LAND OR FROM THEIR CAPITAL CITY JERUSALEM.”
THE GENTILE DOMINATION ENDS
We read the unforgettable prophecy of our Lord in Luke 21:24,
“…and they will fall by the edge of the sword, and will be led captive
into all the nations; and Jerusalem will be trampled under by
the Gentiles until the time of the Gentiles be fulfilled
.”The time of the “Gentile Domination” over Israel and over Jerusalem finally ended in 1967 with “The Six Day War.” History records that in that earth-shaking event, the Israelites were completely victorious, even though the odds were hugely against them.
The facts are that the Arabs outnumbered the Israelites 10 to 1, as well as having all of the tanks and military might. The Israelites did not have the tanks to counteract the enemy tank attack that was coming against them. It appeared that the curtain was about to come down on Israel once again, but then the unthinkable happened. What follows is the stuff of which fantasies are spun.
What we are about to meet is not Commodus’ busy little bee in Gladiator, but we are about to meet Almighty God’s swarming wasps on the stage of Israelite history. Of course, it was just coincidence, right? Swarms of wasps were stirred up by the enemy tanks. Wasps were everywhere, crawling all over tanks and in the gun turrets. They were coming down from the top, and crawling through every crack and crevice. They were as mad as hornets, and you put one Egyptian inside a Soviet tank with 100 wasps, and you tell me what is going to happen. You just have to get up and out of those tank wasps’ nests, and when you stick up your head through the hatch hole, the rest is history.
Of course, the anti-Godists and the anti-Semitists chalk it off to the stupidity of the Egyptians. After all, they were so dumb they didn’t know what they were doing. And those Russian tanks were defective and did not work very well. Therefore, the enemy got all confused and that’s how Israel won “The Six Day War.” No, think again! Israel’s enemies were not confused, the historians are confused. The point is:
“GOD SAID, ‘I’M GOING TO PLANT THEM IN THE LAND, AND
THEY WILL NEVER BE PLUCKED UP AGAIN.”
Of course, this was not unlike God’s dealings with the enemies of Israel throughout history. This wasn’t the first time that God sent wasps and hornets to drive out the enemy. Movie producers and directors each have their signature characteristics that set them apart from others. So does God Who was the producer and director of “The Six Day War!” We see His signature in Exodus 23:28,
“And I will send hornets ahead of you, that they may drive out the
Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites before you.”
Or again, His signature in Deuteronomy 7:20-21,
“Moreover, the Lord your God will send the hornet against them,
until those who are left and hide themselves from you perish.”
“You shall not dread them, for the Lord your God is in your
midst, a great and awesome God.
”So it is that the God of Israel, as He again and again calls Himself, has His own way of saying to the enemies of Israel:
“BUZZ OFF.”
I won’t be surprised that in the future we have not seen the end of those stinging and painful Divine interventions that buzz their way into Israel-Arab conflicts. Man oh man, one cannot concentrate on this much longer without starting to swat.
JERUSALEM – PROPHECY’S FINAL WAR
The stage for history’s “Final World War” was set with the passing of “Jerusalem Law” by the Jewish Knesset on July 30, 1980, which declared Jerusalem to be the eternal capital of Israel.
Then with the “Gaza Strip-Jericho Agreement,” the fuse leading to the war over Jerusalem has already been ignited. Since then, the battle cry of Muslims against the city of Jerusalem has become louder and louder. Now America has a Muslim president who has joined the swelling din. At the present moment, the worldwide protest against Jerusalem being the Jewish capital city, is increasing enormously.
It was on March 12-15, 1995 that a “Symposium On Jerusalem – City Of Peace” took place in Cairo, Egypt. It was attended by 32 states of the Arab League, along with representatives from the United Nations. The Arab Speakers challenged the Arab States not to hesitate any longer to liberate Jerusalem from the hands of the Jews. “Because,” they stated, “Jerusalem is part of the Arab world which cannot be renounced.” The speakers called upon the 1.2 billion Muslims to wage a “Holy War – Jihad” against Israel and take back Jerusalem which is rightfully theirs.
In the 3000 year history of Jerusalem, 39 wars have fought over the city. The 40th will be the final war – Armageddon. (Revelation 16:16) The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians will ultimately come down to this – it will be over the Jewish Capital City of Jerusalem. It has and will become more and more the focal point of world politics. Resulting in what we read in Zechariah 12:3,
“…And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.”
Notice that all the nations of the earth will be gathered against Jerusalem. The Prophet Zechariah did not say SOME OF THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH. Nor did he say MOST OF THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH. He did say that ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH WILL COME AGAINST JERSALEM. That means therefore that Israel in the War of Armageddon will have no allies. Barack Obama is making sure of that. Oh, forgive me, for I failed to mention that Israel will have one ally – GOD! Of course that is nothing new for the Israel of God and the God of Israel.
Communist China and Russia have far closer relationships with the Islam world than with Israel. Europe for the most part stands against Israel. The United States of America is now being disunited under a president who seeks to befriend the Muslim world and alienate Israel from its great and only historic ally. If Armageddon were to explode today, the United States Military under its current Commander-in Chief would be instructed to support Muslim and anti-Jewish forces. This is already taking shape as one of Barack Obama’s milestone achievements over which the nations of the world will stumble and break their necks. Yet today, to pry open the minds of Amercians to be able to see even a part of what is really happening is like trying to remove a tractor wheel’s lug nuts with a tweezers.
Notice that all the nations of the earth will be gathered against Jerusalem. The Prophet Zechariah did not say SOME OF THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH. Nor did he say MOST OF THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH. He did say that ALL THE NATIONS OF THE EARTH WILL COME AGAINST JERSALEM. That means therefore that Israel in the War of Armageddon will have no allies. Barack Obama is making sure of that. Oh, forgive me, for I failed to mention that Israel will have one ally – GOD! Of course that is nothing new for the Israel of God and the God of Israel.
Communist China and Russia have far closer relationships with the Islam world than with Israel. Europe for the most part stands against Israel. The United States of America is now being disunited under a president who seeks to befriend the Muslim world and alienate Israel from its great and only historic ally. If Armageddon were to explode today, the United States Military under its current Commander-in Chief would be instructed to support Muslim and anti-Jewish forces. This is already taking shape as one of Barack Obama’s milestone achievements over which the nations of the world will stumble and break their necks. Yet today, to pry open the minds of Amercians to be able to see even a part of what is really happening is like trying to remove a tractor wheel’s lug nuts with a tweezers.
God has important plans for Jerusalem. We can and must see the powerful significance that Jerusalem has in God’s eternal plan from the fact that the city is repeatedly mentioned and described in the Scriptures. Jerusalem is God’s basis, God’s earthly headquarters, and God’s earthly dwelling place. So it is that the highly and skillfully organized hierarchy of Hell is opposing the “City of God.” (Psalm 87:3) Satan sees that he has very little time and has undertaken to weld together and mobilize the kings of the earth against Jerusalem.
In it all, the Divine protection of Jehovah God hovers over Jerusalem and Israel. It is so tenderly and touchingly written in Isaiah 31:5,
“Like flying birds so the Lord of hosts will protect Jerusalem. He will
protect and deliver it; He will pass over it and rescue it.”
That is one side. On the other side, the Lord will confirm and frustrate the enemies of Israel. Gnashing their teeth, they will painfully discover that in the final analysis, exactly the opposite of what they want will happen. While the demand that Jerusalem be divided is growing stronger and stronger, Israel is declaring without hesitation that Jerusalem will not be divided. Hence the trigger hammer for Armageddon has already been cocked.
But the Lord God stands against those nations that seek to carry away His Holy City, as He states in Zechariah 12:3,
“
And it shall come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone
And it shall come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone
for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured.”
This all can be better understood if we go on to Zechariah 13:8-9,
“And it will come about in all the land, declares the Lord, that two
parts in it will be cut off and perish, but the third
will be left in it.”
“And I will bring the third part through the fire, refine them as silver
is refined, and test them as gold is tested. They will call on my
name, and I will answer them; I will say, ‘They are my
people,” and they will say, “The Lord is my God.’”
The Bible does not withhold the fact that there will be a terrible last war in which two-thirds of the people of Israel will be destroyed. And in that last-day great tribulation which lies ahead of Israel, the Jewish people who are in peril of death will cry to the Lord. And then we read in Zechariah 14:3,
”Then the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations,
as when He fights in a day of battle.”
There He is:
“ISRAELS’ GREAT AND ONLY ALLY – GOD.”
When all of the nations of the world go up against Israel and Jerusalem, it really makes no difference what weapons they have, for all of it will be meager firepower against the One Who says in Psalm 2:4,5,9,
“He Who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.”
“Then He will speak to them in anger and terrify them in His fury.”
“Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron. Thou shalt shatter them
like earthenware.”
It will be a global massacre the proportions of which have never been seen before, and will never be seen again. In short:
“THIS WILL BE THE WAR TO END ALL WARS.”
The plundering of Jerusalem will mean that the end times have come for the Kingdoms of this world. The Lord Jesus will return with His saints and will fight for Israel and completely destroy the Anti-Judeo/Christian World Empire controlled by antichrist and set up His millennium of peace on earth. Amen!
