Do you ever wonder if we might be getting really close to what the Bible describes as the end times? The Bible contains hundreds of specific prophecies many which have been fulfilled and some yet to be fulfilled. As you study these prophecies you discover that God not only tells us of things to come, but He tells us how to live in light of things to come!
Here’s the big idea that is important for you to understand . . . Bible prophecy is not a prediction of the future, but rather a promise about the future!
The story of Israel begins in the book of Genesis. The Almighty God of heaven and earth makes a binding covenant with Abraham, who was to be the father of the Jewish nation. The provisions of that covenant are recorded in Genesis 12:1-3, “Now the LORD had said to Abram: “Get out of your country, from your family And from your father’s house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Of all God’s covenant promises to Abraham, I believe the most amazing is His promise concerning the land. God told Abraham to leave his country, his family, his father’s house and "go to a land that I will show you." God then led Abraham to the land that was to belong to his descendants forever. When the people of Israel were one day about to enter the land of promise, Moses told them that a time was coming when their idolatry would cause them to be driven from the land.
Deuteronomy 4:27 says, “And the LORD will scatter you among the peoples, and you will be left few in number among the nations where the LORD will drive you.” Israel had no excuse. Her people had been warned again and again that God was a jealous God and would not tolerate His people worshipping false gods.
The Jews were scattered by the Assyrians and by the Babylonians, and then after a time of exile God restored them to the land. But then in 70 AD, as Jesus himself foretold, Israel, as a nation, ceased to exist after the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans. And after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans, the dispersion intensified and the Jews were scattered like chaff in the wind to the four corners of the earth. Yet in spite of all of this, God chose the Jews. He gave them a land; he made them an irrevocable promise . . . a binding covenant!
Ezekiel 36:24 says, “For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land.”
What you must understand if you are to understand Biblical prophecy, is this . . . Israel is God’s time clock. All of the end time prophecies, in both the Old Testament and New Testament, require Israel to be back in the land. And the fulfillment of these prophecies was set into motion on May 14, 1948. It was the rebirth of the nation of Israel.
To comprehend what an incredible act of God this was you have to understand that never before in human history had such a dispersed and decimated ancient people not only retained their identity for almost twenty centuries but reestablished their nation in their original homeland. No people have ever endured more suffering over the centuries than exiled Jews. The persecution they have endured is unimaginable! Just think about the last century. The Holocaust brought about the extermination of 1/3 of the world –wide Jewish population during that time.
But then, through a series of supernatural events, on May 14th 1948, Jewish leader David Ben-Gurion gathered, with over four hundred Jewish religious and political leaders, from all over the world, and at exactly four o’ clock in the afternoon stepped to the podium of a white concrete building on Rothschild Blvd. in Tel Aviv, called the meeting to order and read the declaration of Israel’s Statehood.
At the same time, 6000 miles away, President Truman (with only one of his trusted counselors approving) sat in the Oval office reading his statement, for immediate release to the world declaring that the United States officially recognized birth of the modern nation of Israel. In that moment, not only was history being made, but the key event of all Biblical prophecy was being fulfilled!
John Walvoord, a Biblical prophecy scholar, said, “The restoration of Israel is God’s “super-sign” of the end times.”
Author Milton B. Lindberg writes, “Without the existence of the nation of Israel, we would not be able to say with certainty that we are in the last days. That single event, more than any other, is the most prominent sign that we are living in the final moments before the coming of Jesus! The Hebrew people have been called God’s timepiece of the ages.”
As incredible as this rebirth of Israel, as a nation, has been, it is only the beginning. The most dramatic events of Biblical prophecy concerning Israel lie ahead. To this day the issue of who controls the Promised Land is the most volatile in international politics.
Israel is a tiny nation about the size, (land mass) of Kern County, and is surrounded by a sea of three hundred million enemies, many who have vowed to see Israel wiped off the face of the earth.
Zechariah 12: 1-3 says, “The burden of the word of the LORD against Israel. Thus says the LORD, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him: “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.”
But God Himself, promises to be Israel’s defender.
Zechariah 12: 8-10 says, “In that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the LORD before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem. And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn.”
These prophecies are not vague like Nostradamus or modern day 'so-called' psychics. They are detailed and specific in their application. Time and space does not permit us to go into the many other prophecies concerning the nation of Israel. Yet such things as a false peace, the rebuilding of the third Jewish temple, and a coming great persecution of the Jewish people under a world leader have all been prophesied. It will all take place because God has said it.
How can we stand with Israel?
Stand in prayer
Psalm 122:6 says, “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: "May those who love you be secure.”
Stand in influence and support
Genesis 12:3 says, “I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Stand politically as a nation
Zechariah 12:8-9 says, “In that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the LORD before them. It shall be in that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”
Be alert to what is going on. It is prophecy being fulfilled!
Isaiah 46:9-10 says. “I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.”