The Bible in The News: Israel is at the epicentre of world events, just as the Bible prophesied for the End Times. By Alan Franklin.
16/07/2014
Israel, one of the world’s smallest nations, is never far from the eye of the storm. When that storm rages round the Middle East, Israel is usually at its epicentre. Ancient predictions about attacks on Israel by surrounding nations are fast becoming imminent events. These are the Bible's prophecies unfolding in today's headlines, for those with eyes to see.
The recent temporary closure of The Temple Mount following Arab unrest once more highlighted that this is the world’s most important 35 acres of real estate – the place where the Lord Jesus Christ will return to rule and reign for 1000 years following his second advent.
The fact that almost everything Israel does to defend itself enrages the whole world and sets up a storm at the United Nations shows that anti-Semitism is not rational. Its root is supernatural. If Satan can incite nations to exterminate the Jews, which he has tried repeatedly throughout history, he is foolish enough to imagine he can prevent the Jewish Messiah from returning. Satan, like all those who allow themselves to be influenced by him, is the world’s biggest loser, destined for the Lake of Fire.
Israel was robbed of nearly all the land pledged to it by Britain under the Balfour Declaration of 1917, when we promised the Jews a homeland that would include all of what is now Jordan. Britain, lusting for Arab oil, then went back on its word and created the modern state of Jordan out of the territory of Transjordan.
After further slicing and dicing the Jewish people ended up with a fraction – around 13 per cent by some measures - of what was originally promised to them.
Britain paid the price for turning on Israel, especially after 1948 when we supplied arms and officers to Arab armies seeking to destroy the new Israeli nation while simultaneously sending naval vessels to intercept and turn back Jewish refugee ships.
I give a Powerpoint talk called: “The decline of Britain and the rise of Israel,” showing how the United Kingdom, then commanding the largest empire in history with 25 per cent of both the world’s land surface and its population, fell apart and lost its lands faster than any previous empire.
We failed to give refuge to Jews fleeing the Nazis so today, instead, house millions of Islamics, some of them of hostile intent towards “infidels.” As few people study the Koran, consider some key teachings: ‘We will strike panic into the disbelievers’ hearts because they attribute partners to God…’ (Sura 3:151) ‘Fight those of the People of the Book (Jews and Christians) who do not truly believe in god and the last day, who do not forbid what god and his messenger (Mohammed) have forbidden…until they pay the tax and agree to submit.’ Sura 9:29
‘Fight’…’Strike panic’… Islam is NOT a religion of peace.
We have more detailed examples of this and many other false cults and isms in our book, “Cults and Isms, True or False?” which is available from the web shop on our website, http://thefreepressonline.co.uk/ The wider end times scene is set out in our other current title, Goodbye America, Goodbye Britain, which shows the spiritual causes of national decline.
There are terrible consequences for turning against the Jews, God’s special people: Genesis 12:3 “And I will bless those who bless you, And the one who curses you I will curse. And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Despite the world’s hostility Israel is destined to become the world’s pre-eminent nation, vast and populous. (Isaiah 2: 1-4 and Micah 4: 1-7). Sound unlikely? Well, nothing was more unlikely than the return of the Jews to their historic homeland in 1948, when the nation was re-established in a day, precisely as prophesied.
Furthermore, and also miraculous, is the fact that Israel’s main language is once more Biblical Hebrew, which our Israeli grandchildren speak in school. (They also speak English.) This came about in fulfillment of Bible prophecy, through the efforts of Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. When he arrived in Palestine in 1881, Hebrew had not been the spoken language of the Jewish people since the dispersion. Jews spoke many languages including bastardized Hebrew like Yiddish.
Yet, thanks to scholar and teacher Ben-Yehuda, by 1922 enough Jewish pioneers were speaking Hebrew that the British Mandate authorities recognized it as the official language of Jews in the misnamed “Palestine.” When Pat and I walked down Ben-Yehuda Street in Jerusalem we understood that this prophecy had been fulfilled: Zephaniah 3:9. 9 “For then I will give to the peoples purified lips, That all of them may call on the name of the LORD, To serve Him shoulder to shoulder.”
Here are some further major End Times prophecies involving Israel– the main subject of Bible prophecy. Check to see how they match up with reality…..
The Jews will be regathered to the Holy Land in unbelief from the corners of the earth Isaiah 11: 11-12. This is an ongoing process which will be completed at the end of the coming seven year Tribulation - the worst time in the history of the world. Those who oppose this Jewish return should beware, for the prophet says in verse 13: “those who harass Judah will be cut off.”
God ensured that the state of Israel would be re-established: Isaiah 66: 7-8 and Ezekiel 37:21-22. On May 14, 1948, this truly miraculous event happened, within 24 hours of the British mandate over “Palestine” expiring.
The prophet Isaiah made this odd prediction: 66:7 8-9:” Before she travailed, she brought forth; before her pain came, she gave birth to a boy. Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things?
“Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be brought forth all at once? As soon as Zion travailed, she also brought forth her sons. Shall I bring to the point of birth and not give delivery? says the Lord.”
On May 14, 1948, on the day British rule ended, the Jewish People's Council led by David Ben-Gurion gathered at the Tel Aviv Museum, and approved the proclamation, declaring the establishment of the State of Israel. The new state was recognized that night by the United States and three days later by the USSR. This in itself was a miracle because Russia was and is an enemy of the Jewish people, destined one day soon to lead an attack on Israel - Ezekiel 38 - 39.
The next prophetic fulfillment, precisely accurate as is all Bible prophecy, was that the birth pangs came after the birth - the creation of the new nation. For five Arab armies attacked to try and destroy the new nation and exterminate the Jews, completing the task which Hitler had just failed to fully accomplish.
The fact that in repeated attempts, invading Arab armies with vastly superior numbers and equipment have been utterly trounced by the Israeli Defense Force, which in 1948 consisted of a motley barely-equipped army, many of them Holocaust survivors, shows you that God’s hand is at work here. His mighty arm protects His chosen people and His special land.
Zechariah prophesied that the Jews would one day reoccupy Jerusalem. The Jews were scattered for around 1,900 years. Their homeland, renamed “Palestine” by the Romans as an insult to the Jewish people to whom God Himself had promised the land, became a wilderness. Some of it was swampy, most was barren and during the Ottoman rule most of the trees were deliberately cut down.
‘Palestine’ was near derelict, including the sparsely populated, formerly noble city called Jerusalem. It was not a highly desirable piece of real estate. But once the Jews came back....the Islamics were not about to give it up. The land mass of Israel is smaller than the Dallas/Fort Worth area, and only about nine miles wide at its narrowest point. For every acre of Jewish land, the surrounding Arab countries have approximately 662 acres. The Arab nations have about five million square miles; Israel has about 8,000. Yet Israel is supposed to ‘give up land for peace’.
In the sixty plus years that Israel has been a nation, the Jews have turned this swampy, treeless, under-populated, barren land into a thriving modern nation, with education, health care, jobs and freedom for millions of Jews and the Arabs and other people fortunate enough to live there. They are under the constant threat of imminent attack and few days pass without rockets being launched into Israel.
However, God, speaking through His prophets, knows the end from the beginning. Zechariah in chapter 8, 4-8 predicted this reoccupation of Jerusalem which was achieved in June, 1967, when the IDF defeated the Jordanian army to reclaim their ancient capital - the city of King David.
Zechariah went on to state -12:1-3 – that all the nations of the world would join to attack Israel over control of this fairly small piece of real estate, now home to about 800,000 Jews, Arabs and others.
This event is shaping up in the world right now, where Israel is far and away the most vilified and condemned country at the United Nations, despite the fact that it is the only democracy in the Middle East where the rule of law applies to all and there is freedom of religion. Try practicing freedom of worship in Saudi Arabia– but be prepared for a lashing or worse. Remember, when the Jordanians controlled Jerusalem until June 1967 they destroyed all synagogues in the Jewish quarter.
There is much else in my talks and in our books and DVDs, on sale in our web shop. I am available to any church in America, Canada or the UK which wants me to give talks on this or other prophetic subjects, not least the second most important prophetic development of modern history: the rise of The Revived Roman Empire, now fast taking shape in Europe.
This Powerpoint lecture is based on Daniel chapter two where King Nebuchadnezzar had a dream which the prophet interpreted, showing the sequence of world empires. The final one is the European Union, subject of my first book, EU: Final World Empire. Contact me atalan@thefreepressonline.co.uk
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