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About Jesus - Steve (Stephen) Sweetman Preceding
Peace Much attention is being
given to Israel
these days, and for good reason. Some
people have dogmatic opinions about what's happening.
Some are conflicted, seeing both sides of the issue.
Here are just a few of my thoughts based on the following
presuppositions. I believe that the
Bible, from Babel
in Genesis 11 to Babylon's fall in Revelation 18, portrays all nations throughout history to be
Babylonian in nature, and thus, oppose God to one degree or another.
I believe God called Israel
for a specific reason (Genesis 12:1 - 2) but it has seldom lived up to its
godly calling, and still doesn't today.
I believe that God chose Jerusalem
for His name sake (2 Chronicles 6:6).
I believe the last few chapters of Zechariah predict Israel's future as this age draws to an end.
Read Zechariah 14:1 and 2. "A day of the LORD
is coming, Jerusalem, when your possessions will be plundered and divided up within your very
walls. I will gather all the
nations to Jerusalem
to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and
the women raped. Half of the
city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from
the city," Zechariah predicted that
soldiers from "all nations," which I believe includes the United States,
Canada
and all of the West, will rape Israeli women as they plunder Jerusalem. Look at who is the driving
force behind this brutal slaughter. It's
not Iran, Russia, or Hamas. It is God Himself,
as we also read in Ezekiel 38 where God drags Gog down into the Middle East
for battle. Zechariah 13:8 and 9
predict that two thirds of Israelis will die during the horror of these
days. The remaining one third
will become the believing remnant of Israel. "'In the whole
land,' declares the LORD, 'two-thirds will be
struck down and perish; yet one-third will be left in it.
This third I will put into the fire; I will refine them like silver
and test them like gold. 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 our God.'" If you believe these
predictions are yet to be fulfilled, Israel's future gets worse before it gets better.
Its ultimate peace, that King David asked his people to pray for
(Psalm 122:6) won't be realized until King Jesus returns to Jerusalem. God's judgment on His
wayward nation precedes lasting peace.
So, if you are praying for peace in Israel, don't expect a positive answer right away.
If you expect any lasting peace treaty soon, you hold to an
unrealistic expectation.
We should admit that Israel
is not a godly nation, and we should not pretend it is.
Just because it is God's chosen nation doesn't give it the right to
do as it pleases. Israel
needs to respond to John the Baptist's prophecy by repenting for the Kingdom
of Post
Script I've struggled over how
to end this article. The
present situation in the Middle East
causes much perplexity and divisiveness.
Most who read this article will probably agree that anti-Semitism
is wrong. We probably don't
all agree over the overkill in Gaza. We should agree that
Israel
might kill its enemy, but it will not kill the ideology that motivates the
enemy. Maybe we can agree that
Israel
is a strategic Middle Eastern ally for the West, so the West should not
forsake Israel, although it eventually will. Hopefully
our disagreements over this issue won't divide the church as other issues are
sadly doing these days.
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