When I talk with people from different segments of society I get a pretty good cross-section of opinions of how people feel about our changing world. As I have mentioned before, I find many of the un-churched much more aware of our world hurtling into unprecedented territory than many of the churched. It is not my intent to go into the reasons for this in this article, but I do want to cover some of the things that tell us that we truly are near the midnight hour. I t will undoubtedly take more than one article to cover even a portion of what is happening today.
The biggest and most important indication of “what time it is” has to do with Israel. The whole Bible revolves around Israel, its formation as a nation, its history, its captivity, dispersion around the globe, and God’s foretold gathering of the nation again—which happened on May 15, 1948. The Bible also covers in great deal a multitude of Biblical prophecies which have already come to pass since that date. But, the Bible tells us much more. There is an abundance of intricately detailed prophecy which is unfolding right before our eyes today, and will continue to do so until the KING of Kings and LORD of Lords establishes Himself as the Soverign Monarch of the entire planet. He will rule as GOD in the flesh.
Before He returns to establish His Kingdom though, there are a multitude of events which will unfold in rapid succession. It is amazing how much more of Biblical prophecy is understood today than it was even ten years ago. Much has come to light and it needs to be recognized. God has not hidden what was and is going to come to pass. There are many who doubt that all of these things are going to come about literally, but God has never failed with the smallest detail of what He has said. God exists outside of time and sees the past, present, and future all at the same time. He truly is not only “All Powerful”, but also “All Knowing”, as well as “All Present”.
I had an interesting short visit by some folks who came by a few days ago as they were knocking on doors of my neighborhood. I have learned long ago that in most cases when someone of another belief system comes knocking on the door who wants to share their beliefs, it does little good to get into a high-powered spiritually arrogant debate. If one knows what the Word of God says, good questions can be asked at strategic times that serve well in causing someone to think, and even question if they have been led astray. This is something that works quite well, even long after the visit. I have had the joy of seeing this happen personally.
It was a short visit but in the discussion of Biblical things, the story of Adam and Eve was brought up. It was the opinion of these folks that God did not have foreknowledge of the fall of the first couple. According to their beliefs, Adam and Eve had been put into this garden and the decision they made came pretty much as a surprise to the Almighty. I found that to be interesting because the Bible tells us that God is aware of everything from beginning to end. There is nothing whatsoever that catches Him off guard, not even if I put two colors of socks on! In fact, God had the plan of man’s salvation planned out long before the foundations of the earth had even been laid. I brought this up to my visitors and they explained that even though God has the capability to see everything in the future, He chooses not to see many things because of His great love for us. When I mentioned that this cannot be backed by even one verse of Scripture from the Bible, it did not seem to matter. In other words, man’s definition of God’s love trumps the Word of God itself. This has always been a means of great deception to the human race. We need to accept what God has included in the Bible—just as it has been given to us, or we will likely fall for a detour that leads us astray in our beliefs. Actually, I believe it was a great act of love that God knew everything and yet loved man enough to plan his rescue as only God could.
The reason I bring this up is that the Bible is meant to be taken very literally. I can’t take the time to go into all the things we need to be careful of when interpreting what we have read in the Bible because it is a long teaching of its own—although quite valuable, but one basic rule that we should not stray from is this: As we read the Bible, we should take it as literal as possible, even if it does not set well with our viewpoint, or thinking process, or human logic. There are obviously some things that are not literal, but the context makes these things clear. The context can be one verse, a whole passage, several chapters, or even a whole book like the book of Job. Scripture should always be proven by other Scripture. The Bible really does explain itself, but it does take some digging for the real gold. The salvation message was meant to be easy enough for a child to understand, but many of the deeper things taught in God’s Word do take some study; often a whole lot, and much earnest prayer for God’s Spirit to help us understand the things which are eluding our understanding.
Most prophecy is also meant to be understood quite literally—actually much more than many would think. But like was pointed out above, the symbolism which is used can be found in other locations of this most unique Book, or collection of books. Even though it took at least 40 authors to write the 66 books, with the writing process spanning nearly 2,000 years; and the authors coming from more than one nation, sect, culture, and even several continents, as well as in several languages, the theme is consistent from the front cover to the back cover. Most of the writers did not see the writings of the other contributors. There is no other book like it on the earth. It is most important to see that the real author was GOD Himself, not mere man.
One of the most amazing things that history now shows us and had been prophesied in the Bible about 2,500 years before it actually came about, had to do with the nation of Israel being formed once again. This has never happened before in all of world history. Here are a people who were scattered all over the globe for millennia and yet kept their belief systems intact, praying facing Jerusalem all those centuries, repeating the same mantra year after year, “Next year in Jerusalem”. It took all the way until 1948! Isaiah prophesied that the nation would be born in a day, and that is exactly what happened.
The man who became the first prime minister, to this fledgling nation, David Ben Gurion, called President Truman the day before the new nation intended to petition the U.N. for statehood, and asked for his support. President Truman, having already come to realize that this was a Biblically prophetic event about to happen, had been part of the process and agreed without reservation. He asked Ben Gurion what the nation was going to be called, and Ben Gurion did not know yet–even 24 hours before the petition was presented. He called the next day after having made an emergency executive decision himself, and let it be known that it was to be called “Israel”. This, as we now know, was also prophetic.
Israel has had a volatile existence this nearly 65 years since its official independence. It has been attacked several times with the might of the combined nations around them, but always came survived, usually in great measure. Their first attack came on the day after their independence was declared. They did not even have an official military, nor did they have the weapons necessary to fight off such an onslaught. Yet, the God of Israel stood by them, and He has ever since.
Israel today is still mostly a secular nation, even though religion is quite evident in the culture and there are many orthodox Jews in the land. They have yet to recognize what has really happened Biblically and where it is all to lead. There are very difficult days ahead for this nation that has learned to flourish on a small portion of land approximately size of New Jersey. God has been faithful to them, fulfilling many Old Testament prophecies in doing so. They have had millions immigrate back to their homeland, and have done their best to absorb them. They have worked very hard and God has blessed their efforts. The infrastructure built since 1948 is nothing less than astounding. They have succeeded in becoming a technological power house which exports to the whole world. They have also become the second largest exporter of fruit in the world, as well as many other products, like vegetables, all kinds of flowers, etc. Besides this, they have built a very powerful military that the nations around are quite reluctant in challenging to an all-out war, regardless of all the bravado and saber-rattling. Yet, this is about to happen right before our eyes. Israel has about 8 million residents and are surrounded by 1.3 billion Muslims that want nothing more than their ultimate destruction. Their demon god Allah has them disillusioned to the point to where killing is the way to paradise!
As I have mentioned in earlier articles, Israel is facing three major wars between now and when Jesus Christ returns. The first one is a war that was hardly recognized until just a handful of years ago. In fact, there are still a few that have not come to the total realization of this specific war. I suspect that one reason may be that it is not as obvious as the second war is, this being the Gog-Magog, or Ezekiel war. Of course, the third war is the Armageddon conflict where the whole world’s armies show up in Israel. This first war that is very close to erupting has scattered details written by several prophets in numerous Old Testament books. The book of Psalms speaks of it, primarily in parts of chapter 83, which was written by the prophet Asaph. It is however also spoken of by Obadiah, Zephaniah, and Zechariah. Much of Ezekiel in the chapters leading up to chapters 38 and 39, which speaks of the more familiar Gog-Magog conflict, appears to give an enormous amount of detail for about what is to happen. What was surprising to me when I found this, is that much of what Ezekiel wrote turns out to be in some chronological order, especially when it is properly studied out.
I believe that once this war happens, there will be no stopping the wars happening all around the globe. It is amazing how many threats of war there are today. Several continents are now on the brink of war and soon the whole world will be enveloped. I believe that what happens in the Middle East will light the fuse, if in fact that has not already happened.
Many may be aware of excerpts in the news this last week telling of three major events involving the Middle East. Israel has been quite concerned for some time over the chemical and biological weapons in Syria. There are some of the largest stockpiles of these weapons in the world located within Syrian borders. My own belief is—and there is a great deal of evidence to the fact, that Saddam Hussein’s missing WMD’s were caravanned into Syria during the short time between when it was announced that the United States and its coalition was coming and when they actually arrived. Amongst the evidence are detailed satellite shots of these said caravans and not surprisingly, during this very same time period. There were also high-ranking military personnel that verified that this happened. Unfortunately, I believe that they were kept quiet, for reasons most of us can only guess at. There is also evidence of a large Russian task force sent that was specifically there to scrub all evidence that these weapons had ever been there. Both Russia and France had had their hands in Saddam’s process of producing these weapons of mass destruction. Besides this, there is no one that can deny that Saddam Hussein gassed thousands of the Kurds in his own country. But, this is all another story…and it has had much political controversy attached to it. This hardly surprises me!
Israel, after warning the Syrian regime many times not to pass any of their sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah or into Lebanon, caught this very thing happening. They promptly, without warning, sent 12 fighter jets into Lebanon airspace, flying at very low altitude, and hit the convoy with missiles, destroying the entire convoy. This convoy was no small convoy and it carried many sophisticated Russian SA-17 anti-aircraft missiles, as well as other sophisticated weaponry, and possibly chemical and biological weapons. The chemical or biological weapons have not been confirmed yet to my knowledge. This however was only the first strike.
The second strike was when some of the fighter jets continued into Syrian airspace and destroyed a weapons depot of some type close to Damascus. It was said to be a military research facility, but Israel received indisputable evidence that it was much more than that. The jets hit this facility with about six missiles as well as a heavy bunker buster bomb in order to destroy the underground portion of the facility. It has been reported that about 3,000 Iranian Republican Guard were stationed there to guard this facility, as well as likely members of Assad’s military. There have been no numbers of actual casualties given that I know of.
The third strike happened within Iran itself. This event is still quite mysterious as very little has been confirmed—or at least admitted. It sounds very much like the work of the Israeli Mossad. In short, there were at least five very large explosions within Iran’s Fordo nuclear facility which had been built deep within a mountain so that it would be protected from most any attack. I have to smile when I read this! This facility had at least 2,500 high-speed centrifuges spinning 24/7 to upgrade uranium, eventually up to weapons grade so that it could be used for nuclear bombs or installed onto long range missiles. From what has leaked out so far, there was enormous damage—so much that at least 250 or so nuclear scientists and technicians were trapped in the lower floors, without escape. This included Iranian, Russian, and North Korean specialists. The elevators were rendered totally inoperable and staircases heavily damaged or destroyed. The last I heard there was still no viable plan proposed to get these people out of their underground tomb. One other item that is quite interesting is the fact that no one has been able to identify the explosive used yet. It apparently has never been seen before. I guess we’ll see, but I would not be surprised if it is something that has not been made known to the scientific or military communities yet, so that it could have the ultimate surprise effect. It is important to note that there were reported to be many tons of uranium in this facility waiting to be processed, or in the process of being brought to weapons grade quality. It is not known if any of it survived. Interesting, don’t you think?
All this brings me to a couple important points that we need to recognize. Isaiah 17 says that Damascus, the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, will be totally obliterated—as well as some of the surrounding area. Jeremiah 49 speaks of this as well. When it happens, it will happen within a day, probably overnight the way it is described in Scripture. This is a city of several million people! Yet, it is not all that surprising because most every terrorist organization in the world have their headquarters in Damascus. Even though there are many innocent civilians living in Damascus (or trying to), it is a real world-class snake pit. Something will cause a weapon of mass destruction to be unleashed and turn the city into a heap of rubble. The other day I noticed a news article quoting Bashar Assad as saying that he has no intention of being removed from power, even if it means that Damascus is destroyed. Assad referred to a prophetic event and probably doesn’t even know that he did. We are very, very close to this event unfolding.
What do you think will happen when this event occurs? Even if Israel is not who does this thing (although they very well might as they have threatened this very thing if Tel Aviv is attacked), Israel is who will get the blame and the whole world will turn against them. They are already almost at that point today. My opinion is that this will also bring in the rest of the nearly formed coalition that the Obadiah / Psalms 83 war will bring to bear on Israel from all sides. Every one of their neighbors will take part, including Gaza and the Palestinians in the West Bank. They however, no matter the massive casualties Israel may end up with, will lose, and lose badly. Israel will unleash the might that God has blessed them with and will as a result be recognized as the “mighty army” that the prophet Ezekiel prophesied about. It will happen!! The Palestinian issue will be no more either according to Scripture.
I suspect that Iran will get hit as well, possibly nearly the same time. Prophetically, Iran gets hit twice, once in the first war and also in the second, when they are part of the coalition with Russia and the rest of the Arab nations. Elam is prophesied to be devastated, which is the western portion of Iran where the Bushehr nuclear facility is located that Russia built for them not long ago. Information came out recently that this facility is being used to produce plutonium for bombs, like the one dropped on Nagasaki, Japan at the end of WWII. This facility is in the Persian Gulf across from Saudi Arabia and north of the Strait of Hormuz that is such a hot spot today, with more war ships congregated in a small area than any other place on earth.
Much more information coming quickly to show that we really are THERE! IT IS NOT HYPE! KEEP LOOKING UP!! Our KING is coming—VERY SOON!
Jake