November 2010 | Bible Prophecy Blog

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Will Jerusalem Be Divided Again?

By Jack Kelley
GraceThruFaith.com

Q. There is so much talk about scattering Israel and dividing Jerusalem these days. Also much talk about the Psalm 83 prophecy which talks about a confederation of the surrounding Arab and Palestinian nations coming against Israel and being completely defeated by the IDF. At the same time I read in Zechariah 1:18-19 about four horns coming to scatter Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. There seems to be a contradiction between this Scripture and Psalm 83. I know there cannot be any contradiction in Holy Scripture, that is impossible. How do you see things? Can you help please?

A. Notice in Zech. 1:19 the word scattered is in the past tense. Zechariah wrote just after the 70 year Babylonian captivity, and the Jews were scattered at its beginning, which is what the vision was recalling. In verse 20 the word scattered is also in the past tense. In effect, the vision says that those who scattered Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem will now be punished.

The real answer to your question is contained in Zechariah 14:1-2. There we can see that Jerusalem will again be divided, just before the 2nd Coming.

Related Links

Isralestine: The Ancient Blueprints of the Future Middle East - Bill Salus (Book)

Psalm 83 ... Preview of a Coming Attraction - BPB (Jack Kelley)

Book of Zechariah - GotQuestions.org

Seven Major Prophetic Signs of the Second Coming - GraceThruFaith.com (Jack Kelley)

Children's Stories of the Bible The Adult Version - Jack Kelley (Book)

After Decades of Decline, the Total Number of Jews in the World Has Increased

By Dr. Jimmy DeYoung
Prophecy Today

According to the Berman Institute and the Jewish Data Bank, there had been a steady decline for several decades in the worlds Jewish population but the trend has been reversed and an increase has been recorded recently even though it is very so slight in numbers. The number of Jews outside Israel continued its decline but their number increased inside Israel bringing the total Jewish population in Israel to around 5.7 million, the largest number of Jews in any one location anyplace on earth. Out of a world population numbering around 6.9 billion people there are only about 13 and a half million Jews in our world today which is slightly less that .2% of the world's total population

Jimmy's Prophetic Prospective on the News

With less than .2% of the world's total population being Jewish, the world's focus is on these unique people who will be the major players in the end of times scenario that can be found in Bible prophecy.

Out of a world population that numbers 6.9 billion people, the Jewish people and their very small nation in the Middle East has attracted the attention of the world. It seems that daily some world leader is talking about the Jewish state of Israel and what is happening there as it relates to the existence of this young nation among the nations of the world. The Jewish people came into existence 4000 years ago when Abraham became the Father of the Jews and passed that heritage along to his son and grandson Isaac and Jacob. Though there have been countless attempts to destroy the Jewish people down through the centuries God has protected a people that He calls His chosen people, that is according to Deuteronomy 7:6-8. In fact, God divided humankind on this earth and he set the bounds for them based upon the Jewish people in this world - that's recorded in Deuteronomy 32:8.

Every student of Bible prophecy is aware that God's plan for the end times will happen in order to fulfill the Lord's promises to the Jewish people. Those promises found in the Abrahamic Covenant, (Genesis 15) the Land Covenant, (Deuteronomy 30) the Davidic Covenant, (II Samuel 7) and the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31).

Though the Jewish people are small in numbers in our world today, they will be the major players for the last days. Bible prophecy will be fulfilled.

Related Links

After Decades of Decline, Total Number of Jews Grows - Arutz Sheva

Introduction to the Biblical Covenants - SpiritandTruth.org (Tony Garland)

World's Jewish population rises in 2010: report - Xinhua

Why did God choose Israel to be His chosen people? - GotQuestions.org

Revelation: A Chronology - Jimmy DeYoung (Book)

It’s Time to Profile

By Robert Spencer
Jihad Watch

As horror stories from the TSA become an ever-expanding genre, it is important to remember that the entire roiling controversy over airport security has come about solely because of the government’s refusal to acknowledge the true nature of the threat we’re facing. While it is theoretically possible that a wheelchair-bound, eighty-year-old Baptist grandmother from Des Moines could hijack an airplane and crash it into an American landmark in the service of Allah, the likelihood of her doing so is infinitesimally smaller than the possibility that such a thing might be done by a young Muslim male of Arab or Pakistani origin.

And so the only thing left for the TSA to do, if it is really serious about protecting Americans and not humiliating us or stripping us of our freedoms as well as our clothes, is profile: to admit that Muslims are much more likely than other groups to be plotting terror attacks, and to screen passengers accordingly.

Such profiling would not be perfect. While Islamic advocacy groups cry racism at any hint of such scrutiny being directed toward the Muslim community in America, in fact the jihad threat to airliners in this country has nothing whatsoever to do with race, and everything to do with a murderous and supremacist belief-system that is held by people of all races. The 9/11 hijackers were not wearing the “Islamic garb” that Juan Williams confessed worried him, and indeed, al-Qaeda directs its operatives in Western countries not to wear such distinctive garments, but instead to blend in.

Nonetheless, to direct greater scrutiny at airports to young Arab and Pakistani males than to Aleuts from the Yucatan or socialites from Bel Air is not racism, it’s realism. The 9/11 hijackers were motivated and energized by their belief in Islamic jihad; so were the July 7 London bombers, the March 11, 2004 Madrid bombers, the November 2008 Mumbai mass murderers, and those who have been responsible for thousands of jihad attacks around the world since 9/11.

If the TSA, and the DHS, and the State Department, and all the rest of them, acknowledged the reality of the Islamic jihad against the U.S. instead of ignoring and denying it, it would be possible to formulate some sensible screening policies based on an assessment of the actual threat to air security, instead of what they wish that threat were – which wishful thinking is the basis for the current TSA policies.

Yet while that would be an easy solution to the fix we’re currently in, it is one that will never be adopted.

The TSA currently wastes huge amounts of time, money, and resources by pretending that everyone is an equal threat to launch a terror attack. Islamic advocacy groups such as the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) do all they can to perpetuate this state of unreality by claiming that Muslims in general would somehow be victimized if the government adopted more realistic policies. They raise the specter of a “backlash” against innocent Muslims, with willing aid from a compliant mainstream media – and yet the FBI’s hate crimes report for 2009, released just last week, showed that Muslims lagged far behind Jews in hate crimes in the U.S. last year, accounting for only eight percent of crimes classified as such. Innocent Muslims are generally not being victimized in the U.S., and would not be if the TSA devoted its resources to halting the real threat rather than stopping a fantasy jihad of Oprah book-clubbers.

The only sensible answer at this point would be to institute Israeli-style profiling of air passengers. The Israelis have run an efficient and terror-attack-free air service for years, without all these invasive security measures.

But to emulate them would mean to recognize in an official way that Muslims are a greater risk to commit terror attacks than Methodists or Mennonites.

And in today’s politically correct environment, the Obama Administration and the TSA look as if they would rather see another jihad mass-murder of American citizens on the scale of 9/11 or worse than do anything to suggest that.

Related Links

FEULNER: TSA and security: The naked truth - The Washington Times

Peering behind the scanners and pat-downs - Northeast Intelligence Network (Douglas J. Hagmann)

Why They Don't Need To 'Touch Your Junk' At Israeli Airports - Big Government

Stop Treating Everyone As An Equal Threat - Heritage.org

Lilly: U.S. should follow Israeli lead on airline security - News-Leader.com

Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America without Guns or Bombs - Robert Spencer (Book)

Britain Calling to Leave the European Union

By Nathan Jones
Lamb & Lion Ministries

Will the United Kingdom leave the European Union?

This question was brought to my attention by evangelist and friend Kenneth Humphries of Treasured Truth Today Ministries, based in Northern Ireland. For those of us across the pond, that's the Ireland that's part of the United Kingdom, and not the Ireland that's tied to the European Union by currency. Ken's Ireland is not the one that is about to get bailed out in billions of Euros by the European Central Bank in Frankfurt as the second nation after Greece but before Portugal and Spain, all looking to stem off economic collapse due to their overspending on social programs. As EU nations economically tumble one upon the other like dominoes, it is no wonder that the United Kingdom is rejoicing over not having adopted the EU's currency — the Euro, but fearful of their card carrying membership.

The stated first call for Britain to withdraw the United Kingdom from the European Union has come from the newspaper The Daily Express. In their article/petition "Get Us Out of Europe", the paper has made an interesting case as to why the European Union seems on the brink of failure, and why the British should not want any part of it. They are in a struggle, as they put it, to "repatriate British sovereignty from a political project that has comprehensively failed people right across Europe."

The United Kingdom, The Daily Express claims, was forced into the Treaty of Lisbon because of a lack of public referendum given to its people so they could vote on whether to join or not.

This treaty once ratified created the constitutional basis for an economic and political government that united its 27 member states into one superpower — the European Union. The Lisbon Treaty became effective only one year ago on December 1, 2009. It also set up and empowered the offices of a long-term President of the European Council and a High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, two positions many students of Bible prophecy are quite wary of as possibly predecessory positions the Antichrist and False Prophet could one day hold.

Results of a Europe United

The first and inevitable result of the creation of the European Union, the paper charges, has forced the United Kingdom to take on an extraordinary amount of the required contributions into the EU, all of which to fund "power grab[s]" and "bloated budgets." With the Great Recession keeping unemployment in the EU at 10%, the progressive leadership in the Union's capital at Brussels has responded in typical liberally-minded fashion by expanding social programs at an accelerated rate which instead only create "new job-destroying regulations and conspire to turn the whole EU into a zone of high taxation."

The second result for the member states within the European Union is a liberal view of immigration, allowing a free flow of migrants entering not only from within member states but also from outside of the EU. The largest group entering are Islamic immigrants from Africa, a terrifying security threat to many who see the acceptance of sharia law within the UK's legal system as a sign of the end of the British form of justice.

The third result of membership within the EU, The Daily Express explains, is the European Court of Human Rights — a pan-European tribunal — now superseding British law, "preventing the deportation of terror suspects and demanding that convicted prisoners are given the vote." Any member state's laws can now be trumped by overarching European Union jurisdiction.

The fourth result, evident to all except those who hold a liberal elitist, globalist view, is the destruction of the economies within many of the EU's member states. As The Daily Express decries, "the past two decades of European integration have turned mainland Europe's economies from some of the world's industrial powerhouses into also-rans, stuck in the global slow lane." As sovereign nations turned over their currencies to become subservient states, only Germany has reaped the benefit of the united currency by "locking its neighbours into exchange rates they are unable to compete at." Unfortunately for their success, the failing nations have looked to Germany to fund the bailouts, bringing even the most successful EU nations towards economic disaster.

The Daily Express is campaigning for a "Britain is Better Off Out," a United Kingdom totally removed from the European Union. They say that it is Europe that is in decline and Britain that is being held back, and "it is time to break free" beginning by signing their petition. The benefits of breaking free, the paper purports, will enable the UK to be "able to import from and export to the EU freely without being subjected to its federalist ambitions." Not only would the UK be able to trade freely with the EU, but they could open new trading with the rest of the world without Union restrictions. In other words, there are those in the UK who believe a free market and not socialistic economics would create wealth.

Prophetic Perspicuity

The formation of the European Union is a worthwhile attempt to unite Europe after two bloody world wars so as to propagate peace and avoid such horrors from happening again in the future. Uniting their fortunes together, even under the recession, has made the EU an economic powerhouse, rivaling the financial might of the United States and China. Should NATO be dissolved (something the US should highly consider as it pays nearly 50% of its funding) and the EU form its own military, the combining of 27 armies will become a terrible force to be reckoned with. Such a force of "good" in the wrong hands would naturally become a terrifying force for evil, and that is the European Union's inevitable destiny.

Finances, land, power, and military might, yet weak and brittle, always appearing as if it might dissolve, the European Union this day is a sure description of the final form of the Roman Empire Daniel describes in Daniel 2:41-43.

"Just as you saw that the feet and toes were partly of baked clay and partly of iron, so this will be a divided kingdom; yet it will have some of the strength of iron in it, even as you saw iron mixed with clay. As the toes were partly iron and partly clay, so this kingdom will be partly strong and partly brittle. And just as you saw the iron mixed with baked clay, so the people will be a mixture and will not remain united, any more than iron mixes with clay."

Great Britain's grassroots does not want to "mix" and cries out for independence from the juggernaut they've joined, but in this era marked by insane leaps and bounds towards having the world fall under one government, their attempts will fail. Their attempts to withdrawal will be as weak as the states within the United States trying to reclaim their authorities under the 10th Amendment against those of the federal government. Neither will be successful against the globalist tide. Should the UK gain some modicum of freedom, the inevitable world leader the Bible predicts who will rise from the Revived Roman Empire will crush it (Dan. 9:26), most likely when he subdues three of the kings from the very Union he rises from (Dan. 7:24).

In the end, no nation will break free from the black current of globalism that will engulf first Europe then all the nations of the world. But, the Rock cut not by human hands — Jesus the Messiah — will return to "crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever," setting up the kingdom of God "that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people" (Dan. 2:44-45).

Related Links

European Union: R.I.P.? - Townhall (Pat Buchanan)

Book of Daniel - SpiritandTruth.org (Tony Garland)

Wall Street falls on euro zone fears, home prices - Reuters

IMF’s Lipsky Says Euro Threat ‘Wildly Exaggerated’ - BusinessWeek

Eurozone unemployment hits record high in October - Xinhua

Monday, November 29, 2010

Who Needs Marriage? TIME Asked the Question — Do You Have an Answer?

By Dr. Albert Mohler
AlbertMohler.com

“When an institution so central to human experience suddenly changes shape in the space of a generation or two, it’s worth trying to figure out why.”

Belinda Luscombe of TIME magazine made that observation in the course of reporting on a major study of marriage undertaken by TIME and the Pew Research Center. In the cover story for the magazine’s November 29, 2010 edition, Luscombe summarizes their findings with a blunt statement:

“We found that marriage, whatever its social, spiritual, or symbolic appeal, is in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be.”

Without doubt, marriage has been utterly transformed in the modern world. In Western nations, the concept of marriage as a sacred covenant has given way to the idea that marriage is merely a legal contract. The limitation of sexual intercourse to marriage went the way of the Sexual Revolution, even as the ideal of permanence gave way to no-fault divorce and serial monogamy. And as for monogamy, that may be on shaky ground, too. These days, you can’t take anything for granted.

The debates over the legitimization and legalization of same-sex marriage has, among other things, revealed the fact that far too many Americans (and that includes a frightening number of American Christians) are simply unarmed for any intellectual conflict on any question related to marriage.

And the demographics? Brace yourselves. In 1960, 70 percent of all American adults were married. Now, that number is just over half. Eight times as many children are born out of wedlock as compared to that same year. In the 1960s, two-thirds of all young adults in their twenties were married. Now, only 26 percent of twenty-somethings are married.

Statistics can inform or misinform, and it is possible to find statistical support that puts a happier face on the health of marriage. But in order to find these happier statistics it is necessary to redefine the question. For example, some marriage defenders will assert, accurately, that most Americans will at some point be married. But that fact lowers the question of marriage to the minimalist level of “at some point.” By any honest measure, marriage is in big trouble.

When Belinda Luscombe argues that marriage is “in purely practical terms just not as necessary as it used to be,” she has a rationale to back up her argument. “Neither men nor women need to be married to have sex or companionship or professional success or respect or even children.” All that is true, when marriage is viewed on the canvas of American culture. Marriage no longer regulates sex. The Sexual Revolution severed sex from marriage in a social sense, and the arrival of The Pill offered a pharmaceutical means of severing sex from reproduction. No-fault divorce arrived as a legal accommodation to marital impermanence, effectively redefining both marital and family law in the process. Social status and professional expectations were liberated from the question of marriage, and many feminists declared that marriage itself was an impediment to the full liberation of women.

And yet, Luscombe ends her argument about the “not as necessary as it used to be” status of marriage with these words — “yet marriage remains revered and desired.” Really? Well, that all depends on how you define reverence and desire.

TIME reports that 40 percent of Americans believe that marriage is now obsolete, up from 28 percent in 1978. Cohabitation is now the norm for American adults — not just before marriage, but increasingly instead of marriage. And American cohabitation is an exceedingly weak arrangement. As Andrew Cherlin of Johns Hopkins University explains, Americans “have the shortest cohabiting relationships of any wealthy country in the world.” Less than half of all Americans believe that cohabitation is morally wrong.

Divorce is now an institutionalized part of American life, complete now with an industry putting out divorce announcements, greeting cards, and party plans. The American divorce rate, though now somewhat stable, is so disastrously high that even social scientists are shocked. As Professor Cherlin remarked:

“One statistic I saw when writing my book that floored me was that a child living together with unmarried parents in Sweden has a lower chance that his family will disrupt than does a child living with married parents in the U.S.”

That statistic should floor all of us.

The TIME/Pew study also revealed more visible contours of the “marriage gap” that has emerged with respect to income and education levels. For most of the twentieth century, the age of first marriage rose for those young adults pursuing a college education, while those without a college education married earlier. That is not longer the case. Now, it is those marked by lower incomes and educational levels who are marrying late — if at all. In a stunning reversal of social patterns, it is the more highly educated who are now more likely to marry. Economic factors are most often cited as the reason for this reversal, but this is not fully convincing. In far more desperate economic times, couples have managed to get married, stay married, and raise a family. Furthermore, as TIME notes, this pattern becomes a formula for disaster, since marriage uniquely provides the stability needed to escape poverty and many social pathologies.

TIME’s cover asks the question straightforwardly — “Who Needs Marriage?” The magazine and its team sought to answer that question “in purely practical terms,” doing their best to leave questions of morality and theology aside. But Christians, who rightly see the practical benefits of marriage as exemplars of common grace, cannot stop there. We believe that humanity needs marriage. God created the institution of marriage — defined on His terms — as the central institution of human society. Marriage was given to us by our Creator as the central institution for sexual relatedness, procreation, and the nurture of children. But, even beyond these goods, God gave us marriage as an institution central to human happiness and flourishing. Rightly understood, marriage is essential even to the happiness and flourishing of the unmarried. It is just that central to human existence, and not by accident.

There is much more to the Pew Research Center’s report, but TIME’s cover story put the most crucial questions before its readers. The question on its cover demands a faithful answer.

Who needs marriage? I do. You do. We all do — and for reasons far more fundamental than can be explained “in purely practical terms.”

Related Links

What does the Bible say about marriage? - GotQuestions.org

Between Modesty And Marriage - SpiritandTruth.org (Steve Lewis)

Marriage As It Was Meant to Be - Grace to You (John MacArthur)

Canada looking to legalize polygamy - OneNewsNow.com

The Moral Decay of Society - BPB (Jeffrey R. Camino)

Desire and Deceit: The Real Cost of the New Sexual Tolerance - Albert Mohler (Book)

PA Pours Cold Water on New Talks

By David Dolan
DDolan.com

The prospects that a new round of peace negotiations will actually take place seemed to dim in late November when PA President Mahmoud Abbas gave a speech before his Fatah partly leaders in Ramallah spelling out his conditions for resuming the frozen talks. He said his PA autonomy government would only sit at the negotiating table again if Israel declares a complete settlement building freeze which included the eastern half of Jerusalem, and agrees to tackle the thorny border issue first. An unidentified Israeli official told journalists that “It is a pity he is entrenching himself in his pre-conditions, and we don't understand the logic. It is almost as if he is searching for excuses not to negotiate.” Some Israeli analysts said that is precisely the case, since Abbas fears a showdown with Hamas and its regional backers far more than he wants a peace deal with Israel.

Israeli officials admit that the touted negotiations are in limbo due to the question of which of the many issues that needs to be addressed would be discussed during the proposed three month construction freeze. PM Netanyahu has stated several times that he wants overall security to be the first issue discussed. This came as indications grew that the Obama administration was backing away from its earlier pledge to give the Israeli government a written guarantee that this would be the final building freeze it would ever demand. Analysts said the Americans apparently want to keep open the possibility of yet another freeze in the future if the peace talks make little progress during the proposed three month ban. It was not clear by the end of November if Netanyahu would go ahead and attempt to seek cabinet approval for a new housing halt without the promised US guarantee.

Related Links

East Jerusalem housing gets preliminary OK - Washington Post

Israel assessed Abbas as weak - WikiLeaks - News24

Israel appoints new Mossad chief - UPI

UN officials call on Israelis, Palestinians to show courage needed to make peace - Xinhua

Holy War for the Promised Land: Israel at the Crossroads - David Dolan (Book)

Israel Is at the Heart of Prophecy

By Jim Fletcher
Prophecy Matters

I was talking with a friend recently, and we were discussing questions we get while speaking.

One of the most popular is, “How do we know we are in the last days?” A perhaps more popular version of this question is, “How do we know Jesus is coming back soon?”

Ninety-nine percent of the time, I hear this question answered with a New Testament verse or verses. That of course is legitimate. However, there is a fascinating reference in the Old Testament, and it has become my favorite answer.

In Psalm 102:16, we read:

“When the LORD shall build up Zion, he shall appear in his glory.”

Preterists and others hostile to Israel and predictive prophecy answer that this must refer to Christ’s first coming. Yet…was the Lord building Zion on that electric night in Bethlehem? An emphatic “no.”

The Romans were pressing the inhabitants of the Holy Land under a dictatorial heel at that precise moment, and for a few centuries after that. In fact, after several decades of Jewish sovereignty under the leadership and aftermath of the Maccabees, who had taken control of Judea from the Seleucid Empire, that sovereignty came to an end.

In the first century, B.C., this Jewish rebel army gave way to the powerful Romans.

So at that stage of history, the Lord was not building Zion.

He has, however, been building Zion since the late 19th century, and now millions of Jews live in their ancestral land.

Logic — the great hallmark of Bible-believing Christians, and the Achilles’ Heel of the liberals — tells us that since Zion is being built-up right now, we can confidently expect the Lord to return at any time.

One of my favorite books is an obscure title from Prof. Benzion Netanyahu, entitled: Don Isaac Abravanel — Statesman and Philosopher. The 15th century financier-turned-biblical scholar was a fascinating character, a Jew who saw much of the turmoil of Jewish life in Europe at a seminal moment in history.

At one point, upon seeing the brutal and callous treatment of Jews in Spain and elsewhere, Abravanel — in order to make sense out of circumstances — turned to Scripture in order to understand what was happening. It was there he developed a thrilling and significant worldview that had as its bedrock the truth that the Bible is supernaturally inspired.

This reality of course is hateful to liberals, among them certain Christian leaders who have crept in unawares, as they say. For them, predictive prophecy is a formidable weapon that can be used against their diabolical attacks on the faith. That’s why they hate it, and why they hate the Jews.

Netanyahu, the historian, went to the heart of the matter in discussing Abravanel’s epiphany:

“The spearhead of the drive against the Jews in Spain, as against those of any other medieval country in the west, was the clergy."

Isn’t that chilling?

Do you see?

The expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 was one of those highlighted historical markers, in which human history is traced by how men have treated the Jews. And Abravanel observed up-close just who in fact led the efforts to persecute Jews: the Church.

Of course, in those days it was the Catholic Church. Although it’s a topic for another time, the Catholic involvement in this area is somewhat of a mixed bag since World War II (on the one hand, a virulent stream of anti-semitism still infects Catholicism; on the other hand, significant inroads have been made to bring Catholics and Jews together).

Today, the problem area for Jew hatred is center-left Christian leadership, and what are still legitimately evangelical leaders. I promise you, they completely loathe Psalm 102:16. This represents one side in a massive war going on today between biblical truth and paganism. Let’s look at a critical aspect of Abravanel’s emerging worldview, as told by Netanyahu:

“The position of Abravanel was thus simple and direct. It was based on his triple axiom: the Bible is the word of God; the Bible represents truth; the Bible must be taken literally before it can be interpreted symbolically.”

Yes!

More on Abravanel’s epiphany:

“If the Bible is to be believed, miracles must be believed as well, and they can be explained only by God’s omnipotence, by His complete independence of nature and of matter. How can we establish the veracity of the Bible, which is threatened by the doubts placed in the miracle stories, and make it unchallengeable by the skeptics? Only by accepting creation ex nihilo, the greatest of all miracles.”

Wow, and wow. Leave it to a Middle Ages Jewish philosopher and a modern Jewish historian to hit the nail on the head. Ironically, they are giving us the principle reason young people (and people of all ages) are leaving our churches in droves.

The relationship-and-self-driven, narcissistic, lights-and-laser-show programs of the modern American church are the antithesis of a New Testament church, and therefore, of reality itself. Modern Christian leadership in America has, by and large, either capitulated to liberal scholarship, or has turned to smarmy and ultimately pointless programs that have nothing to do with teaching the Bible as the guide for life. They have let the attacks on the miracle stories of Scripture cut the guts out of faith for millions.

You might think I’ve digressed in this column, but I argue that I have not. For what is the return of the Lord if not the ultimate modern miracle? That cosmic return will tear open the fabric of time and space and provide a way of rescue for a planet that is coming apart at the seams.

He said a long time ago that when he builds up His people in their ancient land, He will come. That’s it. He will come. Again, Netanyahu, writing about Abravanel:

“His position is that the universe has been endowed by its Creator with the power to endure a limited time, at the end of which it must cease to exist.”

I’m not saying that the long-dead Abravanel, or the now 100-year-old Benzion Netanyahu believe exactly as modern, Bible-believing Christians do regarding present-day and future history. But I am saying that these ideas are shedding light on what is really going on in our world right now.

As the great prophecy teacher Tommy Ice likes to say, “Maranatha!”

Related Links

Israel Through The Eyes Of Scripture - SpiritandTruth.org (Tony Garland)

Pope Benedict XVI affirms his warm feelings for Israel - Israel Today (Ryan Jones)

What is the Preterist view of the end times? - GotQuestions.org

Germany: Exploding Anti-Semitism - Hudson New York

Erdogan ‘Hates’ Israel in WikiLeaks Posting of U.S.-Turkey Talk - Bloomberg

It's the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine): How to stop worrying and learn to love these End Times - Jim Fletcher (Book)

Netanyahu: WikiLeaks 'Vindicates' Israel on Iran

By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily

A cache of confidential American diplomatic cables published by the WikiLeaks group has not damaged Israel and, in fact, strengthened its position, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said today.

"Israel has not been damaged at all by the WikiLeaks publications," the prime minster told a group of editors in Tel Aviv. "The documents show many sources backing Israel's assessments, particularly of Iran."

A significant portion of the quarter-million leaked secret American diplomatic cables focused on Israel's drive to combat the Iranian nuclear threat.

In a secret cable sent back to Washington, the American ambassador to Israel, James B. Cunningham, reported that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak had argued the world had 6 to 18 months "in which stopping Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons might still be viable."

After that, Barak was quoted as saying, "any military solution would result in unacceptable collateral damage."

While Netanyahu did not respond to that cable directly, Middle East defense officials here told WND that Barak's assessment was based on the intelligence available in 2009 as well as the current state of Iran's nuclear program at that time.

Since 2009, Iran has faced a rash of setbacks, including a massive computer virus that is said to have greatly crippled the crucial computer networks in Tehran's nuclear facilities. Also, mysterious explosions near Iran's nuclear sites have been reported while senior Iranian nuclear scientists reportedly have gone missing.

The WikiLeaks documents, meanwhile, expose Arab fears of growing Iranian power, and that the leaders of Saudi Arabia in 2009 asked the U.S. to launch a military strike to prevent the Iranians from gaining a nuclear bomb.

WND reported in September 2009 Saudi Arabia is cooperating with Israel on the Iranian nuclear issue.

One Egyptian intelligence official said Saudi Arabia had been passing intelligence information to Israel related to Iran. He affirmed a report from the Arab media, strongly denied by the Israeli government, that Saudi Arabia has granted Israel overflight permission during any attack against Iran's nuclear facilities.

The Egyptian official previously told WND that Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, has been involved in an intense, behind-the-scenes lobbying effort urging the U.S. and other Western countries to do everything necessary to ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons. Such weapons would threaten Saudi Arabia's position of influence in the Middle East.

Related Links