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Sabbath, October 14, 2006 Pastor Thomas M. Hughes, MA
Newark (Ohio) (USA) Seventh-day Adventist Church
“Palestine – Land Of Armageddon”
This is one of the most interesting and most fearful of topics, PALESTINE.
The MIDDLE EAST is in the news now on a daily basis. I used to take with me one or two magazines with articles on this topic. But I don’t do that anymore, because now most news magazines are almost entirely devoted to this subject.
We can see by this that Bible prophecy is being fulfilled.
Now, let’s set down a few guidelines for our discussion.
FIRST of all, we are not going to try to solve this problem going on in the Middle East.
We are not going to try to solve it ether politically, economically or socially. There are better minds than ours working on those solutions for some time.
The SECOND thing we are not going to do is throw stones. We’re not going to take sides.
The reason for that is because both of these powers on both sides in this conflict have a case.
THE ARAB CASE
The Jews left Palestine in the year 70 A. D., driven out by the Romans in what we call DIASPORA. They’ve been gone for centuries.
The Arabs say that the Jews have long since lost their lease on this bit of real estate. For the Jews to come back now and take over this land so long held by the Arab people…to drive them out and take the land away from them…is not fair. It is not just…There is no justice in it!
Now people have asked, “Why is it that the Arabs and Jews have refused for centuries to sit down at a conference table and work it out?”
And now that they are talking, why don’t they just settle it?
Well, I’ll tell you why…The Arab mind says, “You don’t sit down at a table with a thief and decide how much of what he’s stolen from you that he ought to keep!”
And so the Arab Case is a case for justice and you just can’t argue with justice. You can’t do it.
THE JEWISH CASE
Now let’s look at the Jewish Case.
The Jewish people have been kicked around and knocked from pillar to post for centuries.
They’ve been persecuted all over the world for 1900 years. We saw this in the Nazi Germany, in Dachau, and Belgium. Six million human beings burned in ovens; tortured and gassed. In nearly every country in the world, they have been tormented.
The Jew feels his homeland in the Middle East is his last desperate chance for survival as a people and a nation.
And you just can’t argue with SURVIVAL. We can understand why a persecuted people would want to fight for their lives.
And so we have the Arabs fighting for justice, and the Jews fighting for survival, and we can see both sides…
We’re going to search for MEANING.
Everyone knows there is a problem, but not too many know what the meaning is behind the problem, and so the MEANING is what we should study today/tonight.
It’s my firm belief that the Bible gives the only rational, logical answer to what HAS happened in the Middle East, to what IS happening there today/tonight and to what will happen there in the future.
I believe God has clearly spoken in terms that we could not misunderstand. The problem is…people just aren’t listening!
Now, why spend the time to talk about the Arab-Israeli crisis? I want to give you THREE different reasons:
We stand closer to WORLD WAR III because of the conflict in the Middle East than we do over any other issue.
People who have no religious background are asking questions about the Jews and Palestine. Questions like:
Why is it that world attention has focused completely on the Jews?
Why have the Jews become the eye of the storm?
And why has Jerusalem and Palestine become the most valuable piece of real estate in the entire world?
3. (This is the most important) From the study of Scripture and Prophecy, God has given it in His word.
I stand convicted that God is once again speaking to the world, and He’s speaking again from Jerusalem as He did on that day when He looked out over the city with tears in His eyes and pain in His heart and cried out, “O Jerusalem! Jerusalem!”
Yes, God is once again speaking from Jerusalem…but He’s speaking for the last time! ARE WE LISTENING?
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
In order for us to understand the problem, we must understand something of the historical background.
I’m a student of history, especially since I’ve become a student of prophecy.
It’s almost impossible to understand prophecy without having some understanding of history…because history is a mirror reflection of prophecy…
And prophecy is history written in advance so we must know something about history.
ABRAHAM
It’s surprising to some to learn that the basis for all this conflict in the Middle East began centuries before the time of Christ in the home of an Old Testament Bible character.
His name is Abraham.
The story goes like this:
God told Abraham he would be the father of a son who was going to bless the nations. And over and over you read about this promise in the Bible.
But the years went by and no son was born to Abraham (Abram) and Sarah (Sarai), to their great disappointment. Finally the day came when Sarah was beyond the age of childbearing and still there was no son. So in order to fulfill God’s promise, Sarah said to Abraham…
“I wish to give you my handmaid for you to wife, and perhaps she will give you a son (Genesis 16:2).”
Now, this was not a Biblical solution, but rather a carnal one.
Abraham took her suggestion and took Hagar for his second wife. Soon this union bore a son and he was named Ishmael.
Ishmael was not the son of promise.
He was the son of human works.
He was not the son of faith, but rather a son of human devising.
We have an interesting situation:
Living under the same roof are two women, both married to Abraham. The Japanese symbol for war is TWO WOMEN UNDER ONE ROOF!
The second wife has the son and, boy, is she proud of it! And she lets Sarah know. Finally, Sarah becomes disgusted and jealous.
But suddenly the situation takes a new turn:
A miracle is wrought…a child is born to Sarah out of season. Abraham is one hundred years old, Sarah ninety, and to them is born a son, and his name is Isaac.
So now, living in the same house…
Married to the same man…
Under the same roof…
Two ladies…and each of them have a son.
And each of them wants THEIR SON to be the son of promise.
Hagar got terribly arrogant.
And, perhaps, Sarah wasn’t as patient as she might have been.
Abraham came home one day and Sarah said to him, “I have had it up to here – she has to go!”
And Abraham went to Hagar and to his son Ishmael and he drove them from his home. They left with bitterness and a great deal of resentment.
And that bitterness and resentment EXISTS TO THIS VERY DAY.
TWO NATIONS
From these two sons, havoc came to us…the two great nations now in mortal conflict.
Isaac is the father of Jacob…Jacob is the father of the 12 sons of Israel, and so the nation of Israel was born.
From Hagar and Ishmael have come the Arab nation and both of these nations very profoundly point back to Abraham as their father.
The Bible says Abraham was willing to sacrifice his ONLY son, Isaac. The Koran teaches that Abraham was willing to sacrifice his only son, Ishmael!
This has been the beginning of the longest, bitterest feud in the entire world, and the feud as continued right down to our present day…to this very night!
You know, I’ve had folks say to me, as I’ve worked with people and tried to talk with people in terms of Christianity and following Christ, “Tom, I wouldn’t be a Christian. The Christian religion is just not relevant. It’s so out-of-date. It’s just not up with the times.”
If you have a feeling like that in your heart, friend of mine, I have a question for you…
How much more relevant could this book be?
How much relevancy do we want?
The children of Abraham are QUARRELING OUT IN THE MIDDLE EAST. It’s about to blow this world to HELL! How much more relevancy could there be?
So, from the house of Abraham came the longest feud this world has ever known with hatred that is absolutely implacable on both sides.
It’s an ugly family feud, and that’s the worst kind.
We’ve seen this hatred demonstrated around the world.
We saw it in:
1972 Olympics in Munich, GR…when the Arab gorillas moved in and took the lives of eleven of the finest Israeli athletes.
1983 The 23rd of October, 241 people were killed and 80 wounded when Arab terrorists drove a truck bomb into the Marine barracks in Beirut Lebanon.
1985 in international waters off Egypt. The Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro was hijacked by terrorists and American citizen, Marvin Klinghoffer, in a wheelchair, was murdered and thrown off the boat.
1985 Rome’s Da Vinci Airport terrorists turned their machineguns on the crowd in passenger lines, killing dozens of innocent people.
1988 The destruction by Arab agents of Pan Am, Flight 103, over Lockerby, Scotland, on December 22 (1988), killing over 270 people.
1993 A bomb blast ripped through the parking garage of the landmark World Trade Center on Friday, February 26 (1993), killing seven people, injuring as many as 700. The explosion ripped through three levels in the parking garage and started a fire that sent smoke spiraling through the twin 100-story towers of the complex. Later, two men were arrested from an Arab terrorist group.
2001 Arab Terrorists flew 2 planes into the world trade center, murdering 3,000 innocent Americans in the name of Alchaida. Muslim fanatics who believed they were doing God’s will! They were the very face of evil.
Now, that’s ancient and modern history. Let’s bring it up-to-date.
As we have already said, “The feud continues down to our day.”
THEODORE HURTZEL
In the NINETEENTH CENTURY, there was born in Switzerland a man by the name of Theodore Hurtzel.
Hurtzel was a Jew.
Although he was not a religious man, he was an intellectual genius.
He was very proud of his national heritage…he was happy to be Jewish.
Hurtzel advanced the idea that all the Jewish people should begin a move BACK TO PALESTINE. He said, “Let’s go home.”
And so there began a trickle of Jews who left Europe for Palestine in the 1870’s.
This exodus got the “Back to Israel Movement” off the ground.
Then came WORLD WAR I…
During WWI, the allied powers of the United States, France and England were fighting the central powers of Europe – Germany mainly, and once again Palestine comes into the picture. It happened like this:
The little country of England began to run out of money.
And so they turned to the wealthy Jewish family, the House of Rothchilds, the banking family.
They said to these Jewish peoples, “You furnish us the money to carry on WWI and when we have defeated the central powers of the battlefield, we will give to you as a national home, PALESTINE.
We will give it to you.
And Parliament VOTED their suggestion and PASSED it, and it became known as the Balfor Declaration.
Simultaneous to this transaction and promise by the British Parliament, a man living with the Arabs, who spoke very fluent Arabic by the name of Lawrence of Arabia, made a similar promise to the Arabs, who were fighting the TURKS…as were the British. And Lawrence said to the Arabs, “You help us defeat the Turks, and when we have defeated the Turks on the field of battle, we will give you PALESTINE as a national homeland.”
Here we have TWO promises…diametrically opposed and both of them certainly could not be kept.
When WWI was over, Palestine was occupied by the British forces under the leadership of General Alan Dean.
The Arabs came in and said, “We helped you defeat the Turks, now give us Palestine as our national home.”
On the other hand, the Jewish people came to the British and said, “We financed your WWI, now; give us Palestine as our national home.”
So it evolved into a triangular conflict with the Jews and Arabs fighting the British. The British were in a jam. They didn’t know what to do.
At the end of WWII, the British had all of Palestine they could STAND.
So at the close of WWII, they gave Palestine back to the United Nations and the United Nations sat in council and made this decision:
They said…
We’re going to split Palestine.
We’re going to give a portion to the Arabs and the Jews.
And so they established, under King Hussein of Jordan, the Hashemite Kingdom on the East Bank of the Jordan.
On the West Bank of the river, the nation of Israel.
But the Arabs said, “No! This isn’t fair…this is our land. We’ll never accept it…and they haven’t accepted it to this day in spite of the United Nations’ Resolution 242 and 338.
The Jews, in order to get the land they needed and wanted, went to war with the Arabs and decisively defeated them in the War of 1948.
They established for the first time in centuries the nation of Israel. Since that time, there have been three more skirmishes between the Jews and Arabs (See paper)…
The 1956 war, which the Jews won…
The 1967, three-day war, which the Jews won and conquered Jerusalem
The one-hour war at Camp David, which the Arabs won back some of the disputed land.
This family squabble between these two countries has turned into an international conflict, which threatens to drag the worlds superpowers…United States and Russia…to the brink of Armageddon.
The Russian fleet patrols the Mediterranean
Countries like Syria and Iran look to Russia for support against Israel.
Our U. S. Navy brushes by the Russians on a daily basis.
(Information Division, Israel Foreign Ministry – Jerusalem handout)
The United States is in Israel…
Giving our support
Our money and weapons to defend our enormous oil and strategic interests
You see the entire continent of Africa and the whole of the underbelly of Asia is being defended by us from the State of Israel.
It’s our last toe-hold in that part of the world. We’re not going to give it up. It’s our last chance out there.
And so…what’s our conclusion?
Our conclusion is this:
That the biggest war in the history of the world is being threatened in the Middle East.
A war that could very easily be turned into a nuclear holocaust…and the destruction of the world.
So we see that today Palestine may soon be the land of Armageddon. That’s where we stand.
Now, here’s something interesting…for all our fighting…all those years in Vietnam: NOT ONE EMERGENCY MEETING WAS CONVENED by the United Nations. NOT ONE.
But when the June War of 1967 broke out in the Middle East, the United Nations convened immediately in emergency session until midnight and again at five (o’clock) in the morning to try to find a solution.
Do you recall the HOTLINE that was established between Washington D. C. and Moscow?
That hotline had never been used before until the June War of 1967,
But at that point, it was used by both sides and often in the desperate hope that some nation wouldn’t get excited and push their little button leading to Armageddon, and start something that no one could stop.
These are the historical and modern facts.
JEWS IN BIBLE PROPHECY
Now, let’s turn to God’s Word and try to get some perspective. Let’s talk about the Jews in Bible prophecy.
I want to read to you a startling prediction as God spoke through His servant Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, Chapter 28, verses 64-66…fourteen centuries before the time of Jesus Christ.
THE SCATTERING
Moses says in Deuteronomy 28:64-66—
“And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other; and there thou shalt serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.
“And among these nations shalt thou find no east, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind.
“And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy life.”
Has the prophecy been fulfilled? Indeed it has!
That “scattering prophecy” has been fulfilled in a most memorable way.
The Jews are everywhere!
In Paris…Berlin…Istanbul…New York City…Miami…L.A…Washington D. C…. Baltimore and Columbus: Scattered all over the world just like God said; persecuted and tormented in every country under the sun.
My friend, in that the Jews are UNIQUE!
They retain their individuality.
They maintain their identity
And they maintain their culture…and that’s UNIQUE!
OTHER GREAT NATIONS
There have been other great nations and sophisticated cultures.
I think of the Vandals…the Visigoths…the Carthaginians…the Medes and Persians…the Phoenicians
Great military powers, yet when defeated in battle, they simply melted away, marrying and intermarrying until they were gone.
Anyone seen a Phoenician lately?
Have you seen a Carthaginian lately? They’re gone!
But my friend, Jerusalem has been conquered and destroyed on 28 different occasions!
The Jews live on.
They maintain their identity and that’s absolutely UNIQUE!
I’d like to speak to my skeptic friend’s here today/tonight.
I once sat where you sit…wondering…
If God is alive
If the Bible could be trusted. (Later, I’ll share with you the dramatic turnaround that took place in my life.)
I’d like to ask you a question.
How do you account for this sort of thing?
How was Moses, those many centuries before the time of Christ, able to see that this thing was going to be fulfilled to the very ninth degree that the Jewish people were going to be scattered all over the world and yet
Maintain their identity?
Maintain their culture?
Maintain their individuality?
How did he (Moses) know? God told him.
Dear friend, you can believe in this BOOK.
God has given us these prophecies in order that we might…
Build a faith that will see us through the days ahead. (That’s why I’m happy you’re here today/tonight…to learn.)
Because great things are about to BURST UPON US.
The Bible is true…we can believe it. Prophecy is given to us in order that we might believe.
Now there’s more…there’s more to learn from this prophecy.
The Bible says that in these nations where the Jewish people are scattered, they WOULD HAVE NO PEACE.
Has this been fulfilled?
Every century in the Christian era, the Jews have been persecuted…
In the eleventh century, every Jew was driven out of England…every single one!
They’ve suffered in Poland, Russia, and now in South America.
We all know what happened in Hitler’s German, as we mentioned earlier.
The Jews have been persecuted like no other people on earth.
The Jews were attacked with rockets in 2006 from Lebanon by a group financed by Iran.
God said it would happen, and my friend, God’s Word stands on the basis of fulfilled prophecy.
Men can scoff…they can laugh…they can cast it aside…they can make all manner of jokes about it,
But God’s Word stands and man can’t destroy it!
It stands and lives on; on the basis of its fulfilled prophecy and men believe! There’s more than the mind of man in this Book…God is in it…He speaks through it.
I think of that Christian man in the court of Frederick the Great when he was called before the Emperor and asked by him why he believed that the Bible is God’s true Word.
He looked full in the face of the Emperor, and said, “I answer you, Sir, in two words, THE JEWS.”
THE GATHERING
Now equally astonishing and equally interesting as the scattering prophecies, are the prophecies concerning a “gathering,” and I want to share them with you.
Let me read to you what God says through Ezekiel the prophet:
Ezekiel 20:34—“And I will bring you out from the people, and will gather you out of the countries wherein ye are scattered, which a might hand, and with ah stretched out arm, and with fury poured out.”
Is that clear enough? It’s clear…isn’t’ it? God says, I’ve scattered you. I’m going to bring you back.
Let’s look at another passage in Isaiah, chapter 43, verses 5 and 6. God says about the Jewish peoples:
Isaiah 43:5-6—“Fear not: for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west.
“I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth.”
Lets’ look at one more.
Isaiah 11:11-13—“And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria and from Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
“And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
Now, I know that there are those who want to apply these prophecies ONLY and TOTALLY to the gathering of SPIRITUAL ISRAEL at the end of the world.
What position are we going to take?
On the basis of additional information from God’s Word, we must conclude that:
God has made a physical promise to Abraham and a spiritual promise
There must be a DUAL APPLICATION
God said He would scatter the Jews EVERYWHERE
God also said “I’m going to bring you back from EVERYWHERE.”
Have these prophecies been fulfilled?
MOST DRAMATICALLY, THEY HAVE!
Now listen…
In 1857, the Turks were in charge of affairs out there in Palestine, and Turkish law said that no more than 300 Jews could own property in all of Palestine.
In 1882, only a TRICKLE of people were going back into Palestine at the request of Theodore Hurtzel…
50 years ago, there were 50,000 Jews in Israel
30 years ago, there were 650,000 Jews in Israel
20 years ago, there were more than three million,
10 years ago, there were 5 million,
And TODAY/TONIGHT, there are 6,352,117.
One out of EVERY THREE JEWS in the world is LIVING IN PALESTINE TODAY/TONIGHT!
There are more Jews in Palestine today/tonight that were there when Jesus Christ was there Himself.
This “gathering prophecy” has been fulfilled.
The Jews have come back to Israel from more than 80 countries.
It’s astonishing, my friends, that for the first time since the rule of King Nebuchadnezzar in 567 B. C., there is an independent Jewish State in Palestine.
And that Israeli State is the most powerful nation in all the Middle East…and they’re there today/tonight.
Now, at this point, there are some who have objected and said, “Pastor, I thought Israel would never again become a nation. Now this question arises as a result of some faulty reasoning.”
It’s a fact that they are a nation…It is true, however, that the Jews are never going to be restored as a favored group spiritually or nationally in God’s eyes.
God’s Word makes that clear.
But it’s a fact that they’re a nation today/tonight.
Now, I want to inject this note of caution at this point…please underscore this one and don’t miss it, because it is VERY IMPORTANT.
What we’re seeing in Israel today/tonight is NOT A RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT.
I must make that crystal clear to you, because I meet a lot of Christian people who are studying a certain book…who have gotten the idea that what we’re seeing out there is a Christian or religious movement. IT IS NOT CHRISTIAN.
Fewer than five percent (5%) of the Jews who live in Palestine ever enter a synagogue. They’re not religious people. By and large, they are atheists.
At a Christian baptism there, I had the privilege of visiting with two Israeli ladies. They told me that most Jews were, as they were: atheists.
I’ve had people say, “Tom, aren’t the Jews still looking for the Messiah to come?”
The answer is no. The Jews aren’t looking for anything or anybody…you can forget that idea. Because of the Holocaust, many Jews, in fact most, have lost their faith, if they ever had it, in the God of the Old Testament.
As I said, most Israelis are Atheists.
They’re out there as a measure to save their SKINS. It’s a MILITARY, and political move.
Now, lets’ go a step further.
What about the land of Palestine in the Bible?
What does Scripture say about the land?
I want to share with you three very distinct predictions from God’s Word:
Daniel 11:45-12:1—“And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.
“And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time your people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.”
What is the meaning of “the land between the seas?”
PALESTINE is the little bit of land between the Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Galilee, the Dead Sea, the Red Sea, and the Gulf of Acaba.
God says that in this place between the seas SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN THERE just before a time of trouble that breaks upon the world, greater than the world has ever known.
“Well, Pastor, isn’t every land a continent between the seas?”
In this passage, a phrase helps us to identify exactly where this land is…
It mentions the Holy Mountain
God has pinpointed this so we need not misunderstand.
Turn to Zechariah 8:3—“Thus saith the Lord; I am returned unto Zion, and will dwell in the midst of Jerusalem: and Jerusalem shall be called a city of truth; and the mountain of the Lord of hosts, the holy mountain.”
The WHAT? The HOLY MOUNTAIN…JERUSALEM! Isn’t that the place where Mt. Zion is?
Isn’t that the spot where Abraham went to offer his son, Isaac?
Is it not there on Mount Zion in Jerusalem where our LORD WAS RAISED UP between heaven and earth on the cross of Calvary? It’s Jerusalem, the holy mountain!
You might say, “Well, Tom, what are you trying to get at with all this?”
My friend, God Himself has reached down, and His arm has come out of the sleeve of darkness, and His hand has reached down and put His finger right on this little spot of land and He says that at this point on the map, SOMETHING IS GOING TO HAPPEN just before Michael stands up in judgment…starting a time of trouble such as the world has never seen...that will bring this planet to an end.
Who’s Michael? He’s Jesus Christ. It’s one of His names…He’s the Alpha…the Omega…He’s the first and the last…the Rose of Sharon…the Lily of the Valley…He’s the Lamb…He’s the Door…He’s the Way…He’s the truth…He’s the LIFE…He’s the Great I AM…He’s the Bright and Morning Star…He’s King of Kings…Lord of Lords, and He’s Michael! That’s one of His names.
Christ is about to stand up in judgment.
Yes, Judgment Day is coming.
Something’s going to happen in the Holy Land at the time that Christ STANDS UP in judgment and then all hell’s going to break loose!
This is what God is saying to us…A TIME OF TROUBLE LIKE THE WORLD HAS NEVER KNOWN.
The Scripture says, “The cities of the nations fell.”
Baltimore, Washington D. C., New York, Chicago…Atlanta…LA….Paris…London…Tokyo…
Columbus…THE CITIES OF THE NATIONS FELL!
Our only conclusion has to be that Palestine and the events happening in Jerusalem are a sign to us that the end of the world is upon us.
YES, PALESTINE IS THE LAND OF ARMAGEDDON.
God is speaking to us. He’s talking. He’s pleading with tears streaming down His face. God is shouting at the world, but our problem is that we aren’t listening!
We’re all so glued to the television set, we’re so enthused with what we’re doing, the money we’re making, we’re so engrossed in the way that we live, we can’t hear the voice of God even though he’s shouting!
HE’S WAVING ALL THE RED FLAGS!
He’s saying…
Please listen! The world is on the edge of hell.
Won’t you please listen?
Get ready for this tremendous event…the SUBJECT for tomorrow night, “THE SECOND COMING OF CHRIST.”
Where will you be (tomorrow night), dear friend?
Learning God’s truth?
Glued to the television?
Where will you be?
I want to share with you Christ’s statement found in Luke 21:24-25; 27—“And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.
25And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
26Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
27And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”
Here Jesus makes a re-statement of what Moses said some 1500 years before concerning the dispersion of the Jews, the “scattering”…He says here: “…Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled.”
Now, in 70 A. D., the Jews were driven out of Jerusalem in the Diaspora, and scattered to all the nations.
When the Scriptures talk about the Jews or Gentiles, there are only TWO types of people.
If you’re not a Jew, you’re a WHAT? A Gentile.
The city of Jerusalem has been occupied by Gentile people from the year 70 A. D., when General Titus leveled the city. And it has been occupied by the Romans...the Turks…and the British for centuries.
Jerusalem has been under the control of non-Jewish people or GENTILES, but change has come.
Jesus said “…Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are … What? …FULFILLED” or comes to an end.
You see, my friend, God has given to every man an opportunity to accept salvation.
He’s given to the Gentiles an opportunity to be saved for His kingdom and you and I are Gentiles…whether we like that news or not…THAT’S US. We’re Gentile people, and one of these days soon our God is going to draw the line.
The cup of this world’s iniquity will be FULL, and one of these days soon our Lord is going to step is, and there’s not going to be any more time, and God is going to say, “That’s enough – I’ve have all I can stand.” The door of God’s mercy will swing shut on its hinges of grace. The day of salvation will be over for Jews and Gentiles alike!
Listen carefully – Jesus said, “…Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be FULFILLED.”
The day in 1967 that the troops of the Israeli Army moved in and occupied the entirety of Jerusalem, this Bible passage took on a startling, shocking and invigorating new meaning.
In 1976 Jerusalem was under Jewish control and prophecy was fulfilled.
For the first time in 2,500 years, Jerusalem is a Jewish city, controlled by Hebrew-speaking, Jewish people.
There is a Jewish nation in Jerusalem and Palestine today/tonight.
It’s no longer under the control of Gentiles.
When Jesus speaks He means something. He doesn’t talk in a casual manner.
In verse Luke 21:27…listen to what Jesus said: “And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.”
Just before Jesus returns a second time Jerusalem goes into all Jewish hands (1976). God is waving all the red flags. He’s SHOUTING, pleading with us, giving us all the signs!
In Revelation 16:14, it speaks there of the battle called Armageddon.
Armageddon is a valley in the northern part of Israel. (We’ll go there soon in our slide presentation.)
This is the place where Scripture says the last war of the world will be fought. For the first time in the history of the world that little piece of geography out there in the Middle East contains within itself the potential of sparking that international war, the LAST WAR (Iran).
Almost as soon as I became a Christian and began to study the Bible, I learned about that great LAST WAR, and that it would be started in Palestine…
But I wondered WHY ISRAEL? Why that UNLOVELY LITTLE SPOT OUT THERE, a barren wasteland.
But the magic word today is spelled O-I-L.
Oil…the largest known oil reserves in the world are out there today/tonight. Modern military machinery runs the oil.
Hitler understood it when he made the boast that the power that controlled the world’s oil reserves would control the world.
He had a point. Modern armies move on oil.
The country that controls the oil can control the world. And that is why neither the United States nor Russia is going to back away from this region…you can bet on that.
We’re not going to move out of there, and the Middle East has become the key to world power.
The military and political experts tell us that all the places on earth, the Middle East has become the key to world power.
The military and political experts tell us that all the places on earth, the Middle East is the most likely to draw the world into WWIII.
God in his abundant mercy has sent us a warning…
The alarm is yet ringing in our ears.
The last war…a war such as the world has never seen, is just before us.
Get ready! Prepare before it’s too late!
What will you do, my friend? WHERE will you be for the next four nights?
Watching TV?
Amassing your fortune?
Planning for retirement?
The most important place in (Newark/Reynoldsburg) to be tomorrow night is RIGHT HERE.
Here – where God’s Word is LIFTED UP…where Jesus is preached and His coming proclaimed.
Will you be here tomorrow night to learn of His coming?
God is speaking to you and to me. He said He would scatter Israel, and then bring them back. Just before the end of the world, and He did.
He’s pleading. DON’T TURN AWAY. PLEASE don’t worry about the pleasures and cares of this life.
I’m (He’s) coming back…and THAT’S what you need to be concerned about!!!
Two thousand years ago as Jesus hung crucified between heaven and earth, soldiers played games at the foot of the Cross.
When Jesus comes, WHAT will you be found doing: WAITING and WATCHING, or just PLAYING GAMES?
Let us pray.
All Scriptural References: King James Version
Transcription: Wendy J. Riebel
This sermon is also available on cassette tape.
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