Israel is the key to all end-time prophecy.

Keep your eye on Jerusalem  

Jim Fletcher is a member of the executive committee of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI). Jim is director of Prophecy Matters (www.prophecymatters.com), an apologetics group that emphasizes the miracle of Israel's modern rebirth. He is the co-author of The Last War (2001) and can be reached at jim1fletcher@yahoo.com

Jim Fletcher's new book, It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine), aims to reach a "new" audience with the awesome message of Bible prophecy: students, seekers, and skeptics. Written in the style of Blue Like Jazz, but with a very conservative biblical view, End of the World pulls together compelling personal stories, current events, and plenty of Bible to leave readers no doubt that the Bible is God's Word. Available for pre-order at www.amazon.com; Borders; Books-A-Million; Barnes & Noble.
  


Nov 16

Madness


I was in New York recently and had dinner with a well-known author who understands geopolitics inside-and-out. Amazing insights into not only domestic American politics, but also a deep understanding of the Middle East. His comments were riveting.

Fascinating.

We were joined by another highly placed commentator who has his pulse on the Middle East as well. He also has unique contacts in Israel that feed him information.

(Here I will include an aside: still another dinner companion has direct knowledge of the slide in support for Israel among Christian leaders. He told me about two that really surprised me; these people are now pro Palestinian. Perhaps in the future I will write about this in detail, perhaps in a book, but for now just know that this impacts America's future support for Israel.)

The author believes that Saudi Arabia will at least in private give Israel its support in hitting Iran's nuclear facilities. Sooner rather than later. He acknowledged that the House of Saud has funded the most violent forms of Islam for decades, but that they have a pragmatic side, too. In other words, they know that the U.S. and Israel are all that stand in the way of them and a sweeping Islamic caliphate from the Black Sea to the Gulf. They do not want to see a nuclear Iran!

The commentator believes that Turkey is the key to the whole thing. He believes that the Ottoman Empire will be revived, led of course by those same Turks, and that they can unite the Sunnis and Shiites, who are constantly in a state of civil war with each other. The unifying factor?

Islam triumphant.

An Islamic hammer in the Middle East would change world politics. Sharia law and the establishment of a new caliphate would make Muslim eyes glisten worldwide, from Indonesia to Egypt. And the commentator says that Turkey has no problem with a nuclear Iran, since that would add another weapon to the Muslim arsenal.

The author also had interesting things to say, when asked about America's support of Israel, particularly regarding military equipment and support. He was dismissive.

"Increasingly, the American military is dependent on Israel's military," he said calmly.

Wow! He meant that Israeli technology is so advanced that it is helping the U.S., especially as we fight in that region. He described amazing technological advances the Israelis are making.

What this all means to me is that Israel, increasingly threatened and squeezed, will rely on herself for the coming apocalypse. And doesn't Turkish/Ottoman ascendancy make sense in the light of, say, Ezekiel 38-39, and Psalm 83?

We already know from last week that Israel's navy intercepted an arms shipment from Iran to Lebanon's Hizbollah terrorists. There are also similar shipments coming through Yemen, increasingly an Al Qaida base.

War is coming. Change is coming. Just remember in these troubled times, God is in control and His plans cannot be thwarted. We shiver when we hear these reports, and when we watch the news and discuss it all in light of the Bible. We are human; this life can be difficult.

But it appears that the things our brethren hoped for are coming into focus.

And in all this madness, we are finding, as individuals I am quite sure, that our faith is sustained by God, whom we discover in the Bible. In our personal lives and in the hotbed of international news, God is sustaining us. He has sustained His people for 4,000 years, and nothing can wrest them from His grip.

As we look east and see war clouds gathering, let us pray that we will not falter in our faith, and that we will love our God and take refuge in His safe arms.

jim@prophecymatters.com


 

Nov 9

"Forever"
What a delightful story in the news last week, Hillary Clinton chatting with Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. She was doing damage-control after also visiting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; "Bibi" told Madame Secretary that Israel would "restrain" the building in the West Bank, but not halt it; it's a parsing of words, the spin that politicians use. 

At the time, Clinton hailed it as progress, but when she learned that the Arabs were upset (a perpetual state of being for the cousins of the Jews), she hurried to then condemn Israel. She said that the United States is opposed to settlement building in the disputed lands, and wanted it stopped "forever."
As I have many times when I listened to diplomats blather, I thought of Amos 9:15, in which God says that in the last days, He will return the Jews to their land, where they'll remain "forever."
I love it.
As the international community moves closer to total isolation of Israel — we all knew it was coming — the hoofbeats of Revelation grow louder (do you hear them, Brian McLaren?). Israel building homes in Judea and Samaria should be like building suburbs in Milwaukee; families grow and expand. But it's not okay for Jews in the Holy Land to do the same thing.
Palestinian Authority head henchman Mahmoud Abbas has "threatened" not to enter into the latest round of useless negotiations if the Israelis don't halt construction immediately. One does wonder what these aging Palestinian leaders get out of their wasteful positions. I know, I know: three squares a day and a cot. Plus they get to hob-knob with international leaders like Hillary Clinton. Beyond that, though, don't you just know that in their heart of hearts they realize they are simply riding it out until Allah takes them home? 
I have said this before, but it bears repeating: a very famous Israeli friend of mine told me once, after I had raised concerns that after the Gaza pullout the world would make Jews vacate the heartland: "Jim, please, there are 300,000 people there. It won't happen."
I then thought again of Amos 9:15, how deliciously the Bible is relevant at all times. It's true! Reality bears this out! Millions of Jews have come from the four corners of the earth to inhabit that ancient ancestral land, and Someone says they'll be there forever. The famous "facts on the ground" bear this out; how would the UN force 300,000 Jews out of the middle of Israel? 
Now, of course, we might see here the outlines of, say, a certain large-scale invasion? Something compels Gog to invade Israel, and we know from scripture that God puts the idea in his mind; God turns him around in fact to gaze at the beautiful land. We also know that this invading army is decimated on the mountains of Israel, that famous ridge of mountains that extends north and south. The army ascends from the east and is then destroyed supernaturally. 

So when Hillary Clinton says that Israel must halt settlement construction forever, is she acting according to God's purposes? Of course not. Actually, she is following not only State Department policy, but the official stance of her beloved United Methodist Church. 
Forever is a long time. It is just fascinating to me that international diplomats in our world use the same word that Scripture uses, but for opposite effect. 

I am certain that the Jews living in the biblical heartland will never be ejected; they will never leave.

I'll believe that forever.
jim@prophecymatters.com

Nov 2

The Muslim Mafia

I always write specifically about Israel at “Israel Watch.” This week I’d like to depart from that, to some degree, by alerting you to one of the most  important books I’ve read in years.

Muslim Mafia, written by Dave Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, is, in a word, chilling. Published by WND Books, Muslim Mafia details the plans that front-groups like CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) have for America. Of course, discerning readers will understand that all this impacts Israel, because the Muslim Mafia in America funds terror groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Gaubatz, who ran a counter-terrorism task force in Washington D.C., teams with investigative writer Sperry to blow the lid off the nefarious schemes of CAIR and co-horts.

You simply must get this book, read and absorb the information, then share with friends and family. I do not subscribe to the theory that we stick our heads in the sand in the face of troubling issues. I’d much rather be informed and prepared than comfortably sedated.

Gaubatz and Sperry’s book reads like a novel, but that’s only for effect. In fact, the whole story is shockingly true, as Gaubatz’ own son, Chris, infiltrated the secretive CAIR. Securing an internship, the younger Gaubatz gathered thousands of sensitive documents during a six-month investigation, and exposed the following incriminating truths (following list courtesy of WorldNetDaily):

   •CAIR is trying to spring from prison a former headquarters official who trained for jihad with the same Pakistani terrorist group that last year massacred more than 150 people in Mumbai, India.

   •CAIR officials are secretly coaching terrorism suspects and witnesses to withhold information from FBI investigators and have successfully obstructed at least one investigation in Maryland.

   •CAIR is donating thousands of dollars to the legal defense fund of a Muslim cop killer.

  •CAIR's visitor logs show the father of an al-Qaida terrorist visited CAIR director Nihad Awad several months before he was convicted of plotting to assassinate President Bush.

  •Curiously, the logs do not register any guests around Sept. 11, 2001 – in fact, the entire month of September is blank.

   •CAIR has cultivated Muslim moles inside a Washington-area law enforcement agency, including one who illegally accessed FBI records to tip off a terrorist under investigation and another with ties to Pakistani intelligence.

    •A long-time CAIR advisory board member and top fundraiser has preached violent insurrection, including calling on street gangs to lead an "Uzi" jihad in America's cities.

        •Another imam whom CAIR frequently books to speak at its events has exhorted Muslims to hijack U.S. military aircraft, including C-130s transporting the elite 82nd Airborne paratroopers out of Fort Bragg – which happens to be part of the district represented by North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw, who this year took over the reins of CAIR as its new chairman.

   •CAIR is putting books into neighborhood libraries across the country advising men to beat their wives – but only "lightly" – when they disobey them.

    •CAIR is lobbying the Justice Department and local law enforcement to exempt Muslim wife-beaters from laws against domestic violence or at least look the other way and let Muslim clerics intervene when Muslims are involved in spousal battery cases – not unlike the one involving the prominent Muslim TV executive who ended up beheading his wife after serial domestic abuse.

   •During the 2004 presidential campaign, CAIR organized a "task force" of other radical Muslim Brotherhood fronts to hammer out a "Muslim platform" that initially included a draft proposal "supporting Islamic groups including Mr. bin Laden and his associates."

   •CAIR last year teamed up with a terror-tied Islamic investment bank to attack publicly traded American firms who refuse to comply with Shariah law by using shareholder resolutions, divestitures and boycotts against them.

    •CAIR executives regularly travel to the Middle East to raise cash, and bank transfers show Saudi princes have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to CAIR – even as it claims to receive no foreign support.  

If this doesn’t scare you senseless, consider that even the alternative media in America will not touch this story. I could write an entire column about that, but will save for another time. For now, just know that you can literally help your country by getting this book and sharing with others. Grassroots will carry the day with Muslim Mafia — a clarion-call for all freedom-loving Americans.

The diabolical schemes exposed in this landmark book have been faced by Israel for a hundred years. It is relatively new to America. Our nation’s enemies have been planning our destruction for a very long time.

 We just prepare ourselves.

 jim@prophecymatters.com

Oct 26

Demonizing Israel. Again.

It wasn’t a widely reported story, of course, but when we learned last week that a leading Lebanese school was forced to delete passages critical of Hezbollah from a textbook, it was another major indication that there is a hardening towards Israel.

The book, Modern World History, described Hezbollah and other Palestinian terror groups as…terrorists. Well, that didn’t sit well with a Lebanese cabinet minister (Hezbollah has 11 seats in Lebanon’s 128-member parliament). This in an era when Arab terrorists work to assassinate moderate Lebanese politicians!

The school using the textbook, the International College of Beirut, is an interesting study, as well.

As the Israeli historian Michael Oren (and currently ambassador to the U.S.) has written, American missionaries in the 19th century opened schools throughout the Arab world — most notably in Lebanon — and when the Muslim population didn’t take well to evangelization efforts, the heads of those schools began to change their agenda. They began to implement the so-called social gospel (which is not really The Gospel) and eventually became so enamored of their Arab hosts that they wholesale began to encourage nationalism. This in turn led the Arabs to revolt and within a century, the British and French left the area and the various Arab countries were formed.

(Note, too, the outrageous nature of this complaint. For decades, the Palestinians have force-fed direct lies about Jews and Israel to their students via textbooks! Rarely is anything done about it.)

So this little tidbit about terrorist sensibilities being offended in a textbook falls right in line with the demonizing of Israel around the world.

A curious-but-dangerous trend is that of nations that either subtly or overtly threaten to arrest Israeli officials, should they enter that country’s borders. The arrests are threatened because of alleged/absurd “war crimes” committed by Israel in her defense against terrorism our outright acts of war by her neighbors.

This is a two-edged sword for Christian supporters of Israel. On the one hand, we grieve (and get mad!) over the treatment of Israel in our world today. It is unjust.

On the other hand, we see in all this the hand of God, as He directs the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. We know that in the end-times, international (what the Bible calls “the nations”) groups will put the squeeze on Israel. Jerusalem will be a particular target of derision; since the state of Israel today has declared that the Holy City is its capitol, aggressive hatred is directed toward the Jewish state. This is just one of many reasons that a leader like Benjamin Netanyahu is so hated; he declares that Jerusalem is the undivided capitol of Israel…forever.

But here I want to say something personal. We are all experiencing difficult days. Some are in great pain. Added to our personal situations is the knowledge that we love Israel. We love her not to gain blessing ourselves (although that can be a byproduct, according to Scripture), but because God wants us to love the Jews. That part is not hard.

What is hard is seeing how our world is unfolding, and feeling powerless to “help.” Yet, what is help in this context? Do we desire to turn back the clock to a different era, perhaps the late 1970s, when Israel began to settle her biblical heartland?

In our own country, do we desire to go back to the 1950s?

We should resolve to live in our own era, and embrace it. God has us here for a reason. In the context of today’s column, we can resolve to help Israel where we are. Let me give you an example:

I often interact with people who don’t like Israel. These are people who, for instance, demonize the Jewish state by complaining about the so-called “wall.” This “wall,” which in actual fact is a security fence weaving its way through Israel, has saved many Jewish lives that otherwise would have been snuffed-out by terrorists.

But Israel’s detractors — her vicious enemies, let’s call them what they are — like to erect wall images in our minds here in the West. They talk of a gigantic wall suffocating the Palestinians, choking off families and employment.

When I hear that garbage, that propaganda, I trot-out my photos. I show the “wall” as it really is: a series of panels wrapped around individual towns and cities in the biblical heartland. The “wall” then continues on as a see-through wire fence; it still keeps terrorist bombers from crossing into Israeli residential areas.

Every single time, the detractor shuts his or her mouth. They either learn something, or realize that the lie they are knowingly perpetrating is hollow. Let me be frank and specific: usually these people are aligned with mainline church denominations here in the U.S. They are among the “useful idiots” that the early Soviet leader Lenin discussed. These are Westerners who don’t really know what they are talking about when condemning their own countries (or in our case today, friends like Israel), but they are so enamored of Marxist ideals that they willingly embrace lies, or simply refuse to investigate to see whether Marxist/Socialist ideas are valid.

For you, if you have never been to Israel, educate yourself about the issues and compile your own effective rebuttals. I have every confidence that you can and will. This is how you can help Israel, because you live in San Diego, or Milwaukee, or Plymouth Rock. You can engage your elected officials and church officials and confront them with truth. You can also influence young people.

In this way, even as we see our world slide deeper into chaos, you can rest in the knowledge that you did everything you could with what you had available to you.

Because, you see, Israel is alive and is going into a glorious future!

jim@prophecymatters.com

 

Oct 19

The Tightening

I took note last week of a very interesting news tidbit from eastern Europe: Turkey and Armenia are poised to sign a treaty.

This is extraordinary, given the genocide unleashed on the Armenians during World War I; they have not forgotten.

Yet here we have this large country and her small neighbor willing to sit at a negotiating table. Who was one of the key facilitators? Why, Hillary Clinton, of course. In fact, as emotions over the century old genocide bubbled up, our secretary of state broke in and appealed to the broader aim of a signed treaty. In other words, Turkey doesn’t have to apologize for the massacres — we just need to get with the peace program and form alliances.

(I find it supremely ironic that Turkey’s mass killing of Armenians during the Great War contributed to the strategy of the allies to break the Ottoman-Turkish empire, thus ending its control over Jerusalem. In a few short decades, the way was paved for the state of Israel.)

I consider this pact significant, because old enemies are now coming together for a murky common “good.” I personally believe that one of those “goods” is the coming alliance against Israel, and specifically, Jerusalem.

The prophet Zechariah’s prophecies concerning the end, and the international attack on Jerusalem, didn’t make complete sense to many, even Bible scholars, for a long time. The international community was too fractured, for too long, to mount any kind of alliance against a small Middle Eastern country. For one thing, the technology didn’t exist to bring about real globalism. Also, regional or international superpowers kept such alliances at bay.

Now, with only a single fading superpower in our world today, alliance strategies are forming. Most have a common denominator: displeasure with Israel. Somehow, just as in Nazi Germany, the Jews are responsible for the ills in our world. Eyes from all directions are literally turning toward Jerusalem.

A Jerusalem Post piece recently discussed how the Palestinians are making some type of permanent settlement virtually impossible (okay, totally impossible). The Arabs have a vested interest in creating unrest in the region until they achieve their maximum goal: the destruction of Israel by war or demographic means. A bi-national state, such an insane thought only a few short years ago, is being bandied about. And don’t forget, only a few short decades ago, a Palestinian state was crazy talk to all but a few academics and politicians. Now it is mainstream.

Yet the Palestinian Authority, along with kindred spirits Hamas and Hezbollah, are clearly undermining peace efforts.

The crown jewel in all this intrigue of course, is Jerusalem itself. For at least 30 years, the international community has resented Israel’s control over the Holy City. Because they do not embrace a biblical world view, the nations demand that Israel cede control of at least half of the city to the Palestinians. This is heating-up, my friends, and I maintain that it is a key piece in the end-times puzzle.

Benjamin Netanyahu has just declared in the Knesset that Israel’s right to defense is “under assault.” This is extraordinary, and unprecedented. The international noose is tightening around Israel.

Now, at the same time, it is my personal belief that a spiritual darkness is spreading over our world; certainly this is the case in the U.S. I see the two linked, because Zechariah indicates that Israel will be totally alone in the end, from a national alliance standpoint. I am stating the obvious in saying that Barack Obama is no friend of Israel. He has very little biblical world view, and his intense pressures on Israel, especially behind the scenes I’m told, are withering.

How sad we’ve come to this, but my friends, there is glory in these dark days, because our faith is being tested and refined. A dear friend who never asks for help just emailed me about his wife’s health and some financial pressures they are under. This is a godly man who loves the Lord and loves Israel.

We must lift each other up and we must look eastward, toward that real City on a Hill, Jerusalem, where our redemption is drawing nigh.

A very close friend and I were talking this week; he is a very solid, discerning guy. He told me that he senses a real turning away from Israel by individuals and churches. Sadly, I agree with him.

The sand in the hourglass for Jerusalem is quickly running out, and I am not given to hype. The current Israeli prime minister, himself a combat veteran, is warning that Israel is being squeezed in a diabolical way. Yet Zechariah leaves a bundle of hope in his prophecies: a) the Lord God of Israel will fight for her in her hour of need; and b) Israel will have sons who fight for her in her hour of need.

It is coming. I feel it, and you feel it. Global alliances are forming, even between bitter enemies. When Turkey and Armenia sign a pact, you know the Battle for Jerusalem is not far off.

Let us pray fervently for Israel, the Jews, and for ourselves. Let us bind each other up in prayer and exhort the remnant of believers to stand. Darkness and light are swirling around us, and we are about to find out what we really believe.

Thank you, Lord, for allowing us to see these days. Come quickly. Amen.

jim@prophecymatters.com

 

Oct 12

The God of Israel Watches

Today’s column will be a bit more personal. I honestly feel compelled to do it.

Several years ago, I was visiting with a friend who lives in Samaria, what Brian Williams, the New York Times, and Barack Obama know as the “West Bank.”

In point of fact, the heart of Israel is the biblical, ancestral land known in the Bible as Judea/Samaria, or the Land of Israel.

We were walking my friend’s property; she is a religious Jew (Judaism) and very friendly with evangelicals. This was during the period when the Gaza pullout was going on and there was a real fear among Jews and evangelicals that somehow, God’s plans would be thwarted (not exactly their words) by a Palestinian state.

So that you’ll know, I do not subscribe to this theory, nor do I subscribe to the theory that Iran can obliterate Israel. Scripture tells us that no weapon formed against Israel will prosper; it won’t work.

This is a fundamental issue that goes to the heart of our faith. It’s not only easy, but joyful, to have great faith in the midst of a worship session during a pro Israel conference, or when your pastor preaches a pro Israel message (a more uncommon occurrence today).

What isn’t easy is believing the Bible when your faith is tested in some way. It’s not easy when you listen to Islamist psychos declare that they’ll bury Israel and the West. I seem to remember a certain Soviet premier banging his shoe on the podium at the UN, bragging about what the Russian Bear would do to the U.S. His body has been rotting in the ground for many years now; we’re still here.

For a long time now, Israel’s enemies have plotted her destruction. Read Psalm 83 or Ezekiel 36. Everyone is always going to teach the Jews a lesson.

Now, we have biblical promises too that those who support Israel will be blessed. No question. But does that mean we won’t face troubles, persecutions? I don’t think so.

A few years ago, I got serious about my support for Israel. I have not had many peaceful days since then. In 2003, the publisher I worked for created a publishing division, Balfour Books, that is specifically pro Israel. Jewish and Christian authors who write on a variety of issues.

I left that publisher a few years later. This summer, I bought Balfour Books from them. My aim is to continue publishing and promoting books that teach people about Israel, ancient and modern. We have published books like Entebbe, about the famous hostage rescue, and God’s Covenant with Israel, a terrific history book for the layman.

However, I feel the opposition. It is daily. Weird things happen, like orders ship and get lost, and it should be routine. Actually, a multitude of strange things happen and they cannot be coincidence. I have many friends in publishing, and while they have challenges, they do not have the challenges that Balfour Books has. That’s a fact. I could list a whole slew of setbacks, but will give you just one example:

One day I had finally made contact with a well-known Israeli and, via email, was about to set an appointment with him on my next Israel visit. I set down my coffee cup when an email popped up from this person’s secretary. I clicked on the email and…my computer went dead. It was fried. Computer crash. I had not backed-up my hard drive in a few days, so I lost the contact name and could not get back in touch with them.

I guess that book project didn’t need to be published!

The economy is also a factor, obviously. Families buy groceries before they buy books and I understand. I do that, as well!

But we are alive and books are in the warehouse and orders are coming in. I hope you will check us out at www.balfourstore.com. If you email me, I’ll send you our new catalog via email. If you would be so kind, if you like what you see, please forward our website and catalog along to like-minded friends. It all helps.

I will tell you without hesitation that saving myself the hassle of nursing along a small publishing house that promotes Israel is stressful. I often fantasize about running a lawn-care business. But I bought and promote Balfour because of my visit with my Israeli friend, in the land of her forefathers.

It was a cloudy day, rainy. She wrapped her sweatered arms around herself, tight. We looked at the valley below, and then to the hills, dotted now with Jewish homes — just as Isaiah and the other prophets predicted. She looked at me and pressed a hand to her heart.

“We have difficulties, Jim; we have many enemies. But I know — I know — that the Messiah is very close.”

My friend does not, for the moment, believe in the same Messiah I do. But she is part of His people. And I know that this life’s present difficulties pale in comparison to seeing Him one day soon.

jim@prophecymatters.com

 

Oct 5

Tensions Mounting

The clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police in Jerusalem this past week are the clearest indication that the Arabs will never accept a Jewish state.

Ikram al-Sabri, a member of the Islamic High Council of “Palestine,” was arrested and it was thought that he had involvement in the incitement of Palestinians on the Temple Mount.

One of the most glaring omissions from media reports is the fact of Arab intransigence. The Palestinians have such a deep hatred of the Israelis that they can’t focus on anything constructive. It is infuriating and sad at the same time. The Arabs as a whole are such emotional people that they have let chance-after-chance for peace slip through their fingers.

Take the Temple Mount, for instance. Known as Haram al-Sharif to the Arabs, who believe the prophet Muhammad visited the area, the compound is rich with history. The area, of course, is known in the Bible as the threshing floor that David purchased, and the place where Abraham was prepared to sacrifice Isaac — Mount Moriah.

So the place has history.

In 2000, Ariel Sharon visited the Temple Mount and so enraged Palestinians — with his mere presence — that the “Second Intifada,” a Palestinian-led violence movement cheered-on by Yasser Arafat’s clapping, blood-soaked hands, erupted.

In the recent protests, in which 18 policeman were injured along with 15 protesters, one Palestinian complained that it doesn’t matter what his people do; the Israelis control the area and can decide to bar Arabs from praying at the site.

Not when I’ve been there. Imagine being a pilgrim from abroad and your chief goal is to visit the Temple Mount. You approach one of the huge, green wooden doors manned by police. You are told the area is closed to visitors, yet thousands of Palestinians stream in and out.

I’ve managed two visits; the second one was very frustrating, as I strolled the plaza area between the Al-Aksa Mosque and the golden Dome of the Rock. Looking down in anticipation of seeing the ancient paving stones that provided a path for the Lord and His disciples, I was disgusted to see them being pulled up, replaced with new stones. The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to erase Jewish history from Jerusalem.

They also believe the “Al-Aksa Mosque” is a mosque, when in fact it was a Byzantine church hundreds of years before Muhammad’s alleged (and undocumented) visit.

What I’m trying to say is that the Muslims, as they do in every other place, believe that Jerusalem and in particular the Temple Mount belong to Allah. In other words, Dar-al-Islam. If any such territory is Dar-al-Harb (the House of the Infidel), such as Milwaukee, or my house, or west Jerusalem, then said territory must be conquered for Allah.

Insane.

The riots in Jerusalem are simply the product of an angry, irrational people who hate Jews and Christians. In 1990, a huge protest on the Mount attracted international coverage, as Palestinians dropped rocks off the Temple Mount onto worshippers at the Western Wall. You see, the Palestinians do such things because they refuse to get along. It is a supremely arrogant mindset that is difficult to process. This is one explanation for why media figures fawn over the Arabs and sneer at the Jews. It’s self-preservation.

Just know that when you hear a news account from Israel, you are probably being lied to. I recently reviewed the book Muslim Mafia (by David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry) for WorldNetDaily. Gaubatz made the fascinating point that in his early dealings with Muslims in Washington D.C., he had been fooled by their claims of moderation.

In fact, he now calls them “terrorists in suits” and the description is dead-on (pardon the pun). He also says that these front groups for terrorists will tell bald-faced lies to the American public and politicians. In fact, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both hosted such types often.

So when you hear that Israel did something to push the Palestinians to the breaking point…no, they didn’t. It simply means that the Palestinian Authority, working in conjunction with Hamas, etc., has merely created more Marxist-type propaganda to demonize Israel.

Think about this: if you were a small kid on a playground and you encountered a dozen thuggish kids…would you provoke them? Such is the case with Israel. A few million Jews have no interest in stirring-up hundreds of millions of Muslims. Why would they do it? Because they haven’t died enough in previous persecutions?

This is simple logic that helps us understand the real story in the Middle East, as it relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict.

I will say this: incidents like the recent protests in east Jerusalem are all pushing us in the direction of Zechariah’s prophecies, which tell us quite clearly that one day, gentiles will have had their final fill of the Jews. And they will attack.

The attackers will be destroyed, because the Lord keeps His promises. He also tells us elsewhere that He takes no pleasure in their deaths. It is a tragedy.

Let us pray for all the people in that volatile region. Including the Palestinians, that they will see the truth.

jim@prophecymatters.com

Sept 28

Chips: You Can’t Eat Just One

 

 

Interesting piece in the latest Jerusalem Report magazine. It seems because of crime and the broader threat, terrorism, that famous Israeli ingenuity is coming up with a way to track everyone: Biometric Database.

 

Ziv Hellman’s article begins with a hypothetical situation that is probably all-too-likely: “A terrorist intent on slipping into Israel to join a terrorist cell and participate in a massive suicide bombing mission gets off a plane at Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion Airport. He strides confidently towards passport control, clutching a counterfeit Israeli passport, reproduced so expertly that only a microscopic analysis could detect that it is a fake.”

 

Hellman’s scenario concludes thusly: “But an alert official runs a computer program that silently scans the passenger’s face and compares his facial features to a national biometric database of every Israeli passport holder. Within seconds, the official establishes that there is no match. Security officials take the would-be terrorist aside. After ascertaining his true identity, they arrest him. Dozens of lives have been saved.”

 

Now, no one would argue that detecting a terrorist is a bad thing, but notice the chilling comment about the facial scan. The article goes on to a point I’m trying to make (and I’m sure many of you are already ahead of me):

 

“Biometric identification is considered nearly fool-proof because it depends not on an artificial card that can be faked to establish identity, but on a physiological aspects of a person’s body, such as fingerprints, face recognition, DNA, palm geometry or iris recognition, that are unique to each individual, permanently on the body, and very difficult to fake.”

 

Whether humans like it or not, this technology is going to be shoved down our collective throats. Chip technology and identification technologies that are essentially customized will be here soon; how ironic that it is also being developed in Israel, that great scene of the finality of world history.

 

For many years, prophecy students and teachers have seen in the book of Revelation a future technology that will facilitate antichrist’s reign of terror. The description of this mark in Revelation 13 is very famous and many have commented on it. I have nothing dramatic to add, except when I read this in the Jerusalem Report, it struck a nerve because it is a reminder that antichrist will cause “all” (Revelation 13:16) to receive a mark in their right hand or forehead.

 

The biometric technology in Israel — along with other similar technologies that have described by prophecy teachers for years — are another indication that the Bible, far from a goofy book of myths…is in fact something far different. This is exciting! Aren’t you tired of the decay of this world?

 

Of course, many evangelical commentators, such as Mark Noll and Rob Bell, discount the idea that Revelation and other prophetic books are anything but symbolic for the early Church. How very, very wrong they are.

 

As has been pointed out before, you can read Revelation in one of two ways: it’s future, or it’s past. The Preterists, we know what they think. But if you read through the book of Revelation and understand it as yet future, it makes a great deal of sense. Especially chapter 12 is intriguing, as one can readily see that it is Israel that is being discussed. She delivered the child — the Messiah — and the Dragon pursues her with a vengeance.

 

It’s symbolic, all right. Of Israel and the current-and-soon-to-be-future Middle East.

 

The biometric technology is just one indicator.

 

jim@prophecymatters.com

Sept 21

West Jerusalem

 

 

Overwhelmingly, the key feature of modern Jerusalem is its sensational fulfillment of Bible prophecy.

 

As I’ve related before, I was once strolling through a museum in the Old City, when I happened upon the plainest-but-most-important display in the building: a plaque reference to Zechariah 2:4, in which we are told that in the last days, Jerusalem will be “inhabited as villages without walls.”

 

From outside Jaffa Gate in the Old City, one can look west and see a thriving metropolis that looks like many others…until you realize that by spilling out over the Old City walls, Jerusalem today is a spectacular confirmation of Scripture.

 

There is much more in the western part of the city, with the Israeli seat of government, the Knesset, the prime minister’s residence, fabulous hotels, and the Shrine of the Book (where the Dead Sea Scrolls are held).

 

An interesting aside about the prime minister’s residence: I was once walking through the city — for some reason — and I almost walked right onto the grounds; I hadn’t been paying too much attention. This was when Sharon was in office and the Gaza Pullout was being readied. The security around the place was incredible. This beautiful residential area was teeming with police and IDF soldiers.

 

Upon traveling from the airport at Tel Aviv (Ben Gurion), you enter Jerusalem from the west, traversing steep streets and spotting building after building made from the famous Jerusalem stone, a sturdy limestone building material.

 

In fact, one doesn’t think of the city as particularly beautiful, given the fact that it has such a special place in God’s plan. Yet the place pulsates with meaning.

 

On my first visit, as the taxi came closer to my hotel, I instinctively knew I was getting close to the fabled Old City . I took it as a particular kindness toward me, but God allowed me to see the place for the first time as dusk approach; the floodlights at the base of the Old City walls illuminated it in breathtaking fashion.

 

On Ben Yehuda Street , not terribly far from the Old City , but still on the western side, one can stroll through an outdoor mall of sorts. Honestly, this was the scene of some suicide bombings in the ‘90s, but all is calm now. Ben Yehuda Street slopes downward and has the usual tourist t-shirt shops, but more interesting ones, as well, including an army surplus store.

 

At the end of the street is a Steimatsky’s Book Store. It was there I first found my beloved copy of Yoni’s Last Battle, the detailed account of the famous Entebbe raid.

 

Another aside, this one funny: I was in this Steimatsky’s once with my late friend and mentor, David Lewis. As we prepared to pay for our purchases and leave, I noticed that David had a copy of the German magazine, Der Spiegel. I was impressed.

 

“Wow, David,” I began, “I didn’t know you know German.”

 

“I don’t,” he answered a little sheepishly before brightening, “But there are some great articles in here!”

 

By the way, eating a bagel on Ben Yehuda Street (named after the scholar who revived the ancient Hebrew language in the last century) is as good as it gets. A friend drove me through the area one day and pointed out old buildings that are now apartments. “It was there we smuggled weapons during the War of Independence,” he muttered.

 

Should you visit Jerusalem , I’d recommend trying to avoid some of the American-style hotels, simply because you can get that at home. Look instead for others with more character (and a higher price tag). The American Colony, The Mount Zion, of course the King David. There are several hostels available too that are adequate and most important, cheap.

 

There is no other city like it in all the world. If you don’t see it in this life, you most assuredly will in the next!

 

jim@prophecymatters.com

 



Sept 14

Our Tour Continues

Where did I leave off last week on our Jerusalem tour? Oh yes, east Jerusalem.

The area that contains the Temple Mount, the most fascinating patch of ground on Earth, is also home to thousands of Palestinians today. As you walk the perimeter of the Old City, you see Arab vendors, taxi drivers, and…Israeli soldiers and police. The old walls of the Old City contain gates of entry, including Damascus Gate, Dung Gate, and Jaffa Gate.

As you stroll south, the slope becomes steeper. The southeast side in particular is worth lingering over, as I always do. Throughout Jerusalem, steep hills and valleys give the place a larger “feel” than one would normally feel. On the eastern side of the Old City is the famed Eastern Gate, sealed up until the Messiah appears (it really is; hundreds of years ago a Muslim ruler heard about the biblical prediction that the Jewish messiah would enter the gate in the end of days. He had it bricked-up!).

Also on the eastern side is the more obscure Lion’s Gate, through which the Israel Defense Forces entered just before capturing the Temple Mount in the Six Day War. A plaque just outside the gate commemorates the event, and it is strange to see it in a largely Muslim area now.

The walls seem to blend into the surrounding terrain as the landscape slides into the Kidron Valley. As one passes through a vast Jewish cemetery on the slopes of the Mount of Olives, one can see the pinnacle of the place. This is where Jesus will return and every time I’m in the city, I spend a good deal of time just looking at it. By the way, a century ago the area was a barren wasteland; it is now green and flowering!

Across from the southern edge of the Old City is the Mount Zion Hotel, a very nice place to stay. From my room one night, I peered into the valley below, the famed Valley of Gehenna, where trash burned and sacrifices burned in ancient times. I sat one evening in the hotel lobby, chatting with a journalist friend, and I found myself constantly looking behind her, at the valley and the actual walls of the city, flood-lit.

Nearby is the traditional place of Judas’s death.

North of the Old City is a teeming area of shops, the (William) Albright Institute for Archaeology, and, most serenely, the Garden Tomb and Golgotha.

Just north of this is the famous American Colony Hotel, a former pasha’s home that was renovated some years ago. It has all the look and feel of the film “Casablanca.” An inner courtyard routinely sees journalists, politicians, and World Bank execs sitting at intimate tables, sipping the thick black soup the Arabs call coffee.

One night I ventured into the downstairs bar, a cave-like setting in the bowels of the hotel. There, on any given night, one can chat with CNN reporters, newspaper editors and the aforementioned World Bank types. There are also flyers on the lobby counter that invite journalists to learn Arabic and take Palestinian-led tours around the country. This gives you some insight as to why the networks push Arab propaganda.

The American Colony is on Nablus Road, and the area was the ancient route to Damascus. Today, tree-lined streets carry thousands of Palestinians to and fro. The last time I was there I watched a young boy pick up a loaf of bread that had fallen below his cart; it had landed in the middle of the street, which, I will not go into further detail, is grossly dirty. He picked it up and put it back on the cart.

Let’s circle back to the western side. If you ever visit Israel, and Jerusalem in particular, you simply must eat at Darna, a restaurant owned and operated by Moroccan Jews. I don’t even remember what I ate, but it was sensational!

Back in the Old City itself (and here I am referencing the entrance at Jaffa Gate), one can see the Petra Hotel, where it is reputed that Mark Twain once stayed during his 1867 visit. Today, adventurous (mostly young) tourists can book rooms very cheaply.

And remember, when you enter through Jaffa Gate, you are taking the same route as that of the British General Allenby, when he entered as the conquerer of the Ottoman Turks in 1917, heralding the beginnings of the state of Israel. Once the Ottomans were no longer running the show, Bible prophecy students rightly surmised that the last days were indeed here!

Just a few feet away is the Christ Church Guest House. The first Protestant church in the area, the complex is home to a small staff that maintains a very nice bed-and-breakfast. Spartan-but-clean and comfortable rooms (don’t plan on watching a nice flat-screen if you stay here) are steps away from a very nice breakfast area. The whole place is a perfect launch into the Old City itself. As you pass several Arab shops (Alert! Be careful about buying in these shops; often the price agreed-upon changes when you get ready to pay), you’ll enter a narrow alleyway, which leads into the heart of the Old City.

On your way down toward the Western Wall, you’ll pass dozens and dozens of shops where trinkets and t-shirts are sold. In fact, I usually make a mistake by not loading-up on the cheap t-shirts. I find it amusing and ironic that Palestinian merchants sell IDF shirts.

Another tip: when they try to sell you a necklace made by Bedouin (ancient-looking coin necklaces) and ask $50, just know that by refusing three times and going on your way will yield a sale somewhere under $10. I am a ruthless negotiator in the Old City!

The stone walkways, enclosed on two sides by stone walls that contain wooden doors that look a thousand years old, are cool and blanketed in both shadow and sunlight streaming down. Another caution: the smell is sometimes overpowering: animals, sewage, food, etc. Herbs and spices of all sorts blend with livestock and raw meat that hangs from hooks. On my last trip, I took my wife and she screamed as we made our way through a narrow alleyway with bloody water running like a small stream. Cleanliness is not a priority in this city that the Psalmist said was closely compacted together.

Once you enter the large plaza where the Western Wall is located, you can spend hours watching people: an old Arab hobbling painfully along with a cane, his wool suit looking slightly out of place with his flowing headdress. Israeli soldiers are in abundance. Tourists look like, well, tourists. Just west of the wall is a fabulous archaeological park, where discoveries are constantly made. When the Israelis took the Old City in 1967, they removed tons and tons of soil that had accumulated around the Temple Mount, yielding vast artifact treasures. Even today, one can see shards of pottery sticking out of the ground.

The city deserves its reputation as a fabled center of human activity that just so happens to rest on consecrated ground. Look forward to it, because we will all live there one day!


NEXT WEEK: West Jerusalem!

 

Sept 7


Oh, King David

 

This week’s column is just for fun. That’s a change, isn’t it? Too often we sink and don’t look up from the troubles of this world to see the sun. I thought it might be good to take a stroll in the literal God’s Country, and get a taste of what Jerusalem has to offer. We might extend this written tour into next week!

 

I start with the King David Hotel. Located a stone’s throw from the Old City, on the western side, the hotel is one of the most famous in the world. If you ever have the opportunity to visit Israel (CAUTION: expensive suggestion dead-ahead), you simply must stay at the King David.

 

This multi-storied structure, on a tree-lined street filled with boutiques (and just a couple doors down from the newer-but-no-less-swank David Citadel), has been the hotel destination of choice for the rich and famous for decades. I stayed once, for three days. It remains one of the highlights of my life.

 

(For an idea on room rates, let’s just say you could stay in a Super 8 for five nights for what it will cost you per night at the King David.)

 

Entering a fairly small door, you walk into a reservations desk area and lobby that is famous for its Babylonian-style motif. Plenty of soft-cushion couches and chairs make for cozy meetings. One morning, I went down early and sat in a side room and just stared at it all for an hour.

 

Each wing contains rooms that make you think you are in a ‘40s film noir. Maybe Humphrey Bogart is standing near a window. I chose to stay in a room that looks out on the Old City, with its golden walls shining in the morning sun. Palm trees look over a grassy pool area.

 

Inside again, one can stroll down the hall corridors and see the signatures of famous guests in the floor. They’re all there: Churchill, Israeli prime ministers, Jimmy…Carter (sorry).

 

Exiting, you can hail a cab from a Jewish driver who can get you into Bethlehem. The way it works is, he drops you off at a village on the outskirts of the now-Palestinian city, and an Arab driver then takes you in. A day of shopping and a visit to the Church of the Nativity is topped off with an evening of elegant dining at the King David.

 

One last thing about this grand place: the breakfast buffet is unlike anything I’ve ever seen anywhere. Simply stunning. Much to Dianna’s chagrin, I gobbled up pickled herring, pastries, caviar, cheeses…well, the list is long.

 

Stay at the King David!

 

On the short walk to the Old City, you’ll pass pricey apartments mostly occupied by well-to-do Jews who have either made aliyah, or who spend part of their time in the fabled city, and part of the time in New York.

 

Nearby is the old community that gets my heart beating faster because it fulfilled Bible prophecy. In the mid-19th century, Moses Montefiore built dwellings outside the Old City walls — the first of their kind — to encourage people to populate outside the walls of the ancient city. This speaks to Zechariah 2:4, and so you can stand with a cup of coffee in the morning (as I once did at the nearby Mount Zion Hotel) and stare at fulfilled prophecy. It is my answer to kooky liberal scholars who mock the idea of Bible prophecy.

 

Upon entering the Old City, you immediately have all your senses heightened. The smells of food, animals, and odorous habitation in close quarters let you know you’ve never been anywhere like this before. An archaeological park at the base of the Temple Mount brings the ancient right up to the modern, as tourists snap pictures and stroll near giant blocks of stone pushed over the side by the 10th Roman Legion during the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

 

As a matter of fact, you can look at the Temple Mount from a higher elevation — say, the Jewish quarter — and see more fulfilled prophecy, in this case, Matthew 24. When Jesus said not one stone would be left upon another, that’s exactly what He meant. If you see the Temple Mount in the mind’s-eye of a first-century visitor (that is, minus the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aksa Mosque, and various outbuildings), you will see a Mount that is scraped clean and smooth. Those aforementioned stones start the mind clicking and you see that Jesus’ prediction happened exactly as He said it would.

 

In the Old City, you will see a teeming boil of cultures and religions: the Muslim Quarter, the Jewish Quarter, the Christian Quarter, the Armenian Quarter. Once, I was strolling along and looked up to see a Coptic Christian — his black robes and hood flowing in the breeze. I pointed my camera at me and I could only see his eyes looking back at me. He slowly waved an index finger back and forth; don’t take my picture. The Copts — Egyptians who are Christian — are among the tiny minorities trying to survive in the Middle East cauldron.

 

I’ll finish today’s discussion with a view of East Jerusalem, in which the Old City unfortunately “rests.” In East Jerusalem, often called the Arab section of Jerusalem, patrols of Jewish soldiers and police keep the peace. Among the thousands of people walking the streets are Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives who blend in and look like everyone else. They might be shop keepers or whatever.

 

Everywhere you look is old stone. Sidewalks, streets, buildings. If the place was empty of modern conveniences like vehicles…it looks little changed from biblical times. The hills are dotted with shepherds and sheep. Ancient structures break up the split between the Judean Hills and the Samarian Hills, the former barren and the latter beginning to green as one looks north toward the lush country.

NEXT WEEK: Continuing the tour of Jerusalem

 

jim@prophecymatters.com

 

 

Aug 31

The Christian Brown Shirts

In the not-too-distant-past, I received an email from a ministry leader who took exception to something I had written. This person indicated that he was severing our friendship (we were never friends), and his ire was raised because he doesn’t like my views on Israel.

That’s my loose interpretation.

The problem for him is that I don’t care what he thinks. If European Christians hadn’t embraced the anti-Semitic views of various scholars, politicians, and members of the clergy, the Holocaust wouldn’t have happened.

I will say this clearly: I do have a problem with Christians who don’t like Jews or Israel. That’s a general statement, but there’s plenty of evidence that tons of Christians — a growing number of evangelicals — have a bone to pick with Jews.

Often, it centers around the fact that relatively large numbers of Jews don’t respond well to evangelism, to the Gospel message. Of course, if it weren’t tragic, my phrase “large numbers of Jews” would be comical. Most of them were stuffed into ovens in Christian Europe a mere 60 years ago.

The majority of Christians are ignorant of the fact that persecution of Jews — by Christians and “Christian” nations — has been the worst possible calling card for evangelists who are out to convert Jews. Take Martin Luther, for example.

The leader of the Reformation started out friendly to the Jews. Then he tried to convert them. When they didn’t respond well, he turned on them. Luther’s comments about Jews later in his life sound like a transcript from a Nazi rally. Germany had 400 years to ingest Luther’s Jew-hatred.

You can guess the rest.

As I’ve said before, one’s spiritual heritage leaves an indelible stamp. For example, if I grew up in the Word of Faith movement, I’d tend to believe it’s valid. If I grew up Lutheran, the chances are good that I wouldn’t be pro Israel.

It’s just the way things are.

But where Israel is concerned (and by extension, Bible prophecy), there is a growing hostility coming from the Christians. This week, a famous American Christian, former Georgia Governor Jimmy Carter, announced that in order to advance the “peace process,” Israel would have to work with Hamas. As in, Hamas that wants to wipe Israel off the map.

Although they aren’t in the mainstream, there are quite a few Christian leaders who are now working with Sabeel, the radical Palestinian organization in Israel that demonizes the Jewish state. American Christian colleges are populated by professors who decry “the occupation,” and minimize Arab terrorism. Institutions like Fuller and Wheaton come to mind.

What I find particularly disturbing is the widespread indifference, or outright dislike of Jews and Israel in the American church. This is exactly the path Germany found herself on only decades ago.

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, they began implementing all sorts of evil policies to control the state. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The one group most demonized, of course, was the Jews.

A fascinating fact about this era centers around the Nazis’ attempts to sanitize the Hebrews from Scripture. Now, of course, we know how absurd this is. The Savior of the world is a Jew. The Bible was written by Jews, about Jews.

Still, the Jews had plenty of willing executioners.

In an extraordinary book, The Holocaust and the Christian World, we learn that “Seventh Day Adventists offered an immediate public statement of nationalism and support for the Party. They implemented changes to remove the language of the Hebrew Scriptures from their liturgy.”

Amazing! They had company.

In the so-called German Christian movement, pro-Nazi Christians “embraced Nazism and tried to Nazify Christianity by suppressing the Old Testament, revising liturgics and hymns, and promoting Jesus as an Aryan hero who embodied the idea of the new Germany.” Further, it is noted that “Centuries of Christian anti-Jewish teachings served as a precursor to Nazi anti-Semitism.” Two-thirds of the German population was Protestant, and they served the killing machine that wiped-out European Jewry.

This systematic effort to marginalize the Jews, within Christendom, was diabolical and deadly effective. Hear again from the authors of The Holocaust and the Christian World:

“The negation of Jewish existence, which the Christian churches had symbolized in their liturgy and doctrines, their sermons and teaching materials helped to produce an endless series of persecutions and pogroms.”

It is interesting that just as America has followed England’s lead by allowing Darwinian philosophy to put deep roots into society (British churches are virtually museums today), so too is America following the wider European path of presenting the Jews as “Other.” The American church is contributing to this in a big way.

There are very influential forces in Christendom that don’t like Jews, and they don’t like Israel. They do not say this publicly, of course. But they are the spiritual heirs to the thugs who bludgeoned Jews in the streets of Germany, on their way to transport trains.

I would encourage you to pay close attention to pastors, ministries, and evangelists, and notice their stance on Israel. That will telegraph in a big way where their hearts are.

If your church would like to hear apologetics teaching that speaks to these and many other issues, contact us at Prophecy Matters; we’d love to conduct a seminar for you, emphasizing the whole counsel of God.

He loves the Jews.

jim@prophecymatters.com

Aug 24

Our fall/winter speaking slots are filling up at Prophecy Matters. If your church would be interested in hosting a dynamic seminar dealing with prophecy/Israel/apologetics/creationism, drop us a line at info@prophecymatters.com. See you there or in the sky!

Erasing Israel

(Today is my 100th column for RaptureReady. I’d like to publicly thank Todd and Terry for their faithfulness, graciousness, and friendship. Todd has promised to bake me a cyber-cake.)

Supporting Israel is a complex proposition. Which probably explains why most people would rather watch television and crunch Crunch ‘N Munch.

I visited a church with friends this past Sunday. The people were nice, sincere, and energetic. The church is evangelical and emphasizes praise and worship music and Holy Spirit living.

I’m pretty sure the pastor and members would enthusiastically say that they are pro Israel.

Yet the pastor based his message on the passages in 1 Samuel that detail David’s ascendancy to the throne, over Saul. You know the story.

The sermon was something about Christians today walking the earth as kings. Then there was some information given from the “Kansas City Prophets.”

The point I’d like to make is that the vast majority of sermons I hear today that are preached from the Old Testament tend to spiritualize Scripture, or twist the context of a passage to fit a certain theology. Even in pro Israel churches. I sat there and wondered, “Why can’t he just preach the passage as an historical event and strengthen modern Israel ’s connection to their ancestors?”

For example, scores of college students today (even in seminaries!) hear that biblical characters were not real people.

Instead, there is usually some weird twist and turn with the text. To pull just one example from the fairly recent past: I was reading an issue of Charisma magazine some years ago and noticed an ad for a Rodney Howard-Browne speaking event. The Australian evangelist is known for his metaphysical slant on preaching. He is, as some would say, “over the top.”

The ad touted his new sermon series on Ezekiel 37. This of course is the famous “Dry Bones” chapter, in which God tells the prophet what is going to happen to Israel.

Browne, who I believe would identify himself as pro Israel without question, was using the Dry Bones theme to state that dead, dry churches could be resurrected. This stance on Ezekiel 37 is very, very popular in American churches today, and has been for some time. And that is across-the-board: evangelical, mainline, etc. Preachers love to use the chapter in a spiritual context, rather than as an historical one; people love to sit in the pew and think about how their church is going to transition from “dry, dead bones” to renewed life.

Then they all go to lunch and forget about it until the next revival.

I would argue that Ezekiel 37 has nothing at all to do with the Church, and the thought is not original with me. Spurgeon and others in the past preached that the passage is meant for the “House of Israel.” Quite ironically, God Himself says in the chapter that it refers to the House of Israel.

But that’s not good enough for today’s shepherds, who are harming their flocks with horrid teaching.

It’s like reading The Call of the Wild and declaring that it’s the best novel about 21st century American suburban life that you’ve ever read.

Spiritualizing Ezekiel 37 (and hundreds of others that address Israel specifically) is a subtle, yet dangerous threat. First, it disconnects modern Israel from her ancestors. Second, it grows the number of Christians who are totally ignorant about Israel and the Jews, particularly as they relate to the end-times.

Would that there were more pastors like Jon Courson. The Oregon-based Courson related an interesting story the other day on the radio.

It seems he encountered a stranger at his church. The man asked if Jon Courson was in. Courson answered that he might be.

The fellow then pulled out a chart that detailed the heresy of “British Israelism.” This teaching alleges that the real Jews today are the Europeans, including Americans. It’s a convoluted teaching that sounds insane (because it is). But it’s one cog in a machine designed to marginalize Israel and the Jews of today.

Courson denounced British Israelism. I’ll bet he doesn’t spiritualize Ezekiel 37.

Of course, there are myriad issues involving Barack Obama’s views on the Middle East, one surely is that he was never taught that the Old Testament is history, especially in its predictive prophecy. This erases any discernment he might have developed.

For instance, Obama can’t hug Egypt ’s Hosni Mubarak enough. The White House staff should place a cot in the Oval Office for Mubarak. Obama believes Egypt is a non-partisan power-broker between Israel and the Palestinians.

Obama’s chaotic world view is blind to the reality of Israel . That’s why he does things like cozy up to Arab dictators. Mubarak’s Egypt is home to the Muslim Brotherhood, which is like Al Qaida’s uncle. Uncle Muslim Brotherhood came from another demented uncle, wahhabism, the forerunner of all radical Islamist groups.

Mubarak of course is more reasonable. For self-serving reasons. He has no interest in direct involvement in terrorism. Why should he? He wears tailored suits and lives in luxury. He’s a jet-setting “statesman.”

But his world view, like Obama’s world view, was born in falsehoods. It is simply a tragedy that in this area, brutal Arab dictators share something in common with gullible (or duplicitous) Americans who have also ingested bad teaching about Israel and the Jews.

It’s why, when you scratch just under the surface, you find that those who openly plot Israel’s destruction (remember Psalm 83?) share much in common ideologically with Jimmy Carter, the editorial staff at Christianity Today, Jim Wallis, and the United Methodist Church.

Sad, sad, sad to say that many evangelical churches — with their spiritualizing/butchering of Scripture — add to the ignorance.

jim@prophecymatters.com

 

 

Aug 17 

Somebody Gets It

I was having dinner with a friend recently; he heads an apologetics ministry. Although it hasn’t been his focus, my friend made what I think is a startling comment.

“I think the major battle today in the spiritual realm, which reflects on our world, is Israel.”

I wanted to sit back and quietly applaud. I smiled.

He gets it.

In Christendom, you will often hear that this subject or that subject is “the most important thing” going on presently. You know what I mean. Marriages. Parenting. Social issues.

Within the evangelical world today — as we’ve discussed here at Israel Watch — there is a movement away from dispensationalism, prophecy, Israel . I should qualify that statement and say that that is my opinion. I travel and read widely and keep in touch with a whole score of folks, and it seems to me that there is not only a great deal of misinformation out there about the Jewish state, but just bald-faced ignorance, as well.

Pastors, in general, do not touch Bible prophecy in the pulpit. Let me say this plainly: that is irresponsible.

Some are genuinely concerned that the issue is a distraction, or divisive. I hear that a lot.

And then some are the pastors who have “crept in unawares.” They have no intention of rightly dividing the Word of truth; they have contempt for Scripture.

And they’re not going to tell their congregations that in so many words. They will smile and engage in easy conversation, and be “pastoral.”

But they do not believe the Bible is the Word of God. Consequently, the great doctrines of scripture — God created the world out of nothing, Israel is key to His end-times plan, etc. — are sanitized from sermons and Sunday school lessons.

Then there are entire ministries — I’ll name them — that either shy away from prophecy/Israel, or have outright contempt for it.

As the Band’s Robbie Robertson once said about an entirely different subject, there are reasons for this; it didn’t just “fall out of the sky.”

Usually, Christians from Reformed backgrounds are anti-Israel, anti-dispensationalism. Lutherans, by and large, are still devoted to Martin Luther, who, I’ll put it delicately, had a problem with the Jews.

Other mainline churches are so steeped in German Higher Criticism and Replacement Theology that they don’t realize Jesus is a Jew. They think He was a Palestinian.

The late D. James Kennedy, a Presbyterian, at least did not emphasize the miraculous nature of Israel ’s modern return. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe he supported Israel ’s right to exist, but he would not have embraced predictive prophecy. I’d like to point out that I highly respected Kennedy, by the way.

Another massive ministry that de-emphasizes (my word) the study of predictive prophecy and Israel’s role in the world is Answers in Genesis. The (near) Cincinnati-based apologetics ministry is in reality a creationism juggernaut. The Creation Museum is a mind-boggling facility that would rival any natural history museum in America.

But they don’t touch Bible prophecy. They do not see Israel for the significant miracle that it is, in my opinion.

(Interestingly, several leading prophecy teachers do teach the whole counsel of God; these include the peerless David Reagan and Dave Hunt. What many creationists do not understand is that many Bible prophecy guys are their friends on the subject of creationism. My great friend Tommy Ice is another that comes to mind.)

The point I’m trying to make is that the whole Bible is vital if individuals are to discover where they came from, who they are, and where they’re going.

I’m convinced to my core that Christians in the pews in America are starving for a comprehensive Bible message, one that teaches Genesis through Revelation. Now, the Calvary Churches do this, “simply teaching the Bible simply.” I wrote about this in the August edition of the Jerusalem Post’s Christian magazine.

But they don’t have much company.

(One creationist/apologist who gets it is Thomas Sharp of Creation Truth Foundation. His two-part talk at the Tulsa Prophecy Conference last April electrified the crowd. Dr. Sharp linked origins issues with prophecy and by golly, the crowd got it and loved it.)

What most Christians get today is a steady diet of teachers like Hank Hanegraaff, who are “good” on certain issues. After all, Hank has set himself up as the “Bible Answer Man.”

But pay attention to his answers on the subject of Bible prophecy. If you love Israel , those answers will scare you. Or infuriate you.

The key thing we have to keep in mind is, even conservative Bible teachers will fall victim to preconceived biases concerning Scripture. For example, an apologetics teacher who is spot-on concerning origins issues (I am an unabashed young-earth creationist) will also have been turned against Jews at some time in the past. It might have been a father, a Sunday school teacher, a college professor — in a Christian college!

But that bias will color how they read their Bibles. My point here is that with some Christian teachers, there is a deep bias against the Jews. I do not mean they are anti-Semitic, most are not. What I do mean is that they don’t “get” Israel.

I studied a fair amount of English in school, and have a journalism degree. When I sit down to read my Bible, I see very clear distinctives: God created the world in six days; the original common language was changed at Babel ; He elected to form a righteous ethnic group from Abraham; Moses existed and the Exodus happened. Et cetera.

I then logically can follow the rest of history’s timeline, seeing that many, many times in Scripture, God told us that Israel would be dispersed due to unbelief, but that in the “last days” they would return en masse and re-settle their ancestral lands.

Look, this isn’t complicated. You can get on a plane and land in Tel Aviv and drive thirty minutes east and see all the fulfilled Bible prophecy you can stomach. Millions of Jews live there, in thousands of homes. They are there. They are hated by the whole world. Jerusalem is a point of major contention in embassies around the world.

It isn’t complicated. Bible prophecy is true and relevant for our lives.

It’s just too bad more teachers don’t teach that.

jim@prophecymatters.com

 

 

Aug 10

Can Bill Clinton Go to Gaza?

Don’t get me wrong; it’s great that the 42nd president made an “unscheduled” visit to North Korea to obtain the freedom of two journalists held by the psycho dictator Kim Jong-il. Two female reporters had been held on vague charges of spying, and sentenced to 12 years of hard labor.

But Bill Clinton buttressed his wife’s State Department efforts and showed up with a private plane to whisk the women to freedom.

Too bad no one will fly to Gaza and demand Gilad Shalit’s freedom. The Israeli soldier is entering his fourth year as a captive of Hamas, the murderous Palestinian terror group.

Shalit’s kidnapping and subsequent captivity is outrageous. It has brought untold grief to his family. Israel is frustrated.

And that’s the point.

Hamas has followed the lead of Hezbollah and others in kidnapping and holding foreigners, particularly Israelis. The family of Ron Arad, the downed Israeli pilot during the 1982 Lebanon War, has been put through pointless agony by Hezbollah, for a quarter-century. No one outside Lebanon knows what happened to Arad.

When the Arabs can’t defeat Israel on the battlefield — a consistent rub for the pan-Arab nation — they do what they can to inflict misery.

And the world does…not…care.

If you scan the news each day, you will not notice any diplomats anywhere offering to travel to Gaza to free Shalit. There are important groups pushing for his release. The International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem comes to mind. Kudos to them.

For the most part, though, Shalit languishes in some unknown location inside the immoral cesspool known as Gaza.

It is a hallmark of our immoral age that “statesmen” like Clinton, Jimmy Carter, and George H.W. Bush won’t lift a finger to free Shalit. In fact, Carter’s evident dislike of Israelis would of course preclude him from doing such a thing. But it doesn’t keep him from slobbering over Hamas terrorists during his trips to the region.

(Yehuda Avner’s fascinating recollections of the Carter-Begin negotiations are available from the Jerusalem Post online. Anyone interested in knowing how Carter dealt with the Israelis during the Camp David talks would do well to read Avner.)

In my review of Michael Oren’s extraordinary book, Power, Faith, and Fantasy (you can read the review at WorldNetDaily), I note those American presidents and diplomats who were true friends of Israel , from the beginning of our republic until now.

One can track the erosion of support for Israel from the liberal scholars who began to creep into American seminaries in the 19th century. Oren’s fascinating research traced the American elites’ support for the Arabs to…American missionaries in the 19th century. Frustrated by their lack of converts among Muslims in the Holy Land, these missionaries began to lay the groundwork for today’s social gospel work by jettisoning active evangelism in favor of work projects. They also paved the way for Arab nationalism, in an era when the whole region lacked borders and was loosely a pan-Arab nation.

Today, we have more than 20 Muslim nations in the area, practicing mischief on a daily basis.

All that to make this point: the seeds of American meddling in Israel’s affairs — while pressuring the Jewish state to suicide concessions — have now yielded a harvest of diplomats and statesmen who will fly to North Korea to give a photo-op to a psycho, but will always pass up a chance to free Gilad Shalit.

The Lord of History is watching.

jim@prophecymatters.com
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