Israel, Middle East – Prophecy for our times

Will someone come up with a solution to this problem, offering peace and safety, bringing a guarantee such as a peace treaty? If so, would he be hailed as a great world leader?

Israel Politics

Let’s just come on to Israel because Israel was also mentioned in the speech which Guterres gave at the U.N General Assembly. He said,

Obviously, he’s not very sympathetic to Israel’s position there. But this is showing again that the world is interested in what’s going to happen in Israel.

President Biden has expressed the United States’ “great support” for Israel but also says that they’ve got to sort out the Palestinian problem and must work towards the establishment of a Palestinian state.

The current Israeli Prime Minister, a man called Yair Lapid, who’s someone on the left politically and is contesting the coming election, declared at the U.N on the 22nd of September that he supports the two-state solution to the Israel-Palestinian question. He went on to say that Israel has only one condition for the establishment of a Palestinian state:

“That a future Palestinian state would be a peaceful one and will not become another terror base from which to threaten the well-being and the very existence of Israel. That they will still have the ability to protect the security of all the citizens of Israel at all times.“

That’s his condition. Based on that, there’s no Palestinian State coming! Because the possibility of the Palestinian State being a peaceful one is about ‘zero’.

Nevertheless, he was accused by Netanyahu (ex-Prime Minister of Israel) of taking a faux pas by making this statement.

At the UN, Netanyahu is of course, leading the opposition and is probably in line for a small victory in the coming Israeli elections in November.

Netanyahu said that Yair Lapid’s speech was full of weakness, defeat, and surrender. He said that his own, previous right-wing government removed the Palestinian State from the global agenda and then brought four historic peace agreements with Arab countries that bypassed the Palestinian veto.

He accused Lapid of putting Israel in a dangerous position, saying he’s ready to evacuate 90,000 Israelis from the West Bank to establish a Palestinian State. That is from the Israeli settlements.

Netanyahu also says that Lapid now intends to give them (Palestinians) a State of terror in the heart of the country, a State that will threaten us all.

“We will not allow this. We will not allow the establishment of ‘Hamastan’ (i.e., another Gaza) on the border of Kfar Saba, Petach Tikva and Netanya (Israeli towns near the border of the West Bank). We will not return Israel to the Oslo disaster. Lapid endangers our future and our existence both on the Palestinian issue and the Iranian issue.”

Therefore, you’ve got two positions: Netanyahu, obviously more right-wing, and the left-wing people, and it’s going to be one of the issues in the coming month, in the elections in Israel.

As I said, Netanyahu is currently projected to win a narrow victory. It’s not certain but possible.

If he does not win, Lapid will remain in power with a coalition which will have to include some parties which are quite right-wing. So, he too will have a hard job selling the idea of setting up a Palestinian State.

President Abbas, the Palestinian president also addressed the U.N and asked for Palestine to be admitted as a full member of the UN. He accused Israel of not being a serious peace partner.

In fact, the Palestinian Authority is not a very serious peace partner at all. The Palestinian Authority at the present time is under attack itself in the West Bank, in towns like Nablus, where there is currently massive unrest and could well be overthrown and taken over by Hamas which is the terrorist organization that runs in Gaza.

In such case, there will be no possibility of a peace programme with Israel.

Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria (West Bank)

These things are happening now. And all of this has enough bearing upon the last days. If you’ve been to any of my talks, you may know that this place, Jerusalem, is going to be the centre of activity as far as the end-time programme is concerned.

According to the book of Zechariah,

In other words, something is going to happen concerning this city which is going to be on the agenda of all the nations of the world and of the surrounding peoples: the local Jewish population, and the Arab population of Jerusalem.

Who should rule it? Should it be the capital of Israel? Should it be the capital of Palestine? Should it be divided? What should happen to Jerusalem?

At the present time, it’s the capital of Israel. In 1980, Israel passed the Jerusalem Law, declaring ‘Jerusalem complete and united as the capital of Israel’.

This follows the events in 1967 until when Jerusalem had been divided between Israel and Jordan and when the Israelis captured the Old City of Jerusalem the Defence Minister, Moshi Dayan, stood at Western Wall and said,

“The Old City of Jerusalem is in our hands. We have united Jerusalem, the divided capital of Israel. We’ve returned to our holiest places never to depart from it again.”

‘Never to depart from it again’, so, Israel says that ‘we’re not going to move from Jerusalem’. Palestinians reject this. They say that Jerusalem has to be the capital of Palestine or, the Eastern part of it has to be the capital of Palestine and Israel has to withdraw from the settlements in the West Bank, Judea, and Samaria.

If you look at the map, this area here is the West Bank or (Judea and Samaria). It’s right in the heart of Israel. If you know Bible geography, you may know that this is also the heartland of Judea and Samaria, the biblical heartland of Israel: Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Bethel. All those places you read about in the Bible are in Judea and Samaria or the West Bank as it is called currently.

The Palestinian Authority has authority over part of it. They want to have authority over all of it and for Israel to withdraw to the previous borders.

These are very significant for Israel because they are high ground and they look over this area here which is where most of the Jewish population live.

I once went up to the high ground. You get a wonderful view right over the whole of the coast of Israel, you can see from almost up to Haifa down to Ashdod, a great view!

If you control that area, you control what’s going on down below. Israel wants to maintain control of it. It doesn’t want to hand it over to the Palestinian Arabs.

Also, if you go to this area, there’s also the High Ridge of the Jordan Valley which is about 3,000 feet above the Dead Sea area down below. The area that controls the view to the East.

According to Israeli strategists, if they lose this area, they lose their defensive supervision over the ‘temperature’ there is against Israel, as well as this becoming a threat to Jordan and to the rest of the Arab peninsula.

Therefore, Israel is not too keen on withdrawing from this area.

A two-State solution?

A lot of Israelis have lost all faith in the two-state solution, but not all of them. Probably, about 40% still think it’s a viable situation.  They don’t trust the Palestinian Authority and nor should they because the Palestinian Authority continually gives propaganda to its people calling for the destruction of the State of Israel. They educate their children to hate Israel, they encourage terrorism against Israel, they wage terrorism attacks against Israel and, basically, they are not, indeed, a peace partner.

Back in 1974, the PLO, created in 1964 as the Palestine Liberation Organization, developed what they called the Ten Point Plan policy which said that they no longer believed that the Arabs were going to defeat Israel in a war. Therefore, what they had to do was defeat Israel diplomatically, set up an entity in any part of Israel which Israel chose to withdraw from, and then, use that entity whether a state or just a territory as a base from which to dismantle the rest of Israel.

So, you set up an entity on the West Bank and Gaza, then you use that to dismantle what remains of Israel. And, in 1993, with the Oslo Accords, it caused the PLO to apparently recognize Israel’s right to exist, apparently abandoning this programme.

But the Israelis think the PLO never did that, they think it was a bluff and they still want this slogan: ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free’ to represent them.

Have you ever been to any of the anti-Israel demonstrations [not to participate], but we’ve been there to talk to people and to try and stand up for Israel. You know, that’s what they chant in the middle of London: ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free’.

There is the river, there is the sea. From the river to the Sea, Palestine will be free’. That means that Israel is thrown into the sea. Yes!

Israel doesn’t want to be thrown into the sea, so they’re not very keen on this programmeme yet  that is what they are being offered.

Who can work this one out?

The search for Peace

At the same time, one has to say that Israel does want peace. It wants peace, particularly with its Arab neighbours. Israel has already full diplomatic relations with Jordan, with Egypt. In 2020, it signed the Abraham Accords under Netanyahu, which gave them an agreement with the United Arab Emirates, with Bahrain, led to an agreement with also with Sudan, and Morocco.

We are now finding that Pakistan and Indonesia, the world’s two most populous Muslim nations are making advances towards Israel.

And, in July 2022, Saudi Arabia opened its airspace to Israeli aircraft as the first sign of normalization of international relations with Israel. This came amid hopes that the next move will be a peace programmeme with Saudi Arabia.

Part of the reason Saudi Arabia is more friendly towards Israel is because Saudi Arabia is not happy about Iran. And Iran is trying to encroach into the Middle East. It already has control over much of Iraq, is active in Syria, is responsible for the total ruination of Lebanon and Yemen.

Iran is spreading its tentacles all around. It wants to take over Bahrain, which it considers to be part of its own territory, and the Gulf States, and to get Saudi Arabia, eventually, under its control.

Saudi Arabia sees Israel as one of the defences against this growing problem. So, it’s making movements towards a peace agreement with Israel.

Is it possible that there could be a peace agreement for Saudi Arabia? That would be a momentous event as far as Middle East politics is concerned.

Israel has a finance minister called Avigdor Lieberman who recently expressed his hope that the peace programme will lead to the creation of a new ‘Common Market of the Middle East’, common to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. It’s possible.

Israel is also involved with Egypt, with Cyprus, with Greece in the exploitation of the natural gas in Mediterranean and there’s quite a strong agreement between those countries.

Enemies, peace, and Bible prophecy

So, Israel is moving towards a peace settlement with its neighbours. Obviously, not with Iran, nor with Syria, nor with Lebanon. But even Syria has told the Iranians to back off and stop harassing Israel in their territory.

Lebanon is under the grip of Hezbollah, but most of the Lebanese are totally sick of Hezbollah and there’s a possibility that things could change there.

You have this possibility of a peace that, if it were to come about, would be good. Yes, it would obviously be good for Israel, but would it be prophetic? And would it be real? That’s the question.

Now, coming back to the Bible, prophetic teachers have said that one of the signs of the last days is the emergence of a peace programme that will be the start of the Tribulation period: the Seven Year peace programme.

The 7-year Tribulation period will begin with the signing of a peace programme between Israel and many nations. Daniel 9.27 says,

So you’ve got a seven-year period which breaks down halfway through, you’ve got something about an ‘abomination of desolation’, something about a temple.

What could all that mean? And who is the ‘he’ who is described here?

Now, some Christians say that the ‘he’ is Jesus who breaks the covenant halfway through the period after His first coming. But that doesn’t add up at all.

In fact, the last person mentioned before this passage is ‘the prince to come’ in the previous verse.

And the ‘prince to come’ is seen as being the Antichrist. Most likely then, the ‘he’ here (Daniel 9.27) is referring to the Antichrist who makes an agreement with Israel over a seven-year period.

This ‘prince to come’, the Antichrist, is also called ‘the beast’ in Revelation chapter 13, and he also brings in something called the ‘abomination that causes desolation’ which is mentioned in Matthew 24.15.

Most interpreters of this passage believe that this peace programme will be real but that it will also be a deception. So, it will last for a while but there’ll be a deceptive spirit behind it, and therefore, will not last for very long. Israel will be betrayed halfway through it, which will lead to the final time of Jacob’s trouble and the time of the Great Tribulation, which, if God didn’t cut short would lead to total annihilation. However, due to God’s intervention, the Great Tribulation will lead to the Second Coming of Jesus.

The scripture also says that the covenant (peace treaty) is going to be backed by many. Whether this includes Saudi Arabia as the leading nation of the Suni world is a moot point. It may be that the peace involving Saudi Arabia will pave the way for it.

Saudi Arabia has also made clear that it will not sign any peace with Israel unless the Palestinian issue is sorted.

Will someone come up with a solution to this problem, offering peace and safety, bringing a guarantee to confirm or guarantee such as a treaty? If so, would he be hailed as a great world leader?

Well, we’ll see about that again.

I’m not being dogmatic here, but I’m saying that these things are happening now.

The other issue raised by Daniel 9.27 is the temple. There’s the Dome of the Rock where the Jewish Temple once stood.

Here’s a projected Jewish Temple:

Is it possible that they could build a temple on this site?

In present terms, definitely not! That would really trigger a world war against Israel.

Muslims say that this territory is off limits as far as any kind of Jewish building is concerned. So, on one level, I would say no there’s no possibility of a temple being rebuilt.

On the other hand, if something major like the war of Gog and Magog happens and Israel emerges out of it, and, in the process, there’s an earthquake which brings down the buildings there, including the Dome of the Rock, the Al-Aqsa Mosque, even the Western Wall, could that lead to some change as the Antichrist comes along and establishes the peace programme, and allows the rebuilding of a temple.

At the moment, it looks unlikely, but things are moving in the world, and things could change quite quickly.

So, watch this space.

Red sacrificial heifers for the 3rd temple

What is also interesting is what happened this week. An American farmer in Texas has been breeding cattle and he has bred 5 heifers, which he has then flown out to Israel.

What is the significance of that? Well, it caused huge excitement amongst religious Jews who are wanting to rebuild the Temple because there is a requirement for purification when reinstituting the Temple sacrifices mentioned in the Book of Numbers that they should have a red heifer, sacrifice it, and use its ashes to purify themselves before they can offer sacrifices. Numbers Chapter 19, verse 2 says,

Does that mean it’s about to happen? I don’t know, it’s possible. It’s just interesting that all these things are just coming about. Are they significant? If it is the case, then, this building, if it is rebuilt, is going to be defiled by the Antichrist who will put up his own image in it, what the Bible calls ‘the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy Place’, which Jesus also refers to in Matthew 24.15.

The Antichrist, Jerusalem, and the Second Coming of Messiah

The Antichrist will also put an end to Jewish offerings at the rebuilt temple and bring persecution against the Jews as well as to people of other faiths, which then sets off the time of the Great Tribulation of which the Bible says in Matthew 24:

That reminds us that Jerusalem is going to be the centre point of world events. That’s why I don’t believe that the last World War is going to happen over Ukraine. It must happen over Jerusalem.

Zechariah Chapter 12 says,

That is to say that Jerusalem is going to be in the frame of the last battle. There is going to be a controversy over its status that involves the surrounding peoples and nations, Jewish and Arab populations living in the region, but also ‘all peoples’, the nations of the world represented by the UN, the US, the EU, the great powers of this age.

The conflict will be an attempt to divide the land of Israel which will cause the last war in history as the Lord says in the Book of Joel chapter 3 verse 2,

‘They’ve divided up My land’, that’s what God thinks about it. ‘It’s mine don’t divide it. Don’t try to divide Jerusalem.’

All this is going to bring about the coming of the Messiah. Where it says, I will gather all nations to battle against Jerusalem and the Lord will go forth and fight against those nations as he fights in the day of battle, that day, His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives which faces Jerusalem to the East

and He is going to be identified as Yeshua / Jesus the Messiah, the One who came the first time to be pierced, to die by crucifixion as a sacrifice for the sin of the world over nearly two thousand years ago, before the destruction of the second Temple in Jerusalem in the year 70AD.

Zechariah continues in verse 10 by saying:

What has been pierced? According to Zechariah, Yeshua / Jesus the Messiah.

He came the first time to fulfil the prophecies of the suffering servant Isaiah 53 and Daniel 9.26, to die an atoning death, bearing the sin of the world, as the Lord laid on Him the iniquity of us all; cut off to die a violent death not for His own sins but for the sins of others, before the destruction of the second temple in 70AD according to Daniel 9.26, where it says,

But this verse prophesies the Messiah being cut off, a sacrificial death for the sin of the world before the Romans came and destroyed the city of Jerusalem AD70 and the sanctuary which is exactly what happened at the time of Jesus’ First Coming.

Then, you have an interval between verse 26 and verse 27. According to the pre-Tribulation view, that’s the time of the present Church Age, from the day of Pentecost up to the Rapture of the Church, after which God then deals with Israel in the last seven years.

Whatever it is, events are heading towards this scenario, and I think that’s why we need to be ready to meet with Jesus.

Following this, Messiah is going to reign on the Earth from restored Jerusalem, bringing peace and justice to Israel, the surrounding nations, and to the whole world.

Zechariah also says that,

Jerusalem shall be raised up and inhabited. The people shall dwell in it until they’ll no longer be utter destruction. But Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited.

To conclude, what does this tell you? It tells you that Jesus is coming. When He’s coming, we don’t know. But we need to be ready for Him coming. He’s the only hope.

As we come this time to the Feast of Trumpets, God is calling the world, Jewish and Gentile, to be ready for the sound of the trumpet and the coming of the Lord.

If you have never accepted Jesus, now is the time to do so. Repent, believe the Gospel, build your house on the Rock of Salvation, and put your faith in Jesus.

If you have accepted Jesus, praise God! Look forward to His return and use the time that remains to spread the Gospel and to tell people that we have Salvation through faith in Jesus.

Then, you’ll be ready when the trumpet sounds, and the Lord comes for those who love Him.

Baruch haba beshem Adonai ‘blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord’

And the verse on the bottom of the picture there says,

In the latter days, you will understand it. Jeremiah 23.20

Pray that people will understand it. People around here, the Jewish community, and the church will understand these things. That Jesus is coming, and He is the answer: Yeshua Hamashiach em Adonai.

Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord. Amen, amen, praise God.

I just have a word of prayer. Lord, I would you thank you for the Gospel. We thank you for the Word of God. We thank you for Yeshua and, as we see the world and its present state of distress and confusion, Lord, we do pray you would hold back the forces of darkness, particularly Lord. I pray about that situation with Ukraine, with Russia, with NATO Lord, that you will hold back the forces of evil, and hold back the terrible destruction which could come with the use of nuclear weapons. And we pray Lord that there may be a restraint and even a settlement and peace, and help to the people who are suffering there, and for all the people around the world who are suffering in distressing situations.

We just lift them up to you Lord and pray for your hand of help come to them. We pray for ourselves, that you help us to have faith in you, to believe your Word, to believe the Gospel, and to share the Good News of Yeshua / Jesus the Messiah.