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"Articulating Prophecy Biblically"
Prophecy Article Today
"Answering Questions in Prophecy Biblically"
WENDY WIPPEL
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The Bible speaks of a time to come in the "last days" that will involve the whole world at war. Jesus himself says in Matthew 24 that in that war everyone on earth would die unless God himself stepped in. II Timothy 3:1 calls these last days "perilous times", and they are. Think about it. Throughout most of earth history the entire population of the earth being wiped out simultaneously was hard to picture. That changed, however, with the invention of the atomic bomb in 1945. Suddenly the prediction Jesus made didn't seem far-fetched at all! By 1947 scientists had invented a Doomsday Clock which serves as a guess as to how close the world is to destroying itself in a nuclear war. The first clock was set at seven till midnight with midnight representing the destruction of the earth in a nuclear war. Since 1947 the clock has read anywhere between two minutes to midnight and seventeen minutes to midnight, depending on the number of wars in progress and the number of new nations that possess nuclear weapons. (For the record, it now stands at six minutes till midnight.) God has a similar clock. His clock defines where the world is in his predetermined plan for world history, namely, to defeat Satan and rescue human beings from sin through the "seed of the woman", the redeemer who paid the penalty for sin in their place. God's clock is the nation of Israel, and its history defines where the world is with regards to God's plan. Despite being the best-selling book in history, printed in more than 2000 languages and selling more than 6 trillion copies, the Bible really focuses on only one tiny group of people: the Jews. As far as the Bible is concerned, Israel is the center of gravity for the human race. The bible discusses world history only as it impacts the Jews. The lens of prophecy is focused on Israel, and the take-home lesson is this: If you want to know what time it is, prophetically, you have to look at Israel. Israel's re-establishment as a nation on May 15, 1948, was a common theme among Israel's prophets: "I will accept you as fragrant incense when I bring you out from the nations and gather you from the countries where you have been scattered, and I will be proved holy through you in the sight of the nations. Then you will know that I am the LORD, when I bring you into the land of Israel, the land I had sworn with uplifted hand to give to your ancestors. Ezekiel 20:41-42 The divided kingdom was reunited, as prophesied in Ezekiel 37:21-22. Jerusalem was regained in the Six-Day War in 1967 (prophesied in Zechariah 12:2-3). The Jews flocked back to the new homeland (unlike the situation after the Babylonian captivity), as prophesied in Jeremiah 29:14. They rebuilt their cities (prophesied in Amos 9:14-15) and made the land abundantly fertile again (prophesied in Ezekiel 36:30). I hear you skeptics: all this could have been coincidence, or the work of mere man wishing to prove prophecy true! How about Isaiah 66:8? "Who has ever heard of such things? Who has ever seen things like this? Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children." How exactly did Israel return to statehood after 2500 years? Persecution of the Jews, particularly in Russia and Eastern Europe at the turn of the 20th century, birthed the Zionist movement which called for a return to their homeland. In the aftermath of WWI, the League of Nations (echoing the recent Balfour Declaration) issued a mandate for Palestine to be set aside for just that purpose, and gave Britain (the home of Earl Alfred Balfour) the job of administrating the region. The issues that fueled WWI, however (never quite resolved) ignited WWII, and in the meantime the invention of gasoline-powered planes, trains and automobiles made mideastern politics much more complicated. We all know the fate of Israel's sons and daughters during WWII. When the war ended, millions of Jews, displaced from their homes, had nowhere to go. England, rather than fulfilling the UN mandate to encourage their return to Eretz Israel, blocked refugee ships from landing on Palestine's shores and, incredibly, even returned their passengers to the concentration camps they had escaped (albeit now calling them refugee centers). Tensions escalated. British authority over Israel ended on May 15, 1948, and Britain announced that it would pull its troops out, putting the sticky matter into UN hands. Some in Israel, however, recognized a window of opportunity in the coming transfer of power. At 1:30 On May 14, a committee of Jewish leaders met to finalize a draft asserting Jewish statehood and set up a press conference for 4:00 at the Tel Aviv museum. The draft, much of the debate centering on whether or not to mention God's role in Israel's rebirth, was finally completed at 3 pm, and the participants rushed to the museum to make the announcement (the formal draft held up in traffic and arriving only after the official declaration had already been made). Talk's cheap. The value of that belated piece of paper hung largely on the response from the United States. Providentially, Truman's best friend in the army and later business partner, Edward Jacobson, was Jewish, and had convinced Truman to support statehood. And he did, precisely 11 minutes after David Ben Gurion read the declaration--ink still drying-- on the steps of the Tel Aviv museum. Israel statehood had been achieved, against all odds, in one day--in startling confirmation of that verse in Isaiah. Was it just coincidence that Truman was in that position at just that time? Obviously not: “Praise be to the name of God forever and ever; wisdom and power are his. He changes times and seasons; he deposes kings and raises up others. Daniel 2:21 Truman had inherited the office from Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR, though ostensibly supporting the UN mandate for an Israeli homeland, wanted Arab oil and had long been in talks with Saudi King Abdul Aziz. In the spring of 1945, he met with Aziz on an the U.S.S Quincy in the Suez Canal. Roosevelt asked for Saudi support for the Israel homeland. That request was denied. Roosevelt nevertheless put in writing a promise to Aziz to refrain from offering U.S. support without Saudi permission. It was April 5. On April 12, while vacationing in Georgia, Roosevelt succumbed abruptly to a massive cerebral hemorrhage. God promised Abraham that he would make him into a great nation, and that whoever blessed that nation would be blessed, and whoever cursed that nation would be cursed. (Genesis 12:2-3) In the 1800s it was said that "the sun never set on the British Empire:, and it was true. Britain ruled on every inhabited continent. Britain turned its back on Israel in the early 1900s, and plummeted into relative irrelevance with a land mass far less than 1% of their original holdings. FDR turned his back on Israel and dropped dead, out of the blue, exactly one week later. And there are countless other examples. What's that saying? "Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it? " Let's all hope this administration learns from history.
Dancing towards Doomsday
Perspective on the News
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Wendy Wippel
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Yes! Jesus is Coming!
