How Christians Must Understand The Israel And Hamas Situation Series

HOW CHRISTIANS MUST UNDERSTAND THE ISRAEL AND HAMAS SITUATION

One would have to be deaf and blind not to realise all the news on the terror situation in Israel. It is not my desire to recount the things that have happened, but it is my concern and desire to see all this from the Christian point of view. I am going to use rather random pointers here to spell out the biblical perspective on this.

[1]. “WHAT DOES IT MATTER AS IT DOES NOT CONCERN US?” This is just very poor reasoning and understanding of the bible. Apart from a non-Christian flow-on effect to the world, this powder keg will affect everyone. Everything in our current age points to the end and I will explain that.

In spite of what some churches are not saying, we are in the very last days of the Church age with the Rapture looming on the horizon. It is so sad that a lot who attend churches either have dismissed the Rapture or know nothing about it. Many have not even bothered to investigate it. It is a very lamentable judgment on our churches when the whole of the bible is 25% prophecy, much of it related to the last times, and it is not even touched on.

The Rapture is when the Lord returns for His Church to take the believers away from this scene to prepare His Church, His Bride for the marriage of the Lamb described in Revelation chapter 19. It will end the Church age and on the earth while the Church is absent, the awful Tribulation happens for 7 years. You can read that from Revelation chapters 6 to 19. As Noah was taken up before the flood judgement hit the earth and then returned after the wrath was over, so too will the Church be raptured and then return to earth with Christ at the Second Coming.

The bible does give us indicators for the end of the Church age (the last days of the Church) in a well known chapter – {{2Timothy 3:1-5 “Realise this, that IN THE LAST DAYS DIFFICULT TIMES WILL COME, for men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, (and) holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power. Avoid such men as these.” 2Timothy 3:13 “EVIL MEN AND IMPOSTORS will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.”}}

Some people dismiss the Rapture saying, “They have been saying for age Jesus will come and it might not be for hundreds of years.” The answer to that is that all future prophecy centres on Israel. Israel is God’s time clock and the alarm is about to go off. This is one reason people don’t understand prophetic events (eschatology = last things) because they discount Israel's position. I want to share again a most important verse about those who are eagerly waiting for the Rapture that the AV calls “the glorious hope” and the NASB and others call “the blessed hope”. {{2Timothy 4:8 “In the future there is laid up for me THE CROWN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me, BUT ALSO TO ALL WHO HAVE LOVED HIS APPEARING.”}}

[2]. “WHAT DO THE CURRENT EVENTS IN ISRAEL SHOW RIGHT NOW?” Firstly, yet again, they show the ugly face of Islam. Islam is a violent religion for it was founded that way with all the wars and the raiding of innocent trading caravans to increase wealth, and it has continued that way, conquering by the power of the sword, not by any faith. The butchery of the Islamic followers is from the pit of hell itself. Be it Isis, Islamic Jihad, Hamas, the Islamic Brotherhood or Hezbollah, they are all the same, demonic murderers.

The second and most important thing is, where is this event leading? To understand that we must look at prophecy. The very next event prophetically is the removal of the Church. Look at these verses – {{2Thessalonians 2:3 Let no one in any way deceive you, for IT [the Day of the LORD] will not come unless THE APOSTASY COMES FIRST, and THE MAN OF LAWLESSNESS IS REVEALED, the son of destruction 2Thess 2:4 who opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, displaying himself as being God. 2Thess 2:5 Do you not remember that while I was still with you, I was telling you these things? 2Thess 2:6 You know what restrains him now, so that in his time he may be revealed, 2Thess 2:7 for the mystery of lawlessness is already at work. Only HE WHO NOW RESTRAINS WILL DO SO UNTIL HE IS TAKEN OUT OF THE WAY, 2Thess 2:8 AND THEN THAT LAWLESS ONE WILL BE REVEALED whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming,”}}