Timely Problems

I've said before, without getting all technical about things, that it's easy to put Bible prophecy into two categories; fulfilled and unfulfilled. It is all about Jesus. Jesus will sit on the throne of David, according to the Bible, and that throne will be in Israel. Now that God's chosen people are once again a nation, and steadily gathering the people of their heritage, understanding geopolitical realities demands a knowledge of Israel's position in Middle East and world affairs.

For instance, Iran will be a key player in end times events. That is plain to see in Biblical prophecy. It is also plain to see that Israel as prophesied, is going to become a real problem in the eyes of the rest of the world, so much so that the world's leadership will want to get rid of her in order to have "peace." Unfortunately, the only peace that Israel will be a roadblock to, will be peace from a corrupted, sin-diseased source.

Israel may be tiny, but they are a pretty tough little country. They have to be. Countries all over the globe have been trying to murder her citizens for the last several thousand years. Just this year, Syria admitted that Israel took out their North Korean supplied nuclear cache, the same way they had dealt with Saddam Hussein's nuclear buildup in 1981. While the world should have been very grateful, it seems they barely noticed what happened on September 6th. Still, they have largely been silent because they must know on some level that nukes plus Syria is a very volatile and bad combination.

Right now, the IDF is on continuous alert, and bomb resistant quarters are being constructed in the home of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. Their version of homeland security is prepping the public for what they will need to do in case war breaks out. It seems that when one nation's ability to plague Israel with hatred is sidetracked, another one steps in to take its place.

This shouldn't be a mystery. Israel is the nation through which God chose to reveal the Savior to the world. The enemy hates Israel for that reason. He will do whatever he can to bring about the destruction of that nation. So my question is this? Why in the world would I believe the month-old NIE that states that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program almost four years ago? In the first place, why does one of the world's most oil-rich nations need nuclear power? Please don't try to tell me they are very concerned with the way their nation's most valuable resource affects climate change.

Unfortunately for the people of Iran, their president is still the man who said that he would likely give up half of his nation's populace to rid the world of Israel. In light of this, does Israel seem justified in her concern about a nuclear program in Iran? She would have to be totally ignorant not to be very concerned, but in view of the new report, the press is making it sound like the US and Israel have been riding poor little Iran for no good reason.

I can't believe that the press has eaten up this report the way that they have. I have spoken with one of the most vitriolic President Bush haters that I have come across, and even he said that President Ahmadinejad is an unstable leader whose hatred of Israel is fanatical, and that he bears watching. Iran has had all of their nuclear fuel supplied to them by Russia, courtesy of Vladimir Putin, so how does it justify its need to continue enriching uranium? Why, they're so happy with how things are going at their nuclear facility, that they're going to build a bunch more of them. Won't that be swell?

Given Israel's intelligence gathering abilities, at some point, she may be put into a position again, as she was on September 6th, where good sense tells her to use military force. Whether Syria starts lobbing missiles her way, or whether Israel discovers that Iran's nuclear weapons capability is getting close to operational, she has a right to protect herself from foreign attack. What will happen if that takes place will likely set some terrible events into motion.

"Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it" (Zech. 12:2-3)

That verse states that "all the people of the earth" will be gathered together against it". Some might argue that the writer of the prophecy possessed a limited knowledge of the world around him, and that he was simply talking about the nations that he was familiar with in the particular historical context in which he lived. The problem with that sort of thinking is that the prophecy came from God, not man, and the language there refers to the entire planet, meaning all of the people on it. That circumstance could not have taken place until this last century.