The world is a hypocritical place. I believe that the Jews are still God's chosen people. I believe that even though they are largely estranged from Him He still loves them. I don't accept everything that they do politically or militarily, but I do assert that they have every right to defend themselves. The world at large it seems, does not. No?

Most Western nations have very hypocritical policies regarding the Nation of Israel. With one breath they denounce terrorism and with the next they insist that Israel negotiate with identified terrorist regimes whose stated goal it is to wipe out Israel. They target known terrorists like Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden for assasination and then turn around and condemn Israel for doing the very same thing.

They demand that all Jews move out of the "occupied territories" which geographically constitute the very heart of Israel so that a new Palestinian state will be free from all Jews, but insist that Israel retain the roughly one million Palestinian residents they have and allow more in. No one seems to take notice of the fact that Israel has always given Palestinians the right to live in their country, unless they had terrorist ties.

Western countries condemn Israel when they fight back against terrorists attacks, most times for their "disproportionate" military responses, when every single one of them would respond in the same way, or with even stronger responses if it happened to them, thinking they had every right to do so.

You can see it in the media. If Israel is under attack, there might be a brief mention in the press. The moment that Israel makes a move in its own defense the United Nations is flooded with calls for a condemnation and a cease fire. If someone tried to expel Jews from an American city, there would be cries of racism, yet the practice of expelling them from their own land is applauded all around.

These types of proliferated hypocrisies are not a shock to me. The Jews are Gods chosen people and He is not done with them. The world has a history of hating the Jews. Add to that a Christian pastor like Rick Warren coming back from his recent trip to Syria and saying that he couldn't find any evidence of persecution of Jews or Christians there, nor any evidence of extremism or terrorism there, and you have to wonder, what is he thinking?

Pastor Warren is older than me by a couple of years, so I know that he was around when Jane Fonda visited the Republic of North Vietnam during the war. Did he not learn anything from the fact that she was duped by the North Vietnamese government, although she probably landed there with some preconceived notions of her own. She caused a lot of pain to the prisoners by declaring that they were humanely treated and for calling them liars when they claimed they had been tortured by their captors. Will Rick Warren have to do the same?

Syria and Iran are known by anyone (who cares to know it) as the backbone of Islamic terrorism in the world today. They are the most outspoken supporters the movement has. It's also obvious to anyone (who cares to know it) that the Syrian press made total hay of Rick Warren's statements: "Pastor Warren hailed the religious coexistence, tolerance and stability that the Syrian society is enjoying due to the wise leadership of President al-Assad, asserting that he will convey the true image about Syria to the American people,"

Like I said, "What is Rick Warren thinking?" I know that he isn't a fan of Bible prophecy. Unfortunately, when you ignore things like the Bible telling us that Damascus will one day be wiped off the map, you are ignoring the fact that God will have had enough with it.

I believe that God wants us to be concerned with today, because Jesus said that, "Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." That in itself is not a directive from Him to ignore prophecy. Prophecy isn't something a believer needs to be worried about. It's going to be fulfilled. The Syrian government will continue to support terrorism and talk about religious coexistence and tolerance in their country, but one day Damascus will be gone. I'm not worried about that. It's out of my hands.

I am not surprised that the world would be so hypocritical about Israel and her rights as a nation. What I am concerned about is the failure of the church to recognize that roughly one fourth of the Bible is prophecy-related, and God included it for good reason. We are to be watching for His coming, and we aren't supposed to bury any understanding we have of the things that will happen preceding that event. Rick Warren's assertion in "A Purpose Driven Life," that Jesus told His followers that "The details of My return are none of your business," doesn't jibe with the fact that He shared some of those very details with His followers in the Mount Olivet discourse.

Rick Warren is falling in line with most of the rest of the Western world nation's strategy for a global peace plan. While it is not a mistake to want global peace, one can't be a student of Bible prophecy and miss noticing that #1, Syria will one day be a participant in a surprise attack against Israel, along with several other nations and that #2, global peace will be the false avenue through which the Antichrist will move to deceive the world.

Rick Warren should learn that being part of any peace plan endorsed by the world is probably a huge mistake, and that allowing himself to be played by Syria's government isn't the best use of his time, being listed in Time Magazine as one of the 25 most influential (by whose standards?) evangelicals around doesn't mean that ill-conceived visits to strictly controlled countries like Syria are a good idea.

Prophecy continues to be fulfilled and people continue to ignore it. Before WWII there were four major things that were Biblically out of prophetic place;

#1 The Church was out of place. It belongs in Heaven.
#2 The Jews were out of place. They belonged in the Holyland.
#3 The devil and his minions were out of place. They belong in the pit.
#4 King Jesus was out of place, His Kingship largely rejected by mankind.

Today, we know that three from that list are still out of place, but if we know Bible prophecy, we are assured that Jesus will come and take His Church to Heaven, and after that He will return and take His rightful place on the throne of David, and that the devil and all who follow him will join him where he belongs.

We can take joy in knowing too from prophecy, and look forward to the fact that Psalm 72:11 tells us the nations will be quiet, and that they will learn war no more (Isaiah 2:4), that they will go up to Jerusalem to worship (Zechariah 14:6), that the desert will blossum as the rose (Isaiah 35), and that the glory of the Lord will cover the whole earth as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14). That is, like all prophecy, worth knowing.