Israel and the Palestinians in Bible Prophecy

Mondo Gonzales: What’s on the horizon for Israel in prophecy? As we look with Israel to the future there’s a lot of things that are going on. One of the things I don’t I don’t have on here is, I’ll just because I got just a little bit of time, I’m ahead of myself because I’m talking so fast, is anti- Semitism. When you come into the Olivet Discourse and you see, especially during the Tribulation, we know that anti-Semitism is going to increase in a very serious way. And it’s interesting that right now, if you look around anti-Semitism is up around the world.

And who is the god of this world? Satan is right. And we know in Revelation 12, this is in the middle of the Tribulation that he, Nathan references this, the dragon, turns his eyes to go and attack the woman who’s Israel. And he gathers this worldwide event in the sense of he’s the god of this world, the whole world lies under the sway and the power of the wicked one, 1 John 5:19. So you have these passages that tell us that why is it that the world, especially the United Nations, why is it that they hate Israel? They’re taking their orders from the god of this age who hates Israel.

Why does he hate Israel? Well, we’re going to see a couple of things. But as we watch and you see anti-Semitism increase, just know that it’s part of the end game, because in Zechariah 13:8, this is one of those passages. It’s interesting because you guys, many of you will know this passage. The seven year Tribulation is primarily, not only, but primarily about Israel. It’s the time of Jacob’s Trouble, Jeremiah 30:7. We know we see these passages. But during this seven year period, there’s trouble around the whole world, we know that, God’s judging, the final wrath of God, we know that. But it says that God is going to refine Israel and He’s going to bring one- third through, two-thirds are going to perish.

Now, I want you to think about this in the sense of numbers. Today, there are around 18 million Jews in the world. What’s one third? We divide by three, you get 6 million. Six million are going to make it through, 12 million are going to perish in this worldwide genocidal act of Satan, the dragon, the final beast system. But we’re seeing the seeds be planted right now for this hatred of Israel, especially in Europe. It’s happening. It’s amazing how they’ve forgotten what happened in the Holocaust. When you go back to World War II, we know that there were 6 million Jews. In the coming seven year Tribulation, there’s going to be 12 million that are going to perish, out of the worldwide 18 million. And you look at this and it’s consistent because what did Jesus say? There’s coming a time, it’s coming upon the earth. There’s never been a time like it ever, and ever will be again in the sense of destruction, chaos, death, Nathan mentioned half of the world. But Satan his entire goal has always been to get rid of the Jews. Why? Because of it’s interesting, I love in the Bible the word until, because it gives me a time marker. I’m a words guy. And Jesus says, “You will not see me again until…” I’m like, circle that. He’s giving us an equation. When are we going to see Jesus again? He says, Matthew 23:37-39. “You will not see me until you say blessed is who comes in the name of the Lord.”

So this is my this is my political thought we need to go to Israel and we need to convince the prime minister to simply go into the Knesset and sign a law saying, we repent, we believe in Jesus, we’re inviting Him back. Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord, Jesus will come back. Now we know that that’s not very probable, but that is the equation.

So how do we, well, I guess I’ll say, how do they get to the point of saying, blessed is He who comes in the name of Lord and acknowledging Jesus? It’s called the seven year Tribulation. It’s called the time of Jacob’s Trouble, where God says, Israel, I’m bringing you back and unbelief, we’re going to have a little talk. We’re going to talk about you killing my Son. We’re going to talk about you killing the Messiah. And He’s going to grind them down to the end. Jesus says, if the time was longer than the short seven years, nobody would survive on Earth and Israel. But for the sake of who? The elect, Israel we’re going to have a talk, and He grinds them down so that by the time they have nothing left, they recognize. And the Holy Spirit is there, the two witness have been preaching. There’s 144,000. They’re going to go, look, what did we do? Zechariah 12:10. They will look upon Him whom they pierced and they’re going to mourn like their only child.

You think about a child loss and how devastating. Think about 2,000 years. Let me give you a little example here. In Israel today, many of you go or if you talk to an Israeli, I used to do a lot of Israeli evangelism. And you go up and you say, I want to talk about Yeshua. Many of them are going to go, Who? Because what do they call them? You guys know? They call him Yeshu, not Yeshua. There’s an extra vowel on there. They call him Yeshu. And the reason they call him Yeshu is because it’s an acronym that means may His name be blotted out forever. Now think about that. Your entire tradition for the last 2,000 years, when you refer to Jesus, you call Him Yeshu, may His name be blotted out forever. His very identity is an insult. And then you come to see Him as your Savior? Oh. That’s why they mourn.

A couple other things as we wrap it up. Jerusalem as a point of contention, Zechariah 12. We know the passage that Jerusalem will become a what? A burdensome stone to all nations. Again, if you go a hundred years ago who cared about Jerusalem? Nobody. I mean, maybe a few Jewish people. Let’s go 200 years ago. Who cared about Jerusalem? Even more nobody. It was a backwater wasteland, sewage running in the streets. It was not a beautiful city. And I think God left it that way for 1,800 years so that nobody would go and take up residence. But as we come to the end, Zechariah 12, tells us, as we come to the end, the nations are going to have this contention over Israel and especially over Jerusalem. Is Jerusalem going to be an international city? We see that idea that the Vatican wants to come in and make it an international city. And there’s going to be a Vatican presence there. Is it figurative or literal? It’s straightforward.

Elijah arrives before the Day of the Lord. That excites me because I believe that the Rapture is going to happen prior to the day of Lord. But if we look at Malachi 4, is it possible that as we’re going up, we say hi to Elijah as he shows up? Hey, good to see you. We’re oh, there’s the trumpet call see you later. He arrives, it says before. How far? We don’t know how long before the day of the Lord, that seven year period of trouble. But I get a little bit excited thinking that maybe.

We also know in their future, which again will be the 70th week of Daniel when we look at Israel right now, what do we see? Romans 11 talks about Israel and the whole, Romans 9-11 really, Romans 11 says that there were a few that came to salvation through Jesus Christ and the rest were blinded. Until when? There’s the word until again, until the fullness of the Gentiles come in. And then what? All Israel will be saved.

Israel has a great future, but it’s going to be a tough time for that future of conversion and reception, which can only be found through Jesus. There’s no separate covenant for Israel. They have to submit to Jesus Christ. And we go to Daniel 9, 70 weeks of Daniel, Jeremiah 37, the time of Jacob’s Trouble. We also know that there’s coming this covenant with the Antichrist. In John 5:43 Jesus says, “I have come in my Father’s name and you didn’t receive Me. There’s someone coming in his own name and him you will receive.” And it is this false covenant. Second Thessalonians 2 describes the nature of this man of sin. Isaiah 28 talks about a covenant of death, that when they sign this agreement, they’re putting their faith. And think about the John 5:43, they wouldn’t receive Jesus, but another guy comes and they’ll receive him and he comes in his own name. This figure, it’s horrible what we know.

We get excited about prophecy and we interview a lot of Israelis. And oftentimes it’s like, Mondo, what do you really think about us? And I go, well, do you really want to know? I think that you guys have a very difficult future ahead of you, and I’m sad for you. Just like Paul right? Romans 10, if he could, he would have given up his own salvation. He had a longing for his brothers to be saved, which means they weren’t. I said, man, you could have, you can skip all this if you put your faith and trust in Jesus. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Yeshu.

I remember I was in Israel, if you go up to, a little short story, up where the boat is, the Galilean boat, from the Sea of Galilee. Well, in there they have this story about Jesus and the disciples in the boat. And so I was up there with my guide, who was not a believer by any means. And so I said, I’m not very dramatic, but I said I’m going to be dramatic here. This will be fun. So I go, “Hey,” I said, “You see this?” And I’m able to read Hebrew. And it said, Yeshu, because it uses the modern name for Jesus, Yeshu. I go, “You see that?” And he goes, “Yeah, yeah.” And I go, “I’m a truly offended by this.” I don’t get offended easily, but I’ll play the game. “I’m offended by this.” He goes, “Why?” I go, “Well, you know what Yeshu means?” And he did. I go, “This is extremely offensive to every Christian believer that comes in here.” And he goes, “Well, we could talk to the tourism department.” You know. I’m like, I was kidding, but I was not kidding. But he knew what it meant. And so you had this tradition and again, God’s going to have a conversation.

What do we know? What do we look forward to? What’s in Israel’s future, which has already been prophesied? They’re going to come into the land. He’s going to sprinkle clean water after a seven year time of trouble. And Israel, all Israel will be saved. That one-third that makes it through and we are going to rejoice. And what does Paul teach in Romans 11? If their stumbling, was glory to the world, what will their restoration be for the glory of the world?

And when we look at the millennial period, Israel is going to be the head of all nations. And when we look at prophecies, we look at Israel past, present and future and prophecy. Again, I’m not here to tell you what to think, but how. No matter what we do, if we continue to take Scripture straight forward, and there’s again, little variations as we see the puzzle pieces coming together, but we go, oh, no. And as we go and we talk to people who don’t believe, or other churches or other believes that are confused, because maybe they’re in churches where their pastors don’t teach it, we go, hey, we can show you how to come to that interpretation yourself that’s consistent all the way through. Israel has a glorious future and God’s Word is true because we’ve seen it. And if I can again, if there’s a skeptic or a scoffer, I would say I’m not sure what else we can do. God has given Israel’s history past, present, future in advance.

Part 2

Nathan Jones: I wish we had the time here to show you Mondo’s presentation in its entirety, especially the parts concerning the prophetic wars Israel will soon be facing, and the monumental preparations being made in anticipation of building the Third Temple. Although we will not be offering a DVD of this conference, we do invite you to go to our Christ in Prophecy YouTube channel under the conference’s playlist and stream free all of the presentations. We also offer numerous articles and sermons about Israel in Bible prophecy on our website at ChristinProphecy.org. So please check them out. And in just a moment, you’ll learn how to get your own copy of an exciting book, our founder, Dr. David Reagan wrote concerning the Jewish people in prophecy, stay tuned.

Tim Moore: And after this offer, we’re going to show you an excerpt from Pastor Steve Heaster’s presentation concerning the Palestinians of Bible prophecy. Let me just say that Steve’s mastery of the Bible was matched by the gracious hospitality he and his staff offered in hosting our regional conference. If your church would like to invite one of our evangelists to speak at your church or partner with Lamb & Lion Ministries to co-host a regional conference, please have your pastor contact us.

Part 3 – Pastor Steve Heaster: The Palestinians in Bible Prophecy

Steve Heaster: Let me just begin with this, on June 15th, 1969, Golda Meir, Prime Minister of Israel, made this statement to The Sunday Times, “There is no such thing as a Palestinian people. It is not as if we came and threw them out and took their country. They didn’t exist.” She was pilloried by Muslim propagandists. They charged her with racism. They accused her of historical revisionism. They accused her of being out of touch with reality and being in denial. But she was absolutely correct.

On March 31st, 1977, the Dutch newspaper Trouw, published an interview with Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee member Zuheir Mohssen. Here is what he said, “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel, for our Arab unity. In reality today, there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons that we speak about the existence of a Palestinian people. Since Arab national interests demand that we posit, we posit the existence of a distinct Palestinian people to oppose Zionism for tactical reasons Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa, Jaffa. Well as Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa and Beersheba and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”

And on the same day that Yasser Arafat signed the Declaration of Principles on the White House lawn in 1993, he explained his actions on Jordanian TV. And here’s what he said, “Since we cannot defeat Israel in war, we do this in stages. We take any and every territory that we can of Palestine and establish a sovereignty there, and we use it as a springboard to take more. When the time comes, we can get the Arab nations to join us for the final blow against Israel.”

So here’s a uncontestable fact, in the history of the world Palestine has never existed as a nation. And the sad thing about it is yet we have today major denominations of Christians who take action against Israel constantly, boycott, divest, sanctions. And so one of the mainline denominations just this past summer passed what they call resolution INT-02-283 stating that this denomination recognizes that Israel’s laws, policies and practices regarding the Palestinian people fulfill the international legal definition of apartheid. Apartheid is legally defined as inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them. This occurs in Israel and Palestine through establishing two sets of laws one for Israelis, one for Palestinians, which gives preferential treatment to Israeli Jews and oppressive treatment of Palestinians. Expropriating Palestinian land and water for Jewish only settlements. Denying the right to freedom of residence to Palestinians. Dividing the population along racial lines by the creation of separate reserves and ghettos for the Palestinians. Denying the Palestinians the right to a nationality. Urge members, congregations, Presbyterians, national staff units, including the Office of Interfaith Relations, to seek appropriate ways to bring an end to Israeli apartheid. Direct the clerk to communicate this action to all other of our councils.

So here we go again with the accusation of apartheid as a foundation for acting against Israel and boycotting the Jewish state. The committee declared that they were hoping that recognition of the problem would lead to peaceful reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians. No mention of terrorism was made, only mentions of occupation, apartheid and the punishment of innocent Palestinians.

So if there was no Palestinian nation and there never has been, how do we make sense of this? And what does the Bible have to say about it? Well, I’m glad you asked me that. We’re going to look at a message of judgment that God gives through the prophet Ezekiel. In fact, he gives it right in the middle of a message of restoration to the nation of Israel, future looking at the country. And in Ezekiel 35, if you have your Bibles, I’d like you to turn there. And I’m often, very frequently I’m told I go too fast. So here’s what I will do. If I go too fast and you’d like a copy of this outline, I’ll see that you get one. Okay. So if I move too fast, I’ll make sure you get an outline.

But in the Ezekiel chapter 35, in verses 1-15, listen to what Ezekiel writes here: “Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it, And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out mine hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the Lord. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end: Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will prepare thee unto blood, and blood shall pursue thee. Thus will I make mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it him that passeth out and him that returneth. And I will fill his mountains with his slain men: in thy hills, and in thy valleys, and in all thy rivers, shall they fall that are slain with the sword. I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the Lord was there: Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them, when I have judged thee. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume. Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them. Thus saith the Lord God; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate. As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so will I do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the Lord.”

So God pronounces judgment on Mount Seir, and He gives two specific reasons for that judgment. First, because they killed the children of Israel. In Ezekiel 35:5 he says, “Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred and has shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end.” So God says, one of the reasons I am judging you is because you have killed my people.

In Jeremiah 49:17 & 18, Jeremiah says “Also Edom shall be a desolation: every one that goeth by it shall be astonished, and shall hiss at all the plagues thereof. As in the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof, saith the Lord, no man shall abide there, neither shall a son of man dwell in it.” That’s the first reason. The second reason is because when they speak against the Jewish people, God considers that blasphemy. Blasphemy. You think about that the Abrahamic Covenant is still in effect, I will bless those that bless you, and I will curse those that curse you.

So he goes on and says, in Ezekiel 35:10 -14, “Now, because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the Lord was there: Therefore, as I live, saith the Lord God, I will even do according to thine anger, and according to thine envy which thou hast used out of thy hatred against them; and I will make myself known among them, when I have judged thee. And thou shalt know that I am the Lord, and that I have heard all thy blasphemies which thou hast spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, They are laid desolate, they are given us to consume. Thus with your mouth ye have boasted against me, and have multiplied your words against me: I have heard them. Thus saith the Lord God; When the whole earth rejoiceth, I will make thee desolate.”

Let me make this point to everybody. Israel is still God’s chosen people. Israel has a plan for God’s chosen people. And I just cringe when I hear Christians bashing the nation of Israel, and primarily for this one simple reason a Jewish Man saved my life and my soul. If nothing else, you cannot turn your back on Israel and expect to be blessed of God. When people say, what kind of a church are you? Well, we’re an independent Bible church. Well are you evangelical, are you fundamental? Listen, those names, the meanings of those things have changed over the years, so that I don’t care to use any label. But if I must use a label, I will tell you what I consider myself; I am a Christian Zionist. That’s what I am. And nothing more, nothing less. There’s no confusing that definition, I’m a Christian Zionist.

Closing

Tim Moore: Join us next time for our third episode in this series as we continue to address the question: What exactly is God doing in world politics? I will conclude by revealing God’s hand in world politics as it concerns the United States of America. Does our nation even play a role in the end times? And if so, what is it? Come back to find out.

Nathan Jones: We hope that these presentations help you understand what God is doing today in world politics so that you can become better equipped to thrive and survive in these challenging times. Keep your eyes focused on Jesus Christ and your heart crying out “Maranatha, come quickly, Lord Jesus.”

End of Program