War in Israel!

Nathan Jones: One of the things that I’ve liked about this ministry and for the 20 some years Christ in Prophecy has been airing, if you’ll notice, we’ve had this little solidarity flag between America and Israel. Lamb & Lion Ministries has long stood for Israel, not just to virtue signal, as so many, like the Men’s Basketball Association and all they are doing today, but we also put our money where our mouth is, we support many ministries in Israel, like Avi Mizrachi, Igal German, and Baruch Korman and others that get the Gospel out to people. And we take tours to Israel all the time to help educate people in what’s going on in Israel. So, yes, I’m very proud to be part of a ministry that stands so strongly behind Israel.

Tim Moore: Well, I appreciate you saying that, Nathan. I do, too. Obviously, this month as we’re recording this particular message our Lamplighter theme has been the greatest sign of all, which is Israel. So we pointed people to how Israel in its modern manifestation, is a fulfillment of God’s prophetic promise to bring the Jewish people back to their native homeland, albeit in unbelief and to preserve and protect them. And so let me be very clear, He’s brought them back to their land, as He says over and over again. I can prove that in Amos 9:15, where He says, “I will return you to their land.” He will bring the Jewish people to their land. So He has done so. He will preserve and protect them. But the question people are asking us, they asked you probably over the weekend, me as well, we get phone calls. Is this a war of the end times?

Nathan Jones: Yes and no. I mean, at this point, by the time it’s airing obviously things will happen. But at this point, Hamas and Israel are having a fight. Now, that’s not the first time, Israel, as soon as they became a nation in May 1948, the Islamic world attacked, again in ‘56, and ‘73, the Six Day War ‘67. They’ve had two wars with Lebanon. There’s been multiple skirmishes with Hamas. This could turn into something bigger; we believe prophetically, I tend to believe that this is bigger because the difference this time is that Israel is now committed to dealing with Hamas as a terrorist organization, bearing in mind that the Gazan people are also being held captive by Hamas. I mean Hamas is blocking the border so they can’t escape into Israel and all. So I love the fact that this is Israel’s finally, we’ve been wanting this for a long time, finally standing up and saying we’re going to deal with terrorists. The problem is, is that every time Israel deals with terrorism, the world that hates the Jewish people because Antisemitism is spiritual, then turns on Israel. So Israel might defend themselves, they might kill the killers, but they will then be labeled the killers. We know that the northern front has been opening up with Lebanon, so this could definitely get bigger.

Tim Moore: So when we think about wars of the end times, and we’ve discussed this on Christ in Prophecy before. Dr. David Reagan just this past year released “9 Wars of the End Times.” And we’re going to make available to you today a bundle with that and another book dealing with Islam. But we talk about how we’ve always anticipated that Psalm 83 could be the next war. And folks, just to remind you what Psalm 83 discusses is that the inner ring of nations, those peoples close to Israel, that would include Gaza specifically, but also Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. Of course, I’m going counterclockwise around Israel. Those immediate neighboring nations will come against Israel, it will defeat them overwhelmingly to the point that Israel is able to live securely, they feel completely unthreatened by a close by enemy. And you think what unites all those nations even today is the scattered Palestinian people, those people groups that have never been absorbed by the Arab nations, even in Jordan, they’re not really absorbed into Jordanian citizenship. They are left as refugees. And the Arab nations have always tried to utilize the Palestinians as pawns to be a thorn in Israel’s side.

Nathan Jones: Well, yeah what refugee camps are still around after 70 years? Most people don’t realize that when Israel came back and started settling the land in the 1900s, there was almost nobody living there. It was part of the Ottoman Empire until World War I. Those people that call themselves Palestinians today were actually many of them invaders when in 1948, when Israel declared its independence, the Arab nation says, hey, you can go and take that land once we defeat Israel. They were shocked when a bunch of kibbutz farmers won. And Israel became a nation officially in May of 1948, but those countries never absorbed the people they sent to settle the land back, and they put them in refugee camps and then used them as political pawns to constantly say, look, the Israelis are mistreating these people. So Israel was nation as legitimate because the UN has a resolution that makes it official, that that land that was the British mandate is Israel’s land. And we know biblically we can go to the Bible that God promised, the land from the Euphrates all the way to Egypt and all the way through Jordan. So Israel doesn’t even have all of their land yet.

Tim Moore: No. We obviously can point to the UN’s Resolution 181, but our authority doesn’t come from the UN, it comes from the Word of God, where the Lord over and over again promised Abraham and his descendants of the promise that they would possess forever, or at least have the right to the land. I know for a long time they were dispersed from the land, but over and over again in Scripture, God promised to bring them back. And so there were no Palestinian people identified as a nation group until just since 1948. As matter of fact, they were citizens of the Ottoman Empire. Many of them were citizens they thought or would have claimed of Transjordan and the other nation states that were really erected just in the last couple of hundred years and mostly by the great powers.

The point being that in Psalm 83, this inner ring of nations, which is identified as Edom, and Ishmaelites, Moab and Hagrites, Byblos, Ammon and Amalek, Philistia, and Tyre, and Assyria. Again, the immediate ring of nations will come against Israel. We’ve always thought that that war would take place first. And as Nathan indicated, there have been many wars since Israel’s founding in 1948 that would hearken to this kind of a grouping. So whether it’s in 1967, under the leadership of Egypt at the time with Nasser, whether it’s 1973, with Anwar Sadat, obviously usually joined by Syria. But today there’s great animosity among this ring of nations. And yet as we’re witnessing right now, Nathan, this present conflict has a looming threat coming from Iran, which is instigating not only Hamas in the Gaza area, the Islamist within the Palestinian Authority area of Judea and Samaria, what the world thinks of as the West Bank, and also Hezbollah just north in Lebanon. So could this become the broader conflict of Ezekiel 38 and 39 with Iran, with Russia, very, very quickly?

Nathan Jones: Yeah, well, what we’ve got here with Iran is there’s a bigger picture going on as Iran is using Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and all these groups as proxies to fight the war that they want. What Iranian ayatollahs want is they want the Middle East to burst into flames, all of the Middle East to be on fire because their theology says, that then the Mahdi the 12th Imam, will come and when he comes, he will defeat, and he’ll set up a new caliphate, and the ayatollahs will basically be second in command over an entire caliphate that will go on to take over the world. So when Iranians talk about, or I should say, Iranian leadership, because the Iranian people, too, are being held hostage by the ayatollahs. But the ayatollahs believe that their eschatology says is that they will rule the world if they can get the Middle East to burst into flames. And it’s easy to do that when you’re constantly attacking Israel through proxies. So there’s a bigger picture from the Islamic world.

There’s a sheikh Ibrahim Mudeiris I think he said it best back in 2005. He said, “We have ruled the world before and by Allah the day will come when we will rule the entire world again.” Then he goes on and says, “Listen to the Prophet Muhammad, tells you about the evil end that awaits the Jews.” There’s always this hatred of Jews. “The stones and trees will want the Muslims to finish off every Jew.” That comes right out of the Koran, their Islamic holy book. Well, there are 100 verses that speak about jihad, primarily about destroying the Jewish people, because Muhammad tried to ally himself with the Jewish people, they refused and so he turned on them with a vengeance. And to this day, the Islamic world hates the Jewish people.

Tim Moore: Well, we’re going to turn to talk about Islam as the instigator really ideologically behind this kind of hatred and this kind of conflict.

Nathan Jones: Because it will help us understand the Gog and Magog War.

Tim Moore: It will help us understand. But I just would say, folks, when we read Scripture and so we read newspaper headlines, watch the television with a God oriented perspective. In other words, what has He revealed in His Word? We know that these nations are going to come against Israel. Eventually, every nation in the world will abandon Israel, will come against it. Right now, we believe we’re seeing what could be a manifestation of Psalm 83, but it could morph very quickly into a larger conflict of Ezekiel 38 and 39. Obviously, all these wars of the end times, their exact timing is undetermined. We just know that there will be great conflict, but Israel will be victorious. It will be victorious according to Psalm 83, against that inner ring, and it will feel very secure. And then when the Ezekiel 38 and 39 war kicks off, what we call the War of Gog and Magog, it will be God Himself who intervenes miraculously to where even the Israelis recognize that God has defeated their enemies and they are able to collect the weapons of their enemies there on the mountains of Israel, typically in the north is what we think of there.

And throughout this last week, I have been drawn to the Psalms, especially early in the Psalms, corresponding with the day of the month. So on October 7th, I went to Psalm 7 and I read how David was calling out to the Lord God to protect him from all who wanted to destroy and kill him. And he said, “Arise, O LORD, in Your anger; lift up Yourself against the rage of my adversaries, and arouse Yourself for me; you have appointed judgment,” this is in verse six. He says, “O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous; for the righteous God tries the hearts and minds. My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart.” That is verse 9 and 10. And at the very end he gives just a song of praise, “I will give thanks to the Lord, to Yahweh, according to His righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord Most High.” So David recognizes that God is the protector and defender of Israel, and that’s what we want to affirm.

But, Nathan, a lot of even Christians miss the religious implications of this conflict. So you touched on it a moment ago. What is behind this satanic hatred that Hamas and so many of the Islamists have?

Nathan Jones: Well it comes right out of their holy books. The Koran, for instance, Surah 9:5, surah is like chapter verse, “Fight and slay the pagans wherever you find them and seize them, and beleaguer them, and lie and wait for them in every stratagem.” They also talk about Surah 2:191-192, “And kill them wherever you find them, and drive them out from whence they drove you out, and persecution is severer than slaughter… if they do fight you, then slay them; such is the recompense of the unbelievers.” And I could go on and on especially Surah 4:89 where it says you don’t ally yourself with non-Muslims. This is the basic foundational teaching of Islam. It’s a works based salvation. So this unspoken fifth pillar of Islam is death by martyrdom. And so there’s an eschatology that the Muslim world is working off of. Now, they don’t all agree, like Christianity doesn’t all agree, but it’s satanic in nature. And it’s satanic in nature because God has made promises to the Jewish people that He will fulfill and usher in His Second Coming.

Tim, we live in an amazing time. People miss the fact that we are living in prophetic times. Some of the prophecies Israel has fulfilled so far. The Jewish people gathered in unbelief from the four corners of the earth, Isaiah 11:11-12. The state of Israel being re-establish, that happened on May 14, 1948, according to Isaiah 66 and Ezekiel 37. The Jews would re-occupy the city of Jerusalem, June 7th of 1967. The land of Israel would turn from desolation to bounty, Ezekiel 36. The Hebrew language would come back from the dead, Zephaniah 3:9. And then all the nations of the world will come against Israel over the issue of control of Jerusalem. And we see that, the Vatican wants it, the UN wants it, America seems to have a say in it. The whole world is telling the Jewish people how to run it. So, these prophecies, we live in prophetic times.

Tim Moore: We certainly do. And I’m excited because some of those prophecies literally came to pass in my lifetime. I wasn’t alive in 1948, but I was on the earth in 1967. And just to think that prophecies that Christians for many, many centuries anticipated and trusted would come to pass, longed to see in their day and age and we have the privilege of seeing it.

Well, in terms of the Islamic attitude toward the Jewish people, there was a season when Iran, of all countries, was Israel’s greatest ally. In recent years Turkey has been very friendly toward Israel, but as Turkey has become more Islamist, they are turning their backs. The government is definitely becoming antagonistic toward Israel and is supporting even the terrorists in Palestine. We’re going to offer up Dr. Reagan’s book, “Islam and Christianity” as a resource to help you understand. But in the Islamic mind, there is the world of Islam, the Dar al-Islam, and then the world at war. The world of war, they call it Dar al-Harb, which means everywhere else that Islam is not already ruling and reigning is to be at war because they are to overthrow and to be in competition, armed struggle. And so you think of jihad and many American Muslims kind of soft pedal the idea of jihad, well, it’s just an internal struggle. No, the ones who get fervent in their faith recognize it is an armed struggle to follow in the footsteps of Muhammad, who in a very bloodthirsty manner, slaughtered Jews and people living within the region that he conquered.

Nathan Jones: Well, Islam has its own “cultural Christianity” there’s cultural Islam. When we heard George W. Bush say Islam is a religion of peace. There are definitely Muslims out there who believe in peace and want peace and many of them. But to be a true Muslim, it means to submit, to be one submitted to Allah. And what does Allah tell you through the Prophet Mohammed, but to slay anyone else who isn’t a Muslim. So as long as the Jewish people are there, it’s an affront to Allah because they feel like they lost their land to the Jews. That was Allah’s land and Allah will not let them into paradise until they reclaim that land again.

Tim Moore: One of the things I did not realize until just this past weekend is I’ve always known Hamas is an acronym that stands in Arabic for the letters of their full name, the Islamic Resistance. You ask: What are they resisting? They are not resisting secularism or even the Western world, their specific intent is to resist and to fight against Israel. So, Hamas, even as the government entity in the Gaza Strip, just recently confessed for the last few years when they were relatively quiet, they were fooling the world into thinking they had an interest in actually governing. They said, “We really don’t care about governing.” In other words, providing prosperity and a good life for their citizens, the people of Gaza. Their only objective is to murder Jews and destroy the state of Israel. So, the word Hamas, even though it is an acronym for the longer name, actually means in Arabic enthusiastic rage. And you can see this rage manifest again in the barbarism of the terrorist who came across the border fence into Israel and just violently, and murderously slaughtered so many Israelis, including babies, bedding babies and old women. It is beyond comprehension how people could behave that way. But they have been instilled with this enthusiastic, murderous rage. That’s what the very name means.

Nathan Jones: And some are even saying that even Hamas in Hebrew means violence, and that’s exactly what they are. But I think as Americans, we bear some of the responsibility for what’s going on there, because the United States government, depending on, almost every administration has fought for a two-state solution, if Israel will give up land, they will get peace from the Muslims. And so back in 2005, George W. Bush brokered a deal where Israel would pull out of the Gaza Strip, which was the breadbasket of the Middle East at that time period. And I remember, if you remember in 2005, the horrible videos of Jewish people being dragged out of their homes, and forced out. And so, the idea was, okay, we’re giving the Gaza Strip to the Palestinian people down there and then therefore they will get peace back. But ever since 2005, it’s become a launching ground for Iran and others to proxy through and keep sending missiles, they are very creative, they send balloons with fire, they paragliders in. I mean, they use what they got.

But you’re absolutely right, Tim, they exist not to benefit their people who are kept in abject poverty, they are there to destroy Israel. And as we know, it’s a bigger spiritual battle because like you said this is working towards like the Psalm 83 War, which it is debatable, but we believe that fits the bill because when you get to the Gog and Magog war, the nations directly surrounding Israel are missing. So, it seems that when Russia aligns with Iran, and Turkey, and Sudan, and Libya, which those alliances exist today, which is mind blowing because they used to be enemies, that that war is a prophetic war, that the Gog and Magog war is coming soon.

Tim I have an article, and we have a number of other articles on our website called Timing Gog and Magog, it goes through all the different timing arguments. But it seems that we believe that the best timing that God gives us using timing clues is that the Gog Magog War will happen after the Psalm 83 War. We don’t know how it will in response to the Rapture, but it will happen just before at the onset of the Tribulation, and then that’ll lead into a time of peace in the seven year Tribulation. And then the Antichrist will then gather the entire world against Israel.

Tim Moore: He certainly will. You know, I do remember when the Bush administration really leaned on Israel to give the Gaza Strip back to the Palestinians. And said, “We will be there to stand alongside you and will ensure that terrorism is not sprouted in the Gaza Strip.” I remember Israeli leaders trying to sell this give back to their own people saying, “Well, we believe that the Gazans, the Palestinians living there have the potential to make the Gaza Strip, like Singapore,” in other words, a place of great prosperity, even though it’s very small, it could be as prosperous as some of the small nations already in the world. And yet their leaders, having gotten huge sums of money given to them by the West, including the United States, have utilized that money for what? To destroy Israel, not to bring up the standard of living of their people, not to invest in their own society.

Nathan Jones: When the Gazans took it over, they actually took all the farms and they destroyed them. Yeah, they destroyed the entire economy. And by mixing the plastics and things they killed the soil so they couldn’t grow anything. And it goes back to the prophecy where that if the Israel doesn’t control the land, it falls back into desolation. And the Gaza Strip fell back into desolation.

Tim Moore: Well, so I want to bring the conversation to a conclusion with a little application for us here in this country, because we watch the News happening, and obviously it’s heartbreaking to us. But we also see how many in American society are deluded into having antagonism toward Israel and how many on the left in particular, look at the American college campuses are actually coming out in support of the terrorists. I just am galled at the fact that we have demonstrations that happened here in Dallas. It’s happened in many large cities in the United States where there is a support for the terrorists and an equivocation between Israel and those who mean to destroy it.

Nathan Jones: Yeah, well, then the purpose is God wants Israel to turn to Him. Matter of fact, all these prophecies surround Israel because God says that He will not return until the remnant of Jewish people at the end of the Tribulation, call out, “Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” And so, Satan believes that if he can destroy the Jewish people there will not be the return of Jesus Christ to defeat him, and send him to the bottomless pit, and eventually, the Lake of Fire. So that’s Satan’s strategy.

What is interesting, I find, Tim, is that we’re seeing the beginnings of that final war, when all the nations come against Israel, but the result of the Gog and Magog God war is that Russia and the Islamic world are no longer players entering into the Tribulation. So, Satan will lose Islam as a player to help further his cause of defeating the Jewish people. But I think we see in civilization, and even sadly in the church, is that in many people the Antisemitism will grow to the point where the Antichrist, and the prophecy is that he will gather all the people as Zechariah 12 and 14 tell us, the entire world, the entire world, to destroy that tiny little nation and destroy the Jewish people. Satan will become that desperate to stop Christ from returning.

Tim Moore: Well, I think that we have to be clear, as we have here at Lamb & Lion Ministries, that we stand with Israel not because they’re perfect, but because the Word of God says that God stands with Israel. That they are His chosen people and that He has a provision for them to bring them to salvation. And I think that’s the good news, that even in the midst of this conflict.

You know, I said at the opening, Nathan and I are not prophetic. We did not foresee this exact attack coming on October 7th, but the Lord God Almighty did. And you think, well, why didn’t He prevent it? Well, folks, that’s an age old question, why does God allow evil to be perpetrated on the earth? Because in the fullness of time, He will gain even greater glory. And so we are witnessing Israelis who are now activated, many of them at the front, getting ready for an assault any time, who are coming to grips with eternal questions. Some of them will be asking about the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We gave a great testimony of Arye bar David in our current Lamplighter magazine, talking about how he was able to testify to his faith in Yeshua in the 1967 and 1973 war. So, the Lord will be glorified even in this time. And in our country, this becomes a moment for Christians to recognize that we have to be serious about sharing the Gospel, that there may be Jewish friends who are distraught, that we can offer love and encouragement to and very gently tell them we know the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and so, we would encourage you to get to know Him the way we do. God will be glorified even through this human tragedy. And we do not countenance the murder. We obviously are heartbroken over the hostages and the families who are suffering so grievously. But we trust that God is in control. You know, I’ve mentioned Amos 9:15, He the Lord said, “I will plant them (Israel) on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from their land (the land He gave them) which I have given them,” says the LORD your God.”

Habakkuk, even when understanding great destruction was coming, confessed that he would trust in the Lord regardless of what came because, as he said, the righteous will live by faith.

Closing

Tim Moore: As we close out this episode of Christ in Prophecy, let me be clear, Nathan and I do not claim to be prophets. We did not foresee Hamas October 7th attack on Israel, and we cannot foresee what will develop next in this conflict. What we do recognize is that the Bible tells us that the world will grow increasingly dark in the end times. Christians and Jews will be further ostracized and hated by the rest of the world. The love of many will grow cold and the faith of others will falter.

We believe that Jesus is coming very soon for His church. After we’ve gone to the place He is preparing for us, the world will descend into the horror of the Tribulation. Every nation will eventually come against Israel, and the Antichrist will attempt to eradicate the Jews completely. But God, will preserve a remnant of His chosen people, bringing them to salvation when they look upon their Jewish Messiah.

For now, we do pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We pray for Shalom for Israel. We pray that each Israeli will come to know the one Simeon anticipated as the constellation of Israel. And we look forward to the day when God’s righteous justice is meted out on those who are satanically inspired to murderous hate. Just remember this, God already poured out His righteous judgment on Jesus Christ on behalf of all who trust in Him. Yeshua, God’s own salvation is coming again as the Prince of Peace. He will reign from the throne of his father, David, over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end. Come, Lord Jesus. Maranatha and Godspeed!

End of Program