Prophecy Center
What is the Message?

A question for Bible prophecy buffs?

I've been hearing about Israel in the news a lot lately but I'm not clear as to what is going on. I know Israel is key in Bible prophecy, so can someone give me a brief run down of what's happening and how it relates to Bible prophecy? thanks!

Public Comments

1. You are expecting modern day information from a Bronze Age story book?

2. Key to Bible Prophecy

1. Cite prediction in Bible

2. Keep as vague as possible. Never mention actual names of people, or dates, or precise geography.

2. When prediction doesn't come true, don't record the error.

3. If you can read this magazine it would tell you everything

http://www.yahweh.com/PWMags/PW06-09/Intro.htm

4. Earthly Israel has nothing to do with bible prophecy looking forward.

You need to keep in mind that while at one time the nation of Israel was God's "special property" they lost that status. If you read those prophecies referencing Israel you will find that all of them have modifiers. "Heavenly Jerusalem" "Jerusalem Above" and so on. Scriptural proof: Compare the listing of the 12 tribes of Israel... fleshly Israel with the 12 tribes listed in Revelation. They aren't the same. The list in Revelation omits 2 (maybe 3) fleshly tribes and includes 2 (maybe 3) that were NOT sons of Jacob.

Yahcal: No offense, but have you bothered actually studying bible prophecy? If you had I doubt you'd consider them vague since they are so specific that they even mention the name of the military commander who would take down the Babylonian empire. Cyrus the Mede. In fact that prophecy is so detailed that it mirrors the events that actually happened exactly. It talks of leaving the doors to the city open, the waters being diverted etc.

5. Matthew chapters 23 - 24 detail the demise of the nation's standing before God as his chosen people. Jesus looks over Jerusalem and says, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but ou were not willig. Look, your house is left to you desolate. For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord'."

The desolation occued in 70 A.D. when Roman armies sacked the city and the temple, as Jesus had prophecied (24:1-20). From then on, God dealt with those in the new Covenant Jesus had inaugurated - and that includes Gentiles as well as believing Jews. No earthly city or temple is its focus. There is a New Jerusalem pointed to in the New Testament, which will come down from heaven to earth. It is not a literal city. There will never again be a priesthood of God operating in a temple built of stone, offering up animal sacrifices, for the sacrifice of Christ was a once-for-all-time sacrifice, utterly perfect. Christ is now the Great High Priest, standing in heaven before God. All believers are priests. Read Hebrews chap 5 onwards.

6. I don't think there is a prophecy specifically relating to the actual modern day Israel. The only role of Israel, as I understand it, is to prove the Bible correct. After all the Bible is nothing but a history of the Israelites or modern day Jews.

The only rallying point appears to be either support for or against Israel. The world is essentially divided on this. To me it appears to be the face of the conflict between truth and error, between God of the Bible and other gods in an age when the Bible is being discredited and relegated to a position of Bronze age relic.

It is this conflict that is reviving an interest in the Bible and is opening the eyes of many to the truths revealed therein.

7. The nation of Israel was made up of 12 tribes (originating from 12 brothers) and God chose them, out of all the other nations, to be His people. They were to be set apart from the "Gentile" world and to worship Him alone.
Except that they didn't do that. God warned them through prophecy (e.g. Books of Isaiah and Jeremiah) that if they didn't stop worshipping idols that he would split their country and eventually banish them.
God split their country after King Solomon died into two different countries. Israel (later Samaria) and Judah. Israel was especially wicked and was exiled from the promised land (never to return) by Assyria. The King of Assyria took most of the Israelites out of the country and placed other immigrants in the land. This lead to the nation of Samaria.
The nation of Judah lasted another 400 years until their sins became so excessive that God banished them into the hands of the Babylonians. However, He told Judah that He would bring them back and restore them into a country (later called Judea). That prophecy was fulfilled when 70 years after banishment, the Medo-Persian emperor allowed the Jews to return back to their homeland.
Another prophecy is that there would one day be a messiah that would rise up and restore the kingdom of Israel (both Judah and Israel), but that if the Jews rejected this messiah Jerusalem would be burned, the temple destroyed, and the people scattered again(Isaiah,et.al).
When Jesus Christ came the Jews (for the most part) did not believe Him so in 70 AD (40 years after Christ), God destroyed Jerusalem and the temple through the use of Rome.
The Jews were scattered for 1900 years after that. However, the Bible also prophecies that in the last days He will restore Israel to be a nation again and that Jews will flock back to the promised land (Zechariah). Until 1948, no one would have believed that to be possible but that is what happened.
Future prophecy says that the Jews will re-build the temple but also that Jews will turn to Christ in droves in the last days and that Christ will return to earth again to fulfill the prophecy of restoring Israel's kingdom to its former glory.

8. In 1948, the United Nations, feeling guilty about the way Jews had been treated throughout Christian history, especially during World War II, decided to provide a Jewish homeland in the area where their remote ancestors had lived at one time. Unfortunately, many people (mostly Muslims) lived in that land and were forced to find new homes. They have resented the "occupation" of their lands ever since. They have also attracted the sympathy of other Muslim countries. Some of these countries have attempted to attack the new country, Israel, at various times in the past, but they've always lost because Western countries with majority Christian populations, particularly the United States, have provided Israel with enough money and weapons to defeat any enemy in the Muslim world. As a result of a couple of those wars, Israel has taken over even more territory.

Since then, there have been diplomatic attempts to calm everyone down and arrange an acceptable peace between the Israeli government and its Palestinian neighbors. But there is always political pressure on all parties NOT to make peace. Palestinian militants attack Israeli civilians with rockets or suicide bombs. Israelis build "settlements" in Palestinian land. The Israeli military respond to Palestinian kids throwing rocks with tank fire and bombs. Israeli lobbyists convince the U.S. Congress to send more money to Israel. And Western Christian "prophecy buffs" do anything they can to assist Israel in taking over all of Palestinian territory, destroying a Muslim mosque in Jerusalem. and rebuilding the Jewish Temple on the same site so that the "end of the world" can happen, as described in their interpretation of the books of Ezekiel, Daniel and Revelation.

During the Bush administration, peace talks went no where. Now President Obama is trying to get them started again, although each side still accuses the other of sabotaging the talks. And all that political pressure is still there.