Middle East Update

It was a close thing, or so it appeared, the renewal of the moratorium of settlement building in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.  Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-line panel finally gave him a resounding, “No” to his suggestion that the moratorium might be unofficially extended.

As expected, the Palestinians walked away from further discussion, saying that Israel was acting unilaterally in a way that made further negotiations fruitless, claiming land for themselves during the negotiations that were under negotiation. 

It was not long after that that the Palestinians began to make noises about going to the United Nations and asking that body to declare them a sovereign state.  Two European nations had already suggested that it might be brought before the Security Council, and now the Palestinians are broaching the matter publicly.  Even President Abbas, who had heretofore voiced nothing of the kind, has gone on record as saying that if peace is not achieved by the end of the one-year period of negotiations, he will consider asking the U.N. to declare them a sovereign state, in accordance with the 1967 borders of Israel.

President Netanyahu has warned that such a move would cause immeasurable trouble.  In order for the Palestinians to realize sovereignty, they would have to push out the Israeli garrisons stationed in the West Bank, against the superior firepower and weaponry of the Israelis.  The United Nations and the United States would have to secure the borders, and an all-out war against Israel would begin. 

For the U.N. to declare Palestinian sovereignty of the land outside the 1967 borders would be a grave danger to Israel, as a state of war would be renewed vigorously.  Israel’s weaponry is far superior to that of the Palestinians, but it is nowhere equal to that of the rest of the Gentile world.  Yes, it would cause immeasurable trouble, but it would be as much trouble for Israel as for the Palestinians, probably more. 

Thus, Netanyahu’s statement was a tacit admission that peace must be made during the current negotiations – this, while the Israelis are pushing down Palestinian homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, and beginning construction on those lands of up to six hundred new homes for the Jewish settlers. 

The world sees this, and does not consider God’s ownership of that entire city, Jerusalem, where He has placed His name, but the world views it as a provocation of the worst sort.  It jangles their anger and clangs their resentment against Israel.  In point of fact, if Israel went on to take all of the Promised Land, God would stand behind them; nay, in front of them, as their Banner.  But they are not looking to God in this.  All sides are viewing the whole matter from an earthly perspective, using worldly wisdom, jockeying for position and advantage.  Unfortunately for Israel, the world is siding with the Palestinians, and Israel’s hand is going to be forced to either enter into a sinful treaty with the most wicked man ever to draw breath, or to attempt to face down the armies of the entire earth.  Guess which option they will choose.  We are told which one: peace with “many.”

If Israel were spiritual, God would bring them into their land, but they are not, nor have they been for more than two thousand years.  By the time of Christ’s First Advent, the political entities – the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Herodians, among others, had so corrupted the rituals of Israel as to make a mockery of the God whom they would soon mock to His face, scourging Him according to their apostasy, and finally, killing Him.

If, if, if!  We know this:  Israel is going to enter into a covenant with the antichrist.  We know that she will allow God’s land to be divided, but that she will be rewarded with the privilege of erecting a temple and resuming animal sacrifices.  However, God will not be in that temple.  The holy of holies in that temple will be a stench in the nostrils of God.  If Israel was apostate in Christ’s day, and given that they have spent two millennia scattered among unbelieving Gentiles, how apostate must they be today? 

While there is a remnant that is loyal to God in Israel today, they are a tiny minority.  They feel the heavy heel of the Gentile world pressing hard upon their collective neck.  The careful wording of Daniel does not necessarily imply that Israel is happy with this covenant.  Seeing that the angel specifically told Daniel that this prophecy concerned Daniel and his people and the holy city, we know that Israel is a party to this covenant, but Daniel does not say that Israel confirms the treaty.  Rather, he says that the antichrist is the one who confirms that treaty. 

We know that it is a single man who is the primary broker of this treaty, since the masculine singular pronoun “he” is used throughout the references to the end-time ruler.  Thus, it is not the United Nations, for it is a single nation, with ten allies.  It is the leader of that single nation that is the villainous culprit we call antichrist.

Those who claim that the antichrist is the leader of a ten-nation federation are close, but he is not one of the ten.  Daniel specifically says that this nation from which the beast would arise is “another” nation, a “little one,” that arises from the ten, but not among them, and becomes great.  We find the United States being the primary broker of a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement, even as our current president has openly declared that it is his firm intention to bring peace to the Middle East, and is today working vigorously toward that end.  Surely, this nation arose from the sands of the old Roman Empire.  None other has so arisen and become great.

How obvious must it be before learned men see what is happening right before their eyes.  The present reality does not fit their preconceived (conceived 400 years ago) picture of the end times, and so it is summarily dismissed.  Not to cast aspersions upon men of honor and integrity, men of faith, men of God, but how can it be that so few understand this obvious truth? 

It is because they do not account for the United States in prophecy.  If that is so, then the treaty that Daniel wrote of must await the (unexplained) collapse of the United States, the rise of another man who will be worshiped by the world, who has the solution to the Middle East puzzle. 

If those who do not see the present world stage in light of the writings of the ancient Jewish prophets, then their vision offers little or no hope to those living on the earth today.  Their hope is the resurrection, and not the rapture of the Church.  It is a good hope; good enough for many generations of Christians through the millennia since Christ, but it does not offer the immediacy or the detailed accuracy of an American beast. 

If this position proves to be true, then we are witnessing the climax of the Age in the negotiations that pit man against God.  We are watching as the nation of the beast presses Israel into submission.  If the United Nations declares Palestine a sovereign state, then Israel must again be driven from the land.  There is nothing in the prophets concerning that, except during the tribulation.  Since the Church remains on the earth today, we are not in the tribulation period, but it is yet future. 

It is the signing of a comprehensive Middle East peace agreement that begins that final seven years of Gentile world dominion.  There will be no United Nations during the Kingdom Age, but our Lord will be King of all the kings of all the kingdoms of the earth.  It will be a time when the classes of nobility will be distinguished again, and every nation will have its king: there will be no democracies or communist oligarchies or any totalitarian states, as all will be united in their acceptance of Christ as King and Sovereign of the entire creation.

Gentiles will no longer be able to press against Jerusalem, though they will have it surrounded at the end of the Millennial Kingdom.  Fire will then come down from heaven and destroy all of those who have resisted our Lord’s sovereignty.

One thousand seven years, plus seventy-five days, will follow the signing of that treaty (see Dan 12:8-13).  The first seven years will be a time of judgment upon the earth:  darkness and terrible pestilences and famines.  After the seven years of tribulation, our Lord returns to the earth. 

It is not until the passing of seventy-five days after His Second Advent that He is crowned King of kings and Lord of lords.  Of those seventy-five days, we are told nothing.  Many expositors suppose that it will be a time when the rubble left from the tribulation period will be cleared away and the earth will be renewed.  There is no Scripture to refute that supposition, but neither is there any to support it.  Surely, during that time, Church Age saints will be crowned in the kingdoms of earth, where they will rule under the King of kings.  The millennial Temple will be constructed, for Christ’s throne will surely be placed in the Holy of Holies in the Millennial Temple.  Ezekiel wrote extensively about that Temple.

The salient fact in all of the ongoing discussion of end-time events is that a man whom the whole world views favorably is brokering that Middle East treaty today.  That this man is the leader of the richest, most benevolent nation the world has ever seen (not to mention the most powerful by any account) should come as no surprise to any candid mind.  No tiny nation is going to suddenly come into world dominance.  It already has. 

The future is now, and the whole of Gentile world dominion is swirling down the vortex of time toward its destruction.  If the United States is the nation of the beast, then we are going to have a leader over whom the world rejoices.  He will be bent toward the goal of a comprehensive Middle East peace treaty.  Our president has made it an openly-stated goal of his administration to lead the world into peace, and most especially in the Middle East.  He determinedly expects to make that the crowning jewel among all his accomplishments in office.

This, and the world loves him.  Unique in the annals of human history, nations around the world held celebrations when President Obama won the victory in 2008.  Some nations held street parties and had fireworks displays in celebrating his election and inauguration.  When have the nations of the world ever done such a thing for the rise to power of another individual in a distant land?  Never.

The coffee is beyond stale.  It is thirty-odd years old.  Never have so many slept through so much.  It is time to wake up and drink that bitter brew that proves that the four hundred year old interpretation no longer obtains, but that the present reality is the substance of our long-suffering hope.

Read more about Wm. Anderson Simpson author of Midnight Rising-Warning Signs For This Generation-Deep River Books 2010. www.midnightrisingbook.net