An old idea is being revisited, that the Israelis in the settlements should simply live within the borders of the Palestinian state in peace, just as many Palestinians live in Israel. It is better to be friends than enemies, and that is the wind that President Obama is sailing on. It has been ever since he took office. It is the philosophy that animates his mind, to allow the world to live in peace and harmony; but most especially, in the Middle East.
This plan was posited some few years ago, and dismissed, but both sides are brushing off the dust, to see if there may be slight alterations that would satisfactorily remove barriers. They are beginning to appreciate that commerce is more profitable, and is preferable to war. The extremists in Gaza will eventually be shouted down and eliminated. The people of Gaza want to be recognized as a nation unto themselves, and to the world, just as much as the Jews want a piece of Jerusalem for their temple.
The problem is that both sides are driven by their ideologies, and not by common sense. They both believe firmly that Jerusalem is their own, and neither side wants to give ground, especially the Jews. Israel is the one whom the world sees as an interloper, because they have broken the borders that the Gentile world gave them in 1948. It is really that simple, and if not agreed upon, it will be imposed. Israel will be given land sufficient for its temple requirements, as well as its associated gatekeepers, musicians, and priests. There has been talk in recent days about Israel perhaps buying a perpetual lease for a settlement sufficient for the worshipers of the God of Israel.
We cannot know altogether how God has this worked out, the details. We are not prophets, except insofar as we bring the words of the prophets to the world. We cannot know the details, lest we be able to discern the day and the hour.
But we most certainly can recognize the times and the seasons when they arrive upon the earth. In that day, all of the named nations of the world in the Bible (there aren’t really that many of them) will be aligned in a certain way – this one allied with that one, and the enemy of another. There is a geopolitical stage provided concerning Israel and those nations that play a part in end-time prophecies. When that geopolitical stage is set, the times and the seasons will be upon us.
The entire world is today poised for the fulfillment of prophecy, and yet, is willfully and woefully ignorant of it. People watch the “educational” channels around the world and are bombarded almost daily with lies, distortions and doubts about God’s Word. Even as that Word is being fulfilled all around them.
What was the first thing that the serpent asked Eve? What was the first question mark in the Bible asking. The devil said to Eve, “Has God indeed said…?” He is asking that same question all over the world still today, even as a brilliant man with apparently peaceful ambitions for all the world is in the midst of doing the very first thing that is said of the one called Antichrist; he is brokering the negotiations for peace between Israel and the whole Arab community.
How does he hope to do that? By tearing down the ancient tribal paradigms and constructing a new paradigm of peace and safety and goodwill. The pundits do not believe it can happen, but it is going to happen, because the Jewish prophets saw it. President Obama is bringing a message of great hope to the world. It is being done at great cost to the United States, but he is high on the list of those who seek a global economy and currency. Not to bring the world down to the level of the poor, but to bring those who are now in poverty hope for an equitable wage for their day’s labor.
The conservative press railed against Obama for his pledge to “spread the wealth around” during the 2008 campaign in answer to a question asked by a woman in the gathering. Joe the Plumber arose (how absurdly ignorant and unthinking are we anyway?), and had his moment in the sun.
Obama made that statement, and it ought to be clear by now that he doesn’t say things that he doesn’t mean. He seeks a kinder and gentler America, and world. Without government regulation, corporations have sucked dry the treasury of the nation and pledged our land as collateral to other nations. What are we thinking? Without government regulation, the food industry would quickly become dangerous. Corporations have no heart, but they reflect the hearts of those in charge, because those in charge are the ones who have lost contact with “commoners,” and see them as prey, whose blood is measured in dollars. They are vicious carnivores, all.
That said, we must recognize that this is still the devil’s world. He is still its ruler, and all the governments of the world are staged according to his principles. That is an inescapable fact. Corporations buy their politicians, and the largesse flows in freely. That’s just the way things work.
The world wants not to know what God has to say about these times and seasons. For they know that they would stand convicted of their evil ways, their lack of true justice, their greed and avarice, and their insatiable lust for more and more and more. The world wants to speculate. It wants to question, as if mankind might sit in judgment upon God. Its day is coming, and faster than all but a few recognize.
The world realizes that “something big” is about to happen. Some look upon the Mayan calendar and suppose that civilization must end in 2012. Actually, “big things” happen with great frequency after that treaty is signed and ratified. Some call it the end of the world, or Doomsday. The signing of that treaty referred to in Dan. 9:24 does not end with the extinction of the earth and all its inhabitants.
But it does indeed set in motion the final seven years of Gentile world dominion. The Mayans may be right. There may be enough “natural” disasters between now and the end of December, 2012, that civilizations will break down. After all, great earthquakes will shake the entire planet. An asteroid the size of a mountain will actually break open the crust of the earth, according to Isaiah, and magma, coupled with the earthquakes will reshape the land masses. With no passable roads in order to get to the marketplaces with their weekly deliveries; with broken oil pipelines the world over; with broken runways, and no way to get adequate supplies of diesel fuel or gasoline or food to the market, people might find themselves killing one another over something as small as a can of peas. It could happen in 2012, or the Mayans may have it wrong, or our calendar might not be correct. Who knows these things? But we can know what is written in the Word of God.
When all is said and done, the startling fact remains that we may indeed be that generation of saints to be alive at the rapture of the Church. What joy and rejoicing there will be! But we spend a lot more time immersed in temporal things than we do walking through our temporal lives with an eternal perspective. That is where faith, hope and love are found in abundance. When our hearts are in heaven, it is because that is where our treasure is, who serve the Lord.
The fact that these negotiations persist, and that the world is bearing down on both Israel and the Palestinians to stop this stupid fighting and get down to business; all this is the way in which the saints will know that the end of this age is very near indeed.
Hope is the forgotten virtue. Men hope for temporal things, only to have them end at a hole in the ground. How much more blessed is the man who lives this life “beyond that hole in the ground,” beyond the grave, seeing his temporal life as the precursor to his eternal estate. But the first shall be last, and the last shall be first. Every time that “hope” is found in the New Testament, it concerns the resurrection of the NT saints at the rapture of the Church.
Those saints who are alive at that time are “translated” in a moment from mortal to immortal. We go bodily to the home that Jesus Christ has been building for us for the past two thousand years. It has taken Him that long, and He is God Almighty. How grand must it be?
When we take our hopes off temporal things and put them on things that have to do with service to God while we are still here, our paradigm of life changes, and we have peace and love and joy and hope aplenty; and all the more as we see the Day approaching. The temporal circumstances of our temporal lives mean very little in comparison with our heavenly home. Indeed, those who have the least today have the most reason to hope for the rapture of the Church. There is more genuine faith found among the poor than any rich people. The impasses will eventually be broken between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and a peace agreement will be reached. Before that day dawns, our Day will begin. Progress toward the treaty is haltingly moving forward, and we have much reason to be hopeful.
Read more about Wm. Anderson Simpson author of Midnight Rising-Warning Signs For This Generation-Deep River Books 2010. www.midnightrisingbook.net
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