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This article complements the SGAT message preached on Thursday evening by Rev Ivan Foster. It may be listened to here:
Sermon on Matthew 24 – a great prophetic chapter of the Bible
The four headlines which appeared on the BBC news site this week, along with a third from the ‘Daily Mail’, undoubtedly foreshadows an approaching alliance of nations antagonistic toward Israel and the growing anti-Semitism which will give rise to murder and terror.
Foretold of Old
This has been prophesied long ago with regards the end of this age and the final rebellion of mankind against the Lord. He will end that rebellion by His intervention in judgment!
“The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it,” Zechariah 12:1-3.
“Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city,” Zechariah 14:1-2.
But, as I have stated, the Lord will intervene to save His ancient people in accordance with His covenant made with their forefathers.
“Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle. And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south,” Zechariah 14:3-4.
MERCY AND GRACE
The Lord’s intervention will not merely be a ‘military’ one but one of mercy and grace leading to the spiritual conversion of a people who have long rejected the Lord Jesus as their true Messiah.
He will come to make war against His enemies!
“And I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written, that no man knew, but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. And out of his mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations: and he shall rule them with a rod of iron: and he treadeth the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he hath on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS,” Revelation 19:11-16.
But He will come to show mercy to His ancient people.
“Whereof the Holy Ghost also is a witness to us: for after that he had said before, (Jeremiah 33:3) This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, saith the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them; and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. Now where remission of these is, there is no more offering for sin,” Hebrews 10:15-18.
The spirit of opposition against Israel is mounting toward that final manifestation spoken of by Zechariah.
There has always been widespread opposition shown toward the Jewish people, and that because of their links to Jehovah, the true God. The many times of persecution of them indicate that!
When Israel was reconstituted as a nation 1948, it was the solemn undertaking of their leaders that never again would they tolerate pogroms of persecution and slaughter against the Jewish people.
Understandable
That is certainly an understandable human reaction, but sadly, in the light of Zechariah’s prophecy, and others, it is a futile resolution. Over the last seventy seven years Israel has certainly made good that determination. Those Arab states that attempted to execute their ingrained and deep-rooted hatred of Israel by unscrupulous attacks, paid a heavy price for their cowardly audacity!
2023 Attack
The present state of war in the Gaza region is the immediate outcome of the October 7, 2023, Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians.
Hamas and several other Palestinian militant groups launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, the first invasion of Israeli territory since the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. The attacks, which coincided with the Jewish religious holiday, Simchat Torah, initiated the ongoing Gaza war.
The attacks began with a barrage of at least 4,300 rockets launched into Israel and vehicle-transported and powered paraglider incursions into Israel. Hamas militants breached the Gaza–Israel barrier, attacking military bases and massacring civilians in 21 communities, including Be’eri, Kfar Aza, Nir Oz, Netiv Haasara, and Alumim.
According to an Israeli Defence Force report that revised the estimate on the number of attackers, 6,000 Gazans breached the border in 119 locations into Israel, including 3,800 from the elite “Nukhba forces” and 2,200 civilians and other militants.
Additionally, the IDF report estimated 1,000 Gazans fired rockets from the Gaza Strip, bringing the total number of participants on Hamas’s side to 7,000.
In total, 1,195 people were killed: 736 Israeli civilians (including 36 children), 79 foreign nationals, and 379 members of the security forces. 364 civilians were killed and many more wounded while attending the Nova music festival.
Condemnation
The governments of 44 countries denounced the attack and described it as terrorism, while some Arab and Muslim-majority countries blamed Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories as the root cause of the attack.
The day was labeled the bloodiest in Israel’s history and the “deadliest for Jews since the Holocaust” by many figures and media outlets in the West.
(Source – Wikipedia)
Response
Israel’s response to that attack has been the ongoing attacks on the Gaza region. It is that unrelenting assault and Israel’s present strategy in that war, where many forms of humanitarian aid is cut off from Gaza, which has inflamed the opposition of many nations including those named in the BBC article.
The Other Side
Of course, there is another side to the whole issue that is put forth by Israel, though increasingly lacking in support from those who were her allies.
The character of the Palestinian leadership is one of utmost dishonesty and chicanery. It is the parallel of the character of Putin, the Russian dictator, who speaks ‘peace’ to Ukraine out of one side of his mouth while ordering an onslaught of rockets and drones out of the other!
Here in Ulster, the Protestant and loyalist community has ever identified with Israel while Roman Catholic Irish Republicans have ever sided with the Palestinian terrorists.
The Provisional IRA has trained alongside the likes of Hamas, the terror organisation chiefly responsible for the 2023 attack on Israel and many other similar outrages. They have also received supplies of arms and explosives from the same source.
The Ulster loyalist knows how deceitful and duplicitous the IRA and their political spokesmen, Sinn Fein, can be. Their word cannot be taken for anything whatsoever.
If you asked them the date, you would be wise to seek out a calendar!
Gerry Adams
At the present time a trial in the High Court in Dublin is just about finishing. It centres upon the claim made in a BBC programme that Gerry Adams had sanctioned the killing of a former senior Sinn Féin official, Denis Donaldson.
This Adams denied even though senior members of the IRA have stated he was involved and he has been a long-time member of the IRA and at times had led it!
There are few Protestants who would give any credence to the word of Adams any more than they would the word of the devil who “is a liar, and the father of it,” John 8:44.
It is nigh on impossible to negotiate with those of the deceitful disposition of Sinn Fein or the Palestinians, for what is agreed today is repudiated tomorrow!
The western nations, critical of Israel, have little or no experience of such a dishonourable, devious, treacherous and blood-thirsty opponents within their borders, as is the Palestinian!
The only people who have experience of such is the maligned Ulster loyalist!! The old saying is true: ‘Never judge a person until you have walked a mile in their shoes.’ It comes from a poem by Mary T. Lathrap, in 1895.
“Pray, don’t find fault with the man that limps,
Or stumbles along the road.
Unless you have worn the moccasins he wears,
Or stumbled beneath the same load.”
Cannot be Justified
Having said these things, it must be stated that the deliberate killing of innocent men, women and children can never be justified, irrespective of the crimes committed by those that come from their community or race.
The Bible undoubtedly sanctions ‘self defence’. But commands that even when dealing with the most wicked of enemies, we must not adopt their cruel and ungodly habits.
Let me quote from the book of 2nd Samuel, the account of an event which illustrates that the Lord will not tolerate sin committed in His name and supposedly for His honour. It centres upon King Saul slaying the Gibeonites, a Canaanite nation that tricked Joshua into entering a covenant of peace with them back when Israel first entered the promised land (Joshua 9:2-19). There is no record of Saul’s crime in the Bible other than these words in 2 Samuel 21:1. But the Lord had a record of it and judged Israel until the matter was avenged.
However justified Israel may feel, or at least the present leadership of Israel, for the taking of harsh retribution against the Palestinians for their attacks upon the Jewish people, they will not escape the justice of God for any cruel and criminal acts, even in response to terrorism.
Watching
The ‘watcher’ of events in that land, with the Bible in his hand, sees ‘the day approaching’, even ‘the time of Jacob’s trouble.’
Jeremiah and Zechariah prophesied of why it was the Lord permits such affliction upon Israel by their enemies and how that affliction will be brought to an end.
We quote it at length.
“And these are the words that the LORD spake concerning Israel and concerning Judah. For thus saith the LORD; we have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it. For it shall come to pass in that day, saith the LORD of hosts, that I will break his yoke from off thy neck, and will burst thy bonds, and strangers shall no more serve themselves of him: but they shall serve the LORD their God, and David their king, whom I will raise up unto them. Therefore fear thou not, O my servant Jacob, saith the LORD; neither be dismayed, O Israel: for, lo, I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity; and Jacob shall return, and shall be in rest, and be quiet, and none shall make him afraid. For I am with thee, saith the LORD, to save thee: though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee: but I will correct thee in measure, and will not leave thee altogether unpunished. For thus saith the LORD, Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wound is grievous. There is none to plead thy cause, that thou mayest be bound up: thou hast no healing medicines. All thy lovers have forgotten thee; they seek thee not; for I have wounded thee with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel one, for the multitude of thine iniquity; because thy sins were increased. Why criest thou for thine affliction? thy sorrow is incurable for the multitude of thine iniquity: because thy sins were increased, I have done these things unto thee. Therefore all they that devour thee shall be devoured; and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be a spoil, and all that prey upon thee will I give for a prey. For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the LORD; because they called thee an Outcast, saying, This is Zion, whom no man seeketh after. Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will bring again the captivity of Jacob’s tents, and have mercy on his dwellingplaces; and the city shall be builded upon her own heap, and the palace shall remain after the manner thereof. And out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and I will multiply them, and they shall not be few; I will also glorify them, and they shall not be small. Their children also shall be as aforetime, and their congregation shall be established before me, and I will punish all that oppress them. And their nobles shall be of themselves, and their governor shall proceed from the midst of them; and I will cause him to draw near, and he shall approach unto me: for who is this that engaged his heart to approach unto me? saith the LORD. And ye shall be my people, and I will be your God,” Jeremiah 30:4-22.
“And it shall come to pass, that in all the land, saith the LORD, two parts therein shall be cut off and die; but the third shall be left therein. And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The LORD is my God,” Zechariah 13:8-9.
Thus the Bible-believer sides with Israel but does not condone wrong-doing by her, no matter how she is provoked. It saddens us to think that the mounting ill-will against Israel will continue to rise until that ‘great tribulation’ of which the Saviour speaks in Matthew 24:21: “For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be.”
The believer also takes heart that one day the Lord will intervene to deliver the elect of His ancient people from all their troubles.
To that end we seek to obey the Lord and “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee,” Psalm 122:6.
Rev Ivan Foster (Rtd)