Blue Helmets to Jerusalem

by David A. Reed             

Contents  

Summary Preface 
Ch. 1 - Blue Helmets and Bible Prophecy 
Ch. 2 - Objections to Christianity 
Ch. 3 - Jerusalem a problem for the whole world 
Ch. 4 - Why Believe Bible Prophecy? 
Ch. 5 - Chosen People 
Ch. 6 - Promised Seed 
Ch. 7 - Promised Land 
Ch. 8 - Holy City  
Ch. 9 - Promised Messiah 
Ch.10 - False Alarms, False Prophets and the Antichrist 
Ch.11 - Turned off by Hellfire? 
Ch.12 - What about Darwin? 
Ch.13 - How to be Saved  
Ch.14 - What Happens Next 
Ch.15 - America's Role 
Ch.16 - Why Now? Precedents 
Ch.17 - Nations United and Resolved 
Ch.18 - Are you ready?  
About the Author 

Posted online at  BlueHelmetsToJerusalem.com
Copyright © 2003 by David A. Reed, all rights reserved





Summary 



Preface

Several of my earlier books have dealt with prophetic failures. I have researched and written about the great "Disappointment of 1844," the dates set for Christ's return by various Adventist groups, attempts at prophecy by Mormonism's founder Joseph Smith, and the Jehovah's Witnesses' predictions for 1914, 1925, and 1975. This research has shown me the accuracy of the Bible's own predictions about Jerusalem, which have serious implications for our modern world.

Chapter 1 - Blue Helmets and Bible Prophecy

The Hebrew prophet Zechariah foretells a future time when the status of Jerusalem would become a problem for the whole world, and when all the nations of the world would be united in sending a military force to impose their solution for the city. Are today's events moving in that direction? Radical Islamic terrorists who cite the status of Jerusalem as a principal grievance have made their problem the world's problem, especially since the attack on America on September 11, 2001. The United Nations General Assembly has decreed that Jerusalem shall be an "international" city "administered by the United Nations." Now the Quartet made up of the European Union, Russia, the United States and the United Nations have pressured the Israelis and Palestinians into accepting a roadmap for peace. There are calls by world leaders for the U.N. to enforce its resolutions, and calls within Israel to reject an international solution.

Chapter 2 - Objections to Christianity

Rational minds demand reasons for faith, especially when Christianity is merely one of many competing religious philosophies. Moreover, the Christian church has lost credibility, even among believers, due to a long history of wars, sex scandals, political corruption, and other evidences of hypocrisy. In explaining his parable of 'the weeds and the wheat' Jesus foretold that the Church would be filled with counterfeit Christians who would act this way. He warned against the hypocritical 'leaven of the Pharisees' and the politically corrupt 'leaven of Herod.' He also told how to identify real Christians amidst the imitations. Rather than undermining the credibility of the Bible, the corruption in the Church today confirms Jesus' words. Later chapters will address the theory of evolution and concerns about hellfire teaching. 

Chapter 3 - Jerusalem a problem for the whole world

Located at the intersection of three continents, Jerusalem often found itself in the path of conquering empires. The Crusades brought international armies to the city but did not fit the prophetic picture of the whole world uniting to impose a solution. International terrorists citing Jerusalem's status as their grievance have created a problem for the whole world. The first world body, the League of Nations, gave Britain an official Mandate to govern Palestine, shortly after the Balfour Declaration stated the British intention to establish a Jewish homeland there. In 1947 United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 called for division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, and the nations of Israel and Jordan were born the following year. Resolution 181 also called for Jerusalem to be separate from either state, under international control with a governor appointed by the United Nations. Israel has accepted U.N. peacekeeping forces brought in to monitor the border with Lebanon. The "roadmap" provided by the international community calls for settling the issue of Jerusalem in its final phase. Several proposed scenarios could lead to the deployment of blue helmets around the city.

Chapter 4 - Why Believe Bible Prophecy?

Rooted in the complexities of ancient history, the prophecies of the Bible can prove difficult to grasp. However, two significant predictions that are both simple and straightforward can be used to test and establish the Bible's prophetic track record. First, there is the prediction that the gods of the gentile nations -- Baal, Ashtoreth, Chemosh, Dagon, Artemis, Zeus and the rest -- would be abandoned and forgotten, while the God of Abraham would come to be worshiped world wide by people of all nations. The prediction seemed laughable when it was made, because those other gods were much more popular than the unseen God of the tiny Hebrew nation, but billions of Muslims, Christians and Jews today prove the prophecy was right on target. Second, there is the prediction found as far back as the books of Moses, that the Jewish people would be uprooted from the Promised Land and would be scattered throughout the world, only to be restored as a nation thousands of years later, just before the end of the world. Impossible as it may have seemed, the Roman empire carried out the scattering and the British empire facilitated the regathering. Fulfilled against overwhelming odds, these two prophecies establish a basis for believing that the remaining prophecies about Jerusalem will also come true.

Chapter 5 - Chosen People

Some people reject the notion that the Jews are the biblical Chosen People. Others who see the connection reject the Bible as a result. Misconceptions abound as to the actual meaning of the expression in Scripture. Condemnation of the Old Testament kings demonstrates it does not imply God's approval of the policies of the state of Israel. With each national group making idols to worship and dreaming up pantheons of gods and goddesses, mankind would have forgotten the Creator, had he not intervened to preserve true worship somewhere on earth. The Jews were chosen to preserve the only written record of the creation and of God's early dealings with the human race. Even the Christian New Testament was written entirely by Jewish followers of the Messiah, and the later Muslim Koran acknowledges the Jews as the "guardians" whose job was "to preserve the Book of Allah." The Jews were also chosen as the people to host the Messiah's birth and ministry, and to provide the setting for his promised return to Jerusalem.

Chapter 6 - Promised Seed

The Genesis account of Adam and Eve's sin includes a cryptic promise of a coming "seed" of the woman who would eventually crush the serpent. The Bible concludes with the Revelation's identification of the devil as the original serpent and Christ as the son of man who crushes him. In between that introduction and conclusion, the Bible is full of lengthy genealogies that try the patience of many readers. But these complex lists of who begat whom are crucial to the story, because they trace the promised seed from Adam and Eve, down through Abraham and King David, to the promised Messiah himself.

Chapter 7 - Promised Land

From the town called Ur of the Chaldees, where Iraqi exiles met three thousand years later to discuss forming a new government after the fall of Saddam Hussein, Abraham moved with his family to Harran in what is now Turkey. God told him next to migrate south to the land of Canaan. The Canaanites were gross sinners and were slated for destruction. The slaughter would not be genocide, because it was decreed by the Judge of all the earth. God promised to give their land to Abraham and his descendants. Soon afterward God sent fire from heaven to wipe out the worst of them, the inhabitants of the district of Sodom and Gomorrah. The divine promise was repeated to Abraham's son Isaac, and to Isaac's son Jacob. After his name was changed to Israel, Jacob and his family moved to Egypt, where they survived a famine and grew, over the centuries, into a small national group. Moses led them out of slavery in Egypt to the border of the promised land, and then Joshua led their armies as the Israelites wiped out the Canaanites and took possession of their land.

Chapter 8 - Holy City 

Recognized by United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 as a city holy to "the three great monotheistic faiths throughout the world, Christian, Jewish and Moslem," Jerusalem is unique among holy cities. In the most ancient references Abraham paid tithes to Jerusalem's mysterious king Melchizedek, who was "priest of the most high God." Centuries later king David drove pagan Jebusites from the city and made it his capital. Solomon built God's temple there. After unfaithful Jews polluted it with idolatry, God allowed the neo-Babylonian empire to destroy the city, but later he moved the heart of Medo-Persian emperor Cyrus to rebuild Jerusalem and its temple. After Israel rejected its Messiah, God had Roman legions destroy both the city and the temple again. With Jews in control of the area now since 1967, Islamic mosques sitting atop the Temple Mount, and U.N. resolutions calling for the Jews to vacate, Jerusalem has become "a heavy stone burdening the world" as Zechariah foretold. Soon to follow are the apocalyptic Battle of Armageddon, which will leave Messiah ruling the world from Jerusalem.

Chapter 9 - Promised Messiah

The first Israelite kings were anointed with holy perfumed oil poured ceremonially over their heads. This made them "anointed ones" or Messiahs in Hebrew. God promised that a future Messiah would come who would be anointed with the Holy Spirit instead of oil. He would wage war in righteousness, conquer the world, and rule for ever afterward in peace. Every sorrow would be erased, even sickness and death ceasing to plague mankind. Dozens of prophecies foretold the Messiah and the details of his life, death, resurrection and second coming. He would be born in Bethlehem, the child of a virgin, would preach in Galilee, would arrive in Jerusalem seated on a donkey, but would be rejected, beaten, stripped, and nailed up to die like a criminal. Jesus of Nazareth fit every detail of the prophetic description, but only a small minority of the Jewish people accepted him as their promised Messiah. Even his miraculous resurrection from the dead failed to convince the religious leaders. Nevertheless, the message spread throughout the Greek-speaking world as Gentiles embraced their "anointed one," or Christ.

Chapter 10 - False Alarms, False Prophets and the Antichrist

Anyone calling attention to prophecies about the return of Christ is in danger of being compared to the proverbial 'boy who cried wolf.' My earlier books dealt with many false alarms allegedly based on biblical passages: various groups pointed to 1874, 1914 or 1975 as the time Christ would return. Some people have been hurt by such failed predictions, but others have been moved to investigate further and have benefited as a result. The Apostle Paul wrote that there would be a falling away first, and the appearance of an antichrist. Watch out for speculative answers and for those who resort to the tyranny of authority or who claim to have special knowledge beyond what others can discern from reading the Bible. Scripture was written for ordinary folk, not for intellectuals. The basic signs and warnings in prophecy are straightforward and easy to understand.

Chapter 11 - Turned off by Hellfire?

Some people shy away from the Bible due to misrepresentations or distortions of what it says about life after death. While some teachers focus on certain verses, all must be examined to determine what the Bible actually teaches on this subject. That teaching is both reasonable and satisfying. While the Old Testament contains mere hints and glimpses of the afterlife, the teachings of Jesus and his apostles add a considerable amount of clarifying information. Hades was the destination of all who died before Christ's resurrection, but it was not at all the place depicted in Dante's Inferno. Jesus' parable of the rich man and Lazarus sheds light on the truth about "hell." Punishment after death is meant to inspire healthy fear of God, not to depict the deity as a fiend who dreams up worse torments than human war criminals. Jesus was the kindest, most loving man ever to walk the earth, and this should inspire us to trust God to deal fairly. If our concept of the afterlife offends us, then perhaps it is our concept that is wrong, rather than some supposed injustice on God's part. 

Chapter 12 - What about Darwin?

Popular acceptance of the theory of evolution causes many to doubt the truthfulness of the Bible. Discovery of the genetic blueprints contained in DNA points to the existence of an intelligent designer of all living things. The genetic code shares many similarities with computer code, which should make us realize that mutations are destructive, not creative. Mutations can add diseases to the genome, but can not add improved new features, just as damage to a computer disk can corrupt the code and make it malfunction but cannot cause Windows 98 to evolve into Windows XP. Scientists associated with the "intelligent design movement" have demonstrated that irreducibly complex structures in living things could not have evolved through a series of mutations producing component parts that depend on other components in order to function. The musical talent of Mozart and the self-sacrificing altruism of Ghandi and Schweitzer can not be explained by 'natural selection' though 'survival of the fittest.' On the other hand, the Bible's explanation of man's origin fits the facts of history and of science and adequately accounts for the world as we see it today.

Chapter 13 - How to be Saved 

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God announced that his law covenant with Israel would eventually be replaced by a new covenant based on grace. Open to all mankind, instead of to Jews only, it would bring believers into a personal relationship with God and would free them from the burden of sin. Jesus inaugurated the new covenant and bridged the gap between God and man. By trusting Jesus as their Savior and submitting to him as their Lord, believers now can be 'born again' as adopted children of God. As such, they receive the Holy Spirit to live in their hearts, which results in an intimate closeness to God. He takes an active part in directing the lives of his children and brings them into fellowship with others in the Church. Believers enjoy, not only the sure hope of surviving the coming world catastrophe, but also peace and joy in their lives right now.

Chapter 14 - What Happens Next

The Bible's end time prophecies go into considerable detail concerning the events that will take place. Zechariah devotes two chapters to what will happen when God "will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it." Daniel offers prophetic visions of the rise and fall of beast-like world powers, culminating in the triumph of the Messiah. The apostle John refers to a seven-headed beast-like world government that would finally fall under the assault of heavenly armies. The Hebrew prophet Joel speaks of all the Gentile nations coming together for war, only to encounter God's voice roaring from Jerusalem. Isaiah similarly speaks of God gathering "all nations and tongues" to "execute judgment upon all men." The apostle Peter cautions that, although the foretold judgment may seem to be delayed, it is coming nonetheless. There are different schools of thought regarding whether God will rescue believers before the final troubles break out, or during the tribulation, but the signs Jesus said to watch for include mention of "Jerusalem surrounded by armies."

Chapter 15 - America's Role

Although there are no clear references in the Bible to the United States of America, it should not be surprising to see the world's sole superpower play a prominent role in regard to Israel. After all, Egypt served as a cradle for the Jewish people to grow into a populous national group, albeit in slavery. The neo-Babylonian empire destroyed Jerusalem, and then the Medo-Persian empire conquered Babylon and restored both the Holy City and its temple. So, it is certainly consistent with history for both Britain and America to figure prominently in the final chapters written, so far, only in prophecy.

Chapter 16 - Why Now? Precedents

The history of divine intervention in ages past also helps identify the types of situations that provoke God to act. The flood of Noah's day was sent to cleanse a planet that had become full of sexual immorality and violence, much like today's world. God sent fire and brimstone to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, so the open gay pride movement today must not be acceptable to him. He intervened when the builders of the Tower of Babel built an urban society capable of accomplishing the impossible, so what about today's scientific breakthroughs in a similar setting? The Jews have restored the state of Israel, and the Information Age lets the whole world now view Jerusalem as their problem demanding an international solution.

Chapter 17 - Nations United and Resolved 

Zechariah's prophecy of the world's nations uniting for the final attack on Jerusalem parallels similar predictions Joel, Isaiah and the apostle John. Although its founders, no doubt, had other things in mind, the League of Nations made Britain's Palestine Mandate one of its first official acts, and the U.N., likewise, passed a resolution demanding international control over Jerusalem as far back as 1947, soon after that body's formation. Since then, there have been more United Nations resolutions on Israel and Palestine than on any other region of the world. These have consistently called for the Jews to vacate all or part of the city, for Israel not to claim Jerusalem as its capital, or for the city to be internationalized under a governor appointed by the United Nations. The Quartet's roadmap has United Nations backing. The nations have spent decades "uniting" for the attack and drawing up resolutions, and now all that remains is the enforcement.

Chapter 18 - Are you ready? 

What response should these events evoke from individuals who discern that Jerusalem has become a problem for the whole world, as prophesied, and that the nations have united for a final foretold attack? Should we weigh in on the political issues involved and push for events to move in one direction or the other? The most important response for each one of us is to look at our personal relationship with the Creator, the God who is about to engage the nations in the final war of Armageddon. His victory is certain. Ours can be, too, if we trust and obey. 

About the Author

To address the legitimate question of credibility I will say more about myself here than in the typical about-the-author blurb. No, I was not raised as an unquestioning member of a Christian fundamentalist community. Skepticism prevailed, both in my family and in my adolescent plunge into Darwinian evolution, humanistic existentialism and well-argued atheism. My major in political science at Harvard also removed any my-country-right-or-wrong idealism. The evidence that convinced a skeptic like me is presented in this book, out of respect for other inquiring minds.







Preface 



Much of my time during the past two decades has been devoted to researching failed prophecies concerning the return of Christ. The prophecies that failed were not found in the Bible, but, rather, originated in the sermons and writings of various religious leaders here in America during the past two hundred years. Yet, the promulgators of these predictions setting specific dates for the apocalypse all claimed to be interpreting biblical prophecy. 

The American date-setting spree began with the prophecies of Baptist lay preacher William Miller, who declared that Christ would return in March of 1843. He gained a large following from many mainline churches, but the date came and went without the predicted event. So, he recalculated his chronology and came up with a new date; he blamed the revision on a one-year error in the first calculations. Now, Christ would return in March of 1844. That prophecy, too, proved to be false, so Miller made a third attempt, this time specifying October of 1844. 

As if catching the prophetic bug from Miller, or perhaps to compete with his contemporary whose predictions captured newspaper headlines, Joseph Smith, the founder, leader and official "Prophet" of the Mormon Church, set his own timetable that would have had Christ returning around the year 1890. 

Mormons never made a big fuss over Joseph Smith's off-the-cuff predictions, and quickly forgot about them, but a remnant of William Miller's movement persisted, although fragmented into several schismatic Adventist groups. The Advent Christian Church, the Life and Advent Union, the Seventh-day Adventists, and various small Second Adventist groups all sprang from the Millerite movement. Some Adventists recalculated Miller's dates, found what they believed to be a thirty-year error, and began proclaiming after the American Civil War that Christ would return in the autumn of 1874. When that date passed and nothing occurred, however, some die-hard sect members took a new approach: they insisted that their calculations could not possibly be in error, so Christ must have returned on schedule, only invisibly. This viewpoint found expression in a periodical titled Herald of the Morning, published by Nelson H. Barbour of Rochester, New York.

After associating with Adventist groups for about ten years, in 1879 the young assistant editor of Herald of the Morning broke away to start his own magazine, Zion's Watch Tower and Herald of Christ's Presence. Watchtower founder Charles Taze Russell succeeded in reaching a much wider audience with his assertions that Christ had returned invisibly in 1874 and that the world would end in the autumn of 1914. Those dates were later abandoned, but Russell's successors in the modern day Jehovah's Witnesses went on to teach during the late 1960's that Christ's triumphant battle of Armageddon could be expected to occur in the autumn of 1975.

Details and documentation of these failed prophecies can be found in several of my books, including Answering Jehovah's Witnesses Subject by Subject (1996, Baker Book House) and Mormonism: Changes, Contradictions and Errors (by John R. Farkas and David A. Reed, 1995, Baker Book House).

My research made me conversant also with the failed prophecies of various other groups, too, both cultic and those closer to mainstream Christianity. All of these forays into date-setting failed for fairly obvious reasons. In some cases corrupt cult leaders stirred up false expectations for their own selfish purposes. In other cases sincere Bible believers got carried away in their eagerness for Christ's return and went beyond what was written in Scripture, adding their own imagination and wishful thinking to what the Word of God actually said.

In all cases, however, regardless of the motives behind those making these pronouncements, they all abandoned sound methods of biblical interpretation in favor of twisted reasoning and bogus logic.

On the receiving end of all these false prophecies were millions of real people who were deeply disappointed and who suffered very real hurt. The failure of William Miller's predictions that Christ would return in 1844 was labeled by historians as "the Disappointment of 1844." Some victims of failed prophecies lost faith entirely, while others were forced to undergo a painful re-examination of what they believed and why. Some had quit jobs, sold homes, or made other sacrifices on the assurance that money and possessions would no longer be needed after the predicted date. 

In every case it was human interpretation the failed, not the prophecies of Scripture itself. To the contrary, Bible prophecy has an excellent track record, as I will document in several chapters of this book.

Researching the lives and works of false prophets has made me painfully aware of the danger of going "beyond what is written" in Scripture. (1 Corinthians 4:6 NIV) Yet, at the same time, Jesus told us to "keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come." (Matthew 24:42 NIV)

Watch for what? For Jesus to come? No, rather he indicated that there would be signs to watch for that would signal the imminence of his return. "When these things begin to take place," we would know that the time was near. (Luke 21:28 Jerusalem Bible) Keeping on the watch involves efforts to match the things happening in the world -- current events -- with the things prophesied in Scripture. However, that is not an easy task.

Human understanding of the fulfillment of biblical prophecy has always been better in hindsight than in foresight. The faithful Hebrews watched to see how the prophetic words of the inspired prophets among them would be fulfilled. But they were often surprised when the fulfillment actually took place before their eyes, and it was not what they had expected.

This was especially true in regard to the prophecies about the long expected Messiah. The Jews weren't anticipating Jesus' lowly birth, his teachings contrary to the established authorities of the day, and his untimely and shameful death. The New Testament points back to dozens of verses in the Old Testament that foretold details of the Messiah's life and death, but most of them had gone unrecognized or been misunderstood before their fulfillment in Christ. (See the chapter titled "Promised Messiah" in this book.)

Similarly, many noble efforts have been made in our day to puzzle out the details of how the book of Revelation and other New Testament end times prophecies will be fulfilled. Yet sincere Christians who are knowledgeable of the Scriptures still may find themselves in opposite camps as to when the 'rapture' will occur in relation to the 'tribulation period' and in regard to other details of those prophetic passages, as I will explain later.

Scripture says that 'no man knows the day or the hour' of Christ's return (Matt. 24:36), but Jesus did say to watch for certain things that would indicate his return was very near, and a number of recent world events stand out as red flags in that regard. My aim in this present book is not to the fine tune the minor details of eschatology, nor to get into a theological debate over questionable interpretations. Rather I am grabbing hold of one of those red flags, taking it up, and waving it in air. I am calling attention to fulfillment of prophecy that anyone who reads it will be able to recognize.

This is the new red flag: as never before in human history, Jerusalem has become a problem for the whole world, and, also as never before in human history, the nations of the world are united in their determination to find a solution to that problem. In the light of Bible prophecy, the implications are staggering.

Whether you are a Bible believer or a skeptic sincerely exploring all possibilities, at least consider the evidence presented in the following chapters of Blue Helmets to Jerusalem.







Chapter 1

Blue Helmets and Bible Prophecy 



The Bible speaks of a future time when Jerusalem would become a problem burdening the whole world, and when all the nations of the earth would be united in sending armed forces to Jerusalem to impose a solution. Could today's events be moving in that direction? 

The answer should be of the greatest significance for all of us, because the prophecy goes on to say that Almighty God responds by sending his heavenly armies to crush the governments of the nations and to replace their rule with the Kingdom of God.

"Jerusalem will be a heavy stone burdening the world," the ancient Hebrew prophet Zechariah foretold in the book of the Bible bearing his name. What does the world do about this burdensome problem? "All the nations of the earth unite in an attempt" to impose their solution for Jerusalem; that is the answer God inspired his prophetic penman to write. (Zechariah 12:3 The Living Bible Catholic edition)

Are today's events moving in that direction? Are United Nations peacekeeping forces in blue helmets about to take up positions in Jerusalem? 

During the final years of the administration of American President Bill Clinton, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process had made considerable progress toward ending the violence in and around Jerusalem. Just about all the details had been worked out and agreed to by both parties, and a Palestinian state seemed to be only months away. But, then the negotiations broke down over the status of Jerusalem, and violence resumed on a level worse than before. Moreover, that violence spread abroad, as Muslim extremists expressed their rage against Jewish and American interests worldwide, citing the situation in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, including Jerusalem, as a prime reason for their actions.

Could you imagine Israel and the Palestinians finally reaching a peace accord under the auspices of the United Nations, with U.N. peacekeepers stationed on the scene to enforce the terms of the agreement? Many nations today are pushing for this very thing to happen.

Could you imagine violence increasing after such an arrangement is in place, so that reinforcements are sent in to augment the U.N. presence? Could you imagine those multi-national peacekeepers coming into conflict with Israeli forces at Jerusalem?

Would this fit the biblical scenario? Would God respond by unleashing Armageddon?

The question becomes more pressing, as the words of Jesus of Nazareth are added to the mix. "…when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies…when you see the events taking place…the Kingdom of God is near." (Luke 21:20, 30 The Living Bible Catholic edition)

So, it is not just an ancient Hebrew writer who spoke prophetically of armies moving against Jerusalem in the context of end times prophecies. Such predictions are not found exclusively in the Scriptures of the Jews. The Christian Messiah used similar words in a similar context.

But, how realistic is it to think of the nations uniting to deal with the problem of the status of Jerusalem, and to impose an international solution by military force? Although most people may not be generally aware of it, events have been moving in that direction for decades.

Back in 1947, when the future birth of the state of Israel was a topic for discussion and planning, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed its Resolution 181, which was voted on and approved on November 29 of that year. Section C of Part II of that Resolution was titled "The City of Jerusalem" and, in effect, claimed the authority of the United Nations to determine and establish "the boundaries of the City of Jerusalem." General Assembly Resolution 181, Part III, Section A went on to state that the city must not be part of the state of Israel, nor part of any Arab state. Rather, it must be an "international" city administered by the United Nations.

Representing the nations of the whole world, the General Assembly declared: "The City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations. The Trusteeship Council shall be designated to discharge the responsibilities of the Administering Authority on behalf of the United Nations."



And in Section B titled "Boundaries of the City" U. N. General Assembly Resolution 181 went on to specify that "The City of Jerusalem shall include the present municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns."

More recently, the "Quartet" composed of the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations drew up a "roadmap for peace" toward the end of the year 2002 and presented it formally to the government of Israel and to the Palestinian Authority in May, 2003. That roadmap envisions, in its final phase of implementation, an international conference to achieve "resolution on the status of Jerusalem that takes into account the political and religious concerns of both sides, and protects the religious interests of Jews, Christians and Muslims worldwide."

Later chapters of this book will look more closely at this and subsequent resolutions regarding the status of Jerusalem passed by both the General Assembly and the Security Council of the United Nations, and at the Quartet's roadmap for peace. But this much is mentioned here to prove that "all the nations of the earth" have already started to "unite in an attempt" to impose their solution for the problem posed by Jerusalem. (Zechariah 12:3 The Living Bible Catholic edition)

Besides simply drawing up resolutions on Jerusalem and voting to make them official, the international community seems to be moving in the direction of enforcing those resolutions. According to a report in the Jerusalem Post Internet Edition, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, "the West has been guilty of double standards -- on the one hand saying the UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq must be implemented, on the other hand, sometimes appearing rather quixotic over the implementation of resolutions about Israel and Palestine." (From the article titled, "Foreign Ministry slams British PM's linkage of Iraq, Intifada," by Douglas Davis, March 26, 2003) 

The same article quoted British Prime Minister Tony Blair as saying that the American President George W. Bush "believes, like me, that this is a vital interest to resolve because it is probably the issue, more than anything else, that keeps the Arab and Muslim worlds and the Western world apart." Prime Minister Blair spoke those words less than a week after the British armed forces had entered active combat, alongside American forces, with the stated goal of enforcing Security Council resolutions on Iraq.

So, linking "the implementation of resolutions about Israel and Palestine" to the military enforcement of resolutions about Iraq carries ominous implications, and, not surprisingly, the British statements drew strong criticism from the Israeli government.

Farther along in his prophetic writings, Zechariah foretells that the command will go forth to "gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle… Then shall the LORD go forth, and fight against those nations." (Zechariah 14:2-3 KJV) And the Christian New Testament features similar prophetic language, this time locating the actual battlefield at the plain of Megiddo, or Armageddon, the site of a massive defeat of Egyptian armies thousands of years earlier. The Apostle John referred to it this way in his inspired Apocalypse: "the spirits of devils…go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth… And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." (Revelation 16:14-16 KJV) 

Television news coverage in recent years has made all of us familiar with the sight of white-painted vehicles marked "UN" manned by peacekeeping forces in blue helmets. But the Apocalyptic vision of the Apostle John's Revelation uses less familiar language when describing in greater detail the forces God will use when he intervenes militarily. We speak of armies in terms of armored cavalry, tanks and heavy weaponry; God used the language of the day, borrowing terms from the cavalry John was familiar with:

"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. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great. And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army." (Revelation 19:11-19 KJV)

Is the world really moving toward such a head-on conflict with God? Israeli-Palestinian talks broke down in the year 2000, with neither side willing to yield on the status of Jerusalem. The violence and terror that followed hit Israel first, but then spread worldwide. Now, fear of terrorism grips the world. Much of the world also lives in fear of the American military response that has already been demonstrated first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq. World public opinion rages against these American actions and against the Israeli military moves in Gaza and the West Bank. As tensions rise between Muslim nations and the West, many point to the violence in and around Jerusalem as the root cause. 

While radical Islamic leaders enlist followers to 'march on Jerusalem,' other diplomats seek to place Jerusalem under international control, policed by United Nations peacekeeping forces. The government of Israel has been following such talk, of course, and has long been resolved to hold onto Jerusalem at all costs. 

The Jerusalem Post Internet Edition carried a story by Gil Hoffman on November 7, 2001, reporting, "The diplomatic plan that Foreign Minister Shimon Peres is formulating with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is intended to prevent the international community from imposing its own plans on Israel, Sharon explained yesterday." That same report added these details: "Explaining the urgency of the Sharon-Peres diplomatic initiative, the Foreign Minister referred to plans circulating out of the United States, European Union, and United Nations and said that Israel cannot let its actions be driven by the agendas of other bodies with vested interests." (The Jerusalem Post's internet edition can be found online at www.jpost.com.)

So, Israeli politicians see the possibility of 'the international community imposing' a solution, and they are determined to resist. That is the formula for conflict.

Although foreign armies have surrounded Jerusalem in the past -- even international armies during the crusades -- the problem has always been of a more limited scope. Never before has Jerusalem been a problem for "the world," and never before has there been a fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy that "all the nations of the earth" would unite to impose their solution. (Zech. 12:3 The Living Bible Catholic Edition) Now, today, we see such a problem in place, and we see moves afoot in the world community to impose such a solution. Are we about to see the events Jesus pointed forward to as part of a 'sign' to watch for in the end times? 

Jesus said, "When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies…Men will faint from terror…When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near…it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth." (Luke 21:20, 26, 28, 35 NIV) Everyone living today has reason to be concerned and to investigate the significance of these events.







Chapter 2

Objections to Christianity 



Besides laying out the evidence for the reliability of Bible prophecy and its application to the world situation today, this book will also attempt to deal with the objections that a rational mind might raise. I am hoping to present evidence that will be clear, concise, and compelling, not only to readers who are already believers in Bible prophecy, but also to individuals inquiring into these matters for the first time. I don't wish to limit myself to preaching to the choir.

To Christian Bible believers the message is, "When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your deliverance is drawing near." (Luke 21:28 NIV) Compare the events that are taking place in the world today with the things that Jesus said to watch for as indicators that the time of his return is near. Can you see the predicted events "begin to take place"? Then rejoice, because Christ is coming again!

But, for the person looking into these matters for the first time, the message must include some additional elements. It must include evidence that Bible prophecy has been reliable in the past, and that the things that the Bible said would happen prior to today have been happening as foretold.

Moreover, there are some objections that an inquiring mind may need to deal with before it makes sense even to look at Bible prophecy. I am painfully aware of that, because I myself have a background of deep immersion in scientific atheism, Darwinian evolution, and humanist philosophy. If you read the portion of this book titled "About the Author," you will see that I started out, not as a gullible child indoctrinated to accept the religious beliefs of his parents, but rather as one who viewed Christianity as a strange phenomenon dimly visible on a distant horizon.

How can Bible prophecy be true, if the Bible itself is nothing more than a collection of poetry and imaginary stories written by primitive people to entertain primitive audiences? How can anything having to do with God be worth considering, if mankind has no Creator but instead arose through a series of evolutionary accidents in a pool of chemicals? And, if there really is a God, still, why should anyone look for understanding to the Scriptures of the Jews and the Christians? Why not look to Buddhism or Hinduism for answers about man's future?

Chapters in this book will deal with such issues, for the sake of those who need to answer such questions intelligently before they can give any serious consideration to Bible prophecy.

But there is another issue that I will attempt to address here in this present chapter, and that is the loss of credibility on the part of the Christian church itself. 

If Christianity possesses the truth, and has this truth spelled out in the Bible, then why are there so many different "Christian" churches with different denominational names? And why do these differ so widely in beliefs and practices? And why have they often been at each other's throats, quite literally, throughout church history? Why isn't there just a single Christian Church, united in belief and practice?

Another problem is that, in those multitudinous "Christian" churches, one sees things going on that even unchurched unbelievers know should not be there. There are scandals involving wealthy television evangelists living in shameless luxury and sexual immorality. There are scandals involving pedophile Roman Catholic priests. 

Politically, the history of the churches and nations of Christendom has been tainted with every sort of sin imaginable, from bloodthirsty Crusades to greedy colonialism. Priests accompanied Spanish conquistadors who converted native peoples at the edge of the sword. And church-going people made up the mobs that lynched blacks in the American south.

Could you imagine Jesus behaving that way? Of course not. 

Jesus repeatedly extended the invitation to, 'Come, and follow me,' or 'Come, be my follower.' (Matt. 9:9, 19:21, Mark 2:14, 10:21, Luke 5:27, 9:59, 18:22; John 1:43) Are lynch mobs or pedophiles "following" Jesus? Certainly not. He would not behave that way, so people who do behave that way are not following Christ.

Yet, people who engage in such shameful conduct have often claimed to be Christians, even to be acting in Jesus' name. Jesus knew that this would happen, and he explained why in his 'parable of the weeds':

"Jesus told them another parable: 'The kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while everyone was sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat, and went away. When the wheat sprouted and formed heads, then the weeds also appeared. The owner's servants came to him and said, "Sir, didn't you sow good seed in your field? Where then did the weeds come from?" "An enemy did this," he replied. The servants asked him, "Do you want us to go and pull them up?" "No," he answered, "because while you are pulling the weeds, you may root up the wheat with them. Let both grow together until the harvest. At that time I will tell the harvesters: First collect the weeds and tie them in bundles to be burned; then gather the wheat and bring it into my barn."'" (Matt. 13:24-30 NIV)

What did Jesus mean by this illustration? We don't need to puzzle over it, because he gave the explanation himself, and his disciple Matthew wrote it down:

"Then he left the crowd and went into the house. His disciples came to him and said, 'Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field.' He answered, 'The one who sowed the good seed is the Son of Man. The field is the world, and the good seed stands for the sons of the kingdom. The weeds are the sons of the evil one, and the enemy who sows them is the devil. The harvest is the end of the age, and the harvesters are angels. As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.'" (Matt. 13:36-43 NIV)

So, Jesus, "the Son of Man," knew that the church organization he planted would soon be overrun with "weeds," even though he had planted good seed. And it would continue that way until "the end of the age" when he would return and set matters straight. Yes, Christ made it very plain that there would be many claiming to be Christians, but who would be anything but true followers of the Messiah:

"Not everyone saying unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess to unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matt. 7:21-23 KJV)

So, there is a difference a between the followers of Jesus Christ and the many organizations and nations that have called themselves "Christian" down through history. Many of the latter have been Christian in name only.

Before departing the earthly scene, Jesus gave his disciples instructions about the church that he would build through them. And together with those instructions and he also gave them serious warnings: "Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, and of the leaven of Herod." (Mark 8:15 KJV)

What is this leaven or yeast? The laws God gave to Israel required that they eat unleavened bread during the Passover period, and that they have no yeast in their homes during that time. So, the presence of leaven would be improper and defiling. Leaven in the Church would be something brought in inappropriately, that doesn't belong there. But what impurities did Jesus have in mind when he referred symbolically to the leaven of the Pharisees and of Herod? 

Jesus explained the first one himself: "Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." (Luke 12:1 KJV) Hypocrisy does not belong in the Church. And the Pharisees were hypocrites. In his sermon recorded in Matthew chapter 23, Jesus repeatedly called them that: "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" (verses 13, 14, 15, 23, 25, 27 and 29 KJV) They were the religious leaders in Jerusalem, when he pronounced doom on the holy city: "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Behold your house is left unto you desolate." (Matt. 23:37-38 KJV)

Yet, despite this strong warning, the Christian community, just like its Jewish predecessor, has found itself riddled with hypocrisy, the leaven of the Pharisees.

What, though, about the leaven of Herod? Unlike the leaven of the Pharisees, Jesus did not explain what he meant by this second type of impurity that the Church needed to guard against.

King Herod was extremely wealthy, and his wealth bought him great influence in the Jewish religious community. He financed the rebuilding of the temple of God in Jerusalem, and the Levitical priests serving at the temple accepted such material assistance as hush money to keep them from speaking out against their wealthy patron's sexual immorality, murderous brutality and other blatant violations of the laws of God. So, the leaven of Herod could refer to improper influence in the church by corrupt rich people who buy themselves a position of prominence and acceptance in the Christian community. 

The Bible writer James wrote, "Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court?" (James 2:6 NIV) He said that the church was not doing right when it gave a special seat of honor to a rich man while requiring of poor man to sit on the floor. "My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, 'Here's a good seat for you,' but say to the poor man, 'You stand there' or 'Sit on the floor by my feet,' have you not discriminated?" (James 2:1-4 NIV)

So the leaven of Herod could refer to undue influence by the rich in the church.

But, Herod was also a powerful political leader, allied with the Roman empire, who affected the Jewish congregation through his governmental influence. Besides the Pharisees, the party followers of Herod claimed the obedience of a large faction of the Jews. After the Messiah healed a man on the Sabbath, "the Pharisees went out and began to plot with the Herodians how they might kill Jesus." (Mark 3:6) Later "the Pharisees and Herodians" conspired together to catch Jesus in a verbal trap over the divisive issue of paying taxes to Caesar. (Mark 12:13)

So, besides the influence of wealthy patrons, the leaven of Herod could refer also to political alliances and political influence in the church -- particularly alliances that lead church leaders into compromise with corrupt politicians.

After Jesus finished his earthly ministry, his faithful apostles fought against the infiltration of the Church by corrupt elements. Paul told the elders of the church in Ephesus, "I know that after I leave, savage wolves will come in among you and will not spare the flock. Even from your own number men will arise and distort the truth in order to draw away disciples after them." (Acts 20:29-30 NIV) This would result in a proliferation of sects claiming to be Christian but teaching distorted doctrine, each group following the teachings of a its own leader.

Paul also wrote that "the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear." (2 Timothy 4:3 NIV) This, too, would give rise to denominations with teachings popular among one group or another.

The Apostle Peter added similar warnings: "But there were also false prophets among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the sovereign Lord who bought them -- bringing swift destruction on themselves. Many will follow their shameful ways and will bring the way of truth into disrepute. In their greed these teachers will exploit you with stories they have made up. " (2 Peter 2:1-3 NIV)

And so there is plenty of reason to expect that there would be an impostors in the Church and wicked men doing things in the name of Christ. In fact this is what Jesus, too, said would happen: "many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. ... For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect -- if that were possible." (Matthew 24:10, 24 NIV)

Still, down though history there have always been faithful believers who truly belonged to Jesus. Some of these were great preachers who spread revival through the land and stirred whole populations to pick up their Bibles and turn to Christ. Others died in the fire, clutching copies of the Holy Scriptures, while they were branded as heretics and burned at the stake by false 'Christians' in positions of church leadership.

How can you tell true Christians apart from impostors? Jesus said to look at the fruit that they bear: "Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them." (Matt. 7:15-20 NIV)

So, if Jesus says to false 'Christians' that 'I never knew you,' and 'get away from me!' (Matt. 7:23) it would not be right for us to associate such people with Jesus by accepting their claim to be Christian. Despite the fact that they do things "in his name," we can recognize by their fruits that they are not followers of Jesus.

Paul listed among the perils that he faced "danger from false brothers." (2 Cor. 11:26 NIV) So a distinction must be made between individuals who claim to be Christians or who use the name of Christ and belong to so-called "Christian" organizations, and those who really walk in Jesus' footsteps and belong to him.

So the division of Christendom into many sects, and the existence of false teachers and false "Christian" sects and people doing wicked things in the name of Christ are NOT proof that Bible prophecy is unreliable. Rather, these all prove that what the Bible said would happen did, in fact, come true. Christ and the apostles all warned in advance that such imitation Christians would abound, and they have indeed sprung up everywhere. This is reason, then, to take seriously what the Bible says will yet happen in its other prophetic passages.

Consider this, too, then, as you weigh the additional evidence in the remaining chapters of this book.





Chapter 3

Jerusalem a Problem for the Whole World 



It would be an understatement to remark that political and military control over the city of Jerusalem has changed hands many times over the years. (See the chapter in this book titled "Holy City.") In most cases, however, the city itself was not the main focus of the war or the diplomatic negotiations that resulted in the change of ownership, at least from the standpoint of the generals and the diplomats. Empires were on the move, and Jerusalem just happened to be in the way. It's location at the intersection of lines connecting the continents of Europe, Asia and Africa placed it in the path of many a large-scale conquest.

The exceptions were the numerous Jewish campaigns and revolts, aimed at wresting control away from occupying Gentile powers, and, of course, the Christian Crusades and Islamic Jihads, because these "holy" wars were, in fact, targeted specifically at control of Jerusalem. 

The Crusades and opposing Jihads which raged from the eleventh through the thirteenth centuries involved the nations of Christendom and those of Islam, but it would be an exaggeration to say that Jerusalem had become a problem for the whole world during that period, or that all the nations of the world had united to impose a solution. Christendom then stretched across Europe, and the Muslim states covered North Africa and the Middle East. Few, if any, inhabitants of China, Japan or sub-Saharan Africa were following those developments, much less actually involved in them, and the Americas (which had not yet received that name) were totally out of the picture. Moreover, the Crusades and Jihads pitted groups of nations against each other for control of Jerusalem; they had not come together to impose an international regime. The time Zechariah predicted when Jerusalem would be a 'stone burdening the whole world' and when 'all the nations would unite' in dealing with it was yet future. (Zech. 12:2-3)

Today, however, we do indeed see a situation in which the status of Jerusalem has become a problem for the whole world, and in which the nations, already united through the United Nations organization, are debating using that organization to impose a solution. The radical Islamic suicide bombings that were once confined to Israel, with the aim, in part, of restoring Arab control over Jerusalem, have now spread worldwide. American interests around the globe have become the target of such attacks, and a principal argument of justification offered by the attackers and the groups sponsoring them has been that America supports Israel. United States embassies have been blown up in Africa, a nightclub full of international tourists has been bombed in Bali, Indonesia, and, of course, the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City have been destroyed, killing mostly Americans, but with citizens from dozens of countries included among the fatalities.

America responded to the destruction of September 11, 2001, with a "war against terrorism" that has involved nations around the globe. The United States military targeted Afghanistan, and drove from power the Taliban regime that had hosted and supported Osama Bin Laden and his Al Quaeda training camps. Terrorists were reported to have held secret meetings in places far from the Middle East to plan the September 11 attacks. The FBI began working with governments to arrest alleged conspirators in Spain, France, England, Italy, Germany, Indonesia, the Philippines and elsewhere. U.S. soldiers entered the Philippines as "advisors" to help hunt down Islamic militants. Jerusalem had become a problem for all of these nations.

Concurrent with all of this, letters laden with deadly anthrax spores killed or sickened American postal workers and shut down major government buildings for decontamination. Still unsolved as of this writing, that germ warfare attack was blamed by many on the same terrorist network responsible for the suicide bombings, the terrorists whose complaint revolved around the status of Jerusalem. Copycat hoaxes turned up envelopes with white powder from South America to the Far East and from Europe to Africa. 

America and coalition forces next attacked Iraq to depose the regime of Saddam Hussein, whose alleged weapons of mass destruction threatened the United States and its allies, most notably Israel. The Jewish state had sent attack aircraft to destroy an Iraqi nuclear facility in 1982, and one of Saddam's constant propaganda themes had been recruitment of an army of millions of civilians to "march on Jerusalem." Israel had been struck by several Scud missiles fired from Iraq during the Gulf War of 1992, and so was clearly within range and was a prime target. The Iraqi government had also been making cash payments to the families of suicide bombers who died attacking Jews in Israel. Some American critics of the George W. Bush administration blamed the president's push for war on his support for Israel and his determination to save Israel from attack by alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. 

Nations throughout the world have been directly involved in all of these events, or at least have participated in the international debate and the political maneuverings relating to Afghanistan, Iraq and the war on terrorism. Nations everywhere have been forced to modify procedures relating to air travel, institute improved security measures, and keep track of suspected terrorists or terrorist support organizations within their borders.

The whole world has followed all of these developments on TV and on the Internet, and the whole world has been terrorized. Jerusalem has indeed become a problem for the whole world. Each time there was another suicide bombing in Israel, or another Israeli military incursion into Palestinian areas, the world shuddered and speculated on how the international terrorists would respond. Where would they strike next?

Yes, Jerusalem is now a problem 'burdening the whole world.' But, are the nations also uniting to impose a solution, as Zechariah foretold? (Zech. 12:2-3)

Prior to the twentieth century and the formation of the League of Nations in the wake of World War One, it would have been difficult to conceive of all the nations of the world uniting to do anything at all, let alone uniting to send armies to Jerusalem. But, one of the earliest official acts of that League of Nations was to grant the British government a Mandate to rule over Palestine, including Jerusalem. 

Prior to the late 1990's and the beginning of the new millennium, it would have been difficult to conceive of the League's successor, the United Nations, sending forces to Jerusalem. The prevailing concept had always been that national sovereignty trumped United Nations authority. United Nations peacekeepers generally assisted in conflicts between member nations, with the consent of both parties, but the world body scrupulously avoided interfering in the internal affairs of member states.

In fact, from the time of its founding at the end of the Second World War, the U.N. had been viewed as largely a debating society, when it came to issues of war and peace. As a world government, it had active social service agencies such as UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) and UNICEF (United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund), and it accomplished a lot in the way of promoting world communication and commerce, but it did not have a strong police force.

And it still does not. After all, how can a policeman armed with only a billy club subdue brawlers brandishing knives and guns? Comparatively speaking, that is what peacekeeping forces in white trucks marked "UN" would be up against, if they were to confront an uncooperative nation determined to use its jet fighters, bombers and tanks aggressively. United Nations peacekeepers have never been heavily armed by modern military standards.

The Korean War may come to mind as an exception. The United Nations organization was still in its infancy when, in 1950, the Soviet Union decided to boycott sessions of the Security Council. In the absence of a Soviet veto, the Council invoked military sanctions against North Korea and invited member states to come to the aid of South Korea. American troops then led those from many other nations as "United Nations forces" in a military campaign sanctified as a U.N. mission. These U.N. forces waged full scale war with everything short of nuclear weapons. But that was an unusual circumstance that has not repeated itself.

Recent decades, however, have seen more and more authority vested in U.N. agencies, together with greater reliance on blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeeping forces. Toward the end of 2002 and during the early months of 2003, the Security Council earnestly debated whether or not to authorize military action to enforce its earlier resolutions about disarming Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

Will this prove to be a dress rehearsal for a military move by the United Nations against Israel? Time will tell. But the necessary U.N. resolutions that could lead up to such actions are already in place. If the Security Council could debate the possibility of calling for military action against Iraq to enforce its resolutions, it could certainly do the same with regard to Israel. In fact, some critics of the American push for a resolution authorizing force against Iraq argued that it would be a double standard to take action against Iraq and not against Israel.

Even now, although the world has not yet come together to authorize joint military force against Israel, it has already come together to oppose Israeli control of Jerusalem. It is only the military enforcement that is lacking, as of this writing. 

Over the course of many decades, the groundwork has progressively been laid for international intervention to determine Jerusalem's fate.

Following the Allied conquest of the city at the end of 1917, Britain ruled Jerusalem and all of the land of Israel under a Mandate issued by the League of Nations, predecessor of the United Nations. This did not appear, at that time, to be hostile to Jewish interests concerning the city. Prior to that Jerusalem had been in the hands of the Ottoman Turks, Muslims who had no intention of establishing Jewish sovereignty. But the British government had, by its Balfour Declaration of 1917, announced that "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object." (See a later chapter in this book for a discussion, and for the full text of this document.) So, the League's grant of a Mandate for Britain to rule the area appeared to be a pro-Jewish move. Still, it established a precedent for international determination of Jerusalem's fate by a world body.

In 1947, after the League's demise, a United Nations resolution recommended partitioning the mandated territory of Palestine into two independent nations, one Jewish and the other Arab, and, after British forces withdrew, the nations of Israel and Jordan were born the following year. Thus, the United Nations has been involved with the modern state of Israel since before its birth.

United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 called for the partition of the British-ruled Palestine Mandate into a Jewish state and an Arab state. It was approved on November 29, 1947, and included the following provisions relating to Jerusalem:

I.A.3. Independent Arab and Jewish States and the Special International Regime for the City of Jerusalem, set forth in Part III of this Plan, shall come into existence in Palestine two months after the evacuation of the armed forces of the mandatory Power has been completed but in any case not later than 1 October 1948. The boundaries of the Arab State, the Jewish State, and the City of Jerusalem shall be as described in Parts II and III below. ... 

C. THE CITY OF JERUSALEM 

The boundaries of the City of Jerusalem are as defined in the recommendations on the City of Jerusalem. (See Part III, section B, below). ...

Part III. - City of Jerusalem

A. SPECIAL REGIME 

The City of Jerusalem shall be established as a corpus separatum under a special international regime and shall be administered by the United Nations. The Trusteeship Council shall be designated to discharge the responsibilities of the Administering Authority on behalf of the United Nations. 

B. BOUNDARIES OF THE CITY 

The City of Jerusalem shall include the present municipality of Jerusalem plus the surrounding villages and towns, the most eastern of which shall be Abu Dis; the most southern, Bethlehem; the most western, 'Ein Karim (including also the built-up area of Motsa); and the most northern Shu'fat, as indicated on the attached sketch-map (annex B). 

C. STATUTE OF THE CITY 

The Trusteeship Council shall, within five months of the approval of the present plan, elaborate and approve a detailed statute of the City which shall contain, inter alia, the substance of the following provisions: 

1. Government machinery; special objectives. The Administering Authority in discharging its administrative obligations shall pursue the following special objectives: 

i. To protect and to preserve the unique spiritual and religious interests located in the city of the three great monotheistic faiths throughout the world, Christian, Jewish and Moslem; to this end to ensure that order and peace, and especially religious peace, reign in Jerusalem; 

ii. To foster cooperation among all the inhabitants of the city in their own interests as well as in order to encourage and support the peaceful development of the mutual relations between the two Palestinian peoples throughout the Holy Land; to promote the security, well-being and any constructive measures of development of the residents having regard to the special circumstances and customs of the various peoples and communities.

2. Governor and Administrative staff. A Governor of the City of Jerusalem shall be appointed by the Trusteeship Council and shall be responsible to it. He shall be selected on the basis of special qualifications and without regard to nationality. He shall not, however, be a citizen of either State in Palestine.

The Governor shall represent the United Nations in the City and shall exercise on their behalf all powers of administration, including the conduct of external affairs. He shall be assisted by an administrative staff classed as international officers in the meaning of Article 100 of the Charter and chosen whenever practicable from the residents of the city and of the rest of Palestine on a non-discriminatory basis. A detailed plan for the organization of the administration of the city shall be submitted by the Governor to the Trusteeship Council and duly approved by it.

The partition of the territory covered by the British Palestine Mandate resulted in formation of the states of Israel and Jordan, but the internationalization of Jerusalem specified in General Assembly Resolution 181 failed to occur. Nor did any "Governor of the City of Jerusalem" representing the United Nations ever take office to run the city, as that Resolution required. 

However, the United Nations continued to generate new resolutions concerning Jerusalem. In fact there have probably been more United Nations resolutions concerning Israel and Jerusalem than concerning any other nation or region in the world. At last count, there were well over three hundred U.N. General Assembly resolutions and more than fifty U.N. Security Council resolutions concerning Israel -- the vast majority of them condemning the actions of the Jewish state.

These resolutions, often referencing earlier resolutions, continue to protest Israeli control of the city. For example, Security Council Resolution 476 (1980) declares that the body is

"Reaffirming its resolutions relevant to the character and status of

the Holy City of Jerusalem, in particular resolutions 252 (1968),

267 (1969), 271 (1969), 298 (1971) and 465 (1980).

....

1. Reaffirms the overriding necessity for ending the prolonged occupation of 

Arab territories occupied by Israel since 1967, including Jerusalem.;

....

4. Reiterates that all such measures which have altered the geographic, 

demographic and historical haracter and status of the Holy City of

Jerusalem are null and void and must be rescinded in compliance with

the relevant resolutions of the Security Council.

Consider also the full text of U.N. Security Council Resolution 478, which, like Resolution 476, was presented in response to Israeli laws affirming the status of Jerusalem as Israel's capital:

Resolution 478 (1980)

of 20 August 1980

The Security Council,

Recalling its resolution 476 (1980),

Reaffirming again that the acquisition of territory by force is inadmissible, 

Deeply concerned over the enactment of a "basic law" in the Israeli Knesset proclaiming a change in the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, with its implications for peace and security.

Noting that Israel has not complied with resolution 476 (1980),

Reaffirming its determination to examine practical ways and means, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, to secure the full implementation of its resolution 476 (1980), in the event of non-compliance by Israel,

1. Censures in the strongest terms the enactment by Israel of the "basic law" on Jerusalem and the refusal to comply with relevant Security Council resolutions;

2. Affirms that the enactment of the "basic law" by Israel constitutes a violation of international law and does not affect the continued application of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since June 1967, including Jerusalem;

3. Determines that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purport to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and in particular the recent "basic law" on Jerusalem, are null and void and must be rescinded forthwith;

4. Affirms also that this action constitutes a serious obstruction to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East;

5. Decides not to recognize the "basic law" and such other actions by Israel that, as a result of this law, seek to alter the character and status of Jerusalem and calls upon:

(a) All Member States to accept this decision;

(b) Those States that have established diplomatic missions at Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City

6. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the Security Council on the implementation of the present resolution before 15 November 1980;

7. Decides to remain seized of this serious situation.

Adopted at the 2245th meeting by 14 votes to none, with 1 abstention (United States of America). 

You can read all of the Security Council resolutions concerning Jerusalem by browsing to the United Nations website at www.UN.org. Just follow the links for U.N. bodies, and select "Security Council" and then "Resolutions." Or, to go directly to the resolutions regarding Israel and Palestine, a direct link valid as of this writing is found at the URL http://domino.un.org/UNISPAL.NSF/

Has the world forgotten about the 1947 resolution calling for internationalization of Jerusalem under a governor appointed by the U.N.? Most people may have forgotten, but the leaders of the world's nations remember. In fact, toward the end of the year 2000 the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 57/111 on Jerusalem, in which it specifically references "resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, in particular its provisions regarding the City of Jerusalem," and states, "the international community, through the United Nations, has a legitimate interest in the question of the City of Jerusalem" and that "any actions taken by Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever." (See our chapter "Nations United and Resolved" for more on this particular U.N. resolution.)

It is these resolutions that the world community seems to be moving in the direction of enforcing. As noted in the first chapter of this book, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said, "the West has been guilty of double standards -- on the one hand saying the UN Security Council resolutions on Iraq must be implemented, on the other hand, sometimes appearing rather quixotic over the implementation of resolutions about Israel and Palestine." (From the article titled, "Foreign Ministry slams British PM's linkage of Iraq, Intifada," by Douglas Davis, March 26, 2003) 

Despite such resolutions, and the possibility of enforcement by military means, it is still hard to imagine blue-helmeted United Nations peacekeeping forces assembling in the region outside Israel and then marching into the country by force. In half a dozen wars Israel was able to push back the combined armies of all its Arab neighbors. In the 1967 war the Arab armies managed to push ahead twenty miles inside Israel, but then Israel stopped them and pushed them back. Would U.N. forces meet with greater success than the Arabs? Even from a purely secular and strategic standpoint, without giving thought to divine intervention, the task would give pause to any general or military commander.

Moreover, today it is generally known or widely believed that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, although the Jews have never publicly declared themselves a nuclear power. With atomic weapons on both sides, the United States and the Soviet Union faced off for decades without either side daring to stage an all-out attack. A would-be attacker of Israel would face a similar deterrent.

So, how could a situation reasonably arise that would actually bring the forces of the United Nations into conflict with Israel over Jerusalem?

We will have to wait to see what happens, of course. But, dramatic changes and reversals have occurred before in global politics, and suicidal military ventures are not unknown in human history.

Yet, it is more common for military powers to back themselves into a corner, where they find themselves forced to act. For example, it would not be difficult to conceive of United Nations peacekeeping forces being invited into Jerusalem in relatively small numbers as part of an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. They could be welcomed by both sides in under certain conditions, perhaps as unarmed monitors to report on compliance with agreements, or as lightly armed border guards to secure agreed-upon boundaries. Then, once they were in place, it would not be difficult to imagine the situation deteriorating some time later, and the government of Israel taking a position contrary to what the United Nations felt obligated to enforce. A confrontation between Israeli troops and reinforced U.N. forces could escalate unexpectedly.

Actually, United Nations forces in have already been invited into the area; not into Jerusalem, but into the border area of southern Lebanon. Israel welcomed them after its withdrawal in the year 2000 from Lebanese land that had been occupied as an Israeli "security zone" for more than two decades. In July, 2000, the U.N. deployed its first peacekeeping units along the "line of withdrawal", also known as the "blue line," between Israel and Lebanon. Referred to as the United Nations Interim Force, battalions of nearly two hundred soldiers in blue helmets took up positions -- armed men and women from Ireland, Ghana, Finland, Fiji, Nepal and India. So, a similar deployment around Jerusalem is not unthinkable.

In fact, numerous proposals have been made, calling for interposing U.N. peacekeepers between the Israelis and the Palestinians, either ahead of a peace agreement or as a means of implementing such an agreement. So far, Israel has refused to allow entry to such international forces, and the United States has blocked efforts in the U.N. Security Council to move in that direction.

But, the political situation can change a rapidly. Nothing illustrates that better than the changes in the United States policy toward Israel under President George W. Bush.

For decades prior to his administration the American policy had been one of official neutrality between Israel and the Palestinians. President Jimmy Carter dealt even handedly with both sides and brought them to the peace table at Camp David. Ronald Reagan pursued the same course during his eight-year administration. And George H. W. Bush (the father of George W. Bush) did likewise. The Bill Clinton White House followed the same policy and brought the Israelis and the Palestinians to the point of a peace agreement that was to have put a Palestinian state in place as early as 1999. Then the status of Jerusalem came up, and negotiations fell apart.

The policy of the new administration of George W. Bush appeared, at first, to be characterized by a lack of interest in the Middle East, altogether. Then, it became clear that, by adopting a hands-off policy, the new president had caused the United States government to change its course with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Instead of acting as a neutral power trying to bring both sides to the negotiating table, the United States actually took on the role of a ally of Israel. Without strong American intervention to act as a restraint, the government of Israel had the upper hand in dealing with the Palestinians. And with the tacit approval of Washington Israel used to its military superiority to impose a de facto solution without further negotiation with the Palestinians. Citing security concerns, Israeli forces simply re-occupied territory previously turned over to control by the Palestinian Authority.

But, then came September 11, 2001. When Islamic terrorist attacks hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, it became clear that Israel's strangulation of Palestinian aspirations in the occupied territories would not settle the matter. Like a balloon that is squeezed in one place, only to expand everywhere else, the violence spread worldwide. As a result, American policy changed course again. Instead of total disengagement, the U.S. became fully engaged again in the Middle East peace process, this time by joining Russia, the European Union and the United Nations to form a Quartet sponsoring an international roadmap for peace.

Similar rapid changes in circumstances and policies could turn a voluntary peacekeeping operation around Jerusalem into a hostile military occupation of Jerusalem by blue helmeted United Nations peacekeeping forces. The international attack on Jerusalem long foretold in the Bible could develop from a botched peacekeeping effort. Peacekeepers brought in voluntarily by Israel could turn into the advance guard of an invading army. And a new administration in Washington could turn Israel's only ally into a neutral observer, or even an opponent.

Am I writing this book to declare to the world that this is what will happen? No. We can not be certain, at this time, just how the prophecies of an international attack on Jerusalem see fulfillment.

But we can be certain that Jerusalem has already now become a problem for the whole world, and that the legal framework has already been put in place for the United Nations to insist upon international control over the city. In the light of Bible prophecy, this gives us reason to expect the rest of what the Bible predicts to take place in the near future.







Chapter 4

Why Believe Bible Prophecy? 





What is the Bible's track record? Unlike fanciful religious writings and fairy tales, the Bible speaks of the real world and its past and future events. The existence of ancient kings and kingdoms described in Scripture has been verified, time and again, by archaeological discoveries. In fact, archaeologists have long used the Bible as a guide, to help them know what to look for and where to dig for it. 



Is its prophetic track record equally reliable? Yes. Besides its 'end times' prophecies concerning Messiah's return, his coming Kingdom of God, and the end of the corrupt 'world' as we know it, the Bible also contains many prophecies that have already undergone fulfillment. If we look at these, and at their accurate fulfillment hundreds or thousands of years later, we will find convincing evidence that will enable us to put faith in what the Bible also predicts for the near future.



Although we think of it as a single book, the Bible is actually a collection of more than sixty books written by some forty writers over the course of well over a thousand years. Some of the oldest prophetic passages were already considered 'ancient' writings by those who lived generations afterward, and who likewise heard from God and penned the more recent books of the Bible. They, along with secular historians outside Israel, recorded the events that took place as foretold by the earlier writers.



Is there a chance that later writers 'fudged' these prophecies by writing them, or re-writing them, after the events occurred? No, because the ancient hand-written scrolls were copied and distributed far and wide. No one could possibly have collected all the copies, from Egypt to Babylon, to make such later modifications. And enough copies have been found, nestled among ancient artifacts unearthed during archaelogical digs, to establish that they were written long before the events they accurately predicted.



Prophecy that has already been fulfilled provides some of the strongest motivation to believe the other prophecies of Scripture that remain be fulfilled in the future. Fulfilled prophecy constitutes evidence proving the Bible's authenticity as a product of superhuman divine intelligence, although humans clearly were used as God's scribes to write it down. 



Fulfilled biblical prophecies are many in number, and some of them are relatively long and rather complex. That is because they are essentially history written in advance, and history can be long and complex. Have you ever studied the history of England with its violent mixing of Angles, Saxons, Celts and others, and its turbulent succession of kings and queens? Then you know what I am talking about when I refer to length and complexity. The history of ancient Israel and the surrounding empires that encroached on its territory at one time or another forms a tangled web as difficult to untangle as the history of Britain, or more so, and some of the prophecies are equally difficult to understand.



For example, in the book of the Bible bearing his name the prophet Daniel uses symbolic language to predict a succession of world powers who would fight each other for supremacy over a period of hundreds and thousands of years, culminating in the coming of the Jewish Messiah and his eventual supplanting of human governments with the Kingdom of God. An adequate discussion of these prophecies and the world events that have fulfilled them, so far, would fill books -- and has, indeed, proved to be the subject of many books. So, we won't even start to look at them here. (Whew!)



But there are two Bible prophecies in particular that are simple to understand, powerful in their impact, and impossible to deny. They fit within the scope of this web site.



The first of these is the prediction that the God of Israel would eventually be worshiped all over the whole planet earth.



The Bible's prophecies on this matter were written during an era when each nation had its own gods and goddesses. The Ammonites worshipped Molech, and sacrificed their children as part of that worship. The people of Phoenicia and Canaan bowed down to Baal and Ashtoreth. The nation of Moab served their god Chemosh. The Philistines prostrated themselves before Dagon. The Greeks in Ephesus shouted praise to their goddess Artemis. The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans all worshipped whole pantheons of gods, including Zeus, Mercury, deified emperors and pharaohs, and many, many others. But the people of Israel worshipped the unseen Creator of the universe, who revealed himself to Abraham and Abraham's offspring by the name Yahweh or Jehovah -- the Hebrew tetragrammaton or word of four letters, YHWH.



How many people today still worship Molech, Chemosh or Dagon? A better question might be, How many have even heard of these long-lost 'gods'? The names of Zeus and Mercury are still recognized today as gods of classical antiquity, but how many cities throughout the world can boast of temples where throngs of people assemble to pray to these Greek and Roman deities? But the God of Abraham has worshipers today in Jewish synagogues throughout the earth. Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox churches devoted to this same God are found on every continent. And a billion Muslims spread across the earth identify Allah of the Koran with the God of Abraham.



Did the God of Abraham win worshipers worldwide because the nations sponsoring other gods ceased to exist? At first glance, that might seem to be explain why Molech, Chemosh and Dagon find few faithful adherents today. Ammon, Phoenicia and Moab are no longer on the map. But, wait! Israel, too, ceased to exist as a nation some two thousand years ago, and wasn't re-established until very recently in 1948. Yet the God of Israel survived and gained worshipers throughout the earth. Moreover, Egypt still exists as a nation, but the gods of the pharaohs and the pyramids are long gone. The vast majority of Egyptians today worship the God of Abraham. Greece and Rome are still on the map, but the Greeks worship the God of Abraham, and Rome has become synonymous with the Catholic faith that elevates the God of Abraham and his Messiah or Christ. 



Is it mere coincidence, then, that the God of Israel has worshipers everywhere, while the gods of Israel's ancient neighbors have faded into oblivion? No, this is exactly what the Bible prophesied would occur.



The Old Testament was written over a period of hundreds of years in the Hebrew language, and it was completed long before the third century B.C., when it was translated into Greek in Alexandria, Egypt. Contained within that Old Testament, while the pantheon of pagan gods were still actively worshiped, were these ancient prophecies about the God of Abraham:



"All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee." (Psalm 22:27) 



"All the earth shall worship thee, and shall sing unto thee; they shall sing to thy name." (Psalm 66:4) 



"That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations." (Psalm 67:2)



"God shall bless us; and all the ends of the earth shall fear him." (Psalm 67:7) 



"All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name." (Psalm 86:9) 



"O LORD ...the Gentiles shall come unto thee from the ends of the earth, and shall say, Surely our fathers have inherited lies, vanity, and things wherein there is no profit. Shall a man make gods unto himself, and they are no gods." (Jeremiah 16:19-20)



"And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts." (Zechariah 14:16) 



How unlikely those words would have seemed to non-Israelites at that time, had they even had the curiosity to read the religious writings of the Jews!



Hundreds of years later the New Testament was completed and began circulating in multiple copies during the lifetime of those who encountered Jesus in the flesh, while pagan Caesars still ruled the world and compelled people to worship them as deified emperors. Yet these early Christian writings, too, prophesy about the God of Abraham:



"Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest." (Revelation 15:4)



How unlikely this, too, must have seemed at a time when the powerful Roman empire had only recently crushed Jewish nationalism, tore down the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, scattered the Jewish captives to the four corners of the empire, and was in the process of hunting down and publicly executing the remaining followers of the Jewish Messiah Jesus!



Yet, in spite of overwhelming odds, these ancient biblical prophecies have proved true. The God of Israel is worshiped today by people of all nations, even by millions in a land as foreign to Israel as China. I myself have visited Japan and shared in worship with Japanese Christians. Besides the Jews, billions of Christians and Muslims throughout the entire world claim to worship the God of Abraham.



Yes, the God of the Jews finds worshipers everywhere today -- just as He prophesied in the Bible thousands of years ago.



But, that isn't all. This is merely one of many, many fulfilled prophecies proving the truthfulness of the Bible as God's inspired Word.



The second prophecy that can be considered in the space allowed here is equally simple, powerful and undeniable. It is the prediction that the Jews would be removed from the Promised Land, would be scattered throughout the earth, but thousands of years later would finally return and reestablish the nation of Israel. This prophecy was made centuries prior to the rise of the Caesars in Rome, yet was fulfilled within my lifetime, and within the recollection of many people alive today.



Through Moses, God brought the nation of Israel into a covenant, a solemn agreement to keep the complete set of laws and commandments He gave them. "These are the words of the covenant which the LORD commanded Moses to make with the sons of Israel." (Deuteronomy 29:1 NASB) If they kept the covenant, they would receive a long string of blessings specifically listed as part of the agreement. But, if they broke the covenant, there would be punishments in store for the nation. The ultimate punishment would be the breakup of the nation and the scattering of the Jewish people to live as strangers in the territories of other nations.



"But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God...the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth." (Deuteronomy 28:15, 64 NASB)



Though the Jewish people would remain in this scattered condition, without a homeland of their own, for a very long, long time, this scattering would not be permanent. They would eventually be returned to the Promised Land: 



"...then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee ...from thence will he fetch thee: And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it." (Deuteronomy 30:3-5)



"...the LORD will...assemble the dipersed of Israel, and gather together the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isaiah 11:11-12 Jewish Publication Society of America)



There were relatively brief periods of captivity forced on the Jews by the Assyrian empire and, later, by the Babylonian empire. Much of the population was carried captive to Babylon for about seventy years, with a large number of escapees fleeing in the other direction, to Egypt, around the sixth century B.C. But the real scattering of the Jews to the four corners of the earth was yet future. Jesus, the Jewish Messiah, repeated the prophecy in these words:



"And they shall fall by the edge of the sword and be led away captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." (Luke 21:24)



Within the lifetime of those who witnessed Christ's crucifixion, a Jewish uprising against Rome was crushed brutally by the imperial armies. The Romans demolished Jerusalem and its temple and sold the Jews into slavery throughout the empire, scattering them to the four corners of the earth, into all the nations. 



Normally, that would have spelled the end of the Jews as a people and Israel as a nation. To all appearances, there would never again be a Jewish state in Palestine. The Romans ruled the ruins of Jerusalem until the empire began to fall apart. Then the eastern empire ruled from Byzantium. With the rise of Islam, Muslims took control. The land changed hands as European Crusaders and the Arab warriors of Islamic Jihad pushed each other back and forth over the war-torn terrain. For hundreds of years -- nearly two thousand years, in fact -- Gentiles trampled upon Jerusalem. Would the Jewish state ever be restored? You must be joking!!! Only a miracle could bring that about.



However, that miracle had been promised in biblical prophecy. Although it took two world wars to accomplish it, the miracle occurred as the hand of God pushed world events in that direction, and the prophecy was fulfilled. 



World War I was still raging, and the Ottoman Turks still held Jerusalem when, on June 4, 1917, Jules Cambon, Secretary General of the French Foreign Ministry, wrote this in an official letter to Jewish Zionist leader Nahum Sokolow:

... it would be a deed of justice and reparation to assist, by the protection of the Allied Powers, in the renaissance of the Jewish nationality in that Land from which the people of Israel were exiled so many centuries ago.



The French Government, which entered this present war to defend a people wrongly attacked, and which continues the struggle to assure victory of right over might, cannot but feel sympathy for your cause, the triumph of which is bound up with that of the Allies.



I am happy to give you herewith such assurance. 



Five months later, on November 2, 1917, British foreign secretary Arthur James Lord Balfour wrote a letter to a Jewish peer in the House of Lords, a letter that has since been dubbed "the Balfour Declaration":

Foreign Office November 2nd, 1917



Dear Lord Rothschild,



I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet.



"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country."



I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.



Yours sincerely,

Arthur James Balfour



When British forces under General Allenby took Jerusalem in December, 1917, a Jewish Legion of several thousand Jews from many nations formed part of the victorious army. Under a Mandate from the League of Nations, Britain continued to administer the territory. Meanwhile, a huge steady influx of Jewish immigrants began to arrive.



As though to thwart the fulfillment of prophecy, Hitler's Nazi government arose and began the systematic slaughter of six million Jews in gas chambers and ovens. It took the Second World War to stop this demonic madness and to keep the prophecy on track to fulfillment. But enough Jews survived to see the formation of the State of Israel in 1948. The Bible indeed proved to be a book of true prophecy.



How could the ancient Bible writers see thousands of years ahead into mankind's future? How could they know, in advance, that the gods of the Gentile nations would fade into antiquity, while Israel's God would come to have worshipers in every nation? How could they know that the Jewish nation would be destroyed, its people scattered worldwide, only to be restored once again after thousands of years? 



Actually, they did not "know" the future, except in the sense that they wrote down what they were told by God, and they believed what He told them. God, in turn, knew the future, because he could make it happen. Regardless of what men chose to do, using the free will that he granted them, he could intervene in human affairs and cause events to turn out in fulfillment of his inspired prophecies.



These prophecies, undeniably fulfilled thousands of years later, offer indisputable evidence of the truthfulness, inspiration and reliability of the Bible. 









Chapter 5

Chosen People 



"Who are God's chosen people?" "The Jews." Ask almost anyone that question, and that is the answer you will receive. (However, many people will be quick to add a qualifying statement, opinion or argument.) The expression "chosen people" is commonplace, part of everyone's vocabulary. And everyone knows that it refers to the Jews.

But what does it really mean? 

First, it is important to understand what it definitely does NOT mean. It is clear from Scripture that their being the chosen people does not mean that God approves of everything they do or endorses the policies of their government. 

The government of Israel has brought worldwide criticism upon itself for its mistreatment of Palestinian civilians both politically and militarily. Have those injustices and brutalities been endorsed by God, because the Jews were his chosen people? The best answer is to look into the Bible to see what God had to say about Israeli political leaders in the past. Although he referred to King David as "a man after my own heart," his Word the Bible had much more negative things to say about most of the kings of Israel:

"Jehoram was thirty and two years old when he began to reign; and he reigned eight years in Jerusalem...and he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord." (2 Chronicles 21:5-6 The Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society of America)

"Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he began to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem...And he did that which was evil in the sight of the Lord." (2 Chronicles 22:2-4 The Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society of America)

And so on for most of the kings who ruled in Jerusalem, and for most of the Jewish kings who ruled in Samaria over the breakaway northern kingdom of Israel. They followed policies that were displeasing to God, for the most part, and they were condemned for it in the Bible.

So, the fact that Benjamin Netanyahu or Ariel Sharon might be ruling as prime minister over God's chosen people does not mean that their governmental policies are God's chosen policies. 

In what way, then, are the Jews God's chosen people?

The answer is found in the Bible, and, although the story begins thousands of years ago, it is essential to understanding what is happening today in the Middle East and its significance for the whole world.

Although the first human pair, Adam and Eve, were expelled from the Garden of Eden, they still went on to fulfill God's mandate to them to 'be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.' (Genesis 1:28) Their offspring spread abroad and populated and planet, but, for the most part, they too followed the sinful course of their parents, and the earth was full of violence and immorality. The Creator returned to his creation to correct the mess they were making of the earth and to correct the course that these creatures endowed with free will had chosen for themselves. He announced that he would wipe the earth clean and start over again. He commissioned a righteous man named Noah to make this announcement and to provide the means for a new start for the world's repopulation via his offspring. 

Noah spent perhaps a hundred and twenty years building, with the aid of his three sons, a floating box or ark that would preserve the lives of his family, his wife and sons and their wives. Then God sent the global deluge that wiped out the rest of mankind and cleansed the earth. After many months of floating over the flooded planet, Noah and his family finally disembarked when the flood waters had drained off the land. God caused geological processes to lower the ocean floors and raise the mountains and redistribute the water, and "the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat" in eastern Turkey. (Genesis 8:4 Jerusalem Bible)

As generations passed, the offspring of Noah increased in numbers and grew to a sizeable population. But, instead of spreading out to fill the earth as God intended, they remained concentrated in "the land of Shinar" not far westward from where the ark had settled after the flood. They set about building a city there. "Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.'" (Genesis 11:2, 4 Revised Standard Version) 

They were able to do this, in part, because all mankind, descended from Noah and his sons, naturally spoke the same language. So, God intervened creatively by giving the people different languages, thus preventing them from continuing their cooperative venture, and forcing them to spread out and fill the earth.

As they moved apart and settled in widely scattered areas, the families of mankind all had opportunity to carry with them the knowledge passed on by their ancestors concerning God's dealings with mankind. But most of them chose not to preserve this knowledge. Instead, they began making up fables and even making up gods for themselves, and crafting idols to worship instead of worshiping the Creator. As the Apostle Paul explained it to Roman Christians thousands of years later:

"The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles." (Romans 1:18-23 NIV)

However, not everyone chose to forget about the true God, the Creator of heaven and earth. Some continued to worship the true God. In the line of descent from Noah's son Shem there was eventually born a man named Abram. God spoke to Abram, and he listened obediently, even though God's instructions were to leave his relatives behind and move his own household to a foreign land he had never seen before. 

God told Abram, "Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. And I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee. And I will establish my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee." (Genesis 17:5-7 KJV)

Abraham was to be a father of "many nations," not just of the Jews. Through his wife Sarah, Abraham begat Isaac, the father of Jacob, whose name was later changed to Israel. But, through Sarah's Egyptian maid Hagar (a practice considered acceptable in that culture), Abraham fathered Ishmael, and Ishmael became the progenitor of many of the peoples inhabiting the Middle East:

"This is the account of Abraham's son Ishmael, whom Sarah's maidservant, Hagar the Egyptian, bore to Abraham. These are the names of the sons of Ishmael, listed in the order of their birth: Nebaioth the firstborn of Ishmael, Kedar, Adbeel, Mibsam, Mishma, Dumah, Massa, Hadad, Tema, Jetur, Naphish and Kedemah. These were the sons of Ishmael, and these are the names of the twelve tribal rulers according to their settlements and camps. Altogether, Ishmael lived a hundred and thirty-seven years. He breathed his last and died, and he was gathered to his people. His descendants settled in the area from Havilah to Shur, near the border of Egypt, as you go toward Asshur. And they lived in hostility toward all their brothers." (Genesis 25:12-18 NIV)

This "hostility" has continued into our day, in the form of Arab opposition to the Jews and the state of Israel.

Later in life, after the death of his wife Sarah, Abraham took another wife, who bore him additional sons, the progenitors of other Arab tribes: 

"Abraham took another wife, whose name was Keturah. She bore him Zimran, Jokshan, Medan, Midian, Ishbak and Shuah. Jokshan was the father of Sheba and Dedan; the descendants of Dedan were the Asshurites, the Letushites and the Leummites. The sons of Midian were Ephah, Epher, Hanoch, Abida and Eldaah. All these were descendants of Keturah." (Genesis 25:1-4 NIV) These, too, settled areas and towns of the Middle East that came to bear their names.

Abraham's son Isaac became father to twins: Jacob and Esau. 

Esau became father to the Edomites, who inhabited land surrounding Canaan:

"These were the chiefs descended from Esau, by name, according to their clans and regions: Timna, Alvah, Jetheth, Oholibamah, Elah, Pinon, Kenaz, Teman, Mibzar, Magdiel and Iram. These were the chiefs of Edom, according to their settlements in the land they occupied. This was Esau the father of the Edomites." (Genesis 36:40-43 NIV)

Meanwhile, "Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan." (Genesis 37:1 NIV) There he fathered twelve sons by his two wives and two concubines. These sons, in turn, became the progenitors of the twelve tribes of Israel. But, first, due to a famine in the land of Canaan the whole family went to live in Egypt, where vast amounts of food had been put into storage ahead of time by Jacob's son Joseph who had been appointed prime minister of Egypt. (The whole story is fascinating and is found in the Bible book of Genesis.)

While living in Egypt for hundreds of years, Jacob's descendents grew into twelve populous tribes, so populous that the king of Egypt began to fear them and put them into slavery to keep them under control. (Exodus 1:9-11) God spoke to an Israelite named Moses and gave him the assignment of leading the people of Israel up out of Egypt. He also told Moses to tell them that they were his chosen people:

"For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession. The LORD did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But it was because the LORD loved you and kept the oath he swore to your forefathers that he brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the land of slavery, from the power of Pharaoh king of Egypt." (Deut. 7:6-8 NIV)

From that point on, there has been jealousy and rivalry and war among these close relatives, the Arabs and the Israelites. It is a jealousy that goes beyond normal sibling rivalry. It revolves around choices God made and the promises he made to Israel as his chosen people.

Psychologists have written books about 'irregular people' and 'toxic parents' who favor one child over another unreasonably. Is that the sort of parent God was in choosing Jacob's offspring rather than Esau's?

No, God had sound reasons for his special dealings with the nation of Israel. And he engineered things so that the Jews did not, ultimately, have an unfair advantage over the rest of mankind. Their being 'chosen' resulted in many blessings, but also in many tribulations. What other nationality has been persecuted from one country to another, culminating in a holocaust in which six million were killed? When faced with such persecution, the lead character in the play Fiddler on the Roof finds it so painful that he asks God to 'choose someone else next time.'

But why did God 'choose' one people out of all mankind? Primarily, because the Messiah would need to be born in a community that would be able to receive him appropriately. By the time the Christ child was scheduled to be born, the rest of mankind had forgotten about the Creator and his promised "seed." (More will be said about the Promised Seed in the next chapter of this book.) The Jews would have forgotten, too, and would have been worshiping idols with the rest of the human race, if God had not intervened and made them his Chosen People. 

When Moses was still on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments from God, the people of Israel had his brother Aaron make them a golden calf and they bowed down and worshiped it. They turned to idolatry just as quickly as all the other nations. God intervened and forced them to destroy that idol. The history of Israel shows that he intervened many, many times in the same way, because the people of Israel had the same sinful tendencies as the other nations to abandon true worship and to fall into idolatry.

The Chosen People were given the Ten Commandments, as well as more than six hundred laws of God, to force them to preserve true worship of the one living and true God, and to preserve some semblance of moral and ethical purity. God could have chosen any nationality to provide this appropriate framework to receive the Messiah. But, he had to choose somebody. So, why not the Jews?

Besides providing a society practicing true worship, in which the Messiah could make an appearance, God also needed a Chosen People to preserve the sacred Scriptures. A pagan society would not have valued the holy writings, and they would have been lost. So, one nation on the earth had to be kept somewhat on the straight and narrow, to act as custodians of the Bible.

"The Jews were entrusted with the whole revelation of God," according to the Apostle Paul. (Romans 3:2 New Living Translation) "The Jews are the people to whom God's message was entrusted." (Romans 3:2 Jerusalem Bible) Even the Islamic holy book the Koran says that the Jews "were required to preserve the Book of ALLAH" and that "they were guardians over it." (5:45)

So, the Jews were 'chosen' to do a job that needed to be done. Any nation could have been chosen, and if another nation had been instead of the Jews -- say, the Irish, for example -- then people would have asked, "Why the Irish?" in the same way that they now ask, "Why the Jews?"

Ultimately, though, the Jews were not given a permanent advantage over other nations, because God is not the sort of parent who plays favorites. "There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism." (Romans 2:9-11 NIV)

The Jews were the people 'chosen' to preserve true worship until the arrival of the Messiah, and the people 'chosen' to preserve the Sacred Scriptures with their inspired history and prophecy. But, God did this with the aim of saving other people 'chosen' from all nations. Because of the things that God accomplished in this way, personal salvation is now available to both Jews and non-Jews on the same basis: "Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith." (Romans 3:29-30 NIV)

In fact, to avoid giving the Jews an unfair advantage over other nationalities, when it came to receiving blessings through the Messiah, God placed an obstacle in their path. "Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in," or "One section of Israel has become blind, but this will last only until the whole pagan world has entered." (Romans 11:25 KJV and Jerusalem Bible)

The Jews, too, would end up being blessed. But, in the meantime, they would have to suffer more than many other peoples. For example, they would undergo centuries of slavery: "And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land [that is] not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years." (Gen 15:13 KJV) And, if they failed in their responsibilities to keep the strict laws God gave them, "the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth." (Deuteronomy 28:15, 64 NASB)

The Jews were 'chosen' to do a job that needed to be done, but it was a servant's job, because its aim was to bless the rest of mankind. The end result would be, as God told Abraham, "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." (Gen 22:18 KJV)









Chapter 6

Promised Seed 



"And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed," God told Abraham. (Gen 22:18 KJV) Who would that promised seed prove to be? The answer is not immediately obvious, because God used the term "seed" differently at different times. First, he used the term very broadly to refer to the vast numbers of people who would be descended from Abraham, but later God revealed that the blessings would come to "all the nations" from a single individual at the end of a long line of descent.

The Apostle Paul explained, "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ." (Gal 3:16 KJV) Besides calling him the seed of Abraham, Paul also referred to Jesus as King David's seed: "Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to the flesh." (Romans 1:3 KJV)

What is the connection between Abraham and Christ? And between David and Christ? The Bible records these connections in the long chain of genealogies and histories that fill the Old Testament. But the Gospel writer Matthew sums it up for us this way:

A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham: 

Abraham was the father of Isaac, 

Isaac the father of Jacob, 

Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 

Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar, 

Perez the father of Hezron, 

Hezron the father of Ram, 

Ram the father of Amminadab, 

Amminadab the father of Nahshon, 

Nahshon the father of Salmon, 

Salmon the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab, 

Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth, 

Obed the father of Jesse, 

and Jesse the father of King David. 

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah's wife, 

Solomon the father of Rehoboam, 

Rehoboam the father of Abijah, 

Abijah the father of Asa, 

Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, 

Jehoshaphat the father of Jehoram, 

Jehoram the father of Uzziah, 

Uzziah the father of Jotham, 

Jotham the father of Ahaz, 

Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 

Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, 

Manasseh the father of Amon, 

Amon the father of Josiah, 

and Josiah the father of Jeconiah and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. 

After the exile to Babylon: 

Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel, 

Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 

Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, 

Abiud the father of Eliakim, 

Eliakim the father of Azor, 

Azor the father of Zadok, 

Zadok the father of Akim, 

Akim the father of Eliud, 

Eliud the father of Eleazar, 

Eleazar the father of Matthan, 

Matthan the father of Jacob, 

and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom was born Jesus, who is called Christ. 

Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ. 

(Matt. 1:1-17 NIV)

On several occasions God indicated that Abraham's seed or offspring would grow to include vast numbers of people. "And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered." (Gen 13:16 KJV) "And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be." (Gen 15:5 KJV) The number would be literally astronomical, as the latter verse indicates.

In a general sense Abraham's seed would include all of his offspring, of course. But God made a distinction and indicated that the promises he gave to Abraham would apply to a certain line of descent. When a conflict developed between Abraham's young son Isaac, whom his wife Sarah had borne, and his older son Ishmael, his child through Sarah's servant Hagar, God instructed him to send Hagar and Ishmael away, as Sarah had requested: "And God said unto Abraham, Let it not be grievous in thy sight because of the lad, and because of thy bondwoman; in all that Sarah hath said unto thee, hearken unto her voice; for in Isaac shall thy seed be called. And also of the son of the bondwoman will I make a nation, because he is thy seed." (Genesis 21:12-13 KJV)

God would cause a nation of people to descend from Ishmael, "because he is thy seed," but the promised blessings would come through Isaac, "for in Isaac shall thy seed be called." Or, as the New Living Translation puts it, "for Isaac is the son through whom your descendants will be counted." (Gen. 21:13) Or, "it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned." (NIV) The promises of blessing were part of a covenant or formal agreement that God entered into with Abraham, and he indicated that he would continue his covenant with Isaac: "And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son indeed; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him for an everlasting covenant, and with his seed after him." (Gen 17:19 KJV)

There is no biblical record of God making a personal covenant with Ishmael, but the Almighty spoke to Isaac very much in the same way that he had spoken to Abraham: "And the LORD appeared unto him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham thy father: fear not, for I am with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed for my servant Abraham's sake." (Gen 26:24 KJV)

Likewise, when it came to Isaac's twin sons Jacob and Esau, the Father of all mankind chose one of them in connection with the promised seed. It was to Jacob that he said, "And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Gen 28:14 KJV)

These were not choices made on the spur of the moment, after Isaac was born and then, again, after Jacob was born. No, the One who sees the future and who knows the end from the beginning, knew ahead of time the line of descent that would produce the promised seed. He knew the destiny of the Israelites way back when he made his first promises to Abraham: "And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years." (Gen 15:13 KJV) God knew the future, not just of the nation of Israel, but also of the specific line of descent that would lead to the Messiah or Christ ("Anointed One" in Hebrew and Greek, respectively).

As can be seen in Matthew's chronology, above, God selected a line of descent though King David. (Read the full story of David in the Bible books of First and Second Samuel.) "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I establish for ever, and build up thy throne to all generations." (Psalm 89:3-4 KJV)

"Now then, tell my servant David, 'This is what the LORD Almighty says: I took you from the pasture and from following the flock to be ruler over my people Israel. ... When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. ... Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.' " (2 Samuel 7:8-16 NIV)

David's son Solomon succeeded him as king of Israel, and Solomon built the "house" or temple of Yahweh in Jerusalem, as promised. And a long succession of kings in David's line ruled for hundreds of years. But God's promise to David hinted at more than that; it hinted at a descendent who would be called God's son and who would rule as king forever.

After being given a vision outlining a succession of world powers that would encroach on the territory of Israel over a period of hundreds of years, the prophet Daniel was given another vision depicting this promised immortal ruler, the promised seed who would be born "like a son of man," yet who would have access to heaven and to the presence of God the Father:

"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed." (Daniel 7:13-14 NIV)

The prophet Isaiah provided additional details about the promised seed who would be born of a virgin and who would preach in Galilee: "Galilee" would "see a great Light" because "a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son." "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 7:14; 9:1-6 KJV)

The Messiah's birth would begin an era when many non-Jewish people of all the nations would turn for hope to "the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign for the peoples. Unto him shall the nations seek." (Isaiah 11:10 Jewish Publication Society of America) Isaiah was referring here to Jesus' descent from David, son of Jesse. The Apostle Paul made clear that Isaiah was prophesying about Christ, when Paul quoted him: "And again, Isaiah says, 'The Root of Jesse will spring up, one who will arise to rule over the nations; the Gentiles will hope in him.'" (Romans 15:12 NIV)

For more about prophecies identifying the Messiah and prophecies he has fulfilled, see the chapter of this book titled "Promised Messiah."

With millions of people of all nationalities putting faith in the Jewish Messiah and returning to the one living and true God, it is already true that, as God promised Abraham, "And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." (Gen 22:18 KJV) Even greater blessings for all mankind lie ahead when, as promised elsewhere in the Bible, Christ returns to rule the world from Jerusalem, the Holy City.









Chapter 7

Promised Land 



Even in the vocabulary of unchurched people the expression "Promised Land" is synonymous with the land of Israel. Where did this expression come from? 

Before God confused the languages and scattered the people at the tower of Babel, the world's human population was concentrated in the plain of Shinar near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. After that, when the nations were scattered about to the four corners of the globe, those who spoke Hebrew still resided close to Shinar. But a small family group began to migrate southward. "And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Cannan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there." (Genesis 11:31) 

Ur is the same town where, on April 15, 2003, representatives of various Iraqi exile groups met under the auspices of the victorious United States military to begin talks aimed at forming a new government for Iraq. Haran is now called Harran, a city in modern-day Turkey.

Abraham was in his seventies and still living there when God spoke to him and told him to leave the land of his relatives and to go to a new land that he would give him: "Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee." (Genesis 12:1 KJV)

So, together with his wife Sarai and his nephew Lot and several dozen servants, Abram set out toward the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea.

God led Abraham to the land of Canaan, land that today is covered by the nations of Israel and Jordan. (Canaan was named after the forefather of its inhabitants, a grandson of Noah. "And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth...And the sons of Ham; Cush, and Mizraim, and Phut, and Canaan." (Gen 9:18; 10:6 KJV) 

The land was sparsely populated, so even the Canaanites felt that there was plenty of room for nomadic Abram and his nephew Lot. They had no way of knowing that God planned to transfer ownership of the land to Abram's offspring. "And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the LORD appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the LORD, who appeared unto him." (Gen 12:6-7 KJV)

After a while, the two patriarchs found it difficult to share pasture land, because their shepherds kept getting into arguments with each other. Abram and Lot discussed the situation and decided to separate. Abram told Lot to choose which pastures he wanted: the land to the north or the land to the south. Lot chose the land of 'the District,' the area around Sodom and Gomorrah. ("The men of Sodom were wicked and sinners before the Lord exceedingly." -- Genesis 13:13 KJV) So, Abram headed in the opposite direction.

God appeared to Abram again and repeated the promise: "And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thous seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever." (Genesis 13:14-15 KJV)

Abraham's son Isaac and his grandson Jacob were born there, and God later appeared to Isaac and to Jacob and repeated to them the same promise regarding the land: "God said to him, 'Your name is Jacob, but you will no longer be called Jacob; your name will be Israel.' So he named him Israel. And God said to him, 'I am God Almighty; be fruitful and increase in number. A nation and a community of nations will come from you, and kings will come from your body. The land I gave to Abraham and Isaac I also give to you, and I will give this land to your descendants after you.'" (Gen 35:10-12 NIV)

Jacob raised twelve sons there but did not own the land. He merely dwelt in it as a visitor, an alien. When his older sons became jealous of the second-youngest son Joseph, they sold him into slavery to a caravan of travelers who, in turn, took him to Egypt and sold him there. In Egypt Joseph ended up in prison, but, through God's miraculous intervention, he came to be a servant of Paraoh, the king of Egypt. It's a long story (worth reading in the Bible), but Pharaoh eventually put Joseph in charge of all his possessions so that Joseph was, in effect, the prime minister of Egypt.

Several years later there was a food shortage in the land where Jacob dwelt with his remaining sons, so he sent them to Egypt looking for food, and there they became re-united with Joseph. Joseph invited his father Jacob and his brothers to move to Egypt to will so that they would have food during the famine.

The offspring of Jacob, now named Israel, grew in great numbers in Egypt. They were so fertile and multiplied so fast that the Egyptians became afraid of them and enslaved them to keep them under control. Finally God sent Moses to lead the Israelites up out of Egypt. 

After sending in a dozen spies to report on what they found in the promised land of Canaan, most of the people lacked faith that God would give them victory over the Canaanites. They did not want to proceed. So, God had Moses lead them on a long, ciruitous route through the wilderness for forty years, until that unfaithful generation had died off.

At the end of the forty years Moses was a hundred and twenty years old. God had him lead the Jews to the edge of the promised land, and then took him up to the top of a high mountain and showed him the land. "Then the LORD said to him, 'This is the land I promised on oath to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob when I said,"I will give it to your descendants." I have let you see it with your eyes, but you will not cross over into it.'" (Genesis 34:4 NIV) Moses died there, but only after appointing his deputy Joshua to lead the people in the conquest of Canaan.

"After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD , the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them-to the Israelites. I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates-all the Hittite country-to the Great Sea on the west. No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them." (Joshua 1:1-6 NIV)

The land they were to conquer was a fruitful and productive land, but it was filled with inhabitants. The Canaanites were numerous and powerful. But they were a corrupt people wo practiced child sacrifice and gross sexual immorality. God had passed judgement on them and had decided to execute them. And he appointed the people of Israel as his executioners. 

Through Moses, God had told the Jews, "you must not do as they do in the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you. Do not follow their practices." Then he described those practices as including "sexual relations with your mother...sexual relations with your sister," and even "sexual relations with an animal." He warned them against child sacrifice and the practice of homosexuality: "'Do not give any of your children to be sacrificed. ...Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable." And then God explained that this was the way the people of Canaan had been living: " 'Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants." God would apply the same standard to the Jews; if they took up living like the Canaanites, they would meet the Canaanites' fate: "And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you." (Leviticus 18:3-28 NIV)

So he instructed Joshua to enter the land of Canaan and lay siege to its cities, and to completely exterminate the people of the land. He was not to leave anyone alive. All were to be killed: men, women and children.

If a leader today were to conceive such a plan, it would be called genocide. But, as the Creator of mankind, God is the rightful judge. As the giver of life, he has the divine prerogative to set the limits of life and death, both for individuals and for whole nations. He is both just and justified in such actions. So, when the armies of Israel marched into land of Canaan and laid waste to its cities, this was not genocide. It was a judgement from God.

Besides exterminating the people, they were also to wipe out the artifacts of Canaanite worship, because it was a perverted form of false religion glorifying sexuality and perversion. Sacred poles were huge phallic symbols. Idols displayed grossly enlarged sex organs. "Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces," God commanded. (Deuteronomy 23:24 NIV)

Thus, God gave Israel the promised land, but keeping it was conditional on their obedience. 

However, biblical history reveals that Israel failed to carry out God's instructions. They compromised and allowed some of the Canaanites to remain alive, and they failed to exterminate their perverted religion. This failure to follow divine instructions completely would come back to haunt future generations. Men and women of Israel would be led astray to worship the Canaanite gods. Idolatry would keep rearing its head among the Israelites.

Israel to would lose the promised land for failure to keep God's covenant. He had told them through Moses that this is what would happen if they failed to keep their ageement with him. They would be removed from the land and be scattered throughout the earth. "But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God...the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth." (Deuteronomy 28:15, 64 NASB) And this is what eventually happened.

But, that did not mean they would lose the land permanently. God promised them that he would much later return them to the promised land: "...then the LORD thy God will turn thy captivity, and have compassion upon thee, and will return and gather thee from all the nations, whither the LORD thy God hath scattered thee ...from thence will he fetch thee: And the LORD thy God will bring thee into the land which thy fathers possessed, and thou shalt possess it." (Deuteronomy 30:3-5) "...the LORD will...assemble the dipersed of Israel, and gather together the scattered of Judah from the four corners of the earth." (Isaiah 11:11-12 The Holy Scriptures, Jewish Publication Society of America)

So the land of Israel was promised to the offspring of Jacob not just once, but also it was promised that the land would return to their possession at 'the time of the end.' And this is the promised that began to be fulfilled when the state of Israel was re-established in 1948. But this was only the beginning of prophetic fulfillment regarding the promised land, because God promised that this land would belong to those people and their descendants forever under the rule of his Messiah, Jesus Christ.

But instead of being received as evidence for the truthfulness of the Bible and its reliability in foretelling future events, the modern-day state of Israel often serves as an obstacle to accepting the Bible.

The problem is the misconception that Bible prophecies regarding the Promised Land imply endorsement of all the policies of the government of Israel.

Israeli political leaders have brought worldwide criticism upon themselves for some of their military actions and some of their political action and some of their social actions in regard to the Palestinian people. Does Bible prophecy about the Promised Land mean that God endorses all of those actions?

The best answer is to consider the history of Israel in the Bible. There were many, many times in Bible history when God speaking through his profits expressed his condemnation of the behavior of the nation of Israel.

Most of the kings of Israel and Judah failed miserably. Many of them were corrupt and allowed all sorts of evil things to take place in the land during their reigns. Some of them were especially perverse and even promoted idolatry. Some of them had people killed unjustly. Some of the oppressed the people.

Among the worst was King Ahab who, together with Queen Jezebel, official revived Canaanite worship of phallic images and idols of the god Baal: "Ahab son of Omri did more evil in the eyes of the LORD than any of those before him. He not only considered it trivial to commit the sins of Jeroboam son of Nebat, but he also married Jezebel daughter of Ethbaal king of the Sidonians, and began to serve Baal and worship him. He set up an altar for Baal in the temple of Baal that he built in Samaria. Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to provoke the LORD , the God of Israel, to anger than did all the kings of Israel before him." (1 Kings 16:30-33 NIV)

The Hebrew prophets were often sent by God to denounce the behavior of the Jewish ruling powers. And they documented their misbehavior and their sins in the Hebrew prophetic writings.

So, the Israeli government of modern times is not very far out of step from the pattern of these ancient rulers. Modern Israeli society is fractured, with hostile factions representing every hue of the Jewish religious spectrum from cultic fanaticism to anti-religious secular humanism. 

The key is to realize that the Bible's prophecies regarding the Promised Land are not there to reward Jewish behavior. Nor are they there to endorse the policies of the Israeli government. Rather, it is all about Christ. Besides being a people assigned to preserve a written record of human history going back to the creation, and besides being a people kept separate to preserve the true worship of the true God, the Jews were also chosen to preserve the line of descent leading to the Messiah, Jesus Christ. 

And their presence as a functioning Jewish state in the Promised Land at 'the time of the end' is essential for the fulfillment of the remaining prophecies concerning Christ's return. The Bible foretells that the Messiah will rule from Jerusalem. So, Israel has to be there, and an Israeli-controlled Jerusalem has to be there. The individuals involved may vary from faithful men like Abraham to corrupt leaders like Jezebel, but the God who predicted these events has the power to make sure that they will be fulfilled exactly as he said they would be.









Chapter 8

Holy City 



Unlike the expressions "chosen people" and "promised land," the term "holy city" does not find a universally accepted definition. Some people may apply the term to the Vatican or Rome, while others might apply it to Mecca, and still others may apply it to Abydos in Egypt, Nippur in Iraq, Lhasa in Tibet, Ujjain in India, or a host of other cities holy to one sect or another.

However, the most wide-spread use of the expression "holy city" has application to Jerusalem. Jerusalem is a holy city to three of the world's major religions: Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Its religious importance to so many of the people of the world has helped lead to efforts to make it an international city under United Nations control. "The City of Jerusalem ... shall be administered by the United Nations." (U.N. General Assembly Resolution 181, enacted in 1947)

In biblical terms, Jerusalem is the only "holy city." It is referred to as such throughout both Old and New Testaments. "And the rulers of the people dwelt at Jerusalem: the rest of the people also cast lots, to bring one of ten to dwell in Jerusalem the holy city, and nine parts [to dwell] in [other] cities. ...All the Levites in the holy city were two hundred fourscore and four." (Neh 11:1, 18 KJV) "Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean." (Isa 52:1 KJV) "Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple." (Matthew 4:5 KJV) "...and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." (Matthew 27:53 KJV) See also Isaiah 48:2; Daniel 9:24; Mark 4:5; and Rev 11:2, 22:19.

This usage of the term is not simply due to familiarity with the location on the part of Bible writers, all of whom were Hebrews who spent most of their lives in the Middle East. It is due to a choice on God's part. The Creator's choice of this particular city was announced at the time of King David, who took the city out of the hands of its long-time inhabitants, the pagan Jebusites. The Almighty referred to it as, "Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there." (1Ki 11:36) God specified, "I have chosen Jerusalem, that my name might be there; and have chosen David to be over my people Israel." (2 Chronicles 6:6) It was there that God had King David place the holy tabernacle with its Ark of the Covenant. And there is where God told David he would have his temple built. 

But that was not the beginning of Jerusalem as a center of true worship. The first mention of Jerusalem's existence is found in the book of Genesis, where it is referred to as "Salem." Abraham was living as an alien in the land God promised to him, when a marauding band led by the kings of several Canaanite cities swept down and took captive Abraham's nephew Lot. Abraham allied himself with the kings of some other nearby cities and, with a small military force, he defeated the hostile kings and rescued his nephew. At this point there appeared on the scene a man named Melchizedek who is identified as "king of Salem." He was also called "priest of the most high God," and he apparently led Abraham in a celebratory worship service, at the end of which Abraham tithed a tenth of the spoils of war to this priest. "And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God." (Gen 14:18 KJV)

Besides the account in Genesis, the writer of the letter to the Hebrews in the New Testament tells the same story: "For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness, and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace." (Hebrews 7:1-2 KJV)

There is no doubt that Salem and Jerusalem are one and the same, because the Psalmist refers to the Jewish holy city by its ancient name: "In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion." (Psalm 76:2 KJV) So, under the priesthood of Melchizedek, Jerusalem was a holy city and a center of true worship at least as far back as the time of Abraham.

The next time we read about the city, it was inhabited by the Canaanite people called Jebusites. This was at the time of the Israeli invasion of the Promised Land under the leadership of Moses' successor Joshua. He had instructions from God to wipe out the corrupt inhabitants of the land and to empty their cities for settlement by the Jews, recently freed from Egyptian slavery. However, Joshua and his successors failed to carry out these instructions completely, and one of the cities they left intact with its pagan Canaanite population was the city of Jerusalem. 

"As for the Jebusites the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the children of Judah could not drive them out: but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day." (Joshua 15:63 KJV) "Now the children of Judah had fought against Jerusalem, and had taken it, and smitten it with the edge of the sword, and set the city on fire. ...And the children of Benjamin did not drive out the Jebusites that inhabited Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem unto this day." (Judges 1:8, 21 KJV) The Jebusites continued to live there along side the Israelites throughout the centuries of the Judges until the time of King David.

Through his prophet, God told David that he wanted his temple, which was then merely a portable tent or tabernacle, to reside in Jerusalem. The chief obstacle was the Jebusite fortress on a hill named Zion in the midst of the city. David defeated the Jebusites, and captured their "stronghold of Zion," which came to be known from then on as "the city of David." (2 Samuel 5:7 Jewish Publication Society) He had been ruling Israel from the town of Hebron, but now he moved into the city and made it his capital. "In Hebron he reigned over Judah seven years and six months: and in Jerusalem he reigned thirty and three years over all Israel and Judah." (2 Samuel 5:5 KJV) Some time later he also brought the Ark of the Covenant into the city, so that the tabernacle of worship resided in Jerusalem as well.

Later, David gave to his son Solomon the architectural plans for a more real temple of God to be built there in Jerusalem: "Then David gave his son Solomon the plans for the portico of the temple, its buildings, its storerooms, its upper parts, its inner rooms and the place of atonement. He gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the LORD and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things." (1 Chron. 28:11-12 NIV) Some time after David's death, Solomon built that temple.

So, Jerusalem became the permanent center for Jewish worship of the one true God.

The Temple Mount was a separate hill, close by Mount Zion, but came to be called by the same name. In fact, the term Zion came to be applied poetically to the Holy City as a whole.

"Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel forty years." (1 Kings 11:42 NIV) However, as he grew older, Solomon began catering to the desires of his many foreign wives to establish the gods of their native lands. He married "many foreign women besides Pharaoh's daughter -- Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, 'You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.'" (1 Kings 11:1-2 NIV)

Solomon's unfaithfulness went so far that "He followed Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians, and Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. ... On a hill east of Jerusalem, Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable god of Moab, and for Molech the detestable god of the Ammonites. He did the same for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and offered sacrifices to their gods." (1 Kings 11:5-8 NIV) As a result, God announced that he would rip most of the kingdom away from Solomon.

Jeroboam son of Nebat of the Israelite tribe of Ephraim began a rebellion against Solomon and, after the king died and his son Rehoboam began to rule in his place, Jeroboam succeeded in getting most of the twelve tribes to break away and make him king over them. So, while Solomon's son Rehoboam and his successors ruled over the tribe of Judah in Jerusalem, Jeroboam and his successors ruled over a northern kingdom of Israel from the city of Samaria.

The two kingdoms warred against each other most of the time, Jews fighting Jews in bitter rivalry. The Bible books of 1 Kings and 2 Kings relate the parallel histories of the two Jewish realms.

Eventually the empire of Assyria invaded the northern kingdom, and carried off its Jewish population as captives. But kings in the lineage of David continued to rule in Jerusalem over the tiny kingdom of Judah.

However, the Jews in the southern kingdom followed the pattern of the northern kingdom and repeatedly broke God's covenant. There were "things used to worship Baal, Asherah, and the stars" in the temple at Jerusalem, and "men that the kings of Judah had appointed to offer sacrifices to Baal and to the sun, moon, and stars," as well as a "sacred pole for Asherah" in the temple, and "male prostitutes lived next to the temple" to carry out the homosexual acts that were part of such pagan worship rites. (2 Chronicles 34.4-7 Contemporary English Version)

God is not one to be mocked. As he had said he would a long time earlier in the law of Moses, God punished the Jews for such unfaithfulness. He used the Babylonian empire to carry out his sentence against Israel. First Judah was occupied and subjugated by emperor Nebuchadnezzar. Then, when king Zedekiah rebelled against the Babylonians, they burned Jerusalem and carried off its population as captives.

The Hebrew prophet Daniel prophesied in the royal palace of the Babylonian monarch. Later, when the Medo-Persian empire defeated Babylon, he prophesied under Cyrus the king of Persia and Darius the Mede. Finally, after a seventy year period of captivity foretold by the prophet Jeremiah, the Jews were allowed to return and rebuild Jerusalem with the blessing of the new world power. "In the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, in order to fulfill the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah, the LORD moved the heart of Cyrus king of Persia to make a proclamation throughout his realm and to put it in writing: 'This is what Cyrus king of Persia says: "The LORD , the God of heaven, has given me all the kingdoms of the earth and he has appointed me to build a temple for him at Jerusalem in Judah. Anyone of his people among you-may the LORD his God be with him, and let him go up." ' " (2 Chronicles 36:22-23 NIV)

The restoration of the Jews to the Promised Land at the end of their Babylonian captivity gives us some insight into how God would eventually restore the Jewish people in modern times as we approach the period characterized in the Bible as the final days of this world. How did Israel manage to return to Jerusalem? Observers may not have recognized it as the hand of god. Instead, it may have appeared to be political maneuvering on the part of the world powers of the day. In fact, the Bible records those very maneuverings in considerable detail. But, it also makes it clear that these things took place as the hand of God moved behind the scenes to bring about the outcome that he had foretold through his prophets.

People who say today that the events involving Israel and Palestine are merely political events without God's intervention would probably have said the same thing back then. But God caused the seventy year captivity of the Jewish people to end precisely when he predicted that it would. And this holds great lessons for us today. Although our eyes behold only the visible maneuverings of Israeli political parties and Palestinian factions, the influence of American presidents and United Nations Secretaries General, and the climate of world opinion, behind it all the hand of God is moving again to bring about the outcome foretold in the Bible.

But, keeping that most important lesson in mind, let's return to the story of Jerusalem. The Medo-Persian empire dominated the Middle East until it fell before the armies of Alexander the Great. After Alexander's death, his empire broke into four parts. Eventually the Roman empire came to control the territory that had formerly made up the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Thus it was that Jerusalem was occupied by Roman soldiers at the time of Christ.

Jesus preached there, and he was put on trial there before Roman governor Pontius Pilate and before the Jewish Sanhedrin court. He was executed outside the city as the Scriptures about the Messiah foretold.

Shortly before his death Jesus visited the temple in Jerusalem with some of his disciples, and they pointed out to him the impressive buildings. He replied, "Do you see all these things? I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down." So, later they asked him privately, "Tell us when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" (Matthew 24:2-3 NIV) The disciples actually asked Jesus a three-part question: about the destruction of the temple, about his coming, and about the end of the world, or the end of the age. In another chapter we discuss that prophecy and its fulfillment, but here we'll note that Jesus added to his prediction of the destruction of the temple, these words about the city itself: "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." (Luke 21:24 NIV)

A few decades after Jesus' crucifixion, Jewish zealots rebelled against the Roman empire. They set Jerusalem free from Roman occupation. However, Roman armies returned and laid siege to the city. Again, there were political and military maneuverings, but the outcome was as Jesus had said: the Roman armies destroyed Jerusalem, tore down the temple, and left not so much as one stone upon another stone.

It was at this point that the Romans carried off the remaining Jews captive and scattered them throughout the Roman empire. This was the fulfillment of the words God gave Moses to record: "But it shall come about, if you do not obey the LORD your God...the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other end of the earth." (Deuteronomy 28:15, 64 NASB)

The Romans re-took and destroyed Jerusalem in 70 A.D. The Roman empire continued to control Jerusalem and its environs until the empire itself began to fall apart. Then the eastern or Byzantine empire ruled from Constantinople. Centuries passed. The city's site was occupied by nomadic Arab tribesmen. Then Mohammed founded a new religion. The Islamic holy war of conquest began and spread across the Middle East and North Africa. Jerusalem fell to the Muslims in the year 638 A.D., six years after Mohammed's death.

During the first hundred years of Muslim control over Jerusalem, ruling Caliphs built two new stuctures on the mount formerly occupied by the Jewish temple: first, the Dome of the Rock, and then the al-Aqsa mosque. Because they held Jesus to be a prophet and recognized some of the Hebrew prophets, and because their Koran says that the Jews "were required to preserve the Book of ALLAH" and that "they were guardians over it" (5: 45) Jerusalem was already a holy city for Muslims. Now the construction of these edifices further cemented its status.

Events moved slowly in those days, but Islamic suppression of Christian worship in Jerusalem eventually brought a reaction from the nations that called themselves Christian. Armies of Crusaders reached Jerusalem and took the city in 1099 A.D. But it was difficult for Europeans to control land in the Middle East during the dark ages, and Crusader influence lasted a scant hundred and fifty years or so.

Egyptian influence prevailed over the city for the most part until the early 1500's, when the Ottoman Turks took control. Napoleon hoped to extend his influence that far after capturing Egypt, but he failed. The Ottoman Turks held onto Jerusalem until their alliance with the Kaiser's Germany in the First World War led to defeat. 

British forces under General Allenby marched into the holy city in 1917. The League of Nations legitimized British occupation through an official Mandate. The Balfour Declaration (quoted in full in another chapter of this book) spelled out Britain's intention to restore a Jewish state in the region. But, when Britain dragged its feet and years passed, Jewish radicals began using force to persuade the British to leave. 

In 1947, United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 called for a division of the land between Jews and Arabs, between the new states of Israel and Jordan. Finally, in 1948 as British forces withdrew and the State of Israel was proclaimed, the surrounding Arab nations attacked. Their aim was to destroy Israel and to drive the Jews into the sea. That war ended in 1949 with an agreement dividing Jerusalem between Israel and Jordan.

During the Six-Day War, Jewish control over Jerusalem was expanded on June 7, 1967, when the Old City was captured. Then, in 1980, Israel annexed East Jerusalem and declared the united Jerusalem to be its capital.

During the 1990's the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians appeared to be moving forward and was about to result in an independent Palestinian state in part of the territory controlled by Israel. Virtually everything had been agreed upon, accept the status of Jerusalem. When the topic came up, however, it resulted in the collapse of the peace process and the resumption of the Palestinian uprising.

Under the administration of President George W. Bush the United States government abandoned to its long-standing policy of outward neutrality between Israel and the Palestinians. With tacit American support Israel used its military to resolve the conflict in its favor. And that is the status of Jerusalem as of this writing.

And this brings us to the present situation, with Jerusalem now a problem for the whole world, and with the nations of the world working together to impose a solution. "Jerusalem will be a heavy stone burdening the world," as the ancient Hebrew prophet Zechariah said, and, "All the nations of the earth unite in an attempt" to impose their solution. (Zechariah 12:3 The Living Bible Catholic edition)

As detailed in other chapters of this book, there are United Nations resolutions calling for the state of Israel to abandon its claim to Jerusalem as its eternal capital, and to withdraw from at least part of the city. Other U.N. resolutions call for all of Jerusalem to be an international city under direct United Nations control. There are strong political currents in the international community for these resolutions to be enforced.

What will happen? Eventually, the nations of the world, 'united' as Zechariah foretold, will move to enforce their will. But, they will find themselves up against the will of God. The battle of Armageddon will be fought, and God will prevail.

What, then will be the future of Jerusalem? God's intention is for it to be restored as the center for His worship for the whole world: "At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the LORD , and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD . No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts." (Jeremiah 3:17 NIV) The words of Jeremiah 31:33-40 (NIV) make very plain what lies ahead for the holy city Jerusalem:

This is what the LORD says, he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar- the LORD Almighty is his name: "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight,"declares the LORD, "will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me." This is what the LORD says: "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the LORD. "The days are coming," declares the LORD , "when this city will be rebuilt for me from the Tower of Hananel to the Corner Gate. The measuring line will stretch from there straight to the hill of Gareb and then turn to Goah. The whole valley where dead bodies and ashes are thrown, and all the terraces out to the Kidron Valley on the east as far as the corner of the Horse Gate, will be holy to the LORD . The city will never again be uprooted or demolished." 

According to the second Psalm, God's annointed Messiah will rule the world from Mount Zion in Jerusalem:

Why do the nations conspire 

and the peoples plot in vain? 

The kings of the earth take their stand 

and the rulers gather together 

against the LORD 

and against his Anointed One. 

"Let us break their chains," they say, 

"and throw off their fetters." 

The One enthroned in heaven laughs; 

the Lord scoffs at them. 

Then he rebukes them in his anger 

and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, 

"I have installed my King 

on Zion, my holy hill." 

I will proclaim the decree of the LORD : 

He said to me, "You are my Son; 

today I have become your Father. 

Ask of me, 

and I will make the nations your inheritance, 

the ends of the earth your possession. 

You will rule them with an iron scepter; 

you will dash them to pieces like pottery." 

Therefore, you kings, be wise; 

be warned, you rulers of the earth. 

Serve the LORD with fear 

and rejoice with trembling. 

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry 

and you be destroyed in your way, 

for his wrath can flare up in a moment. 

Blessed are all who take refuge in him. 

-- Psalm 2 NIV









Chapter 9

Promised Messiah 



I am tempted to leave the pages of this chapter blank, except for a single sentence urging readers to close the book now, turn on their stereo, and insert a CD presenting a complete performance of Handel's Messiah. George Frederick Handel accompanied the story of Christ with the musical power, majesty, and tender emotion that it deserves. But he also let Scripture speak throughout the performance; Handel's lyrics were taken directly from the Bible, word for word. His classic masterpiece begins with Isaiah's prophecy of a gospel message, or message of good news, coming to Jerusalem:

"Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned. ... O thou that tellest good tidings to Zion, get thee up into the high mountain; O thou that tellest good tidings to Jerusalem, lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, and be not afraid; say unto the cities of Judah, Behold your God!" (Isaiah 40:1-2, 9 KJV)

And Handel concluded the Messiah with words from the Apostle John's Apocalypse depicting Christ as a sacrificial lamb raised from the dead to glory in heaven:

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. ... Blessing, and honour, glory and power, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever. ... Amen." (Revelation 5:12-14 KJV)

There is some overlapping between the story of the Messiah and the story of the Promised Seed, because they both end up being fulfilled by the same person, Jesus Christ. As noted in the chapter of this book titled "Promised Seed," the New Testament documents the genealogy of Jesus' lineage back to the house of David, both through his mother Mary and through his adoptive father Joseph. (Matt. 1:1-17 and Luke 3:23-38). This is a critical factor in identifying him as the fulfillment of the promise.

That is because our English word Messiah comes from a Hebrew word of like pronunciation which means "anointed one." The word Christ comes, similarly, from a Greek word for "anointed one." Both terms originally referred to a king chosen by God, because the first Israelite kings were designated as rulers when God's prophet anointed them by ceremonially pouring oil over their heads. The promised Messiah would, himself, be a future king, one descended from the ancient kings of Israel.

For a few hundred years after their exodus from Egypt, right up until around 1000 B.C., the Jews lived in the Promised Land under a loose, decentralized form of tribal government. They had no king. Each tribe had its elders, and these handled any judicial cases that could not be cared for by local village elders and heads of families. Whenever the twelve tribes needed to be take action on some matter that transcended tribal lines-such as national defense in the face of invading armies-God raised up a "judge" as an ad hoc ruler. 

The Bible book titled "Judges" contains the record of Jewish history during this period. Moses' commander general and eventual successor Joshua was the first judge. Gideon, Deborah and Samson are other names that stand out among the judges. But, eventually the people began to complain that they needed a king to rule over them, like the nations round about.

The prophet Samuel then received instructions from God to anoint Israel's first king. He was sent to the family of "Kish, the son of Abiel, the son of Zeror, the son of Bechorath, the son of Aphiah, a Benjamite, a mighty man of power." (1 Samuel 9:1 KJV) When the Lord revealed to Samuel that his choice was Kish's son Saul, "Then Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on Saul's head and kissed him, saying, 'Has not the LORD anointed you leader over his inheritance?'" (1 Samuel 10:1 NIV) 

However, Saul later proved unfaithful, and God had Samuel anoint David, son of Jesse, to succeed him. Sheep herder Jesse brought seven of his sons before the prophet, one by one, but left the youngest to watch the sheep. Yet it turned out to be this one that God had chosen. "The LORD said, 'Arise, anoint him; for this is he.' Then Samuel took the horn of oil, and anointed him in the midst of his brothers; and the Spirit of the LORD came mightily upon David from that day forward. ... Now the Spirit of the LORD departed from Saul." (1 Samuel 16:12-14 RSV) So David, too, was a Messiah or anointed one. Kings in David's line continued to rule in Jerusalem for generations, some of them faithful to God, but others unfaithful as Saul had been. 

Throughout that period inspired prophets pointed forward to a time when the ultimate Messiah would come, a Messiah who would not need a successor, because he would live forever and his rulership would last forever. First, though, he would be killed, and would rise again, immortal, and would eventually take power to rule the whole world in righteousness, on into eternity.

A hint of the coming Messiah was provided by the prophet Nathan who gave this divine revelation to David:

"'The LORD declares to you that the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with the rod of men, with floggings inflicted by men. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.'" (2 Sam. 7:11-16 NIV)

David's son Solomon succeeded his father and built the temple in Jerusalem. But God's promise of someone from the house of David ruling "forever" was not fulfilled in Solomon, nor was God's reference to a future king who would be "my son." Kings from the house of David ruled in Jerusalem for nearly four hundred years, but around 600 B.C. that rule was interrupted when the neo-Babylonian empire took the city and destroyed the temple. From that point onward faithful Jews looked to God to send them a son of David who would restore the kingdom in Jerusalem. They began hoping for the promised Messiah.

Daniel wrote: "Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the commandment to restore and to build Jerusalem unto the Messiah the Prince shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two weeks: the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined." (Daniel 9:26-26 KJV)

Isaiah foretold many details about this promised Messiah:

He would be born of a Virgin: "Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." (Isa. 7:14 KJV)

His ministry would be largely in Galilee: "Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future he will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan- The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned. (Isa. 9:1-2 NIV)

He would become earth's ruler forever: "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will perform this." (Isa. 9:6-7 KJV)

He would be descended from Jesse, king David's father: "And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots: And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD." (Isa. 11:1-2 KJV)

People from non-Jewish nations would turn to him and glorify him: "And in that day there shall be a root of Jesse, which shall stand for an ensign of the people; to it shall the Gentiles seek: and his rest shall be glorious." (Isa. 11:10 KJV)

Meek and gentle, his teachings would bring hope and the light of God's law to the non-Jewish nations: "Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth; I have put my spirit upon him: he shall bring forth judgment to the Gentiles. He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street. A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law. ... I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles; To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house." (Isa. 42:1-7 KJV)

He would be rejected by the Jewish people: "For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not." (Isa. 53:2-3 KJV)

He would be scourged and, by God's arrangement, would take the sins of mankind upon himself: "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isa. 53:4-6 KJV)

He would be put to death for the sins of mankind, like a sacrificial lamb: "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken." (Isa. 53:7-8 KJV)

He would be buried in a rich man's grave: "And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither [was any] deceit in his mouth." (Isa. 53:9 KJV)

His sacrificial death would free others from their sins: "Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put his to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin ... the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities. ... he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors." (Isa. 53:10-12 KJV)

Other biblical prophets were similarly inspired to add further details about the promised Messiah:

He would be born in Bethlehem, and would be stuck on the face: "They will strike Israel's ruler on the cheek with a rod. But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times." (Micah 5:1-2 NIV)

He would be nailed up to die, with the executioners dividing his clothing: "the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." (Ps. 22:16-18 KJV)

Besides foretelling Jerusalem's role in the Bible's end times scenario, the prophet Zechariah also foretold several additional details concerning the Messiah's life and death:

He would be humble and would present himself to Jerusalem by arriving seated on a donkey: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass." (Zech. 9:9 KJV)

He would be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver, which would be thrown into the temple and used to buy the potter's field: "And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver. And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD. " (Zech. 11:12-13 KJV)

So, the promised Messiah would be descended from the house of David, yet would somehow also be the son of God. He would be born in Bethlehem, the child of a virgin, would preach in Galillee, would arrive in Jerusalem seated on a donkey, but would be rejected, beaten, stripped, and nailed up to die like a criminal. His betrayer would be paid thirty pieces of silver. He would rise again, immortal, and would be accepted and glorified by non-Jewish peoples around the world.

Jesus of Nazareth fit every detail of the prophetic discription, but only a small minority of the Jewish people accepted him as their promised Messiah. These Jews who rejoiced at the "gospel," or message of good news, formed the nucleus of congregations meeting to share encouragement. As predicted, Gentiles too accepted the message, and they soon outnumbered the Messianic Jewish believers. Unable to read Hebrew, most of these Gentile believers heard or read the message in the then universal Greek language and referred to themselves as followers of "Christ." It was in such a mixed congregation of Jewish and Gentile converts in Antioch that the disciples were first called "Christians." (Acts 11:26)









Chapter 10 

False Alarms, False Prophets and Identifying the Antichrist 



Anybody who writes a book on this subject is in danger of being compared to Aesop's fables' proverbial 'boy who cried wolf.' "Wolf! Wolf!" he shouted, to draw attention to himself or to add some excitement to his life. People reacted just as he hoped they would. But then, on a different occasion when a wolf actually did appear on the scene, and he was in real danger, everyone assumed he was just 'crying wolf' again falsely. And no one came to his aid.

Similarly, there have been so many false alarms concerning the imminent return of Christ, that most people laugh or shrug off any suggestion that the prophesied event will soon take place. And, when it comes to the matter of people "crying wolf" about the return of Christ, no one can be more painfully aware of it than I am. I have spent the past twenty years researching and writing about that very thing.

In the Preface of this book I cite discussions of such false alarms in my books "Answering Jehovah's Witnesses Subject by Subject" (1996, Baker Book House) and "Mormonism: Changes, Contradictions and Errors" (by John R. Farkas and David A. Reed, 1995, Baker Book House), but a dozen other books that I authored or co-authored also deal with failed prophecies or false prophets, to one extent or another. During the 1800's and 1900's the world repeatedly heard voices "crying wolf"on the subject of Christ's return and the end of the world.

Do these false alarms and false prophets distract from the words of Jesus Christ and the words of the Hebrew prophets? Many people would probably answer, "Yes, they serve as an excuse that justifies dismissing the Bible and its prophecies." But, for myself, I would answer "No!" It was their false cries that originally caught my attention and led me to begin investigating the Bible and its true prophecies.

"Where there's smoke, there's fire," so goes the saying. Some of the 'smoke' may turn out to be false prophets throwing up dust, but if it causes some people to notice the real smoke that they would otherwise have overlooked, it does, in fact, serve a useful purpose. 

My thought that false prophets can inadvertently accomplish good along those lines is not totally foreign to Scripture. The Apostle Paul expressed a similar thought in regard to false 'Christians' who were preaching for bad motives: "It is true that some preach Christ out of envy and rivalry...out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me while I am in chains. But what does it matter? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this I rejoice." (Philippians 1:15-18 NIV) 

In much the same way, I rejoice that false prophets caught my attention in the late 1960's with their prediction that the year 1975 was the likely time for the battle of Armageddon. At that time I was a zealous young atheist wandering far away from God, and, although such inaccurate preaching failed to make me a footstep follower of Jesus Christ, it did pull me back onto a path that would later intersect with His. (See "About the Author" toward the end of this book.) And, if it could have that effect on me, it could do the same for others as well.

Nor have there always been bad motives behind those sounding false alarms regarding Christ's return. Some were sincere but over-zealous, or sincere but misinformed. 

Others may simply have chosen to err on the side of caution. Years ago I worked as a burglar alarm technician. My job was to install burglar alarms, including the type that are motion-activated. When setting up a motion detector, it was a tricky business to find the right setting. An adjustment in the direction of too much sensitivity would result in false alarms, but an error in the other direction could allow a burglar to enter someone's home undetected. Alarm technicians were taught to err on the side of safety. It would be better to be called back to make the alarm a little less sensitive, after a breeze or a pet had set it off, than to be called back after a costly burglary had taken place.

Christians sounding the alarm about the approaching return of Christ can not be blamed for taking a similar approach.

The apostle used a metaphor similar to the burglar alarm installer when he likened Christ's return to a thief in the night. "Now, brothers, about times and dates we do not need to write to you, for you know very well that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. While people are saying, 'Peace and safety, destruction will come on them suddenly, as labor pains on a pregnant woman, and they will not escape.'" (1 Thessalonians 5:1-3 NIV) Paul could say that his readers 'knew' this 'very well' because Jesus had used the same analogy:

"Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into. So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him." (Matthew 24:42-44 NIV) 

To the extent that false alarms have caused some people to wake up and to "be ready" for Christ's return, they can be said to have served a good purpose, at least to some extent.

Still, the same Apostle Paul who preached that "the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night," also cautioned against some who were sounding false alarms even back then in the first century. "Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come." (2 Thess. 2:1-2 NIV) This reminds us of the small Adventist group that calculated Christ's return for the year 1874 and, when nothing happened, insisted that Christ had in fact returned, only invisibly. And it reminds us of the Jehovah's Witnesses who originally held to that date and later switched to 1914 as the year when Christ was supposed to have begun an 'invisible presence.'

Paul went on to say, "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." (2 Thess. 2:3-4 KJV) That ruled out Paul's day, but what about ours?

Our world certainly has seen a great falling away from biblical Christianity. The old paganism has gained a new respectability in modern society, and the theory of darwinian evolution has made so-called 'science' the religion of many people today.

As for "the man of sin," could this be, as some have suggested, a reference to Islam, the worship of Allah who some researchers claim to have traced to the Middle Eastern moon god named Sin -- a religion that has sat itself down in the temple of God by erecting mosques on the Temple Mount where the ancient Jewish house of worship had stood? Its traditional hostility toward Christianity could certainly earn Islam status as an antichrist. Others have suggested that the Antichrist is the Pope, or the Roman Catholic Church that has enthroned him at the Vatican. But the popular view in evangelical churches today is that the "man of sin" will be an individual ruler, yet to arise, who will exercise widespread power in the world during the final days before Armageddon.

Although I am tempted to speculate in this book on the Antichrist and how the remaining prophecies concerning the last days will be fulfilled, I don't believe that would be productive to do here. Why not? There are a number of reasons.

Bible prophecy can be an intimidating subject. It is an area in which the average Bible reader may feel obliged to defer to the tyranny of authority. That is because, while a some prophetic passages speak very plainly, others that are presented in symbolic language. For example, prophecies in the book of Daniel, chapter seven, portray strange-looking beasts representing world powers and governments. 

"After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it [was] diverse from all the beasts that [were] before it; and it had ten horns." (Daniel 7:7 KJV)

The angel presenting the vision to Daniel explained to him some of the symbolism, but he left much of it "sealed up" until a future time:

"But you, Daniel, close up and seal the words of the scroll until the time of the end....I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, 'My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?' He replied, 'Go your way, Daniel, because the words are closed up and sealed until the time of the end. Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.'" (Daniel 12:4, 8-10 NIV)

The book of Revelation or Apocalypse uses very similar cryptic language: "And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy." (Rev 13:1 KJV) "And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast." (Rev 17:12 KJV)

Sincere students of the Bible often look for clues as to the meaning of such symbolic language. Some passages that are unclear may be puzzled out in the light of similar passages that are plainly spoken. Taking that into consideration, as well as what authorities have written on the subject in the past, many authors have attempted to unravel the mystery of the cryptic end times prophecies. And the entire Christian community has benefited from such honest efforts.

However, some other religious authorities have gone beyond such sincere scholarly study and, instead, have acted as if they, and they alone, were in possession of a secret decoder ring, or as if they had heard directly from God about what the symbolic passages really mean. They have then gone on to use their religious authority to get ordinary folk to accept their interpretations -- interpretations often at variance from what a layman reading the prophetic passage would conclude as to its meaning. This has happened both in cultic fringe groups and in traditional church settings.

Religious teachers and writers also sometimes wrongly feed their audiences what I would call a "Scripture sandwich." They do this by presenting first their own thoughts on a Bible verse in question, then they quote the verse, and then they follow up with their application of the verse. The result is that the reader or the listener receives a very thin slice of Scripture sandwiched in between thick layers of interpretation. The verse is taken out of context and is presented, instead, in the artificial context of the teacher's commentary. This is okay, if the commentary accurately represents the biblical context. But a Scripture sandwich can be misused if the surrounding discussion imparts a different flavor to the verse, such as when luncheon meat is made to taste differently by sandwiching it between thick slices of strong rye bread and smothering it with mustard and onions.

So, it is important for everyone to accompany their reading of Christian literature with even more diligent reading of the Bible itself. "For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12 NKJV)

Personally, I believe that the Bible was written for the average person, not for the theologian. Paul wrote, "Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong." (1 Corinthians 1:26-27 NIV) 

I believe that the best way to find the true meaning of a passage in Scripture is usually to hand the Bible to a truck driver or a construction worker or a waitress in a restaurant, and ask him or her to read that passage and say what they think it means. Of course, it will help if they read the verses in context, and if they are familiar with the rest of the Bible as well. But I don't believe that a theologian would necessarily come up with a better explanation of the passage.

That is because God wrote the bible in a very unusual style. He wrote it so that the commercial fisherman has an advantage over the college professor.

Any professional writer knows how to produce a work that only the intellectual elite will understand understand. All that needs to be done is to use esoteric vocabulary and very complex sentence structure, with references to matters that only the highly educated would recognize. 

The Bible, on the other hand, is written so that simple people are more likely to understand it than are the intellectuals and the highly educated. Jesus made this very clear: "At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, 'I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.'" (Luke 10:21 NIV)

That is very difficult to do.

Very few professional writers would be able to tell you how to do that -- what techniques to use to make their book understandable to simple people, yet keep its meaning hidden from the intellectual and highly educated reader.

Yet God was able to accomplish this in his inspiration of the Bible by his Holy Spirit.

The result is that you have a sacred book that you can hand to a farmer or to a shepherd, and he is more likely to gain the correct understanding when reading it, than is a professor or a doctor or a lawyer.

Still, there are those very cryptic passages in the Bible, especially in the prophetic works that Daniel wrote down in the book bearing his name, and that the apostle John wrote in his Revelation. Some of these passages were "sealed up until the time of the end." Does that mean that we can understand them now because we are in the time of the end? Perhaps. World events that have transpired since Daniel's time and since John's day may have fulfilled some of the prophecies, or may have made it easier to understand how others could be fulfilled.

But it is important to keep in mind that God's purpose varied in having the various portions of Scripture written down. The prophecies were all written for our benefit, but not all of them were meant to be understood in advance. Consider, for example, the dozens of predictions about the coming Messiah that were fulfilled by Jesus Christ. Some of these passages were not even known in advance to apply to the Messiah, and most of them certainly were not understood correctly, even by sincere Jewish scholars looking forward to fulfillment of the messianic hope.

God may similarly have intended for many of the end times prophecies to be understood only in hindsight.

Those that appear to be "sealed up" may not be placed there for our full understanding in this period of time. They may be in the Bible so we will have confidence that God knows exactly what will happen and exactly how it will happen and exactly when it will happen. These prophecies teach us to put our trust in Him. But, these passages may not be in the Scriptures to give us understanding in advance concerning all the details of what is about to happen.

Yet there are numerous other prophetic passages about the end times that were recorded to give us advance warning as to what to look for and what would happen. These were meant to be grasped and understood before the predicted events would take place. This is true of Jesus' prophecies related in Matthew chapter 24 and Luke chapter 21 and Mark chapter 13. Jesus described certain events and then said, "When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. ...when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near." (Luke 21:28-31 NIV) We owe it to ourselves, and to God, to heed these warnings and to keep on the watch. What are the signs that we should watch for? Another chapter of this book addresses this question.









Chapter 11

Turned Off by Hellfire? 



Many sincere people are unwilling to consider biblical prophecy seriously, because they are repulsed by what they understand the Bible to teach about life after death. They either laugh or shudder at the thought of believers going to heaven to sit on clouds and strum golden harps while others go to hell to stand knee-deep in flames, constantly prodded and poked by pitchforks in the hands of red devils. "Pie in the sky when you die," is the skeptic's favorite phrase mocking the believer's heavenly hope. Can intelligent people today really believe in immortality? And what about Dante's Inferno for the unbelievers? Is that really what the Bible teaches? Or are these merely popular misconceptions?

The ancient Hebrew psalmist expected to awaken, after death, in God's presence. (Psalm 17:15 ) During his compulsory service in the courts of Babylonian and Persian kings the prophet Daniel dutifully recorded angelic prophecies of future kingdoms stretching across millennia of time. The angel dictating to this inspired penman then told Daniel, "As for you, go your way till the end. You will rest, and then at the end of the days you will rise to receive your allotted inheritance." (Daniel 12:13 NIV) He would die, but he would rise again to receive his reward in a resurrection. But the Old Testament contains mere hints of this afterlife; the New Testament tells us that Jesus Christ "has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." (2 Timothy 1:10 NIV)

Was this belief in the afterlife something credible only to primitive people in agrarian societies? Can such a belief stand up today, in the light of modern science and technology?

If anything, computer science has made it easier for us to grasp the concept of immortality. Young people today play numerous computer games in which they manipulate and control an animated character on screen who fights to survive and to advance to new levels of success, and in which it is possible for this character to receive the gift of eternal life or immortality. Once in possession of immortal life, mishaps lose their terror. The on-screen cartoon figure falls to his death, or is blown apart by an attacker, only to reappear completely restored and ready to resume his quest or adventure.

Or, turning from computer games to more serious software, if I should die and go to heaven, this would mean, in computer terms, that God ported my program to a new platform. Instead of the David Reed program running via genetic code on a platform of organic carbon-based molecular compounds, we now would find the David Reed program running on a spiritual platform, via whatever code the Creator uses in that new environment.

Paul expresses it this way: 

"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 

"And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 

"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal [must] put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Corinthians 15:42-57)

So our inner person, our soul, can be ported from the corruptible platform of flesh and blood to the incorruptible platform of the spirit. What we can do with software on computers should help us illustratively to grasp what God can do with our souls to grant us eternal life.

However, our human illustrations can convey inaccuracies along with the truths that we might intend to impart through them. We need to turn to the Bible itself, to see what God actually says about heaven, hell and the afterlife.

Since the Old Testament contains mere hints, while Jesus Christ "has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel," it would be worth the effort to examine Jesus' words on this topic. (2 Timothy 1:10 NIV) We don't often hear people quoting Jesus' words-all of Jesus' words-about life after death; just the portion of his words that we want to hear, and not his complete message.

Yes, some love to quote John 17:3 from Christ's prayer to the Father: "This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ." (Jehovah's Witnesses' New World Translation) Evangelical Christians love to quote John 3:16, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." (KJV) But, how often do we hear, "the rich man died and was buried. And in Hades he lifted up his eyes, he existing in torments..." (Luke 16:23-24 NWT)? Or, "woe to that man who betrays the Son of Man! It would be better for him if he had not been born" (Matthew 26:24, NIV)?

We inscribe bronze plaques with, "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." (John 11:25 KJV) But we leave these other words of Jesus buried in the back pages of our Bible: "I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds." (Revelation 2:21-23 NIV)

The apostle Paul did not water down the Gospel, but faithfully preached the whole message of Christ, even if his audience found the hard part of that message distasteful: "Several days later Felix came with his wife Drusilla, who was a Jewess. He sent for Paul and listened to him as he spoke about faith in Christ Jesus. As Paul discoursed on righteousness, self-control and the judgment to come, Felix was afraid and said, 'That's enough for now! You may leave. When I find it convenient, I will send for you.'"-Acts 24:24-25, NIV

Unlike Felix, who did not want to hear this aspect of the Gospel message, we ought to read and digest the whole story, the complete message of Christ, the harsh words along with the gentle, the bitter along with the sweet. Jesus spoke often about death and dying. While words referring to life or living or being alive occur roughly 150 times in the Gospels, words that speak of the dead, death or dying appear more than 100 times. Christ's emphasis may have been on life, but a substantial portion of his message dealt with death.

Such a statistical analysis, however, is somewhat misleading. Why? Because of the very unusual context surrounding Jesus' references to life. A closer look reveals that most of those references speak of life after death: people coming to life, gaining life, receiving eternal life. 

So, Christ's frequent mention of death did not impart a morbid, negative tone to his message. To the contrary, his message was a gospel message, meaning good news-the good news of life triumphing over death.

And, besides vigorously preaching this message, Jesus actually demonstrated what he was talking about. He added credibility to the otherwise unbelievable by raising up the twelve-year-old daughter of Jairus who had just died (Mark 5:22-43, Luke 8:41-56), by stopping the pallbearers at a young man's funeral and commanding the corpse to live again (Luke 7:11-15), and then by summoning Lazarus from the tomb after he had been dead and buried four days. (John 11:1-45)

As if that were not enough, Jesus allowed himself to be publicly executed, certified dead by the Roman authorities, and buried in a sealed tomb guarded by soldiers-only to rise from the grave on the third day and show himself alive in private and public appearances to hundreds of people, finally ascending heavenward before the eyes of assembled witnesses.

What a cause for joy!-especially since he had recently promised those same witnesses, "I am going there to prepare a place for you," and, "I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am." (John 14:2-3 NIV) Not just those eye-witnesses, but also all "those putting faith in me through their word" would end up "where I am...with me, in order to behold my glory." (John 17:20-24 NWT)

Who would not want to embrace that wonderful hope? Yet, strange as it may seem, some have reacted with hostility to Christ's words and deeds.

Many of the mourners who saw Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead responded by putting faith in Christ. "But some of them went their ways to the Pharisees, and told them what things Jesus had done." (John 11:46 KJV) Unbelievably, those religious leaders saw the whole incident as a threat to their position of power and influence. They sought to squelch the message Christ preached, ultimately by killing him. Moreover, to destroy the evidence "the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarus also to death." (John 11:47-12:10 KJV).

The Scriptures mention Lazarus no more, but Jesus was indeed put to death by these enemies of his powerful message. When he then thwarted their efforts by means of a resurrection even more spectacular than that of Lazarus, they again sought to cover up the facts: "...some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, 'You are to say, "His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep." If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.' So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day." (Matthew 28:11-15 NIV)

How sad that any would want to cover up the facts!-to hide from people the events in connection with Jesus that confirm his wonderful promises of everlasting life! Could some, for selfish reasons, go so far as to deprive others of that wonderful hope? Yes, Jesus had already said of such men, "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." (Matthew 23:13 NIV)

Similarly today, some would destroy the hope Jesus offered by blurring or distorting his message. But Jesus clearly spoke, not of some nebulous ghostly existence, but of a bodily resurrection. He said concerning "his body" that "I will raise it again in three days" (John 2:19-21 NIV), and the risen Christ offered proof, saying, "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself..." (Luke 24:39 NWT)

This resurrection hope is especially important as we move into fulfillment of the end times prophecies. The world of the Last Days is a world hostile to believers. Revelation 6:9-11 speaks of "the souls of those slaughtered" and says that they "cried with a loud voice" and received an answer to their appeal: "And when he opened the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those slaughtered because of the word of God and because of the witness work that they used to have. And they cried with a loud voice, saying: 'Until when, Sovereign Lord holy and true, are you refraining from judging and avenging our blood upon those who dwell on the earth?' And a white robe was given to each of them; and they were told to rest a little while longer, until the number was filled also of their fellow slaves and their brothers who were about to be killed as they also had been." (Revelation 6:9-11 New World Translation) 

They had been killed, but their souls were alive in heaven. This should not come as a surprise, since Jesus said, "do not become fearful of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul." (Matthew 10:28 NWT) So, Jesus says the soul can survive the death of the body.

The souls at Revelation 6:9 receive a reward after death, but is punishment possible? Jesus said, "Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell [ gehenna]" (Luke 12:5 KJV) 

Yes, besides the Christian hope of the resurrection, there is also life after death for unbelievers. God commanded Isaiah to proclaim this taunt against the king of Babylon, telling him not only that he is about to die, but also that he will be conscious after death to receive this greeting in the abode of the dead: "The grave below is all astir to meet you at your coming; it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you…they will say to you, 'You also have become weak, as we are; you have become like us.'" (Isaiah 14:9-10 NIV) 

The Bible makes it clear that the dead live on, invisible to us. Before Christ accomplished his work on the cross, it appears that the departed spirits of all who died went to a place called "hell"-not the popular mythological kingdom ruled over by a red Devil with pitchfork and tail, but an underworld called sheol in Hebrew or hades in Greek. Without Christ's redemption, even the 'good' could not go to heaven. During his earthly ministry Jesus explained, "No-one has ever gone into heaven except the one who came from heaven-the Son of Man." (John 3:13 NIV) The patriarch Jacob expected to go to sheol at death. (Genesis 37:35 Pocket Interlinear Old Testament) Jesus himself, during the interval between his death and the resurrection of his body, apparently also went to hades. He was not "abandoned in hades" (Acts 2:31 Zondervan's Interlinear Greek-English New Testament) but while there he preached "to the spirits in prison." (1 Peter 3:19)

Very little was said about sheol or hades in Scripture, until Jesus gave his parable of the rich man and the beggar Lazarus: 

There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day: And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores, And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house: For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead.

- Luke 16:19-31 KJV 

The parable shows the departed spirits of both the rich man and Lazarus ending up in hades-but on the opposite sides of a "great gulf" separating hades into two realms. The rich man is "tormented" in what he refers to as "this place of torment." In the other realm of hades the beggar finds himself in the company of the deceased patriarch Abraham, and he is "comforted" there. This, apparently, is the "paradise" Jesus promised to the repentant evildoer nailed up next to him at the crucifixion: "Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise." (Luke 23:43 KJV)

Jesus pointed forward to the time when "many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 8:11 KJV) By the time the letter to the Hebrews was written, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had apparently been taken to heaven, to the "city" God had prepared for them: "they were longing for a better country-a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them." (Hebrews 11:16 NIV) What city? "heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God," home of "the spirits of righteous men made perfect." (Hebrews 12:22-23 NIV)

How did they get from sheol or hades to heavenly Jerusalem? Many interpret these verses as indicating that Christ did not leave hades alone but took with him Abraham and others: "'When he ascended on high, he led captives in his train and gave gifts to men.' (What does 'he ascended' mean except that he also descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens, in order to fill the whole universe.)" (Ephesians 4:8-10 NIV)

However, that passage is rather obscure and difficult to interpret dogmatically. In any case, by the time Paul wrote his second letter to the Corinthians, paradise and its inhabitants were no longer found in hades but rather in "the third heaven." (2 Cor. 12:2-4)

Believers in Christ today can be confident that "the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus and present us with you in his presence." Our bodies may be "wasting away" and may even be "destroyed," but we will end up "in heaven...clothed with our heavenly dwelling" where we will be "away from the body and at home with the Lord." (2 Cor. 4:14-5:8 NIV)

Christians alive on earth when Christ returns will find their bodies "changed-in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye," their "perishable" bodies being clothed "with the imperishable." (1 Cor. 15:51-53 NIV) At the same time those who had been at home with the Lord as departed spirits will experience a bodily resurrection: 

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. 

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed- in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 

When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory." "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" 

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. 

- 1 Corinthians 15:42-58 NIV

We can humbly admit that "what we will be has not yet been made known." (1 John 3:2 NIV) But the Bible assures us that when Christ appears "we shall be like him." (1 John 3:2) The Apostle Paul expected at death "to depart and be with Christ." (Philippians 1:23 NIV) This appears to be different from the resurrection which does not take place until "the coming of the Lord" when "the dead in Christ will rise first." (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 NIV)

Jesus Christ shed new light from God. This was, "That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world." (Matthew 13:35 KJV) Much of the information Jesus revealed touches on the afterlife-the heavenly reward awaiting his disciples and the punishment in store for the wicked.

He revealed that all who hear the Gospel and put faith in Christ will end up in heaven with him to behold his glory. (John 17:20, 24; Hebrews 12:23) "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also." (John 14:1-3 KJV)

Jesus also had more to say about punishment after death than anyone else in the Bible. "And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him." (Luke 12:4-5)

Proclamation of the Gospel was "Good News," but it also made mankind more responsible in God's sight. "In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead." (Acts 17:30-31 NIV)

This was indeed something new, both for the Gentiles who had been left largely without knowledge of the true God prior to this, and for the Jews who were being called from a distant organizational relationship with God the Father to come individually into a closer, more personal relationship through the Son. "Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6 KJV) 

Jesus was the kindest, most loving man ever to walk the earth. "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28 KJV) His love drew people to him, wherever he went-even hardened prostitutes and macho soldiers. How, though, can we reconcile this with the unbelievably serious consequences of rejecting that love? 

"Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?"

- Hebrews 10:28-29 NIV 

The punishment for rejecting Christ is more severe than simply dying without mercy. Does the context soften this? 

And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another-and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.

Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses.

How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace?

- Hebrews 10:24-29 NIV 

This is, without doubt, a warning not to be ignored. Yet it should not leave any of us with an unhealthy fear of God-a fear that God might be cruel, unfair, unloving.

Would God the Father or Jesus Christ take someone you love and inflict pain unmercifully on that person, tormenting them without letup, ignoring their desperate pleas, hurting them repeatedly and continually, for ever and ever? Even those who know God personally, who feel his love, and who know that "God is love" (1 John 4:8), and who know that he is the one who teaches us to love-even we may fear for others. But to assure our hearts in this, he had recorded in his Word the fears that Abraham entertained when he heard of the punishment about to be inflicted on the city of Sodom. God patiently put up with a lengthy cross-examination by Abraham, finally assuring him that the Judge of all the earth will indeed do what is right, what is fair, and what is good. (Compare Genesis 18:23-33)

If the thought of some receiving punishment after death troubles us, the solution does not lie in denying the Bible's inspiration, nor in explaining-away Jesus' words by distorting their meaning. Rather, the solution lies in trusting God. After all, that is what faith really means: not getting God to answer all of our questions, but putting our trust in God even in matters we find difficult to understand.

Jesus taught that childlike trust is required of us: "I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." (Luke 18:17 NIV) Instead of approaching the matter like scholars trying to understand God, we need to get down on our knees and take hold of His hand the way a little toddler trustingly holds onto his or her father's hand, securely confident that Dad has everything under control.

Moreover, as we read Jesus' words on the subject of what happens after death, we need to attach significance, not only to what he says but also to what he leaves unsaid. Much of the controversy that has upset and divided sincere believers on these issues stems from attempts to fill in the gaps-attempts to 'clarify' or 'clear up' the aspects that Jesus leaves 'unclear.' These human efforts range from highly intellectual efforts at theological essays, sprinkled with Greek words and other words that might as well be Greek to most readers-to works of fiction (Christian novels) that some today rely on for their theology-to works of art picturing horned red devils sticking pitchforks into tormented victims.

But, did it ever occur to such theological deep thinkers that Christ left certain matters unclear-full of annoying information gaps-because he wanted to? Although a parent sometimes tells a child, "If you leave the yard again, I'll send you to your room for the rest of the day," there are other times when a parent intentionally leaves the penalty for disobedience much less specific. "If you leave the yard again, you'll have to face your father when he comes home!" "If you leave the yard again, you'll wish you didn't!" So, can't we allow our heavenly Father to take the same approach?

Of course he could have made it very clear what would happen to the dead-the good and the bad. If modern writers can spell it out clearly in black and white, as many indeed have done in books reflecting various persuasions, certainly the Author of the New Testament could have found the right words, too. He could have removed all ambiguities and spelled it all out. At the very least, he could have selected a chapter from one of the many books on the market today and canonized that chapter as part of inspired Scripture. Then none of us would be left wondering exactly what happens to the dead.

Another important consideration is the fact that Jesus spoke to us in three different ways in Scripture:

(1) Literally, using what we would call "straight talk." He generally spoke this way to his disciples in private.

(2) In parables, or stories with moral lessons. This is the way he often spoke to crowds of onlookers.

(3) Symbolically, in signs. This sort of presentation characterized the Apocalypse or Revelation which we find at the end of our Bibles today.

Confusing Jesus' three forms of speech is a serious mistake, but one often made.

If Jesus says that wicked men are put outside in the dark to weep and gnash their teeth, should we turn this into a picture of children undergoing fiendish torture? If our sensibilities are offended by our concept of hell and who goes there, then perhaps our concept is wrong. 

Just as some deny what the Bible says about punishment after death, there are other religious people who go overboard in the opposite direction, allowing their imagination to run wild with sadistic glee as they picture devils with pitchforks having a grand time inflicting every brutal torture imaginable on helpless men, women, and children. This approach is every bit as unscriptural as the other. Revelation 20:10 makes it plain that the devil himself is among those undergoing punishment-not ruling over an evil empire in hell. 

One final point that needs to be made is that Jesus spoke to us-to common people-not to professors, clergymen, doctors of theology, or any special class of Bible interpreters. If he intentionally bypassed the priests at Jerusalem's temple and the teachers in the synagogues, choosing instead to speak directly to fishermen, tax collectors, and prostitutes-how could we possibly think he meant for our generation to receive his words as interpreted and explained by some spiritual elite?

When today's dock worker, truck driver, or tax accountant picks up the Gospels and reads them, the impression they receive from Christ's words is the impression he meant for them to receive. If they end up with a different impression after discussing and studying Scripture with so-called learned men, that is the wrong impression.

Jesus himself said, "I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children." (Matthew 11:25 NIV) Any human author can write with rarely-used words and complex sentence structure, so that only the well-educated reader will understand, but God did something much more difficult: He had his message presented in such a way that the well-educated reader would have no advantage; rather, the simple-minded reader with childlike trust would be the one more likely to grasp the message. 

The chief obstacle in grasping what Jesus said about life after death is neither an inherent obscurity in his message, nor a deficiency in our own mental powers; rather, the greatest obstacle is the mass of twisted interpretations superimposed on his words by others. Encountering their interpretations before we encounter Jesus' words, we find ourselves approaching his words with numerous preconceived notions-seeing his words through tinted glasses, so to speak. 

But there is also the matter of our own fear, suspicion and unbelief. Fallen man has a tendency to reject God's message, rather than meditate on it prayerfully with the aim of understanding and believing it. That is how many reacted, even among those who saw Jesus in person and heard him speak: "...many of his disciples said, 'This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?' Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, 'Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe.'" (John 6:60-64 NIV)

If you are troubled by unbelief, don't give up. Continue to read the Bible, asking God for wisdom, for answers to your questions, and for more faith. He answers such humble prayers. Meanwhile, the believer's responsibility is not to comprehend everything intellectually, but to comprehend that God comprehends everything intellectually, and that he is therefore deserving of our trust and obedience.









Chapter 12

What About Darwin? 



Some readers may feel that Bible history and Bible prophecy simply cannot be true, because mankind originated through blind evolutionary forces rather than by God's creation. Other readers may believe the Bible but have nagging doubts as to whether the scientific theory of evolution calls into question the truthfulness of the Bible.

I myself used to believe that humans evolved from lower animals. Years ago I read a number of books on the topic and found them convincing. What has since convinced me otherwise? Let me explain.

Imagine that a group of explorers in an uninhabited land climb to the crest of a hill and find themselves looking down into a valley on the other side-a valley lined with rectangular stone structures resembling cliff dwellings complete with openings that look like doors and windows. The leader of the expedition immediately declares to the group, "Look at this amazing natural formation. Such fascinating patterns in the rock! It's obviously the result of erosion. There's no limit to what wind and water can do over eons of time."

Some in the group whisper among themselves that these appear to be human dwellings, carved by the hand of man. But, since they are all employees of the company underwriting the expedition, and all can be fired at will by the leader, none dare voice their thoughts too loudly.

As they descend into the valley, they pass through what the captain has declared to be "rock formations." Some of the explorers enter the structures through the doorway-like openings. They note that these and the window-like openings are located and sized precisely where human workers would have carved them. Even more amazing, some have the remains of slabs of wood attached to metal hinges, positioned as if they once functioned as doors and shutters.

"Iron deposits are common in these parts," the expedition leader notes, dismissing the thought that the hinges could have been fashioned by hand. "And trees would naturally have grown but soon died in these natural openings." Others whisper among themselves that the functional complexity of doors and shutters point to intelligent designers. But the official position expounded by the leader must be upheld, since he sets company policy.

One of the explorers, entering into a structure isolated from the others, finds a clay jar, and, forcing open the lid, discovers inside some papyrus scrolls. Unrolling them, he gazes at a complete set of architectural drawings-plans detailing the construction of the cliff dwellings on each wall of the valley. The drawings include detail outlining the measurements of doorways and window openings. But, when the leader is shown the discovery, he dismisses them as descriptive drawings left behind by an earlier explorer who stumbled upon "these natural formations" and put his findings on paper.

To me, the expedition leader in this story illustration is comparable to scientists who deny the obvious evidence of design in the world around us and, especially, in the physiology of men and animals, and who continue to deny that evidence even after the designer's blueprints have been found encoded in the DNA of every living cell.

It is one thing for explorers in the wilderness to stumble upon ruins of buildings, and to declare them instead to be natural formations resulting from wind erosion. But it is ridiculous to make such an assertion if the ruins are accompanied by faded architectural drawings showing ancient laborers how to construct the edifices. Yet, that is just what so-called scientists have been doing by proclaiming evolution theory despite the discovery of the genetic code. Ever since Darwin wrote "The Origin of Species," evolutionists had been matching up skeletons from the fossil record and claiming that this one evolved from that one; now, unbelieveably, they continue to make such claims even after finding within the fossils the coded architectural plans for each skeleton. 

The genetic code is so complex, however, that architectural blueprints are simple by comparison. A better analogy can be found in the field of computer technology than in architecture. The complex "binary" code that runs computers boils down to a long series of 1's (ones) and 0's (zeroes) representing the "on" and "off" positions of tiny electrical switches. If you could see this basic code, it would look like 0010111001011, and so on. Similarly, the genetic code can be represented by a series of four letters-G, A, T and C-representing four different nitrogen compounds: Guanine, Adenine, Thymine and Cytosine.

If you stripped open the double helix spiral of a DNA molecule (deoxyribonucleic acid) you would find a sequence of connected pairs of molecules joining the two spirals together, like rungs of a twisted ladder. The connecting rungs are composed of Guanine, Adenine, Thymine and Cytosine molecules where the two pieces of the double helix meet along the joining seam of the spiral, throughout its length. Adenine connects with Thymine to form some rungs of the ladder, and Guanine connects with Cytosine to form other rungs. Moreover, the rungs can be arranged in either direction: G-C or C-G as well as A-T or T-A. So, if you were to "read" the code by moving up or down one side of the ladder, you might first run into the G end of a G-C rung, next encounter the C end of a C-G rung, then the T end of an A-T rung, and so on. You would read this as, "GCT...," followed by whatever you ran into next. This long sequence of G, A, T and C-longer than the most complex computer program ever written by man-spells out the genetic code in the DNA. 

The human genome, according to microbiologists, consists of approximately a hundred thousand genes composed of some three billion DNA subunits. To varying degrees, plants and animals have somewhat less genetic code in their genomes. They are like simpler computer programs that take less code to run. The programming represented there is simply awe inspiring. The psalmist wrote of the Creator, "...you created my inmost being...knit me together in my mother's womb...fearfully and wonderfully made...in your book all my parts were written down before any of them came into being..." in my own paraphrase from the Bible, Psalm 139, verses 13-18.

While I was growing up, clothing labels were sewn somewhere inside a garment. If you had a label showing, a friend was quick to point it out. Designer jeans were the first to make acceptable the practice of sewing manufacturers' labels onto the outside. Similarly, when I look into a human face, the love and intelligence I see there is, to me, a reflection of the face of God. It is his designer's label, sewn into our designer genes.

Displayed on the wall of my office is a colorful chart titled "Human Genome Landmarks" and subtitled "Selected Traits and Disorders Mapped to Chromosomes." The chart cost me nothing, since it was available for the asking from a government web site: www.ornl.gov/hgmis/posters. The letters HGMIS in that URL stand for Human Genome Management Information System, a division of the federal government's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (www.ornl.gov).

The poster lists countless human traits such as skin color and hair texture, and many more ailments or diseases such as diabetes and sickle-cell anemia, along with the location of the genetic code that determines those traits or hereditary susceptibility to those disorders. For example, some time long ago a mutation caused an A to be replaced with a T in a someone's genetic code, in the portion of their DNA coded for hemoglobin, and this caused them to pass on to their offspring sickle-cell anemia as a hereditary disease. 

Disease resulting from accidental mutations makes sense. But upward evolution from ocean slime to human beings is a ridiculous proposition, when the code that would have to be written is taken into consideration. Something similar to random spontaneous mutations takes place in computers when disk media ages or when some stray electrical current, or some other unknown element, causes code to be "corrupted." Corrupted code can result in a computer program behaving strangely-such as displaying incorrect numerical values on screen-or even breaking down completely and failing to function. But corrupted code never results in new and improved programs. Corruption in the computer code can cause Windows 98 to crash, but such spontaneous changes can not cause Windows 98 to become Windows XP. 

Similarly, as Dr. Lee Spetner points out in his book Not by Chance! - Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution (The Judaica Press, 1998), mutations have never been shown to add new code to the genome. This should not be surprising, because the chances of code that actually works being written by accident becomes less and less likely the longer the code. While the chances of picking a winning three-digit lottery number are one in a thousand, a six-digit number lowers those odds to one in a million. Add three more digits, and the odds become one in a billion. At twelve digits, the odds fall to one in a trillion. Yet, a web designer may use a hundred characters to write a single line of JavaScript code, and thousands of lines of code to write a simple computer program. And his most complex interactive website looks like a kindergarten child's project next to the genetic code of a simple insect.

No wonder that new and improved software never pops into being through accidental corruption of code! Imagine, then, the odds against new DNA code being added to the genome by accident. Considering that there are billions of DNA subunits in the human genome, the chances are astronomically impossible. The 'millions of mutations over millions of years' that evolutionists point to don't even come close to making the chance origin of life believable, never mind the evolution of intelligent humans.

Sometimes a computer programmer will sit down to create a website or a computer application and will start from scratch, opening a text editor or word processor and writing code. But, more often than not, he will start by grabbing an existing file and will use this as a template to aid in creating the new one. To add the different functionality needed in the new version, he will look through his collection of code saved over the years, and copy various snippets and paste them into the new file in appropriate spots.

This is, according to my layman's understanding, similar to the process followed by genetic engineers on the cutting edge of research in biology and biochemistry. They peer into the genes and chromosomes of a particular strain of sweet corn, for example, unravelling the long spiral DNA molecule and reading the sequence of code-GATCCTTGAAATTC... and so on-found inside. Through painstaking effort they find and identify the portion of code controlling some undesirable feature they want to remove. Or, perhaps they find the appropriate spot to insert a snippet of genetic code borrowed from another species, to give this sweet corn a new trait. Then they modify the code and try it out. The result is genetically engineered corn.

Genetic research has not yet progressed to the point where even a scientist who is tops in his field could sit down and write out genetic code from scratch to produce a living organism. Rather, like novice web designers, they modify existing organisms by cutting and pasting code. Happily, despite the elevation of the theory of evolution to the status of a sacred cow, there are still brave biologists who give credit where credit is due and honor the Creator, the divine writer of the genetic code.

Ever since the Scopes trial, the creation-versus-evolution controversy has been a matter of litigation and legislation. Attempts to include creationism in the science curriculum of public schools have most often been thwarted by arguments that creationism points to a Creator, thus making it a religious teaching which, according to prevailing legal precedent, must be excluded. More recently a number of men of science have come together into what they have dubbed the "intelligent design movement." They argue scientifically that the genetic blueprints and the irreducible complexity of structures found within living things rule out gradual development through a series of accidental mutations and point, instead, to intelligent design. And they have entered the legal fray, with the aim of being heard and allowing young students to hear these ideas as well.

Since I'm neither a litigator nor a legislator, nor a microbiologist, I don't have a powerful voice to lift up against the tyranny of authority of the evolutionists. But, just as surely as the "HTML" used in creating websites stands for HyperText Markup Language, to me our DNA sequence "GATGC" should stand for God Authored The Genetic Code.

The evidence against the theory of evolution is overwhelming. Yet it is not when the scope of this book to present all of that evidence. Hopefully, what is written here will whet the appetite of those who wish to learn more. You can do that by reading a number of fine books authored by or featuring data assembled by qualified scientists:

· Dr. Lee Spetner's Not by Chance! - Shattering the Modern Theory of Evolution (The Judaica Press, 1998) 

· James Perloff's The Case Against Darwin - Why the Evidence Should Be Examined (Refuge Books, 2002) 

· James Perloff's Tornado in a Junkyard - The Relentless Myth of Darwinism (Refuge Books, 1999) 

· Michael J. Behe's Darwin's Black Box - The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (Simon & Schuster, 1996) 

· William A. Dembski's Intelligent Design - The Bridge Between Science & Theology (InterVarsity Press, 1999) 

· (See also additional books by the above authors, as well as books referenced within their writings.) 

As a young man I had read numerous books on evolution and atheistic cosmology, and felt that they explained adequately where man and the universe came from. I didn't possess the finely detailed knowledge held by microbiologists and astrophysicists, but I had read enough to comprehend the big picture. It wasn't necessary to be able to sketch from memory a diagram of the atomic structure of DNA molecules, nor to scribble out from memory the formula for the eliptical orbits of heavenly bodies.

Later, however, as I matured, I began to grow in appreciation for the some of the finer qualities I saw displayed in ordinary lives: love, self-sacrifice, loyalty to friends, thoughtfulness, and so on. Then, one evening while I sat alone in a quiet room, tired out from a day's work, a thought struck me that I had never entertained before: the best people-those who really cared and who took life seriously-seemed to strive for goals that were higher than any that they themselves or those around them had ever attained. They recognized their own failures and sought to do better. Their mind's eye was fixed on ideals that they were unable to reach. Where did those ideals originate? 

Could it be possible that the unreachable ideals that idealistic humans reached for were put there for them from above, put there by the God I had long ago decided did not exist?

Hadn't I thought about this before? It seemed like a new thought to me. Hadn't it been addressed by Nietsche or Kant? Hadn't existentialist Albert Camus covered this point? I couldn't remember the details of my early reading in philosophy. What about Socrates and Plato? Plato taught that the imperfect squares, circles and triangles humans drew with ink or traced on the sand were mere copies of self-existing Forms dimly perceived beyond the human realm. Could it be that unselfish love, altruism and the spirit of self-sacrifice similarly existed independently of the human mind, somewhere above the human plane, like Plato's Forms?

The evolutionists I had read would have attributed the highest human ideals to some sort of social consciousness evolved by early men whose chances for survival depended on the degree to which they put the welfare of the tribe ahead of their individual welfare. But wouldn't the self-sacrificing individuals have died off in the very act of preserving the tribe, hence not contributing their genetic material to the next generation, and not passing on that desirable trait? Somehow, the survival-of-the-fittest argument failed to explain Ghandi and Jesus and Schweitzer and other examples of self-sacrificing love.

Could brute beasts really have refined themselves, through some evolutionary process of natural selection, to produce Mozart and Beethoven? How would weeding out the inferior members of the species-those not as adept at finding food or at securing a mate-how would that process, combined with random genetic mutations, have produced such musical genius? The score of Eine Kleine Nachtmusik played through my mind's ear as an eloquent testimony against the theory of evolution. How could the ability to create such a masterpiece have helped in the survival of the fittest? Could some genetic mutation that helped certain cave men kill antelope for food have carried with it the ability to compose Beethoven's Fifth Symphony as an accidental byproduct? I found myself becoming skeptical of religious skepticism, as I lost faith in the theory of evolution.

If I were to present this today as an argument for the existence of God, I would make my case very simply this way: Think of the sweetest, kindest, gentlest person you know-someone beautiful inside and out, someone who brings a tear to your eye when you think of him or her. For me such a person is my wife. For you, it might be your son, or a granddaughter, or someone else that you both admire and love. Could you really believe that this delightful person came into being as the result of a long series of accidents involving molecular interactions, one undersea life form defeating another in survival of the fittest, an unnamed something crawling ashore to continue mutating , and brutish ape-men wiping each other out, until finally his or her great-great-grandparents' ancestors appeared? How reasonable is that, when compared with the Bible's assertion that an even kinder, more loving, more admirable Creator carefully crafted the first humans in His own image, and put within them the intricate genetic code needed to reproduce more of the same?

Just how does the Bible explain mankind and his condition today? It tells us that human history began when God created the first man and then his wife. Even evolutionists now agree that all members of the human species descended from an original pair possessing the present genetic makeup of homo sapiens. That first pair rebelled against God by disobeying an explicit command, the Bible explains, and this brought many sorrows upon the race. (Genesis, chapters 1-5) 

Corruption and violence had reached such a foul state that God eventually intervened by washing the planet clean through a global Deluge, preserving only Noah and his family, including his grown sons' wives. Following the Deluge the human race grew rapidly, spreading out yet remaining in the same vicinity, the fertile plains near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. (Genesis, chapters 6-10)

As the population grew to sufficient numbers, it appears that urban life began to develop, and, along with it the construction of the first skyscraper in the town of Babel. Man was well on his way toward many modern achievements, no doubt, and well along in developing the corrupt, immoral culture that has always followed in the wake of urbanization. "The Lord said, 'If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.'" (Genesis 11:6 NIV) Everything from human cloning to nuclear weaponry would have been on the horizon from mankind. This, no doubt, would have brought matters to a head and forced the Apocalypse-way ahead of God's schedule for laying appropriate groundwork and sending his Messiah. But, the One who knows the end from the beginning was not caught off guard by these developments. The Creator had something else in mind: "'Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.' So, the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city." (Genesis 11:7-8 NIV)

From Babel onward the Bible tracks the history of the Chosen People only, and the surrounding nations in the Middle East. The other families of mankind spread across Europe, Asia and Africa, descended from Noah's three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth and their wives who were not of Noah's line and hence added genetic diversity to the mix. The recorded history of many nations tells of the exploits of Ham's descendents and Japheth's, but God inspired Bible writers to record and assemble only the history of certain branches of Semitic peoples (Shem's offspring) and others who interacted with them. Little is known of the families who eventually took their tower-building technology to Central and South America. Those who built Egypt's pyramids receive mention in the Bible, primarily due to their interaction with Israel. 

While it conflicts with some popular theories, the Bible's history of mankind fits the observable facts and agrees where it overlaps with secular histories recorded by non-biblical writers. 









Chapter 13

How to Be Saved 



When the first humans rebelled against God by the sin of eating the forbidden fruit, it would appear that God had two options for populating this planet as he had originally intended: either destroy the sinful couple and start over again, or redeem some of their offspring. 

How easy it would have been to annihilate Adam and Eve and then create a new man from the dust of the ground and a new woman from his rib! But God chose the more difficult alternative: to tolerate human rebellion for thousands of years, during which time he would lay the necessary groundwork through his Chosen People, send his only begotten Son as the savior and redeemer of fallen mankind, and nurture a church of the Messiah's followers. Finally, he would collect the "harvest" from all this effort-people from every nation-and cleanse the earth from wickedness and corruption in a fiery battle of Armageddon. In the end there would remain a redeemed human race living godly lives in peace and harmony in God's kingdom. 

The Hebrew writers of the Old Testament presented elements of this divine plan, shedding light on it progressively down through the ages. They pointed forward to the coming of the Anointed One or Messiah, laid the basis for identifying him, and hinted at what he would accomplish. Called "Christ" from the Greek word for "Anointed One," Jesus showed how all of those prophecies fit together and how they would result in human salvation.

The way of salvation that Jesus proclaimed was not through church or organizational membership or through accurate knowledge of the Scriptures-although both of these enter into it. In order to gain life, people had to come to Jesus personally. Under the "new covenant" he instituted, there would be no other way to the Father, except through Jesus. "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6 New King James Version)

This can be understood best by looking first at the "old covenant" God established with Israel. Jews were in a special relationship with God, through this formal agreement or covenant, by virtue of being members of the nation of Israel. This arrangement was to be superseded by a new covenant at some future time, according to the prophecy of Jeremiah, chapter 31. 

"'The time is coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,' declares the LORD . " (Jeremiah 31:31-32 NIV)

Under this new covenant "'they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the LORD. 'For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.'" (verse 34 NIV) All sorts of sinful people-even prostitutes and corrupt tax collectors-came to Jesus and received forgiveness of their sins. The forgiveness was a free gift, not earned by good works. This angered the Jewish religious leaders who wanted people to seek righteousness through the works program they had outlined to them. But those who accepted Jesus as their Savior rejoiced and were overjoyed to feel the burden of sin lifted off their shoulders. 

Besides promising forgiveness of sins, the prophecy of Jeremiah 31:34 also said, "'they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,' declares the LORD." This did not mean just additional details of knowledge or information about God, but actually knowing God personally. How? By personally living with Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on a day-to-day basis. When Philip asked to see the Father, Jesus answered, "Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?." (John 14:9 NIV)

Those who actually lived with Jesus (who is the exact representation of the Father-Heb. 1:3) could get to know God in this new intimate way that was not possible for people who just "study the Scriptures" as the Pharisees did. (John 5:39) The "knowing the LORD" that Jeremiah prophesied about is this sort of close, personal relationship with God through His Son. 

And Jeremiah was not offering a new covenant for just a handful of men in the First Century. Rather, it would be God's way of dealing with men from that time onward. For example, Paul's relationship with God through His Son began when Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus. Later on, Paul told of occasions when "Lord stood at my side and gave me strength" (2 Tim. 4:17 NIV), and when Paul spoke to the Lord about his "thorn in my flesh." (2 Cor. 12:7-9) As a zealous Jew, Paul had had a relationship with God before, but only from a distance. Now, as a Christian, he really knew God.

The different ways in which the two covenants were instituted set the pattern. The old covenant was established with Moses conveying messages back and forth between the God and the people, while the people stood at a distance from Mount Sinai where God appeared:

"When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, 'Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.' Moses said to the people, 'Do not be afraid. God has come to test you, so that the fear of God will be with you to keep you from sinning.' The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the thick darkness where God was." (Exodus 20:18-21 NIV)

By contrast, the new covenant was established at the Last Supper with the Son of God sitting privately to share a meal with his twelve apostles. The setting was so intimate that John leaned back onto Jesus' breast to ask him a question. (John 13:25) That intimacy was to continue, as Jesus made clear in the words that he prayed in the hearing of his apostles: 

"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us ... Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 20:20-26 NIV)

Stephen saw Jesus in a vision during his trial. Some time later, after his trial broke up and he was brought outside the city, Stephen called out to Jesus. "And as they were stoning Stephen, he prayed, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.' And he knelt down and cried with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them.'" (Acts 7:59-60 RSV) There is no indication that the earlier vision was repeated then. Rather, Stephen had an on-going relationship with Jesus and felt free to call upon Him. 

Were Paul and Stephen unique in having a personal relationship with the Son of God, calling upon Jesus in time of need? Evidently not, as Paul described Christians as "all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor 1:2 NIV) 

Jesus promised this continuing relationship with His disciples: "For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." (Matt. 18:20 KJV) In fact, we have Jesus' promise that "He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me: and he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him. ...and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him." (John 14:21-23 KJV) The Living Bible paraphrases it this way: "When I come back to life again...I will only reveal myself to those who love and obey me. The Father will love them too, and we will come to them and live with them." (vss. 20-23) 

Jesus does not usually reveal himself to people today in a blinding light, as he appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus. Rather, it is more as described at Galatians 4:6-"God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, 'Abba! Father!'" (Revised Standard Version) 

At first I was afraid to approach God in prayer to confess my sin and ask Jesus into my heart as my Savior and Lord. Due to my earlier religious training, I was skeptical and was even afraid of receiving a demonic spirit. But then I read Jesus' words at Luke 11:10-13-"For every one who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or it he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" (RSV) So, I prayed and received Jesus' spirit into my heart. I experienced a personal fulfillment of Galatians 4:6 and came to know God as my Father in a way that I had never known before. 

So, the Gospel of the Christian Scriptures, the new covenant that Jeremiah 31 foretold, is not a new set of doctrines to learn or new facts about God (although some erroneous doctrines may need to be un-learned). Rather, it is a salvation that includes a new life right now, as a new creature by virtue of being born again and living a new Spirit-filled life. 

Jesus introduced this new life when He told Nicodemus, "Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God...Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." (John 3:3-7 KJV) 

All of those who come into the new covenant undergo this change: "You, however, are controlled not by your sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. ...Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit who makes you sons. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father.' The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." (Romans 8:9-11, 14-16 NIV) 

When you are born again, you are a babe in Christ at first. And just as toddlers tend to fall while learning to walk, so it is with learning to walk in the Spirit. But the Father will help you grow as His child. You will form a longing for the Word, and the Holy Spirit will teach you as you read. You will see more and more clearly that Jesus could not be merely the first angelic creation, as some cults teach, but that He is, as doubting Thomas finally came to believe, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20:28 KJV) 

Besides learning more about God and growing in love for Him, you will also come to see yourself as part of the body of Christ. This is "the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven." (Heb. 12:23 NIV) The true church, Christ's body, crosses denominational lines and includes individuals both in and out of the various religious organizations that men have set up. It is composed of all those who look to Christ as Head, who have been "baptized by one Spirit into one body." "Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. If the foot should say, 'Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,' it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. ...The eye cannot say to the hand, 'I don't need you!'" (1 Cor. 12:12-21 NIV) So, we need our brothers and sisters in Christ, even if we see ourselves as quite different from them. 

It may be difficult at first to adopt this scriptural view of our brothers in Christ: "If a person's faith is not strong enough, welcome him all the same without starting an argument. People range from those who believe they may eat any sort of meat to those whose faith is so weak they dare not eat anything except vegetables. Meat eaters must not despise the scrupulous. On the other hand, the scrupulous must not condemn those who feel free to eat anything they choose, since God has welcomed them. It is not for you to condemn someone else's servant. ...If one man keeps certain days as holier than others, and another considers all days to be equally holy, each must be left free to hold his own opinion." (Rom. 14:1-5 Jerusalem Bible) If you accept this view of the brotherhood, then you will find it easier to fellowship with Christians from other backgrounds. 

Ask the Lord to guide you into the fellowship He wants you to be in. He will answer your prayer. Of course, He may put you into a local congregation like the one in Corinth, where the gifts of the Spirit were being misused and where the Lord's Supper was not being celebrated properly. (1 Cor. 14:23, 11:20) Or, He may send you into a church like the one in Pergamum, where corrupt practices and false teachings prevailed among some members. (Rev. 2:14, 15) Or, you may find yourself in a congregation like the one in Sardis that had "a reputation of being alive" but was actually "dead." (Rev. 3:1 NIV) Such experiences can help you to grow and to deepen your personal relationship with Jesus as Lord. "Bear what you have to bear as 'chastening'-as God's dealing with you as sons," part of your training from the Father. (Heb. 12:7 J.B. Phillips) 

We all should admit, as Paul the Apostle did, that "we can see and understand only a little about God now, as if we were peering at his reflection in a poor mirror; but someday we are going to see him in his completeness, face to face. Now all that I know is hazy and blurred, but then I will see everything clearly, just as clearly as God sees into my heart right now." (1 Cor. 13:12 Living Bible) So, while 'accurate knowledge' of every detail is not yet available, it is the Christian's privilege to "know" God through a close, personal relationship with Jesus Christ. If you have not yet done so, tell God right now that you need Jesus as your Savior, and receive Him as your Lord. He invites you: "Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads, and I will give you rest." (Matt. 11:28 Today's English Version) "I will never turn away anyone who comes to me." (John 6:37 TEV) 









Chapter 14

What Happens Next? 



The Bible provides a considerable amount of detail concerning the dramatic events that will occur at the time of the end. However, the details are scattered among many different prophetic passages throughout numerous books of the Old and New Testaments.

Zechariah's prediction that Jerusalem would become a problem for the whole world, and that the nations would unite to impose their solution, is found in the opening verses of his twelfth chapter. Zechariah continues to discuss events related to Jerusalem through the end of chapter fourteen. However, it is not clear whether all of these developments are chronological, or even closely related in time. Here are some highlights:

"On that day I will make the leaders of Judah like a firepot in a woodpile, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They will consume right and left all the surrounding peoples, but Jerusalem will remain intact in her place." (Zechariah 12:6 NIV) 

"On that day the LORD will shield those who live in Jerusalem, so that the feeblest among them will be like David, and the house of David will be like God, like the Angel of the LORD going before them. On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem." (Zech 12:8-9 NIV)

"And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son." (Zech 12:10 NIV)

"I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city. Then the LORD will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle." (Zech 14:2-3 NIV)

"This is the plague with which the LORD will strike all the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their sockets, and their tongues will rot in their mouths. On that day men will be stricken by the LORD with great panic. Each man will seize the hand of another, and they will attack each other." (Zech 14:12-14 NIV)

Keep in mind that the prophetic content of Zechariah chapters 12 through 14 is not necessarily arranged in chronological order. The same is true of the end times prophecies found elsewhere in Scripture. 

The Hebrew prophet Daniel was given visions that span much of human history, beginning with a succession of political empires following one another as the dominant world power, and concluding with the Messiah, the Son of Man, taking power to rule the world in the Kingdom of God:

"In my vision at night ... Four great beasts, each different from the others, came up out of the sea. The first was like a lion, and it had the wings of an eagle. ... a second beast, which looked like a bear. ... another beast, one that looked like a leopard. And on its back it had four wings like those of a bird. This beast had four heads, and it was given authority to rule. ... a fourth beast ... different from all the former beasts, and it had ten horns. ...As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. ... I kept looking until the beast was slain and its body destroyed and thrown into the blazing fire. (The other beasts had been stripped of their authority, but were allowed to live for a period of time.) In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man, coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples, nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed." (Daniel 7:2-14 NIV) 

An angel gave Daniel "the interpretation of these things: 'The four great beasts are four kingdoms that will rise from the earth. But the saints of the Most High will receive the kingdom and will possess it forever -- yes, for ever and ever.' ... the Ancient of Days came and pronounced judgment in favor of the saints of the Most High, and the time came when they possessed the kingdom. ... 'The fourth beast is a fourth kingdom that will appear on earth. It will be different from all the other kingdoms and will devour the whole earth, trampling it down and crushing it. The ten horns are ten kings who will come from this kingdom. After them another king will arise, different from the earlier ones; he will subdue three kings. He will speak against the Most High and oppress his saints and try to change the set times and the laws. The saints will be handed over to him for a time, times and half a time. 'But the court will sit, and his power will be taken away and completely destroyed forever. Then the sovereignty, power and greatness of the kingdoms under the whole heaven will be handed over to the saints, the people of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will worship and obey him.'"(Daniel 7:2-27 NIV)

Daniel's visions went on to reveal the coming of the Messiah: "Seventy 'sevens' are decreed for your people and your holy city to finish transgression, to put an end to sin, to atone for wickedness, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy. Know and understand this: From the issuing of the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until the Anointed One, the ruler, comes, there will be seven 'sevens,' and sixty-two 'sevens.' It will be rebuilt with streets and a trench, but in times of trouble. After the sixty-two 'sevens,' the Anointed One will be cut off and will have nothing. The people of the ruler who will come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end will come like a flood: War will continue until the end, and desolations have been decreed. He will confirm a covenant with many for one 'seven.' In the middle of the 'seven' he will put an end to sacrifice and offering. And on a wing of the temple he will set up an abomination that causes desolation, until the end that is decreed is poured out on him." (Daniel 9:24-27 NIV)

The Apocalypse or Revelation by John in the New Testament uses language similar to Daniel's vision, no doubt referring to the same or similar events: 

"And I saw a beast coming out of the sea. He had ten horns and seven heads, with ten crowns on his horns, and on each head a blasphemous name. The beast I saw resembled a leopard, but had feet like those of a bear and a mouth like that of a lion. The dragon gave the beast his power and his throne and great authority. ... All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast -- all whose names have not been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world. ... Then I saw another beast, coming out of the earth. He had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon. He exercised all the authority of the first beast on his behalf, and made the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast ... he deceived the inhabitants of the earth. He ordered them to set up an image in honor of the beast ... He was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that it could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed. He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. ... His number is 666." (Revelation 13:2-18 NIV)

The apostle John was imprisoned on a Roman penal island called Patmos, when he received this divine revelation of future events. It went on to describe the victory of the Kingdom of God over the kingdoms of men:

"I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and makes war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Out of his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. 'He will rule them with an iron scepter.' He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, "Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and mighty men, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, small and great." Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet ... The rest of them were killed with the sword that came out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh." (Revelation 19:11-21 NIV)

These prophecies must be pieced together with those found scattered elsewhere in the Old and New Testaments. The Hebrew prophet Joel recorded these warnings from God about Jerusalem in the end times:

"I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the LORD come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the LORD hath said, and in the remnant whom the LORD shall call." (Joel 2:30-32 KJV)



"I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land. And they have cast lots for my people; and have given a boy for an harlot, and sold a girl for wine, that they might drink. Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head." (Joel 3:2-4 KJV)



Joel's inspired description of God Almighty's intervention on behalf of Jerusalem truly inspires fear and awe:

"Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about:

thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe: come, get you down; for the press is full, the fats overflow; for their wickedness is great.

Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. The LORD also shall roar out of Zion, and utter his voice from Jerusalem; and the heavens and the earth shall shake: but the LORD will be the hope of his people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I am the LORD your God dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain: then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. ...But Judah shall dwell for ever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation." (Joel 3:9-17, 20 KJV)

Other prophecies about the end times are found in the book of Isaiah:

"Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her... For this is what the LORD says: 'I will extend peace to her like a river, and the wealth of nations like a flooding stream; ...and you will be comforted over Jerusalem.' ...the hand of the LORD will be made known to his servants, but his fury will be shown to his foes. See, the LORD is coming with fire, and his chariots are like a whirlwind; he will bring down his anger with fury, and his rebuke with flames of fire. For with fire and with his sword the LORD will execute judgment upon all men, and many will be those slain by the LORD. ... 'And I, because of their actions and their imaginations, am about to come and gather all nations and tongues, and they will come and see my glory...' says the LORD. "And they will go out and look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.'" (Isaiah 66:10-24 NIV)

Similar powerful language is used by New Testament writers. Peter, for example, reminds readers of the earlier prophecies and of the global deluge of Noah's day as proof that God can and will intervene again in the affairs of mankind:

"I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles. First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, 'Where is this "coming" he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.' But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water. By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men." (2 Peter 3:2-7 NIV)

False prophets have been misapplying biblical end times prophecies since the time in the first century when the New Testament was still being written. Sincere Christians, too, have often 'jumped the gun' by asserting that Christ's return was imminent or had already occurred secretly or invisibly. The Apostle Paul had to warn:

"Now we beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and by our gathering together unto him, That ye be not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled, neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us, as that the day of Christ is at hand. Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." (2 Thess. 2:1-4 KJV)

Yes the end-times prophecies are many and complex. Unbelievers simply dismiss them as the ravings of madmen or religious fanatics. Some modern cultic commentators who have written or preached about these prophecies have presented themselves as the "channel of communication from God" or as "gods spokesman" or as "God's mouthpiece" giving them special authority or power to discern and give an authoritative explanation of these words. Christians who have studied these prophecies at great length are more humble, but many still feel certain about the conclusions that they have reached. I am less certain that we can or will fully understand these events before they take place. 

I believe that God had all of these things written in the Bible so that we can have confidence that his Kingdom will triumph. The details are provided, not so that we would have advance knowledge of all that will take place, but rather that we would know that God knows and understands all the details ahead of time. So the prophecies are intended to inspire in us trust and confidence in God. Our role is not to argue among ourselves over the details, but rather to trust and obey.

Much debate has taken place among Christians as to when we can expect to be "raptured." The "rapture" refers to believers being caught away to meet the Lord in the air at his second coming: "...the dead in Christ shall rise first; Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air." (1 Thess. 4:16:17 KJV)

Different views on this have held sway at different epochs in the history of the Christian church. Throughout much of the Christian era the viewpoint that prevailed was that the Church would remain on earth and would pass through the coming tribulation, only to be raptured at the triumphant conclusion. Today, however, the prevalent view is that believers will be caught away to join the Lord in heaven before the end times events get really rough here on earth. But there are several schools of thought on this matter, even now; they go by such names as "pre-tribulation" (abbreviated "pre-trib"), "post-tribulation" ("post-trib") and "mid-tribulation" ("mid-trib"), depending on whether the theory places the rapture of believers ahead of a period of worldwide trouble, at the end of that period, or in the middle of it.

According to the eschatology prevailing in evangelical churches today, the end times prophecies can be sorted out to reveal a scenario roughly like this: An individual anti-Christ will rise in the Middle East and will gain power in the area including Jerusalem. The temple of God will be rebuilt on the ancient Temple Mount. The anti-Christ will make some sort of covenant or agreement with the people of Israel. Jewish worship will be restored at the temple, including the sacrifice of animals as was the practice before the Temple's destruction at the hand of the Romans during the first century. All of the Jews worldwide will return to Israel, according to some of these interpretations. There will be a seven year period marking the anti-Christ's rule, and in the middle of those seven years he will break his covenant with Israel. There will be some sort of worldwide dictatorship inflicting tribulation on the whole planet.

Historically, the predominant teaching in the Christian Church has been post-tribulation. But the late twentieth century saw a swing toward pre-tribulation thinking in Christian preaching and writing. So, probably the most popular theory today is that there will be a sudden and unexpected rapture of believers, followed by a seven year tribulation period. There are then no Christians left on earth, since they have all been caught away to be with the Lord, and the unbelievers who are 'left behind' must struggle to deal with their disappearance and with the evil world rulership of an individual antichrist. According to this understanding, the predicted international attack on Jerusalem does not occur until the end of the seven years.

Regardless of whether the attack on Jerusalem occurs then or much earlier, it would be hard to deny that the United Nations began laying the groundwork for it back in 1947 when General Assembly Resolution 181 called for international control over the city. (See the details elsewhere in this book.) Subsequent resolutions rebuking Israel have been based on this original demand, and future resolutions at the time of the foretold international attack will, no doubt, be rooted in this long history of U.N. concern about the status of Jerusalem. Back in 1947 it was an agenda item of interest to some; in our day Jerusalem has truly become a problem for the whole world, as Zechariah predicted.

Some may be inclined to think that Jesus' words about "Jerusalem surrounded by armies" (Luke 21:20) apply, not to the end times before Armageddon, but rather to the destruction of the city by the Romans, which took place just decades after the crucifixion. And some of what Jesus said in that lengthy passage may indeed apply only to those first century events. But much of what he said must also have had a wider meaning, a meaning aimed specifically at the end of the world. In this sermon Jesus gave that was recorded in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, he was answering a three-part question from his disciples:

"Jesus left the temple and was walking away when his disciples came up to him to call his attention to its buildings. 'Do you see all these things?' he asked. 'I tell you the truth, not one stone here will be left on another; every one will be thrown down.' As Jesus was sitting on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately. 'Tell us,' they said, 'when will this happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?'" (Matthew 24:1-3 NIV)

So, although part of his answer related to when the stones of the temple would be thrown down -- an event that occurred within the lifetime of those who heard him speak -- other parts of his answer related to "your coming and the end of the age." He gave signs to look for that would indicate when "the end will come" (Matthew 24:14), when "They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. " (Matthew 24:30) when "your Lord will come" (Matthew 24:42) when "the kingdom of God is near." (Luke 21:31) These would be events that would reach far beyond Jerusalem and that would "come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth." (Luke 21:35) (NIV)

These prophecies are not provided so that we will know ahead of time exactly what will happen and exactly when. Rather, they are provided so that we will know that God knows exactly what will happen, and so that this knowledge will motivate us to put our trust in Him.

Prophecy is usually best understood in retrospect. We may have twenty-twenty hindsight in our understanding of fulfilled prophecy, but seldom do we have twenty-twenty foresight as to how the remaining prophecies will be fulfilled.

This fact is abundantly clear from the failure on the part of of the the Jewish religious leaders to recognize clearly all the prophecies about the Messiah and to understand them correctly before he appeared. Jesus called his followers' attention to many of those prophecies and how they applied to him and were fulfilled by him. And the apostles' writings went on to explain how many more versus in the Old Testament applied to the Messiah and pointed out how those were fulfilled by Jesus. Yet, serious Jewish students of Scripture had been unable to discern the correct scenario: that the Messiah would not arrive as a conquering hero, but would appear humble and would be killed and would only later return in power.

The same may well be true with the prophecies about the final conflict over Jerusalem. We may best understand them after the events take place. Meanwhile we can take comfort in these words of Jesus: "When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that soon she will be destroyed. ...and the heathen will trample over Jerusalem until their time is up. ...When these things begin to happen, stand up and raise your heads, because your salvation is near." (Luke 21:20, 24, 28 Today's English Version)









Chapter 15

America's Role 



Does the Bible prophesy that Israel would have a powerful ally in the form of the United States of America during the final days of of this world? No, at least not explicitly. Of course, we might learn in retrospect, after all the apocalyptic the events of the book of Revelation unfold, that some of the cryptic language there contained hidden allusions to America. But, there are certainly no clear references to the U.S.A. in Bible prophecy.

On the other hand, there is plenty of precedent for a Gentile super-power to play the role America has been playing until now.

Bible history relates the major role that the Egyptian world power played in the origin of ancient Israel. Joseph, son of the man Jacob whose name had been changed by God to Israel, was serving as prime minister of Egypt. As a gesture of favor toward his prime minister, Pharaoh king of Egypt invited Joseph's father Israel and Joseph's brothers, the heads of the future twelve tribes, to move to Egyptian territory and live there with their families and their flocks. It was there during their alien residence in Egypt, that the Jewish people grew in population to the size of a small nation. Then a later king of Egypt began to fear this growing nationality and enslaved them and became their oppressor. The book of Exodus in the Bible relates the story of Israel's victory over Egypt by means of the mighty hand of God.

Will America similarly switch sides as Egypt did? Will America cease being Israel's ally, and become its enemy instead? Bible prophesy demands it.

The ancient neo-Babylonian empire, like modern-day Iraq under its dictator Saddam Hussein, was Israel's enemy. But, after conquering Israel and Judah, and deporting the Jewish population, a later king of Babylon installed some bright young Jewish men in positions of power in his government. Thus, the Hebrew prophet Daniel was given a high position of as prime minister in the Babylonian government. He rose to become the third most powerful individual in the Babylonian empire. Daniel's Jewish friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were made governors over certain Babylonian territories. And it was due to his high position that Daniel was able to deliver God's message personally to the king of Babylon, the message that led to our modern day expression "the handwriting on the wall," when Babylon was about to fall to its nemesis, the Medo-Persian empire.

Certain Jews later rose to high positions also in that empire of Media and Persia that succeeded Babylon as the world's super-power. The Bible book of Esther relates the story of powerful Haman the Agagite who tried to exterminate the Jewish people, their miraculous rescue by means of King Ahasuerus's Jewish wife, Queen Esther, and the rise to power of her uncle Mordecai, who became prime minister in the empire of Media and Persia.

During the twentieth year of the reign of Persian emperor Artaxerxes, another Jewish man, Nehemiah, had the job of royal cup-bearer. One day, when handing the monarch his glass of wine to drink, Nehemiah looked sad, and the king sympathetically asked him why. The servant replied that he was sad over the condition of Jerusalem, and the king granted his request to return to Jerusalem with imperial authority to rebuild the city and its temple.

Considering this long history of world powers that served as political allies of the Jewish state, or that came to the aid of Israel at one time of or another, it should not surprise us that the British empire would be instrumental in the return of the Jews to the promised land in fulfillment of Bible prophecy by means of the Balfour declaration issued toward the end of the First World War. Nor should it be surprising that the British and American and world powers would combine to defeat Adolph Hitler's attempt to exterminate the Jewish people immediately prior to their return to the Promised Land.

In fact, viewed from a biblical perspective, the First World War was about that Balfour declaration, and the Second World War was about preserving the Jews. If God were to use a modern-day prophet to write additional books to be added to the Bible cannon, that is how the account would read in reference to the two world wars.

It is also significant, biblically, that World War I resulted in the League of Nations, which issued a mandate to Britain to govern Palestine, and that World War II led to the formation of the United Nations, which helped shape the state of Israel.

During recent years America has been Israel's one and only ally, but that will soon change. The Bible foretells that, when Jerusalem becomes a problem for the whole world, all of the nations will share in attacking Israel. So, America must be included in those nations arrayed against Israel at that time.

It should not be difficult to conceive of this happening. Different presidential administrations in Washington have taken different positions vis-a-vis Israel over the years. Some have attempted to play the role of mediator by maintaining strict neutrality between the Jews and their Arab neighbors. Others have presented themselves as staunch allies of the Jewish state. A small swing in public opinion is all that it would take to allow an American president to side with Europe or with the rest of the United Nations in attacking Israel.

On June 8, 1967, during the Arab-Israeli Six Day War a lightly-armed American warship that was engaged in intelligence gathering in international waters off the Sinai Peninsula was attacked by Israeli ships and aircraft, resulting in the deaths of thirty-four American military personnel and the wounding of a hundred seventy-one others. Israel claimed it was an accident, that the U.S.S. Liberty was mistaken for an Egyptian vessel, and U.S. President Lyndon Johnson accepted that explanation. The Israeli government quickly paid reparations to the injured and to the families of the sailors who had been killed. Since then, a number of writers have alleged that the attack was deliberate, launched because Israel was concerned that the intelligence gathered by the spy ship might be shared with some of its Arab enemies in that life-or-death struggle. (See www.USSLiberty.org for articles and links on this topic.)

A similar incident could easily sway American opinion against Israel in a future confrontation.

However, the reversal of America's role towards Israel does not depend on our speculation. Prophecy makes it plain that all of the nations of the world will turn against Israel and will unite for the final attack on Jerusalem.

Although I have chosen "Blue Helmets to Jerusalem" as the title of this book, Scripture does not state that the nations attacking Israel in this final act of rebellion against God will come in the form of United Nations forces wearing blue helmets. The prophet Zechariah indicates merely that Jerusalem will become a problem for the whole world, and that the nations will be united in their attack. "Jerusalem will be a heavy stone burdening the world," and "all the nations of the earth unite in an attempt" to impose their solution. (Zechariah 12:3 The Living Bible Catholic edition) A formal "United Nations organization" is not named in the Bible.

Even if the attack does prove to be sponsored by the U.N. organization, it may not consist of forces wearing the blue helmets common to international peacekeeping operations. It could be a military force mobilized by a coalition of willing states, acting on a mandate from the Security Council, such as the one the United States had hoped to assemble to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq, or similar to the U.S.-led United Nations force used in the Korean conflict of the 1950's.

We chose to use the title "Blue Helmets to Jerusalem" as a metaphor indicating that the foretold military action will be made up of an international force representing the nations of the world, as Zechariah's prophecy indicates-a force of "united nations" in the generic sense, whether or not it turns out to be an official military action under the auspices of the "United Nations" organization as we know it today.

In any case, the purpose of this book is not to speculate on the exact nature of such an attack, nor how it will be organized politically. Rather, my aim in writing is to call attention to the fact that Jerusalem has become a problem for the whole world, as Zechariah foretold, and that political moves are afoot among the nations and specifically within the framework of the United Nations organization, to impose the will of the world in a final solution for the status of Jerusalem.

Although some may see that as a terrifying prospect, the Bible offers reason for hope. As detailed in the other chapters of this book, the Hebrew prophets speak of a time of world peace to follow this international attack on Jerusalem. The New Testament speaks of the Jewish Messiah Jesus Christ ruling in peace "for a thousand years" following his victory in that battle. (Rev. 20:4) Jesus' words recorded in Matthew chapter 24, Mark chapter 13 and Luke chapter 21 tell us the signs to look for, and Jesus concluded, "When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near... when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near." (Luke 21:28-31 NIV)









Chapter 16

Why Now? Precedents 



Besides recent events that have turned the status of Jerusalem into a problem for the whole world, in apparent fulfillment of Zechariah's prophecy, are there any other reasons to believe that the Bible's end times scenario is about to play out?

Yes. There are numerous other indicators that fit together, like the pieces of a puzzle, to point to God's coming intervention in the affairs of mankind.

Those who know God realize that he does not change. So, he must feel the same way about the same sorts of provocations that prompted him to act in the past. Looking at his past interventions should give us clues as to the timing of the coming apocalypse.

Consider, for example, the flood of Noah's day and the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God took drastic action in both cases to put an end to rampant sexual immorality and violence. He did so by sending a global deluge to destroy the corrupt world of Noah's contemporaries, and he did so again on a local scale when homosexuality was being practiced openly in those notorious cities. As the apostle Peter wrote, "...God...did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly." (2 Peter 2:4-6 NKJV)

God has not changed. He still feels the same way about the sexual misconduct that he put a stop to by those acts of destruction. "God reduced the entire cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, when he sentenced them to destruction as a fearful example to those who wanted to live in defiance of his laws. ... Sodom and Gomorrah...who, in the same way as these men today, gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion..." (2 Peter 2:6, Jude 7 Phillips) If he came down from heaven back then to put a stop to the rampant, open practice of homosexuality in Sodom and Gomorrah, can we expect that he will put up with today's world for long? 

One need only visit a movie theater or turn on a television to see the depths of moral depravity that characterize modern society. Men and women openly live together without benefit of marriage, millions of children are born out of wedlock, and major cities host "gay pride" parades that bring politicians and dignitaries out into the streets in support of homosexuality.

Here in Massachusetts the 1990's saw Republican governor William Weld establish the Governor's Office of Gay and Lesbian Affairs as an official unit within the state house overlooking Boston Common. Homosexual outreaches to students and young people were undertaken with state sponsorship. 

America now has numerous public officials who openly identify themselves as homosexuals: mayors, legislators and other office-holders, both elected and appointed. The entertainment community is similarly infiltrated, if not dominated, by homosexuals and others who despise biblical morality. As a result, homosexual themes abound in popular motion pictures and televisions shows. With televised programs featuring even such blatant titles as "Queer as Folk," TV viewers invite lebians and homosexuals into their living rooms and spend time watching dramas that center around their perverted lives.

Homosexuals protest that they are not to blame; they were born that way. Some even blame God, saying that he made them that way. But that argument is not valid. Isaiah says:

"Woe to him who quarrels with his Maker, to him who is but a potsherd among the potsherds on the ground. Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?' Does your work say, 'He has no hands'? Woe to him who says to his father, 'What have you begotten?' or to his mother, 'What have you brought to birth?'" (Isaiah 45:9-10 NIV)

Adam's sin brought all sorts of sinful tendencies into the gene pool. Some of Adam's offspring have inherited a tendency toward drunkenness, others toward greed or thievery, still others toward sexual immorality of every stripe. Does that inherited tendency justify the behavior? Does a man with inborn inclinations toward pedophilia and child molestation find justification in a court of law by saying, "I was born that way"? Does a thief avoid a prison sentence for his crime by pointing to inherited tendencies? No, because people are responsible for their actions. People who know themselves and their weaknesses need to work on those weaknesses and to fight against the pull of the flesh toward wrongdoing.

But God does not leave wretched man alone, to struggle in a losing battle against sin. Those who turn to God for help receive it. And, with God's help, any sin can be conquered or held in check. Proof is found in the early Christian congregation, where the Apostle Paul said he found believers who had been born with all sorts of sinful tendencies, including homosexuality, but who had broken free from sin through the power of Christ in their lives:

"Don't you know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God." (1 Corinthians 6:9-11 NIV)

Yes, even "male prostitutes" and "homosexual offenders" can change so that Paul could say they "were" those sorts of people, but now were no longer like that. They can be washed, sanctified, and justified by the power of God's Holy Spirit.

But, when a society is dominated by people who exercise their free will to rebel against God by exalting sexual immorality and perversion, we can expect that it will not be long before God steps in to put a stop to it. He brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and sent them as divine executioners against the corrupt and immoral Canaanites. He rained down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah. He brought the global deluge on the corrupt world of Noah's day. And the condition of our world today makes it ripe for a similar catastrophe.

Another major divine intervention into human affairs took place at the Tower of Babel. Does it, too, shed light on the coming apocalypse? Yes. Today's world has become, in many respects, similar to the world before Babel-the world that provoked God's intervention at that time.

Instead of scattering about to populate the whole planet as God intended, these offspring of Noah concentrated themselves in the plains of Shinar. Instead of forming an agrarian society on small family farms, they chose to build an urban society centered in the town or small city of Babel. And there they undertook building "a tower that reaches up to the heavens." (Genesis 11:4 NIV)

Likewise, over the past century much of mankind has left the farm and moved to cities centered around tall buildings. The shift from rural life to city life has been accompanied by the decay in morals the increase in violence that is called to mind by the very expression, 'the inner city.'

But the similarity to Babel does not end there. Before putting a stop to the building activity in that ancient city, God said, "as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this," and added that he was taking action because, otherwise, "nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them." (Genesis 11:6 NIV) How true! With the return to urban society in recent decades, mankind has split the atom, gone to the moon, and deciphered the human genome.

Will God allow his actions at Babel to be permanently undone by a re-united human society? Modern electronic techniques allow an Egyptian leader to speak to the world from a podium at the United Nations, while his audience listens to simultaneous translations in Russian, English, French, Chinese, and so on. No wonder we have again reached the stage where it seems 'nothing is impossible' that man may undertake to do. God intervened when that stage was reached at the Tower of Babel. Won't he do so again?

Jesus' disiples were familiar with the prophecies of the Old Testament. They knew that God's intervention was coming, and they were interested in knowing more about it. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke all contain parallel accounts of the disciples asking Jesus for signs. They asked about when Jerusalem's Temple would be destroyed, and what would be the sign of the end of the world, and of Christ's return. Jesus' response addressed all three issues.

"'Tell us,' they said, 'when will this [the destruction of the Temple] happen, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?' Jesus answered: 'Watch out that no one deceives you...you will be handed over to be persecuted and put to death, and you will be hated by all nations because of me. At that time many will turn away from the faith and will betray and hate each other, and many false prophets will appear and deceive many people. Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.'" (Matt. 24:3-14 NIV)

Then Jesus continued, giving new information as well as quoting earlier Hebrew prophecies: "'So when you see standing in the holy place "the abomination that causes desolation," spoken of through the prophet Daniel-let the reader understand-then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. ... Immediately after the distress of those days "the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken." At that time the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and all the nations of the earth will mourn. They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. And he will send his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. ... you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.'" (Matt 24:15-44 NIV)

Luke's account of the same sermon included these additional details: "'When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near. Then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains, let those in the city get out, and let those in the country not enter the city. For this is the time of punishment in fulfillment of all that has been written. How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers! There will be great distress in the land and wrath against this people. They will fall by the sword and will be taken as prisoners to all the nations. Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. Men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken. ...When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. ... when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. ... Be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap. For it will come upon all those who live on the face of the whole earth. Be always on the watch, and pray that you may be able to escape all that is about to happen, and that you may be able to stand before the Son of Man.'" (Luke 21:20-36 NIV)

How are we to understand these answers? Part of Jesus' response dealt with the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple which took place according to secular history in the year seventy A.D. At that time Roman armies under general Titus destroyed the city and the temple, leaving not even a stone upon a stone, as Jesus said. Surviving Jews were sold into slavery or sent into exile.

What about the portions of Jesus' answer that dealt with the end of this world and his future return in power? This is the more difficult part to interpret.

Have there been signs in the sun, moon and stars? Our modern age has had its share of meteor showers and spectacular comets. But those recent events don't really qualify as being unique or outstanding. Perhaps the signs Jesus was referring to are the manned space flights, the construction of an international space station, and human landings on the moon. Those truly are signs never seen before in world history. "The powers of heaven will be shaken" (Matt. 24:29 Jerusalem Bible), and the powers of the heavens have been shaken, indeed, in the sense that the heavens above us have lost their power over mankind. The heavens are no longer out of reach. For roughly a hundred years now man has been sending airplanes up into the sky. More recently men have gone to the moon, and have inhabited a space station circling in the heavens above the earth. Yes, it can certainly be said that there have been "signs in the sun, moon and stars" and that the heavens have been shaken.

Some associate "'the abomination that causes desolation,' spoken of through the prophet Daniel" with the Roman armies and the idolatrous insignia they carried when they undermined the Temple walls in 66 A.D., before withdrawing and giving those in Judea the opportunity to "flee to the mountains" before returning in 70 A.D. and destroying the Jewish capital. Others might point to the Islamic mosques that presently occupy the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Still others might see a future fulfillment in a rebuilding of the Temple during the coming tribulation and its subsequent desecration by the antichrist. Time will tell which view is correct.

A key part of Jesus' prophecy, however-and a part that definitely applies to the end of this world, rather than to the end of the Jewish system of temple worship-is this statement: "And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." (Matt. 24:14 NIV) The apostles reached throughout the Roman empire with the gospel message, and Christian missionaries down through the ages have spread the Good News to every continent. But it is only recently that it can truly be said that the gospel is being preached in the whole world. 

Aside from the nations of Christendom, where there are churches proclaiming the gospel in every city and town, there are Christian missionaries and native churches nearly everywhere. Even in communist China there are millions of believers. And, in fundamentalist Islamic states where Christian preaching is strictly prohibited, the population still hears the gospel message via satellite TV. The dishes adorn rooftops everywhere, and Arabic-language Christian programming is popular despite the outward pretenses in Muslim lands.

Moreover, the so-called "Information Age" is here, with the Internet as a key component, so that people worldwide may be sufficiently informed to choose God's side. Could this be more than a coincidence? Could it actually be what the angel of prophecy was speaking about when he told the Hebrew prophet Daniel, "But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." (Daniel 12:4 KJV) Planes, trains and automobiles allow people today to "run to and fro" as never before in history, and the 'information super highway' of cyberspace has made every sort of knowledge available to every remote corner of the Earth.

Does the Internet really play a role in the outworking of God's master plan for mankind? Or, is it purely coincidental that the world wide web has emerged upon the scene at this time in history? I think it is reasonable to ask this question, although an authoritative answer cannot be found at this time.

It was Vice President Al Gore who dubbed the Internet the "information super highway." Like a paved road, it smooths the way for people to gain fast access to facts, and like a highway that stretches for hundreds of miles, it brings together widely scattered people into a global community. 

That metaphor for the world wide web recalls to my mind this passage of Scripture:

"The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough places plain: And the glory of the LORD shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it." (Isaiah 40:3-5 King James Version)

Does the Creator of the universe need a highway or a paved road to travel on? Does he need to have the landscape cleared of obstacles and the way made smooth for him to travel from one location to another? No, not at all. But people do. People face obstacles to learning about God. Yes, "narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it." (Matthew 7:14, New King James Version) But now, as the end approaches, God has smoothed the way for people to approach him by receiving and responding to the gospel message.

Prior to the global Deluge of Noah's day, as that catastrophe approached, the world was not left without warning. In the years leading up to it, Noah was "a preacher of righteousness." (2 Peter 2:5 NIV) The world heard his message and rejected it, so that only eight souls were saved in the Ark. How did they hear? Did word spread slowly via travellers who told the latest news when they reached far-off destinations? Or, had the human population prior to the Flood not yet filled the earth? Had they remained concentrated in one area, like the builders of Babel's tower in the plains of Shinar? Or had some forms of mass communication been invented prior to the Deluge, allowing Noah to reach a wider audience? 

We won't know the answer to that, until we have opportunity to question Noah in the resurrection. But, it is clear how the Bible message is reaching the world in our modern day. And it seems only natural that the world should have a collective consciousness in the end times predicted in the Bible: not some mystical melded mind, but a common awareness of events world wide through the media of mass communication. 

With Christian missionary organizations funding the worldwide broadcast of the gospel message over satellite TV, and the Bible and biblical teaching available everywhere via the Internet, Christ has indeed been "preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations." All have been warned. "And then the end will come," Jesus said. (Matt. 24:14 NIV)

Still, the real meaning of world events is hidden from those who choose wickedness. Many, though they fill their heads with knowledge, fail to gain true understanding and wisdom. That is because the heart is also involved. "And he [the angel of the Lord] said, Go thy way, Daniel: for the words are closed and sealed till the time of the end. Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand." (Daniel 12:9-10 KJV)

In the verses immediately before saying, "Prepare ye the way of the LORD, make straight in the desert a highway for our God," Isaiah placed his statement in this context: "Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the LORD'S hand double for all her sins." (Isaiah 40:1-2 KJV) 

Why did the Jews need to return to the Promised Land in the final part of the days? Their presence there in a restored state of Israel with Jerusalem as their capital was essential to fulfillment of the prophecies about the return of Christ.

The First World War is usually discussed in terms of the political intrigues of Europe. But, viewed from a biblical standpoint, its truly significant aspects were the deliverance of the Promised Land from the Ottoman Turks to British control, followed by the Balfour Declaration, which laid the basis for re-establishment of the Jewish state.

As time neared for the predicted restoration of Israel to the Promised Land, unseen demonic enemies inspired Hitler to undertake the extermination of the Chosen People in an effort to thwart fulfillment of prophecy. The lasting significance of the Second World War was that diabolical efforts to annihilate the Jewish people before their return to Israel where thwarted. 

Jerusalem has been the focus of international tension for thousands of years. But only now is the whole world involved. Only now is the whole world concerned about terrorism spilling over everywhere from the conflict centered around the ancient Holy City. Terrorists citing the status of Jerusalem as a principal grievance have struck in New York, in Indonesia, at the Pentagon not far from Washington, D.C., in Casablanca, and throughout the Middle East. Terrorist cells have been broken up and alleged terrorists arrested in Germany and in Italy. The whole world is in fear.

Also for the first time the whole world has a decision making body, and that decision-making body is beginning to use military force to enforce its resolutions. All down through history the dominant world power was able to enforce its will. But now there is a world body representing all the nations that is able to act in a united fashion in regard to Jerusalem.

At the same time the Internet has brought a single consciousness to the entire planet. People everywhere can read the Jerusalem Post simply by going to www.jpost.com. The Arab view of the conflict can be learned by anyone anywhere in the world by going to any one of a number of web sites. When there are casualties in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, people around the world can see the victims on television or on the Internet. The emotions of the whole planet are involved with one side or another in Jerusalem.

In centuries past the world powers had policies toward Jerusalem, and the city's immediate neighbors had policies toward Jerusalem. But only in our generation do we find that China has a policy toward Jerusalem, and Japan has a policy toward Jerusalem, and Indonesia has a policy toward Jerusalem. Nations in south of America have their policies toward Jerusalem. The many countries of Africa have policies toward Jerusalem. Inhabitants of islands in the Pacific Ocean have policies toward Jerusalem. And events in and around Jerusalem result in terrorism and bombings in islands in the Pacific Ocean.

So it is only in our day that it has become possible for Jerusalem to be a problem for the whole world and for all the nations of the world to unite in imposing their solution.









Chapter 17

Nations United and Resolved 



Zechariah's prophecy that "all the nations of the earth will be gathered against" Jerusalem (Zech. 12:3 NASB) parallels similar predictions recorded by Joel and the apostle John, which speak all the nations sending their armies to the region. "For, behold, in those days, and in that time, when I shall bring back the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem, I will gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat; and I will enter into judgment with them there," says the Lord, according to Joel 3:1-2. (The Holy Scriptures, The Jewish Publication Society of America) A demonic summons goes out to "all the kings of the world to call them together for the war of the Great Day of God the Almighty. ... They called the kings together at the place called, in Hebrew, Armageddon." (Revelation 16:14, 16 The Jerusalem Bible; footnote: "Megiddo mountains" - The modern-day government of Israel maintains a prison at Megiddo, filled with Palestinians held as terrorists.)

But Bible prophecy is not the only reason to expect a united international military force to converge on Jerusalem. There is also a modern political paper trail indicating that the nations of the world have already begun laying a legal foundation to justify such a move. First, the nations began to unite in the form of the League of Nations and, later, the United Nations organization. Then these organizations began passing resolutions regarding Palestine, Israel and Jerusalem. And, more recently, the nations began granting the United Nations more and more power to act militarily.

The League of Nations made Britain's Palestine Mandate one of its first official acts, and its successor organization, the United Nations, passed Resolution 181 in 1947 calling for the division of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, but also demanding international control over Jerusalem. (See chapter 3 of this book for excerpts of Resolution 181.) Since then, there have been more U.N. resolutions on Israel and Palestine than on any other region of the world. These have consistently called for the Jews to vacate all or part Jerusalem, for Israel not to claim the city as its capital, or for Jerusalem to be internationalized under a governor appointed by the United Nations. 

The nations have thus spent decades "uniting" for the prophesied attack and drawing up resolutions to legalize it; now all that remains is the enforcement. 

General Assembly resolutions express world opinion but do not carry the threat of enforcement through blue-helmet-wearing U.N. peacekeeping forces. Security Council resolutions can be enforced militarily, but a lone veto cast by the United States has effectively blocked most Security Council measures hostile to Israel. If that veto were to be removed, the way would be open for the nations to have their way in regard to Jerusalem.

The complete text of all U.N. resolutions can be viewed at the United Nations official website at www.UN.org. The General Assembly and Security Council resolutions on Israel and Palestine can by found at the U.N. web site by surfing to the URL http://domino.UN.org/UNISPAL.NSF/ and clicking on links for "Documents by Type" and then "Resolution." The following excerpt from the list featured there as of this writing gives a visual impression of the number of resolutions on Israel, Palestine and Jerusalem passed by various U.N. bodies just in the past few years ("A/RES" indicates a General Assembly resolution and "S/RES" indicates a Security Council resolution):

31/07/2003 S/RES/1496 (2003) UNIFIL - SecCo resolution 

18/07/2003 A/RES/57/337 Prevention of armed conflict - GA resolution 

26/06/2003 S/RES/1488 (2003) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/ Mandate renewed - SecCo resolution 

18/06/2003 A/RES/57/324 UNDOF/Financing - Resolution 

30/05/2003 30th session of Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers - Resolutions on Palestine Affairs 

16/04/2003 E/CN.4/RES/2003/8

E/CN.4/2003/L.11/Add.2 Human rights situation/Landmines in southern Lebanon - CHR - Resolution 

15/04/2003 E/CN.4/RES/2003/5

E/CN.4/2003/L.11/Add.1 Human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan - CHR - Resolution 

15/04/2003 E/CN.4/RES/2003/6

E/CN.4/2003/L.11/Add.1 Human rights situation in the OPT/Jenin - CHR - Resolution 

15/04/2003 E/CN.4/RES/2003/7

E/CN.4/2003/L.11/Add.1 Israeli settlements - CHR - Resolution 

22/03/2003 E/CN.4/2003/130 Mideast situation/Palestine question - IPU 107th Conference/Resolution - Letter from IPU 

03/03/2003 S/2003/254 Mideast situation/Palestine question - League of Arab States Council, 15th session, resolutions 243-245 - Letter from League of Arab States 

30/01/2003 S/RES/1461 (2003) UNIFIL mandate - SecCo resolution 

31/12/2002 A/AC.183/L.2/Add.24 Palestine question/Mideast situation - Compilation of resolutions and decisions adopted in 2002 

20/12/2002 A/RES/57/269 Sovereignty over natural resources in the OT - GA resolution 

20/12/2002 A/RES/57/55 Nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Mideast - GA resolution 

18/12/2002 A/RES/57/188 Palestinian children - GA resolution 

17/12/2002 S/RES/1451 (2002) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/ Mandate renewed - SecCo resolution 

16/12/2002 A/RES/57/147 Assistance to the Palestinian people - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/117 Palestine refugees - Assistance/UNCCP - GA Resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/118 Palestine refugees - UNRWA financing - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/119 Palestine refugees - Displaced persons - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/120 Palestine refugees - Higher education - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/121 Palestine refugees - UNRWA operations - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/122 Palestine refugees - Refugees' properties - GA Resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/123 Palestine refugees - Al Quds University - GA Resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/124 Israeli practices/Work of SpCttee - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/125 Israeli practices/Fourth Geneva Convention - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/126 Israeli practices/Settlements in the OT - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/127 Israeli practices/Human rights - GA resolution 

11/12/2002 A/RES/57/128 Israeli practices/Golan - GA resolution 

03/12/2002 A/RES/57/107 Palestine question/CEIRPP - GA resolution 

03/12/2002 A/RES/57/108 Palestine question/DPR - GA resolution 

03/12/2002 A/RES/57/109 Palestine question/DPI - Special information programme - GA resolution 

03/12/2002 A/RES/57/110 Palestine question/Peaceful settlement/ Quartet efforts - GA resolution 

03/12/2002 A/RES/57/111 Mideast situation/Jerusalem - GA resolution 

03/12/2002 A/RES/57/112 Mideast situation/Golan - GA resolution 

22/11/2002 A/RES/57/97 Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - GA resolution 

22/11/2002 A/RES/57/99 Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean region - GA resolution 

21/11/2002 A/RES/57/42 Cooperation between UN and OIC - GA resolution 

24/09/2002 S/RES/1435 (2002) Mideast situation/Palestine question - Demand for cessation of violence reiterated/Israel to withdraw from Palestinian cities/PA to meet its expressed commitment - SecCo resolution 

20/09/2002 GC(46)/RES/16 Application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East - Resolution 

05/08/2002 A/RES/ES-10/11 Situation in the OPT/Jenin and other Palestinian cities - GA emergency session - Resolution 

30/07/2002 S/RES/1428 (2002) UNIFIL - SecCo resolution 

25/07/2002 E/RES/2002/31

E/2002/INF/2/Add.2 Situation in the OPT/Repercussions of occupation on living conditions - Resolution 

24/07/2002 E/RES/2002/25

E/2002/INF/2/Add.2 Palestinian women/Assistance - ECOSOC resolution 

27/06/2002 A/RES/56/214 B UNIFIL/Financing - Resolution 

27/06/2002 A/RES/56/294 UNDOF/Financing - Resolution 

30/05/2002 S/RES/1415 (2002) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/ Mandate extended - SecCo resolution 

24/05/2002 Working conditions in the OPT - ILO resolution 

17/05/2002 WHA55.2 Health conditions in the OT - WHO resolution 

14/05/2002 WHA55.33-Supplement Health conditions in the OT - Supplement to Director-General report 

07/05/2002 A/RES/ES-10/10 Situation in the OPT/Jenin and other Palestinian cities - GA emergency session - Resolution 

26/04/2002 E/CN.4/RES/2002/90 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR - Resolution 

26/04/2002 WHA55.33 Health conditions in the OT - Director-General report 

19/04/2002 E/CN.4/RES/2002/10 Human rights situation/Landmines in southern Lebanon - CHR - Resolution 

19/04/2002 S/RES/1405 (2002) Humanitarian situation in the OPT - Urgency of access of humanitarian organizations emphasized/SecGen's fact-finding team on Jenin - SecCo resolution 

15/04/2002 E/CN.4/RES/2002/8 Human rights situation in the OPT/Jenin - CHR - Resolution 

14/04/2002 E/CN.4/RES/2003/3

E/CN.4/2003/L.11 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR - Resolution 

12/04/2002 E/CN.4/RES/2002/3 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR - Resolution 

12/04/2002 E/CN.4/RES/2002/6 Human rights in the occupied Syrian Golan - CHR - Resolution 

12/04/2002 E/CN.4/RES/2002/7 Israeli settlements - CHR - Resolution 

05/04/2002 E/CN.4/RES/2002/1 Human rights situation in the OPT/UNHCHR fact-finding mission - CHR resolution 

04/04/2002 S/RES/1403 (2002) Mideast situation/Palestine question/"Quartet" efforts - SecCo resolution 

30/03/2002 S/RES/1402 (2002) Mideast situation/Palestine question - Cease-fire, withdrawal of Israeli troops from Palestinian cities called for - SecCo resolution 

13/03/2002 PIO 03/2002 Destruction of Gaza International Airport - ICAO Council resolution - ICAO press release 

12/03/2002 S/RES/1397 (2002) Mideast situation/Palestine question - Two states vision affirmed - SecCo resolution 

28/01/2002 S/RES/1391 (2002) UNIFIL - SecCo resolution 

31/12/2001 A/AC.183/L.2/Add.23 Palestine question/Mideast situation - Compilation of resolutions and decisions adopted in 2001 

21/12/2001 A/RES/56/204 Sovereignty over natural resources in the OT - GA resolution 

21/12/2001 A/RES/56/214 A UNIFIL/Financing - Resolution 

20/12/2001 A/RES/ES-10/8 Jerusalem/Settlements/Monitoring mechanism - GA emergency session - Resolution 

20/12/2001 A/RES/ES-10/9 Jerusalem/Settlements/Fourth Geneva Convention/Protection - GA emergency session - Resolution 

19/12/2001 A/RES/56/142 Right of the Palestinian people to self-determination - GA resolution 

14/12/2001 A/RES/56/111 Assistance to the Palestinian people - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/52 Palestine refugees/UNRWA/UNCCP - Assistance - GA Resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/53 Palestine refugees - UNRWA financing - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/54 Palestine refugees - Displaced persons - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/55 Palestine refugees - Higher education - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/56 Palestine refugees - UNRWA operations - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/57 Palestine refugees - Refugees' properties - GA Resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/58 Palestine refugees - Al Quds University - GA Resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/59 Israeli practices in the OPT/Work of SpCttee - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/60 Israeli practices/Fourth Geneva Convention - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/61 Israeli practices/Settlements in the OT - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/62 Israeli practices in the OPT/Human rights - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/62 Israeli practices in the OPT/Human rights - GA resolution 

10/12/2001 A/RES/56/63 Israeli practices/Golan - GA resolution 

07/12/2001 A/RES/56/47 Cooperation between UN and OIC - GA resolution 

03/12/2001 A/RES/56/31 Mideast situation/Jerusalem - GA resolution 

03/12/2001 A/RES/56/32 Mideast situation/Golan - GA resolution 

03/12/2001 A/RES/56/33 Palestine question/CEIRPP - GA resolution 

03/12/2001 A/RES/56/34 Palestine question/DPR - GA resolution 

03/12/2001 A/RES/56/35 Palestine question/DPI - GA resolution 

03/12/2001 A/RES/56/36 Palestine question/Peaceful settlement - GA resolution 

29/11/2001 A/RES/56/21 Nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Mideast - GA resolution 

29/11/2001 A/RES/56/27 Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - GA resolution 

29/11/2001 A/RES/56/29 Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean region - GA resolution 

27/11/2001 S/RES/1381 (2001) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/Mandate extended - SecCo resolution 

20/11/2001 S/RES/1379 (2001) Children and armed conflict - SecCo resolution 

28/09/2001 S/RES/1373 (2001) Measures to eliminate international terrorism - Resolution 

21/09/2001 GC(45)/RES/18 Application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East - Resolution 

31/07/2001 S/RES/1365 (2001) UNIFIL mandate/Air, sea, land violations - SecCo resolution 

25/07/2001 E/RES/2001/19

E/2001/INF/2/Add.2 Situation in the OPT/Repercussions of occupation on living conditions - Resolution 

24/07/2001 E/RES/2001/2

E/2001/INF/2/Add.2 Palestinian women/Assistance - ECOSOC resolution 

14/06/2001 A/RES/55/180 B UNIFIL/Financing - Resolution 

14/06/2001 A/RES/55/264 UNDOF/Financing - Resolution 

30/05/2001 S/RES/1351 (2001) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/ Mandate extended - SecCo resolution 

18/04/2001 E/CN.4/RES/2001/10 Human rights of Lebanese detainees in Israel - CHR resolution 

18/04/2001 E/CN.4/RES/2001/6 Human rights situation in the occupied Syrian Golan - CHR resolution 

18/04/2001 E/CN.4/RES/2001/7 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR resolution 

18/04/2001 E/CN.4/RES/2001/8 Israeli settlements - CHR resolution 

06/04/2001 E/CN.4/RES/2001/2 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR resolution 

16/02/2001 HS/C/RES/18/12

A/56/8 Commission on Human Settlements - Resolution 

30/01/2001 S/RES/1337 (2001) UNIFIL - SecCo resolution 

31/12/2000 A/AC.183/L.2/Add.22 Palestine question/Mideast situation - Compilation of resolutions and decisions adopted in 2000 

21/12/2000 A/55/716

S/2000/1236 Mideast situation/Palestine question - Documents of the 9th Islamic Summit Conference session - Letter from Qatar (excerpts) 

20/12/2000 A/RES/55/209 Sovereignty over natural resources in the OT - GA resolution 

19/12/2000 A/RES/55/180 UNIFIL/Financing - Resolution 

14/12/2000 A/RES/55/173 Assistance to the Palestinian people - GA resolution 

12/12/2000 A/RES/55/9 Cooperation between UN and OIC - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/123 Palestine refugees/UNRWA/UNCCP - Assistance - GA Resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/124 Palestine refugees - UNRWA financing - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/125 Palestine refugees/Displaced persons - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/126 Palestine refugees - Higher education - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/127 Palestine refugees - UNRWA operations - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/128 Palestine refugees - Refugees' properties - GA Resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/129 Palestine refugees - Al Quds University - GA Resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/130 Israeli practices in the OPT/Work of SpCttee - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/131 Israeli practices/Fourth Geneva Convention - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/132 Israeli practices/Settlements in the OT - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/133 Israeli practices in the OPT/Human rights - GA resolution 

08/12/2000 A/RES/55/134 Israeli practices/Golan - GA resolution 

04/12/2000 A/RES/55/87 Right of the Palestinian people to self-determination - GA resolution 

01/12/2000 A/RES/55/50 Mideast situation/Jerusalem - GA resolution 

01/12/2000 A/RES/55/51 Mideast situation/Golan - GA resolution 

01/12/2000 A/RES/55/52 Palestine question/CEIRPP - GA resolution 

01/12/2000 A/RES/55/53 Palestine question/DPR - GA resolution 

01/12/2000 A/RES/55/54 Palestine question/DPI - GA resolution 

01/12/2000 A/RES/55/55 Palestine question/Peaceful settlement - GA resolution 

27/11/2000 S/RES/1328 (2000) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/Mandate extended - SecCo resolution 

20/11/2000 A/RES/55/30 Nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Mideast - GA resolution 

20/11/2000 A/RES/55/36 Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - GA resolution 

20/11/2000 A/RES/55/38 Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean region - GA resolution 

07/11/2000 A/RES/55/18 Bethlehem 2000 - GA resolution 

31/10/2000 S/RES/1325 (2000) Women and armed conflict - SecCo resolution 1325 (2000) 

20/10/2000 A/RES/ES-10/7 Jerusalem/Settlements - GA emergency session - Resolution 

19/10/2000 E/CN.4/RES/S-5/1 Human rights inquiry commission to be established - CHR resolution 

19/10/2000 E/CN.4/S-5/5

E/2000/112 Human rights situation/Palestine question - CHR special session report, draft decision, resolution 

07/10/2000 S/RES/1322 (2000) Mideast situation, incl. Palestinian question - Excessive use of force against Palestinians condemned/ Israel to abide by Fourth Geneva Convention/ Inquiry efforts welcomed - SecCo resolution 

22/09/2000 GC(44)/RES/28 Application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East - Resolution 

28/07/2000 E/RES/2000/23

E/2000/INF/2/Add.2 Palestinian women - ECOSOC resolution 

28/07/2000 E/RES/2000/31

E/2000/INF/2/Add.2 Situation in the OPT/Repercussions of occupation on living conditions - Resolution 

27/07/2000 S/RES/1310 (2000) UNIFIL - SecCo extends mandate - SecCo resolution 

17/07/2000 S/RES/1308 (2000) UNDOF - Impact of HIV/AIDS on peacekeeping personnel - SecCo resolution 

15/06/2000 A/RES/54/266 UNDOF/Financing - Resolution 

15/06/2000 A/RES/54/267 UNIFIL/Financing - Resolution 

31/05/2000 S/RES/1300 (2000) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/Mandate extended - SecCo resolution 

19/04/2000 S/RES/1296 (2000) Protection of civilians in armed conflict - SecCo resolution 

18/04/2000 E/CN.4/RES/2000/16 Human rights situation in southern Lebanon/west Bekaa - CHR resolution 

17/04/2000 E/CN.4/RES/2000/6 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR resolution 

17/04/2000 E/CN.4/RES/2000/7 Human rights situation in the occupied Syrian Golan - CHR resolution 

17/04/2000 E/CN.4/RES/2000/8 Israeli settlements - CHR resolution 

07/04/2000 E/CN.4/RES/2000/4 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR resolution 

31/01/2000 S/RES/1288 (2000) UNIFIL - SecCo extends mandate - SecCo resolution 

31/12/1999 A/AC.183/L.2/Add.21 Palestine question/Mideast situation - Compilation of resolutions and decisions adopted in 1999 

22/12/1999 A/RES/54/230 Sovereignty over natural resources in the OT - GA resolution 

17/12/1999 A/RES/54/152 Right of the Palestinian people to self-determination - GA resolution 

15/12/1999 A/RES/54/116 Assistance to the Palestinian people - GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/69 Palestine refugees/UNRWA/UNCCP - Assistance - GA Resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/70 Palestine refugees - UNRWA financing - GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/71 Palestine refugees - Displaced persons - GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/72 Palestine refugees - Higher education - GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/73 Palestine refugees - UNRWA operations - GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/74 Palestine refugees - Refugees' properties - GA Resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/75 Palestine refugees - Al Quds University - GA Resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/76 Israeli practices in the OPT- GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/77 Israeli practices/Fourth Geneva convention - GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/78 Israeli practices/Settlements in the OT - GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/79 Israeli practices - GA resolution 

06/12/1999 A/RES/54/80 Israeli practices/Golan - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/37 Mideast situation/Jerusalem - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/38 Mideast situation/Golan - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/39 Palestine question/CEIRPP - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/40 Palestine question/DPR - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/41 Palestine question/DPI - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/42 Palestine question/Peaceful settlement - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/51 Nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Mideast - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/57 Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - GA resolution 

01/12/1999 A/RES/54/59 Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean region - GA resolution 

24/11/1999 S/RES/1276 (1999) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/Mandate extended - SecCo resolution 

10/11/1999 A/RES/54/22 Bethlehem 2000 - GA resolution 

01/10/1999 A/54/430 Protection of children affected by armed conflict 

01/10/1999 GC(43)/RES/23 Application of IAEA safeguards in the Middle East - Resolution 

17/09/1999 S/RES/1265 (1999) Protection of civilians/Preventive military and civilian deployments - SecCo resolution 

30/07/1999 S/RES/1254 (1999) UNIFIL - SecCo resolution 

29/07/1999 E/RES/1999/53 Repercussions of occupation on living conditions - Resolution 

28/07/1999 E/RES/1999/15 Palestinian women - ECOSOC resolution 

08/06/1999 A/RES/53/226 UNDOF/Financing - Resolution 

08/06/1999 A/RES/53/227 UNIFIL/Financing - Resolution 

27/05/1999 S/RES/1243 (1999) UNDOF - Parties to implement S/RES/338 (1973)/Mandate extended - SecCo resolution 

14/05/1999 HS/C/RES/17/9

A/54/8 Commission on Human Settlements - Resolution 

27/04/1999 E/CN.4/RES/1999/55 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR resolution 

23/04/1999 E/CN.4/RES/1999/12 Human rights situation in southern Lebanon/west Bekaa - CHR resolution 

23/04/1999 E/CN.4/RES/1999/5 Human rights situation in the OPT - CHR resolution 

23/04/1999 E/CN.4/RES/1999/6 Human rights situation in the OT/Golan - CHR resolution 

23/04/1999 E/CN.4/RES/1999/7 Israeli settlements - CHR resolution 

09/02/1999 A/RES/ES-10/6 Jerusalem/Settlements - GA emergency session - Resolution 

28/01/1999 S/RES/1223 (1999) UNIFIL - SecCo resolution 

28/01/1999 S/RES/1223 (2000) UNIFIL - SecCo extends mandate - SecCo resolution 

31/12/1998 A/AC.183/L.2/Add.20 Palestine question/Mideast situation - Compilation of resolutions and decisions adopted in 1998 

15/12/1998 A/RES/53/196 Sovereignty over natural resources in the OT - GA resolution 

09/12/1998 A/RES/36/98 Israeli nuclear armament - GA resolution 

09/12/1998 A/RES/53/136 Right of the Palestinian people to self-determination - GA resolution 

07/12/1998 A/RES/53/89 Assistance to the Palestinian people - GA resolution 

04/12/1998 A/RES/53/74 Nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Mideast - GA resolution 

04/12/1998 A/RES/53/80 Nuclear proliferation in the Middle East - GA resolution 

04/12/1998 A/RES/53/82 Security and Cooperation in the Mediterranean region - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/46 Palestine refugees/UNRWA mandate/UNCCP - Assistance - GA Resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/47 Palestine refugees - UNRWA financing - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/48 Palestine refugees - Displaced persons - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/49 Palestine refugees - Higher education - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/50 Palestine refugees - UNRWA operations - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/51 Palestine refugees - Refugees' properties - GA Resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/52 Palestine refugees - Al Quds University - GA Resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/53 Israeli practices/Work of the SpCttee - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/54 Israeli practices/Fourth Geneva Convention - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/55 Israeli practices/Settlements - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/56 Israeli practices/Human rights - GA resolution 

03/12/1998 A/RES/53/57 Israeli practices/Golan - GA resolution 

02/12/1998 A/RES/53/37 Mideast situation/Jerusalem - GA resolution 

02/12/1998 A/RES/53/38 Mideast situation/Golan - GA resolution 

02/12/1998 A/RES/53/39 Palestine question/CEIRPP - GA resolution 

02/12/1998 A/RES/53/40 Palestine question/DPR - GA resolution 

02/12/1998 A/RES/53/41 Palestine question/DPI - GA resolution 

02/12/1998 A/RES/53/42 Palestine question/Peaceful settlement - GA resolution 

Without going into the details of these resolutions here, it may suffice to quote the full text of one in particular. Toward the end of the year 2002 the U.N. General Assembly passed Resolution 57/111 on Jerusalem, which states that "the international community, through the United Nations, has a legitimate interest in the question of the City of Jerusalem" and that "any actions taken by Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever." Here is the text of that resolution, as copied from the U.N. web site:



57/111. Jerusalem 

The General Assembly, 

Recalling its resolution 181 (II) of 29 November 1947, in particular its provisions regarding the City of Jerusalem, 

Recalling also its resolution 36/120 E of 10 December 1981 and all subsequent resolutions, including resolution 56/31 of 3 December 2001, in which it, inter alia, determined that all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, the occupying Power, which have altered or purported to alter the character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, in particular the so-called "Basic Law" on Jerusalem and the proclamation of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, were null and void and must be rescinded forthwith, 

Recalling further Security Council resolutions relevant to Jerusalem, including resolution 478 (1980) of 20 August 1980, in which the Council, inter alia, decided not to recognize the "Basic Law" and called upon those States which had established diplomatic missions in Jerusalem to withdraw such missions from the Holy City, 

Expressing its grave concern at any action taken by any body, governmental or non-governmental, in violation of the above-mentioned resolutions, 

Reaffirming that the international community, through the United Nations, has a legitimate interest in the question of the City of Jerusalem and the protection of the unique spiritual and religious dimension of the city, as foreseen in relevant United Nations resolutions on this matter, 

Having considered the report of the Secretary-General,12 

1. Reiterates its determination that any actions taken by Israel to impose its laws, jurisdiction and administration on the Holy City of Jerusalem are illegal and therefore null and void and have no validity whatsoever; 

2. Deplores the transfer by some States of their diplomatic missions to Jerusalem in violation of Security Council resolution 478 (1980), and calls once more upon those States to abide by the provisions of the relevant United Nations resolutions, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations; 

3. Stresses that a comprehensive, just and lasting solution to the question of the City of Jerusalem should take into account the legitimate concerns of both the Palestinian and Israeli sides and should include internationally guaranteed provisions to ensure the freedom of religion and of conscience of its inhabitants, as well as permanent, free and unhindered access to the holy places by the people of all religions and nationalities; 

4. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-eighth session on the implementation of the present resolution. 



66th plenary meeting 

3 December 2002

RECORDED VOTE ON RESOLUTION 57/111: 154-5-6 

In favour : Afghanistan, Algeria, Andorra, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Canada, Cape Verde, Chile, China, Colombia, Comoros, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Fiji, Finland, France, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Grenada, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Ireland, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People's Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Monaco, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Republic of Korea, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Russian Federation, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Thailand, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Togo, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela, Viet Nam, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe 

Against : Costa Rica, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), United States of America 

Abstaining : Albania, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Tuvalu , Vanuatu 



Besides passing resolutions, the United Nations organization has also been heavily involved in the peace process, especially in connection with the so-called "roadmap" for peace, sponsored jointly by the United States, the United Nations, Russia and the European Union.

The previous phase of the peace process broke down when discussions reached the stage of determining the status of Jerusalem. That resulted in renewed conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. Now with the rest of the world and the United Nations organization involved this time through the "roadmap," if the peace process breaks down again over Jerusalem, this could have consequences that are more far reaching. If progress continues to the point of an actual peace on the ground with some sort of international peacekeeper presence to enforce that peace in and around Jerusalem, a breakdown and renewal of hostilities at that point good fit the title of this book, with blue helmets coming into conflict at Jerusalem.

Here is the text of that "roadmap for peace," as posted on the official U.N. website at http://www.UN.org/media/main/roadmap122002.html Note how the final phase of the roadmap calls for international involvement in determining the ultimate status of Jerusalem.



---------------------



a Performance-Based Roadmap

to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

The following is a performance-based and goal-driven roadmap, with clear phases, timelines, target dates, and benchmarks aiming at progress through reciprocal steps by the two parties in the political, security, economic, humanitarian, and institution-building fields, under the auspices of the Quartet. The destination is a final and comprehensive settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict by 2005, as presented in President Bush's speech of 24 June, and welcomed by the EU, Russia and the UN in the 16 July and 17 September Quartet Ministerial statements.

A two state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will only be achieved through an end to violence and terrorism, when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror and willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty, and through Israel's readiness to do what is necessary for a democratic Palestinian state to be established, and a clear, unambiguous acceptance by both parties of the goal of a negotiated settlement as described below. The Quartet will assist and facilitate implementation of the plan, starting in Phase I, including direct discussions between the parties as required. The plan establishes a realistic timeline for implementation. However, as a performance-based plan, progress will require and depend upon the good faith efforts of the parties, and their compliance with each of the obligations outlined below. Should the parties perform their obligations rapidly, progress within and through the phases may come sooner than indicated in the plan. Non-compliance with obligations will impede progress.

A settlement, negotiated between the parties, will result in the emergence of an independent, democratic, and viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel and its other neighbors. The settlement will resolve the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and end the occupation that began in 1967, based on the foundations of the Madrid Conference, the principle of land for peace, UNSCRs 242, 338 and 1397, agreements previously reached by the parties, and the initiative of Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah - endorsed by the Beirut Arab League Summit - calling for acceptance of Israel as a neighbor living in peace and security, in the context of a comprehensive settlement. This initiative is a vital element of international efforts to promote a comprehensive peace on all tracks, including the Syrian-Israeli and Lebanese-Israeli tracks.

The Quartet will meet regularly at senior levels to evaluate the parties' performance on implementation of the plan. In each phase, the parties are expected to perform their obligations in parallel, unless otherwise indicated.

Phase I: 

Ending Terror And Violence, Normalizing Palestinian Life,

and Building Palestinian Institutions 

Present to May 2003 

In Phase I, the Palestinians immediately undertake an unconditional cessation of violence according to the steps outlined below; such action should be accompanied by supportive measures undertaken by Israel. Palestinians and Israelis resume security cooperation based on the Tenet work plan to end violence, terrorism, and incitement through restructured and effective Palestinian security services. Palestinians undertake comprehensive political reform in preparation for statehood, including drafting a Palestinian constitution, and free, fair and open elections upon the basis of those measures. Israel takes all necessary steps to help normalize Palestinian life. Israel withdraws from Palestinian areas occupied from September 28, 2000 and the two sides restore the status quo that existed at that time, as security performance and cooperation progress. Israel also freezes all settlement activity, consistent with the Mitchell report.

At the outset of Phase I:

Palestinian leadership issues unequivocal statement reiterating Israel's right to exist in peace and security and calling for an immediate and unconditional ceasefire to end armed activity and all acts of violence against Israelis anywhere. All official Palestinian institutions end incitement against Israel. 

Israeli leadership issues unequivocal statement affirming its commitment to the two-state vision of an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state living in peace and security alongside Israel, as expressed by President Bush, and calling for an immediate end to violence against Palestinians everywhere. All official Israeli institutions end incitement against Palestinians. 

Security

· Palestinians declare an unequivocal end to violence and terrorism and undertake visible efforts on the ground to arrest, disrupt, and restrain individuals and groups conducting and planning violent attacks on Israelis anywhere.

· Rebuilt and refocused Palestinian Authority security apparatus begins sustained, targeted, and effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantlement of terrorist capabilities and infrastructure. This includes commencing confiscation of illegal weapons and consolidation of security authority, free of association with terror and corruption.

· GOI takes no actions undermining trust, including deportations, attacks on civilians; confiscation and/or demolition of Palestinian homes and property, as a punitive measure or to facilitate Israeli construction; destruction of Palestinian institutions and infrastructure; and other measures specified in the Tenet work plan. 

· Relying on existing mechanisms and on-the-ground resources, Quartet representatives begin informal monitoring and consult with the parties on establishment of a formal monitoring mechanism and its implementation.

· Implementation, as previously agreed, of U.S. rebuilding, training and resumed security cooperation plan in collaboration with outside oversight board (U.S.-Egypt-Jordan). Quartet support for efforts to achieve a lasting, comprehensive cease-fire.

Ø All Palestinian security organizations are consolidated into three services reporting to an empowered Interior Minister.

Ø Restructured/retrained Palestinian security forces and IDF counterparts progressively resume security cooperation and other undertakings in implementation of the Tenet work plan, including regular senior-level meetings, with the participation of U.S. security officials.

· Arab states cut off public and private funding and all other forms of support for groups supporting and engaging in violence and terror.

· All donors providing budgetary support for the Palestinians channel these funds through the Palestinian Ministry of Finance's Single Treasury Account.

· As comprehensive security performance moves forward, IDF withdraws progressively from areas occupied since September 28, 2000 and the two sides restore the status quo that existed prior to September 28, 2000. Palestinian security forces redeploy to areas vacated by IDF.

Palestinian Institution-Building

· Immediate action on credible process to produce draft constitution for Palestinian statehood. As rapidly as possible, constitutional committee circulates draft Palestinian constitution, based on strong parliamentary democracy and cabinet with empowered prime minister, for public comment/debate. Constitutional committee proposes draft document for submission after elections for approval by appropriate Palestinian institutions.

· Appointment of interim prime minister or cabinet with empowered executive authority/decision-making body.

· GOI fully facilitates travel of Palestinian officials for PLC and Cabinet sessions, internationally supervised security retraining, electoral and other reform activity, and other supportive measures related to the reform efforts.

· Continued appointment of Palestinian ministers empowered to undertake fundamental reform. Completion of further steps to achieve genuine separation of powers, including any necessary Palestinian legal reforms for this purpose.

· Establishment of independent Palestinian election commission. PLC reviews and revises election law.

· Palestinian performance on judicial, administrative, and economic benchmarks, as established by the International Task Force on Palestinian Reform. 

· As early as possible, and based upon the above measures and in the context of open debate and transparent candidate selection/electoral campaign based on a free, multi-party process, Palestinians hold free, open, and fair elections. 

· GOI facilitates Task Force election assistance, registration of voters, movement of candidates and voting officials. Support for NGOs involved in the election process.

· GOI reopens Palestinian Chamber of Commerce and other closed Palestinian institutions in East Jerusalem based on a commitment that these institutions operate strictly in accordance with prior agreements between the parties.

Humanitarian Response

· Israel takes measures to improve the humanitarian situation. Israel and Palestinians implement in full all recommendations of the Bertini report to improve humanitarian conditions, lifting curfews and easing restrictions on movement of persons and goods, and allowing full, safe, and unfettered access of international and humanitarian personnel. 

· AHLC reviews the humanitarian situation and prospects for economic development in the West Bank and Gaza and launches a major donor assistance effort, including to the reform effort.

· GOI and PA continue revenue clearance process and transfer of funds, including arrears, in accordance with agreed, transparent monitoring mechanism. 

Civil Society

· Continued donor support, including increased funding through PVOs/NGOs, for people to people programs, private sector development and civil society initiatives. 

Settlements

· GOI immediately dismantles settlement outposts erected since March 2001.

· Consistent with the Mitchell Report, GOI freezes all settlement activity (including natural growth of settlements).

Phase II: Transition 

June 2003-December 2003

In the second phase, efforts are focused on the option of creating an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and attributes of sovereignty, based on the new constitution, as a way station to a permanent status settlement. As has been noted, this goal can be achieved when the Palestinian people have a leadership acting decisively against terror, willing and able to build a practicing democracy based on tolerance and liberty. With such a leadership, reformed civil institutions and security structures, the Palestinians will have the active support of the Quartet and the broader international community in establishing an independent, viable, state.

Progress into Phase II will be based upon the consensus judgment of the Quartet of whether conditions are appropriate to proceed, taking into account performance of both parties. Furthering and sustaining efforts to normalize Palestinian lives and build Palestinian institutions, Phase II starts after Palestinian elections and ends with possible creation of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders in 2003. Its primary goals are continued comprehensive security performance and effective security cooperation, continued normalization of Palestinian life and institution-building, further building on and sustaining of the goals outlined in Phase I, ratification of a democratic Palestinian constitution, formal establishment of office of prime minister, consolidation of political reform, and the creation of a Palestinian state with provisional borders.

· International Conference: Convened by the Quartet, in consultation with the parties, immediately after the successful conclusion of Palestinian elections, to support Palestinian economic recovery and launch a process, leading to establishment of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders.

Ø Such a meeting would be inclusive, based on the goal of a comprehensive Middle East peace (including between Israel and Syria, and Israel and Lebanon), and based on the principles described in the preamble to this document.

Ø Arab states restore pre-intifada links to Israel (trade offices, etc.). 

Ø Revival of multilateral engagement on issues including regional water resources, environment, economic development, refugees, and arms control issues.

· New constitution for democratic, independent Palestinian state is finalized and approved by appropriate Palestinian institutions. Further elections, if required, should follow approval of the new constitution.

· Empowered reform cabinet with office of prime minister formally established, consistent with draft constitution.

· Continued comprehensive security performance, including effective security cooperation on the bases laid out in Phase I.

· Creation of an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders through a process of Israeli-Palestinian engagement, launched by the international conference. As part of this process, implementation of prior agreements, to enhance maximum territorial contiguity, including further action on settlements in conjunction with establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders.

· Enhanced international role in monitoring transition, with the active, sustained, and operational support of the Quartet.

· Quartet members promote international recognition of Palestinian state, including possible UN membership.

Phase III: 

Permanent Status Agreement

and End of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

2004 - 2005

Progress into Phase III, based on consensus judgment of Quartet, and taking into account actions of both parties and Quartet monitoring. Phase III objectives are consolidation of reform and stabilization of Palestinian institutions, sustained, effective Palestinian security performance, and Israeli-Palestinian negotiations aimed at a permanent status agreement in 2005. 

· Second International Conference: Convened by Quartet, in consultation with the parties, at beginning of 2004 to endorse agreement reached on an independent Palestinian state with provisional borders and formally to launch a process with the active, sustained, and operational support of the Quartet, leading to a final, permanent status resolution in 2005, including on borders, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements; and, to support progress toward a comprehensive Middle East settlement between Israel and Lebanon and Israel and Syria, to be achieved as soon as possible.

· Continued comprehensive, effective progress on the reform agenda laid out by the Task Force in preparation for final status agreement. 

· Continued sustained and effective security performance, and sustained, effective security cooperation on the bases laid out in Phase I. 

· International efforts to facilitate reform and stabilize Palestinian institutions and the Palestinian economy, in preparation for final status agreement. 

· Parties reach final and comprehensive permanent status agreement that ends the Israel-Palestinian conflict in 2005, through a settlement negotiated between the parties based on UNSCR 242, 338, and 1397, that ends the occupation that began in 1967, and includes an agreed, just, fair, and realistic solution to the refugee issue, and a negotiated resolution on the status of Jerusalem that takes into account the political and religious concerns of both sides, and protects the religious interests of Jews, Christians, and Muslims worldwide, and fulfills the vision of two states, Israel and sovereign, independent, democratic and viable Palestine, living side-by-side in peace and security.

· Arab state acceptance of full normal relations with Israel and security for all the states of the region in the context of a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace. 



---------------------------



Note that the status of Jerusalem is to be addressed during the final phase of the roadmap, under the guidance of an "International Conference." The roadmap calls for "a negotiated resolution on the status of Jerusalem that takes into account the political and religious concerns of both sides, and protects the religious interests of Jews, Christians, and Muslims worldwide."

As of this writing the roadmap has already faced many obstacles, with violence continuing while Israel and the Palestinian Authority both hold back from fulfilling obligations spelled out in the agreement. To what extent there will be further breakdowns along the road, delaying the full implementation of the roadmap to peace, remains to be seen. It also remains to be seen whether this latest peace process involving the United Nations will end up fulfilling the biblical prophecies discussed in this book. 

The maneuvering leading up to Armageddon could be brief, or it could last several years. But it is clear from the U.N. documents presented earlier in this book and above in this chapter that the nations of the world are already united and resolved in their determination to impose their will on Jerusalem - just as the Bible predicted.









Chapter 18

Are You Ready? 



So, does all of this mean that you should quit your job, stop mowing your front lawn, and spend your time parading downtown carrying a poster that proclaims, "The End Is Near!"?

No, but it may call for some less severe adjustments on your part.

Is there some unfinished business between you and God? Have you been putting it off until after you have finished raising the children? Or, have you been delaying until after your new business endeavor has gotten up and running and becomes firmly established? Or, have you been waiting until your busy career winds down and retirement gives you more time to spend in the Scriptures and in prayer?

If so, then the things discussed in this book should make you reconsider your priorities. There may not be time to leave God until later. Instead of leaving God waiting in the wings, you may need to re-order your life's interests so as to move your relationship with God to center stage. 

Are you still unconvinced that God exists as the Creator of the universe and the divine Author of the human genetic code? But, does the neo-Darwinian theory of evolution leave you unsatisfied because it fails to explain how complex structures with interdependent parts could spring into existence by accident? And are you left wondering how living creatures come complete with genetic blueprints if there was no intelligent designer to write those complete instructions for designing and building them? Have you been leaving a complete investigation of the issues involved until some future time? Hopefully this book will motivate you to take the time now. Dig into the books referenced in our earlier chapter on the subject, and find other resources to aid in your quest for an answer. But, don't leave the question hanging.

People will react differently to the urgency of the times. Some will value the answers to these questions, and some won't. Some will be diligent in their investigation, and some will not. Jesus put it this way in the parable of the sower or planter of seed:

"Behold, a sower went forth to sow; And when he sowed, some [seeds] fell by the way side, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But other fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear." (Matt. 13:3-9 KJV)

What did Jesus mean by this parable? He explains it himself, and the explanation makes clear that it applies to people and how they respond to his message:

"Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty." -- Matthew 13:18-23 KJV

Some will treasure their relationship with God and will do whatever it takes to gain or repair that relationship. Jesus further explained it this way:

"Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto treasure hid in a field; the which when a man hath found, he hideth, and for joy thereof goeth and selleth all that he hath, and buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it." (Matthew 13:44-46 KJV)

Is your appreciation on a level with that of the man who found the treasure or the merchant who found the pearl? You don't have to become a theologian, in order to please God. He is not looking for intellectuals. Jesus exclaimed, "I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." (Matthew 11:25) 

Similarly, the Apostle Paul wrote:

"Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel - not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written: 'I will destroy the wisdom of the wise; the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.' Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than man's wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man's strength. Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things - and the things that are not - to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God-that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. Therefore, as it is written: 'Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.'" (1 Corinthians 1:17-31 KJV)

Many events related to the Middle East and the situation in Jerusalem will have transpired after the writing of this book. It is impossible for a book to be as up to date as the daily newspaper or the news service web sites that are updated hourly or even more frequently. And things do happen fast in times of conflict. But Bible prophecy was written thousands of years in advance, and is completely accurate - because it was written by the One "who from the very beginning foretold the future." (Isaiah 44:7 Jerusalem Bible)

Some events may appear to be pushing things in the direction of fulfillment of Bible prophecy regarding Jerusalem and regarding the return of Christ. Other events may make things seem as a different course will take place. Those who adhere to the Bible and keep their trust in God will be helped by his Holy Spirit to see beyond the confusion of apparently contradictory events. They will be able to see the true import of what is happening.

Political hopes for peace in the Middle East swing from optimistic to pessimistic and back again as fast as the ever changing events unfold on a daily basis. One week things seem to be heading in this direction, and the next week they seem to be heading in the opposite direction. But the consistent fulfillment of Bible prophecy down through history gives us confidence that events will finally move in the in the direction foretold in Scripture. And the observable events in the Middle East during the past hundred years reinforce that belief. The Balfour Declaration set the stage for the return of the Jews to the Promised Land. The restoration of the state of Israel in 1948 fulfilled prophecy and prepared the way for the final fulfillment.

A series of United Nations resolutions since 1947 declaring that Jerusalem must be an international city governed by the U.N. and under United Nations control set the stage for concerted action by all the nations against the state of Israel. And the growing power and authority of the United Nations as a loosely organized the world government with an ever more active military arm during recent decades provides a final element needed to see the fulfillment of the prophecy of Zechariah, chapter twelve.

Following the radical Islamic terrorist attack against America on September 11, 2001, the status of Jerusalem is no longer merely a matter of local concern to the nations of the Middle East. Jerusalem has become a problem for the whole world, and all the nations are maneuvering to enforce their solution.

Jerusalem has become "a heavy stone burdening the world," as the ancient Hebrew prophet wrote, and "all the nations of the earth unite in an attempt" to impose their solution. (Zechariah 12:3 The Living Bible Catholic edition)

Meanwhile, the world around us has fallen in into the condition of the world that provoked the flood of Noah's day, the world that provoked divine intervention at the tower of Babel, and the world that brought down fire and brimstone from Heaven in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The days, months, and years ahead will see the return of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, the sudden rapture of his Church - the body of Christian believers - to join him in Heaven, and then God's final war, the battle of Armageddon.

Although the Bible contains all the details, we may not be able to puzzle them all out ahead of time. Yet, we can discern enough to trust that God knows exactly what will happen, and that he has declared what the final outcome will prove to be. Our job is to trust and obey.

By putting faith in God and his Messiah, we can face the frightening days ahead with joy and gladness instead of fear and terror. Although we may, again, see "Jerusalem surrounded by armies," we can be sure that "the heathen will trample over Jerusalem" only "until their time is up." (Luke 21:20-24 TEV)

Jesus said, "When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand!" (Luke 21:28 Jerusalem Bible)









About

the Author 



If you are reading this section before the rest of this book, it is probably to address the issue of credibility. There have been many fraudulent claims made in the name of Christianity, and especially in the name of Bible prophecy. Is this another attempt to sucker people into believing a lie? 

Does this book present evidence that YOU will find convincing? Or, am I simply exhorting you to "have faith and believe," while offering the sort of flimsy 'evidence' that would convince only those who already believe? Please allow me to introduce myself and to acquaint you with my own skepticism.

Some people may guess that the author of a book such as this must have been raised in a Bible-thumping fundamentalist church, taught from birth to believe that 'the end is near.' "He must never have known anything else," you may naturally assume, "and his car must sport one of those bumper stickers that say, 'God said it, I believe it, and that settles it!'"

However, nothing could be farther from the truth.

When it came to religion, my childhood family had no outward signs of it. We didn't worship anywhere and were not even associated with any church. My father never spoke to me of his belief in God until I was nearly fifty years old, and then it was only a sentence or two. While growing up, I assumed he was simply not interested in religion. My mother, on the other hand, spoke often of God. She could best be described as a seeker, or better yet, as a hide-and-seeker. She expressed belief in God, but often in a questioning or critical manner. How could God allow this or that terrible thing to happen? Why didn't God make matters clearer in the Bible? Whenever I opened her Bible, I found that she had written critical comments or hostile questions all over the margins. Mama spent decades playing hide-and-seek with God. Dad simply hid.

While in elementary school, there was a period of a few weeks when I was taken with my younger sister to a Baptist Sunday school, while my mother attended church. The Baptist church had been my dad's official affiliation, at least by birth. He never attended with us, though, but simply dropped us off at the door and drove off for to sit in the car and smoke until it was time to pick us up again. Our time at the Baptist church was brief, ending soon after my mother's peculiar baptism. I never even found out why there were white fluffy sheep in the pictures of Jesus on the wall of the Sunday school classroom.

I describe my mother's baptism as peculiar because, as she stood robed and waist-deep in water with the pastor about to dunk her, she replied to his question, "Do you accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior?" by saying, "I accept him as my Savior, but not as my Lord." He baptized her anyway. But that episode was typical of Mama's hide-and-seek relationship with God. The game ended well, however, as she much later submitted to the lordship of Christ and experienced his peace during her final years - even experiencing a personal revelation that had her bubbling over about his tender care during her terminal bout with cancer.

But, before that happy conclusion, my mother's game of hide-and-seek with God went on for years. After that brief period in a Baptist church, it took me next, as a seventh-grader, to a Unitarian church in the Boston suburb of Milton. It was a wealthy old church, or, at least, everyone there seemed much better off financially than our family with our beat-up twelve-year old car. I always felt like a low-class interloper when church emptied out into the fellowship hall for a consomme hour, with the beverage served in delicate china cups and saucers.

I still held onto a childhood belief in God, but this was soon to be assaulted, defeated and destroyed. As I look back now, the attack on what little faith I had was three-pronged. 

First, there was the Unitarian Church. The denomination had only recently merged with the Universalists to form the Unitarian-Universalist Association, and the church we attended still displayed in its entryway a good supply of pre-merger literature. "What do Unitarians believe?" was the title of one pamphlet I remember well. It began by saying, "Some Unitarians believe in God, and some do not."

That was a strange position for a church to hold, I thought. But it still left room for me to be one of those Unitarians who did believe in God. Soon, however, I had to face the possibility that our pastor and his assistant were in the other camp. 

As a Boy Scout I was working on the God and Country Award - not simply another merit badge, but a major project that would result in the award of a pin much like a military badge of honor. Red white and blue cloth hung from the pin, with an enamel emblem suspended below it featuring a shiny cross. For Unitarians this was inappropriate, because the sect held that Jesus was nothing more than one of many good religious men of ancient times. It denied the doctrine of the Trinity and referred to its "Judeo-Christian heritage" in preference to calling itself a Christian denomination.

Still, Boy Scouts who were Unitarians could work on the God and Country Award, and, lacking a badge specific to their church, the Scouts pinned the Protestant version of the award on the chests of these boys.

The attack on my childlike faith came during one of the sessions when I met with the pastor and his assistant to discuss my beliefs, as required by the Scout program. The pastor asked me whether I believed that God really opened a path through the sea so that the Jews under Moses' leadership could walk out of Egypt on dry ground. I replied that, Yes, the sea had been created by God, so He could certainly cause part of it to dry up on that occasion. Instead of discussing it further, the pastor looked at his assistant and laughed heartily. "This boy's got a lot to learn!" he exclaimed to the junior pastor, and then he walked away.

I received the God and Country Award, pinned to my Scout uniform by the pastor in a ceremony at the church, but the net result was an undermining of what little faith I had at that vulnerable time of my life.

The second attack came from the scientific community. I was fascinated with astronomy and hoped to become an astronomer when I grew up. What was out there? Life on other planets? I wanted to be part of the effort to find out. This interest led me into contact with a local amateur astronomer who invited local kids to look through his telescope on Friday nights. A human-interest article in The Boston Globe gave his phone number, and, with some prodding from my education-minded mother, I made the call.

It turned out that Mr. Lucini (as I will refer to him here) and his wife were advocates, not only of astronomy, but also of atheism. Theirs was not the religious agnosticism of the Unitarians, but, rather, a fierce 'religion-is-the-opiate-of-the-people' atheistic hostility toward God. They began introducing me to "astronomy" books that were heavily seeded with humanism and arguments against the religion of the Bible.

Scientists and astronomers were my heroes, and I wanted to become one. So, I hung on every word I read in the books I was handed by Aldous Huxley, Julian Huxley, Harlow Shapley, George Gamow and A. I. Oparin of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Were their attacks on belief in God and the biblical account of creation as solid as the rest of 'scientific truth'? To find out, I went on to read The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, and then his Voyage of the Beagle.

These books further undermined my faith, but the third prong of the attack, and the final fatal blow, came from my fallen flesh. My teenage sexual awakening brought with it a flood of fear and anxiety. Were my thoughts and my new bodily functions actually sins against God? Unable to talk with my father about such matters, I drew erroneous and deadly conclusions from the little misinformation I was able to gain from others.

Unable to banish the thoughts or the wet dreams, I felt condemned by God. There seemed only one way out. If I couldn't get rid of my sin, perhaps I could get rid of God. How could my behavior be sin, if there were no God to lay down the law? No God to say what was right or wrong? No God to hold me to account? The idea was appealing, but frightening. Could I embrace it? I was given permission to do so by my scientist heroes, Darwin, Huxley, Oparin and company.

So, I was 'saved' from sin by defining it out of existence. Absolute right and wrong had no place in a universe ruled solely by mathematical equations and laws of physics. Evolutionists didn't really present a completely convincing case, but I was persuaded to believe in evolution because it was the road to freedom from sin. If there were a God, I would be accountable to Him. But, if the first rational being in existence were, instead, an ape, then I was free from sin. I said goodbye to God and embraced the ape.

But, like my mother, I continued to seek. Not in the direction of religion, of course, yet I was still looking for answers. Without God, what is man's place in the universe? Do we really possess free will, or is that an illusion? Is there a purpose to life? Can what we do have lasting meaning? Or are we peripheral ephemerals, mere complex chemical reactions that achieved self-consciousness through an evolutionary accident? Do our choices and actions have any greater significance than the gas bubbles that result when you mix baking soda and vinegar? What conclusions had others come to? I began reading the classics and the works of the great philosophers. Were the answers found by Nietsche or Kant? Did existentialist Albert Camus figure it all out? What about Socrates and Plato?

My investigations did take me into religious writings as well, although I studiously avoided Judeo-Christian religious works and, by choice, remained ignorant of the Bible. (While an adolescent working on the God and Country Award, I had read the last book of the Bible, titled "Revelation" or "Apocalypse," depending on the translation, but at that time I concluded it fell into the same category as Samuel Taylor Coleridge's "Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner" - a drug-induced fantasy.) I read widely in this area, as well. Even Zen Buddhism caught my attention for a while, as I read both religious treatises and serious fiction such as Herman Hesse's Siddhartha.

I must admit that assembling an impressive list of "Books that I Have Read" that I could add to my college acceptance applications was in the back of my mind while reading about everything from Adam to Zoroastrianism. But my real motive was to find answers to my questions. I read intensely, the way a thirsty person drinks water or a hungry person consumes a meal.

Was there an explanation that fit reality? Had anyone really figured it out? If so, I wanted to know it. If not, then I wanted to be sure of that as well, and not to let the meaning of life pass me by because I had failed to examine a certain philosophy or to explore a certain religion.

In the course of this many-years-long investigation I rejected one 'answer' after another. They all seemed to have holes in their logic, false assumptions, deceptive reasonings, or simply unsatisfying explanations. Eventually, however, I came to the conclusions presented in this book. In these chapters I share with you the information that helped me reach those conclusions.

But, here, I had to present this brief history of my own personal search, so that you will realize I didn't just grow up accepting and believing the Bible. Please be assured, I will not insult your intelligence by asking you to believe simply on my say-so, or on the say-so of respected religious authorities. I have attempted in this book to present evidence - the sort of evidence that it takes to convince a skeptic like me.