[Click here for the previous article] Israel, Earth's Lightning Rod
Indeed, Israel attracts violent reactions the way a lightning rod attracts lightning, and that is in keeping with prophecy. Practically the whole world is unified in its desire to force Israel to bow to this awful "peace process," and this shows the widespread lack of understanding of the times. False peace will be the theme of the coming Tribulation period, and we have obviously entered an era of false peace today. Yitzhak Rabin was a fine gentleman and a good soldier, but the peace agreement he set in motion will not last because it is not God's peace in God's timing. Ultimately, all the world's peacemaking will be done by that "Dark Prince," of whom Daniel, the clear-eyed forecaster of the End Times, remarks, "He shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many" (Dan. 8:25). Our times parallel such warnings in Scripture as those who cry "peace, peace; when there is no peace" (Jeremiah 6:14), and "for when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape" (I Thes. 5:3). In the interviews that our ministry collected in Israel for our Jerusalem 3000 television series, a number of spokesmen — believers and unbelievers, Jews and Palestinians — clarified all of the above. It is obvious from all that they told us that virtually no one believes in this "peace process" with all his heart. But according to their various motives, it is a means to an end for the Palestinians — the end of Israel — and for the Israelis it is a hope for the end of terrorism. For the American government, it is good PR, and for the United Nations, a sort of victory. For those who are biblically informed, it is the end of the age. Obviously, Jerusalem will remain in contention for some time to come. At the time of this writing, the Netanyahu government has ordered all Palestinian offices in Jerusalem to be dismantled, in accordance with the Oslo agreements. The Palestinians were never authorized to place government offices in the Jewish capital, but they did so anyway; and the Peres government, despite many well-publicized threats, never closed these offices. I, myself, with my TV crew interviewed Faisal Husseini, the "Palestinian Representative for Jerusalem," in the Orient House, an Arab mansion dating from the past century that had been refurbished as a Palestinian governmental headquarters for receiving foreign dignitaries, many of whom have visited. I counted 25 "plainclothesmen" (thugs in jeans and T-shirts) surrounding the building and in the streets on all sides. For me, seeing such an ominous personality as Husseini seated in state in such surroundings felt like an eerie prediction of the Antichrist entering the Temple and declaring that he is the God of Israel!
Israel, the Churches, and the SeminariesBesides the media bias, there is a kind of theological bias against Israel going on in churches and seminaries today. The liberal churches have always been a lost cause so far as biblical study is concerned, and they, of course, are blissfully unaware of the relevance of Israel in prophecy, or of prophecy in general, for that matter. But I refer to biblically-based churches and seminaries, who over time have seemed to change positions concerning Israel. Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody Bible Institute, and most of the other biblical seminaries admired the Israelis when they were heroes in the media in the great days of the Six Day War and the kibbutzim and so forth. But as the media bias turned against the Israelis, so it seemed did the seminaries and even some Bible churches. As I put it recently during a speaking engagement, my ministry started out explaining Israel to Christians, and now I'm having to defend Israel to Christians. In reality, the Israelis have not changed, but some peculiar anti-Israel theologies have come down the road. "For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Tim. 4:3-4). If we are to expect teachers who will just tickle the ears, we have plenty now. The ultimate scriptural error is replacement theology, which seeks to establish that the church has replaced Israel. This is the reason for the departure of all of the liberal churches, including the Roman Catholic Church, from sound biblical understanding. It is madness to try to replace Israel in the Scriptures with a miscellaneous group of Gentile peoples scattered around the globe. If the church has replaced Israel in all of God's promises and covenants, then Israel no longer has a role in God's future plan. This would make nonsense out of such Bible passages as Romans 11:25-26, which states "that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved." If Israel is out of the picture, that verse should read "and so all the church shall be saved," which would be ludicrous because the church is composed of people who are already saved. The original replacement theology was Islam, which sought to replace both Judaism and Christianity and thus take over the religious world. As a matter of fact, that statement should not be in the past tense, since that process is still going on with the Moslems. But in the Western world, we should be more alert than to put our Bibles away and follow in error some pastor or professor with anti-Israel or simply anti-Semitic biases. We will not take space here to analyze a bunch of odd doctrines, but will simply say that the Antichrist's religion is the final replacement theology. It will seek to dominate the entire religious and secular world, and even replace Almighty God Himself! Such contemporary doctrinal errors as "Kingdom Now," in which we need to elect the right officials in order to bring in the Kingdom by human endeavor, and "Progressive Dispensationalism," a teaching that mixes up the Church Age and the Millennial Kingdom, are ways of simply cutting Israel out of the picture and thus making the whole Bible nonsense. The fact is, God chose one people, Israel, and has dealt through them since Abraham and will continue that dealing through them in the future. Thus when we read of the building of the Tower of Babel and the godless ways of mankind early on in Genesis, in the same chapter we see Terah and the birth of his son Abram. God's solution to mankind's apostasy seems to be the invention of a single people through whom all nations of the earth would be blessed (Gen. 12:3). He continued to deal with them through the long period of the Old Testament adventures until the coming of the Messiah, a Jew, who chose twelve Jewish disciples and twelve Jewish apostles. And likewise, as we have seen, He will choose again from among the Jews in order to have testifiers to Christ in the Tribulation period to come, namely the 144,000. If we interrupt that elegant design of four millennia with the idea that some global Gentile organization will take this mantle upon itself, we obviously interrupt a plan of great magnitude. When we teach that we can bring on the Kingdom ourselves without prayer or reference to Israeli affairs, as in Kingdom Now doctrines, we simply depart from God's plan. When we teach that Christ is already ruling in the Kingdom at this time (even though the Messiah Himself entreats us to pray "Thy Kingdom come"), we confuse dispensations. We are not exactly getting the cart before the horse, but we are putting the horse inside the cart and cannot move forward. Bringing the Kingdom into the Church Age, as Progressive Dispensationalism does, goes in the direction of Amillennialism, a doctrine that utterly denies the thousand-year Kingdom in Israel. The Bible is basically the story of one people, the Jewish people. All of its writers cover-to-cover are Jews, Old Testament and New. The Messiah is a full-blooded Israeli Jew whose genealogies on both sides are presented in Scripture. (To show the extremes to which Islam seeks to replace Judaism and Christianity, consider Yasser Arafat's claiming that Jesus was "the first Palestinian revolutionary." He made this extraordinary statement in Bethlehem in December 1995 as the birthplace of Jesus Christ was calmly handed over to Moslems while the worldwide church remained asleep. Or consider the amazing claim by Hanan Ashrawi (a member of Arafat's cabinet) on The MacNeil-Lehrer Report that "Jesus Christ was a Palestinian prophet born in Bethlehem in my country." When Ms. Ashrawi, who claimed to be descended from the first Christians, was told that the original Christians were all Jews and that Jews never turn into Arabs, she was a bit confused; but this did not prevent her from being celebrated by the Episcopalian Church as a good Anglican in an article in their publication. Such muddling of theological doctrine and historical fact will play into the hands of the Antichrist, who will ultimately make the most fantastic of all claims, as we have mentioned. We are receiving a great deal of practice at believing total spiritual nonsense. The problem with writing about prophecy is that one is not really a biblical prophet and can only speculate about world events. Israel indeed is a lightning rod for more than prophetic developments; it seems that the whole world is focused on that very tiny nation. The North Koreans mutter that something must be done about Israel, although it is doubtful that many of them could find it on a map. In Japan, where there are virtually no Jews, the Jews are blamed for problems with the economy. And on it goes. Indeed, Israel is the center of the nations, and in the Kingdom it will take its prophetic place as the head of the nations (Zech. 8:20-23). But to recap what I have said about Israel in prophecy, I believe that the present climate of a false peace process will lead us down one of several possible roads to a Tribulation period situation. As to when this could happen, it is difficult to say; but in view of the very complete fulfillment of all of the Lord's prophecies in Matthew 24, the Olivet discourse, we could hardly expect so tense a situation to continue for, say, another 50 years. World attention tends to shift from place to place, and since it is currently on Israel, I cannot help having the feeling that this would be an elegant moment to conclude this age. Everything seems to be in the right place except for the entrance of the Antichrist with his peace covenant of seven years. It is hard to think of any other piece of the prophecy puzzle that is not either in position for the End Times, or on the verge so that it could rapidly fall into place. Thus, I think that the Antichrist is alive today and mature, and calculating his entrance. And I think that the present climate of concern over the peace process can lead us very directly to that day of an offered contract that will start the Tribulation period.
(This is the final installment of this chapter.)
The Importance of Netanyahu's Election
The Arab War of PropagandaNetanyahu devotes much of his book to the consideration of the Arab war of propaganda. After losing several military wars against Israel, the Arab leaders came to the conclusion that they had to do something about their image as fanatic aggressors in world opinion — and especially with the American public.
Hence the principal effort of the ongoing Arab war against Israel since 1967 has been to defeat Israel on the battlefield of public opinion: in the media, in university lecture halls, and in the citadels of government. (p. 81) Netanyahu laments the fact that, for the most part, Israel ignored the Arab propaganda challenge and did not believe that it was necessary to respond to the distortions. They felt that as long as they maintained a strong Israeli military, world opinion did not make that much difference.
The majority felt there was no need to counteract Arab propaganda. Had not the Israeli Defense Forces extricated Israel from destruction in 1948 and again in 1967? Were they not capable of doing so again? And if the Arabs kept prattling away at the UN, in the media and in universities of the West — what of it? Surely Israel did not have to concern itself with such trivial carpings, as long as it possessed the military power to defend itself. (pp. 380-1) In this atmosphere of intense propaganda from the Arabs and the vacuum caused when Israel did not counter it, the positive attitude that much of the world had toward Israel before 1967 gradually began to erode. Netanyahu describes earlier world support:
Thus, the respite in international public opinion that Israel enjoyed between 1948 and 1967 resulted from the combined effect of a basic Western sympathy for the Jewish state and Arab apathy toward Western audiences. (p. 79) In contrast, much of the world now looks on Israel as the villain in Middle Eastern troubles. Netanyahu traces how Israel has been losing this three-decade-long propaganda war.
Centrality of the Palestinian IssueThe first thing the Arab propagandists did was to transfer the focus of attention away from the struggle of the Jewish people for a homeland to the struggle of the displaced Arabs, who assumed the name "Palestinians." The Arabs would not have been successful in this shift of emphasis if it were not for the sympathetic attitude among the leaders in the Western governments, institutes of higher education and press. Netanyahu identifies these people as "Arabists." They felt that the future of cooperative international civilization rested with the Arabs and their oil resources, a view which also took into account their overwhelming geographical size and population in the Middle East. Coupled with the natural bent of Gentiles toward anti-Semitism, it eventually became "politically correct" for sympathies and cooperation to take an Arabist slant. However, the Arabist views ran counter to the broad popular support that Israel enjoyed among the Jews in the West, the Christians who believe the Bible, and even many humanists, who understood the true history of the persecution and struggle of the Jewish people. The Israeli leaders simply felt that engaging in the propaganda war was unnecessary and, perhaps, somehow beneath them. They dismissed the lies that were perpetrated by the Arabs as something that surely the world would see through. But gradually these lies became accepted "facts" in the councils of the United Nations, the history textbooks and in the daily media accounts of events in the Middle East. Netanyahu points out that Israel should have taken the propaganda more seriously and responded vigorously to it. For instance, he takes issue with the so-called Palestinian cause. Many Arabs were displaced when the Arab nations declared war on Israel and attempted to destroy the newly-revived Jewish nation in its infancy. But many Jews were also displaced in the midst of this turmoil, including those who lived in Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria and Iraq. Those who could escape persecution and move to Israel were quickly absorbed. In like manner, the Arab nations could have quickly absorbed the Arabs who found themselves bereft after the various conflicts in Israel, but they did not. In contrast, when Jordan expelled the Palestinians in the early '80s, they were received by Lebanon; and when Kuwait expelled hundreds of thousands of Palestinians after the Gulf War, they were received by various Arab nations. In the case of Israel, though, the displaced Palestinians were put in concentration camps in Jordan to allow their animosities to fester. The Arabs who remained under Israeli control west of the Jordan River in Judea and Samaria (the so-called West Bank) were not offered asylum by the Arab countries, and became people without a country. This became the central feature of the Arab propaganda. They promoted the idea that the only real problem in the Middle East is the Palestinian problem, and have hidden the continual fratricidal relationship between Arab nations and leaders.
Israel's friends and foes alike falsely believed the "Palestinian Problem" to be synonymous with the "Middle East Problem." This perversion of truth is a monument to the success of the Arab propaganda machine, and it certainly has done great damage to Israel. But a still more far-reaching effect has been its capacity to cloud Western perceptions of the real nature of the Middle East and the dangers that loom inside its fabric of fanaticism for the security and well-being of the world. (p. 129) The one small Jewish state could have taken its place among the twenty-two vast Arab states in the Middle East, and the displaced citizens could have easily been absorbed into their respective havens. But the Arab nations would not peacefully allow even this small slice of ancient homeland to the Jewish people. They craftily transformed the displaced Arabs into a cause celebre among the nations, and almost magically conferred upon them the title "Palestinians," with all the rights of nationhood, peoplehood and governmental authority. Thus, when it came to the Middle East, the concern of the nations shifted from the plight of the Jews to the plight of the Palestinians. They became the persecuted and dispersed people, and the new propaganda painted the Israelis (think of it!) as the Nazi persecutors. What a distorted concept. And yet this is the view that is predominate in Western culture today. In the next installment of this review, we will discuss Netanyahu's explanation regarding other aspects of the Arab war of propaganda, such as the "Reversal of Causality" and the peculiar concept of the "Palestinian State."
(To be continued in a later edition)
Dear Friends, Let me talk briefly about archaeology. This intriguing and important field of inquiry is what either proves that past history was as we suppose it to have been, or it corrects our suppositions. We may believe in the Bible, for example, but how much our faith is confirmed when archaeological digs turn up the very cities, altars, scrolls, tunnels, weapons, and so forth, that are detailed in Scripture. No archaeological dig has ever disproved a single verse of the Bible, and that is a faith-building fact indeed. Modern-day Israeli farmers plant trees, such as the tamarind tree, where the Bible says they flourished in the past, and they prosper. The animals and plants and birds of the Holy Land are where they are supposed to be, according to the ancient record. We can easily extrapolate that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, the prophets, the Messiah, and all of those other inspiring biblical personalities were just as true-to-life, even as ongoing excavations continue to turn up evidence for their scriptural careers. Witness the struggle over Hebron, where the ultimate issue concerns the burial place of the Jewish patriarchs and their wives. The Cave of Machpelah contains at least the traditional remnants of those burial plots, and that is enough to cause quite a bit of rivalry among Abraham's descendants — the Israelites and the Palestinians. In our most recent two-page personal letter, we pointed out that the finding of an ancient Caucasian skeleton in the United States occasioned a similar outcry from members of an Indian tribe who feel their claim to their land would be threatened by further investigation. More recently in the news, we had the Hasmonean tunnel and the unrest its opening supposedly caused. People have good memories, and the past — even the very distant past — makes for a lot of emotion. Among archaeological digs, the Dead Sea Scrolls have perhaps unearthed the most fascinating details of all. They are invariably suppressed by unbelievers, containing as they do voluminous copies of biblical books and, in the latest finds, persuasive evidence of the ministry of the Messiah. (Please see our Dead Sea Scrolls video series and transcript for more information on that subject.) Even outside of Israel, there are many fascinating biblical sites that are available for travellers to examine. For instance, Mount Nebo and Petra, in what is now the nation of Jordan, have a place in the history of the Bible. To that end, we will be taking our TV crew on our upcoming December tour to film at a series of fascinating archaeological digs. Through the resulting programs, you will be completely informed on the biblical significance of the latest finds. We think that it will be a very rewarding undertaking, but there are tremendous expenses involved in organizing our equipment, lining up the sites, and transporting our crew. This is a tough time for us, and any help that you can give would be very timely. Your gift will be more effective for the kingdom now when we need it than it would be at the year's end, when many will give. I know that you will be happy with the results when you view the programs. Thanks. If you want to travel along with us and meet our TV production crew, we would love to have you come on our Hanukkah/Christmas Tour. This is such a meaningful season for followers of Christ, as we celebrate His coming to earth to deliver us. What could be more special than to spend this time in the Land of His birth? Our Basic Tour is December 11 - 20. Our Grand Tour, which will see Mount Nebo and Petra in Jordan, and Eilat in southern Israel, runs from December 11 - 26, including Christmas Eve in Bethlehem. Time is short, so please call Cynthia right away at (214) 696-9760 to register!
Your messenger,
I Completely DisagreeIn the May and June issues of this newsletter, I discussed the late Dr. J. Vernon McGee and his stance on the biblical relevancy of today's Israel. We have since been in contact with Col. Ridgely O. Ryan, president of Thru The Bible Radio, which is the ministry Dr. McGee established. In his most recent letter, Col. Ryan wrote:
"Dr. McGee . . . stated on many occasions how important an understanding of Israel is to a proper interpretation of the Scriptures. It was his opinion that God was not working through that nation today but that they would be in the center of world affairs after the Rapture. . . . He was indeed a friend of Israel, although he did not see the present-day events regarding the nation as the fulfillment of prophecy." Although I appreciate the emphasis Dr. McGee placed on the importance of Israel in the Scriptures, I completely disagree with him on his opinion of modern Israel. I do not understand how anyone, having witnessed the miraculous preservation of this tiny country, could think that God has not had a hand in bringing about the restoration of Israel as a nation. There is an enormous amount of Scripture devoted to the return of the Jewish people to their land. Deuteronomy 30:4-5 is just one passage that we can see being fulfilled before our eyes: "If any of thine be driven out unto the outmost parts of heaven, from thence will the Lord thy God gather thee, and 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; and he will do thee good, and multiply thee above thy fathers." The emigration of Jews from all parts of the world that Christians have witnessed since 1948 agrees so precisely with this Scripture that it seems almost foolish not to regard it as a work of God. I am bringing this to your attention not to attack the work of Dr. McGee, but because a number of evangelical seminaries have fallen into this same kind of thinking. They teach the importance of Israel in the Old Testament and they emphasize its role in the coming Tribulation, but they skip the modern nation entirely. I think they've fallen for the media line. Having been conditioned by their local broadcasters to see Israel as the bad guy, they try to find a theology to make that view work. But a view that contradicts Scripture can't work. When the Tribulation starts, Israel will already be in the Land. It would be absurd to think that the Jewish people will all have their bags packed, ready to move in the morning after the Rapture.
Unfortunately, I think proponents of this thinking are in danger of coming under
the warning of Genesis 12:3, that those who curse the seed of Abraham will
themselves be cursed. Israel is the most important country in the world to
Christians. It will be our home for a thousand years, and that could start seven
years from today.
Hated of All NationsThursday, October 24, was one of those prophecy-fulfillment days. And unfortunately, I refer to Matthew 24:9: "And ye shall be hated of all nations." Israel was "hated of" three important countries on the same New York Times front page. First, France. President Jacques Chirac, a Jew, spoke to the Palestinian parliament and sounded for all the world like Arafat himself in his sickening display of cozying up to the Arabs. As a memorable letter-writer to Time magazine once put it, "If countries were people, France would be a whore." If President Chirac had his way, Jerusalem would be divided, the Palestinians would have a country, the Golan Heights would be given to Syria, and the Jews would shortly be at the bottom of the Mediterranean. Let me say it again loud and clear: Jacques Chirac is Jewish. I am sure he would rather not have that fact known, but we will announce it here and on television on a constant basis. He joins American commentators and columnists such as Mike Wallace, Robert Novak, Anthony Lewis, Thomas Friedman, and Ted Koppel — all critical of Israel and every one of them Jewish. Second, the Swiss bankers continue being caught with the stolen savings accounts of Holocaust victims. In the eyes of God, this may be a crime next only to the concentration camp murders themselves. Finally, and unsurprisingly, another Nazi cache of art and expensive religious artifacts has been discovered in a German salt mine. One cannot regard the Germans of World War II as merely killers; they were also robbers. The latter crime requires little ideology. Add to the above anti-Semitism the reliable British aversion to Israel and the time-honored Roman Catholic antipathy toward the Jews, and much of the free world is already in agreement with the sad prophecy of Matthew 24.
In the upcoming administration, where will America stand on this issue? And
Christian brother or sister, in your heart of hearts, where do you stand
concerning Israel?
|
 |
Copyright © 1996 by Zola Levitt Ministries, Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. All rights reserved. Brief passages may be quoted in reviews or other article. For all other use, please get our written approval.
Return to Index
