With the turn of the year, and our progression towards the 'end times', has God's message changed?
By EARL COXEarl Cox 311(photo credit: Courtesy)
Another year has come and gone, and the world is one year further into the “end times” of Bible prophecy. As some would say, it is one year closer to its "biblical conclusion." Actually, the Bible does not say that the world itself will end, but that this “time” or “age” will end and a new “time” or “age” will begin.So, we need to ask, how has the year 2010 contributed to this end-time progression? What has occurred this past year to help lead the world closer to the conclusion of our present time?The Israeli-Palestinian conflict hasn’t changed. That is, efforts to force a two-state solution haven’t progressed. Yet the pursuit continues in spite of the clear reality that for 60-plus years, this highly heralded two-state solution has run into insurmountable obstacles. It has not worked and will not work until the radical and militant wing of Muslim Arabs accepts Israel as a sovereign state and recognizes its right to exist. The Arab and Muslim mindset of hatred for the Jewish people goes back some 4,000 years to the rivalry between Isaac and Ishmael.Bible prophecy tells us that one day this Arab hatred is going to erupt in an attempted all-out war to destroy and annihilate the Jewish nation and people. This event seems to be more and more imminent.The world community has failed to acknowledge the biblical significance of the state of Israel even though the fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of the return of the Jewish people to their ancient homeland and the rebirth of the ancient nation of Israel virtually launched the “end times.” Nor do world leaders seem to understand that their policies, in regard to restored present-day Israel, have accelerated the end-times events that the Bible describes. The leaders of the world’s nations do not even realize that we are now living in a most important time in biblical prophetic history.Ironically, even most Christians and Jews, who base their religious beliefs on the Bible, do not really comprehend Bible prophecies either. Most Christians and Jews do not seem to understand the biblical significance of the nation of Israel, or of the Middle East, Russia, Iran, the European Union and other nations of the world. Most of the fathers, reverends and rabbis believe that the biblical “end times” prophecies are allegorical, not literal.The Vatican and the World Council of Churches have joined the international community in calling on Israel's Jewish people to get out of, and to give away to the Arabs, the land that God promised to the descendents of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob as an everlasting possession. This view, of course, is in direct opposition to God's divine policy, as revealed in the Bible.The international Quartet, made up of the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and the Russian Federation, is still trying its hardest to sacrifice the land of Israel for the sake of peace. But it should know that serving up Israel sacrificially will not bring peace to Israel or to the rest of the Middle East. The “land for peace” efforts already tried have only brought more violence and disorder because of radical Islamic beliefs and the unabated mindset of Muslim Arab hatred for the Jews.True to form, the United Nations continually raises its fist against Israel - reflecting world sentiment. The demand is always on the table for Israel to commit to the formation of a Palestinian state as soon as possible and freeze all Jewish settlement construction.Most nations are so completely biased that they ignore the Palestinians' failure to make any efforts to implement what they promised in signing the Roadmap agreement several years ago. The first step in the agreement was for the Arabs to halt all their terrorist activities against Israel and for Palestinian leaders to disarm and dismantle all terrorist groups.
Not only has this first step not been taken, but nothing else the Arabs agreed to has been implemented either. Yet President Obama and UN leaders want Israel to give the Palestinians a state anyway, even though they have deliberately ignored their pledges and have done nothing positive to deserve statehood.All this world community pressure on Israel has only led to increased animosity toward Israel from Arab and Muslim nations of the Middle East - most prominently, Iran. The whole world knows that the leader of Iran has incessantly declared his intentions “to wipe Israel off the face of the map.”While some scholars of the Bible believe an attack by Iran against Israel is imminent, I personally believe Iran’s saber-rattling is all wishful thinking on Iran’s part. Iran’s nuclear development efforts have been so devastated by the Stryker worm that infiltrated their computer systems that they don’t even have a deployable weapon yet. So, I’m quite optimistic about Israel’s future and Israel’s security. Rogue nations like Iran and North Korea know that they can bluster and provoke all they want - but to actually deploy nuclear weapons would sow the seeds of their own destruction due to international law and the realities of an ever-growing global community.While Bible prophecy and the prophet Ezekiel clearly declared that in the end times, Persia (today’s Iran) would form a military coalition with Russia and several other Arab-Muslim nations to fight against Israel - with the intent of annihilating the Jewish nation and people, that time, in my opinion, has not yet come. This Iranian-Russian alliance is not yet fully in place. In fact, Russia is moving closer to Israel and not away from Israel due to mutual oil-gas interests. (The massive natural gas fields that Israel is poised to exploit offshore alone will completely change the balance of petro-power in the Middle East, according to The Wall Street Journal ― and that doesn’t include oil fields that are believed to exist in the middle of Israel.)One thing is certain: God’s word is true and it warns of a future Iranian-Russian alliance that will one day come against Israel. While it may not happen in our lifetimes, it will happen. How do I know this? Because God’s Word says it will.
