JESUS IN BIBLE PROPHECIES

ISRAEL WILL BECOME A NATION. LITERALLY IN THE SPRING.

GENESIS 12:1-3
1 Now the LORD had said unto Abram,(CHANGED TO ABRAHAM LATER) Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee:(PALESTINE,ISRAEL)
2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

EZEKIEL 36:24
24 For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.

EZEKIEL 37:9-28
9 Then said he unto me, Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds,(ALL THE WORLD) O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.(COME TO LIFE)
10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army.(ISRAEL WILL HAVE A POWERFUL ARMY)
11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we are cut off for our parts.(BURNED BY HITLER)
12 Therefore prophesy and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.(THE DRY BONES COME TO LIFE IN ISRAEL)
13 And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves, O my people, and brought you up out of your graves,
14 And shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live, and I shall place you in your own land: then shall ye know that I the LORD have spoken it, and performed it, saith the LORD.
15 The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
16 Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions:
17 And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand.
18 And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these?
19 Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
20 And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes.
21 And say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land:
22 And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all:
23 Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God.
24 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them.
25 And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children’s children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
28 And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.

MATTHEW 24:32
32 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh:(ISRAEL WAS LITERALLY REBORN JUST BEFORE SUMMER,MAY 14,1948).

MARK 13:28
28 Now learn a parable of the fig tree; When her branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is near:

DANIEL 9:24
24 Seventy weeks are determined upon thy people and upon thy holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy.

ISRAEL WILL BE IN CONTROL OF JERUSALEM, THE SIGN OF THE START OF THE LAST GENERATION.

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

ISRAEL SATAN COMES AGAINST

1 CHRONICLES 21:1
1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number Israel.

ISRAELS TROUBLE

JEREMIAH 30:7
7 Alas! for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble;(ISRAEL) but he shall be saved out of it.

DANIEL 12:1,4
1 And at that time shall Michael(ISRAELS WAR ANGEL) stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people:(ISRAEL) and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation(May 14,48) even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book.
4 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,(WORLD TRAVEL,IMMIGRATION) and knowledge shall be increased.(COMPUTERS,CHIP IMPLANTS ETC)

ISRAELS INHERITED LAND IN THE FUTURE

And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.

ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.

12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE

EZEKIEL 47:13-23,48:1-35
13 Thus saith the Lord GOD; This shall be the border, whereby ye shall inherit the land according to the twelve tribes of Israel: Joseph shall have two portions.
14 And ye shall inherit it, one as well as another: concerning the which I lifted up mine hand to give it unto your fathers: and this land shall fall unto you for inheritance.
15 And this shall be the border of the land toward the north side, from the great sea, the way of Hethlon, as men go to Zedad;
16 Hamath, Berothah, Sibraim, which is between the border of Damascus and the border of Hamath; Hazarhatticon, which is by the coast of Hauran.
17 And the border from the sea shall be Hazarenan, the border of Damascus, and the north northward, and the border of Hamath. And this is the north side.
18 And the east side ye shall measure from Hauran, and from Damascus, and from Gilead, and from the land of Israel by Jordan, from the border unto the east sea. And this is the east side.
19 And the south side southward, from Tamar even to the waters of strife in Kadesh, the river to the great sea. And this is the south side southward.
20 The west side also shall be the great sea from the border, till a man come over against Hamath. This is the west side.
21 So shall ye divide this land unto you according to the tribes of Israel.
22 And it shall come to pass, that ye shall divide it by lot for an inheritance unto you, and to the strangers that sojourn among you, which shall beget children among you: and they shall be unto you as born in the country among the children of Israel; they shall have inheritance with you among the tribes of Israel.
23 And it shall come to pass, that in what tribe the stranger sojourneth, there shall ye give him his inheritance, saith the Lord GOD.
1 Now these are the names of the tribes. From the north end to the coast of the way of Hethlon, as one goeth to Hamath, Hazarenan, the border of Damascus northward, to the coast of Hamath; for these are his sides east and west; a portion for Dan.
2 And by the border of Dan, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Asher.
3 And by the border of Asher, from the east side even unto the west side, a portion for Naphtali.
4 And by the border of Naphtali, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Manasseh.
5 And by the border of Manasseh, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Ephraim.
6 And by the border of Ephraim, from the east side even unto the west side, a portion for Reuben.
7 And by the border of Reuben, from the east side unto the west side, a portion for Judah.
8 And by the border of Judah, from the east side unto the west side, shall be the offering which ye shall offer of five and twenty thousand reeds in breadth, and in length as one of the other parts, from the east side unto the west side: and the sanctuary shall be in the midst of it.
9 The oblation that ye shall offer unto the LORD shall be of five and twenty thousand in length, and of ten thousand in breadth.
10 And for them, even for the priests, shall be this holy oblation; toward the north five and twenty thousand in length, and toward the west ten thousand in breadth, and toward the east ten thousand in breadth, and toward the south five and twenty thousand in length: and the sanctuary of the LORD shall be in the midst thereof.
11 It shall be for the priests that are sanctified of the sons of Zadok; which have kept my charge, which went not astray when the children of Israel went astray, as the Levites went astray.
12 And this oblation of the land that is offered shall be unto them a thing most holy by the border of the Levites.
13 And over against the border of the priests the Levites shall have five and twenty thousand in length, and ten thousand in breadth: all the length shall be five and twenty thousand, and the breadth ten thousand.
14 And they shall not sell of it, neither exchange, nor alienate the firstfruits of the land: for it is holy unto the LORD.
15 And the five thousand, that are left in the breadth over against the five and twenty thousand, shall be a profane place for the city, for dwelling, and for suburbs: and the city shall be in the midst thereof.
16 And these shall be the measures thereof; the north side four thousand and five hundred, and the south side four thousand and five hundred, and on the east side four thousand and five hundred, and the west side four thousand and five hundred.
17 And the suburbs of the city shall be toward the north two hundred and fifty, and toward the south two hundred and fifty, and toward the east two hundred and fifty, and toward the west two hundred and fifty.
18 And the residue in length over against the oblation of the holy portion shall be ten thousand eastward, and ten thousand westward: and it shall be over against the oblation of the holy portion; and the increase thereof shall be for food unto them that serve the city.
19 And they that serve the city shall serve it out of all the tribes of Israel.
20 All the oblation shall be five and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand: ye shall offer the holy oblation foursquare, with the possession of the city.
21 And the residue shall be for the prince, on the one side and on the other of the holy oblation, and of the possession of the city, over against the five and twenty thousand of the oblation toward the east border, and westward over against the five and twenty thousand toward the west border, over against the portions for the prince: and it shall be the holy oblation; and the sanctuary of the house shall be in the midst thereof.
22 Moreover from the possession of the Levites, and from the possession of the city, being in the midst of that which is the prince's, between the border of Judah and the border of Benjamin, shall be for the prince.
23 As for the rest of the tribes, from the east side unto the west side, Benjamin shall have a portion.
24 And by the border of Benjamin, from the east side unto the west side, Simeon shall have a portion.
25 And by the border of Simeon, from the east side unto the west side, Issachar a portion.
26 And by the border of Issachar, from the east side unto the west side, Zebulun a portion.
27 And by the border of Zebulun, from the east side unto the west side, Gad a portion.
28 And by the border of Gad, at the south side southward, the border shall be even from Tamar unto the waters of strife in Kadesh, and to the river toward the great sea.
29 This is the land which ye shall divide by lot unto the tribes of Israel for inheritance, and these are their portions, saith the Lord GOD.
30 And these are the goings out of the city on the north side, four thousand and five hundred measures.
31 And the gates of the city shall be after the names of the tribes of Israel: three gates northward; one gate of Reuben, one gate of Judah, one gate of Levi.
32 And at the east side four thousand and five hundred: and three gates; and one gate of Joseph, one gate of Benjamin, one gate of Dan.
33 And at the south side four thousand and five hundred measures: and three gates; one gate of Simeon, one gate of Issachar, one gate of Zebulun.
34 At the west side four thousand and five hundred, with their three gates; one gate of Gad, one gate of Asher, one gate of Naphtali.
35 It was round about eighteen thousand measures: and the name of the city from that day shall be, The LORD is there.

June 13th, 2009 Telling the truth to Israel in these last days Posted in Bible prophecy teachers, Israel, Second Coming, The Church at 3:20 pm
http://www.thepropheticyears.com/wordpress/

While reading Carla’s excellent and always discerning More Books and Things blog I came across an article that I think needs further attention by those who study world events and Bible prophecy. I might not agree with every single point in this article but I certainly agree with Prof. Malan’s major concepts. Bible prophecy teachers seem to convey that Israel today is in the will of God. Therefore they suggest we better not do anything that could be conveyed as touching the apple of God’s eye. Some even suggest that if we do not bless this largely atheist nation that God will judge our nation. There are some erroneous teachings going around that relate judgments on America to how we treat unrepentant Israel. That concept is wrong.The judgments coming on America today is due to our own sins. God will judge all the nations on how they treat Israel after Israel accepts their true Messiah. Israel today is still reaping the curse because they rejected God’s salvation in His Son. When God said He would curse those who curse the descendants of Abraham and Jacob he was talking about those cursing the children of the promise, the people of faith. They are the true children of Abraham, Issac and Jacob. Remember the leaders of Israel claimed they also were children of Abraham but Jesus called them children of their father the Devil. So did Jesus curse these descendants of Israel? Actually He did. He cursed the unbelieving descendants of Israel as represented by the fig tree that had no fruit when He came (Mt 21:19).Other Christians will not even evangelize Jews thinking that Jews already know God. They are also wrong. Those who do not accept Jesus Christ do not know the Father either (Jn 14:6). The nation of Israel will certainly prove that point when they accept the false Messiah who is coming in his own name and not the Father’s name like Jesus did. Some of these Christian ministries will raise large sums of money to send Jews back to Israel but spend nothing on giving these Jews the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They do not even tell them that two-thirds of the people that they are sending back to Israel will be killed in the coming Jewish holocaust (Zec 13:8).

One might think that if Christians really loved the Jews they should be telling Jews to get saved before these terrible events happen to them? But it is not happening, not that anyone is actually allowed to preach the gospel in Israel anyway. So what does that say about Israel? Instead we rant about how nations are dealing with Israel as if God is not sovereign and not using the leaders of these nations toward His own ends. Had not God said that these things would happen to the Jews in the end times?

So how will Christians siding with Israel on world events give them physical peace and spiritual enlightenment? Even if we could change our national policies toward Israel the things God said about Israel in the latter days are still going to happen. The real problem with Israel is not the Gentiles and our leaders decisions. The real problem with Israel is the unbelief of the Jews in Israel. The Gentiles will just be used to bring Israel to a place of repentance. God would protect Israel if they came to belief in Jesus Christ but instead they will believe in the Antichrist and go into more national tribulation before they finally get the message that salvation is only found in Jesus Christ.If I did not know that we were in the end times when God’s words about Israel will be fulfilled I would have to believe that the unbelieving Jews now occupying the land would again be cast out. Yet, the religious Jews living in Israel think that God is on their side while they reject His Son and the non-religious Jews think that they are going to hold unto the Land by their own military might. Sorry, but that is not God’s plan for Israel. Many Christians by what they say and do, seem to covey similar false pretense as well. Ever wonder why the Jews flee to the mountains for 42 months? Because Satan seeks to kill every Jew in the world (Rev 12:13). That is the real destiny of those in Israel before they come to God’s Messiah. Exactly what world actions and reactions get us to that point is frankly very subjective stuff that even Bible prophecy experts do not agree on. So how do we know where God’s will is on every current event in the Middle East so we take the correct position? Does our position even matter? So knowing these things lets teach the truth to Israel and evangelize them instead of acting as if Israel’s leaders or America’s leaders will make right decisions to keep Israel from the holocaust that is clearly coming upon Israel in these last days. In the final analysis, it really does not matters one iota if Israel or the US takes out Iran’s nuclear capabilities at least not if we are in the sequence of end time events like we claim. Iran will invade Israel in the latter years because Ezekiel says so, and the end of that war has already been determined by God. It really does not matter if Israel agrees to divide Jerusalem in some false peace deal either because the Bible says it will happen anyway,Zec 14:2 For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.

It really does not matter what action Israel takes because whatever action Israel takes in unbelief will lead to the same biblical end that God foretold the prophets and that us Christians should be aware of. The Christian commission is to teach the gospel to Israel and everyone else. Our commission is not trying to stop or change Middle East events that have to happen if we are in the last days. If Christians should learn anything from Bible prophecy it should be to discern how close we are to the Lords coming for the watching faithful Church. If Christians use Bible prophecy it should be to used to evangelize the lost who see truth in Bible prophecy. It should not be to try to figure out every insignificant detail and the exact dating of all events beforehand that really have nothing to do with the Church and cannot be known with any certainty.

Jesus Christ in Biblical Prophecies
Prof. Johan Malan, Middelburg, South Africa (June 2009)
http://www.bibleguidance.co.za/Weekly/97%20Propheticview.htm

The spiritual and doctrinal value of various articles currently published on Israel is extremely poor. Authors mostly offer only a secular review of news events without giving a balanced biblical perspective on them.It is an alarming fact that even Christian analysts on the situation in the Middle East reveal very little insight into Israel’s end-time position. Obama is now blamed for isolating and forsaking Israel. Is he responsible for these actions or did the Lord ordain them? According to Ezekiel 22:18-22, Jeremiah 30:7 and Zechariah 14:2, the Lord will bring Israel into great affliction because they have, spiritually, become dross in His eyes for dishonouring His Word and rejecting the Messiah. In the light of this situation we should understand their international dispersion during the past 2000 years, as well as the Holocaust of World War II. Or will we merely blame the Roman Empire, the Nazis and other nations for this human tragedy? These nations are definitely guilty, but Israel is more guilty and mainly responsible for their own problems. Didn’t Jesus say that Jerusalem would be destroyed and trodden down because its inhabitants refused to accept Him as their Messiah (cf. Matt. 23:37-38)? In the attached addendum a Messianic Jew, Arthur Katz, explains the full implications of Israel’s sin and lack of faith.As for Israel’s future, it is really irrelevant what Obama, the pope, the EU, Iran or Russia say or do with regard to Israel. If they don’t persecute or isolate Israel the Lord will allow other groups or nations to do just that. The fact is that the Israelis have to go through the time of Jacob’s trouble because of their continued apostasy.Why are there so few people who have the boldness to inform Israel on the true reasons for their problems? Why is their own spiritual bankruptcy not addressed? Why are even organisations such as the International Christian Embassy engaged with the establishing of good relations with unsaved Israel without explicitly proclaiming the Messiah to them? Why do preachers such as John Hagee deny Jesus as Messiah of the Jews by alleging that they don’t have to accept Jesus to be saved? Why do all the Christians follow him and merely donate money to Israel, but withhold the gospel from them, which is their only hope? When will Israel’s fortunes take a turn for the better – when the United States again support and assist them militarily, or when they have accepted the Messiah? Will they ever seek the Messiah unless they are in a great affliction (cf. Hosea 5:15; 6:1-2)?

Israel’s unreasonable treatment by America and other countries can certainly not be justified. But we have to clearly indicate that current Jewish, American, Russian, Arab, and European perspectives on the Middle East are completely at variance with the Bible. Whether the media intentionally distort reports on the Middle East in the interest of the political or strategic interests of major powers, or not, the fact remains that none of them even closely reveal the deep spiritual core of these escalating problems. Some of them do know something about the Islamic jihad but they have little understanding about the only Christian defence against this problem, or its solution.It is conspicuous that the name Jesus Christ is increasingly disappearing from people’s thinking – also from the conversations and writings of many Christians. They still refer to God and God’s people, also to Christianity and the Bible, but very seldom to Jesus Christ as the only King and Saviour of Israel and the whole world. Yet it is He who is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel and the rest of the world; it is He who will judge His church at the Bema; and it is He who will surrender Israel and the unbelieving nations into the tribulation. Without Him none of these events can be properly understood, for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy (Rev. 19:10). In Him the judgements can be escaped, but outside of Him the judgements of God will be poured out upon all unbelievers.All the detail on how the nations are turning against Israel, how Israelis are further hardening themselves spiritually and making life difficult for the Messianic Jews who believe in Jesus, and how various signs indicate the nearness of the rapture and the tribulation period, are all of secondary significance. We should guard against a tendency of becoming too involved with the detail of these matters. We already know enough to be able to conclude that the rapture and the revelation of the Antichrist are very near, and therefore also the time of God’s judgements upon a wicked world.

In view of these facts we should proclaim a particular message to the world. The true church of Christ must be called to greater holiness and dedication to the Lord as preparation for our appearing before the judgement seat of Christ. Unsaved people, including the large number of nominal Christians, must be called to repentance (Eph. 5:14). From the viewpoint of Old Testament prophecies Israel must be informed on the identity of their Messiah, and also on the dreadful alternative of a covenant with the coming false messiah, should they not be reconciled with Jesus of Nazareth. Everything revolves around the Messiah - or around the false messiah who will be accepted by those who do not serve the true Messiah.It is clearly a futile exercise to carry on working up a great expectation when events of possible prophetic significance occur in Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, America, Russia, Georgia or Iran, leading to speculation that the war of Ezekiel 38 and 39 can break out at any moment. Even if it does happen, none of these arguments will draw people to the Lord Jesus – neither will they contribute to the salvation of Israel. We should offer books, articles and websites in which Jesus Christ is the central theme – who He is, what He expects of us, and how He will be revealed in the end-time. In His programme for the end-time He will first remove true believers from the disaster area of divine judgements (Luke 21:36; John 14:1-3; 1 Thess. 1:10) and judge their works at His judgement seat (2 Cor. 5:10); then He will judge the unsaved world during the tribulation period (Rev. 6:12-17); after which He will radically transform the world spiritually, morally, politically and economically during His thousand-year reign of peace (Isa. 2:2-4; Jer. 3:17). Everything must directly be related to Him – blessings as well as judgements.The less people think and speak about the Lord Jesus, the less they will believe in His promise of a pretribulation rapture (Luke 21:36); the less they know about His judgement seat, the less they will be prepared for His sudden coming (1 Cor. 3:9-15). Many people become so involved with a study of the signs of the times, including possible dates for the second coming of Christ, that they never seriously attend to the necessities of our relationship with Him (holiness), and also neglect to work for Him while it is still day – the night of God’s judgements is approaching when no one can work.

I do believe that Israel and many other signs are prophetically significant, but this knowledge should lead to deeper spiritual insights and particularly to the glorification and exaltation of the Lord Jesus – also to fear for the coming day of His wrath upon sinners, including all the carnal, agnostic and unholy people. His judgements should be considered as part of the bigger picture, lest people think that the nature of the future world will only be determined by the decisions and military actions of the present generation of world leaders. One actually pities them when listening to their decisions and beholding their military manoeuvres, as they don’t have the faintest idea of what is waiting for them. They don’t know that they will be gathered in Israel to be judged by the Lord (Joel 3:2; Zech. 14:2,12).Israel is prophetically one of the most uninformed nations in the world as far as events at the end of the church dispensation are concerned. Their ignorance will cause their virtual downfall as they will lead the way in concluding a covenant with the Antichrist under the false impression that he is the true Messiah (Dan. 9:27; John 5:43). I fear that we as Christians have not seriously heeded the basic command of the Lord Jesus: “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8; emphasis added). Many of the Christians in Jerusalem are afraid to do just that, fearing that they might offend orthodox Jews. In the rest of the world, people are declared saved in the easiest possible way - without explicit reference to the Lord Jesus and His demand of faith and repentance. This low standard is indicative of the fact that such evangelists are not filled with the Holy Spirit, and therefore lack the power and boldness to do what they should.People in the end-time are shallow in their thinking and judge all things in terms of secular, humanistic criteria. Even Christians start conforming to this way of thinking and are in most cases not able to correctly determine and describe a spiritual perspective on world events. Many of them do not even realise their own spiritual poverty and blindness, which caused the Lord Jesus to say to one of the churches in Revelation: You say, I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing, and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind and naked (Rev. 3:17).We will have to more seriously consider our relationship with the Lord Jesus if we wish to have enlightened eyes of the mind to correctly discern spiritual things, and also to have the correct biblical perspective on Israel and the signs of the times.

Addendum: Israel’s spiritual blindness
Serious Bible students are compelled to offer an explanation for the terrible suffering of Israel – the severe afflictions and loss of lives during the siege and destruction of Jerusalem in the first century, the persecution of Jews by the Gentiles throughout the centuries, the Holocaust in which six million Jews died during the Second World War, as well as the biggest suffering of all time which awaits them during the coming great tribulation. The many questions on the true cause for all this indescribable suffering are answered by a Messianic Jew, Arthur Katz, in his book, The Holocaust – Where was God? An Inquiry into the Biblical Roots of Tragedy, published in 1998. Quotations used with permission of Art Katz Ministries (www.artkatzministries.org).The issue of the Holocaust raises very great questions: Why did God not intervene in the midst of our unspeakable sufferings? Where was the God who claims to be omnipresent, all powerful and all knowing? Did He not see the horrific tragedy that allowed His covenant people to be systematically annihilated in the most bestial and cruel destruction that has ever come upon people? How could the long-awaited Messiah have come, as Christians have told us, and yet allowed the decimation of His own people? Where is the mercy of the New Testament God, if this kind of thing could take place in modern times through the auspices of a Christian nation: Lutheran Germany? … Why was God silent?(p. 6-7).I was left with one of two options: either to agree with many commentators that God is dead, or accept the testimony of our scriptures that God’s silences are in direct proportion to our sin. I had then to consider the Holocaust as judgment; that it was neither an aberration nor an historical accident; and that somehow the magnitude of our suffering is directly proportional to the magnitude of our sin. Can there be only one meaning then for Jewish suffering, namely, the judgments of God upon a people who have forsaken the true knowledge of Him, and who have not walked in His covenants, nor fulfilled their obligation to be His witness people? … And if that, is it not a judgment that is the fulfilment of what is biblically promised would come in the latter days upon an unbelieving and unrepentant Israel? The phrase the latter days has always been regarded as the period of time just prior to the establishment of the messianic kingdom(p. 7).

It is remarkable how much the interpretation of the Holocaust, as being the judgment of God, radically explains God as God, and brings with it a fear of God as Judge. This fear of God is painfully lacking in our modern consciousness. We have grown up without the sense of the awe of God and the fear of Him. This is one fruit of the unanswered questions raised by the Holocaust that we have chosen not to ask(p. 7-8).
We do not have a perspective of God as Judge. Consequently, we have paid a high price for the loss of the understanding of God, both in judgment and in mercy, in severity and in goodness. God’s dealings with Israel (past, present and future) are absent from our consideration or awareness, and we have therefore voided the most profound revelations of God given us in Scripture… There is something about God in judgment that reveals God as He is not to be seen in any other way. Yet, it is the one aspect of the attributes of God from which we instinctively shrink. We cannot reconcile the God who is mercy and love, just and righteous, with a God who would be the Judge to bring affliction of this magnitude on mankind – and particularly on Jewish mankind. If our God does such things, then the most distasteful, the most painful, and the thing most calculated to destroy our own religiosity, becomes the most precious and true revelation of God. Is it not in this contradiction, if we would see it through, that the deepest revelation of God is to be found?(p. 9). Could it be that we cannot understand the Holocaust from God’s perspective unless we bring eternity into view? Only eternal consideration makes the calamity of the Holocaust in any way intelligible… It is only in the hope of averting another fire, one that is inextinguishable and eternal, that makes this fire, in any way, comprehensible. If the one will teach us and save us from the other, then it makes supreme eternal sense…. To omit eternity from our consideration is to disfigure reality itself(p. 9-10).It would not be an exaggeration to say that our finest and ablest spokesmen, under the compulsion of trying to understand the most devastating tragedy of our national experience, make little or no attempt to find explanation in any reference to Scripture at all. We are generally a biblically alienated people(p. 27).

Catastrophe, as judgment fulfilled, is God’s penultimate provision to bring an awareness unto repentance to those who would otherwise have no consciousness of that need. The failure to interpret catastrophe in that way, and the failure to see the hand of God in our judgments, must necessarily result in our seeking to place the blame on men. We will find the fault as being with the Germans and Hitler. This is not to say that they were blameless, but we are stopping short of seeing the greater truth. In the last analysis, those who blame men end up blaming God. If we will not see ourselves as the factor for the judgments that have come, then we will inevitably come to the place where God Himself becomes ultimately the evil one. God is judged and found wanting. If man will not accept himself as being the root cause of his own judgments, ironically, God is the one who ends up being condemned for inherent defect in His creation seeing that He was apparently unable to intervene in preserving Jewry from calamity. We have a much greater facility to find fault with God than with ourselves. That in itself sums up how lamentable our condition is… How important, then, to rightly interpret our tragic past. We would be fools not to receive the benefit of that past and to anticipate what is to come again if its root causes are not recognized and dealt with repentantly. If our judgments are in direct proportion to our sins and the magnitude of our judgments indicate the magnitude of our sin, then we need to be awakened to something of which we are not personally and subjectively aware… [God] stretches Himself and extends His mercy, and He sends His messengers, which messengers we have historically rejected. In our resiliency, we somehow find a way to recover from our calamities... finding a way to remove the onus of its true meaning as judgment, not seeing it in terms of our national sin(p. 79-81).

I have a sense that [the end-time judgments] are impending and near, and that the only thing that restrains them is the hand of God. Is not everything positionally in place and could explode in a moment? The weight of our Jewish unbelief and unrelatedness to God must bring us down. When He takes His hand away, then we will slip, slide, and fall into destruction and devastation in a moment. We are already under the sentence of condemnation until that condemnation is lifted by the receiving of that One whom God sent to bear it, namely, the Messiah of Israel – Jesus of Nazareth. In the continuing rejection of God’s gift, all Israel stands under this sword of judgment, hovering over our heads, waiting for the moment when God simply takes His hand of restraint away. I would rather be proven false, but I believe that this present generation of Jews is going to suffer devastation on a world scale that will eclipse the Nazi era(p. 89).We are going to be viciously hated and pursued, suddenly uprooted, losing everything in a day, having to flee with only what is on our back and in panic not knowing where we are going… We are going to suffer double for our sins but our God has said,I will restore.How urgent, then, to believe that the God who promises judgment and fulfils it is also the same God who promises restoration and will also fulfil it… Not to believe God’s judgment as the fulfilment of His word now is to nullify all hope of believing for His future intervention then. This is the scenario for the last days, namely, the restoration of Israel by the unmitigated grace and mercy of God – so totally undeserved(p. 90). (End of quotations from the book by Art Katz).In view of what Art Katz rightly said, every Christian is committed to inform Israel on the correct biblical route to their full restoration. If they are not warned against the coming false messiah and the great tribulation, how will they ever be able to correctly understand these times and make the right decisions? Without accepting Jesus the Messiah by faith they cannot be saved – neither can they share in the blessings that He promised to the believing remnant in Israel and also to the whole world during His coming reign of peace.