If
it weren't for the Bible, it would certainly be hard to explain why Israel is
considered so important in the world today. Indeed, when we look at nations
with
populations comparable to Israel's, we find they are only rarely in the news as
would be expected. For example, Benin, Paraguay and Denmark have their
ups
and downs like all nations, but the goings-on in such relatively small places
is of little concern to the world leaders, the media and the man on the
street.
Media
attention is what makes a nation famous or infamous in today's world, and for
some reason (known only to God) Israel gets much more than its share.
While
a handful of reporters cover European capitals, there are 400 news people, TV
commentators and the like in Jerusalem every day! While entire revolutions
take
place in countries ten times Israel's size with minor media coverage, CNN
virtually stops its news day to report that the orthodox and the secular
Jewish
people are arguing again on some Israeli street. The Dallas Morning News, a
reliable critic of Israel along with so many of its sister newspapers
in
this country, ran a picture of so-called strife while covering some
neighborhood disagreement in the Holy Land in which there were zero casualties.
The
front-page story was accompanied by a huge photograph of the factions that were
arguing. Page 13 of the same paper recorded seven murders over the
same
weekend in Dallas.
The
New York Times, our "newspaper of record," keeps up a steady drumbeat
of criticism of this allied democracy no matter what else in the world is
happening.
I
think that if a world war broke out, the Times editor would order his reporters
to keep a front-page space open for its usual Israel coverage-whatever
else
might be happening!
Media
attention in the modern world simply means negative coverage, since the media
tends to feature the world's troubles. Cynicism, negativism and some
sort
of nether drama marks our media these days. They are turning into entertainment
organizations desperate to draw a crowd to whom they hawk the products
of
their advertisers. The crowd is evidently better drawn by the sort of negative
news that is part and parcel of the human condition. Witness the litany
of
robberies, killings, fires, and so on reported on the local TV news each night
in every American city. The media could cover the good works of their
cities
every night just as it could cover the fact of Israel's miraculous restoration,
in one generation, that evolved into a progressive modern democracy.
But
news editors favor the tried and true; bad news about good people always sells.
There
might be an even more sinister idea at work in the media's negative coverage of
the news. Wars are a boon to any media. CNN charged triple the going
rate
for commercials during its coverage of the Persian Gulf War, and sponsors lined
up to pay those prices. It did not escape the notice of the editorial
board
that real conflict bombs, people dying in the streets, big fires - provided a
huge audience like no local robberies and murders could. What if they
could
arrange their own wars? This almost science-fiction concept may be
unconsciously at work today. Coverage of what the media views as trouble
spots-Bosnia,
Ireland,
Africa, and oddly enough, Israel-is in place just in case some spark ignites a
real shooting war. And needless to say, coverage of the news in
such
places aims to exacerbate their situations. Hence the "plight" of the
Palestinians and Israel, the "hopelessness" of the arguments in
Ireland. We
might
say that the media are continually publishing introductions for war in the hope
that some war will commence where their people are in place. Then
the
media accomplishes its major purpose, its reason for being: It makes big money.
We
must keep in mind that the media are not some public service but simply
profit-making businesses that charge substantial fees for the coverage
provided.
In
Forewarning and Foreshocks of Antichrist I pointed out that the media are
likely supported by petrol dollars since makers of oil-based products buy
a
great deal of advertising. If the makers of cars, cosmetics, gasoline and so
forth are not pleased with the sort of coverage they receive in the media-if
it
does not somehow support Arab oil interests-then they may buy less advertising
space. And so we have a profit making business covering an ordinary day-to-day
life
situation in Israel in a most negative and provocative way for greater profits.
For
its part, Israel goes along, the only democracy in the Middle East achieving
wonderful things. Its per capita income is now comparable to that of England
and
greater than that in the largest Arab oil-producing states, including Saudi
Arabia. As a result the Arabs of Israel, the only Arabs privileged to live
in
a democracy in the Middle East, are profiting as well and have a standard of
living hardly imagined by Arab people elsewhere. (The Egyptian government
issues
precious few visas for its citizens to visit Israel even though this is
perfectly allowable under the Camp David peace accords and Israelis visit
Egypt
every day in huge numbers. I believe the government of Egypt doesn't want its
citizens to see how well the Arabs of Israel are living. They fear
an
absolute revolution when people see their cousins in the Holy Land driving cars,
drinking clean water, having doctors in their villages and schools
and
so on.)
The
international solution to Israel's success seems to be to cut the place in
half, give the Jewish people less land and somehow bring peace by dividing
one
of the smallest nations in the world. Certainly it is the division of the
world's available land into smaller and smaller parcels with different
governments
that
causes the rash of "wars and rumors of wars" of the latter half of
this century. When the United Nations was founded in the late 40s, there were
less
than
a hundred nations, and at this point there are close to two hundred. Having
more nations simply provides the situation where "nation will rise against
nation."
Israel
must be the most obvious example of creating new boundaries that create new
troubles. If Saddam Hussein of Iraq could complain that the British mapmakers
drew
a boundary cutting off the province of Kuwait from Iraq then what would Israel
say? Iraq has a murky history emanating from about the time of the
Arab
conquest of Mesopotamia more than 1,000 years ago, but Israel started out as
one nation under Jewish leadership 35 centuries ago! History and archaeology
show
this to be Jewish land from the Mediterranean to past the Jordan River, and
from the deserts of the south to northern borders that exceed the Galilee
and
Golan Heights on the north. But even though the formal boundaries of Israel are
about half the size of what they were in biblical times, world leaders,
and
especially Arab leaders, demand that even this small area be cut in half again
and an equal portion be given to those who have sworn to drive Israel
into
the sea.
Why
is all this happening to Israel? The best of all reasons is that prophetic
Scripture says it will happen. While the world press dithers over Israel's
supposed
intractability with the peace process or bad treatment of the Palestinians or a
wrong-headed prime minister, the real reason is that Israel must
be
maneuvered into a position where it will be "hated of all nations"
(Matthew 24:9). It is well to remember that close to 100 percent of end times
prophecy
concerns
that tiny nation, and the biblical signs of the end pertain especially to
Israel. The Olivet Discourse of our Lord His answer to the disciples'
question,
"What will be the sign of Your coming and of the end of the world?"
(Matthew 24:3)-details phenomena that are global in scope but of particular
concern
to those in the Holy Land. The Lord addresses His disciples as Israelites in
particular when He observes, "He that shall endure unto the end, the
same
shall be saved" (verse 13). It is the Jewish people gathered in Israel at
the time of Armageddon who must endure "unto the end"-that is the
second
coming
of the Lord-to be saved. At the time, "they shall look upon me whom they
have pierced, and they shall mourn for him as one mourneth for his only
son....
In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the
inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness" (Zechariah
12:
10; 13: 1).
It
is imagined that the Jews are receiving some sort of favor or second chance due
to their salvation at the second coming, but they are saved by seeing
the
Lord come out of heaven to stop that mad battle raging in Jerusalem. Since He
is coming back to the earth exactly in their midst where they stand back
to
back in their nation's capital ("And his feet shall stand in that day upon
the mount of Olives..." [Zechariah 14:4]), they simply see Him come and
they
believe.
Undoubtedly, Gentile soldiers engaged in Armageddon who look up and see Him are
saved as well. After all, anyone looking up into the sky and seeing
a
heavenly figure riding a white horse with a robed army behind Him and an
identification on that robe reading "King of kings and Lord of lords"
will believe,
and
that's all there is to that. They believe by seeing, but this is after the age
of grace when we believe in "things not seen."
Besides
that piece of evidence that the signs of the end are given in particular to
Israel, Matthew 24:15,16 advises, "When ye therefore shall see the
abomination
of
desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place (whoso
readeth, let him understand:) then let them which be in Judea flee into
the
mountains" rather than try to cope with the Antichrist. The advice
presupposes that the Jews are pretty much gathered in Jerusalem at that
dramatic
time.
I belabor the point that Israel is concerned in Matthew 24 because that
discourse is often taught in reference to the church and erroneously leads
to
the church having to endure the tribulation. But obviously Israel is singled
out for instructions because it is deeply involved in end-times prophecy.
We
know that the start of the tribulation period is signaled by the Antichrist's
peace covenant with Israel, and it is obvious that we are being prepared
for
such news day by day. The "peace process" has conditioned the world
to imagine that there is some drastic situation in Israel that badly needs some
international
agreement to settle it. To look at the world objectively, it is clear that
peace covenants are needed much more in other trouble spots where
there
are real conflicts going on and not in Israel, which is suffering from
something more like a common ghetto problem. But to satisfy the prophecy,
world
opinion is being manipulated to where the Antichrist's seven-year offer will be
most welcome. Even the Israelis, I think, will sign that covenant
in
a hopeful spirit out of necessity at the time it is offered. (The necessity
will not be the need to make peace, but simply pressure from the United
Nations
and certain powerful members to come to some accommodation with the Arabs.) The
media will immediately trumpet the idea that peace has at least
been
achieved in Israel only to be proved as wrong as when we trumpeted the same
thing about Ireland in 1998. We can all recall the glad ceremonies and
triumphant
dinners and toasts that preceded the worst bombing in the history of Irish
terrorism.
The
Antichrist's false peace will last longer than the Irish false peace by three
years or so. At the midpoint of the tribulation, at exactly three-and-a-
half
years after the signing of the covenant, the Antichrist will perform that
"abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet" (Matthew
24:15)
and
proclaim himself God in the tribulation temple! (The temple may have been built
as one of the stipulations of the original peace covenant, but in any
case,
it will be standing on Mount Moriah at the midpoint of the tribulation.) The
Antichrist will "cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease"
(Daniel
9:27)
as he reneges on his agreement. And that, in a sense, begins Armageddon. I
believe it is from that point that the king of the East begins to mobilize
the
most fearsome army the world has ever known. China and possibly other Far
Eastern powers will march 200 million men all the way to Israel evidently
to
challenge the Antichrist, who they do not believe is God. The Chinese
communists, after all, are atheists and believe that no one is God, and the
huge
number
of Chinese Moslems (outnumbering the ethnic Chinese) will take the Antichrist
to be a total pretender since he is not Allah. And finally military-minded
China
will simply note that the Israelis did not believe the Antichrist had
supernatural powers since they bolted (taking the Lord's advice). And so the
Chinese
and other Far Easterners will be motivated to vanquish the pretender, the
Antichrist in Jerusalem who claims to be the God of Israel.
A
visit by a 200,000,000-man army will do Israel little good. This will be the
most difficult-to-handle tour of Israel ever undertaken, and the land and
the
people will suffer.
Anti-Semitism
is the motivating factor of the Antichrist, as it is of all of those who
counterfeit or simply cannot accept the simple gospel of the Lord.
Jesus
Christ, the Messiah of the Jews, said that if you're not for Me, you're against
Me, and the Antichrist is certainly first among those who are against
Him
and His people at the end. It is amazing that just a generation after the
Holocaust anti-Semitism is obvious again in the world today. In the United
States
and elsewhere, the Jews, for reasons hard to understand, are despised with
special derision. From American country clubs to Swiss banks to Oriental
imaginings
of Jewish-caused economic problems, hatred of Israel and the Jewish people is a
normal state of affairs in this world. And increasing anti-Semitism
is
a true symptom of the end of the age.
Anti-Semitism
has a long history, much of it chronicled in Scripture. Moses' pharaoh,
Nebuchadnezzar, Antiochus and Titus received scriptural credit for
their
hatred, or were prophesied about in Scripture, but hatred of the Jews did not
let up after biblical times. The coming of the Moslems in the seventh
century
A.D. was the beginning of a perennial prejudice against Israel as virulent
today as it ever was. The Crusades, the Inquisition and general discrimination
against
Jewish communities throughout Europe and Russia kept the chosen people moving
from place to place in hope of respite. Finally in the United States,
and
seemingly only there, did the soles of their feet find rest, and there they
prospered.
But
even in America, anti-Semitism has been a latent but effective force against
God's chosen. We could take for granted a certain amount of anti- Jewishness
in
the church, particularly in the "liberal" churches. It was these very
denominations who punished the Jews in Europe throughout the Middle Ages. One
does
not normally find aversion to the Jews among Bible- reading people, but
occasionally the biases of the denominations seem to infect the true believers.
When
my son Aaron went to a Christian high school, a teacher said one day that
Christianity did not start in Israel, but actually in Greece. When I spoke
to
the teacher, I reminded him that Jesus Christ is Jewish, and so were all of His
disciples and all of His apostles. Jesus came to this earth and declared
to
His disciples, "Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of
the Samaritans enter ye not: But go rather to the lost sheep of the house
of
Israel" (Matthew 10:5,6).
Obviously,
errors are creeping into our Christian universities and colleges. A textbook
called A Survey of the New Testament, by Robert H. Gundry, is in
use
at Dallas Baptist University and Criswell College.
Let
me highlight a few of the errors being taught in this book: "'And they
glorified the God of Israel' (Matthew 15:31), shows that the 4, 000 whom Jesus
now
feeds are Gentiles. " This idea on the part of the one who said, "I
am come only unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24)
is followed
by
a vain attempt to create a non-Jewish following of Jesus. The author goes on,
"Together then, with the preceding Gentile woman and, earlier, the
centurion
and
the Magi, they represent the great mass of Gentiles who are flocking into the
church of Matthew's time."
There
was no church in Matthew's time, nor any "great mass of Gentiles"
saved in the Gospels, though they are to come in considerable numbers later on.
The
author subscribes to Replacement Theology: "Matthew writes his Gospel for
the Church as the new chosen nation, which at least for the time being has
replaced
the old chosen nation of Israel. "
"Luke
was probably a Gentile... his name is Greek. His facility in using the Greek
language also suggests that he was a Gentile. " The same things were
true
of Paul, certainly a Jew and a "pharisee of Pharisees." (This and
other points are contradicted by our excellent study by Dr. McCall entitled
"Was
Luke
a Gentile?" which appears in the March 1996 issue of the Levitt Letter.
You can read it on our website at www.levitt.com.)
The
author promotes an anti-Israel Replacement Theology doctrine, and he appears to
misunderstand the mission of Jesus Christ, who came, as He said, to
bring
the Kingdom to Israel. If secular colleges are bothered by PC (political
correctness), Bible colleges need to watch out for PD (Progressive
Dispensationalism),
the
doctrine behind these distortions.
There
are plenty of other questionable textbooks in our seminaries, and many other
seminaries that have fallen into this sort of doctrine. I believe Replacement
Theology
teaches a bias against the Jews and their homeland. And so among what should be
the best friends of Israel that America contains, a false doctrine
based
on anti-Semitism flourishes.
Ultimately,
the Antichrist will bring the most horrific anti-Semitism the Jews have ever
experienced. It is important to the Antichrist's counterfeit of
Jesus
that he be accepted as the Messiah, and he evidently attempts to make that
happen. He is rebuffed by Israel, which has a long history of rejecting
false
messiahs (and the real Messiah), and so he ultimately enters the temple itself
and proclaims himself Almighty God! At this, the Jews flee, and the
doom
of Armageddon is sealed.
Many
teach that-Israel will accept the Antichrist as their messiah, but this is
nowhere indicated in Scripture. The fact that they sign a peace covenant
with
him is an act of far less magnitude than accepting him as messiah, of course.
They have been signing peace agreements for years now, and the Antichrist's
will
seem to them to be just a longer term, more serious attempt to settle Middle
East turmoil. Their mere acceptance of his treaty terms does not amount
to
accepting him spiritually. It is quite possible that they are rightly
suspicious of him from the beginning, but they want so badly to have peace-and
possibly
to have some arrangement whereby they can rebuild the temple-that his covenant
will seem acceptable at the time. But when he later reveals himself
as
a true counterfeit of God, they will have no more of him. And that, of course,
sets the stage for the world mobilization for that cataclysmic battle.
I've
been asked who the Antichrist is in speaking engagements more than almost any
other question these days. I tend to be asked to speak to biblical churches
who
are reasonably well taught where prophecy is concerned, and the members of
those churches realize that the Antichrist is very likely alive and mature
today.
Some folks make educated guesses, but they've been doing that since the
beginning. The various popes, Hitler, Henry Kissinger and so on have been
selected,
among others, for this very special dishonor. (Kissinger has been a suggestion
for some 25 years because he is Jewish.) Today, many people think
the
Antichrist is to be a Jew. This is almost universally believed in the churches,
but there is no evidence for that idea. The scriptural sanction for
this
theory is Daniel 11:37: "Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers,
nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself
above
all." It is rendered this way in the NIV: "He will show no regard for
the gods of his fathers or for the one desired by women, nor will he regard
any
god, but will exalt himself above them all."
The
second translation is the accurate one. The Hebrew word used for God is not
Elohim, but elohai. The difference is crucial. Elohai means gods in the
sense
of idols. The verse states that the Antichrist will not worship the idols his
father worshiped. The King James translators, living in particularly
anti-Semitic
times in England, must have fallen into temptation to use the ancient Jewish
expression "God of his fathers." This indictment of the Antichrist
being
Jewish has persisted for all these centuries. (The King James translators'
aversion to Judaism is obvious again in Acts 12:4, where they substitute
Easter
for Passover.)
The
idea that the Antichrist is a Gentile is easier to support. All biblical
persecutors of the Jews were Gentiles, from the pharaohs to the foreign kings
to
the Caesars. Also, Israel undertakes a formal covenant with the Antichrist. If
he were one of their own, they probably would not have to actually sign
a
document. The policies of Prime Ministers Rabin, Peres and Netanyahu were
accepted by their fellow Jews without the necessity of formal documents. But
dealings
with Gentile powers such as the United States, the Arabs, or the Oslo peace
accords were contractual matters more like the Antichrist's upcoming
covenant.
There
is also a lack of logic in assuming that this major anti-Semite would persecute
his own people. It really is difficult to imagine a Jewish person blaspheming
to
the extent of claiming to be the God of Israel. But who among the world's
Gentiles the Antichrist may be, I just don't know.
There
are many renditions of end-time events and many educated guesses as to the
motivations of the characters. Suffice it to say that the construction
we
just looked at fits with scriptural fact. Other factors not foreseen at this
time may change some of the motivations, but I feel that this scenario
fits
well with what we understand now.
So
where do we stand? Today's society is as much on the verge of the end of the
age as the newspapers say it is. While there's no biblical sanction for
imagining
the end to be at the change of millennium, it should surprise no Bible student
if it were. The re are any number of factors urging this point
of view,
including the satisfaction of all of the Lord's warnings in Matthew 24:4-14.
The anti-Semitism, which the Antichrist will utilize to justify his
ultimate
raid of Israel, and the idea that some peace covenant must be made in Israel
are in place. The analogy of a stage play with pieces of a set and
certain
actors being in their right places for the culmination of a play is often used,
and it is very appropriate. Around that stage, besides what I have
already
mentioned, are global economic problems, alliances very similar to that
described by Ezekiel in his invasion of Gog and Magog; a powerful European
confederacy;
a rising of the king of the East to a position where he could conceivably
attack the Middle East; the proliferation of nuclear, chemical and
biological
weapons; the hostility of world Islam to democracy; the apostasy of the
"liberal" churches. All these conspire to make it seem like the world
has
either gone haywire or is simply conforming to our Lord's sad picture of the
end of the age.
If
these are not forewarnings, then we are misunderstanding either the world
situation or Scripture. Each one of us needs to deeply consider his or her
position
with God at a time like this.
I
have always believed that prophecy is placed in Scripture not only for the
edification of the saints but also as a tool of witness. Surely a common-sense
appeal
in a world like the one we live in now is justified. Sometimes when I speak in
churches, I am impressed to give an invitation-not so much an emotional
appeal
accompanied by stirring hymns, but rather a simple, straightforward "don't
be foolish" presentation of the gospel.
In
view of all of the forewarnings, this is the best time we have seen so far to
expect the Lord's imminent arrival. With that in mind, make your peace
with
Him and reserve your place in a much finer, more peaceful, more wonderful life
on earth to come.