Nearing Midnight

Forcing Israel To Take Action

The year 2008 ends with Israel and the Palestinians engaged in their bloodiest warfare in more than 20 years. When Hamas militants fired as many as 80 rockets and mortar shells across the border in a single strike, the Israelis had finally had enough. On Saturday, Israeli warplanes and combat helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, killing at least 300 people.

The fighting in the Gaza strip is a minor taste of what we could be seeing in the coming new year of 2009. Because Gaza is an isolated refugee camp without the capabilities of producing major weapons, the conflict should remain limited to that strip of land. However, there is the danger that news reports of the carnage could trigger fighting elsewhere.

Israel faces far greater danger from three other fronts. In addition to the operations in Gaza, Israeli war planners have to deal with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, Syria bordering the Golan, and regional neighbor Iran.

Hezbollah is said to have tens of thousands of rockets that can go deep into Israel. So far, they have not engaged Israel since the 2006 war. Since Hezbollah has three times the weaponry it had in the last conflict, one should roughly expect a three-fold increase in the carnage for any future war.

Last week, a new flare-up was narrowly avoided. Lebanese army troops happened to discover seven Katyusha rockets set up with timers that were on the verge of firing into Israel. The rockets were dismantled in the nick of time.

Syria has made several threats to Israel that it might use force to win back territory it lost in the 1967 Six-Day War. Although there has been no border tension, Syria has been raising concerns by rapidly building up its military.

Despite all the danger on Israelʼs immediate border, Iran is the Jewish state's top concern. Tehran is rapidly working on a nuclear program. Given that the Iranian leadership has recklessly threatened to destroy Israel, there is painfully little time to stop Iran from firing an atomic bomb.

The level of urgency went up this week at the news of Russia's sale of S-300 long-range missiles to Iran. This weapons would be very useful in defending against an airstrike on its nuclear facilities. Pentagon consultant Dan Goure says the delivery of the system "scares every Western air force." According to Goure, the report of S-300 delivery could prompt a premature Israeli air attack.

There have been some contradictory reports about whether Russia has been supplying S-300s to Iran. Moscow denies delivering S-300 missiles; however, the Interfax news agency quoted an unnamed military source as saying the Russian defense ministry was preparing to hand the S-300s over for delivery to Iran.

Barack Obama is famously on record for wanting to have negotiations with Iranʼs leadership as a way to defuse the threat. Obama's desire for talks has many prophecy watchers wondering if Israel will act before Obama takes office. As the old saying goes, itʼs always easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission.

Something will soon have to be done to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capability. Terry and I agree that it is highly doubtful that a nuclear armed Iran would take part in the Gog-Magog attack. Israel is such a tiny nation, one well placed nuclear strike and the Jewish state would be finished. With Iran quickly approaching the point of no return, a military or diplomatic solution will need to occur very soon.

"Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee. Thus saith the Lord GOD; It shall also come to pass, [that] at the same time shall things come into thy mind, and thou shalt think an evil thought: And thou shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages; I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, To take a spoil, and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places [that are now] inhabited, and upon the people [that are] gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land. Sheba , and Dedan, and the merchants of Tarshish, with all the young lions thereof, shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?" (Ezek. 38:9-13).

-Todd

Surveying 2009

Reviewing 2008 is a matter for others to do, if they see an advantage in looking at the planet’s history regarding the recent months just past. We have tried to chronicle all of that as it unfolded, so to revisit would be to digress, an expenditure of cogitative energy I believe readers of the Nearing Midnight section of Rapture Ready would rather apply to what might lay ahead. Let’s have a look around at where we stand as of the beginning of this New Year, and think, in terms of Bible prophecy, on things to come.

Israel takes stage center as usual, when considering Bible prophecy and geopolitical issues that most pervade our headlines. Overwhelming evidence that leadership of the nation most in view in Bible prophecy anticipates a stormy beginning to 2009 is cocooned in a story that broke on Christmas day.

“The exercise, scheduled for July, is called Turning Point 3. It will be the third home front exercise to be held since the Second Lebanon War and the founding of the National Emergency Administration (NEA), the Defense Ministry body responsible for setting national emergency standards…”. This will be the third such action since 2007.

“'The third drill will include all of the emergency organizations, all of the government ministries [and] the entire civilian population,’ a top NEA official told The Jerusalem Post this week. ‘People will be asked to go into their protected rooms or bomb shelters and ensure that they know what to do in the event of a war’" (Yaakov Katz, "Defense drill to involve whole country," The Jerusalem Post, 12/25/08).

Reasons for the dire anticipation are readily discernible while looking from the Jerusalem perspective.

Turkey’s leadership is demanding that Israel lift its blockade in Gaza and stop its military offensive in the area. The call is a harsh rebuke to the Jewish state, even though violence has escalated since last Friday when a six-month truce with Hamas expired.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, according to sources close to the leader, told the Turkish leadership that Israel would not comply with the demand because the rocket attacks by Hamas threatened Israeli citizens. The rocket attacks reportedly had been fewer in number during the cease fire, but had never stopped. They have intensified greatly since the end of the cease fire. The diplomatic confrontation continues to escalate along with the military actions in Gaza. Egypt’s leader weighed in on the renewed level of hostilities.

“Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak urged Israel on Thursday to show restraint when deciding how to respond to the ongoing Palestinian rocket fire which has bombarded Israeli communities in the western Negev for the past week. [Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Israel is not] able to keep from reacting to the attacks, especially in light of the fact that Hamas itself announced that it would not renew the cease-fire… During a press conference, which followed the meeting, Livni reiterated Israel's position. ‘Hamas needs to understand that Israel's basic yearning to live in a quiet region doesn't mean that it will accept continuous rocket fire on its citizens,’ Livni said alongside Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul-Gheit. ‘Enough is enough’" (JPost Staff, Herb Keinon and AP, "Livni spurns Mubarak's call for restraint: Enough is enough," Jerusalem Post, 12/25/08).

Israeli actions Saturday December 27 saw the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) air force retaliate against the rocket attacks by Hamas. Todd’s Nearing Midnight article gives details.

Looking north, beyond Turkey, one of the nations–Togarmah--listed as joining the Gog-Magog attack in Ezekiel chapters 38 and 39, Russia –Rosh—appears to have ambitions for 2009 and beyond.

Russia continues to form alliances and establish points of likely military involvements in Libya, Syria, Iran, and with other regional powers –all mentioned specifically by name in Bible prophecy yet future.

Many Bible prophecy scholars who view God’s Word as literal in its foretellings understand that Rosh refers to the area of modern-day Russia. The “chief prince” of Rosh (Russia) as is the term for the leader "Gog” in the KJV will make alliances with leaders of the regions above Israel, and will ultimately lead an attack over the “mountains of Israel.” This action will almost certainly move along mankind’s march to Armageddon at the end of the seven-year tribulation.

Russia’s recent and continuing alliance-building warrants diligent watchfulness. The outgoing Bush Administration likely gives little to no credence to the Ezekiel 38-39 prophecies, but certainly the U.S. leadership is taking notice so far as the possibility of bringing about nuclear Armageddon is concerned.

“US officials said Monday that they want answers from Russia about whether it is selling advanced surface-to-air missiles to Iran, which the United States Insists could threaten American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. A senior military intelligence official said that while Moscow has sent out conflicting responses to reports on sales of long-range S-300 missiles, the United States believes they are occurring… Both the United States and Israel have opposed such sales strongly, saying that supplying such an advanced anti-aircraft system to Iran would shift the Military balance of power in the Middle East. It also would make any strike at Iran's first nuclear power plant, which Russia is helping to build, more difficult…” (Associated Press, "US warns Russia against selling missiles to Iran," 12/23/08).

China continues to build, planning a new super-aircraft carrier. American and Taiwanese defense experts believe the move is more to intimidate Taiwan leadership and to exert hegemony over its Asian neighbors than to be a defensive action against recent piracy on the high seas as China gives for the reason for the carrier’s construction. China continues to build toward being chief nation among the “kings of the east.”

The push for globalism, as no one reading this needs reminding, is accelerating. There seems lurking in the murkiness of things to come a world-convulsing catalyst that will tip all of the boiling economic complexities into a new global monetary cauldron.

Yet, as we look ahead to 2009, the world seems to wag on as if all is well. People are buying, selling, building, marrying --immersed in the self—gratifying things of the day, oblivious to the things of God. Jesus had something to say about such a time as ours, didn’t He?

“Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed” (Luke 17:30).

--Terry