Israel is the key to all end-time prophecy.

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Jan 28

Dateline Jerusalem - Jim Fletcher

A Reason for Encouragement

One of the great things about what Todd and Terry have accomplished with Rapture Ready is that the site is a source of great encouragement to true believers. I know it is for me.

The message board discussions related to the individual and corporate trouble that Bible-believing Christians are going through at present got me thinking (again) about Israel.

 As each of us experience our own personal trials, let us remember that in the darkness, when we wonder if God is there, or has time for us, remember what I’m about to tell you.

 Not long ago, I was having dinner with a highly placed Israeli friend, at his Jerusalem home. We were talking about the usual things — politics, terrorism, Zionism. This is a man who has a reputation for being secular, yet a Zionist.

 Out of the blue, he said,  “Do you know what makes us [the Jews] different from everyone else?” Of course, there are several possible answers, but I shook my head.

 “At every moment in our history when we are faced with annihilation, there is a ‘Mystery of History’ that intervenes and saves us.”

 I was blown away. What a confirmation of Scripture, where God repeatedly says He will save His people! It doesn’t matter what they do, what their enemies do…He alone keeps watch and intervenes and saves them. Every time.

 This little encounter is but one that encourages me that God is really in control of everything. His power and majesty uplift nations, while at the same time comforting the single mother who has lost her job and can’t rely on regular child-support payments.

 The god of Oprah Winfrey and Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson can’t do any of that, because he doesn’t exist.

 Here are some other reasons ours does.

 We know from history that the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Romans, Nazis, Russians, etc., have persecuted and tried to annihilate the Jews. But as Mark Twain once said, all those empires sit in twilight now, while the Jew beat them all.

 On a day of bright sunshine, I was visiting the renovated Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem. Emerging from the sobering exhibits, I found myself on a plaza. To my left was a group of Israeli soldiers listening to a lecture about the Holocaust. Next to them was a ghastly iron sculpture highlighting the pain and suffering of the Jewish people. It was indeed very sobering.

 But then I looked past them, toward a valley and hills. The whole place was jam-packed with Jewish homes. Each white home with a red-tiled roof. Thousands of them. There are thousands of homes all across the Land of Israel today, despite the efforts of the aforementioned ancient kingdoms, not to mention modern psychopaths like Yasser Arafat.

 Haman ended up swinging from the end of a rope. Hitler blew his brains out. Arafat is, as they say in the Bible belt, “deader-than-a-doornail.” Stalin ended his miserable life on his deathbed, grasping at some unseen terror.

 What did God promise in Scripture? Think of Ezekiel 37 or Amos 9. Or countless other passages. He said He would bring the Jews back.

 They are back to stay.

 Then I remember the famed Entebbe rescue operation. For a future column, I’ll write in considerably more detail, but just know that the rescue of hostages in 1976 was so miraculous, I don’t believe it can be explained as anything other than supernatural intervention. The Mystery of History did it.

 Over 100 men, women, and children were saved by members of Israel’s elite Sayeret Matkal commando unit. They eliminated the terrorists in a matter of minutes, after flying in the middle of the night to Africa. They then returned to Israel and a stunned international community.

 A hundred things had to go right. A hundred things went right. It is still considered the most daring and successful rescue mission ever.

 Another thing. Did God promise through the prophets that Israel would have strong leaders in the last days that would bring them peace? No, he promised the opposite.

 What do we see today? Formerly principled men like Ehud Olmert who makes insane concessions to the Palestinians, which only ensures the perpetuity of war in the region.

 Israel has made a series of blunders in the past two decades that can only be described as catastrophic. Yet the student of the Bible will recognize that this is the way it must be, to pave the way for the Prince of Peace.

 If you have not had the opportunity to tour Israel, or you never will, it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because these places and people are there. The dry bones have flesh and muscle on them and they are breathing. The waste places have been re-settled.

 Everything is according to schedule.

 So when you are feeling blue or even hopeless, remember the miracle, Israel. It should serve as a powerful reminder to you that our personal God, who loves us, will listen when we need our own miracle.

 Jim Fletcher is a member of the executive committee of the National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel (NCLCI). He can be reached at jim1fletcher@yahoo.com