General Articles

When Israel’s Best Friends Vanish :: By Terry James

Published on: by RR10

Israel, at this late moment upon history’s timeline, has, in all truthfulness, only one other nation as a close, dependable friend. Notably, from the pre-Trib Bible prophecy perspective, that nation-state friend is the most powerful ever to grace the planet’s surface.

Israel’s nuclear capability and America’s stupendous military and technological might are strong defensive ingredients for modern Israel’s protection. But, while surrounded by forces of overwhelming numbers whose satanic rage cannot be stemmed, it is, in truth, an unconventional army that is Israel’s greatest ally.

This ally contingent holds the joint Israeli-American defensive coalition in place, and in God’s prophetic plan. It is a spiritual force that is Israel’s closest friend. Christians, particularly in America, make up the spiritual army that supports Israel’s right to exist, as does no other group on Earth.

I must qualify that statement because today there are so many divergent claims to the name of Christ–differing views about what it means to be a “Christian.” The definition I use here is one who has been “born again” (John 3:3). This means that a person has been born into the family of God for all eternity.

The only way for this to happen is for an individual to accept Christ’s sacrifice on the cross at Calvary–His shed blood—to pay for that person’s sin, which separates the individual from God. Those who are “born again” make up this army of defenders of Israel’s right to exist in its ancient homeland.

This army doesn’t bear physical arms or fight literally on the bloody fields surrounding Israel. This army fights with prayer for the peace of Jerusalem and does spiritual battle for Israel while that Jewish state moves in blind unrepentance toward its ultimate great destiny–to be the head of all nations during the millennium, Christ’s thousand-year reign on Earth.

America Plunges While the Church Arises

America, the golden cup in the Lord’s hand for more than two centuries–having disseminated the gospel to the world and having been the midwife of Israel’s birth into modern times, then its protector—is not mentioned in Bible prophecy by name. However, supposedly lesser nations of history are mentioned, such as Persia (present-day Iran, a name we’re certainly familiar with), Syria, and others. Russia fits into the region known in ancient times as “Rosh.” But this once-shining city on the hill called America is nowhere to be found as the very end of days unfold.

So, what happens to the United States of America?

We’ve looked at my view–which I believe is the biblical view—that God’s people, the Christians of these end times, are Israel’s most fervent friends. But again, I must write a word of qualification. Not all born-again believers believe Israel is God’s chosen nation, as given in the Old Testament. Most Christians today don’t even think in terms of Israel and its prophetic destiny one way or the other. This is because, in many cases, they aren’t taught the truth by their pastors and teachers. Also, they may not do enough study on their own to open their spiritual minds on these things so the Holy Spirit can instruct them regarding Israel and prophecy yet future.

So, it is a relatively small group that observes prophetic matters as outlined in God’s Word.  The others are ignorant of these things. Many are willfully ignorant.

No matter the tragic state of the spiritually weakened Church in these last days, God hasn’t let slip from His mighty grasp the Israel/America miracle He began to form in history now long past. Be assured, those among the heaven-bound, end-times Christians who do understand Israel’s place in God’s holy eyes are key to America’s ultimate destiny.

This factor is at the heart of my hope–and belief—that when the sheep-goats nations’ judgment takes place (Matthew chapter 25), America will stand among the sheep nations.

But today, a large portion of this nation has fallen for the satanic lie that Israel is, rather than God’s chosen people, the dastardly perpetrator of evil. Some of the American people, particularly many among college students, for example, have fallen prey to the lie that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. Mainstream news and entertainment media are responsible for much of this satanic inculcation.

The resultant eventuation is a wedge being driven between friends, Israel and America, which have been close since the Jewish state’s birth into modernity.

And it has become observable to those spiritually attuned to geopolitics in these turbulent times that the satanic inculcation has led to Christianity being blamed by some within Israel for Israel’s increasing troubles. A news excerpt reports the following.

Earlier this week, the Israeli Defense Forces stated that one of its soldiers who took a sledgehammer to a statue of Jesus in southern Lebanon, and another who photographed him doing it, would be removed from combat operations and imprisoned for 30 days.

In addition to that incident earlier this week, Israeli police initially blocked Latin Patriarch Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the top Roman Catholic official in the Holy Land, and other senior clergy from conducting a Palm Sunday service at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre due to wartime restrictions, The Times of Israel reported.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intervened, granting the clergy “full and immediate access” to the site.

The Times of Israel further reported that “a 2024 Annual Report by the Rossing Center for Education and Dialogue documented 111 reported cases of attacks against Christians, including 46 physical attacks, 35 attacks against church properties, and 13 cases of harassment.”

Most perpetrators appeared to belong to the ultra-Orthodox and national-religious communities, and they directed their attacks primarily at Christian clergy members or people wearing visible Christian symbols.

Netanyahu posted Monday on social media in response to the Jesus statue incident, “Yesterday, like the overwhelming majority of Israelis, I was stunned and saddened to learn that an IDF soldier damaged a Catholic religious icon in southern Lebanon. I condemn the act in the strongest terms.” (“Israel Appoints Its First Ever ‘Special Envoy to Christian World’ After Controversial Incidents,” The Gateway Pundit, by Randy DeSoto, The Western Journal, April 25, 2026)

When the true Christians vanish instantaneously in the Rapture, Israel’s earthly best friends will be gone. Then the most horrific of times for the nation and the Jewish people will take place.

However, the nation that is the progeny of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob will not be destroyed as its chief nemesis, Satan, desires. As a matter of fact, Israel’s greatest friend and defender will assure the nation’s safe passage through its most troubling time of history.

“This is what the Lord says, ‘He who appoints the sun to shine by day, Who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the Lord Almighty is His Name; Only if these ordinances vanish from My sight,’ declares the Lord, ‘will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me'” (Jeremiah 31:35-36).

***

Thank you for your support of Prophecyline!

Please know that your donations to our Prophecyline platform are so much appreciated. We continue to watch and strive to inform of relevant prophetic issues and events during these times so near the moment of our Lord’s call to His Church. Your support is very much needed.

If you consider our efforts worthy as we try to cover news and end times culture, and if you wish to contribute, please do so as follows.

Please make checks payable in my name, Terry James.

Please send to:

Terry James

P.O. Box 38

Benton, AR 72018

 

Romans 5:1-5: Justified and Sanctified :: By Sean Gooding

Published on: by RR10

Last week, we clearly showed that a person who has truly been saved cannot, under any circumstances, be lost. And, if one could be lost, he could never be re-saved, as Jesus has only died once for our sins, and He will never die again. The text for this is Hebrews 6:1-6. Jesus would need to be put to open shame again, and that is not happening. Now, let us move on. Those trying to make you doubt what God has given you are mistaken, or worse, simply trying to scare you into constant re-thinking and never actually growing in Jesus.

Romans 5:1, those of us who are saved are declared ‘justified.’ This is a legal term; we have been acquitted, declared blameless (remember, God told Satan that Job was ‘blameless’). This is a term to declare that no sin, no record of sin is recorded against us.

Go and see the last lesson for a list of verses that tell us where our sins have gone. In Psalm 32:2 and then repeated in Romans 4:8, we are told that we are blessed to have ‘our sins removed.’ If they are removed, we are saved, and we are now justified in Jesus. In verse 2, we have this great ‘Hope’, a true hope that God can use to build a future for us. We have a reason to rejoice; our sins are gone, and with that we have true fellowship with God according to 1 Corinthians 1:9 and John 14:23.

In verses 3-4, we find the process of sanctification. When I was working on this, I came across a story of a woman who was in a ladies’ Bible class, and they had read from Malachi 3:1-3: “He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Verse 3, quoted here, got her attention, and she set about to research it. She found a local jeweler and asked to watch him purify silver, and he obliged. He explained that silver needed a high temperature between 962-1100 Celsius to boil, and that the smelting had to be perfectly timed; neither too little nor too much time was good – as such, the jeweler could not take his eye off the silver.

She asked him how he knew it was done, and his reply was when I can see my reflection in the silver, it is done. And so it is with us as God sanctifies and purifies us. He is a master jeweler, and He is ever watching over us, making sure that we do not burn and that one day soon, His reflection will be seen in us.

In verse 5, we find that love is one of the natural fruits of God growing us into the image of Jesus. We begin to love God more, and we love each other more. We begin to want to love even those whom we did not love before or even think we could love before. Sin begins to bother us more; things that used to come naturally gradually become foreign to us. Our words change, our actions change, our thinking changes, and our desires change. Life is gradually reshaped by God through the Holy Spirit living in us, and our eyes are opened.

Imagine the Apostle Paul, who was a Pharisee for the vast majority of his life until he met Jesus, and then he tells us that all the self-righteousness he had as a Pharisee he counted as ‘dung,’ and he began to see himself as ‘the chief of sinners.’ If you recall, Jesus used two men as examples one day at the Temple. One, a Pharisee, thanked God that he was not like other men, mere sinners. The other, a Publican, a tax collector, fell face-first to the ground and refused to even look up because he knew he was a sinner, and he cried out to God for mercy.

Paul began life as a Pharisee and ended it as a Publican. So too do all who come to Jesus. We may not think we are that bad when we get saved, but the more time we spend with Jesus, the more sinful we become in our eyes and the more in love we become with the One who died for a sinner like me. When was the last time you told Jesus that you loved Him? When was the last time that you had a conversation with Jesus? No, not prayer, a conversation. You know, when you just start talking to Him like He is in the car or on the trail walking with you and the dog?

The Apostles had conversations with Jesus; they chatted with Him about life, their wants, needs, dreams, complaints, and the like. At times, He spoke kindly to them; at times, He told them to wait a bit longer to get their wants; and at times, He rebuked them. But they had these real, sometimes emotional conversations because they had a true relationship fraught with the emotional valleys and hills that come to all relationships. This is the sanctification; it can be messy and filled with failures and re-dos, but it reminds us that what we have is real. So, you are justified in Jesus, not let’s get sanctified by Jesus.

seangooding@yahoo.ca

Dr. Sean Gooding
Pastor of Bethany Baptist Church
70 Victoria Street, Elora, Ontario