It remains my favorite story. I think of it as a modern Bible story. When I read Yoni’s Last Battle, in Jerusalem in 2002, I put the book down after finishing, and I wondered, Did that really happen?

Indeed, it did.

A few very rare times, we hear a story so iconic and epic, so transformational…it never leaves you.

So it was with the daring hostage rescue Israel launched in the summer of 1976.

In the U.S., we were eagerly anticipating our Bicentennial. It was a year-long anticipation. We visited museums and saw the Freedom Train that spanned the country carrying our relics from the past. I bought a cheesy medallion. It was all so exciting. It was a completely different culture then.

A week before the Fourth that year, an Air France jetliner refueled at Athens, on the last leg home to Paris. After getting back in the air, terrorists with guns stood up and demanded the plane be flown to the heart of Africa: Entebbe, in Uganda. The country was run by a madman, Idi Amin, who enjoyed throwing people off buildings into canals filled with crocodiles. He had been cozy with the PLO for a while.

In this case, though, the terrorists were members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the German Baader Meinhof Gang. They demanded that Israel and the Europeans release terrorists from their prisons. If they didn’t, they would murder the Jewish passengers, all 105 of them. In fact, soon enough, the terrorists released hostages that were not Jewish. And, just as at Auschwitz, they separated the Jews from the others: one to the left, the other to the right.

Israel did not negotiate with terrorists. This put even more pressure on the cabinet, led by Yitzhak Rabin. The hostages’ families were screaming for a deal. Of course.

Thursday was the deadline.

Everyone, including the grave-looking TV anchors, knew Israel was in a real bind. They had foiled some airplane hijackings, but no one had ever operated at such a distance. It was 2,500 miles away from Israel.

Rabin announced they would negotiate.

That motivated the terrorists to push the deadline to mid-morning, Sunday, July 4.

At the same time, an Israeli pilot had a gem of an idea. He shared it with his superiors. Shimon Peres was defense minister at the time. It was his job to present the plan to the cabinet, greenlight it if he so decided.

This left Israel barely two days to plan and implement this audacious plan. The tip of the spear would be the Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s elite counter-terrorism unit. All three Netanyahu brothers would serve in it at different times, including the youngest, Iddo. Bibi had helped thwart a hijacking four years earlier in Israel. He and his team put on white coveralls and carried toolboxes, pretending to be from the maintenance crew. When they got in the door, bullets started flying, and the terrorists were quickly eliminated.

The year 1976 was a different matter.

It was decided to leave Israel at 4 p.m. on the 3^rd. They would take off from the southernmost tip of the Sinai, at Sharm El-Sheikh. (Interestingly, if Israel had already given back the Peninsula to Egypt, they would not have had the base at Sharm El-Sheikh and would not have been able to reach Entebbe.)

When they took off, the troops did not know if the cabinet had approved the plan. Israel sent its entire fleet of transport planes—four—and no fighter escort. They could not draw attention and could not be detected by Saudi or Egyptian radar. The planes flew just off the surface of the Red Sea in order to escape radar detection. The choppy ride caused several troops to get sick.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Netanyahu, commander of the Unit, read a novel as he sat in the lead jeep, tied down like the rest of the other vehicles.

En route, they got the greenlight from the government. Years ago, I interviewed two of the soldiers that went. One told me he actually relaxed when he heard they were, in fact, going ahead with it.

A couple of minutes before midnight, the planes circled high above Lake Victoria, a mile from the terminal where the hostages were kept. Believe it or not, the entire operation involving securing the hostages took five minutes. Five.

All terrorists were killed within minutes. A separate group led by Shaul Mofaz fired on the tower to keep heat off everyone else. They also blew up every Ugandan Air Force plane so no one could pursue them. The attention to detail was staggering, and most of it was planned by Netanyahu. His hair was longer than usual. He had been deeply involved in still-classified actions in the Sinai before being called back. He slept very little those last few days.

Another commando, the one that was in the door first, told me that they had to have complete surprise that night, and they did. The last thing anyone on the planet expected was waves of IDF commandos coming from the sky.

Within minutes, stunned hostages were being led/carried to waiting planes.

The Israeli cabinet felt they would take 20 percent casualties. With 200 men sent, that meant 40 killed or wounded. In the end, they suffered two serious casualties. Surin Hershko, a member of the elite Golani Brigade, was shot and is to this day a quadriplegic.

Jonathan “Yoni” Netanyahu was killed.

He lay on the tarmac while a small team worked on him. He briefly tried to raise himself, then fell back down. He bled out, and his body was placed in a foil-like bag. Next day, he would be buried on Mt. Herzl. His parents, his brothers Bibi and Iddo, Rabin, and others were there. Peres read the eulogy. I’ve visited Yoni’s grave many times.

Every time I think about it, which is very often, I marvel. For me, those young commandos, with face-paint and wearing Ugandan fatigues, are still emerging from the planes and jumping into the vehicles for the short drive to the terminal building at Entebbe Airport.

In the end, they succeeded far beyond even their wildest hopes. By mid-morning, the exact moment of the murderous deadline, Israeli citizens looked up and saw the transport planes back in their own airspace. The shrieks and screams of joy can probably still be heard. Rabin and Peres were there waiting for the lead plane. They asked where Yoni was.

“He went first, he fell first,” came a reply.

Where do such men come from? They come from God, I do believe. The novelist Herman Wouk, a friend of the Netanyahu family, wrote that Yoni was “an ember of sacred fire.”

Yes, he was. In every era a handful of men like them are in place to keep the rest of us safe. The brightness of their being stings the eyes of the mediocre men that surround us, including the gargoyles that practice terrorism, and their enablers in politics and media. Those that affirm them, such as the college students lionizing the Hamas gang that raped and murdered Jews on October 7, are so empty-headed one wonders how they function at all. They are profoundly stupid and, I think, unreachable.

I also don’t believe the culture is what it once was. Few remember Entebbe today, and when they do hear about it, seem indifferent. I find that staggering.

It doesn’t, though, in any way stop me from remembering them, the young Zionist lions that volunteered to go to a remote land and free innocents. They will always deserve our most profound respect. As one of the participants said years later, the operation was “beyond the horizon.”

And so it was.

jimfletcher761@gmail.com

 

 

 

 

 

The Book of Revelation opens with great encouragement and unflinching affirmation of Jesus Christ as Lord of all. He is “the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth” who loves us so much that He “released us from our sin by His blood” (1:5). The book is presented as His own revelation, “which God the Father gave Him to show His bondservants the things which must soon take place” (1:1).

Grace and peace are offered “from Him who is and who was and who is to come” (1:4).

John faithfully recorded the vision he had on the island of Patmos as well as the seven letters Jesus dictated for distribution to seven churches in Asia (modern-day Turkey) late in the first century. Chapter 4 opens with a “rapture in type” as John is told to “Come up here” and whisked away into Heaven (4:1). The throne room scene climaxes when a sealed book is produced that “no one in Heaven or on the earth or under the earth was able to open” (5:3)—until Jesus steps forward to take the book and open the seals.

John’s description of Jesus conveys the perspective of fulfilled prophecy. Jesus is called “the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah,” “the Root of David,” “a Lamb standing, as if slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God” (5:5-6). The assembled host of Heaven rightfully breaks out into song and worship, celebrating the beloved Son of God, very God of very God. Their chorus should fill the heart of every follower of Christ who longs for His coming:

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. To Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and dominion forever and ever” (5:12-13).

If the book of Revelation ended at chapter 5, we would have ample reason to praise the Lord. His encouragement and admonition to the Church were clearly conveyed in chapters 2 and 3, and His worthiness to receive everlasting praise was affirmed once again. We could rest assured that His plan for the ages is proceeding according to His will and serve, knowing that we will eventually join the throng gathered around His throne in Heaven.

But Jesus’ charge to John in 1:18 was to write the things which he had seen (chapter 1), the things which are (chapters 2 and 3), and “the things which will take place after these things.” With that revealed outline, what follows the throne room scene of chapters 4 and 5 is clearly meant to offer a glimpse into the not-too-distant future. With that in mind, if it was important enough for Christ to choose to reveal what lies ahead in human history, we can rightfully understand that He expects us to heed His words as we would any other.

Lest there be any doubt about His expectation to that effect, we are told just that in chapters 1 and 22—“Blessed is he who heeds the words of the prophecy of this book” (22:7). The urgency of our heeding is made clear at the outset of the book: “for the time is near” (1:3).

A Divergence of Options

The book of Revelation is clearly addressed to a specific audience: the bondservants of Jesus Christ (1:1). The initial recipients were the Christians in the Seven Churches listed in the text: Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea (1:11). The specificity of the letters obviously touches on attributes (both positive and negative) of those particular churches. But the affirmation and/or reproach each one was given finds application in local bodies of Christ throughout the Church Age—and even to time periods within the Church Age.

It is hard to envision non-believers finding application to their situation in the first five chapters of Revelation, other than a general desire to be among those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation who have been purchased for God by Christ’s blood and given a promise to reign alongside Him on the earth (5:9-10).

But in chapter 6, the narrative takes a dramatic turn. As one after another seal is broken, the action in Heaven unleashes a great calamity on Earth. No longer the meek and mild suffering Servant of Isaiah 53, Christ is now the Worthy One who breaks the seals that send forth riders and catastrophes to inflict great suffering on the earth. This reality alone does not align with the false prophets of prosperity who proclaim that Jesus would never hurt a fly. The image here is of Jesus exercising the will of the Father to pour out judgment on an unrepentant world devoid of Church Age saints who have been swept up at the Rapture.

In a series of terrors that run through the Seal, Bowl, and Trumpet Judgments, the stark contrast presented in John 3:36 is glaringly apparent: those who believe in the Son are already glorying in the joy of eternal life with the Savior, while those who reject His offer of salvation experience the wrath that abides on them from the day they were conceived.

It is that contrast that presents the either/or, black-or-white, diametrically opposed options that every person faces during this life. It really is simple enough to be summed up in bumper-sticker starkness: “Know Christ, Know Peace. No Christ, No Peace.”

Those two statements may seem trite, but as my friend Paul Wilkinson would say, they convey a beautiful simplicity of options. With that in mind, let’s take a longer glance behind Door # 1 and Door # 2.

What’s a Seal?

John 6:27 provides the first reference to the seal of God. Jesus testifies that His disciples should not merely work for food that perishes, “but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.” The word that is translated “seal” is the Greek word sphragízō, meaning “to stamp for security, preservation, or attestation.” We can envision this as the impression of a signet ring in hot wax. In this context, Jesus was clearly affirming the Father’s attestation of His authority to forgive sin and bestow eternal life.

This is the type of seal that Matthew 27:66 indicates was used to seal the tomb of Christ: a seal of finality that no one but the rightful authority would dare to break. Paul uses this word metaphorically in Romans 15:28, 2 Corinthians 1:22, and Ephesians 1:13 and 4:30. Then, in 2 Timothy 2:19, he writes, “the firm foundation of God stands, having this seal, ‘The Lord knows those who are His,’ and ‘Everyone who names the name of the Lord is to abstain from wickedness.’” The Greek word in this case (sphragís) is a derivative referring specifically to the stamped impression, whether literally or figuratively.

The image of the “book” in Revelation 5:1, that is “written inside and on the back, sealed with seven seals,” conveys this exact imagery. Given our understanding of a “book” as a bound publication, a better translation would be a scroll, for John would have seen a written instrument not unlike a Torah scroll, but sealed (as with wax) seven times. For many years, the only way to ensure the unbroken security of a private communication was to use a wax seal. Without the original signet or stamp, any breach of the seal could not be counterfeited. And, if the original signer was a person of great power, it would have been unthinkable for an unauthorized person to break the seal.

Clearly, this is the context of Revelation 5 and 6. Nobody but Jesus Christ was found worthy to break the seals of the book/scroll held by God the Father. Only Christ had overcome so as to break the seals. Overcome what, a skeptic might ask? Death, by the power of His own authority.

The fact that Jesus is worthy evokes the praise I discussed already. But before the seals are broken and the consequences unleashed, the heavenly chorus praises Him for purchasing men who have been made to be a kingdom and priests to God (Revelation 5:10). And that realization brings us back to the Door #1 option available to all mankind: the seal of God.

In Part 2, we will compare and contrast those who are sealed for eternity and those who are sealed for wrath.

https://christinprophecyblog.org