Zechariah 12: 1-3

“The burden of the word of the Lord against Israel. Thus says the Lord, who stretches out the heavens, lays the foundation of the earth, and forms the spirit of man within him: ‘Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces, though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.’”

The closer and closer we get to the return of our Lord Jesus, the more and more the nation of Israel will be front and center in our news and scope. It all began in the early 1900s with the British Mandate for Palestine that ran from September 1923 to May 14, 1948. The goal was to set up a home for Israel. The British ran the mandate until 1948. Before the British showed up, the Ottoman Empire controlled the area. Over the years leading up to the 1948 declaration, there had been many revolts by Palestinians about land. There was one in 1929, another in 1936, and again in 1937 despite trying to really seek peace and set up borders for the two to co-exist peacefully.

In particular, during a 1937 uprising, the British killed somewhere between 2,000 and 5,000 people, and this soured the people back home. The view of the world was that there should be a two-state occupation of Jews and Arabs in Palestine. The Arabs keep usurping everything that is offered and even agreed upon. The British eventually ended their mandate on May 15^th, 1948. The day before that, the nation of Israel resurrected from the ‘dead,’ so to speak, after having been dormant since 70 AD. Almost 1,900 years later, they came back to life. Here we are 77 years later, and they are still here, the Arabs are still fighting, and the world is still seeking a peaceful solution.

Israel is a burden to the vast majority of the G-7 nations. There are Jews living all over the world. In little Barbados where I am from, we have one of the oldest synagogues in the world that is still operational. There is an understanding that until there is peace in Israel, the world does not really have peace. Thus, for more than 100 years, nations like England and the USA have worked tirelessly and spent billions of dollars trying to find a peaceful solution to the Palestinian dilemma. Today, we are sitting on a powder keg with Iran trying to acquire nuclear-grade weapons. The rest of the world knows that, if they do, they will try to eliminate Israel right away.

God told us that Israel would be a burden to the nations around her, but we can see that this burden extends to the whole world. There is a deliberate act being done to try to find a workable and lasting peace here. But no real peace will come without Jesus. In the meantime, one will come to negotiate a kind of permanent looking peace, but it will be a façade, a ploy to gain the loyalty of Israel with the intent of destroying her. In Daniel 9:27, we find out that someone will come and confirm a covenant with Israel for 7 years.

“Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate.”

When we read Daniel 9:24-27, we see that the time allotted to work out all the things that will happen to Israel is set for 70 weeks; 70 seven-year periods, totaling 490 years. There is a deliberate end that comes with the death of the Messiah and ending the 69^th week. Then the ‘covenant’ and agreement that tells the world that the clock is ticking again is made with Israel, and they are allowed to begin making offerings and sacrifices again. This has not been done since 70 AD. But this ‘covenant’ is short-lived; in the middle of the week, or 3 and a half years in, the sacrifices and offerings are stopped. We know why; in Revelation 13:11-13, we see that the man who makes this covenant demands that the world worship him as god.

“Then I saw another beast coming up out of the earth, and he had two horns like a lamb and spoke like a dragon. And he exercises all the authority of the first beast in his presence, and causes the earth and those who dwell in it to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed. He performs great signs, so that he even makes fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men.”

Israel will refuse, and then he and the armies of the surrounding areas will turn on Israel. If you notice the end of our verses in Zachariah 12, the armies of the world are gathered against Israel. (This man, this ‘covenant’ maker, will lead the armies of the world against Israel. Just as an observation, the idea of the ‘world’ may not mean the whole world. The writers like Daniel may not have known the world outside of the Middle East. Thus, the whole world to them may just be the armies of the surrounding nations and those connected by land.) Israel is a burden to the world right now. If nuclear war breaks out in Israel and the Middle East, it will be devastating for a lot of people, and it will affect billions of lives.

One day, soon, we hope, Jesus, the true and only Messiah, will return to bring lasting peace to Israel, and it will be the center of political power – not Washington DC, not London, not Brussels, and certainly not Ottawa. No, Jerusalem will be the center of political power here on earth. From her, Jesus will reign unchallenged for 1,000 years, and then once a rebellion is thwarted, He will reign long into eternity. God has a plan; God is in control; God knows where He is going, and we can be assured that Israel is not going anywhere.

While I appreciate the efforts of the US military, it is God who defends and protects Israel. In Jeremiah 10:16, Israel is called God’s inheritance. “He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the Maker of all things, including Israel, the people of his inheritance— the Lord Almighty is his name.” In Isaiah 19:25, Israel is called God’s inheritance once again. “Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.”  Then see in Deuteronomy 32:8-9, “When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations, when He separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the children of Israel. For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.”

No one will take God’s inheritance. It is His, and there is nothing that the world can do about it. When you get a chance, read Ezekiel 16 and see how God views Israel. It is His and no others, and He is not changing His mind anytime soon. Keep an eye on Israel; she is like the key to the end, and soon God will begin the final 70th week to complete Daniel’s vision.

Ephesian 6:10-12

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

One of the hardest things to comprehend as saved people is the depth of evil around us. Most of us who are saved never understood the depth of our own sinfulness until we were saved. When the Holy Spirit moves in and begins to shed light on our dark areas or secret sins, our motives and the like, then we can begin to scratch the surface of how sinful we are. But men are evil, all of us, and the longer one lives without Jesus, the eviler and more susceptible to evil one becomes.

Since the pandemic came front and center to the eyes of the world, and then on top of that, the WOKE agenda that is working to take over the world, we saw, many of us for the first time, the true global reach of evil. Overnight, we saw that people could become the agents of the state and the enemies of their loved ones. We saw that people can hate you simply for having a different opinion, and we saw that truth was pushed aside in submission to feelings.

It was clear to those who could see what we are learning now that the vaccines were dangerous, that the pandemic was not as dangerous as was being promoted, and that this was a test to find out who could and could not be controlled.

We saw firsthand that a person who was your friend one day could hate you the next, simply over the belief of what was going on. Families were divided, homes divided, churches divided, friends divided, and countries divided.

Even now, the WOKE agenda continues to thrive in areas, and right now, our children are the target of their attacks. The desire to undermine the authority of the parent, and especially the fathers, is radical and forceful. All men, unless you are liberal, are bad. Even conservative gay men are dangerous, misguided, and not to be trusted.

We came to understand the global reach of the dark principalities we have spoken of here. All over the world, men and women of different ethnic backgrounds, different religions, different cultures, different languages, and different histories all began to believe and extol the same evil ‘virtues.’ They spoke almost the same words and phrases as if they had met, yet they did not know each other. Those of us who understand the scope of the evil in the world understood that this was a spiritual thing; the same evil power was evident in every government in the ‘free’ world; it seemed to frame the speeches and the laws that were made, and it still is.

We need to understand that there are serious enemies of the Lord who hate you and me, and they will stop at nothing to promote their agenda. The time may come and may already be here when we in North America who love and serve the Lord may find ourselves in grave danger.

Paul tells us that even though the people speaking are the faces that we tag, these are not the power. The real power is the principalities behind them. The faces change, people die, and new leaders get elected, but the rhetoric stays the same because the principalities behind them do not. When we get a leader who tries to go against the flow, he or she is branded as radical, racist, hateful, and the like. Those who speak the truth and point out the obvious flaws in the way that we are headed are hated and down cried by the others. They are square pegs in round holes, and the round holes are loud and violent. It will seem for a while that these principalities are winning. And in fact, for a long period of time, they have been winning. It may seem as if the ship is sinking and all may be lost.

We may begin to question if God is noticing and if he will come to help us. How much suffering will we have to endure before there is relief? That is an honest question that no one here can answer. The timing is in God’s hands and his alone. He has a plan that needs to be fulfilled, and nothing will thwart that. But there is some light that we can hold on to, some hope that will bolster us, and some insight that will help us in the dark days ahead.

Romans 3:38 reminds us that the principalities cannot stop God’s love:

“For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come…

Ephesians 1:20-21 reminds us that Jesus is already elevated above all principalities, “which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come.”

In Colossians 1:6, we find that these principalities are all created by Jesus and, as such, are subject to Him; they go as far as He allows and no further. “For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”

In Ephesians 3:10-11, we see that the local church reveals to these principalities what will happen; they may not believe it, but we know the truth; “to the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which He accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

And in Colossians 2:15, we find that Jesus has disarmed these principalities; they are in the death throes of their existence, and He did so at the resurrection. “Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”

It may not seem like it, watching from this side of eternity, but we have won. We have won the victory in Jesus. Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection won the war, killed the enemy, and destroyed the principalities of darkness. Hang on; the end is near. One day, these principalities will be revealed, no longer living in the shadows and no longer strong. Soon, they will bow before Jesus and then be ushered off into the Lake of fire forever, never to wreak havoc on mankind ever again (Revelation 20:11-15).

Even so, come, Lord Jesus. And as we wait, please help us to live for you in the light of the grave danger that we may face. Lord, please help me, help us not to deny you out of fear and pain. Lord, please help us not to bring shame on you.

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