They Will Not Win

 

            And so the war between Israel and Hamas wages on, the seventy two hour cease-fire did not solve a thing as Hamas began to fire their rockets at Israeli cities again on Friday. At the exact time the seventy two hour cease fire was officially over the rockets began to fly through the air with dozens more following. This action by Hamas does not surprise me, they hate the Jewish people and their desire is to eradicate every Jew and take the land of Israel and claim it as their own; this is what they live and breathe to do. Just this past Friday an official from the Palestinian Authority posted on Facebook a call for the Arabs to drive Israel into the sea (1). Why should this rhetoric by the Palestinian leaders surprise anyone, especially those who hold pro-Hamas rallies in Europe, the US, and Canada? Do these people even know the history behind this land; I assume that most of them do not because of their placards that call for Israel to free Palestine. Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and many others who border the land of Israel and are in fact their neighbours, want to eradicate the Jew and confiscate their land. What kind of neighbours are they anyway? They have an agenda and they mean to carry it out; no cease-fire is going to stop their plans.

            The bible mentions the Palestinian people in the book of Psalms, and it mentions how their main goal is to destroy the Jewish people and confiscate their land; yes it is Israel’s land. God gave the Jewish people the geographical territory they now possess this present day and even more of the extended geographical territory surrounding their borders. God made a covenant with Abram before he changed his name to Abraham—father of many nations—and promised that he would give to him and his descendants the land from, “the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates” (Gen.15:18, KJV). He then proceeds to add to this territory by giving to Abram and his descendants the geographical areas in verses nineteen through twenty one, these areas along with the area of the river of Egypt, which is the Nile River, to the great river Euphrates, encompass every inch of the land that Israel possess today, including the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, along with portions of Egypt, Iraq, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and also included is all of Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

            God said to Abraham—after he changed his name from Abram—that he would give to him and his descendants the whole land of Canaan (2) as an everlasting possession (Gen.17:8). The Lord later confirmed to Isaac that he will give these same lands to him and his descendants just as he promised his father (Gen.26:2-4), then he appeared to Jacob—whom the Lord later named Israel—and passed on this same promise to him and his children (Gen.28:10-14; 35:9-13). The Lord reassures Joshua that he has given this land to the descendants of Jacob—Israel—and that he must go now and possess it (Jos.1:1-4). The people who now claim that Israel is occupying their land, the Palestinians, led by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, were never promised and given this land by God, but only the descendants of Israel through Jacob, through Isaac, through Abraham. Ishmael and his descendants, the son of Abram by the Egyptian maidservant Hagar, and Esau and his descendants, the twin brother of Jacob, were never partakers of this promise.

            The men in charge of Hamas, and the people who lead the Palestinian Authority, cannot seem to find it in their hearts and minds to end their conflict with Israel. They will not stop until they have reached their goal of wiping Israel off the face of the map, they will not even recognize Israel as a sovereign nation. The want the land and they despise the Jew so much that they will not stop until every last Jew is wiped out. The Psalmist, Asaph, saw this conflict nearly three thousand years ago and writes down what he saw as he was led along by the Spirit of God in Psalms, chapter eighty three. He saw how these enemies of Israel are very cunning as they conspire against the people living in Israel (Ps.83:3), he maybe saw the sophisticated tunnels that Hamas engineered under the earth to attack Israel. They say they want to completely destroy Israel so that even the name of Israel will be forgotten (Ps.83:4).

            Asaph saw in his vision more nations and people groups, than just the people who drive Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, who are dedicated to completely destroying Israel, but nonetheless Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are included in this list and are mentioned in verse seven being listed as the descendants of Philistia. All the descendants listed in these verses want to destroy Israel and confiscate their land, but right now the ones who are making the headlines are the people who reside in the Gaza Strip, the descendants of Philistia, Hamas and the Palestinian Authority, and all their Arab supporters.

            Asaph prays and writes that God will not let them away with this violence against his people, he says to make them, “like tumbleweed; Like chaff before the wind” (Ps.83:13, HNV). He asks the Lord to make them ashamed of what they desire to do to Israel so that men will seek the Lord (Ps.83:16), and that they “be disappointed and dismayed forever. Yes, let them be confounded and perish” (Ps.83:17, HNV). I can see from these predictions that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are putting themselves in jeopardy if they continue in their attempts to eradicate the Jews—this goes for any of the other groups who choose to destroy the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.   

 

(1) http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/183854#.U-ZDIJt0yM9

(2) http://www.bible-history.com/map-israel-joshua/

 

 

The Third Temple Defiled

 

            In an online article in the news magazine called, Israel Today (a news agency based in Jerusalem), Ryan Jones writes a very interesting article on how peace in the Middle East will be achieved, and the way peace is to be achieved is to rebuild the Third Temple (1). He writes that this idea comes from an Israeli organization that is committed in rebuilding the Third Temple called the Temple Institute (2). This organization believes that long lasting peace will come to the Middle East, and presumably Israel in particular, if people will rally and donate to the Temples construction, thereby making history (3).

            The people at the Temple Institute have prophetic notions in their quest to rebuild the Third Temple because Scripture does attest that it will be rebuilt (Rev.11:1-2), and the Temple will be a focal point in the final seven years of the four hundred ninety years decreed upon Israel (Dan.9:24, 27), but the focal point on the Third Temple will not be what the members of the Temple Institute have in mind. They have in mind that the Third Temple will be a place where people will find tranquility and peace, and where people will come from all over the world as a pilgrimage (3), but the bible writes a different story.

            The bible has predicted that the Third Temple will be rebuilt (Rev.11:1-2) and that time is very soon, as it will be rebuilt in time for the man of sin to go into it and desecrate it just as Antiochus Epiphanes went into the Second Temple and defiled it, circa 168 BC, by erecting a pagan alter and sacrificing a sow pig on it. Antiochus took the blood of the sow pig and sprinkled it throughout the Temple sanctuary thereby making the sanctuary unclean. This act of desecration was prophesied to the Prophet Daniel by the one who looked like a man dressed in linen as he was standing on the bank of the Tigris River; at this time the daily sacrifice ended for a period of time (Dan.10:4, 18; 11:31).

            There will be another desecration to the Temple, this being the Third Temple, which will also bring an end to the daily sacrifice just as it did when the Second Temple was desecrated. This desecration cannot happen of course until the Third Temple is rebuilt which will be rebuilt I assume by the Temple Institute in Israel. This second desecration was also revealed to the Prophet Daniel (Dan.8:13; 9:27; 12:11) and was also mentioned in the gospels by Jesus (Matt.24:15; Mk.13:14). This desecration is prophesied to happen in the middle of Israel’s seventieth week period (Dan.9:24-27) which is better known to most Christians as the seven year tribulation period (Matt.24:9, 21, 29; Mk.13:19, 24; Rev.7:14), and the hour of trial (Rev.3:10), it is even referred to as the wrath to come (1Thess.1:9b-10; 5:9-10). During this time period God will reveal his anger toward the unbelieving inhabitants of the earth prior to the second coming of Jesus Christ from heaven (Matt.24:27, 30; Rev.19:11-14).

            As said above the Second Temple was desecrated by Antiochus Epiphanes as prophesied (Dan.11:31), but the Third Temple will be desecrated by a man know as the “the man of sin” (2Thess.2:3, HNV). This man of sin is the man whom the world will announce as the leader of the one world government and he is the individual who is prophesied riding on a white horse who goes forth to conquer the world (Rev.6:2), he is also referred to in Scripture as the first beast (Rev.13:1-8)—this man is commonly referred to as the Antichrist (1Jn.2:18; 4:3). This man of sin will desecrate the Third Temple in the middle of the seven year tribulation period (Dan.9:27; 11:36), and this act is where we get the phrase “the abomination of desolation” (Matt.24:15, HNV) mentioned by Jesus in his Mount of Olives discourse. This beast will go into the rebuilt Third Temple and will exalt himself even above the Lord God Almighty (2Thess.2:4) and by this act will defile the Temple.

 

(1) http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/24821/Default.aspx

(2) https://www.templeinstitute.org/

(3) https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/build-the-third-temple--3