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Hasten The Day!
2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance. 10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. 11 Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, 12 looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? 13 Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. [See Table of Contents for all End-Time Prophecies covered here, best viewed on a big screen]
Prophecies Happening NOW
THE WHOLE WORLD WILL BE AGAINST ISRAEL
Zechariah 12:1-3 - The Coming Deliverance of Judah
Zec 12:3 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: 2 “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. 3 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.
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Zechariah 14:1-2 – The Day of the Lord
Zec 14:1 Behold, the day of the Lord is coming,
And your spoil will be divided in your midst.
2 For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem;
The city shall be taken, The houses rifled, And the women ravished.
Half of the city shall go into captivity, But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
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Jeremiah 30:14 – Restoration of Israel and Judah
Jer 30:14 All your lovers have forgotten you; They do not seek you;
For I have wounded you with the wound of an enemy,
With the chastisement of a cruel one,
For the multitude of your iniquities, Because your sins have increased.
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Ezekiel 38-39 – Gog and Allies Attack Israel
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No one comes to the aid of Israel – God alone fights the battle for Israel.
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The most that any nation does is question the purpose of the attacking alliance.
Are we inching our way towards the fulfillment of Zechariah 12?
Jerusalem has been at the very center of religious, historical and geopolitical tensions for a long time. With the recent move of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, it seems that fuel has once again been added to the fire already consuming the Palestinians with humiliation, or so would the media like us to believe. Some countries have welcomed the US embassy move and some have even announced their subsequent moves in the next few weeks. Honduras, Paraguay, Guatemala, the Czech Republic and Romania have all announced their plans to move forward with a relocation. While much of the world sees this as a defiant move, Israel welcomes the decisions of the few international friends she has. There will be more.
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The move of the US embassy, had it been in any other country on the planet would have garnered no interest from anybody. Generally speaking, people don’t care where an embassy is located and they agree that it should be in the capital of each respective country. When the capital is Jerusalem, and its legitimacy is questioned, a move becomes a thorn in the flesh of political correctness. The locating or relocating of an embassy really shouldn’t be newsworthy, but it seems that lately, anytime Israel or Jerusalem is mentioned, the world gets on edge.
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If nothing else, moving the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem shows that this current administration supports Israel AND recognizes Jerusalem as its capital, something that previous US administrations had alluded to at best. The United Nations General Assembly voted 128-9 (35 abstentions) in favor of condemning the upcoming move, even though US ambassador to the UN, Nikki Hailey vowed that the United States would remember those who voted against the move. This was done in the form of an attempt at rendering the “Trump decision” null and void. The 9 countries that voted against it were: Guatemala, Honduras, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Togo and the US.
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Then came the move to Jerusalem. President Trump chose the symbolic date of May 14, 2018, since Israel was declared a modern nation on May 14, 1948. Palestinian Authority and its close supporters declared that the move was counterproductive to any peace efforts. Simultaneously, Hamas tried to breach the Gaza/Israel border. These people flew kites with explosives over the border and sent terrorists mixed with civilians to cross to Israel. As it turned out, over 75% of the people killed at the border were terrorists. The days leading to the move to Jerusalem were supposed to be the “Palestinian March of Return” coinciding with the date of May 14th, considered by Palestinians as the Nakba or “catastrophe.” The results of the border breach attempt were far from what Hamas expected. There seems to be a “Palestinian narrative fatigue” going around, but don’t worry, the contempt for Israel will return before we know it. How is THIS helping with the peace effort?
As always, the media was extremely helpful in painting a picture promoting and vindicating a false narrative. The National Catholic Reporter boldly wrote that “Emboldened by embassy move, Israel unleashes on Palestinians.” making Israel sound like a murderous state killing harmless peaceful protesters. CNN reported, “The US opens new embassy in Jerusalem as dozens are killed in Gaza.” The article goes on to demonize Israel AND doesn’t show one picture of Palestinian terrorism. It only shows people looking desperate and trying to defend themselves, which is a far cry from reality. A few websites have the integrity to properly report the facts. One such outfit is honestreporting.com and they produced several short videos clearly exposing the lies of Hamas, and the denial of the media.
The 128 countries that drafted a resolution to render the decision to move the embassy “null and void,” are enemies of Israel and are not looking for peace in the Middle East. They have become co-conspirators of Hamas. While the resolution from the UN does not carry very much weight on the international scene an will likely not lead to a reversal of the embassy move, it is a symptom of something much deeper; it shows the world’s opinion on Israel. Over 75% of the countries of the world are ready to render the move null and void. They have spoken loud and clear, and the 35 that abstained, have spoken by their silence.
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There is an interesting prophecy in the Jewish Scriptures found in the prophet Zechariah 12:1-9. In it, we are told that at some point in future history, the whole world will turn against Israel. “Behold, I am going to make Jerusalem a cup that causes reeling to all the peoples around; and when the siege is against Jerusalem, it will also be against Judah….“It will come about in that day that I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples; all who lift it will be severely injured. And all the nations of the earth will be gathered against it.
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Bible students know that to be true. The day is coming when the whole world will turn against Jerusalem. 128 countries out of 193 is definitely a move in that direction. Somehow, even America will turn against Israel. We understand that even if a country corporately declares its hatred of Israel and the Jewish people, people of good faith do not have to follow suit. During the 30s and 40s, there were people who helped, protected and hid many Jews such as my mother. They were not Jewish, they risked their own lives and took no money to do so. Today, they are known as “Yad Vashem Righteous Gentiles” or “Gentiles Among the Nations.” All seems to indicate that the world is in need of a second generation of “Righteous Gentiles,” and they exist, I have met some of them.
We are indeed a lot closer to a fulfillment of Zechariah 12, but we must be humbly reminded of the end of that story in verse 9 “And in that day I will set about to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”
God will indeed have the final word!
Is the stage being set for the prophecy of Zechariah 12:3?
https://www.newantisemitism.com/antisemitism/is-the-stage-being-set-for-the-prophecy-of-zechariah-123
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Having been a follower of Yeshua for 37 years, I have often heard or even said that we are in the last days. To be sure, even 1st-century believers thought they were in the last days, and each day that passes puts us closer to the end of God’s program for mankind on this side of eternity. So, when people hear that we are in the last days, many of them, suffering from some sort of eschatological fatigue, roll their eyes and move on. Are those of us claiming that it is 11:59 at the eleventh hour just sensationalists? Are we overreacting and redirecting our focus on the less important at the expense of what matters in life? Frankly, it all depends on what our focus is being redirected to.
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I have always been a very literal, context-driven student of God’s Word. If God left us the Bible as His message to us on how to live and what to look forward to, we can look at it from different cultural vantage points, but we must agree that it contains the same truth for all mankind. We might not like some of the statements that the Bible makes, but that doesn’t give us the authority to declare that they are not the truth. When we survey God’s counsel, we are bound to find many prophecies fulfilled and more yet to be fulfilled. We must resist “newspaper exegesis”, but we need to honestly look at the news through a Biblical lens if we want to know where we are on God’s timeline of human history.
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Much of that timeline revolves around Israel as God has promised to never forsake Israel or allow for its destruction (Jeremiah 31:35-37). At a time when rockets are raining down on Israel by the hundreds, from a human perspective, the situation looks very bleak. While casualties are inevitable on both sides, God isn’t caught by surprise by the present conflict, and neither should those of us who take His word seriously. Satan’s demise clock is ticking quickly, and he is desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures and Satan finds, in most of the world, a plethora of willing executioners for his antisemitic agenda. Truth has long ceased to matter. Fact-checks are politically or socially motivated.
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If someone believes that they are contributing to social justice, multiculturalism and tolerance, they immediately feel like they are making a difference to improve the world we live in; even if it is at the expense of someone else, and in this case, as is too often the case, at the expense of Israel and the Jewish people.
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Not long after the tragedy of the Hyper Cacher Supermarket on the east side of Paris in 2015, Jeffrey Goldberg wrote a piece in The Atlantic that still resonates in my head. In it, he made a sobering statement that I was really hoping was inaccurate, but as it turns out, he might have been spot on. He wrote, ” The Shoah served for a while as a sort of inoculation against the return of overt Jew-hatred—but the effects of the inoculation, it is becoming clear, are wearing off. What was once impermissible is again imaginable. Memories of 6 million Jewish dead fade, and guilt becomes burdensome….Israel is coming to be understood not as a small country in a difficult spot whose leaders, especially lately, have been making shortsighted and potentially disastrous decisions, but as a source of cosmological evil—the Jew of nations.”
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What Goldberg saw six years ago, was the erosion of Europe’s compassion towards the Jewish people. I have long been a believer that what happens in Europe, and even particularly in France, is a good indication of what is coming to America. The barometer of the new antisemitism in Europe sets the temperature for what is coming to America. Since 1948–when Israel was reborn as a modern nation–antisemitism, which was localized mostly to Greater Europe, became a global virus. The tiny Jewish state gave anti-Semites a justification for a Jew-hatred that has now spread over the four corners of the world. The irrational conclusion has been that if Israel is guilty, by proxy, all Jews are as well. This could lead to the whole world hating the Jews…but wait, isn’t there a prophecy in the Bible about that?
The prophet Zechariah wrote, “Behold, I am about to make Jerusalem a cup of staggering to all the surrounding peoples. The siege of Jerusalem will also be against Judah. On that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves. And all the nations of the earth will gather against it.” (Zechariah 12:2-3). Mind you, this is a reference to the Campaign of Armageddon, and we are not there since this will be taking place during the final stretch of the Great Tribulation (Revelation 16:16, 19:19). Yet, we cannot afford to put our heads in the sand and ignore the signs of the times. None of this final chapter of mankind, hinging around Israel is going to happen in a vacuum, but rather, it will be progressive AND exponential. I believe that we are well on the way to that final Biblical curtain call, as the pressure is mounting against Jews worldwide. In the last week:
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In a recent conversation with the Pope, Turkish president Erdogan declared, “All of humanity should be united against Israel.” I wonder if he had any idea of how Biblical he was when he made that outrageous statement?
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Pro-Palestinian crowds gathered in Los Angeles and attacked Jewish diners as a result of the current conflict between Hamas and Israel.
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Pro-Palestinian crowds rallied in Westwood, CA demanding that Israel stop the airstrikes over the Gaza Strip. They didn’t ask for a ceasefire or for an end to the conflict, but just for Israel to stop defending itself.
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In New York, Jewish people were attacked by pro-Palestinian passing cars who threw fireworks at them, screaming “F…ing Zionists”. One Jewish person was burned.
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In Germany, people marched on the streets shouting “free Palestine for the Jordan to the sea” which is a euphemism for getting rid of all the Jews.
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In London, a group of cars drove through a Jewish neighborhood screaming, “F… the Jews, rape their daughters.“
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In Washington D.C., protesters gathered outside the Israeli Embassy and shouted “Free, Free Palestine” and declared that Israel had no right to exist.
As of this writing [05/21/21], Egypt brokered a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel. It is uncertain if that ceasefire will hold, but what is sure is that the hatred for Israel and the Jewish people seems to continue to grow on a global scale, preparing the way for an all-out war against the Jews. The Bible is clear, at some point, all the nations of the world will gather against Jerusalem, but that doesn’t mean that all people will follow suit. It is time for all Christians and people of goodwill to unite in rebellion against the real oppressor. For the last several decades, under the leadership of the new antisemitism, the Jews became the perpetrators, something that they never have been. Now is the time to reset our moral GPS because nobody in his right mind will find any moral equivalence between a country that uses weapons to defend its civilians and a group of people who uses civilians to hide their weapons.
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Maybe the days of Zechariah 12:3 are closer than we think?