Apostolic Life in the 21st Century
Apostolic Life in the 21st Century
Israel, Hamas, and Bible Prophecy
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On October 7, 2023, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack on the nation of Israel, killing approximately 1,400 Israelis and kidnapping 241 hostages (https://bit.ly/473w8sN). Israel retaliated with an invasion of Gaza intended to rescue the hostages and destroy Hamas. The conflict continues to rage more than a month after the initial attack, resulting in a humanitarian crisis among the more than two million residents of the Gaza Strip.
In this episode, Dr. David K. Bernard explains the roots of this conflict and how it fits biblical prophecies of Israel's role in the end times.
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On October 7th, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a brutal surprise attack on the nation of Israel. More than a month later, Israel and Hamas are engaged in a bloody struggle in Gaza. Does this conflict have prophetic implications? Dr. David K. Bernard's response is coming up next. Welcome to Apostolic Life in the 21st Century, a podcast dedicated to helping modern-day believers live out the teachings of the first century church. This podcast is part of the teaching ministry of Dr. David K. Bernard. Dr. Bernard has dedicated his life to studying the Bible and helping believers apply its message to their daily lives. In Apostolic Life in the 21st century, Dr. Bernard answers your questions about what the Bible teaches and how those teachings apply to everyday life. If you enjoy this podcast, we encourage you to check out Dr. David K. Bernard's books. Dr. Bernard has written more than 30 books on biblical theology and Christian living and leadership. Visit Pentecostalpublishing.com and search David Bernard for a list of available titles. Enter promo code DKB10 at checkout to save 10% on your order. That's Pentecostalpublishing.com. Promo code DKB10 to save 10% at checkout. Thank you for joining us. Our audience members are undoubtedly well aware that in early October, the Palestinian militant group Hamas launched an attack on Israel, a very brutal attack. Over 1,400 Israelis were killed. And of course, Israel retaliated. And as of the recording of this podcast, they had actually launched, I believe, a limited ground invasion of Gaza. So the question people are asking is: how does this specific event fit into Bible prophecy? I think that's a question that comes up anytime Israel's involved in any sort of armed conflict. But do you see this as in any way as the fulfillment of Scripture? And if so, how?
SPEAKER_01I would say this specific event is not necessarily fulfillment of Scripture. However, what's happening now in the Middle East does show us how the end time could easily wrap up. So let me give you a little bit of historical background before I go back to the Bible. First of all, uh Israel, or maybe the area of Palestine in the early 20th century, was under the oversight of the United Kingdom, the British government. Palestinians lived there who were Arabs, and also some Jews lived there. The British government had a policy of allowing Jews from Europe to go back to Palestine, their ancestral homeland. And then, of course, World War II created the Holocaust, in which six million Jews were killed, and great numbers of uh great populations throughout Europe were decimated. And so the United Nations uh said that it would establish Israel as a nation. That took place in 1948. So at that time, you had Jewish communities, you had Palestinian communities living in very close um proximity. And so they kind of carved out an area that would be for the state of Israel. Well, the day that Israel announced its independence and the United Nations, including the U.S. recognized Israel as a nation, seven Arab nations attacked to destroy it, to eliminate Israel, to kill the Jews, to throw them into the sea, and reestablish Arab control over the entire region of Palestine, even though many Jews had lived there for centuries and had come back for decades. And sadly, many of the Palestini Arabs, there was an announcement by these Arab nations that were attacking, flee your area, leave, uh evacuate so that we can destroy the whole area. Um and so many Palestinians fled thinking that in a few days they would come back and they would establish sovereignty over the land. Well, against the odds, the infant Jewish nation uh fended off the attacks, defeated the invading armies, and then they uh not only secured their own territory, but additional territory, because actually the main area is only probably like a hundred miles long, and in some places 30, 40, 50 miles wide. So you're not talking about a huge amount of territory, and to defend these little enclaves and defend the borders is very difficult. So uh when Israel uh expelled these invading armies and secured its borders, well, it adjusted some of those borders to protect its own people, and so some additional Palestinians were forced out into other areas. So they went into, and they already did live, into the strip known as the Gaza, also uh area known as the West Bank, and many went across the Jordan River into what is now the country of Jordan. Uh but the these various Arab nations, including Egypt and Jordan, did not want the Palestine Arabs to permanently live there. They wanted to push them back to where they'd evacuated. So many of them had fled of their own accord or at the instigation of the neighboring Arab nations who invaded. Uh so that created the situation that exists now. In 1967, there was the Six-Day War, which many of these same Arab nations attempted to attack Israel again. Israel was able to win a lightning victory in six days, and they conquered the Arab part of Jerusalem. They conquered the West Bank and they secured their borders. They conquered the Golan Heights, which is the high ground overlooking the nation of Israel, because without that high ground, which was occupied by Syria, it would be difficult to defend against artillery coming right down into Israel. So anyway, that set the borders that exist today. But still, the Palestini Arabs, now there are many Arabs that live in Israel, that are Israeli citizens. In fact, there is an Arab, predominantly Arab party in the parliament, the Knesset. Um, but uh Israel still controls uh the West Bank and Gaza, where uh millions of a couple millions of Arabs live. And uh Israel has overseen that, but allowed them to set up their own government. The idea was that they would have a democracy. And of course, all these years, the international community, including Israel, has been working on a two-state solution. So could you have the state of Israel with its borders, but could you also have a Palestinian state that would be completely sovereign, that would be a democracy that would control its territory? And over the years, um, the U.S., the UN, and even Israel has proposed some sort of solution, but to date, the Palestinian Arabs have rejected any kind of two-state solution. Their official position is eliminate the state of Israel. And in fact, the protests in recent um weeks have said, from the river to the sea, Palestine shall be free. What that means is they want to completely wipe out Jews, presumably either kill them all or expel them and send them somewhere else. And they want the entire area to be exclusively for Palestinian Arabs. Now, so that's the background that we're facing. And then there was the uh the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the holiest day of the year, the Day of Atonement. Again, some of these Arab nations attacked Israel. This time Israel was caught by surprise and came within a hair's breadth of losing. In fact, uh from the north, there's an area called the Valley of Tears, which the Israeli tanks fought off the Syrians. I think they came down to, if I remember correctly, only 13 tanks left before they stopped the advance. And of course, the Arabs didn't know how many they had left, but they came that close to breaching the line, which they could have then invaded Jerusalem and uh wreaked habitat, if not destroyed the whole nation. So it's from that perspective that we see what's going on. So I would make a few comments. First of all, I believe Israel has a right to exist. Number one, I believe biblically uh God has given that um that area to Israel. Doesn't mean that Palestine shouldn't have a nation or Arabs shouldn't live in Israel or in the West Bank or whatever. I'm not making a comment on that. I just say Israel has a right to exist as a nation. And uh that's international law as well. Therefore, I think Israel has a right to defend itself. That doesn't mean we have to say that everything the Israeli government does is right. That doesn't uh that doesn't mean we don't care about the lives of Palestinians, and that doesn't mean we shouldn't um ask for as many safeguards as possible to protect civilians. The sad thing is Gaza is controlled by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization. There's no democracy, there's no voting on them, and they use civilians as shields. They build their command centers and their rocket launchers right where civilians are. So when you try to eliminate those, they're unavoidable civilian casualties. So should Israel take every effort to try to minimize those casualties, obviously. So we can uh we can debate or question the policies, the procedures. Um in fact, from a church perspective, we have our own United Pentecostal members who are Israelis, who are Palestinians, uh in the West Bank and in Gaza. So uh, and we have uh across the world in Arab nations and Muslim nations, we have many churches. So we're not uh promoting Jews versus Arabs or Arabs versus Jews or Muslim communities versus Jewish communities or Israel versus Gaza or versus Palestine. We we support all those people from all those backgrounds. We want to see them all protected. We want to have the gospel freely preached and churches established and operate freely in all those areas. So our interest is not just one nation, our interest is peace in the whole Middle East. So that's our background, that's our position. Um, so in that sense, we're pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli, the people. We want to see them safe and secure. And actually, to this point, Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East. So we think that's valuable to protect and preserve. And I didn't do a count, but there are probably 30 Arab nations. There's only one Jewish nation. So the idea that we would eliminate one Jewish nation uh in favor of um one more Arab nation, I don't think that's tenable. I as again, I think there could be some sort of two-state solution, as it's called, where the state of Israel exists and the state of Palestine exists in peace and harmony and uh respecting and helping one another. That would be the goal. Now, having said that, if you read the book of Ezekiel, the book of Daniel, and the book of Revelation, what you'll find in the end time that Israel will exist as a nation, that armies from the north, there will be an international coalition of armies from the north, and they will come down and they will invade Israel, and there will be a figure that we often call the Antichrist, the man of sin, the beast of revelation, that will be the leader, and he will seemingly be Israel's friend and promote peace, but then he will turn against Israel. He will demand to be worshiped, he will have a world government. Uh, it may not be successful in conquering the whole world, but he will have a world government system that he's trying to implement. He'll have a world economic system that he's trying to get everybody to submit to, and he'll have a world religious system with a false prophet. And so he's using these mechanisms to control the whole world. But Israel will stand against him. And so uh they will not accept this. And so he will come to invade them, and there will be this great valley in the great battle in the valley of Armageddon, and he will seemingly be at the point of conquering Israel when Jesus Christ will return to earth and defend uh Israel. And at that time, Israel as a whole will recognize Jesus Christ as their Messiah, and that will usher in the millennial kingdom. That's what we read when we put together the prophecies. Also, the book of Zechariah would have some relevance here. So that's the big scheme that we see of the end time events wrapping up. So when will that happen? We don't know. But over generations, we believe this is going to happen someday. But in past generations, we couldn't really see how that would happen. So before 1948, there was no nation of Israel. From the time of the second century when Rome destroyed the nation and scattered the Jews across the world and throughout Europe until 1948, there was no actual nation of Israel where all this could happen. And as far as a world government, a world economic system, we couldn't really see how that would happen. Now, with computer technology, the internet, chips, and you know, digital currency, you could actually see how such a system could easily be implemented in a relatively short time. And with video technology, the whole world being able to see images, you can see how the prophecies of revelation could be fulfilled in detail, whereas past generations could proclaim it, but we couldn't explain technologically or politically or economically how that could actually be implemented. Now we could see these prophecies could be implemented almost overnight. And so I don't see that this particular conflict between Israel and Hamas is a direct fulfillment of a particular prophecy of Scripture, but I do see the concept of the nations of the world, and you look at the ancient nations that are listed in the Bible, the modern counterparts would be Persia or Iran, Turkey, Russia, China. So these are actually the very nations, and they are speaking against Israel. And what's shocking from our perspective in North America is that so many people are supporting terrorism, supporting Hamas, even on our own college campuses. So before we would think, well, the U.S. and Europe would stand solidly against any form of terrorism and would stand solidly for Israel's right to exist. But perhaps for the first time since the Nazis, you have significant portions of people in the West, and in many cases, they're immigrants from Arab and Muslim nations or descendants of immigrants. But for the first time since World War II, you have significant voices in the West, in the U.S., saying Israel should be eliminated from the earth and terrorism against Israel is justified and should be celebrated. Well, that's shocking, but that's something that didn't that we couldn't have imagined 20 years ago in America, for example. So that lets you know, you know, in the past we would say, well, if if a world coalition has tried to come against Israel, well, the U.S. and Europe would counteract that. Well, now we're seeing maybe not so. And even if we did, uh, we may not be very strong. We may not have many allies. So actually, we're now in a position of seeing these military prophecies could be fulfilled in a short period of time. We could wake up with the news that a coalition of armies from all the world are now coming against the tiny nation of Israel. And, you know, from a geographical perspective, Israel is a very small nation. It's an important nation, but it it's not a world power. So just in the abstract, why would there be a world conflict over this small piece of territory? It doesn't make sense economically or politically, but it makes sense in terms of Bible prophecy. So that's the big takeaway, is that I see this conflict showing us that the Bible's prophecies could come to pass in our day. And we now see, maybe for the first time, how how and why this could happen almost overnight. So that is a sobering thought. I I will say this we should not live in fear and dread of the end time. If we're filled with the Holy Spirit, if we're called by the name of Jesus, then the Bible says, um, look up, for your redemption draweth nigh. So whatever happens in the world, we're not looking for the Antichrist, we're looking for Jesus Christ. And whatever our particular interpretation of prophecy, we can have faith in God that God has a plan for his people in the end time.
SPEAKER_00Thank you for listening to this episode of Apostolic Life in the Twenty First Century. If you enjoy this podcast, please take a moment to give us a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. We also appreciate it when you share Apostolic Life in the 21st century with a friend or family member. And make plans to join us again next time as we look at how the Bible applies to everyday life.