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Country Life SDA Church

Eric Walsh

The War In Israel

There's been a lot going on in the world, and we want to really address and look at, prophetically, what all of this means, and where we as a church should be looking.

I got a call from someone outside of the country actually this week and they said that someone in their family who isn't attending church now saw some of the recent current events and said they want to know prophetically what's going on.

Our scripture reading again is taken from Ephesians chapter 6.

Ephesians 6 and verse 12 says, for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

Our message this Sabbath is entitled the war in Israel.

Father God, we thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

And more than ever Lord, I ask that you just make me a nail hammered in the wall by your Holy Spirit and on that nail Lord hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

I need not be seen or heard we need to hear a word from you Lord a prophetic word.

This is our prayer in Jesus's name, amen.

So within the last 2 weeks, we have seen escalation in war, not just in Europe, the war between Russia and Ukraine.

We then saw Israel do what has been described as a sneak attack on Iran.

And this has sent the world really into a tailspin.

Many are arguing that the world is now destabilized.

For the first time in many years, there is really a credible discussion around whether or not World War III could break out.

We know that Iran has allegiance with countries like North Korea and Russia and that that could lead to an alliance theoretically that would then possibly trigger such a war.

Of course on the other side Israel is strongly supported by the United States of America.

And I lived in Israel for a little while.

I can tell you, even way back when I was there, they have a military sophistication that is really unique in the world.

The Israelis believe that their survival is completely 100% predicated on their ability to not just fight a war and defend their country, but they must be able to win every war, every battle that they get in.

So everyone joins the military, I think he's at 18, and you have to serve for at least 2 years.

1 of my roommates at medical school, actually his family got him out of Israel so he wouldn't have to do that.

So he came to the United States and got out of it.

Well, you'd have to go all the way back to 1948, 4 years after the Second World War.

You would remember that during the Second World War there was 1 of the most horrible acts, I'll put it that way, and that's understating it, called the Holocaust, where over 6 million Jews were slaughtered in Europe.

If you, like me, read lots of books in high school.

1 of my favorite books was The Diary of Anne Frank.

If you read that book, I've actually been able to go to Amsterdam and see the house where she lived in and climb into some of those small spaces in the attic where they hid.

The Diary of Anne Frank tells you, and she mentions in the book, if you've ever read the book, she felt she was Dutch and not Jewish.

She couldn't understand what was happening.

What we've learned from the Holocaust is that the Jews of Germany and places like Holland were some of the most assimilated Jews in the world and yet this catastrophe happened to them.

It was prophetically significant because in Matthew chapter 24 and verse 6 Jesus says that at the end of time there'll be wars and rumors of wars and so the second the First and Second World Wars really speak to the fact that we were moving into a time when prophecy would be fulfilled.

We know from the 1260 year prophecy that in the year 1798, the time of the end began.

It's not a coincidence that within 50 years, 2 major wars happen, just as Matthew 24, 6 predicts.

But in 1948, Zionists, they're called today.

Really doesn't matter to us from an Adventist perspective.

But in 1948, a Jewish state was created in what was then before that called Palestine.

Now, if you go back and look, Jews and Arabs actually did live together there before the state was was was created.

You can take whatever side you want but most agree that it was offered to both sides to create a separate homeland and the Jews accepted the idea of 2 states and the Arabs did not.

Immediately in 1948 when the Jewish homeland was announced, multiple nations around them attacked Israel.

And Israel has basically been in some form of war on and off ever since and the highlights in 1967, 1972, we've seen them in the last 10 years.

But there was another spiritual significance because there were many Christians, especially evangelical Christians, in the United States and in Europe, who believed that the establishment of the nation of Israel itself was of utmost prophetic importance.

They believed that the existence of a Jewish homeland in the Holy Land was critically important.

In fact, this is speaking about the Balfour Declaration.

What happened is after World War I, the former Ottoman Empire collapsed, that's what nowadays Turkey, the Turkish Empire, it collapsed after World War I and if you remember from high school history, the Ottoman Empire was called the Old Man of Europe.

It collapsed and the British took over the area that is today, that is called Palestine, that area that is now under so much scrutiny.

1 of the guys who was involved in what would happen to that land was Lord Balfour, right?

And so the Balfour Declaration was made and that's how Israel came into existence.

Now, as Adventists, this becomes interesting.

Jeffrey Alderman wrote in the Jewish Chronicle the Balfour Declaration was born out of religious sentiment.

Arthur Balfour was a Christian mystic who believed that the Almighty had chosen him to be an instrument of divine will, perhaps as a precursor to the second coming of the Messiah.

Tom Segev, another Jewish writer, wrote, the Declaration was the product of neither military nor diplomatic interests, but of prejudice, faith, and sleight of hand.

The men who sired it were Christian and Zionist, and in many cases, anti-semitic.

Rabbi Danny Rich says, I am not arguing for Zionism as a Christian idea but it is very interesting point to make.

Many of the non-Jews who supported Zionism did so out of their Christian understanding of what was happening.

So this conflict comes on the heels, in my opinion as we'll talk about, a misunderstanding of prophecy.

So now a lot of times we go all the way back to Isaac and Ishmael to start this, and we can absolutely do that.

You can see where there was a split there, 1 child born of faith, 1 born of the flesh, and 2 great nations came out of it.

But this Balfour Declaration is the cause of why so many are so angry.

Here you see people protesting in London over it.

A century of Balfour injustice, this 1 says.

At the 100 year anniversary, Palestinians argued against and protested the Balfour Declaration.

You can see they write on there the Balfour Declaration paved all these things.

Now not everybody agrees with this obviously if you sided Israel you don't agree with this but this was what was interesting.

So in that region a tension was created between the Arab states and the Jewish state.

It was like a constant stalemate war and multiple wars were fought.

What changed, as some of you are alive to remember this, was that in 1979 there was an Iranian revolution.

It led to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran.

And when he was overthrown, the people who took over or that pushed it were upset about political repression, economic inequality, and they really did not like Western influence in Iran.

People would go to the movies, people would watch Western movies, wear Western clothes.

And then this regime comes in, the Ayatollah Khomeini, and everything changes.

Some of you would also remember that it was that change that led to the Iran hostage crisis Ronald Reagan comes into power and Undone and it goes away leaving kind of a salty legacy on President Carter but that's where that comes from.

Because this 1 of the hallmark cries of this revolution And the regime that took over is that Israel does not have a right to exist.

And baked into this revolution was the idea that as part of our regime, we will end Israel.

If that is the rhetoric that Iran takes on in 1979 after Israel has already fought multiple wars since 1948 before 1979, imagine what that does to how Israel sees the world.

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The War In Israel

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