Dr. Bradford Reaves
Crossway Christian Fellowship
Hagerstown, MD
www.mycrossway.org
Prophecy Updates:
The Israel War (October 2023)
1 O God, do not keep silence; do not hold your peace or be still, O God! 2 For behold, your enemies make an uproar; those who hate you have raised their heads. 3 They lay crafty plans against your people; they consult together against your treasured ones. 4 They say, “Come, let us wipe them out as a nation; let the name of Israel be remembered no more!” 5 For they conspire with one accord; against you they make a covenant— (Psalm 83:1–5)
Antisemitism
Israel became a sovereign nation in 1948 when the United Nations officially recognized its existence. Immediately, Israel’s neighbors attacked the new nation, seeking to destroy it before it. The main difference between Israel and Palestine is that Israel is a nation, and Palestine is a geographical region. Palestine has never been a nation - ever.
Biblically speaking, Israel has every right to possess, occupy, and build homes on its land. All of those territories are well within the borders of the land that God promised to the nation of Israel. However, when the situation involves Israel, the international community has always been on the side of the Palestinians and Israel’s Arab neighbors. Why is this? Latent anti-Semitism and the powerful Arab influence in this part of the world.
Black Lives Matter - “We Stand with Palestine” (Graphics)
I believe the antisemitic rhetoric will increase, and support for Israel will dissolve.
Current Key Players in this war against Israel:
1. Iran
The Wall Street Journal reports Iran gave the final approval to the war waged by Hamas and Jihad last Monday in Beirut.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers have been working with Hamas to plan the air, land, and sea invasion since August.
Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of the political wing of Hamas, wrote to the president of Iran: “The battle on the Temple Mount is still at the beginning and will end in a decisive victory.”
The former French ambassador to the US claimed in an interview with the "Figaro" newspaper that Iran is behind Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel, and its goal is to destroy the Israeli-Saudi normalization agreement.
Iranian Newspaper Celebrates Hamas’ terror plot (picture from Iranian Newspaper)
2. Russia
Vladimir Putin blames Israel: “The Palestinian problem is in the heart of every Muslim and is considered an injustice. At the time of the establishment of the State of Israel, a Palestinian state was also supposed to be established, but this did not happen.
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, answered “no” to the question of whether Russia would recognize Hamas as a terrorist organization.
Russia's standing by the Palestinians in this war is the final stamp on the divorce papers between her and Israel. From this point on, expect hostilities from the Russian side that will culminate with the war we all know from Ezekiel 38-39!
3. Turkey
Turkish President Erdogan made an aggressive and scandalous statement against the Biden administration: The US is sending an aircraft carrier to Israel. What is it doing in Israel, what does it deserve to do? They will attack Gaza with their fighter jets and commit a massacre." He also accused that "when it suits our partner (the US), it trains terrorists."
4. Lebanon/Syria
Part of the growing northern front in Israel. Hezbollah will continue to attack Israel in the north. This will eventually lay Damascus to waste. Commanders from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards are already in southern Lebanon coordinating attacks. Lebanon's government says they are not sanctioning this. Yet they are allowing these people in their country and doing nothing to stop it!
5. Scriptural (Ezekiel 38)
In my opinion, this is the birth stage of the war talked about in Ezekiel 38. The names have changed, the demonic spirits behind them have not changed. Ezekiel 38 mentions a war that most biblically-based scholars agree is the final culmination that will bring about the 7-Year Tribulation. This war will happen just before or just after the Rapture of the Church.
The word of the Lord came to me: 2 “Son of man, set your face toward Gog, of the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him 3 and say, Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am against you, O Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. 4 And I will turn you about and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed in full armor, a great host, all of them with buckler and shield, wielding swords. 5 Persia, Cush, and Put are with them, all of them with shield and helmet; 6 Gomer and all his hordes; Beth-togarmah from the uttermost parts of the north with all his hordes—many peoples are with you. 7 “Be ready and keep ready, you and all your hosts that are assembled about you, and be a guard for them. 8 After many days you will be mustered. In the latter years you will go against the land that is restored from war, the land whose people were gathered from many peoples upon the mountains of Israel, which had been a continual waste. Its people were brought out from the peoples and now dwell securely, all of them. 9 You will advance, coming on like a storm. You will be like a cloud covering the land, you and all your hordes, and many peoples with you. 10 “Thus says the Lord God: On that day, thoughts will come into your mind, and you will devise an evil scheme 11 and say, ‘I will go up against the land of unwalled villages. I will fall upon the quiet people who dwell securely, all of them dwelling without walls, and having no bars or gates,’ 12 to seize spoil and carry off plunder, to turn your hand against the waste places that are now inhabited, and the people who were gathered from the nations, who have acquired livestock and goods, who dwell at the center of the earth. (Ezekiel 38:1–12)
The two things that must happen before the Ezekiel war:
1. America’s demise
2. The destruction of Damascus
We are on the brink of this massive world war.
Bible Study:
"When God Abandons Society - Part 2" (Romans 1:18-32)
We are here again at our study in the Book of Romans and a second part in Romans 1:18-32, which I am calling “When God Abandons Society.” What I mean by this is not that God goes away or stops answering the prayers of those who call on Him for salvation. I do not mean that God’s mercy comes to an end. What I do mean is what Paul plainly writes here in verse 25, which I am using as the thesis for this study: Romans 1:25
because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. (Romans 1:25)
That is, God’s wrath is real, and there comes a point in the life of a person or the life of a society that God says, if you refuse to repent and put your faith in Him, then He leaves you to the folly of your devices.
Now, last week, I told you that there are generally five kinds of wrath in the Bible:
1. The Eternal Wrath of God
They will suffer the punishment of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might, (2 Thessalonians 1:9)
2. The Eschatological Wrath of God
Secondly, the Bible talks about eschatological wrath, meaning the final judgment of God. The Old Testament writers like Joel speak of the Great Tribulation as the Day of the Lord (Joel 2:1-2). We studied in Revelation how the outpouring of the various judgments on the world was an expression of God’s eschatological wrath (cf. Revelation 19).
3. The Cataclysmic Wrath of God
Third, there is what is known as the cataclysmic wrath of God. We read about how God opened the earth at Korah in Numbers 16:18-25. You can see this against Pharoah in the Exodus 7-12. You see the Flood of Noah or how God stopped the rain in the days of Elijah. You can see it in Revelation. We see it today as well documented in Bill Koeing’s book Eye to Eye.
4. The Consequential Wrath of God
Then there is the consequential wrath of God. That is, the natural result of man's living against the laws of God. Colossians 3:25: “For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.”
5. The Abandonment of God
But I think the most common type of wrath in view today isn’t found in some ‘event’ (although that is definitely in the purview of God). Rather, I think the most common and alarming wrath is when God abandons man to his sin. In the Bible, we see this happen personally, culturally, nationally, and one day soon, it will come on a worldwide scale. Herein lies the heart of Paul’s message to the Romans.
This week, I want to circle back around and follow Paul a little more closely through these verses. Let’s read the whole passage together:
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. 24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. 28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them. (Romans 1:18–32)
Some years ago, the head of the department of evangelism for one of the largest denominations in America said,“We don’t need to evangelize the people of the world who have never heard the message of salvation. We only need to announce to them that they’re already saved.” (MacArthur) This person brings the idea that some universal salvation comes because of Jesus’ work on the Cross. In other words, the cross eliminated God’s wrath completely; some just don’t yet know that. Some teach that there is no such thing as God’s wrath.
This is part of the idea behind the false teachings of the Kingdom Now Theology and Replacement Theology. Paul makes it very clear that anyone can look to the world around them and see the need for Salvation. Additionally, Paul makes it very clear, as we will continue to see through our study of Romans, that the only way to Salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ. What Paul does here is brilliantly outline the very basics of what it means to be spiritually dead.
Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the land a desolation and to destroy its sinners from it. (Isaiah 13:9)
The Lord is a jealous and avenging God; the Lord is avenging and wrathful; the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries and keeps wrath for his enemies. 3 The Lord is slow to anger and great in power, and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty. His way is in whirlwind and storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet. (Nahum 1:2–3)
And if anyone will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that house or town. 15 Truly, I say to you, it will be more bearable on the day of judgment for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah than for that town. (Matthew 10:14–15)
Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others. But what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience. (2 Corinthians 5:11)
There are hundreds of verses in the Bible where God warns of his wrath against a sinful, unbelieving world. This is what should be behind the evangelistic urgency of the Church today. Instead, we have too many churches that are asleep. They’re more interested in entertaining the goats, making things comfortable, making things fashionable, or ‘relevant.’ When they should be preaching, ‘Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand.’ Now, with the war happening in Israel, some drowsy Christians are starting to wake up a little, but if things die, they’ll just go back to lazy, sleeping believers.
Some people will argue against God’s wrath because they say there are too many people who have never heard the gospel and died. How can God send them to hell? In reality, it is not that some people have not heard about God. Rather, the problem is that they have rejected what they have heard and what is readily seen in nature.
Here’s the biblical point behind this. The problem is not that man is out there awaiting revelation that will set them free; the problem is that the human heart has already rejected God and what they know to be true to follow after their evil desires.
But from there, you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find him if you search after him with all your heart and with all your soul.
No one understands; no one seeks for God. (Romans 3:11)
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. (Romans 1:19–21)
“Instead of debating the fate of those who have never heard, we, as Christians, should be doing our best to make sure they do hear. We are called to spread the gospel throughout the nations (Matthew 28:19-20; Acts 1:8). We know people reject the knowledge of God revealed in nature, and that must motivate us to proclaim the good news of salvation through Jesus Christ. Only by accepting God’s grace through the Lord Jesus Christ can people be saved from their sins and rescued from an eternity apart from God.
If we assume that those who never hear the gospel are granted mercy from God, we lose our motivation for evangelism. We also run into a terrible problem. If people who never hear the gospel are automatically saved, then it is logical to make sure no one ever hears the gospel—because then there would be a chance they will reject it and be condemned.” (GotQuestions.org). The point is that man is already condemned.
One of the main ways a man can begin to know God is through creation. We know that everything about God is fully good and just, even His wrath. The reason God can reveal His wrath against the pagans is not because they’ve rejected the Gospel but because they’ve rejected God completely. “Because that which can be known about God is plain to them; because God has shown it to them.” How? “For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world” (vv.19-20)
In other words, creation manifests God. There is a great story of Helen Keller, the deaf, mute, and blind woman. Absolutely no capacity to communicate until Anne Sullivan spent hours upon hours, days upon days, and months upon months to unlock communication. And when Anne attempted to tell Helen Keller about God, she responded, “I already know about Him. I just didn’t know His name.”
Even in Athens, as Paul preaches to the Pagan society points out they have an altar to an unknown god. They knew there was a God, but they couldn’t define Him. They were too self-focused on all their other false gods.
For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. 24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25 nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. (Acts 17:23–25)
The very essence of creation, Paul says, isn’t ambiguous to the existence of God. It screams of His glory. Stand on the shores of the Pacific Ocean, take a train ride through the mountains of Alaska, sit in the forest of the Appalachians, go snorkeling in the coals of the Caribbean, and look up at the sky in the mountains of the Rockies. Look at the pedals of a flower or the honey bee collecting its pollen. Everywhere you go on this earth, God’s majesty is plainly seen.
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. (Psalm 19:1)
He who planted the ear, does he not hear? He who formed the eye, does he not see? (Psalm 94:9)
Have you ever heard of the archer fish? It gets its food like all other fish. It just swims around, and opens its mouth, and takes its food. But they can fire drops of water with great accuracy and knock insects out of the air.
There are, on average, 1,800 storms in operation at any time, and the energy expended in these storms amounts to 1,300,000,000 horsepower. A large Caterpillar excavator has 420 horsepower, requiring 100 gallons of fuel a day. How much fuel does God have to operate storms with a horsepower of one 1,300,000,000 every day?”
For it to rain, 4 inches over an area of 10,000 square miles would require burning 640 million tons of coal to evaporate that much water. And to cool the vapors again to collect them in clouds would take another 800 million horsepower of refrigeration, working night and day for 100 days. God does it in the very essence of nature without any needed man-made intervention.
The earth is 25,000 miles in circumference. It weighs six septillion 588 sextillion tons, hangs in empty space, spins at 1,000 miles an hour with perfect precision so that time is kept to a split second, and at the same time careens through space around the sun in an orbit of 580 million miles at 1,000 miles a minute.
The human heart size of your fist weighs less than half a pound. Your heart pumps 1800 gallons of blood a day. Your heart does enough work in 12 hours to lift 65 tons 1 inch off the ground.
(Illustrations excerpted from John MacArthur on Creation)
In past generations, he allowed all the nations to walk in their own ways. (Acts 14:16)
In other words, the very goodness of life speaks of the goodness of God; the food, the rain, the seasons, and the joy of living all speak of a beneficent, loving, gracious Creator. So Palestinian terrorists do not need someone to tell them that kidnapping and murdering babies, women, children, and innocent civilians is wrong and not the way to prove their point; they already know that, and they already know they are manifesting evil. They are living in the debased minds, and God has abandoned them to that as part of His wrath on their unbelief.
They already know God. They’ve chosen to reject him for a God of their own liking for their own motivations driven by a long and demonic past that says they want to wipe Israel from the face of the planet.
“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. (Zechariah 12:2)
Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. 15 Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.... 18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, 19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. (Revelation 22:14–15; 18-19)
