World News Through the Third Lens: Israel Again!

Jerusalem - Israel OK's 1100 new East Jerusalem settlement homes. (msnbc.com news service) US calls building in area coveted for 'Palestinian Capital' counter-productive to peace talks. The US also said that this move will complicate an international effort to diffuse the crisis caused by the Palestinians bid for statehood recognition at the UN. According to US State Department spokesperson, Victoria Nuland, this is "counterproductive to our efforts to resume direct negotiations between the parties and we have long urged both parties to avoid actions which could undermine trust, including Jerusalem, and we will continue to work with parties to try to resume direct negotiations."

Through the third lens of Scripture - I know this is the second time in a row that the topic of this blog has been Israel and Jerusalem, but because this is the epicenter of God's end-times fulfillment of so many prophetic promises, it probably will not be the last. Scripture has so much to say about this, but I will try to be succinct here.

Jerusalem will be a problem to the nations until God finally says "No more!" "Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. 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" (Zechariah 12:2-3).

In Luke's account of the Olivet discourse, a long and short term implication is given concerning Jerusalem when Jesus said, "And they will fall by the edge of the sword, and be led away captive into all nations. And Jerusalem will be trampled by Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled" (Luke 21:24). The first part of this statement was fulfilled in A.D. 70. The latter part has been on-going ever since. Even since 1967 Jerusalem has not been completely under Israeli control, especially the Temple Mount.

Again we read, concerning the temple and its courts (located in Jerusalem), "But leave out the court which is outside the temple, and do not measure it, for it has been given to the Gentiles. And they will tread the holy city underfoot for forty-two months" (Revelation 11:2). So Israel, and Jerusalem in particular is a problem for the world. So much so that the US appears more troubled by the construction of homes in this area that it is by the continued rocket attacks against Israel (even in land defined as pre-1967). Irrationality flows through the issue like a water through a 5" hose. Yet........

Peace will come. I don't know how much more volatile the situation must become before peace is so desired that it will finally be accepted as brokered by the man of Daniel 9:27 and Revelation 6:2. This is what we are to be looking for. When? I don't know, but I suspect soon. According to 2 Thessalionians 2:3 this individual will not be revealed until the middle of the 7 year peace treaty, so there is no use trying to guess his identity now.

I only urge the saints, in the middle of everything else that you do to fulfill the purposes God has for you, to keep an eye on Israel. She is God's prophetic time clock, and as we do so, we shall not be ignorant of the "times and seasons" (1 Thessalonains 5:1).