Israel, Abraham, Ishmael & Conflict, Jimmy Draper & Jack D. Terry, Jr.

Jimmy Draper & Dr. Jack Terry address questions about the land of Israel and the current Hamas-Israeli war in relation to prophecy. They mention sources like Robert Jeffress, David Jeremiah, and James Dennison for further information. They discuss the prevalence of prophecy in the Bible and focus on Matthew 24. They mention the signs of the end times such as false prophets, wars, famines, and earthquakes. They talk about the labor pains analogy for the end times and the increase in lawlessness and violence. They mention that the gospel will be preached worldwide. They discuss the covenant God made with Abraham and the land given to Israel. They talk about Ishmael as Abraham's firstborn and his relationship to the Abrahamic covenant. They mention that Hamas is not directly mentioned in the Bible, but is part of the covenant through Ishmael. Hey, let me just thank you for letting us do this today. Actually, we probably should do this over two or three Sundays, and there's far more than we can cover in one class. I'm going to try to answer the questions that I have heard. A couple of questions. Did God give the land to Israel forever, or is Abrahamic covenant still good? And does the Hamas-Israeli war right now have a place in prophecy? So I'll try to answer that. Those are the only two that I've heard. Now, Brother Jack is still very active and is in charge of the institutional advancement at Southwestern Seminary, and we're very glad just to have him here, because he's been up his neck in alligators all month trying to end up the year with the kind of funds that they need. So I want to thank Brother Jack for that. Consequently, I'm going to do most of the talking probably this morning, but I'm going to kick us off, and then he'll come along, and I told him, whenever you get through, I'll finish up, so we'll see if that works. We're talking about prophecy today. Prophecy is found throughout the Bible. J. Barton Payne wrote a massive encyclopedia of biblical prophecy, where he concluded that 25% of the Bible is prophecy. Now, that's amazing. It's something like 8,000 some odd verses out of 32,000 or something, and it's amazing that prophecy is so general throughout the Bible. Now, at the very first, let me give you two sources. Robert Jeffress is now preaching through the last days at First Baptist Dallas. I thought he was going to write a book about it, but he's already written a book, and the book is called Are We Living in the End Times? It's a good book, and it'll give you a good, clear picture. David Jeremiah is another one. David, I love greatly. He came all the way from Fort Wayne, Indiana, just to attend the ordination of one of his preacher boys who came to seminary down here, and I did the preaching while he came, but he cared enough about to fly down here and be here, so I've always loved him. He is so clear and so simple, and he's written several, Book of Signs, The Great Disappearance, The World at the End. James Denison, and you all ought to subscribe to this, it doesn't cost you anything, has a Denison Forum, https://www.denisonforum.org/, that he puts a blog out five days a week, and he has written a book on this, and it's free. You can go online and download it. So those three sources will help you with questions that we may not get around to. But in the New Testament, one out of 30 verses deals with the Second Coming. One out of 30. Twenty-three of 27 books in the New Testament deal with the Second Coming. In the Old Testament, for every verse that deals with the birth of Christ, there are eight verses that deal with the Second Coming of Christ. So this is a dominant theme, and the part that we will anchor on today is Matthew 24. It is the Olivet Discourse. It's the longest, it's also in Matthew and Mark, but it's the longest of the discourses in Mark and Luke, and then John doesn't mention it at all. But Jesus made some suggestions in there about how we should respond. He pointed out as we get ready for the last days that you need to watch carefully because there are many false prophets that are going to appear. Many people will say that they have the answer to all the problems of the world. Many will be deceived. It will be a time of great deception. He told them there will be wars and rumors of wars and said don't be concerned because these things have to happen. So we know that there is going to be a time of great turmoil as nation rises against nation, and there is an incredible amount of war that takes place in the world. He talked about famines and earthquakes. Today, we have an incredible amount of people who are starving around the world. By the way, in Matthew 24, he likens the activities of the end times to a woman who is having labor pains. We know that a process has to take place. The pains come and then begin more frequently. Then the water breaks. There are a lot of things in the process of a woman giving birth. He says the whole earth is going to experience that. So in reality, what we have is the whole world is going to be in labor pains near the time of the coming of Christ. Lawlessness and violence will run rampant in the world. Many professing believers will get cold in their faith and abandon their faith. The only good news about all of this is that the gospel will be preached in all the world, Jesus said in Matthew 24:9-13. I will say this initially and some more comments in a little bit, that the current war between Israel and Hamas is consistent with the prophecy of Jesus in Matthew 24. A big question that I think we need to at least examine, did God give the land to Israel permanently? Is that to be their land? I'm going to save time by not reading all of these, but there are incredible amounts of references to the land that God gave. Genesis 13, 14, 15, the Lord said to Abram, look from the place where you are, look north, south, east, and west, I will give you and your offspring forever all the land that you see. And at this point, Israel does not have all the land that the scripture prophesies that it will have, but over and again you have the word forever. This covenant has not yet been violated. It has not been moved aside. It is still true today as it was then. Exodus talks about it, it says I'll set your borders at the Red Sea to the Mediterranean Sea from the wilderness to the Euphrates River. I will place the inhabitants of the land under your control. You will drive them out ahead of you, again promising a specific piece of land. Moses told the Jewish people that God gave them the land for all time, Deuteronomy 4:40. And he warned them in Deuteronomy 4:25-27, what they'd face if they turned away from God. And I personally believe that we're facing the results of the apostasy of America today. We are under God's judgment now, and it can only get worse. And he warned them what would happen if they rebelled against him, and he said he'll scatter you throughout all the nation, but he won't abandon you. Moses said when you turn back, you will search for the Lord your God and you will find him when you seek him with all your heart and all your soul. So we need to kind of put it in a context. We're in the time of Abraham, Abraham's covenant. And Brother Jack has put together some things about Abraham and Ishmael, and that fits very well right here. Well, the fact of the matter is Ishmael was Abraham's first son. He preceded Isaac. And you recall the story in chapter 15, 16, 21, 24, and 25 in the book of Genesis. And if you haven't read those in a while, it might be to your interest to go and read those chapters beginning in 15 and read all the way through 25. For in 25, Ishmael dies at 137 years of age, and he has done a lot of things that most of us do not know. In fact, because of my relationship and background with Judaism, I've done an intensive study on Judaism and Ishmael and his relationship. The one question that comes to us that has been asked here, is Hamas mentioned in the Bible? The first answer to that is Hamas as a group, no. Hamas as part of the Abrahamic covenant, yes. I want you to think about that. Because Ishmael was Abraham's firstborn. And if Abraham received the covenant in 15, chapter 15 in the book of Genesis, and it said to all of your children forever, it didn't say which wife may have the children. It said your children, Abraham's children. Abraham had children by many wives. Sarah was his real wife, but many times Sarah would give concubines to her husband in the event that he needed some help. Vis-a-vis, she gave to Abraham when she could not have children, an Egyptian slave who was her bondservant by the name of Hagar. And Abraham had laid with Hagar, and of course you know she conceived, and she bore a son. And that son is going to be called Ishmael when he is born. Now when Sarah gave Hagar to Abraham, she was not really considering the fact that she would become pregnant as quickly as she did. And when she did, Sarah became very angry with Hagar, because Hagar was kind of snooty and running around the house saying things about Sarah that Sarah didn't like. So she told Abraham to get rid of the slave woman who was pregnant. And you remember early in the 16th chapter, Abraham took Hagar out into the wilderness where God told him to leave her. She was pregnant, and he left her out there. And while she was there, an angel appeared to her, first of two angels that are going to appear to these people in the wilderness. Now when the wilderness is spoken of, Brother Jimmy just mentioned the fact that part of that wilderness was given to Abraham. In fact, if you look at a map, everything from the Mediterranean down to Egypt, go down on the other side of Mount Sinai, pick up that whole peninsula, which was called Paran, or which was called the wilderness, which was the desert now of Arabia. And you pick up that whole part, and you go all the way up to the Euphrates, go all the way across the top of Asia Minor, which is now Turkey, come down to Lebanon, all the way down to the sea. That's the land that God gave to Abraham. All of it. He said, this is to you and to your inheritance. Now ladies and gentlemen, Israel was part of his inheritance. In fact, that part of the land down to the south, which was Paran, and now the Arabian desert, which we now know as Saudi Arabia, and that particular piece of land was given to Abraham as well. Okay, come back. She's out in the wilderness. She's pregnant. She's run out of water. She knows she's going to die. An angel appears to her and says, Sarah, you're not going to die. I'm going to give you water, and you are to go back, and you are to submit to Sarah. Now, it's kind of interesting. Hagar comes and goes out of Sarah's house twice. She's run out of town twice, and this is the first time. She comes back, and she bears the child, and the child is named Ishmael, which means, by the way, God has hearkened to me. Ishma means hearkened or listened to. El means El. God has listened for me, and so his name was called God has listened for me or hearkened to me, and she named him Ishmael. It's kind of interesting. As Ishmael began to grow, all of a sudden born into that particular house was another little boy whose name was Isaac, and his mother was Sarah. You remember, as this other was being taken care of, and Ishmael was being born and growing up as a small child, all of a sudden there was another boy in the home, and his name was Isaac, and he was of Sarah. Now, you've got to put two things together, and they're very important in understanding Hamas and understanding the desert of Arabia and understanding Ishmael. The two things you have to put together is both of these boys have part of the inheritance, and both of the boys are going to get part of the inheritance. Now, we know immediately, because of our background in the Word of God, Isaac got all of what is called the Promised Land, but what you don't know is Ishmael got all of the wilderness, which was down towards the Red Sea and that area of Paran and that area going up to the Jordan River, and that was all of Ishmael's territory, which will be given to him later as they have to divide the boys because the boys are having difficulty. It says in the Scripture, in Genesis, it says that Ishmael, as Isaac was born and beginning to grow up, made all kinds of scoffing and snootiness toward Isaac. To such an extent, as he was growing up into his late 12 and early teenage years, he was so snooty to Isaac, and he was so ugly to Isaac, that Sarah said to Abraham, get rid of him, and Abraham took him back out into the wilderness vis-à-vis Paran, that area that goes down to the Red Sea that we call the Desert of Arabia, or Arabian Desert, and he took him out there, and out in that Arabian Desert, Abraham left him, and guess who appeared? An angel appeared, and an angel appeared to Ishmael, and he said to Ishmael, fear not, for I will care for you, I will give you water. Now, he's in the middle of the Arabian Desert, and there's no water. He said, I will give you water, and I will care for you, and your nation shall be a nation, now watch this one, shall be a nation of princes, of male princes. Now, ladies and gentlemen, a prince is not born to a commoner. A prince has to be born to royalty. I thought this was Abraham's kid. It was, but it was also Hagar's kid. Now, fast forward just a few chapters in the Book of Genesis, and you get to the place where Sarah dies, and Sarah dies in chapter 25, chapter 21, and later on Abraham remarries, and if you look in the scripture, you'll find out that he married a woman whose name was Keturah, and her name is in the Word of God, it's in the Book of Genesis, in the study of Ishmael. Her name was Keturah. Interestingly, that happened to be a pseudonym for Hagar. That was Hagar's name. Hagar's name, her original name, was Keturah, and Abraham took her as his wife's bond servant. He had this baby boy by her. She, ladies and gentlemen, as I have discovered in my studies of Ishmael, happened to be the daughter of Pharaoh. She was an Egyptian, and she was an Egyptian daughter of the Pharaoh. What does that make Ishmael? Makes him the grandson of Pharaoh. That's why the scripture, if you read the scripture of the Book of Genesis, it says you will have a family of princes. You cannot have a prince unless you are a royalty, and Ishmael, ladies and gentlemen, was a royalty, and he gave birth, now here's kind of interesting, how many boys did Jacob give birth to? Twelve. If you look in the 21st chapter of the Book of Genesis, you will find out that Ishmael gave birth to twelve boys as well, and they were the twelve princes of Ishmael. These were royalty. These were Egyptian princes, and they were the twelve boys of Ishmael. That makes very interesting study, and the interesting study is they're living down in the wilderness of Paran. Now, we know it now as Saudi Arabia, and we're wondering, is there any relationship to Ishmael and to the Hamas, or is there any relationship to Ishmael and the Arabs? Well, I'll sit here and tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that history tells us, as does the scripture, that Ishmael happened to have become the leader of the group of people in the place called the Desert Wilderness, and he was the father of the Arabs, and they named the desert for his group. They called it the desert of Arabia, and you get the Arab relationship to the desert of Arabia, and he, where the angel showed him the water, he began to build cities, and during his lifetime, not down into the future descendants, but in his lifetime, he built cities all over the Arabian area, especially down toward the sea, and as he built these buildings, he happened to build a city right on top of the well that the angel showed him, and he named that city Mecca. Are you with me? And he named that city Mecca, and he named another city just a little to the east of Mecca, Medina. Are you with me? Do you happen to know what happens in Mecca and Medina every year when they have an Islamic pilgrimage? Now you're beginning to pick up on the Islamic relationship to Ishmael. Now, Ishmael had 12 sons, but his second son, kind of interestingly, his second son was married to a girl whose name was Iash, I-A-S-H, Isha, and she gave birth to several descendants, and one of his descendants had an interesting name from this second son, and his name was Adah, and this guy's name was Mohamed. Interesting, huh? And Mohamed was married to a woman whose name was Isha, same name, and Mohamed was the son of Ishmael's second son, and Mohamed born in Mecca, in about 570, circa 570, lived there until he was run out of town, and he was run out of town and made his way to Medina, and established himself at Medina, and there at Medina in 633 he died. So this is all in the common era, 570 to 633. And now you have this group of people called the Muslims, from Mohamed. Interestingly, there's the great story, and I will conclude with this, because I don't want to take a whole lot of time. There's a great story about Mohamed's going to Jerusalem, and standing on the rock, or Mount Moriah, in Jerusalem, where was the Temple of God built eventually, and now standing on that rock is the great golden dome, and it happens to be the mosque, the Alaska** mosque, standing on the dome, the dome of the rock, you've heard it called. Now in the story of Ishmael, and you will see it in your, if you study the chapters 16 to 25 of Genesis, you will see all of this fleshing out. In the chapter, the Muslims have also, in the Quran, have a study of not Isaac being offered as a sacrifice, but Ishmael being offered as a sacrifice. So now you have the two stories running almost side by side. The story of Isaac, the story of Ishmael, and the Quran has the story of Ishmael. Now it's kind of interesting, Mohamed was supposed to have gone to Jerusalem, stood on Mount Moriah, and was supposed to have been taken up into heaven, and while he was in heaven he was given the Quran. Well the interesting thing is, Mohamed never went to Jerusalem. He was never in Jerusalem. All of this was in a dream that he had. He had a dream about going to Jerusalem, he had a dream about being taken up into heaven, he had a dream about being given this book, and he came back to, after his dream, and guess what? He wrote a book. And the book is called the Quran. And in the Quran you have the stories of the Muslim faith. It is a book, in some parts, of very loving peacefulness, in other parts, of atrocity and murder. If you've never read some of the book of Quran, you need to read some. You will understand where the atrocities come from if you read a part of the book of Quran, and you'll understand why the Muslim faith have all of these backgrounds of atrocities. Now, it just so happened, that as this was fleshing out, they established the city of Mecca on top of the well, later on they established the city of Medina, all the time wanting to make it a pilgrimage spot where every Muslim could come once in his lifetime to stand on the very spot that Ishmael built the largest mosque in all of Saudi Arabia. In fact, my last word about Ishmael, he was, they claim, the Muslim faith and the Hohab Mosque claim that Ishmael was their father and descendant, and that Ishmael is the father of the Arabic nation, which apparently he is, and they have the same promise of land that the Israelites have, because they too were a father of Abraham, and now you have the controversy. Now, it's kind of interesting, and I said that would be my last statement, one last statement. When Ishmael was growing up, I want to read you a description of what the scripture says about him, not what I say about him. I want to read you a description of what the scripture says about Ishmael. It says in there that Ishmael, let me find it real quick here, on my other page. It says in Genesis notes that Ishmael was a wild donkey. They call him a wild donkey, the scripture calls him a wild donkey, this gives you a little bit of his personality. In fact, as you hear this, you're going to think about another wild donkey who was born to Rebecca, whose name was Esau, you think another wild donkey. So it says he was a wild donkey of a man, his hand will be against everyone. Now this is what the scripture says about Ishmael. Not only was he a wild donkey, which means he was a wild stallion running around, mean as all get out, but his hand was against everybody, everybody he saw was an enemy, and everyone will be against him. Look at Hamas, look at Hezbollah, look at Iran, look at the nations of Islam, and you begin to pick up their founding father, Ishmael. And that's the story of Ishmael. His mother, an Egyptian princess, he, royal blood, pharaonic Egyptian. Twelve sons, all who were princes of Egypt. And I'll be happy to answer questions when we get there if we have time, Jim. Well, we probably won't have much time for questions, we really hoped to get them earlier, but probably it's a good thing we didn't. But let's try, the big cry today by the Arabs is “from the river to the sea”. They want to possess everything from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean. And we need to kind of put it in, because then they claim that Israel has stolen land that belongs to the Arabs. How we, I won't answer all of that right here, but we'll see in history something about that. But the historical context is that the Jews were in Israel for a thousand years before Islam ever came to that area. Mohammed was born somewhere around 575 or 580 and died somewhere around 632. These are all A.D. since Christ. And so the first time they possessed Jerusalem and the land was in 638 of this, what the Jews call the Common Era, the A.D. And so before, the Jews had been in the land since before 1000 B.C. Saul was the first king of Israel, and he ruled from 1025 down to 1005 BC. Then David ruled from 1000. Now, these are approximate dates. We talk these dates, it's pinpointed down and say that's for sure here. But it's in these areas. David ruled from around 1005 to 965 B.C. So the Jews were there. And while, and I could take time, but I won't take time to talk about the establishment of when they split the kingdom and you had Israel and Judah, and then they were taken into captivity. During all of that time, there was never a time when all the Jews abandoned the land of Israel. Many of the people were taken captive in both 722 and 586. When 722, when the northern kingdom fell, 586 when the southern kingdom fell, there were people who were taken into captivity with the Jews at large stayed in what we call the Holy Land. So there's never been a time since 1000 B.C. when the Jews were not there. So for them to say we're stealing our land, well, there's only one other possibility, and I'll get to that just in a moment. But the point is, as Jack has mentioned, Jerusalem then became a pilgrimage city for both Christians and Arabs. And so you have the three great cities of Islam, Mecca, Medina, and then Jerusalem, and they have pilgrimages now to Jerusalem. And by the way, the Arabs also consider Judaism and Christianity to be their predecessors, and they recognize Abraham, Moses, and Jesus as prophets. So you understand pretty quickly from that that they're not talking about how long back the Jews go on the land. We know they were there and never left. There's another answer to that that will come in just a little bit. The Muslims believe they were the chosen people, Jack indicated, and the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on the Dome of the Rock was built in 705, and the Temple Mount at that part is the holiest, third holy cities of Islam. Interesting thing, what really sparked in the early years of Israel's existence was that Ariel Sharon, who was the prime minister of Israel, with an armed guard, went on the Temple Mound. Well, you have to understand that the Temple Mound in much of Jerusalem was still under the authority of Arabs, and they forbid Jews to go there. And all kinds of riots and attacks occurred after Ariel Sharon and his squad of protectors that went with him came, and they referred to it as the desecration of the Temple Mount when there really wasn't a desecration. The prime minister of Israel went with some Jewish soldiers up there, and they call that, they make a big deal out it was an attack upon the Temple Mount. It wasn't. You'll hear them talking about that they desecrated the Temple Mount, and that's really not true. But historically, extreme hatred has been expressed by barbaric actions over the last many, many centuries. The reason seems to be that the Islamic world is built upon the concept that everything that we say belonged to Abraham, that their chosen people, Ishmael, was the chosen one rather than Isaac. And that's really at the heart of all the hostilities that are in the world today about Christians and Jews. The world hated Jesus when he was there, and it's still filled with hatred and hostility toward Jesus. There were two great mistakes, tragedies in Christian history. I'll just quickly mention them. In 313 AD, Constantine professed faith in Christ. There's no reason to doubt that he made a genuine profession of faith. But as well intentioned as it was, 325 he passed a decree as Caesar that all of these cults that they called them, and Christians, could legally worship. Up until that time, Christianity was against the law for Christians to worship. And that's where you enter into all the persecution, and the lions, and thrown to the lions, and all of the things that have taken place in the Christian world. And so, in 380, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Biggest mistake that Christians have ever made. You see, up until that time, and you can read about it in my book that I gave to a lot of you, that up until the 4th century, the Christians had historically, even historians record the emphasis of the inner dynamic, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit sometimes. They had been led by the Holy Spirit. But when they became partners with the state, when they joined the Roman Empire, they weakened and compromised their own faith. The second thing that I'll just mention quickly, in the 12th century, the Crusades. And the tragedy of the Crusades was that Christians took up the sword, which Jesus told them not to do. Remember Simon Peter, when Jesus was arrested, took out a sword to get after him. He was going to fight. Jesus said, no, no, you don't do that. My kingdom's not of this world. But in about the 12th century, the Christians began the Crusades. And maybe 11th century, but from, say, sometime in the 10th century to the 12th century, we had a terrible time of Crusades. And they were often brutal and violent. They varied in size and strength and degree of success, but they were costly and violent and often ruthless conflicts. And that was the second tragic mistake the Christians made. Now, the British controlled what we call the Holy Land virtually the entire first half of the 20th century. And in November the 29th, 1947, the United Nations passed a resolution, they called it the Partition Resolution, by designating the land we call the Holy Land today for two states, an Arab state and an Israeli state. They even told how much they would have. The Jewish state would have 14,100 square kilometers. That's 56 percent. The Arabs would have 11,100 square kilometers or 42 percent. The remaining 2 percent would be established as an international government, which was Jerusalem and Bethlehem. That area would be an international zone. And the partition plan called for the English to evacuate, get away, give up their control, which I think they were probably happy to do that. And so that was in 1947. And then on May the 14th in 1948, Israel established itself as a nation. By the way, the first head of state to recognize Israel as a nation was Harry Truman. In fact, one, I find this hard to believe, but one source said that in 11 minutes after the announcement of the establishing of Israel, he congratulated them and joined recognizing them as an official state. Oh, by the way, he was a Baptist. So anyway, Harry Truman was the one who recognized the first. But even before the UN resolution, there was a desire for a Jewish homeland, and a small number of Israelis migrated to that area. And it grew dramatically in the second quarter of the 20th century with an increasing persecution of Jews worldwide that climaxed in the Holocaust with Nazi Germany happened. And the Arab states could not, you know, they really didn't want an Arab state. The Arab nations around Israel really didn't want the Palestinians. And so they couldn't establish an Arab state. So the Jews said, okay, we'll just take the whole thing. But when they declared their independence, they started a hostile and bitter war that went all the way from May of 1948 into March of 1949, fighting over the land that the Arabs would not establish their state, but the Jews decided they would do so. And so the Arabs and the Palestinian Arabs refused to abide by the UN resolution and hostilities began even before the nation of Israel was founded. And certainly afterwards, attacks were made against Jewish cities, settlements, armed forces. The reason, the goal was to block the creation of a Jewish state. They hated the Jews and so there was great hostility there. Now, interesting thing, when the nation of Israel was established, the Arab leaders told the Arabs in that area to flee to the West Bank and to Gaza because they thought they'd be safe there and that the war wouldn't last very long and they'd come back home. Well, 700,000 did flee. A third of them went to the West Bank. A third of them went to Gaza and a third of them to Syria and Jordan and Lebanon and other countries. But surprising the world, the Israelis won the war. Well, there wasn't any place for them to come back. Thus, West Bank and Gaza were, after the establishment of Israel, were still controlled by the Arabs. And Jordan controlled the West Bank and the Egyptians controlled Gaza. And so that's kind of how they got started in the direction of where we are right now. Now, here's an interesting thing. In 1993, the Palestine Liberation Authority, they called themselves the PLO, and Carol Ann and I had the privilege of having dinner in the home of one of the PLO families when we were in Israel one time. Originally, the PLO agreed that Israel had a right to exist. Even Yasser Arafat, who ran the PLO for years, agreed that Israel had a right to exist. Nowadays, nobody agrees that in the Arab world. They all say that they ought to be annihilated. And now the source of controversy in recent years has been that Israelis have built settlements in the West Bank that were not sponsored by the government, but they did it anyway. So it's been a constant source of irritation, we would say, there. There were two more U.N. resolutions that came after the 1967 war and the 1973 war that talked about that the Jews, the Israeli forces, would withdraw from where they had been and that they would settle the issue of the settlement of the refugee problem. The Camp David Accords between Israel and Egypt in 1978 was the beginning of peace. Israel and Lebanon signed the peace treaty on May 17, 1983. Israel and Jordan signed a treaty on October 26, 1994. And the key passage for us to put all this together now is in Matthew 24, the Olivet Discourse. Jesus said there are four things going to happen. First, there's going to be deception and false messiahs that will be prevalent. I believe that refers both to men and systems. I think there will be men who will claim to be the messiah, but that's exactly what communism and socialism also. So I say that it could be expressed in both men and systems. Number two, he said the hatred of Israel and persecution of believers are going to be increased. And just in this month, we have seen the presidents of Harvard and University of Pennsylvania and MIT unable to even condemn the attacks of Hamas. Now, the attacks of Hamas, bear in mind, they were not seeking any land. They had one purpose, and that was to kill Jews. That's all they were there for. They didn't want any more land. They just wanted to kill Jews, kill everybody. They indiscriminately killed Arabs. They used the Arabs in Gaza as human shields. And many of them were killed because they took fire that was aimed at the Hamas warriors. And so it's been a time of incredible animosity toward hatred, toward Israel. Jesus said that would happen. Wars and rumors of war. Nation will rise against nation. There are 32 ongoing wars in the world right now, ranging from drug wars, terrorist wars, ethnic conflicts, civil wars. Of the 3,400 past years, only 268 of them have had peace. So Jesus said it's going to be like this. Perhaps over one billion people have been killed in wars in history, and most of them have been young men. And next, Jesus said there are going to be famines and earthquakes. It's amazing. Do you know every day 25,000 people starve to death? Malaria, and 10,000 of them are children. That is three times more than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis kills every day. The National Earthquake Information Center now says, get this, there are 55 earthquakes every day. Over 20,000 a year earthquakes around the world right now. Now Jesus just said all of these are the beginning of labor pains. These things have to happen, and they're not necessarily telling you when the Lord is going to come back, but it's in this kind of world that the Lord will return, the beginning of labor pains. All the signs of birth, the birth of the Lord's return, are in place. Now, I'll just pause long to say there are a number of disagreements about the rapture and the tribulation. I'm not going to get into that. We don't have time to do that. I believe that the church is going to be raptured out before the tribulation. There are many of my good friends, I could name three that you would probably know, who believe the church is going to go through the tribulation and then be raptured out. What I'm saying to you, in my opinion, nothing else has to happen before the rapture. It is already happening. Now, when will it reach the point where God is going to say, Go get my children? I don't know, but it's going to happen. Truthfully, the last days began when Jesus was resurrected, and throughout the ages, believers have always expected his return in their generation. Always. The disciples did. Paul did. The early church did. His return has always been imminent. In other words, it could be any time. The most incredible church that I ever pastored was First Southern Baptist Church in Dell City, Oklahoma. Now, they work better people than Euless. Euless is our favorite, but the Dell City was unique. John Bassano had been there, and we welcomed visitors, first time I ever saw it, by having the congregation stand. And the visitors remained seated. And then tell the members to go around and welcome the visitors. But we sang, when we welcomed the visitors, before we scattered them to meet each other, coming again, coming again, maybe morning, maybe noon, maybe evening, and we changed the words. Instead of maybe soon, we'll be soon. And I'm telling you, it raised the ramp. Every Sunday we sang about the soon coming of Jesus Christ. That's been true all through history. And the signs of the times indicated that it's drawing near. And like you, every time I step out, see a cloud, I say, maybe today it's going to happen. We know that this is the great hope of the church. Now, the question is, is the Hamas invasion on Israel on October the 7th an indication that the Lord's return is near? Well, Psalm 83 talks about the enemies attacking Israel so that Israel's name will no longer be remembered. Some people think that this may have been the Psalm 83 attack. Others say that Ezekiel 38 and 39 would be the invasion of Gog and Magog, but maybe that has something to do with it. My opinion is that I do not think that the Hamas war is a specifically designated war from scripture. I think it fits the description of what Jesus said of wars and rumors of wars and what he indicated would happen. I think it's a fulfillment of his prophecy. And oh, by the way, the one thing that it does do is remind us that in the last days, Israel is going to be center stage. You want to know what the world looks like? Just keep your eyes on Israel. The hatred in the Muslim world for Jews and Christians, not just a human emotion, it's rooted in a hatred of God and driven by Satan. The Jews are hated by Satan and his forces. The unthinkable barbarism of Hamas on October 7 was filled with massacres, rapes, beheading of babies, and simply shooting everybody that was standing, and most of them intentionally and quickly. Yet few nations around the world have condemned Hamas. Now you think about that. We're not living in a world that doesn't have nations that believe in morality. Nobody's going to claim that beheading babies would be something that a civilized nation would do, but it's been interesting that virtually no nations have sided with Israel, and they've sided with Hamas. Look at the riots on our college campuses here, demonstrations supporting Hamas. I'm hoping that that is just because they really don't realize the barbarian acts that Hamas did, but they actually, incredibly, women were found shot in their breasts and their sexual parts after being raped. Over 50 babies were headed at one spot. I mean, this was an atrocious, barbaric act that would make us weep and sick at our stomachs if we thought long about it, and yet the world does not recognize that as being evil. It shows you where we are. Only the fire of Satan can deceive people around the world to endorse a barbaric tribe like Hamas. The world is Satan's domain right now. The world hates God, hates us, and behind all the increasing hatred and hostility toward the Jews in particular and Christians in general is the emphasis of Satan and the hatred that exists because of our God. Ultimately, the Antichrist is going to come and will increase that hostility. Praise the Lord, the return of Christ will settle the issue once and for all, and it will be clearly, he'll give a final word about evil and about Hamas and all of that represents and Israel. He's going to keep his promises to Israel. We stand by Israel because God told us to. He said, you bless, the one who blesses Israel, God's going to bless, and the one who curses Israel, God's going to curse. Well, I've seen how God does things with people who cursed him. I do not want to be there. Now, do we ought to be praying for the Palestinians? Absolutely. Every one of them, Christ died for them. This is the kind of world that Jesus talked about. And by the way, Zechariah 12 and Zechariah 14 talk about how Israel in the last days is going to, I call it a hot potato for the whole world. The nations will be chaos trying to figure out what are we going to do with Israel? And that's exactly what we have today. Now, here's another interesting thing. I've got five minutes and I'm going to quit. God chose a pagan father to be the father of the nation of Israel. Ur of the Chaldees was a center of idolatry. Abraham's father was a maker of idols, and Abraham himself was a worshiper of idols. God called him in spite of his unrighteousness, pause. He treats us the same way. He doesn't use any of us because of us, it's always in spite of us. And he chose Abraham, a pagan worshiper, to be the father of his nation. And he told him to go take his family and leave Ur of the Chaldees and I'll tell you where to go. Abraham didn't know where he was going, didn't know how he was going to survive, didn't know how he would get there, and didn't know how he'd know when he got there. He just trusted God. And he's called the father of the faithful. And so Genesis 15 and Ezekiel 47 give us specific boundaries of the promised land. And Abraham was told he was going to be the father of a great nation and many people. And the problem was that he didn't have any kids. And he was nearly 100 years old when he finally had a son. Sarah was over 90 years old. She was barren, but God promised him a son. Ended up with two of them, Brother Jack, and a great multitude would be his descendants. And I'll just echo what Jack said. There are other scriptures that talk about God's promises to the Arabs. So before we write them off, understand that God has also promised many things to the Arab nations themselves. The promise to Abraham was a specific area in the Middle East. The promise was eternal, not temporary. It was unconditional, not based upon any action by Israel. By the way, Israel is a pagan nation right now. It is a secular nation. Many of their Jews are atheists. It is not a godly nation, yet God still kept his promise. God is going to still give the land that he promised to Abraham. Israel was established in 1948 and Abraham's covenant was still intact. And it still is. It's still God's plan. After the tribulation, Jesus will return. This time he'll come all the way down. The rapture is going to be he'll meet us in the air. But this time he comes all the way down. We come with him. And so the description of the world at the time of the second coming is eerily, eerily like our world. The time is ripe. Think of the great awakenings that have happened in the world. They nearly always happen when things were at the worst. Would it be any surprise that the Lord comes with the last great awakening with his children when the world is at the bottom of the well and things are chaotic? Our part is to be prepared and be ready for his return. Titus was told, For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous and godly way in the present age, while we wait for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. That is next on God's calendar. And it will happen because Jesus promised it in John 14:3 and in Revelation 22:20. Our prayer ought to be John's prayer as he recorded it. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus. Time's right. Don't know when, but we could spend days talking about people who picked dates and people who sold their possessions and dressed in white and got on mountaintops waiting for the rapture. We don't know when it's going to happen, but we know it's going to happen in time just like this. All right. Well, five minutes to 11. That's too long, but thank you for letting us try to squeeze this in. We easily could have taken a lot of time, but I felt like, as we talked about it, we felt like if you needed to see something of not only the biblical context, but the secular context, how all of these different groups that are so obvious today got here and what has happened in our own history that we can note. So we thank you for letting us do that. Yes. Well, pray for us when you get there. One final word. The 19th chapter of the book of Revelation says that the hordes of the east shall come down upon Israel. And as of today, Israel is completely surrounded from the Asia Minor Turks all the way across the eastern part to all of the Irans and the Iraqs and the Jordans and the Saudi Arabians to the south of Egypt. They are totally surrounded by the hordes of the east. And it says in the 19th chapter that the hordes of the east shall come down on Jerusalem and they are there and they are coming. And in that coming, Jesus Christ will come in his glory, King of kings, Lord of lords, written on his thighs, and we his church with him in all victory coming in glory at the final ultimate climax of this world when Jesus does not have to fight and we do not have to fight. The scripture says with the voice of his mouth, he will annihilate the nations. And that's right here, folks. Now, may I share with you one thing last about Ishmael? He is mentioned 10 times in the Quran, which gives you good understanding that evidently the father of the Arabic nations is none other than Ishmael. Amen? Amen. But that's where you have to work. Watch Ishmael. Watch the Ishmaelites. Watch the Arabs. They are the key to the final surrounding of all of Israel. I often thought for many years the hordes of the east were the Asians, the Chinese, the hordes of the Chinese. But I've come to the conclusion that the hordes of the east are presently around Israel right now wanting to pounce on them. So we pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for the fact that it could be today. And that's the most blessed thought that we have, that you could come today in your time when you say to your son, son, go get your bride. He steps out into eternity and we are caught up together with him in the air. And so we shall be with the Lord forever. Thank you, Father, for that great promise in the book of Thessalonians. And thank you, Father, for the fact that you're going to step out and the trumpets are going to sound and the dead in Christ will rise first. And we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the sky forever to be with the Lord from that point on. Even so, Lord Jesus, as John said, amen, come quickly. Amen.