By John Roberts, July 6, 2002

What is the significance and relevance of this story to last days prophecy?

God is allowing the modern day tribulation in the Middle East to fester because it serves His purpose; the fulfillment of His Word in prophecy, salvation to Israel as a nation, and judgment of a wicked world and the Gentile nations.

Persecution, terrorism, and the invasion of Israeli land by pagans is nothing new for Jews.   Satan has brought six great gentile kingdoms in the Mediterranean against this Jewish nation and countless armies and antichrists such as Mohammad, Hitler, and now Arafat.

Muslims have over 22 Islamic countries in the Middle East to live in, but apparently one tiny nation is one too many for the Jews.   The "Palestinian Cause" has been contrived to try and steel the Jewish birthright to Jerusalem and Israel.

Arafat is not even Palestinian, he was born an Egyptian.   Palestine is the Roman name given to Israel. Palestine is a region, not a race of people.   The idea that Arabs somehow exclusively own the right to call themselves Palestinian is preposterous.   Arabs have no historical, legal, or Biblical right to any land in Israel.

Palestinian refugees have a homeland; it is called Jordan, or Lebanon, or Saudi Arabia, or Syria, Iraq or Iran.   Arafat has a homeland, it is called Egypt.   The Palestinian issue is not about a homeland for displaced Arabs.

Islam seeks to weaken Israel by pushing back its borders to indefensible positions to lay the groundwork for a future invasion.   Islam is also seeking to isolate Israel by neutralizing Jewish support in the West. Muslims hope to scare Americans away from coming to Israel's aid through terrorist acts like what took place on 9-11.

These devils can scheme all they want they will never win.   Hitler and his Third Reich are dead and gone but a remnant of the Jews from Nazi concentration camps are alive and restored to the Promised Land.

The Arabs have lost every war with the Jews.   The Israeli military is the strongest in the Middle East, as it was in the days of King David.   God will never let Israel be completely annihilated by anyone.   God always leaves a remnant.   Israel and Jerusalem are here to stay, forever.

Zechariah 12:1-14

  1     The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.
  2     Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
  3     And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
  4     In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
  5     And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
  6     In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
  7     The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.
  8     In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.
  9     And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
  10     And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn.
  11     In that day shall there be a great mourning in Jerusalem, as the mourning of Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon.
  12     And the land shall mourn, every family apart; the family of the house of David apart, and their wives apart; the family of the house of Nathan apart, and their wives apart;
  13     The family of the house of Levi apart, and their wives apart; the family of Shimei apart, and their wives apart;
  14     All the families that remain, every family apart, and their wives apart.

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