Why do the Nations Rage - part 1

"Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the Lord and against his anointed… " Psalm2:1-2

Long post alert! This will take you a while to read.

Today I want to give you my take on the unfolding events happening in Israel and the Gaza strip. My goal is not to predict anything, but rather just to give an overview of what has happened, the biblical and historical context of the events, and then a picture of the larger global geo-political landscape beginning with Jerusalem and working our way outward, first to the surrounding nations in the region and then the rest of the world, pointing out some of the possible domino effects that we might see and how these things all intersect with biblical prophecy, and finally to bookend all of that with words of hope. Buckle up. (i.e. “Put on the whole armor of God!”)

In the blog just below this one, I have included two live links (one FB and one Instagram) to a ministry operating in Israel that is posting multiple daily video updates on the situation there. I encourage you to follow one of these pages to stay updated.

A few days ago, I read a post from Australian Chistian commentator, Martyn Isles in which he exhorted fellow believers to make sure that whenever we talk about evil in the world or moral decay in the culture that we always include hope. Without hope, we are just complaining. We are like those who rail against problems without offering any answers. Peter gave a similar reminder in his first epistle to the church: “But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” (1Peter 3:15) His words struck a chord with me so I want to begin and end my post today by pointing to our hope. Our hope is in the LORD. There is no other source. No world government or military power will be able to solve the issues. God may indeed use those these things… or anything else he choses to bring about His will, but ultimately, we must seek Him and look to Him for hope in this hour and in every situation that shakes us. We remind ourselves of His goodness and of His unlimited power and complete knowledge of all things. We remember His perfect plan of redemption that is in play to redeem all things and we submit ourselves to his authority. We do not fear, but rather stand firm in faith and in the truth of His word and the security of His eternal promises. We choose to live lives that demonstrate hope and we commit ourselves to giving the reason for our hope to anyone who asks. Jesus will make all things right. He is the Prince of Peace and he will establish both peace and justice on the earth. When we pray, “Thy Kingdom Come,” that’s what we are asking Him for. God is faithful and He will do it!

One week ago, I shared with you a post about the dangers of A.I. that included this quote from King Solomon found in the book of Ecclesiastes: “What has been done will be done again.”

Saturday night that truth made itself evident once again in a way no one saw coming.

Exactly 50 years ago to the day, Israel was attacked by armies from Egypt in the south and Syria in the north with a surprise onslaught that caught Israeli intelligence off-guard. The attack commenced on a high holy day, Yom Kippur, 1973 and kicked off a bloody war. This weekend it happened again. This time, it was a terrorist attack launched by Hamas from Gaza on the final Sabbath day of the Feast of Tabernacles that also seemed to somehow go unnoticed until it was too late. Gunmen from Gaza slipped across the border in a coordinated strike on 22 different Jewish border communities, some as far as fifteen miles into Israeli controlled territory. Once these terrorists arrived at their targets, they began a murderous rampage, slaughtering anyone they encountered simply because they were Jews. Men, women, old people, and children – no one was spared. In addition, in a new brazen tactic, several hundred Israeli civilians were taken hostage and spirited back across the border to be held inside Gaza. Since then, mortars, missiles and Katusha rockets have not stopped raining down on Israeli neighborhoods. I have no doubt that as I type these words just now, the rockets are still coming. As of this writing, Israeli sources confirm over 700 dead, (including more than 250 killed in one local attack alone) 2,000 injured and 170 taken hostage. Those numbers will continue to go up. The attack was the deadliest day in the entire history of modern Israel in terms of citizens killed by terrorist violence or even military losses in a single day. (Read that sentence again). As a percentage of population, the loss was greater that then loss of life to the U.S. on 9-11 or those killed at Pearl Harbor. Israeli forces are preparing for a military response that will most likely include a full-on ground invasion of Gaza in an attempt to free the hostages, crush Hamas and re-establish national security. The attack was horrific, the response will be massive, the casualties on both sides will be staggering and the resulting shock waves will resound across the globe in ways not yet known.

That’s where things stand on Monday afternoon, Oct. 9. Now for some context…. How did we get here? And where do things go from here?

Gaza, or the “Gaza Strip” as it is sometimes referred to, is a small slice of land that lays on along the Mediterranean coastline north of the Sinai Peninsula approximately 70 miles south of Tel Aviv and 75 miles west of Jerusalem. It consists of 365 square miles of land, approx. 31 miles long and 11 miles wide that is home to 2.3 million mostly Suni Muslim Arabic Palestinians, mainly the descendants of refugees that fled Israel after the 1948 war making it the 3rd most densely populated single region in the world. Gaza is ruled, since 2007, by Hamas, a terrorist organization (as officially designated by the U.S., European Union and the U.K.) funded, trained and supplied by Iran. The territory was not a part of Israel when it was founded by in 1948. Israel gained control over the area, (as well as the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank and the Golan Heights) after the 1967 Six-day war and has occupied it since, until it gave autonomous security control of Gaza to the Palestinian Authority in 2005 after a negotiated “peace” agreement. In August of 2005, Israeli forces unilaterally withdraw from Gaza 38 years after capturing it from Egypt, abandoning settlements and leaving the enclave under the control of the Palestinian Authority. One year later, the people of Gaza elected Hamas as their ruling government. The word HAMAS is an Arabic acronym for “The Islamic Resistance” and their charter calls for the complete destruction of Israel as a nation and the founding of an Islamic republic in its place. Following the installation of Hamas as the ruling authority and a fight between Hamas and Fatah for control of Gaza which resulted in Hamas gaining complete control, both Israel and the U.S. cut off aid to Palestinians because Hamas refused to renounce violence and recognize Israel’s right to exist. Sadly, this turned Gaza into a self-imposed island of poverty and an even hotter incubator of terrorism. Inside Gaza a second terrorist organization formed known as “Islamic Jihad” which viewed Hamas as not militant enough in its fight against the Jews. These two factions, while often fighting among themselves, sometimes unite in their hatred of and opposition to Israel. Over the years since, Hamas and Islamic Jihad have launched many attacks against Israel, including tens of thousands indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilian targets and there have been several sharp and deadly retaliations from Israel, (read about that history here: Timeline of conflict between Israel and Palestinians in Gaza | Reuters ) which have continued the back-and-forth hostilities that led up to the attack this past weekend.

That’s the geo-political historical context. What about the biblical and religious historical context?

You might not know that the area that comprises Gaza is basically the southern half of ancient Philistia, the historical home of King David’s foes, the Philistines, including the giant, Goliath that he slew with a sling and a stone in the valley of Elah. But the basis for the present hostilities goes a lot farther back than King David, it goes back to Gen. 16, to Abraham and his two sons, Isaac, (the father of the Jewish people) and Ishmael, (the father of all the other mid-east, now Islamic, nations) and to this ancient proclamation: “You shall name him Ishmael, for he will be a wild-donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him, and he will live in hostility and hatred towards all his brothers.” (Gen. 16:11b-12) These are the words of the Angel of the LORD to Hagar regarding her son Ishmael. Not a curse, but a revelation, a revealing of the future. That future is now present to us. All throughout the Mid-East, from then until now, there have been warring factions which have repeatedly proven this axiom true. The factions have been and are still now tribal, sectarian, racial, and religious. Since the 600’s these factions have all been incorporated by assent or by force into to the religion of Islam… except the Jews who were expelled from the Middle east in AD 70 and scattered across the world, only to miraculously be re-established there in our life-time! Thus setting the ancient combatants back into their ancient arena. The religion of Islam (despite all denials) is not a religion of peace, but one of violence. The clear teachings of Islam call for violent subjugation of all non-Islamic people and their doctrines are virulently antisemitic - dehumanizing Jews and calling for their complete annihilation. (Just to be clear, I did NOT say that Muslim people are violent and antisemitic, only that the teachings of Islam are.)

There is no shortage of historical, political and circumstantial reasons for hatred and violence to consume the region, but the real gas on the fire comes from a spiritual source as well as the historical, political, religious and circumstantial ones. It comes from one who Jesus called, “a liar and murderer from the beginning” - it comes from the prime hater of all things that God loves - it comes from Satan. Revelation 12 tells us that Satan hates Israel because she is the mother of Christ. All the scriptures taken together tell the story of God’s plan to save the world – to recuse humanity from satan’s kingdom of darkness and death and bring them into God’s kingdom of love and light. Over time, God progressively revealed his plan to use Israel and the Jewish people to bring this plan about: the Savior would come from Abrham, Issac, Jacob, Judah, David…. and he made an everlasting covenant with them. Therefore, Satan hates the Jews and has tried to destroy them over and over, using whatever tongues, hands, spears, swords, bullets, bombs, printing presses, computers, pharaohs, popes, dictators, muftis, doctrines, kings, and kingdoms that he could deceive into hating the Jews too.

That’s the initial surface scratch of the “who” and “why” of it, now …what next?

As I mentioned earlier, Hamas is funded, supplied and trained by Iran. (The same Iran that the US government just foolishly gave 6 billion dollars to in un-frozen funds for the release of American hostages held there.) Hamas works for and with Iran. That’s not mere conjecture it’s a demonstrable fact that Hamas themselves confirms. Yesterday, Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas spokesman, told the BBC that the group had direct backing for the attack from Iran, which pledged to "stand by the Palestinian fighters until the liberation of Palestine and Jerusalem and on the same day, a report in the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed members of Hamas and the Lebanese guerrilla movement Hezbollah as saying that Iran gave the go-ahead for the attack a week ago. The fact that Iran is behind these attacks and that they are making no efforts to cover up their involvement, (in fact, they are boastfully taking credit!) tells you that the conflict will inevitably widen.

Why would Iran green-light such an operation? Let’s look at some possibilities. Iran would know that such an extreme attack from Hamas would lead to a terrible reprisal, Israel would have no choice but to launch a massive response. So, if … when… Israel invades Gaza, the resulting carnage will galvanize the entire Islamic world against the Jews, and Iran will have the political cover to justify its next move. The Mullahs in Iran are more than willing to sacrifice the poor people of Gaza in the short-term to accomplish the long-term goal of destroying Israel. The most likely next move is for Iran to attack Israel using Hezbollah, their Hamas-like subordinate terrorist organization based in Lebanon on Israel’s northern border who rules there like Hamas does in Gaza, thus creating a two-front war for an already stretched-thin Israeli military who will be bogged down in Gaza. Iran has loaded up Hezbollah with thousands of sophisticated rockets and missiles, many more than Hamas in Gaza ever had, weaponry capable of reaching the cities and population centers of Israel. One can easily see how this war, as bad as it is now, is likely to morph into a much bigger monster, swallowing the entire region and beyond.

Many, including me, believe that the moves Iran are making now and the ones soon to come have a lot to do with Saudi Arabia. …

Look for Part 2 Tomorrow.