Tuesday, December
19, 2017
Those who trust in the Lord are as secure as Mount
Zion; they will not be defeated but will endure forever. Just as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the
Lord surrounds his people, both now and forever. The wicked will not rule the land of the
godly, for then the godly might be tempted to do wrong. O Lord, do good to those who are good, whose
hearts are in tune with you. But banish
those who turn to crooked ways, O Lord.
Take them away with those who do evil.
May Israel have peace!
Psalm
125:1-5(NLT)
“Friends, I
realize that what you and your leaders did to Jesus was done in ignorance. But
God was fulfilling what all the prophets had foretold about the Messiah—that he
must suffer these things. Now repent of your sins and
turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away. Then
times of refreshment will come from the presence of the Lord, and he will again
send you Jesus, your appointed Messiah. For he must
remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things, as God
promised long ago through his holy prophets.
Acts 3:17-21(NLT)
The recent political move towards officially recognizing Jerusalem as the
capitol city of Israel is seen by some as a tragic international blunder. We have self-debilitated the U.S. as a
non-biased mediator. How then will there
ever be peace between Israel and the rest of the world? Yet, how could Israel have peace without the
powerful backing of U.S. military might?
These questions seem to war against each other until you pit them against
the larger picture of Biblical prophecy.
There will never be a genuine and lasting peace in Israel until Messiah
returns. And through His prophets God
has decreed that event will be accompanied by the worst chaos and division against
Israel and all for which she stands; she will be standing against, and be bitterly
hated by the rest of the world’s powers.
This seems a rather fatalistic, chaotic view of the future, and sadly pessimistic
concerning even the possibilities of attaining peace. Indeed there are those who hold to the view
that we are supposed to bring in the Kingdom by achieving peace. This takes the position that Messiah won’t
come back until we banish
war and evil, and finally get the leaders of the Middle East to behave
themselves. With several thousand years
of history pointed in the opposite direction, achieving genuine shalom in
Jerusalem seems a mighty long way off!
The view I hold derives from the Scripture-based interpretation of
mounting tension and division – a polarizing of world powers until there is
cataclysmic world conflict which culminates in a final battle near Jerusalem –
a place called Armageddon. I believe
this because of the dark nature of Adam’s race, which is the tendency we have
to engage our human nature with evil purposes; we end up loving war and
conflict. Shedding blood is the legacy
we have from Cain and Abel; there are predators and there is prey.
And still we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, remembering that peace will
never come until the blood runs as high as horse’s bridles all through the
valley of God’s judgment:
The grapes
were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed from the
winepress in a stream about 180 miles long and as high as a horse’s
bridle.
Revelation 14:20(NLT)
For You
Today
Through
the madness of this world’s terrorism attacks, struggles of nations against
nations, and even the natural disasters which dispassionately snuff out the most
innocent of lives, Christians are to continually pray for peace, act on behalf
of those who are weak, yet seeking peace; we are to bear the Good Tidings of
the Gospel everywhere under any conditions.
It is God’s hand that will, as He did in the week of creation, bring
peace out of the chaos!
