How the War in Israel Could Reshape the World Order

How the war in Israel could reshape the world order. Soren Kern joins us today right here on the Christian Real View radio program where the mission is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ.

I'm David Wheaton, the host. The Christian Real View is a listener-supported radio ministry. You can connect with us by visiting our website, thechristianrealview.org, calling toll-free 1-888-646-2233, or by writing to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota, 55331. In what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others are calling Israel's 9-11, Hamas, a militant Islamist group based in Gaza, which is a small but densely populated Palestinian territory in southwest Israel, launched a deadly attack this past Saturday which has killed more than 1200 Israelis. Israel immediately declared war, clearing invading Israeli towns of Hamas and then bombarding Gaza. Now, Israel Defense Forces are staging massive numbers of troops for a potential ground invasion of Gaza, which would present a very difficult urban battle that would include clearing hundreds of miles of underground tunnels. The potential for escalation is high as Israel is surrounded by those who seek her destruction and eagerly await any opportunity to do so. For example, Hezbollah, another radical Islamist group based to the north of Israel and supported by Iran, is just waiting to jump in. Soren Kern, Christian geopolitical analyst and writing fellow for Middle East Forum, is an expert on Islam. He joins us today to explain many of the issues surrounding this war and how it sets the stage for the fulfillment of biblical prophecy.

Soren, thank you for coming on the program all the way from over in Europe. I want to start out by reading just a short news report from the American Jewish Committee website, where they say at 6 30 a.m on Saturday, October 7th, Hamas, the Iran-backed terror group controlling Gaza, launched an unprovoked and vicious surprise attack on Israel. Using rockets, paragliders, boats, motorcycles and other vehicles and whatever means they could, terrorists infiltrated Israel with one goal to murder and kidnap Israelis. One more paragraph, over 1200 Israelis have been killed and many of them, according to reports, have been just brutal murder of non-combatants, execution style, reportedly beheading of children even, celebration of these murders taking place in Gaza. Over 130 hostages have been taken. This number could be changing, by the way, and more than 4,500 rockets have been fired at Israeli towns and cities. Soren, this has been news all over the world. What were the factors that led to this attack by Hamas, a militant organization based in Gaza, small little territory in Israel, who by the way are Sunni, not Shia, but they're Iranian funded. Iranians are Shia Muslim. Why is this particular attack that's now being called a war, why is it more significant than previous attacks that have been taking place month after month, year after year? Well, sure.

Thank you for having me on your program. I think that what makes this different now is that Israel has been attacked in a way that has not occurred since the creation of the state of Israel, especially going after non-combatants, as you say. I think basically there are a lot of things that led up to this. I think there has been a general focus by the Israeli government on the threat posed by Iran, and particularly by the nuclear program, and also by the proxy, Iran's proxy in southern Lebanon, Hezbollah group, all the missiles that they have ready to fire against Israel. I think there's also been a lot of political infighting in Israel, a lot of division within the country between left and right over judicial reform and other political issues in the country. And I think there's just generally a feeling that Hamas, they've been very vocal over the last couple of months, but nobody, I think, in the Israeli government expected this to happen.

This is because there's been a long-standing policy in Israel of what they call the mowing the law on policy. That means that every couple of years, there's a war between Hamas and Israel. Israel goes after the Hamas infrastructure, the Hamas leadership, and the whole thing quiets down for a couple of years, and then it comes back again.

And it's a cycle that's been going on for at least 10 or 15 years. And I think that the Israeli government really underestimated the termination of Hamas. I think it's very important that you mentioned that Hamas is Sunni, and that the Iranian government is Shia. Hamas is not just a Palestinian liberation organization. They're not really actually interested in the liberation or the creation of a Palestinian state. You have to understand that this is an Islamist movement, and this is a jihadist movement.

It's a movement that is committed to jihad. Even within the Hamas charter is the destruction of Israel. That's their purpose, is the destruction of Israel. I think the Israeli government always felt that Hamas was more manageable than Hezbollah, just because of the size. During the civil war in Syria, there was a real falling out between Hamas and Iran, because the Hamas leadership supported the Sunni side in the Syrian civil war. But at least over the last 18 to 24 months, there's really been an effort by Hamas leadership to reignite this relationship with the Iranian government. And I think this whole context really takes place within the Biden administration, which is really a successor to the Obama administration, which is really seeking to reshape the geopolitical alliances in the Middle East. And they're trying to really create Iran as a regional hegemon at the expense of traditional American allies like Israel, Saudi Arabia, and even to some extent, Turkey. So really, the context that has really emboldened Iran and really emboldened Hamas is really, I think, in the bigger picture, the Biden administration's really insane, powerful. And I think that's a really insane policy of trying to make Iran the regional hegemon.

Why would the United States with Iran's history and stated intentions to destroy Israel and all the terror they have supported all over the world, why would the United States, no matter Democrat or Republican, want them to be a regional power in the Middle East? It's a very strange, I guess, strategy on the part of the Obama administration. And in my opinion, the Obama people are the ones who are actually in charge of the Biden administration. The people who are running American foreign policy right now are the same people that were running it during the Obama administration. So during the four years of the Trump administration, there was a rake in this Obama policy where President Trump went back to dealing with traditional American allies.

As far as I can tell, historians will eventually write books about this. But what I think is that the Obama administration believes that the United States should be out of the Middle East, out of all foreign wars. And according to this sort of crazy analysis on the part of the Obama people is that if Iran can be strengthened, it would create sort of a natural balance of power between the Sunni powers and the Shia powers in the Middle East. Now, the problem, of course, is that Iran is very close to acquiring a nuclear weapon.

It's considered a nuclear threshold state. It's possible within, you know, less than a month, if there's a decision were taken, that Iran would go nuclear. And for all we know, it is already has the nuclear capability. And what this will do eventually is create a nuclear arms race in the Middle East domino effect, in which Saudi Arabia has already said that if Iran goes nuclear, Saudi Arabia will. And I believe that Turkey will also go nuclear.

I cannot envision a situation in which Iran and Saudi Arabia are nuclear powers and Turkey is not. So the Obama administration has really set the Middle East on a disastrous course for global conflict in the future. And unfortunately, the Obama people are just continuing this, you know, we've all read about these payments for American hostages, ransom payments with the Iranian government, so many concessions that have been made, all the Trump administration's really hard sanctions have been lifted. And I think, you know, whether or not you are a fan of President Trump or not, there was a certain stability in the Middle East during his administration, the emulsions in Iran were really down, they were hard economic problems, they were a lot of the senior leaders were assassinated, you know, for some inexplicable reason, the Biden administration just reversed all of those policies in the Trump administration that were working.

And that is now really how we got to this situation. Soren Kern with us today here on the Christian Real View Radio program talking about the war in Israel taking place right now. Soren, does this agreement that was in the works between Israel and Saudi Arabia have anything to do with this conflict? The Iranians are really concerned about the Saudi Arabian government signing peace treaty with Israel. And that would really bring not just Saudi Arabia, but much of the Sunni Arab world into a state where it accepts the state of Israel as a legitimate member of the Middle East. And this is something that the Islamists, particularly in Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas are trying to prevent at all costs. This is really one of the reasons why Iran is acting now, because they want to prevent the Biden administration from negotiating this Saudi agreement between Saudi Arabia and Israel. There's something about this Saudi treaty that is very interesting, and particularly over control over the Temple Mount. And so we know from Daniel 9.27 and onwards that there's going to be sacrificing again on the Temple Mount. So I think that the peace treaty is at some point going to allow Christians and Jews and Muslims to share the Temple Mount.

Now, that's obviously very significant, Soren, and I know you don't want to speculate too much on that. But that's something for all of us to keep in mind, this agreement that's going on in the background between Israel and Saudi Arabia. One of the things that's been discussed in this war, Soren, is how could this happen? From a standpoint of Israel's intelligence community, surveillance of Gaza has to be just enormous because these people want Israel's destruction.

How on earth could this scale of attack happen where literally they're coming over the fence and hang gliders and this music festival was not very heavily protected by military and so forth? It seems almost hard to believe in a place like Israel, surrounded by enemies, that an attack on this scale, in such kind of a basic way, you know, this is just to get through the fence and fly over the fence and start shooting, how this could actually take place. It's actually leading some to forming theories about this, that Israel may have allowed this, that's hard to believe, to pave the way for some future getting the Palestinians out of Gaza. It leads to a lot of conspiracy theories because it just seems hard to believe that Israel, with their security and surveillance state, this would get by them.

Yeah, it's very hard to understand. I'm sure that most analysts agree that this was an intelligence failure on a colossal scale. Eventually historians will dig through all of the correspondence and all the writings and will probably come to some kind of an understanding of what went wrong. I think, as I mentioned, there's a lot of internal divisions within the Israeli body politic. There's been a lot of uprisings in the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. And so I think that the Israeli government has relocated a lot of troops from the Gaza Strip area into the West Bank to try to maintain a peaceful order there.

I think also, as I mentioned before, that I think that the Israeli government has always viewed Hezbollah as the greater threat than Hamas. I would add that United States intelligence agencies didn't see 9-11 coming. There was failure after failure after failure by American intelligence even to understand that the Indian government was going to test a nuclear weapon.

It just goes on and on and on. So intelligence agencies are not infallible. They have limited resources. And I guess a lot of political decisions were probably made within the Israeli government to take a focus on the Palestinian issue in the West Bank and the northern Israel. I suspect that President Netanyahu is going to have to resign after this war is over. We don't know how long this war is going to take. The Israeli government hasn't really set out what its goals are.

Is it just going to be another policy of mowing the lawn? Or is it going to be really the final destruction of Hamas? And I believe that that's really what needs to happen. The Israeli government is going with aerial bombardments right now to take out as many of the weapons storage sites, Hamas, you know, their information sites, their command and control sites. But eventually, if Israel wants to root out Hamas, it's going to have to do a land invasion. They're going to have to essentially send Israeli troops and essentially reoccupy the Gaza Strip.

And I think this is something that is going to take months, many months, three, four or five months. This really guerrilla warfare, this is something that is going to lead to great bloodshed, not just on the part of the Palestinians, but also on the part of Israeli troops. There is going to be a political reckoning for this intelligence failure. But I think right now there's a unity government that's been formed. I think there's an understanding that all of the internal political bickering needs to be put on the side because this really is an existential problem for Israel. And as you mentioned, really, at the beginning of this, what makes this conflict different is the ability that this can turn into a multi front war. We now have the possibility that the Hezbollah will attack in northern Israel, that Iran will get involved. And we have, you know, the possibility of Turkey and Russia getting involved. There have been comments to that. So really, what we have here is a completely new scenario, which is really global in context.

This makes this really a different situation. Much more coming up with geopolitical analyst Soren Kern about the war in Israel. You are listening to the Christian Real View Radio program.

I'm David Wheaton. When Jesus is laying out the Holy Spirit's job description in John 16, and he says it's to your advantage that I go, think about that for just a second. Jesus, the Christ, tells his disciples, it's actually advantageous that I go. And they're thinking, what? We don't want you to go.

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Be sure to visit our website thechristianrealview.org where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print letter, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. Soren Kern, geopolitical analyst and writing fellow for Middle East Forum, is our guest today as we discuss this new war in Israel. Just back to that article that I read earlier from the AJC says the Israeli Defense Forces, the IDF, says that it has called up 300,000 reservists in 48 hours, the largest mobilization since the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which is, by the way, this came on the anniversary of that 50 years later when Israel then called up 400,000 reservists.

So this is a scale that hasn't been seen for 50 years. They are amassing on the border of Gaza, and remember Gaza is not a big area, something like 20 miles long by not very wide. It's a small little territory in the southwest part of Israel bordered on Egypt on one side of the Mediterranean Sea, then Israel on the other, so they're almost locked in there in Gaza.

And so it seems like what you were just saying that this may be different than the past or they just quote mow the lawn, you know, beat them back a little bit and so they weaken them for the next time that they might be going in. The ramifications of that have taken land back now from the Palestinian territory there and what the ramifications would that be worldwide. And then you also mentioned Hezbollah, which is the Iranian-backed Shia Islamists who are based to the north of Israel who have already started doing some incursions into the north, so there's a potentially a two-front war. The U.S. Navy has naval ships nearby now. So discuss further, Sorin, what some potential outcomes could be if Israel actually does a land invasion of Gaza, if there's a second front started by Hezbollah. This turns into a whole different outcome at that point. What do you see that to be?

Sure. Well, I think the reason why the United States is sending, I believe, two aircraft carrier groups into the eastern Mediterranean is to deter Iran and Hezbollah from getting involved in the war. I think the Turkish president was very upset that the Americans are moving their forces in, but I think that the regional leaders are very afraid of American power projection. And so I hope that moving these American troops into the region will serve as a deterrent.

Now, as I mentioned earlier that the reservists are now at 380, almost 400,000 reservists. This is a massive mobilization for a country as small as Israel. So as I mentioned, the only way that Israel is going to defeat Hamas permanently is to do a land invasion, a ground invasion, and really take control over that, root out every single last Hamas person, and then somehow create, I guess, an alternative Palestinian government that is more, I guess, political and less Islamist. And I think you asked me earlier about why are the Sunnis and the Shia cooperating? Is there mutual hatred for Israel?

I mean, they're Islamist groups, and that is really why they're working together. They have completely different theologies, different eschatologies, different objectives, political and other, but they're unified mutual objectives, really the elimination of the state of Israel, and to a much larger extent, the Jewish people. So I think that the problem right now is that if Israel goes in, and you know, there's a land invasion, it's going to be extremely bloody. There's going to be obviously a world public opinion turning against Israel, as it's always been in the past sort of wars in Gaza. And so Israel has a very small window of opportunity here to really achieve its military objectives. And I think if there are a lot of Palestinian dead, it's going to be very difficult for countries like Iran has been not to get involved in this conflict. So we really, as I mentioned, are seeing the possibility of a, you know, regional conflagration. And we're really talking about in many ways, the survival of the state of Israel. Of course, we know that God brought these people back into the land, we know that the prophecies in Ezekiel 3536, and also 3738 39, the dry bones, the Lord bringing all of the Jews back into the land.

1948, they became independent, and the Lord has really protected these people from unbelievable threats over the last 75, 80 years. And I think that this is one of those scenarios really where the Jews are going to need divine intervention and divine protection. If this turns into a regional war, if the Iranians do go nuclear, and they try to use nuclear weapons against the Jewish state. So we have so many factors in this conflict that are really if we don't really know what's going to happen next. But we do know, I think it's pretty clear that if the Israelis really want to root out Hamas in a permanent way, it's going to be a lot of bloodshed on both sides. Soarin Kern with us today here on The Christian Real View. Links to his work at our website, thechristianrealview.org. World opinion on this conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis.

It depends on who you listen to and what part of the world you're in. I read a tweet from someone who is a sympathizer, a supporter of the Palestinians. He said, there's been 75 years of ethnic cleansing by Israel toward the Palestinians. There's been 15 years of blockade on the Gaza Strip. There's been confiscation of Palestinian lands, pogroms on Palestinian towns, desecration of Palestinian sacred sites, daily raids into Palestinian homes, constant humiliation of an entire people. Nothing about this attack by Hamas into Israel is, quote, unprovoked. Now, on the other side, you have those who are the Israelis and those who support them will say that Hamas is a terrorist organization.

They don't even acknowledge their existence, their right to exist. They attack them. They kill civilians as they did here. They weren't killing Israeli military people. This wasn't a typical war.

This come in and try to kill and take hostage and maim as many people as possible who are civilians. They openly state they want Israel's destruction. So I'd like you to comment on the moral equivalence that's drawn in the world, maybe in the media specifically, but also even more now, Soren, we're seeing in America, in Dearborn, Michigan, there was a rally for the Palestinians, high level members of Congress, Rashida Tlaib from Michigan, Ilhan Omar from Minnesota, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the far leftist from New York, really against Israel and supportive of the Palestinian cause. Maybe you could talk about the moral equivalence being drawn between these two groups of Palestinians and the Israelis. And the fact that it seems like in America, there's actually been far more support for the Palestinians, not saying more support for the Palestinians and Israelis, but just far more support just as a percentage for this Palestinian Hamas cause. I think ultimately it's a generational issue that the generation of particularly Christians, but Americans in general who grew up with the birth of this nation of Israel through the Six-Day War, through all of the challenges that the Jewish state has had to get to this point, a lot of the supporters are very old or they're dead. And the younger generation really does not see the Israeli cause the same way that maybe my parents did or early generations did.

I think a lot of this has to do with Marxism and wokeism and this concept called intersectionality in which in some way all conflicts in the world, whether it's the Israel-Palestine conflict, or whether it's the conflict that homosexuals have to get accepted, or whether it's the Black liberation movement, all these different social conflicts, all these different political conflicts in the whole world are somehow interconnected. So I think that particularly in the United States, the younger generation is really growing up even in the church without a real appreciation for what is Israel, what is the Lord trying to accomplish through the rebirth of that nation. And I think another part of this is really immigration, mass migration to the West from the Muslim world. We have brought in a lot of people, millions and millions of people into the West, not just in the United States, but in Canada, Australia, particularly in Europe, of people who do not share our values. They do not have an appreciation for Judeo-Christian worldview or ethics. They automatically support the Palestinian cause because of Islam, because of the supremacy that that ideology, we know that Islam is not just a religion, but it's also a political ideology, sometimes referred to as Islamism. So I think there's a lot of appeal on all of these newcomers from an entire younger generation in the West that's been indoctrinated by Marxism.

And at the same time, by the slow death of earlier generations that really, you know, loved Israel and really appreciated the story of the Jews coming back into their land. And this is very simplistic, goes into many, many more dimensions, I'm sure. But probably these are two very important ones that help explain what we're seeing on the television screens right now. I think it's very important to understand that we've been in the Ukraine-Russia war for two years now. And there's hardly ever been any sort of protest or any anti-war movement anywhere in any western city. And that has been a bloodbath in the Ukraine. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.

Entire cities have been completely leveled. I mean, it's been a terrible, terrible war in the middle of Europe, in the 21st century. It's almost unspeakable what's going on in Ukraine. And very few people have come out to say anything about it. But the moment that it turns to Israel and Palestine, all of a sudden, it's the whole world is upset.

And I think, again, you know, we can really take the traces back to a spiritual dimension, that ultimately, this really is a spiritual war that we're witnessing. And a lot of people are just basically anti-Semitic. They hate the Jews for whatever reason that may be. And so the anti-Zionism is often used by anti-Semites to say, you know, we're not anti-Semitic, we're just anti-Zionist. But ultimately, they're two sides of the same coin. And I'm afraid, I'm really afraid that the anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiment in the world is going to be turning for the worse here in the near future.

Very well said, Soren. Just another question or two for you. Modern Israel is largely Christ-rejecting. It's a hedonistic, materialistic nation like America, a nation that aborts their children, advocates for homosexuality, and other values like we see here in our own country. So how should Christians balance the biblical call to support the Jewish people, and yet realizing at the same time that we can't unequivocally support any people, any nation, who pursues life and a society in opposition to God and his son, Jesus Christ?

Yeah, I think that's a really tricky question. And my personal sense is that we as Christians are to support the Jewish people. The Apostle Paul writes that the Jews are Christ-rejecting because they've been blinded, and at some point they will be unblinded. I think that possibly this sort of existential crisis in Israel is going to lead a lot of people to call out to God.

I read just before we recorded this that the Jews are having a fast, a global fast, to call out for God's mercy on the state of Israel and on Jewish people. It's very important for us to bless Israel because the Bible commands it. The Jewish people are God's chosen people. I think if you go all the way back to the Tower of Babel when God dispersed people all over the face of the earth, Deuteronomy 28 indicates that God specifically reserved the land of Israel for his people. And the whole Old Testament really is the story of how God raised up a people, his own people, from among all the pagan nations. And he brought them into the land, and they were disobedient, and they were punished, and then they were blessed.

And it's just a complete constant cycle of blessing and cursing and blessing and cursing. I think the fact that the Jews are back on the land since 1948 is a pretty big indication that our Lord is about to do something with the Jewish people. And I'm not saying that the Israeli government is perfect. Well, certainly no government is perfect.

No government is perfect. But my personal sense as a Christian is that I want to be as supporting as possible of the Jewish people, and particularly of the state of Israel. I think the Israeli government has a unbelievable challenge. It's really the continuing existence of the Jewish people. The whole purpose of the creation of the state of Israel from a secular perspective was to ensure that the whole cost of the Second World War could never happen again. So personally, I support the Jews.

I don't always agree with every action that the Israeli government takes. But I think there's blessings to Christian believers for supporting Israel. I think within the Christian community, one of the problems really is Reformed theology. They say that their theology is Reformed, but their eschatology is really the exact same eschatology of the Roman Catholic Church. And that's an amillennial theology. That's a replacement theology that believes that the church has now replaced Israel, that all the blessings that God gave to the Jewish people in the Old Testament are no longer valid.

The only beneficiary of those blessings is the church. And that's a faulty theology in my mind. And it's leading to a lot of anti-Semitism within Protestant Christianity in particular, also within Catholicism.

Here in Spain, a Catholic country, there is a lot of latent anti-Semitism, I think due to Catholic theology and the replacement theology. You know, there's so much confusion within the church, and so much confusion among Christians about what they should do. But my personal view is, give the Jews the benefit of the doubt, trust in the Lord. The Lord has promised us blessings. I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse those who curse you. And I think we just need to leave those things in the Lord's hands.

Ultimately, you will make things right, and there will be perfect justice in the end. Soren, we just thank you for coming on the Christian Worldview Radio program yet again, and we thank you for your insight on this war going on in Israel. We're going to be watching it carefully. We'll be praying for the state of Israel and the Jewish people, and we thank you for your analysis, and we wish all of God's best and grace to you and your family. Thank you.

Thank you for having me on your program. Okay, brief pause to tell you about some ministry resources when we return. Three Ps, perspective on the Jewish people, prophecy, and propaganda. That coming up on the Christian Worldview Radio program, I'm David Wheaton. God's truth is enduringly true throughout all the generations.

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Order at thechristianworldview.org or call toll-free 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. When Jesus is laying out the Holy Spirit's job description in John 16 and he says, it's to your advantage that I go, think about that for just a second. Jesus, the Christ, tells his disciples, it's actually advantageous that I go. They're thinking, what? We don't want you to go.

Who could be better for us? What does he then explain? That was Pastor Costi Hinn, who was raised in and then saved from the distortions of the Holy Spirit that are so prevalent today. Costi's new book, Knowing the Spirit, Who He Is, What He Does, and How He Can Transform Your Christian Life, graciously clarifies truth from error and is available for a donation of any amount to the Christian Worldview. To order this 261-page softcover book that retails for $19.99, go to thechristianworldview.org or call toll-free 1-888-646-2233 or write to Box 401 Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Welcome back to The Christian Worldview.

I'm David Wheaton. Be sure to visit our website, thechristianworldview.org, where you can subscribe to our free weekly email and annual print letter, order resources for adults and children, and support the ministry. In this final segment today, first I'd like to comment on that last question to Soren about Christians' perspective on the Jewish people. The Bible says in Romans chapter 11, starting in verse 28, Paul writes, From the standpoint of the gospel, they, these are the Jews, are enemies for your sake.

But from the standpoint of God's choice, they are beloved for the sake of the fathers, for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you once were disobedient to God, again Paul writing to Gentiles here in Rome, but now have been shown mercy because of their, the Jews' disobedience. So these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you, they also may now be shown mercy. For God has shut up all in disobedience so that he may show mercy to all.

So there's this balance here that Paul writes about. Most Jews oppose Christ and the gospel and are rebels against God. That's what Paul's saying in this passage. Judaism is a false gospel of law keeping, that you can become right with God by keeping the law. And that only leads to God's judgment, not to salvation. Galatians 2 says, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, which Judaism and Jews try to do, but through faith in Christ Jesus.

Even we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified. So Christians should not blindly overlook the rebellion of the Jews because they're God's chosen people. They're in the same state of rebellion right now as they were many times in the Old Testament. Just for example, you've heard about this musical festival that took place where Hamas came in and killed so many people. It was actually held during Sukkot, which is a religious time of year where they commemorate the exodus thousands of years ago. Well what that music festival was, out in the desert, was actually what's called a Cy-Trans-Rave. Reading from the website for the festival, the tribe of Nova proudly presents parallel universe Israel edition. This special collaboration with a festival that represents the heart and soul of the Brazilian trance music community. It's considered to be one of the largest and most respected international electronic alternative festival throughout Latin America. The central driving force behind it, the festival, is a set of fundamental and important human values. Three of them, free love and spirit.

Number two, environmental preservation. Number three, appreciation of rare natural values that the festival embodies. Every two years it goes on to say it spreads the love for exquisite electronic music in all its variations, establishes an authentic connection to the social artistic ideology, and channels all these elements for empowerment and the dissemination of the trance culture.

Not the trans culture, but the trance culture, which emerges as a universal cosmic light from the wild jungle and spreads throughout the world. That's from the actual website for this rave Cy-Trans festival that was attacked by Hamas. Now I don't think Hamas attacked the festival because of what it embodied, but because it was an easy target right near Gaza.

But this was a Woodstock-like scene of sex, drugs, trance music, false spiritist religion, and this type of worldview is typical in Israel and America today. So know that, but at the same time remember that in the big picture Israel and the Jews are God's chosen people with the future generation that will believe in their Messiah. So Christians need to support and pray for Israel and the Jews, yet without overlooking the clear rebellion of God that they are currently engaged in. Paul writes in Romans 11, I say then God has not rejected his people has he? He hasn't rejected the Jews, right?

May it never be exclamation point. For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Or do you not know what the scripture says in the passage about Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? Where Elijah says, Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have torn down your altars, and I alone am left and they are seeking my life.

Verse 4, chapter 11, but what is the divine response to him, Elijah? God says, I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal. Verse 5, in the same way then there has also come to be at the present time a remnant according to God's gracious choice. In other words, there are Jews who are saved, God always has a remnant, and there will be far more of them in the future.

And here's why there is such a national blindness toward the things of God and of Christ. Paul writes in verse 7, what then? What Israel is seeking it has not obtained, but those who were chosen obtained it, and the rest were hardened, just as it is written, God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes to see not and ears to hear not, down to this very day.

Skipping on to verse 11, I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be, exclamation point, but by their transgression, the transgression of the Jews, salvation has come to the Gentiles to make the Jews jealous. Now if their transgression is riches for the world and their failure is riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be? That from Romans chapter 11. In other words, the church age, which we're in right now, has been a time of salvation for the Gentiles. Now of course a small minority of Jews have been saved during this time, but large-scale salvation for the Jews is yet future.

And so for Christians, the perspective is we support their struggle for survival as a people and as a nation, and yet without overlooking or somehow rationalizing the rebellion against God that they are currently engaged in as a people. The second point to discuss here is the issue of prophecy. And in Matthew chapter 24, Christ gives a very detailed description of future events to his disciples. It starts out in verse 3 with a key question the disciples asked. As he, Christ, was sitting in the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately saying, tell us, when will these things happen and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?

Good question. Verse 4, Christ starts to lay out the answer. He talks about the precursor to his return.

And Jesus answered and said to them, see to it that no one misleads you, for many will come in my name saying, I am the Christ and will mislead many. You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars. That's exactly what's taking place right now. See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place, but that is not yet the end. But all these things are merely the beginnings of birth pangs.

That's where we are right now, birth pangs. In verse 9 and following, Christ gets into the persecution and proclamation of the gospel that will take place before he returns. Then they will deliver you to tribulation and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of my name. At that time, many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another. Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.

Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold. Then he says this, the one who endures to the end, he will be saved. This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

There's the proclamation of the gospel. Now in verse 15, the perilous times we see in the tribulation before Christ's literal return to earth. Therefore, when you see the abomination of desolation, which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place, let the reader understand, then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. This is in the tribulation period. When the Antichrist arises, he turns on Israel, he goes into the temple which has been rebuilt, and he demands worship of himself. And then it says in verse 21, there will be a great tribulation. This starts the really terrible part of this tribulational period. Such as not occurred since the beginning of the world until now, nor ever will, unless those days have been cut short, no life would have been saved. But for the sake of the elect, those days will be cut short. And then comes in verse 29.

I'm skipping quickly through this. Verse 29 is the glorious return of Christ. Immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heaven will be shaken, and then the Son of the Son of Man, Christ, will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory. And then he concludes this passage in Matthew 24 by saying this, heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. Never has been said a more truthful statement than that.

The world has its own perspectives. God has the truthful one in His word. Then Christ concludes the chapter by saying this, but of that day and hour, when I'm going to return, no one knows, not even the angels of heaven nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.

What were those days like? Verse 38, for as in those days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away. So will the coming of the Son of Man be. In other words, there will be exceeding sinfulness on the earth, there will be a blindness and rejection of Christ in the gospel, and then Christ will return and judgment will come. And he says finally, be on the alert, for you do not know which day your Lord is coming. For this reason you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour. When you do not think he will, who then is the faithful and sensible slave whom his master put in charge of his household to give them their food at the proper time?

Blessed is that slave whom his master finds so doing when he comes. So Christians, we must look at the bigger picture here. These events in Israel, at least as of now, are not a specific fulfillment of a biblical prophecy, but they are steps toward what will happen in the future. The wars and rumors of wars which will lead Israel to wanting peace. That's what they really want, a homeland in peace. The Antichrist will come during the tribulation and break that covenant with Israel and demand worship.

And it's very interesting what Soren had to say about the Israeli agreement with Saudi Arabia, how there may be something in there to do with the Temple Mount and the rebuilding of the Jewish temple. In the meantime, Israel is not going anywhere. They are not going to be wiped off the face of the the map. God will protect them, even in the midst of their rebellion, just as God protected them in the midst of their rebellion in the Old Testament. But God will also use the enemies of Israel, like Hamas, like Hezbollah, like Iran, to not allow them to have peace, because they're not following their Messiah at this point.

So watch the signs. Iran and Turkey are rising. These are all countries in Scripture, prominent nations in the end times, along with Russia.

The stage is being set for the end of days. And finally, just briefly, the last thing to comment on is this irreconcilable conflict and propaganda war that's taking place. This conflict between Israel and the Islamists, it's never going to be resolved.

It goes back centuries, millennia. It's like a, quote, genetic hatred of Islamists toward the Jews, because Satan hates the Jews, and he inspires hate against him. And no matter how Israel responds, how carefully they respond, those who hate Israel will always consider her to be the aggressor and the oppressor in the region. Listen to what Paul writes in Galatians chapter 4, for it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the bondwoman Hagar, and one by the free woman Sarah. But the son of the bondwoman, Ishmael, was born according to the flesh, and the son of the free woman, Isaac, through the promise. This is allegorically speaking, for these women are two covenants, one proceeding from Mount Sinai, Ishmael, bearing children who are to be slaves. She is Hagar, and he writes here to Jews, And you, brethren, like Isaac, the son of the free woman Sarah, are children of promise. And listen to this verse, verse 29, Galatians 4, But as at that time he who was born according to the flesh, Ishmael, persecuted him who was born according to the spirit, Isaac, so it is now also.

There's two applications here. The legalists, those who try to follow the law, always hate those who follow the true gospel of grace. But the second one is this, the descendants of Ishmael, the Arabic peoples, of which Islam is a major part of, have always hated Isaac and his descendants, the Jews.

This is not changing. And so there's a propaganda war taking place. And one thing that's been surprising is the degree of support for the Palestinians after this brutal murder of Israeli citizens. Anti-Semitism has exploded. The circular process goes like this. The Islamists will brutalize the Jews in some way, kill them indiscriminately, then the Jews will respond forcefully for their survival, and then the Islamists will spread images of their dead children that they've been using as human shields, and then world opinion turns against Israel, and then Israel backs off because they want peace and to be accepted by the world, and then the Islamists rebuild and attack again.

It's a circular process. So don't be swayed by the moral equivalence game that's played out in the media, where Israel is just as culpable, actually more culpable. They're an apartheid state.

They're the oppressors here. No, Israel is comparatively far more humane of a people and a society. These Islamists are barbarians. They have no standards for human life or warfare. Neither side is going to give any room to the other's claim on the land.

The reality is most all borders in the world are determined by forcible conflict. There is no hope for reconciliation between these two sides, but individually there is great hope for reconciliation with God when we obey Christ's command to repent of our sin and believe in the good news about who Jesus Christ is and what He did for us on the cross. If you'd like to find out more, give us a call or go to our website thechristianworldview.org and click on the page What Must I Do to Be Saved. Thank you for joining us today on the Christian Worldview.

Until next time, think biblically, live accordingly, and stand firm. The mission of the Christian Worldview is to sharpen the biblical worldview of Christians and to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ. We hope today's broadcast encouraged you toward that end. To hear a replay of today's program, order a transcript, or find out What Must I Do to Be Saved, go to thechristianworldview.org or call toll-free 1-888-646-2233. The Christian Worldview is a listener-supported nonprofit radio ministry furnished by the Overcomer Foundation. To make a donation, become a Christian Worldview partner, order resources, subscribe to our free newsletter, or contact us, visit thechristianworldview.org, call 1-888-646-2233, or write to Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. That's Box 401, Excelsior, Minnesota 55331. Thanks for listening to the Christian Worldview.