October 11, 2006
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Shalom from Jerusalem,
We received our first light rain in Jerusalem this morning after months of typical dry summer weather—always a blessing to this dry and thirsty land. Heavier showers are forecast for this weekend. The partly cloudy weather comes as many Israelis are preparing to eat their last evening meal in their decorative succas, or booths, recalling the ancient exodus from Egypt and God’s provisions for their ancestors on the long journey to the Promised Land. The booths also remind all of us that we are only temporary residents on this troubled planet, and that eternity is still ahead of us.
Given this week’s celebration of the annual biblical Feast of Tabernacles, I thought it was appropriate to write my latest commentary for the World Net Daily web site on a spiritual theme. It was published today, and is included below. The idea was sparked by a rather hostile question I received during a recent speaking tour in the U.K. (just one among many friendly and challenging questions I might add), and also by an intriguing opinion survey on Israeli faith recently published by the country’s largest daily, Yediot Ahronot. I hope you enjoy the commentary.
In the news, tension continues on the strategic Golan Heights after Syrian dictator Bashar Assad charged earlier this week that Israel is preparing to attack his country. Some analysts here feel this may be a Soviet-style attempt to pre-justify military action on his part, and therefore IDF troops in the area remain on high alert while quietly preparing for any possible cross-border Syrian assault.
Despite this, Jerusalem remains filled to the brim with overseas Christian and Jewish visitors for the annual feast. I spoke before hundreds of people Tuesday morning at an annual feast conference at the Ramat Rachel hotel in south Jerusalem, overlooking nearby Bethlehem. The International Christian Embassy of Jerusalem reports that a sudden last minute surge of pilgrims from across the globe, mainly from relatively nearby Europe, brought the numbers attending their annual feast celebration to near their average of some 5,000 people (from 80 countries), despite the recent war. Nearly 100,000 Israelis and foreign tourists paraded down Jerusalem’s main street on Tuesday afternoon to mark the feast, on a beautiful cloudless day with pleasant temperatures. Wherever you are in the world today, I hope it is a good day for you.
Apocalypse imminent? Look around you
Posted: October 12, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern
During a recent speaking tour in the United Kingdom, I was asked a question
that frequently arises from secular folks in my audiences, and sometimes
even from professing Christians and Jews.
"
Why are you evangelicals so eager for the apocalypse to take place?" Usually
the question is followed by a critical modifier such as "You are all
so focused on violence and death," or "Why not work for peace
instead of dwell on war and conflict?"
I replied that it is hard not to notice that the world is falling apart.
After all, it is usually non-religious scientists and activists, not doomsday
Christians, who are warning the global community every day that we are
wrecking our planet's delicate ecological system with polluting automobiles
and spreading smokestack industry, massive deforestation and slash burning,
overpopulation, etc.
If you add soaring worldwide cancer rates, spiraling viral plagues like
AIDS and other diseases, increasingly devastating earthquakes, floods and
tidal waves, expanding deserts adding to growing famine, melting icebergs
around the north and south poles, burgeoning international terror attacks,
gang violence and murder rates, and mushrooming nuclear weapons proliferation – most
recently in libertarian lights like Pakistan and North Korea, with radical
Shiite Iran apparently also well along the way to owning The Bomb – you
have good reason to sleep a little less soundly at night, evangelical Christian
or not.
The ancient Hebrew prophets, including Jesus of Nazareth, foretold that
the world would be engulfed by unprecedented political, military and ecological
upheaval as history raced toward its final chapter. As I told my most recent
questioner, this is simply a matter of fact, as any cursory reading of
the Old and New Testaments will confirm.
Of course, other world religions duplicate this apocalyptic scenario, especially
Islam, even if the details sometimes differ. Popular psychics and mystics
like Nostradamus and Jean Dixon have long echoed this rather bleak prognosis
of how human history will end.
The Hebrew prophets' contemporary Israeli cousins are feeling a little apocalyptic themselves these days. For the first time since just before the 1967 Six Day war, a Jewish prime minister has publicly voiced fears that the small state's continued existence is now in question.
In a statement to his fellow cabinet ministers in early October, Ehud Olmert spoke about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's repeated vow in recent months that the world's only Jewish-run state would soon be completely obliterated by his theocratic Shiite Muslim country.
"
From the point of view of seriousness, this tops the state of Israel's
list," the prime minister laconically told his government subordinates,
adding ominously that "It is potentially an existential threat." Olmert
later reportedly admitted to visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
that the Iranian annihilation pledge "keeps him awake" at night.
Under widespread attack for his controversial management of the inconclusive
summer war with rogue Hizbullah militiamen in Lebanon, the embattled Israeli
leader confided to his cabinet ministers that he firmly believes President
Bush will take care of the looming Iranian nuclear threat. But opinion
polls show few Israelis expect the U.S. president – whose final-stretch
popularity ratings are almost as low as Olmert's already are in his first
months in office – will actually bite the radioactive atomic bullet.
This might mean that tiny Israel will end up having to defend the Free
World all by itself against Hitler's Aryan clone; a nightmarish prospect
at best.
But at least that would prove to the Israeli public that Dubya is not the
Promised Messiah, nor the United States Israel's Ultimate Protector, as
many now firmly believe.
Speaking of Messiah, a recent survey carried out by the Smith Institute
for the country's largest daily newspaper, Yediot Ahronot, showed that
a clear majority of Israelis believe he will come to rescue the country
in its darkest hour, as the ancient prophets foretold.
Although the same poll showed that only one-third of the Jewish population bothers to visit a synagogue on a regular basis, a full 71 percent believe that the God of Israel actually exists. On top of that, 57 percent think that the long-expected Messiah will appear one day in Jerusalem. Most added that they are aware of the apocalyptic prophecies that strongly indicate that the day of his arrival may be drawing very near.
In light of this decade's horrific Palestinian terrorist attrition war
that has so far taken the lives of over 1,000 Israelis, and the latest
Lebanon conflict with Iran's proxy force that snuffed out another 160 lives
and left the northern third of the country reeling from daily rocket bombardments,
it is no surprise that 39 percent of the poll respondents testified that
they have become closer to their ancestral faith in recent years. Only
9 percent said the decade's dramatic events have driven them further from
God.
Since the Hebrew prophets foretold that Israel's salvation, not nuclear
destruction, is the ultimate outcome of the monstrous upheaval predicted
for the end of days, it should not be surprising that the turbulent events
of recent years are apparently literally driving many in this special Promised
Land to their knees. With medical science now confirming that possessing
heartfelt spiritual convictions is healthy for mind and body, and with
the prophets also forecasting a golden age of peace under Messiah's righteous
rule, I am quite happy to mention the biblical last days in my international
lectures – scary or not.
DAVID DOLAN is a Jerusalem-based author and journalist who has lived and worked in Israel since 1980.
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For a general listing of books, visit the WindowView Book Page for: Science and Scripture.
How does one really see the deeper informational side to Scripture? We recommend “footsteps” as the source for seeing the the truly functional details in Scripture.
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