It is Near
For most of its history Christianity has promised blessings for its adherents and curses for those who doubt.
Now, for the first time in the Church's long reign, questions about the major claims of Christianity are overwhelming the "gospel".
Is Christianity losing the battle for men's minds? Yes. Is this a tragedy? No. It appears to be the Plan, becoming more clear every day. "It is near" examines the evidence.
Most Christian podcasts seem breathless in their self-defense of "the faith".
Gotta prove that God exists. Gotta set the record straight. Gotta battle atheism.
Gotta defend the Bible. Gotta warn people of future wrath.
"It is near" takes a different approach. First of all, the wrath if almost over. We're living through the "day of his wrath" right now. Just beyond the trouble -- which is aimed at human institutions, especially Christendom, is peace and tranquility that no one dares to hope for. "Even the bad news is good news." Yes, the Bible is true, but events will make that clear soon enough. Yes, there are good reasons to believe there is a God behind all of creation. But he is a much better God than the Church has ever taught its adherents, or explained to the world outside. Much more gracious. With a solution for every human problem, and a refusal to justify the sins of the Church herself.
The notion of human history that begins in disgrace, is haunted by tragedy, and ends in failure for the masses of mankind, is too outrageous to accept. Time for new messages: for the Christian, we say "Turn away from 'turn or burn.''" For the skeptics, we say, "The half was never told you. Of course there was a screw loose in the Christian "gospel" you heard. Of course the Church burned you and blamed you for leaving a dysfunctional human system. Of course a good God would end human injustice, cure cancer, protect the planet, and bring people together. And that's exactly what he's about to do."
The unbelievers' problem has never been with Jesus. He's always been likable enough. It's his Church that stumbles people and makes them look for a non-theocratic explanation of our origins.
Is it possible that Christians -- those who carry the burden of orthodoxy -- have gotten it partly wrong? Is it possible the Bible's depictions of God and his plans have been misunderstood? Is it possible there is significant "good news" that has been ignored?
The incredible claim of this podcast is that, in the face of ages of creed wars stacked against us, "when the Bible is more carefully examined, its message is a thousand times more comforting and more sensible than anyone imagined." Our mission is to prove this thesis to be true for non-Christians taught to believe they are responsible for the failures of our "Christian" world; and it is true for sincere Christians who worry about the myriads of people they have been taught will burn in hell -- including, often, their own closest loved ones.
Could it be that the geopolitical institution we call The Church is itself scheduled for self-destruction? Could it be her followers have been commanded to leave? That Reformation has already been tried and will no longer work?
Who are the words "Come out of Her, my people" addressed to? Who is commanded to "Avoid her sins. Escape her judgment"? See Revelation 18.
If you are interested in evidence that God sees, understands, and has good reasons for allowing crazyness to happen in the world he sent his Son to rescue, tune in.
You may be pleasantly surprised.
It is Near
Gaza vs Israel
Could the ancient struggles and prophecies of Israel hold the keys to a future where peace reigns supreme? Join us as we traverse the spiritual and geopolitical landscapes that have defined Israel's place in history, and ponder whether current events could be signaling the fulfillment of biblical prophecies. With a compassionate eye, we consider the tribulations faced by both Israelis and Palestinians, and the role of the international community in shaping media narratives.
In this episode, we take you through a journey from the past to the prophetic future of the Middle East. From the covenant of the Israelites with God under Moses's guidance to their profound societal contributions, we explore the historical tapestry that has been woven through conflict, discipline, and resilience. We scrutinize the prophecies of Ezekiel 38, decoding potential alliances and adversaries, and discuss the intricate dynamics between Israel and nations like Iran and Yemen. The tensions surrounding Jerusalem, a sacred city to many faiths, are also dissected, along with the diplomatic endeavors to broker peace, including the commendable efforts of President Carter.
As we conclude, our heartfelt respect for the Jewish people and their prophetic destiny shines through. Embracing the scriptural promise of a miraculous epoch to come, we invite listeners to engage with the Israeli narrative with empathy and a desire for understanding. This episode is a tapestry of admiration, prophecy, and a shared hope for a time when all will celebrate the realization of ancient promises. Join us as we navigate these complex topics, seeking wisdom and insight into one of humanity's most enduring stories.
It is Near focuses on the alarming and the hopeful; the frightful and the forgotten; the blinding glare of giant problems, and the dark secrets that lurk even more menacingly in the shadows of global trends. "Amazing Grace" may have taught our hearts to fear, but for most Christians and non-Christians alike, divine grace as commonly conceptualized does not those fears relieve. It is Near will be informative, accessible, comforting, and challenging to every thinking person. It will call Christians to account and provide a breath of fresh air for secularists who, for once, would like to hear a conciliatory and intellectually honest message from a thoughtful Christian voice. Owen Kindig of Sitka, Alaska is your host, and is responsible for the content.
"Even the bad news is good news."
The things that are happening in Israel now -- in terms of the thorny Palestinian Jewish question -- those things are predicted. It's all about learning to understand what God intends to do with the human race, and I've said it before and I'll say it again: He intends to bless the entire human race. He "preached the gospel to Abraham is how the apostle Paul put it. And what was the gospel? That in Abraham and his children, all the families of the earth will be blessed. They will be blessed. They will learn to live. They will learn to be in harmony with each other. They will learn to have life. Those are the things that God is making happen. So let's look at some other verses. Welcome to. It Is Near. This is episode 7. And I've done now three episodes 7. This is the third one. I hope it's the charm.
Owen Kindig:You'd think a podcast about Bible prophecy would be all over the events of October 7th, and I should have been, but I've been trying to get it right. I've been trying to study prophecy and be sure that I understand what the Bible prophecies say. I don't want to do a knee jerk reaction. You know from my previous podcast that I am a supporter of and lover of Israel, and so my bias is deep- seated and any Bible- believing Christian is likely to agree with me. Any non-Christian member of the audience is likely not to assume that I'm on the right track, and so I'm trying to present balanced evidence based on not only the Bible but also history and logic, and, frankly, I've been struggling with how to handle it and I've been busy with the format change that we've been working on, getting it set up as a video podcast and trying to get it so that I can make the episodes be basically self-edited as we go, and so, for all of that, it's here. It's been over four months and I'm only now almost ready to release episode 7. And I have good material from the earlier attempts at episode 7 to share with you. Some is on audio only, some is audio and video.
Owen Kindig:I will be sharing that too, and there'll be episodes that follow along on this topic, but this one I'm trying to show a balanced view, and it happens to come on a day when there was another major nightmare, and that was the very unfortunate loss of life that occurred in Gaza, when a bunch of people were shot as they crowded around an aid convoy to try to get food. We've discovered over the last four months that Hamas is excellent at selling a false narrative to the news media consumers around the world, and we need to wait and see just a little bit longer to let an investigation unfold as to what exactly happened. It's very possible that the people that were shot were not actually shot by the IDF. They were shot by Hamas gunmen. We don't know. We know that Hamas gunmen have routinely been shooting Palestinian citizens when they have attempted to leave the area where battles are occurring. There's concrete evidence of that and it's a very concrete pattern that the soldiers and leaders of Hamas hide behind civilians in hospitals, in schools, in the neighborhoods -- and use those people so-called "innocent civilians as human shields. And then there's another aspect of this that the Jewish soldiers have been more and more stridently talking about and doing their own kind of underground videos about, and that is that they don't consider any of the Gaza people to be quote innocent civilians. Time and again they've been trapped. They've seen their comrades killed and wounded because they trusted civilians not to be in league with the soldiers of Hamas.
Owen Kindig:The soldiers of Hamas are not like normal soldiers. They don't wear uniforms. They don't act like combatants. It's difficult to be a soldier who cares about human life and who cares about innocence and who cares about being humane. It's very difficult for these Israeli soldiers to act in a way that their ethics tell them they should and, at the same time, they're watching hundreds of their own men and women be killed, and they're watching women and children who are working in cahoots with Hamas soldiers to call down sniper shots, to hide guns in their robes -- and ammo -- and get them to the soldiers who are pinned down in a house or in a tunnel nearby. Those are things that the Israeli soldiers have had trouble with, and so there's a whole underground of social media presentations making the point that they can't trust anyone, and if they're a Palestinian in Gaza, the soldiers of the IDF don't see themselves as safe around them at all, and that makes it even more complicated and more difficult. So, anyway, if you want to have a balanced look at what is really happening over there, I encourage you to check your sources and don't just assume that just because somebody is a quote journalist working for the BBC that they are reliable as telling the truth. Israel has found tunnels, and loaded with weapons. They found weapons inside baby bassinettes. They found tunnels under hospitals. They found the entire server farm, the entire server operation of the Hamas computer network, under one of the biggest hospitals in Gaza. The hospitals were built as places where soldiers could safely hide. Hamas soldiers could safely hide and attack from if they were to ever have a street war, which is what they have been planning for for the last several years.
Owen Kindig:My belief is that the situation that exists there today is something that has been predicted and understood from the ancient times in the Bible, and the Bible conveys the notion that God himself, that there is a God and that he has begun a process of blessing the entire world through one family, and that family is the family, the children of Abraham, and he has only guided and taught that one family up till now. And what is really amazing is that the people who are the worst enemies of Israel and of that family, that family that was called by God to become a blessing of all the families of the earth, that that family which was taught through some very difficult experiences of their own by God, that family is learning and is prepared to be a blessing to everyone, including Palestinians. And I know that people who don't believe the Bible find such a notion laughable. But the thesis of the scriptures of the Bible, the governing operation, the governing idea behind the Bible, is that there is a God. He made the world, he entered the human history through one family. His goal is to restore the entire human race to fellowship and peace with each other and fellowship with him. And this one family, the Jewish people, the children of Israel, that family is designed, is intended to be a blessing to everyone else. When we look at the Bible, what we're going to see is that the strongest enemies of the Jewish people are actually their nearest kin and their nearest relatives.
Owen Kindig:So let's look at a psalm first of all. This is Psalm 83. Here's what it says oh God, do not keep silence, do not hold your peace or be still. For behold, your enemies make an uproar, those who hate you have raised their heads. They lay crafty plans against your people. They consult together against your treasured ones. Who are those treasured ones? Those are the children of Abraham. They say come, let us wipe them out as a nation. Let the name of Israel be remembered no more, for they conspire with one accord Against you. They make a covenant, and then it starts listing the combatants in this covenant the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites. That's the first group. I'll come back and discuss who each of these are Moab and the Hagarites, ghebal and Ammon and Amalek. Philistia, with an inhabitants of Tyre, asher also has joined them. They are the strong arm of the children of Lot, okay so. And it also mentions Midian. Okay, so what are these groups of people and what is the time period referred to here as when these folks are dead set against the Jews? Okay, all right, the tents of Edom.
Owen Kindig:The story of Jacob is familiar to many of us, no matter what our views of religion. Now, most of us have gone through some sort of Sunday school experience. And there was Abraham, and then he had a son, isaac, and then he had a son, jacob, and at the same time, a moment before Jacob was born, his twin brother, esau, was born. Okay, so Edom is the biblical term, the Hebrew term, for the children of Esau. That would be the twin brother of Jacob and the person who was. He was actually a few minutes older, but there's an amazing and interesting Bible story about how Jacob convinced his father that he was Esau, the older brother, and then Isaac gave the blessing, the privilege of being part of this Abrahamic promise to bless the world. Through a subterfuge, israel got that promise himself. It's a very amazing and almost comical story of how somebody wanted to be a blessing so much he was willing to cheat to get it. And his mom was in on the subterfuge Rebecca, the mother of Jacob and Esau. So the tents of Edom is referring to the twin brother of Jacob. In future episodes we'll talk about this feud, this family feud between, like the Hatfields and McCoys, between the children of Jacob and the children of Esau.
Owen Kindig:But the thing to understand is that the people who were the children of Israel, of Jacob, had a completely different set of experiences. They became the people of a book taught by a law giver, moses, taught by 400 years of slavery and 40 years of wandering and a wilderness. They were taught by a tabernacle and priesthood arrangement that gave them methodologies by which they could find themselves at peace with God and also how they could learn to identify. There's actually 17 different words, I believe, in Hebrew for sin, all different shades of meaning of sin. When Amos the prophet talked to the Jewish people in his day, much later he delivered a message from God to the Jewish people which said you only have I known of all the families of the earth. They were the only nation that God made a covenant with. That God established a theocracy, with that God became the leader of their nation. And I recognize I understand why people who are skeptical about the Bible would say well, yeah, that's what their book tells them. But we're going to be seeing, as these next few episodes unfold, that the evidence in history is actually quite supportive of the claims that the Bible makes in this regard. But at any rate, when Amos was speaking to the Jewish people, he said God says you only have I known of all the families of the earth. And then he goes on to say Therefore, I will punish you for your iniquities. In other words, if God is their father, they are the only child of the human race that has a father who is present and who teaches them and disciplines them. And the discipline that the Jewish people have received has been at times ferocious, at times horrendous. And yet when we look around the world today, we see primophatia, evidence that the Jewish people are a blessing to the world in terms of the knowledge, the creativity, the ethical nature. Jewish people are the largest philanthropists in the world. They are the largest Nobel Prize winners, they are inventors, mathematicians, scientists, and lately they've also been quite good at running armies, fighting, fighting, because they've had to do a lot of fighting in the last 75 years for their own survival. So you've heard my argument. I hope you'll stick with me as I present other evidence to support and buttress the claims that I'm making.
Owen Kindig:Let's go back to the Psalm for a moment. Okay, the tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites. Who are the Ishmaelites? Well, ishmael was the first son of Abraham, the one who was born to him through his wife's servant, hagar, who was an Egyptian. So Ishmael had 12 sons. I believe Esau also had 12 sons.
Owen Kindig:There were a bunch of Ishmaelites, and all of the Arabian nations traced their lineage to Ishmael, moab. And then, skipping down, a couple of words, ammon. Moab and Ammon were two brothers and they were both the children of Lot, which was Abraham's nephew. Lot was the relative of Abraham, who settled and lived in the town of Sodom for a while, which was destroyed by a meteor that came in, and I did a podcast about that in one of my earlier episodes. But Moab and Ammon were two brothers, sons of incest, who founded nations, entire nations that have always been sworn enemies of Israel, and there's a story in the Book of Numbers about the Moabites wanting to have a prophet curse Israel, a prophet named Balaam, and that's an interesting story in the Book of Numbers.
Owen Kindig:Ammon became the nation of the Ammonites, who also fought Israel. When Israel came towards the promised land from their wandering in the wilderness, they asked the Ammonites if they could just pass through, because God told them that the Ammonites were promised land of their own. And the Israelites said we don't want any of your land, we just like to bring our people through your land because your land is in the way. The Ammonites said no way, so they ended up having a war against each other. Today, the descendants of Ammon are many of the people who live in the nation of Jordan, and the capital of Jordan is Ammon, which comes from the same word, ammon, amalek.
Owen Kindig:Amalek was a son of Esau, jacob's twin brother. The story goes that Esau went out and married a woman contrary to his parents' wishes. Jacob went to the Kindred lands, the lands where Abraham had come from, to find a wife, and it wasn't until Esau got around to his third wife that he did the same. Amalek was the sworn enemy of the Jewish people, his nation, the Amalekites in biblical history and prophecy has come down to prophetic writings as the land of Gog, the Agagites, and it was the nation that Saul fought against, that David fought against. Again and again, the Israeli people have come up against the Amalek tribes and in five battles that go all the way back to Abraham's day and go forward all the way till the end of the millennium described in the book of Revelation. In every case of these five battles, amalek loses. They hate Israel and they always lose to Israel, and that's kind of what's happening right now. It appears Hamas is losing. They might be winning the public relations battle and that's prophesied as well but they are losing the actual struggle on the battlefield.
Owen Kindig:Philistia was a nation that had nothing against Israel other than the fact that they wanted to have some land to grow corn. They came from Crete and they settled in the area that Abraham was coming down into when God sent him down, according to the Genesis account. And Philistia then has had tribes and cities. They had five cities along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and they have been a thorn in Israel's side for millennia. The Bible records seven major battles between Israel and the Philistines, and they won most of those, but the Philistines kept bouncing back, and it's a matter of historical record that it was the Assyrian Empire and Babylonian empires which subdued the Philistines and of course they also had their way with Israel. The inhabitants of Tyre refer to a group that were farther north in Israel, just below Lebanon and up alongside Lebanon. That's where Tyre was. It was a maritime peninsula city, very wealthy traders. They had ships that covered the entire Mediterranean and perhaps beyond.
Owen Kindig:Asher refers to the Assyrian Empire, which is farther north, on the other side of the Euphrates River, and it says in this prophecy that Asher joined them. So they were told that Syria and some of the tribes north of Syria were involved in the rivalry, this confederation against Israel at the period of time that this psalm is talking about. And it says that Asher was the strong arm of the children of Lot. So that shows that there was a Moabite-Amenite axis along with the Assyrians. And then Midian is mentioned. Midian was another son of Abraham through Quturah. He was, I think, the second son of Abraham through Quturah, who was the wife that Abraham married after Sarah died.
Owen Kindig:Let's jump now to another prophecy. I would say that this prophecy that we've just been reading about is a description of the Confederation the Arab League, we might say against Israel for most of the 20th century, up until very recently. This confederation has been broken and it no longer stands. There still are Palestinians who are working against Israel, but a number of the Arab tribes and nations have made peace with Israel in the last few years. This has been called the Abraham Accords, and some of the people in this group, the you know the Ishmaelites, the Hagarites I didn't mention them. They are the, the children. Hagar had several children besides Ishmael, and so Hagarites are also kind of Egyptian and Arab you might say Bedouin tribes, and so some of these tribes would be the Yemenites, the Saudi Arabians and so forth, all of those what we would call classic Arab tribes. They were involved in the Arab League and they were involved in the big wars that Israel fought since 1948. They all said we are coming against you as a nation, we're gonna drive you off the face of the earth. The Hagarites, which came from Egypt that fits with Gamal Abdel Nasser who, when I was a boy, I saw on TV say we're gonna drive you into the sea. Those are the people who were involved in that original plot. But that confederation is no more, and that's not what we're seeing here right now. Most of the fighters against Israel now are not the Arabs, they're not the Ishmaelites, the Hagarites, they're not even the Ammonites, which is Jordan. And Syria is currently not that active. They are avoiding as much as they can any direct conflict with Israel. So who are they now?
Owen Kindig:To get an insight into that, let's turn to Ezekiel, the 38th chapter, and we're not gonna see the fulfillment of Ezekiel 38, but we're gonna get some insights into that conflict. Okay, so here's Ezekiel, 38th chapter. The word of the Lord came to me. Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog. Okay, I mentioned Gog a few minutes ago. Gog is the name for the enemies of God, the enemies of Abraham and the enemies of all of Abraham's children, especially well, the enemies of specific Abraham's children. That would be Israel, the promised seed, isaac, abraham, isaac, jacob those are the promised seed in there and then the nation that came from Jacob. Gog is their sworn enemy. Remember the story of Esther? You had Haman, the Agagite. Agag is the name of their king and Gog is from the same root, and the land of Magog is just another way of saying the same thing.
Owen Kindig:We won't get into some of the details of this because they're not in the scope of what we're looking at today, but I want to roll down and notice who comes against Israel in the final conflict, which is not the one we're having today. But they are Persia, which is Iran, kush, which is Northern Africa, ethiopia and Somalia, probably, and Put are with them. Put refers to Yemen, gomer and all his hordes and Beth Togarmah from the uttermost parts of the north, that's Turkey, the current battle that's happening. Hamas would be a part of Gog. They are in line with and working with Gog, but they aren't the whole thing. And the thing that we see here is that Persia, iran is in on this, yemen is in on this, and so those guys are helping Hamas by running interference against, giving Israel a two-front war to worry about, even a three-front war to worry about, and so this is a foretaste of some of the future battles that we're going to see in the not-too-far-distant future between many nations and Israel. But notice who's not in this. Most of the people who were in that last prophecy, the one in Psalms 83, most of those folks are not there. The Ishmaelites, the Ammonites, moab, those people are not in this picture. So the amazing thing that the Bible tells is that Israel will actually be at peace with almost all of the Arabs when their final battle happens. But Iran is going to be involved and is going to be an active agent in trying to wipe out Israel in the final struggles. So just be aware that Iran and the Yemenites are going to be in the future in the final battles that Israel will be facing.
Owen Kindig:In the Ezekiel, the 38th and 39th chapters, there's actually four prophecies at least that identify this final battle, and they are in the book of Joel. They are in the book of Ezekiel and several other places, and I will be going through those in future episodes, but I don't want to get involved in that too much right now. What I want to focus on right now is that the things that are happening in Israel now are in terms of the thorny Palestinian Jewish question. Those things are predicted. They are actually works of God, they are actually acts of God. If the Bible, if you can just I mean you just read it in the Bible.
Owen Kindig:According to the Bible, these things are actually things that God has prearranged. He's like a, he's like a director of a play and he is providing an invisible hand that moves characters onto the stage and off the stage to make this play dramatize the issues and the conflicts that he wants to see the human race struggle with, so that they can learn some lessons in the process. And that's what that's what this play that we're watching is all about. It's all about learning to understand what God intends to do with the human race, and I've said it before and I'll say it again he intends to bless the entire human race. He preached the gospel to Abraham is how the apostle Paul put it. And what was the gospel? That, in Abraham and his children, all the families of the earth will be blessed. They will be blessed. They will learn to live. They will learn to be in harmony with each other. They will learn to have life. Those are the things that God is making happen.
Owen Kindig:So let's look at some other verses. In Zechariah, the 12th chapter, the third verse, it says on that day I will make Jerusalem a heavy stone for all the peoples. All who lift it will surely hurt themselves, and all the nations of the earth will gather against it. Okay, there are several prophecies that say substantially the same thing. The idea is that if you watch human history, you're going to reach a point where the Jews are back in their homeland, in their promised land. That itself is a miracle and is unprecedented in human history. But after 2,000 years of absence, the Jews come back and in 1948 they become a state and are recognized by the majority of the nations of the world, able to have their own land, their own nation.
Owen Kindig:Then what happens is that the world is confronted with this horrible diplomatic nightmare of a problem. What are you going to do about the fact that Christians, jews and Muslims all think of Jerusalem as their sacred place? It's such an intractable problem with overtones of well, whose land is it and how did they get it, and are we being treated fairly? And all this on both sides. This issue has been an intractable problem. Every leader of the world who tries to deal with this problem fails.
Owen Kindig:The closest one to success was Jimmy Carter, when he got the Egyptians and the Jews to agree not to continue fighting each other and killing each other. And how did he get that to happen? Well, israel was willing to give the entire Sinai Peninsula back to Egypt, even though they'd found oil there. That's why the Carter was able to look like a great magician of Middle East diplomacy, because the Jews were willing to give back all this land that they had conquered twice before and had quickly given back this third time when they fought in 1967 war, they said wait a minute, we're not going to keep winning this land and then give it back. What do you think we are? We're not that stupid. But they wanted peace so badly with Egypt that they gave it back. And as a result, that's where the Gaza problem kind of really had its origin, because up till then Gaza had been administered by Egypt and Egypt didn't want to handle Gaza anymore. It was a nightmare. So they gave the Sinai Peninsula to Egypt and then they were stuck. They were stuck with Gaza.
Owen Kindig:Every American president has tried in one way or another to solve this problem and has not succeeded. Biden has struggled. One of the things that Donald Trump did that the Jews greatly appreciated was that he transferred the American embassy to Jerusalem instead of Tel Aviv, and that was really appreciated. And he also was involved in helping smooth the way for the Jews to establish trade deals with other Arab states, as I mentioned earlier. So the Abraham Accords began under Trump and have been continued under, and even expanded a little bit under Biden.
Owen Kindig:But Biden is really caught between a rock and a hard place, because his reelection chances hinge on being able to attract the young vote, and the young vote in the United States has overwhelmingly sided with the Palestinians on this issue. That's happening right now. So Biden wants to help support Israel and he's been supporting Israel but he doesn't want to go too far and appear to be favoring Israel at the expense of the Palestinian people. So he tries to make this artful separation between the Hamas and the people of Gaza, and what the Jewish soldiers are finding and the Jewish leaders are saying is that, well, yeah, we don't want to hurt the Palestinian people, the Gaza people either, but they have a deep, violent, angry attitude toward us. And we also are frustrated with the United Nations. The United Nations is Unwa and the Red Cross and all these other organizations that are supposed to be helping just provide humanitarian assistance are actually fighting for and with Hamas, hiding Hamas operatives in hospitals, in schools and so forth. So it's a very complex, mixed up situation, and this prophecy in Zechariah is just one of several that say that that's exactly what will happen. You can blame God for this human situation that we find on the ground, here in Israel right now.
Owen Kindig:Let's look at one more verse about what is happening today, and this is in Zechariah, the 12th chapter, the sixth verse. So we're coming back to Zechariah 12 again. It says on that day, I will make the clans of Judah like a blazing pot in the midst of wood, like a flaming torch among sheaves. They shall devour to the right and to the left of the surrounding peoples, while Jerusalem shall again be inhabited in its place in Jerusalem. Okay, so the first thing that this verse tells us is that Judah is going, that's, the Jewish people, israel, as we know them today, are going to become very effective in their, in their fighting the surrounding neighbors, the peoples around them. It says, and it's talking about the Palestinian people. They will be like a a how's it put it? A, a blazing pot in the midst of wood. They will devour the, the enemies that they encounter, and that's what's been happening and it. I think that they were much more deliberate, much more measured in past conflicts than they are today. Today, they are determined to absolutely destroy Hamas and its ability to wage war. They're systematically destroying Hamas's capacity to fight, to have, you know, soldiers, to have weapons, to have ammo, to have tunnels. They just are determined to devour the peoples around them.
Owen Kindig:And what's going to happen? Well, it goes. It feeds right into that last scripture we just looked at. It's part of the process by which Israel is going to lose its public support. It's going to lose, you know, I just read an essay by Thomas Friedman and then last couple of days he's sympathetic towards Israel and and he's he knows that Hamas was, was, they were butchers and and rapists and they were awful, but he's saying that Israel is blowing. He considers Israel to be making mistakes in in the way they comport themselves in the, in the view of the public opinion of the world. Well, bible prophecy predicts exactly that. That's exactly what will happen. Israel is going to lose all her lovers, it says in Jeremiah. Israel is going to lose all of its support, as as if, as if to say they can't survive without public opinion.
Owen Kindig:Part of the lesson that God, I think, is trying to teach the world is that he's got a plan for the world of mankind and he's got a certain amount of land that he is devoted to the children of Abraham, and he's got lands for all the rest of the world to live in and he is going to reconcile all of the Jews with all of the Arabs and all of the other enemies that they have. He's even going to reconcile the children of Ammon and the children of of Esau, you know, and the Moabites. Those are all. All of those people are going to be reconciled with the Jews in the future, but right now he's determined to show the world that what he has predicted and what he wants to happen is going to happen. He is God and he is in, in control of human affairs, and the Jewish people are going to find themselves in a real pickle in future years, to the point where the four prophecies that I mentioned, that include the Ezekiel 38, 39 prophecy all of them are pointing to a time when every nation of the world is going to actively be involved or at least passively permitting the Jewish people to be attacked with the intention of their of being eliminated. There's going to be one last attempt by the human governments of the world to completely destroy Israel, and that's what the final conflict of the time of trouble in the world conditions will be the time of Jacob's trouble. That is probably only 10, 12 years away, but right now Israel is going, is determined to wipe out Hamas, and they're going to lose a whole lot of the support that they have around the world now, and that is part of the fulfillment of prophecy.
Owen Kindig:I love the Jewish people, I love Israel. I support Israel in my small way of you know, talking in these podcasts about why Israel is a valuable part of the human race and going to be the blessing to the world that God has promised. But the reality is that Israel is going to go through one last horrendous difficulty before the time of peace and blessing can come to the entire human race. According to Psalm 44-3, it was not the sword of Israel that, in the past or in the future, will defeat the enemies of Israel, but God's favor upon the Jewish nation. They will not, in the end, be able to defeat their enemies on the battlefield, and that's the lesson that the Jewish people will be taught in the final battle that's described in Ezekiel 38 and 39 chapters. Even though up to that point, israel will be having its way with its enemies that surround them on the battlefield, in the end they will lose on the battlefield but still be saved as a nation by the favor of God, and the world will see this and recognize that Israel is indeed favored in a remarkable, indeed miraculous, way by an invisible hand in human history. So with that I'm going to end episode seven and I have some more information that's in a little more detail, just to share. That's already been cut and I'm still editing and I will come back with more prophecy insights, hopefully, that you will find useful as you look to see what God is trying to accomplish and what the Bible says about the future that's we're living and watching right now.
Owen Kindig:Keep your eyes open. Don't believe everything you see on the internet or hear on the internet, and listen to both sides of some of the arguments that are being made and you'll be surprised. And it's important to, I would say, give more weight. If you're inclined not to give weight to the Israeli point of view, give it some more weight and give it some more time to try to understand, because one of the facts of history is that those who support and bless Israel will be blessed. Everybody who blesses Israel, blesses Abraham, will be blessed. So I wish you the best in that regard and thank you for listening to. It Is Near. The time is coming when all of the promises that God has made for the human race are going to be fulfilled and it is going to be a very happy time, thanks.