Israel, The Future?
A strong indicator of the nearness of the prophecy given by Jesus, in reiteration of Daniel in Matt.24; is to watch the progress that will be made by Israel in the project of their next Temple in Jerusalem!
That progress can be trusted, as Jesus only ever spoke Truth, as He said a few times; “I only say what my Father in Heaven has given me to say”!
The Future?
What is evident to even the casual observer, and the regular news broadcasts, is that Jerusalem is an unusually special place! Its geographical location is such that it sits on the cross-roads of the old land trade routes from east to west, and north and south; and has been a disputed site for millennia in the ebb and flow of local powers, as they waxed and waned. Since the Roman occupation and the dispersion of the Jews from their Land, of which Jerusalem was their Capital, various peoples have had dominion there, all of them defined as Gentiles by Biblical definition.
Since 1917 and the taking of Jerusalem by General Allenby (ably assisted and maneuvered by T.E. Lawrence, of Arabia fame) much turmoil and conflict has ensued between the various factions. Despite the WW1 victory releasing the whole area from the control of the Ottomans (some WW1 historians attribute much credit to Allenby and Lawrence, and go as far as to say that without the victory in Palestine, the Germans would not have conceded!)
The division of the land area between the Arab powers, including Israel, has been a vexed subject, and progress has been very painful and patchy. A clear winner was the Saudi family, whose oil wealth has been/is pivotal to so much Mid-East politics.
A clear starting point for seeing the Hand of The Almighty in recent events (relatively speaking), was the “Balfour Declaration” of 1917:
The Balfour Declaration (dated 2 November 1917) was a letter from the United Kingdom's Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Baron Rothschild (Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild), a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland.
His Majesty's government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.[1]
The text of the letter was published in the press one week later, on 9 November 1917.[2] The "Balfour Declaration" was later incorporated into the Sèvres peace treaty with the Ottoman Empire and the Mandate for Palestine. The original document is kept at the British Library. ETC.
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