This week marks Israel’s 60th anniversary as a tiny nation in the Middle East. Today, as in 1948, Israel is desperately seeking peace with its Arab neighbors.

Beginning tomorrow, leaders from all over the world will convene in Jerusalem for the first annual Presidential Conference to discuss Israel’s uncertain future.

Will this conference bring peace to the Middle East?

In preparing for the gathering of world leaders, Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, said there has to be a “proper mix of imagination, will and compassion” to make dreams become reality. Here’s how the conference website defines its mission: “This international convocation will look closely at the trends and developments that are mapping the future, and serve as an incubator for some selected proactive responses.”

Israel’s future certainly is being mapped, but it’s not the way the Jews want it to be.

Dialogue With Terrorists

This conference will feature topics including the Jewish Self and Jewish Collective Identity in an Era of Multiple Identities and Constructing Dialogue With Islam. They wish to construct dialogue with Islam whether Islam likes it or not.

Israel’s real problem is radical Islam! Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has the major initiative in the Middle East right now, and he’s about to get the nuclear bomb! Just last week, Ahmadinejad referred to Israel as a “stinking corpse” that was destined to disappear. “Those who think they can revive the stinking corpse of the usurping and fake Israeli regime by throwing a birthday party are seriously mistaken,” he said.

How can you have constructive dialogue with someone like that? Britain tried to do that with Hitler prior to World War ii. British leaders kept talking with him about having peace, and he kept gobbling up more and more of Europe and the world until he almost won the war!

How is Israel going to construct a dialogue with these rising Gentile powers? They may talk to Israel; but what weak nations don’t seem to understand is that terrorist nations use those talks to further their cause. Radical Islam and other aggressor nations don’t want peace—except on their terms. And that means they want the Israelis to be their slaves or to disappear!

Is this conference really going to lead to peace? Is it even possible for us to have peace?

Bible prophecy shows that Israel will find no peace in these “times of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:20-24; also, to read more about the prophesied “times of the Gentiles,” go here).

Prophets Unheeded

Notice how the Presidential Conference sums up its mission: “Across the millennia, the echoes of the biblical prophets have been heard, repeated, and often gone unheeded. Envisaging a just and peaceful tomorrow, they charted our thorny way forward, and gave us the moral armor for the journey. With great passion, they instructed us to explore and shape a better future, and continue to provide us with the inspiration and commitment to do so. In the spirit of the magnitude of the prophets’ vision, and yet with all due humility, Facing Tomorrow will address the challenges and opportunities that await us.”

Here at the end of its vision for the conference is a kind of token mention of the prophets. Maybe it is a little bit of a step in the right direction, but to have any positive effect it’s going to have to go a lot deeper than a token mention.

Remember that Jesus Christ said, When I’ve sent prophets in the past, you killed a lot of them and persecuted the others and rejected the message (Luke 13:34).

Conference organizers claim to be conducting the meeting in the “spirit of the magnitude of the prophets’ vision”—and I have to take exception with that. I don’t think it really is in the spirit and magnitude of the prophets’ vision. After all, the prophets delivered God’s vision, and leaders and people today don’t seek God’s will for Israel.

We are already at the edges of this “times of the Gentiles” storm. The Babylonian system is rising up again in this world, and it’s going to cause no end of misery.

The Facing Tomorrow organizers say in their press release that they are conducting this conference “with all due humility.” Again, I just have to disagree. Are they really willing to listen to Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and the former prophets and the minor prophets of their own Bible? Are they really willing to listen? Are we really willing to listen to God?

Hope in Getting to Know God

Notice again the concluding remark of the President’s vision for the Conference: “Facing Tomorrow will address the challenges and opportunities that await us.” Yet the real challenge that could prevent all the suffering and all the terrible problems is accepting the message today that God said He would reveal to this world. He said He would reveal His secret unto His servants the prophets (Amos 3:7). God always does that. He always warns Israel. Accepting God’s message is always the real challenge. Are we going to listen to God and His messenger today? In Isaiah 40, there is mention of “the voice”—just one voice of God. Are we going to listen to that?

Ezekiel 6 and 7 prophesy that these upcoming trials are going to lead us to get to know God. Surely, when looking at this world, we can understand that mankind really does not know God. But the good news is, this world is about to get to know God! It is up to you individually to get to know God today, and be spared from the destruction that is about to come upon this Earth!