Israel’s Enemies Prepare for War

JERUSALEM—With all the chaos and turmoil right now in nations like Egypt, Sudan, Libya and Syria, you sometimes forget about the impossible situation Israel is in at this very moment.

Last week, an Israeli paper interviewed the commander of the Israeli Defense Force’s 91st Division about the threat coming from north of Israel’s border. The officer said, “We understand that there is more than one factor, whether this is Lebanese, or whether it will come from somewhere else, that can ignite the border here” (Ha’aretz, July 5). Of course, the continued instability in Syria could also ignite conflict along Israel’s border.

According to the newspaper, Israeli intelligence has identified “lawless zones” along the Syrian and Lebanese border, through which advanced weaponry passes. Right now, Hezbollah in Lebanon is believed to have about 60,000 rockets in its arsenal. Just to give you some context, that’s about ten times as much as it had back in the 1980s during the First Lebanon War.

Israel’s enemies are arming themselves to the teeth! Is there really any doubt about where this is headed? Just look at a map and see for yourself the unsolvable problems Israel is facing.

One senior officer from Israel’s Northern Command is quoted in that same article as saying, “The next war will be different, and therefore we should stop it as quickly as possible, in order to make things easier for the home front. This means carrying out a very strong attack against Lebanon, and the damage will be enormous.”

We’ll see soon just how strong Israel’s action will be. But consider again all of the threats taken together that are there against Israel, as they come from so many different directions. The report quoted above is really only concerning the threat Hezbollah poses in Lebanon. But Hamas in Gaza is also stockpiling weapons. And Hamas and Hezbollah together are really just the pawns of much larger threats that are looming in the background from Iran and of course eventually, as we’ve been highlighting here recently, from Egypt as well.

War is coming to the Middle East, as we’ve been saying. War is coming—that is for sure.

The Prophet Zechariah wrote in Zechariah 14, “For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city” (verse 2). Here is a prophecy about the nations of this world gathering to fight against the soon-coming Messiah.

Verse 4 continues, “And his feet shall stand in that day upon the mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof toward the east and toward the west, and there shall be a very great valley; and half of the mountain shall remove toward the north, and half of it toward the south.”

We should all give thanks to God that this terrifying proliferation of weapons that we see right now—this escalation of hatred and violence—culminates in this blessed event: the return of the prophesied Messiah to Jerusalem!