Israel at War – Am Yisrael Chai

End Times Berean Watchman Report

November 17, 2023 – No. 41

Analysis and commentary on today’s prophetic events from author and biblical researcher – Dr. Christian Widener

EndTimesBerean.com

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Welcome to another edition of the ETB Watchman Report!

After a lot of thought and prayer, I decided it was finally time to make another update and address the tragedy that occurred in Israel on October 7th, and the Israel-Hamas War that ensued.

Am Yisrael Chai – The people of Israel live! –or– Long live the people of Israel!

The Atrocious Attack by Hamas and the Resulting Israel-Hamas War

The evil acts perpetrated against Israel on October 7th as part of a highly coordinated invasion by Hamas–which began on the final shabbat of Sukkot (the last and most important day of the feast of tabernacles – John 7:37) and the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur war–were so terrible, that it would be shameful to fully describe them, but they include the vicious and demonic murder and rape of ordinary civilians, including men, women, children, infants, the very aged, and even Holocaust survivors. The slaughter included: Jews, Arabs, Druze, and tourists; Muslims, Jews, and Christians; Zionists and Anti-Zionists–but their only real goal was to kill Jews, as many as they could find, no matter what. Once they began their assault, virtually no one found in their path was spared. All of it was done and celebrated by the terrorists with glee and their despicable acts were publicly posted by themselves for the world to witness. Their acts were intended to start a war and they succeeded. Israel has finally returned to Gaza to fully remove Hamas from power, which I believe they will be successful in doing. Ultimately we know that God will use these events for good and to accomplish all His purposes for both the judgment of the ungodly and the redemption of the Jewish people, but what a terrible day it was for Israel and the free world.

The tragic part of Israel’s response will of course be the ordinary citizens of Gaza, but remember that 85% of Gaza voted Hamas into power and the vast majority still support them, celebrating in the streets when Jews are killed in terrorist attacks. Even as Israel has officially invaded Gaza, there are no signs of Gaza civilians welcoming their liberation by the Israelis. Nevertheless, Israel has repeatedly warned civilians to flee Gaza City to the south towards Egypt, if they want to stay out of harms way. But Hamas has no care at all for the loss of Palestinian lives. In fact, they repeatedly use civilians as human shields for their terror attacks and then film the casualties to be used in their propaganda war against Israel, accusing Israel of being the antagonist. The cartoon below is hardly an exaggeration. Like any free and civilized nation, Israel does everything to protect their women and children. Hamas on the other hand views Palestinian women and children as tools, weapons, and shields on the battle field, and because of decades of successful indoctrination with genocidal propaganda, many of them have been brain washed to believe that it is their duty to be human shields and to die for the cause of killing Jews. They believe they are doing the will of Allah. Which is true, when you understand that the Allah of the Koran is not the true God of the Bible, but is Satan, the Deceiver, which happens to be one of the 99 names of Allah.

But make no mistake, in the present war, Hamas has become a modern plot of Haman (ref. the book of Esther) and they are openly dedicated to the complete annihilation of every Jew on the planet. We know that God will not allow their plans to succeed, but like Haman, will return the disaster they planned onto their own heads.

The marxists and left wing progressives of the world are in a crisis. They either have to come face to face with real evil and change their stance towards Israel, or they have to see Hamas as “freedom fighters” who have only done what must be done to the Jews who are seen as the “occupiers” of the land of “Palestine,” rather than the rightful nation of Israel lawfully defending itself against terrorists.

As we have since 1948, it is very important for Americans to continue to support Israel, and that support must be anchored by Christians who understand that the Jews remain God’s chosen people, despite the fact that the vast majority have still not recognized Jesus as Messiah, and often do not even believe in God. But in my last update I wrote about the sweeping changes and deep division that existed in Israel as a result of this years’ election of a conservative majority in Israel’s Knesset. Those divisions were threatening to tear Israel apart, much like the division that presently exists in America. One of the positive things that resulted from the October 7th attack, however, is that it erased that division within Israel. The attack shattered the delusions of the leftist groups within Israel, forcing them to reconsider their opposition to conservative stances on the sovereignty and security of Israel. It is also causing many conservatives and liberals within Israel to think about God and to begin to call out to Him in prayer for His help, which according to 1 Kings 8:46-53 is what God is looking for.

46 “When they sin against You (for there is no person who does not sin) and You are angry with them and turn them over to an enemy, so that they take them away captive to the land of the enemy, distant or near; 47 if they take it to heart in the land where they have been taken captive, and repent and implore Your favor in the land of those who have taken them captive, saying, ‘We have sinned and done wrong, we have acted wickedly’; 48 if they return to You with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies who have taken them captive, and pray to You toward their land which You have given to their fathers, the city which You have chosen, and the house which I have built for Your name; 49 then hear their prayer and their pleading in heaven, Your dwelling place, and maintain their cause, 50 and forgive Your people who have sinned against You and all their wrongdoings which they have committed against You, and make them objects of compassion before those who have taken them captive, so that they will have compassion on them 51 (for they are Your people and Your inheritance which You have brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace), 52 so that Your eyes may be open to the pleading of Your servant and to the pleading of Your people Israel, to listen to them whenever they call to You. 53 For You have singled them out from all the peoples of the earth as Your inheritance, just as You spoke through Moses Your servant, when You brought our fathers out of Egypt, Lord God.”

1 Kings 8:46-53 NIV (emphasis added)

The attack by Hamas shook the confidence of all Israelis in their own might and military intelligence to deter violence. May they repent as a nation and turn to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, their shield and protector, and pray for deliverance. And may they truly come to understand how much they are supported by Christians in the West and be moved to jealousy and salvation (Romans 11:11-15).

11 I say then, they (the Jews) did not stumble so as to fall, did they? Far from it! But by their wrongdoing salvation has come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. 12 Now if their wrongdoing proves to be riches for the world, and their failure, riches for the Gentiles, how much more will their fulfillment be! 13 But I am speaking to you who are Gentiles. Therefore insofar as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I magnify my ministry 14 if somehow I may move my own people to jealousy and save some of them. 15 For if their rejection proves to be the reconciliation of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?

Romans 11:11-15 NASB (emphasis added)

Be in prayer for Israel. Many Christian’s will be praying for Israel this weekend, November 17-19, in a Weekend of Prayer for Zions Sake. Pray for their protection, peace, the return of the hostages, and that the Jewish people would come to know Jesus as their Messiah, Yeshua Hamashiach. It’s estimated that nearly 1 million of the worlds 16 million Jews may already believe in Jesus, but there are over 2 billion Gentiles worldwide that believe in Him and the word of God that began with Moses, was prophesied through Isaiah and the other prophets, and ended with the Apostle John’s Revelation. It really is remarkable that a Jewish carpenter and rabbi from Nazareth in Galilee, two thousand years ago, completely transformed the entire world. No mere mortal could have done such a thing. Only God himself, born of the Virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, who was raised from the dead by the Father–fulfilling a total of around 200 prophecies in the Old Testament–then ascended in glory into heaven before more than five hundred witnesses, and who is coming back again.

He says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

Isaiah 49:6 NIV (emphasis added)

Now granted, many of the world’s 2 billion people claiming the name of “Christian” are not true followers of Jesus Christ. Many of them have already begun falling away. One sign of that is their antisemitism and animosity towards Israel. They are falling into Baalam’s Error. See my post, Balaam’s Error and Replacement Theology. Apostate believers will also embrace the Antichrist’s world unifying lie that we all believe in the same God. It will be a kind of E pluribus unum (“Out of many, one”) that will eventually become a bait-and-switch, forcing everyone to worship the beast and his image.

Was the Attack a Fulfillment of Prophecy?

What began on October 7th will, I think, prove to be straight out of what the Bible tells us will happen in the last days. First, for those of you who have been reading my posts or my book, Witnessing the End, you already know that I believe the final seven years of the prophecy in Daniel 9:24-27 began in 2020 and I am expecting that somehow we will see the Abomination of Desolation take place in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount and the rise of the Antichrist near the time of Passover in 2024. It could perhaps be a little before or a little after Passover, but it will be close to it, if the Day of the Lord is going to come to a close in 2027 (likely on the Day of Atonement). Now that may have seemed like a big stretch prior to the events of October 7th, but with the paradigm shattering events of the Hamas invasion, a massive and undeniable shift has occurred in both Israeli politics and the Jewish mindset worldwide. When Israel finishes removing Hamas from power in Gaza and peace talks resume in the region, particularly with Saudi Arabia, we may see events that no one thought possible.

But, back to the subject of actually being in Bible prophecy. If what I believe is true, then might we be seeing events from Daniel chapter 11 unfolding before our eyes? Let’s take a look…

29 At the appointed time he (the King of the North) will invade the South (Negev) again, but this time the outcome will be different from what it was before. 30 Ships of the western coastlands will oppose him, and he will lose heart. Then he will turn back and vent his fury against the holy covenant. He will return and show favor to those who forsake the holy covenant.

Daniel 11:29-30 NIV

Think about what the text is saying. An alliance of nations from the North will invade the South, but the word in Hebrew is Negev, which is also the name of the southern part of Israel where Gaza is and that was the area mainly attacked by Hamas in their recent invasion. Although Hamas was the direct perpetrator, everyone knows that it was really Iran who was funding, training, and equipping Hamas for these attacks. Consequently, Daniel 11:29 could be understood to be describing the present invasion of the southern part of Israel, i.e. the Negev, by Hamas.

But that’s not all, Daniel then wrote that this invasion would be opposed by ships from the West (ships from Kittim). And what did we see immediately after the invasion by Hamas? President Biden authorized two aircraft carrier battle groups to protect Israel and dissuade Iran, Hezbollah, etc. from simultaneously attacking Israel from the North. The United Kingdom also sent ships to support Israel. That’s an awful lot of fire power showing up from ships from the West, and it looks like the present deterrence will be successful in either preventing a northern invasion or turning one back around should the present skirmishes on Israel’s northern border intensify. According to reports, it was definitely something that Hamas didn’t expect. In fact, I think it probably surprised everyone, maybe even Biden… 🙂

Now it may still sound like kind of a stretch to tie these present events to Daniel 11:29-30, or at least a little too thin to be definitive, but there’s one more very important data point. The very next thing after the invasion of the Negev described in Daniel is the abomination of desolation (Daniel 11:31-33).

31 Forces from him will arise, desecrate the sanctuary fortress, and do away with the regular sacrifice. And they will set up the abomination of desolation. 32 And by smooth words he will turn to godlessness those who act wickedly toward the covenant, but the people who know their God will be strong and take action.

Daniel 11:31-32 NASB

So consider how unlikely a coincidence it is for all of this to have happened, if we were not where I believe we are–on the verge of witnessing the abomination of desolation in the coming year. Isn’t it perhaps more reasonable to suppose that we really have nearly reached the middle of Daniel’s seventieth week, the last seven years of man’s corrupt rule on the Earth, prior to the physical return of Jesus Christ to rule and reign for a thousand years.

I’ve talked with a lot of people about these ideas and I know that, at present, it just seems hard for most people to imagine that we truly could be six months away from the revealing of the Antichrist and that the majority of our private plans for the future may not come to pass because they will be eclipsed by God’s immeasurably better plans. It is for me as well, but as I have been watching for these things for so long, I’m telling you, I believe it is time to get our thinking and, most importantly, our actions oriented towards Christ’s soon return. It is more important than ever to be reading our Bibles (especially paying attention to prophetic passages), and praying and asking the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us in the days ahead. Our time is running short.

The Final Decree…

Again, if you haven’t read my latest book, Witnessing the End, then you need to know about the amazing discovery of another decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which is given as a sign for counting 490 years until the arrival of the Messiah. Until this book, basically the entire Christian community, if they consider Daniel 9:24-27 a prophecy of the end times at all, would have said that there was really only one decree to count from and that it was probably the second one given by king Artaxerxes I in 445/444 B.C. So prophecy watchers just weren’t aware of a second decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which would make Daniel’s prophecy a double prophecy–490 years to death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah at his first coming, and 490 years to his glorious return and triumph over the Antichrist. Remember you can find my book, Witnessing the End, available on Amazon or you can just download a free .pdf.

What About the Gog-Magog War?

Another thing that we shouldn’t miss is that the nations of Ezekiel 38 are taking shape and aligning themselves together before our eyes.

Prophecy about Gog and Future Invasion of Israel

38 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 2 “Son of man, set your face toward Gog of the land of Magog, the chief prince of (Rosh) Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, 3 and say, ‘This is what the Lord God says: “Behold, I am against you, Gog, chief prince of Meshech and Tubal. 4 So I will turn you around and put hooks into your jaws, and I will bring you out, and all your army, horses and horsemen, all of them magnificently dressed, a great contingent with shield and buckler, all of them wielding swords; 5 Persia, Cush, and Put with them, all of them with buckler and helmet; 6 Gomer with all its troops; Beth-togarmah from the remote parts of the north with all its troops—many peoples with you.

Ezekiel 38:1-6 NASB

The countries named almost certainly include modern Turkey (Magog, Meshech, Tubal, Gomer, and Beth-Togarmah could all be references to Turkey) and Iran (Persia). But they can also be seen to include places like Russia (either Rosh or “the remote parts of the north”) and the Taliban of Afghanistan (the eastern most part of the Persia empire). Libya, as ancient Put, and Yemen and Sudan, as parts of ancient Cush, also seem to be indicated. Strangely, we don’t see Lebanon or Syria overtly mentioned in the list. This may be because they are included by naming Persia, who in the days of Cyrus had conquered both Syria and Lebanon. Since Hezbollah is currently attacking Israel from both Syria and Lebanon and are even now a part of Iran’s proxy army, then either they are just a part of the greater army of Persia in the Gog-Magog war, or it may instead mean that both of those nations will be defeated before the start of the Gog-Magog invasion. We’ll just have to watch and see.

It’s important to note that the Houthi’s in Yemen have already joined the declaration of war against the state of Israel. While it’s difficult to be dogmatic about this, I see a link between the name Cush and the region of Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, Yemen, Eritrea and Djibouti. Modernly, Cushitic languages are found in the Horn of Africa, but the peoples that could be associated with Cush include the ancient Nubians, the Queen of Sheba, and later the Kingdom of Aksum and it’s predecessor D’mt, which have archaeological evidence in Yemen of being associated with the Queen of Sheba (Seba) and the Cushite Kingdom has evidence of extending from Egypt to Somalia, i.e. overlapping the same area.

Concerning Libya, the Libyan foreign minister was fired in September just for meeting with the Israeli foreign minister. It was primarily because of the riotous protests of the radical Libyan militias that support Hamas and the Palestinians desire to destroy Israel.

And what about Russia? Well, their paramilitary group Wagner has announced that they will supply weapons to Hezbollah, and they are active in both Libya and Sudan. Plus, in the largely Islamic region of Dagistan, there were recent shocking riots looking for Jews at both their main airport and at least one hotel.

So what can we conclude? It seems clear to me that the nations of the Gog-Magog invasion are aligning before our eyes. The present Israel-Hamas War may be the catalyst that inspires the full invasion, or perhaps we are just getting to witness the alignment that is now coalescing or was already there, hidden just underneath the surface. Based on my reading of the Gog-Magog account in Ezekiel 38 and 39, there are two separate encounters being described. The first ends with the sixth seal and the first trumpet judgement raining fire and brimstone down on the the invaders and indeed the whole world (see Ezekiel 38:19-23 and compare to Revelation 6:12-17 and 8:1-7). The second encounter will still be led by Gog and Magog, but will be joined by many more nations and will end in their defeat by Christ himself and the Great Supper of God where the birds of the air will feast on their remains (see Ezekiel 39:1-6 and 17-20 and Revelation 19:11-21). I believe that the sixth seal will happen sometime in the second half of the Tribulation, perhaps in 2025 or 2026, and then the final battle would be near the end of 2027. These are my guesses based on my understanding of the texts and what I see actually happening in front of our eyes.

But How Can We Be So Close?

Remember, Jesus said that life would carry on right up to the end. He said people would be eating and drinking, marrying and being given in marriage right up to the time when he would return to gather his elect.

26 And just as it happened in the days of Noah, so will it also be in the days of the Son of Man: 27 people were eating, they were drinking, they were marrying, and they were being given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all. 28 It was the same as happened in the days of Lot: they were eating, they were drinking, they were buying, they were selling, they were planting, and they were building; 29 but on the day that Lot left Sodom, it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all. 30 It will be just the same on the day that the Son of Man is revealed.

Luke 17:26-30 NASB

And what do we see going on in Israel, in the midst of a war and their greatest tragedy since the Holocaust? Weddings. In fact, if you think about it, no matter how bad things get, life seems to always carry on. We simply adjust to the conditions around us, no matter how terrible they are. It doesn’t matter whether we are talking about life in North Korea, Iran, Nigeria, or any other place, people learn to live under the most horrendous conditions.

So here we are thinking that things aren’t so bad, but we have already forgotten how much things have changed and how much we’ve lost since the start of 2020. We are already adjusting to the dramatic inflation, loss of freedoms, and growing injustices around the world. Is that going to be any different in the Tribulation? I would say no. If we don’t recognize the signs that Jesus told us to watch for, then we can logically expect that the start of the Tribulation will also escape our notice. And I would say that this has already been proven to be true.

Keeping Tabs on the Four Horsemen

As I’ve said before, it still looks like we are inexorably moving towards a World War III scenario that will bring war, famine, and pestilence, and those real threats which are currently materializing could certainly bring about the death of the quarter of the earth as prophesied in Revelation 6:8. The big question is, “When should we expect to see that a quarter of the Earth has died?” My current thinking is that the final death toll may not be reached until the seventh seal of the scroll is opened. If that is the case, then we as believers caught up in the air to meet our Lord may never hear the full number. Even now, there is a lot of talk about excess deaths globally, but the data has been strangely hard to come by since the numbers started to approach estimates of up to 50 million worldwide over a year ago. However, in the U.S. we can see that excess deaths have continued to rise over the past year. So, this is not a problem that has not gone away, and in fact it now seems that the true numbers may be being hidden from us. This is also believed to be a problem in the UK, but there is no interest from the government or even enough concerned citizens to investigate it at the present. Few people realize how large and widespread excess deaths really are.

And places like China have never been honest about their death toll. Their crematoriums were running day and night, they lost tens of millions of cell phone users [ https://www.theepochtimes.com/china/china-lost-millions-of-cell-phone-users-in-2020-official-data-3686856 ]. The correlation with COVID deaths has been disputed, but there’s no denying that cellular subscriptions dropped by 20-30 million from 2019 to 2020. Since that time, the total number of cellular phone subscriptions has been rising, but so has the number of subscriptions per 100 people, from 121 to 125, or 1.21 to 1.25 phones per person, meaning there is good evidence to suggest that China did suffer many more deaths than they reported. Airline flights have also been dramatically reduced. Of course the reduction is related to the pandemic and problems with the economy, but is it also because there are a lot less people to fly? And there’s the war in Ukraine, nearly half a million lives lost–it’s not hard to wonder, “What’s next?” Granted, even if we have already seen 100 million excess deaths in the world since 2020, that’s a far cry from 2 billion, but I suspect that the death toll will be more exponential, not linear.

Fire Drill or Real Fire?

I first confirmed the actual date and locations of the stone decrees in Jerusalem in April of 2020. At that time, we also had the declaration that the coronavirus was a global pandemic, which I was not alone in suspecting could be the white horse of the first seal (Revelation 6:1-2).Other than that, there wasn’t a lot to confirm the two seventy sevens theory. But let’s review what has happened since that time in support of a double fulfillment of Daniel’s seventy sevens.

1) Evidence for the Red Horse Appeared. A staggering increase in violence and unrest around the globe, Russia invaded Ukraine, Hamas invaded Israel, China has threatened to invade Taiwan, NATO has mobilized, the Russia-China-Iran axis has formed

2) Evidence for a Black Horse Began to Show. Inflation and shortages of food on grocery store shelves began to appear. Food processing and production has been compromised globally. Droughts and floods have destroyed crops around the world. Governments in Europe, Asia, and the Americas began policies attacking farming and ranching as bad for the environment. And the UN has warned of famines of “biblical proportions” in the near future.

3) Evidence for a Pale Horse is Here, too. Millions died in the two years of the coronavirus pandemic, which was expected, but then insurance companies began warning that 40-50% more people were dying than they expected. A new and unexplained health condition, SADS, Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, appeared in the world. Died Suddenly, began to produce almost endless hits on search engines of people who had suddenly and mysteriously died during sports, while out for a walk, in their beds, even right on camera. And nuclear war began to be talked about as a genuine threat. There have even been bizarre reports of animals (“the wild beasts of the earth”) attacking and killing people around the world, which is the last way mentioned that people would be killed by the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

4) Global Apostasy. Paul gives two major signs before the coming of Jesus to gather his elect. The first is the apostasy of the church. Now Christian’s have been failing away from the faith since the first century, but what has happened in last few years with churches openly embracing homosexuality, tolerating sexual immorality, embracing mysticism and cultic prayer and meditation practices as legitimate Christian practice, giving up the exclusivity of Jesus as the only way to salvation and the infallibility of God’s Word, is simply shocking. This is leading to a new multi-faith lie that “we all worship the same God.” Along with that is the lie that the Allah of the Koran is the same as the God of the Bible. Or that as long as people embrace Jesus as savior, in any sense of the word, they will be okay. The apostasy is truly here. It will likely get even worse, but it has arrived. John MacArthur has a great straightforward definition of apostasy. I starts with religious liberalism, which is really just rejecting the parts of the Bible that we don’t like so that we can keep on sinning

“An apostate is one who knows the truth and rejects it. Religious liberalism, and by that I mean those who have departed from the truths of the Word of God. Preachers and teachers who teach less than the inspiration of Scripture, the deity of Jesus Christ, his virgin birth, substitutionary death, atonement, resurrection, and coming again. Anybody who teaches less than that is an apostate.”

Pastor John MacArthur

5) An Invasion of Israel that Matches Daniel 11:29-30.

So, here’s the way I think we should be thinking about this. Whether this is a real fire, or not, there is enough evidence to say that, spiritually, there is a fire alarm going off, and I think we should start to respond accordingly. I think it is time to wake up, get out of bed, and get ready. How can we see all of this happening and pretend that nothing is really going on, or worse assuming that we can’t really be that close–it’s okay to ignore the alarm and go back to bed. Sure, maybe it will turn out to be a false alarm, but it is no accident or coincidence that so much has happened that matches God’s Word. If this is a fire drill, it’s from the Lord. If it’s real, as I suspect it is, it’s from the Lord. Either way, I believe we should be compelled to respond.

Final Thoughts

We really are getting close folks. It may be hard to see exactly how everything is going to shake out, but it’s easy to see that the world is falling apart and that the words of Scripture seem to be coming alive before our very eyes. And maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that few seem to even notice, since we know that for those living in darkness and dissipation that the Lord’s return will come like a thief in the night. But believers are not supposed to be taken by surprise. They are supposed to be awake and watchful, living in the light of God’s Word, and recognizing the signs.

1 Now as to the periods and times, brothers and sisters, you have no need of anything to be written to you. 2 For you yourselves know full well that the day of the Lord is coming just like a thief in the night. 3 While they are saying, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction will come upon them like labor pains upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4 But you, brothers and sisters, are not in darkness, so that the day would overtake you like a thief.

1 Thessalonians 5:1-4 NASB

When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Luke 21:28 NIV

Let us therefore be wise and watchful. In the days of Christ’s birth, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem. They saw a star in the East that they believed meant that the Messiah of Israel had been born. We don’t know exactly how or why, but they did. Perhaps it was something handed down by Daniel to the wise men in Babylon. Then, in faith, they journeyed for months, at great expense and effort, in order to confirm the truth of their observation. Their hopes were not disappointed. But interestingly, when they asked the Jews where the Messiah had been born, the religious leaders seemed to be completely unaware that anything had happened in Bethlehem, which was only 6 or 7 miles away. The people who knew the prophecies intimately, having studied them for years, weren’t looking for the Messiah to be born in Bethlehem at that time. And instead of jumping up and following the wise men to look for the Messiah in Bethlehem, Herod sent them off with instructions to return when they found him. We are also told that all Jerusalem was troubled after hearing the account of the wise men, but their lack of interest in accompanying the wise men to Bethlehem demonstrates that they found the idea absurd. The unbelief of the religious leaders and Herod prevented them from recognizing the signs. The only belief that Herod demonstrated at all was that the baby could possibly be a threat to his reign (Matthew 2:16-18). I expect that things will not be much different regarding faith in Christ’s second coming.

3 Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. 4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water. 6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed. 7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

2 Peter 3:3-7 NIV

20 Yet he [Abraham] did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21 being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised.

Romans 4:20-21 NIV

For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Romans 4:3 NASB

May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all, and may we be found ready when He comes. Amen!

Christian Widener, PhD

EndTimesBerean.com

P.S. Feel free to reach out anytime with comments, suggestions, or questions. 🙂

christian@endtimesberean.com