“Like a Cloud”
Let's look into the future for a few broaching the edges of Israeli
minutes and try to imagine what's
coming, based on some prophetic
passages...
Imagine Israel in a period of peace
for the first time since she was re-
born as a nation in 1948. Let's
imagine ourselves there as observers.
At this point in time there are no
terrorist attacks in Israel any more.
There is no need for young Israeli men
to walk the streets during their off-
duty hours with their ever-present
automatic weapons slung over their
shoulders. Peace has settled in the
Middle East at last. But a quiet
uneasiness has crept in. Almost all the
hostile Arabs have left quietly over a
period of a few months. Although all
seems well, an air of tension prevails.
It's like the calm before a storm,
everybody knows something is about
to happen. Before long, it does.
The Arab nations have marshaled
their forces before, but this time
they're joined by Russia and
Germany, along with forces from
Ethiopia, Libya and others from North
Africa. Iraq and Iran are sweeping in
on Israel from the east. Wheeled and
tracked vehicles, artillery and
commando units, and mobile anti-
aircraft batteries are on the move.
The thumping thunder of helicopter
rotor blades fills the air, along with
the scream of enormous jet engines
pushing fighters at supersonic speeds
over the mountains. Bombers and
wicked black helicopters are
airspace, many armed with battlefield
grade nuclear weapons. The few
remaining Israeli antiaircraft batteries
are on red alert and scanning the
target-rich skies.
A gentle wind is blowing off the
Mediterranean. The roar of machines
in the air and on the ground causes
the earth to tremble. Great clouds of
dust are rising into the air from the
multiplied thousands of tracked and
wheeled vehicles converging from the
north, east, and south. Arafat's
Palestinian forces are readying
themselves to attack, gloating at the
thought of their impending victory.
Israel has faced overwhelming odds
before and emerged victorious but
never have so many come against so
few as in this dreadful hour. The
United States and Great Britain are
voicing opposition to the buildup, but
neither has the military power, the
presence, or the backbone to act
against this enormous alliance. The
U.S. military has been so decimated
by widespread troop deployments and
reduced defense spending that there
is little chance they could help much
anyway. Besides all this, the United
Nations has refused to permit the
North American military to intervene.
The final moments are near. Now
great clouds of hostile aircraft have
violated Israeli airspace. A veritable
ocean of enemy ground forces
encircles the tiny nation. To the west,
out in the Mediterranean, naval battle
groups from hostile nations are
gathered against the Promised Land,
ready to launch their cruise missiles.
Millions upon millions of enemy
soldiers are advancing on foot and
more are arriving every the hour by
truck and transport aircraft. The
operation is like nothing the world has
ever seen.
Then, just before zero hour, the
skies over the Middle East begin to
grow ominously dark with very
strange cloud activity. A deeper and
more decided rumbling from deep
within the earth eclipses the rumbling
of the armor that trembles the
ground. Rain begins to fall, at first just
a sprinkle. Then small hailstones
begin clatter and bounce off the
windshields of the aircraft and rattle
off the armor of the thousands of
armored vehicles on the ground. The
hailstones become larger. Some of
the cockpit windshields on the aircraft
and the ground vehicles begin to
sprout cracks from the impact of the
hailstones. The rain grows heavier
and heavier until it seems to be
pouring out of the sky in bucketfuls.
Canyons and ravines are being filled
and soldiers are drowning by the
hundreds in flash floods. Trucks and
tanks are grinding to a halt, their
wheels and tracks unable to negotiate
the deepening mud. Bright vertical
orange streaks are seen painting
themselves on the darkening sky.
Oddly, some of the hail actually
appears to be burning as it falls. Then
the answer becomes clear. Meteors
are falling with the hail and the rain.
The hail and the meteors increase and
the rumbling builds itself into an
overwhelming thunder from deep
inside the earth. The cameras of CNN
are rolling and the whole world
watches in awe while God proves
once and for all that He is sovereign
Lord of all.
While the hailstones, the
overflowing rain, the meteors, and the
earthquake haven't damaged
anything Israeli, hundreds of enemy
aircraft have been suffering direct hits
from above and the invading ground
forces are now fighting among
themselves trying to escape the
slaughter from the skies, the dark,
rushing waters, and the awful terror of
the earthquake. Millions of soldiers lie
spilling their blood while millions more
are running for their lives. Ancient
mountains are being reduced to
shattered piles of rubble by the
earthquake and hundreds of
thousands of soldiers are crushed
beneath great slabs of stone. For the
enemy aircraft pummeled by stones
from the sky, evasive action is
impossible. Every hailstone and
meteor that falls hits a target in the
air or on the ground. In every
direction one looks, jets and
helicopters are going down in flames.
The size and scope of the wreckage is
unbelievable. Some helicopters
manage to land only to be destroyed
on the ground by dozens of
plummeting chunks of rock and ice, or
to be swept by torrential floodwater
into the yawning chasms opened by
the earthquake. Some of the aircraft
on the outer edges of the battle
manage to escape. Fighter jets are
racing away at top speed from the
land they were about to attack. Mid-
air collisions take place by the score,
and crippled planes spiral into the
mountains to explode in huge
fireballs.
The hailstones are getting more
numerous. Most are as large as
cannonballs now, but some are much
larger. Huge chunks of ice and
burning rock are crushing trucks,
soldiers, and tanks.
Israel needs no military might
when protected by the infinite power
of an angry God. While God is
destroying the enemy military
hardware, not a single plane crashes
in Israel and not a single hailstone
damages an Israeli structure or
vehicle. The earthquake becomes
more violent, with more great fissures
open in the rumbling surface of the
earth. Enemy soldiers are scrambling
to escape the great cracks, but
multiplied thousands fall or are
carried screaming and flailing into the
darkness by sweeping walls of water.
Most of an Egyptian armored division
is swallowed up in a moment as the
tortured landscape opens a yawning
crack directly beneath them...
After the earthquake is over and
the hail stops falling, the clouds of
enemy aircraft are replaced with
clouds of carrion-eating birds and
animals. Five-sixths of the invading
armies have died in the slaughter. The
remaining one-sixth have gone
limping back home in horror to tell the
awful story. The whole world knows
now that there is a God in heaven and
that the hand of man will never
destroy His chosen people. It will take
seven months to bury the dead
enemy troops and seven years to rid
the land of wrecked helicopters,
fighter planes, and bombers, crushed
and burned out tanks and trucks. The
stench of rotting flesh fills the air for a
radius of three hundred miles.
When is this incredible scenario
supposed to take place? Only God
knows, but it will certainly be sooner
than we think. Whether it will happen
before or after the coming Rapture of
the church remains in God's hands.
This gathering of enemies against
Israel is to happen more than once in
the future; this will apparently be the
first time. You can read about it from
God's perspective in Ezekiel 38 and
39.
The forces of evil seem to be
gaining the upper hand all over the
world, don’t they?
While the world forces of this
present darkness seem to be
advancing at every quarter, we as
believers in Jesus Christ need to
consider His infinite power and the
unquenchable fire of His vengeance.
He is a God of love, but He is also a
God of justice who will render
judgment unto every man. Only a
personal, intimate relationship with
Jesus Christ provides eternal
protection. Thousands have repented
and turned away from Satan’s traps of
homosexuality, murder, pornography,
drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling,
and all the rest of it and embraced
Christ as Savior and Lord.
As for you and I, our family
heritage won't get us into God's
family. Our church membership or
affiliation won't do it. Our own
righteousness, no matter how pristine
in the eyes of men, is as filthy rags
before a holy God. Only our
confession of Jesus Christ as Savior
and Lord, receiving His Spirit into our
hearts, and a belief in His resurrection
from the dead will secure our future
with Him. We have to love Him with all
our hearts and stay in touch with Him
on a daily basis and our lifestyles, no
matter how wicked, will be changed
as we walk in the newness of life. He
will clean us up from the inside out,
and we will become a part of the
restraining influence against the world
forces of this present darkness until
we join Him in glory. It is a privilege to
be hated and persecuted by the world
because of a personal relationship
with Creator. The Jews have known
that fact first hand for generations.
And when God's two witnesses appear
in Jerusalem after all Spirit-filled
believers in Christ are raptured and
begin to preach Jesus to the Jews,
God's Word will explode in the hearts
of 12,000 Semites from each Jewish
tribe, and they will preach the gospel
of Jesus Christ to all the earth.
While the war described in Ezekiel
is yet future, the war against those of
us who name Christ as Savior is
escalating all over the world. It'll get
worse for us before it gets better, but
we will win in the end, because God
has foretold our victory through Christ
Jesus our Lord.