{"id":3857,"date":"2006-07-18T22:25:58","date_gmt":"2006-07-19T03:25:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2006\/07\/18\/lebanon-and-the-end-times\/"},"modified":"2024-09-21T12:40:59","modified_gmt":"2024-09-21T17:40:59","slug":"lebanon-and-the-end-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2006\/07\/18\/lebanon-and-the-end-times\/","title":{"rendered":"“Lebanon and the End Times”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Jim Denison has an informative essay up over at GodIssues.org about the new developments surrounding Israel and Lebanon. He gives a brief history and overview of Hezbollah and Hamas, the Muslim organizations who use terrorism as their chief weapons in pursuit of their goal of eradicating Israel as a nation, and then addresses the question of whether the events that are now unfolding in that part of the world herald the end times, as described in the Bible.<\/p>\n

I’m not an eschatologist. Frankly, I’ve never understood why anyone would obsess over an apocalyptic timeline when it’s pretty clear that none of us can predict the second coming. I suppose it’s a harmless study, but I also don’t see the benefit. Perhaps someone reading this can enlighten me.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I tend to agree with Jim’s leanings in the matter of Israel’s role in the end times:<\/p>\n

\n

…that the nation reconstituted in 1948 is important but not necessarily part of the “end times.” Those who adopt this perspective look to passages such as Galatians 3:26-29: “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”<\/p>\n

All who follow Christ are “Abraham’s seed,” not just those who are descended from him by race. Many who adopt this view see Israel as significant and valuable, the most significant democracy in the Middle East and a needed homeland for the Jewish people. But they do not tie end times predictions to events related to the nation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“Significant and valuable.”<\/em> I think that’s a good — if overly succinct — description of modern day Israel. I agree, and I also believe strongly that Israel has the right to defend itself with all resources at its disposal against the same strain of terrorists who would do the same damage in America if given the opportunity.<\/p>\n

I don’t know. Maybe we are seeing “the beginning of the end” in the escalation of conflict between Israel and its myriad enemies. There’s certainly enough lunatics in power in Iran to provide all the dangerous jokers the game can support. On a national level, I hope our country stays the course in providing Israel with the ally it deserves. On a personal level, I hope these events serve to motivate folks to figure out which side they’re on from a spiritual perspective, because — in the end — borders and nationalities won’t mean a thing.<\/p>\n

As Dr. Denison puts it:<\/p>\n

We cannot influence events in Israel, but we can choose our own eternity. That decision determines our destiny. This is the promise, and the warning, of God.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The current conflict between Israel and Lebanon should provoke some serious thought about “end times”…but maybe not the ones you normally think about when you hear that term.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,76,9,49,90],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith","category-news-commentary","category-society-culture","category-thinking-allowed","category-war-on-terror","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14301,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3857\/revisions\/14301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}