Rockets on Israel, fired by Hamas from Gaza or fired by Hizb’Allah from Lebanon, are great constraining factor on Israel’s civilian life. For the moment Israel has to live with the daily arrival of rocket-borne explosives on two of its towns, Sderot and Ashkelon, a situation that would not be tolerated in any other sizable western country. The main bombardment comes from inside Gaza and the establishment of a rocket free zone in the southwest inside Gaza is quite within the capabilities of the Israeli armed forces if it weren’t for the certainty of Hizb’Allah opening a furious barrage on the northern Lebanon/Syria front. Israel would find itself fighting on two fronts simultaneously with an expanded general war a certainty. Israel is not ready for this and hence puts up with rockets on her towns.

The longer term prospects of doing nothing are that more Israeli cities would come under rocket attack as longer range and more accurate Arab rockets are made available to Hamas and Hizb’Allah. The biggest Israeli city, Tel Aviv, and the international airport would be targets.

Airline services would cease. Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens would be in grave danger and overseas connections - financial, tourist, industrial - would collapse. It is merely a matter of time if nothing is done.

Besides agreements to stop the rocket fire, always attempted but never successful, the way forward for the Israelis seems to be an overall, all inclusive anti rocket system - a method of destroying all types of Arab rockets in flight before they can do any damage. Already a system, called the Patriot System, has been in place to destroy long range intercontinental type missiles developed by US/Israeli cooperation but it is not designed to cope with short range stuff.

Just recently, sketchy details have been published about an overall, totally inclusive rocket defence covering all of Israel called Iron Dome. As the name implies, it is intended to be a shield in the sky over all Israel to neutralise all rocket intrusions into Israel. It is assumed to be an intercept system that destroys any rocket of any size that is fired against Israel.

This would be a kind of aerial rocket dogfight in the skies over Israel. There is a verse in Isaiah 31:5 that depicts just such a situation. If, in Old Testament times, one needed to describe rockets being fired at each other, one could hardly do better than this.

“Like birds flying about, so will the Lord of Hosts defend Jerusalem. Defending it, he will also deliver it; passing over he will preserve it.”

The implications of the imagery of birds flying is specially apt to rockets in flight, particularly the low level rockets that so trouble Israel today. Added to this picture is the thought that the Lord is “passing over” to preserve Jerusalem from above the level of the ground. The basic idea is of God arranging a defence of Israel from the air which is the concept behind the Iron Dome now being developed. If our application is correct, it would seem that Iron Dome was foreseen thousands of years ago.

There is no doubt that it is divine intention to prevent any calamitous action from fatally damaging Israel. At the same time, God is giving her a hard time for lack of faith, for corrupt and inept government and for refusal to accept Jesus as Messiah. Even if our application of Isaiah 31:5 is not entirely accurate, then the special expertise of Israeli scientists and military engineers to construct a comprehensive aerial shield against all kinds of rockets, such as Iron Dome, is a remarkable God-given skill, above and beyond that available in almost any other nation, used in his purpose in the preservation of Israel.

A New Heart and A New Spirit
Because God knows “the end from the beginning” he knew from Israel’s earliest times that, when they rejected his son as Messiah and they would suffer 1878 years of exile from the promised land, they will still not accept Jesus after his return to the earth. Jesus will perform all kinds of marvellous and miraculous acts and, in spite of these remarkable events, the Jews will still refuse to recognise him.

These remarkable events will include the gathering of the resurrected dead and the faithful living, with the unmistakable sign of “one taken and the other left”. Still the Jews will not believe. Jesus will remove the final threatening Palestinian assaults on Israel, described in Isaiah 63:1-6, and they will remain in ignorance of his identity ["Who is this...?]. Jesus will approach the walls of Jerusalem when the cry is made

“Lift up your heads O you gates and be lifted up you everlasting doors and the King of Glory shall come in. Who is this King of Glory”.

They continue in their ignorant state. Not even when the feet of Jesus touch the Mount of Olives and it splits in two in a tremendous realignment of the countryside will the Jews admit that this glorious figure is their Messiah. Nothing - absolutely nothing - without the direct intervention of God upon their very hearts and minds, will change their stubborn, resistant unbelief. Not foretold events fulfilled, not national salvation, not earthquake, not miracle, nothing that Jesus can achieve in national or international affairs will persuade the Jews, in the Holy Land of the future, that this glorious figure is their Messiah.

God then will proceed to do what he had forecast thousands of years before that he would need to do.

“I will pour upon the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplication, then they will look on me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for him…” Zechariah 12:10 [NKJ].

Note the word “THEN” [some versions have "when"]. Not until God provokes them by his special power spirit, will the Israelis recognise Jesus as their long lost and abused Messiah. Only God’s unique intervention, specially for his “chosen” people, will the “house of David” accept Jesus as their saviour.

God had promised he would do this very thing way back in the Old Testament. Ezekiel 36 is a chapter devoted to prophecies of Israel’s regathering in the latter days. He foretells of the restoration of both land and people and informs of God’s motive,

“I do not this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for my holy name’s sake”, Ezek 36:22.

God had made sacred promises to Israel’s pioneers about the everlasting quality of Abraham’s descendents and the restoration in the 20th century was not because of any merit of 20th century Jews but because of God’s loyalty to his ancient promises. But God, knowing beforehand of the 2000 year rejection of Jesus, stubbornly continued into their restoration, foretold of the pouring out of the “spirit of grace and supplication” by saying, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you..” Ezek 36:26-27, predicting the future pouring of the spirit on Israel.

Today we see in the Jews that “heart of stone” that some day, after the return of Jesus, will miraculously be turned to acceptance of Jesus, by God fulfilling his word of thousands of years ago.

Numbers in World Religions
According to the Vatican, in a report recently published, “estimates for 2006 show that the Muslims have overtaken the Catholics in world numbers. Catholics accounted for 17.4% while Muslims were 19.2%. This equated to 1.13 billion Catholics and 1.3 billion Muslims. However total Christians were estimated at 33% of world population.” A further calculation can be made that Catholics are very nearly half of all Christians. These estimates should be regarded as roughly approximate at best because population measures in countries such as Muslim Middle East/Indonesia and Christian Africa are not much better than informed guesses. But there is a discernable trend that Muslim believers are increasing while Christianity holds a substantial lead. Prophetic developments in the Bible, such as Revelation 17 and 18, indicate a Catholic/Christian domination that opposes Jesus Christ after his return.

G.S.B 7-08