Why is it important for Christians to understand how Israel fits into prophecy?
To answer this and many other questions concerning Israel in Bible prophecy, we invited as a special guest on our television program Christ in Prophecy radio host Jan Markell of Olive Tree Ministries, located in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area. Jan’s “Understanding the Times” radio program broadcasts nationally on more than 800 radio stations! Being a Messianic Jew, Jan holds many unique insights into God’s prophetic plan for the nation of Israel.
The Super Sign
Jan Markell: Oh, my goodness! Israel is certainly the “super sign” that the Lord is coming back. What a testament to God that He keeps His promises! If God can keep His promises to Israel, would He not then keep His promises to the Christian as well?
Going to Israel changed my life. If standing in the middle of a living, fulfilled prophecy can change this Jewish woman’s life for Christ, then traveling to Israel will change anyone’s life.
Dr. Reagan: Just think about the Puritans who 400 years ago wrote about how God was going to regather the Jewish people from the four corners of the earth and bring them back to the land of Israel. Everybody told them, “You’re just crazy! That will never happen.” Even in 1909, when C. I. Scofield put together the Scofield Study Bible, when he got to Ezekiel 38-39 he said, “I can’t understand it. I can’t explain it. But Ezekiel says in the end times Russia will invade Israel.” When he wrote his comment, Israel did not exist. People did not believe that the nation would ever exist again. Why, Russia (Gog) was a Christian Orthodox nation during Scofield’s time! How could he explain that prophecy? He couldn’t.
Jan Markell: I have a friend who in her grandmother’s Bible was written in the column, “The Jews. What is going to become of the Jews?” She couldn’t figure it. She wrote this way back probably in the 1930’s. She couldn’t imagine what was going to happen to make Israel a nation once more, but it did happen.
Israel returning as a nation after almost 1,900 years is the miracle not just of the 20th Century, but the miracle of all times. To regroup a dispersed people, bring a language back from obsolescence, and have it’s people blossom as a rose in a wasteland country could only be a miracle from God.
Dr. Reagan: Another miracle, one that occurred even before the rebirth of the nation, was the preservation of the Jewish people. For 2,000 years the Jewish exiles were scattered all over the world. Gentiles persecuted them wherever they went. The Jew faced being killed, such as being slaughtered in pogroms, and yet God preserved a remnant to this day.
Jan Markell: Yes, the preservation of the Jewish people is indeed another miracle.
Nathan Jones: What nation comes back after 1,900 years? We don’t hear about the Hittites coming back, or the Aztecs, or the Mayans. No, only the nation of Israel has came back from out of the recesses of ancient history.
Dr. Reagan: And yet, I hear evangelical leaders all the time claiming the nation of Israel is merely an accident of history. “Israel’s rebirth has no significance whatsoever.” I can only stand there mouth gaping and think, “What?!”
Jan Markell: Denying the miracle of Israel is to discredit God, I’m sorry to say, because Israel is His miracle.
Dr. Reagan: It is, but you would think that just using common sense would tell a person that there’s got to be something going on here. Nations just don’t return after nearly 2,000 years of extinction.
Jan Markell: Israel’s return has got to mean something, and there is something amazing and prophetic to it. I encourage people to go. Go and see Israel for yourself, and witness a living miracle.
Jan Markell: Go and see #Israel for yourself, and witness a living miracle. Click To TweetIn the second segment of our interview of radio host Jan Markell concerning the miracle that is the nation of Israel, we’ll ask her if the Jews in Israel are really impostors.
Hi David Sir/ Nathan Sir, want to confess that you have a wonderful website, I love reading. But of recent, I have found certain things that do not agree with the scripture, especially the psalm 83 war. At least for now, after looking at Ezekiel 38 players surrounding Israel, please do not vouch for this war, please reiterate your claims of the psalm 83 war at least now. or else, thousands may go to hell waiting for psalm 83 war, and enjoying life, and the rapture of the church would have already happened and the Ezekiel 38 war would follow.
2. Please do not set the rapture date and year, as you had set in Sep 23, this is totally unscriptural, we very well no the season, now is the season, but the hour and day knoweth no man, not even the angels in heaven. Let us run the race that is set before us, and reach the goal, we will be crowned, let us remove that crown, and place it at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. Maranatha
Franco, we here at Lamb & Lion Ministries never date set. Please reread the article Investigating the Great Sign of Revelation 12 which debunks the September 23 date-setting claim.
How would teaching about the Psalm 83 War send people to Hell? Psalm 83 is read as an imprecatory prayer, in that it calls down judgment and justice upon an enemy. In Psalm 83, all the nations that are listed have modern equivalents as the nations that surround Israel. Israel has never fully subjugated those lands since becoming a nation again in 1948. If they did, that would answer the question as to why the Ezekiel 38-39 Gog-Magog countries do not include the nations bordering Israel, but rather an outer ring of Islamic nations.
Psalm 83 is only a prophetic theory, but one that fills in a gap long questioned. It also would provide a peaceful precondition to the Gog-Magog Battle because the outer ring of Muslim nations would fear Israel’s greater expanse of power in the region and control of more resources, hence Gog’s desire to plunder Israel.