And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, and for the over spreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured out on the desolate.
Daniel 9:27 KJV
The Middle East has been boiling with controversy for nearly 4,000 years now. It all comes down to who owns a piece of land given by God to a man named Abraham. This controversy will come to its ultimate end at the conclusion of the final seven year period of this earths present existence. It will take the return of Jesus Christ to settle this once for all time, after a three and one half year period of tribulation unlike anything the world has ever seen (Daniel 12:1, Matt 24:21-22).
To understand what will drive the nations who will gather against Jerusalem in the latter days we must look at the history of this controversy. In so doing we will discover events that set the stage for what is coming, and find out who the primary aggressors will be.
1. Keep not silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
2. For, lo, thine enemies make a tumult: and they that hate thee have lifted up the head.
3. They have taken crafty council against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
4. They have said, Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.
5. For they have consulted together with one consent: they are confederate against thee.
6. The Tabernacles of Edom, and the Ishmaelites; of Moab, and the Hagarenes;
7. Gebal, and Ammon, and Amalek; the Philistines with the inhabitants of Tyre;
8. Assur also is joined with them: they have holpen the children of Lot. Selah.
9. Do unto them as unto the Midianites; as to Sisera, as to Jabin, at the brook of Kison.
11. Which perished at En-dor: they became as dung for the earth.
11. Make their nobles like Oreb, and Zeeb: yea, all their princes as Zeba and Zalmunna:
12. Who said, let us take to ourselves the houses of God in possession.
Psalm 83:1-12 KJV
Yahweh, the LORD, made a covenant with a man known as Abram (Abraham). This covenant gave to Abraham and his descendants a piece of land then known as the land of Canaan (see Genesis 15:1-21). This covenant was initiated by God, with no conditions placed upon Abram. In fact, he was out, in a deep sleep, as the LORD passed between the divided carcasses of a three year old heifer, a female goat, a turtle dove, and a pigeon.
This might seem strange to us, but in that culture in that day, by this act, the LORD God was saying to Abram that if He (the LORD), failed to fulfill this covenant, let what happened to these animals happen to me. Read that again. God was making an unconditional promise to Abram upon pain of death to fulfill His word. Elsewhere the Bible assures us that it is impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:13-18). Again, the context of these verses concerns God swearing an oath to Abraham (see Genesis 22-16-18).
Now Abraham's first born son was named Ishmael. God had promised Abraham an heir, but his wife Sarai was barren. In an attempt to make things happen, his wife Sarai, gave him her Egyptian slave Hagar to wife. From this union was born Ishmael. However, Ishmael was not through whom this covenant was to pass. God had a miracle in store, a child of promise, who was to be born to Abraham and Sarah when it looked utterly impossible (Genesis 17:15-19).
At the proper time, Sarah bore Abraham a son whom they named Isaac. He was the promised heir, and the covenant passed on to him and his descendants after him (see Genesis 26:1-5).
From Isaac, the covenant promise initially given to Abraham, passed on to his son Jacob (Genesis 28:3-4, 12-14). However, Jacob had a twin brother named Esau. At the urging of his mother, Jacob received the blessing of the firstborn through deception (Genesis 27:1-46). The covenant was Jacob's according to God's sovereign choice: Jacob did not need to resort to deception to review it. As a result, a great rift arose between Jacob and Esau that remains today.
This covenant is an eternal covenant that extends to Abraham's descendants through Isaac and Jacob. The land has been given to Israel through an unbreakable covenant. As I have previously stated, their ability to abide in the land is regulated by their national obedience to God. However, their ownership of the land remains the same. Whether in the land or not, the land remains theirs through God's covenant with their forefathers. In the words of David when he brought back the ark of the LORD,
15. Be ye mindful always of his covenant: the word which he commanded to a thousand generations;
16. Even of the covenant which he made with Abraham, and of his oath unto Isaac;
17. And hath confirmed the same to Jacob for a law, and to Israel for an everlasting covenant,
18. Saying, unto thee will I give the land of Canaan, the lot of your inheritance.
1 Chronicles 16:15-17 KJV
We have two individuals, who although they were descendants of Abraham, were not those to whom the covenant passed. Ishmael, Abraham's eldest son, and Esau, the son of Isaac. Esau, bitter over what had transpired with Jacob and the stolen blessing, marries the daughter of Ishmael to spite his parents (Genesis 28:8-9), and becomes the father of the Edomites, and dwelt in mount Seir (Genesis 36:1-8). Ishmael, whom Abraham sent away, settled in the Arabian desert (Genesis 25:17-18).
The Bible records for us that Esau, and his descendants up to this very day harbor an everlasting hatred for the descendants of Jacob.
1. Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me saying,
2. Son of man, set thy face against mount Seir, and prophesy against it,
3. And say unto it, Thus saith the Lord God; Behold, O mount Seir, I am against thee, and I will stretch out my hand against thee, and I will make thee most desolate.
4. I will lay thy cities waste, and thou shalt be desolate, and thou shalt know that I am the LORD.
5. Because thou hast had a perpetual hatred, and hast shed the blood of the children of Israel by the force of the sword in the time of their calamity, in the time that their iniquity had an end.
9. I will make thee perpetual desolations, and thy cities shall not return: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.
10. Because thou hast said, These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess it; whereas the LORD was there.
15. As thou didst rejoice at the inheritance of the house of Israel, because it was desolate, so I will do unto thee: thou shalt be desolate, O mount Seir, and all Idumea, even all of it: and they shall know that I am the LORD.
Ezekiel 35:1-5, 9-10, 15 KJV
Most commentators place this in the past, and no doubt the Edomites participated in cutting off the escape routes of the Israelites fleeing the assault of Nebuchadnezzar's Babylonian armies, and years later the invading Roman army in 70 AD (see Obadiah 1:10-14). However, notice that this prophecy points to the calamity the nation of Israel goes through at the time their iniquity has an end. This refers to the end of the tribulation, at the return of Christ, when as a nation they repent and receive their coming Messiah. This is the fulfillment of one of the purpose statements found in Daniel 9:24. I would imagine the events spoken off in Obadiah 1:20-14 would have a dual fulfillment as well, with history repeating itself again in the last days.
So we read in these verses of a perpetual hatred that has gone on for thousands of years. A hatred that causes "rejoicing" at the calamities that have confronted Israel in the past, and yet to come, ultimately leading to participation in the violence against Jacob. At the core of this hatred sits the issue of the land. In a prophecy yet to be fulfilled at the return of Christ, we see this,
4. Therefore, ye mountains of Israel, here the word of the LORD GOD; Thus saith the LORD GOD to the mountains, and to the hills, to the rivers, and to the valleys, to the desolate wastes, and to the cities that are forsaken, which became a prey and derision to the residue of the heathen that are round about;
5. Therefore this saith the LORD GOD; Surely in the fire of my jealousy have I spoken against the residue of the heathen, and against all Idumea, which have appointed my land into their possession with the joy of all their heart, with despiteful minds, to cast it out for a prey.
Ezekiel 36:4-5 KJV
Idumea is another name for Edom, the dwelling place of Esau's descendants. Notice the surrounding nations are involved as well. It would do us well to identify these nations. For that, let's go back to the passage in Psalm 83.
Several nations and people groups are mentioned in these verses. Walid Shoebat, a former Palestinian terrorist turned Christian, writes this,
"With one mind they plot together; they form an alliance against you" (v. 5). The nations of this coalition or alliance are the following:
Edom- which extends from Jordan to Saudi Arabia (see Ezekiel 25) Edom is described as extending from Teman to Dedan (Arabia).
Moab, Ammon, children of Lot - Jordan
Gebal- According to the Unger's Bible dictionary, this is in Lebanon, 25 miles north of Beruit
Tyre- Again in Lebanon, today center for Hezbollah
Philistia- Gaza, today the center for Hamas
Ishmaelites and Hagarites- Arabs in general
Assyria- these are Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. At it's height it included Egypt and Iran as well.
Amalek- Jordan, southwest of the Dead Sea (Genesis 14:7)
He goes on to write that we have a coalition of Muslim nations consisting of Turkey, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Palestine at the very least who are bent on Israel's destruction.
(GOD'S war on terror
© 2008 Top executive Media
Walid Shoebat with Joel Richardson
pp 242,243)
The Ammonites and Moabites were descendants of Abraham's nephew Lot. Remember back in Genesis when Abram and Lot separate? Lot picked the land to the east, the plain of Jordan, which was lush and well watered (Genesis 13:10-12). This was ultimately destroyed at the destruction of Sodom. Again, could jealousy have something to do with the hatred of Lot's children? We read of a shared hatred that the Ammonites, Moabites, and Edomites have toward Israel in Ezekiel 25.
Speaking of Ammon,
6. For thus saith the LORD GOD; Because thou hast clapped thine hands, and stamped with the feet, and rejoiced in heart with all thy despite against the land of Israel;
And of Moab,
8. Thus saith the LORD GOD; Because that Moab and Seir do say, Behold, the house of Judah is like unto all the heathen;
And of Edom,
12. Thus saith the LORD GOD; Because that Edom hath dealt against the house of Judah by taking vengeance, and hath greatly offended, and revenged himself upon them.
Ezekiel 25:6, 8, 12 KJV
Again, this hatred that existed in biblical times, exists yet today in the same nations. The nations today might have different names, but the enmity remains. The Ishmaelites, as well as the Midianites, another descendant of Abraham (Genesis 25:2-6) all settled in the Arabian desert. In time the term Ishmaelite and Midianite became interchangeable (Genesis 37:25-28). These, along with the descendants of Esau are the Arab people.
After the rise of Islam centuries later, the nations that once comprised empires such as the Assyrian, Babylonian, Persian, and Greek who had afflicted Israel in the past were now conquered by invading Arab Muslims. These nations today are Muslim majority nations, and all hold the same ideology. The destruction of Israel is at the core of their beliefs. And again, the modern equivalent of these ancient nations are Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon, as well as the North African regions of Libya, Egypt, and Sudan. When one looks at a map of the Middle East it is not hard to see that Israel is indeed surrounded by her enemies on every side
However, as I have been careful to state previously, I do not wish to promote any fear or hatred of Muslims. I am aquatinted with many Muslims, several of whom I consider friends. Like everyone, they are born into sin and need a Savior. Sadly, their eyes are blinded to the truth of the gospel message. It is up to us to pray for them, and try to reach them for Christ, especially as we see the last days approaching.
So this brings us to the start of the seventieth week, which starts with the confirming of a covenant. All that is found within this covenant can only be speculation at this point in time, but scripture gives us a pretty fair idea of what to expect.
We do know that something happens to bring about a sense of security in Israel. Ezekiel 38:8-11 records that Israel, in the latter years, has just recovered from war. They are now living securely without walls or gates. Up until now we have not seen anything like this. What happens to bring about this sense of security? Today there are checkpoints and fences. People live in a heightened sense of danger from terrorist attacks. Somehow, Israel is convinced that there is no longer a threat from the nations that surround her.
The other thing we find in scripture is the start of the sacrificial system and the building of a third temple. Daniel fortells of the taking away of the sacrifices, so by necessity they must be allowed to start at some point (Daniel 8:11-12, 9:27, 11:31). As for a temple, we read of a future temple possibly sharing the temple mount with the Al Aqsa mosque and the dome of the rock, two sacred places in Islam (Rev 11:1-2). And of course there has to be a temple in place for the man of lawlessness to desecrate as Paul writes in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4.
All of this seems impossible today. Something will happen, and this man will emerge out of the middle east and confirm something with the enemies of Israel that perhaps recognizes Israel's right to the land, gives them the right to worship on the temple mount, and guarantees them a peaceful coexistence among their neighbors. However it plays out, when we see this happening we can know that we are now entering the final seven years before the return of Christ.
The next event will be the breaking of this covenant at the final invasion of Israel.
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