When we speak of biblical prophecy, we deal with things that God said through the prophets, like Ezekiel. In chapter 38, we read of a future day when Israel has returned to their natural homeland and find seeming peace, living as if they're insulated from harm.

However, after listening to world news on the radio or television, it's likely you'll hear of a new threat on Israel from within her own borders. Now, playing word association and saying the word "Palestine," you'll likely respond "terrorism." But the land of Palestine is actually another name for Canaan, the promised home land that God promised to Abraham and his seed, Issac, Jacob or Israel and his twelve sons who comprised the patriarchs of twelve Hebrew nations.

You may have another picture in your mind, that of a man whose face is covered by a head wrap and holding an automatic weapon above his head and firing it in the air. Such radicals lay claim to a part of Jerusalem, the holy city and demand Israel surrender part of their inheritance to them. Palestinians, as they call themselves, are actually Arabs in the line of Ishmael, son of Abraham and Hagar, an Egyptian maid servant of Sarai, Abraham's wife.

Scripture tells us that Ishmael, meaning "the Lord hears," was sent away from Abraham's family to live in the desert without a home. And angel of God told Hagar who fled with her son Ishmael, "He will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be against everyone and everyone's hand against him and he will live in hostility toward all his brothers." While Palestinians don't regard Moses' writing, the Pentateuch as divine Scripture, the prophecy foretold by the angel is too accurate to dismiss.

There's much too do about peace in the Middle East, the land where the Hebrews and Palestinians make their home. The land called Israel is an area covering twelve thousand miles. It lays beside the Mediterranean Sea and is separated from Arabs nations on the south and east by the desert and from Syria by a mountain range. It's roughly 80 miles wide and 150 miles long and has a vast flat plain called Jezreel that separates Galilee and Samaria.

Most view the Palestinians as the greatest threat to Israel, but in fact there are few nations who side with the Hebrews. Most see the nation of Israel in the middle of Arab nations as unsettling and potential dangerous perhaps even precursor to the next world war. But Ezekiel saw a greater nation from the north as the ones capable of taking the complacent nation of Israel to the brink of distinction. Who is this nation?

If you draw a line magnetic northward from Jerusalem till it hits another city, you intersect the city of Moscow. Could this nation be the "Meshech" of whom Ezekiel wrote? Will they be the ones to invade Israel on behalf of the Arabs who terrorize Israel because they cannot live with them in peace? Will they be defeated and turned back by God in a confrontation in the northern plains of Jezreeel? Tune in to the national news tonight and discover all the broadcast news stations airing what they believe to be new information, but what is actually old news to the prophets.

There's a lot of positioning going regarding the Middle East, but in the end, I'll take the word of one angel over the host of talking heads like Tom Brokaw, Peter Jennings, Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite. They get their information from anyone or anywhere but the Holy Bible. If you want to know how it all ends, read God's word. It tells us He and whoever is on His side wins! Now, all you have to do is choose sides.

1 Developed from Read the Bible Thru ( Ez. 37:1-38:23 Ja. 1:19-2:17 Ps. 117:1-2 Pr. 28:1 )
2. Scripture comes from the Holy Bible, New International Version; (c)1978 by New York International Bible Society

Copyright © 1998-2004 James R. Green and Prayertower Ministries
All Rights Reserved