Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dr. David Jeremiah is the founder of Turning Point Ministries, an international ministry committed to providing Christians with sound Bible teaching through radio and television, the internet, live events, and resource materials and books. He is the author of more than fifty books, including The Book of Signs, The Great Disappearance, Where Do We Go from Here? and The Promise of Heaven.

Dr. Jeremiah serves as the senior pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in El Cajon, California. He and his wife, Donna, have four children and twelve grandchildren.

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The Prophecy Answer Book

Thomas Nelson

Contents

Introduction.........................................viiCurrent Events.......................................1The Rapture..........................................51The Tribulation......................................71The Antichrist.......................................97The Second Coming....................................139The Millennium.......................................163The New Heaven and the New Earth.....................175Conclusion...........................................183Endnotes.............................................193

Chapter One

The Bible has proven to be absolutely dependable. Therefore we can trust it as the source of reliable information about the meaning of the events of our day and what those events tell us about our hope for the future as we look toward the return of Christ. The Lord Jesus Himself spoke of the wisdom of discerning the signs of the times and of taking appropriate action as we wait for his re turn (Matthew 24, Mark 13).

* * *

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, "Tell us, when will these things be? and what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?"

Matthew 24:3

Why is a fledgling country [Israel] with a population of slightly more than seven million and a total land space hardly larger than New Jersey mentioned in the nightly news more than any other nation except the United States and why is Israel important in prophecy?

For answers we must turn not to the evening news or the front page of the newspaper, but to the Bible.

Israel's story begins with God's sovereign purpose revealed in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. Apparently God finds Abraham and his descendants to be of enormous importance. The very proportion of the coverage tells us something about the importance of Israel. Only two chapters are given to the whole story of creation. One chapter records the fall of man. Eight chapters cover the thousands of years from creation to the time of Abraham. Then we find that fully thirty-eight chapters deal with the life stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob-the progenitors of the Jewish race.

Israel is important because the fulfillment of God's covenant with its founder Abraham greatly affects every one of us. The playing out of prophetic events concerning Israel places us in the last days of history's timeline. The miraculous survival of God's covenant people, the Jews, demonstrates God's providence and His ability to accomplish His purpose in the face of what seems to human minds impossible odds. The existence of Israel today is exhibit A in the lineup of convincing evidences that the Bible's prophecies concerning the future will be fulfilled. To this day, the issue of who controls Israel, the Promised Land, is the most volatile in international politics.

Do the boundaries of present-day Israel fulfill God's promise to Israel in the Old Testament?

The land promised to Abraham covers much more area than what the present nation of Israel occupies. Genesis 15:18 tells us that it stretches all the way from the Mediterranean Sea on the west to the Euphrates River on the east. Ezekiel fixes the northern boundary of Israel at Hamath, one hundred miles north of Damascus (Ezekiel 48:1), and the southern boundary at Kadesh, about one hundred miles south of Jerusalem (v. 48:28).

Today, Israel is one-nineteenth the size of California and roughly the size of our third smallest state, New Jersey. It is 260 miles at its longest point, 60 miles at its widest, and three miles at its narrowest.

When you look at a map and locate that tiny strip of land that Israel now claims, you can see that she does not now, nor has she ever, fully occupied the land that was described to Abraham in God's covenant promise. If Israel were currently occupying all the land promised to her, she would control present-day Israel, Lebanon, the West Bank of Jordan, and substantial portions of Syria, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia.

Will the Jews ever realize the fulfillment of God's covenant to possess Israel as an everlasting possession?

The prophet Isaiah asserted that it would happen. He prophesied that the Lord would "set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left" (Isaiah 11:11). God also addressed the issue through Ezekiel when He said, "I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land" (Ezekiel 36:24).

The fulfillment of those prophecies was set in motion on May 14, 1948, when the U.S. recognized the new state of Israel. On the evening of that announcement, popular radio commentator Lowell Thomas said in his broadcast that Americans in every part of the country would be turning to their Bibles for historical background enabling them to understand "this day in history." And indeed, as prophecies found in Isaiah, Ezekiel, Matthew, and Revelation show, both the Old Testament and the New Testament pointed to this day when the Jews would return to the land promised them and initiate fulfillment of the ancient prophecies.

The Israeli government established the State of Israel, thus fulfilling the twenty-five-hundred-year-old prophecy recorded in the Bible.

Is Israel's presence in her land today the final fulfillment of God's promise to regather His people?

The answer is no! What is happening in Israel today is primarily the result of a secular Zionist movement, whereas Ezekiel wrote about a spiritual return of God's people to Him when he said:

For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land.... Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; ... I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances. You will live in the land that I gave to your forefathers; so you will be My people, and I will be your God (Ezekiel 36:24-28 NASB).

The return of Jews to the newly refounded nation of Israel is the first stage of that regathering, but it certainly does not fulfill the requirements of a spiritual return to the Lord.

From the moment of God's promise to Abraham to this present hour, the prophecies concerning Israel's total possession and blessing in the land remain unfulfilled. The most dramatic events lie ahead of us.

What events regarding Israel's total possession of the land remain unfulfilled?

Israel has been attacked over and over since its founding, sometimes in all-out wars and incessantly by terrorists. The Jewish people have survived by remaining vigilant, but they long for peace. According to the Bible, a future...