Page 37 - Signs of the End

THE SIGNS OF THE END 1

I.
Prophecy Update

Anything that happens in Israel these days must be scruti­
nized with regard to any connection it might have to the
revelations of Bible prophecy, the end times and the Second
Coming of Christ.

So it is with the new peace agreement which has recently
been signed by Israel and the PLO. Is this significant from a
Biblical perspective? If so, how?

In essence this is an agreement between Jews and Arabs, who
are forced, by circumstances, to live together in a relatively small
land, comparable in size to the state of New Jersey.

In many ways they are similar to each other, but in many
ways they are very different. They both find their ancient
ancestry in Abraham, one through Isaac, the other through
Ishmael. They have had many conflicts throughout their 4,000
years of mutual history, but the tensions have been particularly
intensified during this century, with the Zionist return of the
Jewish people to the Land and the re-creation of the state of
Israel.

The Palestinians, and their patrons in the large Arab nations
throughout the Middle East, have bitterly contested what they
consider the intrusion of the Jewish people into the land which
they have occupied for many centuries. The Jewish people, on
the other hand, believe that the same land is their ancestral and
religious homeland from which they were forcibly driven
19 centuries ago. They are now returning, partly to escape the
horrendous persecution they have continually faced in the lands
of the Gentiles, and partly to fulfill their religious dream of a
restored Jewish Israel. Four major wars and innumerable smaller
conflicts have been waged in our lifetime over this intense
territorial struggle.

For the most part, the Arabs have failed in their attempts to
dislodge the Jews from Israel by means of military attacks.
However, they have been somewhat more successful in their new
strategy of the Intifada, a kind of internal protest movement. By