00:00And you see that in the Bible it says very clearly in many passages that one of the signs of the last days
00:05will be the restoration of the Jewish people from their dispersion through the nations back to the land of Israel,
00:11back to the Middle East.
00:13And we can see also from many scriptures in Ezekiel, in Jeremiah, in Isaiah, in Zechariah,
00:20and other passages in the Hebrew scriptures, as well as implied in Jesus' own prophecies concerning the last days,
00:26that Jerusalem is going to be at the epicenter of the biblical end-time events
00:32when the Jewish people return to the land of Israel in the last days.
00:39A number of scriptures, we'll just read one of them, in Ezekiel chapter 36, verse 24, it says,
00:46I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, bring you into your own land.
00:51Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean.
00:54I will cleanse you from all your filthiness, from all your idols.
00:57I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.
01:00I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
01:04I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you will keep my judgments and do them.
01:10Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers.
01:12You shall be my people, and I will be your God.
01:14In this passage in Ezekiel, you actually have a two-stage restoration.
01:19First of all, a physical restoration.
01:21I'm going to gather you out of the nations, bring you into your own land.
01:26And then it says a spiritual restoration.
01:28I'm going to sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean.
01:31I'll cleanse you from all your idols.
01:33I'll give you a new heart and a new spirit.
01:36Anybody here had a new heart and a new spirit?
01:39Yeah.
01:39How did you get a new heart and a new spirit?
01:43Who did you believe in?
01:45Yeshua in Jesus.
01:47So this is implying that there's something going to happen in the latter days which will bring time of trouble upon Israel,
01:53but also will turn their hearts to God.
01:57And God will reveal to a number of Jewish people that Yeshua is the Messiah and give them a new heart and a new spirit.
02:03And when they come to that revelation, and when Yeshua comes back in person,
02:08then they will dwell safely in the land that I gave to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
02:17Okay, and you can see there are a huge number of scriptures in the Hebrew prophets which outline this taking place.
02:24The Bible also says there's going to be opposition to this from the nations around about it.
02:28Psalm 83, verse 2, it says,
02:33Behold, your enemies make a tumult.
02:35Those who hate you have lifted up their head.
02:37They've taken crafty counsel against your people and consulted together against your sheltered ones.
02:42They've said, Come, let us cut them off from being a nation,
02:46that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.
02:49So these hostile nations, and it lists them.
02:55But many believe that it's just a statement actually of the spirit which is going to be there
02:59following the return of Israel to the land.
03:03A hostile group of people saying, Let's cut them off from being a nation,
03:07that the name of Israel may be remembered no more.
03:11What do these people want to do?
03:12They want to destroy Israel.
03:14What does Iran want to do?
03:15What does Hezbollah want to do?
03:17What does Hamas want to do?
03:18They want to destroy Israel.
03:20The Palestinian Authority has also got its plan to destroy Israel,
03:23but they're a little bit more subtle about it.
03:26But basically you have a plan to destroy Israel.
03:29Israel doesn't want to be destroyed, so it takes measures to defend itself.
03:33You can blame them.
03:36Now one of the other points which comes out in the scriptures
03:39is there's going to be a conflict over the status of Jerusalem.
03:41Jerusalem, when Israel was first, came into being as a state,
03:49was divided between the east in what became the Palestinian era under Jordan
03:56and the west which was under Israel.
03:59It became the place where the Israeli government was seated
04:02and it was divided from 1948 to 1967 by a barbed wire wall like Berlin was
04:09and you couldn't go from one side to the other.
04:12Jews couldn't go to the holy places which were in the old city.
04:14They couldn't go to the western wall.
04:16They were all expelled from that part
04:18and Jerusalem was a divided city.
04:21In 1967, Israel took possession of the old city of Jerusalem.
04:26Jordanians left and Israel took, in fact, the whole of the area
04:30known as the West Bank or Judea and Samaria
04:32and has been basically occupying or ruling it since that time.
04:38Then you had the Palestinian Authority coming in
04:41and now we have a question about what should be the settlement.
04:46Should Jerusalem again be divided between the east and the west
04:49with the east under Palestine and the west under Israel?
04:53What should be the answer?
04:54And the whole conflict centres on Jerusalem
04:57and seeking a solution to the status of Jerusalem.
05:01Is that in the Bible? Yes.
05:04Go to Zechariah chapter 12.
05:05It says,
05:06Thus says the Lord,
05:07Behold, I make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness
05:09to all the surrounding peoples
05:10when there is a siege against Judah and Jerusalem.
05:14And it shall happen in that day
05:15that I make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples,
05:17all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces
05:20though all nations of the earth are gathered against it.
05:25So you're going to have a situation
05:27which is going to involve not just Israel
05:28and the surrounding nations
05:29but even all nations
05:31who are seeking to find a resolution
05:33to the status of Jerusalem.
05:36Do you see anything like that happening in the world today?
05:39What's the UN continually going on about?
05:42Finding a solution to Jerusalem.
05:43You've got all the nations of the world
05:45trying to impose or find a solution
05:47to the status of Jerusalem.
05:49And they want Israel out of the old city of Jerusalem.
05:52They want Israel out of the holy places.
05:55They want some kind of
05:56either a UN-based government there
05:59or they want it in the hands of the Palestinians.
06:02Israel doesn't want that to happen.
06:04And so you have apparently irreconcilable conflict
06:07over that area.
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