Markea said:
Just the fact that Israel continues to be at the center of world affairs... I'd say that's pretty important... Iran wants to to wipe them off the map... and some folks think that it's all insignificant as far as 'end time' events go...? ? ?
Don't forget that the Arabs also want to wipe Israel from the map. What could end up happening could be ironic in that in its great desire to defend Israel from Iran, the U.S. could end up sealing Israel's fate at the hands of a massive Arab Army during a future war.
One way this war could happen is that the U.S. could build up the Iraqi Army until it's huge enough and well-equipped enough to serve as a proxy army (for the U.S. and Israel) for an all-out ground invasion of Iran (to end Iran's nuclear weapons program and extremist regime). As part of the buildup of the Iraqi Army, the U.S. could reinstall some of the former Baathist military hierarchy to run the Iraqi Army more efficiently and ruthlessly. And if the current Shiite-dominated government of Iraq balks at any invasion of fellow-Shiite Iran, the CIA and the Mossad could then help the Baathists (who see non-Arab Iran as an enemy of Arab autonomy) to take back complete control of Iraq via a coup d'etat.
But then, right when Iraq is all ready to invade Iran, the ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel could destroy the Muslim Dome of the Rock and the Al Aqsa Mosque (the third holiest sites in Islam) on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, to prepare the site for the building of a third Jewish temple. This could so enrage Muslims worldwide, including the (Muslim) Iraqi Army, that the Iraqi Baathist Generals could see it as a perfect excuse to abandon the plan to invade huge Iran and instead turn and send their huge army against tiny Israel, completely defeating it (Daniel 11:15-17; in verse 17, the Hebrew word translated as "daughter" is "bath").
But this would not be the ultimate reason for the Baathist attack, which could continue on south to also defeat the current Egyptian regime (Daniel 11:15), which the Baathists could see as a puppet of the U.S., just as they could see Israel as a colony of the U.S. The ultimate aim of Baathism is to unite all Arab lands from Oman to Morocco into one massive, powerful United Arab States free of all foreign hegemony.
The all-out Iraqi attack on Israel could be joined by the Baathist Syrian Army (with all of its missiles, many tipped with nerve agents), as well as by all of Iran's long-range missiles and all of Hizballah's and Hamas' missiles and guerrillas. Tiny Israel could find itself suddenly attacked from three directions at the same time, with thousands of missiles raining down all at once on all of its cities and military bases, and hundreds of Iraqi tanks (meant to occupy huge Iran) pouring across its borders. As Israel starts to see its tiny sliver of land completely overrun, and sees its defeat as imminent, in retaliation it could drop nuclear bombs on Baghdad, Damascus (Isaiah 17:1), Tehran, and all the other major cities of Iraq, Syria, and Iran.
There could be so many nuclear explosions sending so much radioactive dust and ash so high into the atmosphere that it could be blown eastward and fall on hugely-populated South Asia, ruining so many crop fields and immune systems there with radiation that a fourth of the world could end up dying from the war and its aftermath of famines and epidemics. This could fulfill the horrible war which will begin the coming tribulation, which war will, with its aftermath of famines and epidemics, end up killing a fourth of the world (Revelation 6:4-8). The "great sword" of this war (Revelation 6:4) could be Israel's nuclear weapons.
After an Iraqi Baathist General who led the defeat and occupation of Israel and Egypt mysteriously disappears from the scene (Daniel 11:19), the Antichrist, who could be an Arab, could arise peacefully out of Lebanon (from the modern city of Tyre: Ezekiel 28:2, cf. 2 Thessalonians 2:4), and he could take up the mantle of Baathism and vow to (in his words) "complete the great work of Arab liberation and unification".
The first thing the Antichrist could do once he's given control (Daniel 11:21) of a Baathist confederation of Iraq, Syria, Egypt and a "United Palestine" (i.e. a defeated Israel), is to perform a very small and localized attack against an army of ultra-Orthodox Jews holed up in the walled Old City of Jerusalem and led by a false ultra-Orthodox Jewish "Messiah" (Daniel 9:26, Daniel 11:22). They could have managed to hold off the first Baathist attack even as it overran the rest of Israel, because the walled Old City of Jerusalem is considered holy to the Muslims, and so it's not to be bombarded or destroyed. The Antichrist could manage in some way to take the Old City without doing it much harm.
Then, instead of executing all the ultra-Orthodox Jews and their false "Messiah", the Antichrist will do an amazing thing: he will make a peace treaty with them (Daniel 11:23); he will "cut" a peace treaty with them and their false "Messiah" (Daniel 9:26), permitting them to keep a third Jewish temple (Revelation 11:1) which they will have built on the Temple Mount in the Old City of Jerusalem, and to keep control of the Old City, for at least seven more years (Daniel 9:27), so long as they give up the outer court of the temple (Revelation 11:2) to the Muslims so that the Muslims can rebuild the Al Aqsa Mosque on the southern end of the Temple Mount and resume worship there.
By this seven-year peace treaty, the Antichrist could present himself to the world as (in his words): "A reasonable man, a man of peace. I am no Hitler. I do not desire a second Holocaust. I am willing to give the religious Jews in the Old City seven years to show that they are willing to live peacefully with others, that they are different than the Zionist Jews who have just destroyed the world with their nuclear weapons".
And if the Antichrist gets flak from his fellow Baathists for letting the ultra-Orthodox Jews keep the Old City, he could explain to them privately that (in his words) "It's all a temporary ruse, meant to keep world opinion off guard while we consolidate our position". The Baathists could consolidate their position by becoming so well dug-in, and so well equipped and advised militarily by the Russians (in the name of "Arab self-determination"), that a U.S. counter-attack to "take back" Israel and Egypt could fail, and leave the Baathists in control, and in a position to extend their power over all the rest of the Arab nations.
During the first two or three years of the seven-year peace treaty, the Antichrist could employ Baathism as the means by which he will gradually and peacefully put together a United Arab States, or Arab Union, stretching from Oman to Morocco. Once he has accomplished this, he could then begin to downplay Baathism and start speaking of "world peace and the unity of mankind". He could convince an oil-thirsty European Union to let the oil-rich Arab Union join it, thereby forming a massive Mediterranean Union, which he could manage to peacefully gain control of and use as his base of power to eventually exert his hegemony over the entire earth (Revelation 13:7).
Then, only two or three years after making the seven-year peace treaty, the Antichrist will break the treaty, attack the third Jewish temple in Jerusalem, stop the daily Mosaic animal sacrifices, and sit in the temple and proclaim himself God (Daniel 11:31,36, Matthew 24:15, 2 Thessalonians 2:4). He will then rule the whole earth in all the power of Satan (the dragon, Revelation 12:9) for 42 months (Revelation 13:4-18, Revelation 11:2b), or 1,260 days (Revelation 12:6, Revelation 11:3), or "a time, and times, and half a time" (Revelation 12:14, Daniel 12:7, Daniel 7:25).
The second coming of Jesus Christ may not occur immediately after the 1,260 days of the Antichrist's worldwide reign are over, but could occur 75 days later, on the 1,335th day after the Antichrist and his followers set up the abomination of desolation (possibly a standing android image of the Antichrist) in the holy place of the Jewish temple (Daniel 12:11-12, Daniel 11:31, Matthew 24:15). The 75 days could be taken up by the vials of God's wrath which will be poured out on the worshippers of the Antichrist (Revelation 16). When Jesus returns he will completely defeat the Antichrist (the beast) (Revelation 19:20, 2 Thessalonians 2:8), and he will have Satan bound in the bottomless pit (Revelation 20:1-3). Then Jesus and the just-resurrected church (including those in the church who had been beheaded by the Antichrist) will reign on the earth for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4-6, Revelation 5:10, Revelation 2:26-29).
Markea said:
OT Prophecy speaks of all nations gathering against Israel in the end, and that is when they will ultimately call upon the name of the Lord, and be saved... as a nation... it's like a woman travailing in pain being with child...
It's Israel with Christ... the nation will be born again in the midst of the greatest tribulation this earth has ever seen...
Does any scripture say that all nations will gather against the Jews in Jerusalem before the very end of the tribulation, right before the second coming (Zechariah 14:2-4)? Isn't it at the second coming that all of a surviving remnant of elect unbelieving Jews will be saved (Romans 11:26)? Aren't they saved when they see Jesus at His return to defeat the nations gathered against them in Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:9-14)? And when they are saved, won't they become part of the church, just as saved Jews have always become part of the church (1 Corinthians 12:13)?