[0:00] We are talking about olam ibah, and that is a phrase that we'll be using throughout this series. It is a Hebrew expression which means the everlasting hatred.
[0:12] And we are going to see in a very dramatic way how God is going to finally put the olam ibah out of sight.
[0:26] And it is going to be done, actually, through those who have engendered and perpetuated the olam ibah, the everlasting hatred, through the centuries.
[0:41] To make a long story short, this is where this is going. In Ezekiel 37 and 38, which we'll not be looking at tonight, but we will in some detail in future sessions, there is the record given of the vision of the valley of dry bones.
[1:00] And this raises certain questions because, without going to the passage, and I don't want to do that because if I do, there goes the study.
[1:12] We'll be there the rest of the night. But without going to the passage, it makes it very clear in the context of Ezekiel 37 and 38 that Israel is a land that is dwelling in peace and safety.
[1:29] And it is referred to as the land of unwalled villages. That is simply an Old Testament expression for meaning, a land that is viewed as dwelling in relative peace, safety, and security, so that it doesn't need any walls.
[1:50] That's an inconceivable concept in connection with the Old Testament, but that's the way Israel is described. And it will be Russia and some of the Arab allies with Russia that will come against Israel, and it will be an incredible battle.
[2:08] And by the way, Israel is spoken of there as well as having a mighty army. And scripture students, Bible students, have been at a loss for quite some time with the expressions that are given there in Ezekiel 37 and 38, because it doesn't fit Israel.
[2:28] They are not dwelling in peace and safety now. They are dodging rockets, etc., that are lobbed over from the Gaza Strip. They are dealing with suicide bombers and people who are planting bombs in Israel and blowing up civilians.
[2:45] And it's just anything but peace and security. So how does it get to that place? Well, where we are going in this study is ultimately going to focus on Psalm 83.
[2:59] Well, let's go there now. Let's go to Psalm 83 now. And we'll give you a little bit of background and help prepare you for what is coming. I must confess that I've read this psalm a number of times, but I did not begin to attach the significance to it that Bill Salus brought out in his book.
[3:30] And it has been very, very enlightening. Psalm 83, and we'll just read it. We'll spend more time in it later, but for now I want to use it just to get your mental juices flowing.
[3:42] This is a psalm of Asaph. And it says, O God, do not remain quiet. Do not be silent. And O God, do not be still. For behold, thine enemies make an uproar.
[3:56] And those who hate thee have exalted themselves. They make shrewd plans against thy people. Who are thy people?
[4:07] Well, that's Israel, of course. And they conspire together against thy treasured ones. The treasured ones are Israel, and the conspirators are those who are enemies of Israel.
[4:20] They have said, these conspirators have said, Come, let us wipe them out as a nation, that the name of Israel be remembered no more.
[4:34] Now, what could possibly be a more apt description of the way the current Arab world feels about the nation of Israel? This is their sentiment.
[4:46] Exactly. They've made that statement. Oh, yeah. They've made a statement and made it a number of times. From the PLO to Hezbollah to Hamas and Al-Qaeda, this is their heart's desire, is to completely eliminate the nation of Israel.
[5:06] They have conspired together with one mind against thee. Do they make a covenant? Now, the writer Asaph here is saying that they have made this covenant against God.
[5:21] Well, how is it that they've made it against God? Simply because they've made it against God's people. And they might as well have made it against God because it's the same thing. These are God's chosen people.
[5:33] The tents of Edom and the Ishmaelites. Who are they? This is southern Jordan. And the Ishmaelites are southern Saudi Arabia, also known by the biblical name of Dedan, D-E-D-A-N.
[5:55] Moab is northern Jordan. And the Hagrites is Egypt. These are descendants of the matriarch, Hagar, who birthed Ishmael with Abraham being the father.
[6:13] Gebal and Ammon. And Ammon, of course, is northern Jordan, the capital of which is Ammon, just a little different than the spelling. And Amalek, Philistia with the inhabitants of Tyre.
[6:27] What is Philistia? Philistia is the current Gaza Strip, just south of Israel. And this is where they are launching the rockets.
[6:39] This is where there are a million and a half Palestinians living right now. And then it goes on and talks about the inhabitants of Tyre.
[6:50] And that is up to the north. That is Lebanon. And Lebanon is under the thumb of Iran. And they are causing lots of commotion and lots of mischief there.
[7:02] Because Lebanon now is nothing more than a puppet state doing the bidding of Iran. Assyria also has joined with them.
[7:13] Where is that? That is Iraq and northern Iraq. We are just naming them by a more modern name than the biblical name. But the geography is exactly the same.
[7:25] They have become a help to the children of Lot. And who are the children of Lot? They are the descendants of Lot. Particularly Moab and Ammon.
[7:41] They are the offspring of that incestuous relationship. And those today are their descendants. Deal with them as with Midian. And Midian, of course, is down south in Saudi Arabia.
[7:54] And this is where Moses fled when he slew the Egyptian and took it on the lamb out of the country. He fled to Midian. And there he was for 40 years. As with Sisera and Jabin at the torrent of Kashan.
[8:08] So what we are saying and what he is proposing, what Mr. Salas is proposing, is that this confederation, this Arab confederation, consisting of all of these nations that virtually surround the nation of Israel, and outnumber them probably 25 to 1, are going to conspire and attack Israel.
[8:40] Well, they've already done that four times. And they've been beaten back and defeated every time with tremendous losses. And each time they have engaged Israel in a conflict, Israel never should have won.
[8:56] But they always did. This time, when this confederation comes against Israel, it will be utterly devastating to these surrounding nations.
[9:11] So much so that Israeli military might is going to absolutely overwhelm all of these, decimate them, reduce them to virtually nothing, and absorb their land.
[9:29] And guess what land they will be absorbing? It is precisely the land that God said to Abraham, I will give you this land from the river of Egypt to the river Euphrates, and all in between.
[9:49] Then they will have that land, and their borders will be enormously expanded. They will have excelled in their military objectives.
[10:02] And as a result, for the first time in centuries, there will be real peace in Israel, because their Arab enemies are no more.
[10:19] They are virtually going to be obliterated in this conflict. That will put Israel in a whole new posture.
[10:33] Militarily, economically, geographically, they may well end up being the one world superpower.
[10:44] Now get a hold of your seat, because this may be happening in our lifetime. This may be happening very, very shortly.
[10:55] This is all pre-tribulational content. This is pre-rapture. This is something that could come down any time. And if you know anything about the temperature of the Mideast, and the volatility of it, and the unpredictability of it, a configuration like this, with these nations being involved in a confederation, could be burst overnight, and they could come against Israel.
[11:25] And when they do, when they do, this time, Israel is not going to listen to the UN, or the United States, or anybody.
[11:38] They are going to do the job. That's what this prophecy is telling us. So, something is going to have to happen in order for the description in Ezekiel 37 and 38 to be accurate, and it isn't accurate now.
[11:54] But if what I just described to you takes place prior to that time, then Israel will be dwelling in a safety and security that they have never known since they become a nation in 1948.
[12:09] There simply won't be any enemies left to come against them. Because all of those that are trying to do them in now are their Arab neighbors. And they're going to be summarily cared for.
[12:20] Taken out. And Israel will be dwelling in peace and safety then. And they will be unwalled villages then.
[12:33] And they will also be viewed as ripe for the picking by Russia and by possibly Iran or northern Iran.
[12:46] and then they will come down to take a spoil, we are told. Well, there's got to be something there to entice them. And of course, there is.
[12:56] It is all of this enormous amount of real estate that they have added to their country and all of the wealth and everything that goes with it, which probably will include enormous reserves of oil that perhaps have not yet even been discovered.
[13:14] So, all of these things are often the future and we're going to look at them as we move along. But all we're trying to do now is give you the background of what has taken place in the past biblically that has allowed this situation, this olam ibah, this bitterness, this abject hatred to develop and multiply over the last 4,000 years because it is it is absolutely irrational the hatred that exists between the Arab and the Jew.
[13:59] And I pointed this out to you and I want to say this again. This is not a reciprocating thing. This is not a two-way hatred. The Jew does not feel to the Arab the way the Arab feels to the Jew.
[14:12] Now, that might be difficult for you to understand but I can assure you that it's true. And if you were to go to Israel today you would find a very, very uncommon kind of situation. You would find Arabs in the Jewish Knesset.
[14:31] That's Israel's Congress. They have seats in the Knesset. There are Arabs who occupy political offices in Israel.
[14:44] There are numerous Arabs who are bona fide citizens of Israel and live under the Israeli government. There are huge numbers of Arabs who are on Jewish payrolls in Israel in just about every capacity from working as domestics to working in some of the high-tech labs that Israel has.
[15:12] So, how do you explain a mix like that? Well, it's obvious that the Jews do not feel toward the Arabs the way the Arabs feel toward the Jews. And, of course, many of the Arabs who are there in Israel working with the Jews and living in Israel don't share the feelings of Habas and Hezbollah and some of those radicals.
[15:34] But, nonetheless, for the most part, there's no love lost. Many of them work under them, but they resent them. And then, there are those cases where there are Jews and Arabs that are really and truly good friends and have been for many, many years.
[15:52] So, it's a curious mix. And one of the reasons, perhaps the biggest reason, why I say that this is not reciprocal, that Jews do not feel toward Arabs the way Arabs feel toward Jews, is because in the biblical scheme of things and the way this is played out, it is not the Jew, but it is the Arab who got the short end of the stick.
[16:18] It is the Arab who feels that he was cheated. He was cheated because Abraham and Isaac and Jacob cheated them.
[16:34] Well, the biblical record makes it quite clear that they were not cheated, that they were simply the recipient of a divine promise, of the covenant that God made with Abraham.
[16:47] Abraham. And Abraham did not cheat Ishmael when he passed the blessing on to Isaac. And Isaac, that's another story.
[17:02] Isaac, and we've looked at this a little bit, Isaac is generally regarded and was by myself as a tottering, naive old man who had lost his eyesight and probably part of his gray matter.
[17:17] And he had this thing for his oldest son, Esau, and he wanted to give him the blessing. And he was determined to do this contrary to what God had already revealed to Rebekah.
[17:31] And God had told Rebekah that there are two nations in your womb and the younger, the older, will serve the younger and the child of promise and the child of blessing is the younger one, not the older one.
[17:44] Well, the younger one was Jacob and the older one was Esau. And Esau was the one who was born first, maybe just minutes earlier, but nonetheless first.
[17:54] So he automatically had the birthright by primogenitor. And we know the account of the fiasco with the mess of pottage. Esau, well, just let me run through a couple of things here and we'll get to Esau.
[18:12] This Olam Eba, everlasting hatred is the longest feud in the history of humanity. And I want you to think in terms of something else regarding Islam that probably most people don't consider, but I think it is a valid conclusion.
[18:32] I am confident that it has real merit. And I just want to throw it out and ask you to consider it. But I am personally persuaded that the establishment of Islam in the 7th century, you must understand, there was no Islam, there were no Muslims prior to the 700s when Muhammad came on the scene.
[19:04] We're talking about 600 plus years after the death of Christ. There was no Islam, did not exist at all.
[19:16] And Muhammad came on the scene, and as they say, the rest is history. I personally, as a result of the scripture study and the studies of what's going on in the world today, I am convinced that the establishment of Islam is the Arab and satanic answer to the position and dominance of the Jew.
[19:44] Now, I realize that's a pretty bold statement, but I really stand by it. Islam is not a religion established by the deity.
[19:59] It is no more a true religion than is the god Chemosh or the god Dagon or the gods Baal in the Old Testament, all of whom were imaginary deities constructed by these pagans, and they paid obeisance to them and worship to them and sacrifice to them and all of the rest, and they have no basis in reality at all.
[20:27] They were conjured up by the pagan mind and egged on by the adversary himself. And one key feature of Islam is the same as Olam Iba.
[20:45] The key feature of Islam is its abject hatred of the Jew. And this is not coincidental. only the total annihilation of the Jew will suffice to meet a major goal of Islam.
[21:05] And we saw that in Psalm 83, come, let us destroy them so that the name Israel will not be known anymore. That was their objective when Psalm 83 was written.
[21:18] That's still their objective. faith. We have noted the origin of the hatred between Ishmael and Isaac. It all stems from the Abrahamic covenant and what it provides for all humanity.
[21:32] And I want to say this again. I cannot overemphasize this. And I still get the feeling that some of you don't grasp this. And that is the covenant promise that God gave to Abraham is the very core of the plan and program of God not only for the salvation but for the blessing of the entire human race from the time it was given all through eternity future.
[22:11] This Abrahamic covenant is the hub. It's everything. The whole of humanity not just Israel not just Israel the whole of humanity is riding on the validity of this covenant and God fulfilling it.
[22:33] And we will see how it was not only given to Abraham but successively reconfirmed to Abraham and then reconfirmed to Isaac and then reconfirmed to Jacob as if God wanted each generation to know this is the stuff that the future of humanity is really resting on.
[22:55] This is it. And I tell you it has taken that Abrahamic covenant which I've always revered because in it I see all of the messianic implications. And it is through that principally Christ is the core of that through you and your seed all nations of the earth will be blessed.
[23:15] And the typical thinking in mine as well is that that's all about the Messiah. Well it isn't all about the Messiah. The Messiah is the core of it. He is the heart of it. But it extends to all the rest of the world.
[23:30] And Israel as a nation and they are not doing this now but Israel as a nation is going to be that blessing for the entire world.
[23:44] That's really something. This tiny little nation is going to be key for the entire world. This covenant includes the divine program for the salvaging through redemption through Christ and blessing of the human race.
[24:05] That's how key it is. Through you and your seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed. Have any of you seen the thing that was floating around on the net?
[24:22] I think I've got a copy of this at home. I have to look and see if I can find it. If I can, I'll bring copies of it. If I can, maybe some of you have a copy of it.
[24:32] But anyway, it was a listing of all of the Nobel Prize winners going back to something like 1900 and the incredible number of Jews who were listed as Nobel Prize winners, particularly in the fields of medicine and science.
[25:01] and it was just amazing. I mean, when you consider the tiny, tiny percentage that the Jewish population makes up of the world, what is it with these people anyway?
[25:15] Well, they are who they are. They are God's elect, God's elect nation, God's chosen people. And they have already in incredible ways blessed the nations of the world.
[25:34] How long has it been since you've been concerned about polio? You can thank Jonas Salk for that and the Salk vaccine.
[25:45] But he didn't do it all. There was another Jew, Albert Sabin. And he came up with a different kind of serum.
[25:57] One is taken orally, one is by injection, I guess. And they are both sons of Abraham. It is just remarkable the advances that the human race has benefited from that has come through the mind of the Jew.
[26:15] if you can't look at that and see something really odd and peculiar going on, you've got a different set of eyes than I do.
[26:27] It is just absolutely undeniable. Well, we've considered briefly the conflict between Ishmael and Isaac and we can now look at Isaac's offspring, namely Esau and Jacob.
[26:42] We've talked a little bit about that. Esau was the first born, had the birthright that accompanied it, but he despised his birthright. The birthright would entitle the first born of Isaac to be the recipient and the passer-on of the Abrahamic covenant.
[27:08] That, of course, would have been Esau. Esau But Esau wasn't all that interested. We are told that he despised his birthright.
[27:21] He looked down upon it. Jacob, the younger brother, had a sense of its importance. He saw the strategic nature of that birthright.
[27:35] I think Isaac and Rebecca did too. Esau should have. But Esau was a secularist, a materialist, an impetuous, shallow, live-for-the-moment kind of guy with no appreciation for eternal values or spiritual realities.
[27:58] He married unwisely against his parents' wishes. And by the way, lots of people today get married against their parents' wishes in their selection of a mate.
[28:12] And that's not terribly surprising in our culture. In fact, maybe it's almost par for the course in our culture. But it wasn't in this. In this culture, at this time, parents were more involved than the children were.
[28:31] And by the way, the children were not 17, 18 years of age. They were usually double that. And the parents were much more involved in arranging for the marriages. And the main reason for that, if you can imagine this, was that the parents, by virtue of the years that they have logged and the experiences that they had gained, were generally considered wiser than the younger generation.
[28:59] Can you imagine that? Some things never change, do they? Well, in the case of Esau, he dismissed his parents. And you know, Isaac, Isaac is a total phlegmatic.
[29:15] You cannot find anybody in Scripture who is more laid back and do nothing and whatever than Isaac. He had no gumption at all, no direction, and he doted on this oldest son, Esau, probably spoiled him rotten.
[29:38] While Rebecca was working on spoiling Jacob, they each had their favorite, and God had revealed to Rebecca which of these two sons was to be the one who would receive the covenant and pass it on.
[29:53] And it was to be Jacob. And I'll tell you, I am convinced, can't prove it, but I am convinced that Isaac knew that.
[30:05] But Esau was his boy. And he wanted to give Esau that blessing. And when Rebecca saw what was going on, she cooked up this scheme with Jacob to go in and deceive the old man and receive the blessing.
[30:22] And we look upon that as a really dastardly deed. How dare they take advantage of that poor old man and deceive him and fool him and that's sort of. Listen, all they were doing was being true to what God said, and God said it is to be Jacob, not Esau.
[30:42] But, before this blessing came along, Esau had already taken himself out of the running. Because he legally sold his birthright.
[30:56] He'd forfeited that. He had already said, hey, if I don't get something to eat, I'm going to die. Man, I'm famished. What good is an old birthright going to do me? I think it's been nothing but an albatross around my neck anyway.
[31:08] I don't even want it. You can have it. Give me the soup. He sold his birthright. He didn't have to. He chose to.
[31:20] Esau was a man who valued all the wrong things, just like a lot of people today. Knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.
[31:33] So, he had already effectively taken himself out of position to perpetuate the Abrahamic covenant by his choice.
[31:44] he had already opted out. Yeah, you can have it. And what he was doing in effect was transferring the legal right of the firstborn that was his to Jacob.
[32:01] Now, Jacob has it. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Rebecca didn't say, why is that Esau?
[32:11] how could he do that? Sell his birthright to anybody, to his brother, to Jacob.
[32:23] But Jacob is supposed to be the one that God has chosen anyway, and Jacob is going to be the one to receive the blessing, and when Isaac was going to give it to Esau, Rebecca said, no, nothing doing.
[32:39] We're going to do this thing right, even if you're not willing to, Isaac. And they concocted this scheme, putting the sheepskin on his arms, and cooking the favorite dish that the old man liked, and he gave the blessing, and then Esau came in, and now he's all upset because he didn't get the blessing.
[33:03] Well, he wasn't entitled to the blessing, but he becomes really angry, and he said, Isaac is going to live to be 180, and he had already told his sons, I do not know the day of my death, and we told you that means I could die any day now, and Esau, if you can imagine the word, and this is the word that's used, Esau comforted himself with the thought that as soon as dad dies, I'm going to kill that guy, and Rebecca knew what was going on, and she went to Jacob, and she said, I'm packing you some things, you're leaving at daybreak, you've got to get out of here, and let your brother cool down, I'll send word for you when it is safe to come back, but you take off, and I want you to go, to where your grandpa came from, go over to Ur of the
[34:10] Chaldees, and by the way, there is a passage, let's go to Genesis for a moment, wonderful, wonderful passage there, where Isaac finds some gumption, what am I looking for, Genesis 28, Genesis 28, Isaac called Jacob, and blessed him, now this, this is not related to the blessing that they tricked him out of, he blessed him, and charged him, and said to him, you shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan, why?
[35:06] Well, it had been made very clear to generations before, that they were not to intermarry with these Canaanite women, they had a different set of values, they had different religious interests, they were pagan, and they were of a completely different mindset than Abraham and his seed, so Isaac said, you shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan, because your brother Esau did, and, well, look at the verses right before, verse 48 of the preceding chapter, Rebecca said to Isaac, I am tired of living because of the daughters of Heth, these are Canaanites, Heth is one of the sons of Canaan, if Jacob takes a wife from the daughters of Heth, like Esau already has, from the daughters of the land, what good will my life be to me?
[36:06] And I think she is putting the pressure on Isaac, this is a mother, this is a mother who is going to her husband Isaac, oh, lay back Isaac, do nothing Isaac, and she is saying, listen, you get a hold of Jacob and you tell him he is not to marry like his brother did, I don't care where he has to go, how far away he has to go, he's not to take a wife from these daughters of Canaan, like Esau did, arise, go to Padam Aram, to the house of Bethul, your mother's father, and from there, take to yourself a wife from the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother, and may God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, that you may become a company of peoples, may he also give you the look at this, the blessing of Abraham to you and to your descendants with you, that you may possess the land of your sojournings, which God gave to
[37:12] Abraham. And Isaac sent Jacob away, and he went to Padam to Laban, son of Bethul, the Aramean, the brother of Rebekah, the mother of Jacob and Esau.
[37:24] And Esau saw that Isaac had blessed Jacob and sent him away to Padam to take to himself a wife from there, and that when he blessed him he charged him, saying, you shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.
[37:41] And that Jacob had obeyed his father and his mother, and had gone to Padam Aram. This is the good son, bad son thing.
[37:54] So, Esau saw that the daughters of Canaan, the two women he had married, displeased his father Isaac.
[38:07] And Esau went to Ishmael, Uncle Ishmael. And remember, Ishmael was the son of Hagar.
[38:19] And what was Hagar? She was an Egyptian, a pagan Egyptian. So, he went to his uncle Ishmael and married, besides the wives that he had, Mahalath, the daughter of Ishmael, Abraham's son, the sister of Nebioth.
[38:36] Then Jacob departed from Beersheba and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place and spent the night there, and this is where he sees the vision and Jacob's ladder.
[38:52] Incredible thing. Indicating a communication between earthlings and God, the ladder and the angels descending and ascending upon it.
[39:04] And the Lord stood above it and said, and look at this, I am the Lord, the God of your father, Abraham. Abraham always comes into play.
[39:15] Do you see how important this is? Do you know that next to the name of Jesus Christ, Abraham is the name that is used most in the Bible of all other names? That's how prominent this man is.
[39:36] I am the Lord, the God of your father, Abraham, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie, I will give it to you and to your descendants.
[39:49] Your descendants shall also be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread out to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south, and in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed.
[40:06] This is starting to sound like a broken record, isn't it? Well, it's supposed to, because this is how important it is, and the word of God always makes much of what is most important.
[40:21] Anything that God wants to emphasize, you can put it down as being really important, if the Almighty repeats it over and over again, and indeed he has.
[40:33] Behold, I am with you, and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I promised you.
[40:43] Jacob woke up from his sleep and said, Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it. And he was afraid and said, How awesome is this place. This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.
[41:00] Wow. Boy, this is some kind of story. God will come to a conclusion here, so we'll have some time for Q&A.
[41:22] One other thing I do want to consider. Let's go to Genesis 26 for a moment. I want you to see another occasion for this Olamibah. And this is Abimelech or Abimelech.
[41:45] Humorous situation. There was a famine in the land, chapter 26, verse 1. Besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham, this is when Abraham went down to Egypt, made up that nonsensical story about Sarah being his wife.
[41:59] Well, he taught his son well because he's going to repeat it. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. Now where is Gerar? If you were to look at a map, Gerar is where modern Gaza is, the Gaza Strip.
[42:17] And there are Philistines all over the place. This is swarming with Philistines. Matter of fact, the name Palestine is a corruption of the name Philistine.
[42:28] And they are all in the same area. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech, his name is probably supposed to be pronounced Abimelech, the king of the Philistines.
[42:43] And this guy is going to surface again, but it probably won't be the same guy because Abimelech is a title, not just a personal name. and it means the father Abimelech means the father is king.
[43:01] And this was a patriarchal kind of situation set up in these various villages where the chief patriarch, the old man of the town was the king.
[43:14] Kind of like an Indian chieftain. and he is the head honcho there and the Lord appeared to him, that is to Isaac and said, do not go down to Egypt, stay in the land of which I shall tell you.
[43:34] Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you for looky here, to you and your descendants I will give all these lands and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and I will give your descendants all these lands and by your descendants all the nations of the earth shall be blessed.
[44:06] Here is a confirmation again of the Abrahamic covenant because Abraham obeyed me and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes and my law. So Isaac lived in Gerar and when the men of the place asked about his wife he said she is my sister for he was afraid to say my wife thinking the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebecca for she is beautiful.
[44:31] This has caused some Bible scholars to say well this is a corrupted text because this has already happened and the writer of Genesis whoever it was got his stories mixed up or he put in an extra one that's nonsense.
[44:44] What had already happened was with Abraham and it happened with Abraham twice and now it's happening with Abraham's son Isaac and if you know anything about the culture of that day this was standard operating procedure if a man especially a man in position of authority if he saw a woman that was beautiful to his eyes he took her no questions asked just as simple as that she had no rights he took her he made her his didn't make any difference whether she was willing or not he took her unless she was married and if she was married it wouldn't be right to take her so you kill her husband now she's a widow now you take her that was standard operating procedure we look at that and we say well that's terrible well with them it was business as usual this went on I mean we're talking about pretty primitive people this is a pretty rough time so he says she's my sister the men of the place might kill me on account of Rebecca for she is beautiful
[45:45] I'll tell you these Jewish men had a knack their women must have been an absolute dish I mean for Sarah to have had everything all together in the way that it counts when she was 90 years old she must have been a real dish and so was Rebecca you know these beautiful gals it came about when he had been there a long time that Abimelech king of the Philistines looked out through a window and saw and behold Isaac was caressing his wife Rebecca and Abimelech says sister my foot King James says he was sporting with his wife they were making whoopee they were fooling around you know as a husband and wife are want to do and are perfectly entitled to do but you should be careful that you have witnesses and he did have witnesses so
[46:59] Abimelech called Isaac and said behold certainly she is your wife how then did you say she is my sister Isaac said to him because I said lest I die on account of her and Abimelech said what is this you have done to us one of the people might easily have lain with your wife and you would have brought guilt upon us so Abimelech charged all the people saying he who touches this man or his wife shall surely be put to death I want you to notice what follows now Isaac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundred fold and the Lord blessed him and the man became rich and continued to grow richer until he became very wealthy for he had possessions of flocks and herds and a great household so that Philistines envied him who are the
[48:02] Philistines they are of course pagan neighbors and do you know who is envying Israel today same people only their descendants several generations removed same people the Arab world absolutely hates Israel they hate them for their prosperity they hate them for their military might they hate them for their successes they hate them for any and every reason they can think of the jealousy and the envy of the nation Israel by the Arab world is just incredible and all the while they're hating them they are convinced that whatever Israel has and whatever Israel is should be ours we are the ones entitled to it not them so we're going to take it from them and eliminate them in the process that's the mindset so all the wells which his father's servants had dug in the days of
[49:16] Abraham his fathers the Philistines stopped up by filling them with earth why would they do that now doesn't that seem like a really stupid counterproductive thing to do take a perfectly good well providing water upon which everyone in the area is utterly dependent filling it up with dirt does that make any kind of sense at all and you know it is a fascinating thing it is a fascinating thing that so many of the things that the Arab population has done to try to eliminate or to get even with or to hurt or to punish the Jew turns out being utterly irrational and inevitably backfires on them and really makes them look stupid in the process here this is as irrational as you can get because when you fill up a well nobody benefits from it and the hatred you need to understand this the hatred that the
[50:25] Arab has for the Jew is an irrational hatred it doesn't make sense and they often shoot themselves in the foot in trying to injure Israel not only that but I think they are also energized by the adversary so Isaac the Philistines stopped them up filling with earth and Abimelech said to Isaac go away from us for you are too powerful for us people just can't stand having you around here anymore the envy the jealousy the hatred they resent you would you just leave just leave so Isaac departed from there camped in the valley of Gerar and settled there everywhere the Jew goes throughout all the world eventually he's going to be asked to leave not accepted doesn't belong not welcome persona non grata the Jew has been more welcome and more received in the
[51:46] U.S. of A than any nation of the world and you will never make me believe that the prosperity and the blessing that this nation has enjoyed is not tied to that to some degree I was telling some folks the other day one of my favorite movies is Fiddler on the Roof I know many of you have seen it the movie opens with this little guy perched up on the roof of a house playing fiddle what in the world is he doing there and it goes all through the story and the tradition and the music and the drama and the changes that are taking place in that little town there in Russia and sure enough near the end of it they have to leave have to vacate the village the only place that they've known they've lived there for years and years and years bothering nobody hurting nobody just trying to eke out a living and here the story ends and they're packing up all of their two wheeled carts with all of their belongings and heading out to who knows where and as the movie ends there is again that little guy up on the roof playing a fiddle and I've often said
[53:28] I'd really like to talk to whoever wrote that story and ask them what were they trying to communicate and I thought and thought about it you know when I thought about it the most when I was doing my walking around the mall in the morning I'd go down there and walk around and I was just thinking about that it just doesn't make any sense what why would they use something like that a fiddler on the roof and I thought about it and I thought about it and all once it hit me a fiddler on the roof a fiddler doesn't belong on the roof he belongs on the ground playing the fiddle while people are dancing that's where a fiddler belongs a fiddler on the roof is out of place and that's when it hit me the Jew is out of place wherever he goes he's not welcome he's out of place he doesn't belong there ask an
[54:45] Arab where does the Jew belong he doesn't belong anywhere and the only peace that the Arab wants with the Jew is that peace you see on the tombstone that says R.I.P.
[55:03] rest in peace that's the peace they want with the Jew and you look at that and you say that's crazy how could they possibly hate that much doesn't make any sense no it doesn't it's really irrational and what we've been giving you by way of a history of this doesn't really account for all of the hatred that is spewed out upon the Jew so much so that these Arabs take little children three and four and five years of age and indoctrinate them and tell them the thing you could do that would make your mother and father most proud of you and that would honor this family the most is if you would strap sticks of dynamite onto your body and walk into a crowd of Jews and blow them all up nothing would please Allah more and our family would be so proud and they begin programming little children that believe that nonsense that is satanic that is demonic there's nothing else to call it questions or comments
[56:22] I have a question yes I've never heard that interpretation of Ezekiel 38 before pretty interesting but am I understanding this correctly you're saying that initially all the countries surrounding Israel that are Arabs are going to come against Israel Israel is going to defeat them militarily all the countries in Psalm 83 then Russia is going to come down with Iran God's going to destroy Russia and then supernaturally correct so it's really two battles or two wars yeah that's true and we don't know exactly how much time there may be in between we don't know that here's another question if all Israel's enemies are destroyed what would make Israel so excited to sign a peace covenant with Satan with the Antichrist I have no idea yeah I have no idea another thing it says in the Bible it's going to take seven years to bury the implements of war with Ezekiel's war really yeah it says it'll take seven years to bury the implements of war and that's why I always thought
[57:34] Ezekiel's war had to come before the tribulation because the tribulation is seven years was it seven years or seven months seven years Ezekiel 30 what 37 or 8 it might be in Ezekiel 37 37 or 38 okay well and that that indicates the possibility of I don't know I can you know I'm just I'm just guessing okay 39 12 for seven months the house of Israel will be burying them in order to cleanse the land now that's not it seven years that's to me that suggests maybe the possibility of some kind of radioactivity involved some kind of nuclear you know contamination that may be involved and and what
[58:46] I'm presenting here about this Psalm 83 stuff and Ezekiel 38 37 38 I'm just passing on to you some things that Bill Salas has come up with and I'm not saying that I buy this 100% but ever since I've gotten into it I've been trying to figure out ways that that would demonstrate that it's not that way and I haven't found on it I think he's on to something and if you want a really interesting interview you can google Bill Salas his name is S-A-L-U-S and by the way this guy is a relatively new believer hasn't been a Christian for 40 years but he has become really enamored with Bible prophecy and if you want to google his name Bill Salus S-A-L-U-S and you will find on there a whole lot of things about him and one of which is an interview between
[59:58] David Reagan who is another prophecy buff and Bill Salas and it's a very interesting interview and it covers in essence what we have been talking about about Psalm 83 you'd find it very fascinating Mike this battle that's going to take place makes sense to me but what doesn't make sense is that apparently the rest of the world is going to stand by and let let them go at it yeah well and and it may be well let me ask you this could you see the United States getting involved in something like that no if it broke out right now I mean we've got our hands full and then some in Iraq and Afghanistan and and by the way the Libyan thing is far from settled too and there are other hot spots over there so and not only that but given the president that we've got in the White
[61:01] House I think he would be very reluctant to commit any more troops anywhere for any reason you know so I see one possible explanation is the indifference while Europeans NATO etc they don't hate Israel but they certainly are indifferent and they could just simply say hey go at it get this done with yeah I'll tell you this is just a Wiseman opinion but but I think I think this is the way a lot of the nations would be feeling a lot of the a lot of the European nations and most of the African nations because the majority of African nations are Islamic anyway and Russia could care less if these nations attacked Israel like we are talking about in Psalm 83 there are a whole lot of nations throughout the world who would say well it's about time and maybe this time they're going to really settle the
[62:05] Jewish problem and take care of them permanently only it's going to be the other way around it's going to be the other way around Chris okay that's another seven yeah yeah yeah you're right 39 39 9 this is what you were talking about Ron bows arrows war clubs spears for seven years they will make fires of them they will not take wood from the field or get a fire wood yeah says for seven years they will make fires of them that's not exactly what I was thinking about because this doesn't indicate any possibility of nuclear activity what I was thinking of was that passage that talks about the possibility where they weren't supposed to touch anything they were just supposed to flag it yeah that is in but the seven years is a puzzle because that would have to happen before the tribulation yeah well yeah
[63:26] I think I think you're right and I as long as I can remember I've had a problem chronologically fixing Ezekiel 37 and 38 and some Bible teachers put it in the tribulation make it part of the tribulation but I just don't see that at all and I think it is going to be well before that yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and if he is correct in this and he may very well be this thing could break open tomorrow I mean it could be real soon yeah yeah well yeah that or if any of these if any of these neighbors around
[64:42] Israel start rattling their sabers by saying things like all we are doing is having maneuvers we are playing war games look out because that's always the excuse that is given for moving a massive amount of military personnel equipment etc without announcing that you are invading somebody they just mass all these troops together and they call it war games and then the next thing you know it's not a game right now with the big mess that's going on a lot of governments Syria House Assad they're all feeling a lot of pressure right now and the one thing that would take the pressure off of them and refocus all this is subscribe to Israel it would it would exactly with what
[66:00] Keith is talking about you look at all of the hot spots in the Arab world now and even in Saudi Arabia they're not sleeping all that well at night you can be sure this is a place where where they the the Saudi family has been securely entrenched there for generations and they rule with an iron hand and yet they know that things could really get ugly just like they did in Egypt that ousted Mubarak and like what's going on right now in Libya and these heads these Arab heads of state if they see their regimes in real trouble and in danger of being toppled because of the unrest of the masses crying for independence etc it would not at all be unlike them to put their heads together and
[67:02] I'm talking about these heads of states and saying you know what the only thing that's going to enable our regimes to survive is we need like Keith says we need to focus on a common enemy that would take the pressure off of us and we could all go together and march against Israel that would take the heat off of us and when we finish doing business with Israel and eliminating them then that will secure our positions back home more too that's the way politics is played that's the game of politics whatever will enhance a further regime you