By Jan Willem van der Hoeven
The Lord also will roar from Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem; the heavens and earth will shake; but the Lord will be a shelter for His people, and the strength of the children of Israel. “So you shall know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion My holy mountain. Then Jerusalem shall be holy, and no aliens shall ever pass through her again.” And it will come to pass in that day that the mountains shall drip with new wine, the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall be flooded with water; a fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord and water the Valley of Acacias. “Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a desolate wilderness, because of violence against the people of Judah, for they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall abide forever, and Jerusalem from generation to generation. For I will acquit them of the guilt of bloodshed, whom I had not acquitted; for the Lord dwells in Zion.” (Joel 3:16-21)
Why – I have asked myself before – in this passage that so points to the end times, are Egypt and Edom singled out for special and serious judgment at the hands of the Lord? As I pondered this in the light of the political earthquake that is now shaking Egypt, I recalled how that it was Egypt that three times led the attack against God’s people, the Jews.
In 1948 Egypt led the Arab onslaught against the just born, barely-armed, State of Israel.
In 1967, in the days leading up to the Six Day War, and as he inflicted a casus belli upon Israel by strangling her southern lifeline via the Strait of Tiran, Abdul Gamal Nasser bellowed his intent to drive the Jews into the sea and take over all the land of Israel. We know the outcome of that threat: Israel won that war against five Arab armies in less than a week!
Then, on Yom Kippur in 1973, it was Egypt again in the lead as, with Syria, she unleashed a surprise attack against Israel in a vicious attempt to obliterate her – and lost again!
Three times, then, Egypt has been in the forefront of the bloody and costly battle against the people of Israel. And- even if people have forgotten – God has not forgotten this. That’s why what we read in this passage is so appropriate:
“Egypt shall be a desolation, and Edom a desolate wilderness, because of violence against the people of Judah, for they have shed innocent blood in their land.” (Joel 3:19)
The second nation mentioned is Edom, which could refer to today’s Saudi Arabia, which indeed comes right behind Egypt in stirring, financing, and lobbying the battle against Israel in the United States and Europe.
It was because of the subtle and devious influence of the Saudi kings that United States’ presidents, from Roosevelt through George H.W Bush and George W. Bush enacted policies against Israel to the detriment of their nation and presidencies! God has not forgotten this either. And what we see happening today in Egypt – the revolt against Hosni Mubarak and his cronies – may soon spread, to the detriment of the whole world, to Saudi Arabia. The result could well be a more fanatic, Islamist takeover by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and the Saudi-born Usama Bin-Laden’s Al Qaida in Arabia – ripping both these nations away from the West and making them part of the rising ISLAMIC tide now spreading, also with Iran, over the whole Middle East.
All this may well end in Egypt and Saudi Arabia choosing for the sake of their own survival to participate in the next Arab nations’ onslaught upon little Israel.
It is at that time, as prophesied in these verses, that the Lord Himself will roar from Zion and mete out His judgments on Damascus (see Isaiah 17) and other Islamic nations, and especially on the main culprits of this satanically-inspired battle against His people, who God has re-gathered in His and their land – namely as this prophecy already foretells: on Egypt and on Edom (Saudi Arabia). We shall see it happen soon!
In a way it just shows what I wrote previously – quoting many Scriptures in support – that there is, from God’s point of view, a day of reckoning – the Bible calls it “a day of vengeance” – for the controversy of Zion; for all that the nations have allowed themselves to do against the people of Israel. This is the clear message of these verses from Joel: God is doing it “because of the violence against the people of Judah.”
‘Therefore do not fear, O My servant Jacob,’ says the Lord, ‘nor be dismayed, O Israel; for behold, I will save you from afar, and your seed from the land of their captivity. Jacob shall return, have rest and be quiet, and no one shall make him afraid. For I am with you,’ says the Lord, ‘to save you; though I make a full end of all nations where I have scattered you, yet I will not make a complete end of you. But I will correct you in justice, and will not let you go altogether unpunished.’
(Jeremiah 30:10-11)
Other previously-quoted verses speak of the same.
I write this because I sense in my spirit that although the Bible is absolutely clear – in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Zechariah – that this time would come, that there is nevertheless a resistance in the hearts of many to this truth, as they hope for a better, kinder day. That that day will come is assured. But it will not come through a myriad false peace parleys. It will come via God first shaking up the nations with His judgments.
This is how Isaiah prophesies this:
In that day Egypt will be like women, and will be afraid and fear because of the waving of the hand of the Lord of hosts, which He waves over it. And the land of Judah will be a terror to Egypt; everyone who makes mention of it will be afraid in himself, because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts which He has determined against it. And the Lord will strike Egypt, He will strike and heal it; they will return to the Lord, and He will be entreated by them and heal them. In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria–a blessing in the midst of the land, whom the Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.” (Isaiah 19:16-17, 22-25)
In Psalm 83 we read the same thing concerning all the surrounding nations that have consulted with one consent against the people of Israel. They will all reap the terrifying judgments of God, the purpose being – as is foretold for Egypt in Isaiah 19 – that “they will seek God’s Name”.
Fill their faces with shame, that they may seek Your name, O Lord. Let them be confounded and dismayed forever; yes, let them be put to shame and perish, that they may know that You, whose name alone is the Lord, are the Most High over all the earth. (Psalm 83:16-18)
Concerning Edom and Mount Seir, God announces the same judgments:
“Because you have had an ancient hatred, and have shed the blood of the children of Israel by the power of the sword at the time of their calamity, when their iniquity came to an end, therefore, as I live,” says the Lord God, “I will prepare you for blood, and blood shall pursue you; since you have not hated blood, therefore blood shall pursue you. Thus I will make Mount Seir most desolate, and cut off from it the one who leaves and the one who returns. And I will fill its mountains with the slain; on your hills and in your valleys and in all your ravines those who are slain by the sword shall fall. I will make you perpetually desolate, and your cities shall be uninhabited; then you shall know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 35:5-9)
Again, the end-purpose God has in mind is that the people of Seir and all nations will know that He is the Lord. (Ezekiel 35:9)
The great, great revival that will come to the midst of the earth (the Middle East or Bible lands) as described in Isaiah 19:23-25 will only come after a very destructive war, which Israel will win. It will be God’s answer to the violence done over the years against His people.
According to all these Scriptures, it will not come as a result of these futile and false peace negotiations, which have never dealt with the root problem of the ISLAMIC- inspired hatred directed against the Apple of God’s eye – His own people!
What I then see as possibly happening now, is with the impetus generated by the present, so-called democratic, uprising in Egypt against President Mubarak and his regime – as happened with the similarly-touted uprising against the Shah of Persia which opened the door for Khomeini’s takeover of Iran – the ISLAMISTS will sooner or later take over, not only via the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, but also eventually in “the mountains of Seir and Edom,” they will cause a similar revolution in Saudi Arabia, with the possible fanatic Islamic takeover there backed by Saudi-born Bin Laden and his Al Qaida.
This is already the great concern being expressed by some of the most experienced and alert Western commentators and security experts. It may well be the result of what has already been set into motion in Tunisia, Lebanon, and now Egypt; tomorrow even Saudi Arabia.
This revolution will bring all of the Middle Eastern oil so depended on by the West at this low time in their economies, into the hands of the fanaticized new Islamic rulers who will be united – to their own eventual destruction – by only one thing, their fierce hatred of the people of Israel, that will resulting in the very ganging-up against the Jewish people in their land as described, in among other places, in Psalm 83!
In all this, Iran and its Ahmadinejad will become the – at least temporary – winner, after being shielded while pursuing his nuclear programs by Mohammed El Baradei in his former function as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. And this man is possibly soon to become Egypt’s new president, with the sympathetic support of the dangerous Muslim Brotherhood.
So Iran will be the chief winner, controlling Lebanon via the Hizbollah, Israel’s south – the Gaza Strip – by the Hamas, the to-be-installed new Egyptian government via the faithful to Iran Muslim Brotherhood, and possibly in the near future Saudi Arabia, under a new set of rulers friendly to Al Qaida, Syria being already in league with Ahmadinejad. All this to the catastrophic detriment of the Western nations and of course to little Israel and any present peace progress!
Already in today’s The Jerusalem Post we read that “anger in Cairo has started to focus on Israel and the U.S.”
What these Israel-haters with their warring spirit don’t realize, is that they will find themselves in a collision with Almighty God, Who says:
“Therefore, as I live,” says the Lord God, “I will do according to your anger and according to the envy which you showed in your hatred against them; and I will make Myself known among them when I judge you. Then you shall know that I am the Lord. I have heard all your blasphemies which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying, ‘They are desolate; they are given to us to consume.’ Thus with your mouth you have boasted against Me and multiplied your words against Me; I have heard them.” (Ezekiel 35:11-13)
May we all pray for mercy for these nations in the day of God’s wrath upon them.
Jan Willem van der Hoeven, Director
International Christian Zionist Center
© Israel My Beloved
