This time last year I had booked travel to Europe, through the Middle East with an itinerary that encompassed touring Israel. Having visited there a couple of times previously, my anticipation was high.
Photo: Omar Ramadan
Murray Smith
Sadly it wasn’t to be. On October 7, 2023, Hamas launched coordinated armed incursions from the Gaza Strip into southern Israel, with unspeakable atrocities claiming multiple lives, hostages being taken and collateral damage evident to this day. That event ignited a continuing war that has changed so much about Israel, truth be told the entire region, as tensions and uncertainty continue to ramp up.
Traveling into Israel at that time was taken off the table. It highlighted the volatility of the days we live in as world peace hangs precariously in the balance. We’ve witnessed globally how things can change in the blink of an eye. The very real threat of a third world war looming, pandemics, social breakdown, economic and financial collapse are observable, causing multitudes to fear an uncertain future.
I don’t want to be misunderstood as a doomsday sayer or pessimist because I see a hope filled future. Not that I carry optimism as some do, of things naturally improving and bad stuff just disappearing. But it is possible to have a sense of hope and assurance about the future, despite the world reeling out of control with evil and violence increasing daily.
Protestors in Cambridge outside the Town Hall.
We need an overview… a bigger picture that transcends fear and uncertainty informing our limited perspective. The Bible provides that bigger picture. It’s not just history but it is history pre-written. It describes the future of the earth’s nations and its peoples. What makes the Bible astounding is the fact that though physically written by men, it was divinely inspired by God who lives outside of time and sees the beginning from the end. Much of its content is prophecy – statements written down long ago describing situations in minute detail, which were to come to pass, often thousands of years later. Just a cursory look at a few of the hundreds of Bible prophecies that have already been fulfilled, should be enough for anyone with an open mind to take notice.
Explicit details Jesus gave concerning troubled ‘last days’ occupy today’s headline news as deception, wars, natural disasters, famine and pestilences escalate. On the horizon a ‘one world order’ under a yet to emerge statesman, initially hailed as a peace-making ‘saviour’ looms closer. This ‘antichrist’ system will change ‘times and seasons’ while demanding total submission, enforcing rigid compliance to buy or sell and share basic entitlements.
For a person whose trust is in God, the certainty of challenging and dark days ahead is mitigated by His many promises of protection and provision. Nothing is more certain or more reassuring than personal relationship with this One who is totally in control, who lights our path, whose peace banishes fear and anxious thoughts concerning the future.
