Israel In Pictures and Prophecy II, The Future of Israel

There's a purpose to this, rather than just having fun. The end times that we're going to be talking about this evening, in my humble opinion, is a huge puzzle. There are hundreds of scriptures that God has selected to be part of the story of the end times. And they're scattered throughout scripture. There's little places, little remote scriptures in the minor prophets that are very significant. But some of us wouldn't even know where the minor prophets are, let alone the scriptures that we would be referring to. I don't know where they all are. There is a lot of information, a lot of little pieces. Something in Daniel 8 fits in with something in Revelations chapter 13. This is heavy stuff. Did you know that John Calvin and Martin Luther, two of the most brilliant Christians that ever lived, wrote commentaries on the entire Bible, except the book of Revelation? And then I walk in the bookstore, and I find this book, Revelation Made Easy. I don't think so. So what we have, symbolically, in our hand here is a little piece of the puzzle. Tonight, by God's grace, we may add a few pieces to the puzzle. I do not want you to be misled to think that I am going to help you tonight to have some kind of chart that's going to make you secure for the rest of your Christian life, because I don't believe that exists. How many of you, just out of curiosity, do we have this historic? I'd like to pop that up there, Donna, please. I hope you can see this. How many of you came from a tradition, or a background, or a church upbringing that had something like this? A prophetic outline. Slide down the title list again. Prophetic outline of history. There we go. And you start over here on the left, and you see eternity passed, and then there's the call of Abraham in the Old Testament, and Israel. That little section there is, I mean, that's 4,000 or 5,000 years right there to the cross, right? And then you have the cross. Can you all see this? Is it clear enough back there in the back that you can see it? Not if you are breathing. Well, you're breathing. I don't know. Thank you. That's much better. Thank you, Dean. OK, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Then you can see it all gets complicated looking, but actually it's very simple. Then you have the church age. You see church down there? Maybe I would help if I could. Can you point to it? Thanks, Don. And we have commented here about the time of the Gentiles. This is what the Bible is talking about, when God mysteriously opened up salvation to those of us who were non-Jews. And that's this era that we're living in. Then comes something very powerful. Jesus Christ returns for his church, up above that big hook, you see it? Comes swooping down from heaven, and the church rises to meet him in the air. What's that called? Where is that in the Bible? Well, the word rapture doesn't appear, but the theme, the concept appears in 1 Thessalonians 4, 15 through 18, and is referenced, the resurrection bodies in 1 Thessalonians 15. Very powerful experience. We won't talk much about that tonight, but I have to tell you, folks, the more I'm studying this, the more I believe we need to know more about this. And we have not had a series on this ever on a Sunday morning. So Lord willing, I'd like to do that in the fall, perhaps. But then we go through this period called the Great Tribulation, where we find the rise of the Roman Antichrist, the Jewish false prophet. And for seven years, this tribulation takes place. The Jews prepare for the Messiah's coming, and then the church in heaven watches all this happen. And then seven years later, the second coming with the church to rule and reign for 1,000 years with Jerusalem as the capital of the world. And then the final present world is destroyed, and there is a new heaven and a new earth. The last white throne judgment takes place, and eternity opens for us. Now, that is, how many of you grew up with stuff like that? OK, someone tell me, what framework of theology does this represent? You can say it out loud in here. We don't want to hurt you. It's dispensationalism. Dispensationalism, what does that stand for? Dispensation of stands for a period of, a period of time. And I won't get into a lot of details, but this is really a fairly recent development. It's only been about the last hundred years that dispensationalism as a framework of thinking about Bible has developed, where the workings of God are seen as happening in distinct dispensations, or ages. And we are living in the church age, and that is very distinct from what's about to take place and what has previously taken place. So all this is very wonderful, because you look at this and you say, now I know what's going to happen, right? But remember, this whole big chart is, that's all of time right there, right? All of history is right there in front of us. Where are we in that right now, Donna? Point to it, where are we? More accurately, where do you think we are? Oh, you. There you are. Yeah, we're having a lot of fun there. Gorgeous. It seems as though we're nearing the end of the church age. But I want to go one step backward and say, not everybody who is a Christian, born-again Christian, would believe that one can break things down quite as cleanly as this. And you need to understand going into this that there are other schools of thought that don't see things quite the way that I'm going to present them tonight. And I respect those schools of thought, but don't necessarily agree with them. And if you're from one of those camps, then we ought to maybe talk another time, or maybe you have some thoughts that you'd like to share with me or one of the elders and get some input. But I want you to take your outline and look with me. There's so much fascinating material to study on this subject that it seems impossible to know where to begin. I mean, I have books. I have a shelf full of books. I went out and just picked up three or four new ones this week just to prepare for tonight. And it's great reading. This is fun. You read this stuff, and it's like reading a newspaper. I'll give you a few illustrations as we go on. However, this is important now. Please bear with me. There are three absolute certainties that scripture teaches about the end times. There's a lot of things we don't really know about, and I'm going to tell you what those are in a minute, that speculate, and we have to take our best shot. But here are the three things we know that we know that scripture teaches about the end times. And by the way, what is the study of end times called? It's eschatology. It's a big word, eschatology. The word eschaton in the Greek means what? Last thing. So eschatology is the study of last things. And eschatology is just looking at the end of the whole picture, and here's what it's about. Here's three things that eschatology tells us for sure in scripture. Number one, there will be a second coming of Jesus Christ. And the church said, the living, awake church said, the physically afflicted, in debt church said, hallelujah. OK, we're going on. Number two, the scripture also teaches the resurrection of the dead. Now, if you're 21, you guys down here, whatever, no big deal. How many of you are just real glad that resurrection's coming? Of course we all are, aren't we? That is the only hope I have when I stand at a coffin at a funeral and talk to someone about their loved one now departed, OK? And the third thing that scripture very clearly teaches is that there is an eternal state, and it's not Pennsylvania. In other words, there is a heaven and there is a hell. And even though Americans don't want to hear about hell, I've read a statistic. 80% of Americans, I believe, are convinced there's a heaven, and of that 80%, 75% think they're going there, and only like 32% believe there's a hell. And of the 32% who believe there is one, only about 5% think that they're going there. A typical American. But these three truths are of interest to nearly every person, whether believer or non-believer. Now, I just want you to put a little X beside that statement. The three truths are of interest. You see, what you need to know about where we're going to end with this is, folks, as I just share briefly here tonight, and then you interact a little bit around this information, you're going to feel, I believe you're going to feel a little tinge of urgency to maybe want to talk to someone you care about about Christ, because you're going to believe a little bit more, as your piece of the puzzle fits together a little bit, you're going to believe that this stuff that we're talking about is happening and is moving toward the consummation of all history as we've known it. And most biblical scholars believe you will live to see it. I mean, pretty convincingly they believe that. But all the things we're going to talk about, which are the more emotional and the more wow kinds of things, are not really essential to talk to your friend or neighbor about. They can be intrigued. They can be approached. They can be challenged on those first three in the list. You see them? Talk to someone about what they think about the resurrection after they die. Talk to them. What do they believe about heaven and hell? Do they believe there's going to be a second coming? If you were here last week, you'll recognize something in the tape clip I'm going to show you in just a minute. But the Jews, many of whom are still very anti-Christian, believe that when Messiah comes, the chain of events will be the same as they understand it, as we understand it, except we're seeing it as a second coming, they're seeing it as a first coming. So you already have a full understanding of the three most important things that people need to know out there that you love, evangelistically speaking. All right? I want you to just be assured of that, because what I'm going to share now is a little more complicated. It is not nearly as easy to come to land on some things, but you don't need to know these things in detail that I'm going to talk about here in order to be effective in sharing with people about their spiritual condition. See, the other popular end-time subjects, such as the Rapture, the Tribulation, how about this one, the Antichrist? How many of you have speculated at one time or another? Turn to your neighbor right now and tell them who you thought the Antichrist was at one time. Go ahead. What name had you once rolled around in your head? Well, I think... How many people... How many people at one time thought it was Henry Kissinger? That's strange. How about Mikhail Gorbachev? Oh, yeah, yeah. That thing on his forehead, that was it. That was the barcode. He just had erased it or something like that. Who else? Judas Iscariot. Well, he was long gone, but that could have been... I bet they thought back then... All right, well, who else? The Pope. How many of you ever heard of the Pope? Oh. If you're visiting tonight and you're Catholic, please don't take that personally. That's not something we would begin to believe here, but I've heard that battered around. Anyone else? Any name that you can add up to 666, right? I heard Ronald Reagan. Ah. Speculation. Okay. Then the whole issue of the rebuilding of the temple. We're going to talk about that tonight, and this is one that I'm learning a lot about as I study right now, but it's very interesting. How about the 144,000? Who is that? What's that about? Is that the Jehovah's Witnesses? Yeah, they... I always wanted to find where they lived and go visit them sometimes. Hello? Hello? No. 144,000. What is that? Is that a real number? I mean, is that... Are those the 12 tribes, 12,000? How about the Mark of the Beast? Ooh. Why? What other end-time subjects have you wrestled with or thought about? Yeah, the Battle of Armageddon. Where is that? All right. There's... Make another column on the right-hand side. Linda? Who's the... Yeah, who's the bear that comes from the north? Who else? What else? What's the abomination of desolation? And we're going to talk about that in Matthew 24, 15. Yeah, there's a lot of things out there, and the problem is these are not real clearly... You can't pinpoint exactly what they mean. You've got a lot of overlapping kinds of issues to address, and the problem becomes, folks, we get distracted on this list. Is it all up there? Put it up there again, Donna, please. This list begins to distract us and, can I also say this, begins to divide us into camps. Now, how many of you are pre-trib camp? How many are in the mid-trib camp? Post-trib? Tribune Review? No. That's... Yeah, so there's a lot, and there's some real strong emotion about this. But you see, prophetic scripture is not really given to us to make up timelines and charts and graphs. Turn your thing over. The prophetic scripture that we study is not so we can chart, but rather we might confirm the events that are taking place as having had them revealed to us by God. Look at that, John 14, 29. Jesus said this, I have told you now before it happens so that when it does happen, you will believe. You see that? So, with that as a backdrop, let me just touch on a few things here tonight about one of these specific items, and then actually we'll open up a couple of other interesting things, I think. I'm going to roll a part of the clip here that you saw from last week. How many of you were not here last week? Oh, I feel real good about myself. That's the whole group. Actually, I feel like we need to do some more background that we probably won't be able to tonight. What you're going to see, I'll just show about five minutes here tonight, is Jerusalem. And I want to say this, how many of you, as you understood scripture, in fact, take your Bible and look at Matthew 24, and verse 32. Now, learn this lesson from the fig tree. As soon as its twigs get tender and its leaves come out, you know that summer is near. Even so, when you see all these things, you know that it is near, right at the door. I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. What has always been in scripture the fig tree? Israel, always. So, most scholars say that on May the 14th, 1948, the fig tree began to bud once again. And the question becomes, well, what's a generation? Is it 40 years, or what is it? And a lot of speculation was done on when the second coming and all those other interim events would begin to take place, the tribulation, based on that 40-year period. How many of you have read the book, 88 Reasons Why Christ Will Return in 88? Well, the sequel was 89 Reasons Why I'll Return in 89. And he kept going. I think he gave up in 93. But there is an increasing sense that God has caused prophetic fulfillment to take place, the scripture, the budding of the fig tree is happening. But something that I think maybe most of us have underestimated a little bit is the significance of Jerusalem itself. Because really, when it all gets said and done, the final battles are about Jerusalem, about the holy city. This is a point of understanding that I didn't fully grasp until I was there and felt the emotion of it, and I've since read some things about it. But you see, folks, what you're going to see here in just a moment, you're going to look at Jerusalem. It has been the center of spiritual conviction for Muslims and for Jews for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years. And right now, even though Israel controls it, it still is somewhat divided, as you'll see in this video. And what perhaps we have underestimated is just how significant this 1967 war was, and what will happen, as I'm going to explain in a minute, as Israel moves to take the land. How many of you were tuning into your radios in May or watching on television when the Jews tried to confiscate some of the land around Israel that the Palestinians had occupied? Anyone remember that, just last month? There was a big flap about that. It was on CNN, and they just said, you know, it's time for us just to take this land that you people have been camping out on. I'll come back to that. Apparently, a lot of you missed that. But a very powerful thing right there, and I'll explain why. Let's get this to Roland Dean, if we can, please. Is the TV on? And I think what we'll do is we'll keep the sound up a little bit on this so you can hear what our guide and so on is saying, all right? Okay. Back down. Let me say again, if you weren't here, you're on the Mount of Olives now. You're looking down on the east wall of Jerusalem. This is from the Mount of Olives down through the Garden of Gethsemane and where all these olive trees and so on. And this is a big, huge, sacred cemetery, oldest cemetery in the world right down here. And it's there so that people were buried there so they could be as close to the eastern wall where the Messiah would come as possible. ... Let's talk to him now. Let's do it now. I'll tell him later. ...he will come again, okay? And he will ascend to this ridge and put his feet on the Mount of Olives. And this is the inauguration, this is the appearance of the great God and our Savior, Jesus Christ in the Book of Titus. Now look at what happens. This is a geological explanation, and we'll give you other things that will tell you what happens when Messiah comes. The geological explanation is that this mount is before, here we are, it's before Jerusalem. So you can actually know exactly where it is. It's not after Jerusalem, it's on the east side. Because this is the eastern gate. We'll get to that later. Which is before Jerusalem on the east, that's where we are. Gives you location. And this mountain, this ridge, shall be cut in half clean. Remember it says, man shall be married to his wife, and he shall cleave to her. This mountain will be a cleft of division toward the east and toward the west. In other words, it will go this way. It will be a division. Last time, I don't know if we mentioned this, this is also another Muslim shrine, the Al-Asqa. Which is a very holy place as well as the Dome of the Rock. So they have two shrines right there in the middle. This we will look at, and there shall be a very great valley. Half of the mountain shall be removed toward the north, this way. And the other half of the mountain shall be removed toward the south, this way. And there'll be a great valley that goes through here. Magnificent. By the way, if we take aside and we eliminate this issue, this very important issue of is it the first coming or the second coming of Christ, in both traditions, Jewish and Christian religion, from the moment the Rasag appears, the sequence of events is almost identical, actually identical, the same. It is only the issue, is it the first coming or the second coming. And in both traditions, he will enter the Temple Mount, which is this huge, big area where in the middle of it is the Dome of the Rock. This area, and let's flash the overhead up, please. This is the Temple Mount, this entire area, which on the overhead, if you'll point to it right there, it says altar. That area is about 35 acres. The Temple Mount is about 35 acres. That's what you're seeing, that's this perspective right here. You're seeing the Eastern Wall. And I want you to keep that in mind when we talk about the rebuilding of the Temple. It's about to unfold, okay? For those of you who weren't here last week, that's the Eastern Gate, that's the gate that the Messiah will enter through, according to Scripture. And it has been blocked, Mac, for how long? As long as they can remember, it's been closed off. And that's the gate he has prophesied to come through. This is the gate that was found in the history, but it is the gate of mercy, or the Eastern Gate, the Eastern Gate of the Golden, which is the Temple area where the Temple will be established, where the Kingdom of God will be established. Okay, this next little, just two more minutes on this, and then I'm going to share, this next is a close-up of the Temple Mount. Gold. That is a pure gold roof, by the way. Now, you'll see some Arabs there, just hanging out. There's the 35 acres I was describing. Walking up, this is now an active Muslim Temple. King Hussein spent $80 million to build this, the Wailing Wall. All right, now, let me speculate a little bit on something here from Scripture and see what you all think about this. Let's put that overhead back up, please, Donna. As you saw right there a moment ago, the Arabs and the Jews both claim that Dome of the Rock as being their piece of ground. Max said, I think, last week that the Muslims believe that Muhammad last touched earth right there. His horse footprint is there. And if you go in, you can stick your hand through this little hole and touch the place where his horse supposedly last touched before he went off to heaven. The Muslims believe that Ishmael was taken there by Abraham and the Jews believe that Isaac was. So, Isaac and Ishmael have been warring over that piece of ground for the last 5,000 years. Folks, that isn't going to go away. And I cannot begin to describe to you how deep-seated those feelings are. The hatred that exists between Arabs and Jews, interestingly, they're cohabitating together in some sense and they're sharing some ground and so on. But just outside the borders of Israel, there is this thunderous sense of, we have got to eliminate the infidel, the enemy. Let me read something, if I might. Does the name Hashmi Rafsanjani sound familiar, just from listening to the news? Rafsanjani? Walt? No. Okay. Here's what he said. He was one of the moderate leaders of Iran, not one of the wild ones, one of the moderates. And he's the one that, I think, after Khomeini, he was a spokesperson. Every problem in our region can be traced to this single dilemma, the occupation of Dar al-Islam, this Dome of the Rock, by Jewish infidels and Western imperialists. Every political controversy, every boundary dispute, and every internal conflict is spawned by the inability of the Ummah to faithfully and successfully wage jihad. What's a jihad? A holy war. He said, because we've been unable to successfully oust them, all of our problems are a result. The everlasting struggle between Ishmael and Isaac cannot cease until one or the other is utterly vanquished. I don't know if I mentioned this last time, but it's worth repeating, even if I did. This is a weird memory, but one of my more vivid memories was watching the CNN channel, which is the only English channel, doing a report on the Muslim rappers. Did I tell you about that last week? They had four or five rap singers, Muslim rap singers, and they were talking about that as a medium, a way of speaking their strong feelings, just like it is in America. But Muslim law forbids the moving of your body. So with the rappers in America, they're going at it, and moving, and jiving, and making motion, motion, motion. The Muslim rappers are standing there just like this, and they're saying the words, got to kill Israel, got to get the imperialists out. It's a very interesting thing. They're taking a westernized kind of communication style, and yet the message is still, eliminate Israel, get them out so that we can take back our land. Now, the point of this is, I believe it's moving toward some confrontation. And what might bring that about? Well, let's speculate. Could I have that overhead again, please, Donna? The Jews believe that the temple is going to be rebuilt where? I mean, the Orthodox Jews, the really faithful Jews. Yeah, in this same location. But here's the part that you may not be aware of. If it were to be built exactly on the dome of the rock, how could that happen? I mean, it's there. I promise you, if some Israeli contractors came up with some bulldozers and said, excuse me, we're going to move this off so we can put up our temple, you'd have all-out war. Boom. All-out war. Guaranteed. So, in order to avoid that, what else could they possibly do? Well, here's what's happening. In just recent time, further and more intensive archaeological digging and expeditions and so on have discovered that the original site of Solomon's Temple is 330 feet north. 330 feet north of this location, which would put it right about up here. Okay? Far enough that, fully constructed, it still would not overlap on the dome of the rock. And let me just paint a little scenario. Let's just say, now, and I have reason to believe that this could happen, and I'll tell you why. Let's just say that the Jews come to the point where they say, we must restore our temple sacrifices. Remember, folks, what's a synagogue for in the Jewish faith? Huh? What's a synagogue for? Teaching. Right. It's for teaching, and it's for coming together as the people of God. It's not for animal sacrifice. Only the temple is that location. All right? Let's just say that some radical Jews decide, we're going to reestablish that temple, and we're going to rebuild it. And they go in and just seize that territory and start to do it. You say, well, that couldn't happen. Well, yeah, it really could happen, as evidenced by the fact that the Jews tried to take some of the land. What they're trying to do is slowly displace all of the Arabs in Jerusalem. Again, I'm surprised that maybe they didn't make the news over here because it was a big, big story. This was in the third week of May. In fact, the UN got involved when the Jews tried to take that land, and they threatened some action against the Jews if they didn't back off. And they tried to just seize some of the outlying settlements in East Jerusalem. Remember that, Mac? It was a very clear. They pushed the envelope too far, and the UN, and even the United States, balked a little bit. And because of that, the Jews backed off and said, well, okay, we won't take the land. By the way, how many of you know that there is quite a strong contingent of Christians who think the Jews are wrong in seizing the land from the Arabs? You need to know that. Not all Christians believe that the Jews have a right to go in and just take this land, even though it was, quote, given to them by God. Now, that's an interesting little controversy if you're not aware of it. Now, let's just say that they begin to rebuild that temple. I promise you, even if they don't desecrate the Dome of the Rock, building that temple right there is going to create an incredible tension. And I would see, and if you wouldn't mind, Donna, let's take this outline. If you could just cover it so we're going from left to right, that might help me a little bit, from left to right. So the Jews moved to rebuild the temple. Let's show that first. What right now, in your estimation, keeps the Arabs from going in and taking back all of Israel? Tell somebody what you think it is. What keeps the Arabs from going in right now and taking back all the land that the Jews took? What is it? One thing. It's the Jews have the capacity to deliver a knockout military punch, even using nuclear armament if necessary. And if you read much about history, in 1967 and in 1973 both, they talked about using their nuclear weapons very seriously. But folks, it won't be long, if it's not already there, that the Arabs will also have, next thing on that outline, slide it over, they'll have nuclear parity. There will be a time, I promise, don't you believe that's right? We'll see that Gaddafi or King Hussein or you name one of those military leaders in Iran, they're going to get the capacity to launch nuclear weapons. In Tel Aviv, they showed us the very place where the Scud missiles hit, right near the main roads. So when that parity is there, when Israel realizes, wait a minute, if we launch it, they're going to launch it, then you can't shake the big stick. So then what might happen? Well, this is when somebody has to rise up and say, wait a minute, this growing possibility of conflict has got to end. We have to strike some kind of peace agreement here. Now, that amount of time, there may be just a couple of years that this tension exists. That man of peace, also called the man of sin, is representative of the European market or the new European common market, and he is better known as the Antichrist. He is a man with superhuman intelligence, the Bible says, a man who is so convincing that the Jews enter into an agreement with him. And they sign a covenant, a contract with him, all right, we won't pursue what we were doing if you keep this war thing from happening. And right then, the die is cast. Now, you might just, if you've got your blue outline there and you're reproducing it, you might want to just mark there, tribulation begins. Because then, events begin to unfold rather rapidly. The next thing is the abomination of desolation. What is that? Well, all we know from scripture is that after three and a half years, in fact, why don't you, if you want to take a real quick look, and I'm going to end this quickly for some questions, this Antichrist goes in and he decides that, wait a minute, I want to be the authority here, so he goes in and sets himself up in this newly reconstructed temple. And he stands in the face of the Jews and says, now you worship me, because I've brought peace and I've kept things from falling apart, I'll be your new focus of worship. That's the abomination of desolation I've spoken of. When the Antichrist comes in and declares himself as God and asks and tells the Jews to worship him. Now, it's interesting, if you look at Matthew 24, 15, folks, somehow Jesus must have thought that there would be a rebuilt temple where he wouldn't have said, when you see, standing in the holy place, the abomination that causes desolation spoken of through Daniel. How would Jesus have said that? And that's Daniel 9, 27. How would Jesus have said that if it hadn't been there? So he must have seen it coming. And here's what I want you to get. At that point, the man of peace now has launched the last few ticks of the prophetic time clock, and that abomination of desolation is sort of the last straw. At that point, the Jews rise up and say, well, then, no more. And here's my scenario. They launch their nuclear weapons, and other weapons are launched back at them, and that begins the real destruction of the earth, as we read about it in the book of Revelation. The wrath of God is poured out. Again, I don't have the capacity, I don't think, to modify this outline, but if I did, I would say that, you see, what we're talking about here, this is about the seven years. And then Christ returns to face the final battle of this exchange that's going on, because I don't know about you, but when I read Revelation, it's very hard for me not to see nuclear war in there, the kinds of things that are described, the fire coming down, the massive... The latest number I read, as I calculated this out, is about half the population of the earth is destroyed during that little period from Matthew 24, 15 to the second coming, right? Now, where is the church in all this? Well, now let me ask you another question. Where is the good old U.S. of A. in all this? Tell your neighbor where you think America is. Where is the United States during all this? No, seriously, tell your wife, you know, say, Honey, where do you think the United States is? Is it your friend or whatever? Where is the United States? All right? Suggestions? Opinions? Oh, Mac, Mac, Mac, you're an instructor. Calm down. Contain yourself here. You have a... Pardon me? That's just what you think, right? You're hoping it is. Okay, good. Thanks, buddy. Hoping that it's back in Israel, but... Yes. It seems like perhaps Linda's suggesting because we've joined forces with the United Nations that maybe we have joined the crowd that's against them. But let me just get the point. Scripturally, folks, where... What does it say? Is this a leading question? No. The answer is it doesn't say. It is very difficult. It is very difficult to see any even oblique reference to some country far off from Israel that's in alliance with her. And the only deduction you can make is that we're not. Either A, we're no longer a factor to be reckoned with, or B, we are, as Linda's suggesting, part of those that rise up against her. Now, in this, and I didn't point this out very well, I'm sorry, on the outline. I'll show that back up. You can make a pretty strong case for what's going to be happening during this period is that the Islamic forces and the Russian military are combining, making an alliance to come together against Israel. And the more I've studied r