There is so much hyperbole about the Holy Land. Does it belong to the Palestinians or to the Jews? Does Israel have any rights to that region of the Middle East, or are they intruders? Exactly what makes the Jews think they have a right to any part of that geographical region?

Israel is blamed today by almost all of the world community as being the culprit in fomenting war against the hapless, helpless Arabs of Palestine.

What is the truth? Who is right in the millennia-long, bloody saga of the Jews versus the rest of the world in the matter of the right –or not—to the land that is strangely, violently, in the news every hour?

The answer to this boils down to a belief. Is God’s Word –the Bible—truth, or is it literature filled with flawed history that is little more than fiction? Either the Bible is God’s Word, or it is a volume that has stirred wars for no good reason.

I have received hate e-mails telling me that we Christians who are of the evangelical/pre-trib belief ilk are the true hate-mongers and progenitors of war in these volatile times. We want to bring on the tribulation, Armageddon, etc., so that we can be snatched off the planet at the rapture. We are a blood-thirsty lot of people who want those who don’t agree with us to get their come-uppance…

Nothing, of course, is further from the truth. We want peace and happiness to reign on earth. It’s just that we know God’s Word on the matters involved says the only way that will happen is when Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, rules over the planet at a specified future time –the millennium.

We can do nothing to hasten, retard or prevent this from happening. We simply believe our mission is to tell the world what the Bible says –to forewarn of things to come so that people will seek Christ and the redemption from sin He gives. The philosophers through the ages have said they seek truth. God’s Word, the Bible, has the only truth there is. It is a love letter from the Creator of all things. So, it is –in our view—time to sit up and take notice when God speaks into our time. He has done so in no uncertain terms when it comes to the matter of the contested land of the region the world historians and geographers call Palestine, but that God called Canaan, and, later, Israel.

Now is time to review but a few statements God made about that land. It is either truth –or a lie. Take your choice. But, keep in mind, if you reject what the Bible says, and it indeed turns out to be truth, not lie, there is a tremendous price to pay for your rejection.

God’s words about the land He gave Israel (which includes much of the region we call the Middle East):

1) God’s first promise to Abraham about a nation Genesis 12:7a:

“The Lord appeared to Abram and said, ‘To your descendants I will give this land.'” Genesis 17:7-8: “And I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you. And I will give to you and to your descendants after you, the land of your sojourning, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession; and I will be their God.”

2) To those who say God’s covenant with Israel concerning the nation/land is conditional, consider these words from God:

Psalm 89:30-37: “If his sons forsake My law, and do not walk in My judgments, if they violate My statues, and do not keep My commandments, then I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. But I will not break off My loving kindness from him, nor deal falsely in My faithfulness. My covenant I will not violate, nor will I alter the utterance of My lips. Once I have sworn by My holiness; I will not lie to David. His descendants shall endure forever like the moon, and the witness in the sky is faithful.”

Jeremiah 31:35-36: “This is what the Lord says, ‘He who appoints the sun to shine by day, Who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the Lord Almighty is His Name; Only if these ordinances vanish from My sight,’ declares the Lord, ‘will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before Me.'”

Space doesn’t permit me to add the many, many such promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are seeing the bloody turmoil today because Satan is determined to make God a liar. If the old serpent, the devil, can destroy Israel, he will –he deludedly must believe—make his own defeat, as prophesied by God, of no effect as well. He can yet set his star above the throne of God.

Yet, Israel is firmly back at the heart of its homeland after nearly 2,000 years of dispersion, just as God said they would be: “‘Also I will restore the captivity of My people Israel, and they will rebuild the ruined cities and live in them. They will also plant vineyards and drink their wine, and make gardens and eat their fruit. I will also plant them on their land, and they will not again be rooted out from their land which I have given them, says the Lord your God” (Amos 9:14-15).

All of the machinations of John Kerry and the other internationalists who put pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu to give up the West Bank, or whatever other territory that belongs to Israel, will, ultimately, only bring destruction upon the enemies of God. And that is the classification of anyone who wants to divide God’s Promised Land.

Their desire to tear apart what God has put together and Promised to the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is what will bring all of this rebellious world to Armageddon according to Joel 3: 2. “I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.”