I remember writing a few years ago a piece on Israel. It was the morning that was the first day of the Pre-Trib prophecy conference in Dallas–the 23rd such conference, according to Dr. Tim LaHaye, the founder of the forum. that year’s conference was on Israel and that nation’s destiny.

We have addressed this subject on a number of occasions on Rapture Ready, but it is one that never grows stale–at least not with me. So, it was that the insights gained during that conference while listening to Dr. David Hocking made the trip worthwhile, even if I didn’t sit through many other sessions.

Israel is the prophetic signal–if one were to choose just one specific sign–that should prove to any rationally oriented mind that: 1) God’s Word is true, and 2) This generation is very near the end of the dispensation of grace.

Dr. Hocking, one of the most knowledgeable scholars and speakers on Israel, spent 45 minutes or so laying out the case for Israel being the one nation that is guaranteed to be such forever. In the process of his presentation, he, without having to say so, built the foundation to show that the God of the Bible is the one and only God. He told how he had opportunity to witness to a cabbie who had driven him from the airport to the hotel. He said the cab driver made the mistake of asking what he was doing in Dallas. Dr. Hocking told him he was speaking at a conference. The cabbie, a Muslim a native of the Middle East, asked him what he was speaking on, and the conversation that followed was one of great interest. The shuttle van’s driver said something about Allah being in charge of everything, and Dr. Hocking went into depth–for the brief duration of the ride from DFW to the hotel, how there is only one God and His Name is Yahweh. He didn’t say–or I don’t remember him reporting that he did so–how the conversation ended. But, David spoke the following morning with his head still attached, so I presume the driver didn’t consider the infidel’s offense of sufficient magnitude to take jihad action. Or, maybe Dr. Hocking didn’t mention Mohammed, which seems to be the red line for employing the scimitar, like in the case we remember involving the writer Salman Rushdie from some years back.

Again, David Hocking’s presentation was on Israel and her destiny. That topic continues to be at the heart of what is going on, prophetically, in the world today. One question Hocking addressed was the question of whether Israel today is fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Is the modern state of Israel a literal fulfillment of Bible prophecy?

The more academic of Bible prophecy scholars–the seminarians–mostly hold that Israel being back in the land God gave the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is “preparation” for fulfillment of prophecy, in their view, but not literal fulfillment of any specific prophecy. I was rather surprised, and pleasantly so, to learn that David Hocking considers it literal fulfillment, not merely preparation for fulfillment of prophecy from the futurist point of view.

Dr. Hocking certainly fits into the fold of academia, but his overwhelming, evidence-laden exposition on modern Israel being prophecy fulfilled in our time proved, to me, at least, that the academic purists within the pre-Trib view of eschatology camp are out of sync with what God predicts for Israel.

Now, for a commercial. That’s what my book, Cauldron: Supernatural Implications of the Current Middle East, is about, in its essence. It is a treatment–and, if I may say so, a very reader-friendly treatment–of why Israel is at the center of world geopolitical controversy and has become a nation blamed for the threat of global nuclear war–thus, even though it is that tiny Jewish state, itself, that is constantly threatened with destruction from its enemy neighbors.

The book covers the current, precarious state of world peace. It goes back to the book of Genesis to find the beginning of the supernatural hatred being waged against modern Israel at this very hour. It deals, often in minute detail, with some of the international intrigues being plotted for the wind-up of human history.

The bottom line is summed up scripturally with the prophetic words, “He who keepth Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps.” To put it another way–“Israel forever!”