Many things of end-times importance aren’t just on the horizon of Bible prophecy, but are now upon the actual national and international landscapes—so much so that even those who aren’t interested in anything to do with God’s Word are engaged in wonderment.

While working on a computer matter in my study, my tech guy asked me: “What do you think is going on with everything?”

He then launched into all the things he saw as astonishing developments in just the past several weeks. He brought up the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the lunacy that went on in the introduction to the Olympic Games in Paris, and the world seeming to turn against the Jews and Israel.

He commented: “The world has gone completely nuts.”

This gentleman has been a friend for several years; he’s about the age of my younger son, with two children—one 16 and the other 22. He is concerned that the world will be uninhabitable to any sane extent very shortly and his kids will have to face the terrors coming upon the planet.

He doesn’t know the Lord for salvation, and I’ve witnessed to him for some time. I explained what’s going on, from the Bible prophecy standpoint. He listened, for the first time, with what I could tell was concentrated interest.

Anyone with a trace of comprehension about the things going on knows that something’s up, as my computer expert put it.

Our society and culture are lurching from one insane situation to the next. The rearranging of world conditions is happening too quickly to grasp, and Israel, in particular, is the focus of the fear that a much wider conflict might erupt from that ignition point at any moment.

And it is Israel that I would like to focus on now.

The “stone” in today’s title is a reference to the much-mulled-over-lately prophecy by the prophet Zechariah:

The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him. Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem. And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it. (Zechariah 12:1–3)

Although Zechariah’s prophecy, most premillennial prophecy students believe, is primarily for the Tribulation era (Daniel’s seventieth week), it has become clear that, as in the case of many prophecies, this foretelling is casting its foreshadows upon these times so near Christ’s call to the Church in the Rapture.

Explosive events involving Hezbollah’s murderous attack that killed twelve Israeli children on a soccer field have caused great angst around the world. Iran’s proxy terrorist actions continue to burgeon, causing demands that the Iranian atrocities be dealt with promptly. The following illustrates the point.

Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Rabbi Goldstein, reacts to Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress on the Iran threat, covering Israeli military strategy, US Congress reaction, and the Iran-Israel conflict. The Chief Rabbi delves into an analysis of Netanyahu’s address discussing its impact on military tactics and the ongoing Iran-Israel conflict.

Rabbi Goldstein opened his comments by saying that, “The unprecedented fourth speech by an Israeli Prime Minister to the United States Congress amidst innumerable standing ovations should not lull Israel into thinking that it can rely on a polarized America to save it from the existential threat that a nuclear Iran poses. If Israel does not destroy Iran’s production of nuclear weapons, no one else will. Israel has been here before.”

Rabbi Goldstein explained that, “In 1981 Prime Minister Menachem Begin faced a similar decision. Under Saddam Hussein Iraq had been pressing ahead with its nuclear program, just like Iran. Saddam had issued genocidal threats against Israel. According to many reports the country was less than a month away from full nuclear capability and so Prime Minister Menachem Begin ordered a daring Israeli Air Force operation on the eve of Shavuot, 7 June, 1981… Rabbi Goldstein continued, “So we’ve been through all of this. We’ve seen it before. None of this is new. Today Israel faces the same situation with Iran. If there’s one thing that October 7 has taught us, it is that the implacable hatred of the proponents of violent Jihad knows no bounds. For them no evil is too horrific to perpetrate. Anything is possible. Hamas is Iran’s proxy army. It operated in that capacity on October 7th and gave an inkling of what Iran would do from the moment it possesses nuclear weapons. Iran has stated clearly on many occasions its determination to wipe Israel off the map. An objective deeply embedded in its Jihadi worldview. The prospect of mutually assured destruction, which deterred the atheistic secular Soviet regime during the Cold War, won’t deter Iran.” (“SA Chief Rabbi to PM Netanyahu: ‘Israel needs to know that it is alone in the world’,” Israel National News, Arutz Sheva, July 30, 2024)

Israel is taking out Iran’s proxy terrorist heads, and the ayatollahs are threatening to retaliate with major destructive action. Such threats increase pressures to eliminate Iran’s nuclear capability and are ramping up international jitters, thus adding to the world’s turn against the Jewish state, just as the prophet said.

No matter the atrocities perpetrated against the Jewish state and the Jewish people through anti-Semitism, the world increasingly declares Israel, not its blood-vowed enemies, to be the genocidal evil that threatens to ignite World War III.

Israel is the nuclear “burdensome stone,” to be sure, in these darkening, final days of this Age of Grace.

The Rapture is next on God’s timeline, and all the stage-setting for the Tribulation is pointing to Christ’s soon call to His Bride, the Church. You want to be part of that great event. Here is how to go to the Lord when He calls believers into the clouds of Glory:

That if you will confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and will believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart a man believes unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. (Romans 10:9–10)