What Will Happen to the Nations Surrounding Israel?

Dr. Couch, what is going to happen to the nations surrounding Israel who hate the Jews and want them destroyed? Even the lost world today knows that something will happen soon in the Middle East that will throw the world into terrible confusion and danger. So where is it all going with these antagonistic nations? 

 

   God is going to have the last say, and it’s all recorded in the prophetic Scriptures. For example, read Ezekiel 28:24-26. The passage will knock you over! 

    God makes it clear that He will "execute judgments upon all who scorn [the Jews], this is, those who live round about them" (v. 26). This will of course be at the end of the tribulation when the second coming takes place and Christ comes back to judge the nations (Matt. 25) and begins His earthly Davidic reign that will last for one thousand years! 

    Even though he usually interprets OT prophecies as if they are about the church age, amillennialist and allegorical guy, Charles Ellicott, has to fess up and admit the passage is about the return of the Jews to their promised land. He writes:

The course of God’s providence is very distinctly marked out in these verses of promise. The judgment upon Judah has already come, in the fall of their holy city and the captivity of the people. … Then comes the promise of the return, and the judgment of the ungodly enemies who have despised Judah (verse 26). This, too, shall be accomplished in its time, and then peace and prosperity shall return to Israel. The immediate point of this prophecy is the return of the Jews to their own land.

    When the day of the millennial blessing arrives "there will be no more for the house of Israel a prickling brier or a painful thorn from any [of the nations] round about them who scorned them; then they [those nations] will know that I am the Lord God" (v. 24). 

    God will then "gather the house of Israel from the peoples among whom they are scattered." His holiness will be visible "in the sight of the nations, they [the Jews] will live in their land which I gave to My servant Jacob" (v. 25). "They will live securely." 

    In remembering His covenant forever (the Abrahamic covenant) "He will make known to His people (the Jews) the power of His works, in giving them the heritage of the nations" (Psa. 111:5b-6). 

    On Ezekiel 28:24-26 Unger writes that the Jews will be regathered

at the end time for Kingdom blessing, converted Israel (Rom. 11:26) will live securely in the Holy Land (Jer. 23:6; Ezek. 34:25-28; 38:8) and prosper in the land (Jer. 32:15; Amos 9:13-14) when the Lord executes judgments upon their enemies.

    It is such a blessing to take the Word of God at face value and with a normal and literal interpretation. Preterism and amillennialism actually goes up in smoke when you do that! And it is so clear to see that the Lord has a distinct plan and purpose for Israel and then for the church! I feel sorry for those who are partially blinded as to what the entire Bible is teaching! 

Thanks for asking.

Dr. Mal Couch