Cloud

“Like a Cloud” Let's look into the future for a few minutes and try to imagine what's coming, based on some prophetic passages... Imagine Israel in a period of peace for the first time since she was reborn as a nation in 1948. Let's imagine ourselves there as observers. At this point in time there are no terrorist attacks in Israel any more. There is no need for young Israeli men to walk the streets during their offduty hours with their ever-present automatic weapons slung over their shoulders. Peace has settled in the Middle East at last. But a quiet uneasiness has crept in. Almost all the hostile Arabs have left quietly over a period of a few months. Although all seems well, an air of tension prevails. It's like the calm before a storm, everybody knows something is about to happen. Before long, it does. The Arab nations have marshaled their forces before, but this time they're joined by Russia and Germany, along with forces from Ethiopia, Libya and others from North Africa. Iraq and Iran are sweeping in on Israel from the east. Wheeled and tracked vehicles, artillery and commando units, and mobile antiaircraft batteries are on the move. The thumping thunder of helicopter rotor blades fills the air, along with the scream of enormous jet engines pushing fighters at supersonic speeds over the mountains. Bombers and wicked black helicopters are

broaching the edges of Israeli airspace, many armed with battlefield grade nuclear weapons. The few remaining Israeli antiaircraft batteries are on red alert and scanning the target-rich skies. A gentle wind is blowing off the Mediterranean. The roar of machines in the air and on the ground causes the earth to tremble. Great clouds of dust are rising into the air from the multiplied thousands of tracked and wheeled vehicles converging from the north, east, and south. Arafat's Palestinian forces are readying themselves to attack, gloating at the thought of their impending victory. Israel has faced overwhelming odds before and emerged victorious but never have so many come against so few as in this dreadful hour. The United States and Great Britain are voicing opposition to the buildup, but neither has the military power, the presence, or the backbone to act against this enormous alliance. The U.S. military has been so decimated by widespread troop deployments and reduced defense spending that there is little chance they could help much anyway. Besides all this, the United Nations has refused to permit the North American military to intervene. The final moments are near. Now great clouds of hostile aircraft have violated Israeli airspace. A veritable ocean of enemy ground forces encircles the tiny nation. To the west, out in the Mediterranean, naval battle groups from hostile nations are

gathered against the Promised Land, ready to launch their cruise missiles. Millions upon millions of enemy soldiers are advancing on foot and more are arriving every the hour by truck and transport aircraft. The operation is like nothing the world has ever seen. Then, just before zero hour, the skies over the Middle East begin to grow ominously dark with very strange cloud activity. A deeper and more decided rumbling from deep within the earth eclipses the rumbling of the armor that trembles the ground. Rain begins to fall, at first just a sprinkle. Then small hailstones begin clatter and bounce off the windshields of the aircraft and rattle off the armor of the thousands of armored vehicles on the ground. The hailstones become larger. Some of the cockpit windshields on the aircraft and the ground vehicles begin to sprout cracks from the impact of the hailstones. The rain grows heavier and heavier until it seems to be pouring out of the sky in bucketfuls. Canyons and ravines are being filled and soldiers are drowning by the hundreds in flash floods. Trucks and tanks are grinding to a halt, their wheels and tracks unable to negotiate the deepening mud. Bright vertical orange streaks are seen painting themselves on the darkening sky. Oddly, some of the hail actually appears to be burning as it falls. Then the answer becomes clear. Meteors are falling with the hail and the rain. The hail and the meteors increase and the rumbling builds itself into an overwhelming thunder from deep inside the earth. The cameras of CNN are rolling and the whole world watches in awe while God proves

once and for all that He is sovereign Lord of all. While the hailstones, the overflowing rain, the meteors, and the earthquake haven't damaged anything Israeli, hundreds of enemy aircraft have been suffering direct hits from above and the invading ground forces are now fighting among themselves trying to escape the slaughter from the skies, the dark, rushing waters, and the awful terror of the earthquake. Millions of soldiers lie spilling their blood while millions more are running for their lives. Ancient mountains are being reduced to shattered piles of rubble by the earthquake and hundreds of thousands of soldiers are crushed beneath great slabs of stone. For the enemy aircraft pummeled by stones from the sky, evasive action is impossible. Every hailstone and meteor that falls hits a target in the air or on the ground. In every direction one looks, jets and helicopters are going down in flames. The size and scope of the wreckage is unbelievable. Some helicopters manage to land only to be destroyed on the ground by dozens of plummeting chunks of rock and ice, or to be swept by torrential floodwater into the yawning chasms opened by the earthquake. Some of the aircraft on the outer edges of the battle manage to escape. Fighter jets are racing away at top speed from the land they were about to attack. Midair collisions take place by the score, and crippled planes spiral into the mountains to explode in huge fireballs. The hailstones are getting more numerous. Most are as large as

cannonballs now, but some are much larger. Huge chunks of ice and burning rock are crushing trucks, soldiers, and tanks. Israel needs no military might when protected by the infinite power of an angry God. While God is destroying the enemy military hardware, not a single plane crashes in Israel and not a single hailstone damages an Israeli structure or vehicle. The earthquake becomes more violent, with more great fissures open in the rumbling surface of the earth. Enemy soldiers are scrambling to escape the great cracks, but multiplied thousands fall or are carried screaming and flailing into the darkness by sweeping walls of water. Most of an Egyptian armored division is swallowed up in a moment as the tortured landscape opens a yawning crack directly beneath them... After the earthquake is over and the hail stops falling, the clouds of enemy aircraft are replaced with clouds of carrion-eating birds and animals. Five-sixths of the invading armies have died in the slaughter. The remaining one-sixth have gone limping back home in horror to tell the awful story. The whole world knows now that there is a God in heaven and that the hand of man will never destroy His chosen people. It will take seven months to bury the dead enemy troops and seven years to rid the land of wrecked helicopters, fighter planes, and bombers, crushed and burned out tanks and trucks. The stench of rotting flesh fills the air for a radius of three hundred miles. When is this incredible scenario supposed to take place? Only God

knows, but it will certainly be sooner than we think. Whether it will happen before or after the coming Rapture of the church remains in God's hands. This gathering of enemies against Israel is to happen more than once in the future; this will apparently be the first time. You can read about it from God's perspective in Ezekiel 38 and 39. The forces of evil seem to be gaining the upper hand all over the world, don’t they? While the world forces of this present darkness seem to be advancing at every quarter, we as believers in Jesus Christ need to consider His infinite power and the unquenchable fire of His vengeance. He is a God of love, but He is also a God of justice who will render judgment unto every man. Only a personal, intimate relationship with Jesus Christ provides eternal protection. Thousands have repented and turned away from Satan’s traps of homosexuality, murder, pornography, drug addiction, alcoholism, gambling, and all the rest of it and embraced Christ as Savior and Lord. As for you and I, our family heritage won't get us into God's family. Our church membership or affiliation won't do it. Our own righteousness, no matter how pristine in the eyes of men, is as filthy rags before a holy God. Only our confession of Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord, receiving His Spirit into our hearts, and a belief in His resurrection from the dead will secure our future with Him. We have to love Him with all our hearts and stay in touch with Him on a daily basis and our lifestyles, no

matter how wicked, will be changed as we walk in the newness of life. He will clean us up from the inside out, and we will become a part of the restraining influence against the world forces of this present darkness until we join Him in glory. It is a privilege to be hated and persecuted by the world because of a personal relationship with Creator. The Jews have known that fact first hand for generations. And when God's two witnesses appear in Jerusalem after all Spirit-filled believers in Christ are raptured and begin to preach Jesus to the Jews, God's Word will explode in the hearts of 12,000 Semites from each Jewish tribe, and they will preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to all the earth. While the war described in Ezekiel is yet future, the war against those of us who name Christ as Savior is escalating all over the world. It'll get worse for us before it gets better, but we will win in the end, because God has foretold our victory through Christ Jesus our Lord.