Commentary: The Present Israeli-Hamas Conflict
#1732c
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 28-Oct-23; 4 minutes
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transcript:
I just wanted to make a few comments about the conflict over there in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. I went to get my hair cut—I'm not fishing for compliments at all—but I went to get my hair cut this past week, and the woman who cuts my hair is from the United Church of God and she asked me what we thought about what or what I had thought about what was happening over there. And I said, "Well, I've lived long enough to see a lot of these, intifadas and uprisings and terrorist acts and all sorts of things. Every time it's happened, it's been like, 'Is this it? Is this going to start a major war? Are we getting into World War III? Is something prophetic going to happen?'"
And I said, "No, I'm not going to get excited about what's happening over there. I'm actually not even very interested in it because it seems to me a lot of the repetition of the same sorts of things." They're are poking at each other. They are always trying to gauge each other's strength. Certainly from the Hamas side, they do not care about how many people die, whether their own or anybody else's just so that they can kill Jews and wipe them off the map. So they are going to do this on a regular basis, and they have.
But I did say that I will begin to get interested when it widens; when, for instance, Iran is backing them, but if Iran came out with all-out war against Israel, then my ears would perk up a little bit more. Certainly, if many more places around the world begin to explode, people take advantage of, let's say, the United States having its eyes elsewhere, and let's say, China attacks Taiwan or something like that, then I would really get interested in what's going on.
But right now, I have the feeling that this is just another one of those probes, and that every nation out there—other than the really insane ones—will try to keep this keep a lid on it as much as they can for now.
But my watchword when it comes to these type of things and biblical prophecy is essentially—and I've said this for years, and I know people roll their eyes at me for saying this—but I say, "We will see." We need to wait and see. We need to be patient. Let things play out. It's not a good idea to cry wolf every time something like this happens: "Oh, Christ is going to be here! Let's start the clock right now. It's going to be 3.5 years and Christ will be back."
We've got to keep our eye on these things, but we do not need to get panicked every time. Your job—my job—is to do what Craig said: Walk the way. Live the way. Do that every day. Make it your life to live that way, and then who cares what goes on out there and what time it is in the prophetic timeline. If you're always living the way of Jesus Christ, if you're following God, the Father and being sincere, repenting, being humble and keeping the kingdom of God inside all the time, then you're doing your part. And that's the best thing you could do, and let let Jesus Christ take care of the greater events of the world because He will. He's king and He is sovereign, so He will do all those things and make sure that His people come out on the right side of it.
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