End Times? Recent War Developments in Israel May Hold the Key, Bible Experts Say
Christian end times experts believe the events taking place in Israel and the Middle East since the Hamas attack on Oct. 7 are a fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.
Texas-based pastor Jimmy Evans — founder of Endtimes.com and host of the “Tipping Point” podcast — told Christian Broadcasting Network’s Dan Andros in a recent interview, “The importance of Bible prophecy is it helps us to contextualize what’s happening in the world.”
The author of several books on the subject said the end times began in 1948, when Israel became a nation again, nearly 2,000 years after the Jewish people were scattered from the land.
Evans cited the Bible book of Isaiah, Chapter 11, which said God would one day bring the Jewish people back from around the world.
In 2022, Israeli president Isaac Herzog called the restoration of Israel following the Holocaust a fulfillment of Ezekiel 37 (a vision of a valley of dry bones coming back to life), Charisma News reported at the time.
Todd Hampson, host of the “Prophecy Pros Podcast,” told CBN last year that Israel’s rebirth is a “super sign” of the end times.
“Every Old Testament prophet, except for Jonah, predicted that Israel would become a nation again in the last days, and that its people would be gathered from all over the world back to their original homeland,” he said.
“So anybody who says Israel becoming a nation again in 1948 is not a fulfillment of prophecy is either twisting scripture or ignoring scripture,” Hampson added.
Evans contended that recent events in Israel show more Bible prophecies coming to fruition.
“You’re not in the end times because you have some signs, you’re in the end times because you have every sign,” he said. “What you’re seeing now is a convergence of signs of the end times, with intensity.”
Evans pointed to the malevolent activities of Iran toward Israel, particularly through its terrorist proxies of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon as examples.
“Jesus said it would be like birth pangs. That when the end came there would be birth pangs. We’re seeing an intensity today in those birth pangs I’ve never seen before in my life,” the 69-year-old said.
“A lot has happened in Israel and the world, end times signs, in the past 76 years, so that’s saying a lot,” Evans added.
Some of the happenings involving Israel have included wars with its Arab neighbors following declaring its independence in 1948, the Suez Crisis in 1956, the Six-Day War in 1967, and the Yom Kippur War in 1973.
The Oct. 7 Hamas attack fell almost 50 years to the day after the Yom Kippur War.
One thing Evans sees different from the previous wars is the “unprecedented level of anti-Semitism around the world.”
“People have taken sides like never before, and most people are against Israel. Most people are pro-Palestinian,” he said.
The end times expert noted this alignment against Israel is consistent with scripture, which predicts in both Zechariah 12 and Book of Revelation that the nations of the world will converge militarily on the Jewish State for the Battle of Armageddon.
Evans pointed out that there has been recent talk in the United Nations of imposing a two-state solution on Israel, which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and most Israelis oppose.
Netanyahu said in January that to create a Palestinian state would cause an “existential danger to Israel,” The New York Times reported.
Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in 2005, allowing the Palestinian residents to govern themselves.
They elected Hamas members in 2006 to lead the government, and the terrorist group has consistently used Gaza as a base of operations against Israel.
Evans thinks the current Hamas war is the beginning of the conflict described in Psalm 83.
On his “Tipping Point” program in November, Evans’ guest, Bill Salus, author of “The Future War Prophecies,” agreed.
The war described in Psalm 83 involves Israel fighting its immediate neighbors, Lebanon (including Hezbollah), Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Egypt and the Palestinians among others, Salus said.
Israel wins the Psalm 83 war.
The Battle of Gog and Magog, described in Ezekiel 38 and 39, will follow.
It involves a coalition of nations invading Israel from the north, including Iran, Russia and Turkey, among others, Evans told CBN.
“They’re all present and accounted for and it’s unfolding right before our very eyes” in terms of these nations aligning together against Israel, he said.
Evans could foresee the battle occurring after Israel strikes Iran, perhaps to neutralize its reported nuclear weapons program.
“What would happen today if Israel bombed Iran? You would just see everything break loose in the Middle East,” he said. “It wouldn’t take much right now to cause a massive war to break out.”
Billy Hallowell, with CBN’s Faithwire.com, highlighted last year how astounding it is that events in the Middle East appear to be playing out just as the Bible predicted.
“If I were an atheist, I’d be looking at this and saying, ‘OK, it’s a little weird that all these things in Ezekiel, all these places that he’s talking about, thousands of years later, are the places that are — not just like they’re random events — this is the centerpiece of what we are talking about right now globally.’”
In the Magog war, God intervenes to thwart the nations arrayed against Israel through earthquakes, pestilence, torrential rains, hailstones and fire. (Ezekiel 38:19-23).
Evans said other events that will take place in the end times include the rapture of the church (when Christians are taken up to heaven), which could happen at any time; the seven-year Great Tribulation with the rise of the Antichrist, who will seek to impose a one-world government; the Battle of Armageddon ending with the second coming of Jesus Christ, who will defeat the Antichrist’s forces with an army from heaven and then reign on the earth for one thousand years.
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