Originally posted by AThousandYoung
What's the relationship? Some Christians have told me that Israel is a central figure in the End Times and there are prophecies involved. Can anyone point me to the parts of the Bible in question?
I have studied Revelation among other books of the Bible. Although it may seem as though it has no rhyme or reason to you I can assure you it, in fact, does.
To begin with the entire Bible was written by Jewish men and, as a result, its primary focus in terms of Biblical prophesy is Israel. Don't get me wrong, not all Christians would agree. Some would say that after Christ came the the Jewish people rejected their Messiah and God then forsook them and turned to the Gentiles as his primary focus. However, a careful study of Revelation and the culmination of Old Testament prophesy, mostly in Daniel, will reveal that most of Revelation is a reitoration of Old Testament prophesy. You could say that it is more of the same except that it goes into greater detail about certain prophesies. For example, Daniel talks of many "beasts". Conversely, Revelation talks of only one beast, however, it is the same last beast discussed in Daniel before the end comes. The prevous "beasts" in Daniel had no relevance when John wrote Revelation because those prophesies had already come to pass. Also, there is symbolism in Revelation. It is spelled out for you somewhat in Revelation chapter 17. For example, the waters described in Revelation in which the beast rises from represents many peoples and the nations of the earth. The ten horns of the beast represent kingdoms or powers upon the earth that have some sort of alliance etc, etc.
I know the unbeleiver scoffs at these prophesies, however, what is impressive to me is that Biblical prophesy has been written over thousands of years throughout history about the nation of Israel and the nation of Israel exists today!! What are the odds of that? I'm sure many would say it is the power of a self fulfilling prophesy, however, if I were to create a prophesy about any nation such as Russia, what are the odds of such a nation still existing thousands of years into the future? Especially if it had disappeared for a number of years before rising from the rubble.