There was finally some good news in the war in Israel when Hamas released two US citizens it was holding hostage. However, the conflict is threatening to escalate as Israel engages terrorists in Gaza, clashes with Hezbollah in northern Israel, and responds to threats in Syria and the West Bank.

There have been multiple attacks on US forces as well; the US defense secretary announced over the weekend that American forces are increasing their presence in the area to “bolster regional deterrence efforts.”

As you follow the news, if you’re feeling anxious and even overwhelmed these days, you’re not alone.

Five threats that could fuse into one

Former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus is warning that there is a very real chance the Middle East conflict could escalate significantly. What’s more, the battle between Hamas and Israel is dividing world opinion, pitting nations against nations in ominous ways.

According to former US Defense Secretary Bob Gates, America is facing the most crises since World War II ended seventy-eight years ago. None can be solved; all could spiral into something much worse:

1. The war in the Middle East
2. China and Russia’s growing military and economic collaboration
3. A malicious Iran
4. The unhinged leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un
5. A massive spread of doctored or wholly fake videos to manipulate world news and opinion.

US officials are especially worried that all five threats could fuse into one. The State Department recently issued a rare “Worldwide Caution,” warning US travelers abroad of “increased tensions in various locations around the world” that raise “the potential for terrorist attacks, demonstrations, or violent actions against US citizens and interests.” This at a time when the US House is without a speaker, a government shutdown may be looming, and another toxic presidential campaign with rising domestic unrest is on the horizon.

“I will not refuse to do something I can do”

Helen Keller was stricken deaf and blind after contracting a high fever at nineteen months of age. Nonetheless, she went on to graduate from college cum laude and later became the first woman to be awarded an honorary doctorate from Harvard University. She wrote numerous books, became a tireless advocate for those with disabilities, met with twelve US presidents, and was awarded the highest American honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

She explained her life’s passion this way: “I am only one, but I am still one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something I can do.”

One practical way to respond to the rising anxiety and fear of our day is to adopt her motto. Like those who rebuilt the gates of Jerusalem in Nehemiah 3, we each have a kingdom assignment, a thing we can uniquely do to serve God and others. Using our influence to share God’s love and grace is not only vital to our personal well-being—it is absolutely crucial for our broken world and every lost person we know.

Pastor and author Paul Powell once invited readers to imagine a graph of human progress with regard to technology, economics, standard of living, and so on. Such a graph would be easy to draw and largely positive. Then he asked them to graph moral progress.

That would be a different story, as Hamas’s recent brutality makes clear.

“The heart of the problem”

Max Lucado observed:

For all our medical and scientific advancements, for all our breakthroughs in technology and medicine, do we not battle the same inclinations as did our Bronze Age ancestors? Women are still objectified: almost one in three women worldwide is a victim of physical and/or sexual violence. How is it that the twentieth century was the most murderous in history? Wars and genocides took more than two hundred million victims in one hundred years.

According to Jesus, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, and slander” (Matthew 15:19 NIV). The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart.

Here’s the good news: God can “give you a new heart” (Ezekiel 36:26). When we turn to him by faith, he promises to “put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” (v. 27).

Imagine a world in which every person truly made Christ their Lord and thus experienced such godly transformation. Crime and war would end as we follow the leading of the Prince of Peace who calls us to mutual love (John 13:34–35). Lust and adultery would be replaced with love and fidelity (cf. Matthew 22:39). Lies would cease as we speak the truth in love (Ephesians 4:15).

We would still struggle with temptation, of course, but when Christ is our Lord and his Spirit empowers and controls us (Ephesians 5:18), there is no temptation we cannot defeat in his strength (1 Corinthians 10:13).

This is why Oswald Chambers’ assertion is so vital for our souls and our broken world: “There is only one relationship that matters, and that is your personal relationship to a personal Redeemer and Lord. Let everything else go, but maintain that at all costs, and God will fulfill his purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God’s purposes, and yours may be that life.”

Will God “fulfill his purpose through your life” today?

Denison Forum

As the war in Israel continues and more of the surrounding Muslim-majority nations indicate they might escalate the situation further, one of the questions we have been asked most frequently at Denison Forum is if the fighting there is a sign of the end times.

It’s an understandable question and, from an eschatological perspective, “wars and rumors of wars” in Israel do feel different than the ongoing struggle in Ukraine or conflicts elsewhere in the world (Matthew 24:6).

But why is that the case? And why do so many Christians in particular seem to jump so quickly to the end times when conflicts in Israel arise?

While answers vary, one of the most prominent factors among evangelical Christians is the belief that the nation of Israel will play a central role in the apocalyptic conflicts that will ultimately result in Christ’s return.

Now, it must be said from the start that not all Christians agree with that assessment. As Dr. Jim Denison describes, there are seven primary approaches that people have taken to understanding the book of Revelation and, by extension, how the end times will play out. And people continue to argue about it because no approach is inarguably more biblical than the rest—though strong adherents to any one of them might disagree.

For our purposes today, however, one approach in particular stands out.

Today’s most popular end-times theology

Of the seven ways that Christians have historically viewed end-times theology, the most popular in evangelical circles today is premillennialism.

While a variety of perspectives are housed within that term, they share the basic belief that the world will never be made right until Christ returns. And a quick look at the news on any given day offers a helpful reminder of why that perspective makes sense to so many.

However, that wasn’t always the case.

In the wake of the Second Great Awakening, many Christians in the West believed that the church was on the path to ushering in the kingdom that Christ would one day return to rule. However, for many believers, the Civil War put cracks in that belief before the first World War ultimately shattered it.

In its wake, more and more Christians began to believe that Jesus was the only one who could fix this world, and the premillennial approach became more common as a result.

In typical Christian fashion, though, even when people agreed on the basics, the details proved divisive. And of the factions within that faction of belief, dispensationalism is the most important for understanding why Israel is so important to many Christians today.

God’s two plans?

Dispensationalism came to America through the writings and sermons of British pastor John Nelson Darby during the late 1800s, but it rose to prominence through the preaching of St. Louis pastor James Brookes and—to an extent—famed evangelist D. L. Moody. Then, in 1909, Cyrus Scofield published one of the first study Bibles and included notes throughout explaining how the various parts of Scripture fit within a dispensationalist model.

A host of Bible colleges, institutes, and seminaries—with Dallas Theological Seminary perhaps the most important—then trained generations of pastors to see Scripture through that lens as well. And while other forms of evangelicalism grew to prominence across the same period of time, some of the most influential leaders within the evangelical church have approached Scripture from the dispensationalist perspective.

I bring all of this up today because one of the most distinctive convictions within dispensationalism is the belief that, as Timothy Weber describes, “God had two completely different plans operating in history: one for an earthly people, Israel, and the other for a heavenly people, the church.”

And that plan would eventually culminate with a reestablished Israel at the center of the Lord’s work as he began to usher in his kingdom. Given that Darby began preaching about that eventuality nearly a century before the nation of Israel was rebirthed in 1949, it’s understandable that the latter event was seen by many to confirm the dispensationalist perspective on Israel’s role in the end times.

As Israel has continued to court evangelical support in the decades since, that relationship has only grown stronger, and a view that found its modern origins within the dispensationalist perspective has been adopted by many who hold to a different approach to the faith as well.

As a result, now when Israel goes to war, Christians pay attention and openly wonder if this conflict will kick off Scripture’s final conflict.

So how can we know?

Will you be ready?

Ultimately, the answer to that question is that we won’t know which conflict is the final conflict until Jesus comes back. We’ve been in the “last times” since Christ’s incarnation. For the better part of two millennia, there have been Christians who were convinced that his return was imminent.

I’m thirty-seven years old and, not to brag, but the latest conflict in Israel is about the fifth end of the world I’ve experienced so far. Yet, whether it’s the other wars in the Middle East, 9/11, Covid, or the host of other global conflicts and persecutions that meet many of the criteria described in Scripture, Christ still hasn’t returned.

But one day he will, and while we can continue to debate the degree to which present events should be seen as a sign of the end times, what Jesus was absolutely clear about is that the best way to live now is to be ready for his return.

So how can we do that?

Think back for a moment to your initial response when you thought about the question of if we are now living in the end times. Did it make you frightened? Excited? Skeptical? Did someone come to mind who doesn’t know Christ? If Christ did return today, would there be something you feel like you’d left unfinished?

Ultimately, Christ’s call is to live every day with the expectation that it might be your last, coupled with the reality that we often won’t know if it is until it’s too late to do much about it.

So what would such a life look like for you today? And is your answer to that question primarily the product of your own guesses and expectations or as a result of guidance from God?

Only the Lord knows when your last day will be, so he is the only one capable of helping you live well every day until that time comes.

Have you asked for his help yet today?

Denison Forum