Now, if you have been following the news in Israel, you may be surprised to see an unrest within the country. These last days, there were many and continuous protests gathering hundreds of thousands of people. These protests are aimed at the government who wants to pass a law which will allow it to have power over the Supreme Court.
And many see this as a usurping of the democratic nature of the state of Israel. It is complicated, in fact anything touching politics in Israel is very intricate, but the bottom line clearly points to the conflict which exists between the religious and the people.
The new government is composed of many small very right-wing religious parties who want to force more of their regulations and laws on the people, but today close to half of Israelis are atheists and or agnostics and they are angry with these religious factions.
Some reasons are very pointed. Most religious people, for example, are not obligated by law to send their children to the army. They see themselves as protectors of the country through and especially because of their constant prayers and studies of their books. They do not contribute to the economy, and they pay little taxes while benefiting from free education and also receiving much in terms of welfare. These are the issues which anger the people of Israel who do not benefit in these same ways. What might these new governmental policies of usurping more authority over the Supreme court bring them to? It is hard to tell, but right now it is weakening the country and dividing Jews against Jews.
And it seems very serious. This anger has even brought some civil and military pilots to refuse to fly government leaders or to even carry out military training. This then, is another battle this country is now fighting. But these things look so much like it was in the first century when Israel was ruled by a very small minority of religious people composed of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Their laws found in the Talmud then, are very much what we still see today.
But we ought not to be surprised by today’s growing power of some of these religious groups. Toward the end of His prophesy concerning the end times, and just before telling us to be ready for His soon return, Yeshua spoke of the religious, saying,
This generation speaks of those who opposed Him then, and includes those who oppose Him today. That same generation and today’s, has as their common denominator their aversion to biblical Judaism. This is one reason why this piece of news may be important: Jewish believers in Israel are worried that their freedom of speech and freedom to proclaim to the Good News will be hampered. The presence of a far-right wing in government may indicate a turning point in Israel; for the last 30 years there was an opened door to some great Jewish evangelism but this may not last.
Even though it is expected that religious freedom will be hampered as we move closer to the Lord’s soon coming, we are told, to always pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and praying for peace is to pray that the Good News about salvation in Yeshua will continue to spread there and elsewhere and bring many to see Yeshua as the Messiah of Israel.
This is one of many indications that Yeshua is at the door.