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And I will bring again the captivity of my people Israel, and they shall build the waste cities, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and drink the wine thereof; they shall also make gardens, and eat the fruit of them. And I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the LORD thy God." (Amos 9:14-15)
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Paul writes in Romans 11:25-26 that all of Israel will be converted. Acts 15:14-16 tells us that the "tabernacle of David" will be rebuilt. We read in Hebrews 8:8-10 that God plans to make a "new covenant" with the house of Israel. If there is one thing clear in the Bible, it is the fact that God has every intention of keeping His promises to Israel.
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But we have a lot more than promises. We have actually lived to see many of these promises fulfilled! It wasn't until the late 1800's that the Jews began to migrate back to Palestine in large numbers. By 1939, when World War II began, there were over 400,000 Jews living in Palestine. After the war, the United Nations granted 5000 square miles of Palestinian land to the Jews. In 1948, Israel became an independent nation for the first time in over 2,500 years! Today there are over 4,000,000 Jews living in Israel (over 200,000 migrated from the Soviet Union in 1990!). Friend, why has God restored Israel as a nation, if He isn't fulfilling His promises to them and preparing them for His Second Coming? He IS preparing them for His return! Israel, the "fig tree" (Jer. 24:2-8; Luk. 13:6-9) has put forth leaves as a nation, and Jesus said that the generation which witnesses this will also witness His return (Mat. 24:32-34)! The restoration of Israel is a definite sign that the Lord Jesus Christ is coming soon--very soon.
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The Revision of the Roman Empire
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Did you know that modern Europe is in the Bible? Did you know that the Bible speaks of ten European powers being associated with the coming Antichrist? It's true. Daniel 7:1-8 speaks of four separate "beasts" rising up from the sea. We are told in Daniel 7:17-28 that these four beasts represent four "kings" and "kingdoms" which would rise to power, and the fourth beast is said to be worse than all of the other three. Most agree that these four beasts represent the empires of Babylon, Media-Persia, Greece, and Rome, and we know from history that these four kingdoms did arise in this order, with the fourth kingdom, Rome, being the most "dreadful and terrible" beast of all (Dan. 7:7).
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However, the prophecies about this fourth beast have not been completely fulfilled. In fact, this same beast reappears in Revelation 13:1-2, which is PROPHECY--not history! The "ten horns" on this beast are "ten kings," according to Daniel 7:24, and they reappear in Revelation 13:1-2. These ten horns are ten kings which will be associated with the Antichrist (Rev. 17:12-13), and they are PART of the Roman beast. That is, they make up the Revised Roman Empire. In the early 1900's, Bible teachers C. I. Scofield and Clarence Larkin both taught that the Roman Empire would be revived as an empire of ten federated kingdoms. These men did not live to see this Bible prophecy fulfilled, but you and I are seeing it fulfilled before our very eyes!
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For centuries Europe has wanted to reunite its separate nations, but only in the twentieth century have we seen the actual formation of the "European Community." Since World War II, various treaties have been signed and various organizations have been established to bring Europe closer to being a world super power (NATO, 1949; Treaty of Paris, 1951; Treaty of Rome, 1957; The Merger Treaty, 1965; The European Monetary System, 1979; The European Single Act, 1986; The European Economic Area, 1991). The EC is the world's largest trading power controlling about twenty percent of all international trade, and there is presently much talk about a "common currency" for the member nations of the EC. Some European leaders are even considering the elimination of all currency, by replacing it with "Smart Cards."
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