🍿Video VAULT...

Author Joel Rosenberg believes some of the events unfolding around us hold biblical significance, particularly when it comes to Israel and the Middle East. Rosenberg, an expert on biblical prophecy who now lives in Israel, recently spoke with CBN News about Hamas, the war in Gaza, and how current events might play into what the Bible says about future happenings and the end of days.

"That is the number one question I'm getting asked ... 'Can you put this [current moment] in a prophetic context?'" Rosenberg said. "I would say, number one, we're definitely in a birth pang, right? Jesus speaks in Matthew 24 that there's going to be contractions and releases, moments of wars and rumors of wars, and kingdom against kingdom, nation against nation, as well as earthquakes and famines and other disasters." He continued, "Those are contractions, and just like when your wife gets close to delivering ... the contractions are longer and more painful, and the release moments are shorter."

Rosenberg said Israelis were living in a time of release on Oct. 6, 2023, as it was safe, prosperous, and secure — the safest it had been in modern history. "You'd have to go back to the days of Solomon and David when the kingdom was peaceful and secure," he said, noting Israel had just come off making four Arab-Israeli peace treaties and normalization treaties via the Abraham Accords. "We were just about to finalize another deal — the biggest peace and normalization deal in Israeli history — and that would be with the Saudi government."

But all of that peace was obliterated by Hamas' horrific terror attack on Oct. 7, 2023, an event he said was the "longest contraction" modern Israel has faced. "I would add that, just in context, I believe COVID was a biblical Matthew 24 contraction where ... a lot of people died. But the other part was ... not only was there this terrible health pandemic, plague, a biblical plague, but even the American government could say in an instant, 'You can't go to church. You can't leave your house. You can't go see your friends, but the strip clubs could stay open. The casinos could stay open. The bars could stay open — the liquor stores, but not churches. That was a contraction."

He believes Amos 9:9 is a recurring prophecy, but that the current war in Israel is a "shaking" that falls under its umbrella. "I don't believe Israel's under judgment ... in other words, God didn't send this enemy, but God ... allowed it," Rosenberg said. "Why? To shake us, to help us realize that most Israelis either haven't read, don't remember, or don't care about Psalm 23, in which David, our greatest king, told us the Lord is our shepherd." He said some Israelis forgot, due to security, the realities inherent in this Scripture.