As I mentioned in my last piece, a Jewish friend of mine who calls himself an atheist recently acknowledged, "I've always said that if there is a God, it has to be the God of the Jews, because of Israel and it's miraculous way of surviving."

For the people who say they want proof in order to believe the Bible is from God, Israel is it. There's too much of Scripture that's been proven out by history for anyone to discount the ins-and-outs validity of God's Book.

When Israel became a nation again in 1948, after a 1,878-year lapse, most people doubted it would last more than 50 days, let alone 50 years.

Today's Israel was not only born in armed conflict, but has literally lived in armed vigilance for the past five decades.

In a Bible study, my pastor, Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church, Rolling Meadows, Ill., summed it up this way: "In the annals of history, seldom if ever, has an ancient people been destroyed—its nation destroyed and its people dispersed to the four winds of the earth—and yet, for centuries, those people remained a separate, distinct and identifiable group. And then for that people to be regathered to their ancient homeland and be re-established as a nation after almost two millenniums! That's simply a contradiction of time and logic. The rebirth of the nation Israel into a modern state in 1948 was an unparalleled marvel in history."

Since the Romans deported Israel starting in 70 A.D., and subsequently renamed that part of the world Palestine, the issue has been who gets the land.

While the world looks at it as an economic, political and social issue, there's something far deeper involved. It's a spiritual issue in which the very question, "Who's God?" is at stake.

Is God the "God of the Bible," or is God "Allah of the Koran"?

Both "Gods" claim the land as being given to their descendants, and the way the conflict will resolve itself will be based upon which one is God. Is Jehovah God or is "Allah the moon god" God?

For those who don't know, the word "Allah," according to the Encyclopedia of Religion, is a "pre-Islamic name. . . corresponding to the Babylonian Bel," which is a pagan deity dating back to Egypt and Babel.

The reason Muslims use the crescent moon as their symbol of worship is that's the symbol of their god. Just as Jesus Christ is said to be the S-U-N ("the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings"—Malachi 4:2), there is a counterfeit of that.

"Archaeologists have dug up numerous statues and hieroglyphic inscriptions in which a crescent moon was seated on top of the head of the deity to symbolize the worship of the moon god," writes internationally recognized religion scholar Robert Morey in his 1992 book, "The Islamic Invasion." "While the moon was generally worshipped as a female deity in the Ancient Near East, the Arabs viewed it as male deity."

If Allah's so-called "Nation of Islam" succeeds in wresting the land of Israel from the Jewish people, the prophecies of the Bible will have failed and the Bible will be invalidated, verifying the Koran as the true word of God.

What is infinitely fascinating is how the seeds of the ongoing conflict are written up in the Old Testament, starting in Genesis 12 when God first declared His intent for the land, giving Abraham four promises in what's generally called the "Abrahamic Covenant."

This covenant, developed into a legal contract in Genesis 13 and 15, involves God promising Abraham a tremendous lineage of people to "come out of thy loins," assuring, "I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth." (Gen. 13:16)

God's saying, "If you could go out and find all the little particles in the dust of the earth and count them up, then you'd be able to count how many children you're going to have." Abraham's going to have so many descendants it's not calculable.

When Gen. 12:1 refers to giving Abraham "a land that I will shew thee," it's a specific reference to a piece of real estate.

"God takes Abraham over into the land we call Palestine, over in the Middle East in the Jordan area in Arabia, and He says to him, 'Look, lift up your eyes and look around. The places that are north, south, east and west, I'm giving to you and your seed forever,' " says Jordan in his study.

As Gen. 15:18 confirms, the land goes from the river of Egypt (that's the Nile River on the west), under the great river Euphrates (which is all the way across the Arabian peninsula, and all the way across from the Nile River, up on the Eastern coast of Egypt and all the way over to where Iraq and Iran meet with the Euphrates), all the way up north in Damascus where it reaches almost into Turkey and the Mediterranean.

"One day God's going to give all of that real estate, not just a little piece—the little sliver between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River where the West Bank's argued about and all—but that whole territory," says Jordan. "God says, 'Abraham, that's yours!' "

By the way, when Abraham rescued his nephew Lot from the four kings of the Gentile confederation, and Melchizedek, King of Salem, was there to welcome them with bread and wine, that event is signified by the name Jerusalem, which comes from putting Jehovah's name in front of Salem.

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For God's third promise, Abraham was assured not just a great people, with a land to dwell in, but a great nation.

"Prior to the Flood there were no nations in the earth; there were just families and descendants and clans and tribes," explains Jordan. "But with the beginning of Noah, as he steps out upon the earth to establish a new order, God institutes nationalism. And in Gen. 10, he describes the functions of nations. A nation is a governmental entity. There's more involved in it than just languages and ethnic divisions. There's political entities designed to govern people."

Gen. 10:5 says there are to be different governments in addition to different languages, ethnicities and geographic divisions. God promises Abraham a government and political structure to govern over the great nation.

Later on, when God gave Israel a king "after his own heart," (the children of Israel had previously chosen the wrong guy in King Saul) He promised that David's house would rule in Israel for the government with a kingdom structure.

Ultimately this government will come in with the Lord Jesus Christ. Luke 1:32 says, "And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David."

In Gen. 17:6, God promises Abraham, "I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee," revealing that the kind of government Israel's to experience is that of a monarchy.

Gen. 12:3 has God assuring, "I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed."

What He's saying there is Israel's going to be the channel of God's blessing to all the world, but the only way they'll be qualified for this leadership role is through the Lord Jesus Christ.

In line with this reality, Zechariah 8:22 prophesies, "Yea, many people and strong nations shall come to seek the Lord of hosts in Jerusalem, and to pray before the Lord."

"Don't let some dumb preacher tell you Jerusalem in the Bible just means your hometown; the Bible means what it says," says Jordan in regards to this prophecy. "Before Israel gets the blessing, and becomes the blessing to the nations, He has to save them—and before that, they're accursed."

What we learn from the Apostle Paul, partly in Romans 11:25, is that in today's world, "blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in."

This means God has temporarily postponed the fulfillment of Israel's promises and program in order to do something else first, and when He's finished doing this something else—the unprophesied, secret purpose of forming the Body of Christ—He'll go back and finish with Israel.

That's why it says in Romans 11:26, 'and so shall all Israel be saved.' All the things He said He'd do, He'll do.

Because of this current grace period concerned with the forming the Body of Christ, God doesn't honor the nation Israel today with a special status. Instead, this is the age in which, as Paul confirms in Rom. 10:12, "there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him."

As one final note on this, Jordan, in his study, briefly outlined how the United States became Israel's first and greatest ally in 1948. Here's what he said:

"In the year before (1948), J. Frank Norris, called the 'Texas Tornado'—the leader of Christian Fundamentalism in the '20s, '30s and early '40s—urged in letters he swapped back and forth with Harry Truman, that Truman recognize the state of Israel as soon as it stepped forward.

"So eleven minutes after David Ben-Gurion declared Israel a modern state, we were the first nation in the earth to recognize Israel, and by doing that, gave them our protection as a state.

"Norris told Truman, 'Them that bless Israel will God bless.' Truman, nicknamed fondly, the 'Bourbon-Sipping Baptist,' made the decision not just on political, economic, social and moral grounds, but on a spiritual ground, believing that if he blessed Israel, God would bless America.

"Is that why we should do it, though? The answer is, 'No.' As an economic and political decision—and especially as a moral decision—we should absolutely support Israel, but not as a spiritual decision to try and get blessings from God. That's simply not how He's working today."