January 10, 2006--Location, Location, Location

Have you been checking the daily bulletins about Ariel Sharon’s condition? Not the medical bulletins. Rather those from Pat Robertson. In which he asserted, via his 700 Club broadcast, that Sharon’s stroke is God’s rebuke for giving up the Gaza Strip. (See NY Times article linked below.)

Since you might have missed the broadcast itself (I know, it runs up against Desperate Housewives) or if you just read about it in the Times or elsewhere, you only got snippets, I therefore thought you might want to see the full transcript—it’s only a couple of paragraphs:

Sharon was personally a very likeable person and I am sad to see him in this condition. But I think we need to look at the Bible and the book of Joel. The prophet Joel makes it very clear that God has enmity against those who “divide my land.” God considers this land to be His. You read the Bible and He says “this is my land” and for any Prime Minister of Israel who decides he is going to carve it up and give it away, God says “no, this is mine.””Mentioning the assassination of former Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin at the hands of a right-wing extremist, Robertson said he “had a wonderful meeting with Yitzhak Rabin in 1974, he was tragically assassinated, it was a terrible thing that happened but nevertheless he was dead. Now Ariel Sharon who again was a very likeable person, a delightful person to be with, I prayed with him personally, but here he’s at the point of death. He was dividing Gods land and I would say woe unto any Prime Minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations, or the United States of America. God says “this land belongs to me. You’d better leave it alone.”

There you have it in its entirety. Clearly the Reverend Pat moves in high Israeli circles—Rabin, Sharon himself, and many others. You might be saying, what’s up? This is something I know a lot about so hang on for the ride.

What this is really all about is the Final Days, the End of Time, the big Armageddon itself. Here’s how it will work, according to Robertson and his kind.

They see the Bible prophesizing the earth’s Final Days, the coming of the Antichrist, the eventual return of Christ (the Second Coming), and the ultimate Final Judgment. In order for all of this to occur there are a number of preconditions that have to be met. Primary among them—the Jews of the world need to return to the Promised Land, God’s Land in Robertson’s view, and that that land needs to consist of Greater Israel, from the Nile River to the Euphrates River. In other words from Egypt in the west to Iraq (yes) in the east.

So this is all ultimately about real estate. And thus Robertson’s rant about Sharon—he gave away a strip of this sacred real estate, even more valuable than that on the Upper East Side of New York City. If Sharon were to keep this up, say, give away some of the West Bank, it would turn back the Armageddon Clock.

This is why so many Christian Evangelicals are such good friends of Israel, because of the role Jews must play to bring about The End. As another example of this interest in Jews, Robertson is very much at the center of the movement to help Jews return to Israel via The Wings of Eagles Program of The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews. They run ads on the 700 Club which say that for $350 each you can send a Jew to Israel. They show an aged, toothless Jewish couple stranded in a wood hut in outer Siberia tearfully asking us to send the Wings folks $700 so they can get to Israel. Tough stuff.

And what happens after they and all the other Jews get there? 144,000 of them have to take the lead to evangelize the non-Christian world. And while doing that the Antichrist will appear (he will most likely be either the Secretary General of the UN or the head of the European Union—thus Robertson’s crack in his comments about the UN and EU—get it?). The Antichrist will then slaughter the non-converted Jews before Christ also returns. Those Jews who have been converted will join those who have all along been the right kind of Christians (Catholics need not apply) in the eternal rewards of Heaven.

I know you think I’m making this up. Well, I’m not. I refer you to the Left Behind website, that of the IFCJ, and of course Old Pat is there on your TV every day.