My interest in the topic of this book goes back many years to my youth. My mother, brought up in the Reformed Church of America, was committed to a premillennial position on the question of Israel, while my father, a pastor in the Christian Reformed Church, held to the amillennial position common to that tradition. Our discussions of the issues involved occurred during the days of World War II, when even secular scientists positioned the clock of human history at two minutes to twelve because of their fear the atomic bomb would end it all, and these discussion continued in the years immediately thereafter when the State of Israel was again established. In such an apocalyptic atmosphere, my mother saw numerous divine confirmations of her premillennial position.