More Joy Ministries
Full Bible Study
Open a Bible printed a hundred years before Israel declared independence. Ezekiel is already talking about the Jewish people being gathered back into their land. Jesus is already warning people in Judaea to flee a coming crisis. Zechariah is already describing Jerusalem recognizing its Messiah.
Those passages were sitting there while there was no independent Jewish state on the map.
For nearly 2,000 years, generations of Jews were born and buried in foreign countries. Their homeland passed through empire after empire. They lived under different rulers, spoke different languages, and endured centuries of persecution, yet their identity and connection to Jerusalem survived.
What other people can you name with that combination of worldwide dispersion, nearly two millennia without national independence, and a return to sovereignty in their ancestral homeland?
Then consider what they survived just before that return.
Nazi Germany and its allies and collaborators murdered six million Jews, nearly two thirds of Europe’s Jewish population. Children were killed because they were Jewish. Families were wiped out. Communities that had existed for centuries were destroyed. The Nazis used government records, confiscation, police, deportation trains, mass shootings, and killing centers to hunt down and murder an entire people.
The war ended in 1945. Three years later, on May 14, 1948, Israel declared independence. Jewish sovereignty was restored in their ancestral homeland. Israel is now 78 years old.
Put that history beside Jeremiah 31.
God points to the sun, moon, and stars, then ties Israel’s continued existence before Him to the order He established in the heavens.
“If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever.” Jeremiah 31:36 KJV.
That is quite a promise to make about a people who would spend centuries being targeted for destruction.
Pharaoh ordered Hebrew baby boys killed. Haman obtained a decree to slaughter the Jews throughout the Persian Empire, women and children included. Hitler had plenty of predecessors. Exodus 1:16, 22; Esther 3:13.
Psalm 83 records the objective:
“...let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance.” Psalm 83:4 KJV.
Their enemies wanted to erase the very people God had promised to preserve. That gives Satan a reason to hate them that goes beyond any border dispute. If he could destroy Israel completely, what would become of the promises God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
God had already committed Himself.
Go back to Genesis 15. When the covenant is confirmed, Abram is in a deep sleep. The smoking furnace and burning lamp pass between the divided pieces while Abram sleeps. God takes the obligation upon Himself. The covenant rests on His faithfulness. Genesis 15:12 through 18.
Then notice the reason God gives for Israel’s restoration in Ezekiel 36:
“...I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake...” Ezekiel 36:22 KJV.
Two verses later:
“For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land.” Ezekiel 36:24 KJV.
His own name is attached to the promise. Israel’s failures were already known when He made it.
Ezekiel 37 carries that restoration further. God identifies the dry bones as “the whole house of Israel.” They say their hope is lost. He promises to bring them into their land and put His Spirit within them. Their national return points toward a spiritual restoration still ahead. Ezekiel 37:11 through 14.
That is why the story does not end in 1948.
The prophecies of the coming Tribulation place the Jewish people in the land. Daniel describes sacrifices being stopped halfway through the final week. Jesus points to Daniel’s abomination of desolation and tells those in Judaea to flee. The final three and a half years bring a crisis so severe that Jesus says no flesh would survive unless those days were shortened. Daniel 9:27; Matthew 24:15 through 22.
Revelation 12 shows the dragon persecuting the woman who brought forth the Messiah. Understood as Israel, she is the target of the same hatred directed at her Son. God prepares a wilderness refuge and preserves her there for 1,260 days. Revelation 12:5, 6, 13 through 17.
The promise carries them through to the day Zechariah describes:
“...they shall look upon me whom they have pierced...” Zechariah 12:10 KJV.
Their future includes recognizing their Messiah. God has unfinished business with Israel, and He has already told us what it involves.
“For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.” Romans 11:29 KJV.
The miracle of Israel begins long before 1948 and reaches beyond it. Through dispersion, persecution, and attempts to erase them, the people God promised to preserve are still here.
A man can break his own word. He cannot break God’s.
#MoreJoyMinistries
