Is it a mere coincidence that Israel is successful in unparalleled ways, and at the same time, the object of hatred throughout much of the world? Is there any significance to the survival of the Jewish people who have been mercilessly hunted, and targeted for elimination not once or twice, but repeatedly throughout history? Is Israel’s return to their ancestral homeland something common among people groups? And this return was not once, but twice. Even more remarkable than the first return (from Babylonian captivity) was the second return of the people to the land beginning in the late 19th century and culminating in the establishment of the modern day State of Israel after 1900 years without a nation. Is it just good luck that Israel has survived the consistent and relentless attacks meant to destroy her since the day after she was declared a nation?
These truths are more than just bits of history trivia. They reveal the uniqueness of the Jewish people and the blessing of God that was promised to the first Jewish person, Abraham in Genesis 12, I will make of you a great nation… those who bless you I will bless, those who curse you I will curse.
I believe that the blessing on the Jewish people and the simultaneous hatred of anti-Semitism is a powerful proof of the accuracy of the Bible.
Scripture speaks with prophetic surety about the restoration of the nation at a time when the southern Kingdom of Judah and Benjamin were in captivity in Babylon. The “valley of dry bones” which speaks of Israel’s restoration was written to a people in captivity in Babylon. Not only is their return to the land of Israel prophesied, but the prophecy clearly reveals that ALL of Israel will be restored, all twelve tribes. This is fascinating because the ten northern tribes have never been identified since being taken into captivity in 722 BC. But that day is coming.
Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’ ” Ezekiel 37:11-14
This was written to people in captivity.
This promise was not fulfilled when the Jews returned from Babylon, because members of all 12 tribes are specifically mentioned as returning to the land (37:15-23). The promise of Ezekiel 37 has been unfolding right before our very eyes in our lifetimes.
The prophecy of Ezekiel 37 has not yet been completely fulfilled, and it does not refer to either the return from Babylonian captivity, or the overthrow of the Seleucid Empire in 165 BC. Ezekiel 37 fits the historical return of Israel to the land over the past 135 years! The PHYSICAL life of Israel began in 1948. But the SPIRITUAL life is still future and will occur when Israel turns to Christ as King.
All this raises the question of PROBABILITY. What are the chances of rolling a 7 with two dice? 1 in 6. What are the chances of winning the lottery? 1 in millions.
The chances of Bible prophecy being randomly fulfilled? Mathematically absurd.
Prophecies of Messiah? Peter Stoner calculated the possibility of 8 Messianic prophecies being fulfilled: one in one hundred quadrillion (1 with 17 zeroes after)
Prophecies of the destruction of Tyre in Ezekiel 26? 5 with 59 zeroes following.
TODAY: another proof of the accuracy of the Bible: The amazing story of Israel and the Jewish people.
God’s Promises to Israel.
Abraham’s Blessing
People Gen 12:2 “I will make of you a great nation”
Place.
Genesis 12:1 “go to the land that I will show you”
Genesis 15:18–19 (ESV) “To your offspring I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the river Euphrates, the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites,”
Promise (blessing). Genesis 12:3 “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you”
QUESTION: Has this blessing been consistently fulfilled in history?
The Birth of a Nation. Israel is born out of captivity in Egypt
Return from Captivity. Israel is restored back to their land, not ONCE, but TWICE!
The Odd Defying Success of Israel’s People. No nation on earth has ever been so disproportionally blessed!
Although Jews make up only about 2 percent of the United States’ adult population,
1/3 of the current Supreme Court;
Jews make up less than one half of one percent of the world’s population
Consistently have made up more than 20% of the Forbes 400 list of the world richest people. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3592566,00.html
The proportion of Jews with IQs of 140 or higher is around six times the proportion of everyone else. . .” ….
Since the 1880s, nearly half of all the world chess champions have been of Jewish heritage. (Gilder, George (2012-10-30). The Israel Test: Why the World's Most Besieged State is a Beacon of Freedom and Hope for the World Economy (p. 25). Encounter Books. Kindle Edition.)
“In the first half of the twentieth century, despite pervasive and continuing social discrimination against Jews throughout the Western world, despite the retraction of legal rights, and despite the Holocaust, Jews won 14 percent of Nobel Prizes in literature, chemistry, physics, and medicine/physiology.”
“In the second half of the twentieth century, when Nobel Prizes began to be awarded to people from all over the world, that figure [of Jews awarded Nobel Prizes] rose to 29 percent. So far in the twenty-first century, it has been 32 percent.” (Gilder, pp. 26-27).
Coincidence?
CONSIDER the ETHNIC GROUPS in the WORLD
From A- Z Azerbaijan, to Zhuan Chinese,
From the Largest (Han Chinese) numbering in the millions, the smallest indigenous people group of just a handful.
From Modern history’s most recently discovered people group, to the extinct people groups of history (Nittites, Canaanintes, Incas, Aztecs)
NO PEOPLE GROUP or ETHNIC HAS EVER BEEN SO RICHLY BLESSED.
The Odd Defying Success of Modern Day Israel
ISRAEL = 7 million people, 5.5 million of them are Jews
Purchased swamp land from Arabs who were more than happy to sell it
Drained malarial swamps
Irrigated barren desserts
Leading the world in desalinization
ALL while fighting for survival against 100 million Arabs pledged to Israel’s destruction
“Just over sixty years old, with a population slightly over seven million, and located in a hostile region, Israel is home to more high-tech start-ups per capita than any other nation on earth and has surpassed the combined venture capital investment of France and Germany. (Gilder)
EVEN the ARABS living in Israel benefited from Israel’s success.
From 1967-1987, the West Bank and Gaza comprised one of the most dynamic economies on the planet, with a decade of growth at a rate of roughly 25 percent per year from 1969 to 1979. Annual investment in constant dollars soared from under $10 million in 1969 to some $600 million in 1991, rising from 10 percent of GDP to around 30 percent in 1987 (maintained through 1991). The Arab population rose from roughly one million in 1967 to almost three million in some 261 new towns. Despite the nearly triple growth in population, per capita income also tripled in the West Bank; and in Gaza, it rose from $80 to $1,706 from 1967 to 1987. Meanwhile, the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank and Gaza increased only to 250,000. (Gilder, p. 51).
What happened to make that economic success stop? THE FIRST INTIFADA
Other than the United States, the best Arab economy in the world is found in ISRAEL. Gilder, p. 58)
The Odd Defying Hatred of Anti-Semitism
HISTORY
Egypt, Philistine, Assyria, Babylon
Titus. 70 AD
Hadrian 138
Mohammad
Spanish Inquisition
Holocaust
Sadaam
TODAY
Hamas
Hezzbulah
Isis
Al Qaeda
Charlie Hebdo killers in France
Brussels airport bombing targeted flight area for Tel Aviv
5 million Jews surrounded by 100 million Arabs committed to their destruction.
Israel occupies 1% of the land of the middle east.
Are we supposed to believe that they will be satisfied and do no harm if Israel gives away more?
IN March, 2015 THE UN Council on Women’s rights singled out ISRAEL as an abuser of the rights of Palestinian women. NOT IRAN, not the Palestinian Authority (women’s employment is 17% in the PA and honor killings occur almost daily.) Not SUDAN where women and teen girls are enslaved and sold on the open market.
In MARCH, students at Brown University protested a scheduled lecture by Janet Mock. Mock is an African American trans gender woman who was scheduled to speak on LGBT rights. The reason for the protest? The speech was sponsored by Hilel House. You can’t be pro-Israel and pro-gay.
In Indonesia, Chinese constituted only five percent of the population, but they controlled 70 percent of private domestic capital and ran three-quarters of the nation’s top two hundred businesses. (Gilder pp. 28-29). Why don’t the Indonesians hate the Chinese?
Conclusion: Is this all a coincidence?
Incredible success of Israel and the Jewish People?
Incredible hatred of Israel throughout history?
The ONLY reasonable answer to this is that there is a SPIRITUAL CONFLICT between God and Satan.
The only explanation is that GOD has promised to bless Israel and the Jewish people, and that SATAN is bound to defeat God’s plan
Masada was one of Herod the Great’s fortresses which he built in case he needed to escape his enemies or even the dread of the Roman empire. The fortress was built on top of a massive mountain plateau in the Judean desert, on the shores of the Dead Sea. From the top of Masada, you can see for miles, overlooking the path that Moses and the Israelites took to enter the promised land. It is an impressive vista that reminds you of the breadth of the land that God promised to Abraham and his descendents.
Masada was virtually impregnable, with only a steep and narrow path providing access to the mountain. Roman engineers designed massive cisterns to hold incredible amounts of water, and they created aqueducts to carry water to the mountain, and channels on the outer face of the mountain to collect and divert rain water to the cisterns. Massive store houses held enough food to keep several hundred people alive for over ten years.
But Herod never used this fortress to escape his enemies, instead, Jewish Zealots made their last stand against the Roman legions when they fled to Masada in 70 AD after the fall of Jerusalem. The Zealots held out against the Romans for 3 months. They knew their doom was sure when the Romans finished a massive earthen ramp up the side of the mountain and hauled a massive attack tower right up to the walls of Masada. Rather than face death, torture and rape, the Zealots fulfilled a suicide pact and took their own lives rather than fall into the hands of the blood thirsty Romans. On the night before the Roman final assault, the warriors drew lots to determine which among them would be the last to die.
Masada remained a mystery largely until 1967, when Israel gained control of the Dead Sea region after the 6 Days war. Almost immediately, archeologists began to examine Masada, along with other fantastic archeological finds previously unavailable to the Israel and the American and British scholars.
During one of the early expeditions to Masada, archeologists identified the synagogue where the Jewish Zealots would have worshipped. In that room, there was a clay jar, very much like the clay jars in which the Dead Sea Scrolls were found just a few miles from Masada. Sure enough, there was a scroll in the Jar with a biblical text.
Shat passage was written on this scroll? It was the text of Ezekiel 37, containing the promise that although exiled from the land, Israel would one day return to possess the land promised to Abraham. Here, sitting on top of Masada for 2,000 years, was a silent witness, marking the passing of time, testifying that although Israel was scattered, the nation people would return and become a nation once again. Undisturbed for all that time, the scroll of Ezekiel 37 was waiting for the day that the Scriptures would be fulfilled.
We live in that day. We have a living witness to the accuracy of Scripture, and the authority of the God who gave us those scriptures.
God’s promises to Israel are being fulfilled before our very eyes. Scripture can be trusted, and the rest of God’s promises are close at hand. Jesus is coming soon. Be ready to meet him.
