MODERN MIRACLES FOR THE NATION OF ISRAEL
INTRODUCTION
A. HUMOR: GOOD TIMING
1. Morris owned one of the most popular menswear shops in Houston. But one night, his shop is broken into and a lot of his best items of clothing were stolen.
2. Morris's best friend, Arnold, when he heard what had happened, went to see him. "Morris!" said Arnold, "I've just heard that your shop was broken into and many items were stolen. What a terrible thing to have happen to such a nice guy like you. You must be terribly upset."
3. "Well to be honest, Arnold," said Morris, "It’s not as bad as you might think." "Really, Morris, why is that?" asked Arnold.
"Well I was lucky," replied Morris. "The thief broke into my store and stole my items at a very good time."
4. "Surely no time is a good time for a robbery?" said Arnold. "Why was this a good time for you?" "Because on the day of the break-in, I had just marked everything down by 40%" replied Morris.
B. TEXT
27 “I will send my terror ahead of you and throw into confusion every nation you encounter. I will make all your enemies turn their backs and run. 28 I will send the hornet ahead of you to drive the Hivites, Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.” Ex. 23:27-28
C. THESIS & TITLE
1. We’re still on our series, “Proofs the Bible is True.” We’ve been looking at God’s interventions all down history.
2. Tonight I want to look at how God is still intervening today to help His people Israel. The wars fought by the Israelis have had unexpected conclusions each time.
3. Reports of keys to their victories could be said to be their extreme good luck, or that God is helping them. Let’s read some of the accounts of God’s recent moving in history.
4. The title is “Modern Miracles for the Nation of Israel.”
I. WAR OF INDEPENDENCE, 1948
A. BACKGROUND OF THE WAR
1. Even as Israel declared its statehood on May 14, 1948, five mechanized Arab armies invaded. The Jews had only 35,000 fighting men, no air force and only six tanks.
2. The Egyptian army alone had 40,000 soldiers, 135 tanks, heavy guns and an air force of over 60 planes, including Spitfires and bombers. The Jordanians had the Arab Legion, trained by the British and led by an Englishman, Sir John Bagot Glubb, along with 48 British officers.
3. Yet, against all odds, the Jewish fighters won.
B. MIRACLE OF THE KIBBUTZ DEFENSE
1. The Egyptian army launched an attack along the Mediterranean coast against the kibbutz Yad Mordechai on May 19, 1948, as part of an offensive to take Tel Aviv.
2. Two infantry battalions, one armored battalion and one artillery battalion attacked a Jewish kibbutz of 130 residents (supposed to take it in three hours). The battle raged for days.
3. The Jewish defenders held off the entire Egyptian army much longer than anyone expected, using homemade weapons that many times did nothing more than make noise.
4. They even used mock soldiers made out of wood, which they moved from trench to trench, in order to give the appearance of greater numbers. Although the Egyptians eventually broke through they were now days behind schedule and their morale was badly shaken.
C. MIRACLE OF SAFED
1. The Arab position at Safed was a virtually impregnable position. The Israelis then brought up the Davidka, a tremendously noisy mortar – fired it several times — and then a miracle happened: it rained. It never rained in May and June there.
2. The Arabs believed the Jews had fired a small atomic bomb which made it rain. Consequently, they fled and the Israelis captured Safed and drove the Arabs out of the entire northern area of the Galilee.
D. MIRACLE OF THE WRONG TURN
1. 24 homemade Israeli armored trucks and cars took a wrong turn on the way to aid a besieged Kibbutz, and accidentally entered Lebanon. They ran into twenty brand new Syrian armored cars traveling with dozens of Syrian supplies trucks carrying ammunition and artillery.
2. The Israelis immediately fired at the first Syrian truck and amazingly hit a tank loaded with gasoline, causing an explosion, which set fire to the following truck full of hand grenades. One by one, each truck in the Syrian convoy exploded.
3. The scared Syrians abandoned their convoy. The Israelis had just enough people to drive the captured armored vehicles and Syrian weapons back.
E. MIRACLE AT MOUNT ZION
1. Near Jerusalem, Ira Rappaport’s Israeli platoon fought the Jordanian military for Mount Zion and found themselves surrounded by hundreds with only 25 bullets left. The men decided to fight to the last bullet. Then something incredible happened.
2. The Jordanian soldiers dropped their weapons and began suddenly running away, screaming “ABRAHAM!”
3. Years later, Ira met one of their opponents who said, “Our army witnessed a vision of Abraham defending the Jews in the sky above the Israeli platoon and had no choice, but to drop their weapons.”
II. MIRACLES OF THE SIX DAY WAR, 1967
A. SETTING FOR THE WAR
1. On May 15, 1967, the Israeli government learned of Egyptian forces massing in the Sinai under the command of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egypt, Syria, and Jordan, along with Iraq, placed their forces on a war footing, ready for invasion and war against Israel.
2. The next day, the Egyptians told United Nations peacekeepers in the Sinai to leave. The UN withdrew without raising an objection. A week later, the Egyptians closed the Straits of Tiran to Israeli vessels.
3. Five Egyptian divisions of ground troops and two divisions of armor occupied the Sinai, ready to roll into Israel. Hundreds of tanks stood ready opposite Eilat, prepared to topple the Negev.
4. The Jordanian army had placed thousands of soldiers and hundreds of tanks in the West Bank and along Israel’s eastern border. On the northern border, Syrian soldiers on the Golan Heights dug in for a long fight. The Soviet Union backed the Arabs and the United States refused to intervene. Arab nations expected a massacre.
B. MIRACLE ONE: CHANGED CODES
1. Before the Arab nations could strike, Israel launched preemptive airstrikes against Egyptian airfields. As the Israeli Air Force took to the sky, the first miracle of the war occurred. Jordanian radar detected the planes and tried to warn Egypt, but the Egyptians had changed their coding frequencies the previous day and had not yet updated the Jordanians with the new codes. The Israeli Air Force destroyed six Egyptian airfields and hundreds of Egyptians planes and also Syrian Air Forces.
2. That same day, the Israelis launched a ground offensive into the Gaza Strip and the Sinai, catching Egyptian troops completely by surprise. Israeli tanks and ground forces rolled into the heavily defended Sinai and took the whole peninsula, all the way to the Suez Canal.
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wMIq6X4zi4
C. SECOND MIRACLE: TANK GUIDANCE
One Israeli tank crew found themselves lost in the Sinai and surrounded by Egyptian posts. The tank commander prayed. Incredibly, the crew spotted a ridgeway, as if illuminated from above, that led them through the rugged territory, away from enemy posts, and back to safety.
D. THIRD MIRACLE: PANIC
1. On the first day of the war, the Israeli ground forces had overrun the strategic road junction at Abu-Ageila to gain access to the central route into the Sinai Desert, sending a wave of panic through the Egyptian command.
2. The Israeli army expected to face a serious battle at the heavily defended Kusseima outpost in the Sinai, but as they drew near, they heard explosions. When they arrived, they discovered that the Egyptians had destroyed their own equipment and abandoned the base. One report why: Egyptian soldiers said they saw a gigantic hand come out from the sky. Terrified, they began to flee!
3. 1 Sam. 14:15 says, “Then panic struck the whole army—those in the camp and field, and those in the outposts and raiding parties—and the ground shook. It was a panic sent by God.”
E. FOURTH MIRACLE: ABANDONED TANKS & ARMOR
Israeli ground troops advancing into the Sinai found numerous Egyptian positions simply abandoned, with tanks and heavy armor left in perfect condition. They acquired so much abandoned Egyptian armor that after the war they had enough to outfit five new brigades.
F. GOLAN HEIGHTS VICTORY
1. To take the Golan Heights, Israel had to win an uphill battle against a heavily entrenched and well-fortified Syrian army, consisting of 75,000 troops.
2. Yet after just 7 hours of heavy fighting, Israel had miraculously gained control of the main sectors. The next morning, the Syrians abandoned the Golan Heights, fleeing frantically and leaving their weapons behind! [Messiah Mag., 5-14-17, D. Thomas Lancaster]
G. RETOOK JERUSALEM…Luke 21:24
III. YOM KIPPUR WAR, 1973
A. HOW THE WAR BEGAN
1. This war began when the Arab coalition launched a joint surprise attack on Israeli positions in the Israeli-occupied territories on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism, which also occurred that year during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
2. SOUTH. Egyptian forces crossed the cease-fire lines, then advanced virtually unopposed into the Sinai Peninsula. After three days, Israel had mobilized most of its forces and halted the Egyptian offensive, resulting in a military stalemate.
3. NORTH. The Syrians coordinated their attack on the Golan Heights to coincide with the Egyptian offensive and initially made threatening gains into Israeli-held territory. Within three days, however, Israeli forces had pushed the Syrians back to the pre-war ceasefire lines. [Wikipedia]
4. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) then launched a four-day counter-offensive deep into Syria. Within a week, Israeli artillery began to shell the outskirts of Damascus.
5. Egyptian President Sadat ordered the Egyptians to go back on the offensive, but their attack was quickly repulsed. The Israelis counter-attacked, crossed the Suez Canal into Egypt. By October 24, the Israelis had improved their positions considerably and completed their encirclement of Egypt's Third Army and the city of Suez.
6. The 1978 Camp David Accords led to the return of the Sinai to Egypt and resumption of prewar Golan Heights position.
B. MIRACLES DURING THIS WAR
1. An unstoppable armada of Syrian tanks bound for Tel Aviv suddenly stopped just north of Tiberius and simply waited for the Israeli army to arrive so they could surrender without a fight!
2. An Israeli tank commander found himself and his men in the middle of a mine field. One of his men prayed to God for help and suddenly an unprecedented wind blew away nearly a foot of topsoil exposing thousands of mines so the soldiers could escape unharmed! [FILM SERIES, “AGAINST ALL ODDS…ISRAEL SURVIVES”]
IV. SIGNS AS RECENT AS 2014
A. “HAND OF GOD SENT MISSILE INTO SEA,” WND 2014
1. “A missile was fired from Gaza. This particular missile was going to hit either the Azrieli Towers, the Kirya (Israel’s equivalent of the Pentagon) or [a central Tel Aviv railway station]. Hundreds could have died.
2. “We fired two interceptor missiles. Both missed. This is very rare. At this point we had just four seconds until the missile landed. We had already notified emergency services to converge on the target location and had warned of a mass-casualty incident.
3. “Suddenly, Iron Dome (which calculates wind speeds, among other things) shows a major wind coming from the east, a strong wind that … sends the missile into the sea. We were all stunned. I stood up and shouted, ‘There is a God!’
B. FREAK CLOUD SEPARATES ATTACKERS FROM ISRAELIS
The Daily Mail Newspaper, London, had an article on January 10, 2018 entitled, “The divine intervention of God!” describing a freak weather phenomenon on the Golan Heights on Dec. 1, 2017 which came between Israeli soldiers and ISIS fighters who were wanting to attack them. ISIS was prevented from attacking.
CONCLUSION
A. ILLUSTRATION:YOU CAN’T STAND UNLESS GOD HOLDS YOU UP
1. One evening Lord Radstock was speaking at a meeting in Woolwich, and afterwards nearly missed his train home. He had just time to jump in as the guard blew his whistle.
2. But a young army officer had followed him to the platform and running up to the carriage window, said to Lord Radstock, “Sir, I heard you speak tonight, but tell me, how can a fellow keep straight?”
3. The train began to move. Lord Radstock pulled a pencil from his pocket and laid it on the palm of his hand. “Can that pencil stand upright?” “No,” said the young officer.
4. Lord Radstock grasped the pencil in his hand, and held it up in an upright position. “Ah!” said the young fellow, moving beside the train, “but you are holding it now.”
5. “Yes,” said Lord Radstock,” and your life is like this pencil, helpless, but Christ is the hand that can hold you.” As the train rounded the curve and was lost to sight, the last thing the young officer saw was Lord Radstock’s outstretched hand holding that pencil upright.
6. Twenty-five years later the same officer met Lord Radstock in India, and told him that all those many years ago, on that railway platform, he had trusted his life to Christ, who had upheld him and kept him ever since. —Pioneer Camper
B. THE CALL
1. Thanksgiving for God’s taking care of us!
2. Prayer for those with needs.
