Israel

When Hezbollah was bombing Israel, nearly every newscast mentioned some place I have visited in Israel. Many of these sites have great biblical significance including Haifa, Acre, Afula, Tiberias, Safed and Nazareth.

Haifa is at the western end of Mt. Carmel where Elijah contested with the prophets of Baal and called down fire from heaven (I Kings 17). When he sent his servant to watch for a rain cloud, the boy would have looked right over the area of modern Haifa.

Acre (Acco) is only referenced once in the Bible by this name. In Judges 1:31, it is referred to as one of the places the Israelites failed to hold. In the New Testament, Acco was known as Ptolemais, and was one of the stops on Paul’s final return to Jerusalem (Acts 21:7). Ptolemais was situated on the main sea and land route in ancient times. It served as the main port of the region until Caesarea was built. Herod the Great received Augustus Caesar at this site, since Caesarea had not yet been completed. Vespasian first docked at Ptolemais when he came to subdue the First Jewish Revolt. Later, the Arab inhabitants changed the name back to Acco.

The rocket that hit Afula would have passed right over the Valley of Armageddon mentioned in Revelation 16:16. Today, that area is a fantastically large fertile valley, and in the middle is a huge military airfield from which planes were no doubt leaving to bomb Hezbollah. Armageddon is where the world armies will one day converge to march on Jerusalem.

Safed is set way up in the hills. It is thought to be the city set on a hill referred to by Christ in Matthew 5:14. Even today its twinkling light can be seen from Tiberius on the Sea of Galilee miles away.

Tiberias is a city on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. It is mentioned in John’s Gospel in reference to the sea, which was also called the Sea of Tiberias. It became a more significant city under Herod Antipas. Although not mentioned in the New Testament, Tiberias is just south of Magdala, the home of Mary Magdalene.

Of course, Nazareth was the boyhood home of Jesus. In Nazareth is Mary’s Well, the spot where Jesus’ mother would likely have drawn water as a girl. It is where He caused a huge stir when He read of the Messiah in Isaiah 61 and applied it to Himself. Nazareth was jeopardized by rockets launched by Hezbollah, a group that despises the doctrine of the deity of Christ.

That Israel exists at all is stunning. It is a nation that had been dissolved for over 1,900 years and came back with its original language and monetary system. It had not had sovereign geographical control over its land for about 2,500 years, and by the time of Christ had lost technical political control. They couldn’t even execute a criminal but had to get permission from Rome, which is why Christ had to be taken before the Roman governor Pilate. The final indignity came from the Romans in AD 70 when any semblance of national structure ceased.

After Christ died, rose and ascended, He left behind a somber prophecy that Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies and the gorgeous 100-foot high Temple would be leveled (Matt. 24:2). Further, no stone would be left on another.

By AD 66, oppressed Jews revolted against Rome. In AD 70, 80,000 Romans soldiers under General Titus built a five-mile wall around Jerusalem and simply starved its inhabitants to death. In a final attack, the remaining Jews set fire to the Temple. The Romans fed the fire and it burned. Roman catapults heaved huge stones at the structure. Then, what hadn’t been destroyed was disassembled stone by stone to recover the molten precious metal that had drizzled down between the close-fitting stones. When the Romans were done, they removed everything from the Temple Mount and plowed the ground so it looked like nothing had ever been there. Those huge stones are still seen at the bottom of the Western Wall near the southwestern corner. They’ve been uncovered in recent years and are just where they fell in AD 70.

Some of the Jews who had escaped Jerusalem in AD 66 captured Masada situated on a high plateau just west of the southern part of the Dead Sea. It was the perfect hideout since it was a brutal 300-foot climb to the top. Nine hundred and sixty men, women and children had enough food and water to stay for years. As the mighty Roman military attempted to take the refuge, they were mocked by the Jews. The new Roman governor of Judea finally had enough and, with Jewish slaves as his work force, built a huge earthen ramp up the back of Masada inching a battering ram up the slope.

When the Jews knew that the Romans were close enough to storm the rock rim, their leader, Eleazar, called them together. He gave an impassioned speech explaining how more honorable it would be to commit suicide rather than have the women raped and the rest paraded in humiliation around the empire. The place where he spoke was at cliff’s edge within the structure that served as their makeshift synagogue.

So, each father killed his own family. By drawing lots, one man was designated to kill the other fathers, and then he committed suicide. The Romans stormed over the wall to deadly silence. They had won, but they had lost. But Israel was finished as a nation.

I have stood on the spot of Eleazer’s speech on ten occasions and wept each time. We read Eleazar’s speech and then Deuteronomy 28 where all this was forecast. A few yards away from that place, however, modern Israelis dug up an ancient scroll of Ezekiel 37, the vision of dry bones, that had been buried there for centuries. In Ezekiel’s vision, a dead nation is likened to a huge valley of weather-bleached bones that come together, are filled out with flesh and muscle and miraculously come to life when God breathes into them. Someone had buried that scroll there in faith, knowing God’s word would one day be fulfilled even though there was not a shred of evidence to that effect.

Captured Jews were sold into slavery and the land fell into ruin. Various invasions left the land eroded, and the trees were cut down. Swamps and wastelands caused Mark Twain to say it was just a barren wreck unfit for human dwelling. Jews bemoaned their fate, sometimes returning to wail at the western retaining wall of the destroyed Temple to pray and plead for God to restore their nation.

But God had spoken of a regathering in Ezekiel 37, and His word must be fulfilled. Jeremiah 16:13–15 speaks of a promised exodus rivaling Egypt’s. In Isaiah 5:26, God said he would “whistle” for the Jews to come home to Israel. It is repeated in Zechariah 10:8, “I will whistle for them and gather them….” Isaiah 36:8 speaks of Israel coming home, and Zephaniah also says the Lord will gather them and bring them home (Zeph. 3:19 & 20).

Those who hold no end-time position for Israel need to read Jeremiah 31:35–37. “…‘If those ordinances depart from before Me, says the Lord, Then the seed of Israel shall also cease from being a nation before Me forever.’ Thus says the Lord: ‘If heaven above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, says the Lord’.”

Few thought that Israel could be reborn, including many Jews. However, in 1859, a Jewish boy was born who would alter Jewish history. No one knew it then, but surely God did. Alfred Dryfus aspired to service in the French army and rose to captain by 1894. It was almost unheard of for a Jew to rise so far in prejudiced Europe. That year, he was accused of treason, tried, found guilty and banished to Devil’s Island for life. Professing innocence and aided by his brother, he was finally retried and found guilty again because of forged documents. A change in political parties brought Dreyfus’ case to public awareness. After his case was reopened twice more, he was fully exonerated in 1904.

Covering the story was a young Hungarian Jew named Theodore Hertzl. He saw the wild injustice while serving in Paris, and hearing mobs shout “Death to Jews!” became convinced of the necessity of mass exodus of Jews to a homeland. He wrote, campaigned and raised funds tirelessly for this, and between 1897 and 1902 convened six Zionist congresses.

About 75% or more of world Jewry would have voted against a Jewish homeland. Hertzl even said after the first congress, “At Basle I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. If not in five years, certainly in fifty everyone will know it.”

Fifty years later, the world not only didn’t laugh, it witnessed the rebirth of Israel on May 14, 1948. It took the United States under President Harry Truman just 11 minutes to recognize the new state. We were the first nation to do so. Today, after all the centuries of devastation and neglect, irrigated deserts are in full bloom (Is. 35:1).

Several other things aided this nation’s rebirth. World War I saw the occupying Ottoman Turks captured by the victorious English, and in 1917, General Allenby, a Christian, captured Jerusalem. That same year, the British government issued the famed Balfour Declaration saying the British government would look with favor on a Jewish homeland. Hitler’s murderous holocaust further moved Jews toward Israel.

Israel exists by the divine mandate of God in fulfillment of Scripture. Israel must exist to play a key a part in end time prophecy. Israel must exist so that scores of Old Testament prophecies can come to pass. It must exist so that Daniel 9 with its treaty and Antichrist passages can be fulfilled. It must exist to provide a national entity to repent and receive Christ as Messiah at the end of the Tribulation (Zech. 12 & 14). Israel must exist to be host to the fulfillment of the Davidic and Messianic Kingdom (Ezek. 40–48). It must exist so that the veracity of God can be reaffirmed by Bible scholars who believe in a literal interpretation of Scripture.

Israel does exist. It is not a perfect state, but is a marvelous example of unique national resurrection. Israel is not perfect. She has not received her Messiah, but there is coming a day Israel shall receive her Messiah.

“And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and of supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for his firstborn” (Zech 12:10).

“And in that day His feet will stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem on the east, and the mount of Olives shall be split in two from east to west, making a very large valley; half of the mountain shall move toward the north and half of it toward the south. … And the LORD shall be King over all the earth. In that day it shall be—“The LORD is one,” and His name one” (Zech 14:4 & 9).

And we Christian believers will return with Christ to reign with Him. “If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if we deny him, he also will deny us” (2 Tim 2:12). “Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, ‘The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign for ever and ever!’” (Rev. 11:15) .