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"And
say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children
of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather
them on every side, and bring them into their own land" (Ezekial 37:21).
"And they shall fall by the edge of the sword, and shall be led away
captive into all nations: and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the
Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there
shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the
earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
Men's hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things
which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and
great glory. And when these things begin to come to pass, then look
up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh...So likewise
ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God
is nigh at hand" (Luke 21:24-28,31).
I. The Wandering Jew
A. Driven from Jerusalem.
After the conquest of Alexander the Great, Antiochus IV tried to unify the
people in his kingdom by forcing a single religion upon them. The Jews
refused and the Hasmonean revolt took place. Under the leadership of Judas
Maccabeus, "the hammer," Judea became once again a free country. However,
internal conflicts soon weakened it and made it easy prey for the Roman
General Pompey. For a time Herod tried to restore some of the nation's
greatness. After his death procurators were made responsible for
maintaining order, but the Jewish people proved to be a fanatical people
who refused to submit. The Roman General Vespasian was sent there to rule,
and when he became emperor he sent his son Titus to take command of the
area. In a.d. 70 Titus captured Jerusalem after many months of siege. The
Temple was destroyed and thousands of Jews were slaughtered. After the
destruction of Jerusalem the Jews lived in communities scattered over the
Roman Empire. With this dispersal Judaism became more of a matter of
religion than of nationalism. Gradually the Jews accepted the idea that
they were a people without a land. A final effort to liberate the country
was fought in a.d. 135 at Masada on the Dead Sea. The uprising was drowned
in the blood of those who gave their lives. The door was closed on
Israel's independence, not to open again for eighteen centuries. Thus
began the long history of the persecution and exile of the Jewish people.
At times they were forbidden entry to Jerusalem. In many countries the
Jews were banished, hunted, and oppressed. They became "the wandering
Jew," living in all countries, crossing all borders and frontiers, and
wandering from land to land. The Jews became a scapegoat to be butchered,
slaughtered, and burned. However, the Mosaic law had given them the needed
direction of life and the moral vigor to survive, even in exile. The Jews
proved to be indestructible. The fact that they survived and were not
annihilated is miraculous and proof of the existence and faithfulness of
God, who at the first revealed Himself to Abraham and made his descendants
a nation of people.
B. Driven from Spain.
By the 12th century the number of Jews was about 1.5 million compared with
an estimated 4.5 million in the 1st century a.d. In the 12th century the
Jews suffered some of the most intense persecution in Spain when a
fanatical sect from North Africa took control of Muslim Spain. The Jews
had to choose between Islam, martyrdom, and flight. Many found a
precarious refuge in northern Spain. Fanaticism continually stirred the
Spanish. In 1391 thousands of Jews were massacred. Thousands were
converted by force and accepted baptism in order to save their lives.
Under Ferdinand II all professing Jews had to choose between baptism and
expulsion. In 1492 most Jews left Spain. The Jewish people continued to
live as exiles throughout the known world. England expelled the Jews in
1290; France expelled them in 1394, and Portugal in 1498. For centuries
Jews were compelled to live in neighborhoods of their own for security.
From the sixteenth century they were compelled to live in walled
enclosures, to be locked in at night, and to wear a distinguishing badge
when outside the walls. In 1516 the Jewish quarter of Venice was called
the Ghetto, and this became a general term for these segregated areas.
C. The Holocaust.
Adolf Hitler had a diabolical hatred of the Jews. He believed that the
only solution to the Jewish problem was to completely exterminate them. In
Nazi Germany genocide became a national political policy. The attempt of
Hitler to exterminate the Jews has become known as the "Holocaust."
Commonly the Nazi soldiers arrested the Jews in the middle of the night.
Awakened out of sleep, they were taken quickly without time to assemble
any personal belongings. They were loaded into railway cattle cars and
taken to extermination camps. When they reached the camps they were
stripped nude and forced into gas chambers. Afterwards their bodies were
thrown into huge furnaces and burned. A conservative estimate reveals that
at least four million Jews were killed in this manner. Most students of
the Holocaust, however, place the figure at six million or more that were
slaughtered. The Holocaust was the direct result of anti-semitism, which
taught that Jews belonged to a sub-human species. This teaching blamed the
Jews for most social and political problems, and according to anti-
semitism the only solution was the complete annihilation of the Jewish
race.
II. Israel's Blindness During
the Church Age
Hosea 6:2: After two days will he revive
us: in the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight.
Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this
mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in
part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in.
In the thirty-seventh chapter of Ezekiel the prophet gives his vision of
the resurrection of the dry bones. This is a picture of the entire nation
of Jews being resurrected and returning to the land of Israel.
A. The Nation Reborn
Throughout the centuries every Jew longed
for a national home and to have a country to which he belonged. However,
his desire was born in a state of despair and hopelessness. In the
nineteenth century there came a glimmer of light which brought hope. This
glimmer of light was the birth of a political movement called Zionism.
Zionism taught that the land of Palestine belonged to the Jewish nation
and the Jews should have the right to return to their own land. Although
there were many Jews involved in Zionism, there was one man who gave
leadership to the movement--Theodor Herzl. Herzl was born in Budapest in
1860 and died in Vienna in 1904 at the age of forty-four. His main
accomplishment was the writing of a book entitled, The Jewish State, which
was published in 1896. He organized the Zionist Movement and convened the
first Zionist Congress in 1897. After the death of Herzl the new head of
the Zionist Movement was Chaim Weizmann, a chemist who produced a formula
for the manufacture of explosives in 1917. As a reward by the British
government, Lord Balfour issued the declaration that England was in favor
of Palestine becoming a national home for the Jewish people. In the same
year General Allenby captured Palestine from the control of Turkey. This
was followed by the League of Nations giving England the mandate over
Palestine in 1920. Although England tried to encourage Jewish immigration
and at the same time control it, the effort was a failure. During the Nazi
occupation of Europe illegal immigration took place. Thousands of Jews
crossed the Mediterranean in anything that would float. Finally Britain
acknowledged that it could not maintain order and appealed to the United
Nations. On November 29, 1947 the General Assembly of the United Nations
voted in favor of partitioning Palestine. The vote was 33 votes in favor,
13 votes opposed, and 10 abstentions. On May 14, 1948, the establishment
of the State of Israel was proclaimed by David Ben Gurion. The British
withdrew the following day leaving the tiny country of Israel to defend
itself against its enemies.
B.The Nation Blessed and Restored
The tiny state of Israel was restored
with a population of about 650,000 Jews. They were surrounded by seven
hostile Arab countries with a total population of forty million people.
These enemy nations vowed to drive the Jews into the sea. The whole world
seemed convinced that the fate of Israel would be settled within a few
days. However, miracle after miracle took place to preserve these hardy
people. The country was opened freely to Jewish immigration from anywhere
and they came by the thousands. In only forty months 673,000 Jews entered
Palestine. By the year 1959, two million Jews from practically every
continent and country in the world had immigrated into Palestine.
Throughout its first eight years one immigrant entered the State of Israel
every five minutes. The greatest transfer of population in history was
accomplished by one of the smallest countries. At the same time that they
were busy settling thousands of new immigrants into the country, they also
were busy waging war with their surrounding enemies. That they could stave
off their enemies was miraculous; however, much about the new nation was
miraculous. They adopted a constitution, printed postage stamps, built
houses, irrigated and reclaimed the desert, and built factories and
schools. Almost overnight they turned the country into a land flowing with
"milk and honey." Not the least of the miracles was the revival of Hebrew
as the official language. Very few immigrants spoke Hebrew upon their
arrival, but today it is spoken throughout Israel. Zephaniah 3:9 For then
will I turn to the people a pure language, that they may all call upon the
name of the LORD, to serve him with one consent.
C. The Fig Tree
Warning to the Church Matthew 24:32 Now
learn a parable of the fig tree; When his branch is yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh: 33 So likewise ye, when
ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34
Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these
things be fulfilled. One of the greatest fulfilled prophecies foretelling
the Lord's return for His church is the budding of the fig tree.
Symbolically in Scripture, the fig tree is the Jewish nation. As the fig
tree which Jesus found bearing nothing but leaves, Israel has been set
aside for a whole dispensation of time, but today the fig tree is budding
with the renewing of the Jewish nation. The church may know without a
doubt that Jesus Christ is about to return. Every child of God should make
certain that his lamp is trimmed and burning brightly, for Jesus is about
to catch away His bride.
D.Times-Fulness of the Gentiles
Jesus commented that because the people
in Jerusalem did not know the time of His coming, their house was left
"desolate" Matthew 23:38; Luke 13:35. This desolation is to last until the
second coming of Christ, after the church age is complete, when the Jews
will accept the Messiah that they did not recognize the first time. One of
the major signs indicating the nearness of the end of the church age and
second coming of Christ is the return of the Jews to their homeland after
many years of dispersion. Luke 21:24 Jerusalem shall be trodden down of
the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. The "times of
the Gentiles" refers to the time of Gentile domination that began with
Babylon back in the days of the prophet Daniel, and continued under the
Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantine, Ottoman, British, and others. In the
six-day war of June 1967, Israel defeated the Arabs and took over the old
city of Jerusalem. This is a signal that the end of the church age is
near. In contrast;
1. The "times of the Gentiles" refers
to the political nature.
2. In contrast, "the fulness of the
Gentiles" mentioned in Romans 11:25 implies a Spiritual ascendancy of the
Gentiles. Romans 11:25 For I would not, brethren, that ye should be
ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits;
that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of the
Gentiles be come in. Clearly, this blindness to Israel is directly related
to the church age and the predominately Gentile church. That Israel and
Judah would be scattered from their homeland is a recurring theme that
runs throughout the writings of the prophets. Although the prophets may
not have clearly seen the church, they did see the scattering and
rejection of the Jews, which ties directly to the church in that the
church age fits into this time slot in history.
E. Warning to the Unsaved
Soon the last member will be added to the
church. Soon the fullness of the Gentiles will have come. Soon the final
gospel message of the kingdom of God will be preached. Soon the closing
invitation to the unsaved among the Gentiles will be given. The return of
Israel to Palestine is conclusive proof that the time of salvation is
about to close. Every unsaved person should run now to the foot of the
cross of Christ and call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. Only He can give
salvation.
Pastor David Showalter (Click to email)
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