Isaiah prophesied some 2700 years ago that Israel would be brought back to their land. This spectacular event was to be a 'flag waving' event for the nations. In other words, when the nations saw this re-gathering they would know God's clock of history was winding down.
Until the 20th Century, skeptics said it would never happen. Many Bible scholars said it was to be taken symbolically, or that it applied to the Church.. However, when the time was right, God began bringing them back, and doing it just as He said He would.
Israel went into captivity because of their sin. Read Leviticus 26:43-45 and you will see that it was exactly fulfilled. Yet, even then God promises to bring them back to the land of their fathers.
“Yet for all that, when they are in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them away, nor shall I abhor them, to utterly destroy them and break My covenant with them; for I am the LORD their God. But for their sake I will remember the covenant of their ancestors, whom I brought out of the land of Egypt in the sight of the nations, that I might be their God: I am the LORD.“– Leviticus 26:44, 45
The final judgment came after as a nation they rejected their Messiah. Regrettably, the first Church, which was largely Jewish, also suffered the judgment. The break came in two parts; 1) the people of Israel were separated from their covenant land and 2) the believers of Israel were separated from their role as leaders in spreading the Gospel and building the Church. Both these breaks will be healed.
In 1948, God began to restore the break with the land.
"’Return, faithless people,' declares the Lord, 'for I am your husband. I will choose one of you from every town and two from every clan and bring you to Zion." - Jeremiah 3:14.
They have returned as a 'faithless' nation. Zionism is largely agnostic in philosophy, but that will change. Often times only one or two of a family survived the Holocaust.
"In those days the house of Judah will join the house of Israel, and together they will come from a northern land to the land I gave your forefathers as an inheritance." - Jeremiah 3:18
They went into exile as two nations, Judah and Israel, but they came back as the single nation of Israel just as Jeremiah prophesied. The Hebrew language, which was dead, is now a living language. The 1st break is being restored.
The 2nd break is beginning to be healed also even now, as the Church begins embracing the 'One New Man' that Paul teaches about:
'His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two (Jew and Gentile), thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.' - Ephesians 2:15, 16 (emphasis added).
While some Jews have accepted Jesus as their savior, they are called Messianic Jews, the days are coming, and very soon, when a series of wars leading up to the great war prophesied in Ezekiel 38 & 39 and known as the war of Gog and Magog will reveal to the Jews that their only protection is God Himself. That war will start the final process of Israel returning to their Messiah, Jesus Christ.
"So I will make My holy name known in the midst of My people Israel, and I will not let them profane My holy name anymore. Then the nations shall know that I am the LORD, the Holy One in Israel. - 'And I will not hide My face from them anymore; for I shall have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,' says the Lord GOD." – Ezekiel 39:7, 29.
This begins the process of restoration that will be finished in the battle known as Armageddon in which all Israel will see Jesus the Messiah returning with the armies of heaven to rescue Israel from the antichrist.
While there are some calling themselves Christians who claim that the Church replaced Israel, that message is not found in the Scriptures. Instead we read the Apostle Paul saying just the opposite –
I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, "LORD, they have killed Your prophets and torn down Your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life"? But what does the divine response say to him? "I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal." Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work. What then? Israel has not obtained what it seeks; but the elect have obtained it, and the rest were blinded. Just as it is written: "God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see and ears that they should not hear, To this very day." . . . I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh and save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead? For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches. And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches. But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. … For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: "The Deliverer will come out of Zion, And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob; For this is My covenant with them, When I take away their sins." – Romans 11:1-27
The seeds of the Replacement Theology were growing even during Paul’s day but, he reminds us of a VERY important point – “remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you.” The true Church’s roots are not in Rome – they are in Israel!
Why should we be praying for Israel and the ‘peace of Jerusalem’? Because, we, the Church, will not be complete without them.
Pastor Charles Cooley
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