You are living in 1864. The news headlines seem to constantly contradict the prophecies of the Bible about the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel in the Latter Days. Will you interpret your Bible by the current news, or will you understand the Bible as it is written? Will God Fulfill His Word to Restore the Jews to the Land of Israel?...Look & See...
"I will also plant them on their land, And they will not again be rooted out from their land Which I have given them," Says the LORD your God. (Amos 9:15
TWIST AND TURN, COME AND GO, BUMPY ROAD TO FULFILLMENT
The Headlines do not frame our understanding of Bible Prophecy. The Headlines do not set the path and lead the way. The Headlines FOLLOW the prophetic path. The Headlines always catch-up and line-up with the pre-ordained fulfillment of prophesied events. The history of Israel proves this dramatically...
The history of modern Israel shows the up and down, for and against, here today, gone tomorrow flow of the Headlines, which often seemed to denounce any prophetic significance to the Bible prophecies of the Jewish return to the land of Israel. Yet the Headlines actually caught up, and lined up, with the prophecies of the Rebirth of the Nation of Israel.
ISRAEL1
1860--A succession of Books published by Jews between 1860-1900 lit fire to the idea of Zionism (a Jewish return to Jerusalem). Books such as Rome and Jerusalem by Moses Hess, The Eternal People by Russian Jew Peretz Smolenskin, and Judah Pinsker's pamplet Auto-Emancipation. Theodor Herzl founded the Zionist movement, following the impact of his book Der Judenstaat (the Jewish State) with the First Zionist Congress in Switzerland.
1880--First of five (5) Jewish Aliyahs (return to the Land of Israel) from 1880-1948. The original Zionist concept of a return of Jews to Israel flourished.
1896--Theodor Herzl founds the Zionist Movement.
1897--First Zionist Congress, Switzerland.
1903--Herzl made the blunder of recommending the acceptance of land promished by the British and founding a Jewish state in Uganda.
1914--World War I "almost killed the Zionist movement." The Ottoman Empire (Turkey) had control over "Palestine" but sided with the Germans. Zionism declared illegal; Jews executed; 12,000 deported.
1917--The British Balfour Declaration promished the Jews a right to "a national home for the Jewish people" in "Palestine."
1920--British Mandate established British protectorate over Jewish settlement of portions of "Palestine."
1920--Arab nationalism combined with hatred of Jews rose up in the 1920s and threatened the existence of the growing Jewish settlements in "Palestine." Britain could no longer afford to be an active ally, though Jewish territories remained a British Mandate.
1922--Churchhill White Paper limits Jewish immigration to "Palestine."
1939--British White Paper was to limit Jewish immigration for 5 years and then eliminate it altogether. World War II brought on the demise of the British Mandate under the White Paper Agreement (1939), dissecting Palestine into Jewish and Arab "states," and limited Jewish immigration on a schedule that would force it to stop after 5 years.
1942--Then came the "mega-event" of the unspeakble Holocaust of the Jews in Europe at the satanic hand of the Nazis. The Nazi "Final Solution to the Jewish Question" begins--6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust. Fruchtenbaum writes,
"God gathered the Jews out of the wrath of the Holocaust. The events of the Nazi Holocaust, in which six million Jewish people died, create the world stage for Israel to become a state."
Arnold Fruchtenbaum, "Israel In Prophecy," in The Popular Encyclopedia Of Bible Prophecy, Tim LaHaye & Ed Hindson, eds., p.155.
1943--Bermuda Conference to discuss rescue of Jews of Europe fails.
1946--Jewish immigration rejected by British at Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry. Post World War II brought strife and conflict, not only between Jews and Arabs, but between the Jewish settlers and the British over the closed door policy against Jewish immigration to "Palestine."
1947--Britain dropped the situation into the lap of the United Nations in 1947. Britain passes the "Jewish Problem" to the United Nations, who vote to divide "Palestine" between Arab and Jewish states.
1948--State Of Israel proclaimed. On May 14, 1948, Israel proclaimed itself the indepencant State of Israel, followed quickly by an endorsement from America.
1948--The new Jewish State was immediately attacked by overwhelming Arab armies from multiple nations. Multiple and overwhelming Arab armies attack Israel from all sides.
1949--Ignoring pre-mortum obituaries from most of the world, Israel miraculously (God's Hand) pulled off its first of several victories against monstrous Arab armies (again in 1956, '67, '73 and continuing) in its Israeli War Of Independance (1948-49).
This brief survey of the modern history of the State Of Israel shows the "sidewinding" nature of back-and-forth Headlines as they meander seemingly helter-skelter toward the sure fulfillment of a predicted event in Bible Prophecy. The diagram below illustrates this topsy-turvy, jerky characteristic of "breaking news" which today appears to be "for," and tomorrow "against," the fulfillment of prophesied Bible events. It also reminds us that it is not the "breaking news," but rather the immovable rock of Bible Prophecy, which "interprets" the future. Looking at the graph below, how many Bible "believers" were swayed by the negative news to give up on the prophecies of the return of the Jews to the Land of Israel in the Latter Days?
But by the Grace of God, there are always those faithful and steadfast believers who--in spite of the unpopular and often ridiculed swim upcurrent against the prevailing winds of the latest news-- stick with the Bible. Here is an example during the last half of the nineteenth century when any thought that the Jews would ever return, after 18 centuries, to the Land of Israel seemed to not only run counter to the news of the day, but counter to common sense...yet the Bible said otherwise, and in 1864 Dr. John Comming believed it...
"How comes it to pass that as a nation they have been dispersed over every land, yet insulated, separated, and alone amid the nations? ... As a nation they were cut off and dispersed, and it is as a nation that they shall be gathered and restored."
John Cumming, D.D., The Destiny of Nations, Hurst & Blackette, London, 1864
Praise God for His unfathomable Grace in Jesus Christ our Savior.
1. Sources
Max I. Dimont, Jews, God and History, The New American Library-Signet Book, New York, 1962, p.400. (563/400)
H. L. Wilmington, Wilmington's Guide To The Bible, Tyndale House Publishers, Wheaton, IL, 1982, p.968-981. (423/968-981)