Of absorbing interest to many students in the world today is the divine outlook presented in the Scriptures concerning the international Jewish problem and the final return of the Jews to their homeland. It becomes obvious to the most casual reader of the Old Testament prophecies that God is steadily working out His sovereign will in a vast and comprehensive plan, having for its three main objectives:
i) completing and taking out of the world the one true Church of the redeemed for a heavenly people;
ii) the pardoning and receiving of the Jewish remnant back to the land of Israel as the leading nation of His soon-coming earthly kingdom;
iii) the subjugation of all the Gentile nations to the benign and righteous monarchy of the One whose right it is to rule among men, both by virtue of His creatorial rights, and also by reason of His redemptive suffering for the sins of Adam’s fallen race.
It was about 2000 years bc that Canaan first came into the world’s limelight through being assigned to Abraham and his heirs by a divine covenant remarkable for its unequivocal language and its binding character. “Unto thy seed will I give this land” (Gen. 12:7). “And I will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee, the land wherein thou art a stranger, all the land of Canaan, for an everlasting possession” (Gen. 17:8).
Time and time again this covenant was confirmed to the heirs of Abraham. Unlike most of the other divine commitments, this covenant was unconditional, and the Deed of Gift to Abraham was in perpetuity. That meant that no moral lapse or disobedience on the part of the Twelve Tribes could ever annul the promise. Though, in the event of national disobedience or apostasy, the children of Israel might subsequently be scattered among the Gentile nations—as indeed they were—to be punished doubly in proportion to the divine light and privileges which they had enjoyed; notwithstanding, the prophets are all unanimous in their declaration that Israel would one day return to the Land, to take her place at the head of the millennial kingdom of the Messiah.
For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice… Afterward shall the children of Israel return and seek the Lord (Hos. 3:4-5).
And I will bring again the captivity of My people of Israel, and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them…and I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be pulled up out of their land which I have given them, saith the Lord thy God (Amos 9:14-15).
But in the last days it shall come to pass, that the mountain of the house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills; and people shall flow unto it. And many nations shall come, and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the house of the God of Jacob; and He will teach us of His ways, and we will walk in His paths: for the law shall go forth of Zion, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem (Micah 4:1-2).
For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken…Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He fought in the day of battle. And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives, which is before Jerusalem on the east, and the Mount of Olives shall cleave in the midst thereof (Zech. 14:2-4).
By these and many other references, the Bible makes it clear that at the end of the Gentile domination, which reaches its climax in the Antichrist, the Jews will be gathered back to the land for the millennial kingdom.
Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city: for henceforth there shall no more come unto thee the uncircumcised and the unclean. Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem: loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion. For thus saith the Lord, Ye…shall be redeemed… (Isa. 52:1-3).
How can the nation bear fruit while still it acknowledges no Messiah, and has neither a temple nor a sacrifice? In vain did their national prophets warn them that their Messiah was to be born in Bethlehem and be called a Nazarene; that He would be “a man of sorrows,” “pierced,” “cut off” and “rejected”; yet, having made His soul “an offering for sin,” He was to “see His seed” and the pleasure of the Lord was to “prosper in His hand.” Despite these and scores of other prophecies being fulfilled before the very eyes of the Jews in the person of Christ, and despite the dynamic power of the Jewish apostles and other Christians who after Pentecost turned the world upside down by their preaching of the gospel of Christ, the Jews as a nation remained obdurate. They had rejected their Messiah, the Son of God, and calamities came upon them.
Today, after nearly two thousand years, whether in Palestine or out of it, God’s displeasure still rests upon the Jewish people. Persecuted and perplexed, they know not what awaits them on the morrow.
But the severest trial both for the Jewish people and also for the Gentile nations lies still ahead. It is known in Scripture as the “Time of Jacob’s Trouble.”
And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of Thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time; and at that time Thy people shall be delivered… (Dan. 12:1).
For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be. And except those days should be shortened, there should no flesh be saved: but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened…And then shall appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (Mt. 24:21-22, 30).
This will be when the flood tide of war, leading up to the great Armageddon, rolls across the Middle East; Antichrist having violated his covenant with the Jews “in the midst of the week” (Dan. 9:27). In this bitterest hour of woe and judgment, the Lord will suddenly return to the Mount of Olives with power and great glory (Zech. 14:4); the Jews will be brought face to face with the One who was nailed to a Roman gibbet on Calvary.
And I will pour upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and of supplications: and they shall look upon Me whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him… (Zech. 12:10).
This mourning of the Jews will be followed by national repentance and forgiveness:
Comfort ye, comfort ye My people, saith your God. Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned… (Isa. 40:1,2).
Thus shall sorrow be turned into joy. Jerusalem will be the world’s political and spiritual center of gravity. Vacillating democracies and arrogant dictators will give place to Christ’s sovereign sway. The Church in heaven, the Jew in the Holy Land, the Gentile nations around, all will be in complete subjection to His will. The millennial reign will be ushered in; there will be peace, plenty, and longevity on the earth; the curse on creation will be removed. The Jewish problem will be solved.
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose…they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God…behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; He will come and save you…And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water…And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The Way of Holiness…but the redeemed shall walk there: and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away (Isa. 35).
ABOVE THE STORM
Earth, what a sorrow lies before thee!
None like it in the shadowy past,
The sharpest throe that ever tore thee—
E’en though the briefest and the last.
I see the fair moon vail her luster,
I see the sackcloth of the sun;
The shrouding of each starry cluster,
The three-fold woe of earth begun.
I see the shadow of earth’s sunset,
And wrapped in these the Avenger’s form,
I see the Armageddon onset,
But I shall be above the storm.
There comes the moaning and the sighing,
There come the hot tears’ heavy fall,
The thousand agonies of dying,
But I shall be beyond them all!
—Author Unknown