CAN ANYBODY REASONABLY THINK THE RESURRECTION AND SURVIVAL OF ISRAEL WOULD BE POSSIBLE ABSENT THE UNLIMITED POWER OF GOD?
In 1967, I began a life-long fascination with the Second World War and the Nazi plague. I used my allowance to buy a paperback copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. I bought it at the TG&Y store at SW 73rd and May in Oklahoma City. I paid $1.95 plus tax; the hardback version cost $10.00. The book was my first introduction to the true definition of evil and the price that evil exacts from the righteous.
THE NAZI HOLOCAUST
I was particularly moved by the suffering imposed on European Jews. In 1939 there were 9.7 million Jews alive in Europe. In 1947, 3.9 million Jews were left alive in Europe. From 1939 until 1945, the plague of Nazism had killed more than 6 million Jews. Unfortunately, the war against the Jews was the one war Hitler did win. Winston Churchill called it the greatest and most horrible crime ever committed in the history of the world.
When Allied troops reached Auschwitz, they were stunned by piles of hair brushes, bales of human hair, decorations made from human skin, and bins containing thousands of pairs of children’s shoes. The Nazis had invented a device that converted human fat into soap. They carefully calculated the profits to be derived from the use of slave labor and the efficient processing and disposal of human corpses. The Nazis expected each slave laborer to live nine months. Each was to be fed on six-tenths of a Reichsmark. Each was to be rented to businesses for a rental of 6 Reichsmarks per day. The cost to clothe these slaves for nine months was thought to be one-tenth of a Reichsmark. The cost of cremation was figured at 2 Reichsmarks. The average monthly net profit was 200 Reichsmarks, not including profits from the sale of bones and ashes. The profit also was derived by sale of other valuables such as personal possessions, gold teeth, bridge work and so on.
Anyone that believes God did not have every intention of using that tragedy to create a triumph has never read the Scriptures.
Psalm 149 prophetically stated:
Praise the LORD. Sing to the LORD a new song, his praise in the assembly of the saints. Let Israel rejoice in their Maker; let the people of Zion be glad in their King. Let them praise his name with dancing and make music to him with tambourine and harp. For the LORD takes delight in his people; he crowns the humble with salvation. Let the saints rejoice in this honor and sing for joy on their beds. May the praise of God be in their mouths and a double-edged sword in their hands, to inflict vengeance on the nations and punishment on the peoples, to bind their kings with fetters, their nobles with shackles of iron, to carry out the sentence written against them. This is the glory of all his saints. Praise the LORD. (NIV)
Even after the Allied victory in 1945, the assassination of Jews continued, especially in Poland, resulting in hundreds of additional murders of Jews. It has always been my opinion that the Soviet Union’s decision to build the Berlin Wall and to put both East Germany and Poland behind its iron curtain was no less than a fulfillment of Psalm 149. Very often, innocent people are harmed when the full weight of the consequences of sin come crashing down.
In Luke 13:1-5, Jesus was confronted about the vile actions of murderers of his countrymen:
Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them – do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.” (NIV)
GOD PROMISES TO REDEEM ISRAEL
God’s promises to Israel are numerous and specific, and leave no doubt that God would redeem Israel. Psalm 22:23-26 elaborates:
You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows. (NIV)
Paul reminded us that Israel is still the recipient of its covenant with God.
I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.” As far as the gospel is concerned, they are enemies on your account; but as far as election is concerned, they are loved on account of the patriarchs, for God’s gifts and his call are irrevocable. Just as you who were at one time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience, so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God’s mercy to you. For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.
Romans 11:25-32 (NIV).
Some people do not understand the scope of God’s mercy and do not realize that the word “all†is ad infinitum, bearing of no exception and all inclusive. That same misunderstanding leads to the inability to see that “the rest†of Biblical prophecy, directed at the Second Coming of the Messiah, began to be fulfilled on May 14, 1948, when Ezekiel’s prophecy was finally fulfilled. Ezekiel 37:1-17 (NIV):
The hand of the LORD was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, `Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’”
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army.
Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, `Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.’”
The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, `Belonging to Judah and the Israelites associated with him.’ Then take another stick of wood, and write on it, `Ephraim’s stick, belonging to Joseph and all the house of Israel associated with him.’ Join them together into one stick so that they will become one in your hand.
THE DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL
In the first three verses, we are told that Ezekiel is taken by the Spirit of the Lord to a valley full of bones that were very old. We know from history that every time Israel was destroyed, both those times recited in the Scriptures and those times related by other historical documents, Israel retained some territorial integrity and some national identity. There was a remnant that remained. Ezekiel was a minister and prophet to Judean exiles in Babylon. Daniel was a son of the aristocracy and was a hostage taken by Nebuchadnezzar to guarantee the conduct of Israel’s ruling class.
It was not until 70 AD that the Romans, in a siege predicted by Jesus in the first part of Matthew 24, destroyed the Temple, the walls of Jerusalem and much of the city. It was in that act of pacification that the Romans destroyed the territorial integrity of Israel in a way that seemed permanent and eternal. There were survivors but there was no real remnant culture, society or people. Jews became a people without a country and without a place. The Jews became a vagabond nation, living elsewhere and finding persecution in some places, but fortunately, not universally. Two thousand years passed, in which the bones of Israel became quite dry indeed. There had been no period in history in which the bones had been so dry.
THE MODERN RESTORATION OF ISRAEL
In verses 4 through 10, the Lord showed Ezekiel his plan to restore those dry bones to life and to us, that plan is now history. Israel declared its independence on May 14, 1948, on the land the United Nations had set aside. The Arab Legion, a combined army fielded by the Arab states of the region, was commanded by a British general. The British never expected the nation of Israel to survive and were initially embarrassed when it did, because their military leadership was defeated. World public opinion also seemed ready to permit yet another slaughter of Jews. That may not be so surprising, because the Allies during World War II, even after discovering the true nature of the Nazi Holocaust, did not bomb the death camps. None of them were put out of their grisly business until liberation by Allied infantry.
In 1949, the United Nations, against British-led opposition, recognized Israel and Israel became the 59th member of the United Nations. In 1950, the parliament of Israel passed the Law of Return which authorized every Jew on the planet to come to Israel as a citizen. That is why the state of Israel now numbers more than 5 million persons in less than half the time Oklahoma has been a state and accumulated merely 3 million residents. Also, in 1950, the United States, France and Great Britain issued the Tripartite Declaration which included a military guarantee of the security of Israel.
But nothing has come to Israel freely. Israel’s territory was expanded by a third during the 1947-1948 war for independence. Jordan seized the West Bank and Egypt seized the Gaza strip, killing hopes for a Palestinian homeland. Thus, the PLO’s claim that Israel is at fault because there is no Palestinian homeland is bogus. Not until after the 1967 war did Israel occupy those areas. Only then could the Palestinians truthfully say that Israel was an impediment to Palestinian statehood.
After the 1973 Yom Kippur War, Israel’s political will, fueled by a legitimate need for secure borders and the lost lives of its citizen soldiers in two wars in less than ten years, was to continue to occupy and assimilate the West Bank and Gaza. That remained Israel’s strategy until Ariel Sharon himself, an author of that vision of Israel’s borders, began to retreat from that view prior to his demise.
GOD IS IN CHARGE
In verses 11 through 14, Ezekiel, reciting God’s declarations, made it clear that God’s intention in reviving Israel was none other than to confirm that God is in charge. Israel’s impossible existence against all odds cannot be explained by any secular logical.
Throughout, one of the central issues has been the possession and rule of Jerusalem. Israel moved its parliament to Jerusalem, but most nations maintained their embassies at Tel Aviv. Jordan took over rule of the Arab half of the city and promptly destroyed nearly all Jewish places of worship and memorials, including cemeteries. Christians also found Muslim rule problematic, although the Muslims maintained Christian holy places to keep the tourist trade alive. The Arab states attempted to isolate Israel by imposing an economic boycott and refusing to cooperate in the connection of telephone and other facilities. Nevertheless, during the boycott years, Israel’s GNP increased 10% per year.
In 1956, when Egypt nationalized the Suez Canal in an effort to block Israel’s ability to reach the Mediterranean Sea, Britain and France made plans to invade Egypt to keep the sea lanes open. Israel “conspired†with Britain and France, no other word fits, by invading the Sinai and seizing the Gaza strip back from Egyptian control. Meanwhile, British and French paratroops seized the Suez Canal, and Egypt ended up with foreign troops controlling much of its territory after a couple of weeks of war. Egyptian humiliation became the dominate feature of Egyptian history until Egypt made peace with Israel.
In the 1960s, Israel and the Arab states began a tug of war over water, leading to a mutual defense treaty between Egypt and Syria. Also, in 1964, the Arab states created the Palestine Liberation Organization, the PLO, to conduct commando raids in Israel, which resulted in three years of commando raids and Israeli counter-attacks. Meanwhile, the Arab states commenced a military build-up that telegraphed intent to attack Israel. On June 5, 1967, Israel, led militarily by Moshe Dayan, attacked Egyptian and Syrian forces, destroying 350 military planes and killing 20,000 Arab soldiers in 48 hours, against loses of 766 men, and winning the war in six days. As a result of this war, Israel had complete possession and control of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the 7,000 square mile West Bank and the Golan Heights in Northern Israel.
Indeed, Israel was in a near constant state of military confrontation from 1967 until the 1990s. The 1967 war was followed by the Egyptian War of Attrition, which was followed by the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Egypt and Syria simultaneously attacked to try and regain territories lost in 1967. In the 1973 war, Israel lost in nineteen days 2,656 dead (three times as many soldiers per capita as lost by the US in the Vietnam War in a decade), 102 war planes (the Arabs lost 432), and 400 tanks (2,250 Egyptian and Syrian Soviet built tanks were destroyed or captured). The 1973 war was followed by more years of PLO attacks, war with the PLO in the West Bank and in Lebanon, and numerous terrorist attacks. Indeed, the leading literary efforts of academicians to document the Israeli–Palestinian conflict usually omit specific discussion of terrorist attacks to avoid undue length.
My point is this: can anybody reasonably think the resurrection and survival of Israel would be possible absent the unlimited power of God?! While it is true that Israel was equipped by the United States, and while it is true that the Arab world was still leaving behind medievalism, by 1967, and especially by 1973, Egypt and Syria were equipped with literally thousands of tanks and hundreds of planes by the Soviet Union and trained by Soviet military advisors. Tank battles occurred in 1973 that were larger than any in World War II.
What this brief history should teach us is that Israel not only has a role to play in the history of the future, Israel has a role to play in the prophecy of the past about the future. In other words, the days of the Second Coming have begun.
