Israel’s Rebirth
By Dave Hunt

Nothing conceivable by human imagination could exceed the miracle of Israel’s astonishing rebirth after centuries of desolation, the worldwide scattering of the Jews, and Hitler’s Holocaust. In the nearly 60 years since then, we have seen that nation’s remarkable preservation in the face of repeated military attempts to destroy her by enemies that outnumber her forty to one, and overwhelming opposition at the United Nations.
Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and has been a member of the UN for more than 50 years. Yet it is the only one of the nearly 200-member nations that is denied the right to take its rotating term on the UN Security Council. Nearly 3,500 years ago, the Bible declared that Israel “shall not be reckoned among the nations” (Numbers 23:9).
There was even a November 1975 UN resolution that equated Zionism (the belief that Jews have the right to live in their own homeland) with racism. In effect, that resolution (reversed in 1991, over the protests of the Arab bloc) condemned the very existence of Israel – yet she will not be intimidated or die. She remains today one of the most phenomenal miracles in human history, in spite of suffering official condemnation by the UN hundreds of times with scarcely a whisper against those who have repeatedly attacked with the intent to annihilate her!
Israel is by far the major topic in the Bible. How overwhelmingly this is true may be seen in the following comparisons: grace and gracious together are found 201 times; salvation and saved occur 268 times; love, loved, and lovest are found 420 times; peace is found 429 times; Christ and Jesus are found 1,538 times; Israel and Jacob are found 2,923 times.
It is not surprising then, that Israel is the major topic of Bible prophecy. There are hundreds of promises of her full and final restoration in the “promised land” in the “last days,” with the Messiah reigning over her in righteousness. It is to Israel that Christ returns to conquer the Antichrist, to establish His kingdom, and to rule the world from Jerusalem. Nor have any been lost. The myth of the “ten lost tribes,” if true, would prove the Bible false.
Paul referred to the twelve tribes as existing in his day and hoping for their restoration (Acts 26:7). James wrote his epistle “to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad” (James 1:1). If the twelve tribes of Israel did not exist to be gathered to the land God have them, there could be no second coming of Christ to rescue and rule over them. Christ’s promise to His disciples that they would sit on the throne “judging the twelve tribes of Israel (Luke 22:30) would be a lie and would prove that e was not the Savior. Likewise, God would have been a proven liar, and Satan would have achieved a stalemate in his battle with God for control of the universe.
Who would have dreamed a century ago – or even 60 years ago – that after the Jews had returned to this insignificant piece of real estate, it would be the focus of the world’s attention week after week, year after year, decade after decade? And not casual or ordinary attention, but one born of fear and uncertainty as to how to deal with this new nation in relation to its Muslim neighbors, and of how to prevent war in that area from becoming a global holocaust. Yet what has happened is exactly what the Bible prophesied: “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about… And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in peaces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it” (Zechariah 12:2,3).

And who would have been so foolish as to imagine that, after Israel’s rebirth, this Lilliputian nation’s armed forces would rival in power and exceed in efficiency those of the United States and Russia! Tiny Israel, occupying about one-sixth of one percent of the land in the Arab world, has been more than a match for the surrounding Arab nations, though their tanks, planes, and other armaments outnumber hers several times over. And for decades, the Arab nations were given every possible help from the Soviets against Israel, from the latest arms to technical and strategic advisors by the thousands. After Iraq took over Kuwait in August 1990 and threatened all enemies with poison gas, syndicated columnist George Will gave the following tribute to Israel’s courage and military capabilities: “…the West should remember with gratitude recent history’s single, most effective and beneficial act of arms control, Israel’s 1981 bombing of Iraq’s embryonic nuclear weapons program.”
So far, the periodic fighting that breaks out over Israel has been confined to the Middle east. Everyone knows, however, that sooner or later a battle over that controversial land will explode into Armageddon. This, too, the Bible foretold 2,500 years ago: “I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle…Then shall the LORD go forth and fight against those nations…And His feet shall stand in that day upon the Mount of Olives…And the LORD shall be King over all the earth” (Zechariah 14:2-4,9).

Modern Israel has many faults, for which we do not excuse her and for which she will yet taste God’s judgments. She is back in her land not because of her own merit but because God is fulfilling His promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, as He swore that He would in the last days. We may be certain that the God, who brought her back to her land in fulfillment of His promises, though she continues to reject her Messiah, will not allow Israel to be uprooted again (Jeremiah 30-32; Ezekiel 35-39).
The importance of Israel in last-days events and of understanding the prophecies concerning her and her land cannot be overstated. Even though Christ defeated Satan at the Cross and gave proof of His victory by rising from the dead, there could be no final resolution of this battle if Satan could, by destroying the Jews, prevent God’s solemn promises to Israel from being fulfilled. So far, all such attempts have failed. However, the Antichrist will stage one massive final effort to effect a permanent solution to what Hitler called the “Jewish problem.” Christ Himself will personally return to earth at that time to save those who have “endured to the end” (Matthew 24:13).
Nothing else in all of history comes even close to the preservation of the Jews as an identifiable ethic group – despised worldwide, hated, persecuted, killed as no other people exactly as foretold, and then brought back to their ancient land. Modern and tiny Israel has the greatest impact of any nation upon today’s world, all in fulfillment of specific prophecies. The irrefutable fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies provides conclusive proof that God exists, that the Bible is His exclusive revelation to man, and that the Jews are His chosen people, the “apple of His eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10; Zechariah 2:8).

The Revived Roman Empire

We have also witnessed in recent years the formative stages of the fulfillment of that other strategic prophecy that I heard so much about in my youth: the revival of the ancient Roman Empire prophesied for the “last days.” It has been fascinating to watch the concept of a loose union of six Western European nations under the “Treaty of Rome” gradually expand to include, as of this writing, 15 member countries, with 10 more scheduled to join shortly. A new charter is being written, and the issue whether and in what manner to give “God” any mention is being debated. The Pope argues that the charter should stress that “Christianity holds a privileged position” in Europe – a meaningless statement that neither defines “Christianity” nor its supposed privileges, but could help to prepare for Antichrist. Although many students of Bible prophecy have equated the European Union (EU) with the revived Roman Empire, the Caesars controlled a far wider kingdom – the world of their day.
Formation of the EU has been only the first step, and one that students of Bible prophecy long anticipated and have been watching carefully. How could the same process extend throughout the entire territory that was once under the Caesars? That was the big question, now answered at least in part. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, beginning in the fall of 1989, has set in motion a process that promises to unite all nations on earth, thereby establishing the one-world government over which Antichrist will reign.
Already the door has been opened to include, in a United Europe, even the former Soviet Union and her satellites – a concept that was until very recently totally unthinkable. If this occurs, the very size, as well as the economic and military power, of the European Union (EU), stretching from the Atlantic to the farthest reaches of Siberia, will force the remainder of the world to join as well. As one well-known analyst has written: “Membership [in the EU] is already open to those European peoples who have embraced democracy and are willing to do a deal to enter. That being so, as Europe behind the Iron Curtain liberalizes, it seems right and inevitable that the EU should expand eastward… In the very long term, the European structure will be considered the prototype for something much more ambitious. Talk of world government is at least a century old and has gone nowhere. But an ever-widening association, based on shared cultural values, is a more promising idea. The European cultural concept is not a conventional idea. It is a global one. We are taking the first steps toward an ecumenical community that will ultimately spread to all corners of our planet.”

This secular writer had no idea that he was reporting upon the fulfillment of one of the most important and amazing prophecies in the Bible. The ‘global…ecumenical community” to which he refers is none other than the worldwide revived Roman Empire over which the Antichrist will reign.
The revival of the Roman Empire presently underway is not merely the latest in the long string of prophecies fulfilled down through the centuries that demonstrates that the Bible is, as it claims, the Word of God. More than that, it is a most important sign of the nearness of the revelation of Antichrist and of Christ’s second coming, when He will confront the impostor face to face here upon Planet Earth. And the Rapture comes first!

Dave Hunt is a bestselling author and internationally esteemed researcher, lecturer and scholar. Over 4 million copies of his books have been sold, including works that have been translated into more than 40 languages.

(Source: Countdown to the Second Coming – Dave Hunt, The Berean Call, www.thebereancall.org )

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Israel’s Rebirth By Dave Hunt

Israel’s Rebirth
By Dave Hunt