“Thus saith the LORD, which giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, which divideth the sea when the waves thereof roar; The LORD of hosts is his name: If those ordinances depart from before me, saith the LORD, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me for ever” (Jeremiah 31:35-36).
It is not an exaggeration to say that the eyes of the world are focused on Israel these days. How is it that a tiny nation with a land mass smaller than the state of New Jersey and a population of slightly more than eight million has become the geopolitical center of the world?
On May 14, 1948, the United Nations officially recognized the state of Israel, with United States president Harry Truman determining the deciding vote. The Israeli government established the state of Israel, thus fulfilling the twenty-five-hundred-year-old prophecy recorded in the Bible, “For I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land” (Ezekiel 36:24).
To comprehend what an incredible act of God it is to preserve the beleaguered Jews throughout history and then return them to their land, consider this observation by Gary Frazier:
“You cannot find the ancient neighbors of the Jews anywhere. Have you ever met a Moabite? Do you know any Hittites? Are there any tours to visit the Ammonites? Can you find the postal code of a single Edomite? No! These ancient peoples disappeared from history and from the face of the earth. Yet the Jews, just as God promised, returned to their land.” – Gary Frazier, Signs of the Coming of Christ (Arlington, TX: Discovery Ministries, 1998), p. 67.
In spite of undergoing great persecution and suffering such as the Holocaust, where six million Jews were murdered, the Jews have survived and will survive because of God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In fact, as the Scripture quoted above by Jeremiah states, only if the sun, moon and stars disappear will the nation of Israel cease to exist! Those who are bent on the destruction of Israel are fighting a losing battle! Why? Because they are fighting against God Himself! Israel is “the apple of his [God’s] eye” according to Zechariah 2:8. To put it in other terms, to go against Israel is to poke God in the pupil of His eye.
The fact that there are not only Jews today but that they also are gathered again to their own land, the land that God promised to their fathers, is evidence that God is still on the throne and that His promises are true. God said through the prophet Malachi, “For I am the LORD, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6).
There are yet many promises to the nation of Israel that remain to be fulfilled, and we can be sure that they will be! In the meanwhile, we are to “pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee” (Psalm 122:6). Yes, God has promised to bless those who bless Israel and to curse those who curse Israel (Genesis 12:3). Some nations have learned the truth of that the hard way. I pray God that America will never be one of them!