SundayReflection
2nd July 2023
James W. Goll asks
Can a Nation
Be Born in a Day?
(Hint: Yes!)
When God asks an outrageous question, He already knows
the answer. And usually, it is to make a strong point.
In this case, certainly one point is -
"Is anything impossible for God?"
And the obvious answer to any student of God's Word is an
obvious, "No!"
But perhaps another more important point in the case of this question
posed by God is - "Do I keep My promises?"
"Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things?
Can a land be born in one day? Can a nation be given birth all at once?
As soon as Zion was in labour, she also delivered her sons."
.... Isaiah 66:8
People worldwide have asked,
"In the past fifty years or so, what is God's greatest prophetic event?"
The greatest prophetic occurrence in the past hundred years is the
restoration of the Jewish people to their Land of Promise,
which today is the country of Israel.
Over the years, the word Aliyah ("ascent") has become very dear to
Jewish people and believing Gentiles alike, as prophetic Scriptures
about the regathering of the Jewish people from the ends of the earth
are fulfilled right before our eyes.
Aliyah, simply put, means to go from a lower place to a higher place -
the process of returning to the homeland.
Isaiah 11:11-12 says,
"Then it will happen on that day that the Lord will again
recover with His hand the second time the remnant of His people...
And He will lift up a flag for the nations and assemble the banished
ones of Israel, and will gather the dispersed of Judah from the
four corners of the earth ".
This prophecy is extremely important.
The well-being of the Jewish people has always hinged on the balance
of the level of their obedience to God, His faithful promises to
their ancestors and His eternal purpose and love for them.
In general terms, when God's people obey Him, they prosper.
When they do not, they are judged.
This biblical law of sowing and reaping still applies, even under the
grace of God received through the finished work of Jesus.
British Bible teacher Lance Lambert says of them:
"No other nation in the history of mankind has twice been uprooted from
its land, scattered to the ends of the earth and then brought back again
to that same territory.
If the first exile and restoration was remarkable,
then the second is miraculous.
Israel has twice lost its statehood and its national sovereignty,
twice had its capital and hub of religious life destroyed,
its towns and cities razed to the ground, its people deported and
dispersed, and then twice had it all restored again.
Furthermore, no other nation or ethnic group has been scattered to the
four corners of the earth, and yet survived as an easily identifiable
and recognisable group."
The first exile took place under Babylonian rule.
As for the second great exile, Roman forces serving under the Roman
commander Titus destroyed and dismantled Jerusalem in August AD 70,
exactly as Jesus prophesied 37 years earlier.
The Romans killed 600,000 Jewish residents and deported 300,000 more
to locations scattered around the Empire.
The forces of Roman Emperor Hadrian crushed the last Jewish uprising,
led by Bar Kokhba.
Some observers believe this might have helped plant early seeds of
anti-Semitism in the fledgling Church.
Hadrian's hatred for the Jews burned so brightly that he changed
Jerusalem's name to "Aelia Capitolina" (his given name was Aelius)
and declared it
"a Roman city forever which no Jew could enter under pain of death."
He built a temple to Jupiter on the site of the former Temple where
sacrifices had been made to Jehovah. Then he renamed the land
"Syria Palaestina" (Latin for Philistia).
Caesar overlooked an important detail:
Unlike the powerless gods of Rome, the God of Israel was and is
alive and well.
The Jewish people in Jerusalem and Judea were recaptured,
died violent deaths, or were scattered to distant lands.
This second dispersion following the death and resurrection of Jesus
the Messiah lasted far longer than the first.
It would not end after five hundred - or even a thousand - years.
Yes, Jerusalem is in the centre of God's heart and attention.
It is the only city mentioned in the entire Bible for which all peoples
in all generations are to pray by name.
Our posture toward the reunification of the city of Jerusalem under
Jewish rule is important to God.
And what is important to God must become important to His people.
God Keeps His Promises
Israel is the only nation on earth that was born in a day.
Bible references avaiable, on request
James W. Goll
This article is adapted from Chapter 1: "The Birth of a Nation" in
The Mystery of Israel and the Middle East book by James W. Goll.
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