ESCHATHOLOGICAL STUDY SERIES II
TEXT: Ezekiel 36: 1 – 37
INTRODUCTION: – As we continue in the study of the end time prophecies as concerning the Jewish people, let us count ourselves privileged to live in an age when God is fulfilling many of His promises to the Israelites.
Fulfilling Prophecies Concerning The Jewish People
1) The Prophets of old (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel) prophesied repeatedly that the day will come when God will re-gather His people from among all the countries where they had been dispersed back to the land – Palestine (Isa.11:10-12; Ezekiel 36:22-28).
This mark able re-gathering of the Israelites from all the end of the earth started when the World War I, when the control of Palestine was transferred from a nation that hated the Jews (the Turks) to a nation that was sympathetic to their cause (the Great Britain),
The Holocaust of World War II motivated the Jewish people to return to their land.
As at 1900AD, there were only about 40,000 Jews in Palestine. But by the end of World War II, the number has risen to 800,000. And they continued to return in mass back to their land there land that today, they were estimated to be over 9million.
2) Nationhood: – In Isaiah 66”7-8, the Lord promised that the nation Israel would be re-established.
On May, 1948, this cornerstone prophetic events that many Scholars have pointed to for over 400 years amidst much scoffing and ridicule by critics, come to pass as Israel was declared an Independent nation i.e. Declaration of Establishment of State of Israel.
3. Reclamation: – In our text we hear God promising that with the re-gathering of the people and re-establishment of the nation Israel in their own land, the land would bloom again (also read Isa.35:1-7; Joel 2:21-27) and that people would wonder and exclaim when they see the bloom of the land.
Pilgrims all over the World visits Israel and they exclaim when they see the land flowing with milk and honey.
When the Jewish people started returning to homeland into the late 19th century, it was a total waste/ land. Nearly all the trees had been cut down and the soil was badly eroded, the land could be taken for a desert, most valleys has become malaria-infested swamps. But as the people were returning, they started planting trees, reclaiming the soil and draining the swamps.
Today, there are well over 200 million trees planted in Israel. All the former malaria-infested swamps have been converted to cultivated land, with water from the sea of Galilee channeled to the deserts causing the land to bloom again.
4) Jerusalem: – The Lord Jesus said one of the surest signs of His imminent return would be the –re-occupation of Jerusalem by the Jews (Luke 21:24). Jerusalem since 70AD had been occupied by the Gentile nations (for 1,807 years) until 7th June, 1967, when Israel won the city back during the six day war on 6th December, 2017; President Trump of USA declared the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital city of Israel to fulfill the July, 1980, Jerusalem law passed by the Knasset, which declared Jerusalem the United Capital of Israel.