The Seed Blog: Centerpiece, Timepiece, No-Peace: Israel

Have you ever thought to yourself as you read Bible stories, "If I could have lived during those days—if I could have seen that—I wouldn't have any trouble believing in God!"? Look no further: today we are going to take an extremely abbreviated trip through the history of Israel on its 75th Year Anniversary. We will see that we not only have historical proof of God's existence, but present-day proof of God's existence. Proof that is beyond accident or man's design; proof that is breathtaking in literal Biblical proportions; and proof that also shows us just how close we truly are to seeing our Lord return. Israel is set as "Center-stage" in Scriptures for God's entire plan of Salvation for mankind. It is the "Show-piece" of His power and sovereignty through the ages and it is the "Timepiece" for all the prophecies about our future. Do not consider it an accident that Israel is at the center of world attention, hatred and problems like no other nation on earth. With so many accusations, so much prejudice, so much hatred—over 1500 rockets fired into Israel in past month—and yet they account for only 1/1000th of the world's population. We need to see how and why God has chosen them as His people throughout history, and what to expect next.

God has held a special purpose for Israel since beginning, to become His instrument of blessing for the entire world. Not because Israel would be more holy, bigger, better than other nations, but seemingly just the opposite: Deuteronomy 7:6-8. God chose Israel before Israel was even conceived as a nation because of the Promise made from God to one faithful man: Abraham: Genesis 18:17-18. To make a long story very short, and skip many verses, this is how God uses Israel to bless all nations of the earth. God uses Israel to bring His Word to all of mankind and as a catalyst to spread the Gospel throughout the world. God uses Israel as the Nation through which He brings the Messiah into the world as its Savior. God uses Israel as the centerpiece to show His wrath for disobedience as well as His power and protection over His own. God uses Israel as the centerpiece to bring about the events leading to His return. God uses Israel as the timepiece to inform His disciples of the season He will return. God uses Israel as the place of His return in the end times. God uses Israel as the place of His dwelling for Eternity when He does return. It is imperative to see where Israel is in the world today and how they got there in order for us to see the reality of God's existence and have a true picture of the End Time scenario. Just before Israel even became a nation for the very first time, God—in His foreknowledge—gave a seemingly crazy prophecy telling of a time when Israel would reject Him entirely, and not only be destroyed as a nation, but be chased from their land and scattered all over the face of the earth, persecuted mercilessly like no other race in history—without a land, a home or hope for many years: Deuteronomy 28:62-67. When that time in history was actually about to come, and Israel rejected Jesus, their Messiah, He spoke of that coming judgment that would follow His Crucifixion again: Luke 21:24; Matthew 24:1-2. He predicted that "Not a single stone would be left in place." We need to get what these prophecies say here. When you reject My Son, the Messiah, I will cause you to be completely devastated. Those who survive will be driven completely from your own country, scattered so harshly that you will have to live among all the other nations on earth for many years, until near the end of time, you will be persecuted, finding no peace, rest or safety. Even your Temple Mount will not only be destroyed, but literally have every stone removed from one another so that it disappears completely. This is a very unusual and dangerous prediction to make as a prophet because many nations go to war—even get defeated or overtaken—but few are completely obliterated and scattered throughout every nation on earth—with no place to call a homeland again. Fewer still, could be markedly persecuted and hated by all nations throughout history. We have the luxury of looking back in history to verify or dispute every prophecy made in these Scriptures—some over 3400 years old—and history tells us that in 70 AD, the Roman General Titus crushed Jerusalem and destroyed their Temple. History tells us that when the Romans burned the Temple, large amounts of gold melted into the crevices of block, causing the soldiers to literally take the entire Temple apart, stone by stone in order to retrieve all of the gold. That is why there is not a trace of where the Temple actually stood today. This alone was an astounding, and a mathematically incomprehensible fulfillment of prophecy to the last detail. By 135 AD, all of the Jews were completely driven from Israel into all the world and banned from ever returning to their land—and just as prophesied—they have literally become the most hated, persecuted group in all of history—labeled "The Wandering Jews." We've seen the persecution and prejudice in our generation through the horrors of the Holocaust; even now, anti-Semitism is at its highest levels since immediately before the Holocaust, and the view of the entire world is apparent with every UN meeting and vote. We can safely say that these highly unusual and very unlikely predictions, made over 3400 years ago, and 2000 years ago, about one specific group of people which have proven to be 100% accurate in every way is incredibly difficult to explain or accept already, and we are not even scratching the surface.
 
 
God made another unusual and difficult to fulfill prophecy about Israel's land that was to occur during the Jews’ dispersion for many years: Ezekiel 38:8: desolate. The land of Israel was to become wasted and barren before they returned home in the Latter Days: Nachmanides- 1267, great Jewish scholar -"Deserted & laid waste..." George Sandys- 1610, son of Edwin Sandys, archbishop of York, was an English traveler, colonist, and poet- "...land was bare of trees. The country is a vast empty ruin." Mark Twain, visited in 1867- “blistering, naked, treeless land.”,
"... given over wholly to weeds - a silent mournful expanse ... There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of a worthless soil, had almost deserted the country." So—again, unusual and specific prophecies were fulfilled to the tee, proven in our history now. As amazing as these prophesies were, the most amazing part is long before Israel was even established as a nation—long before it was annihilated and dispersed to nations—the details of how it would be resurrected again, against all odds, was already written: Isaiah 11:12; Ezekiel 37:12-14. The interesting thing is when this is supposed to happen: Ezekiel 38:8; Luke 21:24. Never in history has a nation been completely demolished and dispersed and returned to their own land again with their culture, language, religion and heritage still intake. These poor Jewish people, who had been without a home for over 1900 years had no political power or influence, no army of their own, had been hunted for extinction by the millions, had no voice, position or control in any other country—they were simply abused, dwindled to nothing, helpless people scattered aimlessly around the globe, and then it happened. On May 14, 1948, the Jews were given their very homeland again and Israel was reborn as a nation overnight: Isaiah 66:8. Against all odds. after almost 2000 years, a hopeless, homeless, group of hunted vagabonds became a nation again as prophesied. But now these poor people had come home to a land that we saw had become desolate and worthless, with no economy, no military, no government—what would happen now? How would they make it in this land? How long would it take them to possibly take root and survive? Again, Scriptures gave one of the most astounding prophesies yet about an amazing transformation that would occur when the Jews came home: Ezekiel 36:8-9, 29-30, 34-36; Isaiah 41:18-20; Isaiah 27:6.
Let's just allow modern day agricultural and forestry reports speak for God's Work here: Even though more than 1/2 the land is desert, with improper climate and water, Israel has become so agriculturally blessed that it can live off of 2/3 of it's own production and export the remaining 1/3 to the world. Agricultural production has expanded 16 times, three times more than population growth. In the 1800's, Israel had less than 1000 trees in whole land—today, there are over 300 million trees (fruit and forest). Israel is the only country in world to enter 21st century with net gain of trees. We have seen areas of the world go from fertile to wilderness in our time (Sahara Desert grows in Africa), but we have never seen wastelands turned fertile. And Israel not only flourished economically, but per capita Israel has won more Nobel Prizes than the U.S., France and Germany. Per capita they have one of the highest numbers of scientists and engineers in the world. Though only about the size of NJ, they are ranked 18th among the top 145 strongest militaries in the world. All of this in 75yrs from nothing. Here are some recent summaries about Israel's flourishing just one generation after becoming a nation: "Israel is one of the most resilient and technologically-advanced market economies in the world.... The country ranks 1st in availability of scientists and engineers, number of start-ups per capita, and venture capital investments per capita..." "Israel is not only a significant military power (and in the region, a superpower) but also a formidable economic machine. A worldwide center for technology that has more companies listed on the Nasdaq than any country other than the U.S., Israel’s economy barely hiccupped in 2008. The shekel, its currency, is strong..." That is an objective description of this country made up of desperate fugitives with nothing, returning to a desolate and barren land just 75 years ago. Listen to God's prophetic statements about the attitude of the world against Israel upon the return to her homeland [and tell me it does not read like today's headline news]. Israel was to be intoxicatingly targeted for destruction by those nations surrounding it—despised by most of the world, and yet untouchable by this vast number of enemies: Zechariah 12:2 (trembling). As a literal miraculous proof of that text in our recent history, three vastly superior armies attacked young Israel less than 20 years after becoming a nation (1967, Egypt, Jordan, and Syria). In an almost supernatural victory—in 6 days—Israel (young and ill-equipped) not only beat all three nations back, but retook her Capital of Jerusalem as well. "It was later estimated that some 20,000 Arabs and 800 Israelis had died in just 132 hours of fighting... The leaders of the Arab states were left shocked by the severity of their defeat." This was celebrated just this past May on Israel's National "Flag Day" or "Jerusalem Day." In 1973, Egypt and Syria—again—led a surprise attack against Israel involving the assistance of at least 9 other Arab states: "On October 6, 1973... Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated surprise attack against Israel. The equivalent of the total forces of NATO in Europe was mobilized on Israel’s borders. On the Golan Heights, approximately 180 Israeli tanks faced an onslaught of 1,400 Syrian tanks. Along the Suez Canal, fewer than 500 Israeli defenders with only three tanks were attacked by 80,000 Egyptian soldiers, backed by 2,000 tanks and 550 aircraft." Here are the incredible, supernatural details of the outcome: The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) not only survived, they routed their enemies and were forcing their way towards the capital cities of Egypt and Syria when the UN adopted a Resolution for a cease-fire. 2688 Israeli soldiers had been killed verses 11,200 Arab soldiers. Israel lost only 5 planes, but shot down over 334 Arab aircraft in aerial combat. This one small country, only 9 miles wide in some places—the 100th smallest country in the world, with less than 1/1000th of the world's population is surrounded by 22 Arab countries, hungry for her destruction with 50x's the population and superpowers beginning to stack against it.
Anti-Semitism is drastically increasing world-wide, is blamed for the unrest and injustices of all the Middle-East, and the United Nations in 2022 has passed more resolutions against the nation of Israel than all other nations combined: 15 against Israel alone; 13 against the rest of the world combined; Russia with only 6; Iran, 1; China, 0.
Since 2016, 140 resolutions against just Israel. In all of these attacks, resolutions, and alliances against this one small country, it has remained untouchable and flourishing—against all possibilities and logic—just as prophesied.
With every single unimaginable, unbelievable, mathematically impossible prophecy that has come true in this one nation that were written from 2000 to 3400 years ago, with a vast majority of them occurring in our generation, undeniably experienced by many living today. When we see an exact alliance of countries gathering as a storm at the borders of Israel, led by Russia and Iran (Ezekiel 39-39) as also foretold by the same Scriptures that predicted all of these past occurrences with 100% accuracy—how can we doubt what has been prophesied about what is to happen next? And even more exciting, this undeniably means that we are on the verge of the Tribulation—which in and of itself is largely due to Israel still denying her Messiah, and God having to "Wake them up." This is why the Tribulation is called, "Jacob's Troubles,": Jeremiah 30:7. These same Scriptures tell of other events that take shape in these last moments for Israel on earth. The hatred of surrounding countries bringing a 7-year peace treaty with Israel led by the antichrist: Daniel 9:27. The rebuilding of a Temple in preparation of sacrifices again, because they still reject their Messiah. There was a recent attempt to make speaking of Jesus Christ illegal in Israel  (Carrying 1 or even 2 year sentence if minor); a force of 200 million men from east of the Euphrates (Red China has this exact number today): Rev. 9, 16; a system of buying and selling is to be established, using only a number system—the first generation with this technology in all history: Rev. 13; military technology will have the power to melt skin from bones (Zech 14:12) and burn a 1/3 of the earth (Rev. 8, 9), and lastly—every facet of Israel's destruction, land desolation, re-gathering against all odds, re-flourishing in their land, retaking Jerusalem, hatred by the world, divine protection, soon coming war with Iran and Russia—has been witnessed by our generation. We have no excuses for why we could say God has shown us no proof.
Israel’s history and existence today proves two things undeniably to a true open mind: God is absolutely real and in control, and we are living in the last days, before His return. We are out of time and excuses. When will you make Him your Savior and King? When will you start living sacrificially for Him?