God's Restoration of Israel: Why the Jewish People Have Survived

At sundown tonight, the 5th of the Hebrew month “Iyar,” it will be Yom Ha’atzmaut - Israel’s Independence Day. Though it is April 14, 2021 today, this date in history fell on May 14, 1948, on our Gregorian calendar. This is a special day in Israel. I remember the celebration on Ben Yehuda Street in Jerusalem a couple of years ago when I had the great joy of being there on this day of Israel’s celebration.

There are a lot of things we can celebrate. In particular, we have to remember that this day is not just about freedom for the Jewish people but also marks God's providential hand in their history. The Jewish people were brought back from near extinction by God Himself, and now they are flourishing as one of the most powerful nations in the world!

But, what we should take stock of as believers in Messiah Jesus is that God is faithful and keeps His word and fulfills His promises to Israel. Two thousand five hundred years ago, Israel was taken into captivity by Babylonians in 586 BC. Following the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, Israel was dispersed from the land again. Since that time, the land of Israel became desolate and barren.

The land of milk and honey had become an arid wasteland. 

The land was decimated and trodden down by nations that had no vested interest. It was virtually uninhabited. 

We even get a comment from Mark Twain when he visited Israel in 1867. He later wrote in his book, The Innocents Abroad (pub. 1881), a description of what he saw:

“A desolate country whose soil is rich enough but has been given over wholly to weeds. A silent, mournful expanse. A desolation is here that not even imagination can grace with the pomp of life in action. We never saw a human being on the whole route. There was hardly a tree or a shrub anywhere. Even the olive and the cactus, those fast friends of the worthless soil, had almost deserted the country.” 

Mark Twain, The Innocents Abroad

And yet, God took this desolate wasteland and made it flourish again. 

Since God brought the Jewish people back to their promised land in 1948, Israel has become one of the most abundantly fruitful nations on the planet. 

Read that again.

Since God brought the Jewish people back to their promised land in 1948, Israel has become one of the most abundantly fruitful nations on the planet. 

The prophet Isaiah said, “In the days to come Israel will bud and blossom and fill all the world with fruit.” (Isaiah 27:6)

Fact: Citrus fruits are currently one of Israel’s major agricultural exports. Israel is one of the world’s leading greenhouse exporting countries. They export more than $1.3 billion of agricultural products every year. 

How is it possible that a nation smaller than the state of New Jersey is the NUMBER ONE exporter of fruit in Europe? 

This provision is just one indicator of the faithfulness of God. What would seem impossible for man to accomplish, God has done. And the good news is, He isn’t finished yet. What He is doing with Israel is but a foreshadowing of things to come. We can look at it as a sign. For some, it might be a warning. But one thing is sure - God is declaring Himself to the nations through the reestablishment of Israel. 

Consider how this nation has risen out of the ashes of the Holocaust. 

They came back to a desolate wasteland. 
They were scattered to the four corners of the earth. 
They were oppressed on the brink of destruction. 

And yet, when you look at Jewish history, they are back in their land after 2,000 years of dispersion, and they are thriving. 

Nobody is like the Jew, even remotely like the Jew. 
Nobody has come back to their land with the same religion. 
The same language. 
The same traditions. 
The same prayers. 

The Hittites are not going to come back and take their land. They’re gone. 

The Romans are gone. All we have are a few broken statues and some writings.  

Think of the Babylonians. They were experiencing a diminishing population. They prayed to their goddess of fertility, Ishtar. It didn’t work. The Babylonians are still gone.

The Jewish people never had to pray for fertility. The Bible already said, “Be fruitful and multiply.” And so the Babylonians are gone while the Jew is exactly where he was when they came. It is the greatest proof you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands that God is real and keeps His promises.

With the Jewish people, we not only have the same prayers and traditions but the word-for-word dictation of God. There is nobody like the Jew, even remotely like the Jew. Nobody is preserved that long. These things have never been true of any other nation on the face of the earth.

When you look at Jewish history, there is no other explanation for the preservation and restoration of the Jewish people and the state of Israel as a nation. It must be the divine work of the hand of God. We can see how God has preserved and brought back a people nearly exterminated from the face of the earth. We can see how His providential hand has held them all these years. 

According to Ezekiel’s prophecy concerning the Valley of Dry Bones, Israel has returned to the land as a lifeless people. Spiritually dead. And the LORD asked Ezekiel, “Can these bones live?”

God is showing Ezekiel something in the future, something that will end up being fulfilled in 1948!!! God would regather the Jewish people from around the world. The return of the exiles.

Interestingly enough, when Israel declared their independence in 1948, they didn’t have a single cannon or tank. Its Air Force consisted of 9 obsolete planes. American pilots came and volunteered to fly some of those planes. They only had 19,000 soldiers who were fully mobilized and prepared for war. 

Israel declared her independence on May 14, 1948. Within 24 hours of making this declaration, this newborn nation found herself surrounded and attacked by the Arab countries of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. They were in dire straits lacking military equipment, personnel, and experience. But this same God that stood with her ancestors like Joshua, Gideon, and David, would stand with her again. 

After the dust had settled, this small but determined people with the leading of the providential mighty Hand of God emerged as the Jewish state of Israel. This nation stood firm against all odds because that was God's plan. This should come as no surprise since it was a fulfillment of many Old Testament prophetic Scriptures. (Isaiah 11; Jeremiah 3, 30, 31; Hosea 1; Micah 7; Ezekiel 37) 

With God moving in their hearts - they needed to go back to their Homeland --- despite the fact that country after country, empire after empire, tried to annihilate the Jewish people. 

Though they are in the land, they are in the land in unbelief. 
They do not yet know their Messiah. 

They bought tickets to a two-act play but only saw the First Act. They need to hear what happened in the Second Act. But they need to listen to it from the context of their Hebrew Scriptures (Act I). We need our Christian brothers and sisters to take the Jewish people on the path that will introduce them to their Messiah. 

Many of you are familiar with the Roman Road, a series of passages through the book of Romans that outlines God’s salvation plan. That road is a dead-end for the Jew. They need to be taken down a road they can identify with, leading to the same destination - Jesus, the Jewish Messiah. 

We call that road The Jewish Road. 

You can read more about “The Jewish Road” by looking at our free PDF that explains how to present the gospel, God’s plan of salvation, through Old Testament Scriptures.