Hal Lindsey: A Miracle Most Astounding
According to the prophecies of Jeremiah, we are now seeing a bigger miracle than the parting of the Red Sea. It’s happening before our eyes. We should be shouting it from the housetops. It provides overwhelming evidence for God’s existence, His love, and for the validity His word.
But instead of finding joy and comfort in this amazing miracle, most of official Christendom reflexively denies it. They choose instead to hold on to past doctrinal errors — errors based on the idea that God does not always keep His word.
Let’s look at this amazing miracle. Throughout the Old Testament, God warned Israel that He would punish them, scatter them around the world. But He also promised repeatedly that He would eventually bring them back to the land — not because they have repented of their sin, but for the honor of His own name. We see Israel being regathered right now.
If you don’t think that’s a big deal, look at how God describes it. Ezekiel 36 tells about Israel’s sin, its dispersion, and then God bringing it back to the land promised to Abraham. This chapter makes it perfectly clear that He will first regather the nation of Israel into the land. Then He will bring about that nation’s spiritual rebirth. Individual Jews have been turning to Jesus since the first disciples, but national conversion takes place after the final regathering.
Ezekiel 36:24-26 says to Israel, “I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
In the next chapter, Ezekiel 37, God described this process with some of the most dramatic imagery in all of literature. It tells the story of the valley of dry bones. These people are deader than dead. They’re dry — nothing left but bleached bones in a mass grave. Then God begins to pull those bones together. He puts flesh on them. Eventually, the bodies look whole again, but they’re still dead. Then, as the last step, He breathes into them the breath of life.
That’s a picture of Israel’s regathering. In Jeremiah 16:14-15, God Himself compares this miracle to the miracles surrounding Israel’s deliverance from Egypt — including the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea. “‘Therefore behold, days are coming,’ declares the Lord, ‘when it will no longer be said, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel out of the land of Egypt,’ but, ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of the north and from all the countries where He had banished them.’ For I will restore them to their own land which I gave to their fathers.”
God says it again in Jeremiah 23:7-8. And why wouldn’t it be a bigger miracle than the Red Sea? Imagine a mass grave with millions of dry bones being pulled together. They’re putting on sinews and flesh. And someday soon they will be imbued again with the breath of life. If that vision of the dry bones were literally happening, we would be witnessing a miracle of unprecedented scale.
Well, it is happening! God is pulling those bones together. He’s putting flesh on them, and He will soon put new hearts inside those bodies.
The drawing together of Israel is promised over and over in the Bible, but much of Christendom holds to the idea that the Church has replaced Israel, and that the promises God made to the people of Israel are not true. Titus 1:2, Numbers 23:19, and 1 Samuel 15:29 all say that God cannot lie. Hebrews 6:17-18 says that God’s word is immutable. According to 2 Timothy 2:15, God’s word is “the word of truth.” In John 14:6, Jesus said that He is truth.
Jeremiah 31:35-36 says, “Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for light by day, And the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night… The Lord of hosts is His name: ‘If this fixed order departs From before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘Then the offspring of Israel also shall cease From being a nation before Me forever.’”
Have you noticed the sun ceasing to shine? Then God has not replaced Israel! He will fulfill His promises! Even more exciting is the fact that right now, before our eyes, He IS fulfilling those promises. The bones are lining up. The cartilage is forming together with muscle and organs and skin. The long dead are reforming before our eyes!
The prophet Daniel would the model for Israeli prosperity and devotion during the diaspora. Daniel remembered Jerusalem at each time of prayer. He made sure that his home in Babylon had windows facing Jerusalem. He would open those windows, and pray in that direction three times a day.
Now he certainly didn’t do that because he thought God could hear him better if he prayed toward Jerusalem. He did it as a reminder that his people would return there someday. God made that promise, and would keep His word. Trusting God’s faithfulness, Daniel remained faithful even under threat of death.
In verses 5 and 6 of Psalm 137, we read the pledge that became central to the thinking of Jews around the globe for 2500 years. “If I forget you, O Jerusalem, May my right hand forget her skill. May my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth, If I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem Above my chief joy.”
One of the great miracles of history is that God kept His people distinct from the societies they entered. They became productive members of those societies, but were not assimilated. A big part of that miracle comes from their attitude toward Jerusalem and the promises of God it represents.
For hundreds of years, Jews have ended their Passover Seder with the phrase, “Next year in Jerusalem.” Even Jews living in Jerusalem end the Seder with these words. For them, Jerusalem is not only a real place on the earth, but it also means “The City of Peace.” So, they’re saying, “Next year in the literal city,” but it also carries the thoughts, “Next year in peace and in the fulfilled promises of God.”
Jesus came to Jerusalem at the climax of His life and ministry. He showed both His frustration and love for the city and its people when He said, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.”(Matthew 23:37 NASB)
They rejected Jesus just as Daniel and the other prophets predicted. God used that very rejection for our salvation. Romans 11:11 says, “By their transgression salvation has come to the Gentiles.”
But that did not negate God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and others. Those promises began to be fulfilled in the 19th century when Jews started returning to the land in large numbers. They were returning to the place deeded to them by God Himself — the Promised Land. That led to the rebirth of Israel as a nation in 1948. They would regain control of Jerusalem in 1967.
According to scripture, their return to the land portends another return — the return of Jesus. Peace is coming to Jerusalem — peace to “The City of Peace.”
God keeps His promises. JERUSALEM gives proof through the ages. Even Israelites who have little faith have a supernatural love for the City of Jerusalem that they don’t fully understand. I was not born as a Jew, but as soon as I received Jesus Christ as Lord and savior - I too received that supernatural love for Jerusalem. It is going to be the eternal dwelling place God will dwell in with us in the center of the universe. How could anything be greater?
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