STAND FIRM: Israel Firsthand - Children

Last week, I shared about my family’s recent trip to Israel and about my youngest daughter’s favorite site. That site wasn’t a familiar spot from the past or one of the fun activities but was what she said proved the Bible. It was a vineyard in the hills of Samaria and while we were there, the owner of the vineyard read from Jer. 31:5 about how those very hills would one day be planted with vineyards. We were standing in fulfilled prophecy.

Since I talked about my youngest in the last article, it’s only fair that I share about my older daughter. Her favorite thing was walking through Hezekiah’s tunnel, but she also loved that she made a friend on the trip. The tour guide’s daughter and my daughter became friends. She taught my daughter some Hebrew while my daughter taught her about American candy. One of funniest moments was when we were all walking together at the Sea of Galilee and an American pop song was being played at the pool, but the lyrics were in Hebrew. As we walked, the two girls, separated by 7,000 miles, began singing the song in English.

We went with a ministry that aims to share God’s continual plan for Israel with the next generation. There were others on the trip. In the picture above they were all looking out from the cliff in Nazareth where the townspeople tried to stone Jesus to death.

I share about my daughter’s friend because she was a living example of fulfilled prophecy. One of the major prophecies in the Bible is that Jews would be scattered from Israel to across the globe, but as the end nears, God would gather them back home. Ultimately, this is completely fulfilled in the Millennial Kingdom, but it must begin before that time so that many of the prophesied last days events can occur. This major prophecy has been being fulfilled before our own eyes.

In the first century, Jews were driven out of the land of Israel. Through continual persecution, they were scattered across the globe. In the late 1800s, a few returned to the land. Following World War I, Britain took control of Israel from the Ottoman Empire. This opened the door for Jews to begin to return and resettle their land. Again, very few did during that time. Only after the horrors of the Holocaust, which was the culmination of all those years of persecution of the Jewish people, did Jews return to the land in higher numbers. At that time, it was the displaced survivors of the Holocaust that came back to their homeland. In 1948, Israel became a Jewish state. In the time since, many Jews have returned to the land. In the mid-2000s, for the first time, there were more Jews in the land than any one place on the globe for the first time since the first century.

Our tour guide was the granddaughter of a Holocaust survivor. Her family had settled in the Netherlands. Then in the late 1990s, our tour guide felt the Lord leading her family to move to the land of Israel. It was there in the land her children were born. They are part of one of the first generations of Jews to be born in the land since becoming a nation.

As you see, we’re living in a time when prophecy is being fulfilled. There are many passages that touch on the Jews returning to the land, but a particular one jumped out to us as our daughter and her new friend raced up stairs in Jerusalem to see who could be the first to reach the gate to the old city. Zechariah recorded this promise from the Lord: “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Once again men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets of Jerusalem, each of them with cane in hand because of their age. The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there’” (Zech. 8:4-5 NIV). We were seeing prophecy fulfilled before our own eyes. We were watching a Jewish girl play in the street.

Not only did we see fulfilled prophecy before our eyes, we also lived it. For in that same chapter in Zechariah, God promised that the nations would come to Israel. Now this ultimately will be fulfilled in the Millennial Kingdom, but to a degree it is happening now. “This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘Many peoples and the inhabitants of many cities will yet come, and the inhabitants of one city will go to another and say, ‘Let us go at once to entreat the Lord and seek the Lord Almighty. I myself am going.’ And many peoples and powerful nations will come to Jerusalem to seek the Lord Almighty and to entreat him’” (Zech. 8:20-22).

We must remember that God is at work and He keeps His promises.

— Jake is the newest state missionary and would love to share about the work in Northwest Arkansas and encourage your church to stand firm. (standfirmministries.com)