END TIMES PART 1
EZEKIEL’S PROPHESIED RESURRECTION
OF THE STATE OF ISRAEL
The Legions of the Roman Empire totally destroyed Judea as a nation in 73 A.D. with the
destruction of the zealot fortress of Masada. By then Jerusalem was already in ruins, the Temple
destroyed and the inhabitants either killed, sold as slaves, or driven out.
And for 1,875 years the Jewish people wandered through the world, a distinct people without a
place to call home. They have been savagely persecuted through those years, and yet despite their
efforts to integrate into the countries where they resided, they still remain a people apart.
It is interesting to note that other, mightier nations when conquered were usually absorbed into
the conquering country. Babylon, Assyria, Uruk, Moab, Ebla, Sumer, Akkad, Mari, Edom,
Philistia, Ammon, the Canaanite tribes, all enemies of Israel are now footnotes in history, their
people long vanished. Yet Israel has outlived them all.
The prophet Ezekiel had been carried off to ancient Babylon when king Nebuchadnezzar had
conquered Judah in 597 B.C., then Nebuchadnezzar came back in 586 B.C. and destroyed
Jerusalem and its Temple and deported its people to Babylon for 70 years as punishment for their
sins as prophesied for 40 years through the prophet Jeremiah.
150 years before Judah started its first captivity while in Babylon, God, had prophesied through
Isaiah that there would be a second time that they would be driven from the Land. But notice
that this time it would be a world-wide scattering, not a local deportation, as God talked about
recovering His people in places like Egypt, Elam (present-day Iran) and un-named islands of the
sea as shown below;
ISAIAH 11:11
11 And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second
time to recover the remnants of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria, and from
Egypt, and from Pathros, and from Cush, and from Elam, and from Shinar, and from
Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.
As history has shown, the Roman 10th and 13th Legions under General Titus accomplished the second banishment of the Jews from the Land in 73 A. D., deporting and scattering the Jews worldwide as slaves.
And in 1948, the prophecy of Isaiah was fulfilled as Jews from all over the world have returned to the resurrected State of Israel, beginning what is known as the End Times or Last Days.
In Ezekiel 37, God prophesies that there will come a time when Israel will be without hope of ever finding a home, and they will think that they will utterly perish as a people. If nothing else, the Nazi extermination camps of World War II convinced them that they would become extinct.
And yet God had different plans. As He told Ezekiel during Judah’s captivity in Babylon;
EZEKIEL 37:1-2
1The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones.
2 Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the
open valley; and indeed they were very dry.
Ezekiel probably wondered what this vision was about, and noted especially that the bones were
very dry, indicating that they had been in this condition for quite some time.
EZEKIEL 37:3-6
3 And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" So I answered, "O Lord God, You know."
4 Again He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, 'O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!
5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: "Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live.
6 I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in
you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord."'"
Here we see the state of Israel at it's lowest point, where all hope of their survival as a nation and
as a people seems to be lost. But God promises that the bones shall live again, that their
death-like state is not total.
EZEKIEL 37:7-10
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone.
8 Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.
9 Also He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live."'"
10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and
stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.
This must have been quite a sight to see! Note that God commands the winds to blow from the
four cardinal compass points, prophesying that the Jews whom the bones represented would
come from the four corners of the Earth back to Israel.
EZEKIEL 37:11-14
11 Then He said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, 'Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!'
12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
13 Then you shall know that I am the Lord, when I have opened your graves, O My people, and brought you up from your graves.
14 I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land.
Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it," says the Lord.'"
This refers to the resurrection of Israel as a nation again after it appears that they are extinct as a
people. Just as God is able to raise the dead, He has resurrected what was considered a dead
nation, causing the ancient nation of Israel to live again after 1,878 years of wandering and
persecution, something that has never before happened in all of recorded history.
Ever since the Romans destroyed Judea in 73 A.D. and scattered the surviving Jews to the winds, the Jewish people have tried to assimilate into the nations where they found themselves. If they had been successful, they would have vanished from history.
However violent persecutions in the nations where they settled have forced them to remain a distinct people, as God will not allow His chosen people to perish as a nation despite all that Satan and his servants try to do to destroy them.
Truly this proves that God keeps His promises despite the concentrated efforts of men and Satan to thwart His will, and the Jewish people continue to outlive and outlast their persecutors and destroyers. Two of the most recent examples are the Nazi attempts to destroy the Jewish race as a whole during WWII and the fact that the fledgling Jewish nation in 1948 defeated determined attempts of the armies of five Arab nations (Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia) to destroy the newly-resurrected Jewish State. Numerous wars between Israel and the Arabs since 1948 have resulted in resounding defeats of the much larger Arab armies.
EZEKIEL 37:15-20
15 Again the word of the Lord came to me, saying,
16 "As for you, son of man, take a stick for yourself and write on it: 'For Judah and for the children of Israel, his companions.' Then take another stick and write on it, 'For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel, his companions.'
17 Then join them one to another for yourself into one stick, and they will become one in your hand.
18 "And when the children of your people speak to you, saying, 'Will you not show us what you mean by these?'
19 say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Surely I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will join them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand."'
20 And the sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes.
Here we come to a fascinating point of Scripture. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah split apart
after the death of Solomon in about 930 B.C. The northern kingdom of Israel was completely
destroyed by the Assyrians under Sargon II in 721 B.C., and it's people were deported to Assyria.
Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Nineveh, the capital of Assyria in 612 B.C. As was his custom, he deported all of the artisans, craftsmen, scholars and nobles to Babylon. There they served in his courts and enriched the Babylonian culture.
He then destroyed Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and deported the Jews of Judah to Babylon in the same fashion for 70 years. There the tribes of Judah and Benjamin (collectively called 'Judah') were met by the remnants of the 10 tribes of Israel who had been deported to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar conquered Assyria. (For further information on this, please see the study in this web site concerning the "10 lost tribes").
Thus the remnants of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin of the Southern Kingdom were joined with the remnants of the 10 "lost" tribes of the Northern Kingdom and became one people again, just as God prophesied.
When Cyrus the Great of Persia destroyed Babylon (539 B.C.) he allowed the remnants of all
twelve tribes to return to the land of Judah to rebuild Jerusalem and the great Temple and they
stayed until 70 A.D. when the Romans finally destroyed Jerusalem, and in 73 A.D. scattered the
Jews to the four winds.
And in the above Scriptural passage (Ezekiel 37:19), God says that when He gathers them again to the land of Israel, that they will again be one nation. Today no Hebrew man or woman knows what tribe they are from, and they are again one nation just as God promised, shown by the binding of the two sticks into one.
Proof of the re-joining of all twelve tribes again is shown in the Old Testament book of Ezra. Ezra was a priest who returned from Babylon when Persian king Cyrus released the Jews from captivity in 539 B.C., he records that when the Second Temple was built and dedicated, sacrifices were made for all twelve tribes;
EZRA 6:17
17 And they offered sacrifices at the dedication of this house of God, one hundred bulls, two hundred rams, four hundred lambs, and as a sin offering for all Israel twelve male goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel.
EZEKIEL 37:21-23
21 "Then say to them, 'Thus says the Lord God: "Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land;
22 and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again.
23 They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable
things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling
places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and
I will be their God.
As history has shown, Israel became a nation again on May 14, 1948 and despite the attempts of
the combined armies of the Arab nations around them to destroy them, the Israelis are here to
stay. And they are again one nation, not two separate kingdoms.
There has yet to be a king over Israel but there is presently a single governor, the Prime Minister. But I think what God is saying here is that when a king is crowned over them at Jesus' return, the king will rule over a single people and nation. God says that He will resurrect king David to rule over Israel at the Messiah's return;
EZEKIEL 37:24-28
24 "David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them.
25 Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children's children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever.
26 Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore.
27 My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people.
28 The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in
their midst forevermore."'"
God Himself says that Israel, having returned the second time, will never again be removed
from their land. And when Jesus returns, He will resurrect David their ancient king to be king
over Israel under the Messiah, Jesus, the King of Kings. The Jews will dwell in peace as God's
chosen people, and peace will at last come to Israel permanently.
Ezekiel's prophecy of Israel's resurrection was made 2,500 years ago, and has been fulfilled to the letter, and his prophecy of WWIII will be fulfilled in like fashion. And considering the world situation today, it can't be that far off.
Jesus, when speaking of the End Times, told us to be watchful lest these things catch us by surprise, and if we don't heed His warnings we will be like the people of the Flood whom Jesus said didn't understand the times until the Flood took them away;
MATTHEW 24:37-39
37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
38 For as in the days before the Flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark,
39 and did not know until the Flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming
of the Son of Man be.
The prophets many times didn't understand what they were prophesying about, especially when
prophesying about future events. The prophet Daniel is a prime example;
DANIEL 12:8-10
8 Although I heard, I did not understand. Then I said, "My lord, what shall be the end of these things?"
9 And he said, "Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.
10 Many shall be purified, made white, and refined, but the wicked shall do wickedly; and
none of the wicked shall understand, but the wise shall understand.
God's prophecies for the Last Days are timed, shrouded in mystery until the generation for whom
they were meant comes. Then the veils are drawn back and the generation for whom they were
meant will understand them.
We have seen the fulfillment of the prophecies of Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel in ancient and
recent history, and the veils around their future prophecies are being swept aside, and their
meanings are becoming clear.
As such, we need to heed Jesus' words all the more carefully, when He said;
MARK 13:37
37 And what I say to you, I say to all: Watch!"
There are some serious misconceptions and outright lies concerning Israel that need to be cleared up. Many people, especially Arabs, “Palestinians” and their sympathizers call Israel “occupiers of Arab lands” and they loudly demand that Israel get out of “Palestine” and return the land to the Arabs.
The Jews have been in the Land since the time Joshua led Israel into the Land of Canaan (roughly 1405 B.C.) until 586 B.C. when the Babylonians conquered and deported Judah for 70 years. They returned around 516 B.C. and remained until Rome destroyed Judea in 73 A.D. Even then, some Jews remained in the Land under harsh Roman and later Byzantine rule.
The Muslims conquered Jerusalem in 637 A.D. and it remained under Muslim control until 1917 when Britain defeated the Ottoman Empire during WW I and governed the Land under UN mandate.
World War II and the Holocaust made the Jews realize that they needed to return to their former homeland. And despite determined British and Arab efforts to stop them, after the war ended the Jews began returning to the Land in fulfillment of Isaiah’s ancient prophecy.
When the Jews resurrected the State of Israel in 1948, immediately the armies of Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Saudi Arabia attacked with the purpose of destroying the new State. The Jews invited the Arabs living in the Land to stay and live with them, but most of the Arabs fled, believing the pompous claims that the attacking Arab armies would drive the Jews out. When the dust cleared 10 months later, the Arab armies had been defeated and the Arabs who fled were abandoned by their supposed saviors and left on their own.
In 1947 the UN had divided the Land into three sections, Israel for the Jews, the kingdom of Trans-Jordan, and the West Bank for the Arabs. The Arabs who had fled were outraged and in 1948 2,000 Arabs agitated for the UN to combine the Jewish portion with Trans-Jordan to make an Arab State of Palestine.
King Abdullah Hussein I of Trans-Jordan felt that his newly-minted kingdom was too small and illegally annexed the territory of the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1948 infuriating the Arab League. The Jews living in the West Bank and East Jerusalem were expelled and were forbidden to return.
In 1964 Arab terrorist Yasser Arafat, himself an Egyptian, founded the Palestine Liberation Organization with the aim of destroying Israel through terrorism and violence, calling himself and the former Jordanian-ruled residents of the West Bank “Palestinians”, a manufactured people.
In June of 1967 during the ‘6-Day War’, Israel fought against attacks from Egypt, Jordan and Syria and took the entire Sinai Peninsula from Egypt, the West Bank (including East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount) from Jordan and took the Golan Heights from Syria.
Since then the PLO, its rival terrorist organization Hamas and the “Palestinians” have lied through their teeth proclaiming that the “Palestinians” have always lived in the Land, not the Jews. They loudly shout that the two Temples never existed despite proven historical and archaeological proof to the contrary.
However they conveniently ignore historical and archaeological evidence proving their claims to be outright lies. Some examples:
In ancient times, seals (called ‘bullas’) were used to seal scrolls to ensure that they had not been tampered with. These seals were made from baked clay or a carved semi-precious stone (such as agate) with raised lettering and symbols on them which identified the owner.
When a scroll was sealed, a blob of wax or soft clay was placed on the edges and the bulla was pressed into it, imprinting the writing of the bulla onto the seal. When the recipient received the scroll if the seal was broken it would immediately indicate that the scroll had been tampered with.
In recent years, a number of bullas have been recovered in Israel such as that of;
Baruch, son of Neriah - (roughly 600 - 550 B.C.) The Bible lists Baruch the son of Neriah as the prophet Jeremiah’s scribe who wrote Jeremiah’s letters and more than likely the Biblical book of Jeremiah. His seal was found in a house destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C., possibly the same place where Jeremiah had been imprisoned by king Zedekiah of Judah for prophesying that the Babylonians would destroy the city.
Nathan-Melech - Recorded in the book of 2 Kings as a court official to king Josiah of Judah (649 - 609 B.C.). His seal was found in a house destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.
Jezebel - Yes, that Jezebel (died in 842 B.C.) the wicked, murderous wife of King Ahab of the northern Israeli kingdom of Samaria as recorded in the Bible book of 1 Kings. Her seal was found in the ruins of king Ahab’s palace in Samaria
Hezekiah - king of Judah, recorded in the Bible book of 2 Kings (715 - 686 B.C.) The seal was found in an ancient rubbish heap at the base of the Temple Mount.
Isaiah - one of the major prophets of Israel (740 - 686 B.C.) who wrote the Bible book that bears his name. His seal was found at the base of the southern wall of the Temple Mount.
It is ironic that the Muslims (especially the so-called “Palestinians”) demonize Israel as ‘occupiers’ while conveniently ignoring the fact that the Arabs themselves conquered the Jews and occupied the Land in 637 A.D. And yet when the Jews returned and conquered their ancient homeland in 1948, suddenly the Jews are ‘occupiers of Arab lands’?
Unfortunately too many people today believe the Arab lies, not understanding the Scriptures or
knowing the history of the Land.
May the Lord Jesus Christ open your eyes to the truth of these studies.
Your fellowservant in Christ Jesus,
Gene
Questions? Comments? E-mail: watchmen_777@yahoo.com