Israel (8) - Return to the Land

God decides the times and boundaries of nations.

From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands (Acts 17:26).

God determines the rise and fall of nations in two ways, but he prefers the second method. The first method is suboptimal.

1. Geopolitical Events
God can manipulate evil kings and nations to achieve his purposes.
Cyrus the Emperor of Persia is an example. This wicked Emperor destroyed the Babylonians opening up the way for the Jewish people to return home from exile in Babylon.
Cyrus was not God’s first choice for the task. If the rulers of Babylon had listened to Daniel, they would have sent the exiles back to Israel after seventy years of exile, but they grew proud and became corrupt, so God raised Cyrus to get the job done.

2. The Holy Spirit
He works to change people’s hearts and leads them in God’s ways.
God called Terah to leave Ur (which is in modern Iraq) but he stopped in Haran (Gen 11:31). His son Abraham followed the leading of the Holy Spirit and moved to the land of Canaan.
The early church changed the heart of the Roman Empire by obeying the Spirit.

The modern state of Israel was created using the first method.

God intended to return the Jews to Israel in the second way, but the Zionist movement rushed ahead, before he could complete his plans. During the First World War, Britain invaded Palestine to secure the Suez Canal, access to the Indian Empire and control of Persian oil. British control opened the way for more Jews to return to the land, but this was not God’s plan. The motives of Britain were no motivated better than those if Cyrus, but it opened up a path that led to the creation of the state of Israel (there is very little merit in being a Cyrus.)

There are many prophecies in the Old Testament about a return to the land, but most speak a return in faith to peace and blessing. We have not seen this miracle yet. Ezekiel 38:8 describes God’s second best for Israel’s return.

In the latter years you will come into the land that is restored by the sword, whose inhabitants have been gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel which had been a continual waste.

This is not a return in blessing, but a “return by the sword”. Ezekiel prophesies a return by secular men and women using political and military power. The emergence of the Israeli state was the work of a well-organised nationalism, not a miraculous act of God. God allowed it and will use it to accomplish his purposes, but it was not a return under the covenant as promised in Deuteronomy.

God allowed some Jewish people to return to the land of Palestine, but that does not mean that the land of Palestine now belongs to Jewish people. It does not mean that the current Israeli state is his plan for the redemption for his chosen people.