We focus on prophecy each week for about five-minutes. It’s more than a curiosity; it’s extremely practical. The apostle Paul said: “[know] the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed” (Romans 13:11).
After discussing the last days, the apostle Peter said, “what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God” (Second Peter 3:11-12).
Many of the prophecies of the last days involve the Jewish people, the city of Jerusalem, and the nation of Israel.
The rebirth of Israel as a nation is nothing short of miraculous.
Tomorrow marks Israel’s 70th year as a modern nation. Seventy is an important number for the Jews:
There were only 70 Jews when Joseph relocated his father and brothers to Goshen.
Their captivity in Babylon lasted 70 years.
The prophet Daniel spoke of 70 “weeks” of years that would be prophetically fulfilled.
Jerusalem kept 70 years of Sabbaths while Israel was in Babylonian captivity (Jeremiah 25:11).
It is no small thing that the U.S. embassy will move to Jerusalem on May 14th – the day Israel declared its independence in 1948 and the day President Harry Truman recognized the state of Israel.
One of the prophecies that is being fulfilled before our very eyes is found in Ezekiel 36:8-11,
Eze 36:8 But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are about to come.
Eze 36:9 For indeed I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.
Eze 36:10 I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt.
Eze 36:11 I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bear young; I will make you inhabited as in former times, and do better for you than at your beginnings. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.
I didn’t know this, but Mark Twain wrote a travelogue before he was famous for Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Titled The Innocents Abroad, it was his best selling book during his lifetime.
He visited the Holy Land in 1867 and had this to say: “Palestine sits in sackcloth and ashes. Over it broods the spell of a curse that has withered its fields and fettered its energies.”
One article stated,
Twain described in vivid, unfiltered detail, the squalor and desolation that he witnessed in every place he visited across the country, and his description of Jerusalem, once the crown of Judea, is particularly disturbing:
“Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and [has] become a pauper village; the riches of Solomon are no longer there to compel the admiration of visiting Oriental queens; the wonderful temple which was the pride and the glory of Israel, is gone.”
Just 150 years later, and only 70 years since she was born into the modern world, we contrast the highly-developed, prosperous country with the dreadful place described by Mark Twain.
It is exactly as Ezekiel described it. Prophecy fulfilled.
We are not looking for any particular sign, or prophecy, to be fulfilled. Jesus promised He’d return to rapture His church – which entails the resurrection of the dead in Christ of the Church Age, then the translation from earth to Heaven of all living believers.
It is presented in the Bible as an imminent event.
Are you ready for the rapture? If not, get ready, stay ready, and keep looking up. Ready or not, Jesus is coming!