Return of the Jews

No other ethnic group on earth has endured the type of hatred and scorn throughout history as the Jews have. From the ancient times to today, the Jews have been persecuted and maligned wherever they've gone in the world.

And they have also been historically targeted for extermination, going all the way back to the fifth century B.C. when Haman the Agagite, a high official in the court of Persian King Xerxes I, plotted the genocide of the Jews who were living in captivity in Persia during that time.

Haman's plot, which is recorded in the Book of Esther, was ultimately thwarted by God. More recently, six million Jews perished in Hitler's Holocaust that sought to eradicate all Jews from Europe and ultimately the face of the earth.

And Russian dictator Josef Stalin is alleged to have plotted the mass extermination of Russian Jewry before he died of a stomach ailment in 1953. Stalin believed that the Jews were behind the mysterious death of Politburo member Andrei Zhdanov, and he believed that they also wanted to kill him. Stalin wanted to murder at least 20 millions of Jews in the Soviet Union!

Whether the Jews were responsible for Stalin's death isn't known. But the Russian despot died before his plan to commit mass murder against the Jews could be carried out.

After Hitler's Holocaust, the nations of the world pledged that they would never allow murderous tyrants such as Hitler and Stalin to oppress the Jews or any other group again. That pledge didn't last long. After the United Nations voted to partition Palestine in 1948 and award a tiny sliver of land to the Jews, the Arab-Islamic world immediately declared war against the Jewish state.

Despite the incredible odds, the small Jewish nation not only fought back, but defeated its Islamic enemies in 1948. And Israel has been triumphant in every war against her foes ever since.

But that hasn't stopped the Islamic world from plotting Israel's destruction. The Iranians are planning to destroy the Jewish nation via nuclear weapons, but they too, will be stopped by the hand of God. Iran's Impending Doom

Why have the Jews suffered such abuse throughout the world for so many centuries? What is it about this small group of 12 million people that continues to make them repugnant to the entire world?

The answer can be found in the scriptures. And the answer is very simple and easy to understand: The Jews have chronically rebelled against God throughout history by breaking His laws, and they have rejected His prophets that He sent to warn them of His impending judgment if they refused to repent.

In the fifth century B.C., the Lord spoke these words to the ancient Jews through the prophet Jeremiah: "Because you have not listened to my words, I will summon the peoples of the north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. And I will bring them against this land (Israel) and its inhabitants and against all the surrounding nations. I will completely destroy them (Jews) and make them an object of horror and scorn, an everlasting ruin." (Jeremiah 25: 8-9)

Later, the Lord repeated his warning to the Jews through Jeremiah: "I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like poor figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them, for they have not listened to my words." (Jeremiah 29:17-19)

Certainly, those prophecies have been fulfilled. The Jews have been mocked, maligned and persecuted throughout the world for over 2,500 years. And the scourge of anti-Semitism--the hatred of the Jews--is spreading across the world once again like a deadly malignancy. Never Again, a slogan that the Jews have proclaimed to never again allow the evil of anti-Semitism to influence the world against them, is indeed happening once again.

And yet, just as the Lord pronounced judgment against the Jews for their chronic rebellion against Him, he also revealed an end-time reconciliation where they would return to Him and He would embrace them once again.

 

Through Jeremiah, the Lord stated: "At that time, I  will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they will be my people. The people who survive the sword will find favor in the desert; I will come to give rest to Israel." (Jeremiah 31: 1-2)

A growing segment among that remnant that survived the sword of persecution from the Crusades to the Inquisitions to the centuries of persecution throughout the Middle East and Roman Catholic Europe to the Holocaust is now returning to God.

The physical return was marked by the reemergence of Israel in 1948 as a sovereign world nation again after 1,800 years. But the spiritual return is manifesting in the return of the Jews to God through Jesus Christ. Many Jews are now recognizing who Christ really is and have rejected the propaganda of their ancestors who began rebelling against God Himself long before Christ appeared in the world. (1Samuel 8:6-9)

That spiritual return is taking many forms, from the burgeoning conservative movement among Jews who have rejected the historic liberalism of their parents and ancestors, to the Messianic movement that has embraced Christ as the Messiah to the growing solidarity with evangelical Christians who support Israel and the Jews.

The spiritual return of the Jews to God is prophetic. During the 8^th century B.C., the Lord spoke these words to the prophet Hosea: "For the Israelites will live many days without king or prince, without sacrifice or ephod or idol. Afterward the Israelites will return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They will come trembling to the Lord and to his blessings in the last days." (Hosea 3:4-5)

Obviously, Hosea wasn't literally referring to King David who had died over two centuries before the prophet was born. Rather, he used David as an allegory for Jesus Christ who is Israel's eternal king.

And yet Hosea's message, revealed long before the Jews went into captivity beginning with Nebuchadnezzar's invasion of Jerusalem in 586 B.C. and later under the Romans who invaded Jerusalem in 70 A.D., has been fulfilled. For many centuries, the Jews wandered the world without a king or messiah, and without any sacrifice for their sins since the Romans had demolished their temple.

But now, many Jews are finding their eternal king and prince who is Christ. And the apostle Paul also prophesied the return of his people to the Lord in the last days in his epistle to the early Roman church.

 

Paul wrote: "I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: 'The deliver will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.'" (Romans 11:25-27)

The majority of Jews won't accept Christ until He comes back. (Zechariah 12-13) But a growing number of them are now fulfilling God's prophetic word by returning to Him after spending many centuries wandering in the spiritual desert of the world.

How many Jews now believe in Christ? Estimates vary from 350,000 to one million globally. For example, in 1989 the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America estimated the number of believing Jews at 350,000. Certainly, that number has increased over the past 25 years.

Furthermore, there are now an estimated 150 messianic congregations operating throughout Israel. That's significant because the Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox Jews view Messianic Jews as a greater threat to their religion and existence than Islam.

Nevertheless, the Jews are returning to God through Christ. And while that's certainly a cause for rejoicing, some of the old, decrepit Christian denominations aren't happy about that since they embrace an unbiblical and heretical doctrine known as replacement theology that teaches that the church has replaced Israel as God's chosen people when the Jews corporately rejected Christ.

But the church has never replaced Israel. And it never will since the church age is rapidly coming to an end. In the end, the Jews will be the ones to evangelize the world for Christ once the church is gone from the world.