SEVEN POINTS TO UNDERSTANDING ISRAEL, CONT.

            - Pre-Restoration As Birth Pangs

Other prophetic scripture further witnesses to the Lord’s Pre-restoring of the Jews under conditions that don’t fulfill the glorious restoration prophecies. Yeshua speaks of the end times as a time of birth pangs that lead to a birth. Birth pangs are a series of “birth actions” that anticipate a birth, but are not the birth. This picture from nature perfectly predicts and explains the weak nature of the Jewish national re-formation.

Today’s regathering is really a birth pang—better, a series of birth pangs—signaling the nearing end of Gentile dominion and the Birth of Eternal Israel into immortal inheritance. This is in perfect agreement with Paul’s description of birth pangs under slavery awaiting the liberation of the Promised Land by the “sons of God” (Rom 8:22).

·        Traits of the Birth Pangs

Important parallels especially exist between the Jews’ regathering and the convulsions of the world wars, which together comprise a birth pang. At each convulsion, a world war occurs along with a displacement and persecution of Jews leading to their regathering.

World War I formed the first major contraction. In the period leading up to this, European Jews were displaced and scattered by the hundreds of thousands. As a result of the war, an effort came forth to establish a homeland for them in Palestine. Everyone knows this as the Balfour Declaration. But this was not their birth.

World War II was a second birth pang. At that time, European Jews were terribly persecuted and again displaced. But as a result of the war, a further effort under the newly created United Nations brought them back to Palestine and established them as a modern state. But again, this was not their birth.

Today, we are approaching the third major contraction. The lines for a new world war are being drawn. With this war will come more persecution and displacement followed by a further establishing of the Jews in the Land.

If this is the final birth pang, then the next world war will produce the final decimating scattering (in accord with the prophecies) leading to the Jews’ final regathering in repentance. If it is not the final pang (in my mind it will not be), it may be one that brings about their next regathering into an impressive but false peace accord through the man of sin, from which then comes the final contraction of all-out Armageddon.

·        The State of Israel as a Birth Pang

Regardless of which scenario is still to play out, modern Israel’s reestablishment remains but an anticipatory reflection of what is to come. In contrast to the unshakable kingdom promised in Hebrews 12:28 and the prophets, today’s State of Israel remains very shakable, functioning by the same political forces that characterize all kingdoms of this world.

-  Pre-Restoration: The Man of Sin and the Final Scattering

·        The False Promise of Anti-Christ

Sadly but prophetically true, the intensity of Jewish longing for a homeland will not directly lead the Jews to the Lord. Blessings notwithstanding, the Jews’ dissatisfaction on the Land of Israel due to their trials will reach a breaking point. When it does, a man of the earth, the last of the Gentile world kings, will arise to offer Israel a carnal hope of permanent, secure inheritance in the Land.

All the offers to Israel now by American presidents and others are forerunners of the final offer by this false negotiator. To such a one they will succumb, receiving him as the “Messiah.” They will believe this man will finally do for them what they had sought originally from Yeshua, Who previously failed their earth-based expectations. Following the path of the fathers, today’s children still under the curse will again say, “We have no king but Caesar.”

·        Pre-Restoration Implicit in the Final Scattering

As we have seen, the restoration prophecies indicate Israel’s final regathering to permanent secure dwelling in the Land comes about as a final crushing by the nations that occurs in the actual Promised Land itself. This crushing presumes by silence the Jews’ prior presence in the Land—providing the connection point between the sub-glorious and glorious bodies of restoration.

Yet many under the veil of reconstructionism believe today’s unbelieving regathering must be the one final permanent repatriation, from which it is inconceivable there could be any more scattering. This belief is based on compassionate reasoning that says,

“Haven’t the Jews suffered enough? Given the unspeakable horrors they have already suffered, why would God allow them to be scattered again—especially after He has gone to so much trouble to repatriate them to Israel after thousands of years?”

            - Bringing the Gentiles to Trial in “My Land”

It’s hopefully clear from all the preceding that Israel’s Pre-restoration affects the Gentile world as much as it does the Jews. This is because it has a purpose toward the nations as well. As we first noted at the head of this section, Isaiah 43 shows us that not only is Israel summoned to court, but on their heels all the nations are summoned.

In stirring the Jews to repatriate, the Lord has put the Gentiles into their own “catch 22” situation. They must cooperate with the Lord’s drawing of the Jews in spite of themselves. If they do so, they do so to their own hurt. And if they do not do so, they resist it to their own hurt. This is because no matter what they do, their season of earth dominion is over, and Israel’s Pre-restoration is God’s trigger for bringing it to an end.

All people are being drawn of the Lord to “return” to a Land for which neither the Jews— nor any other mortal people—hold title. This is a land that the Lord specifically calls “My Land” (Joel 3:2). The reason for this worldwide drawing is that a final courtroom is being staged on the Lord’s Land. It is a courtroom in which an international verdict is to be rendered against all unbelieving peoples—Jew and Gentile alike—before title to the Land is re-awarded.

Let us not forget that, after 2000 years of world evangelism, Yeshua has yet to be vindicated before the world for his unrighteous death. (Yes, He has been vindicated in the hearts of his spiritually converted followers. But He has not been manifestly vindicated before the mocking, unbelieving world.)

After an age of mercy and forgiveness through amnesty, the fullness of the day of vengeance on sin is near to be released. Jerusalem was the site of the greatest rejection of mercy ever made on earth—a rejection made by both Gentile and Jewish peoples, and for which all the unbelieving peoples will give account.

Thus what has begun as the forensic re-gathering of unbelieving Israel to the scene of their fathers’ rejection is to become the same for the entire world. All the earth’s peoples are to be returned to the “scene of the crime” in the Promised Land where they will stand trial for their ages long rejection of God’s Son.

This court will vindicate and establish once and for all the kingship of the Lord Jesus with His saints over the Land, together with the repentant transformed survivors of the Jews—establishing “all” Eternal Israel’s right of mastery over all the earth. But it is the Lord’s pre-restoring drawing of the Jews back to the Land that is His designed catalyst for bringing the entire world to His final decisive international tribunal.

            - Conclusion: Recapitulating the Pre-Restoration

Israel’s unbelieving return to Palestine under adversity is rightly perceived as a Pre-restoration that foreshadows Eternal Israel’s revelation and inheritance of the Promised Land. Formulated in the context of a divine court summons, the Pre-restoration is designed to re-forge the Jews into a cohesive nation in re-enactment of the conditions surrounding their first rejection of Yeshua—all to the ultimate end of precipitating national repentance in a surviving elect remnant who can be joined to Eternal Israel, revealing the one transcendent transnational Body of Christ that will then rule earth from a regeneratively cleansed and rebuilt Jerusalem.

To evoke this transforming repentance and break the Deuteronomic curse, God has inspired an insatiable yet opposed Jewish longing for the Land as a frustrating futility that will reveal the desire for Him. The Pre-restoration is further designed to draw all the world back to the scene of the crucifixion, there to bring all mankind into the court of tribulation for vindicating Yeshua’s death, ending the Times of the Gentiles and establishing Christ’s incontestable manifest rule through Eternal Israel.

In fulfillment of the prophetic picture of birth pangs, the century-long Jewish stirring to find a homeland mirrors the intensified longing placed in God’s Eternal Israel of every race throughout the ages for their homeland to be revealed when they are born into immortality through Christ’s return.

This is the only legitimate understanding of God’s purpose for Israel’s national re-establishment prior to their repentance and true restoration as a spiritually reborn nation joined to Eternal Israel. It is the only explanation that both honors the covenantal development within the eternal plan centered on Christ before the foundation of the world (as presented by the apostles) and that discriminates and accurately reconciles the conflicting elements of the restoration prophecies.