1. Chapter 1 The Biblical Description Of the Future for Israel The Biblical Description Of the Future for Israel

2. Jews from both Israel and Judah will be returning to the land after having been scattered all over the world and severely persecuted. So it shall be when all of these things have come upon you, the blessing and the curse which I have set before you, and you call them to mind in all nations where the LORD your God has banished you, and you return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you today, you and your sons, then the LORD your God will restore you from captivity, and have compassion on you, and will gather you again from all the peoples where the LORD your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the LORD your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back. The LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it; and He will prosper you and multiply you more than your fathers (Deuteronomy 30:1-5). [The emphasis here, and in all quotations in this material, are mine).]

4.  Entering the land with Joshua  Being disobedient (most seriously through idolatry)  Being scattered into other lands in various parts of the world  Repenting and returning to this same land which their forefathers possessed

5. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God said: Later in the same chapter He wrote: In those days [the time we call the Second Coming of Christ and the Millennial Kingdom – 3:17] the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel, and they will come together from the land of the north to the land that I gave your fathers as an inheritance (Jeremiah 3:18). Behold, I am bringing them [Israel] from the north country, And I will gather them from the remote parts of the earth … A great company, they will return here... For I am a father to Israel, And Ephraim is My firstborn. Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, And declare in the coastlands afar off, And say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him, And keep him as a shepherd keeps his flock” (Jeremiah 31:7-10).

6. Notice here:  It is not just the southern kingdom Jews but the house of Judah will walk with the house of Israel. So this prediction of Jeremiah is not the return from the Babylonian captivity (586-444 B. C. ) because only the southern kingdom of Judah returned from Babylon (which is why the Hebrews were called Jews – after the tribe of Judah).  Jeremiah predicts the return of both the northern and southern kingdoms. That did not happen until after World War 1.  Actually, the return predicted by Jeremiah was not from Babylon at all but from the north country, and from the remote parts of the earth, and the coastlands afar off. So Jeremiah predicted that a scattered Hebrew people will one day in the distant future be reunited and return to here (their ancient land), from places described as remote parts and coastlands of the earth.

7. The prophet Ezekiel recorded this revelation: The hand of the LORD was upon me, and He brought me out by the Spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones… Then 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, breath, and breathe on these slain, that they come to life” (Ezekiel 37:1, 9)… So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army. Then He said to me, “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold, they say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off.’ (Ezekiel 37:10-12)… Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD, Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, My people; and I will bring you into the land of Israel.”

8. The word of the LORD came again to me saying, “And you, son of man, take for yourself one stick and write on it, ‘For Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions. “Then join them for yourself one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand. When the sons of your people speak to you saying, “Will you not declare to us what you mean by these?” say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord GOD, “Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions; and I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in My hand (Ezekiel 37:15-19).

9. Here Ezekiel receives two visions. One is the vision of the dry bones and the other is the vision of two sticks. The points made in the vision are:  The whole house of Israel, that would be all of the tribes, will be returning to the land of Israel.  The tribes of Israel will be put back with Judah and they will be one unit in the hand of God.

10. Daniel predicts both the First and Second Coming of Christ to the land of Israel. In Daniel 9, we read: Seventy weeks have been decreed for your people and your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sin, to make atonement for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy and to anoint the most holy place. So you are to know and discern that from the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince there will be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; it will be built again, with plaza and moat, even in times of distress. Then after the sixty-two weeks the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing and the people of the prince who is to come will destroy the city and the sanctuary. And its end will come with a flood; even to the end there will be war; desolations are determined. And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate, even until a complete destruction, one that is decreed, is poured out on the one who makes desolate (Daniel 9:24-27).

11. When the angel Gabriel told Daniel about the future of your people and your holy city... Jerusalem (Daniel 9:24-25) he predicted the events and timing preceding the first coming of the Messiah.  First notice he predicts 70 weeks. The term week is literally a period of seven. It could be seven days or seven months, or seven years. Obviously here it means 7 years because nothing like this happened in 7 days or seven months. Also, in the middle of the week would be after three and one half years, which is the time given for half of the Tribulation in Revelation 11:3, 12:6, and 13:5 (see also Daniel 7:25 and 12:7).  The Messiah will be cut off and have nothing is clearly a reference to the crucifixion of Christ and the setting aside of the Jewish people.  The time for the cutting off of the Messiah is given as seven weeks and sixty-two weeks. If we make the most reasonable assumption that a week is a period of seven years, and use the Babylonian calendar of a 360 day year, which is also the most reasonable since that is where Daniel and the Jews were at the time, the number of days until the Messiah would be crucified would be: 7 + 62 = 69 weeks times 7 years per week = 483 years 483 years times 360 days per year = 173,880 days  The beginning point for that calculation is the issuing of a decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem, which was given by Artaxerxes in 445 B.C. If you add 173,880 days to the date of that decree, you come up to the week before the crucifixion of Christ (actually it is the day of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem on a donkey), as Gabriel told Daniel: after the sixty-two weeks [that is, after the sixty-two which follows the seven for a total of 69 weeks, or 173,880 days] the Messiah will be cut off and have nothing.

12. But there is still one week left. 69 sevens of years gets us to the crucifixion of the Messiah but there is one of the 70 yet remaining. Gabriel tells Daniel there is a Prince to come in the future who will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week he will put a stop to sacrifice and grain offering; and on the wing of abominations will come one who makes desolate. So there is a future Antichrist/Prince to come who will make a firm covenant with “many.” The “many” is in the context of the Messiah coming to Israel, so it is likely that it refers to the Jews, although it is not unreasonable that the “many” refers to many nations of the world. Nonetheless, the abomination which makes desolate seems to be a desecration of the Jewish Temple sacrifice and grain offering.

13. Now let’s add Matthew 24 to the prophecy in Daniel 9:27. Jesus said: Therefore when you see the abomination of desolation which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains. … pray that your flight will not be in the winter, or on a Sabbath (Matthew 24:15-16, 20).

14. Jesus said this in the context of the time preceding His Second Coming. So we know that Daniel 9:27 refers to the time preceding the Second Coming of Christ. At that time:  There will be a temple in Jerusalem (the city and the sanctuary).  There will be sacrifices going on at the temple (sacrifice and grain offering). Jews will be living in Jerusalem under a treaty established by the Antichrist (the Prince who will make a firm covenant with the many for one week).  The covenant will be broken and the Jews will have to flee to the mountains.  There will be Hebrew people living in Judea keeping the Sabbath.

15. The Apostle Paul wrote this: I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew (Romans 11:1-2). Paul confirms to the Romans that even though God was currently working with the church, believers of many races and nationalities all over the world, He was not finished with His racially chosen people. One of those was the Apostle Paul a descendant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. In the Apocalypse, John wrote: And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel (Revelation 7:4).

16. It would seem that at the time of the future Tribulation there will be 12 identifiable tribes of Israel. So all of those tribes, not just the southern kingdom Jews, are available for the selection of the 144,000. There seems to be two aspects to this future re-gathering of the Jews to Israel: First, there is a gradual re-gathering, which occurs before the Tribulation. It appears there are Jews from the both Israel and Judah (from the 12 tribes listed in Revelation 7:4) who have re-gathered themselves in the land of Israel, they have rebuilt a temple (which the antichrist will desolate), and they are keeping the Sabbath. Second, there is a re-gathering of Israel done by God at the Second Coming of Christ. These Israelites will spiritually return to the LORD your God and obey Him with all your heart and soul according to all that I command you (Deuteronomy 32:2).

17. To Summarize: As we approach the time of the Second Coming of Christ, the following things will happen to Israel: Israel will be a nation which is a significant enough force in the world for the antichrist to have to make some sort of treaty with it.  Jews, from both the southern kingdom of Judah and the northern kingdom of Israel will be re-gathering to the land of Israel.  They shall come from all over the world. They shall come from the north country, from the remote parts of the earth (places like Russia, Siberia, Poland, Germany, and England). They shall also come from the coastlands afar off, (places like Canada and America).  The Jews in the land will be keeping the Sabbath and planning to rebuild, or having rebuilt, the temple.  When the temple is rebuilt the Jews will re-initiate the temple offerings and sacrifices.  There will also be Jews who remain scattered all over the world. [Some of these Jews will repent and accept Jesus as their Savior and Messiah at or before the Second Coming. Those Jews will be gathered to the land of Israel, by Christ, at His Coming.]