Israel – The Impossible Miracle

Israel – The Impossible Miracle

Subject – The Miracle of Israel’s Existence

By Rick Welborne

Deuteronomy 30:1-3 (NLT2)
¹  “In the future, when you experience all these blessings and curses I have listed for you, and when you are living among the nations to which the LORD your God has exiled you, take to heart all these instructions.
²  If at that time you and your children return to the LORD your God, and if you obey with all your heart and all your soul all the commands I have given you today,
³  then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes. He will have mercy on you and gather you back from all the nations where he has scattered you. 

1. We Read with Modern Eyes

--Have you ever thought about what it would have been like to hear the Bible’s prophecies at the time they were first spoken? 

--Imagine you were there, over 3300 years ago, when Moses spoke the book of Deuteronomy, a series of speeches delivered to the children of Israel in the five weeks before he died. 

--How would these words have sounded to you at the time? When we read the Bible, whether we realize it or not, we read it through modern eyes. 

--We read the biblical stories with the benefit of hindsight, knowing exactly how things turn out. The people at the time of the prophecy didn’t have that luxury. 

--And when we read prophecies of the future, we do so with knowledge of everything that has happened since the words were first spoken. We can look at Biblical history. 

--Often, we understand details of the prophecies that those who were alive at the time could not have understood. But there’s also a downside to reading the Bible through our modern lens. 

--Because of the changes that have taken place over the past 3000 years, the world we live in is not the same as the world in which the Biblical prophecies were spoken and written. 

--As a result of how much has changed in our world, we can easily miss the full power and intent of the words we are reading.

2. The Context of Deuteronomy 30

--Deuteronomy 30 is a perfect example of this phenomenon. To fully appreciate what this prophecy is saying, let’s review the chapters leading up to it.

--In Deuteronomy 28, Moses related the blessings that would be bestowed on the nation of Israel as a reward for faithfully observing God’s covenant, as well as the terrible punishments when they strayed from God. 

Deuteronomy 28:1-6 (NLT2)
¹  “If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully keep all his commands that I am giving you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the world.
²  You will experience all these blessings if you obey the LORD your God:
³  Your towns and your fields will be blessed.
⁴  Your children and your crops will be blessed. The offspring of your herds and flocks will be blessed.
⁵  Your fruit baskets and breadboards will be blessed.
⁶  Wherever you go and whatever you do, you will be blessed. 

--The final verses of the punishments describe the nation of Israel being scattered into exile.

Deuteronomy 28:64 (NLT2)
⁶⁴  For the LORD will scatter you among all the nations from one end of the earth to the other. There you will worship foreign gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, gods made of wood and stone!

--Then, in chapter 29, Moses continues by telling the nation that when they are in exile, the land will lie desolate. 

--Moses even describes how in the distant future people from other nations will see the destruction of the land and the exile of the Jewish people and conclude that God has done this because the Jews turned their backs on God. (Deuteronomy 29:22-28) 

Deuteronomy 29:22-28 (NLT2)
²²  “Then the generations to come, both your own descendants and the foreigners who come from distant lands, will see the devastation of the land and the diseases the LORD inflicts on it.
²³  They will exclaim, ‘The whole land is devastated by sulfur and salt. It is a wasteland with nothing planted and nothing growing, not even a blade of grass. It is like the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboiim, which the LORD destroyed in his intense anger.’
²⁴  “And all the surrounding nations will ask, ‘Why has the LORD done this to this land? Why was he so angry?’
²⁵  “And the answer will be, ‘This happened because the people of the land abandoned the covenant that the LORD, the God of their ancestors, made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.
²⁶  Instead, they turned away to serve and worship gods they had not known before, gods that were not from the LORD.
²⁷  That is why the LORD’s anger has burned against this land, bringing down on it every curse recorded in this book.
²⁸  In great anger and fury the LORD uprooted his people from their land and banished them to another land, where they still live today!’ 

--Then comes Deuteronomy 30. Here, Moses tells the people that after many generations of exile, scattered to the four corners of the earth, the people of Israel will return to the land. 

Deuteronomy 30:3-5 (NLT2)
³  then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes. He will have mercy on you and gather you back from all the nations where he has scattered you.
⁴  Even though you are banished to the ends of the earth, the LORD your God will gather you from there and bring you back again.
⁵  The LORD your God will return you to the land that belonged to your ancestors, and you will possess that land again. Then he will make you even more prosperous and numerous than your ancestors!

3. Deuteronomy 30 is Happening Now.

--As I write this, the modern state of Israel is prosperous and populated by millions of Jews from every corner of the earth. Yes, their prosperity has helped them defend themselves. 

--Every detail of the verses I just read has been fulfilled in our time. Think about that. Here is a biblical prophecy spoken over 3300 years ago. 

--Ever since then, everyone who read the Bible read these verses as a future prophecy. And today, we live in a time when every word of these verses is a reality. Only God!

--The Jewish people have returned in mass. They have taken possession of it in the form of Jewish sovereignty. Israel is a prosperous nation. And there are more Jews in the land than at any other time in history. 

4. How Deuteronomy 30 Sounded Back Then

--But what did the people who first heard this prophecy think? When Moses spoke these words, many nations existed that are no longer around. Where are the Hittites? Or the Assyrians? Or the Amorites? 

--What happened to these nations? The answer is that they were conquered by invading empires. 

--In what historians refer to as “the age of empires,” powerful nations swept across the earth, conquering smaller nations along the way. 

--The Assyrians, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans all conquered numerous peoples. And after conquering them, these empires would not simply try to rule over these peoples in their own lands. 

--They would first kill most of the men of fighting age. And then they would send the rest of the population, or much of it, into exile. 

--Having conquered many peoples, these empires would mix the populations throughout their empires, teaching them a new language and culture, and assimilating them into their empires. 

--The point I am making is that exile was a common feature of the ancient world. But here’s what never happened. Get ready for this!

--None of the smaller nations that were conquered and exiled by these empires ever returned to their homeland after many generations scattered to the four winds. 

--In the ancient world, going into exile meant the end of your national identity.

5. An Impossible Prophecy

--With this context in mind, we can more fully grasp the enormity of Moses’ prophecy. Moses declared that the nation of Israel would go into exile, scattered to many different corners of the earth. 

--To anyone living at the time who heard these words, this could mean only one thing: the end of the nation of Israel. 

--When Moses then prophesied that the nation of Israel would return from this exile in the very distant future, he was describing something impossible. 

--Who would still be around to return after thousands of years? How would a national identity be preserved as a scattered nation in exile over so many centuries? 

--The absurdity of Moses’ prophecy would have been clear to someone hearing it at the time. And yet, this is exactly what happened. 

--The miracle of Israel’s rebirth as a prosperous and independent nation after thousands of years of exile is on par with the greatest Biblical miracles that we read about in the Exodus story. Maybe even greater. 

Deuteronomy 30:3 (NLT2)
³  then the LORD your God will restore your fortunes. He will have mercy on you and gather you back from all the nations where he has scattered you.