One For Israel

Guest (Male): In just one day in 1948, a nation was formed. Our people returned to the land of promise. And God says, "I love Zion. I desire Zion." All nations, it says, will come and join the blessings of Israel coming up. God has divinely and sovereignly set up the nation of Israel and brought us back for even greater things to come.

Dr. Erez Soref: I am Dr. Erez Soref. I was born and raised in the heart of Israel, but I never heard the gospel message until, on a journey abroad, my eyes were opened to the Jewish Messiah. From that point, my life has been dedicated to bringing this gospel back to my people Israel, equipping them to reach Israel and the world. Together as Jews and Gentiles, we are one in Messiah, One for Israel.

Guest (Male): Aliyah is a Hebrew word that means going up or ascension. In biblical times, it referred to the three times a year where Israelites would ascend the hill of Jerusalem to celebrate the appointed feasts. Today, we use aliyah in a wider sense. It speaks of Jewish people from all over the world returning to their ancestral homeland in Israel. After almost 2,000 years of exile, it is a going up and a going back to the place God gave by promise to His people.

Guest (Male): The aliyah of Israel today is a modern miracle. Against all odds, our people came up from the graves of the Holocaust to this very land. In one day, a nation was born, and Jewish people from around the world began returning to their historic homeland. But is the rebirth of our nation just a testimony of grit and good luck, or are we part of a much greater story?

What does modern Israel have to do with the biblical aliyah of Ezra and Nehemiah over 2,400 years ago? Most Israelis know quite well about the formation of Israel from school and their training in the IDF. But many are unaware of the echoes of our biblical past in our present day and what it means for the Jewish people.

Guest (Female): In this episode, we're going to look at what the scriptures have to say about the rebirth of the state of Israel and the incredible parallels hidden in our past and present and seek to answer the questions: Does national Israel exist purely by chance or a historical error as some claim? Or is it by divine providence and as part of God's plan for all mankind? And if God truly established our return, what's next?

Guest (Male): In Ezekiel 37, the prophet declares, "Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations wherever they have gone and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land."

Guest (Male): One of the most famous Jewish commentators of all times who lived 700 years ago noticed a repeating trend in scripture and thus coined a well-known term to describe it: "The acts of the fathers is a sign for the sons." Simply put, God has written history together in a way that as we look to the events of the past, we can learn of our present and of our future. Many times in scripture, we see past events foreshadowing events to come, prophesying God's deliverance and judgment.

Guest (Male): Let's start by looking back to the timing of some key events in biblical history during the time of the prophet Jeremiah. The people of Judah lost their sovereignty as a nation when Nebuchadnezzar came up to the land and put King Jehoiakim and Judah under servitude around 605 BC.

Guest (Female): After a failed rebellion in 597 BC, Nebuchadnezzar installed his own vassal king, but peace didn't last long. The Jewish people rebelled against Babylon, and Jerusalem was besieged. In 586 BC, 19 years after the first conquest, Jerusalem was completely destroyed.

Guest (Male): Fast forward 70 years. It was Cyrus that issued the decree to rebuild the temple and send our people home. Our people were once again a nation, but only a few actually went back to Jerusalem. While the altar was built, very few people lived in the city since it wasn't secure, and our people were in peril from our neighbors.

Guest (Female): 100 years after Cyrus made his declaration, hope was restored and Nehemiah was commissioned by the Persian king to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. It took 52 days full of threats and terror from Israel's enemies, but under Nehemiah's leadership, the wall was built and Jerusalem was safely in Jewish hands.

Guest (Male): Now let's take a look at our modern era. After Israel was established as a nation in 1948, the Jewish people had a sovereign state once again. But Jerusalem was divided, and the Old City and Western Wall were occupied by Jordan. 19 years later, after the miraculous Six-Day War of 1967, Jerusalem was once again, after 2,000 years, back in Jewish hands.

Guest (Male): Note the parallels. First, the nation's sovereignty. Then, Jerusalem secured. Is this all by accident, or has God repeated this pattern of events to show us something important? Now let's explore the books of Ezra and Nehemiah and see if we can find even more parallels between the Babylonian aliyah and the modern aliyah of our day.

Guest (Female): First, let's remember the context of the Babylonian exile. Jerusalem was utterly destroyed and millions of lives were lost in the conquests and exile that ravaged our land. Our people were scattered by our conquerors, and all hope seemed to be lost.

But 70 years into exile, without a war or political alliance, a miracle happened. The remnant of an enslaved and conquered people were granted their freedom. Isaiah prophesied of this event, and we can see the foreshadowing of this prophecy not just for Ezra's generation, but ours as well.

Guest (Male): "Who has heard such a thing? Who has seen such things? Shall the earth be made to give birth in one day? Or shall a nation be born at once? For as soon as Zion was in labor, she gave birth to her children."

Guest (Male): Many who read these verses today see the miracle of our nation's birth. But it was very similar in the day of Ezra. Nobody was looking after the welfare of the Jewish people. It wasn't in the interest of those in power to restore a Jewish homeland. But in just one day, Cyrus made a decree and it was done. In the same way, our nation came forth against all political odds, a remnant from the World War and the horrors of the Holocaust. Thus, our people returned to the land of promise.

Guest (Female): The Holocaust of our age wasn't the only time our people were nearly extinguished. Millions of lives were lost in the wars and Babylonian conquests. Only a remnant remained. It was out of the ashes of this dark age that we see Psalm 137's cry, often recited by our people in our darkest hour: "By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion." Through that psalm, we gain a glimpse at the grief and the brutality of their destruction and the same ancient hope that our fathers held to return back to Zion once again.

Guest (Male): "Behold, on the mountains the feet of him who brings good news, who announces peace. Celebrate your feasts, O Judah. Pay your vows, for never again will the wicked one pass through you."

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Guest (Male): The people of Israel had experienced invasion, slaughter, exile, and humiliation at the hands of the Babylonians. But even in this, God maintained a promise, a glimmer of hope in the midst of our cry. He would restore the fortunes of Israel and end our exile, bringing us back to the land.

As it was in those times, we have seen the same pattern play out in modern day. At the rise of the Persian Empire, Cyrus made a proclamation allowing us to return and rebuild. And just as God did back then, today we've seen how He used world events, shifting of nations, and even tragedy to pave the way for this present aliyah.

Guest (Male): Despite international sentiments and proclamations to establish a Jewish home for the Jewish people before World War II, these promises did not materialize. Before and to some degree also after World War II, the British Empire worked to keep Jewish people away from returning to their ancestral homeland.

They needed to gain favor with the Arab countries and keep their access to oil-rich territory. The British needed the allegiance of these Arab nations to secure vital oil trade. They saw little benefit to establishing Israel, which would enrage their prospective allies. During World War II, the British even prevented those trying to escape the Holocaust from reaching Israel's shores.

Guest (Female): But despite the opposition, in just one day in 1948, a nation was formed. All of President Truman's advisors counseled that the US vote against establishing the Jewish state in the coming UN's League of Nations vote. In fact, even Truman himself seemed opposed up until the last second.

But at the last moment, he made the official recognition of the Jewish state, shocking his own generals and diplomats. Later at a banquet, when Truman was being introduced as the man who helped create the state of Israel, Truman interrupted the presenter and said, "What do you mean helped to create? I am Cyrus."

Guest (Male): Many commentators state that Truman arguably played the decisive diplomatic role in the birth of the new state of Israel. But it wasn't a perfect alliance. Truman may have been quick to recognize Israel, but in the same stroke, he laid an arms embargo on the Middle East, forcing Israel to scavenge for weapons to survive.

Guest (Male): An alliance between a Judeo-Christian democracy like the United States could potentially be explained by politics. It's possible that Truman was just courting the Christian and Jewish vote. But the story many never hear is the other Cyrus, the most unlikely ally of Israel, Joseph Stalin.

Guest (Male): Stalin may have presided over some of the worst persecution of the Jewish people in history. But in 1947, as the debate of Israel's future raged, it was Russia's leadership that shocked Jewish diplomats and the world. They supported the Jewish state, not just through UN resolutions but approving arms deals which helped secure weapons crucial to Israel's defense in the War of Independence. While there are various theories as to why the Russians shifted their stance on Israel, Stalin's decision is still shrouded in mystery.

Guest (Male): Abba Eban later recalled, "Nothing had prepared us for this windfall. Moscow was reversing its traditional posture by proposing the option of a Jewish state. I had come to the United Nations with a pessimistic assumption about the balance of forces. I now revise my predictions. For the first time, our political sky was lit up with a glimmer of hope. It was no longer necessary to be a romantic optimist in order to foresee a Zionist success. Gromyko had become a Zionist hero."

Guest (Male): We can look historically to many who were influential in the re-establishing of the state of Israel in 1948. But even now, more than 75 years later, our hope is anchored not in any politician or government leader. It's anchored in the faithful hand of God leading His people through exile, suffering, and return and preserving His promises by His amazing grace.

Guest (Male): (Singing) Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind but now I see. (Singing in Hebrew). (Singing) My chains are gone, I've been set free. My God, my Savior has ransomed me. And like a flood, His mercy reigns, unending love, amazing grace. (Singing in Hebrew).

Guest (Male): We read in Isaiah 11 that God is asking a question: Can a nation be born in one day?

Guest (Female): Yes, it can happen because it happened. God's prophecies we see are continuously fulfilled and yet to be fulfilled. But the amazing thing is really 1948.

Guest (Male): On the 29th of November 1947, the League of Nations, later to become the United Nations, held a vote about dividing the land of Israel. The eastern part, the mountainous part, would become part of the kingdom of Jordan and the western side, the worthless land on the coastal area, would become the Jewish state of Israel. Miraculous in and of itself, the vote in the League of Nations was positive.

Guest (Male): I remember my dad, who was a kid at the time, telling me he remembers they're going out into the streets and partying all night and dancing. As the British were getting ready to leave, the Arab nations around Israel said, "We're not accepting this. We're going to come down and we're going to wipe all the Jews out. We're going to drown them in the sea."

The Jewish people, the generation of your grandmother, my grandfather, they are preparing to defend themselves. About six months later, just before the British literally left or right after, on the 14th of May 1948, the first Israeli government declared the statehood.

Guest (Male): In a very real way, also legally speaking, it was born in a day. And then the war, what we call the War of Independence, started when several armies all around attacked us. Much to the surprise, it really was a miracle that the state of Israel won. We didn't really have an organized army. We didn't have equipment. The Arab armies around us were much, much larger, better equipped. But we stood.

Guest (Female): When we're thinking about the remnant, and I'm talking about the disciples of Yeshua, those that love Yeshua, and we're thinking about, for example, in 1948, there were maybe 23 individuals living in Israel.

Guest (Male): Your grandmother was one of them.

Guest (Female): My grandmother, her family were living in Germany in 1934. She strongly felt conviction to come to Israel. Her family was completely Jewish but they were already believers in Yeshua in Germany. Her arrival in Haifa was significant because she met her husband there, who was also living in Israel, and their ancestries lived there for hundreds of years. It was a story of miracles and a story of God's grace because her parents and sister were murdered in the Holocaust. That's why I'm here.

Guest (Male): When my grandfather was in his late teen years, maybe early twenties, he was studying to be a lawyer in the capital of Bulgaria, in the University of Sofia. His older sister had already come to Israel and she was a pioneer, halutza. She wrote him and his other siblings, "Who needs another Jewish lawyer? You should come to Israel and build a land," and so on. Much to the dismay of his parents, that's what he did.

Guest (Male): When he came here, there was no land. My grandfather and his sister and their friends, that generation, they bought land. But they wouldn't sell them the good land. They sold them the swamps. They drained the swamps and built the land on Israel's coastal area, the area that currently 70% of Israelis reside. That was in and of itself a miracle.

Guest (Male): Fast forward 78 years, and Israel's now 78 years old. Conservative estimates are that there's between 30,000 to 50,000 Jewish followers of Yeshua in over 300 synagogues, congregations, and churches around the country. So yes, we still are a remnant, a small portion, but we're a much bigger, more visible remnant. If you label yourself anti-Zionism and God says, "I love Zion. I desire Zion," who are you putting yourself against? It's not against you and me. It's against God himself.

Guest (Female): God himself. But also that would be a place where all nations, it says, will come to worship the Lord of hosts. All nations means all nations that are not from the Jewish people, obviously, will come and join the blessings of Israel coming up to the mountain and worshiping God in Zion.

Guest (Male): Well, thank you so much. It is a miracle, the state of Israel, and a joy for us to be part of that. Thank you.

Guest (Male): The odds were always against us. And just like in Ezra and Nehemiah's day, many times our future looked grim. But then God, in His perfect timing, just as predicted thousands of years ago by the prophets of old, orchestrated an amazing story and made the impossible possible.

Guest (Female): Ezra and Nehemiah walked in miracles and overcame impossible odds because they kept their eyes fixed on God's promises in the midst of impossible situations. They read the promises of the prophets, and their belief helped them stand and lead our people to victory and closer to God. Likewise, we have the same opportunity, as the prophets have more to say about the nation we live in today. Will we cower to the odds in fear, or stand in faith looking to God's promises?