Articles by Alex Dodson
Today, there are an estimated 13.3 million Jews in the world. Of this number, 4.9 million live in Israel and 8.3 million live in other nations of the world. (www.simpletoremember.com) God has preserved the Jewish people. There is no doubt about that. Today, there is a nation called Israel where almost 5 million Jews live. The nation of Israel was established in 1948 after almost 2,000 years without a Jewish homeland. This seems to establish the fact that God has brought the Jews back to their land. In 1990, Steve Schlissel wrote in his book, Hal Lindsey and the Restoration of the Jews, “Just weight must be given, to be sure, to the reality of the Jewish presence, three and half million strong now, in the land. This could not have occurred but for the Providence of God, all must agree. Yet for all we know, it is possible that there may be another dispersion with a regathering a thousand years hence. We hope not and we doubt it, but we simply do not know.” (p. 29) Is today’s re-gathering of the Jews in the land of Israel a fulfillment of prophecy such as Amos 9:15 which says, “I will plant Israel in their own land, never again to be uprooted from the land I have given them.”? We cannot say for sure but it may very well be a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy.
In Daniel, we find the amazing prophecy of a stone that was cut out of a mountain and then struck a statue completely destroying the statue and the stone, itself, growing so enormous that it becomes a mountain and fills the whole earth. Today, many say this is something that will happen in the future. The stone, according to them, has not yet struck the statue. This will happen in the future when Jesus returns. Edward J. Young in his commentary on Daniel writes concerning this popular view, “Thus, it is argued, the time of the prophecy is fixed as being, not the first but the second Advent of Christ. According to this position, there must first be a revived Roman Empire, the signs of which, it is alleged, are already to be discerned….Christ will then come for His saints; the Church will be caught up to heaven, and the Stone will fall.” (p. 77-78) This continues to be the most popular view of Daniel’s prophecy of the stone. However, this may not be the proper interpretation. Are we now awaiting the stone to fall in the future or has it already fallen and begun its work?