The Centrality of Israel for the Fulfillment of End Time Prophecy
We can’t preach the gospel of the “kingdom” unless we fully understand the Father’s plan to fully restore the physical kingdom of Israel and the setting of the Son of David on his physical throne in Jerusalem. One of Jesus’ main objectives when coming back is restoring and vindicating Israel. He will dwell among the Jewish people in their land, and he will be their only spiritual and political leader. He will be their God and they will be his people and they will never again depart from The Truth. The Lord will use the church at the end of the age to bring God’s plan to save Israel to completion. Understanding the centrality of Israel for the fulfillment of the End Time prophecy is key to understanding God’s plan for the church. If we want to know all that is going to unfold at the end of the age, we need to understand that God is not done with the Jewish people. Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs is the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship, and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah. God has not rejected Israel and she has not stumble beyond recovery. Israel’s transgression was actually necessary for the Gentiles to be included in God’s family. God used their unbelief to include the Gentiles in his promises. It was because of Israel’s transgression, that salvation has come to those who were once afar. But the very purpose of our inclusion into God’s kingdom is to actually provoke them into jealousy. On the other hand, if Israel’s transgression means riches for the world, and their loss means riches for us, how much greater riches will their full inclusion bring? The salvation of Israel will be a gift for the rest of the world and will conclude God’s precious plan to bring all creation into a living relationship with him. Israel’s salvation at the end of the age will be the greatest witness to the rest of the nations of the power of God's power to bring life from the dead. Israel’s salvation is the catalyst for the rending of the heavens and the second coming of Jesus. Israel is the virgin who will give birth to the return of Jesus as she travails in agony through the great tribulation. During that time she will finally cry out for her Yeshua, which means salvation in Hebrew. She will look at the one she pierced and call him Emanuel (God with us). And the church on the other hand will be Israel's midwife. She will facilitate her delivery and will comfort her during her terrible birth pains.
Let’s look at seven different aspects that point to the centrality of Israel for the restoration of all things in the Last Days.
1. According to Ezekiel 37 the nation of Israel will be first restored physically and then spiritually. The Lord promises that he will unify all the tribes once again, bring them back to the Land, and then he will send the Messiah to rule as king.
Ezekiel 37:11-14 Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ 12 Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: My people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. 13 Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. 14 I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
Ezekiel 37:24-25 “‘My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. 25 They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your ancestors lived."
2. Israel needs to become a nation and have a temple before Jesus returns. The restoration of Israel as a nation and the building of the third temple is essential for the fulfillment of prophecy regarding the Antichrist. According to scripture, the Antichrist will invade Jerusalem and trample over it, and there he will set himself up in God’s temple proclaiming himself to be God.
2 Thessalonians 2:3-4 Don’t let anyone deceive you in any way, for that day will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the man doomed to destruction. He will oppose and will exalt himself over everything that is called God or is worshiped, so that he sets himself up in God’s temple, proclaiming himself to be God.
Revelation 11:1-2 I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshipers. 2 But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.
Daniel 11:16 The invader will do as he pleases; no one will be able to stand against him. He will establish himself in the Beautiful Land and will have the power to destroy it.
3. The house of Israel needs to recognize Jesus as the Messiah before he returns.
Matthew 23:38-39 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those sent to her, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling! 38Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you that you will not see Me again until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.’”
Zachariah 12:10-12 “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son. 11 On that day the weeping in Jerusalem will be as great as the weeping of Hadad Rimmon in the plain of Megiddo. 12 The land will mourn, each clan by itself, with their wives by themselves.”
4. Jesus will establish his throne in Jerusalem upon his return. Jerusalem will be the political capital of the world. He will rule the whole earth from that place and will send his law to be established over all the earth from Jerusalem. During the Millennial reign, the leaders of the nations will go to Jerusalem to worship Jesus and learn from him. Israel will be a light for all nations and the head of all nations.
Jeremiah 3:17 At that time they will call Jerusalem The Throne of the LORD, and all nations will gather in Jerusalem to honor the name of the LORD. No longer will they follow the stubbornness of their evil hearts.
Micah 4:1-2 In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. 2 Many nations will come and say, “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths.” The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
Zachariah 14:8-16 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem, half of it east to the Dead Sea and half of it west to the Mediterranean Sea, in summer and in winter. 9 The Lord will be king over the whole earth. On that day there will be one Lord, and his name the only name. […]16 Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty.
Isaiah 2:2 And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the LORD's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.
5. Jerusalem will be the main focus of both persecution and revival during the tribulation.
Jeremiah 30:4-7 These are the words the Lord spoke concerning Israel and Judah: 5 “This is what the Lord says:“‘Cries of fear are heard— terror, not peace. 6 Ask and see: Can a man bear children? Then why do I see every strong man with his hands on his stomach like a woman in labor, every face turned deathly pale? 7 How awful that day will be! No other will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it.
Zachariah 14:2-3 I will gather all the nations to Jerusalem to fight against it; the city will be captured, the houses ransacked, and the women raped. Half of the city will go into exile, but the rest of the people will not be taken from the city.
Luke 21:20 “When you see Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, you will know that its desolation is near.”
Joel 2:28-32 “And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions. 29 Even on my servants, both men, and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.30 I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and billows of smoke.31 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. 32 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said, even among the survivors whom the Lord calls.
Revelation 11:3-8 And I will appoint my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth.” 4 They are “the two olive trees” and the two lampstands, and “they stand before the Lord of the earth.”5 If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die. 6 They have power to shut up the heavens so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want. 7 Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them. 8 Their bodies will lie in the public square of the great city—which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt—where also their Lord was crucified.
6. The Lord Jesus will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. He will judge all nations according to the way they have treated Israel. Especially the nations who have abused the Jewish people and scattered them, and the nations that have parted the land. Israel will be vindicated and defended by Jesus himself upon his return.
Joel 3:1-3 “In those days and at that time, when I restore the fortunes of Judah and Jerusalem, 2 I will gather all nations and bring them down to the Valley of Jehoshaphat. There I will put them on trial for what they did to my inheritance, my people Israel, because they scattered my people among the nations and divided up my land. 3 They cast lots for my people and traded boys for prostitutes; they sold girls for wine to drink.
Zachariah 12:9 On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem.
Zachariah 14:3 Then the Lord will go out and fight against those nations, as he fights on a day of battle.
7. The Lord promises that all of Israel as a nation will be saved. he Jewish people will come under Jesus’ Lordship and will never again depart from his statutes.
Romans 11: 25-27 I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery, brothers and sisters, so that you may not be conceited: Israel has experienced a hardening in part until the full number of the Gentiles has come in, 26 and in this way all Israel will be saved. As it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob. 27 And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins.”
Jeremiah 31:1-2 "At that time," declares the LORD, "I will be the God of all the clans of Israel, and they will be my people." 2 This is what the LORD says: "The people who survive the sword will find favor in the desert; I will come to give rest to Israel."
Jeremiah 31:31-34“The days are coming,” declares the Lord, “when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the Lord. 33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel after that time,” declares the Lord. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord.
Ezekiel 37:22-24 I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. 23 They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God. 24 “‘My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees.