A certain Russian Czar demanded that his adviser, “Prove to
me that there is a God!” The adviser answered, “Just look at the Jewish
people!”
What did he mean by this? The Hebrew Bible’s prophecies
about this wandering nation have been unusual and fulfilled it dramatic ways.
Moses declared that God had chosen Israel and had blessed them exceedingly but also
prophesied:
·
You may say to yourself, "My power and the
strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me." But remember the
LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so
confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today. If
you ever forget the LORD your God and follow other gods and worship and bow
down to them, I testify against you today that you will surely be destroyed.
(Deut. 8:17-19)
Moses claimed that if Israel remained faithful to God’s
covenant, they would be blessed (Deut. 28). Since that time, no people has ever
been so successful, learned and wealthy as the Jewish people. Achievement has
followed them into whatever place Israel had been exiled. Their degrading
exilic circumstances, which have destroyed other peoples, have not interfered
with God’s blessings to His sign people. He has always brought forth His broken
and persecuted people against all the odds and the hatred of the surrounding
peoples.
Hank Pellissier has documented some of the successes of this
incredible sign-people of God:
·
Nobel
Prizes: Since 1950, 29% of the awards have gone to Ashkenazim [the Yiddish
speaking Jews from northern Europe, even though they represent only 0.25% of
humanity. Ashkenazi achievement in this arena is 117 times greater than their
population.
·
Hungary
in the 1930s: Ashkenazim were 6% of the population, but they comprised
55.7% of physicians, 49.2% of attorneys, 30.4% of engineers, and 59.4% of bank
officers; plus, they owned 49.4% of the metallurgy industry, 41.6% of machine
manufacturing, 72.8% of clothing manufacturing, and, as housing owners, they
received 45.1% of Budapest rental income. Jews were similarly successful in
nearby nations, like Poland and Germany.
·
USA
(today): Ashkenazi Jews comprise 2.2% of the USA population, but they represent
30% of faculty at elite colleges, 21% of Ivy League students, 25% of the Turing
Award winners, 23% of the wealthiest Americans, and 38% of the Oscar-winning
film directors.
However, Moses also prophesied that Israel would reject
their God and He would reject them, resulting in terrifying consequence (Deut.
32):
·
The LORD will drive you and the king you set
over you to a nation unknown to you or your fathers. There you will worship
other gods, gods of wood and stone. You will become a thing of horror and an
object of scorn and ridicule to all the nations where the LORD will drive
you…Among those nations you will find no repose, no resting place for the sole
of your foot. There the LORD will give you an anxious mind, eyes weary with
longing, and a despairing heart. You will live in constant suspense, filled with
dread both night and day, never sure of your life. (Deut. 28:36-37; 65-66)
There has never been a people as hated and persecuted as the
Jewish people. Yet, from the midst of this hatred, their God had promised
restoration to exiled and tormented Israel:
·
But if they will confess their sins and the sins
of their fathers--their treachery against me and their hostility toward me,
which made me hostile toward them so that I sent them into the land of their
enemies--then when their uncircumcised hearts are humbled and they pay for
their sin, I will remember my covenant with Jacob and my covenant with Isaac
and my covenant with Abraham, and I will remember [My promise about the] land.”
(Leviticus 26:40-42)
On three occasions, God had rescued His repentant people,
brought them back to the land, and re-established their nation.
1. In response to the cries of
enslaved Israel’s cries, after hundreds of years of cruel bondage in Egypt, God
sent Moses to lead them to redemption and freedom in the Promised Land.
2. After the fall of the Babylonian
empire in 532 BC, God placed it in the Persian Cyrus’ heart to equip the Jews
to return to their own land and rebuild their Temple.
3. Following the two rebellions
against Rome (66-70 CE and 132-136 CE), the Jews were expelled from their land.
After centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust in Nazi Europe,
once again, Israel was restored as a nation by the 1948 UN vote.
No people group has ever returned to its ancestral land --
even once -- after entirely leaving it. Israel has been restored to their Promised
Land on three occasions! This is not merely an historical anomaly, it is a sign
of Divine intervention, and it doesn’t stop there.
Prophecy reveals that, in the end, Israel will once again be
a nation and again without faith towards her God. Her assailants will
mercilessly break her, but this time her God will intervene decisively and
permanently:
·
The LORD will judge [“vindicate” ESV] his people
and have compassion on his servants when he sees their strength is gone and no
one is left, slave or free…Rejoice, O nations, with his people, for he will
avenge the blood of his servants; he will take vengeance on his enemies and
make atonement for his land and people. (Deut. 32:36; 43)
Fulfilled prophecy not only constitutes proof of God’s
existence; it also validates Scripture and the Christian faith.
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