It can be no doubt at all that
we are living in the last day.
Of this there is absolutely no doubt.
The fact that other preachers said it fifty
years ago doesn't take away from the fact
that we are now living in the last
day.
And night by night we will be looking
at the Bible as it is related to
tomorrow's newspapers.
Because I believe that the Bible carries the
headlines of next week.
We can see Bible prophecy fulfilled again and
again.
And we want to talk principally tonight, in
introducing the subject, about Israel.
Now, everybody knows about Israel, but I believe
that every Christian should be tremendously excited about
Israel.
I believe that.
I get shocked when I go to certain
places and I find that they don't relive
the thing at all.
They don't relive the news bulletins, they don't
relive the television news, they don't relive the
newspapers to the Bible.
And how much they are missing as Christians.
You see, Israel today is the land over
which Christ will reign in glory for a
thousand years.
He won't, from Israel, dominate the entire planet.
And what excites me is the fact that
I will be reigning with Him.
He is my Savior, He is my Friend,
He is my Lord, He is Israel's King.
And He has said to me, confidently and
confidentially, that I will reign with Him in
His glory over Israel.
Therefore, every wind that blows across earth excites
me.
Every conference that's held on earth's soil, every
battle fought and victory won, fills my heart.
Because everything that's happening in that land today,
that miracle strip, 200 miles by 40 broad,
200 long, is crying out to me, the
King is coming, the King is coming, and
He is my King, and He is my
Lord.
Therefore, you ought to be excited about Israel.
If you are not excited about Israel, there
is something wrong with your Christian faith.
You have missed the button.
Because, the Savior who died on the cross,
who is coming to reign as King of
Israel and King of Kings, is coming to
take me away first.
So if I can find from the Bible
that He is coming soon to Israel, then
I am assured He is coming sooner for
me.
We are on the threshold of the mass
Exodus of men and women who are moving
out of this planet to heaven.
And everything you read that's related to the
Bible is just proving that fact.
You know last year in America, you know
I go there nearly every year, I go
to Israel every year.
In America last year they had a program
when 11 of the top scientists were being
interviewed about the situation and the shortage of
supplies of various essentials.
And the interviewer said to these 11 top
men, What do you think life will be
like on earth in the year 2000?
And 9 of them replied immediately, There couldn't
be life on this earth in the year
2000.
That's just 25 years from now.
The scientists maintained that we are running out
of natural resources.
That the population explosion, the lack of essentials,
the pollution of air and water, would mean,
according to them, that there could not be
life on this earth in the year 2000.
Now we know that there shall be life
on this earth in the year 2000, but
a different kind of life by future.
When Christ will be reigning personally, I see
that.
And I think that from the Bible, if
you were with us, we could prove it
on another night.
Because these subjects that we have before us
are absolutely colossal.
I would need to stay for Easter time
to exhaust them.
But then we're starting another prophetic series in,
it's like Glasgow this night week.
And we can't stay too long anyway.
But the interest is tremendous.
I want to talk to you about Israel.
And let's go back and look at where
she began.
And Israel was called by God in Abraham.
God called Abraham long ago.
And he was in a godless city called
Herbitality.
And God said, I will make of thee
a great nation.
I will bless it.
In thy feet shall all the nations of
the earth be blessed.
Why God called Abraham, I don't know.
And nobody knows.
God can do what he'd like.
He's not answerable to anybody.
So God said, it's going to be Abraham.
But Abraham was an old man.
And his wife was an old lady.
And they didn't have any seed.
And yet God said, in thy feet shall
all the nations of the earth be blessed.
And as they got older and older and
more old, they decided that something had gone
astray.
That the will of God had not been
accomplished in them.
And they were now past the age for
childbearing.
And so they agreed among themselves that as
was the custom in those days, Abraham would
take another wife.
The handmaid called Hagar.
And to Hagar he would have a child.
And that was right.
That happened.
And the child's name was Isht.
And there was poor Abraham trying to help
God to do God's work in Abraham's way,
not God's way.
And the little boy grew up.
And Hagar and Ishmael were a great embarrassment
in the home because old Sarah felt the
problems of having this child.
And Sarah said, you have to put the
woman out and the child out.
And Abraham said to God, what do I
do now?
Have I made a mistake?
Yes, you've made a mistake.
Put the woman and the child out.
And on the blessed day, God put Hagar
and Ishmael out into the wilderness.
The little boy was almost going to die
of thirst.
You know the story.
Folks are shattered by that fact.
But remember this, that when God put them
out into the wilderness, he put oil in
the desert.
He forsook them not.
God will never forsake.
And Ishmael is the head of the Arab
nations today.
And they control the world in the supply
of oil because God gave old Ishmael, dear
Ishmael, oil in the wilderness, oil in the
desert.
And tonight they can hold the entire world
for ransom.
And one of the descendants of Ishmael is
earning 20 million pounds a day.
Sir, wait for that.
And God forsook not Ishmael.
But sent to Abraham and gave him Isaac
as a son.
So Isaac became the firstborn son of Solomon
by a miracle birth.
And it was through him and his boy,
Jacob of Esau, that God chose Jacob.
And he took him to a monk one
night, and he said, I'm going to change
your character.
I'm going to change your name.
Your name will not be Jacob anymore.
It shall be Israel.
The first time the word was used, Israel.
For as a proof I shall have power
with God and with men.
And Israel was born that night.
Jacob died in the mountain, poor old Jacob.
And a new man was born and came
down the mountainside, Israel.
As a proof I shall have power with
God and with men.
And God said to Abraham, In thy seed
shall all nations of the earth be blessed,
and thy seed shall possess the gifts of
her enemies.
Now remember that when you're reading the Guardian
in the daily telegraph broadcast.
The boys don't know this, but I've read
their great article.
Scientific, oh, tremendous.
Impossible for Israel to win the next war.
She's outnumbered in tanks and aircraft and men.
And the United Nations are against it too.
Poor Israel will go down.
And the editor of the Guardian said two
months ago, The next battle between the Jews
and the Arabs will be the Battle of
Armageddon.
The dear man should keep talking about horses
and football and bingo.
Hasn't it played?
The Battle of Armageddon is not coming up
yet as we speak during the week.
Thy seed shall possess the gifts of her
enemies.
There is no power on earth going to
crush Israel.
The Bible says it.
It's not through the Bible's law.
The United Nations can oppose her and put
her out of the United Nations as they
probably will in this year.
The Syrians and the Jordanians and the Egyptians
will attack her probably in a few months.
But she shall be there when the King
comes.
They shall not destroy the feet of Abraham
because God says, Thy seed shall possess the
gifts of her enemies.
Will it tide the man or the nation
that rises up against Israel?
But the only part of the planet you'll
know that God says, It's my land.
My land.
When he says that, you'd better keep your
hands off it.
It's my land.
Don't touch it.
God's Son will reign over it and on
the soil as you come night after night
on the soil of Israel.
We're going to see Russia destroyed.
We're going to see China destroyed.
In Revelation 9-10 in the last days
an army of 200 million men will march
on Israel and shall be destroyed.
And China has got that kind of an
army tonight ready to march on Israel.
I hope that you're in tune with events.
I hope you're in tune with what is
happening.
So God brought Israel into being and God
blessed the 12 sons of Jacob.
His name was Israel.
The 12 sons were called the children of
Israel.
And their grandchildren were also called the children
of Israel.
And they got themselves down in Egypt.
You know the story.
And when there were 3 million of them,
God got Moses to bring them out from
under the heel of Pharaoh across the Red
Sea and into the wilderness.
They wandered for 40 years and came right
round to Jericho.
And Jordan was dried up as they quaffed
into Jericho and Jericho fell.
You know the story.
They are tremendous.
Moses was about to die.
He had led them.
He was now handing over the leadership to
Joshua.
And he, on that critical day in their
history, gives to them a blessing on the
curse.
Which you will now find in your Bible
in Deuteronomy 28.
And there we start Deuteronomy 28.
These are amazing words which Moses said to
the 3 million children of Israel.
Because Moses didn't know it.
God was going to send them their king
to Bethlehem's manger.
And the crucial point in their history would
be their acceptance of Christ.
Or their rejection of Christ.
Now here is the challenge in Deuteronomy 28
and 15.
Now we know, looking back, that this was
a crunch moment in their history.
It was what they were going to do
with Jesus that really mattered.
Moses is telling them to reject him.
And until thou turnest quickly, because of the
wickedness of thy doings whereby thou hast forsaken
me, the Lord shall make the pestilence creep
unto thee until he hath consumed thee from
off the land whither thou goest to possess
it.
You could possibly read all of this chapter.
Look at verse 64.
And the Lord shall scatter thee among all
people from the one end of the earth
even unto the other, and there thou shalt
serve other gods, which neither thou nor thy
fathers have known, even wood and stone.
And among these nations shalt thou find no
ease, neither shall the stool of thy foot
have rest.
But the Lord shall give thee there a
trembling heart, and feeling of eyes, and sorrow
of mind.
And thy light shall hang in darkness for
thee, and thou shalt fear day and night,
and shalt have none assurance of thy life.
In the morning thou shalt say, Would God
if were even, and at even thou shalt
say, Would God if were morning.
For the fear of thine heart, for which
thou shalt fear, and for the sight of
thine eyes, which thou shalt see.
The Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again
with ships by the way, whereof I shake
unto thee, and thou shalt see it no
more again.
And there ye shall be sold unto your
enemies for bondmen and bondwomen, and no man
shall buy you.
This is a little bit of the curse
which was to come upon this tremendous nation
if they disobeyed God in his offer of
a king called Jesus of Nazareth.
Israel had a checkered career, and Israel, at
that crucial moment when the king was born
in Bethlehem and should have been enthroned, was
rejected by Israel.
And Bratislava said, What shall I do with
Jesus?
They said, Crucify him!
Crucify him!
We will not have this man to reign
over us!
And Israel perished, and the curses of Deuteronomy
28 were brought into action, and Israel experienced
it.
And they put their king on a cross,
and we're going to see how that king
of Israel turned to a dying, perishing world
and offered himself as savior for sinners.
A perishing world, and offered himself as savior
for sinners.
And how he built his church in opposition
to Israel, who rejected him, he turned his
back on Israel.
Forty years after Christ died, the great wrath
of Saba, that may not be familiar to
some of the young people.
The Roman army came right up the Mediterranean,
forty years after Christ died, A.D. 7
May, and crushed Jerusalem.
And what was said here, the land was
cursed, the soil was cursed, the mountains, the
hills.
The hills were denuded of trees.
Everything withered, nothing would grow.
You could have planted what you liked, but
nothing came up.
The land was cursed.
The walls were taken down, the temple was
taken down stone by stone.
And about six million of these dear people
were scattered, or killed.
Caught boats would sail over to Europe.
Nine hundred of them fled down to the
south, forty miles south of Jerusalem, to a
rock called Masada.
I've walked up there in the east of
Masada, it's a dreadful place.
Nine hundred and sixty-five descendants of Abraham,
all that was left in the land, suffered,
starved, sweated, diseased, hungry.
They turned on each other, and slew each
other, sooner than surrendered to the might of
the Roman Empire.
And on that dreadful rock, with temperatures in
the 140, 150 degrees, Israel died.
Israel perished.
The glory of David, Moses, was gone.
Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah was gone.
And they were scattered across the world for
1,500 years.
They had no home.
They had nothing.
And then God began to move, as he
promised to do, and he began to bring
them back again into their country.
They started to come back as a result
of the 1418 war, which some of you
fought in perhaps, and it was rather remarkable
that in 1917, when Britain was losing that
first world war in France, the lack of
explosive power, the gel ignited right up the
supply, that they appealed to the scientists to
produce some kind of explosive that would help
them to win the war in France.
And a certain Dr. Weissman invented in his
lab a substance technically called, and then commercially
called, TNT, an explosive substance.
And Lloyd George and his government at that
time were so excited and delighted, and they
produced it and shipped it to France, and
we won the war, or presumably won the
war.
And when the soldiers came home and the
bands were playing, and the British government didn't
forget about Lloyd George, didn't forget about Dr.
Weissman, and Lloyd George sent for him and
said, His Majesty will confer upon you any
honour that you care to mention, any reward.
I ask for what you want.
We're in your debt forever.
Dr. Weissman said in 1918, he said, All
I want is a home for my people.
I want a place on earth where my
people can dwell and rest.
Oh, perhaps the British government were embarrassed, I
don't know, but a fellow called Balfour put
his Declaration of Independence, or Declaration of Sympathy,
which was the Zionist movement, through the House
of Commons in London, and at that time
it was made a British protectorate for the
Jews, and the word went out, go back
home.
The long, hard track began as they started
to go back home after that act of
Parliament at Westminster, and the Israelis began to
assemble in Palestine once more.
It's rather ironic when you realize that just
two years ago, in their great conflict in
the Sinai Desert, when they were running out
of spare parts for their tanks, and the
Egyptians had come over to the US to
hammer them, and the appeal went from the
Israeli War Minister to the Cabinet in London
to ask for help, for spare parts to
keep the tanks going, that the reply from
London was, sorry, it's not our war.
Less than to fight alone with rat tanks
in the desert.
I assume they had forgotten about Dr. Weissman.
I assume they had forgotten their indebtedness.
But it wasn't until another world war had
torn the Western world apart that Israel became
a nation in 1948.
As God said it would become a nation.
Now, if you could find in your Bible
Ezekiel 36, I'll very soon be finished.
Here is a prophecy, having got the curse,
having been scattered, having had their land cursed,
the Lord speaks here in Ezekiel 36, verse
1, Also thy son of man, prophesy unto
the mountains of Israel, and say, Ye mountains
of Israel, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus saith the Lord God, because the enemy
hath said against you, Aha, even the ancient
high places are ours in cessation.
Now let's stop there.
That was so-so in 1967.
In 1948, when Israel became a nation and
got a seat in the United Nations, and
Britain, with the United Nations, agreed to cut
up a bit of Palestine and give it
to Israel as a nation.
They didn't use the Bible as a guide.
So they cut up an area 97 miles
long by 40 miles broad.
They gave the Gaza Strip over to the
Egyptians.
They gave the west bank of Jordan over
to King Hussein and let him have his
palace on it.
So although they gave an area 97 miles
by 40, it wasn't a complete area because
these people were still in possession.
They gave to the Arabs the essential places
in Palestine in order to help Britain, all
the South, with her diplomacy, to help the
monarchy.
And they gave to the Arabs the Temple
area of all things.
And the Wailing Walls.
And the Mount of Olives.
And the birthplace of Samuel.
And the burial place of Samuel.
And Mount Zion.
And the tomb of David.
And Hebron, where Abraham buried his wife and
Isaac buried his.
These sacred high places Britain and the United
Nations gave to the Arabs.
And so from 1948, as Egypt of 36
was fulfilled, your enemy will say against you,
Aha, we have the high place.
It's calm.
It's prophecy fulfilled in our lifetime.
Israel couldn't stand it any longer and in
1967 she rose up and pushed them off
the high place.
And in 1967 on the fourth day of
the Six Day War, Nushi Zayan, the defense
minister of Israel, rushed forward in triumph to
the Temple area and kicked that Wailing Wall.
And he said, We have come to the
holiest place on earth never to leave it
again.
There cannot be any question of Israel giving
back those places she got in 1967 because
God gave it to her in fulfillment of
his Egypt of 36.
And she pushed back her boundary from 97
miles to 200 miles.
And she took the Jordanians off the west
bank and she put the Egyptians under the
Gaza Strip.
So now she holds an area 200 miles
long, 40 miles broad.
And that's the size the country is to
be when the king comes, according to Revelation
14.
Ah, how many things have been happening under
your gaze and you didn't know it.
And in 1967 God started a war and
as many of the officers out there have
said to me, You see, Jehovah started the
war.
He continued the war and he stopped the
war in six days and we did not
fight on the Sabbath.
That was good God.
It doesn't leave much room for the United
Nations or Russia or China when a little
country like that has got God fighting for
it.
That's what it is today.
And she got her high places.
That was fulfilled in 1967.
Now watch what it says here.
That is, But ye, O monks of Israel,
ye shall shoot forth your branches and yield
your fruit to my people of Israel, for
they are at hand to come.
For behold, I am for you, and I
will turn unto you, and ye shall be
killed and slain.
And I will multiply men upon you, all
the house of Israel, even all of it.
And a city shall be inhabited, and a
way shall be builded.
And I will multiply upon you men and
beasts, and they shall increase and bring food.
And I will settle you after your old
estate, and will do better unto you than
at your beginning.
And ye shall know that I am the
Lord.
Yea, I will cause men to walk upon
you, even my people Israel.
And they shall possess thee, and thou shalt
be their inheritance, and thou shalt no more
henceforth believe them of men.
Now this is so wonderful.
You read the rest of that at your
leisure.
God is prophesying to the high places, to
the mountains, to the soil, to the regathering,
unto the old estate.
And that was just tonight, just to deal
with those verses I read to you.
You can go into any of your supermarkets
now and buy Jaffa oranges, can't you?
That's the fulfillment of Ezekiel 36.
You couldn't have bought Jaffa oranges in 1947,
nor in 1948.
At every store in the big cities of
the world, they're buying products of Israel.
And hence, you just touch on Monday.
That's the fulfillment.
I've looked at it, I've watched it.
The great, the greatest, the savior, the teacher.
You're going to see on the screen tonight
the fulfillment of these things.
You're going to see a transformation from dusk
and wilderness.
But these great men have professionally made this
film in America, and at great cost.
And they're going to show you that history
better than I could do it.
They're going to show you black and white
still shots of Belsen, of six million Jews,
starved and poisoned, almost exterminated.
It's interesting, the six million rejected Christ at
that time in Palestine.
And as the tide turned and the road
back home became clear to them, to Dr.
Wiseman, that six million of them were put
into gas chambers in Hitler's Germany.
The Bible is a great...
It's the book about Israel, the book about
the church, the book about lost sinners, the
book about a loving Savior.
You couldn't watch this film, and you couldn't
go to Israel yourself and ever have another
gunch in your mind about the reality of
the Bible, the reality of whoso prophesied.
And we're going to look at it night
after night, if you come and join us
here.
And we're going to look at the film
just now in a moment or two, and
we want you to listen to this commentator.
It's the first gentleman you see, Mr. Hal
Lindsey, who has written those excellent books, one
recently on hypnotism and the occult, but his
masterpiece on prophecy is the liquid planet Earth.
Books on the desk out there, Operation Mobilization,
have got to do with prophecy, on the
piano, or from the prophetic witness, Dr. Thad
Ford.
And there's also some little hardback books that
are produced all about Israel, with modern pictures
of Israel, development, land, agriculture, cultivation.
I think that if you will watch this
film with an open mind, with that background
that I have given to you, and the
reality that Israel today is fulfilling Bible prophecy
every week, and that she shall not be
destroyed, she shall not be overcome of her
enemies, and that God said in the last
days he would raise up a Jew who
would become an international figure, who would make
peace with the enemies of Israel along his
coast, who would persuade the nations above to
release the Jews to go back home to
their country.
We are living in the last days of
Bible prophecy.
Christ is coming soon.
Waken up to this reality, and let God
stretch your heart tonight.
That which you have just heard was the
introductory talk before the showing of the documentary
film about Israel entitled The Return.