Derek Prince - Why Israel's Almost Weekly On The News
This is an excerpt from: Why Israel?
Now, all this has a very important application to you and me in Britain amongst other places. If you'll turn to Isaiah chapter 11 God says what the significance of the restoration of Israel is to be for other nations. Isaiah 11 Isaiah 11 verses 11 and 12. It shall come to pass in that day and that day in Isaiah and other prophets is usually the end time. Not always, but usually. It shall come to pass in that day that the LORD shall set His hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people who are left, from Assyria and Egypt, from Pathos and Cush, from Elam and Shinar, from Hamath and the islands of the Sea.
So Isaiah predicts there's going to be a second re-gathering. This is a remarkable fact about the Bible because the first re-gathering had not yet taken place, but God looks beyond that. The first re-gathering was a brief partial re-gathering after the Babylonian captivity. But God says there will be a second regathering and this re-gathering will be worldwide, not just be from the few areas to which the Jews were dispersed in the Babylonian captivity, but it would be worldwide. "I will set My hand the second time to regather the remnant of My people". Now if God sets His hand to do something, He's going to do it. Woe to the person who gets in His way. Now this is such a vivid description to me. What is the significance of it? He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.
Notice, this is to be a worldwide in-gathering. The re-gathering from Babylon was partial, limited to certain areas. This one is worldwide. And it's been exactly fulfilled. There are more than a hundred nations from which the Jewish people have been gathered. You cannot find any area of the earth from which the Jewish people have not been re-gathered. But it was all predicted before the first scattering and the first gathering. And then God says, and this has become so vivid to me, "He will set up a banner for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel". The nations is the other nations, the Gentiles. So the re-gathering of Israel to their own land is God's banner to the nations. We better give heed.
Now what is a banner? This is my simple definition. A banner is usually some kind of something like a flag or something like that, that is put on something that lifts it up and makes it visible to a long distance and usually it has a few simple words on it. So that's how I understand the re-gathering of the Jewish people. It's God's banner lifted up for all the nations to see. And you see all the nations do see because you never open your newspaper for a week without getting news about Israel. I mean it's amazing when you think it's a nation of less than six million people with a tiny little strip of territory less than the principality of Wales. And it's on the news week, by week, by week. Why? Because it's God's banner, He wants all the nations to see it. It's lifted up. What are the words on the banner?
Now this is just my own personal interpretation. But for me what God says through that banner is this, GOD KEEPS HIS COVENANTS. How many years ago? About three thousand eight hundred years ago God made a covenant with Abraham. He said, "I'll give this land to you and your descendants". Most people forgot it. Most Israelites forgot it. People thought it was buried in their past. There's one person who never forgot. God. He said, "I'm keeping My covenant". How important that is for all of us to know. God keeps His covenants. It's very important for us as Christians because our relationship with God is based on the covenant made through the blood of Jesus.
If God could break His covenant with Israel, why shouldn't He break His covenant with the Church? But He won't. He's not a covenant breaker. He made a covenant and He's keeping a covenant. And that's good news. It's exciting. I remember we were in Jerusalem, my first wife and I and our family in 29th of November 1947 when the United Nations voted to partition this little strip of territory and give Israel just a little strip. And down in the center of Jerusalem the young Jewish people, the boys and the girls linked arms and danced the hora around the Zion Square almost all night. Why were they so excited? Because God was keeping His covenant. Oh, how wonderful He is.