A Modern Miracle

Norman is a research physicist who does not believe the Bible and refuses to read it. Whenever I mention Bible prophecy to him, he smiles condescendingly.

" Of course Bible prophecies have been fulfilled," he says. "They were bound to be. They remind me of the astrology pages in Old Moores Almanac. You know how it goes: in January, Bad weather increases road deaths; in February, There will be many strikes in the engineering industry; in March, There will he many crimes of violence and a sensational bank robbery.

"You cant lose when you prophesy such obvious things in such vague terms. Something is sure to happen that can be made to fit each prophecy, in retrospect. And thats how it is with the Bible."

Poor Norman. He only exposes his own ignorance when he talks like that. The astonishing thing about the Bible is that it has prophesied the most unlikely things. And although some prophecies are worded in an obscure way, many others are as clear as crystal.

A good example to begin with is the way the Bible has foretold the entire history of the Jewish people over a period of more than two thousand years.

A Strange History

It is quite possible that you dislike Jews. Many people do. But that is beside the point at the moment. Whatever we may think about the Jews we cannot deny that they exist, and that they have a very long and a very strange history.

In the days of Jesus Christ there was a thriving Jewish nation in the land of Israel. Hundreds of years earlier the nation had been independent, but long before Jesus was born it became a part of the Roman Empire.

The Jews did not take kindly to being ruled by foreigners. For many years the country seethed with discontent and rebellion.

Between A.D. 66 and A.D. 135 the Jews fought three fierce wars of independence. But each time they were defeated, and by A.D. 135 the Romans had had enough trouble. They were determined to stop these revolts once and for all.

With typical Roman thoroughness they utterly destroyed Jerusalem and ploughed up its site. Then they erased its name from their maps, and sent all the inhabitants of Judaea (the main part of the land of Israel) into exile.

And that, thought the Romans, was that.

But they were wrong. For century after century the Jews survived as a nation without a country. Wherever they went they were hated, treated as an inferior race, made to live in ghettos.

Take for example their history in just one country - England. We first hear of Jews coming to England in the reign of William the Conqueror. They were never made very welcome, and in 1190 a fearful wave of massacres spread from city to city, wiping out Jewish men, women and children.

For another hundred years the survivors lived an uneasy existence. Then, in 1290, Edward I expelled all the Jews from Britain.

In 1492 all Jews were expelled from Spain, and some of them came to live secretly in England, living in fear of their lives if they should be found out. It was not until 1656 that Jews were officially readmitted to England, by Oliver Cromwell.

Even then they were forced to accept the role of second-class citizens, somewhat like the coloured people in South Africa today. After many years of trying to obtain political freedom, it was only in 1858 that Jews were first allowed to sit in Britains parliament.

In other countries they often fared worse. As recently as the 1880s Jews had to flee for their lives from Russia; in the 1930s (if they were wise) from Germany.

In short, for seventeen centuries, on and off, the exiled Jews were persecuted, massacred, or made to flee for their lives from one country to another. Yet somehow they survived it all.

Then, at the end of the last century, nearly eighteen hundred years after their ancestors were exiled from it, a few Jews began to trickle back to their homeland. Within the twentieth century the Jewish population of the land of Israel has risen from a few thousand to more than two million. By 1948 the Jews there felt sufficiently powerful to proclaim their independence. The following year the sovereign state of Israel was admitted to membership of the United Nations.

History Written in Advance

With this brief summary of Jewish history in mind, look at what the Old Testament said would happen to the Jews. As you read the following Bible passages, ask yourself: "Are these prophecies vaguely worded, or are they clear and plain? And have they been fulfilled, or not?"

1. They would be scattered all over the world, hated, persecuted, and driven from country to country.

" The Lord shall scatter thee among all people, from the one end of the earth even unto the other.... Among these nations thou shalt find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest, but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes and sorrow of mind.

"And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life. ... And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb and a byword among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee."¹

2. Meanwhile, their land, once so fruitful, would lie desolate.

" I will scatter you among the nations ... and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste. Then shall the land enjoy her sabbaths, as long as it lieth desolate, and ye be in your enemies land."²

3. They would survive all these troubles, and would actually outlive their persecutors.

" Though I make a full end of all nations whither I have scattered thee, yet will I not make a full end of thee"³

"The children of Israel shall abide many days without a king and without a prince and without a sacrifice - . . Afterward shall the children of Israel return."⁴

4. Eventually, while still disobeying God, they would go back to their own land again.

" I will even gather you from the people, and assemble you out of the countries where ye have been scattered, and I will give you the land of Israel."⁵

"I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for Mine Holy Names sake, which ye have profaned among the nations, whither ye went.... For I will take you from among the nations, and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land."⁶

"It is even the time of Jacobs (Israels) trouble, but he shall be saved out of it. . . . I will save thee from afar, and thy seed from the land of their captivity, and Jacob shall return."⁷

These seven extracts, taken from five different books, are typical of all Old Testament teaching about the future of Israel. Everyone, believer and unbeliever alike, agrees that the Old Testament was written before the time of Christ. Consequently, it is absolutely certain that the prophecies about the Jews were written hundreds of years before they were fulfilled.

For the prophecies about the exile of the Jews were not fulfilled until the second century after Christ. The prophecies about their wanderings were fulfilled continuously from the second to the nineteenth centuries. And the prophecies about the return of the Jews to their homeland were not fulfilled until the twentieth century.

Uncanny Detail

For many centuries-since long before the prophecies about the Jews return to the land of Israel began to be fulfilled-men have marvelled at the way Bible prophecy and Jewish history have tallied. It is no wonder that when Frederick II of Prussia asked his physician for a proof that God exists, he replied, "The Jews, Your Majesty."

The broad correspondence between the prophecies and their fulfilment is wonderful enough. But some of the detail is enough to make the mind boggle.

In the first passage quoted above, Moses said, "thou shalt become a proverb and a byword among all nations." How was he to know that, thousands of years later, Englishmen would use the expression, "You miserable old Jew!" when they wanted to condemn someones meanness? And that similarly, in nearly every major language on earth, "Jew" has been used as a term of contempt?

In the second passage, Moses declared that the land would lie desolate while the Jews were in exile. This was a most unlikely thing to suggest. It was then a prosperous, fertile land. If the Jews were driven out, you would expect their conquerors to take full advantage of their pleasant land. But did they? Listen to the words of one of Israels official historians, describing the period of Jewish exile:

"Meanwhile, the Land of Israel slumbered on and lay waste. Of the land flowing with milk and honey, as it is so often lauded in Holy Writ, much became barren. The garden was now a desert and malarial swamps collected where once were smiling plains."⁸

The third passage must have sounded equally preposterous when Jeremiah wrote it. God would do away with the mighty nations that persecuted Israel, but little Israel would outlive them all.

When the mighty Roman Empire crushed Jerusalem under its heel and made slaves of its inhabitants, a sacred copy of the Old Testament from the temple was carried in triumph to Rome. Just suppose that one of the Roman Emperors courtiers had read from that Book, and said to the most powerful man on earth, "O Caesar, it prophesies here that our great Empire shall come to an end, but that these miserable Jews will live on." How the Emperor would have laughed! But the incredible prophecy came true.

Now look at the sixth passage quoted. It says that God would bring Israel back to their own land, not because of their godliness, but despite their ungodliness. What ordinary writer would have written such an unflattering thing about his countrymen? Yet, once more, every detail of the prophecy has come true, as the following incident shows.

A few years ago I had dinner at a scientific conference in Italy with a world-famous scientist from Haifa, in Israel. I asked him what it felt like to be fulfilling Bible prophecy as a member of Gods own nation.

He gave a polite little laugh. "We dont look at it like that," he said. "Most of us who are building up the State of Israel are doing so for economic or political reasons, not because we have any religious convictions."

His words are frequently confirmed by reports from journalists visiting Israel. For example:

" One can see that the founders of the political State of Israel were for the most part sceptics or non-practising Jews.

"Mrs Meir [the Prime Minister] told me, as she had said in the Knesset [Israels parliament] that she herself is a non-observant Jewess... Many of the Israelis one meets are lax in their practices and agnostic in their... views."⁹

Why Hitler Failed

There is another kind of prophecy about the Jews that has been fulfilled again and again, at different periods of history. The most spectacular fulfilment of it occurred quite recently. It related to the late Adolf Hitler and his Nazis.

In the middle 1930s Hitlers scheme to conquer the world was already in motion. By the summer of 1940s everything had gone according to plan. The whole of the mainland of Western Europe was bowing to the Nazis, and it looked as though the German war machine was unstoppable.

Yet within five years Hitlers mutilated body lay in the ruins of his Berlin headquarters, and Nazi Germany was no more. What went wrong? How did Hitler fail, after coming so close to success?

Historians usually explain Hitlers failure by listing a series of extraordinary blunders (like bombing British civilian targets instead of airfields in 1940, and invading Russia in 1941) when Hitler overruled the carefully laid plans of his own generals. But this only throws the problem a stage further back. Why did a brilliant leader like Hitler make so many fatal mistakes?

The real answer to these questions is a very simple one, but so unexpected that historians usually miss it. God had said of Israel:

" Cursed be every one that curseth thee, And blessed be he that blesseth thee."¹⁰

When the Nazi party adopted Hitlers plan to wipe out the Jewish nation, it signed its own death warrant. God had warned the world that He would oppose those who opposed His nation, Israel. By murdering millions of Jews the Nazis were challenging the Almighty to His face. No wonder they lost the war!

But the German nation as a whole was ashamed of what the Nazis had done to the Jews. After the war the new German government decided to make amends for Hitlers crimes. At a time when they could ill afford to be so generous, the Germans made what has been called the greatest act of national generosity in all history.

Picture the situation in 1945. All over Germany, houses and factories lay in ruins. The cream of the nations youth was dead or in captivity. The country was bankrupt, the people were starving. The victorious allies were demanding compensation for what they had suffered. The future for Germany looked altogether hopeless.

Yet the West German Government decided, despite their own peoples desperate need for goods and money, to pay hundreds of millions of pounds in compensation to Jews who had suffered through the war. They did not lose by their generosity. The land that lay in ruins in 1945 was, by 1965, almost the richest in Europe.

Hitler had learnt that God keeps His threats: "Cursed be every one that curseth thee (Israel)."

Post-war Germany learnt that God also keeps His promises: Blessed be he that blesseth thee."

For Every Effect, A Cause

A very large number of scientists believe in God. There is a reason for this. Americas leading space scientist Dr. Wernher von Braun, has put it in a nutshell:

" One of the most fundamental laws of natural science is that nothing in the physical world ever happens without a cause. There simply cannot be a creation without some kind of spiritual creator. - . . Anything as well ordered and perfectly created as is our earth and universe must have a Maker, a master designer."¹¹ (The italics are mine.)

Even if you are not yet ready to agree with von Brauns conclusion about the existence of God, you are bound to accept his first sentence. Nothing ever happens without a cause. This is a fundamental law of science. It is also plain common sense.

Now apply this principle to the facts outlined in this chapter.

Thousands of years ago Moses, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea (whose words have been quoted) and several other Old Testament prophets foretold the future history of the Jewish people. Their prophecies were expressed in clear language and were full of detail. Throughout the past two thousand years everything has happened just as they said it would.

This astonishing fact cries out for an explanation. "Nothing ever happens without a cause." What was the "cause" that led all those Hebrew writers to foretell the history of their race with such uncanny accuracy?

Ask an atheist that question, and then watch his reactions. If he is an intelligent man, well informed of the facts, he is most unlikely to say, "Oh, it just happened." He knows that would only invite the rejoinder, "If you can believe that, you can believe anything!"

Instead, he will probably look very learned, and suggest that it is "the natural outcome of the religious genius of the Hebrew race". This sounds almost convincing-until you think about it. Then it reminds you of the Russian general who was asked by a Western journalist how the Russian engineers had succeeded in building rockets more powerful than anything the Americans had produced. He replied: "Quite simple. It is the inevitable consequence of a Marxist-Leninist society."

Answers like that are clever. They sound very impressive. They completely dodge the awkward question. And they explain nothing.

Yet this sort of evasion is the only answer that you are likely to get from an atheist. I say this from personal experience, because in my younger days I spent many a Saturday afternoon on a soapbox at Speakers Corner in Londons Hyde Park, surrounded by crowds of atheists. Time and again I used to put forward these facts about the Jews, and challenge the audience to explain them. But never once did I get a reasonable answer.

No, there is only one answer that fits the facts. That is the answer given by the Bible itself:

" Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but (unless) He revealeth His secret unto His servants the prophets."¹²

" And if thou say in thine heart, How shall we know the word which the Lord hath not spoken? When a prophet speaketh in the name of the Lord, if the thing follow not, nor come to pass, that is the thing which the Lord hath not spoken."¹³

It is as if the Bible says to us: "I will prove to you that I am a message from Almighty God. False prophets cannot foretell the future. But Gods true prophets can. So I will foretell the whole history of the Jewish race."

And it has.