Israel in God's Plan Today — Hedley G Murphy

Israel and the Significance of Bible Prophecy

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. In fact, 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 through 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. We 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 her excites me.

Every conference that's held on her soil, every battle fought and victory won thrills 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's my King. And he's my Lord. Therefore, you ought to be excited about Israel. If you're 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's coming to reign as King of Israel and King of Kings, who's 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.

Contemporary Events and Expectations About the End Times

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 maintain that we're running out of natural resources. That the population explosion, the lack of the 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 I assume 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 East Side 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 Hereticality.

And God said, I will make of thee a great nation. I will bless. 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 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 Ishmael. 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, days, God put Hagar and Ishmael out into the wilderness. And 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, pure 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. They're away from 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 mountain one night, and he said, I'm going to change your character, and I'm going to change your name, and it 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 on the mountain, poor old Jacob, and a new man was born and came down the mountainside, Israel.

Israel's Covenant, Land, and End-Time Preservation

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 gift of her enemy. Now, remember that when you're reading the Guardian in the Daily Telegraph, won't you?

The boys don't know it, but just that paper. I've read their great article, scientific, oh, tremendous. Impossible for Israel to win the next war. She's outnumbered her 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'll see during the week. And she shall possess the gift of her enemy. There is no power on earth going to crush Israel, the Bible says it, if 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 seat of Abraham, because God says, thy feet shall possess the gift of her enemy. Will this tide the man or the nation that rises up against Israel?

If you're only part of the planet, you'll know that God says, it's my land, 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 chapter 9 and 10, in the last day, 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 twelve sons of Jacob. His name was Israel. The twelve 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 three 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 forty years, and came right round to Jericho, and Jordan was dried up as they crossed 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 church, which you will now find in your Bible, in Deuteronomy 28.

Deuteronomy 28 and the Curses for Israel's Disobedience

And there we start Deuteronomy 28. These are amazing words which Moses said to the three 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. But it shall come to pass that thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe unto all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.

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, if you reject him, curse it shall thou be in the city, and curse it shall thou be in the field.

Curse it shall be thy box, and thy store. Curse it shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the inquis of thy kind, and the flock of thy sheep. Curse it shall thou be when thou comest in, and curse it shall thou be when thou goest out.

The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, beckoning, rebuking, and all that thou settest thine hand unto, for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish 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 sixty-four,.

"...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 life shall hang in doubt before thee, and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life.

In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even, and at even thou shalt say, Would God it 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 mission 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 one side of it said, What shall I do with Jesus? They said, Crucify him! Crucify him! We will not have this man come in over us. And Israel perished. And the curses of Deuteronomy 28 were brought into action, and Israel experienced it.

The Destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish Dispersion

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 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 rock, Mestada, 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. 70, and crushed Jerusalem.

And what was said here, the land was cursed, the soil was cursed, the mountains, the hills. The hills were demuted of trees. Everything withered, nothing grew. 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 Mestada.

I have walked up there in the east of Mestada as a dresser 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 hundred and forty, hundred and fifty degrees, Israel died. Israel perished. The glory of David, Moses, was gone. Ezekiel, Isaiah was gone. And they were scattered across the world for fifteen hundred 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 exclusive power, the gel ignited right up with the fly, that they appealed to the scientists to produce some kind of exclusive that would help them to win the war in France.

The Return to the Land and the Birth of Israel

And a certain Dr. Weissmann invented in his lab a substance called, and then commercially called, TNT, exclusive substance. And Lord George and his government at that time were so excited and delighted that 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 Dr. Weissmann, and Lord George sent for him and said, his majesty will confer upon you any honor that you care to mention, any reward.

Ask for what you want. We're in your debt forever. And Dr. Weissmann said in 1918, he said, all I want is a home for my people. I want a place on earth where my people, Israel, can 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 Alexander made a British protesterate 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 Israeli 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 the threat to hammer them, and the appeal went from the Israeli war minister to the cabinet in London, who asked 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. Weissmann. 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 splattered, 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, Ah ha, even the ancient high places are ours.

Ezekiel 36 and Israel's Restoration

Now let's stop there. That was through the 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 and all the south with her diplomacy, to help the monarchy, and they give to the Arabs the temple area of all things, and the wheeling 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, he spoke with high places.

Britain and the United Nations gave to the Arabs. And so from 1948, as Ezekiel 36 was fulfilled, your enemy will say against you, aha, we have the high place, it's passed, 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, Lushi Zayan, the defense minister of Israel, rushed forward in triumph to the temple area and hit that wheeling 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 Ezekiel 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 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 Canada, 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. Verse here,. 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 sown. 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 fruit. 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 know more henceforth the reason 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, and to the old estate. That would take two nights 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 grist, the grist with the figs, the peaches. You're going to see on the screen tonight the fulfillment of these things.

The Documentary The Return and the Reality of Prophecy

You're going to see a transformation from dust 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 that six million rejected Christ at that time in Palestine, and as the tide turned and the road back home began to clear to them through Dr. Wiseman, that six million of them were put into gas chambers in Hitler's Germany.

The Bible is a great book. 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, and 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. The first shadow man you see was Mr. Hal Lindsey, who has written those excellent books, one recently on Hittinism and the occult, but his masterpiece on prophecy is The Lit Great 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. Patchford. And there's also some little hardback books there produced all about Israel, with modern pictures of Israel, development, land, agriculture, cultivation.

I think that if you will listen to this, watch this film with an open mind, but 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 coasts, who would persuade the nations of Earth 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.