John Hagee - Earths Final Moments: Powerful Insight and Understanding of the Prophetic Signs that Surround Us

G ODS CHOSEN PEOPLE, the Jews, and the Promised Land of Israel are the hub that forms the wheel of prophecy. All End Time prophecy focuses first and foremost on Israels importance to God and His eternal covenant with His chosen people to give to you and your descendants after you the land in which you are a stranger, all the land of Canaan, as an everlasting possession; and I will be their God (Gen. 17:8). But because of the Jews disobedience and rebellion, they were scattered around the globe, and control of their Promised Land of Israel slipped right out of their fingers for hundreds of years.

More than twenty-six hundred years ago the prophet Ezekiel prophesied the resurrection of Israel from the Gentile graves in the lands to which she had been scattered, predicting the rebirth of Israel, which took place on May 14, 1948. Ezekiel also prophesied about the holy war that will take place in Israel some time after Israels restoration to independence.

God gave Ezekiel a vision of a valley full of dry bones. I want to make it very clear that I do not believe that Ezekiels vision has anything to do with the resurrection of the dead saints of the church. In Ezekiel 37:11, God told Ezekiel, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. There is no doubt in the text this could only be Israel.

In a vision, God took Ezekiel to a valley full of dead bones that were very dry and scattered. This was Gods physical portrayal of the nation of Israel. Israel ceased to be a nation in A.D. 70 when the Jews were scattered to the ends of the earth by the Roman army under Titus. It would be more than two thousand years before Israel became a recognized state again in May 1948and the bones grew very dry!

God asked Ezekiel a perplexing question:

And He said to me, Son of man, can these bones live?

EZEKIEL 37:3

Ezekiel responded to God by saying, O Lord GOD, You know (v. 3). In other words, he was saying, I dont see how its possible. Death has done its work. Life is gone. Lord, if these bones live, it will require the miracle-working power of Jehovah God.

For nearly fifty years I have preached the gospel of Jesus Christ to audiences all over the earth. I have stood in churches, cathedrals, auditoriums, football stadiums, and a preaching field in Nigeria with more than three million people attending. Yet, like Ezekiel, often as I looked over the audiences large and small, I have thought, Can these bones live?

In response to Ezekiels question, God told him to do something very strange. It was the strangest message to the deadest congregation in the history of preaching! God told him to preach the Word of the Lord to the dry bones. Again He said to me, Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! (v. 4).

The word prophesy doesnt always mean to foretell or to predict. Here it means to speak out or to preach a message to the people of God. There is supernatural power in the spoken Word of God.

Ezekiels faith conquered the limitations of his carnal mind, and he obeyed the voice of God. It is a Bible fact: obedience brings blessing, and disobedience brings judgment. Ezekiel looked at the valley full of scattered, very dry bones and preached this message:

Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the LORD.

EZEKIEL 37:56

Ezekiel proclaimed that God was going to do a supernatural work that would make those dry, lifeless, scattered bones live again. It would be a reversal of death and corruption.

In perfect obedience to the word of God, Ezekiel said:

So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.

EZEKIEL 37:78

Notice that the restoration to life for the bones was a process. It was not an instantaneous event. The bones were dry, scattered, and dead for a very long time. The dry bones in Ezekiels vision represent the nation of Israel during the Diaspora, beginning in A.D. 70 (Ezek. 37:11). Gradually the bones came together, and the sinews and flesh came upon them.

It was at this point of Israels gradual restoration that people like Theodor Herzl, the father of Zionism, began to call the Jews back to Israel. The sinews and flesh continued to come together as the Jews of the earth returned to Eretz, Israel, to drain the swamps and transform the desert into a rose. On May 14, 1948, at 4:32 p.m., the State of Israel, after two thousand years, was reborn. Ezekiels prophetic vision was fulfilled:

Then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land.

EZEKIEL 37:21

God made it exceedingly clear that He would bring the Jews back to their own land. He would not bring them back to the Palestinians landHe would restore them to the Promised Land of the eternal covenant God had made with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their descendants.

At the conclusion of Ezekiel 37, the nation of Israel had been physically reborn. Today they have a flag; they have a constitution; they have a prime minister and a Knesset. They have a police force, a powerful military might, and the worlds best intelligence agencies. They have Jerusalem, the City of God. They have a nation. They have everything but spiritual life.

Like the dry bones of Ezekiel 37, Israel awaits the spiritual awakening of the breath of God and the coming of Messiah.

Prophecy tells us not only what will happen in the future but also the process by which it will happen. The prophet Jeremiah provides us with a series of word pictures illustrating the process by which God would regather Israel.

In Jeremiah 16, the prophet proclaims what has come to be known in our generation as Exodus II. Jeremiah declares that Exodus II will completely overshadow the original exodus of Israel from Egypt under Mosess leadership at the original Passover.

Therefore behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, that it shall no more be said, The LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of Egypt, but, The LORD lives who brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north and from all the lands where He had driven them. For I will bring them back into their land which I gave to their fathers.

JEREMIAH 16:1415

This amazing prophecy came from the pen of one of Israels acknowledged major prophets. For more than three thousand years the Jews celebrated the exodus of Moses from Egypts bondage as the greatest event in their history. Yet Jeremiah declares there is coming a second exodus that will be so great that the first exodus will pale by comparison.

Jeremiah states that the people will come from the land of the north, which I believe is Russia. In the Bible, all directions are given from Jerusalem. In the mind of God, Jerusalem is the center of the universe.

Jeremiah expanded his prophecy of Exodus II to include all the lands where He had driven them. As I write this book, the chief rabbi of Israel has his representatives going to the four corners of the earth to help Jewish people return to Zion. Exodus II is far from complete, as the mighty right hand of God continues to gather the apple of His eye to the land given to Abraham and his seed almost six thousand years ago.

The Bible is a book of parables and word pictures describing principles of truth from God to man. The prophet Jeremiah puts his pen to parchment and paints a vivid picture of the human agents God intended to use to bring the Jewish people back to Israel.