Immortal Jews

Fulfilled prophecy is the greatest evidence we have that the Bible is God’s Word. Everyone can see first hand what God is doing in the world today through Israel. This tiny country has the world’s focus and will likely be the flashpoint of the next great war the world will see.

The uniqueness of Israel is even apparent to people who do not profess to have a relationship with the Lord. Mark Twain, an agnostic and self-acknowledged skeptic, penned this for Harper’s Magazine in 1899:

The Egyptian, Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream-stuff and passed away. The Greek and Roman followed, made a vast noise and they are gone. Other peoples have sprung up, and held their torch high for a time, but it burned out and they sit in twilight now or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal, but the Jew. All other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?

I don’t know if Mark Twain ever turned to Jesus but given his awareness of the uniqueness of the Jews, it is clear that the Holy Spirit was working on him. The amazing thing is that Mark Twain made this observation long before Israel came back together as a nation; the uniqueness of the Jew is even more apparent today.

The Bible has the answer to Mark Twain’s question… Malachi 3:6 says, “For I am the LORD, I do not change; therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob” (NKJ). Despite the dispersion of the Jews throughout the nations, they have preserved their uniqueness. The Jews have not been assimilated into the cultures of the nations where they have lived. This is unprecedented in history.

If the immortality of the Jews is not obvious enough, scientists have analyzed genetic samples from communities across the world and compared them with non-Jewish populations. Their study, published in Nature, revealed that most Jewish populations were "genetically closer" to each other than to their non-Jewish neighbors.

God is Almighty and in control of the world He created; thus His promises can be trusted. And He ordained that the Jews would be a special people, unique in all the world; Deuteronomy 26:18 says, “the LORD has proclaimed you to be His special people, just as He has promised you, that you should keep all His commandments.”

God promised Israel through Abraham that, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). That has certainly been the case. God used the Jews to bring us His Word and the Messiah came as a Jew. The fact that anti-Semitism cloaked in animosity toward Israel is growing in the world today should tell us a lot about the age we are living in. And it reveals how much of the world does not know God or His Word.

Spiritual warfare is affecting our physical world. It is quite disconcerting to see the irrational hatred of the Jews knowing it is really hatred of God. We live in the perilous times 2 Timothy 3:1 says would characterize the last days when the Lord returns. As God said before He poured out His wrath on earth in the flood of Noah’s day, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever” (Genesis 6:3).

The only reason Jesus delays His coming is out of mercy for those who haven’t yet turned to Him (2 Peter 3:9). So we should make good use of the time we have in being His representative… “Blessed is that servant whom his master, when he comes, will find so doing” (Matthew 24:46).