Preparation for Christ’s Kingdom

“I will plant them upon their land, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them, saith Jehovah thy God” (Amos 9:15, ASV).

— James Parkinson

Jewish dispersion (Diaspora) had been enforced by Romans and Thracians for six centuries, and then by Arabs and Ottoman Turks for another twelve centuries. Jews worldwide longed for the return to their country.

While no future prophet was predicted to arise from Galilee, two noted Old Testament prophets were identified with that area, Nahum and Jonah. Not only did they come from Galilee, but their cities were closely connected to the life of Jesus.

After the French Revolution, British Adventists came to believe Christ would soon return and bring Jews back to their land of Israel.¹ Beginning in 1828-1829, Joseph Wolff brought that message to four continents.² Sir Moses Montefiore bought for Palestinian Jews many properties near Jerusalem around the mid-19th century, before Jews were again forbidden to buy.

The Worldwide Calamities

The first truly worldwide calamities since the Flood all occurred since 1870, five or six of them, thus far.

The great worldwide events of history are shown schematically in the figure above, with catastrophic events shown below the line. Positive events — the Exodus and Jesus Christ’s First Advent — are shown above the line.

The Black Plague (likely Bubonic Plague) of around 1347, would almost certainly have been a worldwide plague if global transportation had been available then. Because little such transportation was available until well after the Reformation, the first truly worldwide calamity was the Long Depression (1873-1890s).³ The several worldwide calamities since then have each contributed an important step toward the restoration of Israel.

Long Depression (1873-1890s). By 1870, Jewish return to Palestine/Israel appeared nearly hopeless to human reasoning. But near the beginning of the Long Depression the 1874 autumn planting led to a dreadfully poor 1875 spring harvest in the Balkan Peninsula, consequently to the Christian Revolt against the Ottoman Empire in mid-1875, and ultimately to the Ottoman Empire declaring bankruptcy on October 6 of that year. The Ottomans refused to pay their debts to the nations of Christendom. So, in all of Europe, only Great Britain was Turkey’s ally.

Meanwhile, Isaac Disraeli had gotten into a fight with his synagogue, and to spite them he had his children baptized into the Anglican Church (1817 July 31). Decades later, that allowed it to be legal for his son, Benjamin Disraeli, to be elected Prime Minister (1868, 1874-1880). Disraeli told the Ottoman Pasha that his country was financially broke and needed money; Disraeli could find him buyers for some of that no-good land in Palestine! The Pasha finally agreed to sell land about 6 miles east of Tel-Aviv. Jewish immigrants arrived there 1878 November 3 and called it Petach Tiqvah (Door of Hope).⁴ The first Aliyah (major Jewish immigration from foreign countries) began in 1882, with four more to follow.

World War I (1914-1918). Military buildups in Europe led to World War 1. Britain needed acetone, which was essential for production of explosives. Jewish chemist Chaim Weizmann developed a bacterial process for converting starch into acetone and butyrol. In appreciation, Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour issued a declaration to Lord Rothschild, a wealthy and influential British Jew. “His Majesty’s Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country” The first Aliyah began in 1882, with four more to follow. (1917 November 2). The intent was to garner Jewish support on both sides of the war.

Great Depression (1929-1939). As so often occurs after war, inflation was accelerating, especially with the hyperinflation in Germany. The usual result is a depression. The United States Stock Market collapsed on Thursday, 1929 October 24. In Germany, the economic problem boosted the progressive National Socialist (Nazi) German Workers Party to power. Jews were initially pressed to leave and were allowed to depart with a modest amount of money. The Mufti of Jerusalem determined that Jews should not come to Palestine, and persuaded German Chancellor, Adolph Hitler, to institute “the ultimate solution,” the genocide of all Jews under his power. The Holocaust began.

(1) Owen Kindig, “The Wise Shall Understand;” Herald 2025 July/August, page 14. “During the time that … judgments are falling upon Christendom, Jews will be restored to their own land.”
(2) Joseph Wolff (1795‑1862) was a Jew, self‑converted to Christianity. After the 1828 Albury Prophetic Conference, he took the Adventist message to Continental Europe, then to Egypt and Palestine (including Jews both places), and to places farther east. A highlight of his trip to North America was his speech to a joint session of the U.S. Congress (December 1836), at the invitation of former President John Quincy Adams. Wolff became known as the “missionary to the world.”
(3) The Financial Panic began in Vienna on 1873 May 9 and spread to New York on 1873 September The end of the Long Depression varied among different countries but was usually in the first half of the 1890s.
(4) Petach Tiqvah turned out to be swampland infested with malaria. It was abandoned within two years. However, chemicals were imported to kill the mosquitos and the land was resettled. Petach Tiqvah is now the fifth‑largest city in Israel.

Jews had various experiences. One Israeli reflected that when Hitler came to power, a policeman told his father that his politically active mother looked very tired and suggested he should take her on a vacation. They got the message and left Germany. Another Israeli, A. Gileadi, had been in Munich, Hitler’s power base, even throughout World War II. She had been a microbiologist, which was a critical occupation, so neither she nor any of her family was in danger. Yet a much greater number of Jews were the most persecuted people in concentration camps (even more than Bible Students and Jehovah’s Witnesses⁵ were persecuted).

The British held the mandate over Palestine, but refused to allow Jewish immigration there. Yet the Jewish population in Palestine continued to increase.

World War II (1939-1945). Jewish persecution throughout Central Europe increased dramatically during World War II. The best estimates suggest six million Jews perished in the Holocaust. What nation would accept Jewish war refugees? U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt refused, and even sent away an arriving shipload of Jewish refugees. Britain turned them away from Palestine (though several sneaked in). In all the world, only the Philippines accepted them during the war. Yet, they increased in Palestine to around 500,000.

(5) E.g., Detlef Garbe, Between Resistance and Martyrdom, Jehovah’s Witnesses in the Third Reich, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2008.

In one example, from a pre-war population of 14,000 Jews in Sighet, Romania, the 1973 Jewish population was down to one hundred, with only one couple of child-bearing age left to care for the elderly. It illustrates a wise policy of sending the young, who have the strength to build the country, to Israel, while the older ones stay home to tend to businesses and fund their children in Israel.

Cold War (East vs. West Communist Struggle, 1945-1989). Jewish population in Palestine approached 700,000 when the British Mandate expired and Israel declared independence (1948 May 14). The following year Jewish immigration added about 240,000. (See the figure on page 27, Jewish population growth since 1870.) Today it exceeds 7.7 million, now over 48% of all Jews worldwide.

The Russian Revolution (1917) had been led by a committee of five: three Jews, Nikolai Lenin, whose mother was a Jew, and Joseph Stalin, a Georgian (Kartvelian/Tubal). Yet over the decades, the heads of government had changed, and so had the attitude toward Jews. In the 1970s, scholars who had signed petitions on behalf of Soviet dissident Jews felt it necessary to get out, fleeing to Israel, America, and other countries. At a peak in 1990, about 185,000 Jews emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel. (The Soviet Union collapsed the next year on December 26.) In the 1990s, around one million Jews left what had been the Soviet Union to come to Israel. (From a peak Soviet Jewish population of about 3.2 million before World War 2, it was perhaps 1.4 million after the war and 1.5 million when the Soviet Union collapsed.)

Miracles have abounded in Israel’s founding and growth. When Israel declared independence in 1948, its Arab neighbors attacked from all directions. Britain made sure that the Arabs had tanks, while Israel had none. So Israeli women were trained to roll barrels noisily in the streets and clank heavy chains. Jordanian soldiers were frightened by the noise and fled, leaving their tanks, some with keys still in the ignitions and engines running. Now Israel had tanks! A nation was reborn in a single day, fulfilling Isaiah’s vision (Isaiah 66:8).

The 1956 Sinai war was followed by an agreement that a United Nations force would provide a buffer between Egypt and Israel. But in 1967 Egyptian President Nasser planned an attack to destroy Israel. On May 16 he ordered U.N. “peace-keeping” troops to leave, which they did. (Evidently, the U.N. was there to protect Egypt but not Israel.) Egyptian forces were deployed throughout the Sinai Peninsula, necessitating Israel’s June 6 surprise attack. (It is said the Egyptian military command was flying in one airplane when the attack occurred, and was out of contact.) Israel lost 19 pilots while destroying 288 Egyptian planes, including 99 MIG-21’s.

Leszek Kopczyk relates that at the beginning of the Sinai campaign, 14 Israeli tanks were approaching the Sinai border when the tank in front broke down. They had to delay fixing it until a sandstorm died down. Then they fixed it and moved forward. Arriving just over the border, they discovered plastic landmines (which their mine detectors would not have detected). The mines had been uncovered by the sandstorm. The Egyptians had been so confident that they slept through the night, and the Israelis took them.

The Cold War has driven a large part of the Jewish population from Eastern Europe to Israel.

COVID-19 Pandemic (2020-2022, more?)
The Hamas invasion of Israel 2023 October 7 killed about 1200 Israelis, and 251 others were taken captive to Gaza. Yet because Hamas hurried their attack before their partial allies were ready, many thousands of Jews were spared. An unanticipated result of the perpetrators’ actions is that most of Israel has come together and is unified against the invaders and their would-be allies.

2024 April 13. Iran and its allies fired 300 missiles and drones at Israel. In coordination with Jordan, Saudi Arabia, U.S. and others, Israel initiated an untested multinational defense system. Most were intercepted, a miracle.

2024 October 1. Iran launched 200 ballistic missiles at Israel, and most were intercepted. No Israelis were killed by the missiles, but one Arab youth out celebrating the attack was killed by missile debris. Another miracle.

2025 June 12. Israel’s Air Force struck Iran’s nuclear and missile sites without losing a pilot. Iran responded by sending drones to Israel, but they were shot down and did no damage. Yet another miracle.

Why has hatred of Jews become so commonplace? Media seem to cower before Islamicists and Marxists. Are haters driving Jews in the West to flee back to Israel? Each of these major worldwide events has contributed another big step towards the restoration of Israel, a precursor to the establishment of Christ’s Kingdom.