The Roman Empire destroyed Israel toward the end of the first century after Christ. The Jews were dispersed throughout the world. The other people in the region, the Arabs, took over the entire region. Within the Arabs adopted the Muslim faith and we have the situation we have now. The Muslims are feared throughout the world, yet, for some reason, the Jewish nation, reestablished in 1948, defeats them every time they go to war.

          This whole thing fascinates me. It may mean nothing to you, but it is one of the most interesting ongoing stories ever. Please take a few moments to read this blog today.

          The Jews were called, by God, His own people. We see in the Old Testament victories against great odds against their enemies. When the Jews should have been crushed, they somehow were triumphant. And, on occasion, the opposite was true. If they had strayed from the Lord, they sometimes lost even if they were over powering. As God’s chosen, they were taught many lessons in war and in peace.

          By the time the New Testament rolled around, the Jews were under control of the Roman Empire. Again, God was in control. Just a bit of trivia for you. Since recorded history has been going on there has only been one stretch of 50 years without a war going on in the world somewhere. During those 50 years were the 33 years of the life of Christ. His life was lived during the only time of peace in history. But, war was on the horizon. Fighting broke out in many places shortly after the death of Christ. Soon, it broke out in Palestine, as well. The Romans took their time getting there in force, but when they did, they pounded Israel. For well over 1800 years the Jews were out of their land.

          But the Book of the Revelation made it clear that before the end times, the nation would be restored. We weren’t told how, just that it would be restored. It didn’t seem possible, not with the Arabs holding it all. Christian theologians even devised ways to new theories that explained the Book of the Revelation to make it mean something other than it said. In time, Palestine came under British rule, but they let the Arabs rule themselves because they did it so well.

          Then came WWII. By the end of that conflict the world was so shocked by what happened to the Jews in the Holocaust that the United Nations petitioned Great Britain to turn a portion of the land over to the Jews so that they could reestablish their old nation. This was done and a new nation was born.

          However, in doing this, land was taken from the Arabs living there already. The Islamic nations that surrounded the new nation of Israel were not happy and began massing troops and tanks and planes on Israel’s borders. As soon as the last British soldier left Israel, the Arabs attacked with their British trained troops

          The Jews were outnumbered. There were not enough guns to go around, let alone enough ammunition. They lacked cannon and tanks and ships and, most of all, planes. Still, they met the attackers, but it was a hopeless fight. To make matters worse, the nations of the world, including the United States during the early days, refused to join the fight on the side of Israel and also refused to send equipment. Israel, surrounded, was all alone.

          Jews around the world, though, had known this was going to happen. For several months before, war planes, surplus from WWII, were being bought up and sent to a location in Europe. It wasn’t a lot of planes. Four German Messerschmitt Bf-109), fighter craft, and three American B-17 bombers was all there was at first. They were taken apart and shipped to the secret base in Europe. There, the bombers were hurriedly reassembled. The fighters were reloaded, still in pieces, onto transport planes and flown into Israel. None of the Jewish mechanics in Israel had ever worked on the German fighters and had obviously never tried to rebuild one. The pilots had served in the U.S. Air Force during the war, so they had never flown one. The war was already raging when the planes, overnight and without manuals, were rebuilt. Everyone worked on them. One of the big problems was that the Jews were from every country and all spoke different languages. When the pilots were ready to take off, just as the sun was coming up, the planes had less than their full load of bullets, two small bombs each under their wings, a sloppy new paint job that was still wet and there was no certainty they would even fly. Their target was a long line of Egyptian and Syrian tanks that were faced with a thin line of civilian soldiers armed with pitchforks and picks. That was all that stood between the tanks and the heart of Israel.

The Messerschmitt 109 was equipped with machine guns mounted on the nose of the plane rather than on the wings like US fighters. You had to fire through the propeller. There is a small gear in the engine that causes the machine gun to fire in perfect time with the engine so you don’t shoot off your prop. The four planes made their first run on the tanks just as the tanks were beginning their attack. That little gear, called the synchronizing gear, was not installed in one of the planes, so the first thing that pilot did was shoot himself down. If you think about it, they had to look pretty puny on that attack. One plane going down immediately, all of them trailing paint, since the pilots had never flown that type of craft before they couldn’t even keep the wings level and between them they only had six small bombs. The planes made their pass, fired their guns and dropped their bombs. The guns did little to the tanks and when the planes turned around to fire the rest of their ammunition, the pilots were disappointed at their failure. They buzzed past and returned to base, absolutely sure the tanks would now crash through the thin line of Jews and destroy Israel.

But records show that the command and control tanks radioed in to headquarters that they were under heavy air attack and would have to shut down and wait it out. The tanks went no further. What huge flight of Israeli planes were they seeing? When the three planes returned a little later, poorly rearmed and with each engine sputtering from hurried rebuilding, the tanks packed it in and returned to defensive positions. What they were seeing convinced them that they could not proceed that day.

Meanwhile, the three B-17 had taken off from the European base. As they neared Israel they were close to running out of fuel. They had been armed with a load of bombs each and they were told, in flight, to divert and bomb Cairo. The three planes couldn’t do much damage and the planes would never have enough fuel to reach their base in Israel. And none of the crews had ever seen Israel. But they made their bombing run on Cairo, Egypt. The shock of the Israeli planes bombing their city, although little damage occurred, was enough for Egypt to pretty much pull out of the conflict. The Israeli bombers landed at their bases with no fuel to spare.

As the weeks went on, more planes came in. More guns and ammunition entered Israel. More Jewish soldiers from WWII joined up. It took 10 months, but Israel won a war they should have never had a chance to win. Now, they had their nation. They have won every conflict since with the Arab nations, too. God needed Israel in place before the end times came, so He made trained soldiers see an air armada that was just three poorly put together fighter planes and three worn out B-17 bombers. When the lines of Arab soldiers who were taken prisoner were marched back to the rear of the Israeli lines, they were amazed that there was nothing there to fear except civilian soldiers with farm implements for weapons. Intelligence had warned of cannon and ranks of soldiers and overwhelming odds.

Never think it cannot be done. If God is involved, you will have the victory.

Blessings.