The Signs of the Times (17): Heart and Soul

‘…I will surely gather them from all the lands… I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety… I will give them singleness of heart and action… I will make an everlasting covenant with them… I will assuredly plant them in this land with all My heart and soul…’
Jeremiah 32:37-41 NIV

In August 1997, the Jewish World Congress in Basel, Switzerland, celebrated that a hundred years ago the first Jewish Zionist Congress under the leadership of Theodor Herzl took place there. Zionism was the Jewish movement that started with only one goal: going home, to Israel, to Zion. Zionism is the longing that the Most High worked into the hearts of Jews all over the world. It is not a political movement as such. But it the longing for Zion, for Jerusalem, for Israel, for the Promised land.

And Jews began to come. From the pogroms in Tsarist Russia at the end of the nineteenth century. From the countries of Central Europe. From Poland and the Balkans. Herzl predicted in 1897 that it would take fifty years at the most before there’d be a Jewish State of Israel. Well, it took exactly fifty years: 1947 was the year in which the United Nations General Assembly decided that Jews could have their own homeland, and in 1948 the independent Jewish State of Israel was proclaimed.

When Ezekiel prophesies about the return of the scattered Jewish people, when he sees how the valley of dry bones comes to life, how the bones come together and tendons and flesh appear on them and skin covers them, and when he gets to prophesy breath, spirit, life into them, then the Lord says in the explanation of this vision: “…My people, I am going to open your graves (the Jews being like buried among the nations) and bring you up from them (from the ‘graves’ of the nations in which Jewish people were like dead), I will bring you back to the land of Israel…”

Who is bringing the Jews home? It is the Lord Himself. The time has come that the Lord will be merciful to His people, and that He will fulfil all His promises to Israel. He is committed to this with His all His heart and with all His soul.

As far as I know, there is only one verse in the Bible that speaks about the heart and soul of God. There are many verses that speak about the heart and soul of us human beings. But only one that tells us what’s in the heart and soul of the Most High right now.

Jeremiah 32:37-41 says: ‘I will surely gather them from all the lands (…) I will bring them back to this place and let them live in safety (…) I will give them singleness of heart and action (…) I will make an everlasting covenant with them (…) I will assuredly plant them in this land with all MY heart and soul.’

In order that soon from Jerusalem peace will cover the whole earth, and the nations will not even train for war any more. “(…) I will come to give rest to Israel.” (Jeremiah 31:1-2)

If HIS heart and HIS soul are fully committed right now to bringing HIS people home to HIS land, shouldn’t our hearts and souls be committed to that process as well?