Day Six: Spiritual Revival

God’s work among the Jewish people has not ended with the formation of the modern nation of Israel. Deuteronomy 30:6 promises that after Israel is regathered as a nation, the Jews will experience spiritual rebirth: “The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.”

Several other Old Testament passages, including Ezekiel 36:24–28, make clear that this heart change for the Jews will follow their return to their homeland. 

These passages predict that Israel will first be regathered as a nation and then will be granted spiritual rebirth. This idea is illustrated by the dramatic vision recorded in Ezekiel 37, where the prophet witnesses the resurrection of a great army in the valley of the dry bones. As God begins to work, the bones are first assembled into bodies, step by step, but at first are not alive: “there was no breath in them.” These lifeless bodies represent present-day secular Israel—a body reassembled piece by piece over time but lacking spiritual life. But then, God commands Ezekiel to prophesy, “Come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live,” and—amazingly—“breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army” (Ezek. 37:9–10).

God explains Ezekiel’s vision in 37:12–14. He says that he will “open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel” and then, after they have been regathered, he “will put [his] Spirit in you and you will live . . .”

God’s promise of revival for his people is still to be kept. Most students of the end times believe that God will fulfill that promise at the return of the Messiah. Zechariah 12:10 says that on the day the Lord returns, he will “pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication” and that they will “look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”