Until the Restoration of all Things

"O, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her!  How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.  Behold your house is being left to you desolate!  For I say to you, from now on you shall not see Me until you say, 'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!'" (Matt. 23:37-39)

"...that He might send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you , whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time." (Acts 3:20-21)

When Moses explained how God would scatter his people to the four corners of the world for disobedience he also left a promise of restoration.  "If your outcasts are at the ends of the earth, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will bring you back." (Deu. 30:4)  He said the world would ponder the plight of Israel, "And all the nations shall say, 'Why has the Lord done this to this land?'" (Deu. 29:24)  Later in history when Solomon built the temple in Jerusalem he warned the people that if they rejected God's counsel "this house will become a heap of ruins; everyone who passes by will be astonished and hiss and say, 'Why has the Lord done thus to this land and to this house?" (1 Kgs. 9:8) Jeremiah the prophet gave the same warning again a few years before Babylon invaded Israel (Jere. 7:15) in 587 B.C.

Restoration does not come without a struggle even when God is behind it.  When Nehemiah went back to Jerusalem to start restoring the walls and temple he was met with all kinds of opposition.  Since 1948 when Israel became a nation again there has been a constant struggle.  In our day we have seen people throwing a fit at President Trump for moving our embassy to Jerusalem.  Other Presidents gave lip service to doing it but did not have the backbone.