Harry Shepherd Prophecy 7

This is the seventh installment of my grandfather's prophecy book. I present his words exactly as they were in 1960 without evaluation. They are very interesting from a historical perspective.
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It is my belief which can be backed up by numbers of examples, that God in His eternal purpose at certain and at critical times has His man for that particular hour who may be Christian or sometimes non-Christian. He, by God's overruling power, turns some situation in a direction it would not have gone and by this turn God's eternal purpose is eventually or immediately reached. An example of this is to be seen in Abraham Lincoln the savior of his country 100 years ago. Such also was the situation in the Jewish world in the early 1890’s when God was stirring up Jewry. Anti-Semitic outbreaks in Russia, Germany and in France in connection with the unfair treatment of a Jewish French army officer named Dreyfus, had occurred. God needed a modern Moses to lead His people and help them respond to the urge to return to the land of the Jewish fathers—the Holy Land. That man for that hour was Theodor Herzl,* a Jew born in Hungary 100 years ago (1860). He completed his education from the University of Vienna with the degree Doctor of Laws. Within one year he took up journalism and writing which carried him to France at the time of the persecution of Dreyfus. Stirred by this case he became the leader of the Jewish return under Zionism partly, at least, through his book Der Judenstaat—The Jewish State and was princely chairman of the first Zionist Congress. In 1949, forty-five years after his death in 1904, his body was taken by airplane from Vienna to the Holy Land and buried on Mt. Herzl in Jerusalem, after his coffin had been viewed by thousands of appreciative Jews of the new Israeli nation which he had helped to found. Before his death he had written, "God breaks the instruments that have served his purpose. No Moses ever enters the Promised Land."†

At the death of Herzl time was ripening for God to put His hand into world affairs in order to verify to Abraham in the modern world His first promise to make Abraham a great nation. As the Moslem Turks were in control of Palestine and as they would not sell it to Jews and vacate it, God must now channel some ambition of some nation to bring about phase number two—the passing of the control of the Holy Land into the hands of some nation favorable to a Jewish home in it. Again we will see that God had another man for this hour to follow Theodor Herzl. He was the Jew, Chaim Weizmann, Born in the Russian Pale in Motol in 1874. Educationally he achieved a doctorate and became a lecturer in science and a research chemist. In 1904 he moved to England, took up work as a lecturer in chemistry in Manchester University and in 1907 took a three-weeks trip to Palestine. Out of this visit came enthusiasm and plans for Zionism and the Holy Land. These were pushed by him after he came in touch with three members of the First World War British cabinet—namely Prime Minister David Lloyd-George, First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill and British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour. This work of Dr. Weizmann and more we shall mention was in divine order, in order to carry out God's eternal purpose and verify His promises to Abraham.

At this point in world affairs we can see a clear fulfillment of the Bible statement, "Surely the wrath of man shall praise Thee: the remainder of wrath shalt Thou restrain" Psalm 76:10. in 1908 Austria Hungary had annexed the two Serb (now called Yugoslavia) provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This stirred the range of the Serbians and they formed a terrorist society called the Black Hand, with which to retaliate. Partly, at least, through the meddling of some big European powers the Balkan states, aroused with fierce nationalism, were a veritable European powder keg. The Austro-Hungarian rape of the two provinces above was the fuse to the powder keg. What would be the match by which the fuse would be ignited? The following circumstances were the match which set the fuse afire that ignited the powder keg. Around 10 a.m. June 28th, 1914, the heir apparent to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife went to Sarajevo, the capital of the Bosnian Providence. While they were motoring from the town hall a Black Hand Serbian terrorist boarded the running board of their car and shot both of them to death. This gave Austria Hungary the excuse to declare war finally on little Serbia (Yugoslavia) which set off the largest war, up to that time, in the annals of mankind—World War I. In this war God channeled the wrath of contending armies to His praise and to the forwarding of phase two—the changing of the control of Palestine. Dr. Weizmann had a very important part under God in helping make this change possible.

* Page 120, used by permission. Information on Theodor Herzl, his birth and work. Also on Mr. Chaim WEizmann, his birth and work from Wm. L. Hull's book "The Fall and Rise of Israel", published by Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, pages 109-123, used by permission.
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† "The Fall and Rise of Israel", by Wm. L. Hull, page 114, used by permission.