Harry Shepherd Prophecy 8

The eighth installment of my grandfather Shepherd's prophecy book, brought to you unedited from 1960, without comment.
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Before the great war broke out he had, in his research in chemistry, discovered a new process of fermentation by which to produce acetone, necessary for making cordite gunpowder. With the war's beginning he offered this information to the English officials. This gunpowder made naval guns effective. Early in the struggle a serious shortage of this gunpowder occurred. First Lord of the admiralty Winston Churchill engaged Dr. Weizmann to produce 30,000 tons of acetone to remove the powder shortage. In connection with his work for the war effort he pushed for Zionism and its aim for a Jewish home in the Holy Land and for the stand finally taken by the British Government in the Arthur James Balfour Proclamation, November 2, 1917. This Balfour Declaration stated that the British Government was in favor of a Jewish national home in Palestine and that it would put forth its efforts to achieve this goal. Though Dr. Weizmann was mainly responsible for the issuance of this Proclamation, God's hand may be seen further in the truth that some well-known British men, as Prime Minister Lloyd George, Mr. Churchill, Secretary Balfour and others who, loving the Bible and believing in it, had been taught that the Jewish return to the Holy Land would be a move of God. But at this time the Turks were still in control of the Holy Land. Earlier they had entered the war on the German, Austro-Hungarian side. Now they and English troops were fighting for its possession. The outcome of this struggle would decide the success or failure of Dr. Weizmann's efforts to obtain Palestine for a Jewish home under British control. As God was behind the Weizmann effort so now the Lord evidently stepped in to bring success to the English arms in order to clear the land of the Moslem Turks and make way for the Jewish return. This is evidenced by some providential things in connection with the following events: In the war the Germans considered the Suez Canal, controlled by England, the jugular vein of England's Empire. Britain was using it over which to bring troops from New Zealand, Australia and India and she was determined to hold on to it. She gathered troops in Egypt and sent an expedition against the Turks into the southern part of the Holy Land. This had bogged down around Beersheba and Gaza for a while. In my opinion God moved on the mind of prime minister Lloyd George* to cause him to call from the western battle front in France, the brilliant cavalry General Sir Edmund Allenby and place him in command of the foregoing Palestinian expedition, in July 1917. Two things in connection with General Allenby's command of the British Army providentially help to break the morale of the Turkish army and eventually to give the victory to the English. One was the Arab proverb which held that when the waters of the Nile River reached the Holy Land the Turks would lose Jerusalem. General Allenby in his advance into the land brought along with his army of twelve-inch pipeline conveying daily 600,000 gallons of Nile water. This carry out of the Arab proverb put fear into hearts of the Moslem Turks. The second thing which help break Turkish morale was the fact that Allenby's name could be read in Arabic Allab Nebl—meaning Prophet of God and this put another fear into their hearts. Allah was the name of God in the Mohammedan or Moslem religion. With these providential helps coupled with Allenby's brilliant generalship God brought the fall of the Holy City of Judaism, Jerusalem, December 9th, 1917, the clearing later of Palestine of the power of the Turks to the Euphrates River and the signing on October 31, 1918 of a Turkish armistice. On November 11, 1918 the great war ended all over the world in eleven days after this armistice, after God's purpose to wrest the land from the Turks was accomplished, thereby advancing the furtherance of his four promises to Abraham.

When British Prime Minister David Lloyd George called General Allenby in June 1917, from France to take charge in July of the expeditionary forces from Egypt he informed Allenby that he desired Jerusalem for a Christmas present for the English people. For 673 years it had been under the control of those of the Mohammedan or Moslem faith, 400 years of which was under the Turks. The Crusaders in eight religious crusades had been unable to rescue it permanently from the Moslems. Why did the Christian General Allenby succeed when others had failed? It seems to me the only answer is God. Allenby was God's man for this hour and this was God's hour for His purpose for the Jews.

According to Ezekiel 38:8, 12 and 16 in the latter days and latter years—the days of our generations—there would be a gathering of Israel out of the nations into the Holy Land which had been brought back from the sword. It is a known fact that the Moslem religion is a faith that has been propagated by the sword. Its founder Mohammed declared that to spread this religion by the sword was the will of God. Then this bringing back of the land from the sword would be ridding it of the Turks and the control of the Moslem faith. This event was to be near the end of this Gospel Age when men in their greed, covetousness and lust for power would help set the stage for the last great events in human affairs before Christ's coming back to take over control of this world. World War I was the beginning of the setting of this stage. For Jewry it opened the almost closed door to Palestine. In April 1920, just after the war, England was given the Mandate for the Holy Land and during her almost thirty years mandate 500,000 Jews entered the land of their fathers. Thus World War I brought to pass the second phase of God's work to rid the land of the Turks, put it under the control of a nation in favor of it as a homeland for the Jews and to inaugurate the earlier parts of the modern fulfillment of God's Promise One to Abraham to Make Him a Nation.

* Truth about Lloyd George and General Allenby’s Palestinian Campaign obtained from Wm. L. Hull’s book “The Fall and Rise of Israel”, published by Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, pages 125-130, used by permission. The Abrahamic application is our own.