General Allenby

It is very evident that already God is overruling events with a view to this restoration. The marvelous deliverance of Jerusalem in December, 1917, when the Turkish flag was hauled down after practically 1260 years of misrule and oppression, and the banners of the Entente Allies raised in its place, was preparing the way for this very thing. It was indeed a most important event, fraught with greater meaning than millions dreamed of, when General Allenby received from the Turkish Governor of Jerusalem the surrender of the Holy City. And may I draw your attention to something that is not generally known, but which, I think, adds importance to the providential character of this surrender? General Allenby, to whom God would give the victory over the Turkish Army, is himself a firm believer in the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ; and this event, may we not say, was in view of the restoration of Israel to the land, and the land to Israel, of which we have been speaking. How striking it was for such an one to enter the city and take possession of it, not only in the name of the Allied Powers, but verily in the name of the Lord Himself! On the night before Jerusalem’s surrender, a prayer-meeting was held, I have been told, in General Allenby’s own marquee, and the burden of his petition was that on the following day the city might be taken without a bombardment, as he shrank from being obliged to destroy things and places so sacred both to Christian and to Jew. To him it would have seemed a most unhappy necessity to bombard at all the city where Jesus lived and died. And his prayer was answered, for Jerusalem was surrendered the next day without firing a shot; and as this Christian officer entered the city on foot, bareheaded, followed by his staff in like manner, Arab, Jew and Christian alike recognized that the hour had struck when God was opening the way for the fulfilment of many prophecies of His own Word.

H.A. Ironside