The northern ten tribes of the Kingdom of Israel have largely been lost in history after their Assyrian captivity more than 2,700 years ago. However, the inspired Word of God provides us with overwhelming evidence that they did not simply die out, nor become assimilated with the Jews (the southern Kingdom of Judah), as many people wrongly suppose. The Bible's history, from Genesis to Revelation, is primarily the history of one people—the Israelites. Other nations are mentioned only as they come into contact with Israel.

All of its prophecy, too, pertains primarily to the people of Israel. The more this is understood, the more apparent it becomes that a full knowledge of these Israelites is necessary to have a right understanding of the Bible—particularly in understanding current events and the many prophecies for this end time. This principle holds true even in our understanding of Jesus and Christianity, since Jesus Himself was an Israelite, of the tribe of Judah, and Christian belief and doctrine are firmly based on God's instruction to Israelites in both the Old and New Testaments.

Of mankind's 6,000 years of recorded biblical history, the first approximately 2,000 years are covered in only eleven chapters. The biblical narrative fast-forwards through the first third of mankind's record, from Creation to the Flood, and begins its testimony in detail in Genesis 12 with the story of Abraham, whom the apostle Paul in the New Testament calls the father of the faithful (Romans 4:11). Just as God had started the whole world with one man, Adam, He started His own special nation in the world from a single man, Abraham.

God made a number of promises to Abraham—promises that the patriarch himself did not live to see realized but which have been fulfilled in his descendants. God is entirely faithful (I Corinthians 1:9) and will carry out all that He has promised even when it spans thousands of years (see Isaiah 55:10-11). Thus, when we find the nations in which the promises made to Abraham—and confirmed to Isaac and Jacob—have been fulfilled, we will find Israel.

In addition to fulfilling these promises, modern Israel will also fulfill numerous prophecies that pinpoint where she is and what her future is. What we will see is that God's Word gives us "search criteria" that overwhelmingly point to only one group of people—the real people of Israel. By collating the Bible's information about Israel, found primarily in the promises and the prophecies, we find that modern-day Israelites will be:

1. Multitudes of peoples, living in
2. a nation and a company of nations—multiple nations, whose
3. geographic focus lies to the north and west of Jerusalem, but whose
4. lands spread to all compass points. Israel's people own
5. possessions over rivers, across seas, and in the islands and coastlands. At least some tribes of Israel will enjoy widespread
6. wealth and prosperity and will possess
7. gates—that is, strategic commercial and military positions—in the midst of their enemies. They are a people who have been
8. ruled without interruption by a monarchy whose roots lie in the tribe of Judah. That monarchy will be
9. currently centered in Britain. Finally, they are a people whose
10. dominance, politically, militarily, and economically, did not begin until about AD 1800.

These ten specific, easy-to-grasp identifiers will show us the whereabouts of modern-day Israel. Since we are dealing with over three thousand years from the time of Abraham until today, not every criterion will be applicable to every period of history. Some criteria will have more application to the Israel of yesterday; some will relate to the Israel of today; some will pertain to the Israel of the Millennium or beyond. Many will have application to more than one period. Nevertheless, all will point straight to Israel!

In this extensive series of essays, we will search God's Word and history for the whereabouts of Israel today. We will begin by locating these ten identifiers in Scripture, showing how each one points to Israel. Putting them together, we will encounter overwhelming evidence of the whereabouts of God's people Israel—and of God's forethought, care, and purpose for those peoples, and amazingly, through them, His love and concern for all mankind.

We will find more than that. We will find that God's plan, His purpose, is so tightly linked with Israel, so much part-and-parcel with Israel's history, that when we find Israel, we will also find God. In essence, to search for Israel is to search for God; to find Israel in history is to find God there too.