“I will lift up mine eyes unto the
hills, from whence cometh my help.
Israel is a tiny land. Yet it presents
great issues. To many it is a place of profound promise and expectancy. To many
other people it is a place of perplexity and pain.
We ignore history to our loss for
history is the beacon for our future, perhaps it is time to look back so we can
appreciate the present and build a better and securer future.
Human blood splattered on walls and
buildings. Or running in gutters on highways and country lanes cannot be the
answer whatever point of view is held in these confusing areas.
Out of this Bible land and all its many
ancient turbulences and ghastly wars came the beautiful Psalms of David, the
spine tingling prophecies of Isaiah, the vast insight of eternal matters and
cosmography of Job. Also more importantly out of it came over two thousand years
ago, the most wonderful thing that has ever happened on this planet earth, the
birth of a male child to the betrothed wife of an obscure Jewish carpenter which
changed and transfigured the potentialities of the human mind and spirit.
For Jesus Christ of Nazareth, born in
the strange, wild, war racked
country of this turbulent, restless race, discovered and revealed to man
something far more wonderful, and in the long run far more powerful, than
gunpowder, or atomic energy and nuclear power.
It is well for Christian, indeed all
men to hold this fact in mind when he considers the present events, the
excursions, threats and horrors now tearing Israel and Lebanon. The full and
irresistible historical outworking of this Land of Redemption can be seen and
heard above the cry of death on both sides and above the noise of exploding
rockets.
“And the LORD said unto him, (Moses)
This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying,
I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but
thou shalt not go over thither.” (Deuteronomy 34:4)
“Who are Israelites; to whom
pertaineth the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the giving of the
law, and the service of God, and the promises;
Whose are the fathers, and of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.” (Romans 9:4-5).
Page created 1 September 2006