ISRAEL IS 70 YEARS OLD

The Amazing Story

(part1)

The tiny state of Israel is commemorating its 70th birthday. After centuries of exile and the struggles endured since, this modern state re-established in an amazing manner in the Holy Land. Amid all the controversies and struggles, lies ahead the promises and prophecies yet unfulfilled.

It is a fact that the continuance existence of the formation of this tiny state of Israel have been according to God's plan.

There is no doubt that this complicated and controversial geopolitical entity, which was born 70 years ago on May 15 has survived in a miraculous manner.

In His Word in Isaiah 46:9-11, the prophet affirms the sole lordship of God. God is unique in His knowledge and in His control of the future. His consistent purpose is to carry out what He has planned. Bible prophecy reveals a Jewish political presence in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas in the end time. This has seemed unlikely if not impossible for centuries, however, it is quite sensible to recognise the work and the hand of God in bringing this about.

The dreams of the scattered Jewish people would at last begin to be fulfilled with the extraordinary and conspicuous events leading up to 1948 and all the years since then. Make no mistake, there is still much, much more still to come.

After the Roman take over, leading to the casting of the Jewish people, these same people continued to look to God's promises and prophecies of bringing the tribes of Israel and Judah back to the Promised Land, formerly known as Canaan in the Old Testament and as Judea, Galilee and Samaria in New Testament times. This is the backbone of the formation of the Israeli state.

The more religious and observant Jews continued to follow their religious traditions, retaining a deep longing to return to the homeland of their forefathers.

According to Jewish tradition, the annual Passover and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), retains this longing feeling to return to their homeland. These services typically ends with the plea, "Next year in Jerusalem".

This is the dream of the Jewish people. Yes, this is revealed in the Bible and there is a much greater fulfilment still to come.

But let's go back in history. Just 40 years after Jesus foretold the temple's imminent destruction, the plight of Jewish exile from the Promised Land began in the year 70 at the end of a Roman emperor named Vespasian and his son and successor Titus. The city of Jerusalem and the temple of God were destroyed as Jesus' predicted.

The expectations of the Messiah, the nation-restoring king would set them free from the Roman rule and not the sacrificial Lamb of God sent to free them from a spiritual slavery which they were largely ignorant of.

The Jewish desire for independence from Rome contributed largely to the uprisings that brought about their own undoing, dispersion and scattering out of the Promised Land.

To mark this conquest, Rome built the Arch of Titus which stands outside the Colosseum in Rome. The building of the Colosseum was funded by the spoils of the war with the Jews.

The 1800 years of dispersion from the land of Israel, known as "Diaspora", did not stop another Jewish attempt, since its inception, to cast off Roman rule about 65 years later in the year 133, which was crushed once more by the Romans under the Emperor Hadrian. This expulsion of the Jewish people from Jerusalem transformed this city into a pagan place with a pagan temple at the top of Temple mount.

The years become centuries, and the Promised Land was eventually conquered and subjected to Muslim rule, which would last for many more centuries. At this stage, it seemed an impossibility that Jewish rule could ever be re-established there. (to be continued...)