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Nothing in the history of nations and peoples compares to the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning the nation of Israel. A nation destroyed and expunged from the global map�a people decimated and dispersed to the four corners of the earth�a land that becomes an utter desolation. Then one day, God begins to fish for the seed of Abraham. God begins to restore the lands. God puts her back on the map and not just on the map as another of many�but as the Garden of God.
Israel — Garden of God
Topic#: 00100 from WWW.GODSAIDMANSAID.COM

I told the two successful businessmen sitting with me that they were very fortunate to be in the same room with one of the world’s wisest men. They laughed incredulously and said, “Who? You?” I affirmed it was so. I went on to quote Psalms 111, verse 10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments: his praise endureth forever.” I explained that I feared God very much and that men and women who fear and honor the God of the Bible are scarce commodities. Brother Job of the Bible also said, “Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; (Job 28:28).” Because the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, I therefore was and am one of the world’s wisest men. If you fit this Bible formula, you can say the same of yourself because the Bible says it of you. I do admit and must assure you that I made that statement to my two business friends—not to lift up myself—but to shock them into a spiritual conversation.

I went on to say that another way they could tell I was one of the world’s wisest was that I knew the difference between up and down. Of course their response was, “What do you mean by that?” I then asked them, “How do you get to Heaven from here?” Their answer was, “Be a ‘good’ person and to go to church regularly.”

To that response, I went on to recount the story of what had taken place in a college classroom over 30 years ago: I was attending a sociology class where the professor posed the following question to the students: “How do you get to Heaven from here?” There were about 30 students in the class, with all but about two confessing some flavor of Christian confession. The professor wrote the two basic answers on the blackboard that he had wrangled from the class. One answer was, “Obey the Ten Commandments and to go to church regularly.” The other answer was simply, “Be a good person and not hurt anyone.” With the exception of the two non-Christian students, all voted for answer one or two with the teacher opting for number one.

Do you know how to get to Heaven from here? (Stop reading or listening to this feature for a moment and write your answer down, then continue.) There were nearly 600 cumulative years of pew-sitting in that classroom that day 30 years ago and unfortunately no one answered correctly. I, being a new believer in Christ, raised my hand and asked the instructor if he would accept Jesus Christ as an authority on how to get to Heaven. He said he would. I went on to explain that neither of the answers on the board were correct and that Jesus Christ, in John 3:3, said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” If you have not entered into the new birth through Christ Jesus, click on to “Further With Jesus” on this site for information.

My two businessmen friends didn’t know the difference between up and down. They thought that when they died, their “good” works would take them up to Heaven to be with Christ Jesus, but in fact, the highway they were on was heading south into Hell. I explained that Jesus Christ alone can assure entry into God’s presence and eternal life and that it is through the born-again experience. Jesus Christ said in John, chapter 14, verse 6:

I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

Be wise. Fear God and obey His commandments. Make Jesus Christ the Lord of your life and you too will know the difference between up and down and be among the world’s wisest. NOW FOR TODAY’S SUBJECT.

GOD SAID, in Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 35,

And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.

God prophesies the time of restoration when Israel would again be established as a nation and when He would miraculously renew the land of Israel and make it as the very Garden of God.

Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 36:

Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.

MAN SAID:  Concerning prophesies in the Scriptures: They are vague, convoluted predictions of men that are meaningless.

Now THE RECORD. Prophesy establishes the supernatural origin and nature of the Word of God. Incorporating the laws of probability in regard to Bible prophecy makes this idea ever so clear.

Over 2,500 years ago, God prophesied of the demise and dispersion of the nation of Israel. God said that Israel would no longer exist as a nation and that the land of Israel would become a desolation. He also prophesied that after the judgment of the people of Israel, He would again begin to fish for them because of His covenant with Abraham. He would gather them back to the original land of Israel, restore them as a nation, and cause their land to flourish, comparing it to the Garden of God.

Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 35:

And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.

For nearly 2,000 years, the name Israel had been expunged from the globe and its maps, as well as its people dispersed to the four corners of the earth at least until the year 1948. On May 14, 1948, Israel was spoken into existence again as she signed her Declaration of Independence. Until that time, the area now called Israel was called Palestine, a name given by the Romans approximately 100 years after Jesus Christ. It was meant as an insult to the broken Jews. Palestine is a Greek word meaning Philistine. Of course, Philistines were the archenemies of Israel. Just one example of this rivalry can be seen in the battle of the Jewish shepherd boy, David, and the Philistine giant, Goliath.

Today, Israel stands as a nation among nations with the world’s fourth most powerful military. She flourishes and testifies of the fulfillment of the supernatural prophecies of the God of the Bible. But, just a few short years ago, this wasn’t so.

The excerpt that follows was taken from C.H. Wagner, Jr.’s, book, 365 Fascinating Facts about the Holy Land:

According to the Peel Commission: “The Arabs’ charge that the Jews have obtained ’too large a proportion of good land’ cannot be maintained. Much of the land now carrying orange groves was once sand dunes or swamp land and was uncultivated when it was purchased.” Moreover, the price the Jews paid for this barren land was exorbitant. In 1944, the Jewish people paid between $1,000 and $1,100 per acre in Palestine, mostly for arid or semi-arid land. In the same year, rich black soil in Iowa was selling for about $110 per acre.

73% of the land was purchased from absentee Arab landlords who lived in Cairo, Damascus, and Beirut. The land truly was desolate.

Mark Twain, the pseudonym of the famous American author Samuel Clemens, traveled through Israel in 1867 when it was still called Palestine. He had this to say of the place, “Nowhere in all the waste around was there a foot of shade.” He said it was a, “blistering, naked, treeless land.” When speaking of Galilee, Twain said, “There is no dew, nor flowers, nor birds, nor trees. There is a plain and an unshaded lake, and beyond them some barren mountains.” Finally, he said, “Of all the lands there are for dismal scenery, I think Palestine must be the prince. The hills are barren, they are dull of color, they are unpicturesque in shape. It is a hopeless, dreary, heartbroken land.”

The well-known French author Voltaire called Israel, “a hopeless, dreary place.”

And again Wagner writes:

The report of the Palestine Royal Commission quotes an account of the condition of the coastal plain along the Mediterranean Sea in 1913: “The road leading from Gaza to the north was only a summer track suitable for transport by camels and carts . . . no orange groves, orchards, or vineyards were to be seen until one reached Yavne village . . . houses were all of mud. Schools did not exist . . . The western part, towards the sea was almost a desert. . . . The villages in this area were few and thinly populated . . . many villages were deserted by their inhabitants.”

Ezekiel pens the Word of God that prophesies of the coming restoration of Israel and its condition prior to the restoration. Ezekiel, chapter 36, verses 33-34:

33 Thus saith the Lord GOD; In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will also cause you to dwell in the cities, and the wastes shall be builded.

34 And the desolate land shall be tilled, whereas it lay desolate in the sight of all that passed by.

All of the following information concerning present-day Israel should be even more amazing to you when you consider that, in terms of land area, Israel is about the size of the relatively small U.S. state of New Jersey.

Three continents converge in Israel, linking it to a wide diversity of plants and animals. In the small country of Israel, fruits that require entirely different growing seasons flourish. Imagine, apples, oranges, strawberries, and bananas all grow in Israel. This feat is unheard of anywhere else in the world.

The land of Israel, once desolate, is now home to 3,000 species of plants. Compare that with the 1,800 species found in the British Isles, which have 21/2 times the land area of Israel, and the 1,500 species found in Egypt, which is 10 times the size.

Israel, the land brought back from the dead, boasts 450 species of birds. The United States, 461 times larger than Israel, has 725 species, not even twice as many.

A wide, wide range of wild animals reside in Israel such as the alligator, leopard, lynx, jungle cat, ibex, gazelle, wild goat, hyena, jackal, fox, wild boar, badger, porcupine, polecat, and the Siberian wolf.

Imagine: the people of Israel have planted over 250 million trees which are giving birth to millions more. And Israel exports 1.5 million flowers annually.

Besides feeding her own inhabitants, Israel ships abroad over 300 million pounds of fruits and vegetables each year. Israel also produces, for her own consumption and for export, the largest variety of domestically raised fish in the world.

Again, author C.H. Wagner, Jr., writes:

In Israel, there is even a major project, the Hai Bar Nature Project, aimed at restoring to Israel the animals mentioned in the Bible. So far, herds of oryx, Persian fallow deer, onager, roe deer, and other animals have been reintroduced to the land of Israel, having been hunted to near extinction in centuries past.

God’s Word declares in Isaiah, chapter 51, verse 3:

For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Note that this prophecy is made nearly 2,500 years ago. Not only has this desolate land been turned into a Garden of Eden, but even Israel’s desert teems with all forms of life including plants, ibex antelope, turtles, snakes, lizards, sheep, goats, camels and much more.

Nothing in the history of nations and peoples compares to the fulfillment of the prophecies concerning the nation of Israel. A nation destroyed and expunged from the global map—a people decimated and dispersed to the four corners of the earth—a land that becomes an utter desolation. Then one day, God begins to fish for the seed of Abraham. God begins to restore the lands. God puts her back on the map and not just on the map as another of many—but as the Garden of God. When all of the marvelous prophecies of Israel are evaluated and assigned probabilities and when the odds are calculated for a man making these predictions and having them come to pass, it is one in a number that defies normal comprehension. The great prophecies I’ve mentioned with the Israel people being scattered around the globe for nearly 2,000 years and not being assimilated into the other nations, their horrendous judgment still yet unfolding, the traumatization of other nations involved in her affairs, the returning of Jesus Christ with his foot landing on the Mount of Olives, and the great climactic battle of Armageddon to come, declare that God alone can tell the end from the beginning.

For conversation’s sake let’s assign odds of one in a billion that a man could make all of the prophecies concerning Israel and see them come to pass. Conversely, the other way to make that statement is by saying that the odds are 999,999,999 out of 1,000,000,000 that it was God. God alone tells the end from the beginning.

GOD SAID, in Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 35,

And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited.

God prophesies the time of restoration when Israel would again be established as a nation and when He would miraculously renew the land of Israel and make it the very Garden of God.

Ezekiel, chapter 36, verse 36:

Then the heathen that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.

MAN SAID:  Concerning prophesies in the Scriptures: They are vague, convoluted predictions of men that are meaningless.

Now you have THE RECORD.



References:

King James Bible

Twain, Mark, The Innocents Abroad, American Publishing Co., 1869, pp 486-487, 606.

Wagner, C.H., Jr., 365 Fascinating Facts about the Holy Land, New Leaf Press, 1999.

Visit WWW.GODSAIDMANSAID.COM for streaming audio of many more exciting discoveries from God's Word!! The truth shall set you free.
Views: 14597