MIRACLE NATION
Even if there are moments when we think we've never had it this bad, even if the political situation is a source of doom and gloom for many, we should remind ourselves once a year that the reality we live in far exceeds all our dreams and expectations...The State of Israel is a miracle.
Thus read the headlines in one of Israel's leading papers today, Israel's 67th Independence Day.
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Independence Day celebrations in Tel Aviv (Photo: Motti Kimchi) http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4649829,00.html |
'Miracle' is a word overused these days but let us pause a moment and remember what 'miracle' really means. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines 'miracle' as an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs.
From the very beginning Israel was an extraordinary nation that resulted from the divine intervention of the LORD in human affairs. We sometimes refer to the people of Israel as the 'chosen people' as if God lined up all the nations and chose Israel out of them. But this is not so. God called up one man, a man of faith, Abram (later to be renamed Abraham), and from his seed created the nation for His purposes, in order to bless all the other nations (Genesis 12: 1-3). Not only that, at least three of the four mothers of the nation of Israel, Sarah, Rebekah and Rachel, were all barren, and God supernaturally opened their wombs in order to create the nation (Genesis 11:30;Genesis 25:21 and Genesis 29:31,30:22). Scripture does not record whether Leah was also barren but it does say that God opened her womb ( Genesis 29:31). Whatever the case, the people of God, 'Am Israel, was established, called and formed by the express intervention and initiative of the LORD. A miracle nation indeed!
Through Israel, the LORD brought forth all the prophets, the revelation through history of God's love for humankind, the prophets, the Holy Scriptures, and, greatest gift of all, the Messiah, Yeshua (Jesus), through whom the world would be redeemed and saved. Should we then be surprised that modern Israel is also a 'miracle nation'?
In the early years of the nineteenth century the entire population of the region now known as Israel and the "Palestinian territories" (the West Bank, or Judah and Samaria), probably had a population of only around half a million including Jews and Arabs (1). European travelers at this time described an almost empty land with a dwindling population of Jews, Arabs and a variety of others, all afflicted by poverty and disease. Mark Twain, in 1867, described it thus
"There is not a solitary village throughout its (the Jezreel Valley) whole extent - not for thirty miles in either direction. There are two or three small clusters of Bedouin tents, but not a single permanent habitation. One may ride ten miles hereabouts and not see ten human beings ... (in reference to the Galilee) these unpeopled deserts, these rusty mounds of barrenness, that never, never, never do shake the glare from their harsh outlines, and fade and faint into vague perspective; that melancholy ruin of Capernaum; this stupid village of Tiberias, slumbering under its six funereal palms... We reached Tabor safely ... We never saw a human being on the whole route. ...Nazareth is forlorn... Jericho the accursed lies in a moldering ruin ... Bethlehem and Bethany, in their poverty and their humiliation.... Bethsaida and Chorzin have vanished from the earth, and the "desert places" around them ... sleep in the hush of a solitude that is inhabited only by birds of prey and skulking foxes" (2)
Jerusalem Early Twentieth Century
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| http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Jerusalem_panorama_early_twentieth_century2.jpg |
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| Jerusalem 2011 |
On the Eve of this year's Independence Day the population of Israel stands at 8,345,000, 75% of which are Jewish, and 21% Arab. In 1948, at the establishment of the state, the population stood at only 806,000. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4649494,00.html This represents a 1000 fold increase in just 67 years.
Tel Aviv Today
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| http://israelvalley.s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files/000/010/781/original/tel_aviv_3.jpg?1396947420
If you want to see more photos of this modern miracle nation, take a look at this website
By the way, I happened to be standing on Mt Arbel when the photograph of it was taken by the photographer, Israel Bardugo, in a helicopter. Here he is - in his helicopter:
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Since 1948, in spite of all the odds, Israel has flourished. Here is a list of just some of the accomplishments of modern Israel as compiled by Rabbi John Rosove two years ago:
- Israel is the only country in the Middle East that based its principles of government on both democratic liberal values and on the values of the Biblical prophets.
- Israel is the largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth.
- Israel has the world's second highest per capita rate of published books.
- Israel is the only nation on earth that resurrected an ancient language, Hebrew, as its national language.
- Israeli poets and song writers are regarded as heroes.
- Israel is the only country in the world that entered the 21st century with a net gain in its number of trees.
- Israel has more museums per capita than any country.
- Israel developed the cell phone, Windows NT and XP operating systems, Pentium MMX Chip technology, the Pentium-4 microprocessor, the Centrino Processor, voice mail technology, and AOL Instant Messenger ICQ.
- Israel has the highest per capita rate of home computers in the world.
- Israel designed the airline industry's most impenetrable flight security system.
- Israel designed and implemented the Iron Dome Defense system.
- Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees in the world.
- Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other nation, and one of the highest per capita rates of patents filed.
- Israel has the third highest rate of entrepreneurship in the world.
- Israel is second in the world in the number of start-up companies behind only the U.S.
- Israel has the world’s largest per capita number of biotech start-ups.
- Israel has the third largest number of NASDAQ listed companies, behind the U.S. and Canada, and is ranked second for venture capital funds.
- Israel has the highest average living standard in the Middle East.
- 24% of Israel’s workforce holds university degrees, ranking third in the industrialized world; 12% hold advanced degrees.
- Israel leads the world in the number of scientists and technicians in the workforce.
- Israel is a world leader in water renewal, recycling, desalination, and solar heating.
- Israel invented the drip irrigation system used around the world.
- An Israeli company is developing a toilet that needs no water and generates its own power to turn solid waste into sterile and odorless fertilizer in 30 seconds, thereby affecting 1.1 billion people who do not use a toilet.
- An Israeli scientist has developed a way to preserve 50% of every grain and pulse harvest lost to pests and mold in the developing world.
- Israel won international praise for the speed and expertise with which it responded to a 7.0-magnitude earthquake in Haiti that killed 300,000 by sending a team of 240 Israeli doctors, nurses, rescue and relief workers to set up an advanced field hospital to work in search-and-rescue missions.
- An Israeli company developed a water purification system that delivers safe drinking water from contaminated water, seawater and even urine thereby addressing the tragedy of 1.6 million children under the age of five who die annually from untreated drinking water in developing nations.
- Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for breast cancer.
- Hadassah medical researchers found the gene that causes liver disease, thus paving the way for new treatments for alcoholism.
- Tel Aviv University Scientists say a nutritional supplement commonly sold in health food stores can delay the advance of degenerative brain disorders such as Parkinson’s disease.
- Israel's Given Imaging developed the first ingestible video camera, so small it fits inside a pill that can view the small intestine from the inside to detect for cancer and digestive disorders.
- Israeli researchers developed a device that helps the heart pump blood that is synchronized with a camera that helps doctors diagnose the heart’s mechanical operations through a system of sensors.
- An Israeli company developed a computerized system for ensuring proper administration of medications, thus removing human error from medical treatment.
If you are thinking about boycotting Israeli products or academics, think twice!!! You may be shooting yourself in the foot (you would have to throw away your cell phone and computer - just for a start!). Modern Israel is truly fulfilling her God-given calling to bless the world.
(For more go to http://israel21c.org/technology/israels-top-45-greatest-inventions-of-all-time-2/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_inventions_and_discoveries
http://israel21c.org/social-action-2/the-top-65-ways-israel-is-saving-our-planet/)
I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. 12 Now if their fall is riches for the world, and their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness!
Romans 11: 11-12.
THE BEST IS YET TO COME!
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4648587,00.html
(1) Dershowitz, Alan " The Case for Israel" 2003 John Wiley and Sons
(2) Twain, Mark "The Innocents Abroad" Oxford University Press, NY, 1996 pp. 485,508,520,607-608.
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