BEAUTY FROM ASHES

“The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me,
Because the Lord has anointed Me…
 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

 And they shall rebuild the old ruins,
They shall raise up the former desolations…

Isaiah 61: 1-4

A friend and I recently took a drive around the fire devastated hills near our home. We were saddened by the extent of the damage, but we also remarked on how, even in the midst of all the devastation, there remained so much beauty. I know that nature will heal itself, with time and a little rain, and was encouraged to see how all the human settlements in the area had been saved, with just a few homes and businesses burned. These settlements stand as green islands amid the destruction.

I know too that God will bring good from this horrible act that was intended for evil by the arsonists, just as Joseph said to his brothers,

But as for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive. Genesis 50:20

A NEW MESSIANIC CONGREGATION RISES

This last Friday (17/08/21), I was privileged to attend the inaugural meeting of a new congregation that will be the first congregation planted in my town of around 25,000 souls, Mevaseret Zion. The building that has been acquired for the congregation is not yet ready for occupation and therefore the meeting was held in a small patch of unburnt forest at Sataf, at the very point where the fire stopped spreading, thanks to an unusual and sudden cessation of the afternoon winds on the last day of the fire. It was as if God had said, “thus far and no further”. I felt it was significant as we saw rising from the ashes the very first ever Messianic congregation in Mevaseret Zion. The name of the town means in Hebrew “The Good News of Zion”. This name is a combination of the names of the two original towns, Mevaseret Jerusalem (the Good News of Jerusalem), and Maoz Zion (Rock of Zion), which amalgamated into the current town of Mevaseret Zion. Isn’t this a wonderful name for a town that is strategically located at the gateway to Jerusalem, straddling Highway 1, the main road between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?

There are many believers already living in Mevaseret but there has, until now, been no congregation, with most either travelling the 10km to Jerusalem for fellowship or not attending any congregation regularly. The congregation is being established by a core group of around 10 families and is an offshoot from the strong “Jerusalem Assembly”.

2000 YEAR OLD DATES

This seems to be the time of new beginnings. Scientists in Israel have succeeded in growing viable trees from some 2000 year old date seeds that were found at Masada near the Dead Sea. The dry desert air had preserved these dates. In Biblical times the Judean region was renowned for its especially sweet and succulent dates which also had medicinal properties, but these ancient varieties had been lost until now. Last year the first harvest of 100 dates was gathered from the first female palm grown from these seeds, and this year 800 dates were harvested. This tree was named “Hannah” and another female tree grown from these seeds has just been planted out. She has been named “Judith” and it is hoped that she will also produce more of these ancient and beautiful pale-golden dates.

https://www.ynetnews.com/environment/article/bj7o3zuef

AFGHANISTAN

No doubt you are all following events in Afghanistan. Now that all the foreign forces are out of the country, the Taliban has total control in almost the whole nation. This means there is very little news getting out. Below are a couple of videos that can help us know how to pray for our brothers and sisters in the Lord, both those who have managed to escape and must now make a new life elsewhere, those who are trying to escape and are in hiding, and those who have courageously decided to stay in Afghanistan as witnesses to their people.

We also need to pray for the Taliban themselves who are deceived by Satan, but beloved of God. Most Taliban are of the Pashtun tribes, one of the least evangelized peoples in the world. There is some compelling evidence that the Pashtun are descendants of Israelites who were exiled 2700 years ago by the Assyrians (1).

LEBANON and the ABRAHAM ACCORDS

This week the ongoing collapse of the nation of Lebanon reached a new low. The two main power stations ran out of fuel, causing the entire electrical grid to shut down blacking out the entire country. Beirut, lit only by car headlights and the occasional private generator, looked like some post-apocalypse movie set (see the video below).

Power was restored yesterday (10/10) when the Lebanese Army released 6000 kiloliters of oil to the two main power stations (2). Even when the power stations have fuel, the supply of electricity is limited to only 1-2 hours per day, therefore many Lebanese depend upon privately owned generators, but these run on diesel which is also in short supply. Fuel for cars is also in short supply and becoming more and more expensive. As I am writing, news is coming in of a massive fire in a benzene storage facility at one of the power stations (3).

Apart from the energy crisis, food, medicines and other essential supplies are increasingly scarce and expensive in Lebanon. The currency has devalued by 90% since 2019. The government and banking system has collapsed. According to the UN, around 78% of the people are living in dire poverty. All this when the country is also facing the coronavirus pandemic and the reconstruction following the 2020 explosion which left 300,000 people in Beirut homeless.

What we are seeing in Lebanon is the consequence of a nation allowing a take-over by a terrorist organization, Hezbollah, backed by Iran. Hezbollah boasts an arsenal of 150,000 missiles all aimed at Israel (though the true number is probably only(!) 70,000) and has invested millions of dollars in constructing a huge network of underground bunkers and tunnels, and equipping itself with a massive military arsenal – all intended for the destruction of Israel. How sad that this money was not spent on bettering the lives of the people they rule! Iraq and Syria, sadly, are travelling down the same path, dooming their people to the same kind of suffering.

When God called Abram out of Haran He said,

“Get out of your country,
From your family
And from your father’s house,
To a land that I will show you.
 I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

Genesis 12: 1-3

God has never revoked this blessing and this curse. Lebanon and other nations have chosen to curse Israel, and in so doing, have brought down a curse upon their own heads. Throughout all of human history we can see this curse being played out – witness Assyria, Babylon, the Greek and Roman Empires, the German Third Reich, Iraq and so on.

The Middle East is realigning, and more and more Arab states are turning towards making peace with Israel, and are discovering the benefits of doing so. These nations are flourishing.

The EUObserver put it this way,

The benefits of peace cannot be denied. Since the first direct flights linking Tel Aviv with Dubai (November 2020) and Abu Dhabi (April 2021), hundreds of thousands of Israeli tourists and businesspeople have visited the UAE and Bahrain, connecting peoples and cultures like never before.

More than 55 agreements between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain are currently underway – half of them have already been signed and implemented. These agreements lay the foundation for practical cooperation in almost all fields including: finance, communications, economy, culture, tourism, taxation, investment protection, freedom of movement, water, agriculture and energy.

Between January and July 2021, trade between Israel and the UAE surged to $613.9m [524 Euro] and that is just the beginning. The enormous economic benefits of the peace accords have become rapidly apparent, as all sides have gained from the fruits of peace (4).

This past Thursday (07/10) Israel opened its pavilion at the Dubai Expo 2020, something that just two years ago would have been unthinkable. Tourists are travelling freely between Israel and the UAE, and visas are not required. This week a delegation of 8 businessmen, officials and activists from Bahrain visited Jerusalem, one of whom even joined a family celebrating a Bar Mitzvah at the Western Wall.

This week too saw the first direct flight from Cairo to Tel Aviv using a clearly marked Egypt Air aircraft. There have been flights between Egypt and Israel since the 1980s but only using Sinai Air planes not showing an Egyptian flag. These flights were kept discreet amid the lingering hostilities between these nations (5).

VIOLENCE IN ISRAELI ARAB COMMUNITIES

Today Ganem Jabarin, a 46-year-old resident of Umm el-Fahm became the 98th Arab Israeli murdered this year (6). This is symptomatic of the breakdown of law and order in Israeli Arab communities, and most of the murders have been related to organized crime family feuds. Arab communities blame the lack of police control, but when police attempt to intervene they often become the targets of mob violence. The real problem is the spirit of violence and the revenge-based culture of Arab communities in combination with organized crime. Justice Minister, Gidon Sa’ar, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post said, “The phenomenon of organized crime [in the Arab-Israeli sector] endangers Israel more than external threats” (7).

WHEN THE TOWERS FALL

Recently we passed the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 Twin Towers terrorist attack. I suppose all of us, who are old enough, will remember what we were doing when we first heard about this terrible event. One of the things I can remember was that this verse popped into my mind,

In the day of the great slaughter,
When the towers fall.

Isaiah 30: 25b

This verse refers to the general time period when God will judge the enemies of Israel and will restore the people of Israel to their own land.

For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem;
You shall weep no more.
He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry;
When He hears it, He will answer you.

Isaiah 30:19

Of course this passage was not directly referring to the Twin Towers of New York City, and it most probably refers to watchtowers and fortresses built to defend Israel from its enemies, however it seems that lately there have been a lot of towers falling around the world. Around 100 or so years ago, we humans began to build higher and higher towers and now a great many of those early towers are reaching the end of their lifespan. This is certainly the case here in Israel. Many of the older buildings here were hastily erected to house the immigrants pouring into the country in the 50s and 60s. They were shoddily constructed of substandard materials, and many have been poorly maintained. The Israel Builder’s Association claims that there are some 80,000 buildings, containing some 300,000 apartments in danger of collapse (8,9).

On the Shabbat of the 11th of September residents in an apartment building in Holon heard loud bangs and serious cracks began to open up in the building. As rescue services hurried to evacuate the building they found that in some apartments the building was so deformed that the metal front doors could not be opened. They had to break through the walls to get the people out. I thank God that all the 36 families who lived in the building were evacuated safely, because the very next day it collapsed (10). Of course those people suddenly lost everything they owned.

Since then several other multistorey apartment blocks have had to be evacuated around the country as serious cracks have appeared (10,11). One cannot help but wonder what would happen should we have an earthquake. Some years ago the government instituted a reconstruction program known as Tama38. Some old, crumbling buildings have been renovated and brought up to safety standards as a result, but the program is mired in all kinds of bureaucratic and political complications and is not proceeding as it should.

If you could visit Jerusalem these days you would see it bristling with cranes. Everywhere workers are busily building apartment blocks, tunneling and rerouting transport systems. The municipality has embarked on a project to increase housing in the city, already Israel’s largest of about 1 million residents. Housing is in short supply and consequently property prices and rentals are very expensive. Until now there has been a bylaw prohibiting the building of residential buildings higher than 4-storeys, but this bylaw has now been abolished and higher and higher apartment blocks are appearing around the city. I cannot help wonder about the wisdom of this. Jerusalem is built on soft, crumbly limestone riddled with underground caves and channels like a Swiss cheese. Not only that, we are adjacent to the Great African Rift Faultline and a number of branch fault lines pass right through the city. The area has experienced many severe earthquakes in the past and we know from the Scriptures that there will be earthquakes in the future.

The other problem is sinkholes. Recently a sinkhole swallowed a number of cars in the carpark of the Shaarei Tzedek hospital, and part of a building collapsed into another sinkhole in the center of the city, in Hillel Street, just two buildings down from the building where our congregation meets. By a miracle, no one was injured in either incident, but property was lost. Last Thursday (07/10) a sinkhole appeared in the middle of the Ramle-Lod highway (12).

For He brings down those who dwell on high,
The lofty city;
He lays it low,
He lays it low to the ground,
He brings it down to the dust…

For when Your judgments are in the earth,
The inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness.

Isaiah 26: 5, 9

CORONAVIRUS IN ISRAEL

There appears to be some hope that the 4th wave of viral infection is beginning to wane in Israel. After reaching a high of over 11,000 new cases per day on the 11th of September there has been a steady drop off since then (13). Yesterday (10/10) only 1,579 new cases were recorded, and this in spite of an anticipated rise due to the gatherings that occurred during the High Holy Days. Since the beginning of the pandemic, Israel has registered some 1.3 million infections (approx. 1 in 9 of the population) but of course there are probably many who were infected and suffered no symptoms, or only mild symptoms, and did not necessarily report it. A total of 7,920 people have died to date (11/10)(13).

This past week the children returned to school and it is yet too early to know if this will cause another increase in infections but it is hoped that the new testing requirements for school children will prevent this. Also, we may soon be starting to vaccinate the younger children and a recent poll said that some 57% of parents are willing to have their children aged between 5-11 vaccinated (14) .

Yesterday (10/10) the government tightened the requirements regarding the Green Pass and only those who have received the second shot within the last 5 months or who have received the 3rd shot are now eligible. New methods of enforcing the Pass requirements are also being introduced. There is some debate as to whether the Green Pass system has any effectiveness in reducing infection or is just a way of encouraging people to get vaccinated.

FIRES

The weather here is still hot and dry, and the risk of wildfires remains extreme. Today at least two fires were burning in the Jerusalem area. As far as I know, neither were threatening settlements. One of these fires, in Begin park near Bet Shemesh, was clearly the result of arson and a Jewish woman, said to be suffering mental illness, was arrested (15). The fire was brought under control Thursday night but today it reignited. There have also been several other fires in recent days. There is hope that we may soon get some rain. Please pray for the arrival of the winter rains and also that, when they come, they will not be too heavy causing flooding or damage to life or property.

I will stop writing at this point. As fast as I write new developments are occurring, but in the interest of actually getting this published I must now stop. God Bless you all.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
“May they prosper who love you.
 Peace be within your walls,
Prosperity within your palaces.”

Psalm 122: 6-7

References:

1. https://www.jpost.com/opinion/are-the-taliban-descendants-of-israel-678995
2. https://news.sky.com/story/lebanon-power-restored-after-empty-fuel-stations-caused-total-blackout-in-beirut-12431064
3. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/10/11/fire-breaks-out-in-lebanons-zahrani-oil-facility
4. https://euobserver.com/opinion/152983
5. https://www.timesofisrael.com/egyptair-to-launch-direct-tel-aviv-cairo-flights-next-month/
6. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/umm-el-fahm-resident-shot-and-killed-98th-arab-murdered-this-year-681626
7. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/saar-israeli-arab-violence-wave-worse-danger-than-hamas-hezbollah-680998
8. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/builders-300000-old-apartments-at-risk-of-collapse-679454https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-miracle-holon-apartment-building-collapses-a-day-after-it-was-evacuated/
9. https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/builders-300000-old-apartments-at-risk-of-collapse-679454
10. https://www.timesofisrael.com/raanana-apartment-building-demolished-amid-fears-of-collapse/
11. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/some-residents-of-jerusalem-apartment-building-evacuated-over-collapse-fears/
12. https://www.timesofisrael.com/sinkhole-opens-in-middle-of-lod-ramle-highway/
13. https://www.google.com/search?client=avast-a-1&q=corona+in+israel+graph&oq=cor&aqs=avast.0.69i59j69i57j69i59l3j69i60j69i65j69i60.2254j0j15&ie=UTF-8
14. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/majority-of-israeli-parents-will-vaccinate-kids-ages-5-11-if-fda-gives-approval-poll/
15. https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/fire-breaks-out-in-israeli-national-park-681355