The emptiness of a Godless life.

There is an old limerick that goes: 

"A cheerful old bear in the zoo

could always find something to do.

When it bored him, you know,

to walk to and fro,

he reversed it, and walked fro and to!"

Perhaps the composer of that bit of doggerel believed that people could learn from the bear. Certainly, bears appear to be content as long as they have sufficient food to eat, and some other bears for company. A lot of we humans could, indeed, learn a valuable lesson from such an example!

The prophet Haggai, whose prophetic book is found in the Tanakh (the Old Testament in the Bible), lived at the time when the Children of Israel had returned from the Babylonian exile, and he discovered that man cannot find happiness when he lives at the level of even the highest animal. His contemporaries ignored the fact that the Temple had not been rebuilt (Note to the so-called Palestinians, and the members of UNESCO - this was a long time before the false 'prophet', Muhammad had even been born!), although they had provided, for themselves, finely constructed houses, and occupied themselves with worldly affairs.

However, their harvests were poor; their clothing was inadequate; and their wages failed to keep up with the rising costs that resulted from inflation! The prophet uttered the word of YHWH: "You have sown much, and harvested little; you eat, but you never have enough; you drink, but you never have your fill; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages earns wages to put them into a bag with holes." (1:6). The prophet told them to re-examine their priorities, as they were reaping a harvest of unhappiness by putting selfish pleasures first.

Whenever people forget the Lord, and concern themselves with the pursuit of material and sensual things, they are - at least in the long run - poorly rewarded. The rich find little true satisfaction in their abundance, and the remaining multitudes, who are not even particularly rich, end up discontented, disillusioned, and bored with life. The reason for this is that God made us in His own image, and for His glory, and we can never find true joy until we obey the instruction of the Lord Jesus to: "... seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, ..." (Matt.6:33). Only then will we sow and reap abundantly, and eat and be truly filled. Augustine said: "You have made us for Yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in You." A modern version of that says "There's a God-shaped blank in every heart that only God can fill."

If you are aware of an emptiness in your life, that the so-called pleasures of life are failing to satisfy, then I commend the Lord Jesus to you. He came, He assured us, that you "... may have life, and have it abundantly." (Jn.10:10). That life - eternal life - is available to you, today.

Independence Day - in Israel.

Today, in Israel, is known as Yom Ha’atzmaut. It is the anniversary of the Israeli Declaration of

Independence in 1948. It is officially observed on the 5th of Iyar according to the Hebrew calendar, although this date is often adjusted by a day or two in order to ensure that the Yom Ha’atzmaut festivities and the Yom Hazikaron (Memorial Day) commemorations, that take place the day before, do not interfere with the observance of Shabbat. Today was the 69th anniversary of the establishment of the new State of Israel in fulfilment, many are convinced, of the Biblical prophecies concerning the nation - cf. Amos 9:14-15; Ezekiel 37:10-14; Jeremiah 16:14-15 et al.

However, there is another prophecy that is being fulfilled before our eyes. In Gen.18:17-18 we read these words of YHWH (the covenant name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob): "YHWH said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and in him all the nations of the earth shall be blessed." (emphasis added; see also 22:18, 26:4).

So, how has this prophetic word been fulfilled? Well let me share just some of the achievements of the nation of Israel, since 1948 - and remember that, during that whole 69 years, she has had to deal with the enmity of most of the surrounding nations - with Iran, in particular, making no secret of its desire to see the nation destroyed, and every one of the Children of Israel dead.

• .

Did you know, for example, that 

• Israel designed the airline industry’s most impenetrable flight security system;
• 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 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 and implemented the Iron Dome Defense system;
• Israel has the highest ratio of university degrees in the world;
• Israel is second in the world in the number of start-up companies behind only the U.S.of A.;
• Israel has the world’s largest per capita number of biotech start-ups;
• 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;
• Israeli scientists developed the first fully computerized, no-radiation, diagnostic instrumentation for ;breast cancer
• 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?

On top of all of that, there is the almost unbelievable improvement in the natural environment where one can see the fulfilment of yet other prophecies. In Isaiah 35 we read: "The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom; like the crocus it shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon." (vs.1-2). And when will this amazing transformation take place? When "... the ransomed of YHWH shall return, and come to Zion with singing;" (v.10). In other words, when the redeemed Children of Israel return to Jerusalem, and the land that YHWH promised to their forefathers.

Of course, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) executive committee, in its great wisdom (sarcasm should be noted!) decided today in another politicized, anti-Israel decision regarding Jerusalem, that everything Israel does in Jerusalem is illegal. As in the case of past anti-Israel resolutions, the text was authored by Arab states. No hint of bias there, then (further sarcasm!). Let those of us who love Israel, and the Jewish nation, pray for the nation, and against every anti-Semitic move by those who wish only her demise.

L'Chaim Yisrael!