From the Editor Sep/Oct 2022
My husband, Tom, had a wonderful opportunity recently to visit Israel on a tour led by the Zionist Organization of America. He was among a handful of Christians on a Jewish trip designed to communicate the precariousness of Israel’s existence.
In a bulletproof bus, he traveled to the Gaza border where last year Palestinians launched hundreds of incendiary balloons into Israel and set Israeli fields ablaze. He was taken to the town of Sderot, where bomb shelters line the streets and most children suffer from PTSD. He went to Hebron (a Palestinian stronghold) where Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are buried and where King David ruled for seven years before ruling from Jerusalem. Today, a small Orthodox Jewish community is trying to survive in Hebron.
The group also went to Judea and Samaria where Israel began building a beautiful little settlement it was forced to abandon because then U.S. President Barack Obama, 6,000 miles away, told the Jewish state it wasn’t allowed to build on the land.
“People are hurting,” Tom told me. “They were begging and pleading with us to tell American Jews and Christians the tensions they live with every day and what truly is going on.”
The Israel of today is a far cry from Israel in the days of King Solomon, when Gentiles traveled far and wide to see the magnificent Jewish kingdom and how God was blessing His Chosen People. Solomon’s reign is considered Israel’s golden age, when peace and prosperity prevailed and Israel was the head of all nations instead of the tail (Dt. 28:13).
This issue of Israel My Glory unveils the glories of Solomon’s kingdom and what went wrong to create some of the difficulties Israel faces today. But the good news is that Israel will not suffer forever. Someday, Israel will return to God with all its heart; and God will reestablish the kingdom of David, as He promises in His Word.
In that day, no ruler 6,000 miles away will be able to order Israel not to build on its own land. Scripture teaches that Israel’s Messiah will rule from Jerusalem, and all the world will be subservient to Him.
“In those days ten men from every language of the nations shall grasp the sleeve of a Jewish man, saying, ‘Let us go with you, for we have heard that God is with you’” (Zech. 8:23). Until then, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, the government of Israel, and the wonderful Jewish people who live in the land God gave them as an inheritance forever.
Waiting for His Appearing,
Lorna Simcox
Editor-in-Chief
