This land of Israel was a barren wasteland. Nobody wanted to live here for hundreds of years. The place was deserted. The place was abandoned. The place was empty. When Mark Twain showed up here in the 1800s, Mark Twain himself wrote that he hardly saw a living soul in his entire journey in this area. He testified that even the cactuses, that are very good friends of the desert, did not grow here. That’s how bad everything was.
So there was a need, first, for the restoration of the land before the people could come back to their ancestral homeland. And it’s interesting because Ezekiel in chapter 36 in verses 8 and 9 said, “But you, O mountains of Israel, shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to my people Israel, for they are about to come. For indeed, I am for you, and I will turn to you and you shall be tilled and sown.” God acknowledged in the scriptures that the land was dead, and God in due time is to speak fertility to the land in preparation for the return of the Jewish people.
Do you understand? The land was dead. The land was sold for pennies on the dollar. The land was deserted, basically. And God said, there is a point in time where I’m going to say this is it. It’s time for My people to come back to their land. But the land is dead, so I’m going to speak first life into this dead land. So you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield, what? Your fruit to My people, Israel.
God said this land belongs to the people of Israel, His people Israel, and God is going to make sure that the land will be sustainable for them to be able to return and live in it. And then He said, I will have to do it before they come, because look what He says, for they are about to come. So once the land had life spoken into it, then comes the return of the people.
In the early 2000’s there was a worship song that churches around the world were singing and the lyrics were a great reminder of the majesty of our God:
Lord of all creation, of water, earth and sky
The heavens are Your tabernacle, glory to the Lord on High
God of wonders beyond our galaxy, You are holy, holy.
The universe declares Your majesty, You are holy, holy
Lord of heaven and earth, Lord of heaven and earth
The lessons from the relationship between the God of wonders and His chosen people Israel are many. He gave them a land that had become desolate and barren. Yet, as Lord of heaven and earth, He called to the trees and vines to bear fruit in preparation for the return of His people to the land He gave them, forever.
1 Peter 2:9-10
But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.
God has called people who were in darkness into His marvelous light. He has taken the desolate and barren souls of men and made them a fruitful people of God. Those who had not obtained mercy have now obtained mercy from the Lord of all creation.
Don’t miss the lessons we can learn from the God of wonders and His relationship with Israel by buying into the false narrative of the media and masses today. There are too many revelations of the goodness and mercy of God that we will miss if we do.
Not the least of these is that God was working on us and drawing us when we were far from Him. His love penetrated the darkness and barrenness of our perishing souls and washed us and cleansed us in the blood of His own Son. And He did this while we were barren and destitute sinners.
He truly is the God of wonders and Lord of heaven and earth. He knows your name and the number of hairs on your head, He keeps your tears in His bottle and loves you with an everlasting love. And what we also need to remember is, He’s coming back for us to take us to where He is – perhaps today!
Even so, come quickly Lord Jesus,