
CAN A NATION BE BORN IN A DAY?
God Keeps Covenant
Day 9
by Wendy D. Beckett
“Who has ever heard of such a thing? …Can a country be born in a day or a nation be brought forth in a moment? Yet no sooner is Zion in labor than she gives birth to her children. Do I bring to the moment of birth and not give delivery?” says the Lord. (Isaiah 66: 8 & 9)
Day 9 of God Keeps Covenant: CAN A NATION BE BORN IN A DAY?
Let’s return briefly to the Bible College in Wales. In 1947, a number of the young students there sensed the Lord asking them to temporarily lay down their missionary calls and stay to intercede for the birth of the State of Israel. “We pleaded,” wrote Rees Howells in his diary, “that because of His covenant with Abraham 4,000 years ago, God would take His people back to their land, and Palestine (3) should again become a Jewish State.”(4)
On the day of the mandatory United Nations’ vote to allow Israel’s status as a sovereign nation, there was much prayer. The first vote did not pass. The college intercessors went back into more intense prayer and believed they saw “God’s angels influencing those men in the United Nations Conference to work on behalf of God’s people.” The next day the news came of the needed two-thirds majority. The college proclaimed November 28, 1947, “one of the greatest days for the Holy Spirit in the history of these 2,000 years.” (5)
Fighting continued for the next five months between the Arab nations and the Jewish people. However in May 1948, the Jewish council in Jerusalem signed Israel’s Declaration of Independence. Modern Israel was “born in a day.”
In less than 24 hours, seven Arab countries declared war against this new state. Miraculously this fledgling, ill-equipped nation was victorious. Even after she was attacked again in1967, her forces prevailed and broke through to the Western Wall – all that was left of the Old Temple. At that moment all of Jerusalem came back into Jewish hands for the first time since they were exiled to Babylon 600 years before Christ. (6)
Faithful God, thank You that You did “bring to the moment of birth” and You did give delivery. Thank You that You have protected Israel in the ensuing wars. We will “Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her.” (Isaiah 66:10)
