At the times of Ezra and Nehemiah it is truly amazing how God uses not one but a number of foreign rulers to accomplish the restoration of his people, along with the temple and the building of the wall of Jerusalem.  This of course started with Cyrus whom God calls “his anointed” in Isaiah 45:1.  If we go through those chapters it is not a small amount of help that is given to the Jews at that time.  At the time of Darius in Ezra 6 he makes a decree that whoever tries to change his word on the rebuilding would be pulled from their house and it would be made a dunghill.  And the Jews needed this help. How is a small number of captives going to return and build their city with the opposition that faced them, unless they had the rulers on side? 

"The Most High rules in the kingdoms of men, and gives it to whomsoever

he will"

Now when we come down to the greater restoration that we have seen over the last 100 plus years God said he would use another nation at that time, Tarshish.  Isaiah 60:9 - “Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons from far.”  Tarshish is without a doubt  the nation of Britain (you can look back into past issues of the Bible Magazine to see this).  When we come to Ezekiel 38 we see Tarshish in the latter days but not on her own, with her young lions.  A few months ago on this program we looked specifically at the position of America in Bible Prophecy and how that she fits into the group of young lions.  As Britain’s first offspring to leave the nest, although with a rather ugly parting, in time has shown that she has many of the same characteristics and ideals.  This is to be expected in many ways when you look at the great level of influence the Bible has had in both countries, this has been true of many of the other nations that have come out of the British empire as well.  

What is interesting is that for the Puritans that came over it was to escape the power of the Church of England.  In the new world the Puritans were able to worship unmolested and with freedom.  In fact the first book printed in British North America is the Bay of Psalms Book, a translation that was made to be closer to the original Hebrew.  Well it is in this new world where believers strove for a more pure and undefiled serving of God, that the influence of the scriptures is still considerable.  And here is where things get interesting.

We have just witnessed the election of the 45th President of the United States; an election where rural America rose up decisively and voted for Donald Trump.  Among evangelical voters it is said that 81% voted for Trump.  Many may see this as hypocritical however on many issues Trump was much closer than Clinton to their values, this was certainly the case with abortion.  Now if anyone was voting on the issue of Israel, Trump certainly stood out.  Listen to the following from Trump’s speech to AIPAC.

Online you can hear speeches from Donald Trump, Mike Pence, Mike Huckabee and David Friedman.

Thanks for listening and please come back next week for another edition of the Bible in the News.