Blooming in the Desert

Which desert? Let's take a look.

The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Like the crocus, it will burst into bloom; it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy....Water will gush forth in the wilderness and streams in the desert. the burning sand will become a pool, the thirsty ground bubbling springs. In the haunts where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow. (Isaiah 35:1-2, 6-7)

I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs. I will put in the desert the cedar and the acacia, the myrtle and the olive. I will set pines in the wasteland, the fir and the cypress together, so that people may see and know, may consider and understand, that the hand of the Lord has done this, that the Holy One of Israel has created it. (Isaiah 41:18-20)

When I read these two portions of the Scripture, my heart just exclaimed a vehement 'Amen'. How remarkable this would be, that the Holy Land of Israel will burst into bloom, water will gush forth. God is determined to show the world that He has not forgotten about Israel, nor has He taken His eye off the land of promise.

See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland. (Isaiah 43:19)

In our time I have seen several areas of the world turn from fertile grassland and productive farmland into barren, scorched wilderness; the Sahara Desert in northern Africa, for example, continues year by year to swallow ever more acreage. But when was the last itme we saw a desert turn into a lush garden? That, however, is exactly what God has promised to do in the land of Israel!

While I believe God will accomplish this great feat during the reign of the millennial kingdom, already we see hints of what He has in mind. In the years since Israel became a nation, rainfall has increased remarkably throughout Palestine. As a consequence, the nation has produced crops of astounding proportions. In fact, Israel has fruit and vegetables larger than those grown in the famed Imperial Valley of California!

From these little signs, we can see what God will be doing in the future, which is the desert of Holy Land turning into a landscape of rivers, springs and life. In the next post, I shall discuss about a disastrous sneak attack on Israel. Here's a clue: It'd be from Russia and her gang of Arab nations. =)