A Trip to Remember: Rev Scott's Trip to Israel & the War

Rev Mike Scott

And we know all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose (Romans 8:28).

On April 25th, I left with twenty-three other people on my fourth trip to Israel, never expecting to experience the ordeal we were about to face. I really hadn’t planned on going, seeing that I had been several times before; but my brother wanted to go, so I went along to accompany him. We arrived in Israel early Thursday morning and spent the day touring.

That evening, we arrived in Magdala, which is on the Sea of Galilee, and we spent the next day (Friday) touring the nearby region. Saturday morning, we set out for Caesarea-Philippi, and we hadn’t been gone a half hour when everyone’s cell phone began to alarm. In the back of our minds, we knew what was taking place, and shortly afterward our tour guide confirmed our suspicions—fighting had broken out.

We returned to our hotel and spent most of the day in a bomb shelter, and later that afternoon we were placed on a bus and carried to another hotel in Jerusalem. It seemed strange to us to be taken to Israel’s capital city, for it would seem Jerusalem would be the focal point of the enemy’s attacks. Sure enough, the air-raid sirens went off three or four times during the next two days, and explosions could be heard in the distance. That which is both strange and wonderful about the entire ordeal is the calm composure each member of our group possessed, along with the blessed assurance that God was in charge and His protective hand was upon us. We began to wonder if we were in the wrong place at the wrong time, but in our hearts we soon began to realize we were exactly where we were supposed to be.

As believers, we were trusting God for His divine intervention, and it became apparent that our faith was being demonstrated to those around us. When we first arrived in Jerusalem, the hotel in which we were staying was full of soldiers ready to face an unseen enemy force, but we conducted ourselves as those who were in touch with a Higher Power. Some of the group actually got a chance to witness to those soldiers concerning their faith in Christ, and the rest displayed the sufficient grace Almighty God is able to provide.

There is a biblical principle which simply says believers are to grow where they’re planted, and this is the attitude we adopted during our stay in Israel. We were able to lean upon one another for moral support, worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness, and face each day with both confidence and assurance. As I said earlier, we could hear missiles exploding in the distance, but God’s Word assures us no weapon formed against us will prosper (see Isaiah 54:17). Likewise, believers are to view each day as a new and wonderful opportunity to serve the Lord, for we are called to lift up the blood-stained banner of the Cross and thereby further the Kingdom of God. Beyond this, the present life we are now living is nothing more than preparation for the next; therefore, as the apostle Paul declares, “whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s” (Romans 14:8).

While we were certainly disappointed that our time in Israel was interrupted, we did receive an unexpected surprise in that our tour company made arrangements for us to fly out of Egypt to Athens, Greece. This was first of all a miracle of the Lord in that the airport in Israel was closed down for the foreseeable future, which means we would have been stuck there for Heaven only knows how long. But secondly, it gave us the opportunity to travel much of the same ground as Paul did in biblical days. We toured the ruins of Corinth and later returned to Athens, where we ascended Mars’ Hill. All in all, in our mind’s eye, our trip turned out to be both successful and a blessing from Almighty God.

In conclusion, whatever circumstances Christians face in life, whether those circumstances be good or bad, they can be used by the Almighty to teach us certain lessons. I believe our ordeal in Israel can be summarized as follows:

• Our plans aren’t always God’s plans; therefore, as we yield to His wisdom and trust the fact that He is in charge of every situation of life, we will find His way is always best. After all, speaking through the prophet Isaiah, God declares, “…my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:8–9).

• When the Almighty closes a door, He always opens a window, which means there are opportunities to serve Him outside of our comfort zone.

• “When life hands us lemons, make lemonade” may seem trite, but the truth is still valuable; namely, even the worst of circumstances can be turned into glorious opportunities.

• God doesn’t carry His children to a place of desolation and simply leave them there; instead, He turns tragedies into triumphs, catastrophes into conquests, disasters into delights, and adversities into achievements. In the beautiful 23rd Psalm, David says we may be called upon to go down into the valley of the shadow of death, but the key word in that verse is through, which means whatever God brings us to, He will safely bring us through.