Plucking the Eagle's Wings

Plucking the Eagle's Wings

An Interesting Look at Dates

"And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant of His people, which shall be left ... from the islands of the sea. And He shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth. (Isaiah 11:11, 12) The Hebrew word for ensign is nes. This word can also be interpreted to be the sail of a ship . The word nes comes from a word nasas that means to gleam from afar or to be conspicuous, like a signal. It suggests the idea of a flag fluttering in the breeze, to raise a beacon, a standard bearer. When assigning numerical values to the Hebrew letters, the Hebrew numeric value is 110. One hundred and ten years after Columbus' discovery of the New World, a lesser-known event occurred. This event is important in light of the following information. Exactly 110 years after Columbus landed at San Salvador, an English explorer named Bartholomew Gosnold, discovered the Cape Cod peninsula where current day Massachusetts is located. The date of the discovery was May 15, 1602. On May 15, 1948, Israel officially became a nation. Through these dates, we are reminded of the America Israel connection. Gosnold's discovery may allude to the raised ensign mentioned in Isaiah. The United States does stand out among the nations as a beacon for the Gospel and for freedom. Where did we inherit this love of the Gospel and of freedom? I think that it was from our English forefathers. On his voyage, Gosnold sailed along the North American coast from Maine to the Narragansett Bay to what is now called Rhode Island. He named Cape Cod and some of the islands in Nantucket Sound, including Martha's Vineyard and the Elizabeth Islands. When he returned to England, Gosnold promoted the establishment of colonies in the areas that he had explored, and he supported the merchants who obtained a charter from King James I to colonize Virginia. Gosnold was assigned the command of the Godspeed, one of three English ships that comprised the 1606 Jamestown expedition. Exactly five years after his discovery of Cape Cod, Gosnold stood on the banks of the James River aiding in the construction of the first permanent English colony in

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