Hope of Israel Ministries (Ecclesia of YEHOVAH):

Australia -- An Ancient Heritage

by Richard Ibbett

January 1, 1901 marked the birth of the Australian Nation. On this day celebrations were held across the continent, with the official federation ceremony being held at Centennial Park in Sydney before a crowd of over 100,000 people. There were 7000 invited guests, Imperial and Colonial Troops, and a huge, massed choir of 15,000 singers, 10,000 of whom were children. As the first Governor General, Lord Hopetoun, took his place on the pavilion, but before a single word had been spoken, the choir sang the hymn: "O God our help in ages past..." Now, it may seem somewhat strange, that the first words uttered in the ceremony to proclaim this nation of Australia were about the God of Israel helping us (our ancestors) in ages past; but read on.

An article about the naming of Australia appeared in the Winter 2009 issue of Australian Heritage magazine. (Published 2005-2010). On page 42, the article stated that the word "Australia" originated as a plural form of the Latin adjective "australis." What the article did not say however, was that this plural form of the word "australis" is to be found in the Vulgate, an early Latin translation of the Bible written around A.D. 405, where we read in Isaiah 49:12 of "terra australi." The King James Bible renders terra australi as "the land of Sinim."

The Westminster Dictionary of The Bible (1944 edition) states in an article, "Sinim, Land of"':

"A country cited to illustrate the promise that the scattered Israelites shall be gathered from the remotest regions of the earth....Since the west and the north have been mentioned, the land of Sinim is not to be sought there, but in the south or the east."

The directions given here are from the focal point of the ancient homeland of Israel. Also, verse 12 does not refer to the 20th century gathering of Jews in Palestine. The very first place where you read the word "Jews" in the King James Version of the Old Testament, (II Kings Chapter 16), the Jews are at war with Israel! Unlike most Jews today, however, these people at war with Israel were of the House of Judah, from whom the House of Israel had separated around 930 B.C. The people of the House of Judah were Israelites but remained as a separate kingdom.

Two centuries after this separation, the increasingly decadent House of Israel fell to the onslaught of the Assyrian Empire. Eventually they were deported to an area east of the southern shore of the Caspian Sea. This was toward the Caucasus region, where at a later time, many of our ancestors migrated through the Darial Pass in the Caucasus Mountains; and so, upon us is the name "Caucasian" today. Page eighty-four of the Readers Digest "Story of the Bible World" (1962) had this to say:

"The Kingdom of Israel, which had lasted for two hundred years, had now come to an end, in 721 B.C., and the members of the Ten Tribes who had been hurried off to Assyria became the Lost Tribes, for they have never again emerged in world history."

This then is what they believe. This is also what the churches believe. However, in Genesis 35:11 a promise was given to the patriarch Jacob, whose name had been changed to Israel. The promise states: "I am God Almighty: be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee..." So, it comes down to this: Did a nation and company of nations arise on the world scene, or did they not? One does not have to look hard to see that in all the recorded history of the world there has never been a group of nations that fit this description apart from the British Commonwealth and the United States; and all these nations were founded by a kindred people. The sudden ascendancy of our Anglo-Saxon nations on the world scene is no accident of history!

With the collapse of the Assyrian Empire in 612 B.C., many of the people of Israel, (known to history by other names such as Sakki, Scythians, Kymbri, Goths; and later, Celts, Sacsons, Angles, Danes, Jutes, Normans, etc), began a centuries long migration to ultimately settle in North-West Europe and the British Isles. From this region, they spread abroad as foretold over 3800 years ago. To America, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and scores of smaller outposts around the world they came. From the appointed time of A.D. 1800, which was 2,520 years after Israel's fall and captivity, (7 x 360 -- the Biblical "Seven Times") the kindred people of the British Empire and the United States suddenly grew to be the wealthiest and most powerful nations in the world.

During a Federation banquet held at Sydney in March 1892, Sir Henry Parkes proposed a toast to: "One people, One Destiny." Many in the young Australian nation thought this statement was a true reflection of what they believed in, for these very words were emblazoned across the Sydney Town Hall tower with electric lights at the beginning of 1901. Although now extinguished, this belief or conviction remained among our people for some time, as the photograph taken at Hillgrove, New South Wales, on Empire Day 1908 does attest. Interestingly, the Stars and Stripes are held aloft next to Australia's flag, and it is apparent that the Australians of more than a century ago considered our cousins in the United States to be a part of the one people with one destiny.

The knowledge of our ancient ancestry was known to quite a few Australians at the time of Federation in 1901, and even up to the Second World War. Indeed by 1924, the Protestant Federation of New South Wales (1920-­1928) had printed 80,000 copies of a book titled Miracles of Scriptural Foreknowledge which was replete with this information. The churches (blind guides that they are) would never print a book like this today.

Australia officially came into being on what was a very warm New Year's Day in 1901, and whether known or unknown to individuals in that vast assemblage, thousands of our people proclaimed through an old hymn at the birth of this nation, a heritage reaching back thousands of years.

Ahead of us is a time of distress such as our people have never known. In Jeremiah chapter 30 this time is called "...the time of Jacob's trouble." Our Caucasian people, descendants of the scattered tribes of ancient Israel are "Jacob," and future events will ultimately cause us to seek the God of our fathers. (Hosea 5:15). For we are the Israel of the Bible, the inheritors of all the blessings promised to our ancestors. As foretold, we became a worldwide people, but like our forebears of long ago, we have lately transformed into depraved societies.

Most of our people are totally blind to their identity. Our God, the God of Israel, said that this situation would eventually exist for His very wayward sons and daughters. In Deuteronomy 32:26 we read: "I said, I would scatter them into corners, ("afar" -- Revised Version 1884) I would make remembrance of them to cease from among men." This is our situation today, and our present state of national amnesia remains...for now.

Few indeed understand that from the call of Abraham (known as Abram at the time) in Genesis chapter 12, to the end of the Book of Revelation, the history and destiny of our people is recorded in the Bible. The Messiah himself said: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep." (John 10:11) He also said: "...I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel." (Matthew 15:24) The Messiah told his disciples not to go to any but the lost sheep of the House of Israel. (Matthew 10:6) They went where they were told to go, which explains why the western world became the Christian world.

We have not measured up very well in thought and deed, but we constitute the only nations on the planet who embraced the God of Israel, His Son, and the Bible containing the books of Israel's heritage, which over centuries of time became part of our heritage. The amazing thing in all this though, is that it truly is our heritage, and the time will come when our people will have their blind eyes opened and know this to be so -- to their great astonishment.

References:

1. Bible, King James.

2. Australian Heritage magazine, article, "Naming Australia." Winter 2009, p. 42.

3. Westminster Dictionary of the Bible, article, "Sinim, Land of." 1944 edition.

4. Readers Digest, article, "Story of the Bible World." 1962, p. 84.

5. Miracles of Scriptural Foreknowledge, Protestant Federation of New South Wales, 1924.