W W W W World Wide Web Witness Inc

Israelis, Israel and the Lord;
their returns, His return
and the Final Confrontations,
Comradeship and Culmination ...

Returns ? There are physical ones (accomplished)
and spiritual ones (yet to be) for the Israel part of it.

There has been a sacrificial coming (accomplished)
and there is to be a regal coming (yet to be) for the Lord, embracive in His own unity and directive in His own sagacity.

Staring the facts in the face, rather than tying them in name-tag bundles, one may then
discern the pattern, program and the pulse of truth in history, from beyond it,
as contained in the Bible, and planned by the Lord.

First, let us see these things in a biblical perspective, pondering Israel and its race and place.

CHAPTER TEN

The Everlasting Pity of It

The Jaded Jangling of Racial appetites
and the word of god

the dispositions of god
in the earth
and the gospel of christ
in the heart

In Ezekiel 36 you find it.

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Surely I have spoken in My burning jealousy against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who gave My land to themselves as a possession, with wholehearted joy and spiteful minds, in order to plunder its open country.'

"Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys, Thus says the Lord GOD: 'Behold, I have spoken in My jealousy and My fury, because you have borne the shame of the nations.'

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD:

'I have raised My hand in an oath that surely that nations that are around you shall bear their own shame.

'But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are about to come ...therefore you shall devour men no more, nor bereave your nation anymore,' says the Lord God, 'Nor will I let you hear the taunts of the nations anymore, nor bear the reproach of the peoples anymore.' "

Later (from 37:23-28): "They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, with their detestable things, nor any of their transgression: but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. ... Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them... The nations also will know that I, the LORD, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore."

Ezekiel 37 deals with the two phase restoration, first to the land and then to the Lord whom they as a nation, so summarily dismissed, just as the nations have dismissed, and do dismiss them so summarily to this day. In this restoration, there is to come, in phase two, their incorporation in the everlasting covenant (as in Jeremiah 31:31, 3:16), where the preliminary symbols of the temple are fulfilled by the consummative magnificences of the Messiah in person, who replaced the temple in His flesh, and to heaven brought the testimony of His accomplishment, even where He came from and whence He was sent (John 8:42).

He had offered in His own flesh, as God in man format, the sacrifice which priests had brought.

He had proffered His OWN blood, not in the holy of holies of ceremonial type, in the temple of stones, which could be and were to be dismantled in the rebellion of the people from Him who came for them, but in the open face of heaven. Thence He was received, a living because resurrected testimonial to one, to all, to heaven, to earth, as it were in the holy of holies in heaven, before the everlasting justice and in terms of the everlasting mercy of God, sealing His deeds and opening the doors of heaven to all races by prior payment on the Cross.

There He covered all who would ever come, having foreknown His own (Romans 8:32ff., Isaiah 53). In Hebrews 6:19-20, 7:16,22-26, 8:4-6,7-10, 9:8-14, 23-28, 10:1, 11-1419-21, we see these things. In many nations, sprinkled among their people, we find those so redeemed. Among many Jews such are found, there even being Messianic Congregations. But in the nation of Israel as such, it is not yet found.

Hence although the unconditional promise to Abraham stands, one which included the land (Genesis 17), and is operative, and the resolute undertaking of Ezekiel 36-37 to bring them back to a fulfilment in Christ, which would first have them back in their land, so that this followed irrevocably and without further evacuation: so does turmoil fall on them. This is as in Zechariah 12-14, where prior to phase 2 of the Ezekiel 37's scenario*^1A, there is vast assault on the land by the nations in remorseless profusion. This is rebutted in divinely assured aid.

So it was to be. So, except for the culmination to come and statedly to come later, it has been.

Meanwhile the pressure is on. The UN like the Arabs seems all but incapable of recognising two things:

1) that Israel exists, that the Balfour Declaration had Britain assure them Palestine for their homeland. Yet they were once accorded, by one estimate some 23% of it, and from what they have gained under threat of extermination, more is being pressed, as if the school bully had nothing better to do than afflict one whose legs and arm had already been broken often enough!^*1

2) that God exists, and has spoken concerning the small part of the earth's surface which He had assigned to this nation.

Certainly the UN might despise the Balfour Declaration. Britain has scarcely honoured it, though for a time she certainly did so. However the existence of Israel, duly and historically confirmed from its millenium before Christ - a time pock marked with trouble as prophesied because of disobedience, but still clearly actual, apart from some 70 years in exile in Babylon - and from its more recent restoration in terms of international affairs: this is a fact.

Perhaps other nations should have ASSIGNED to them things which the international 'community' - is that the word for this invasive insult ? - would like. Perhaps Copenhagen could become international, or Rome might like another slap at London ? it after all, DID have it for a time!

However, the amusingly, and almost terrifyingly obvious reality is this, that just as God said, so the Jews have been harried and harassed, and now the nations seem to be following the follies of Europe during the Middle Ages and beyond, with its pogroms and its persecutions and its despisings of the Jews as if they did not exist, or might not exist, or might be induced not to exist, and certainly not so much!

What a brilliant, brave new world!

But the pity ?

THE EVERLASTING PITY OF IT

The pity is this, that strong men are contesting this pitifully small remnant of land in which the Jewish people currently comport themselves. They want it to become LESS...and then LESS. They want 8 or 20 or 15 or 18 % of 'West Bank' (in reality, it appears, simply Judah and Samaria of old). As for the other lands, well too bad, did not Britain give back to the Arabs, some 77% of Palestine in 1922, in the name of Transjordan ? and as Ben Gurion pointed out (see above early in Ch. 1), did not Jordan take land which might have been used for the Palestinians who were in the small territory now Jewish, and use it for other purposes! Was this the resolution ? Is this the way...

After all, according to Rachelle Hamilton, New Life, pp. 14-15, Nov. 16, 2000 in a feature article, there are 19 Arab States in the Middle East and surrounds, which have 99% of the land and vast wealth (if somewhat unevenly distributed!). Perhaps 99% then is too little ? Perhaps they are cramped, whose religion (in some cases, this being official, and in most, overwhelming in terms of percentage) is so vital to so many that they fight jihad wars of repossession, for whatever stated reason, in order to embrace the land, and in some way or other bring glory to some being or other, who, from the words spoken, is made to appear to desire these things. Neither the power nor the logic has any visibility, but this is the conviction.

Perhaps, then, it is really best that there be NO CHOICE in the arena, and that bitter persecution and vast social displacement (yes and you can look further to Afghanistan, where the social distress for women alone, in the removal from professional life, has been attested on this site before), best that intrusive directions and threats to life, should occur ? Perhaps in actuality, Jerusalem should be ... what is the word ? assigned to Arabs too; for after all, a mere 99% is too little, and one religion is the only one to be concerned about, is it not, UN ?

Is it not for the Arab, the Moslem, too little ?

Should not the nations obliterate the Jewish people, and use planes to scrape off more and more of the little bit of wood remaining, and help things along, for there are so few acres in the 99% and there is so much in the 1% of the Jews, that it would seem shameful, perhaps to some, to ... the word ? ALLOW them (yes, allow, that is it) to keep ALL of it. After all, they are only Jews.

Fine, non-racial, non-discriminatory, open-minded, neutralistic twenty first century diplomacy... do you think ?

Why in East Timor, that devastation from so many assassins, it is almost a better story. Here at least there seems to be SOME awareness of the senseless slaughter, the invasive terror, the harassing of the poor refugees still in large numbers not ALLOWED to come back, as the 'international community' does whatever it is that it does. At least, there seems to be some heart in the matter, even if it be difficult for it to make itself operative in the suspended lives of the captives in the East, held against their own wills.

But do not mistake! It is not the plight of the Jews alone that is the concern. It is indeed sad that dedicated Arabs desire to blow up an armoured Jewish bus and kill eight or so teachers and wound many children. The world news hardly seems to pause at that. It passes on to the 'horrific' - is that the word ? - fact that Israel was unimpressed by this juvenile slaughter. (Again, do not misunderstand: one is not referring to the attempts BY juvenile Arabs to attack and wound or maim JEWS so that the Jews, how horrible we hear, actually try to fend them off. Here the point in view is the slaughter OF JUVENILE JEWS. One has to remind, it seems, some of the media that such a category exists, and that the slaughter of them in shopping centres and elsewhere, by Arabs, is not really very nice.)

It is not the plight of the Jews alone that is here the concern. That is horrific, in their planed slither of land, their ceaselessly affronted mini-base by the sea, into which the Arab peoples have so often desired, and sometimes expressly as with Nasser, to (again the word ? push, propel, deposit) thrust them.

It is not merely ... again is that the word ? - that the Jews have been extinguished not in dozens or scores or hundreds, but in millions by a leader in Europe (he was called Hitler), only to be battered by the British, who had given to Transjordan of its former day, so large a majority of Palestine, to be the Jewish homeland, but somewhat in an attenuated form.

It is not that they have been ceaselessly attacked since. It is not only that many Moslems are continually displeased that they have only 99% and want Jerusalem as well. It is not just that Arafat was engaged in something which was in nomenclature, a peace process, and then announced that the Jews could go to hell, but that one thing was sure, Jerusalem was to be the capital of the Palestinian Independent State.

But perhaps it does not matter if one of the nations should have its capital removed ? and if one nation which has one place for its one site and its one former occupancy, should lose its capital with its sacred history, in order that other peoples who have large numbers of sacred places and several deemed very sacred elsewhere, should possess this one. After all, it is a matter of UN and human (again the word ? justice ? no it cannot be that, surely) judgment, that this would seem the sort of direction to take.

It is certainly the case that all this is far more than deplorable. It would be a comic type of the ludicrous if it were not so painful, so agonising to so many, so that one Jewish mother on TV recently, asked (with the remains of the juveniles passingly mentioned on the program), yes, one of the Jews who had been wounded in her mind by these atrocities, asked: WHY ?

WHY ? she asked, do they have to have more and more of Israel, which is so small. They, she said, they have so much!

True.

However the pity one has in mind, though it assuredly includes these maximal tragedies, is rather pointed in another direct ion, as to emphasis here. It is another element in the tragedy which is our present concern.

It is sad, horribly sad, poignant almost past measure to find all this kefuffle, all this consternation and sagacious planning, and incendiary attack, and jihad consciousness, and children trained up to hate from youth in order to REGAIN from the JEWS the land which they have TAKEN (actually it was accorded, and much of that appears to have been reneged upon!). All this is quite in vain. That, that too is sad, amongst the self-inflicted griefs and the mesmeric clashes of so many of the Arabs.

It is a mischief without glory. It is a battle without triumph, a crusade without wisdom, an assertion without God. After all, it is He who made the land, and the Jews currently have far less of it than what would be in view! only a small portion of the internationally promised 'Palestine'.

One feels tenderly for the misled juveniles among the Arabs. They cannot gain the objective.
They should not gain the objective. It is an harassment, an invasion, and though they may have been brought up to conceive that

ANY place for the Jews,
ANY place including the temple site -
theirs with one short intermission for a millenium is
WRONG in principle, ghastly in nature, to be remedied at ANY cost to blood and pity and humanity:
yet they cannot have it.

Doubtless there will be more diplomacy. Daniel 11 speaks of an abode for an antichristian figure, between Jerusalem and the Mediterranean, which of course would possibly be in the 'West Bank'. However the land is for the Jews, NOT because of their merits (Ezekiel 36:22), but because of the word of God. It is also rather nice to let them exist, though some might not, for various reasons, feel this to be so. Hitler was another such, and he too took serious and (the word ... dedicated, consecrated, intense? ) vigorous measures to inhibit their existence.

PITY FOR THE ARABS WHOSE DEDICATION IS SO DELETERIOUS
TO THEIR PEACE IN SUCH A CASE

It is the Arabs at this point for whom one is concerned. It is not at all that one is NOT concerned for the Jews. One is profoundly stirred and concerned for the Jews, as should be quite obvious.
But this facet of the case is our current concern: the Arabs.

It is not at all that they should dispossess the Jews of their pitiful seeming slither of contested land, and so remove all of the appointment of the Balfour Declaration, made when Britain had powers of mandate in prospect or to maintain. It is not at all that they will dispossess them. It rather this, that in this crusade, pogrom, invasion, jihad, whatever name it may have or obtain in the future, they are flinging their precious lives, their so important lives, their human lives, their physiological provisions, their arms, their legs, their futures, into a drab destiny.

What did Ezekiel say (and see SMR Appendix A for more detail on these chapters in Ezekiel):

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD: 'Surely I have spoken in My burning jealousy against the rest of the nations and against all Edom, who gave My land to themselves as a possession, with wholehearted joy and spiteful minds, in order to plunder its open country.'

"Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel, and say to the mountains, the hills, the rivers, and the valleys, Thus says the Lord GOD: 'Behold, I have spoken in My jealousy and My fury, because you have borne the shame of the nations.'

"Therefore thus says the Lord GOD:

'I have raised My hand in an oath that surely that nations that are around you shall bear their own shame.
'But you, O mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches and yield your fruit to My people Israel, for they are about to come ...therefore you shall devour men no more, nor bereave your nation anymore,' says the Lord God, 'Nor will I let you hear the taunts of the nations anymore, nor bear the reproach of the peoples anymore.' "

GOD is against this Arab desire, yes and to the extent it is internationalised, as at the Teheran Conference of 1991, this Muslim desire. . If there is one thing that the history of Israel, in the days before this prodigious and prophesied discipline for their spiritual delinquencies occurred, that stands out, it is the fact that God takes an interest in them. Battles were constructed, kings removed, impossible seeming circumstances multiplied from the days of their evacuation from the massive, world Empire of Egypt in the very midst of the wrath of their exploiting Pharaoh, onwards.

The Arabs, the Muslim hosts, inflated with oil money and with zeal, will do much to afflict the Jews, but they will not prevail in gaining their land. It was lost by divine pronouncement as in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32-33, and has been restored by divine pronouncement as we have seen in earlier chapters, and now see in Ezekiel, preliminary to the mass national conversions noted by Paul and Zechariah 12, when the repentance at the PIERCING of GOD IN FLESH, the ancient prophet indicated, would be the criterion.

A THING INTRIGUING

That is one of the things which is infinitely intriguing about the word of God. It is just like the word of God. It is beyond it all. It tells you 500 years BEFORE the Messiah (and tells you in Daniel 9, when that will be also, SMR pp. 886ff.), that the Jews will reject Him (as a nation, that is), and how they will treat Him, and that they will be without their land for a long period before His recognition in their midst (as in Hosea 3, and Ezekiel, where their return is to "the mountains of Israel, which have been always desolate" - Ezekiel 38:8).

The word of God is teaching the world, from 500 B.C. or so, that

the Messiah is going to come,

that the Messiah will not be well received by His land,

that the Lord in flesh will be bruised and His beard pulled out, His face conformed to the regions of mutilation, unrecognisably human,

His disfigurement will an atrocity,

His lèse-majesté with which He is received of the most monstrous,

that He will arise,

that His people will find themselves without their land,

that they will be famous for being taunted, hissed, despised,

just as they despised their King

(but He is YOUR king, whoever you are of this earth, who reads, for He is Lord of all, and the Jews are not alone in their treatment of Him, rather in their breach of covenant and the murder at the physical level; for many act as murderously at the spiritual to this day, who are no Jews at all, but Arabs, or Americans, or French or of the nations at large).

The word of God taught from that ancient time in the millenia that are past, that the Jews would return, would be confronted by multitudes on a continuing basis, would overcome in an amazing fashion, and that they would be in their land again, only thus to be treated.

The word of God likewise affirmed from millenia past, and half a millenium before Christ so much as CAME to the earth, let alone was mutilated by His people (with the full support of the ROMAN, that is Gentile governor), that the Jews on their return would come to the time, in the midst of the wars, when there would be a massive wave of repentance FOR the murder which at the time of the prophecy was hundreds of years ahead.

Before it happened, they were told that long after it was so, after they had both left and returned to their land, they would in large measure repent of the action, yet to occur at the time of Zechariah, hundreds of years ahead.

That of course is the scoop of all time.

NOW is the time near.

YET THE PITY

But the everlasting pity ? Well perhaps one could amplify the point. It is only that the Arabs, however misled, are still human, and that they are people, often young, whose breasts are still capable of feeling, whose lives could still be accommodated in so many other places in the 99% of the land at the disposal of their (usually) co-religionists, who are the subject of such pity. One must feel for them, for they are misled and actively encouraged in this murder business. One has no desire to make plaster saints of the Jews. It is just that the whole scheme of their removal is not only unfeeling, unnecessary and absurd on the basis of peoples and places and cultures and minimisation already; it is contrary to the word of God. Yet into this fray as if it were some sort of glory, go the 600 as it were, if one may borrow from British history. It is of course not only 600, or 6000, for the hinterland of Muslim passion may number in scores of millions.

One must then lament for those young Arabs who with courage amiss, vigour misused, feelings inflamed contrary to their Maker, hurl themselves uselessly at the already highly disciplined Jewish nation. As we have seen before, God does not approve of people adding to His disciplines, and assaulting those whom He has already corrected. For this, see Ch. 1, End-note 2, and consider this.

Thus in Isaiah 47:6ff., we read:

"I was angry with My people,
I have profaned My inheritance,
And given them into your hand.
You showed them no mercy;
On the elderly you laid your yoke very heavily,
And you said, 'I shall be a lady forever,
So that you did not take these things to heart,
Nor remember the latter end of them."

There are numbers of such references, available at end-note 2 as above.

One can see the point. If a teacher disciplines a student, it is not to the point to have the school bully, or a gang of ... children, kick and harass him afterwards, or worse, try to make his life so intolerable that he leaves, must leave, the school.

THE TEMPLE SITE ?
The Temple that is Christ
and the
broken temples of misled youth

Hence they are fighting against God who want to seize more and more, and reduce Israel to less and less, and remove its capital and take over the holy site. Now let us be clear. It is not that the temple site SHOULD BE so important to the Jews in their CURRENT religion. As their OWN prophet Isaiah made so very clear, their failure to receive the Messiah would become a ground of their dismissal from their post as a show-piece and centre for people to see the will and word of God (Isaiah 43:21, Isaiah 65:13-15).

This was presented in the most intense fashion, with the most elaborate scrutiny and force. OTHERS would rejoice in the Lord, but they would inherit sorrow. They had foregone (as the prophet foresaw and famously predicted) the time of their appointment, the opportunity of wonder. The Gospel would surround the Messiah and the word of God would continue remorseless in its pity, concentrated in its power, in the very thing that they did.

But until they repented, it would not benefit them! This too has been full of poignancy, that of self-will.

The crucified Messiah would be a cornerstone (Isaiah 28:16, 52-53). In fact, Christ wept at their foolishness in failing to receive the day of the divine opportunity in Himself, noting that Jerusalem would be destroyed (Luke 19:42ff.). Indeed, earlier many had cried, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!" indicative of His being the Messiah (cf. Psalm 118:20-27). And when Christ was accosted on this point by His enemies, He declared, "I tell you that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out." And that ? It implied that the whole earth as His creation, could not abide the defamatory fraud of removing His name from its heights and His glory from declaration.

It was Christ, not the temple, who held the essence. The temple symbolism issued in Him, from whom it came. In destroying His body in the crucifixion, so long planned by the mighty, they rendered their own temple therefore doubly worthy of destruction.

Hence the reason the Moslems are permitted to have the site is simple. The errors of Judaism are that the Messiah, Jesus Christ, is not recognised. Hence the ANACHRONISM of the temple, in that Christ is the temple, is not seen.

The Moslem cannot touch Christ, for the crucifixion is over, once and for all (Hebrews 9:23ff.). There is no room for any improvement on the treatment of that particular ... Jew, as He was via Mary, in the flesh.

They therefore can, in scathing divine irony, be permitted to flaunt themselves even with a mosque, an appalling horror for Judaism, itself also far off from the Lord as He indicated. They can have the husk. The wheat lies elsewhere. In fact, Christ is in heaven from which He is, by ANOTHER DIVINE APPOINTMENT, in terms of Luke 21:24-28, shortly to come. We do not know when; it is forbidden (Acts 1); but we know the index to the arrangement, and it is all but fulfilled to the last point. When this happens, we are authorised to look up, knowing that the day is near.

Thus encouraged, many instead of seeing the realities of the Jews' plight, may imagine that having so much, they can take still more. Oil rich nations can be treated with profound courtesy, and even rescued, as with Kuwait, from one another. But it is sad.

Think of all those thousands of Arab youths and even children, putting their lives in the midst of violence with violence. Those who live by the sword, die by it. But they are so young.

It is horrifically piteous, to see them, courage amiss, eyes flaming with false fire, taught amiss, directed amiss, to be savaged, flinging themselves not against the Jew alone, but against the Lord.
Doubtless they are but an advance guard, harbingers of the fateful approach of the end, leading in judgment, to the new and millenial beginning with Christ as King.

After all, in the end, Egypt and other nations will be brought to the place where ONLY THE LORD JESUS CHRIST will be King (cf. Isaiah 19:23-25). It is sad that so many with so little ground fight so much and so groundlessly for ground that is allocated elsewhere, for a deity whose reconstruction is in defiance of the Lord God who made us, as has been shown so often on this site (see Index Moslem).

Passion has a flower. To see humans alight with purpose, clear-eyed with determination, fearless in hope, this can be a lovely sight, like a yacht in full sail. But it is not so gorgeous when they sail at a reef.

Moreover, the light of the world, killed by the Jews, despised by not only Muslim but many world powers and peoples, is available. It is that, for THIS! There lies the everlasting pity of it. Oh that the Muslim could take pity on himself. In the end, it is God who determines things by His word, and He has determined at all times, does determine and will determine.

As noted above, He declares, "Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them... The nations also will know that I, the LORD, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore."

It is this covenant that needs to be sought. Alas and alas, for it is very grievous, to seek land and not the Lord is a fatal error.

NOTES

*1A

The scenario which would lead to a mercy not to be lost, a restoration not to be rebelled against further, in Ezekiel 37 was this. First, like dry bones, seen in a vision, scattered about the earth, the Jews are summoned by command to assembly in Israel (37:12). This they do. Later, they are addressed in this preparatory phase, and the spirit is commanded to be in them. Then they come to life, a massive consignment of living people restored to mercy, to God, in their land. "I will put My Spirit within you…"

ZIONISM, RACISM and HUMAN RACISM

In fact, the Balfour Declaration of Nov. 2, 1917 by Balfour, British Foreign Secretary, to Lord Rothschild, a Zionist leader, not merely made provision for a Jewish national home in Palestine on the part of Britain. It came to be ratified by the allied governments and was basic in the League of Nations mandate for Palestine, assigned to the British at San Remo in 1920. As to the percentage of "Palestine" accorded to Israel by the UN after World War II, see Red Alert ... Ch. 10, *2 and Regal Rays from Revelation Ch. 1. The percentage depends on the definition of 'Palestine', but even of the British mandated territory following World War I, a large fraction of it is missing in the UN 'resolution'. It is not only a gap, but a gaping hole. Indeed, it is far worse than that, as shown in the above reference.

It is true that, by the endorsed Balfour Declaration, there had to be safeguards for the rights of non-Jewish commnities in Palestine, but this it not to say that it would not be a specifically Jewish homeland. In fact, Israel has allowed the mosque to continue in the prime, ancient historic site, which is rather more than merely safeguarding rights, for it abolishes what might be seen as central to their having a homeland at all. They have also provided for Arabs who wish to be citizens in ways which can be of considerable economic advantage. Grievous indeed is the constriction into the miserable pittance of a place, which is the minor area WITHIN Palestine which they have been accorded, and from which still more is sought.

Some agreement! Some League of Nations. Is it then to metamorphose radically, to become a league against Israel, which presented the credentials of its homeland, denying even the little they took, and seeking more removals from the current fragment!

The current concept that ZIONISM is racism, apparently dear to some in the UN and desired for discussion, is actually in essence, a desire for HUMAN RACISM, the deliberate, determinate, relentless, remorseless if not pitiless procedure to excise what God, with much discipline, has provided, to exclude what He has included, and it speedily tends to make a mockery of any nation having any claim or involvement in its own parameters. That evil is evil remains true, for and from any race or city or nation or group of nations; but that this means, what in a universal principle of similar disregard, would be implied, that all peoples are now virtual expatriates, free to be governed from beyond, is absurd. It is to seek to gather them, as in the tower of Babel, to themselves by their own authority with multi-national or international disdain for localities and apportionments; and this invites an exquisite disaster, as we have seen in recent autocracies of man, and hideously exposed in Escape from Red China (Robert Lo with Humphrey Evans - see Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch. 9).

There is of course an element of truth in the proposition that mankind has a proper and happy relationship, but not in these terms. It IS true that all peoples and all individuals, not having made themselves, and being on God's earth and required to show forth good fruit, are invited into the KINGDOM OF HEAVEN. It is true that in this kingdom there is neither Jew nor Greek, in that spiritually, there is entire brotherhood, under one King; and ONE KING WILL REIGN ON THIS EARTH, whose mind is His own. His dispositions are His own likewise, and His plans and demonstrations of this and that, they too are His own.

One of His intentions meanwhile, however, for an alienated earth (Romans 1:17ff., Ephesians 4:17ff.) is as in Ezekiel 36-37, relative to the Jews. He is a teacher as well as the LORD and only SAVIOUR. The lessons TO the nations are there outlined, in the return, so long foretold, of Israel; and TO ISRAEL NO LESS!

To try to call divine apportionments racisms, however, is beyond the ludicrous. It soon bids fair to become that human racism, that inward if not autistic racism, which seems only the power of the flesh to determine with the very implements of divine majesty, what the Lord will have to 'suffer'. It is in short no wonder that Armageddon has peoples declaring war on God, nor that it is in the due territory of Israel that it occurs (Rev. 16:16, 19:9). The almost indescribable folly of making war on God as there declared to be coming, it would be delicious in its folly were it not of gravest moment and deep in tragedy for those concerned.

It is of course true that any race may exalt itself, and seek to expand imperially with crazy philosophies, naturalistic, in that ditch of confusion now openly rejected, Darwinism (cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, SMR Ch. 2, Wake up World! Your Creator is Coming Chs. 4, 5, 6 and Stepping out for Christ, Chs. 2, 7-10, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 13 etc.) or spiritistic as in the case of the Japanese ideas before World War II.

However Zionism is not exaltation in this, that it is

the people who seek the divinely appointed land (1 - cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4),

one held by them for a millenium (2), from which they were evacuated for a breach of divine law and truth, including murder of the Messiah (something wrought, along with Rome),

one to which they have been appointed to return for millenia (3),

one where they have such a minimal modicum of land as both to be an insult following the World War I promises internationally, and in terms of living room at all (4).

Indeed (5) there smallness is such that their land is only with all but miraculous assistance (and sometimes with it as predicted in Zech. 12 and seen since 1948 repeatedly) able to be defended at all.

From this sliver, there are many who seem to seek to exhume more of this little Israeli island from the graveyard many seem to have conceived it to be for Jews: and things of this order Arabs have repeatedly, with various others such as Egypt under Nasser, declared or implied the matter to be, in prospect.

That such desire by Jews to be in their land, Zionism if you so conceive it, that this should be accorded the name 'racism' is an elegance of witticism or a disaster of irrationality and inhumanity. Lands are vast and wealth no less, for the many who embrace Islam, on all sides of the country, if it could be called that, of Israel. Racism to return to our inheritance, and to seek to maintain some small part of what has even been internationally promised with a liberality of word far removed from the paucity of deed !

If, then, it be an 'elegance', so verbally to attack this Jewish desire as racism with the term Zionism used as if one of abuse: then it is an unseemly and shameless, an immoral and unfounded taunt; and if it be merely a 'disaster', then no less is it a shambles. Such verbal concoctions cannot stand. It appears that failing in logic, there are those internationally who would like to see Israel even less than it is: on the one hand, by violence, blowing up women and children as an inveterate form of war, or on the other, by chilling diplomatic amputations.

What a charming international excursion!

As for Israel, it is time that it returned to the Lord; for autonomy in this world, their own or anyone else's, when it comes to the point of the self-declaration of God, is not merely unwise, but in the end justly unworkable. There are greater things than land to be concerned about, and though the LORD has graciously returned the nation as He SAID He would do, yet He has also provided for their return to Him, even to that self-same Messiah the world of the United Nations seems set on ignoring, and from whom they also departed.

It is only in Him the world will find peace: for the world is HIS! Theft is not before God a wise operation, nor is it just!

In Israel there will be large numbers shortly do this - how soon we do not know - as provided (cf. SMR Ch. 9, Answers to Questions Ch. 5, Romans 11, Ezekiel 36-37, SMR Appendix A).

It should meanwhile be carefully noted that the thunder is coming, the direct, fearless fiasco of the nations climbing up on their band-wagon, using powerful megaphones and telling God that this is THEIR earth, and His word can be forgotten. Unfortunately for them, it is not their earth, a fact they do not seem to have noticed; and His word will not be forgotten by Him, nor will it, as always is the case, fail to be seen implemented in history, in whatever it has said.

The day may soon come when those who seek to rule this world without the God of the Bible, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, may wish their tune were more harmonious with the happy blessedness of the will and word of God Almighty, whose Son Jesus Christ has paid for sin, but does not accept rebellion that rejects mercy and declares man god (cf. Ezekiel 28:9, Psalm 2).

At such pompous parodies of truth He laughs, as in Psalm 2 He declares.

Part II

ISRAELIS, ISRAEL and the LORD

It is necessary now to ponder the international situation in more of its elements.
Complex in contestants, it is yet corrupt in its movements,
dim in its discernment and fallen into irreparable follies,
unless with repentance truth is restored, Israel humbling itself to the LORD, not to man,
and man humbling himself not to Israel but to the same Lord;
and the penalty is eventual removal of this sullied earth,
and the joy is the removal of Christ's own, Jew or Gentile
from the unconscionable collapse of rationality,
collision with revelation and corruption of the planet.

The way, always open to Jew and Gentile in their respective fields,
to the one headquarters in Christ, being despised,
renders the Middle East an intractable counter-truth, and hence except for a short time to come, an obvious blunder, and a clear fulfilment of prophecy as it steams and snorts.

Power in its emplacements might be considered porcine in this, that it tends to be less than delicate with its diet and rummaging. Powers, the nations, in their dealings often seem foxy in this, that they deceive one another, press for what they can get instead of righteousness, and war constantly, sometimes using pious sounding, but gravelly talk in the process.

This is far from saying that no nation ever does good: for some good governments have undoubtedly existed. Nor is it to presume that just because a group of nations opines something, it also cannot have good elements. However when nations gather together, with some passionately pronouncing evil against Israel, relatively fresh from the hanging pantries of dear Adolf, but now in the name of Allah, who does not achieve existence except in propaganda (cf. More Marvels... Ch. 4), it is a day for grief.

This, it is not only for Israel, but for its stormy, would-be bosses (Zechariah 12:3). Now we have new zealots who slaughter, and have slaughtered over the Ages, starting with Muhammad, with extraordinary facility, and who in many nations, to this day, talk of slaughter relative to Israel: unless of course she is willing to dismember herself ...

Far also is this from a questioning of the sincerity of many Moslems: who but God can know the state of their hearts! However, a student who fails to get the right answer, is not passed on account of his sincere confusion. He is passed because

So is the case here. You do not have standing with God, by mere self-assurance; though you may well achieve it for a time with man, whose manners these last two centuries would not qualify for much in the national sphere. It is not helpful before the Judge of man, to have this for your credential, that you believe this or that, that is false! This may give more credibility to your credulity than to your place before God.

God is not false. His word is not false. Its testimonials are not false, His predictions are not false, His Christ was not false, and is not; His law is not false, His anger at intractable insolence against truth is not false.

Now would be a good time to learn one's ABC from the above: the letters having been provided purely for simplicity of reference, visually. We turn to Nahum.

The term, in the first quotation, 'jealous' of course, relates readily to the frequently used divine dictum concerning marriage as an expression of due relationship to God. He is the Lord, and the 'wife' is expected to keep the commands. The term 'zealous' would, without imagery, provide much of the content of this, except of course that there is a further element.

What is this element ? It is this. Since God has made us all, a thing wise to remember (cf. That Magnificent Rock Ch. 1, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, SMR Ch. 2, and p. 999), and His love is not that of the permissive society, but that rather of a husband whose intense desire is for purity in his wife, for her loveliness and her due fulfilment: then there are results. Accordingly, He is offended by wreckage of the household, the nominal household of faith, when this is carried out with false premisses built on false promises, from false prophets with no validation whatever from any source, but the whim, caprice, desire or existential affirmation of the devotees.

Islam, with its code word very justly 'submission', but very unjustly wrought, for it is not to the true God that submission is here pursued, has set itself up with an 'Allah': no Son, no Saviour, no Redemption, no History to Confirm, no Prediction to Prevail, no Logic to establish, and no Development over centuries to Illustrate, a vision ex-Validity (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4). Not surprisingly, force has been used and is being used, ad nauseam, to secure results. It was so with the wars initially of Muhammad, and it has been so in the centuries in which Islam nearly enslaved Europe with its scimitars and its discrimination; and it is so now in those nations which banding together, constantly utter threats against Israel, as in the Pan-Islamic Alliance.

Of such a phenomenon, a pillage by false prophets, Christ warned (Matthew 24:24 with 7:15ff.), and Peter and Paul spoke freely. It is a feature of the end time, both as predicted and as discovered now to be, that it is gross and vast (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5).

The plethora of false prophets has not been limited to Islam, but has been marvellously augmented by the papacy, alike with Islam, rich in the blood, not of suitable sacrifice, for CHRIST ALONE is that (Hebrews 9-10 cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088H), but of the martyrs (cf. SMR pp. 946ff., 911ff., 950ff.); and it has been wonderfully fulfilled in the proliferation of the sects, as no less by the rationally obliterative, aggressive and yeasty Buddhist invasion into the increasingly existential, temperamental and detrimentally inclined Western society (cf. Things Old and New, Index, and SMR pp. 1011ff.).

What lacks life is always more susceptible to invasion: that is, the sick, the defective, the deficient, or the merely formal. To be strong, you need health; and to have health of heart, you need God, and to have God you need His word, His way and His witness, not the arbitrary irrationalisms of capricious creeds, invented by man, and ending with and on him. When he falls, they all fall together. The "God Almighty" (SMR pp. 915-916) of Romanism and Islam alike, has failed to show himself possessed of those qualities which relate to omnipotence or sustainable truth alike.

No more confinable to bread (cf. SMR pp. 1088Bff.) than to the divisive and unvalidated fulminations of Muhammad, God Almighty simply refuses to act on the imaginations of men.

Romanism tried hard, and for long it might have seemed that she had the number of the nations, especially in the days of that most unholy Holy Roman Empire, dripping with crime and blood alike, with extortion and revolting abuse of force, not only against Luther, but against Huss and countless martyrs. She failed. Mecca, if you will, this also tried hard, and Europe almost lay open to the scimitar before Tours in A.D. 732; but it did not yield, and Allah has been pushed back to smaller perimeters, by far. Now, however, with oil, his people are feeling expansive, and where better than in Israel... for a truly memorable putsch!

For more than 50 years this Allah has failed, because God has succeeded. It has been rather like a demonstration at the Royal Show, of some product, while the experts, attracted and present, watch intently. It flops. It fails. It does not go. Thus paraded like an idol, has Allah been unable to reverse the Biblical program for Israel.

Check the record (cf. SMR Chs 8 and 9). 9): this is HIS RECORD. God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, NEVER FAILS! If you want science, start here. If you want attestation, data, confirmation, verification, actualisation, look here. If you want discrimination of kinds, empirical reality, no less than rationally unique validity, start here, and you will end here (cf. That Magnificent Rock Ch. 5, SMR Chs. 1-3). There is, quite simply, in these terms, nowhere else to go.

In a book by the popular author, Morris West, "The Tower of Babel", there is an interesting projection found. He has a character, Safreddin, a maestro of force in Syria, speaking about Israel and Islam, to an admiring (or ambitious) Captain, a subordinate. "Let me tell you something," he says.

So spoke the character, Safreddin, ready for action, ready to kill for a distant end, believing like the Jesuit, that the end justifies the means, breaching life and law in the process. Untruth however never accords with the Truth, that person who made us, and is not kinky like man, not conditioned like man, but the endless source of all righteousness which, in His omnipotence and need of nothing (for none can prescribe to Him, on whom all depends), relates to the truth, the reality which He made, without demise, without demission, without derogation. He who said I AM ... THE TRUTH, is that precisely, always, incapable of conflict, being without limit and without lord. His word is the truth; the truth must follow his word. Lies are balloons in a chaff-cutter.

Let us, however, return to the assessment of West's Safreddin, concerning the Arab and the Jew. Now there is some wisdom in this. In his book, it appears that West did not appreciate the long range character of prophecy, even though apparently fascinated by the Jewish tortures under Hitler, and the rising of the Jewish State once more. He seemed to feel that Jehovah had gone silent, forgetting that the word of the Lord took hold, does take and will take hold, and has been doing so in the past 60 years in particular, with a routine precision, an inexorable procession and a detailed libretto, fulfilled by the performers (even by those not employed by the management, so vast is His wisdom and power); and that Christ having come, God has no one more to offer.

It is THAT offering covered sin, for those repentant and receiving it; there is no other (cf. Hebrews 7-10). That is IT.

As Hebrews 1 tells us, God who spoke in times past by the prophets has now spoken BY HIS SON. That is the last word. It is the ultimatum. There is nothing else but heaven or hell, truth or fiction, the word of God or the ravings of madmen, the routines of false prophets and the sucrose suggestions of invalid philosophy.

But let us ponder further the good point he made, West. There is a SEPARATENESS about the Jew, he has his Syrian strong-man musing. It is BECAUSE of this that the Jew is intolerable. There is a cohesion among the Jews (in some senses, beyond their endless bickerings and divisions). There is some unity of purpose. There is a prized history; there is ONE nation, there is ZIONISM, there is ONE place for them to be. Of this, the so-called West-Bank is part, being in the confines of their original land, indeed, in some parts central to it.

They do not share their God: He is not, Safreddin seems to be opining, on a leash, ready to sniff at every interesting canine who passes, of whatever gender. With Allah, there is a 'sharing' ? Sharing! It is like the sharing of machine gun bullets when Israel is concerned!

Do the Jews seek to take over the historic lands of Ammon and Moah, now incorporated since 1920 as Jordan, though these were part of 'Palestine' ? Hardly.

Is this a fault ? Scarcely. They are where they were placed, were confirmed to be by the League of Nations, were assigned to be as a homeland, no less.

They show NO TENDENCY to expand beyond this. They even handed back Sinai when they felt sufficiently reassured, after breaking the deadlock via blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba, a Muslim action to harass Israel into submission. How eloquently Eban presented the Israeli position to the UN!

The UN, however, we read in the 22nd Edition of Information Please Almanac, was UNABLE to take any effective action when Egypt called for the removal of the UN Security force from the Egyptian border, to clear the way for invasion of Israel. Unable! All those nations in the security council and ability deserted them! How strange a disability, how distressing a forfeiture of power by the powerful! A tiny Israeli mouse is about to be scatted and catted with a purring paw and an angry mouth filled with a Moslem menace!

What then ? What followed such a situation, as the clouds of war boomed with thunder, and the lightning of hostile intentions to invade Israel, overran the world, like a burst dam ? The UN finds itself... unable. What magnificent debility is this!

The inability has extended itself grossly in more recent times. The UN seems equally incapacitated to deal with the frankly terrorist organisation, HAMAS.

Did it INSIST, yes, that it must assemble people to come and seek out these criminals, these ultra-war criminals, who without war, make war, and make it on those at peace, in their markets and pizzerias! It is exceedingly hard to find the waiting UN assemblage, ardently imploring the PLO for access in order to make fact-finding tours prior to JUDGMENT.

Is this a farce ? Of course not, it is far worse than a farce. It is a tragedy all but incomprehensible, when you find newspapers aplenty, following the barren and near to incredible line, in effect if not in actual admission: that the Jews should not have done what Britain did in 1940, and later, in its defence. No, they SHOULD have waited until invaded successfully, their nation in tatters, in order to have the unbelievably tender caress of Islam, as so often seen in so many countries for so long, and have subsided.

Why ? Is it so that oil might come to the waiting world, without trouble ? After all, ISRAEL IS SEPARATE. It does talk of a God who is not for sale, because HE IS. There however you come to the real Achilles heel of Israel. Its tendon is cut. It lies prostrate before folly, only delivered by the direct divine dealings of that faithful God, part of whose book they so well keep, and so well transmitted, for which the world should be so grateful: it is this God who keeps HIS WORD. He SAID He would bring them back and He did so.

He said they would fight victorious wars on return, and they did so. He said that many nations would seek to punish them and pulverise them, and these did. He said that their arising would be divinely assured, and it was. He said that Jerusalem would be divided into two in the course of these wars, and it was, 1948-1967, long enough to breathe and think about it ? After all, 20 odd years give pause for thought!

Now however, there is the NEXT STEP, that of Zechariah 12:10 when they are to repent. It is not merely a STEP, which they must take. It is a return to their GOD, whose Son they killed, just as so many of Europe's sons have been killed because their nations did not follow Him, whom in many cases, they professed to worship, but rather sought national glory, commercial advantage, survival of the fittest vainglory of evolutionary miasmas.

As to these, as vain as any Jewish or Phoenician idol, they never work any more than any experiments ever work to induce advance in life without intelligence doing it, and indeed, there is little even human intelligence can do, even given the ground plans set forth so beautifully precisely and concisely in the DNA! except repair what several millenia have allowed to spoil.

For all this philosophic delusion, Europe has paid and will pay. It is not repentant. The USA in large measure follows, but chiefly among academia, still in ivory towers, yellowed with over-use and growing antiquity.

Israel has paid for its own version of rebellion, categorical as it was. However, in vast numbers, it is predicted to RETURN to its God. This is the excellent scenario it has long been, as in the prophecies of Ezekiel and Zechariah, Isaiah (cf. With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength) and the rest, for one main reason: Israel's God, the God of the Bible is not a cultural accretion, a psychological projection, a national emblem (like a flower, in some US and Australian States), but the proven and demonstrated God Himself. They are to return to God who is true, and what joy that will be, as Paul put it (Romans 11):

He speaks of the restoration of the severed branch to its OWN tree, whereas we Gentiles who are Christians, Paul explains, were grafted in! What a phenomenon, the Jews fail as a nation, many Gentile Christians replace them in the 'tree'; and then the Jew in large numbers comes back, grafted into the very tree it knew, and in which it grew! Paul rejoices with relish at this prospect and speaks of the manifold wisdom of God (Romans 11:23-36). Israel IN to exhibit the glory of God, receive His word, and find His law; Israel OUT for defiling His provision and murdering its Prince of Peace, without whom there IS and CAN BE no peace. Israel BACK IN, to show the faithful wisdom of the glorious God, for whom all things move, even mountains, whether or not Muhammad or pope, charlatan or guru, be involved.

It is only then that insurgent Moab and Ammon (or more precisely, Jordan who now occupies much of those nations, and until 1967, occupied much of Israel's territory as well - namely the West Bank), will utterly fall in any more belligerence; and Egypt will not escape (Ezekiel 39:4-8,11, Daniel 11:42). These tumultuous seasons we have studied previously^*1, but the action is sure, and many are those nations specified who will fall in the attempt to shackle Israel once and for all.

The 'separateness' of the Jew, then, of which West speaks ? To the extent it is present, it is partly and perhaps chiefly the result of the intense Old Testament insistence on cleanness, the division and the distinction between the clean and the unclean, on the faithful ZEAL of the Lord God, of His utter detestation on idolatry and on sharing the idols of the land into which Israel, at His undertaking came, on business from the Lord. It was, then, NOT FOR PREDILECTION THAT HE PUT THEM THERE.

Theirs was to be a life! It would show the world, and allow it to find again the God of creation, in the glory of redemption! But Israel of old, in this, it was for failure. So long, protracted and aggravated was this failure, and such a crisis did it portend, that HE REMOVED THEM FROM THERE! (cf. Romans 11:19-20, II Chronicles 36); for He desired a people to glorify Him and show His truth to this earth (cf. Isaiah 43:21), whose invitation to the Promised Land was conditional on faith. In the end, not for 70 years in Babylonish exile, but for some 1900 years of world exile, they have suffered the breach (cf. Zechariah 11:6-13).

We need to consider the severity of the case. As to that, after Egypt, the miraculous Exodus, and after many miracles of deliverance, Israel failed right at the first, when they reached the land after such a saga - Numbers 14, cf. I Corinthians 10. They trembled and did not even enter it. God requires faith. Hence it was not till the next generation that He suffered them to enter. It was then, over hundreds of years, that God tested them forgave them often (cf. Psalms 78, 105-106); and many were the revivals (as under Hezekiah and delightful Josiah, so zealously pure in heart and keen in mind). However in the end, it was their inveterate SHARING of their religion and their ways, intolerable to truth as is error in a mathematics examination, which brought their downfall.

So it is NOT primarily the separateness of the Jew which is the problem, as if it were racial. It is the FAILURE to be separated to the LIVING GOD which is their problem. In reaction, they have indeed tended (partly in self-defence before a voracious and lustfully plundering world, which pays, and continues to pay for its wallowing crimes against the Jew (cf. Jeremiah 30:16, Genesis 12:2-3), to be separate. However the separation is not religious to reality, and gracious toward God; for they still do not acknowledge their OWN MESSIAH, which is the only one this whole world is going to get.

THIS is the real horror of Israel to Arab. It is in so much RIGHT. And this is the real weakness of Israel, that it is in so much wrong, even against its own book (cf. SMR pp. 52-59, Ch. 9 ). It has ditched the deity, left the Lord and while now receiving the delicious and gratuitous bounties of His insistence on KEEPING HIS PROMISES (cf. Ezekiel 36:22), and so back victoriously in its own land, it has yet to receive Jesus Christ. This Son of man, it is He who is the hinge of its destiny, the source of its greatness, the culmination of their book, that prophet who was to come and who came on the date specified in Daniel, and in the way particularised by Moses (Daniel 9:24-27 cf. SMR pp. 886ff., Deuteronomy 18). To be cut off from the people was the penalty, and Israel HAS suffered. HE is to be heeded. End of story.

When in Israel HE IS HEEDED, it is the beginning of new chapter of the libretto. THEN Israel's destiny in Christ, in the case of many individuals and a significant section of the nation, along with other Christians, will be wrought in kindness and covered in power.

Meanwhile all suffer, Jew and Arab, European and Russian, so needlessly since Jesus Christ has already suffered, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God! (I Peter 3:18). Accordingly, in the midst of false prophecies, from false prophets, disastrously incapable of rational competition with God, and providing fake food for the deluded, trouble bubbles in the Middle East in particular, that concourse of error.

Again and again, way back in the day of Isaiah, we find the divine challenge to be rational, empirical, alert if nothing more, to face facts, and respond to reality (cf. Isaiah 41: 21-29 - contrasted with the all-proficient and comforting Messiah, in 42:1ff. , and again, Isaiah 43:4-15, 48:2-9). It was not then heeded sufficiently by the nation, which spurred on by misconception, activated by idolatry, seeking in superficiality, went on to its discipline of 70 years of exile. When it killed Christ, admittedly according to explicit divine plan (Isaiah 49:7, 52-55), its lapse coursed it further from home, and longer away! But it is not alone, in this, that its provocations to God, these are paralleled in modern times, by many, by very many indeed, as far as they are able, in spirit and in life!

Thus, there is international trouble that will not, because it CAN NOT depart. It is ordained (Zechariah 12:1ff.), and that Jerusalem be a burdensome stone is likewise ordained. God did not have His Son's death there (the funeral could not occur of course, God being God), so that He might be indifferent to the murder squad and to their premisses. God did not have His temple there, so that He could be indifferent to a Mosque, even if the death of His Son made all such temples unnecessary and indeed profane (cf. Hebrews 2, 4, 7-10, SMR pp. 829ff.).

The Mosque is a rebuff to Israel's unbelief, since it is Christ who has replaced the temple (cf. Jeremiah 3:16, John 3:16), rendering it unnecessary. Were it built, it would be almost as flagrant a blasphemy as is the Mosque! The Mosque therefore is a piquant reminder to seek the truth where it is to be found - in the rejected Messiah, who, after all, was predicted to be rejected, in the first occasion, by ... Israel! (Isaiah 49:7 and inferentially in 52-53).

GOD announced the present wars and their bloodshed, and His coming to the Mount of Olives, once again in the format of the Christ: but He did not do this in order to help the world have a romp, per courtesy of the United Nations or any other profane and presumptuous body, in effect imagining as in Acts 4:25ff., that its rancid rancours could intimidate God Himself. As to the Lord, He has said and He does. It is always the same. He has said and He is now doing it. We are witnesses of the profound meaning, precision and panache of the presentation to our eyes, called contemporary history, but long foreseen and foretold in His word.

We have now dealt with some of the theme of the A) section from Nahum. God is zealous for His word, determined for His people, will not at all acquit the wicked, deems it wicked to ignore Him who made us and to take His gifts as if we made them, and though slow to anger, CAN AND DOES ACT, at length, as at the flood, as in Egypt at the Exodus. In fact, positively He did this, in sending His Son surrounded with prophetic identikit, like a soldier with wreaths; and negatively He did it in disciplining the nation of Israel, in returning them, but also in harassing their enemies and making them weak, that His program in all things stands firm.

Now He will act in their deliverance, for many, in restoration to the Faith in the only true God, whose testimony is incomparable, both personally and logically, and in the rescue of their soon to be invaded land. He does as He says: always. He may test; but when He pronounces, He performs (cf. Isaiah 45:24-28). His word, like the engine of some theoretical perfect car, never misses.

These things being observed, let us note the rest of the points needed from Nahum, as cited above. First B):

The sheer marvel of a faithful person, or of some such, on earth is scarcely credible, so hard is it to find them; but they are there. When you look to God, however, He is always the same, and His faithfulness does not even know how to fail. He never fails. Good, He is reliable; a stronghold, His power knows no end. Goodness is such a fabulous thing; but it is more than fable, it is able to act, when it is in God. Here goodness knows its source, from this Power it comes pure, and in Him, it is perfect. He is not indifferent. He does not kill as an example, those who trust in Him, or suffer their faith to fail (cf. Luke 22:32). If one is to die for Him (as Stephen, Acts 7), then the lustre is not lost. It is but a transition to Himself, from earth to heaven. As for death, it is beaten, because sated with blood, His. Justice is done, and mercy is won (Romans 3:23ff.).

These things, they are applicable: but where ? Where saving faith is found, there they apply. What is saving faith ? it is a trust in the objective God, in His objectively true word, in His objectively infinite power, in His objectively sincere love, for His objectively organised and authorised purposes. What does this involve ?

It means that you accept what He has said, the sole authenticated word, the Bible, accept what He has done on your behalf, and taking it a step further, make it applicable to yourself, through grace alone, by RECEIVING it. Therefore it is a matter of receiving Christ as Lord and Saviour according to His word, blood covering covenanting God, merciful and pardoning person, in the trinity the executive of death's destruction, and the judge of all.

However, the intractable, the intolerant and hence intolerable, those for whom truth is alien and God unknown, who cherish His absence and devote themselves to idols, gods who have no credentials, no Son to show, no works to attest, no predictions to propel their words into this world, no ability to satisfy logic, mere lords of invention, their own arbiters of destiny, direct or duplicitously via false prophets: the end is bleak.

What would you! Truth does not prevail merely because it is better; it prevails because it is true. Reality is insuppressible. God is back of OUR reality, and He is the FINAL and ORIGINAL reality. He made, rules and will judge, when this precious pilgrimage is over. He even joined it, as Christ, a root out of a dry ground, who broke death, since eternal life IS HIS (I John 1:1-14).

Thus "darkness will pursue His enemies", as Nahum attests. For a time in their delusions, they think that the trials and the testings, in this race for the race, attest them; but they fail.

Look at the litany of national disasters as programmed by the Lord, for the sins of recalcitrance and vainglory.

Egypt in turn, is the subject of vast troubles as seen in Ezekiel 29:3-16, and according to the word spoken by the prophet in that site, so it is, so it has been and will be till the end bring some relief from its subjugation to subjection, its subordination. That ? it came after an imperial primacy for so long, in ancient times, that the contrast is great. As always, God does not forget His word, but hastens it to perform it (Joel 2:11, Jeremiah 1:12, Ezekiel 7:1-6, 12:22-28). As He said of Egypt, so He has done, and so history attests it.

As to the portent of His word: In its time, majestic in splendour, sure in utterance, practical in performance, it comes. It misses less than the most expert marksman (cf. Isaiah 49:2, 51:16). It does not miss at all. As to Him, He never fails (Zephaniah 3:5).

Let us indeed see something of this fact in its historical setting from Zephaniah, speaking of the Israel of his day, and the coming time of judgment and rescue for what hears Him:

This interdict, in its initial phases, and final purge, reminds us of the Lord's word against Assyria in Nahum :

In SMR we trace such things further (cf. SMR p. 713). Indeed, we could look at Isaiah 13 on Babylon, Isaiah 34 on Petra, Ezekiel 29 on Egypt, 26-27, on Tyre, Jeremiah 50-51 on Babylon, and right here in Zephaniah 3, at Israel. One finds here, however, with this reference to "a pure language" much more of the restoration of the people to the ONE GOD whom they knew at the first, with the ONE MESSIAH who came in His time (Zephaniah 3:13, 17 as in Nahum 1:15, Isaiah 52:13-53:12, 40:10, Micah 4, Isaiah 2).

Yet, as in Romans 11, the Lord has a majestic long-term plan for Israel; and its result is as already described in Zephaniah 3, above. There is a TAKING ON of Israel, as if it were a tree, then a TAKING OUT, as if it were a removed branch, then a TAKING BACK, but this is to their own tree, no change! (You see this shown from the Bible in such sites as The Biblical Workman Ch. 3)

It is this last - in divine faithfulness, doing all His predicted promised performances as we have seen above, for the still disbelieving NATION (this is NOT a racial but a national thing, since many Jews have become Christians, like all the apostles!): it is this which shows the faithfulness of God.

It is here that we shall find the C) or final section of our Nahum reference above:

One of the reasons is so simple. It is that Jordan has taken most of Palestine, and once took the West Bank as well, in 1948, keeping it till 1967; and yet, it does not take the Palestinians, though it took some for a while, and it has already gained far the greater part of Palestine, a land by the League of Nations presented as a homeland to Israel! Now the West Bank, or what was virtually much of Israel as of Palestine, is being treated as if the Jews INVADED it, when Jordan did, taking and owning it from 1948-1967; and this after being given most of Palestine already!

That, from the Information Please Almanac of 1968, tells the choice data so much needed, so often neglected and so vital. Now, Jordan, evidently the modern replacement of Moab and Ammon would like to keep all the Palestinian territory it already has, while other Arabs would like a large chunk of Israel, to add to their Palestine donation, already to the tune of more than three quarters of the whole! The West Bank is Jewish, is part of Palestine, of the small residual part which, despite breach of international agreement, is all that is left to Israel.

So Yasser Arafat is now using a Jordanian helicopter as he reviews his 'troops' in the West Bank! It makes sense; but not good sense...

The UN appears to think it very bad that Israel took some anti-murder action in the West Bank, so that it might not be a popular and populous harbour for ammunition, ammunition factories, murderers of children and the like. Why precisely ? Hamas has decided that it will not cease its murder machine methods on the Israeli domestic populace. The UN has not very obviously told Hamas that as terrorists they must now face a secular Inquisition, as they threatened for Israel, and that speedily. It did not seem to hurry with express mode, to do this during the years of these evil massacres. Again, the US has not told them that they must now become part of the butt for the anti-terrorist war. Why precisely ?

Is the world asleep ? But of course. Even some of the visible church is asleep, indeed much of it, as foretold in the parable of Christ found in Matthew 25, where some of the virgins awaiting the wedding, summed up as the return of the bridegroom - as noted above, a picture of the LORD, and here of Christ in particular as the returning Prince (Zech. 14:5), became slumbrous, comatose. They evidently had found the delay intolerable, the desire aborted or the duty unimportant ...

They simply forgot all about their appointment as bridesmaids, and slumbered. Possibly some of them snored, which would account for some of modern theology. Now the percentage of those who were in this plight ? it was ... 50%. It is of course not possible to draw from this the conclusion that 50% of the visible church will be fake, asleep, inactive, unalert, ready for judgment (cf. I Peter 4:17). It is nevertheless quite apparent that a large slice of it will be in this position, as also seen in II Peter 2:1ff., where the popularity of false teaching is made explicit, in the predictions for times to come, expanded most fascinatingly in II Peter 3 (cf. Joyful Jottings 8).

How else would the coming of Christ be like a thief by night (II Peter 3:10). Thieves, do they blow a fanfare, or activate an alarm ? The picture is impossible to suppress!

Yet not all sleep, and not all snore. Thus the action of the US Senate and Congress, both, in affirming that the Israeli people face TERRORISM wholly parallel to what the US now faces, and approving their action to obviate it, is welcome. It is at least factual.

The administration has not done very much to implement such a policy, though it is not at present, legally bound to do so. Nevertheless, it would seem likely that they would be at least aware of the theme and view of both houses of their parliament! One would imagine that they would not simply disregard the views of those elected to represent the nation. Truly, the President also was elected, though in rather doubtful circumstances, perhaps, and very narrowly for sure. However, the law does make provision; and if it came to the point, a large majority would be needed to override any veto he might impose, if the parliamentary bodies acted more firmly. At least, they are MOST CLEAR. In these two houses, much of America has spoken. Will they however let their leader speak most differently ? and will he continue to want to do so ? Time will show it. For America, undoubtedly, much depends on this.

From its own words, Hamas, and not they alone by any means, appears to love violence; and perhaps many young Palestinian children will be taught, instructed, to do the same. Human nature, being sinful, seems more readily to be warpable and teachable; though in God, all things are possible. Will the US, IN EFFECT, allow it all ?

ISRAEL FACES TERRORISM and does well so to regard it. This is the message of Senate and Congress in the USA.

The USA however does NOT face the terrorists against Israel as it faces those against itself. Whatever the complexities of government, in the end, any State does this or that. You can talk for hours, but act in minutes. It does, or it does not, do well. The USA has done horribly badly in some things, in its pulsating pressure on Israel to capitulate to more and more of the Arab pressures of extortion to get even more of Palestine, the large majority of which they already illegally have. Other laws, other times ? Is this the honour of the world ? It is no honour whatever, but speechified fraud which so acts in the face of the original "homeland" gift to Israel.

The US administration, however has amended its ways just a little, Bush noting something far nearer the truth, after at first maintaining wrongly, that it was very IMPORTANT to see the difference between the Arab assaults on Israel and terrorism. Now, more recently, he has used at least the word 'terror' in the Israeli context, and not against Israel, but its tormentors.

However, at best, the US administration has been to all appearance, oilily circumspect, and cautiously pushy about Israel, to get it to disburse more land and so buy a peace, which in fact could be no peace, since the 'catastrophe' which to the Arab Israel is supposed, in general, to represent, is not removed by making it less. It is removed by making Israel less, and then striking. Or if possible, it would be. Any school child, one would hope, at least by year 11, might be able to see that. If you want to bully someone, first remove his knuckle dusters. It all helps.

The action of the united Arab front has repeated and explicitly been anti-ISRAEL. Why is it imagined that when it is fed, it will lose all appetite ?

Is it not found better that all acclaim him, as bin Laden so explicitly seems to seek, at least to the extent of the former 'glorious' empire which was enslaved to this religion and its militant suppressive tactics, in history seen too often for comment, and too awfully for acceptance even civilly!

Another party - and this time, literally a party, is awake in some respects also. It would seem that in those regards, it is WIDE awake. Netanyahu, we find from ABC News Radio May 14, 2002, is gently explaining an important fact. A meeting of Likud preceded. In this, there was a vociferous, enthusiastic and large acclaim for the concept that the Palestinian State concept is not to go on, but off stage (left). NO! NO! NO! was the obvious fervour of the televised vote. The room seemed almost to erupt with sky-reaching hands. It was like an army presenting arms!

Netanyahu, who has been the leader of Israel before now, a man of considerable accomplishments, explained for the Press. All that has happened, he indicated, is that there has been a refusal to have the Palestinian State implemented, on the part of the Party. IF, he continued, there is a Palestinian State, there can be no Israeli State. If there is an Israeli State, there can be no Palestinian State. The latter would simply provide a base for terror.

Another interesting and pertinent program came earlier, on TV, which presented a survey of American Jewish opinion concerning Israel. Various parties were interviewed. The result from that US Jewish base was this. In times past, there had been considerable division over the point, should Israel cede land for peace. This was now becoming a vanishing view. The failure, said one, of Arafat at Camp David, with Clinton, to accept exceedingly generous terms for a settlement was one thing. The other ? It has been the SUBSEQUENT mass murdering techniques of Islam, against Israeli citizens.

If more power were present (with the Palestinian State envisaged), would there be less deaths ?
It would appear virtually a self-contradiction of the explicit policy of murder as harassment towards Israeli surrender, massively increasing itself all the time.

What is it, that is being handed out to Israel ? Auschwitz by instalments ? Are arms ships to come freely to a sovereign territory, a new PLO State of some kind, like the teeth of the wolf, being all the better to eat you with, my dear! It would not seem provident to provide such an aid to iniquity. Likud is NOT about to consent to the apparent intention of its leader, Sharon, who interestingly has an extreme right-wing type of reputation, though now his party is clamouring for far more realism, and less concession in the face of slaughterous intimidation, even if the UN does not appear, like a drowsy lion, to notice these things.

That 'lion' ? It is the flies, the Israelis, which seem to bother it. Perhaps there is too much oil on its face. If not, now is an excellent time to remember the principles of justice.

Meanwhile, it is keenly interesting to see Netanyahu coming again to the fore at such a time, and most gratifying to see his astute political care in preventing needless appearance of a split with Sharon.

Perhaps the recollection of the prophecies of their own seers will re-appear in the midst of many in Israel soon, and they will see more: that the real reason why they should be there is nothing less than divine, and the real action they should take, first and before all else, is to repent of the murder of Christ, in the midst of these contemporary murders. It is not as if God refuses to forgive; but He insists on repentance, as Zechariah so gravely stresses and predictively features.

For that matter, the followers of Islam will have to realise, if they are to live in the presence of God at all, that they are given many lands, and have huge territories, but Israel is not for sale, extortionately or otherwise. All will have to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, slain by Israel, rejected no less by the throng of this world's princes (possibly with the occasional exception, at the personal level), and distorted: as in the body, by Israel, so in the depiction by the Moslem. It is all distorted, and it is all needlessly costly.

The truth will not alter; but it will alter those who fool with it. Proverbs provides a severe warning, which is far better to read than it is to attempt to seize God and make Him a prey^*2. Your mouth is not wide enough, nor your mind your own, when you assail your Creator, rejecting His salvation in favour of pretence which neither works, could work nor deserves to work.

God has spoken. History follows like a lamb. It is better to follow Christ like a lamb likewise. There is no other shepherd for man - oh! except the evil one, mentioned in Nahum above:

These are readily available, and such a one will perform his prodigy of perfidy at the end (II Thessalonians 2:4ff.). For more on that, see for example, News 5.

As to the proven shepherd of peace and truth, precisely in accord with the word of God, itself precisely outperforming all without comparison even meaningful: it is this Shepherd who is required for the Muslim, the Roman Catholic, the Sect follower, the unbeliever in any and every form, in any and every nation, in any and every situation, without limit, without exception and without truce. Truth has no truce.

Why try to kill it ? Listen to Isaiah 42 concerning Him who is the only Saviour, the Lord and the Friend of sinners, companion of His people and arbiter of destiny:

The Hebrew indicates this parallelism: JUST AS HE will not be broken, SO He will not break. Not even smoking flax, will He quench; not even a bruised reed will He sever. This, it is not common! The grace and knowledge to know the weak needing strength from the wayward needing correction, and the heart of God with which to supply His people with spiritual meat: all this is His prerogative. When you create the earth and man on it, there is a certain ... finesse! It is His. There is likewise knowledge and power and blessing. This too is His. Further, it is He who supplies a sink for sin, a place for pardon, a strength for righteousness and a feat in purity.

It is simply not available elsewhere (Acts 4:11-12, Colossians 1:19-21, SMR Ch. 1, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17).

SMR Appendix A; 510ff., 814-815; The Biblical Workman Chs. 1, 8, and esp. pp. 140ff.;
It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls... Ch. 10; Galloping Events Chs. 1, 2 , 3; More Marvels ...Ch. 3; The Impregnable Tower Ch. 6.

Now we see things in a broader, the terrestrial and celestial perspective. This section is

GREAT THOUGH THE ART OF CREATION BE, BETTER FAR IS DESTINY

EPILOGUE

To Ch. 9 and to Gracious Goodness and This World in Disorder

Sin, it is the one ground of the disorder.

Mercy is the stay that limits the response.

Thus, in part, the decline falls from the natural order,

as its violation vitiates it, its sanctions ignored, its sanity disregarded,

Its sanctities despised or even denied.

In part, it falls from the supernatural, as judgments arise,

passing all the sublime barriers of restraint,

where love regards and opportunity exists.

Grand Design, Greater Destiny

The day is darkened despite the successive tenderness of new dawns
(Lamentations 3:22,31-33),

Cresting the rises and sending prongs of new light into the rest from which day arises.

His mercies are new every morning, but in the gross darkness
(Isaiah 8:22- 9:1, 60:2, Jeremiah 13:16), much of mankind

mouths mockeries at the Eternal Light, even Christ, as shown by many, such as Israel, the nation,

by whom this Light was not loved,

nor yet did it capture Pilate the Roman, governor in the greatest Empire of the day,

who gave reluctant but crucial concurrence with the national adventurism of Israel,

to bring ruin on himself,
though God used a spiritual phalanx from the nation with new avenues of mercy in the Messiah
to reach to the ends of the earth,

as Isaiah predicted (49:6, 24:16);

nor was it loved by Herod the Idumean, symbol of the irascible hatred still seen in the Middle East.

Pilate the Roman, and Caiaphas the High Priest, may not have been friends;

But in action, their resultant was one: TURN OUT THE LIGHT!

Because the Light of this world still continues shining brilliantly,

probing the darkness, multi-sourced and incremental though it be,

its denizens ever dabbling more dimly in things little understood

with all the brio of a Scotch Terrier on his morning walk, with sundry sallies and tasks:

there is hope, but not for this world (John 17:9,14-16,20, II Peter 3:10-13, Matthew 24:35).

Witless, with unhallowed and irreverent hope, and deeds unspeakable,

This present world pursues its love of itself, its spluttering wisdom,

Daft as to its beginning, blind as to its end.

It wallows in darkness, as a film star in her suds,

but this, it does not clean.

Yet time, though straitened, still remains (cf. Revelation 10:6)

to find the very Light of God, for He is the one thing vital,

the word of God, Jesus Christ (Revelation 19, John 1, 5:19ff., Colossians 1:19ff.).

Inapplicable! Irrationality screams in the throat of many an academic
(Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Chs. 9, 13, A Spiritual Potpourri 1-9, TMR 1, 8),

Intolerable! more frankly fulminates the ruler,

as wars, a stack of them, line up for take-off, creating traffic jams at the airports:

Islamic jihad with its rank sanctions competing with other lust and lovelessness,

while the seats for instruction in other passions to promote for grasping,

these are all sold out (SMR 8-10).

This world, in its negligent disorder, ignores its Light as the worm ignores the beauty of the apple,

and that one God who is gracious and kind, has for all that, ordained that

the end is not quite yet (II Peter 3:9).

This spinning globe does not care to see, for its eyes it has closed (cf. Matthew 13:15),

but its spiralling tornadoes give no uncertain testimony to the judgment to come,

which arises in its time, as surely as the ocean breakers follow the storm.

It seems necessary that sin should continue in its squalid war, justified in rationalisation,

rampant in specialisation, as if mice could think only of cheese, from any source,

fascinating by the part, ignorant of the whole,

as that there is a household or a cat to help keep it clean.

Nevertheless, in this life, the ultimate source of the storm can be met, as one meets an enemy.

It can be met with the bright and shining light which dismisses darkness and commands peace,

stilling the squall with spiritual strength (Matthew 8:25-27),

where space and place for it is found.

When He is ready, the Prince of this world will come

and it is He who will rule this world, whose name is truth,

whose heart goodness and whose way is righteousness,

not in the social flurries of imagination, as if a crowd constitutes right,

nor in the brimming, scalding potions of philosophy, as if ignorance held wisdom
(I Corinthians 1:20-25),

but with that eternal Light which both lightens man when he comes to this world,

and is put out, in the scurryings of his detached soul, and the blindness of his closed eyes.

Of His kingdom and peace, there will be no end (Isaiah 9:7, Daniel 7:27);

but out of it, there will be no end to its absence.

If the world is a stage, the end is not a play.

This failed and fallen world, however abrupt

in its dark and dismal dismissals of the Light,

has an end.

It is reserved for it (II Peter 3),

fitting for its fabrications, for both it and its evil works are to be burnt up,

just as the implements of hatred and the belligerence of spirit are to go

to their place.

To those within it, who love God, whose walk is with Him, whose work is from Him,

whose trust is in the Christ whose word of redemption is 100% over,

sufficient and available (Hebrews 9:12-28, Romans 3:23-27, Ephesians 2:1-12),

whose Maker He is, and whose Saviour (Isaiah 43:10-11, Acts 4:11-12),

there is a new organisation of life, a peace past any storm,

and a mission into the doom of induced darkness,

as ambassadors of the Light.

And that Light is within them (John 9:5, 8:12, Colossians 1:27), and with them (Matthew 28:19-20).

THE LIGHT OF CHRIST NEEDS NO CLIFF

When at last this world is dismissed (Matthew 24:35),

His salvation stays (Isaiah 51:6).

It is merely, for these His children, like a former house demolished.

If it is a little saddening that it is gone, for so much occurred in it, much good,

yet it is vastly gladdening that the Creator both of it and oneself, is still with one,

unabashed in beauty, despite the woes incurred in securing our redemption (Isaiah 50, 52:12ff.),

magnificent in holiness, doing wonders as is fitting for the infinite Light.

It is then, for His children, who alone He has redeemed (Isaiah 53:3-6),

Who by His stripes are healed,

A gap indeed, but no more:

For although this world goes, as a house sold,

the new is better (Revelation 21-22).

But what of the Jew ? that chosen vehicle of the Lord,

Who though he went nationally astray, is yet by appointment

For a thousand generations, that is for all time on this earth,

Given a place
(Psalm 33, Genesis 22, Galloping Events Ch. 4, SMR Appendix A ).

They have always been right as to the structure, the Scripture;

Wrong in rejecting its truth, the Christ when He came by appointment,

on time like some ultra-spatial train arriving by expectation (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4).

The Jews of Israel ? the surrounding nations will not bear them:

they are back in their land by strong guarantee,

and the very thought is a war on the words of false prophet and false ruler alike.

Disobedient or obedient, they are not welcome

to many of the false religionists

who mistake their absence for the absence of their God!

It was for recompence, not discard in the end, that He acted.

Their arrival of 1948 smells of a victory for the Lord of life,

not for the force of jihad arms.

It shines like a light, and promotes darkness where darkness dwells.

It fulfils the word of God and shows the divinity of the Director

(cf. SMR Ch. 9).

In turn, the Jewish nation will not itself have peace without Christ.

Their refusal of Him is more than mere disappointment:

it is rebellion;

and so the rebellious dig their fangs into them, and eat, and eat …

to jihad, it seems, the meat is not hard.

Their rebellion, it is one with that of the Gentile, who plays his game by his own rules,

ruling in God’s world as if the Maker were mere absentee,

and not sin the voider of light.

The cauldron heats, and the steam itself creates mist.

What then has arrived since 1948 ?

In highlighted sweeping victories as predicted (for God does not leave His people without adequate words - Zechariah 12,14), they have swarmed back into (national) existence,

exercising patience and artistry,

the aridities of Arab yore prophetically blossoming as the rose (Isaiah 35),

the very forests abounding as the sign for so long said (Isaiah 55:1-3,12-13)

as the vast preliminaries to Zechariah 13:1,

stretch themselves out, conspicuous and clear,

like a high altitude vapour trail, for all to see.

As they dismissed the Son of God

(not some visiting card but the ONLY Saviour for ANY of our race, for heaven indeed,

as such deity designate and definitive, for man, for earth
(Colossians 1:19ff., Acts 4:11-12, Hebrews 1, Isaiah 43:10-11),

so do their sons die in a sombre and macabre aftermath.

In the end, salvation is as the Saviour said, of the Jews (John 4),

for it is so in this, that both the word of God written and living have come

through them (Romans 9).

But alas, the nation is yet not far from the word of Romans 10, and far from Christ.

Indeed, until, as in Romans 11, their (spiritual) blindness is removed, and

In Christ’s light, they see light:

no foundation for sin and uncleanness is opened in Jerusalem:

But it will be! Zechariah 12:10ff. traces both the time of their massive conversion
and the basis, the crucified Messiah, the act repented of, but the sacrifice now
effectual as atonement.

It is then, with many in Israel

suddenly brought home to repentance from (diverse) rebellion against the God of the Bible,

the Christ of God,

that marvels follow until at length

Egypt though smitten, is healed (Isaiah 19:22-25), and

she who once was a centre of Christianity (including Augustine, Bishop of Hippo)

is in much brought back into line,

while Assyria (Iraq) and Israel find mutual peace,

there being none without its Prince, at any price:

and what prices already have been paid, on all sides!

Those who follow the Pharaoh complex, arid,
self-righteous, self-affirmative, autonomous rebellion,
whether soiled in private sin or public arrogance,

can see the fruits of their non-exodus from judgment (Micah 7:15ff.);

but to the penitent in the Prince, comes peace (Isaiah 9:7),

whether Jew or Gentile.

So the long odyssey of enlarged odium is replaced by the eternal love of the Light,

who shone into the abyss of sin, and descended to evacuate His people,

who are His.

The fountain for sin open now in Jerusalem, the Lord Himself returns (Zechariah 14),

thus completing the triptych, restoration, remission and royalty.

It is then that Christ’s birthplace and death-site alike, honoured in spirit

rather than in endless geographical tours,

physical proximity often mistaken for spiritual closeness to the Lord,

are yet honoured in spirit, not for their architecture, but for their

divine art, as the means He used to bring what no mere means can produce,

Himself to the vagrant hearts of men.

It is then the Christ gives to this world its taste of peace,

before it goes!

For a coverage of much of the Middle East situation in rhyming, assonantial or alliterative couplets:

see

Musings on the Middle East,
and the corollary which becomes available at the end of this file.

For the completion of this survey of the terminal themes in this area, see Chapter 19 below.