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CHAPTER 21
IT IS THE WORD OF GOD WHICH STAYS:
WATCH IT! IT IS SO.
How
simple is the most complex spiritual issue, with its earthly format and
formulation,
its solution and its beauty, when the word of God IS APPLIED.
Often what inhibits this is merely the irrational cymbal clanging or the seductive symbol insidiously misleading, as man follows his own mind, his own world, his own nature or any other inadequate bastion or supposed resource, as the criterion of decision, the ultimate of truth (including the view that there is none, which is both a type of 'truth' and its denial, so impossible logically as a rational viewpoint) and the arbiter of destiny.
Take the matter of Palestine, given to Israel by the League of Nations, as by Britain in the Balfour Declaration of 1917, it being understood in the latter that Israel would have due respect to other cultures. This of course did not mean that this supposed, proposed and indeed donated homeland, here affirmed for Israel, would be NOT a nation; for how can home be run by others! Rather, it meant that when Israel occupied ALL of PALESTINE (MUCH more than its current part), then something was expected of it.
What was this ? It was a certain willingness to let others have a taste of freedom, without such oppression as for example, is now famous in countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, the Palestinian authority, sometimes India, constantly Iran, as in a varied assortment of those lands which either legislate with nice words and horrid prejudice in a political-police confrontation not even recognised, or have intimidatory forces threatening those not Islamic, either in political thrust or in regional occupation as in Afghanistan.
In other words, the League of Nations expected Israel to be civilised, tolerant without being untrue to what it was, reasonable and then to enjoy its new premises as at last, returning to their land occupied in part or in whole for most of 1800 years, as had been foretold by biblical prophets, after their confusion on Christ and exclusion of Him, was to be removed by divine, spiritual action (Zechariah 12:1-13:1). While this was not to PRECEDE their restoration to their land, as is seen readily in this same prophet, for it is apparent that it has to be IN ISRAEL to be having wars to defend it, as in Luke 21:24, as the era of the Gentiles comes to its approaching end, and that it is AFTER much of this, that this divine restoration of HEART occurs for a large swathe of the people.
GOD for His part, being infinitely above, in power and purity, the UN, and the Madrid Quartet, which seems interested in ADDING to the woes and wars on Israel by EXACTING and EXTRACTING more and more from it, has a plan. It is not secret (cf. Isaiah 45:19), any more than the first coming of Christ was secret (Luke 24:25-27).
As to that, let us listen to it:
"Then He said to them, "O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter into His glory?
"And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."
The divine instructions to mankind are most public, have been available in print for half a millenium at least, and in other forms for far longer. The Bible has been oppressively sacked from public places by the Romanists over some centuries, now in this way, now in that, and a foreign translation has been used, obviously not conducive to maximal exposure of the divine text; moreover, God has made it clear that while gifts vary, in the last resort, it is not man but God Himself who teaches. Indeed, not only is NO MAN PERMITTED to act as the teacher, the only One recognised with plenary authority being Christ Himself and ALL others being mere brethren together (Matthew 23:8-10), their office to serve, not lord it over people (I Peter 5), but the Spirit of God is the one who sealing the heart, also brings light to the mind and illumination to the soul (I John 2:27). God has spoken in His word: some as always wish to contest it. They cannot however by such rebelliousness, invest it. It is HIS WORD which endures forever, and no other has this place.
The Diotrophes type of domineering dominance is foreclosed with emphasis, from all operation (cf. III John 9ff.).
God, then, has said what is the case, what He will do and what man is to do. It involves repentance, saving faith, the knowledge of God through redemption and regeneration and a trust in the Lord which is a vital line of communion and communication, strength and restoration (as in Isaiah 40). It also involves awareness of what will happen, what to do about it and how to conduct oneself in this world. It implies not joining with those who seek to prevent these things, but rather to avoid confrontation with God's chosen will and way in all things. As His are all things, and justice and righteousness is the foundation of His throne (Psalm 89), this is so far from being a problem, that it is a joy to seek to fulfil.
As we have seen in earlier chapters (cf. SMR Appendix A, Galloping Events Ch. 4), God has determined to select Israel (Romans 9:1ff.), for various purposes, including the reception of the Bible and of the Messiah; foresaw and predicted that it would crucify the Messiah and gave the date for this (Mini-Messages ... Ch. 10, Highway of Holiness Ch. 4 ), and the empowering of His people for service in a strange act, a marvel, which would remove the wisdom of those seeming wise, by showing in contrast that of Him who IS wise (as in Isaiah 29, I Corinthians 1). That 'strange act' was the definitive incarnation of God as Messiah (cf. SMR pp. 532ff.) and strange indeed is it for the ALL-powerful to shame shams and be the ALL-suffering in His own way, being crucified as man that man-as-sinner might be made first man-as-saint, and with this child of God, and then man-as-resurrected to the glory of God in eternal life.
All this happened. Christ made it clear that the Gospel concerning His redemption and man's necessary repentance to find and be reconciled to God, was to be preached to all nations. It was then that this Age would end, amid a cluster of criteria which were indicated (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5). He would return, to rule. Eventually the world itself with the heavens would depart (Matthew 24:35), but His words would not do so. They would remain, in force. It is like that with God (cf. I Peter 1:25ff.).
Amongst other things, WITH the end of the times of the Gentiles, Jerusalem would no more be trodden down by them (Luke 21:24): that is, ruled by ANY nation or nations which are not Israel. It would be liberated from its long servitude, which has been associated with the chronic rebellion of Israel (as in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32), and many Gentiles would rejoice with Israel when this occurred (Deuteronomy 32:43). Paul cites this (Romans 15:10 cf. Romans 11:25ff.).
Now those who want to reverse such indications of the direction of flow and power, as seen for example in Micah 7 and the other chapters noted, are in conflict with God. Those who want to separate bits of Jerusalem and give some away, courtesy of international power adding its thrust to that of Israel's local enemies, as if those possess not enough, who yet have vast tracts of land, many times that of Israel, and multiplied times its population, with religions which occupy a good fraction of the entire population of this earth: these are at war with God.
This is by no means an appeal for them to stop their illicit and ungodly activity, of which some in confusion may unhappily be unaware: it is a free world for power to operate; nor is it precisely a warning. It DOES INCLUDE such an element, but out of pity. To fight God is far more bruising than fighting man; and one has pity for the other members of one's race. It is unwise to fight the Lord of glory. It is also inglorious.
Currently, former PM Ohlmert is now behind a massive assault on the Gaza Strip, albeit evidently a highly limited one as to locations assailed. The view expressed from Israel is simple: HOW CAN anyone expect a sovereign nation to allow some other power, whoever it may be, to send rockets at it for long periods of time, in multiplying numbers! As one correspondent in a local newspaper expressed it, How many rockets would have to hit New York before a reply ? or London. How many some Australian city ? One ? or as in the case of the USA, in the Twin Tower episode, in effect ...two.
Hence it is with some severity that Israel is currently dealing with supply lines, as it appears that through long passages, underground networks, Islamic and Arabic peoples have been gaining the weapons which in turn are used to make indiscriminate bombardments on cities within Israel, these all but incredibly often lacking in anything approaching military accuracy, many landing in fields. Now if it were known that some sex maniac were using revolvers to intimate women at night, or a group of them, and the supply lines for their obtaining these weapons were known, would the police stand back and say that someone might be hurt if they took offensive action against this murderous supply! I think not.
If the Middle East lacked oil, or more of it were available outside it, or other energy sources had been routinely evoked and maximally utilised for some time, WOULD the world in such a ludicrous fashion be seeking to fashion more and more yieldings, exhorting Israel to reward aggression with more land, so that new 'Gazas' might be used as new 'space stations' from which enemies are the better enabled to assail Israel ? Perhaps it would, in view of some other feature of gain. However, in the long run, it is apparent that equity has nothing to do with it. The UN in 1947 offered non-Israel nations an international Jerusalem, and was preparing to give to Israel, little segments, not all connected, within Palestine. The ARAB peoples, the ISLAMIC in the area, these said NO!
Moreover, what international body is now usurping the former agreement, in order NOT TO GIVE TO ISRAEL the grant already made by both victorious Britain and the other nations in major alliance at the end of World War I ? It is of course the United Nations. It is not expedient ?
Justice however is expedient. If it is not, then war is to be expected, sooner or later, or at least, if the scale of the thing is as here, sufficiently monumental, sustained and aggravated by further injurious demands. What is it like ? It is as if some lady were left by her husband, taking from her nine tenths of her assets. She bears with this. Then he starts making legal challenges to get first 92% and then in stages, 94, 96, 98. Here the final prize is Israel's capital, to be taken, internationalised or split. Does Mecca then not exist ? Does the Islamic world not possess a considerable part of the entire earth with multiplied cities inured with it!
Past all such considerations however is one simple fact. God ONLY made the earth. This is something injuriously forgotten in Australia when ludicrous mantras are required to be read even, by newspaper report, in some official segments in this State of South Australia. They are said to speak of aborigines as being custodians of the land and so on. This, it is in official political business! It is not clear that they were the first to come; and even if they were, the first to occupy a built house is not its owner. There are questions of the original builder, and the law. Nations are all both of and for God. They are mere associations of His creation. If someone wants to take or give, it is under Him.
NO ONE OWNS in this oblivious sense, anything; and what is taken, as with Telstra's phones, is on loan. The loan should be well handled; but taking a view that some people who were never known to be have an integrated rule in Australia, and are seen only to have occupied some parts, in some way have a non-divine right turned into something close to a divine one, is purest nonsense. Similarly, the concept that ANYONE'S culture as sacred is monstrous! It is not the culture, the current ways and wills and customs and modes of a people which is sacred; some are foul in afflictions, and some move in that direction and then out again: it is GOD who is sacred.
People's ways are actual, not automatically sacred. From what would that derive but from God! And if so, where is it written, or how known, let alone in a relativistic model where truth absolute does not even exist! Such misconceptions have done enormous harm to our aboriginal people, and some of them who are leaders, have despised the governmental insistence on hand-outs (not that help is wrong, but certain attitudes help to make listlessness endemic). If a thing is right, let it show it.
GOD ONLY has power to determine, if He so speaks, who is to occupy this or that land. It is not Hitler because of Panzer Divisions, or Stuka aircraft, or Dornier bombers, or Japan by Zero fighters as in World War II; even though, for a time, they might have thought, who sent them, that their will was in some sense divine! God HAS SPOKEN regarding one land very clearly, and has outlined a history of the place before it happened, so that when it happened, it would be verifiably attested that it was His will. ALL this has happened, and now the nations are doing PRECISELY what He said they would.
It is most unwise. It is without vision or logic.
It will hurt.
Some time ago, one was concerned at the then US approach of seeking to extract more from Israel, or to condone various aggressions, pointing out that such attacks on London or Washington would not for one moment be tolerated. Concern for consequences was voiced, and within weeks the September 2001 atrocity occurred. This was not prediction, just a dwelling on increasingly voided principles of divine statement.
Now that fresh impetus, especially after enormous efforts in this direction, however good the personal intensions may have been, by the US Secretary of State, the situation is very grace. These things are given to just such insensitivity to the word both of man after World War I by international agreement of the victors, and above all by the word of God, then once again, it is time to reflect. A new administration is coming into the USA.
THE CURRENT direction of flow in these now long continued movements is direly, directly and categorically in defiance of the stated will of God. There will be war: much of it. There will, at the divinely chosen moment be divine intervention. That has been stated for millenia. There will be a gathering of human forces against God, indeed, as shown in Revelation 19:19; and there will be an end of it there.
It is worth reading, this Revelation, as the word of the living God, it is very much so (cf. SMR).
It is NOT that Israel DESERVES this or that. Its errors were itemised even before they happened, prophetically, WITH the results. It is, as Ezekiel 36 (cf. It Bubbles ... Ch. 10) specifies, NOT for their sake but for God's own name's same, His who is FAITHFUL, that He will bring them back as He said, and use power to preserve them where He said.
In former times, Christ was attacked and crucified (as God said would happen and when stated - the date as referenced above). Now He is not currently available for more assault (Acts 3:19-21). Israel however is. God has stated its position: renegades who have returned by His mercy and who in due course will in large measure return to Him, and whose restoration is at His hand. It moreover is a nation which He would place there once more, at His own will, according to His own long known statements (cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4); and this He has now done.
It is not Israel or Iran: it is God or man, whether the man be in Moscow, or Teheran or Cairo, in London, in Washington or in Afghanistan (cf. Lord of Life Ch. 8, *1), yes or in Madrid.
This is not an appeal ? No, it is but a sharing with sorrow for the plight to come for those who seek or obliviously act as if for a take-over from God. He has spoken. Ignorance mitigates, but it does not remove the altercation! Wilful ignorance is something else.
You can try it, a take-over, with a company, in a hostile take-over bid; but when it comes to God, it has been tried. The crucifixion with its intense poignancy and pathos was in just that very light, predicted and fulfilled; and so was the resurrection in its transforming power and its far-reaching results, the word of God bringing kings to their knees as also foretold (Isaiah 60:3).
The end of the matter, preceding the return of Christ is getting near: Jerusalem is back in Israel's hands (Luke 21:24) in the precise prelude, making Christ's return "near" (Luke 21:31, 27), in the overall context of cumulative criteria for it (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5). The wars proceed, Israel has had its amazing, statistical miracles of military success as so dramatically foretold and fulfilled - as in Zechariah 12 (cf. SMR Ch. 9). It suffers yet, as it is still unrepentant concerning its own Saviour who is likewise for all men, Jesus Christ; and it stays put.
So does its trouble ... These are related, and for millenia, it has been so, but now it is so with ISRAEL BACK! This is a special segment of the history as foretold by God, a dramatic and near to terminal one. But what of man's plans ?
Try incinerating dynamite when it is undesired; try removing Israel. Certainly cunning measures may succeed for a time; but in the end confrontation arrives and desolation (as in Revelation 19, Ezekiel 38-39, Micah 7). Birds are even invited to the feast IN ADVANCE, as shown in Revelation, when man as maestro makes his final bid against the Lord.
You see, it is impossible to deceive, manipulate, trick, trap or overcome God. He knows what you will attempt and this before time rolls in; and He even states how it will turn out in some detail (Ezekiel 36-39 being a good example, cf. SMR Appendix A). As He declares definitively, so it goes: it always does in the end. It is impossible for it to be otherwise, when God has declared the course of future history. As Christ put it, not a JOT (smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet) or a tittle (small difference between two rather similar letters) will pass in the Law and the prophets till ALL is fulfilled (Matthew 5:17ff.).
Israel, it is a contemporary thriller; for though Christ is not personally available just now for more crucifixions and the like, Israel is. It is tempting to the devil: For him, breach of the divine always is (as in Revelation 12). He never succeeds. Till the end, he haplessly hopes; but even deep in his own being, he is aware, uncomfortably so, of his end (cf. Revelation 12:12).
The people of God, however, they neither glorify Israel (BE ASHAMED! God says to that nation, in Ezekiel 36 cf. Isaiah 19), nor despises it (much of what it has done is admirable, it is just ... that it has not yet learned not to despise the despised Messiah but to embrace Him, that same One who is their early and eventual Lord). A multitude of that race is a part in significant measure, of the kingdom of heaven in the end, thronging as in Revelation 7, with an inordinate group of Gentiles in one Lord, one Christ, one people, one faith.
It is imprudent to be unholy; unwise to be rebellious; ludicrously arrogant to know better than God; unscientific to despise the facts concerning the Bible and the Christ, and to prefer the ALWAYS failing fictions of man*1, political, biological, psychological, spiritual, moral or military. In the end, there is only one Victor, and that is Christ (I Corinthians 14, Revelation 22), whose status in the trinity is from everlasting to everlasting (Micah 5, Isaiah 45 with Philippians 2, Psalm 45, Zechariah 12:10, Isaiah 48:16, Matthew 28:19-20).
The time rolls on, and the world whirls on; but the word of God, it stays.
The matter
is not between Israel and the billion or so Islamics reportedly in this world,
but
between Israel and God in faith,
and
Islam and God both in faith and in ambition for land.
What God has said is not subject to revision, and just as Israel has dispensed with the Messiah as the Son of God, so has Islam; but just as God in faithfulness to promises has placed Israel back in its land, so Islam - and far from this group alone, thinks otherwise. This divine action, long foretold and happening in the cumulative criteria for the end of the Age, and so depicted by Jesus Christ, is to many in the Middle East, 'the catastrope', a well-known symptom of their spiritual situation.
For Israel, there is coming a massive awakening (cf. Romans 11:25ff., Zechariah 12-13), but for all who simply want THEIR OWN ideas about where land is to go and to whom, there is God to be met. He has a multi-pronged purpose, with this a part of it, a tutelary part of it, concerning His own wisdom and that of ... man (cf. I Corinthians 1, Ezekiel 39:21-29); and the contest is thus joined.
The Lord, He is most wise, and does not lack enterprise, being the resource, founder and maker of it. The world is awakening not in one clash only, but in multiple instances as it seeks to ravish with its own thoughts and gods, the work of its Creator whose redemption is so slighted, that many would evidently far rather force an issue on land than find a rest in faith in the object of faith, Jesus the Christ, alone verified and validated.
For this, there are no go-betweens.
No other gods even exist (Psalm 96, Jeremiah 10:11), and the thought forms given
them by man lack the power to deliver!
Jesus Christ is the only
Mediator (I Timothy 2 - and He has no surrogates, being sinless and infinite),
and His mediation
provision in the flesh is finished (Hebrews 9:12ff., 10:10ff.),
just as the word of God is written.
It does not
move.
Humanism in riot
and revolt, unfunded fiasco, flusters, fulminates and does not abate;
and while force becomes
à la mode for many, religious and irreligious in profession,
Israel being inconvenient, and meaning nothing
to some,
becomes
a critical point, like the critical mass for atomic weaponry...
Intractable force,
as it would have it, seeks to move God, the immovable,
many
scarcely knowing what they do, and as the Age draws near
to
berthing at its wharf,
the dissavour
of spiritual witlessness does not improve (cf. Psalm 94, Hosea 9:7),
as it
grows more rank with age, and more set in its ways
(cf. II
Timothy 4:1ff., 3:12ff.)*2.
Whatever Israel's plans, either in the day of the Lord Jesus, or now,
the
plans of the Almighty are both His and stated (Isaiah 45, Amos 4).
The
land is
His. NONE can use it otherwise than as He specifies,
for the trans-racial
purposes,
specific in
detail, international in result that man would desire.
God is the
lecturer in this field. He does not suffer His instruments of expression to be
replaced.
In a little, Israel in large measure will awaken, and God will act
(Zechariah 12, Romans 11, Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32:36-43, Joel 3, Isaiah 66,
Revelation 19).
Man has had a lot to say about what he did not invent: himself, his world and this universe. God has both said and done enough, moving to the uttermost in His love, compassion, pity and warnings, using power with care and grace with abundance. When the last question is now put, as it is, then the last answer is given: and from man as his own maestro, whether with false prophets, groundless in presumption, or nations putting on force instead drawing on their faith, there is but one reply. Wrong!
Moreover, it does not invite any further action. The result is a failure so profound (Revelation 19-20), that the very birds are invited to the nauseous feast, the fiasco of faithlessness expressed in the spectacle of ruin.
Faith in Jesus Christ, this is far better, far more profound, being moral, spiritual, aesthetic, holy, just, pure and rational; but faith as FAITH acts in its own domain, and God hears as man claims His promises and finds His redemption and follows him.
The other option has a name (John 14:30), but not a good one...
NOTES
Deity and Design ...,
Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ.
In order, these are as below.
"I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who shall judge the quick and the dead at His appearing and his kingdom:
"Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season;
reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine.
For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine;
but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers,
having itching ears.
And they shall turn away their ears from the truth,
and shall be turned to fables."But watch in all things, endure afflictions,
do the work of an evangelist,
make full proof of your ministry.
For I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand.
I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness,
which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at that day:
and not to me only, but unto all them also who love his appearing. "
"Yes, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.
But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.
"But you continue in the things which you have learned and have been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them;
And that from a child you have known the holy scriptures,
which are able to make you wise to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus."All scripture is given by inspiration of God,
and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished to all good works."