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ISRAEL II
ISRAEL: ITS DAY FROM A LONG WAY
AWAY
Consider Israel - If You Don't,
You May Have to!
Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson
Published by
World Wide Web Witness Inc.
January 2009
ISBN 978-0-9806138-1-0
INTRODUCTION
In 1997-2003, published on the Web was a volume:
Israel Blows the Trumpet, but Yet it does not Hear. Its point was
that although Israel has been used by God for millenia (as in Romans 9), and it
came to be in our contemporary world at a startling place in divinely foretold history,
so that many were taking stock of the Lord's doing in its return and its wars,
yet the
nation itself seemed blind to its own significance, if not altogether, then at
least to a gross degree.
It had indeed been used to
deliver the infallible scriptures, which struck them as much as most other
nations, and here in Israel was a testable exemplar, so that the ways of God might be savoured, realised and perceived.
Moreover, this nation had been used as a format base for the definitive
incarnation of God Himself, Jesus Christ (Isaiah 48:16 shows the happening in
summary form, for the Trinity). Moreover, Israel had then become the base,
initially in
thousands of Jews, and soon possibly tens of thousands in the early formation of the Christian
Church, starting in Jerusalem, as Christ had instructed them before He left
(Luke 24:47).
This land once more became a national item,
focussing Israel, at times used as an international blackboard to instruct the
nations.
It had been employed in this way some 35 centuries
before our time, though scarcely then operative
as a nation, when slaves in Egypt, to demonstrate the futility of making up
gods that yet are no gods but mere emblems of the sacred, moulded in the imagination
of man (Dig Deeper
… Ch. 3, *2A).
These cannot deliver, as Jeremiah 10:11 points out: "The
gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth
and from under these heavens."
Egypt was the mighty imperial, culturally
sophisticated but religiously confused site for this action of the Lord. Mighty,
it held the Hebrews captives, repaying earlier kindness to them at the gift of
God through Joseph, with this atrocious unfaithfulness and abuse. God told
Pharaoh through Moses, LET THEM GO.
They tried to compete, they tried to renege, but
they would not let them go. Plagues became a divine indication of His thoughts
towards this equivocation and resistance to His more than legitimate request.
As the plagues made apparent, both in their divine
institution as pressure mounted, step by step, on Egypt to let their Hebrew slaves go free,
and in
their series of removals when Pharaoh cried for mercy, and Moses relayed this to
the Lord, God was at work. Who would resist it ? Pharaoh was not yet quite clear
on this point! In fact, since he was set on evil, God hardened his heart so that
his folly would be written on stone! (Romans 9:15-22).
It became a saga, an instruction, an epic. As
Pharaoh in trouble yielded, so his imperial majesty in wrath re-asserted his
power and plague gone, so was his bending. Ye yielded, he amended; he failed to
see what all this portended.
Plagues gone, courage leapt; but with the plagues'
renewal with variation, when Pharaoh broke the peace by seeking to keep
the slaves on hand, it became apparent that gods of goofiness and fiascos of
imagination do not help in imperial issues! Pharaoh with all his armies, lost to
Israel with none. It had only the Lord; but then, infinity is always sufficient.
God is gracious, wise and longsuffering, but fool with Him, and folly is your
inheritance.
In these things, the Hebrew people were like a glove on the hand of God as He led them,
the Israel of old, not only out of the site of the
imperial Egyptian power, humiliating it by using the very natural forces they
made into gods, to afflict them, but on into their own promised land. This land
of Canaan was one which had for 400 years been on the very brink of disaster for its
gross (and now in Ras Shamra, archeologically confirmed) immoralties (Genesis
15:13-17).
That is the way with natural things, used for divine
ascriptions. The
failure to see the difference between Maker and made, Creator and creature,
original and derivative is so inexcusable logically (cf.
The gods of naturalism
have no go!), and yet so inveterate as a befouling stirring of irrelevant mud in
the pure waters needful for man, made in the image of God and FOR HIM, that it
is a major phase of human degradation. This is shown in its step by step
diagnostic and prognostic follies
in Romans 1:17ff., leading to a state very like the present one, at its end!
Indeed the end of Romans 1 is like a trip to the mortuary, when the corpses
still move. Sin's end is gross, just as it start is insidious.
This folly of nature worship in its various forms, has become the main string whether
in the ruin of Egypt in that dim but dynamic distance (cf. Gracious
Goodness Ch. 9), or of Hitler with his racial
eugenics and hopes, or of any other of the subjects of naturalism, such as
Communism, which used an fantasising ideational basis for
materialism (Repent or Perish
Ch. 7, Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable
Ch. 2), merged with ideas drawn from Hegel, which was a contradiction in terms from the
start; for it had a notional dynamic addressing what was ostensibly a form of
materialism, and a potential based on nothing realising itself as something
stylised as matter, and then moving without causative ground, into
something which was in due course to be operated as it moved by invisible and
intellectually imaginable laws!
For all this, the potential to become actual and the
modes to make it legislated, were assumed. It is easy to build a car if you
assume the factory. Of course you do not GET the car, but it is easier to think
of doing so, if this is what you want, rather than a car. Such is Communism.
It ignored causation in the case of matter,
and invented a progressive causation of its own, an ideological entity moving
things, contrary to its materialistic model. Accordingly, results countered its
predictions. What else could they do! (cf. SMR pp.
925ff., News
37, 97,
98, esp. *2,and
'Communism' in Index-Mini).
Similarly its morals countered its forecasts in that
realm, the ideological haven or heaven becoming such that many seemed to be
asking if, so far from this resembling heaven, could hell much worse! (cf. SMR pp.
971-972). Whether intellectually or
practically, this is the way with naturalistic fictions and factions.
Even though China has
become in many ways a de facto capitalist country (not free enterprise,
for the State interferes grossly, not to ensure freedom, but to assign its
arcane will), once power is assumed by the oligarchy,
many of its people are oppressed in labour to the point that imperial
dominations of the past seem all but kind by comparison.
Ludicrous as all materialism is shown to be, yet
this ideology, dressed in a different gown, and with labels from art-form
irrelevant sources (like the Chinese honey, exported under another name as
reported in The Australian Jan. 1, 2009), has its counterpart in many
more enlightened and progressive countries. This delusion, essentially or
operatively, has now infected much of Western society, which
drools over dead Darwinism (Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic
Ch. 4), and can find no solution to its many woes (cf.
Wake Up World! Chs. 4-6).
It is such defunct ideological leadership which has
debased many countries, and is now being applied through academic oppression, cultural slide
and political connivance, to the point that much that equity blushes and truth
lies fallen in the street. What once had
more character and reason on its side, some even seeking for a time to honour
the Lord, becomes a residue of ingratitude and a heap of convenience. The trend
is now near to fatal proportions, and the people, increasingly, seem as is
normal in such declension, to love to have it so (cf. Jeremiah 5:31). Jeremiah,
one recalls, is followed by the highly relevant book of Lamentations...
However, while modern man comes in so many ways to
resemble the forsaken nations and empires (Assyria, Babylon, Egypt cf. Ezekiel
29ff. (cf. The Pitter-Patter ... Ch. 4) of the past, in his rambling rumblings and tedious tumblings in
philosophical madness*1 and religious inanity, priding himself while millions
perish in the idiotic notion that man's power makes history what it is, he sees
his power soar to the skies in theory, and bury itself in the earth in practice.
Man as the one who makes greatness
and is to be the centre of things, striving recklessly to survive, as if
survival had invented him, as if a car-wash made automobiles, imagining that his naturalistic savvy helps him
survival, connives with disaster to slay millions and despoil the environment of
this limited earth. Folly is its name and ruin is its result (cf. Matthew
24:35).
With such grandiose objectives, reckless force or
renegade unreason bashes many millions from China, Russia via
the USSR, and in Europe, as they seek glory, flinging them to the rocks of reality.
Whether the mode be physical, subtle, sly, violation of academic liberty,
removal of reward, use of fine or prison, distortion or false charges, the
result moves in one major direction.
It is all as it has to be, and God has been at pains
to make it so conspicuously obvious from the case of Egypt, as from many others (Gracious
Goodness Ch. 9),
that it is one of the marvels of spiritual anaesthesia, so modern, so ancient,
so effective, that though man is equipped with eyes, his eye disease is this,
a disinclination to see, Thus it is found most experimentally, that when you shut your
eyes, you cannot see (cf. Matthew 13:15).
Meanwhile, the Church reaches ripeness, stripped
of some of the struts from society and finance, and left to become more and more atomised, or molecularised, as its
secular power supports in Empire or nation erode or
disappear entirely, and it is persecuted to the uttermost in China and Sudan, in
the Middle East. Indeed, more deviously, it is not so very different in much of the Western world in its naturalistic hypnosis and the
adjoining educational follies (cf. Lead Us Not into Educational Temptation). Its
day is near for final division and exemption.
In what way division ? it is in this, that more and
more the formalists and abusers of Christ, using His name for their own desires,
festering in fallen churches, will leave all connection with biblical reality, and become mere norms of forms,
available for hire (cf. II Peter 2, which shows this trend prophetically). Many
will leave that immoral mess which is the residue of once great denominations,
and the relinquish all connection with the doctrinal dither which attests the absence of faith.
Instead of all this, they will renew in the
place, however humble, where faith is found.
As this separation occurs, from what has divided
itself from the Lord and His word (Romans 16:17), what then is the relevance of
'exemption' ? It is this.
The time will come when as
with Sodom and Gomorrah, when at long last the issues drawn, the dynamic acts. The
people of the Lord are due for removal when the hallowed holy day comes (cf.
Matthew 24, I Thessalonians 1). This is far from being wish fulfilment. As Paul
puts it, there are contrary wishes: one COULD wish to go, for it is great to
leave this world and to be with Christ, which is far better (Philippians
1:20-23). One MUST wish to
stay until one's task is done, for the love that impelled Christ to COME here is
that which constrains Christians to STAY here, in order to bring many to find the God of
creation and redemption while there is still time. They wish no release until
the Head of the Church calls. THEN, it is rest indeed!
This however will not come before the first onset of the finale of
bestiality (as in Revelation 13, where many do not yield, and have to be there
NOT to do so cf. II Thessalonians 2). As things move towards life-extinction
totally for those who believe God, as oppressive evil powers mount their
power and fire it into society, then for the elect's sake, those days WILL be shortened, as
the Lord said; and He WILL intervene and rapture to His side, all His saints (as in
Matthew 24, Revelation 11) before coming with them (Revelation 19:8ff.) for the millenial rule.
It is in this also that He will vindicate His name and glorify it, in a blessed earth
(Isaiah 11, 65 cf. Regal Rays of Revelation
Ch 8), before
its final removal and the new heavens and the new earth are created, in which righteousness
dwells (II Peter 3)..
As to Israel
in the midst of these things:
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faithfully
returned and restored to nationhood
as foretold in Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32,
Romans 11, Ezekiel 36
cf. Appendix A, implied in Luke 21:24 and
seen in 1948-1967;
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|
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with its
triumphant series of wars, 1948-1991, by it and near it,
likewise foretold before the final revelation of the
Christ
whom they crucified at an earlier stage
of their (now resumed)
national
history as in Zechariah 12-13:1,
and faced with the 'Assyrian' (Iran) as
foretold in Micah 6
(after Micah 5 dwelt on the incarnation) and in Isaiah 31):
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it is in trials innumerable.
Whether with a false theory or a misplaced worship,
such magnitudes of trouble are to be expected. With Israel, rightly approaching God but then killing
their own Messiah, they are on the one hand supported by divine faithfulness
that thus it should be, their return and defence, and on the other, driven by divine
conviction of sin, so that they must return to their crucified Messiah, wan
event hich will
come with many, in a little (cf. Zechariah 12:10ff., Romans 11:25ff.).
This Israel, thus supported, although still itself to
repent: it is still a heavy burden as foretold for this
period, as shown in Zechariah 12:1ff.. It is such to the nations which presume to play with it
as in the case of the misled Madrid Quartet, who though seeming to favour it a little,
in fact are instruments of stripping. It is never more for it; only less.
It is now a good time to supplement volume I of
Israel (in Israel Blows that Trumpet that Yet it does not Hear) with volume 2,
in this case entitled: Israel - Its Day from a Long Way Away.
Israel now is most obviously a major
contributor to the testimony of God, and so naturally there are many who want to
dismember it, since God guaranteed its return, and His direct handling of the
case by a divine dynamic (cf. Ezekiel 38ff., Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32, Romans 11)
both spiritual (as in Zechariah 12:10ff.) and martial (as in Micah 7 and
Deuteronomy with Ezekiel) is impending.
The clamour of Ahmadinejad, Iran's
President fits to perfection into the predicted scene, and whether or not he is
one of the instruments, his radioactive-sabre rattling for Israel's extinction has a
combination in it, of false prophet's dream and final national disasters.
When Israel at LONG LAST returns (as in Hosea 1) to
the Lord, then the dynamics will be so fast that some may scarcely be able to
contain their thoughts or adapt, adjust their minds. It is better now to
consider the matters from a divine (that is a biblically compiled) perspective,
where the light of the Lord shines through the trees of revelation.
It should be noted now that the former volume
(1997-2003 in scope, composed of News-related items, some extensive) is being supplemented by this second member of the pair on
Israel. The 2007 supplement to that volume is being transferred to this one,
comprising its Chapters 1 and 2. In some Chapters, Volume 2 moves on to later
times, the last, Chapter 21, to 2009. However, some earlier
Chapters are added in Volume 2, because they are not in the first volume, and
because of their scope and overall perspective.
NOTE
*1
See SMR Chs.
3 and 10, with SMR pp.
422Eff.,
422Qff.,
360ff.,
374ff..
CONTENTS
and PREFACE
VOLUME 2 CONTINUES FROM
VOLUME I
While
much has been written concerning Israel since this volume has published, it
seems good to add not only the following two chapters from Bay of Retractable
Islands, Mission for the Mainland, namely 18 and19, but a broad
coverage from many more.
In
that 2007 work, in fact, attention is paid to the drifting of islands from the
mainland of what might be called nuclear or central biblical exegesis:
that is, explanation of passages in their own terms, without addition or
subtraction from tradition, fancy, preference, holding only in the constraints of the context, both immediate
and in the whole scope of scripture.
It
is then found that many intractable and competitive extremes become once more
part of the non-extremist mainland: indeed no exceptions are found, requiring
division. The only extreme desirable, is extreme
attention in fidelity to what is written. Applied to Israel, as in Chs. 18-19 of
that volume,this produces
valuable results.
Other
themes and sub-themes emerge concerning Israel and the world, ancient and
modern, and the Ancient of Days, who has told us all His will in the matter that
concerns us as the Age ends (cf. Answers to Questions
Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8), has
made no secret of His will both in general and in the little matter of little
Israel (cf. Chs. 9 and 10 below).
NOT
doing this is just like not doing any other commandment, and rejecting any other
part of the divine light. It is darkness and leads to it! Currently, this dark
leading is acting at a great rate, and
world powers stress themselves (as PRECISELY foretold concerning its 'heavy
burden' in the context of Zechariah 12:1-13:1),
ignoring the fact that when you fight God, you do not win; and trouble is your
second name IN THE END.
Ask
Pharaoh: he could tell you; ask Sennacherib, he could give advice. Ask Hitler,
he could even speak a modern language for you: he could tell you, and soon it
will be: Ask those northern powers which invade Israel, but when that happens,
events become rather summary (cf. Highway of Holiness
Ch. 6, Bewilderment, Dedazzlement, Bedevilment
and the Beauty of Holiness Ch. 9). There will
be little leisure for questionnaires.
Let
every reader ask now. Later, it becomes readily too late. Israel is a snare to
secularism, sedition and schism. Truth rules, whether it is to teach that nation
or any other. Mock God if you will; it echoes back with increased volume: it at
last tears at the ears..
I
Ch. 4
Let God be God!
(2004 ...Review - its meaning, purpose and historical
significance),
2
Ch. 18 Bay of Retractable Islands
(2007 ... series on ultimate harmony
in major positions taken to extremes, so causing division)
3
Ch.
19 Bay of Retractable Islands (2007)
4
Ch. 10
Red Alert
(2001 ...some characterisation of Israel,
its history, the inweaving of many features, the foci varying, profound as the
Lord reveals His mind by His word),
5 Ch
7
It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls
(2000...Middle East in verse)
6 Ch
7-2
It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls
7
Ch. 2
Bon Voyage
(2006 ... here Israel is set in the midst of other expungings that Gentile minds
address - much on naturalism: all in historical setting, seeing its imponderable
plunge with other blindness as to Israel)
8
Ch. 10
The Divine Drama
(September
2003 ... not geography but history, wrong war:
it should be on sin
not on Israel and one another)
9
Ch. 11
Outrageous Outages ...
(2004... WHO Israel is in prophecy,
tracing data prophetically Identity of Israel)
10
Ch. 4
Galloping Events
(2001...
more on who it is, and who it is not)
11
Appendix A
SMR
(1992 ... on what is to be, getting systematic)
12
Ch. 4
Gracious Goodness
...
(2002 ... unifying religions merely taunts truth and vaunts error uni-religion
efforts to 'solve' Israel),
13
Ch. 10
It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls
(2000 ...the everlasting pity of it,
Temple Messages, Zionism, Racism and Inverted
Racism
14
Ch. 11 It
Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls
(2000 ...the enormity of the thing :
the Un and the blagueurs
Current methods are like trying to fix a car by turning it first
into a bicycle:
it is not just that it is wrong, it is daft
in biblical terms; and what is
biblically daft becomes aft in the end.
15
Epilogue, Gracious
Goodness ...
(2002 ...history of Israel in perspective, from
creation, in verse)
16 Ch.
6, Journey to God or Fantasy's Flight to the Infernal
(2005
...angelic overview, Israel, land of 23 wars
17
Ch.
12
Cascade of Truth, Torrent of Mercy (
(2002 ...Palestine and Europe)
18
Ch.
4 Great Execrations
...
(2003 ...
History, are you there ?
Shades
of Clinton)
19
Ch.
3
Lord of
Life
(2001
...Islam, USA and others: he goose that is
propaganda,
multi-national munificence in disorientation
20
Ch. 8
Divine Agenda -
(2001 ...Looking Back on the Little Matter of
Israel
and Islam -God's plans and man's -
emphasis on Balfour Declaration
and the
Divine Declaration.)
21
The Issue:
Not Israelite and Arab,
but Man and God.
IT IS THE WORD OF GOD WHICH STAYS:
WATCH IT! IT IS SO (2009)
For Volume three of the
ISRAEL TRILOGY, click here.