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CHAPTER SEVEN

FORCE OFF COURSE, AND PITY IN PLACE
BEFORE JUDGMENT

I

FORCE OFF-COURSE

In Chapter 6, in an end-note, there was some discussion of force off-course. It concerned Israel as one example, Christians as another, where victims of pride's power. Our present topic is:

	power in place for the good of the race, and
	the place of pity in truth, leading to
	the whereabouts of judgment in the development of history, and in its coming termination in its present form. That of judgment ? No, that of history.

The point was there made that there is and has long been a nexus of such aggressively self-important and self-imposing forces as noted. Israel has become one of their butts, but not Israel alone, as Christians have long featured in the sights of the pre-emptive strikes of these malign dynamics that seek to dominate, whether moving against sites, in their lust for land, or seeking submission and that loss of liberty which is a virtual trademark. Itching to dominate, failing to ruminate, some of these have been scourges to many, illustrations of the satanic, mechanisms of evil, black holes drawing in good and emitting little or nothing of value to life.

Indeed, violence instead of virtue, vileness instead of truth, compulsion instead of conviction: these are singularly striking traits of the betrayal of truth. In one sense, the whole of history shows the licence for liberty, and its fruits, and the exposure of evil, from its roots. Judgment terminates the trial, when the myriad lessons are passed at last, and no more room is to be found except for just and certain doom.

Reference had been made to the Jews as perennial victims of ruthlessness, exemplifying in their own history, indeed ratifying the realities of the persecutory religions - pseudo-secular or direct - as bastions of force, whatever else may be their habit or intention. These forces make various foes, but desiring dynamic, Jews and Christians are special butts of their butting, since they show some resistance and history that throbs like pain in dissident hearts. Moreover, the Christians have the power of God, just as current Israel, in fulfilling the prophecies of its return, though not yet returned to the Lord, is an illustration of His keeping His word (Hosea 1, Romans 11, Luke 21:24, Ezekiel 36ff. - cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4).

This He does, with power. That singularly annoys the secularist, and embarrasses the secular- force merchant, whose ways increasing partake of just that subtlety of pretence, calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5), which is necessary to keep coherence in what is not true, at least in appearance and for a time.

From the Lord's domain, there is the determination to gather the nations, with categorical and catastrophic results. It will come: He assures us of that. This is to be after their many excursions of folly, brutality and disbelief - which is the final criterion - in Himself and His Messiah (Psalm 2, Zephaniah 3:8ff.). It will come after He has let them confront with some restraint for special purposes, as often as they will. These epochal finale will arrive fresh from the Press of history, directed by the prophetic word of God, and with it,  many a predicted overthrow of the pride of nations and narcissi,  to shame their shamelessness and expose their sham. With this, there comes a time in which a highly purged and newly refreshed Israel, once more on the side of the blood of the Lamb, will be "a meek and humble people", who will "trust in the name of the Lord", as Zephaniah exposes

Indeed, the of the erratic, the despotic, the amoral and the idolatrous nations have been subjected in advance prediction, in that massive summary from Daniel, detailing the course of empires (cf. Highway of Holiness Chs.   4,   10, SMR pp. 886, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds  Ch. 10, ); and many have been the outlines of the ruins to come of the predator nations (as in Isaiah 13-14, 34, Jeremiah 25, Ezekiel 26:17ff., 29:15ff. - cf. The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch. 4), on the way to the end.

Let the one who boasts in human flesh and pride, realise the utter uselessness of such ruthlessness; for even when the uttermost physical grossness is not practised by power for its own ends, and what power! but more expressly for  that of the adversary of the Creator, in this or that form, formulation or focus: still  there is a vortex of confusion and a diffusion of supreme pride.

GOD is not good enough, whether in man's estimate, rejection or leer. Those are the sad tidings of man in his diffuse mentality and unmanning pride, equipped with the worship of 'nature', of himself as a race and of vague forces unformulated except in empty words and irrational rigors.

MAN will make himself master in this or that philosophy, political system, intellectual thrust or other export from the nightmare of unbelief in the God who made him, and whatever the means may be chosen for such purposes, the method and the matrix is so corrupted that rotting flesh is but a symbol, as it is also often a visible result. Reality and reason itself is to be ignored (cf. SMR Chs. 3, 5, 10), and the inordinate clarity and singular validity of the divine is to be dispersed to the winds while man boasts (cf. Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ). As he empties the treasuries of goodness made inherent in his design by the Lord, and flexes the muscles of immorality, his intoxicated spirit at length is to worship one of his own, as God, seeing himself in that very concept, parading in pride before utter desolation and destruction (II Thessalonians 2).

FORCE is mere thrust, and POWER as such is mere capacity to do work. What matters is this: WHAT thrust and WHICH work, the qualitative, the discriminated, the moral, the designed, the plan and the vision of truth, or some erratic copy, built for bleeding, directed to death.

When Christ said that He had come that people might have life more abundantly, it is not only about a quality; it was about the spiritual alternative, death in disaster from pride unrationed and wars interminable, because lacking truth, and needing it, man simply cannot agree. So force is the master, and again and again, whether in Alexander the Great, or Nero, or the Holy Roman Emperor, or Napoleon, or Hitler, or Tojo, or Stalin, man moves far and fast to deeds unspeakable. These are the preludes, like foothills; but the heart of evil will not learn.

Thus 21st century man is violating his own members by confused lust of mind, body and spirit, churning in turmoil, trying to equate this or that which is clearly often its very contradictory, as in defective duets:  chance with design, order with chaos and clarity with confusion, as if thought were a void and truth an abhorrence. He pays, ah he pays!

As to the Jew, he has paid for unbelief as a nation, Israel, and as for his persecutors, they have paid many times and will again as they continue their predatory push to exterminate Israel,

	that continuation of the testimony of the living God at the political level*1,
	that bugbear to unbelief,
	that harassment to unholiness,
	rocket to the secularist and shame to the schemer among men.

Whether Babylon or Assyria, Hitler or Britain, USSR or Islam, in this way and that, nations that have either continued to pitilessly to afflict ,or started in false new ways against Israel, newly primed without mercy, have not failed to suffer; and in some ways, they have done so intensely and intensively. They have received no little reward for their pains. If Israel is astray, what of her tormentors! If the past in an index, what of the judgment to come! (cf. Micah 7, Isaiah 59, Deuteronomy 32). It is not THE JEW: it is Israel as recipient of promises, both in discipline and in destiny, which is in view. It is as God says, PITY for His holy name which is moving Him (Ezekiel 36:22ff.), for whom no betrayal is so great that it will have Him break His word of promise to anyone!

HIS is faithfulness (cf. Lamentations 3:33) and He will not deny Himself (II Timothy 2:13).

JUDGMENT IS NOT PREJUDICED

BY THE POWER OF POLLUTANTS

You see in the Bible multiple reference to this super-charged defiance of the Almighty,

either to usurp from Israel their land (to be sure they forfeited it for a time as forecast from the first, for the sins they were predicted to commit - Leviticus 26, but God has plans to the last! as in Micah 7, Romans 11),

or to eliminate their being,

to eliminate biblical Christians (use the 'fundamentalist' code as a propaganda mode for confusion leading to extinction is one lurk - The Biblical Workman, Appendix 3).

Let us consider Israel for a moment, as here is one method of seeing the pity in the Prince of Peace and the love of the Lord, which while not sanctioning evil, longs for His people to diversify, yes more than that, to direct their hearts to GOOD only, and hence to God its source, meaning and original.

Thus in Jeremiah 48, God through His prophet tells the nation that then was ... of Moab, about is scornful follies against Israel and the result, from this and related causes (bold added).

                           You shake your head in scorn."

Look at that reference to Israel. "Was not Israel a derision to you ?" and again, "Was he found among thieves ?" In other words, the charge to Moab includes this:

you mockingly scoffed, sardonically satirised or spiritually abused this nation of Israel AS IF you had found a thief. You could not contain your braggadocio and your outlet was against the Lord and His ward.

Ruin for Moab was the result, historically not difficult to see, though there was to be an eventual amelioration when the point was made, and completed!

The Lord Himself was 'found among thieves' at His death, AS HE PREDICTED would occur in Isaiah 53:9. People try

	to steal the land from Israel (important because of divine appointment, fascinating because the God who gave it retracted it as predicted, for a time, but fulfils it in the end, as foretold no less - Ezekiel 36-38, Luke 21:24), just as they tried
	to pilfer the name of the Lord by killing Him in the flesh, which merely fulfilled His sacrificial role as foretold (Isaiah 53, 49:7),
	as to kill His people (as in John 16:2) and their reputation (as in Matthew 5:11-12).

It is consummate hatred, vexatious in manner, vicious in design, futile in endeavour (cf. Revelation 13, 12:10-11).

Yet the Lord continues as He foretold to the last detail and the uttermost point (as in Matthew 5:17-20 cf. The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet). He moves on this side and that, teaching in this episode, event, their correlation with His word; and the test of this pilgrimage takes on the beauty of sunset, and the glow of bushfires alike, as the cost of folly gains its reward, and an anguished earth receives its last rites. Why ? It is because of the love of the Lord which suffuses the hearts of His people and animates the spirits of His own, who do not love their lives to the death, to whom is the answer of the lips given (Luke 21:15), and who like Noah, shame the world, which for all its abused power, becomes more and more unlivable as foretold (Matthew 24:22).

In all this, the Lord keeps constant His fulfilment of all His word.

Thus again you find the Lord's mockery of mockery of Israel, one of His emblems of prediction, in Isaiah 51:22-23, and His mastery of the madness of the nations as they seek to overthrow His testimony, His people and control history, as in the all but unutterable eloquence of Micah 7. Yet there proceeds the same inexorably continuation of His work in His Church, here also much violated by severance from His word, so that many are confused, this being that period spoken of by Paul in II Timothy 3, I Timothy 4 and by Peter in II Peter 2. Yet the testimony continues, and the people of the Lord avoid the wolves as Paul instructed the elders long ago, to do (Acts 20:29ff., cf. II Peter 2).

In this conflagration and confrontation there is no quietus except in the hearts of those who know Him; for what do you find in the end of that famed chapter of Micah 7, after the review of the Lord's utter humbling of the nations ? It is this, seen in its development from the smashing to the mercy:

                           From days of old."

Nor does He slightly regard the persecution of His own spiritual people (I Peter 2), the kingdom of priests, the jewels for His crown, the people of His pity, the race of the Prince of Peace (Psalm 118:15, John 16, Revelation 6:9-11, 7:14-17, Isaiah 9, 62:3); for these, being His, continue past all barriers into the eternity of His companionship, even to the resurrection of the body and the new heavens and earth (Isaiah 51:6, 65:17, 66:22, Revelation 20). With such an Artist of majesty and painter of loveliness as He, what delight to inhabit such creation as that!

PITY PRECEDES JUDGMENT

PART of that mercy to Abraham, noted at the end of Micah,  was this:  from his seed in the flesh would come the Messiah, a blessing for all nations (as foretold from Genesis 3:15 on, cf. Barbs ... 17); and this whole situation Paul covers in perspective in Romans 11.

Thus do we find among all the machinations of evil, the continued testimony of the mastery of truth, the direction of deity, while the definition of deity in biblical terms is fulfilled, in power, precision and in wisdom, while all else is evacuated as empty, which it is.

It is in this, His mastery that there is mercy; for it is no weak and willowy thing, though Christ made Himself weak in the interests of pardon, and an object of war in the interests of peace. On Him, said Isaiah of those to be healed, is laid the iniquity of us all! (Isaiah 53:4-6).

Nor is this something light, or some aside, since God Himself became man in order, amidst the challenges of vulnerability and scoffing and scorn, before every test which the man of God has to face, to show sinlessness in its beauty. God Himself, having become man, as man showed the paragon, the path and the victory. He set up a standard in person and not in word and deed only, the banner of truth, and even proceeded to pay for the privilege of peace in the presence of sin. This in its guilt, was to be annulled by grace, cancelled in the Cross, seen off in the victory of His sacrificial death. In Spirit as in body, in mind in its fidelity (cf. Matthew 26:53), He stayed the course, reached the Everest of eternity in the glaring conditions of earth, and showered on man the brilliance of the Godhead.

The depths of this pity, this mercy, this masterful kindness and humble empathy, this vicarious suffering, this action without limit, are to be seen often in biblical depiction.

Thus you find the depths of divine pity and heart for man,  in Luke 19:42ff., in Matthew 23:37ff., in principle in I Timothy 2 and Colossians 1:19ff., I John 2:1-2, and in scenes of amazing pathos as in Jeremiah 13:17, 9, Jeremiah 48, as in depictions such as Ezekiel 33:11.

Among these some require attention especially for us the better to appreciate them.

Take Jeremiah 13:17. God directs the prophet in 13:12 to give a message to Israel, It continues into v. 13. Then the word continues further, "Hear and give ear..." and to v. 18, "Say to the king and to the queen..."

Thus God is speaking with general message first and then double particular address. He makes His declaration first to all, and then His appeal to the king and the queen. What does He elect to speak, concerning His attitude in delivering this message, from His divine depths to man, to Israel, to the royalty of the day ? and what does it show ?

It is this.

"Give glory to the LORD your God

Before He causes darkness,

And before your feet stumble

On the dark mountains,

And while you are looking for light,

He turns it into the shadow of death,

And makes it dense darkness.

But if you will not hear it,

My soul will weep in secret for your pride;
My eyes will weep bitterly a

And run down with tears,

Because the LORD's flock has been taken captive."

You find this reference BY the Lord TO the Lord by name quite simply in such places as Jeremiah 14:10,

"Thus says the Lord to His people,

"Thus they have loved to wander;
They have not restrained their feet.
Therefore the LORD does not accept them;
He will remember their iniquity now,
And punish their sins."

Similarly He may refer to Himself in His own speech as 'He,' as here.

As for His weeping bitterly, this is precisely what Christ quite explicitly did as shown in Matthew 23:3;7 and Luke 19:42ff., as He surveyed the impact of justice where mercy, being 'strong-mindedly rejected, left nothing else on the bill of fare but judgment for Jerusalem! This judgment, does He seek it  ? As in John 3:17 - why, of course not. Does He however evacuate truth when mercy is deemed undesirable by man ? Once again: of course not.

Mercy torn away, then judgment comes. Does He not care about this ? At the risk of repetition, but in the interests of impact where it is needed: Of course not, He weeps bitterly, as Christ Himself did.

Again, in Jeremiah 9, you have a fascinating further example. In the NKJ Version, we have a sudden incidence of inverted commas at verse 3. Yet this verse starts with "and" and continues intimately with the preceding verse!

In the midst of a speech, there is a sudden eruption of quotation in the translation, without ground, contrary to context, an intrusion beyond belief. Why ? After all, in Jeremiah 8:17, the Lord indicates what He plans to do to such reprobate hypocrisy as He is finding in Israel. In 9:3 we find Him speaking again, "And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies."

In between there is no slightest indication that He stops speaking, and in 9:3 there is no indication, indeed flatly contrary indication that He starts. He has been speaking since He last spoke (9:17) and signified it, till He indicates some change of speaker. However, apart from a citation of public thought, this is not done.

In Jeremiah 9:19, there is cited what "the daughter of My people" is saying, and in 9:19b, the Lord deals with what He has just cited. It seems 9:20  may be a further citation from the people, in a sort of speak, response medium so that the citation just made is followed implicitly by this parallel one from Israel.

There is however no slightest indication that Jeremiah is now speaking simply for himself. On the contrary, the movement in 9:2, which ends "an assembly of treacherous men" to 9:3, "And like their bow they have bent their tongue for lies" is clearly a direct grammatical and contextual continuation of ONE simple statement. It cannot be divided as to speaker here. At the end of 9:3 we find "says the LORD."  Hence 9:2 must be the Lord, and so 9:1 since this is a series of parallel apostrophes. 8:22 and 9:1 are similar in feeling, emotion and expostulation. There is no way for a change here: 8:21 is utterly contextual with 8:22. Going back we come to the citation of the people and the Lord's response.

Hence it is necessary, if we are not to add to the word of God and make a semantic nightmare out of clear continuance of speech, to accept that it is the Lord who is speaking form v.17, along with the citation of the people's speech which He answers, right on to 9:3. What a profundity of pity and lament He shows, as so often elsewhere, whether directly or indirectly in principle.

That He might weep is the same as found in Jeremiah 48, Matthew 23 and Luke 19, in emotional meaning. It is possible that the Lord uses empathy with the prophet, making him a mouth through whom His speech is distilled, so that the feeling of the one is a MEANS of expressing the feeling of the other; but that is the limit. It is THE LORD who is speaking. These are the thoughts of His heart. As in Ezekiel 33:11, where His expostulation and apostrophising of Israel are so vital, vehement and appealing,  HE has no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that he should live ... TURN, TURN, He cries. AS I LIVE, He expostulates, I have no pleasure in their death!

How deep, how profound, how consistent, how urgent; for the love of God is pellucid like a clear stream in the bottom of which you can make out multitudes of stones, nothing hidden.

This is perfectly in parallel with Hosea 7:1, "I would have healed Israel ..." and with Jeremiah 51:9,

"We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed..."

 

This in turn is preceded by this pitying statement:

"Wail for her!
Take balm for her pain:

Perhaps she may be healed."

Once more the question is this: WHO is speaking. In Jeremiah 51:1 - and as in the Ch. 9 and Ch. 13 cases - it is the Lord. There is no question of a joint declaration! It is He. Even such a derelict monument to rottenness as He shows Babylon to have been in Jeremiah 50-51, He WOULD HAVE HEALED here. Thus was His heart: but He does not insidiously or invidiously make robots in order to 'convert' them. He makes people in His own image, and the integrity of reality is not left. HENCE He does not forfeit love by force, but laments as He acts, and having predestined all, that nothing be amiss in the end, wins whom He may in His own restraint and reality. Love is not a power, a breathless passion, but a beauty of distinction and no guile.

The Lord is so pitiful and merciful, and the fact that His judgments are according to truth (as in Romans 2:1ff.) says NOTHING about His heart's desire for mercy, His longing, the depth of His sorrow for that sin which stays unremedied in hapless hearts. And why and how ? It is by needless and repetitive rebellion (cf. Hosea 7:1), or any lack of appreciation of what insists on aligning itself with evil. For evil there is and can be no good end. Though man be disabled by sin to embrace the Lord, the Lord is not disabled by ANYTHING to find His own (Ephesians 1:4), and WOULD HAVE all. How beautiful the fact that He is so sincere and unsnatching, receiving what is found in love, not what is pounded by mere power.

Such has been part of the epochal epic of Israel. What of the Gentiles ?

NO CHRONIC FATIGUE SYNDROME WITH -

THE REBELLIOUSNESS THAT RUINS,
THE POWER PLAY THAT DOES NOT WORK

If Gentile nations wish to resemble Israel's performance in slaying the Lord, in their own way, then the result will be no prettier, and as it is predicted, this also, just so is the occurrence, history that lamb which does exactly what divine prediction declares. This, it is no more a wooden or brutal force than is the restraint in His love, but knowing all, He has declared that many might the more readily believe Him, and has exposed the follies of man to the end, that he might the better, at least in some, amend.

How do the Gentiles so well parallel the fault of Israel with its Messiah ?

They do it in slaying His memory, defiling His book, scorning His morals, esteeming His word with their own, or deeming it even less. They become short of repentance; and for those of any breed, caste or race,  in the one or the other, the end is the same.

If however Israel as a nation should repent (as in very large part - Zechariah 12 - it is going to do, as Paul also shows in Romans 11), then it is well, when they put their trust in the Lord and finding Him, follow Him. The Lord has long bared His plans for that (as in Micah 7, Joel 3, Ezekiel 36-37, Psalm 72, Isaiah 59,66); but what of the Gentiles. Will they seek to go, with all unbelieving Jews who remain, one step further ? What are they doing, even now!

Will they seek to precipitate rebellion into confrontation at the end of the Age, as in Revelation 19:19, where they even declare war on God! They will indeed: it is in the very centre of the heart of modern culture to replace God with myth, power with pretence, morality with morass and man with a mould taken from hell. That is the clear message of the Bible - cf. Revelation 12, 13, 16, 17.

It will not fit. It will not remove terror, anguish, and all the atrabilious acuity of human suffering, imposed by force, endured in conscience-stricken brokenness, and avoided in bravado and pretence. Such things are given in the novel MOON SOON,  while the place of pity near judgment, to ward it off, is focussed in Walking in the Light and Keeping Your Eyes Open Ch. 4.

So you see, will see, and are beginning to discern the work of force off course; but with this, divine pity in place before judgment. The supreme pity that acted in incarnation and receiving repudiation is His own judgment, vicariously for those who receive Him, on Himself. He can do no more; would do no less. What beauty of holy comfort is there!

COMFORT IN COMPASSION,
REALITY BEYOND PASSING PASSION

Where is there comfort in this ? Why where it always is, in the seat and centre of mercy, Jesus Christ who, whatever the whirl-wind of woe and the heart-break of misused power, in the doer or the victim, stands ready to receive, and minister truth to the broken vessels of the mind, companionship to the extradited territories of the heart and pardon to the broken and contrite heart (as in Psalm 51 cf. Isaiah 66:2). What comfort it is that this is no desert island with rats as king, but a pulsing world with an escape route to Christ, like that of the Exodus from Egypt for Israel (cf. Hebrew 6:19). If the King is at this stage of His plan, invisible, it was not so when He came and left the record in life and word which has gripped the world as nothing else for millenia.

Yet though for the time, it is invisible, His power is not as we have seen in history, and as His people find in life.

Invisible ? so is love, courage, truth, mercy, pardon, repentance and understanding. It is however more sure than the world arising tomorrow to sin once more; and it remains as it always has been, in the heart of God. The love insurgent, urgent but not aggressive, it is the same. The Gospel, expressive, expansive, simple, pure, it is the same (as in Galatians 1, 3, 5). His open arms remain the same.

Till He comes, He remains ready to be received, in grace, by Gospel access, for peace and for purity. No mountaineer on Everest, however cold the hands, stricken the toes, numbed the nose, breathless the panting lungs, chilled to the spine the flesh that yet stays around, not yet brittle to break, ever could equal in comfort at heat and food and shelter and rest, what is here to be found. Is there no mercy ? No mercy! why it pounds like the waves on listless shores, witless to its grandeur, mounts with wings like eagles, twinkles in inscrutable merriment like the stars, outfaces woe and holds its office unchanged throughout the millenia, never changing its offer, its terms, conditions and results. The excitement about its freedom is as clear in Isaiah 55 as in Galatians 3, in Psalm 51 as in II Corinthians 5.

It is Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). It is in Him sent in love, loving His own to the end (John 13:1), and providing ransom for sin, that redemption should be free (Hebrews 9, Isaiah 55, Romans 3, Titus 3, Galatians 3, 5, Matthew 20:28). While the light lasts - "for the night is coming in which no man can work" (John 9:4-5) - anyone may come.

That night is the nightmare of lies, the death of illusion in its final agonies of folly, and the entry of a judgment that is joyless for the lords of the lie (cf. Romans 1:25, II Thessalonians 2:11).

Why do they receive the lie ? The Bible tells us in II Thess. 2:10: it is

"because they did not receive the love of the truth".

What would have been the result if they had done so ? They would have received it "that they might be saved."

The love of the truth is to stand before the love of ease, conquest, importance, self-esteem or any other product of force, intimidation, aspiration that is based in the endless shadows that do not achieve reality, being the denizens of darkness by nature. IN the truth is the diagnosis of the condition of man, the prognosis of judgment and the remedy of ruin, itself that very Christ "who both died and rose again that He might be Lord of both the dead and the living" (Romans 14:9). THAT Lordship is not luxury and forceful power, but care and pastoral felicity, since He who died is He whose is eternal life (I John 1:1-4), with power to give it (Matthew 11:27), and desire (Mark 10:21, Matthew 11:28-30).

It is not good-night yet; and alas, when that night comes, of which Christ spoke as seen in John 9, then it is no good at all for the impenitent. Not only is this so, but how lovely it is to be exhorted by Christ not only to receive His mercy, but to SHOW it, and in Matthew 5 you see, Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

How gloriously consistent, insistent and unchangeable the Lord is. Truth is like that; and HE is it.

NOTE

*1

On this, see:

Israel  Ch. 1,

It Bubbles ... Ch.    1, 

Divine Agenda ... Ch.    8 ,

Galloping Events  Ch.   3,  Ch.   4).