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CHAPTER ONE

HISTORY THAT RECITES REVELATION

BY FOLLOWING IT

so that we can forget ?

or lest we forget!

Part I

Transplanting into Ashes, No Growth Allowed ?

and the Comparison with Biblical Truth

Forget it, if it is not recent. Forget history. Forget the fact, simply forget it, that over three quarters of the Palestine granted by international determination for Israel, the people who were to make their homeland in that country, has ALREADY been granted to a largely Palestinian people.

Forget likewise that in the beginning, it was declared that this East of Jordan area which had been set aside, was NOT INTENDED to be a State, but a sort of reservoir for Palestinians who were in need of an area, in view of the fact that Israel was now being installed in the West. Little was the bit left to Israel, but in practical terms, Britain felt the need of an  Arab surplus place, and it so appointed. Thus, what became Jordan was it, perhaps understandable, except that it was FOR Palestinians, a massive three quarters or so of the entire place. If this were a four bedroom house, in which other peoples with their cultures and ways were not to be oppressed, but treated reasonably (implying of course that Israel was to have the whole place, for otherwise, why is it limited to this sort of graciousness!), then three of them were for Palestinians who would need a place in order to BE.

Three-quarters of Palestine is the new donation^*1. A start ? Yes, it was certainly that, like have a start of 5 metres in a hundred metre race. Granted ? yes, by the Umpire. What more could they gain ? Joking ? Not really.

That, then, pre-empted a vast area of Palestine already, unilaterally wrought by Britain. Then the idea of exterminating Israel, like blow-flies in the kitchen, became incendiary (as if to do it with a blow torch, which of course, as a method is sure to cause damage in the place, which it has done ever since). So a number of nations decided to pick on the scraps from Auschwitz and such other sites as Obama is now offering to show to Ahmadinejad (who prefers to blink or wink, it would seem, rather than think about what happened to the Jews in World War II). What sites ? why those where some 6 millions Jews and their fortunes were physically exterminated - except that as far as the fortunes were concerned, they were merely terminated as to their former owners.

The multi-national invasion forces that then blasted little, residual Israel in 1948,  did not obliterate, after all, a people who were NOT EVEN ONE NATION at the time, but a sprinkling in a land to which Great Britain (surely never smaller) handed the keys to another party, the Arabs, as they left. With such advantages (like have a team of 1000 players against one with 50, the former also controlling the lights and the real  estate), Israel did not fail and it was for the simplest of reasons. Indeed, it made itself into a team ONLY during the war: as if a team were just some people around the grounds, who had to assemble, organise for the war itself and fight as one unit, all while the others, all dressed and rehearsed, went on playing in the interim.  To be sure there were some organisations within the land, but as this war commenced, there was no STATE of Israel to withstand this onslaught, one bent on burying, or better still, drowning Israel or whatever it would be while the fight went on.

Hitler would have been impressed with the anti-Jewish oratory and inclination, intention and sheer utter use of deadly force for their deletion. If he had been able, he might have sent a panzer division or two, or some Stukas along.

Hitler Mark II was now enrolled and active.

He failed, that is his shadow failed, just as his body did, in a bunker in Berlin it seems, while his  vast  millions of forces, despite a deadly and controlled ferocity, did not manage to remove the Jews despite the most horrific of intense deletive dynamics one could imagine!

Hitler Mark I and the Shadow Hitler,  Mark II, both failed. In fact, the ragtag army of Jews won a few things. First of all, declaring themselves a State in May 1948, they achieved a potential site far better than the treacherous UN had offered (and which the Arab-Palestinian side - that is the part which did not, overall,  take up not only what was to be called the Jordan site, but much more of the Western area from Jordan, still considered too little!).  What! it was too little to have Jerusalem  an international city ? to have Jews  limited to bits and pieces of land in Palestine, oddments of real estate, with Jordan already out with a new nation's name, helping it to hide the reality of this three-quarter donation ?

This, even this, it was too little, AFTER most of Palestine had already been both sequestered and sequestrated for Arabs ? What other than the Hiterlesque blitzkreig on the Jews, extermination, could then be in mind ? They must GO, for they were the CATASTROPHE in BEING THERE.

Not very good really.

So that had another 'go', attempt at an entente that was anything but cordiale! In 1967, they would choke Israel in maritime manner. It did not work too well, for the same reason as in 1948. In fact, the Egyptian Air Force lost a pile of planes on the ground. Russian tanks (courtesy of Egyptian workers) were hit by the Israeli Air Force, therefore, when they piled in and set off to take over from the Jewish rump which had taken half of Jerusalem and some parts of Palestine when refusing to be exterminated, according to plan. Cheek of them! taking over a small section of the Palestine, in which was to be their homeland. Obviously, pushed into the sea, that was the Colonel Nasser approach. That's what THEY needed! Nasser lost.

Israel thus regained the rest of the area which Jordan had grabbed in the 1948 war, that is what is now called the West Bank, disgorging this addition to the vast estates already given to that side of things. Accordingly,  this 1967 intended incursion into the residual Jewish area, after the East was eaten up by what would be the fatherland for Palestinians, Jordan, did not remove Israel from nationhood. In 1948, the Jordan grab had made Israel  more slender still, and meant that in addition to losing most of the homeland provided, they also  lost some on the far or West Bank (from  the point of view of the land made available for Palestinians on the East), and were narrowed in their take, towards the  Mediterranean. Now this part of the residual area, the West, was back with them. No more was there the take of three quarters to be augmented by still more.

In this way, they put up with Hitler Mark III has they had done with the other marks. People then were astonished at this triumph, but it had the same reason for it, as before in 1948. God is very reliable, and He had, as He has affirmed repeatedly, certain commitments.

Time went on and so did the desire to deprive and deplete and perhaps annihilate Israel. Again, it is not really so very nice. Of course, Jordan DID make itself available for Palestianians as citizens, at one time, but since they insisted on attacking Israel instead of getting on with their sector, and war arose in the land, they were not so very welcome. When you lob bombs from the kitchen window of your host, he is often, one would think, unwilling to regard you well as ... guests. In this case, of course, it was properly there place in the three-quarters gift. Yet in this case, reason is never apparently thought of as relevant. It is desire and passion which has clout when it comes to the negativities surrounding Israel in its homeland. This complicates for the people or partisans, such as the Madrid Quartet, whom one might almost think, from their behaviour, to think they own and so created the place. Actually, the Being who did this, is called God, and His words indicate His will.

That, it is not an international commission but a divine communication. Ignored, by united nations, some Arab, some other for their various purposes, this constitutes not a breach of international code but of divine declaration. It is rather silly really, for you pay in the end, for inventing as if reality, what is merely your own will. What else ? Proverbs 1 is very eloquent on this, as is Ecclesiastes 11:9-10. However, this continual alienation is predicted, as is the result (as in Micah 7, Deuteronomy 38-39ff., Isaiah 59,66), and it is useless to blame God who makes both His will and His method so very clear, even decisively and dramatically so. There are always those, be they individuals or nations or groups of nations, who refuse to follow. Egypt showed in a little time, the result: they wallow. Recall the Exodus ?

Time once more moved on. In 1973, Hitler Mark IV, another shadow dressed in military uniform still,  came on scene. On the Holy Day (par excellence) for Israel,  the cream of conflicting forces descended like the Assyrian of old who also lusted for Jerusalem in the days of King Hezekiah of Judah; and the result was not very dissimilar. You read of the Assyrian case, courtesy of Sennacherib the initial action, in Isaiah 36-37, both the taunts and the temple, the prophet and the proclamation, and with all that - the decimation of the forces of Assyria (37:36-38) - this time by means directly divinely ordered.

Let us return however to the 1973 case.

On came the blitzkreig (the Jews did begin it in 1967, but were then being subjected to maritime methods of extinction which they did not intend to allow completely to choke them - people often do that, object to being choked, for after all, it is not very nice at all.)

Now in 1973, it was a direct assault. They were for once, not  well prepared, and it seems, tricked, surprised. Their existence (unlike that of the invading Arab forces) was under threat. Lose this war and Hitler Mark IV would grin, positively grin, and Allah - an invention of Muhammad some 600 years after Jesus Christ,  complete with an imaginary version of 'Jesus', another one,  non-redeeming, non-deity with a questionable death, he appeared confused in contradictions on this point^*1A- would be pleased. Such appeared the hope.

Jihad in his name, that was the thing! Off they set with such hopes.  Make it holy and go for it! For what ? Why submission as the name of the religion implies, and as had been practised for centuries in assault on Europe! The Jews must submit to more suitable placement, in this case, such as the sea.

Jewish reserves were called up. The USA on this occasion was stirred as it seems rather unlikely to be stirred now. A circuit of transport planes circled about with supplies; Jewish ingenuity used them with address, and the client of the USSR suffered, being driven back with the rest, and to add to the worries of an Allah evidencing his self to be anything but almighty, the invading army from Egypt was pushed back beyond the Suez Canal and encircled for good measure. By whom ? Why by little Goliath, and yet by the Lord in His predicted grace, acting!

From Intelligence Digest, it appeared that a nuclear alert went out, USSR considered paratroopers, Nixon was not standing at ease. Then it settled down. Israel dis-encircled the trounced army, it divested it from its encircling arms, and began to return. It had defended Jerusalem, amongst other things such as its national existence and physiological life (Hitler I, II, III and IV were not intensely keen on this), and it retained the key. What key ?

Key ? Why of course the one God had put in its hand. Which god ? There is one God, as has been explained repeatedly (cf. SMR, Spiritual Refreshings ... Ch. 13, Swift Witness Ch. 6), and He does as He pleases; and says what He pleases, and then does it. You can't help noticing that if you read two books.

But which are these two ? They are called history, and the Bible. They are a pair. The second is first, and it says, like a lab note book for students in the University, what is supposed to be going to happen; and the first, it is the lab results, in which you record what in fact DID happen. In a well-run academic institution, they are normatively the same. In God's created world, they are always the same. Nothing else has this advantage. It is called truth. The God of the Bible is shown in the lab of history to be Almighty. It is no use moaning about it , or inventing lab exercise books which don't get it right. You can use only the one which works, in any place where truth matters. It is the one with the words that work, that is needful.

The rest has only one place: the rubbish tin. Let us be practical (cf. SMR Chs.   8 -  9), and not waste time and wars for nothing, desecrating the earth with a futile blood, in honour of rebellion against the Maker of man and beast, stage and setting alike.

The Bible has declared as shown in the above Chapters and multiply elsewhere on this site, what was to be, both broadly and in myriads of particulars. In our present interest, much is to be found  in such sites Zechariah 12-14, Isaiah 48-55, Deuteronomy 30-32, Leviticus 26, Matthew 24, Luke 21,for example. Today, the procession and progress in retro-rockets, or drift if you like, in terms of where you would expect 'progress' to be, this is the topic. We are tracing something of their trajectories, the dynamics of human life on this planet, and ... change.

In one phase, currently capturing our attention, there is action on the part of those who desired the deletion of Israel. Among these, are such as the most declarative President of Iran who is busily getting his nation nearer and nearer to atomic competence to make bigger holes and more important assaults if you consider only the vaunting taunting against Israel and its existence, and the state of the case in his country, atomically. Presumably the power is for a purpose, and if it is peaceful, then he is not being very inventive, given his STATED INTENTION! - that's all.

The 'West Bank' - the bit Jordan snatched, pinched, grabbed, attained, took over - use what language you will, it got it unilaterally in 1948, this being regained by Israel in 1967, leaves that nation no longer so punctured. That is, currently Israel is not entirely devoid of what is close to being the historic land of Israel and Judah, a homish sort of thing for a homeland such as was GRANTED to Israel in Palestine.

This bit of land, this intimately involved historic segment of Israel, it has became a new focus.  A style of language was invented to make it be 'occupied territory' rather than a section of West-Bank to Mediterranean Israeli RUMP, left after the Eastern area of Palestine had been  detached for PALESTINIAN reserve^*2. The desire then was that the piratical plunder of Jordan should be respected multi-laterally, even though its grab was unilateral, and the myth that it was in some sense an intrusion by Israel was manufactured in the areas where such things are made.

In Punch magazine, once a massive and sobering place of intensive humour, they had a delightful skit on the Aberdeen Joke Factory. Here you saw in a series of cartoons, the dour Scot factory workers coming to punch in their notification of presence into the machines showing their drab entry to the joint - it had a robustly humorous air in contrasting the humour and the humourless, the result and the agents!  Then in little rooms, there were those reading the jokes, and those listening. The solemn faces of the auditors spoke volumes. Eventually, tired after a hard day's speaking and listening to this humour-stuff, they were seen trudging out of the laborious premises, to participate in the weary home-going of workers.

So here, there is labour, work, hard work, to make up the myth, the grimly uproarious myth that the West Bank is in some legitimate sense ARAB territory, and naughty Jews have insisted on having some sort of real relationship with it, in despite to the sanctified Arab presence, which not having been gained in a series of actions by a series of nations, is now to be gained by a series of actions by another series of nations, who extracting it, will give most of it to the nations who failed to get it, while these seeking to exterminate one little tot of a nation, called Israel.

This myth is made the more mirthful in this. Israel did not envisage with joy the prospect of  being choked to death on land, as they had been in train to being at sea, and not having enough room to act before being cut militarily into two sections in their erstwhile homeland in which they were not to be oppressive to the existing inhabitants, who had been given the territory to become East-Bank Jordan for their needs. Hence, in a manner apparently almost unforgivable, the place had the effrontery, the gall to seek to extract its head, first from the maritime noose, and then from the land one, and even to give its neck plenty of room while it healed! Dashed awful behaviour, don't you think!

It is sad that so much suffering is caused by such myths, when the original plans and provisions have so often and so shamelessly been rejected by those who from 1947 onwards - with the UN giving so much so rejected by the Arab and Islamic forces, even as a GIFT! have sought ruin for Israel, at least.

Jerusalem, the capital which Israel held for millenia, the capital of no other nation, which it took back for its homey homeland, this too became occupied. Occupied ? Yes by Israel. It dared ... to occupy its capital in its homeland. Well, it came to be its own while it was not being annihilated.

Israel took it in two stages as the Bible has indicated would occur (Zechariah 14, Luke 21:24), and while this nation was belligerently - if you can call it belligerent to take action to prevent annihilation -seeking to live, this little city fell to be its very own. In 1967, it had it all (quite properly allowing for the feelings of others, even letting the Mosque stay on the old site of Jerusalem). In 1980, some 29 years ago, it officially declared in the Knesset, that this was its Capital. It is its eternal Capital, it has been declared quite often, since that time.

That is, as Christ clearly indicated,  the note that strikes an end to the era of the Gentiles, and you see that in the mundane ruins coming ever closer^*2A to the ambitious resolvers of difficulties and disposers of the earth.

It is not quite clear why the occupation of the famous, historic and unique Capital of Israel, so used by no other nation, and long used in the most indelible history by Israel, should be regarded as an Occupied Territory, in part or in whole, when it is the most intimate thing conceivable in the way of homeland for the Jews in Palestine^*3. However, this joke has been created, and the pity of it is this, that it is being pursued in deadly earnest, as if the factory in Aberdeen, transplanted, were getting a little beyond itself! imagining that imagination with a little lustre of wit, was reality!

Then the Obama adminstration got on board. We learn that they will mightily defend Israel's right to exist. Not only do they wish it to exist, think it only right that it should exist, but they are even committed to its existence^*4. However, this is not to say that we are to get too intensely practical about things. It is the myth that counts. Here, it is to see that SOMEONE cares. It does not care enough, however, to ALLOW Israel to have natural growth in this regained territory in its homeland in Palestine, in sites already built. That is rather limited and limiting. Perhaps the Indians should have told New York that further growth was disallowed, and the while place had been theirs. White men had not owned it at all, they might continue. They themselves had some sort of divine right, having got into the vicinity in general first, to own all of it all always, as in the aboriginal concept in Australia, to some extent.

But no! myths are stubborn things. Once created, their latent humour can be persistent, like an infection. So the micro-management of Israeli cities in the most intimate part of the homeland site, the biblical historic field,  is to be regulated to an unnatural harshness. Not only is this so, but the whole can be viewed as an international site for sovereignty, the land of the United Nations, or of the Madrid Quartet, being leased out to Israel, not granted as originally stated as a site for the homeland.

This is new. It is novel. Moreover, much of this land must join the three quarters already given to the Arabs. The reason for this is part of the joke. If you lose a lot, lose more, for the creditors push hard! Justice is the joke, steadiness of purpose is being parodied by its opposite, all being intoned in solemnity by the Obama administration.

Yes, maybe Jerusalem should in part be grabbed for Palestinians too, so that they can add to their multiple capitals available for their (chief) religion, in the many surrounding Moslem or largely Moslem lands, a new one/.

Yes why not, have one never so used before, with no historical ground as a CAPITAL, this one, and so complete the scoop. Which scoop ? Why the one which gave them the lion's share of the land for the homeland for Israel, in 1920, and now wants to regard large parts of the little residue in some sense 'theirs'. "It's mine I tell you!" seems to be the reason, or a jihad may declare it so, or even Allah may be deemed to do so. But in fact, this is not so. It is an international area of conflict, in which Arab or Moslem nations are now joined by an International  Assemblage of Nations, to which the USA is becoming more and more an  ardent supporter, which is seeking to further dismember the house, so that not three of the four bedrooms, suffice, but the lounge room and kitchen complex must be shared as well. Evacuation is the name of the game; donation was the name of the work: the thing has changed as did the house prices in many parts of the USA recently.

This ethical disaster concerning Israel, it is one which ignores one important fact. It is not a question of how much oil, power, danger, peril of war and unrest, problem for oil distribution and pricing (Bevin of England^*5 was very explicit about this motive and motif), of how much peace you can hope for when a few miserable millions of Jews are manhandled, or brusquely contained  in the interest of appeasing or hoping to appease potentially hundreds of millions of Moslems, and a potentially invasive cluster of nearby nations adverse to Israel's existence. That is beside the point. Seeking to survive is a work of those already dead. It is what you are alive for, it is this that matters. Routinely, as we saw so well illustrated in  Chs.   8 and 9 of  Track of Truth, Meadows of Mercy and Peace of Pardon,  survival as an aim is like worshipping a flame, while leaning over it. It burns, as it might well.

Have your productive oil, appease your potentially infuriated suppliers, seek to remove the risk of bombs which given for  religious reasons might conceivably destroy an entire civilisation, talk religions as if they were playing cards in a game of Bridge, to be used for the purpose of winning the game, and presto! you get what is coming to you. It may take a little while: as they say,

Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

Enjoy the moment.  Rescue some more months before the judgment!

This, or even its ground plan whatever the motive, it is short-sighted; for justice WILL OUT. In this world, there are multiple scenarios being played, and among them is the demonstration aspect. Things are often given enough rope before it is apparent that they are hanging themselves; and sometimes they swing about on them like lunatic apes, claiming 'victory'. But the sordid once is the sordid again, and truth though at times lying stricken in the streets (as in Isaiah 59 in its prelude to the coming the Lord in judgment, of the Redeemer 59:20), has the last word.

That is what makes human life, a matter not the least to the point, so meaningful. Love has meaning; justice has meaning; sincerity of purpose has meaning, and truth while you are at it, this too has meaning. Mercy may distance judgment; patience may allow slowness; peace may disguise evil: but in the end, truth will out. It is not that it will be put out, like the cat at night, for convenience; though this is certainly normative on this earth, when certain interests are aroused. It will put out what it is, and judgment will be accordingly (Romans 2:1ff.). If in this earth of multiple procedures and purposes, illustrating evil and blessing good, allowing virtual books to be written for the demonstration of what is wrong and the remonstration of what is right, if here justice has sometimes the most profound, not to say ironic impacts (Psalm 50:21-23), then tremble for those unrepentant, whose sin is uncovered before heaven, when the time comes.

What it means is to be found in  three major items. One ? it is this. Judgment comes at first in measure on this earth, and at last without measure from heaven, when the suffering Saviour takes the second Chapter of His Mission and judges (Acts 17:31).

One of the things in the course of these end-time events is seen in Micah 7. The Lord knows how to abase the proud and to deal with the merciless mighty. He always did (cf. Isaiah 37-38, Obadiah, Ezekiel 29-32). He often shows it, and in the Bible, Edom, Assyria, Babylon, Tyre and Nineveh are prime examples (cf. The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch. 4).

The second is the truth, according to which in the end, judgment will occur. Clamant claims to have an international control of what God has appointed for a purpose including the existence of Israel, the use of Judah with its Jerusalem for the death of the Messiah and His resurrection,  and the assignment of the land,  despite a foretold exile for sin, to Israel: these exist. But so does the claim of the MAKER of the land. They manifestly do not agree, not in the slightest.

It will be fulfilled, and foolish will seem all this talk about expropriation of Israel from more and more of its minimum residue of Palestine. Is this to be an Obama region, a Madrid Quartet propaganda pasture ? Its deployment for international enjoyment  seems to start rather recently in thought, as the criterion. The latest thrust seems to want to follow the process of appeasing Islamic Arabs and friends by continually proceeding on the line of taking some more of Israel than before was taken, taking it from the spoils of victory, gained in the midst of wars of many nations directed to annihilating the State, and giving it successively to Arabs. Talk, seize verbally some more, ignore the violation of conditions, ignore the increments of danger, then insist on seizing it by diplomatic force, or threats or the like.

In this way, the Islamic billion can be reinforced by the international 'community', whatever that may be supposed to be, if not a rapacious seizure group, bent on a plan of their own. If it is not this time for total settlement, it is for a settlement of plans which give total international control, always siding with what offends anyone not Israel, and keeping Israel alive in intensive care by international controls. As to these, their vitality was seen when the UN forces collapsing, departed from the way of the terrible Colonel Nasser, in the war of 1973. Words! they come like migrating birds in this affair, no sooner landed than arising for other realms, forgetful of their pleasant stay, except in this, to use those pastures soon once more.

Obama is bringing the USA into extreme danger, and this, far beyond any danger he poses in his limited, short-sighted and unjust approach, his appeasement, his diplomatic blindness, towards Israel. GOD will look after them. THAT is why they won the earlier wars. They still have to be chastened, it is true, since the nation which, together with ROME, as the centre of the Roman Empire, which was guilty of the crucifixion of this world's only Messiah, has yet to repent, though in large measure this is to come^*6. Yet they are not forgotten by God, whose faithfulness is so profound that the depths of the sea seem shallow by comparison, the heights of the stars but a tent, and the splendour of the sun's incandescence, but dim warmth.

             And performs the counsel of His messengers..."

At that time, it was for the rebuilding of Jerusalem AFTER the Isaianic prophecy of its destruction was fulfilled. Since then, it has been destroyed again as Christ foretold (Matthew 24:1ff.), and restored to Israel as equally biblically indicated would be the case (Luke 21:24ff., Ezekiel 36ff.), this being near to the royal return of Jesus Christ as in Zechariah 12-14. That God does not forget Israel, just as the nations do not forget to persecute her whether with fire or oily words, leading to deprivation, is shown in Ezekiel 36:22 and the sequences in the prophecy. That God does not forget His own plan that Christ should there rule before this world goes, is also no less sure (as in Micah 4, Revelation 20, Isaiah 11, 72).

There is an order to things. God is behind it; and disorder as the penalty of distrust, disbelief, rejection of redemption, that is part of the penalty of being innovative about His will, word, plans and being, as is the Obama speech. Nor is his the first such; nor will it be the last. That too is sure as seen in II Thessalonians 2.

Let us here hasten to add this. The THIRD of the three things just noted, the justice and the truth, is the mercy of God. In Ezekiel 36-39 we see much of the truth and justice; but it is in Ezekiel 33:11 that we see that all this froth and wrath of man, which does not serve the glory of God, is not the end in itself. It is only when it is in entire recalcitrance and obstinacy made the milieu, the mode of life, the state of the case, with God not taken AT HIS WORD, redemption not seen as indispensable, His mercy not taken where it may be found, when He is treated as if slow to learn and needing to know what goes with this earth, this world, that it is missed. But it remains available for men and for nations, for women and for children, where it may be found.

Thus Isaiah says this:

             And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it...' "

It is HIS word which is sure, true, seven times refined (Psalm 12), enduring for ever (I Peter 1), and wise is the one who follows it, not prescribing what is acceptable, as if Obama gives what all must accept, and is not too bothered about even divergencies such as may 'occur' from the religious roadmap, whether in  Christ or plans or programs or intentions on the part of the God of creation,  redemption and judgment,  whose word is His own, whose mind is His own, and whose will. It is He who is not dependent on man to dismiss most of what He says in the interests of a few phrases! That is what in effect Obama has been doing in prescribing that all worship 'GOD' from these various emplacements of religion, while he hammers a few notes which he deems a good thing and imagines to be held in common, on grounds not at all obvious, even at that: and this, as he proceeds towards a synthetic syncretism, on such a basis, which in turn is so slender, even if it were true in what it does contain,  that it makes the waist of a wasp seem elephantine by comparison!

The enlistment of the USA so obtrusively in the Israeli Strip Night Club, a work of darkness, is a tragedy for that great nation. It has been moving in that direction in the Clinton-Bush^*7 area, but now the belligerence and intolerance is becoming categorical, and without any apparent relaxation such as Israel and some in the USA claim as a diplomatically secret AGREEMENT with the Bush administration. That, for example, was to allow natural growth in Israeli towns in the West Bank. Whether or not such an agreement was the case, it is being claimed to be so, by numbers of those involved.

At all events, according to the rigors of Secretary of State, Clinton and now Obama, it must all stop, expansion, extension, growth and all in the West Bank. Abort growth. Consort with entire containment. Not pleasing was this to Sharon in his day, who asked this, of such an enclosing, no-growth situation: Must the children be aborted so that the cities may live in their bounds! Wikepedia has this on the topic:

 

On May 12, 2003 it was reported that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had rejected Israel's main road map requirement, a settlement freeze, as "impossible" due to the need for settlers to build new houses and start families. Ariel Sharon asked then US Secretary of State Colin Powell "What do you want, for a pregnant woman to have an abortion just because she is a settler?".^[2]

This proviso, it seems, on any natural growth, it is to go. Such is the edict from the Secretary of State of a nation named the USA, and such is the determination despite the breaches of the Road Map, so numerous as to constitute an abortion of any agreement, declared by the President of that land.

Israel is a STRIPPING STATE and must earn its keep, and the warrant for its existence, by being stripped of any pretence of going back to a homeland with which it had strong historical ground for having for itself ^*2 . it is to exist on sufferance in a nominality which is to do justice to the calamity which for many is the real problem. Existence is the victory; subjugation is the cost. Try it on London, historic capital of Britain. It is possibly in view for Jerusalem, to be divided up among the throng in the granted homeland (like the East End for YOU, and the West End for YOU!).

Thus, using diplomatic blindness, the enemies of Israel can strip it till the lustful eyes bulge, and leave it so defenceless because of narrowness of territory and ever new areas for military blasting or the threat of it, that it CANNOT exist except by international accord. What THAT means is already so clear that even the blind might be esteemed capable of discerning it, if not by sight, then at least by hearing the shouting, KILL, KILL! and REDUCE! and BE DELETED!

God, He has other ideas (cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4). The Jewish homeland is not just, as declared ^*2 , given in view of a strong historical association, nor at the whim of nations, or in gratitude for service to the British Empire, via Dr Chaim Weizmann^*8. 

It is an appointment (like one with your doctor). It is accorded by authority not of one who makes you merely better, but makes you! He wanted it that way. Israel has been a profound disappointment in many ways, but He knew it was coming (Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32). On the other hand, HE is never a disappointment. If you know Him, you know that. Thus to the fading people, persecuted by this world, and with the heavens like brass above them as God foretold for their disagreeable behaviour (Deuteronomy 28:23), even mocking Him whom they supposedly adored, when it came to the criterion in Christ, and before that, as you see in Malachi, and in Isaiah 1, in different ways: even to these,  HE remains faithful (cf. Ezekiel 36:22). HE would (and He did) bring them back.

Like scattered dry bones they were (as in Ezekiel 37, leading on to the rule of the Redeemer), they were to be brought back from the nations, and they have been so brought. Like skeletons they were now in place, but needing the life from God. That is their present position. Like vivified skeletons - that was the depiction in Ezekiel 37 -  nationally, they will be inhabited by the Spirit of God, or a large proportion of them, and find anew in the crucified Christ a ground real enough, for their repentance (Zechariah 12). In the meantime, they are constrained on sides both divine and human.

But God has it all explained: HERE is mercy for those many who will receive it, on the same basis as in Isaiah 49-55, as the Gentiles - 49:6. EVENTUALLY, however, judgment comes where mercy to the end is manhandled, God is muted or disputed, and His word and way is not taken to heart. It comes to the nations (Micah 7) who need it; though some will rejoice with the outcome for Israel. God handles both sides. All in its time, it comes, it happens, even when there never was^*9, as Ben-Gurion rightly insisted such a nation as they. That is simple: it is because there never was such a type of relationship with the Lord, except by their theocratic nation in its Old Covenant, from which it did not merge into the fulfilment in the New.

Repentance on the part of all from HANDLING God's business with man's discordant and presumptuous hands, this is needed.

It is not only in the highly visible profile of the Obama administration that this is needed, but by the rest of the Madrid Quartet. Is this a warning ? Call it what you will (for man DOES have freedom within), it is an intimation. It is an expression of concern. It is, if you wish, the appeal of a friend who loves justice and meekness and righteousness, as found in our Founder, who bears the name of God, who bore the Cross in His expression, Jesus Christ, and who will not bear with untruth. In the end, the washing is done and the remnants that refuse washing, are simply not acceptable. Being human, in that case, is far worse than being in unclean clothes, or with unclean heart. If you are not clothed in the righteousness of Christ as a gift to the repentant and believing heart, Lord of all and in all (Isaiah 61:10, Romans 5:17ff.), and yet hear His word, what is this ? It is wilful self-exposure, not to human eyes, but to judgment.

Why die that death ? (Ezekiel 33:11) It lasts too long (II Thessalonians 1), is too dynamic, and has nothing of goodness whatever about it.

NOTES

*1

See It Bubbles ... Ch. 10, *1A.

*1A

Dancers, Prancers, Lancers and Answers Ch. 3, *1A

Compare His Wounds ... Ch.  4  (some fatal flaws in the Koran).

*2 See The Track of Truth ... Ch. 7, esp. as marked (1),  in the series, Chs. 6 and 7.

The British Mandate for Palestine included this point, that - "recognition has thereby been given to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for
reconstituting their national home in that country."

 At the same time, more could be found on the historical background of the present situation. This too is at the above noted site, relating to what was to become 'Jordan'.

From Palestine Facts we find a useful datum, confirming this point.

According to Sir Alec Kirkbride, the British representative in the area, Transjordan was:

• ... intended to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine, which [Britain was] pledged to support, became an accomplished fact. There was no intention at that stage of forming the territory east of the River Jordan into an independent Arab state.

*2A

The assemblage of events has been given some relevant attention in Outrageous Outages, Awesome Inputs and the Courage of Christ, Ch. 1, from which an excerpt follows for information.

 

Meanwhile, there continue those awesome inputs of divine patience and power which sustain the minds which chomp on the texture of their own wills, and trample on their own rationality, and for the time, now two millenia almost exactly (Christ was born about B.C. 4 by all accounts cf. SMR pp. 943ff.), does the God of truth restrain judgment from the obliteration of this earth in its entirety.

It is a good time to reflect, then, now that some 2000 years have passed since the arrival of deity in human format. It is more than unfortunate that man has surged in Europe, in Britain, in the USA in particular with both sound presentation and more recently horrendous perversion of the truth concerning Him; but that is what He predicted (Matthew 24:24), and that is the way it has duly come to be.

Now that much of Islam, devoid of reason, without evidence, sheering off sections of the New and Old Testament without authority, without historical basis, without eyewitness account, without ground or government of ideas, is surging into violent self-affirmation, using money from oil gained from creative countries who had it, there is an augmentation of the evils (cf. More Marvels Ch. 4, Divine Agenda Ch. 6).

This has been asked for: just as man has now turned with increasing resolution to slight rather than sight the Gospel which in its splendour saw enormous effects in the three regional areas noted above, for long centuries. Many talk of it, but comparatively few follow it, just as Christ said (Matthew 7:15). Indeed, man has by a profusion of anomalous confusion has so denuded it of its power, just as his lusts have tamed the truth into a subverted anomaly, and the disabling passions of misled sects have done more of the same, while culture has loved more of its own feckless name than of Christ's in vaulting bodies once churches, but so no more (cf. Revelation 2), that confusion is common^*1.

The contemporary crisis coding resembles the case characterised in Isaiah 59, where "justice is turned back, and righteousness stand afar off, for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot ever. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil  makes himself a prey" - 59:14-15.

So after 2000 years, to a good approximation, not in 2001A.D. rather than 2000, did the second millenium since Christ come to pass. But for our purposes, we must ask: the second millenium FROM PRECISELY WHAT!  It is from the incarnation of the everlasting God in the person of His Word, Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son to provide passage for man from obloquy and obfuscation to light and truth, unburdened by guilt and covered by blood, the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ for as many as received Him, as He is, and what He did, as the Bible presents this from God's own Spirit (cf. John 14:26, I Corinthians 2:9ff.)

A millenium or two  is indeed a significant period, but it was, then,  not in fact at the turn of the millenium, nominally or actually, but rather before either of those years that the second millenium since the birth of Jesus the Christ completed itself. That was the termination of the second millenium of direly spiritual significance.

Why ? This is so, if we take B.C. 4 as normally done, as Christ's birth-date (cf. SMR pp. 943ff.). Thus it could well be argued that on the analogy of 2000 the nominal and 2001 the actual completion of 2 millenia, on a schema starting without any 0 B.C., hence one covering the first year at the END of A.D. 1, we should move to 1996 for the 2000 year passage of time since the birth of Christ was completed. This is so. We have then been moving from the end of THAT second millenium for some few years.

The cup is full.

In fact, there was NO prediction concerning two millenia; but there were strong predictions concerning the actual, separated depicted signals WHENEVER they came, and that is now, for the next episode concerning Jesus Christ.

And that ? It is His return to rescue those who have fled for refuge to Him (as in Hebrews 6:18) and in due course to judge. It is naturally of profound interest if Abraham be placed, as appears, around 2000 B.C., that then we have around a parity for times, the one that of the Israel of the Old Testament, from the spiritual promise to the patriarch till the performance in Christ (as in Genesis 12:3), and the other,  that of the Gentile period (as in Romans 11, where they are placed side by side) when the testimony of Christ became their responsibility. Actually, and further, the great transition occurred at Christ's death as it appears in A.D. 30, and while that was as prophesied (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4, Christ the Citadel ... Ch.   2), the time of termination whether from that or His birth is not prophetically significant. Nothing was declared on that point.

THIS timing, then,  of around 2000 years for the Jewish era in direct divine commission, and that of the Gentile, for theirs, be it construed this way or that,  is not a predicted one, though it is of a startling interest in view of the parallel in Romans 11. What however WAS predicted is the timing of the return of Israel, in its land promise (as in Genesis 17:7ff., Ezekiel 36 cf. SMR Appendix A), as part of the signals of the return of Christ (as in SMR Ch. 8).

It so happens then, that

	1) this RETURN of the nation of Israel to nationhood in its land on the one hand, and
	2)  this completion of a parallel period for Jew and Gentile assignment with the saving action of God through His written word, first prophesied and then accomplished, are both now facts, contemporary realities.

But how, one may ask,  is the time completed for the specific assignment of the Gospel to the  Gentiles as a specialty ?

It is so for the Gentiles in terms of its crucial commencement and its defined ending. The commencement ? The torch of divine revealed truth passed from Israel THE NATION, to the other nations, those who receive it, on the death of Christ. Thus on this decisive rejection from Israel the nation, their period started. Then a terminating event occurred around 2 millenia later. .

What was that, on what criterion is it deemed to have ended ?

It is defined by the restoration of Jerusalem to Israel. It happened as foretold in two stages, one as in Zechariah 14:1ff., in the capture of half of that city by Israel, and the other in its entire take-over, as in Zechariah 12:6, Luke 21:24. That fulfilled ‘the times of the Gentiles’.

What then is for us to see ? It is this. While the restoration of Israel has come by fulfilment of prophecy, and in the face of enormous opposition, the completion of the Gentile era for specialised transmission is shown by the restoration of Jerusalem to Israel (Luke 21:24). Thus one geographic event both fulfils prophecy concerning Israel, and a period concerning Gentile specialisation as covenant conveyors!^*2 It is an interesting period indeed; and we are in it.

Unless therefore you judge that Israel occupation of Jerusalem is NOT the case, somehow is not there, is a mirage or something of this sort, then by the word of Jesus Christ, the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. A new silence  if you will, has arrived. It comes like the hush before the storm. Israel WILL NOT go. Christ WILL come. The certainty that His arrival will be unexpected (Matthew 24) works in the midst of the quiet. There has yet to be an enormous awakening IN Israel (Zechariah 12:10-13:1), but the periods are complete in their specialist tasks.

If however, the time is hushed in preparation, in this, that it is a period awaiting an appalling end to complacency and self-esteem, a phase of history facing truth without compromise or mercy without strings, in Christ, yet the work of man is almost manic as he seeks to avoid the fearful day, striving to do this and that, deliberately outside the mercy offered. So does he sedulously act to cause the chaotic increments by his own ever increasing guilt. While angels might therefore look on with quiet eyes, as at a funeral, this self-same period of awaiting Christ's return, both for His own (Matthew 24) and in judgment (as in Revelation 1) has imparted to it by man, a hustle and a bustle. Indeed, it is all but frenetic. It moves in its own will.

Thus as the engines of preparation for Christ's return are humming, droning and in some cases, roaring, at the will of man, the period is a quietly solemn one. It comes like the hush before the storm to the wakeful, and in the silence as of a funeral, to the watchful heart, lamenting for man, as Jeremiah did for Israel in his own day (Jeremiah 9).

*3

See The Track of Truth ... Ch. 7,  as marked (2),  in the series, Chs. 6 and 7.

*4

In his Cairo speech, Obama had much to say. There are elements that here relate, and this is treated in Chapter 2, to follow. See also on Obama: in this volume, Chs.   3 and   4,  in Christ the Citadel ..., Ch. 9, in God's Gift of Grace in Christ Jesus,  Chs.   3 and   5.

*5

As noted in Regal Rays ... Ch. 1, things were not quite as they might have been!

Was it not that secret document from British Foreign Secretary, Ernest Bevin, which as reported in the Age Magazine, August 20,  1988 (pp. 16-21), in the post-World War II turmoil, showed the frank desire to placate Arabs, with oil, with Bevin evidently passionately pursuing the line that centres of oil production MUST be available. There was, it is reported, found to be grave risk in alienating Arabs "by appearing to ... endorse the Jewish aspiration for a separate State." How does oil spread softness on the paths of war, and incline the heart to greed rather than goodness, when there is no restraint! It is a world in which restraint in 'national interests' seems increasingly if not obsolete, then all but antique.
 
 

At least, they realised what they were doing. Arab plus oil is greater than Jew without it ? It seemed a shoddy spiritual grasp of things; and to say no more, grasping.

*6

The elements of the case are presented in various Chapters on this site. Among them are the following.

See:

It Bubbles ... Ch. 10,

His Time is Near Ch.   4, (the divine index, the book, the Man, the Method, including Ezekiel 36-37 as do the next seven items ),

Outrageous Outages Ch. 11,

SMR Appendix A.

SMR pp.  502ff..

*7

See:

Red Alert Ch.    13.

*8

On this topic, we have this from  Of the Earth, Earthy ... Ch. 5.

'Palestinian' ? Does not the very name spell shame ? Was not this the object, this Palestine, that figured in the Balfour Declaration, ratified in the League of Nations, a place for the Jewish people given as a result of an intense struggle against central European efforts at attaining hegemony among the nations, yes with the aid of Turkey, which THEREFORE lost control of Palestine in 1917! That, it occurred  when General Allenby's troops, yes and aeroplanes, took over even Jerusalem, and freed it from Moslem control (cf. Isaiah 31:5). That was a loss to the Ottoman Empire of the day, from ill-based arrogance and intimidation. The world reacted, in no small measure, to this endeavour to rule, rule and rule, with which the war started. Thus things changed, and Palestine for the Jews was one of the ratified changes made.

The Moslem menace to the Middle East was therefore retarded. It would not control Palestine, but it would be given to the Jews, who homeless among the nations, had deserved much praise from Britain in particular, for one of their scientists, Dr Chaim Weizmann, working in chemistry and armament, had given them a significant boost in the war by his discoveries, just as another Jew, by name Albert Einstein gave another boost in another war, the Second World War, with the atomic power to which his work helped to direct in no mean measure, since he provided a significant avenue in his theoretical work. This was so whatever his later concerns may have been.

So clear was the assignment to the Jews, that they were to have due respect for other cultures in this same Palestine; and it was here that home would be fulfilled, with such restrictions on giving things a fair go where they received the gift. Now a quarter is being placed by the rulers of this Age, under quarantine in part, with provision for how it may exist, down to municipal provisions.

*9

Thus from Red Alert Ch. 10, we have this:

• It is time for Israel to seek the Lord. They are in need. They are without strength just as was to be when the Lord predicted that HE HIMSELF would intervene (Deuteronomy 32:36ff., Zechariah 12, 14, Micah 7:15ff.), for them.
  
  

It is a beautiful drama, really, that of Israel,

• delivered from slavery after being promised a land, out of Egypt with panache,

 

• miraculously preserved in the desert while discipline mixed with faithfulness deals with a tragic lapse in faith at the very portals of the promised land,

 

• arising in lustre with David, the King, type of the Messiah,

 

• languishing in the foulest of misdeeds among Gentile nations, as if she were one of them,

 

• disciplined to the loss of her northern member entirely,

 

• delivered in Jerusalem in Hezekiah's day, by a miracle parallel to that in Egypt,

 

• lapsing so utterly that exile to Babylon ensues,

 

• delivered with purged and purified people, a remnant of passion, who rebuild,

 

• drifting into subtleties and misprogramming wiles after the days of the Maccabees' victories,

 

• murdering the Christ their peace,

 

• finding the loss of peace ever since,

 

• evacuating their homeland as they evacuated their Messiah,

 

• despised by those who suffer for it according to promise,
   
• acclaimed for their brilliance, hated by many,

 

• murdered to nearly one half by Hitler,

 

• but first acclaimed for a homeland by England who with the League of Nations provided Palestine for the purpose,

 

• while the 'international community' gave most of it away to other states, and now wants still more returned.
  
  

Despite all this, Israel has been amazingly victorious over decades after its historic return (cf. SMR pp. 775ff.), a return and a style of victory just as predicted from that ever validated Bible. That, it has been brought to pass for it by divine power,  though it was dumped by Britain, truly in this 'perfidious Albion' of Shakespeare's phrase, and assailed by the UN, wanting if not her blood, then her capital and most of the land, as since 1947.  Nor have been lacking intensely interested neighbours, lusting for her extinction from time to time, and some perhaps all the time:  such as Syria, Iraq,  Egypt (since at peace), or the international Islamic meetings, desiring her extinction, and yet prevailing not at all to secure this, not though they be tens of millions with tens of billions available, in oil funds.

Now the butt of what Bush for the USA calls 'thug' activities, she is to pay with land for the privilege of being so treated. Yet the Lord has in store, far more. When the final destruction crusade, multi-national and greedy (cf. SMR pp. 502ff), comes to light, or rather surges in darkness, God meets it. The result is a devastation so profound as to resemble indeed the Exodus (cf. Micah 7:15, Ezekiel 38-39, SMR Appendix A, and 502ff.).

Meanwhile they, this persecuted people, this proverbially afflicted people in the days since their divorce from their own Lord,  they have arisen to the vast export of flowers, of roses, to blossoming and fertility, to forests as predicted (cf. SMR pp. 790ff.), though the horrible grind of lusting desire for her capital, where Christ was crucified, devastates her people with domestic thuggery, until they come to Him whom they for their part, killed, and seek in Him their peace (cf. Isaiah 32:15-17). It is fascinating in  its depths and dimensions, that last passage, especially when read in the light of Isaiah 31:15-21, and  27:5-13.

It is a grand design for the Gentiles as well, in many grafted into the tree that was the place of the faith of Israel at the culmination in Christ, following His rejection by His own people (predicted in Isaiah 49:7 and 53); yet the Gentile is on notice not to boast lest his troupe be removed, as was Israel for a time (only! - Romans 11:25). A recrudescence is to come, as this new thing, spiritual awakening,  surges into Israel, in the midst of the peoples, many of whom will rejoice:

“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people;
For He will avenge the blood of His servants,
And render vengeance to His adversaries;
He will make atonement for His land and His people.”

How ? As in Zechariah 13:1, where a fountain for sin and uncleanness is opened in Jerusalem, that very site to which the return is so categorically and pre-emptively assured (Zech. 12:6), even in its own place, the nation's capital. And how is it so freely available, this cleansing ? It is because of the Messiah who in ONE DAY bore the sin to be secured by Him, even of all who come in faith to Him as He is (Zech. 3:9).

And they, the now wandering Gentiles, peoples in some ways in disastrous parallel to Israel, for many have arisen to seek, and fallen in the slime of suppurating cynicism, knowledgeable ignorance and irrational delusions, what of them  ? It is not that nations have been or become Christian, though some have tried (cf. Joyful Jottings  5, 14, The Other News 13);  rather it is that in many much of Christ has been found. Yet the cultural impact is now in vogue for dismissal of Christ and all things truly Christian, through side-stepping, slickness, re-definition, cancerous additions to the Bible, outright rejection or even explicit contempt; and the wheel has turned, the nations in secular, nature-myth follies so like those of ancient Israel, now surging to disenable that nation in reality, and to debase themselves as earlier in the days of the prophets, she debased herself. They too do it as predicted for them! (cf. II Peter 3, II Timothy 3, Matthew 24:24).

Truly NO FLESH SHALL GLORY in the end (Isaiah 2:17-19), but God shall be glorious:

"The loftiness of man shall be bowed down,
And the haughtiness of men shall be brought low;
The LORD alone will be exalted in that day,
But the idols He shall utterly abolish.

"They shall go into the holes of the rocks,
And into the caves of the earth
From the terror of the LORD
And the glory of His majesty,
When He arises to shake the earth mightily."

 In the end it is a humble and purified people who will know Him as in Zephaniah 3:4-15, and who shall sing His praise, contrite, and not congratulated conquerors.