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CHAPTER SEVEN

ISRAEL and

The TWO-EDGED SWORD

FOR and AGAINST

and the setting is

SIN or SALVATION

DISQUISITION FROM THE BIBLE

SECTION IV

In this Chapter, we plan to look at Jeremiah 30:15-16, 48:28-36, 51:9,49-50,56,

Ezekiel 35:11-15, 36:5,22-29, 37:24.

Our topic remains: the will and words of God concerning Israel the nation, its detractors and His attitude, considerations and approach to reproach, to assault and to those who act in the field of contempt, assault, detraction or dismissal concerning this nation. It is far from being, as we have seen, a simplistic thing.

There is the enduring and long-term work of prodigy, where Israel is brought back in large measure to Himself as in Romans 11 and Ezekiel 37ff., as in Micah 7; and there are the successive, and in some ways cumulative rebukes to this same nation for its calloused hands of rejection of the Lord.

While judgment is embroiled because of chronic follies, mercy is latent, moving out like an armed guard from time to time, to prevent total catastrophe and to arrest marauders at will.

Again, there is the tenderness of solicitude, as from a father, and despite the outrage of divorce, as by an wayward wife (as in Isaiah 50:1ff.), there is still a cherishing awaiting better things.

Indeed, in this last case, it is especially wise to consult His words:

It is precisely this that Israel is to find in due course (as in Zechariah 12-14 and Hosea, Micah 7 and Deuteronomy 32).

There is appointment of disaster, in the form of  kings, nations enabled to afflict Israel (cf. Deuteronomy 32:21-22), as we saw in the last Chapter; and there is rebuke for those who rage in their own imaginary might. It is perilous to play with God's choice of a nation for a purpose which is NOT YET COMPLETE. It HAS given the Old Covenant, and with it the seed of the New in its prophecies, and BOTH have the same sacrificial means to pardon and the mercy of God as its warrant: its way narrow as prescribed, but broad in its results. Yet there is IN ONE RESPECT more to come. It is not more in covenant, not more to come into the New Covenant, and in fact of this very immutable Covenant, a large remnant in Israel is to be the sudden acquisition (Romans 11:25ff., Ephesians 1:10).

Therefore to meddle with Israel in its current liability and foolishness towards the Lord, this can bring a handsome return, except that it is not for profit but for loss.

With this in mind, we return to the case study and consider what God declaims in Jeremiah, in the passages noted above.

Jeremiah 30:15-16

First in Jeremiah 30:15-16, we find this:

                           And all who prey upon you I will make a prey."

There is no time limit in God's dealings with Israel on this earth; and Genesis 17:7-8 brings in the continuity in all generations. Already we read of the certificate of divorce for Israel, the North of the then divided country, in Jeremiah 3:8, and that is that. Judah, the section in the South, temple inclusive, is at this point seen "treacherous" still, like a sister who will not listen, even after the other has been judged. Yet the divine mercies continue, unconstrained but inextinguishable.

" 'Return, backsliding Israel', says the Lord, 'I will not cause My anger to fall on you; for I am merciful ..." If only they would come, even then! "Only acknowledge your iniquity ..." Then as now, for nation as for individual, there is the same commencement exercise! It is crucial, and while pity prescribes it, without it there is nothing.

Yet the end is not to be as the middle; for there is to come a time, we find in Jeremiah 30:16ff., when there will be a return, and in Jerusalem will be a name, 'The throne of the LORD', and all nations will be gathered. In other words, the work wrought through Judah and the symbolism of the temple is to be accomplished, despite the unmitigated follies committed by Israel to the North, and Judah to that very day, to the South. "Return, you backsliding children," the Lord entreats, "and I will heal your backslidings." In that day, when this at last happens, then the Old Covenant (Jeremiah 3:16) will be accomplished and a New Covenant (as confirmed expressly in Jeremiah 31:31ff.), will be operational. It will be; but because of unbelief, both current and to come, they must WAIT FOR IT! (as in Habakkuk 2:3).

Always there is this tension: the truth requires, mercy pleads, and unbelief bridles; but the point is that in repentance and return to the Lord, it is the divine power which works to accomplish what man cannot! Hence faith is as crucial as is repentance.

They go on until indeed the nations go into holes as do snakes and the unmitigated wrath of God is poured out in eschatological fire, on hypocrisy, arrogance and Sennacherib-style arrogant aggression: and this, it is all the more so, when it has a religious barb attached! as it did there, when fraudulent and false religion was daringly brought to bear by the misled Assyrian King.

Above in Jeremiah 30, what is salient ? Firstly, Israel went astray, secondly God corrected her, thirdly that is His business, and fourthly, that those who burden themselves with afflicted Israel, whom HE has afflicted will find something out. What is this ?

"All who devour you shall be devoured." ALL who devour Israel will be devoured.

Take her captive ? like Germany, World War II in effect; GO into captivity, like East Germany and some of Berlin for some time. There is the cause first; then the effect, in a series, in a lilne of history.

Again: Plunder her, as again in Germany of that day, even to teeth fillings of gold ? BE plundered, as when Russia transplanted industrial equipment from Germany after World War II. Prey on her, as do religiously motivated disbelievers in the God who founded Israel in the first place, by divine design, a people whose sacrificial entry into His kingdom in large numbers is cardinal and irrevocable, prophetically centred in the Messiah, to be born in Bethlehem as He was and to die at the time at which He did, then what ?

This: PREY on her, and become a prey. That is a message to which many today would do well to attend, for their own peace. Following false prophets is a very expensive business. It is all spread out in the divine coverage of history, in principle and in practice, to read and then to see, as history happens. Romanism gives accolades to Darwinism, and its ilk in celebrations for 150 years; England has a Dawkins taunting and seeking to encompass those who do not follow this ineffectual teaching, ludicrous in its anti-factuality, dimness of wit and vision, experimental exclusion and historical undoing^*1; the USSR followed his drab derangements in applied economics, foundering on infidelity to fact and ardent reductionism: and then what! Rome is diminished in power, the USSR was overcome with liabilities, Britain is no longer leader, no more in hegemony among the nations, a reduced rump whose Prince of Wales talks of amalgamated or at least serially protected religions and went, by report, to encourage Bush to have favourable thoughts to the false prophet who words do not accomplish history, Muhammad^{* 2}.

Its very strength ebbs, Europe gives it orders^*3, its multi-racial mix makes more and more cohesion once clear, lapse until the question arises: WHAT ARE YOU FOR!

So has the offscouring of truth become a contamination to many, and in many it has led to oppression in forms and fiascos so gross and ignoble that man seems incontent to be beast, but must seek rather to approximate devil, and this in increasing swathes. Alas the 21st century has still to learn from the days which passed some 2600 years ago!

God does not LIKE oppressors and detests inane religious irrelevance, primed to brutality, bestiality, naturalism, pride and pageantry of self-will, nor scenes and scenarios where human power allies itself with imaginary gods (cf. Jeremiah 23, Isaiah 37). Nor is this the less so, but rather far more, when those who practise or permit or indulge or even wallow in such things, have known better, done better, and now waffle, waver and wander where they ought not.

It is not wise so to provoke, for He is a consuming fire, and with it, both infinitely wise and already knowing the end from the beginning (cf. Isaiah 46:8). It is a NO GO situation, and much of the appalling horrors of this, the 21st century since Christ, comes from this sad array of false prophets of secularism, spiritism and various seductions, where something, ANYTHING is proposed, ex reason, ex evidence to execute its will and find its divine come-uppance.

At time, it becomes almost gravely comic, like a seemingly irrepressible jack-in-the-box, which however often stricken, puts up again his spring-based face once again, with much the same expression. At others, it resembles a gravely exceptional Punch-and-Judy show, in which there is hysterical mourning. What is needed is realism, repentance and redemption. Without this, its efforts are but in vain, and the more it esteems its power (which leads to the direct  confrontation of Revelation 19:19), the less estimable it is.

Indeed, this world is asking for and receiving so much come-uppance that it is almost upside down in a malaise of prosperity and poverty, wisdom and folly, provocation and peace-seeking, deceit and dilemma, doubt and despair, confidence and urbanity, as if the ultimate "my name is legion" affliction of the man whom Christ healed, had become almost a mundane phenomenon, a global goulash.

It applies in the dealings with Israel, in this case, as an application to an example, but what a notable one, since God's dealings with them have much pagination in the whole Old Testament, they being example, at times servant, site of symbolic attestation, centre of divine redemptive work coming to culmination in the predicted Christ, site for the proclamation of wisdom not only in principle but in historical action, and butt for belligerence when they fall, alas and alas, as so often they did!

For precisely that reason, the nations of today are the more liable for ignoring so much for so long, and becoming like perpetual students in some university, where they do all things right, except LEARN!

We turn now to Jeremiah 48, as we pursue our theme.

Jeremiah 48:38-46

Here is a wonderful array of features concerning Moab, the eye of pity of the Lord, the judgment to disdain concerning Israel and the contempt for contempt.

First notice this, that Moab, though pagan, though foolish, is yet one for whom the Lord yearns:

" 'Moreover,' says the Lord,

'I will cause to cease in Moab

The one who offers sacrifices in the high places

And burns incense to his gods.

 

'Therefore My heart shall wail like flutes for Moab,

And like flutes My heart shall wail

       And in its streets ...' "

The red coloration is to show the poignancy and the pity the more impactively for our current purpose.

With this is the attestation of the bold-hearted, pig-headedness of Moab.

" 'We have heard the pride of Moab

(He is exceedingly proud),

       His lies have made nothing right.' "

Here the underlying cause of wrath remains. It is not attenuated at all. Loftiness, that holy survey with assured superiority while trusting in lies, false gods, it is a grand challenge for chastening, if not worse. Haughtiness, mere human assurance with the vanities, lies, follies of self-deception based on air, call it gods or what you will: it is all there. It was then, and in many assailants against Israel today, it is STILL there, as is the predicted rebuke (as in Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32).

In Jeremiah 48:26-27, we find that perilous additive, contempt for Israel, exaltation against the actual God Himself, this arising like a rocket to its short-lived doom, and not merely political manoeuvre. However far-off Israel becomes, when the God who founded her is Himself made an object of assault, by devious slides or indignant repartee, there is an approach to fatality, to be pondered.

              You shake your head in scorn."

Scorned is the scorner, contemptible is the contemptuous! So does man labour to inherit what he sinfully supplies! (Matthew 7:1ff.).

So Moab marched in presumption to the precipice, as do so many today. They seem to forget all the others who have marched against the Lord; and the whole world is now in increasing turmoil as first the British Empire, ostensibly at least once Protestant in disposition, and then the USA, now with a President formally betraying Christ (The Unsearchable Riches of Jesus Christ and the Aggregating Debt of Dismissal Chs. 2, 3, 4), move from their initial moorings, whether formal or not, to new unchartered oceans of wrath, weakness and wordy parlays, which lack faith and confound conviction. If others rise up to secure condemnation with their own false gods, then the world comes into an increasing grip of gripe, and its ways the more universally dip into dark ponds of inconceivable pollution (cf. Jeremiah 17:9ff.) The red colouring has the same function as before.

We move on to Jeremiah 51.

Jeremiah 51:9-11,49-50,56

Here the message is so short, simple and direct that it is all but sufficient just to cite it, for our present purpose.

             The vengeance for His temple."

Here the Lord's compassionate outreach to Babylon, the willingness in the thoughts of His heart to deliver her is shown; but this is immediately followed by the resultant, despite this:

what forsakes is forsaken.

The Lord has in store for Zion a righteousness not earned, one by faith (as in Genesis 15, Psalm 32), which is sacrificially obtained and wrought with finality in the Messiah (Isaiah 52-55). He has accordingly already arranged which empire, which nation it is which will despoil the upstart Babylon. All things move as with a grand World War II strategy, towards an assigned end. With them then, it was hope; with God it is fact. He tells it and He does it; but listening not at all, they nod off, like dull students, intent on text messaging while the lecturer, to their deadened minds, drones on.

Again, notice that the action of unbelievers, allowed to humiliate straying Israel in discipline from the Lord, is not passed unnoticed. Asleep in spirit they may be, but often not at all so in aggressive and invasive action. Some is directed for discipline; some is grasped for love of violence and of prey! Very well, there are results. It is simply expressed.

Prey and be preyed on remains a recurrent rondeau, a rondel of éclat!

There is a proportionality in all this (50:49-50):

Thus those who took it upon themselves to destroy the temple will be destroyed as an empire; and in the case of Babylon, long and vast was the destruction, that empire of many gods and imaginary magnificence (Isaiah 14:3-23.).

We even learn that "hell from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming..." (14:9).
an undelectable result of an impervious and sustained folly.

             And let Jerusalem come to your mind."

God forgets nothing, except it be covered in the depths of the sea by mercy, through the blood of the Saviour (Micah 7:19ff., Isaiah 53), and it is well not to take up accounts with Him; for if HE should mark iniquities, WHO would stand! all have sinned (Psalm 32, Romans 6:23). It is entirely of grace that salvation occurs at all (Ephesians 2:5-8).

The point is made into a virtual headline in 51:56:

"Because the plunderer comes against her, against Babylon,

And her mighty men are taken.

Every one of their bows is broken;

For the Lord is the God of recompense,

              He will surely repay."

So is Babylon the reckless invader, the plunderer of Israel, to become a plunder, her pride in strength abased to the basement; for God takes now His recompense; He repays.

Make short accounts with the Lord; and find His remission relay; for without truth^*4, there is only lie, and in vanity there is only weakness in the end, where proud arrogance meets haughty self-reliance on oneself or one's invented gods, and the end comes suddenly.

Ezekiel 35:11-15, 36:9-15,22-29, 37:24.

Let's move now from Jeremiah contribution to comprehension in this field, to Ezekiel.
Here Mt Seir is in view.

"I will make you perpetually desolate, and your cities shall be uninhabited;
then you shall know that I am the Lord.

"Because you have said,

‘These two nations and these two countries shall be mine, and we will possess them,’ although the Lord was there,

"therefore, as I live," says the Lord God,

"I will do according to your anger and according to the envy which you showed in your hatred against them; and I will make Myself known among them when I judge you.

"Then you shall know that I am the Lord. I have heard all your blasphemies which you have spoken against the mountains of Israel, saying,

‘They are desolate; they are given to us to consume.’

"Thus with your mouth you have boasted against Me and multiplied your words against Me; I have heard them. Thus says the Lord God:

'The whole earth will rejoice when I make you desolate.
As you rejoiced because the inheritance of the house of Israel was desolate,
so I will do to you; you shall be desolate, O Mount Seir, as well as all of Edom -
all of it! Then they shall know that I am the Lord.' "

Here in addition, there is the emphasis on PUBLICITY and RECOGNITION. Thus when Australia borrows much from China and does much commerce, investing and acting as if it were NOT run by an atheist, amoral because ideologically (if not practically) communist regime, therefore it gains trouble when the dream begins to terminate! Because the USA initially made a virtual alliance with Islamic Iraq, how it has suffered! It had to undo it and rue it! The Iran swaggered.

Because the Allies in World War II, included Russia, the USSR in its vast ferocities of contra-faith belligerence and heartlessness, therefore you see a Cold War.

Folly has a payment plan, and except for repentance, where is mercy ? It is too much to play the fool for too long. The 'whole earth' will watch what God does to Mt Seir, we read; just as this people will itself KNOW what God is about when at last they open their eyes on the sad reality resulting from their intemperance and truculence against Israel. Indeed, not only will the eyes be opened to folly, but they will KNOW THAT HE WHO HAS SPOKEN IN THE BIBLE IS THE LORD!

That is the message articulated through Ezekiel here.

That self-same theme is found in the latter part of Ezekiel 39. It is better to open the eyes before a hiding comes for hiding! Truth is always better; and since He who IS the truth is filled with mercy and grace, lovingkindness and concern, it is a far better thing, a grand way to come, the sooner the better.

To pursue the theme, we find in Ezekiel 36:9-15 another development within it.

"For indeed I am for you, and I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown.
I will multiply men upon you, all the house of Israel, all of it; and the cities shall be inhabited and the ruins rebuilt.

"I will multiply upon you man and beast; and they shall increase and bear young;
I will make you inhabited as in former times, and do better for you than at your beginnings. Then you shall know that I am the Lord."

Here is the element of fulfilment for Israel in its return to faith mode, a vast coming theme prefaced by the day of Ezra and Nehemiah, but to come to its ultimate when the Messiah rules (as seen in Ezekiel 37:24).

What then ? Israel suffers, is restored, comes to faith and fulfilment but only both in and because of the grace of God in its Messiah, and He will "do better for you than at your beginnings."

How CAN God put such stress on Israel ? How CAN you put such stress on a single piece of paper which you have signed in making a contract ? Does your firm have billions ? Yet on just one sheet of paper it can lose them, small as it is and apparently significant. It is not in itself that the point lies, but in what it signifies and TO WHOM and FOR WHOM. When God is in view, there is no limit, for He is limitless in memory, honour and power, as well as in mercy.

It is useless to shut the eyes. Truth matters. The Lord proceeds in our interrupted passage, as above.

"Yes, I will cause men to walk on you, My people Israel; they shall take possession of you, and you shall be their inheritance; no more shall you bereave them of children."

"Thus says the Lord God:

'Because they say to you, ‘You devour men and bereave your nation of children,’ therefore you shall devour men no more, nor bereave your nation anymore,'
says the Lord God.

'Nor will I let you hear the taunts of the nations anymore,
nor bear the reproach of the peoples anymore,
nor shall you cause your nation to stumble anymore,'

says the Lord God.’ "

It is the mountains of Israel are here being used, in metonymy, for the people, in a kind of focus for concern and illustration of suffering. The inheritance aspect of Israel will be maintained by GRACE alone, and in accordance with the intimate, ultimate, immovable promise. Taunts to Israel from sinners can have a singularly unbecoming appearance. It is not only the school bully aspect, when the teacher has already caned the student; it is also the sheer effrontery of mockery of what though demeaned, is a body for which God assigned a past, a future, principles and functions, and with which HE HAS NOT FINISHED YET (Romans 11:25ff., Micah 7, Deuteronomy 32). God does not drop His bundle or cut His losses.

What He has said, HE WILL DO, all of it; and if some is more important than other parts, yet all is important simply because it is HIS!

Small wonder that He has magnified His word above all His name (Psalm 138), since His word after all, expresses His mind and His heart is in it!

We turn now to Ezekiel 36:22-29, where the fact just noted is amplified. It is not to Gentiles that this applies, since it is to a body who ONCE knew God, who were DISCIPLINED for evil within this phase, scattered and then returned, and of such, there is only ONE. It bears the name of Israel.

Of course, WHEN Israel returns to the Lord, it returns to the same light to the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6); but it does so from a specialised background which does not alter the riches to be given, the unsearchable riches of Christ, nor does it alter the promises made. It is all there, each part, rightly divided and discerned, in its place.

God does not become a liar to satisfy theologians.

"Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God:

"I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel,
but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went.

"And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know
that I am the Lord," says the Lord God,
"when I am hallowed in you before their eyes.

"For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries,
and bring you into your own land.

"Then I will sprinkle clean water on you,
and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness
and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you;
I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. |I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

"Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses..."

In this passage is seen the vast and valiant emphasis on grace, grace to find the face of the Lord, the land of the Lord, the cleansing of the Lord, the change of regeneration, of love for His word, the rest from the ravaging of sin's ruinous hold. Not only, then, does God rebuke the retaliatory and invasive mockers, but He removes the touchstone of the taunt, DISPOSSESSSION. This is finally of the Lord Himself: for they have lost His inimitable power and grace and love and company with peace and wisdom; and their land as well. Without Him, what have they then ?

But restoration as in Ezekiel 37, is the next phase, first geographical and then spiritual. The first has happened; the next waits in the curtains of time, for its summons to be on stage.

THUS He will restore, so removing the temptation to taunt on the part of hypocrites who even as they mock, are  worthy of mockery, as they sally against the fallen land, are themselves coming in some cases as if out of hell, which we recall, was to become an excited recipient from one of the taunting kings! So does the past warn the present, and so to stipulated provisions and promises, premisses and pronouncement, apply where the conditions are met, to the end.

Finally, in Ezekiel 37:24, we find what is over and beyond all the historical preliminaries, but by no means apart from them, the MESSIAH ruling. Here is the glory, here the peace, here the power and here the truth (as in Isaiah 9:6); and it is for ever on this earth till it departs, and then in a new heavens and a new earth (as in Isaiah 65, Revelation 20, II Peter 3).

In Him, then, they like all others who come to that Light too much and too glorious to be for Israel  only, will find their place in grace. In themselves, they will not glory (Isaiah 19), but it is God who will be gloried (cf. Romans 11:28-36).

Jew or Gentile, there is but one Way, slain at the instance of priests, a sacrifice confirmed at the order of the Roman power, resurrected by the dynamic of the divine, followed by thousands of Jewish people, at work in His Church, moving by His Spirit, honouring all His word to the Gentiles as foretold by Isaiah and Jeremiah and the Psalms. If in much, like Israel of old, much of what is called 'the Church' has become a repository of evil birds (as in Revelation 17 cf. Jude, II Timothy 3-4, II Peter 2), yet the principles apply; for this ? what is it but the fulfilment of the travesty of truth which many were to seek to secure, misusing the very name of Jesus Christ as in II Peter 2, and as was the case back in the day of Jeremiah (23) and Ezekiel (14)!

HE continues to deploy His name for His purposes of truth and mercy, redemption and on the way, education available to man, as progressively ALL that He has said comes to fulfilment, AS He said (Matthew 5:17ff.).

Before we proceed to the next examples in our theme, it may therefore be well to insert an Appendix to Chapter 7, a short presentation of what to DO about these things, personally.

NOTES

*1

See the following:

       Beauty for Ashes ..Ch. 3,  
       The Kingdoms of This World and the Kingdom of Christ  Ch.9,

In overview or interview, Of the Earthy, Earthy ... Ch. 4, News 82, 94,
TMR Ch. 7, The Three Frogs, Ch.1 ,  SMR pp. 226-236, 145ff.,251ff., 
Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming ... Chs.   5, and   6
(where Gould, having mocked Darwin's concept, has trouble with his own - naturalism CANNOT produce what is needed since by all logic and observation,
this particular world is not made that way, books do not write themselves),
The Other News, 12, A Spiritual Potpourri, A & F Schools;

Delusive Drift ... Ch.   4 - death of the idea; News 94;

Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Ch.  8  (Posthumous award to Darwinism by a contemporary pope makes the medieval machinations more apparent in this present day, with a new darkness).

With this last, see also - The Holocaust or Morality … Ch. 5.

Overall, see the Pentad: The gods of naturalism have no go!

*2

See:

 SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff., 829ff. , 1080ff.,

Divine Agenda Ch.   6,    3,  Highway to Hell,

Red Alert Ch.    6 (and the Koran, citations), Ch. 10,   *4 (provides correlative references), and on this see His Wounds ... Ch.   3 esp.;

 Dancers, Prancers, Lancers and Answers Ch. 3, *1A
misconceptions about the Cross, variable and mutually conflicting,
on the part of the Koran. See also listings in  Index Mini.

*3

See:

 Grand Biblical Perspectives Ch. 3, Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming Ch. 3.

 

*4

See for example:
 

 SMR,

Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ,

Who Answers Riddles and Where He is, Darkness Departs.

Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny