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BULLETIN FIFTY SIX

Israel AND ITS invaders

RESTORATION AND DECEIT,

REBELLION AND DEFEAT

DELINQUENCY AND DISASTER

See also in these themes, Bulletin Forty Six

Israel is to be restored (Isaiah 2, Micah 4). This includes Jerusalem (Luke 21:24). Its place will then be divinely imposed just as the adversaries not only of Israel, but of the Lord, sought to impose. However, it is not to be a theocratic institution in the manner of times of old (Micah 5:7-15 ... following Micah 5:1-3, Isaiah 30:8-15, Jeremiah 31:31). It is not a question of vaunting or desire for pre-eminence (Isaiah 19:24-25). It will, however, be a permanent rebuke to those who took pleasure in lies, pretence, ousting in odium the very name of Israel (Micah 7:15ff.), whose humiliation in their lust to stamp on Israel AGAIN, will be this: they will themselves be brought to a trampled and stultified ruin. Such is to be their reward for delight in the misguided premiss of once out, out for ever, misguidedly applied to Israel, despite the terms of the unqualified promise and premiss for Israel as a State, in Genesis 17:7-8, with divinely specified land for the divine purposes designated.

The long history of impostors trying to rub out millenia of history and millions of Jews will be ended categorically and dramatically. In fact, Israel was in Israel, the Biblical Israel, for way over 1000 years, and it appears the the followers of Muhammad, who started some 1600 years later, have held it for a considerably lesser time, nor has it been the main holy place for them, but only for Israel.

But this is past history, useless to seek to hide or destroy. It is coming history, which may be checked out, as in the former cases, on arrival, with the biblical forecast. Eventually, when what might seem every possible assault, squirming, attack, slander, military oration and operation followed by invasion since their return to nationhood in 1948, is fulfilled, when all have had opportunities almost unthinkably vast, to realise through failure that God has HIS OWN desires and plans, and places, as He says in Micah 7:15ff., HE WILL ACT. It will be  as decisive in kind, as the return of the Jewish people  to nationhood, in May 1948. Such is the biblical record. Already a vast proportion of these very varied and sequential prophecies have passed into history, as light succeeds night, passing with increasing strength into day (Micah 7:14).

The LORD is the God who acts (Isaiah 64:5). In this case, it is to be on a par with the DEGREE and FORCE of the actions of the Exodus, when Egypt even went so far as to make them slaves.

You see this overwhelming and inexorable change in its imperial majesty from the act of God Himself also in Deuteronomy 32, in Isaiah 66, in Micah 7, for example. You see the prelude of almost god-like power for victory which is assigned to the returned Israel in Zechariah 12. You see it spiritually a little later in Zechariah 12:10ff.. You may have seen it in the press over the last near to 70 years.

Israel suffered (Micah 5:1-3) and waited because it killed its King, who is also the Messiah for whom, we read in Isaiah 49, it is too small a thing to bring home the elect in Israel, because He will also be a light to the ends of the earth, universal ruler (Psalm 72, Isaiah 11, 32), and only Saviour (Isaiah 43:10-11); and with the latter part of history past, this will at last be known and experienced to the end of the earth; which incidentally will come (cf. Bulletin FIfty Three).

No more will Israel be asked to lie down, by imposing and gluttonous Gentiles, while they use her as a walking track, to trample or use as convenient. This hideous rort will have no more place. They were despised, and in no  mean measure asked for it, by abandoning what made them great, their own Messiah!  But others made use of their humiliation, plundered their aggregations, murdered their people; and some, ghoulish,  smiled. God did not approve, said so,  and acted (Isaiah 51:21-23). All these things come in their time.

Thus there is the Gospel in the New Covenant (Isaiah 52-55, Jeremiah 31:31ff.), the return of Israel to its land (Jeremiah 31-33, Luke 21:24), its vast victories despite overwhelming seeming odds from intrusive nations, then to come, its broad conversion in detail, person to person, as in faith by the operation of the Holy Spirit they "look upon Me whom they have pierced," Zechariah 12:10.

Israel, restored to faith, and being THERE to BE so, thus resumes its place, not triumphalistically but as part of the Church of the Messiah who came and sacrificially died at the time appointed (cf. Christ the Citadel Ch. 2). Rejected at first by Israel, despite the fact He was their Messiah, He is now, in this late phase of the Church Age as it all comes towards its eschatological limits, received nationally by them at last.

Then He arises to overcome their endlessly grasping assailants, many of whom come in the name, nowadays, of Muhammad, who was very keen on subordination (of women, as of enemies, as of those conquered who tried to escape their humiliating and punitive bounds), but not of himself to the Lord. Christ. Casting this aside,  he would instead strip Him in his book (just as the guards stripped Him as the crucifixion as His murder came near), of the offices of Saviour, Redeemer, Son of God.  In effect, then, he ended by making Him, or his unbased created image of Him, even more distorted than a cartoon of the historically attested Messiah; indeed, rather it was a veritable absolute reconstruction, based on no known evidence, 600 years past the time. This even more distorting, to avoid all cavil, he did while affirming his belief in the Jewish prophets as from God, while contradicting the heart of their  message of salvation by the Messiah, the Redeemer, the Son of God! (cf. More Marvels... Ch. 4, Bulletin Forty Three).

In this way, he engaged in a total self-contradiction, moving on the one hand to gain some standing into the Old Testament by saying the prophets there were from God, and on the other out of it by announcing his own prescription, involving a total rejection of their whole central message. You cannot have it both ways, and in trying to do so, you merely show yourself fluid, while your word does NOT come to pass, as is the case with his religion to this day, with Israel performing precisely as predicted IN the Old and New Testaments, contrary to the alleged will of Allah.

To speak in terms of Old Testament prophets, in Deuteronomy 18 we find this, that if the thing a prophet says comes to pass, well; but if not, that is no one from God, the Lord.It is false, intrusive, presumptuous, misleading, of no divine authority whatever. In  fact, as Jeremiah 23 puts it, such 'prophets' are denounced.

His armies, in terms of the Bible and its teaching, were simply one of the many troubles to face ISRAEL BECAUSE it also, amazing thought, had rejected the same Saviour, the same Redeemer, as an internal matter, though God saw fit to use Israel for the incarnation! (Isaiah 49:7, Micah 5:1-3), and this with the result of dispersion in the way already long traced in the prediction of Leviticus and Deuteronomy 32.

Now that Israel has suffered for its folly, and is by grace (as in Ezekiel 36) back in its land (entirely by divine mercy, Ezekiel 36:22), God is set to deliver it (as in Ezekiel 38-39, Micah 7), and with its predicted, coming conversion to the Jesus Christ whom they rejected (Zechariah 12), make them once more a people of the Lord. When this occurs, they then become part of the Messiah-people, the Christians, for there is only one Messiah, whatever anyone does with Him; and the result shows what He does with each one, for His own part (John 3:36). This neither makes Israel sovereign nor sub-standard, but indicates a renewal of great wonder, singularly defended by the Almighty, its Jerusalem undisplaced, the very site of the sacrificial splendour of the cross of Christ, and the bodily wonder of His resurrection as predicted in Psalm 16.

God does always precisely what He says. No one, but NO ONE else is able at all  to duplicate this. There is only one God and He acts as He is, and is not susceptible to impersonation by false prophets, ponderous philosophers or any other. You might as well attempt to fit space into a teaspoon.

What then ?

	It is not that Israel will be the quintessential ruler; but Christ.
	It is not that Israel among the nations, will be dismissed from her national post, but kept in restoration by the Messiah, who DID come as in Isaiah 53, at the time specified in Daniel 9:23- 27 (cf. Christ the Prescription Ch. 2), and has the two phase plan,  to be Saviour and when the time is ready, to rule this earth (Isaiah 11, Luke 24) in glory (Psalm 72).
	It is not that someone's homeland will in itself be above all (Isaiah 19), not that; but that it will be recognised by all, as in Micah 4 and Isaiah 2.
	It is not that some city or other will be pre-eminent, but that the place of the ransoming death of Jesus Christ, on which all escapees from hell will rely (Galatians 2:20), is and remains signalised by God. This is in no small measure because of His glorious grace, shown there in coming at all, ministering there, and then, as in Philippians, being obedient even to the sacrificial death of the cross: THERE. Those who hate Him or affect to ignore Him, may hate His resurrection site, the operation sacrificial atonement THERE, and the objective facts this focusses; but hatred is not only different from truth, it does not invent facts, nor does it remove them.
	It is not only that He showed unheard of power in continuity over years, in Israel in wide ranging journeyings not only in Jerusalem but Galilee for example, as predicted (Isaiah 9:1-3); and healing where only heaven could provide the capacity, so that people came in crowds even at times from way beyond Israel. It was not least to receive, BY HIM, a liberation of heart from self-centred sin or God-ignoring drift, as from impending death, paralysis, demons or ruin. Here they lived through a fascinating, impenetrable testimony and a sustained marvel as this is.
	Incapable of forgetting they were like a harvest, ready to be reaped by the apostles when the resurrection was added to the completeness, both in death's breach, and in fulfilment of His word.
	Much more than this, when His OWN life was crucified, in its bodily format, and thus without His physical presence to raise it, He was STILL raised by the God who had sent Him and with whom He used His divine powers. The culmination thus came in  that magnificent and RELEVANT because confirmatory way,  through His own bodily resurrection. By this, following His immediately prior raising from the dead after four days, of his friend, Lazarus,  shown in that self-same city (John 11), He made life hard for the duplicitous priests (John 11:47-53). Murder was the method. By resurrection as the counterpoint, in the symphony of sin and salvation, He gave  foundational testimony to one and to all, of whatever race or religion or intention. Man was no more abandoned by God than are the stars in their courses, the earth in its tilt, the atmosphere in clinging to the earth, or love in its sacrifice or courage in its comely conquest in the Lord. What He had often SAID, was now in His own Person directly DONE.
	Here and here without any parallel before or afterwards, was the one true God as Saviour. Any god, system or cult which should try to avoid Him would avoid life, and find judgment for incalculable folly (John 15:22ff., Philippians 2:10-11, II Thessalonians 1:5-12). God has ONE offering on behalf of all, with ransom transacted for those who receive Him:
	God is a spirit, and those who come to Him come in Spirit, without equivocation, reservation or compromise (Jeremiah 29:13, Luke 14:27ff.).

This ransom in offer He has made adequate for all (I John 2:1-2), the infinite God for finite man, though not all receive it (just as was the case, in the Passover in Israel of old - Deuteronomy 29:18-21). Moreover, His rot-disregarding, raised body (Acts 2:25-31) also  appears as preview  for all saved sinners and those to populate heaven: for the resurrection of His body took there, its place and time, even in Israel, even in Jerusalem. It is not merely against Israel but God that the various rantings against Israel ULTIMATELY are set.

	Israel has suffered for its errors.
	Meanwhile, Gentile nations seem to aggregate (as predicted, Psalm 2) to make sure that they too suffer their rebukes for a parallel assault on the same God, the same Messiah, the same Gospel, the mercy field extraordinary and supernal, of God Himself. As Israel the nation discarded God by its crucifixion of Christ, so now too many Gentile peoples seem to be making savagely, a flurry of disdain and derogation against this same Lord, transfixed with their own myths as predicted (II Timothy 4).
	But God has set Israel back where as a nation, it had sanctioned that attack.
	It  was there that He accomplished His saving work,
	there He gave Israel its testimonies and its rebuke,
	there He vouchsafed their return and accomplished it.

 There He has His own plans for the city of Jerusalem, site of suffering and salvation, as in Isaiah 2 and Micah 4, part of Israel indeed, but of an Israel where spiritually they are then part of the Christian Church. Conversion of ANYONE before God MEANS having Him as displayed in Jesus Christ as Lord above all and Saviour with none added, and so Israel's salvation becomes a new and delightful addition to the Christian Church. After all, it was practically after Christ left, governed by apostles in the power of the Spirit of God and the name of Jesus Christ, and filled with tens of thousands of Jewish people from the earliest days (cf. Acts 2:41,4:4 the latter 5000  men... with however many women or children).

Man against God is significant spiritually, but when it comes to a change from His government, and the efforts by aspiring man to achieve this, then read Revelation 12. The devil is the base of it, and his time "is short". It is not rag-time, but short-time, in which the wrath of the devil mounts like some penultimate cyclone (Revelation 12:12). The devotees of Allah and other would-be lords, come and go; flourish and fall; but precisely all that God says, happens. Each day it is precisely on course NOW. The days of misrule come and go, insult, evasion and invasion. Efforts to this end are happening now. They are failing in the desired eviction of Israel now.

Yet EVERY DAY that Israel is not sent, courtesy of such potentates of yore as Egyptian ruler Nasser, into the sea, to drown, or courtesy of the UN into this or that slanderous curse or corruption of truth, there is a nullification of the power of the alleged Allah and a testimony to the millenia-long patience of God, as He awaited His set time for Israel's return (cf. Jeremiah 30-33), this now past with Israel's restoration. Indeed, it is in the time of massive return and restoration to Israel, as this proceeds, that the Lord Himself is predicted to come (Jeremiah 33:7-18 - "in those days and at that time").

What He says, goes; and since 1948, this author for one has seen it happening, step by step, triumph by triumph, deliverance (1948! from 5 nations, before Israel was even re-founded by a ruling government,  in its place!). It is the same God who speaks (Isaiah 64:4, 43:13, 48:13ff.), and it is done; for He has done so from the creation of the universe, including that of man, through the answer to sin, the sacrifice for it, the sundering of its sovereignty and the making of regenerated people of the Lord. Israel as a nation was as one cut off from its own tree of faith, we find in Romans 11, and this same Israel as a nation will resume that place, we read no less clearly there. First (as in Ezekiel 37), it will be physically; but after a time, spiritually (37:4-13, cf. 37:23ff.).

So often it is the pure repugnance of certain elements of a situation which makes it 'hard' to understand; but as in scientific investigations, it does not alter any of the facts; and one has to learn with the Bible as doctrinal source, to stand by and await instruction. This comes true always, and thus avoids the tangles of endless confusions which lead so many, far away from the Bible, to end up harassed, mixed up, misaligned and intemperate to the point of killing at the hest of killer gods of this or that kind, philosophy ... astray whether in things avant-garde or stuck in some historical pocket without rescue.

Christ however is offered so that those who receive Him might have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10). His words are warranted, His grace is guaranteed, His predictions happens as with all the prophets, but with Him, it is easier for the heavens and earth to pass away, than for His word to do so (Matthew 24:35);and He not only said it, but does it! The prophets for some three and one half millenia, and Christ since His incarnation for two, have attested this as mutants arise, change and decay, and His words, being arisen, just happen. As it speaks, so it acts. As from the first in Genesis 1, it moves to the last in Revelation 17, and we are now at the brink of His OWN return, following that of Israel (Acts 1:7, Luke 21:24).