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CHAPTER SEVEN
STILL LOOKING WITH A CHILD
AND LOOKING AFTER ONE SPIRITUALLY
Part IV
This is part IV in the series on the child. It follows on the basis of Chapters 3, 4 and 5, which should be read first. John continues to grow a little older, time by time.
The Jews, the Iranians,
the End and the Way from Beginning to End
Hi John, how are things ?
Do you mean homework things, Dad, or athletic things or social things or some other things, for the answers are all different.
Suppose we start with question things ?
All right. I was reading in one of the newspapers that someone in Iran, the King or something ...
It has a President who speaks with a sort of fire, perhaps you mean that one ?
Yes, the President of Iran. He spoke as if he had the right to suggest, or proclaim even, that another nation nearby, little Israel, should not be allowed to exist on the face of the earth. Does it irritate him in some way, as burrs do in your socks, or is he sick in his mind, or murderous in his heart, or what is his problem then ?
I suppose he has many problems. His land is ruled, very harshly many say, and he has secret police who even mix without being uniform in crowds, and harm people who want to be heard, and ...
You mean, I think this is the word, he tries to intimidate many of his own people as well as Israel ?
That is true, at any rate.
Why ? Why can't he be reasonable and reason about things the way you have taught me to do ?
In general, some people refuse to be reasonable because if they were to be that, then they would not get what they want. Hence they just demand and use secret police, or bullying tactics at school, or in parliament, or attack people's good name or use some other way of avoiding the issue.
What does that mean, to avoid an issue ?
The 'issue' is the point at which people differ, like different ocean currents, the one moving against the other, and sometimes forming a whirl-pool.
But Daddy, if ocean currents can form a whirl-pool, and that one in the Atlantic makes great viewing on the TV - why do people who have minds have to act as if they were just brute force, without understanding, and make silly statements about other nations or people or races ?
If reason brings no relief for their desires, they use something else.
Why then do they desire such things ?
Well, firstly it could be because other people or nations or something makes them feel uncomfortable. Maybe, they feel afraid ...
What Iran of Israel ?
Yes, you see, force is not the only thing people often fear. If someone is RIGHT and you are WRONG, if someone can SHOW that he is right and you are wrong, then it may seem, if you are a liar at heart, dangerous to be open with that person, and so such people often try to intimidate them, ruin their good name, get other people on side with themselves in order to overcome or overthrow such people or nations ... you know, it's rather like a school bully.
Yes, I hear of one school, where they have little discipline, where school bullies and their allies almost rule the school yard, and two boys were hurt badly, one having to go to hospital.
Sometimes, both people are wrong, but one more so than the other, so that the one totally wrong acts in much the same way, afraid of being shown to be just a mouth with loud noise, not reasonable with a good cause.
Who is wrong with Israel and Iran ?
What do you think ?
I need more
information, Dad. Isn't Israel more or less the same nation that was in the Old
Testament, which was called from the days of Abraham, according to the
only reliable historical record in existence on the topic, the one handed down
over the millenia and always shows right when the dust settles ?
Basically, yes; for although Israel, as a nation, does not now, as a nation, worship the same God that it used to, it has a strong part of it, or element or group, which seeks to do so.
However could they seek to do so and not manage it then ?
They are confused.
How could they possibly be confused about so simple a thing ?
If you murder, it upsets the heart. Before that, if you are not what you are supposed to be, it can upset the head. Israel was once a great nation, and even had an empire in the days of a group of ruler-priests and their offspring, called the Maccabees. They also had a great King, David, who absolutely loved God, though he did make one awful mistake in his life, when for a short time lust ruled his head and heart together, and it almost finished him totally, but the Lord forgave him.
Could he even get away with something terrible ?
He did not get away with it. The REST OF HIS LIFE had many trials and troubles, and many great things which God had in store for him, were cancelled. Indeed, his children did dreadful things and he was reminded not once or twice of his error, but often enough for humbling him; but then, this was a tiny amount of his life, where he erred, and he was taught to watch it, and to do so carefully. It was like a tsunami, a moral one, and it did a lot of damage to his - if you like - psychological coastline.
Mm, that is a good thought.
You see his thoughts about it in abject and utter repentance before God, in Psalm 51.
So Israel was at times great, and never perfect, but something went wrong. It so often seems to do so, doesn't it!
Yes, after David they had some good periods and some terrible, with shocking kings like Manasseh and Ahaz, who was rather like many politicians, saying one thing that sounds fairly good, and doing things and having his heart in things that were anything but good; and he was weak, talking religion but not doing it.
What sort of things did they do when bad ?
You see some of that in a review of there history, in part, in Psalm 106. For example, they started worshipping silly little gods that people made up, and which they even tried to put into metal figures to worship, and they killed many of their children as some type of spiritually obscene sacrifice to these imaginary gods - Psalm106:28-39. In Amos 8:4-8... I will show it to you.
"Hear this, you who swallow up the needy,
And make the poor of the land fail,
saying
'When will the New Moon be past,That we may sell grain?And the Sabbath,That we may trade wheat?Making the ephah small and the shekel large,Falsifying the scales by deceit,That we may buy the poor for silver,And the needy for a pair of sandals -Even sell the bad wheat?'"The Lord has sworn by the pride of Jacob,
'Surely I will never forget any of their works. Shall not the land tremble for this ...?' "
It looks as if many of them became dishonest,
panting for gain,
without morals, monsters, thrilling to be drilling into other people's
just and honest work, to extract what they could.
That is exactly right, and God hated their having untrue gods, things they made up and then had lead them; and look into what things they were led! Did you notice, I see you scurrying to look up Psalm 106, how they SACRIFICED their children, shed their blood, with the false gods ?
How could they ? Were they mad ?
False gods can do almost anything with people, as they do with the President of Iran.
But doesn't he have one god, from some false prophet called ... what was it, Muhammad ?
It would seem so, but where he gets the desire to exterminate Israel from is another matter.
Do you think he has another god as well ?
A lot of people have a little god called themselves, their own ideas about things, and scarcely know what they are doing. They take things, such as are in the Koran, the false prophet's book, and make them even larger, so that instead of just making some people be UNDER their power, by fighting them, they want to exterminate them. One time when that would happen came when they beat some other people with force, and then had them under their thumbs for a while, and then the subject people wanted liberty. They mention this set-up in the Koran. Then they could kill if they felt it necessary, till they were all gone, that is, the ones who had to submit to them. It is very ugly really, a sort of domineering domination. Of course you get it elsewhere, but this is a religious one.
Yes, I can see* 1 how he might expand that to destroying Israel. After all, if the nation of Israel has - as you say they left, as a nation, the true God, but still have in their nation, some try to follow Him - closer relations to the true God then the Iranian President has, then it would make him feel a little... well, small.
Or vulnerable or endangered. Besides bullies hate competition.
You mean that even if Israel is very little, it is still THERE! and being so little, that well ... it speaks. It says something.
What do you think it says, then ?
It says that their God still has an interest in them, and if his Islamic god has no background in reason for faith, then this could be dangerous. What if much of Israel the nation came back to their God ? Then he would be in real trouble.
That's true. Actually, what might make it rather worse for him is this, that the Bible in Romans 11, tells the story like this. Think of a tree. It is one which means Israel sitting in God, as a tree in the ground. Israel is the large branch of this tree of faith, which for many centuries was before God as a sort of messenger, and it handed on the word of God for some 2 millenia or so, to others. When it killed the Messiah ...
You mean Jesus was the Jewish Messiah ? as well as ours ?
Yes, that is so. You see that in the prophet Isaiah, 42:6 and 49:6, where centuries before He came (a sort of warning or prior announcement so that when He came, honesty could not fail to recognise Him, and none need suffer needlessly) ...
Hey that's good, that was good of the Lord.
He came, then, certainly to Israel first, but as an offering for all.
That's what makes it so wonderful, it is so measured, so organised, all so well documented from first to last, thought through from the first, taught to the last, and happening, like a vast organ with new and other sources of wonderful sound, all melding together.
Yes it is just like that. So the Messiah sent to Israel was for one and for all, as many as believed in Him, indeed He was, like the sacrificial lamb of Israel, offered to the whole nation; but He, the Messiah is offered all the nations. It even included those in Iran! If you don't want to fail, you don't have to do so, wherever you are.
That's a great thing, a just and a good one.
It was and it is. Thus Isaiah declares in God's own name (the name that always made sure that whatever He told the Jewish prophets whom He called, would happen as it always has done ever since), that when the Messiah would come, He would have too small a work if He came only for those chosen for God in Israel. It would be too little just to save His own elect ones there; for He would come no less for the other nations, with the same invitation and open door to salvation as the Jews were offered. Twice it says this in the very midst of presenting Him in His glory, as a sort of spiritual photograph, before He came, centuries before He came.
And yet they killed him ...
As a nation, yes, for God knew they would so do, declared this, and they did it. Yet many Jews became part of the Christian Church, including the apostles, some of whom were killed FOR His sake!
So the nation was cut off from the tree of faith, like a branch.
That is what Romans 11 tells us. It says of other nations - you remember, called the Gentiles - that they were then grafted into this self-same tree.
That IS cute.
And then they were in the tree of life.
But not ALL the Gentiles were grafted in ?
Oh no, God always operates with people by faith, and if faith is not there, nor is He, except when in kindness helping people in, or treating them to reminders and the like.
So a lot of people, some in Iran, just maybe, and some in Israel, a few, and some in England, a lot, and in the USA which started off with faith in very many of its people, and grew near to becoming a Christian people, I read - all of these became Christians and were though scattered, as one unit, as if you could see it from a survey aeroplane, and make them out as one type of people, a sort of sprinkled nation -
That is just what Peter says in I Peter 2, of Christians, that they are a holy nation ...
Well, all these were grafted into the tree of faith, and is it also the tree of eternal life ?
Those who remain in it, as all Christians do, and many Jews did, and many more will, yes they are Christians, but the tree is largely dealing in terms of nations here.
Then is Israel to be put back in ? is that what is to happen ?
Yes, what is called the 'remnant', that is those who return to the same Lord the nation once had, and this is not only seen in Romans 11, as "life from the dead", but in the prophet Zechariah 12-13 as seeing in vision and repenting of crucifying their own Messiah. It hits them very hard in heart, but it is for their deliverance.
Then the tree will have two massive limbs, one from Israel, coming back to the same Messiah they killed, and one from many other nations, the believers as we are.
Yes, well any well-informed person should know about these things, and it is possible that the President of Iran does; and if so, this would give him even more reason to be scared on account of Israel, for it was never what IT could do that mattered, but what God could do through them, and HE could do anything as many a nation found, precisely as the called prophets in Israel said - nations like Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and the island empire of Tyre! and the Medes and the Persians and the Macedonians with Alexander the Great. Their futures were told very decisively, and as the prophets said, so it has been with them for millenia. You see it beautifully put in II Kings, in speaking of the King Hezekieh in II Chronicles 32:8:
“Be strong and courageous; do not be afraid nor dismayed before the king of Assyria,
nor before all the multitude that is with him; for there are more with us than with him.“With him is an arm of flesh;
but with us is the Lord our God, to help us and to fight our battles."
Dad why don't people believe ?
I suppose it is much the same as with the President of Iran: they have their own pre-occupations, things in their own little selves which matter immensely to them, and they cannot seem to detach themselves from this. Then, really, or just to have people like and follow them, whichever may be the case, or even possibly some mixture of both, they follow something that is not true, like a false prophet or other imaginary thing. Then often enough, they all become bloodthirsty and try to KILL, MAIM or try to intimidate those who don't: for when reason is not with you, force may be easier.
Why doesn't he, Iran's man, realise ?
You remember, it is like hypnosis. Reason becomes a background thing, evidence becomes a silly little thing or is at least distanced, as if you had walked miles away from someone crying out to you and simply could not hear (perhaps stuffing wadding in your ears). In such cases, often what is called passion rises in them, like a blast in some mine, to explode the rock. The rock of reason no longer seems to be safe or desirable to them, and they take the law into their own hands and go for it.
Like a bull when roused ?
Rather. One such King in the past, who also rather cleverly tried to intimidate Israel when it had a good and godly king called Hezekiah, Isaiah the prophet tells us, was given an actual message for the invading King. In this message, he was made to be like a bull, and God said that He would lead it back. It was to be like a bull with a ring in its nose! It was really rather funny, since that King of Assyria as he was, was so clever and crafty, and tried to war with his mind - it's called psychological warfare - and to make them afraid. He even thought of rather rich one, as if to mislead them, or confuse them - he told them not to trust in the Lord, since He would have been offended by now. Why ? It was, he said, because their King Hezekiah had been removing some of the places of worship for Him!
And had he done this ?
Yes, since God authorised only ONE place for worship, just as in time, there was only ONE Jesus who in ONE sacrifice in ONE place paid the penalty for sin. More was sin, and Hezekiah corrected that, thus pleasing, and being far from displeasing God!
So the King of Assyria at that time was really not telling the truth ?
No. He was using his ideas for measuring God's idea, and in this sort of situation, the way we put it is this: he was using his model of religion in order to rate or show the situation in someone else's religion. That is like using apples to do mathematics, or paragliders to string beans.
But the truth, Dad, that always applies ?
Yes that is the exception. It is the same in science or anywhere else, for if you have the truth, it will test out the others, and being itself tested, stand when they fall; and then you can then apply it wherever it belongs.
But they don't do that at school, because they tell us about false gods, myths I suppose you could call them, things that are supposed to come from nowhere and do everything for no reason and to be all geared up to do all this from nothing, and which never show themselves doing any of these things, not even now, and they won't even allow us to show them where they are wrong, in bringing in this type of silly religion into science classes.
Yes, that is the myth of organic evolution, the world's great absentee*2, worshipped in this, that it is used as a model and a source of thought and understanding by those who are blinded, or impassioned or both.
That is because these nations, ones like that, are just like Israel in the days of the exceedingly evil King Manasseh, making up gods that are not there; and while they do not now in this land at least, physically burn up your bodies, as they did at that time with children as meat sacrifices, yet they are at work burning up your minds; and remember how confused they get with false gods, so that reason is found to be far away, in ta-ta land! It is a land of forgetfulness as far a scientific method is concerned.
Well at least they let these sacrifices live, and I am still alive.
Very much so, John.
So Iran, or its President is trying to wipe out Israel, just as schools like mine are trying to wipe out the testimony of God here ?
Yes, although both being confused, they do not often face up to what they are doing, or understand their own illicit passions, out of control like a stricken aircraft.
But God will at last show them, at judgment day if not before; and with Iran, what does it say ?
Well, Iran and Iraq both relate geographically to old Assyria and several times as in Isaiah 10 and 30, and Micah 5 (following the prophecy of the eternal God becoming man), God indicates that there is to be a further effort against Israel, despite the old capital Nineveh, lying in the dust as was foretold.
Iraq has already made a big bid in the Gulf War of the nineties, maintaining its war against Israel very vocally as with some rockets, and fallen. Now the next.
And what is to come here if Iran strikes out against Israel ?
What happens ? Same as before, with Sennacherib. They are ruined.
Could it be that a lot of them will gang up against Israel ?
Yes, Ezekiel 36-30 tells of Israel, scattered in unbelief like dead bones in the world, being called back by God at a certain time (1948), their bones re-assembled (back in Israel physically) and regaining its land (1967) and how God will bring a Northern alliance against it, and slaughter that alliance in its egotistical presumption and unearthly arrogance. Before that blows over, there is this massive return to the Lord on the part of many in Israel as we will see. Yes, He overthrows this blustery and lustful invasion.
Why would God do that, and let them do any such thing ?
He does not incite them to do it, but allows it, and since the evil is in their hearts, He lets it come out like steam in an explosion, and then freezes it all, to put it that way, so that it no longer has any strength, but is weak as water. Long will they be burying the results of the aborted invasion.
What is an aborted invasion ?
Sometimes a child does not come properly from the mother, or rather people try to get rid of it for some reason - maybe the mother is too weak - and it is made to come without living. In this way (often horrible, but that is another story). In a way something like that, an invasion can come nearly to the point of success, but then fail at the last moment, and finish up dead!
I see. So there is another reason for the President of Iran to be afraid, even if he does not admit it, in his confusion, and all these things make him keen to get rid of Israel, like a gun in someone's pocket, and perhaps he is trying to stop the future by burying it before it happens.
Israel being the 'future' in this case. But he is not the only one of the Islamic or Arab peoples keen on this sort of thing. Israel gave some of its land to some of them, and they then used it to bombard it, and now they want more.
Do you think they fear Israel and want it out, or see that it is weak now that God is not with it as He once was, and hope to smash it up before they find their God once more, as the Bible so clearly foretells ?
Perhaps. That is called opportunism. It means this, that if you see a moment when the guard is down in a fight, go for it and smash your way in and win while there is this opening. Many people try to twist things so that they can do this sort of thing, however wrong it may be, and it is called opportunism.
So they are being opportunistic ?
It certainly looks like.
Does Iran have the atomic bomb ?
It is not certain, but they seem to have been rushing to get it as fast as they can, whether in some ways from Russia or North Korea or from any suitable source.
Then it could challenge Israel ?
God is stronger than any bomb; that is precisely why Israel is still there after having no country left to them, as God foretold to them for their sins, for nearly 2 millenia. Amazing as it is, precisely as prophetically predicted, it is now is back and ruling its own land! God in Jeremiah 33 said that if you could change astronomy, then perhaps you could try to change Israel's continuance as a people. He has set His mind to it, and as we saw, not only was it the place where Christ died to save sinners, but Jerusalem is going to be a centre for Christianity, and people will wash away their sins there, ,repenting of having as a nation, crucified the Christ who now forgives them.
Isn't God great in heart!
He assuredly is. Actually, after the league of nations attacks Israel, and this is aborted, and many in Israel become Christians as in Zechariah 12-13, then it appears that all of the people, believers whether Jew or Gentiles ones, as in Romans 11, as ONE, one 'body' for the 'Head', Jesus Christ, are called as Christ said in Matthew 24-25.They are called to Him, as He comes like a bridegroom. His angels gather ALL His people, all now so unified in a way that delights the apostle Paul as you read in the end of Romans 11, and as a BRIDE (seen in Revelation 19:8), they all appear, one 'wife' to the Lord. 'She' does not come in parts, but as one! It is imagery ...
I know, an allegory ?
I think you could call it that.
It means that these His people, whatever their national background, are very much and truly devoted to Him, and love to follow One who after all is the Eternal God, He who became man to get man out of a mess.
As many as received Him!
Yes. Then this very unusual 'bride' comes with Christ (you see that in Revelation 19) back to the earth, which HE WHO MADE IT, is now coming to rule. As to the nations, as He does this, these by then are all ranged up actually to fight Him (Revelation 19:19), more open about it now it seems; and He destroys the armies that try to make a final and total take-over from God, stealing His property, the earth, and slaying His people, the Christians.
But this too is aborted ?
Yes they are themselves slain.
What then ?
Then there is a period called in Revelation 20, "the thousand years", which is often called the milleniumendnote3, in which as in that lovely Psalm 72, Christ rules on this earth, and all those who had been beheaded or had not been marked out as belonging to the forces against the Lord (Revelation 5:10, 20:6), are there available for this earth, which has a time of grace and equity, kindness and peace, so that as it says...
I know, Daddy, I know for you have often said this, "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea," and it is in Habakkuk 2:14, whereas in Isaiah 11, it is a little shorter with the same message.
Great, what a memory!
God has a good memory, and it seems a good idea to work at things like this, for Him.
And then, human nature, whether in a good place or a bad one, being what it is unless converted (and being beaten is not the same as being converted, which is an affair of the heart, like that in a little child who loves and trusts, is sorry for sins and embraces the Saviour): then, I say, the evil ones erupt once more, only to be finally finished. After THAT, no one can say how tough things were or that it wasn't fair, for they have come right out of a wonderful period of rich pasture and keen justice! Thus they make way for the final judgment.
What does the Bible say about hearts like that ?
It says this, in Isaiah 26: "Let grace be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness he will deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord."
Thank God I am a Christian. Dad, could you call Jesus Christ the President of the Universe ?
You could but it is far too small. A President is one who is elected, or is given chief place in some society or nation, and he governs it in the way the thing has. Christ has DIED for HIS nation, His special people, and has risen from the dead as a show-case, or laboratory experiment in history, as some think of it, though of course God Himself knew and said what would happen, just as a University lecturer might do when performing an experiment in a Lecture Hall. He also made our kind of life, and gives His own freely, His eternal life which He has always had.
I see, President is small-fry for Jesus Christ.
King, Shepherd, Saviour, Prince of Peace, Counsellor, Wonderful, these are some of His names as also, as Thomas showed (John 20), 'my Lord and my God.' That is literally in Greek, THE GOD OF ME! He was in the form of God and became in the form of man the Saviour who would inform us and remove our deformities of heart and spirit and make us free (Philippians 2:1-10); for sin is a harsh master, as you see in John 8:34-36; and He brings life, which He made in our sort of receptacle, life in abundance. This is an aim of His as seen in John 10:10.
This is the way He comes to us, not like a river in flood, but like early Spring waters from a distant ...
And lofty mountain ...
As Jeremiah put it ...
In ?
You say ...
All right, in Jeremiah 18:14:
"Will a man leave the snow water of Lebanon,
which comes from the rock of the field,
will the cold flowing waters be forsaken for strange waters"
If a man does this, then the next thing is to put his own strange waters into cracked wells which contain even then, his own polluted products. I remember somewhere finding this.
Jeremiah 2:13 has this.
Thank God for the prophets.
And for their prophecies!
And for the One whom they predicted.
And for His coming.
And for His sacrifice.
Which calls for sacrifice from us, not to redeem, but to redeem the time and serve the God who is splendid, with open hearts and informed minds, and to know our King, as in Psalm 23 and Romans 12:1-2 and John 17:1-2.
And where else to know Him ?
In our hearts and lives and by His Spirit, in our spirits, given grace from His word to test all things ...
And to hold fast what is good, His word, Himself, His way...
As in John 10:9, 27-28.
NOTE
*1 On the Koran and Moslem religion, see such sites as:
More Marvels ... Ch. 4, esp. *4,
Dancers, Prancers, Lancers and Answers Ch. 3, *1A misconceptions about the Cross, variable and mutually conflicting, on the part of the Koran
Lord of Life Ch. 3 (and force), 1081ff. (and faith), Outrageous Outages ... Ch. 5;
His Wounds Opened Eternity Ch. 4; 3
Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 9,
Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8 (in perspective), see also *1,See Divine Agenda Chs. 6
with 3 (an overview of religious truancies, including Marx, Darwin and Koran)
and Highway to Hell - (Koran citations in both, with ideational parallels in perspective, in the latter two; and in the former, futile depravities in endless ideologies such as Sudan has shown so significantly, Islam ablaze without glory),
cf. Overflight in Christ Ch. 1 (and the Koran's musings);
1493 (esp. Britain and sharia);
News 138, Beauty for Ashes Chs. 4, 7BARBLISS 5, Acme ... Ch. 9 , Great Execrations ... Ch. 3, SMR p. 1O88D - three major religions in some ways in concert, astray.
News 138, Beauty for Ashes Chs. 4, 7, SMR pp. 1074ff., esp. 1079, 1081ff.
(These latter show this religion, with the other three major conspiracies towards the ultimate - why conspiracies ? It is because men conspire, or breathe plans together for a control, rule or oversight not ordained by God: these are breaths of man, and the breath that matters is that of God, in and by which all scripture is inspired by Him (II Timothy 3:16, Isaiah 8:20), in the Book of the Lord (Isaiah 34:16), the Bible, and sustained and implemented by Him (Matthew 26:54ff.). Other ideas for rule are always unruly, since they always tend to use power for what neither reason nor truth compels.).PP 8, app., PP 11, 4, 11, 5 (national character and character of Islam).
*2 See for example, .Secular Myths and Sacred Truth and the 6 volume set,
The gods of naturalism have no go! See also Chapter 6 above.
On various aspects of this millenium, from the Bible, see Possess Your Possessions Volume 3, Ch. 4.. This includes its duration, nature and purpose.