CHAPTER TEN

Wars, Words, Works,

the World's Worries
and God's Ways

News 180
Radio News October 14, 16, 2001

Have Time for Drama ?  for Drama will have time for you!

About 53 years ago, the world was astonishingly much younger. There was still some sense, in its withering grandeurs, of the idea that war could be glorious in its bravery, happy in its heroism, mighty in its strength, a sort of competition with severe penalties.

It is not so now, except perhaps for those spiritually sedated by false religion.

After all, Rev. 6:4 and 8 make it clear there are to be two stages of such passionate killing, and it would seem possible that each has come already, the second in its final stages.

But first, let us consider some aspects of the sort of atmosphere of the thirties, before the last war. This is epitomised in certain respects in a poem which one wrote in 1948. At that time, as author, I was not a Christian, and this has required a revision with some addition; but much of it remains as when first written.

We shall plan for a sense of historical momentum, first to consider this, and then to move to our own times, and seek to note a certain change of mood, attitude, of spiritual thrust and to see it whole before the word of God, as things develop over half a century.

These things are upon us; it is wise to consider what they did, are doing and seem poised to do in one sweep, as in the take-off of a city aircraft, allowing you to see the locations in perspective. Certainly the Play there presented merely epitomises some elements; but with due dramatic allowance, and full realisation of many more, these aspects need consideration as we trace our way now to the Frenzy of Fear which is replacing glory, but by no means eliminating aspiration for godless rule, in the affairs of war. Forcible 'peace' is soon coming for a little (I Thess. 5:1-10), but its smell is still war. It will rot almost as soon as it comes, but Christ will soon supplant it, in His personal, visible return.

Meantime, Christians, be ready for His coming for you (Matthew 24:45ff.); for if people do not know Him, how would they return WITH Him! (Matthew 7:21).
 
 

 PART I

The Poem of 1948

Considering the Characters
and the Character of the End

Enter the Professor.  Fanfare.

He speaks his view.
 

Human beings like to be liked, and if they're not, sufficiently, and at the right times and in the right places, they set a moat round their castle, and frown, or clown, or bite, or fight, or cease to care, or greatly dare, or reason well, or go to hell, but all the time, the vital crime was a lack of a little love, my love, a lack of a little love...

Besides, you'll argue

There must be strife (cheers)
It's grim death, life (boos);
But if we must
Return to dust,
'Mid wars and lust
I'd sooner bust
In order to be just.

If men will seek
That bloody reek
And yet complain
Of brutal pain
When, they exchange punches
In murderous bunches:
Then I'd rather they die
Wondering why
Than live to fight
And call it right.
Of course they do,
And so will you:
If you care for manly fare
With mighty fighters
The great fire lighters
Of all we've built (laughter) -
Magnificently free from guilt.

And yet they'll wilt
 And return to fight
That ancient rite
To a light martial lilt -
They all do:
And so will you
No doubt.

Don't pout
Who cares ?
What do they teach
Who know no peace ?

'We are the garb that matter wears
"Out brief candle".'
The Roman sandal
Was a good idea.
Don't fear:
Good military gear.
But what do they say ?

'Man is a beast made to fight
In the pallor of night
Or even in day
If it will pay.'

As beast they see him
As beast they play him,
And angels weep for the deflation of truth
Like a flat tyre,
That cripples transport and
Breathes death as it collapses.

The trouble
("Life is mostly froth and bubble")
Is that men are 'wise'.
That old disguise
Is very engaging
When battle is raging:
It carries weight
It is first rate,
To know that you
Will do:
And if you die ...
Alas! they'll cry,
That's one less,
Clear the mess.

You see
If we
Let them fool us,
I mean the passions
In generous rations,
(In England, I understand
They're neatly canned):
However they talk,
Whatever their walk,
Prime ministers,
Elderly spinsters,
Bend sinisters
Or business men...

Angelic Chorus:

Alas he's wrong,
Too full his song.
No lack of love
Sent from above,
This sullen earth received:
The planet's wholly flooded!
The race is much deceived.

Celestial waters
To terrestrial quarters
Flow flush with deeds of grace,
Seek dearly every place.

Gifts divine of kindness,
Meet malign with blindness:
The pulsing mobs
Some lofty snobs
Seduce their hope,
With death elope:
And few to love have budded!
Life eternal,
Ever vernal
Is left with backward glances
Severed, the stallion prances
Assured,
Outlawed from God.

Nor love alone to give or find
The human needs to gain:
But love of truth
To cling like Ruth,
Of justice, peace and duty,
Love that thrives in beauty:
Not sentiment
Like sediment
Or changeable affection.

Love's deep, no mere complexion.

Get God and go,
Find Christ and sow:
The selfish slattern's 'right'
Is symptom of her plight.

It is a sickness,
This grasping slickness:
Truth loves,
Love's true,
And peace is in their concord.

Christ's cross
Do not emboss:
The Gospel is His record.

{Enter, Brisk Gay Matron, interrupting - she is obviously oblivious of the angelic chorus, and proceeds from what she last heard, from the Professor: applause and laughter - }

Brisk Gay Matron:

O  War again
Did I hear you say ?
How gay!
Now we must have streamers
Bold soldiers on steamers
And passionate talk:
The cowards will balk,
The Kaiser was great
Now what was his name ?
So petty to praise none but your own,
A  German's as good as an English groan:

Because you see it's right
To fight
To see the men
Marching again.
If we can't have a war
conscript as before.

Men must be told
By someone bold
ow to move their arms and legs
(Another glass ? What reached the dregs!).

I'm very partial
To something martial...
An army of a million men -
Ah! to see them massed again.

I think the atom bomb is neat!
A million men six million feet b

Beneath the sod
O God!
Of course they go ...
Ah how I love the men who know.

{Exit both.}

Big Bold Businessman, drinking with 'popsy'

Competition must be fierce and bold
(A little more  rug, do you feel cold ?)
Let the best man win
(Do you prefer gin! ?)

It's really quite funny
Men losing money,
Of course they make it,
I take it.

You get what you can
Hurrah for man.

You see, my dear, it's not quite right to cheat
(What now ? ... cold feet ?)
But you must always endeavour
To be rather more clever
Than the man you rob.

Now my old friend Bob
Was frightfully nice;
But he hadn't the price
In the end, of a whisky
And boy was he frisky
At first
(What a thirst!).

But men come and go,
Like the brook you know.
I live on
And now he's gone...
Perhaps to hell -
I wish him well.

Charm's not enough,
You've got to have bluff.

Now I remember
Last September  -
But I can't tell you
That'd never do,
Secret, my dear
(My pretty, a tear!)
Oh it's fair enough
If you know your stuff...
You think I'm cruel,
A snatching fool
Better dead
With a lump of lead,
But no:
Some of us have got to go.

Efficiency's the game!
We've no time for limp and lame.

Now on the head
Of lead
I could mention
A little convention
We're all for
A war...
Why worry
No hurry
I'm tough,
You like that stuff...
Oh my poor, my snuggly
You think now it's ugly!

{Exit both.}

 Enter Young Man, a Private Soldier, conscripted.

I love to strut
With belted gut
Ten miles out
To the sergeant's shout,
And ten miles in
With a stubborn chin
With the band playing,
And everybody saying
Nothing at all.

It's as good as a ball,
But more the fashion.
It's military passion
That's marked a man
Since the world began.
To wound and slaughter,
To give no quarter:
It's frightfully thrilling,
This business of killing.

I'm never afraid
To see a grenade
Whizzing by.
I know I'll die
Sooner or later -
I duck in a crater
Till the blast
Is past:
Practice you  know,
A very good show.
 

I think it's bold
To do what you're told,
"Turn left, turn right
About turn, now fight."

Elaborate drill
Is my special thrill.
I simply love
To grasp and shove
Where a few
Men in a queue
Or a squash or a rush
Are trying to sample the Company's slush;
Or fighting or dying
Or anyhow trying
All together
In any old weather.

The water is muddy
But our faces are ruddy,
It doesn't hurt us -
Why all the fuss!

Queer kinds of worms
And various germs
Don't worry me:
I've got them you see,
Did I say that before ?

I would love a war -
If I get a chance.
I'll make them dance,
Those asses that prattle
About the death-rattle
And talk of war
In terms of gore,
And question conscription
And make the prediction
That an army's the place
To farewell the race.

The atom bomb
Was wrong:
It wipes you out,
Lean and stout,
An academic matter
Of scientific chatter;
And all my training -
Fair or raining -
And I and the rest
Like that! are pressed
In a single convulsion
To a fine emulsion:
I don't think it's fair -
In war you dare
Blood and thunder.

It makes you wonder.
As a child
I went wild
At the very mention
Of bloody contention.
War's in my blood,
One red manly flood.

To kill
Is my will.
Men are strange,
Some love change
But war does me -
War's my glee.
Man was made to follow
The sound of something hollow -
I mean a drum.
Men come
From everywhere,
If they dare
To have fight.

It's best when they're tight.
In the army it's taped,
It's specially shaped -
But I don't think it's fair,
Things in the air
Wiping you out,
Not even a shout.

Men in masses
Look such asses
Then
When
All their thinking
Leaves them blinking:
New to heaven
Six or seven (Cheers, Hurray!)

{Pause ...}

The rest in hell
Without a knell.

But I love
A shove,
Plenty of men
Do it again,
Any time,
No crime
Jolly together
Army leather
Is better than heather -

{He sits on the corner of the stage.}
 

I suppose it's a waste
All these men in a paste,
When they should be working:
It's work they're shirking,
Being fed
And all men 'bled'.

It's an old old story,
Now I doubt its glory.

War ends, it's said,
With all of us dead.

Bloody
Muddy
End of man
Worse than when he first began.

Of course it's pay
Some say,
That gets them in,
Thick and thin -
And then have a war
Win as before,
How many takers ?

Some say the makers
Of some sort of gun
Think war is fun;
The generals get bored
If war is outlawed.

Wars are only an excuse,
For every abuse
Of man by man
That man can:
Trade wars, holy wars,
Land wars, any cause
Will do,
And so will you -
One more
Lump of gore,
Really glorious
Man victorious,
Shows fine spirit,
Full of merit ...
Nationalism
Meets Rationalism -
The rose and the nightingale,
They cannot fail
To agree,
You see
Man is a conglomerate of sores
From all his former mental chores,
And else besides
If time decides to spare us.

Our cells are all coded
The truth's not eroded,
But man descends
Makes never amends.

Perhaps God will declare us
Black.
We'll all get the sack,
"Out you go
Monster! I never told you so."

What preposterous talk
I'll go for a walk.

{Exit.}

{Enter Chorus.}

Chorus

Then sudden stark, a monstrous thing
Murderously made death king.
Life vomited
Matter cometed
Perishable clay
You've had your way ?

And in all this froth
God was wrath,
Brooding over spent creation
Petty state and pompous nation.

Each little speck
Must peck
At every other little speck.
Most fine!

They shall not shine
When life is swept
Breathless out;
Yet Jesus wept.

Angelic voice:
 He will draw His own above
Meanwhile keeps them in His love.
All is loss,
Stone and floss:
The only exception
The state of redemption
 

Chorus resumes:

And if perchance
The end is just -
Of us who must
fare well,
And which to hell -
That dated notion
Like the ocean
Rolls on
When we are gone.

'Tis said
That some are racked
When most are packed
Into a common flood
Of blood and mud:
Sad years
Mortal fears,
Displacing death,
Live on every bated breath.

Matter sulks another day
Man still tries to have his way,
The blessed
Are best
In this red time
Of evil prime.

His own arrested,
Sin detested,
They depart
With judgment immiscible,
To the invisible;
The visible now, so sorely penn'd,
Await the stench of the certain end.
 

Christ returns
With the children He raptured,
False leaders captured,
The man heart burns.

The war is over, the King has come
The day is past, Millenium's come.

A thousand years
Long as a day,
Then life endears
With mighty good
To prophethood.

It comes,
To an end.

Then clay will have its say again
And man will go his way again,
And all is snuffed.
 

Then ended, all begins.

Angelic Voice:

So now is the time!

In the beginning, God,
And in the end God:
In the centre's a Cross,
A measure of loss!
Belligerently ignored
Remorselessly assured.

Pathway to gain,
Ignored in the main,
Given in pain,
Taking the stain:
Celestial pity
On every city
Rains like tender tears -
Each day seems years,
Of a willing child.

But man so adult
Adept at insult
Merely sneers
Or artful, veers
To morbid delusions
Plentiful confusions
Ignoring the simplicity
With eager complicity.

So while sin extrapolates
And will incubates,
Psychiatry excruciates
Theology under-rates
And Christ accelerates
An end
Already penned.
 

(See SMR pp. 502ff..)
 
 

Part II

You may care, before considering Part II, to read
Answers to Questions Ch. 5.

We come next according to plan, to our look at the developments which now face us, in the lust of war, the slighting of peace, the loss of love, the siege of truth and the like, in the more rampant aspects, to parallel the above scenes from a younger world.

We find, if it were possible, increased rapacity, spiritual insanity, vastly engrossed fear, enormous confusion, lust and hatred of God, serving of spiritual substitutes with more blushless boldness than ever, with embrace of violence in religion in the very actions of allegedly seeking peace, as in the US's kind words to the militant Moslem religion^*1 . Once more align for convenience, as in World War II, was done with Stalin. Such a delusion does not work, cannot work, and merely contrives the earlier arrival of the uni-spiritism which confines God to various human, self-contradictory musings and confusings, as if His pure worship by His word were something extraordinary, and He were available solely for show, a help to human devices. (This trend has been exposed in some detail in Things Old and New Epilogue, which might here well be consulted, as it provides also additional reference.)

One might have hoped that the Cold War, the penalty for courting mass murderer Stalin to remove mass murderer Hitler, would have taught if not by its presence, then at least by its price, that confusing truth for the sake of convenience is unwise. It IS possible to be KIND and JUST to ALL, without humbling the name of God in the process. In fact, when this latter is done, what kindness is this, which provokes the Creator, just as did Israel so often of old, as if to see if His wrath has changed to such blind follies of flesh! For this, one could look at  II Chronicles 36, or Jeremiah 2:27ff.:

"Saying to a tree, ‘You are my father,’
And to a stone, ‘You gave birth to me.’
For they have turned their back to Me, and not their face.
But in the time of their trouble
They will say, ‘Arise and save us.’
But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves?
Let them arise,
If they can save you in the time of your trouble;
For according to the number of your cities
Are your gods, O Judah.
 

“Why will you plead with Me?
You all have transgressed against Me, says the Lord.
In vain I have chastened your children..."

So does this our race regress, and this is progress in one sense: for it is nearer the end, and the end is wonderful when Christ is your end. And why is this so ? It is because HE it is who is the beginning and the end of all creation (Rev. 3:14, Colossians 1:15ff., Rev. 22:13ff., Isaiah 41:4, Rev. 2:8). He sponsored it, invented it, achieved it as the word of God, and He redeemed so that ALL who are His may come, and all who come are His! Each is true. He has appeared. He will return. Everything in its time and place, for these things also, He has made. There is order because He has ordered it; orders do not come on their own.

Let us however consider more of the items of our progressive regress.

There is now increasing disregard of Israel: President Bush has just announced something special, after so many Arabs have darkly suggested that there is a REASON for the Arab hatred of the US, in so many instances, and that a POLICY change on Israel is the thing to ponder. What then is this US special ? It is a Palestinian State - doubtless one IN ISRAEL, and not among the endless seeming territories possessed by Arabs and Moslems which hum in the area like militant mosquitoes, and yet they want blood. They do not ? Then is it merely a mirage, which soils the ground of Israel, in shopping centres, sidewalks, indiscriminate victimisations of violence, wrought by foreign and other terrorists, who boldly proclaim their ‘exploits’.

But reward the perpetrators in Israel, with Israel, and punish them in the US case, with destruction.

A Palestinian State … How surprising! Fancy President Bush having such an idea, and willing to pass it on. Bomb New York, destroying a little piece of territory, and darkly contrive to gain more of little Israel, perhaps a much bigger acreage. How nice to add to the MOSQUE sitting with sublime disregard of the sovereign State of Israel, right in the midst of its ONLY capital in its ONLY land, its LITTLE land… How consistent! It has some, extend it. it violates the fundamental desire of Israel, so let it do it some more.

This then appears the desire for EVEN more of its slight territory, in order to make it even LESS defensible, even more ludicrous, even more acutely obvious as an insult to ANY race, and a welshing on the League of Nations agreement in 1919 to provide PALESTINE - not a little over half of even the British Mandated Territory of Palestine, as it came to be -  to Israel^*2.

So we regress rather nicely. The jaws of destiny are being investigated with more thoroughness than ever. It appears not GOD, whom they fear to transgress, but Arab oil, Arab desire and Muslim ambition. Alas, this is but dust, and God made dust; and life as well, and this, it is an insult to life, to God and to His word, to His OWNERSHIP of all. SO God who brought in Israel by His own will, and disciplined them for their failure to fitly exhibit His holiness, even be faithful to Him, so that they falsified their godly role (Isaiah 43:21-22), may not, when He is done with discipline in exile, bring them back, and Mosque (though the temple is no longer relevant for its former purpose cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 13,20) must be surrounded with a significant percentage of the Old City’s grounds, and this will not do! We have them war on God. It is as simple as that.

Did not Nebuchadnezzar have to learn ? Is there no progress in spiritual education in this matter, in 2500 years ? Did not Daniel have to tell his successor, Belshazzar about these things, before that king's falling, under judgment, slain that night ? Listen: of Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel reminded Belshazzar (Daniel 5), there was a history.
 

• "But when his heart was lifted up, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed form his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him. Then he was driven from the sons of men, his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys ... till he knew that the Most High God rules in the kingdom of men, and appoints over it whomever He chooses. But you his son, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this. And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven... "
  
  

The famous writing on the wall was duly interpreted and the life and kingdom of Belshazzar, exposed in its obduracy and pride, was at once ended.

However, let us return to our survey of changes in the interim over the last 50 years or so, since Scene I in its partial coverage.

Israel, then, is being tried to the uttermost. That is the other side of it. USA is now at best an ambivalent ally. It wants to make the small smaller, the almost ludicrously little,  littler, and this shrinkage is being done as a friend^*3! That was the word used. All that is asked in return for the divestment is this: that the people who take part of the country from it for themselves (as if Texas or California would want to revert to 'original' owners, and secede from the USA, probably not something which it would view with favour for its own part), that these who gain from defeat, and lord it in overthrow,  should now, helped by international contribution to their brigandage, do something.

What is it that the USA President would like them to do in return for this trifling grant of another nation's land, at the suggestion of that other nation (namely the USA, which does not live around there) ? It is just this.

They would need to allow Israel to exist! What a marvellous contribution from those who, defeated and without apparent moral restraint, are by international constraint, envisaged as vicarious victors!

How grand and generous a conception! In gratitude for giving you of our tininess, to your surrounding Arab vastnesses, we ask that we be permitted to exist.

It may be almost impossible to exist with an even greater disproportion than dozens of Muslim States around, to one tiny Israel, against which their desire to ISLAMICIZE all opposition to it, was stated in the 1991 Teheran Conference. It may be that the terrorist activity which Israel has increasingly been experiencing since the nineties, with the heartless assaults of the intefadeh, would then be taken more seriously. in its due time. Indeed,  after the US has with its allies, banished much of it from Afghanistan and perhaps elsewhere, for the time being, it might feel more sensitive, once again, towards Israel, and in particular, act with more realism. Or it might not...

Changed hearts do not always revert. Faithfulness has not been the most conspicuous element of world diplomacy!

After all, if the USA CANNOT and WILL NOT, not even with negotiation as a method, suffer such things in its own land, why should Israel ? Is there not a FOREIGN involvement with TERROR in Israel, and has there not long been ? Has it not at Teheran and since in Egypt, at meetings made clear a SPECIFIC and explicit INTENTION to do what it takes to explode or implode Israel ? Is it not clear that foreign help is PLEDGED to the internal uprising in Israel, and that foreign NATIONALS come into it to wreak havoc ? So then the USA must feel UTTERLY unwilling to negotiate (even) with such things afflicting Israel, its 'friend' ? Is that the same thing, really, then, as suggesting they give up land in view of it ? Should New York then be ceded too ? to bin Laden ?

So the grotesque horror of it proceeds. Israel is increasingly disregarded, inconsistency is (if possible) increasingly practised, Annan of the UN, who is strong on the same sort of thing for Israel, with his organisation, now has a peace prize, with his organisation as well.  So it goes. It is going to a folly of specious unity and a unity of flamboyant folly, disregarding God, serving expediency with high principles and delightful morals somewhere wordily in the background.

But let us return to our sense of development in the fifty or so years since Part I, our little drama, above, and consider further its progression in regress.

There is, then, at the present time,  an ever increasing sense of war and rumour of war, and this is accelerating to the point that Gilbert and Sullivan, if it were not for the horror and tragedy of it all, might have made their burlesque on the very model of a modern major general into the very model of a modern war procedure, and stacked an uproarious comedy, with satirical mirth, at its expense. The expense is the bodies of children , Jewish - the world comparatively, does not seem to care at all - and other.

It is Smart bombs which unfortunately can be as recently, misprogrammed (don't you know, one digit went into the world global positioning co-ordinates, so easy to err, and a village is wiped out - so it goes). It is blown up bodies any time in Israel - tut tut, they are Jewish ones. This is racist ? You said it, not I.

Actually, it is far more. It is convenience.

Passion for and in war is increasing, and it becomes a saintly act, a matter statedly for some, of  being prayed for by bin Laden, yourself, when you are dead - and the like. To shred buildings is the new way of enlightened religion, those with people in them - that is, buildings, not religions; and this is moral, courageous and a thing to do. So we are told, and this tells us of contemporary doings, dealings and passions, near to the heart of many. Atrocity, horrible sights, this is practised in the name of religion, but also in the flesh of man, for this is religion without God, as we have earlier seen, NOT-GOD religion (cf. the prediction of Luke 21:11, and see Lord of Life Ch. 8 , Divine Agenda Ch. 7, With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch. 11 , It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls... Ch. 11,Galloping Events Ch. 7, with SMR pp. 1186Aff. and Ch. 4 above as contrast).

All these changes, more passionate attitudes to war, on the part of fanatics, less passionate and more fearful on the part of those whose religious situation, nationally, is deteriorating towards spurious unity, meet with hatred and horror in new dimensions, not nationalised merely, but internationalised, mingling with grief to the uttermost and enormous slaughter,  while not far off is to be found the statistical approach to horror, the empirical, the pragmatic, the global, together with the oratory and actions of survival. It all degenerates to bad morals, bad murders, bad slaughters, bad passions with slovenly selfishness in nations and people, at a premium. It all regresses towards the predicted line.

These things were to be, and they are: that is the change (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5). What was coming, has come; and what was written, is now faithfully transcribed into actuality beyond the page of prediction, into the rage of reality.

Israel like a bone in the theoretician's throat, sticks in the ideologists' maw, continuing to provoke because it WILL not be unified; and that is because, despite its own rebellion against God, God CANNOT be unified, has spoken, and not with the voice of the USA or the UN! HIS voice is as distinctive as He is, and it forbids unification of religions, has done so for millenia and has been both pointed and multiplied in its reference to the folly of doing so, to the insult involved, the ignorance or the complicity evinced and the penalties attached (cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 7).

Let there be a viable Palestinian State, says PM Tony Blair of England, ceding pleasantly, as far as he is concerned, East Jerusalem. Perhaps No 10 could be ceded to bin Laden ?
 
 

ANOTHER SORT OF TOGETHERNESS

While, then, the world is aligning itself on a misalignment, ex-God, ex-justice and ex-peace, the three being constant companions as the redoubtable wisdom of man does more and more what it wants, with less and less even of mouth service to the actual Lord Jesus Christ, there is another sort of togetherness.

What is this ? It is not just Islam, oil, UK and USA all joining up together so sweetly, preferably without more buildings on the hit list, but it is the whole series of specifications joining together, the debased, the terrorising, the immoral, the godless, the warring, the impetuous, the aggressive, the tormenting, the tormented, the rankly religious, like weeds cultivated in a field, more and more acceptable for more and more good reasons, which are bad reasons, and have nothing to do with reason, but everything to do with estimates of 'survival'.

We saw this emphasis on PATTERN (cf. Little Things Ch. 9), that peculiar togetherness of symptoms which you find as a disease develops and manifests singularly, conspicuously and tragically what it is, in medicine. This alas is the highest point of pastoral care: the soul. The soul is twisted, warped, increasingly illiterate, forcibly fed with the fables of continuity, in evolutionism, the nonsense of truth based on that denial, where relativism starts by denying its possibility, while affirming its presence (cf. That Magnificent Rock Ch. 5).

Meanwhile,  the social psyche degenerates before one's eyes. What would you expect ? Feed nature myths, work both parents, leave the kids in the hands of a pragmatic State, increase power, concentrate on sanctified selfishness - that is, get what you can, but do it wisely - and the result is a sort of spiritual cancer.

It hurts like the others; it is just that it is invisible, except in its results. They are as prominent as the World Trade Centre Towers, and as clear as their dismissal.

Yes, there was to be a grander tapestry of terrestrial design, in a total assemblage of human events, and as shown, by word or reference above, we have them. Just as "some mothers do have them", so our societies, and increasingly on a world-wise basis, do have them. They are here!

Such things were to be when the Jews were back in their land (SMR Chs.  8 - 9); they are back (Luke 21:24, Zech. 12), they were not back before in nearly two millenia; but they are now: and the tapestry is being woven smartly before our eyes. It appears almost an industrial tapestry, so swiftly do the looms work. Things are going up and coming down to order. It is almost mechanical. Souls do of course become rather more predictable as sin becomes rather more manifest. It is becoming so; and the results are in accordance both with the input, horrendous as it is, and with the predictions, clear and manifold as they are also.

The fury and flurry with Jerusalem (never done, Arafat now has British crusader PM Blair with him) continues, and the burden to those who concern themselves in this inamicable way with the Jewish Capital (share please!), continues as predicted (Zechariah 12, 14). There were to be mighty victories for restored Israel; there have been; there was to be enormous contention and concern: there is.

This was to be when Christ's return was near (that is the official, divine word in Luke 21), and this was to be when many a church would become diseased, many more deceased (II Timothy 3, II Peter 2, Matthew 24:24, II Thess.  2).  It is so. It was then that the faithful were to lift up their heads. The redemption of body as well as soul is drawing near. It is wonder in the midst of fury; it is a spiritual PM broadcast in the midst of strife. It is ALL according to plan; and how great is that plan, and how knowledgeable the planner who so plans for millenia in advance, and speaks thousands of years ago, as if it were today. That is omniscience, which CAN suffer no error, for as with a long-range missile, if you make a single digit error, there can be an  enormous mistake in the result, and hundreds of lives can be mangled.

We saw that with the US smart bomb, and it was not VERY distant in its target. This Biblical prediction, however, this inimitable and cohesive phenomenon, this multiplied and sequential exposure, it is a time missile over millenia; and it is landing precisely. It makes the moon achievement seem utter child's play, for this prediction has to take account of what EVERYONE and ANY ONE shall do, centuries later. It concerns not merely matter: it specifies for man, whose functions include insanity, premises, false and otherwise, purposes and mischief.

All known, all are covered. Nothing is amiss. Nothing 'lands' in the wrong place; nothing interferes among the myriads of prophecies, with anything else: all is controlled and comes to pass. The operations of the divine in history, like those in the human body, that skyscraper despite its limitations, the human mind and the human spirit, the last even to the point of fellowship on a covenantal entry basis, in Jesus Christ: they are a summit for squalor, a redemption for loss and a glory for the lovers of God.

Such is the mind of God who sees the distance as if present. This is verification in excelsis. This is glory unmatchable, untouchable, definitive in its setting (Isaiah 41,48), comprehensive in its cover, touching detail, direction, potentates and powers, churches and society, philosophy and culture, events and nations, spirit and mind alike.

The point X on our time map, for Christ to come, it is NEAR. It is SO near that it is fitting to lift up the heart in joy of anticipation. Nevertheless it is so contrived as to SURPRISE when it comes, and the datum in I Thess. 5 strongly suggests that it is going to come just when, or near  to the time when the world for a moment, thinks it 'has it made'!

The return of Christ is more imminent than the losses in USA to anthrax, or gerrymandering genes. It is ASSURED. They are more symptomatic. But the foolish bridesmaids will continue to sleep (Matthew 25). Perhaps many in sedated churches, ignoring the predictions or the holiness of life of the Christian or both, will be in more danger than those not dressed up as bridesmaids, not ostensibly Christians at all. THEY may not be so vaccinated by irrelevance, and habituated to theological deceit as often occurs in many of today's 'churches' , those which compromise with this or that commandment as if it were a matter of winning a prize.

It is in this torpor just as in Israel of old, as in Isaiah 6,  and as in 29:10. Let us look at these in order, and see what the Lord has said.

"Go and tell this people,
'Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Make the heart of this people dull,
And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And return and be healed.”

"Then I said, 'Lord, how long?' And He answered:

“Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant,
The houses are without a man,
The land is utterly desolate,
The Lord has removed men far away,
And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land.

"But yet a tenth will be in it,
And will return and be for consuming,
As a terebinth tree or as an oak,
Whose stump remains when it is cut down.
So the holy seed shall be its stump.”
 

That is from Isaiah 6, and Ch. 29 is searching indeed.

"Pause and wonder!
Blind yourselves and be blind!
They are drunk, but not with wine;
They stagger, but not with intoxicating drink.

"For the Lord has poured out on you
The spirit of deep sleep,
And has closed your eyes, namely, the prophets;
And He has covered your heads, namely, the seers.

"The whole vision has become to you like the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one who is literate, saying,

'Read this, please.'

And he says,

'I cannot, for it is sealed.'
 

"Then the book is delivered to one who is illiterate, saying,
 

'Read this, please.'

And he says,

'I am not literate.'
 

"Therefore the Lord said:
 

'Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths
And honor Me with their lips,
But have removed their hearts far from Me,
And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men,
Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvellous work
Among this people,
A marvellous work and a wonder;
For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish,
And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.

'Woe to those who seek deep to hide their counsel far from the Lord,
And their works are in the dark;
They say, 'Who sees us?' and, 'Who knows us?'

'Surely you have things turned around!
Shall the potter be esteemed as the clay;
For shall the thing made say of him who made it,
'He did not make me' ?
Or shall the thing formed say of him who formed it,
'He has no understanding' ? ' "

(Bold added.)

Subterfuges and obfuscations do not obscure, not do they deviate the course of the word of God, its implementation or the guilt for its attempted overthrow. At stake is nothing less than the sovereignty of God, His will and His ways, His rule and His depiction, His orders and commands, His purity and His disposition.

To overthrow that, you can take a lesson from Israel of old, is a sore and sordid task, leading to endless seeming horrors, evils, disjointed and unjubilant results, deepening in sorrow, the writhings of abortion. They have had it. Others are asking for it. The world is soon to follow to the pit, because of this and the multitude of other departures from, disparagements of, ignorings and ignorances, enabled by disregard, of a vast multitude of its people. The evils produced become the grounds of judgment, and the follies wrought, through darkness of life, alienated from the clear teaching of the word of God, aggravate the impact of truth, intensify the doom of disregard, making the more vulnerable those who err, through the fruit of their errors, themselves in much abominable.

Meanwhile, as Israel is countered with inconstancy of friend, and the most vicious of violence, even domestic, from foe, and then condemned for seeking to rescue their diminished land from it, the scenario of the Sovereign approaches more of its thrust. This is not a tendency, but a sure development, now as always.

Some sort of presence near the Mediterranean, of those who want to administer things in part in the Holy Land, may well be indicated, and hence be expected or even attempted, the attempted control of proud flesh, a sort of spiritual cancer (Daniel 11:45), just like a computer in safe mode. It acts, but does not really work!

The US, the UK, the UN cry for a Palestinian State, and it is now a deafening roar, a total betrayal of the League of Nations and British guarantee. But what of this cry for a Jewish homeland in Palestine ? Perhaps the blood they helped to save through the works of Dr Weizmann in World War I is now too old to count ? What of the homeland now ? Now it is like a mouse's squeak; it is convenience which roars, ignoring justice, history and truth; but above all, God.
 
 

WAR -
VIRTUAL and VEHEMENT VARIETIES
and PEACE -
PERSONAL and PUTATIVE VARIETIES

 

The UN virtual war on Israel - for if you look not at the words, but at the WORKS since 1947, the removal of the capital from the Jews, the apportionment of bits of territory here and there, the withdrawal in the face of Nasser on the war path, of UN troops in the way - this is now being amplified. Gone are earlier days, as in 1973. It is so many against so few. It is almost like the Battle of Britain, except that these invaders are 'friends'. Jesus had one like that.

There is just one item left out, if you could call it an item. It is GOD.

If GOD be for us, who shall be against us (Romans 8).

To be sure, it is a complex thing, since Israel as a nation has not yet made its peace with this same Jesus, the Son of God, the word of God, the redeemer, the Messiah who came at the TIME predicted by Daniel. Waiting for Him to come the first time is at least as illegitimate as trying to do year one mathematics at the university. All that is long over.

Equally sure, however, just as the US is so temperate in its requirements for Jews and so accommodating to Arabs, so  God is so temperate in His permissions for invaders, even to the point of their destruction, and so clear on His instructions for Jews - WHEN THEY RETURN TO HIM as a nation, or a large section of it. The Jews need not look for help to the USA. This ? it is not merely that apart from subtlety, it is almost gone, but because they are not sufficiently strong either morally or militarily. They wilt.
 

• 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.

You see some of the wonder and intricacy of it traced in the chapter of Zephaniah just noted.

"Woe to her who is rebellious and polluted,
To the oppressing city!
She has not obeyed His voice,
She has not received correction;
She has not trusted in the Lord,
She has not drawn near to her God.
 

"Her princes in her midst are roaring lions;
Her judges are evening wolves
That leave not a bone till morning.
Her prophets are insolent, treacherous people;
Her priests have polluted the sanctuary,
They have done violence to the law.

"The Lord is righteous in her midst,
He will do no unrighteousness.
Every morning He brings His justice to light;
He never fails,
But the unjust knows no shame.

“I have cut off nations,
Their fortresses are devastated;
I have made their streets desolate,
With none passing by.
Their cities are destroyed;
There is no one, no inhabitant.

"I said, ‘Surely you will fear Me,
You will receive instruction’ -
So that her dwelling would not be cut off,
Despite everything for which I punished her.
But they rose early and corrupted all their deeds.
 

“ 'Therefore wait for Me,' says the Lord,
'Until the day I rise up for plunder;
My determination is to gather the nations
To My assembly of kingdoms,
To pour on them My indignation,
All my fierce anger;
All the earth shall be devoured
With the fire of My jealousy.
 

“ 'For then I will restore to the peoples a pure language,
That they all may call on the name of the Lord,
To serve Him with one accord.
From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia
My worshipers,
The daughter of My dispersed ones,
Shall bring My offering.

" 'In that day you shall not be shamed for any of your deeds
In which you transgress against Me;
For then I will take away from your midst
Those who rejoice in your pride,
And you shall no longer be haughty
In My holy mountain.

" 'I will leave in your midst
A meek and humble people,
And they shall trust in the name of the Lord.
The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness
And speak no lies,
Nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth;
For they shall feed their flocks and lie down,
And no one shall make them afraid.'

"Sing, O daughter of Zion!
Shout, O Israel!
Be glad and rejoice with all your heart,
O daughter of Jerusalem!
The Lord has taken away your judgments,
He has cast out your enemy.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in your midst;
You shall see disaster no more.

"In that day it shall be said to Jerusalem:
'Do not fear;
Zion, let not your hands be weak.
The Lord your God in your midst,
The Mighty One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness,
He will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing.'

“ 'I will gather those who sorrow over the appointed assembly,
Who are among you,
To whom its reproach is a burden.
Behold, at that time
I will deal with all who afflict you;
I will save the lame,
And gather those who were driven out;
I will appoint them for praise and fame
In every land where they were put to shame.

"At that time I will bring you back,
Even at the time I gather you;
For I will give you fame and praise
Among all the peoples of the earth,
When I return your captives before your eyes,'
Says the Lord."

(Cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, esp  End-note 3 for parallel and specialised cover.)

THIS world goes its way. The people of God, for whom Israel provides in its coming substantial measure of conversion, chaste and chastened, a depiction for their own estate (Isaiah 19:23ff., 10:20-23), will rejoice ONLY in God their Saviour, and not in their own savour.

Then they will "never again depend on him who defeated them, But will depend on the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth." And this ? It is not for the Jew only, but for the Gentile also; for it is one tree and it is surely based in its beginning in Abraham, and surely pruned in its middle, after the crucifixion, and equally surely it is to be pruned near its end, in in the Gentile apostasies, so vast that it is as if they were actively vying as at a swimming carnival, to see whether in folly and presumption, error and spiritual blatancy, they could have a finer time and a narrower margin from absolute extinction, hell apart, then their predecessor, Israel.

All that ends, as Romans 11, overviewing the matter, declares in verse 26,

 "and so all Israel shall be saved: as it is written,
There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer,
and shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
For this is My covenant to them, when I shall take away their sins",

It is in this way, and not another, that the focus of the chapter on Israel on the one hand and the Gentiles on the other, a bifurcation with the underlying tree, from which the one is taken while the other is added, while the one is later restored with the omission of their inherent blindness, which rebellion secured, and the restoration of their inclusion by grace, meets the culmination for Israel.

Here the allusion is to Isaiah 59:20, which is followed by the most intensive assurance that whatever the LORD has said, He will do. His word will endure, and His works in implementing it likewise. It is also followed in Isaiah 65:13-15 by the equally intensive assurance that Israel is to lose its spiritual specificity as a criterion or exemplar, and to be replaced by a people not racially limited, and it is only in coming, and coming back to that SAME Messiah in which many of many peoples will rejoice, that it too will rejoice (Isaiah 66:20-22, Zechariah 12:10, Micah 7:19-20, Isaiah 49:6 - cf. With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength  in its coverage on Isaiah). Meanwhile, it is in its place for the grace!
 

It is a grand design over the millenia, despite the tragedies of wilfulness and the forthcoming imperial power for the machinations of man, that neo-tourist tower of Babel, that ultimate in human racism, the most detestable of all, that grandeur of misconception and glory of pride. As to that impudent impersonation, arrogant with folly, furious in delusion, it comes, and it goes, like a breaker, arising in glorious power and potential, to impact with fury and flurry, but then ... quite simply it is no more (cf. Revelation 19:20, II Thessalonians 1:7, in which latter we find this, that the Lord in "flaming fire will take vengeance on those who do not know God, even those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ").

His patience is inspiration to all monuments; His determination (as in Zephaniah 3:8) is undivertible. His love is without truncation, but His justice is not displaced by it, for God so loved the world, but the world did not reciprocate, having ideas of its own which costs it ... the earth, literally! Those who receive Him, in the end, are freely favoured, attached, for they are not really good if detached.

As for Israel, although there is much suffering, what do you expect when a nation destroys the body of its own Messiah ? But the love of God, even so, is to penetrate beyond that, and they only need to return and be covered in the very blood of the very Messiah whom they so treated, and so it is predicted in Zechariah 12:10, with parallels in Isaiah as it is traced multitudinously (cf. With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength). It is to the third and fourth generation of those who hate God, like a disordered cylcotron, that the aggregation comes (Exodus 20)! Opting out is always available! And as for those imperial imperiousnesses to come from human racism, elevating itself in one systematic universal arrogance at the end, one man, as god ? What would you expect for that, but what is coming to it! (II Thess. 2:4ff.).

So much for destruction and what asks for it. But construction ? Yes the Lord has been most gracious to Israel, and allowed the place indeed and literally to blossom like the rose (Isaiah 35), as also its power to be used while it was there. He has brought them back, this people,  in millions from all over the world as predicted, as we have seen in close study of the prophets, to Israel (SMR Appendix A, The Biblical Workman Chs. 1 and  3, and the recent works on Israel - see list at the head of  News Items). His grace blooms, but His redemption does not fade, the blood does not lose its colour, nor its effect. Christ crucified now as before and everlastingly the same is the ONLY WAY in for Jew or Gentile. With Israel it has a scenario nationally, as well as individually, and there is to be a massive repentance season (Zech. 12, Romans 11, Ezekiel 36 and see The Biblical Workman Chs. 1 and 3, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls ... Ch. 10).

But how would one seek to characterise the depth of the divine dealings with Israel, and its inter-relation with the world ? (cf. Romans 11:27ff.), and indeed with the wily world wilfully ignoring Christ with new acclaim for that anti-Christian^*4 community of Islam, as objectively it is, together with old acclaim for nearly every imaginable sect of squalor! Ignoring the word of God or adding to it, and daring to use the name of Christ, with many a church and many a nation becoming examples of the Korah, Dathan and Abiram syndicate of spiritual rebellion (Numbers 16), or that of Nadab and Abihu (Leviticus 10), with false fires or false authority, or of Nebuchadnezzar with his dizzying heights of splendour to become a close acquaintance with the earth, at knee level, it asks with earnest seeming supplication for its come-uppance, its 'destiny'.

This, it  is a no-way, go back situation (cf. The Kingdom of Heaven    Ch. 7).

What exalts itself will be humbled. What exalts Christ to His true station, will be kept. His word, yes the Bible is alone validated, verified on all sides, and alone meets the specifications of logic with the grandeur of liberality far beyond its needs, showing the majesty of its uniqueness with the exuberance of truth. In every particle, it fulfils itself, in every prediction it is on track, in every declaration it is confirmed, in all its ways it is in harmony with reality from which it proceeds, even the source of that reality, and effortlessly soars into all manner of survey, perspective, prophecy, exhortation, appeal before judgments in the past, presentation of the indicia of the future, now the present. Nothing is even slightly comparable scientifically, to this work of over 3 millenia of zero disinvestment, alone meeting logic as logic meets it with open arms and charmed delight. But what of the world in which it has spoken, to which the only Saviour, Christ has personally come ?

The world has arisen to fall. Forms have been favoured which depart. It approaches its consummate verbalising and disparate actualities, in the hypocrisies of horror and the use of imperial, worldwide force to preserve itself, which cannot be preserved. It is God who preserves.

The saints will be purified, the allotted ones of Israel will be converted, the Christian Church will have new access from the people of Israel, lose much from a wandering world, and the command of Christ will be seen in their testimony, evacuation and His return (Daniel 12, Romans 11, Isaiah 54, Revelation 12:11ff., Matthew 24, Zechariah 12).

“And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time.”

The adversary roves and raves for a time. It is all in time, and at its time, culminating in its self-exposure, it is ended.

How deep is the wisdom of God, and how manifold His plans! Over His ancient people, His pre-announced plan of Deuteronomy 32 and Leviticus 26 has come to pass.  It has been poignant, pathetic and impressive, all at once. It has been faithful, disciplinary and consummate in fulfilment, all in sequence. God has displayed His hand like a bridge player, successfully defeating all opposition, even when His main cards are on the table. He did it in the crucifixion, mocking as He exhibited in advance the efforts to defeat Him, and PRECISELY how they would occur! (cf. With Heart and Mind … Chs. 4ff., Joyful Jottings 23-25)!

What would you expect ? When God is at work, there is simply no stopping Him (Isaiah 43;13). If it were otherwise, it would not ring true.

This, it is verification in STYLE, as well as SUBSTANCE.

Such style is attractive on the part of one who abandoned all pretence of style, in terms of this world's adornments, in His role as Messiah, in His sojourn on the Cross, as He was spat on and  tattooed with whipping as a softening up preliminary.

The humans - alas our own 'race' - they will no more prevail in this insubordination, than in any other against the word of the One who made all lands, and hence ISRAEL, with whom He has an unconditional contract (cf.  Galloping Events Ch. 4), despite their alienation in many things, and forfeiture in others. The thing is most testing: a good thing when testing is the object!

ALL are being tested. In eternity, it is like the holidays. The tests are then over.

They are not however, over yet...

No, the nations will have no more peace from their intrusive efforts in Israel (apart from the small delusive moment of I Thess. 5, almost a mockery), than same sex substitutions are able to escape a cacophonous laughter from AIDS (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 5). It is a gross insult to the Maker to ignore His manufacturing specifications and use things amiss from their design and from His word, which includes His design and His judgments, which in this case are appalling (cf. I Cor. 6:9-10, Romans 1,  Timothy 1:10).

Un-immune to immorality, they readily become un-immune in their very bodies themselves. It is hard to fight your Maker, and lust - so glorified in Holland, whether it be in gender or euthanasia alike, in that once so religious nation, or else rampant in any another victim - meets check. In the end: check-mate.   Whether the lust,  it be of these kinds or for death, as with Taliban bomb-plane-deaths, it is all one in this: it is abominable, in passion and at war with God. And even this death lust, it is predicted (Revelation 6).

So does the folly swell, and rise.

Like a breaker it mounts; soon it crashes. Then it is done.

God, however, He remains; and His people with Him (Zechariah 9:7, Psalm 90, 102, 14:5, I Thessalonians 3:13, Revelation 22:1-5, Daniel 7:26-27). The earth may (and will - Matthew 24:35) itself pass away. It is running down in many aspects, the moral chiefly, and the spiritual, but not in these alone. It grows old like a garment: it has a use-by date, and judgment, in this case, is part of that! (Isaiah 51:6). It is to be dismissed when done (II Peter 3).

In the meantime, it is important not to worship your stage; but the Author of it, and of you. Worship God (Revelation 19:10): no do not even worship angels (cf. Colossians 2:18, Galatians 1 - be it Moroni or any other contra-gospel source), but GOD ONLY as the angel told John as we see.

Moreover,  remember this: the spirit of prophecy, it is "the testimony of Jesus", not of some other god, christ or prophet (cf. II Corinthians 11). The place is lousy with them. The only antiseptic is Christ Himself, the author, original and creator, the resurrected from the dead, the Shepherd - the good one!

You may consult The Other News 5 for news of the other one!
 
 

NOTES

*1
Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Ch.  9  - the three religions astray, and associates; Lord of Life Chs.  3,  4,  5; and above, Chs.    2, 3,  4, 5 ,  6,  7,  8. See also ERRORS.
 

*2

See It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls ... Ch. 10. This figure is given in April 6, 2002, The Advertiser, in "A divided land" by Miles Kemp in a feature article. His exact figure as noted is 56.47%. Since 1947 was long after the granting of East Palestine to the Arab state of Jordan, this appears to be the residue of a residue! If we think of Canaan, as biblically defined, then the Jewish heritage is far larger. Even of the significantly lowered level, however, shown in the British Mandate, only this amount finally WOULD have reached Israel in terms of the UN decision. It would moreover have been a matter of separated tracts of territory, minus Jerusalem, to have become an international city. These considerations jointly led to a huge dereliction of what is historically cited as the agreement of ALL the Allies after World War I, relative to Israel!
 

*3

Applicable as the term may have been in the past - and which of us has not had a 'friend' who under test is none - its current use seems ironic. Change of status makes old terminology appear doubly inept.

*4

The Koran denies the redemption in Christ, His vicarious and substitutionary atonement, His deity and His kingdom that shall not pass away. As such it is a heresy more articulate than most, more direct, in its dismissal of Christ. Like the rest, it gives faint praises, which deny the realities of the Bible categorically. Unlike some, it is highly explicit. Like all heresies, it uses the Bible and abuses it, appeals to the Bible and dismisses it. It is unusual in combining spurious materials both from the Jewish sources (outside their canon) and from those relating to Christianity.

To call it 'good' is by implication to call the Christ of the Bible 'bad', since it mangles its testimony, as did Israel the Christ. Such action is by no means unknown in the Bible and is in fact part of the predicted rebellion against reality (Hebrews 10:20,29-31, Jude, Matthew 24:24, II Corinthians 11).
Those who so characterise Islam may or may not be aware of what they are doing. It is an anti-testimony to Jesus Christ.

The relevant details of this anti-Christian religion have been considered as shown in the Index, under Moslem, in both SMR and The Rest. In particular, note Lord of Life Chs. 4 and 5, esp.  pp. 91 and 112  respectively, Light of Dawn Ch. 5, and SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff., 91, 986ff., 1080ff. , Barbs, Arrows and Balms, Highway to Hell. See also *1 above.