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Seldom has one been so appalled at a News broadcast as at ONE ITEM on the Lehrer show this week (shown in the USA on Friday October 19, 2000).

It was not just the disorder of the repeated interruptions, as far as could be seen, from one quarter only, the Palestinian gentleman who repeatedly harassed the Jewish lady when she attempted to speak. This could be understood, if not commended.

It was rather this, that subject to correction, one found that probably more than TWICE the time was given to the Palestinian to speak, relative to the oppressed lady, the representative of the Jewish people. Further, to complete the imbalance, more time appeared given to pursuing with the Palestinian, what he said, so that he could amplify his thoughts. The patience of the lady, on the other hand, and the self-discipline, was noteworthy. She seemed possessed of a nearly iron determination not to get involved in the disorder initiated by the Palestinian and condoned, at least in practice, by the chairman, or news investigator or panel organiser.

What completed the picture was this. The Palestinian, having held forth with such marvellous peace, since HE was not interrupted in HIS speech time, when it was duly accorded to him, as far as one could see, had something MORE even than this. After his last speech of some duration, in such a plethora of opportunities, the Jewish lady had NO reply scope given to her AT ALL. She was just ushered off with the last speaker whose flow of words had been so enabled by her own restraint, and the manner of operation of the ... event.

Hence the imbalance by all these means was to this observer at least, appalling; but the method of it rather admirable, in this, that with such elemental errors from the Palestinian, and such opportunity provided to him to expound and expand them, the Jewish lady for all that, and despite this further assault on the Jews, as if the world could not wait for more of the same and wanted to hear more from the Palestinians than from the Jews, waited her turn. Indeed, she did not even, to this observer's notice, complain of this verbal assault on her speech, this cutting off of her thoughts repeatedly, which seemed so securely sanctioned from the Chair, if not in word, then in deed!

But let us look now at the actual issues themselves. As repeatedly affirmed by the Jewish representative, they are interested in peace; do not see the advantage or even propriety of a DAY OF RAGE, as repeatedly affirmed by her protagonist, as a FORM of implementing a PEACE agreement - such as was in fact made, if not signed, in Sharm el Sheikh. This day of rage appeared from the footage, perhaps to include children near the turmoil and tumid action, hurling stones. It was to occur AFTER the accord was evidently agreed to, and the Jews, as was stated, had withdrawn some of their sanctions towards returning the situation to where it was before all this rage, violence and assault. This certainly did not help peace; and was a breach of such magnificent disregard as to make the Jewish suspension of peace process little more than an acknowledgement of a fact already instituted.

When told that the Jewish policy is NOT to open fire with live ammunition UNLESS fired on, and that the children might seem misplaced in such an area, the PLO representative appeared to affirm that the children, they too, MUST have their PART in this rage, MUST accomplish their contribution. Fine! But it does not spare lives, it does have the appearance, for those of us who are NOT children, and DO know the risks in having them involve themselves in an intimate and provocative way in blood shedding confrontations, or potentials for the same, of making them sacrifices.

Sacrifices, not martyrs, in such a case, might appear the case. Now admittedly one has lectured and even taught in schools, and may have something of a pastoral attitude to children; but the thought of having them ANYWHERE NEAR such scenes is even more appalling to this observer than was the ... discussion in the panel noted above. To have such a practice DEFENDED was such an outrage to reason as to make it apparent that more time would be needed for the PLO representative to defend the practice. As noted, he GOT it!

The policy or at the least, the practice, seemed to be this: talk about how rotten it is to be in their position, how they detest it, how they must show their feelings in violence, and how the children must show theirs too (as if the fact that they have bodies was somehow superfluous, as if the fact that they could be crushed in joining this adult show, before they had time to arrive at their manly and womanly strength was not to the point at all). BUT, DO NOT talk about the simple fact that this becomes a sacrifice of children to adult's woes.
 
 

Now this writer would constantly affirm that the thoughts and feelings of children are intensely significant and that they should, if for example they should become Christians, stick to the faith and continue in it at all costs, as did some of the valiant children blood-chillingly noted in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, relative to the ancient Roman Empire and its assault on the faith of Christians (before it grew an Emperor who himself professed Christianity). Faith is an elemental thing, and if a child has it, as distinct from being impressed into it, in which case it is no faith but force, then it would be as unnatural as making light darkness, to have them hide it.

THIS is integrity. Therefore, if brutal assassins want to kill children for having FAITH, then so be it. If they want to seek out and search and destroy children by laying hands on them, when they are in peace in their homes and places, so be it. This will not go unanswered from Him with whom we ALL have to do. The God who is ONE and whose ONLY BEGOTTEN SON was sent to be Saviour to all who believe in Him, will have something to say. He ? He is slow to wrath but knows how to visit the iniquities of those who HATE Him onto the third and fourth generation as He says in Exodus 20. Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind is an eternally valid principle for all sinners! (as in Hosea 8:7). Only mercy can intervene.

However, first to our present point, if you PUSH and ENABLE CHILDREN to get themselves ACTIVELY and PHYSICALLY involved in warfare, the question arises -

Is this then sacrifice ?

Are you allowing your adult knowledge to lead the enthusiasm of the young into war, so that in the firing from one side onto the other, it will be amazing, perfectly astounding, if they do not get hurt! That to the eye of this writer, IS in fact sacrificing children, a phenomenon towards which God has no sympathy, whether in the fire literally, as in the Old Testament, in some sort of perverse religious distortion, or in the cross fire in our contemporary situation. (Cf. II Kings 16:3, 21:6, Jeremiah 7:31, where this practice which was attributed to the god Molech, reached the nation of Israel and was an abomination for which they duly paid! It does not appear however, on this occasion, that it is they who are performing what may appear a contemporary parallel!)
 
 

This of course brings us back to the simple question: Whose is the land ? This is not a brief for Jews. It might appear so, but only to the most superficial and dogged of readers. It is a brief for truth. The Jews have sinned, a fact emphasised on this site no less than the other fact that God gave them the land unconditionally. They were brought back (SMR Appendix A et al.) on sufferance, despite unbelief as predicted in Ezekiel, so that God might honour His own name, as HE SAID in the prediction, now fulfilled. They were attacked abundantly, still unbelieving in their own Messiah, a colossal failure for which they pay, did pay and will continue to pay until the truth comes as predicted in Romans 11:25ff..

The UN has a brief for their humiliation, if not in theory and principle, then in practice. This too has been outlined before on this site (cf. News 108, where shown ). It has had the amazing effrontery to suggest that Jerusalem become an internationalised city, from 1947. It gave a few bits of land, here and there, to the Jews, by its sovereign mandate. The Jews however won the war in amazing fashion as divinely predicted for this period (cf. SMR Ch. 9).

Much later, in 1967, the UN pulled back its troops from the intermediary spot, when Egypt under Nasser wanted to attack Israel. This amazing body continues to act as if God did NOT make the land on which ALL the people are placed, the earth. Just as the evolutionary magicians want an earth that nature makes, even though nature first has to make itself, and shows no prowess in organising beyond itself, let alone, before it is there to do so: so the political magicians, normally enthralled or at last submissive to these hideously irrational myths (cf. Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming... and That Magnificent Rock Chs. 1,  8, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, SMR Ch. 2), now act as if the land having come from nowhere in particular, it is theirs to determine whose it is, what is to be done with it.

Not so. If you find a Jaguar in my garage (you will not), then the thought that it happened to arrive and really it is mere accident that it is THERE, and that you really have a MORAL (might as well be audacious if you are involved in theft ?...) OBLIGATION to determine who should have it, and give it to the nation, then I for one would not be impressed. To me, the question would be this: WHOSE was the making of the car, and if it is in this garage, WHO paid for it, appropriated it, and on what grounds ? In short, was it GIVEN or else PAID FOR ? If so, then BY WHOM!

If it was given, one should be even less ecstatic, impressed or even willingly permissive to the concept that it should now be RE-given by those who NEITHER made it NOR had it given to them, to somebody ELSE!

THIS is the position of the UN. It condemns Israel either expressly or by implication.
 

It compromises the EXCEPTIONALLY SLENDER hold on life that the Jewish nation now has in its minimal territories, gained in warfare from those who had taken them over during the Jewish catastrophes (for which they were indeed responsible, but TO GOD!); and it acts like so many others, as if having lived in some land for some period means that you MADE IT, that it is YOURS, and that NO ONE under any circumstances can have ANY of it, unless you say so. This is made often made applicable,  even if you or those to whom you would like to give it, did not in fact use all of it, or possess it for all time, or indeed for any known period of time.

Even if you did, this is not tantamount to OWNERSHIP, since God made it and it is in HIS gift.
But of course the Palestinians have NOT always lived there; nor have the Jews, though they possessed it in whole or part from about 1400 B.C. till about 70 A.D. and had some presence before that.

The question is one. DID GOD GIVE IT TO THE JEWS ? If so, abandon hope all you who either do or do not sacrifice children, but who in any case claim and intend to send the Jews to HELL, as Yasser Arafat suggested, or rather expostulated. They, said he as he pursued the peace agreement, they can go to hell. This statement was made in the news record, viewed this week!
 
 

Now hell is certainly not a pleasant destiny or even destination. It is not the sort of site to which one would be inclined to apportion one's friends, or enemies indeed. It is in any case the ultimate spiritual site of suffering which God has for those who REFUSE MERCY and IGNORE OR DESPISE HIS MERCY which is sent in the intentionally vulnerable format of Jesus Christ, whom the Jews AND Gentiles (via Rome and Pilate) jointly sacrificed.

It is of course simply because this final outrage, vociferously sought by so many of those to whom He came, His own people, is so far nationally unrepented of, that the Jews are currently part of the CAULDRON which is Jerusalem, in this UNRESOLVED conflict. It however is one which MUST continue, apart from any temporary appearances to the contrary, mere lulls, to be so, until they return to the Lord. The fact being that HE, God Almighty, having apportioned the land to them, though the current tenure on this covenantally came to be for some time compromised by their continued unbelief (Leviticus 26:27-33), this predicted deliverance once again for this people will be an event to be seen (cf. Deuteronomy 32:36-43); and that will be seen as appears in Ezekiel 38-39, Romans 11, Micah 7.

It is even compared in Micah to the case when the Jews were delivered from that other oppressor, Pharaoh of Egypt.

Now that the Arab 'world', during this past week,  has met in Egypt and made the unwise decision to suggest that the Jews become subject to a (of course, we remember...) UN investigation along the lines of WAR CRIMINALS, and added to it the partisan point that they support and will do so perhaps to the tune of some one billion dollars, the Palestinian Intifadeh, it is apparent that the god of the Arabs, of rather of many of them, Allah can plead for himself. It has happened before. It occurred with Elijah at Mt Carmel (read it in I Kings 17-18). Of a surety, the time is near when the confrontation between the God who is and the one who is a name but is not God, will occur.
 
 

NO man can prevent this. It is written. NO man can intimate God. MAN must repent, Jew or Arab, Russian or French, Australian or of the US. No 'Christian nation' so much as exists. Some have more Christian past and hence institutions than others. EACH MAN, WOMAN and while we are on this topic, CHILD must repent and receive the redeemer, Jesus Christ, as his/her personal sacrifice for sin, dying in his/her place, and do so by faith. If not, the assured mercies of God are not applicable. Of this be rejected, there is NO OTHER PLACE OF MERCY OR PARDON AVAILABLE UNDER HEAVEN TO MAN, as Peter indicated so forcibly (Acts 4:11-12).

That is all there is to it. There is no other name under heaven given to men," by which we must be saved!"  Notice the necessity. Avoid salvation and you achieve damnation. Since the term, or rather hell itself,  has been referred to as the suggested destination for Jews, by Arafat in a highly public proclamation, we might as well pursue this topic for one moment.

The dispute about Jerusalem is ironic. It is not really the key, though it certainly symbolises it. Christ is the key. Jerusalem is the place God chose for a specific nation to display His salvation; and the temple, it too is not the key. It WAS a place which God appointed, before Christ came, as a symbolic representation of the coming of Christ, who not in a small building, but in heaven, has entered the holy of holies, the exceedingly holy place of the divine mercy, to sanction it to those who receive HIM as the SACRIFICIAL LAMB (Hebrews 6, 8-10).

It is NOT children who need immolation, inserted into cross fire or anything like it. This thought is rather ghoulish. It is NOT you or your heirs, who are needed, it is not the Jews who appear sent to hell by Arafat, or with this suggested destination by his word: none of these suffice for sacrifice.
Hitler did quite a work in making the Jews a victim, but at that, they do not suffice; and it is God not man who prescribes the acceptable sacrifice for sin, that justice be served (as in Romans 3:22ff.). The ONE WITHOUT SIN ALONE is sufficient (I Peter 2:22-24).

It is not for the UN as the master of ceremonies to extradite the Jews from their tiny enclave of NON-MOSLEM land in the midst of the vast territories of Morocco, Libya, Egypt (with MANY, but of course not total, Islam features), Iraq, Iran, and perhaps Georgia, Azerbaijan, Algeria, Syria and so forth. These are not all officially Moslem, but this is the tenor of it. NONE of these seem willing to house the Palestinians 'refugees'. Many of these as Ben Gurion made clear (cf. News 108, where shown , SMR p. 831), were those who in the original case (or their descendants) LEFT Israel BECAUSE it was then, at that early stage, being invaded and those who were coming would LIBERATE it from the ... Jews. They did not succeed. One commentator^*1 indeed referred to the Palestinians as hostages or pawns for reclaim purposes, since Arab lands are there but not used for them. Indeed, as Ben Gurion points out (ref. above), Jordan seized land that might have been used; but did not choose so to employ it!

Much has been yielded to the Palestinians, but according to their leadership, it seems that they now want, they and others, to OWN the land. Its capital, we hear repeatedly, is that to which the Palestinians are MARCHING so that it becomes THEIR OWN. Arafat does not cease loudly to proclaim, like one who NOW casts aside ALL restraint, that he is marching, they are marching to MAKE Jerusalem THE capital of an Independent Palestinian State. That ? It is peace ? They intend to invade ? They plan war, in peace ?

It is not much worse than the UN suggestion.

It is nothing to do with peace. It is simply war. This is the solution to the question whether the Palestinians, in addition to having various parts freely given them by Israel -  perhaps partly in response to warlike acts and terrorists assaults on 'innocent' civilians among the Jews, including children - should now take the capital, where the Jewish temple or its predecessors stood over a period more than a millenium. Now with more of Israel to threaten by their presence through its substantial cessions and concessions, after the last war to the point, they so insist ? THIS is the METHOD of negotiation. It is necessary, a little while, to THINK!

Long before that millenium plus  of the Jewish Temple (or temples, since they were destroyed from time to time, around 586 and 70A.D.), in fact nearly 500 years, God had appointed that there would be a place for His worship when the Jews entered the PROMISED LAND! In mind or in place for one and one half millenia, approximately, and destroyed at GOD'S hand and prediction for the Jewish PREDICTED rejection of Christ (Daniel 9, Luke 19:42ff.), the temple, indeed Jerusalem itself  is now being bid for by the UN for an international usage and authority, and by Arafat and his kind, for other peoples.

And these in the main ? they are those who REJECT the God of the Old and New Covenant ENTIRELY, insisting He has no SON, whereas He emphatically, and crucially, insists that not only does He have a Son (begotten into flesh as in Luke 1:35), but that this is the ONE AND THE ONLY ONE appointed for salvation. Entering into a quarrel, therefore, with GOD ALMIGHTY, the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, the God whom the Jews so incensed with their rebelliousness and who disciplined them, is to forget - along with other niceties such as this, WHOSE LAND IS IT when GOD MADE IT! - a few other things.
 

It is to forget that when GOD speaks, He DOES. He gave it to the Jews, He removed them for discipline under enormous and sustained provocation (II Chronicles 36, Malachi, Isaiah 30), but in a covenant which included their restoration into the NEW Covenant (FULFILLING the Old as in Matthew 5:17-20, 26:28, Hebrews 8), along with other Christians (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 13).

The land HE appointed, where HIS SON was crucified by courtesy of the Roman Governor and the Jewish national authorities of the time, remains HIS.

He has not rescinded this aspect (Genesis 17) because He has brought in the New Covenant.
It remains, as the place of the crucifixion and bodily resurrection of Christ, the King, the Prince of Peace, the Prince of Life (Isaiah 9, Acts 3), to which HE is to come to DELIVER the Jews who in turn at about this time, respond in substantial numbers nationally to the One who was crucified (Zechariah 12:10). He also is wise who does what He says. Better He will do at His will; less He does not do. Every jot and tittle, Christ assures us, He will do.

To be sure (Isaiah 19:22ff.) the Jews will not be glorified^*2. Do not fear for that! Isaiah 30 makes that exceedingly clear. They have sinned as have others. But they are NOT the world's scape-goat. They are not available for victimisation by the UN or anyone else. In this present conflict, they have been provoked by methods and taunts, by civil violence which does not hesitate to slaughter civilians, men, women and children, from the Muslim side; as by words such as those noted. The Jews  have extended various civil rights to co-operative Arabs, they have extended a higher standard of living to many. They are not however willing to give the safe keeping of the land in those hands!

Further, Barak offered at one stage, by news report, to retain military power to control but to allow the ADMINISTRATION of the 'holy site' in Jerusalem to be under Palestinian control. THAT was a colossal concession. After all, that MOUNT is sacred to them (if wrongly in the sense that the Jewish NATION does not recognise Christ, who has abolished those things of the Old Covenant which were merely symbolic of His own actions and is HIMSELF our temple) : it is the place for the temple.

However mistaken their concept, and it is crucially astray, it is STILL the place where it was. The Moslem religion is not authorised by reason, it contradicts as seen in SMR Chs. 1, 10, what is required by reason. (Cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30, Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 8.) God has Himself CHALLENGED any and all to SHOW by their own 'divinations', religious revelations or whatever, ANYTHING which in the slightest degree challenges the objective validity of what He says. NO ONE ever succeeds, for the wherewithal does not exist. THAT is one reason why we challenge on this site, those who want to provide something. They do not succeed. THAT is for one reason: GOD IS ALIVE and has DONE WHAT HE HAS DECLARED TO BE CLEAR and IRREFUTABLE ATTESTATION of His truth and mind (Isaiah 41, 43, 48, Luke 1, Romans 1:17ff., II Cor. 10:5). It is in the Bible.
 

Now, while international negotiators abound who would, without the word of God, determine the issues for God, it is interesting. This case is HIGHLY UNUSUAL. Let us get this very clear indeed in our minds. It is ONE place where what GOD wants in connection with a SPECIFIC issue is STATED. He has done all that He said, prophesied and predicted, concerning the RETURN of the Jews to this land, concerning the division of Jerusalem into two (Zechariah 14 and cf. SMR pp. 811-812), concerning the amazing and multiple Israeli victories (cf. SMR Ch. 9 and elsewhere on this site). Jerusalem, also according to prediction, CONTINUES to be a burdensome stone to all who try to 'handle' it (Zechariah 12, preceding the Jewish predicted repentance concerning what was in fact, the crucifixion). The turmoil, as predicted, continues. The days comes closer when the Jewish repentance will occur.
 

• The fact however that God has disciplined the Jews,
• just as He is judging among the Gentile nations now in strict accord with prophecy (cf. Matthew 24),
• until their OWN VANITY AND WEAKNESS IS APPARENT, through the UN or otherwise in its expression:
• THIS does nothing to make it right for OTHERS^*2 TO TAKE THIS JOB FROM HIM!

There is NO ONE ELSE to whom to go, for God. THE GOD has acted and the MERCY in Christ has been enacted, and if you reject this, then try to make a universe if you will, and invent your own mercy,  and make mankind (though you are a little late) and play God. But the God who works is not impressed. No less so would this be the case if you TRY to RUN HIS WORLD which HE made and into which HE SPOKE and for which in His ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, HE SACRIFICIALLY ACTED, for Him.

This ? It mocks His love, mars His face once again if it were possible. What will bring home the extent of the presumption!
 

• If heart will not receive it,
• then the excruciating turmoils of unrepenting follies among the nations,
• who act as if they KNOW BETTER than the Maker what to do with what He has made,
• by all arrogance and self-elevation,
• will merely attest that reality is being breached.
• What breaches it, it breaches, UNLESS you find mercy. It is time.

All must be warned;  and each seek the Lord, with all the heart, and forget the nations and cultures as if they amounted to something before the God who made mankind, who have sinned from the first. GOD has spoken. God has sent. God has presented salvation. There is NO OTHER NAME than that of Jesus Christ where His mercy is found. Forget your possible dissatisfactions with the Judases who claim to be Christians, but are not and who also rebel. Leave judgment to God, but come to the One who makes no concessions to ANY idolatry, and who alone must be worshipped, not mass in bread, not Allah in thought, not nations in their power, not knowledge in its failed perspectives, but the God who made the world and in whom is love:  who is love, but not manipulable at all.

To scorn it, is not to be wise. He IS love; but He IS PURE. You cannot make HIM. HE must re-make you (John 3, Titus 3:5, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 4:24), Jew or Gentile, pigmentally augmented, or deprived, male or female, young or old. It is NOT necessary or even wise to sacrifice children, themselves neither perfect nor sufficient! (cf. Psalm 49). GOD has sacrificed HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, even His equal whose goings forth have been from eternity (Micah 5:1-3), who said,

• "Before Abraham was, I am"

• "If you do not believe that I am HE, you will die in your sins."

IF however you despise the GOD, and reject His love and wisdom, then hear this:

"Because I have called and you refused,
I have stretched out My hand and no one regarded,
Because you disdained all My counsel
And would have none of My rebuke,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will  mock when your terror comes,
When your terror comes like a storm,
And your destruction comes like a whirlwind,
When distress and anguish come upon you... (from Proverbs 1), but in any case, hear also this,

"Blessed is the man who listens to Me,
Watching daily at My gates,
Waiting at the posts of My doors.
For whoever finds Me finds life,
And obtains favour from the LORD;
But he who sins against Me wrongs his own soul;
All those who hate Me love death" - (from Proverbs 8  cf. I John 5:10-12, 1:1-4).
 
 

For further on this topic, see News 108.

For a list of Israeli News and some other presentations, see Preface to:
IT BUBBLES, IT HOWLS, HE CALLS ...

*1

See for the detail concerning this, SMR pp. 853-854.

*2
For more on this, see News 131.