Chapter 5
The US Congress shows Nous with its No!!
News 237
The Advertiser,
The Clash and the Brash ?
Yes,
it is most gratifying. The US Congress has passed legislation which in plain
thrust means this.
The
SPENDING clause presumably is an effort to use monetary power to prevent Bush
from going too far in his peace with the Moslem initiative, which having
reached even religious levels, is perhaps the worst religious error of any
administration since World War II.
While
it might be felt that surely this is not beyond the Nixon affair, yet that was
weakness to cover up a folly; this is an initiative patent and direct, against
the clear desire of the Congress, following up one of the most horrendous
religious sell-outs one can remember from the
However,
while this cannot be mitigated, this now in the new millenium is assault DIRECT
on the Lord. Spiritually, if that were seduction, then this is sedition
(cf. Red Alert … Ch. 6).
Many
are they who exult in President Bush’s undoubtedly high profile religious
position. Does he not talk freely of prayer, of evil, of overcoming evil, of
his Christian profession ? To be sure,
yes, he does. Nor is this intended in ANY sense as an analysis of his own
position, but of his public testimony, because it is the latter which endangers
To
fail to warn, is almost to fail to live! Does not the prophet Ezekiel, as we
saw in Ch. 4 above, having warned Israel and then
other nations, all in the name of the Lord and His truth and His word given in
the prophetic testimony of the Law and the Prophets (cf. Isaiah 34:16), proceed
to major in Ch. 33, immediately after all this, on the NEED to WARN! This, the mandate of love, may
become sadly, if too much ignored, the method of judgment. Consider Jeremiah
17:19ff. and the simple significance put there on the keeping of the rest day,
that delicious opportunity for divine communion and review under the auspices
of the Almighty; but this like all other opportunities at that time, being
ignored, judgment sat on the nation, on that occasion, in short order, for long
had they been warned, loved, issued with exhortation, appeal, protestation.
Indeed much of the very life of the prophet Hosea, speaking well in advance of
the coming desolation, appears as one long illustration of the love of God and
His charge, challenge and solicitude.
Solicitude
alone however is not health, though it may lead to it. Irrepressible
unrepentance, the imperiousness of the impermissible, disdain for correction,
the recklessness of NOT HEEDING can dig ditches for straying feet.
How
could love ignore a child who is about to fall into the fire, after having
played with outrageous audacity with it, for quite some time! How would you let
your words freeze on your silent lips if you saw a 10 year old flying on his
scooter within 10 feet of a hidden cliff, and facing it!
So
here: but this, it is not an affair of children. As we saw also in the
preceding chapter, President Bush is quite emphatic and direct about an Independent Palestinian State. Why this should
not be so has been considered on this site so often, that we need merely refer
to one or two chapters at this point
(cf. Ch. 4 above, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls
Ch. 10, Divine
Agenda Ch. 8, Regal Rays from Revelation Ch. 1).
Very
well, join the Arab throng, and the eloquence of oil, the sophistication of
modern power blocs, the politics of pragmatism, ignore the idealism which made
the
Ř Now go further. RESIST the US Congress
itself, which in a blessed moment of power, has sought to use monetary power to
restrict the wild enthusiasm for worldly alliance of the President, as it
assuredly appears to be. Yes, in the process, INSIST that you HAVE TO be
realistic, and robustly affirm that you CANNOT do that sort of thing, Congress
or not. Make this clear and evocative; and even announce this: Why, such a
thing as an order from Congress in this field, it would even be
unconstitutional limitation of Presidential power!
Ř Say it all. Pay no attention to the
strong words of Congress. Continue on the Arab course, and act to humiliate
still further, the honour of the past international confirmation of the Balfour
Declaration, giving Palestine to Israel. Indeed, do not even let Israel have
their own ONE AND ONLY historic capital. Do all this. Stop at NOTHING!
Is
this, then, to be Mr Bush’s contribution ? It begins to have not merely the
ill-savour which has been pointed out at the time of the multi-religious prayer
breakfast, with Mr Graham and Mr Bush in
attendance, but the reek of assault on the clear directives of man and
God (cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 7,
Romans 16:17). If the UN can so ignore the past, and humble the integrity of
international undertakings from the First World War, those on which, in all
propriety, Israel has acted, is now the US to follow suit, to inflame the
inflammatory, and tilt at God Himself, whose intentions concerning the triflers
with the restored Israel have not been hidden these two and one half millennia
(cf. SMR pp.502ff., Appendix A).
Alas
that the great become so small, and that
the complexities of a culture can succeed so in hiding from it its aweful
responsibility! Has the Twin Tower massacre not yet registered ? Has this not
reached to the heart of many: that great power is great requirement, that to
whom much is given, from him much will be required ? Is THIS leadership, to
downgrade reality, defy the Bible and defile the purity of the faith with such
combinations, insistences and grandeur
of eloquence!
This, it may well be, is becoming a sort of trial run for that great mouth speaking swelling words of vanity, so clearly predicted in the Bible, when the will and way of God is to be affronted with no mean grandeur (cf. Daniel 7:11ff., Revelation 13:11ff.). Alas for America if she does not realise that the Gentiles no less than the Jews are under examination. Did you read the chapters in Ezekiel*1, following the exposure of the Jew in the words of this prophet, as presented in Ch. 4 above (that is, Jeremiah 18-24 concerning divine judgments on Israel is vigorous, but are the following 25-32 on other nations, any less so!) ?
Did you consider Paul’s exhortation in Romans 11, also shown
in Ch. 4,
about NOT being high-minded, not being lifted up, not feeling superior to the
Jew, but being warned. Who ? this time, the Gentiles. About what ? about considering WHY they have suffered! (cf. Ezekiel 39:27-28, Romans 11:25ff., Isaiah 42:1-17,
Zechariah 12:6, SMR Appendix A). It all concerns the living and only God, the God of
Israel, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the Bible, the definitive
expression of God in flesh, the declarative impartation in word there, not
somewhere else! (John 14:6, Ephesians 1:10).
Man
goes everywhere like a stray god. Is the association with other strays a
commendation to the master, since all stray from Him! The Bible is clear: NO,
no, no! Association is no guarantee, but of divine exposure (cf. Isaiah 8:9-10,
55:5ff.) *2.
US
policy regarding Jerusalem has not changed, asserted the US President as he
signed into law the Congress’s words concerning Jerusalem as the Jewish
capital. They, the Congress, he is reported to have said, cannot be regarded as
having given him an order, which would “impermissibly
interfere with the President’s constitutional authority to conduct the nation’s
foreign affairs.” Is that right ? Has Congress been elected to watch and
not to control ? Have they no monetary
discipline ? and if they have it, has
the President no need to heed it ? Have
they no expression of direction for the USA, and if so, is the President
their Lord! These are dangerous waters, and while the constitutional niceties
on foreign policy for the
It
is simply not permissible so to strangulate
What
then ? Is he to continue the downgrade
of this great city, that
Such
actions as these on Jerusalem are DIVINELY impermissible, and astray is he who thinks he rules when God is
in control; nor are the perils few for
such presumption. Intended or not, the results of ignoring the word of God are
comparable to what comes from driving on the wrong side of the road. Perhaps
you were dreaming; but the impact is still being very actively invited! It is
unwise to dream, when driving, managing, controlling or directing the affairs
of men!
Consider
very carefully Zechariah 12:1-4. There are no exemptions for meaning well. It
is time to show what one is by what one does. The machining of minds by the
mechanisms of culture is no substitute, any more than the calibrating of
concepts by the needs of diplomacy (as in
CALIBRATE MYTHS, BUT YOU WILL
NEVER CALIBRATE CHRIST,
THE CONQUEROR IN HISTORY AND IN TIME, FOR ETERNITY
You
can calibrate myths, and give quantitative values to the illusory, in the
greatness of your delusion (cf. Spiritual
Potpourri Chs. 1-9, esp. 1-3); and you can quantify property as if God
did not make it, determining powers and making foolish alliances ad nauseam with whatever powers-that-be,
soon to become the powers-that-have-been, and do so with as much relish as you
like; but it will not stand. Instead of gaining liberty, such humanistic
illusions merely bring divine rebuke, whether sooner or later, unless there be
repentance (cf. Isaiah 8:9-20).
As
to Jesus Christ,
 |
in His power,
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His predictions, |
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His fulfillments
of prophecies, |
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in His death date
on time according to Daniel centuries before*5, |
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in His exposure
of His claims to continual test, |
there
is no other thus, none to match the claims and power of God. Forsake Him and
die the death that is spiritual, and final, except you repent; receive Him and
live, for at His door the truth is found, and it is He (John 14:6, 3:16, 19,
36).).
On
earth, He claimed, “Before Abraham was, I was”,
and “Abraham rejoiced to see My day” (John 8);
and naturally He was tested, and it was right that He should be (I
Thessalonians 21). But test is one
thing, malignity and murder is another! Having claimed continually to be He
whom the prophets had foretold (cf. Luke
4:18-21), and faced death at once for doing so (Luke 4:28-30), He proceeded to
illustrate, demonstrate and elaborate (cf. Luke 11:53ff., Matthew 22:46), where
at that level, only the power of God could continually meet that test from
aroused opponents, where the level of performance had to be that of God Himself
(Isaiah 35, 53, 11, 32, Psalm 2). In that arena, one failure in debate, in
command to wind or disease or devil, would mean instant laughing stock status, with
no need whatsoever to KILL Him, since then His claims would have to die of
themselves!
It
was not so; for in all things He prevailed. Therefore, if the wind was told to
‘shut off’ or rather ‘shut down’ or ‘be muzzled’ (Matthew 8:23ff.), it did; it the
paralytic was told to get up, since it is obviously easier to tell him, Your sins are forgiven! than to heal his
paralysis, he got up (Mark 2). If this was done under malign scrutiny, then He
still did it. Nothing enfeebled Him, no challenge broke Him, since the
authentic has the power, and He had no need to attain to what He already was and is (cf. John
In
all these things, what He said, He did; and both what He said and did, none
other could do, has done or will do, since there is one God, wherever He
chooses to show Himself, and in whatever
form He comes. In ONLY ONE has He come (Hebrews 1, John 1), according to plan:
HE is not more than one, and only as one man could He be, since man is in the
first place in His image, and two diverse beings, do not equal one. Men vary;
God is one. As one then God came, and no other is anything but a competitor, a
contender. But where is the prophetic programming for any such ? and where is
the power ? and where is the testimony ? and where are the prophetic words from
his lips ?
There
is one history, one Bible and one fulfillment. There are in existence no other
words, no other Christ and no competitors. The screen is open to ONE ONLY.
For
this, for Him enshrined in the fragility of the flesh, it was not easy. But with God NOTHING shall
be called impossible.
Thus,
constantly, continually, in practice, in word, He was indomitable,
unanswerable, unseducible; and so also He was on prophetic mission to die.
Indeed His very success ministered to His doom as far as priests were
concerned, in whom envy played, and autonomy against the Lord. However the very
doom was the greatest of successes, for how do you show that you have power
over your OWN death except you die ? and how would the Messiah be resurrected
so that His body did not rot, unless it was first dead; and how would it be
dead by being SLAIN, unless someone slew Him ?
and how could the nation REJECT Him, unless the authorities ganged up
against Him, and how could He bear sin if He had His own, and how could He lack
His own if He could not stand, while declaring Himself God in the flesh ? and
how could the scriptures which HE affirmed be right, unless ALL OF THIS
happened! And it did.
History
has nothing to say but this. There is no one else, no other figure, no other
testimony, no other life, but His, that of the ruler, no other answer for man,
whether to all his philosophic conundrums (as in SMR Ch. 5, TMR Ch.
5, Little Things Ch. 5, Repent
or Perish Chs. 2, 7, Answers to
Questions, Predestination and
Freewill, and many others), for his necessary paths of peace (Isaiah 9:7,
John 18:36) with, by and for TRUTH, or to his guilt! But all this He did,
providing on all sides with plan, pre-announced program (for centuries written)
and purpose; and He did all things well
as the people were constrained to confess, for there was no other truth! In
Him, God did NOT place the Spirit by
measure, but granted illimitable presence to His eternal fellow and companion,
His word sent on mission for salvation (cf. John 1:1-3,14, Hebrews 1:1-3,
Isaiah 48:16, I John 4).
To
Him, the calibre is this, that it has no limits. God did not give the Spirit “by measure” to Him! (John 1:14,
If
man would recalibrate Christ, with machined dreams and twisted mind, it will do
nothing but increase his delusion, the confusion of his world and the stark
contusion of the wounds his own spirit must bear. It is not Christ who needs
remoulding according to the times, but the times according to Christ. They will
not, because in all truth they CANNOT succeed, prosper, except for doom,
without Him, for He IS the truth, and truth will out, the very finger of God.
He arose, He will return (Acts 1:7ff., II Thessalonians 2, Matthew 24,
Revelation 19), and will rule with the efficiency of reality, just as
unassuming, He died with the gravity of grace,
to take His place where all of us should be, that we who receive Him in
truth, might be where He is (John 14, I Peter 3:18).
To
be sure, Christ’s own rule, like all the rest of what God has to say in the
Bible, will come, is near and is impending (Answers to Questions
Ch. 5, Luke
21:24, SMR Ch. 8). You see it most clearly in Psalm 2, but equally in Isaiah 2,
Micah 4, Isaiah 65, 32, Zechariah 14, Isaiah 59:21, Revelation 19, Mark 12,
Matthew 25, Psalm 72 and many more places. Let us see what Psalm 2 says:
“Why do the nations rage,
And the people plot a
vain thing?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying,
‘Let us break Their bonds in pieces
And cast away Their
cords from us.’ ”
(Peter
quoted from this after the day of Pentecost and a mighty healing miracle
followed by persecution, once more by the priests - Acts 2-4 - regarding the
harassment and crucifixion of the Christ and its fulfillment of what God said.)
“He who sits in
the heavens shall laugh;
The Lord shall hold them in derision.
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath,
And distress them in His
deep displeasure:
‘Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion.
I will declare the decree:
The Lord
has said to Me,
“You are My Son,
Today I have begotten
You.
Ask of Me, and I
will give You
The nations for
Your inheritance,
And the ends of the
earth for Your possession.
You shall break them with a rod of iron;
You shall dash them to
pieces like a potter’s vessel.” ’ ”
This
is used by Paul in Acts 13:33-35, in terms of the resurrection of the body of
Christ, in association with the prophecy of Psalm 16 (cf. Joyful Jottings 21, 22, 25, SMR Ch. 6)
“Now therefore, be wise, O kings;
Be instructed, you
judges of the earth.
Serve the Lord with fear,
And rejoice with
trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry,
And you perish in
the way,
When His wrath is
kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their
trust in Him.”
MUCH IS NECESSARY: BUT NO SIN
IS EXCUSABLE,
ONLY PARDONABLE IN CHRIST
The Irreducible Minimum is Jesus
Christ
It is not to some other Messiah one must look; it
is not to some construction of God or gods by man, one is authorised to seek;
it is not in some unholy alliance of religions, one is instructed to seek, or
in some vitamised conglomeration of concepts, christs or prophets. That false
christs and false prophets, like the papacy, like Muhammad, like Marx, like the
sect founders, like the straying unbiblical seminaries and their products,
should come; that false teaching should invade the visible church (II Peter 2,
Matthew 24:24) is NECESSARY, just as Christ’s death was necessary. And on quite
a large scale, it has happened, many but by no means all, being defiled (cf. News 121, 122). If this were not
so, the Biblical prophecy would be inept; but right in the midst of all the
other signals of His near approach, it is duly and notably happened!
THAT was necessary to show WHO is God, as has been
the attestation from Moses and Pharaoh, and before, in Joshua, in Elijah, and
ultimately in Christ; and to cover the gap between the alienation and
corruption of man, often in pride as well as debased pollution of the flesh, to
bring man to God by coming as God to man. THIS, the current destabilized
situation is necessary to bring to FULFILMENT the predictions of God about what
man would do with the Gospel, not only in many believing and so finding God,
but in many distorting and so finding wrath.
To
return to the particular, but momentously important matter of Jerusalem (cf.
Luke 21:44), one can only tremble for America, and hope the Congress finds ways
of restraining this dive into the ditch (excavated in advance for all who fall
into it, for as in Zechariah 12:3! there are no exemptions for the nations, if
they persist in impenitence against the patience of God): yes even if the
dive be, if you will, from a height of 7 miles: for, in the fast moving jets of
our time, this is just so many seconds until the earth is hit, to turn the
ditch into a crater.
If
America lapses further into amalgams and provocations in Palestine, so asking
for wrath, if America’s special status of power goes (as the British one did in
the last century), then the powers of Europe, so very careful with the Arabs
and their oil, may advance quite quickly to the predicted presence and base for
the lawless one, to complete the prophecy of Daniel, endorsed by Christ
Himself. Let it happen if it will; and what is written WILL happen. What does
it matter ? It is only the loss of men, of women and children which matters, in the meantime,
swept by sin as diverse in darkness as is the rainbow in light, away from the
mercy of God, which like the Temple in Jerusalem, ordained before Christ
replaced it with Himself, was in ONLY
ONE PLACE. And why ? It is because there is ONLY ONE GOD, and there is ONLY
ONE SALVATION, and all the talk and squawk in the world, the
flying feathers or the active claws,
will not alter it by one jot or one tittle.
NOTES
Ezekiel, a little earlier, in
14:6-10 makes a significant indictment, of far more importance than any finding
of any High Court of man, for this from the very precincts of divine justice
itself.
Ř
“Therefore say to the house of Israel,
Ř
‘Thus says the Lord God:
o
“Repent, turn away from your idols, and turn your faces away
from all your abominations. For anyone of the house of Israel, or of the
strangers who dwell in Israel, who separates himself from Me and sets up his
idols in his heart and puts before him what causes him to stumble into
iniquity, then comes to a prophet to inquire of him concerning Me, I the Lord
will answer him by Myself. I will set My face against that man and make him a
sign and a proverb, and I will cut him off from the midst of My people. Then
you shall know that I am the Lord.
o
“And if the prophet is induced to speak anything, I the Lord have induced that prophet, and I will
stretch out My hand against him and destroy him from among My people
Idols in the heart, cardiac
calibration, reduction of the heart to the calibre of mythical creations, and
of the life to their depravities (and depravity is not only physical, but
mental and moral, spiritual and personal as well), the limitations of
confusion: what is it ?
it is the debasement of man
to a world of false gods or self-arrogation of the divine by his own ‘opinions’
and rules, and this, it is the declaration of war on God into which only mercy
can penetrate (cf. Micah 3:5, 5:3), the thick fog of horror into which the
‘meaningless’ can come as to a home, the arrogant as to its source and the
violent to its rule, striving in vain, aloof from the Lord.
Alas such things can be in
themselves the judgment on long follies of the mind, and the misleader and the
misled alike stumble to fall (14:9-10)! Do such things seem dire ? Have you noticed recent
history ? have you watched the plight of the nations ? Do you conceive the near
to infinitude of arrogance which ignores the testimony of truth, and
substitutes the squalid spiritual poverties of man for the rich mercy of Jesus
Christ the righteous, alone in all history as the testified, verified,
validated and uncalibrated, the One whose power and predictions, whose path and
whose way being all themselves predicted, not only anointed history like heavy
rain in drought, but cut the knots of philosophy like cardboard! (cf. SMR Chs. 5, 6, Christ
Jesus: the Wisdom and the Power of God Ch. 8, Repent
or Perish Ch. 2, Trust
God, Mate! Forget about Fate … Ch. 9, Red
Heart, Dead Heart and Pure Heart
Ch. 5).
Isaiah 8 has this:
“Be shattered, O you peoples, and be
broken in pieces!
Give ear, all you from far countries.
“Gird yourselves, but be broken in pieces;
Gird yourselves, but
be broken in pieces.
Take counsel
together, but it will come to nothing;
Speak the word, but it will not stand,
For God is with us.”
The distress and
deliverance of Gentiles is a profound topic in the Old Testament predictions,
as in the New. Thus in Joel 3:9ff., Isaiah 2, as in Micah 7 and Habakkuk 3, you
see ineradicable signals of the end of godless lust, national pride and the
like. The Lord ALONE will be exalted in that day, says Isaiah, and what a day
it is to be!
The holes in the rock will
seem desirable. The clangour of nations will clash upon the earth.
Again, however, you find
that on the Lord’s return with His people, “all the
saints” (Zechariah 14:5, I Thessalonians 3:13), that He will rule and
iniquity will find its natural place, in ignominy (Psalm 2 presents the force
of repulse correlative with the force originally planned and suffered, that was
used against the Messiah in phase I, the suffering, before phase 2, the glory).
The scope of it appears in Psalm 67:5-7,
also, as in Psalm 72; and again you see more of it in Daniel 7:25ff., Matthew
24:36-51, Acts 1, Revelation 19, Habakkuk 2:14.
God has not forgotten the
greater part of the earth, but in precise predictions, generic declarations and
episodic detail, in broad scope and pattern, He has shown His concern for one
as for the other; and if in His plan,
*4 Isaiah 30:1-5 presents this word:
“ ‘Woe to the rebellious children,’ says the Lord,
‘Who take counsel, but not of Me,
And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit,
That they may add sin to sin;
Who walk to go down to
And have not asked My advice,
To strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh,
And to trust in the shadow of Egypt!
“ ‘Therefore the strength of Pharaoh
Shall be your shame,
And trust in the shadow of Egypt
Shall be your humiliation.
For his princes were at Zoan,
And his ambassadors came to Hanes.
They were all ashamed of a people who could not benefit them,
Or be help or benefit,
But a shame and also a reproach.’ ”
See Highway
of Holiness Ch. 4.