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CHAPTER 10

 

Wanting to Have your Cake and Eat it

and Eat Someone Else’s Too

 

News 268

The Advertiser. April 1, 2003

 

 

The Age will End in a Little

Serve the Lord in a Lot ...

While it is still Day

And you May

 

On April 1, 2003 we find that someone is not fooling. It is the Palestinian encampment. Making it clear that Hamas and Islamic Jihad “reject the existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East”, the feature article, following such entrancing euphonics, all but euphemism in euphoria, relative to the aggressive Islamic desire for dominion and domination in this area, voiced in the name of their religion by such parties, reveals further data on this Red Sea of Seething waters, exported a little to the north.

 

The new Palestinian PM, Mr Abbas, who we are told has the support of Israel and the US, met with such bodies of racial brigandage; but they reported that neither did he ask them nor did they ask him for anything: no demands were made, in particular, to stop the bathing of Israel in blood (termed ‘attacks’). It is to be hoped that this is not the case, since he is termed ‘the most senior Palestinian official to oppose attacks on Israelis.’

 

Consider then the realm of this matter. In ancient Israel’s land where biblically God led them, and as  shown in Ch. 9 above, God planned their return – indeed, as exhibited in Ch. 9 of SMR, brought it to pass in precise conformity with His predictions of thousands of years before, some of them before Christ so much as came as Saviour to this earth! there is then this other ‘authority’. Be it Palestinian, however, or a segment of the Palestinians, or Islamic, or some segment of the Moslem movement; be it whole nations such as showed their pan-Islamic determination to assail Israel in 1991 in the Teheran Conference and have done much the same since, be it god or devil, it will fail.

 

God has stated plans. In setting their seething determinations to remove Israel, such bodies do but set their sights on God. He is not to be found with ammunition or with nails now; for His saving work is done, completed in one, in One who has already risen and is immune to attack of man, for whom He came and rendered Himself vulnerable and became a sacrifice for sin.

 

He is risen. His word is out. It never changes. It is then a declaration of war on  God so to speak, and in this case it has these extraordinary credentials, that GOD’s WORD, the BIBLE is NEVER found to fail in its declarations. They are written in word and then in history. Thus when we read in Revelation 19:19 that various forces were to come and attack the Lord, it is not hard to see the sort of way in which this might be done. At the final level of confrontation where patience has done all, the Gospel has been preached to all nations, the scenario is complete (as in Answers to Questions Ch. 5, which sums up the word of God to this topical application), and the “man of sin”, the “son of doom” (as the Berkeley Version beautifully translates from II Thess. 2) has exploded into being before being imploded into catastrophic ruin at the coming of the Lord: there is this amazing statement.

 

Let us look at it from Rev. 19:19. First it has shown us the Word of God, called Faithful and True, in illimitable power coming on a white horse, symbolizing mission and victory: “And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army” – also on white horses. The result is drastic, dynamic and direct. There is no need to strike again.

 

Much is to precede this confrontation, but in this also there is confrontation as in Ezekiel 38-39, considered in SMR pp. 510ff. and elsewhere. The breakers rise and surge, and it is in such extravaganzas of inveterate hostility and extremes of odium that the conditions are met for the end. Has Israel, when you look at the map, a portion so tiny with respect to Iran, so minute relative to Iraq, small by the side of Syria, diminished next to Jordan, that the whole of the Balfour Declaration and justice alike seem a shambles of shame, immersed in current dogmas, minced by contemporary propaganda which seeks sympathy for the Palestinians who DID NOT take up Jordan’s 1960 offer of citizenship, or having taken it up, abused it as a mere means of assaulting Israel ? It is so. To have the cake and eat it, is mere greed; but to seek someone else’s cake as well, is this not territorial gluttony ? But what if it be a little cake ? Tyranny can wear old clothes while eating well.

 

Thus does the antichristian SPIRIT precede its SATANIC MESSIAH, the man of sin, who, heading up the anti-Christ service, will proceed to the end of all delusion (II Thess.2 ). A time of exultant hope will thrill many when the apparatus of international terror is in place (not from mere individual subversives or arcane zealots, but from its European base, and not with admission of its spiritual and civil impalement, but rather exulting in man, his master and own king); and this depraved spiritual soaring and its result are clear from I Thessalonians 5 (cf. SMR pp. 510ff., 906ff., 886ff., Great Execrations ... Ch. 10).

 

It is likewise clear that the occasion for such 'relief' in temporary 'peace' will be short; nor will 'man' be king, since men with a mandate will seize as so often, the spoil to govern it and to control (Revelation 13, Daniel 7). So will the unavailing pomp and the untrustworthy power of man, in the Middle East and in the very globe itself, find divine exposure and contempt for the irrational and absurd self-elevation, as was the case with Babylon (Isaiah 14, Jeremiah 50-51, Ezekiel 31-32), and Assyria (Isaiah 37). Middle East launderers with eyes on Jerusalem will find, as they have found, when marvellous peace seems near, a drastic alternative neither desired nor expected (I Thessalonians 5 is eloquent, as is Ezekiel 38-39, Micah 7).

 

When you do not see what is there, in the end, when it is significant in contribution to the total environment, you are sure to hit something. The tendency to elevate mere flesh to lead the tyrannies of men’s minds, the abuse of their hearts, spiritual provocateurs with nails for the heart is strong. It is seen in Hitler, Mussolini, in Mao, in Stalin, in Lenin, in the long list of barbaric imposters whose reign ignores profundities and digs pit for personalised hells (such as God exposes with some emphasis in Ezekiel 32:18-32.

 

Meanwhile, the shadow of lust inspired by confusion in many cases, ruled by religion seeking this world (cf. More Marvels Ch. 4), ignoring its point and severed from its true Head and Founder, the Lord who has tirelessly proclaimed the truth and personally exhibited it to the very Cross (Philippians 2 cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, 20, 30, TMR Ch. 3), seeks to present its squalid darkness in the Promised Land (Galloping Events Ch. 4). Alas for this profane error! for this illicit lust.

 

 

Does this diminish our desire for the soul of Palestinians ? Far from it; for it the more acutely shows their need, and God satisfies need when that is sought from His own hand, pierced in its passion and healing in its ministry from of old.

 

Is it not like so many in purely domestic situations, in many cases filled with desperate hatred ? Yet here it appears to be from many for woefully abused Israel in this most recent flood of specialised anti-Semitism; for always, it is the Israeli segment of that which gains the most attention.

 

Thus Christ, as the crucified, killed by the nation of Israel AND OF ROME, via Pilate’s NECESSARY permission and weak as water explicit betrayal of the truth (that he found Christ innocent), is one focus; and indeed, He is the centre. But there is another focal point, for this lens system; for Israel is BY CHRIST in the midst of a joint discipline (as predicted in Deuteronomy 32 and Leviticus 26), and relief (as shown in the latter), which makes its place most exacting to maintain.

 

Yet the Lord does it; for NOTHING is too hard for the Lord.

 

 

 

THE INVITATION TO DOOM -

 

Better Decline this

than Decline through its Reception

 

Thus does the diseased Middle East invite powers that be to become powers that have been, unless they become alert, powers to come and TAKE Jerusalem in whole or in part from Israel (cf. Zechariah 12 and SMR Ch.  9). Lunacy is most sane compared with any such movement. Look and see.  Has it not already cost many mighty nations (or those who deemed themselves so), much humiliation, such as happened with Egypt more than once, with Jordan, with Syria, yes and with their allies who cannot level this tiny mouse.

 

Did not God SAY that prior to their repentance for PIERCING THE LORD (predicted some 500 years before they actually did so,  Zech. 12:10), they would be such that one would seem as one thousand ?  And did not secular estimations give just such  an  account of the war of 1967 ? And is not Israel still standing despite “all nations” in the form of the UN, and special exponents of SUBMISSION surrounding it on all sides?  Did not the world gape at the very existence of Israel, which some rather sadly wrote off when in 1948, the Islamic movement to gain submission, had to submit to defeat itself!

 

Does history teach men nothing ? Does the Bible have to be ignored, like a cancer report, until death come ? Is the only Saviour, rejected alike by the Judaistic group and the Islamic, to be rejected in favour of this obliterative passion*1 and this stark romance with death, always in fulfilment of the spiritual syndrome predicted in Revelation 6, so that God mocks the mockers, and at the same time invites them to return to their reason, and to find Him while He may be found ? (Isaiah 55:1-6). It is again, the case. Many cases however will return to everlasting joy before this happens, and as history continues its probe into many hearts, opportunities of life flourish amidst the debris, and truth is available amidst the lie: like a highly coloured last sunshine before the orb sets on the horizon.

 

 

In this case, the setting is an arising; for the dawn comes when light will expel darkness from its grip, tests concluded, history facing its earthly end. It is not then that it is tired; but that it is finished. In all works, there is an end to the purpose, except where this is eternal. It is Christ who is eternal in the heavens, and those who share His eternal life (I John 1:1-4), for whom the unfolding of life proceeds without end, without the bereavement of discard or the contumely of contempt.

 

The end comes when no place is found for heaven or earth (Revelation 20, Matthew 24:35), but the judicial assessment of sin proceeds without mercy where the provision of mercy is despised.

 

There is no need for any man, woman or child to join it in this unpleasant demise; for the Lord has arisen to provide some better thing than death, something more meaningful than mortality*2 , brighter than confusion, clear as any lake and more refreshing: life eternal. It is not found, simply not, in hatred and bloodthirstiness while little packets of protoplasm, alive with dark spirits, meander to their restless end, where no rest is (Isaiah 57:20, Matthew 22:13, Daniel 12).

 

But what of the everlasting peace which nothing can disturb ? What of the life which nothing can devitalise, where gladness is the composure and purity the air (Revelation 21:26-27, Isaiah 51:11) ?
It is found where the beginning was, where alpha is, where omega is, where the end is, where the author of history is to be found, in His place as He always is, found through the Cross as door, through the repentance for sin as the hinge and with that easy swinging opening as from oil, by the Spirit of God.

 

 

 

 

 

END-NOTES

 

 

*1 EXCURSION ON THE OBLITERATIVE PASSION.

 

 This obliterative passion is shown in the thrust or lust for defacing Christ metaphysically which was once shown physically. Thus we saw in SMR (p. 809) that -

 

"In the end, the Romanists - 'Roman Catholics' (in principle) - manipulate 'Christ', the Buddhists reject God, the Confucians bypass Him, the Hindus proliferate the 'Christ', the Moslems reconstruct 'Him', the Jews reject Him (as a nation) and many of the Gentiles, helped by insistent government propaganda in schools, in association with universities and by popular TV and other media, tend to ignore Him. (For more detail, see Chapter 10 SMR.)"

 

 

In SMR again, on p. 1088E (with which see pp. 1080ff.), we find in sum this: "As a matter of monumental fact: the dimensional movement from Mecca to Calvary is infinite." Force and fact alike fall before the insistences of reason, as bodies fall in the fallacious remedies whether of jihad (in principle) or inquisition (cf. SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff.). Yet these not alone are the 'unifying' forces.

 

Further overview comes, from which for summary we here cite,

 

  • 1)  in SMR p. 1075 ... (for reference note please refer to the original)

 

Christ is the prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6), and has shown the ONLY way to peace: God not surprisingly, so far from being limited by men's ideas, limits their thoughts by His own; and He knows what are His chosen thoughts. Hear Psalm 2:1-7:

"Why do the nations rage, and the people imagine 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.'

"Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and vex them in His displeasure:

'Yet have I set My King on My Holy Hill of Zion.'

'I will declare the decree: the Lord has said to Me, 'You are My Son ... You shall break them with a rod of iron...' "

Let us be candid; there is no point in avoiding the issues. Truth cannot stand by, if peace is to triumph.

  • The Jews as a people crucified Christ (using Roman power, a reluctant agent in Pilate).

  • The Moslems invented a new Christ, some 600 years later, and made someone up who did not die for sin, as the predicted Messiah had to do and did, giving Jesus' name to this mask.

  • The Roman Catholic doctrine, using the name of Christ, killed masses of victims2 who did not agree with its worldly pretensions (such as Pope Boniface's claim that popes rule this world's princes), or its masterful direction of a religion of which Jesus Christ said: "Call no man on earth Master, for one is your master3 even Christ" (Matthew 23:8, cf. 1 John 2:27, Luke 6:46).

There you have three of the world's major religions, all relating closely to Christ (whom Muhammad, though changing Him, revered as a prophet): ONE killed Him (at Jerusalem); ONE killed BY 'Him' and still sacrifices (*16) 'Him' (from Rome), and one 'kills' Him by changing Him, and has arrangements including a direction to KILL, in certain circumstances till all opposition to "Allah" ceases, and often met in the unholy call for 'holy wars' (*17).

Now this is killing in the INTERESTS of religion (*18), not for moral rebuke or justice. Disbelief in these transmutations or mock-up's of Jesus Christ, made by managerial man, usurping the place of Christ, plagiarising, stealing His name, and killing in it, false masters, frauds! disbelief in THEIR product ? THIS ? IT can mean to DIE at the hand of sinful man, frequently confused man! to do so in appointed seasons, by this method and that, as seems good to such religionists. Let us examine only one aspect of all this.

What does the world deserve for this! Christ, the Prince of peace, is USED for killing... What hope is there while men use God's provisions so often to change them, while keeping the name, or 'honouring' it; use them to kill, in a perverse misapplication of the very 'weapons' of peace! And this, it is done by those 'leading', mastering and 'explaining' - CHRIST'S divine prerogatives - by those therefore by definition, usurpers... (Matthew 7:26-29). Christ misused to make war... it is worse then grisly! it is historical.

 

 

  • 2) in SMR p. 1079 ... (here slightly augmented for our present purpose)

 

The Moslem religion denies that Christ died for the sins of men and authorises the slaying on the criterion of  'faith',  of many (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4, Divine Agenda Ch. 6)  ; the Roman religion denies that eternal salvation is conferred as a gift, entirely through the grace of God, and sets up a schedule of unauthorised priests and actions to intervene between any hope of heaven, and suffering sinners.

The JEWISH religion is separate from the Christian on one basic ground: the nation so acted as to KILL Christ, without accepting Him as the sacrifice for sin for which He came. That is not the ultimate point for this people: it is failure to repent at the national level which still afflicts the nation, in the very midst of divine mercies that are both prodigious and predicted, as we have seen in considerable detail.

The ARAB, the ROMAN and the JEWISH dealings, all international, have Jesus Christ in one way or another changed, rejected, or caricatured. The Russian contribution of a COMMUNISTIC rejection of Christ and most able persecution of His people, makes a fourth - MARXISM. (See p. 862 supra.)

ROME, JERUSALEM, MECCA:
Arab, Jew and Roman all produced an internationalised religion. EACH of these religions is against the Christ of God, declared in the Bible. These religions spread not only where their people were, but through them. Yes, to this add: MOSCOW: Russian, Jewish ... Arab and Roman religious rejections or transformations of Jesus Christ, and this accounts for thousands of millions of the people on this globe! The revolt is systematic; the case is tragic; and so are the results.

 

But this is not all! not at all,

for man is highly inventive

since Babel showing vast talent for erecting predictable ruins,

and glorying in them in the little time before they fall.

 

Thus, again, on p. 973A, a correlative point is made   -

*23 Political perversion of the gospel, or political distortion of the church, either physically as with Rome in Inquisitions, or doctrinally as with Rome and Mecca in their creative activity elsewhere specified: this has of course other blends. Thus ANY authority or power that gains control over a "church" (such as a State or potentate, local, national or international) can distort it beyond all recognition in ways incorporating violence to the heart and persons of others, ON RELIGIOUS GROUNDS, TO CONVERT, TRANSFORM AND TO CHAIN. Christ only however (Ephesians 4:5, John 5:26-27) has authority to rule the Church, which has one Lord, wholly divine and wholly sinless, who does not change (Hebrews 13:7). Like captive aphids in the control of ants, such bodies - seduced from Christ - can be appalling misnomers. Though they may start with some national fervour, alas the changing cultural syntheses can make the end illustrate what the broken principle of Christ only as Lord, showed wrong from the start. See pp. 446, 743 supra, 1191-1192 infra.

More broadly, In News 100 (cf. Cascade of Truth, Torrent of Mercy Ch. 10, News 37, Aviary of Idolatry) as in News 121 -  122, we have seen further movements to the defilement of reality and the residual integration of the alien by other means, with no different result in the climate of culture, confusion, diffusion of syncretism and denaturing of reality in the mind of man. It is merciless in educative propaganda, in schools and colleges, journalism frequently and of course in the UN, the WCC and allied bodies for unity in religion.

 

Its twin towers are

 

  • 1) defacement of Christ (not admitted normally, but you can see the change, as by a surgeon, and the result is unrecognisable now as it was physically when the former works were done on the truth, Christ Jesus Himself in the flesh as predicted and performed - Isaiah 52:12ff., Matthew 26); and
     

  • 2) the building which might be called The Knowledge of Good and Evil (cf. Genesis 3:3),

that mansion for bureaucrats and fallen churchmen,
that empty temple of untempered aspiration and vacuous pretence,
which enshrines in its hallowed midst
the Neo-Mosaic Moral and the Pseudo-Spiritual pretension.
 

With such shimmers of spirit, as joint propaganda, it seeks to unite. To unite what ?  by phraseology, it would unify the contrary realities of the word of God and the word of man, the works of flesh and the work of salvation, the plan of God and the plan of man: preferably with a sly cohesion, but certainly with a passion for compilation of groundless columns that float in the mind, but never touch the earth. Perhaps it is felt that in this way they cannot fall; but then, what is ungrounded has foundered already, enemy of logic, product of dreams.

Such it was to be, and is (cf. Jude and II Peter 2, II Timothy 3, Matthew 24, Revelation 13, Jeremiah 23:1-29, esp. 23:20, II Thessalonians 2). If it had not come to be, the Bible would have been wrong. (Cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 6, Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8).

 

Thus in exposing wrongs millenia before  their day, it is right; but it is not right to be wrong, just because it had to be! Diagnosis does not constitute reason for life, but as in this case, often grounds for death!

 

 

 

*2  I Cor. 15 cf. Ch. 1 above.