CHAPTER  3

 

News 262

SBS TV,  Feb 20, 2003

 

Drizzle Decreasing,

Tornado  Approaching

 

Large Talk and Small Deeds

 

In Canada, when working there in 1963, one would often hear of ‘snow flurries’ which usually meant something low-key, undramatic, a meteorological busy-ness without too many tears.

 

So here, at last after some drought, we have had something like 2 inches of rain. It came steadily, it did not rampage, it continued, knew nothing about stopping. Then after hours, it became more fitful, then drizzle, then drizzle decreasing is the call.

 

One would tend to expect then, in this season and land, that it might depart while the sun shines, and then more vehemently, after which it subsides, usually before too long, but sometimes not very much. Summer passes. The clean, clearing winds of Winter come, but not too dramatic usually, though there is great beauty in the highlands, where the mists blow, the uncovered scenes present themselves to the longing eye, the seas calling and the skies making delicious shapes and impressions of power and majesty.

 

Thus too can history move. At present, in the Middle East, in Israel, compared with the war of extinction (which did not extinguish the Jewish candle, thought he tornadoes were colossal) of 1948, that of 1967 and the near victorious invasion on a Holy Day with the exquisite Islamic tenderness for Israel, in 1973, these were temptestuous indeed. Israel won every time,  as scheduled in Zechariah 12, and since then especially, yet not without having cost before, Israel has been a vast weight for the ‘international community’ which at times seems as if ‘it’ would like Israel yieldingly to hear begone! or become partitioned, or irrelevant, so that the serious business of a vast world religion with strong passions to kill (all of its devotees do not have this, but its reputation because of a huge number of nations and powers, is indubitably losing ground), might be ‘addressed’; and the oil extracted without flurries and worries.

 

What after all, are even 7 million Jews in Israel, compared with an alleged 800,000,000 Muslims ? and if there are some millions more outside Israel, so be it, but what a comparison! That is, what are they to those whose politics are a form of statistics, and whose interest in truth is rather more limited, say to what forces can do what: rather than expanded to the areas of which ideals, appeals, morals, laws, and Lord it is that is to be served.

 

If a man or a nation serves itself (self-interest, they often unblushingly call it so that it is small wonder they war continually), then that is still something to be served. It is not logically proper, since a nation is not in itself warranted in wanting to rule, or be great, or be the criterion of its own existence, any more than a car is so, or any other construction of man. It just may want to do this, and so may others, so that the various wants become various fonts of poison.

 

It IS good for a nation or an individual to have freedom; but this should never be confused with the same having a passion for its own merely nationally construed fulfilment, or importance, let alone its own expansion at will, thrill or longing.

 

Meanwhile, the religiously aggressive  Islamic self continues its rampaging, or part of the religion does so, and nations gather together as in 1991 in Teheran and on occasion since, to affirm their Islamic loyalties, detestation of Israel and desire for Palestinians, at present being allowed to be part of the tiny fragment of Palestine which the Jews occupy nationally, to wreak havoc on the nation which houses them. To this end, they may give aid, either in propaganda, money or both.

 

The idea seems to include the subversion revolutionary call for Arabs who are Israeli citizens to be bad ones, and to seek the overthrow of Israel.

 

·       Naturally, this religious fiasco is fraught with battle and terrible in tornado; for it is one in which one part of God’s creation is seeking the positive extinction or suppression of another in the name of a ‘god’ who gives no indications of his existence and against the God who gives EVERY indication of His (logically, historically, prophetically, morally cf. More Marvels Chapter   4 ), and who is, it is felt,  to be martially supplanted. But by what ?

·       It is to be, by this will,  by the urgent calls of their false prophet Muhammad; and as to that, it is for NO reason and against ALL reason, except that which from the first involved the take-over of property and some conception of national or religious or tribal or composite greatness in the doing of it.

 

 (Cf. SMR pp. 830ff., 1080ff., 986ff., 50ff., 65ff., 91ff., 809, 1078, 625, SMR Chs. 1, 10, pp. 625, 140ff.,  and compare  Appendix D and pp. 1186Aff., Divine Agenda Ch. 6.)

 

The triumphant Israeli battles of 1948, 1969, 1973, and of course, 1991, are past; the tornado season is not quite with us again; and perhaps, some might call the ceaseless blowing up, in part or in whole, of Israeli bodies by the machinations and machinery of Gaza religionists and factories, mere decreasing drizzle, especially when it does not rain for a day or two. However, murder carried on in this way, perhaps a mere 10 or so, today, 15 tomorrow, while it does not militarily measure up to the tornadoes of extinction-time, when the Islamic hordes (yes, MANY nations did it, and readily appear willing to try again!) sought to kill Israel, cripple it or help it to get, if not into the sea, somewhere, anywhere else, does not cease to be murder.

Yet it does not reverse the ‘catastrophe’ of the Jewish presence, as it is by many Moslems openly regarded. It is a furore of letting blood and of complaint when some defence and militance of deliverance appears on the Jewish side.

 

How any United Nations could even smirkingly PRETEND that this accords with justice, when Israel has been robbed of MOST of the promised Palestine of the World War I and beyond days, and Jordan has most of it, but does not elect to invite their wandering Islamic brethren to its territories, nor do others of the murderous members do so, those who incite insurrection in Israel at any cost to anyone as victim: it would be difficult to understand.

 

Would be ? Yes, it would be so,  it were not that the god of this world as Christ called him, is delusive. Making black white, or more often white black, is his specialty. No one denies that he is gifted at it.

 

How the mangling of the bodies of children, who are left to live with the residue in agony, because of jihadic aggression, how this is religious, we can leave to the Islamic pundits who propose such things, to work out; and how the occupation of part of the tiny remnant of Palestine left to Israel, can be carried on, not with thankfulness by the Arabs in it, but with such murderous incursions into Israeli domestic life as to make them criminals in any country, and then used as a step for gaining UN approval, or endorsement, or forcible grants against Israel, can be offloaded likewise. To reward murder with land, and to increase inequity with gifts, if this is the work of justice, the term must be renamed.

 

Can then such violence, such inordinate earthiness, be regarded by the UN as a prelude to further deprivation for the Jews, to further reduction of the Palestinian remnant the Jews have, in their land ? Can you BUY things by blood in this way ? can a directly murderous assault force, an abuser of children, become the recipient of gifts, from the party whose children you assail ? This too we will leave to those international jurists who know such things. Yet justice could never support it. If this is not atrocity, and the pretence that using Palestinian children in the front line while Israel is assaulted is some sort of Jewish crime, then comedy is molesting tragedy, and getting out of place.

 

Is this, then, a drizzle, decreasing compared with the days of 1948, 1967, 1973 ?

 

 

JOINING THE JOURNEY WITH JOEL

 

However, it is apparent that the TYPHOON season is to return.

 

 

In Joel, as shown in Great Execrations … Ch. 10, there is seen a time of massive technological warfare coming as the end approaches. It appears clearly robotic, and current events are signally indicating just what Joel declared.

 

In this turbulent time, God Himself is to deliver His people. In the words found in the first two chapters of this same prophet, we find a fascinating development, from the times of the Joel himself, through the coming of the Messiah and on to Pentecost (so that Peter actually quoted this passage in Joel 2 AT Pentecost as the specifications of this spiritual birthday of the Christian Church). It is then,  in Joel 3, that we find the TYPHOON of the end of the Age. It may be well to reproduce the relevant part of this, which is therefore provided below^*1.

 

Thus we arrive in Joel 3 to the eventual judgments of God which, precisely as in Habakkuk 3, Isaiah 2, 66, Micah 7, Ezekiel 38-39, come to the deliverance of the besieged, despised, but in the end, largely evangelised Israel (cf. Zechariah 12:10-13:1, The Biblical Workman – TBW - Ch. 1, *3, Ch. 3, *1, SMR pp. 510ff., 520, at *3).  That this is so has been considered in detail and this too, in now extended form,  is provided below^*2.

 

In no sense would the concept of a tornado be here excessive! Just consider Joel 3 for a moment.

 

JOEL 3 and Meteorological Dynamics

 

 

First, as in Ezekiel 36-38 (cf. TBW loc. cit, SMR Appendix A), there is the NEW return of Israel to its place.  Secondly, there is the terminal velocity in this domain, for it is “after many days, in the latter years” as Ezekiel puts it (38:8), when the Jews having come home at last, come to stay, in the midst of the Messiah’s rule which will crown the time. NO MORE will they be removed (Ezekiel 37:26), and now the “nations will know that I, the LORD,  sanctify Israel when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”

 

The exclusively identifiable body which KNEW the Lord, FORSOOK Him and then returned in order to be FLAYED alive if possible by surrounding peoples, and to OVERCOME in triumphant wars, in the midst of exceedingly troublous times (as in Zechariah 12-14): this people was to come back, has come back, and all prescribed has happened. The arrival of the Jews in Israel is part 1 of Ezekiel’s famous valley of dry bones prophecy (37), with the other part, the sending of the SPIRIT to their lifeless gathering.

 

What remains is the typhoon.

 

Joel 3 tells us of it.

 

God is going to GATHER the nations together and ENTER INTO JUDGMENT WITH THEM. Let those who like this, have it! Prepare to meet your God! was no small ultimatum to the Jew, in the days of  Amos (Ch. 4); but now it is the Gentiles’ turn. Israel is not a Christian nation yet; but this is to be, as we have reviewed often in terms of Zechariah and Ezekiel, to name but two. Because of this, it STILL  inherits divine judgment in terms of its covenant (Deuteronomy 32, Leviticus 26); for despite the surpassing of that covenant in the New Covenant in Christ’s blood, it DID have sanctions on chronic disobedience, it DID specify that this would include the murder of their own Messiah, and there is attestation that they will have to REPENT,  and will  do so.

 

Meanwhile, the nations are disorderly. They want this and that, and the land of Israel is not convenient as an autonomous entity. It SHOULD never be one, for it should be the Lord’s (cf. Joshua 24 and Galloping Events Ch. 4). It CANNOT live in pretended autonomy; but its fault is not that it dares to exist amidst the inveterately vicious nations which afflict it, whether in the UN or elsewhere (cf. their dismemberment proposal of 1947,  and the internationalising project for Jerusalem of the same era). It is that it dares to exist without its own LORD! its own Messiah…

 

As to the nations, they think that they can ARRANGE Israel, from Clinton on to Bush, with US help, into some format, with some formula, which thieves more of Palestine from them, accords it to the terrorist murderers, and smiles benignly as if they had made some sort of peace, rather than piece, which is the fact.

 

Very well, the stakes are high, the perspective is simple, the contest is open.

 

In Joel, you see the result. As they mass, the Lord acts. It could not be clearer (Joel 3:2):

 

v          “I will enter into judgment with them on account of My people.”

 

What form is this to take ?

 

It relates to the SCATTERING of Israel BY the nations, and to the DIVISION of their land BY the nations. It is crystal in clarity, like the pure mountains streams which course through the grasses, and anoint the countryside with the blessing of the lands above. They have treated the Jews miserably: all this we find in Joel 3:2-3. What then of “all the nations of Philistia”, to the South and North of Israel, the coastlands ? These will be repaid, and Tyre already HAS been  repaid. There is then to come, a finale, a war, an ultimate end to the whole historical contest; for when some compare the Arab attacks to those of the Philistines they have something: like them, they serve foreign and unviable  gods, are ruthless in opposition and constant in propaganda.

 

“PREPARE FOR WAR!” comes the cry in Joel 3:9.

 

As multitudes gather in the environment of Israel, “the LORD also will roar from Zion” (3:16). Here, you see, is your typhoon! It is a divine one, not limited to current meteorological boundaries…

 

What then of His people newly come to their land, and to their Lord (Zech. 12:10-13:1) ?  We learn that “the LORD will be a shelter for His people.” In this way, He protects. He does more. He also will be “the  strength of the children of Israel”, this unique entity

v          whose religious recidivism the Lord has detested, as they moved from His once so intimate presence; and

v          whose discipline has been long so that many nations  seem  to think they are merely a place  to wipe their feet.

 

It is not so. Their divine discipline has not been an invitation to earthiness of concept and gross and outrageous arrogance against this much grieved people. Because of such ignorant and in part malevolent misconception, the nations will find the strength of God is against them in their artful concepts and profane dealings with Israel.

 

“So you shall KNOW that I  am the LORD your God… Then Jerusalem shall be holy …” (Joel 3:17).

 

This of course is a contrary concept to the comparative religionist’s aim, inspiration and goal, that religions will melt into some scum of unity and be wiped away from the pot, while what matters proceeds.

 

It is the opposite which is to occur.

 

God is always opposite, or contrary at least, to what this world considers. THEY, these are ex-God, but make this fatal mistake. It is one between the ontological and the actual; or if you prefer, between what IS the case and the way you ENVISAGE it. If you envisage your car NOT to be stuck in deep mud when it is, then there is this same confusion. It may ruin your tyres, your engine or your life, if for example you are on a hill, and your car capsizes on top of you.

 

Now “a fountain shall flow from the house of the Lord” – just as in Ezekiel 47 (see Biblical Blessings Ch. 5 cf. Zechariah 12:10-13:1) . This as shown, represents the Spirit of God bringing the realities of Christ to the heart of those who put their faith in Him; and since He IS living, therefore there IS the sort of result you would expect from life: it is vital, dynamic and powerful. Since however it is also the life of GOD, it is also purifying, disciplinary and developmental in the heart.

 

You wash in it, and He works in you (cf. Philippians 2:12-13, but see with this,  3:20-21!).

 

 

IMPOSING PARALLELS

 

You get the same thing in Micah 7, where after some astonishingly tender and highly empathetic words concerning the sufferings of Jews who have wandered from their earlier place in the Lord, it declares that a military event comparable to the work of the Exodus, when the Jews left Egypt, is to occur (7:15).  In this occurrence, the nations will have a place: that of worms, “they shall  lick the dust like a serpent.” It does not really matter what anyone thinks, this is what the Lord says.

 

Is this arrogant of Him, to dare to SPEAK HIS MIND ? Hardly. The real arrogance is NOT TO LISTEN.

 

It is crucial to realise that just as in Zechariah 12:10-13:1, so in Micah, we find the IMPORTANT part is the knowledge of God which results, and at first, the inward presence of the Messiah, for the reflection at the end of that chapter is this:

 

·      “Who is a God like You,

Pardoning iniquity

And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage?

He does not retain His anger forever,

Because He delights in mercy.

·      He will again have compassion on us,

·      And will subdue our iniquities.

·      “You will cast all our sins

·      Into the depths of the sea.

You will give truth to Jacob

And mercy to Abraham,

Which You have sworn to our fathers

From days of old.”

 

 

v          NEVER DOES THIS LOVE OF GOD DIMINISH,

v          NEVER IS IT ECLIPSED,

v          NEVER DOES FORCE CONSTITUTE THE CRITERION, BEING MERELY AN INSTRUMENT WHEN EVILS MOUNT AS IF TO HARRY THE EARTH FOREVER, AND WHEN JUDGMENT, AFTER THE LONG FORAYS OF FREEDOM, SITS ACCORDING TO TRUTH (Romans 2).

 

It is time to listen to the parallel passage in Habakkuk 3. Its intimacy with this is like that of two close friends, distinct yet as one.

 

·      4   “His brightness was like the light;

He had rays flashing from His hand,

And there His power was hidden.

5        “Before Him went pestilence,

And fever followed at His feet.

6        “He stood and measured the earth;

He looked and startled the nations.

And the everlasting mountains were scattered,

The perpetual hills bowed.

·      His ways are everlasting.

 

7-9    “I saw the tents of Cushan in affliction;

The curtains of the land of Midian trembled.

O Lord, were You displeased with the rivers,

Was Your anger against the rivers,

Was Your wrath against the sea,

That You rode on Your horses,

Your chariots of salvation?

Your bow was made quite ready;

Oaths were sworn over Your arrows. Selah

You divided the earth with rivers.

 

10-11   “The mountains saw You and trembled;

The overflowing of the water passed by.

The deep uttered its voice,

And lifted its hands on high.

The sun and moon stood still in their habitation;

At the light of Your arrows they went,

At the shining of Your glittering spear.

 

·      12-13    “You marched through the land in indignation;

You trampled the nations in anger.

You went forth for the salvation of Your people,

For salvation with Your Messiah.”

 

A glance at Psalm 2 reveals just the same.

 

“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.”

 

“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.’ ”

 

“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.”

 

As Paul declares, Christ is the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18): that is, not only was He resurrected, but death became as if a womb from which He arose as one born, and in this was wrought a marvel for all men: for this constituted His breach of death, so that instead of exhibiting our mortality, it was broken to reveal the immortality Christ has in store for all who come in faith and repentance to Him as He is, the living God.

 

This power is not fireworks to amuse the people. It is comparable with the creation and with salvation. It is a be-all and end-all matter, as life versus death, and worse, eternal death with contempt, always is.

 

It has its impact as so consistently announced in the Bible, in very visible and physical ways, from the deliverances of David, the miracles of Elijah and the power of the prophetic word on; yes and right to the healings of Christ, the raising from the dead, and His own resurrection; and not the least of these manifestations of divine power is ever so simple. It involves the desire to rule, mandate, manipulate, humble, treat ignominiously the Jew, as if the legacy of the pogroms and exploitation of Europe (as in Louis XIV the not so bright sun-king) and Russia, and the epitomisation of the process in Hitler, were some kind of pantomime which, since the children love it, must constantly be re-performed.

 

God is unimpressed with such outrageous instigations of earthiness against His people (cf. Isaiah 51:21-23 for example).

 

“Therefore please hear this, you afflicted,

And drunk but not with wine.

 

“Thus says your Lord,

The Lord and your God,

Who pleads the cause of His people:

 

‘See, I have taken out of your hand

The cup of trembling,

The dregs of the cup of My fury;

You shall no longer drink it.

But I will put it into the hand of those who afflict you,

Who have said to you,

“Lie down, that we may walk over you.”

 

‘And you have laid your body like the ground,

And as the street, for those who walk over.’ ”

 

Like those of Isaiah 66:15, 30:27ff., are these words.

 

There is an end of the discipline, of the blindness of Israel as Paul proclaims it (Romans 9:25), and of the international contempt for Israel. It is not that they are absurdly ‘privileged’, for as you see in Jeremiah 7:8ff., He has already taken the most vigorous issue with Israel itself; and who among the Gentiles would seek their history! Rather is it that obstructive offence in one party is not the same as impressive innocence in another, her persecutor, the opportunist! Moreover, there is coming as you see in Romans 11 (cf. refs. in The Biblical Workman above), a REMOVAL of the blindness, and a REVERSAL of the troubles of Israel, a time for treatment of those who treated her, and for deliverance of their prey (as in Deuteronomy 32).

 

This deliverance, it has started already in the enormous afforestation, agricultural science exploits, floral abundance and marketing as predicted (cf. Isaiah 35, 55:13, 41:19-20, 60:13, Ezekiel 34:29). As to the events in Ezekiel 34,  see Great Execrations … Chs. 7  and  8, and fascinating are these, for it is here that you see the LORD expressing His simple determination. In view of the gross and outrageous failure of under-shepherds interested in their careers, progress, impact, importance and wealth, HE IS GOING TO COME AND TO IT HIMSELF,  all the work of a Shepherd (hence the identification by Christ of Himself as the Good Shepherd, as seen in John 10). HE the LORD, will be Himself the shepherd. A little latter in that same chapter, He announces that it is the Messiah, descendant on the maternal line through Israel (cf. Micah 5:1-3, Isaiah 7, 9), that this is to be: ‘DAVID’ (metonymy for descendant of the same). He WILL be SHEPHERD.

 

This is just as in John 8:58 and 10:30. Christ rand His Father are ONE. In Him, God is manifest in the flesh, and He is the express image of DEITY (Hebrews 1), so that even though GOD ALONE is the Creator, it is no less Christ (Colossians 1:15ff., Isaiah 43:10-11), and though GOD ALONE is the Saviour, this Christ is not only involved in salvation, but is IT! and this is His work alone (He involving the Father as vice versa – Acts 4:11-12, Isaiah 53). In other words, it is of course done with the Father, for the Father, in the Father; but the one who ACCOMPLISHES what is the EXPLICIT role of God alone, is Christ.

 

Hence, to return to our concern with Psalm 2, it is NECESSARY with glad heart to WELCOME Christ and to do towards Him what no man should ever do to another, PUT ONE’S TRUST in HIM! (Psalm 2:12, Jeremiah 17:5ff.). “Kiss the Son lest He be angry!” reminds one of Christ’s interview with the Peter who failed as in John 21. The love of God is sina quo non, indispensable, since GOD IS LOVE (I John 4:7ff.). Yet those nations who throng in contempt of court, in mockery of Christ, in moral liberation, in spiritual autonomy, who disdain the PRACTICAL ACTUALITY of God, and in particular do not see why Israel should be in some one place designated by God (though God has given to history, His own specific architectural specifications for this land): their fate we learn.

 

Broken in pieces like pottery, they disadorn the earth. This happens. You can use poetry to celebrate a victory, but should never confuse it with the victory itself! The nations are to be given to Christ “as an inheritance” and in the process, they disdain and dismiss their place, even contending with God about the nature of things. Hence theirs is desolation, and not least in the devastations to come, is this confrontation at the end! Yes, as Micah puts it, it is unexampled!

 

 

THE FINALE IS NOT FOR FUN

 

Thus do you see the age-old lust, thrust and bust syndrome in man. Unwilling to be subservient (as he deems it) to any, he ceases to be serviceable to any but himself, and  putting in himself, for himself, by himself, his weird and irrational,  arbitrary and sky-diving ideas (as if he came from something that was above, in some metaphysical sky, which is not really there, and that is why he is so good and knows so much,  and knows tr