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CHAPTER 9

THE WORLD COURT RUNS THE RISK OF BEING

THE WORLD CAUGHT

News 301,

The Advertiser, Dec. 20, 2003
The Australian, Dec. 22, 2003

OUTRANKING

It is said that for at least some Aboriginal Tribes, that if someone for some reason - such as 'knowing' a very senior elder in some tribe - is deemed higher in rank than the present company which he may visit, those lesser in rank leave to make way for someone of parallel rank to replace them from their own tribe. Such has been described as a social custom with a visitor.

More  generally, the concept of veneration of age, or experience, seniority or placement varies. In some places, the concept that TRUTH is the most venerable of all witnesses, and the most just of all echelons still obtains, rather than seniority as such. The Ancient of Days, a biblical name for God, has it in all ways: HE is without beginning, and hence not only MORE than any other, but also He is BEYOND the time which we have, as part of His creation, as an author is beyond a book he has written.

Thus when the WORLD COURT, of apparent seniority before for all the world in intention at least, wishes to make its feelings known concerning the action of Israel in building a wall in part of the Palestine given to it by Great Britain in 1917, and the League of Nations thereafter, in terms of the victorious powers: then it is a singular issue. How senior are representatives of the new, more modern body which now wishes to adjudicate in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, this UN of today ? Is it outranked by the preceding body ? Is the older one of no status ? Are the decisions of the nations post-World War I obsolescent or even obsolete ? Is the 1922 League of Nations Palestine Mandate which is most explicit on the Jewish selection, too Old ?

Is antiquity without power or position ? It is outranked by what ignores it ? Is history invalid in some subtle way, and are modern living people the only ones to be heeded ?

In that case, many world nation Constitutions could be considered invalid, since living people have often not made them, but rather people in the past. The thought is trifling.

Why then is the World Court, or the Hague-based International Court of Justice to give it the flamboyant name by which it formally goes, to determine the affairs of a nation ? That nation not unexpectedly is Israel, the chronic butt of the UN. Is it because the United Nations General Assembly asked it to do so ?

Such is the report in The Australian, Dec. 22, 2003. Why however would that body deem itself competent to  ask a parallel and more specialised body to consider LAW relative to the wall which Sharon's government is building ? Does the United States ask permission, or await permission, or await adjudication on the rebuilding of the World Trade Centre Tower, which by report is a project intended to produce the highest tower in the world ( when you allow for the appurtenances attached, upwards ...) ? No, you say, but then the US or at least its President, by further report, does not believe in the International Court of Justice, holding that nations should handle their own affairs rather than internationalise such questions.

The perhaps Britain could ask the ICJ to permit it to re-draw any County boundaries, in case some British people did not like such actions ? Is the thought thinkable ?  Literally, yes, but scarcely credible ...

Why then is there this assault on the sovereignty of Israel ? Is it because it has been cheated of such a huge fraction of the Palestine granted to it (nearly three quarters going to Jordan), and similarly assaulted in 1947 by the United Nations, long after the initial INTERNATIONAL GRANT OF ALL OF PALESTINE TO IT, when the UN wanted to internationalise Jerusalem and give disjointed segments of land to Israel ? 
Is it for this reason that the UN feels now at liberty to turn custom into code, and continue this abominable process ?

If someone gave me land, and I built on it, but then the donor revoked the gift and wanted to use my capital expenditure for other purposes, giving me a tiny fraction of the site, I should be unimpressed with his/her honesty, integrity, reliability. If an international body does this, one might well  be even more unimpressed; and when it does it to a nation, still less is one made aware of goodness or righteousness.

Is there no moral accountability at all ? Does this continued anti-semitism/anti-justice clamour have the sanction of mere tradition, including that of  the European Inquisition which assailed Jews with singular venom in a manner utterly unfeeling, contemptible and despicable to the uttermost, together with that of the pogroms of Russia and France for example?

Is it then an evil tradition that is held in view so that now the United Nations, over the grave of Hitler, carries on the gutting philosophy in its own not so sweet way ? or Way! Whatever the stated INTENTION, always present is the ACTUAL DEED.

There has been, one finds in The Advertiser of December 20, considerable Arab dissatisfaction with Sharon's effort to "disengage" with the Arabs, allegedly to increase Jewish security and prevent interminable delays, with the intention, the hope of decreasing the spillage of Jewish blood. After all, it is simply a fact that the virtual dismemberment in advance of Israel which was offered by the United Nations after World War II was NOT GOOD ENOUGH for the ARABS. The offer to them was exceedingly generous, yet it was not the Jew but the Arab who was unwilling to accept it! While the irony of this is intense, its historic reality constitutes no mean indictment. Has all this interminable seeming bloodshed and frequently Islamically incited assault on Israel been to accomplish less than was initially granted freely by the UN ? Is it indeed the privilege of those despising the offer, or ignoring it, to show the generosity of their feelings by having multitudes of mini-invasions of Israel on the part of those who murder in Israel, from abroad, almost as if it were some kind of 19th century big game hunt in Africa ?

They rejected it! What then did the Arab movement do ? Instead, a multi-national Moslem force, in simple, practical terms of troops and guns, sought to eliminate Israel in 1948. It failed. Not the United Nations' incredibly disreputable dealings in this field, so esteemed in the light of the more ancient international decree and the disposition of races, but the action of guns: this was the way the Arab world answered.

Perhaps Israel might be blamed, in some very abstruse way, of course,  for that ?

Perhaps. one might almost begin to think,  whatever any nation does in the vicinity, it is automatically deemed AXIOMATIC that the Jew is to suffer, and is in some way responsible ? We appear to grind into the most prejudiced racism one could imagine; but it is not mere racism. Doubtless it is always unwise to disregard the intelligence of an oppressor, and in this case, the concept that it is just the fact that Israel has dared to re-exist in a tiny segment of internationally granted land (where it was in ancient times) which irks the Arab, the Moslem world in no small segment, is inadequate. More stirs than this.

Of course they are aware that God, as Netanyahu made so clear in one of his political speeches (which one has on tape), biblically indicated that He would remove Israel from its land and return the same, when He was  ready. Those of Islam and many Arabs may not believe Him; but it is not hard to know that it is there!

You find that forecast concerning Israel, as we have indicated in Galloping Events Ch. 4, SMR Chs. 8   -9, and Appendix A, for example, as in such sites as It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 10. You see it

	most emphatically in Deuteronomy 32,
	clearly in Ezekiel 36ff., poignantly in Micah 7,
	incandescently in Joel 3, Habakkuk 3,
	dramatically in Isaiah 63, 66 - as in Ch. 7 above,
	directively with these, in Leviticus 26. Thus, not only is it there, but it is to be found even in part of Israeli politics - we are back where the book said we would be, and how marvellous were these prophecies!

None can fail to hear. GOD, the LORD who sent Christ, whose word controls events, has done what HE said, and Allah, allegedly omnipotent, cannot get the places on which he is allegedly keen (cf. SMR pp. 830ff.); and for all the blood shed by scimitar and for that matter, sickle, to take but two, Islam in its world dominating mode and Communism in its parallel dress, the Jews are back. Yes, and what for many has been Europe's massive heartlessness as so often found, this too has not availed to stop the unthinkable or turn back the biblically promised episode as history in this Age approaches its final: namely the RETURN OF THE JEW TO HIS LAND.

This fact, it is offensive to the atheist, unpleasantly reminiscent to the secularist, challenging to many who would rather like to take the world which the Creator made (cf. TMR Chs. 1,   8, SMR Chs. 1-2, Wake Up World! ...Chs. 4-6), and run it their own way, giving Him either a back seat (with the British idea of a front cabin separated by glass, preferably sound proof - or worse). This nation of the Lord is not widely desired. NO ONE is to be ANYTHING except man says so; and if any god(s) or people have other ideas, they will be tolerated only if they subject themselves at least to the concept that it is MAN who is anything in practical terms, which you might call god.

For such, and they appear very many, having the actual GOD who acts and does always just what He says, it is a thing unnerving, irritating, diverting to dynamic, arresting to that subtle form of paranoia which nowadays often passes for internationalism.

It is sad, assuredly. Indeed, this is not the way an international co-operation HAS to be; it is just the way that sort of secularist body in fact is tending to be. What appears to be the actual pre-occupation, words award, deeds to the fore ? How is the thrust of things progressing as internationalism soars into the empty skies ? The word, the mot, the idea ? What is it ? In many ways it is this: Religions have impact as power has impact, or any other source of it. As Stalin reportedly put it, how many divisions does the army of the pope have ?

If the case is less crass, the trend appears scarcely more virtuous. Justice is hard to find, even in concept. In the case of Israel, its absence is so marked, that it is like trying to buy at a food-mart in the famine-pushing days of Stalin, as he allegedly used this means to loosen still further the Kulak population, and take over in his own little name.

LAW AND POLITICS

Small wonder  then that Sharon calls this present move to make a legal decision on his wall,  a dangerous precedent. It is wholly unsurprising that such is his approach toward this show of LAW in the World Court. Is it then  to act as if it had some directive influence in internal politics, when one comes to build a wall in a sovereign territory. Just when is the USA going to be told that it must give back California to Spain ? What is the point of law working, when the workings of justice are excluded ?

In what way then is the working of justice excluded ? It is when a group of nations feels free to tell one nation that it cannot build a wall in its land, because some people who lived there at one time (just as British lived in France's West at one time), would like to live there now, and be what they were; and because they would not like other people who lived there at another time, and live there now, to continue to live there as THEY once did. Perhaps the German segments should go back to what they were before Bismarck ? Would that be nice too ?

In what other way ?  In this, that LAW is to be asserted, when contrary international laws are in view, and that on which MUCH Jewish action has been built, is simply revoked, as if it never was. In fact, however, that is not the truth. To take the laws of the UN as 'determinative' would only mean that a modern group is to out-rank an older group, the League of Nations, and that one group can extinguish what the other one said, because this group is made up of people who are alive now. But being ALIVE NOW is not the basis of justice, but rather of power.

In what other way then ? In this, that Islam has vast territories and Israel was given Palestine by a more ancient (but not very ancient) international body, not least because it did not have ANY land at all! Is this no longer to the point, now that Weizmann is long passed on, and his contribution to the winning of World War I is no longer so near to the nerve of the conflict ?

JUSTICE TO HAVE SOME NEW DEFINITION ?
THE QUESTION OF THE QUESTION

Does justice serve up vast resources to what has vast resources, to make more vast resources, while what has almost nothing has more taken from it, from its lack, to make it yet more lacking ? and is this to be done despite the endeavours, painfully obvious and most clamantly vocal in their day, of the Big Claus, the vastly dominant land holders, the Islamic nations, the oil rich, to obliterate Israel entirely ?^*1

Is it just to ignore the fact that this was a second Hiterlesque endeavour to annihilate Israel, that it failed because the small group won, and that despite the efforts of Auschwitz and the fact that some of those fighting for SOME land in the face of this murderous onslaught were strength-drained relics of the horrendous anti-semitic efforts wrought in Europe in World War II ?

It is justice then of some new definition.

Yet you say, How do you know that the World Court will act thus ? One is not asserting how it will act, but merely how wrong it is for it to be asked to act at all, when the justice issue is NOT whether walls should be build in Israel's sovereign territory, but whether far more land should be restored to it, in view of the original gift, and the fact that quite justly, actions were taken with vast amounts of Jewish money, to work on that basis. Justice is often interested in breach of promise, of faith; rather than asking whether those who suffered it, have any right to build walls of the little left to them after faith and promise have both been breached. It is question of the question!

THE MOST SENIOR

In addition to the above aspects of the case, we have this, which outranks them all.

Thus, there is always the question not only of who has USED something, but WHO MADE IT. For example, suppose I use a hire car, and then ten other people do so, who has the most right to own it ?

What a ridiculous question! you may well expostulate. How absurd ? Do you not know the least article of actuality in this present world!

ALL that is happening, says one, is that you are paying someone who owns the car, for a period of use which has a starting date and a finis date, and the ownership is neither in historical fact nor in financial parlance EVER anything to do with you. You at most had operating rights, for an agree sum, for a time.

True. Now let us apply this so evident fact concerning ownership and justice. As to the earth, all of it, it is not noticeable that ANYONE of the nations on this earth made it. It is not apparent that living on it gives anyone, for whatever time, however anciently (thus traditional occupation) or recently (thus more contemporary occupation) may have been the blessed privilege of actually living in some land. Occupation has NOTHING to do with ownership, as we have been realising, since it is all a question of who MADE it or bought the thing concerned,  from the maker.

Now it is not apparent that MANKIND or ANY ONE NATION of it, for that matter, has bought the earth from the maker of it. Nor is it, for that matter, too conspicuously evident that anyone who used part of it for a time, has the right, power, authority, and yes, let us say it, the just ground, or the ground in justice itself to SELL it! Do you normally sell what you take up and use, without regard to the maker; or do you ignore the maker of something in view of your need being greater than his ? You may; but you do not call it justice, but grabbing. Could you not then make war on the maker, and then legally have it ? You could, but then it would be force, not justice that was involved.

We are talking, are we not, of justice ? Let us then continue to do so.

Incontestably no nation or group of nations made this earth. They are simply using it. The ONLY book which passes all tests of testability, in the first place, vulnerability to apt test (which as Popper points out is a good point), so that the tests have a certain loaded facility, the points in view being well able to be checked out and error being readily exposable with some éclat: it is well known. It is the Bible. The return of the Jews is one of the tests, and the multiple, vastly victorious wars in the face of overwhelming statistical odds against it,  are another. Biblically, these things had to happen, and they have happened (cf. SMR Ch. 9).

These are mere illustrations, such as is the division of Jerusalem into two basic parts, during the wars over it, in the post-Messiah, or Church Age (Zechariah 12-14, as expounded in the above reference). Yes, and the date of Christ's death (cf. More Marvels Ch. 4), this too is another readily tested item, with vast odds against it. Indeed,  the inability of ANYONE to show, over MILLENIA, ANY failure of ANY prophecy concerning His work as Messiah on earth, as He went to death and resurrection, this too is pertinent.

The lack of any comparable ability shown on any front, whether secular science (which is 'wrong' in vast numbers of cases, in what we come to look at as the 'development' of science), or in some other religion, is precisely what is the fact; and further, God kindly draws attention to this additional fact in Isaiah 41, 43, 45, 48, for example. It is not so easy to be clever when ONLY ONE prediction has to fail, and the scope of the prophecy is millenia, and involves, for example restoration and detail about a nation which once held roughly Palestine, and was once out of it for a vast period as predicted, and then came back and got it back in he ways specified in the prediction.

The case is merely made more apparent when the state of the world in which these things were to happen is also made parallel to the contemporary and actual case (cf. SMR Chs. 8-9, Answers to Questions Ch. 5).

It is yet more notable when it is indicated in the said biblical prophecies that all this, just noted, would occur BEFORE the great national repentance to come in Israel. It has done so; and Israel to this day has not reached that point, so that all is happening in the epoch and before the event to come, a perfect fit.

Indeed, this is mere in the verification phase (though in terms of scientific method it is of the utmost importance); the actual proof of the Bible is done in other terms, our present concerns being in the realm of its application, on the one hand, and its exposure to verification both absolutely in its own phases, and comparatively, relative to any other claimant. As to those other terms, they are shown in SMR, for example.

In view of these things, then we have two FURTHER features in this question of how to give justice in the present case. The actual MAKER of the land, God the Lord, has assigned it to Israel, and has told Israel it would lose it through disobedience (in Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32 and many others sites by inference in terms of its restoration to it, in the post-Messianic phase). He has however added that it would be returned to its land DESPITE ITS DEMERIT through DISBELIEF in terms of God's own honour, since HE PROMISED IT UNCONDITIONALLY (cf. Galloping Events Ch.4, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 10, and Ezekiel 36-37). It is not vindication of Israel, but of God. This is the biblical depiction of the matter, entirely explicitly.

THE INCREDIBLE SEEMING ARROGANCE
OF MAKING WAR ON GOD

Thus one further feature, of the two noted, is simply that GOD who made it, has specified its user features and times, and is acting in accord with this. As so clear in Zechariah 12, He by no means is stopping nations TRYING to rush with depredation into Israel; indeed, He is making an occasion for reflection from these antics. Nevertheless, concerning His stated will concerning what He made: To ignore this is to steal.

That is not normally regarded as justice.

He is the Maker, and what He wants done with His equipment, in this case, a certain point of the terrestrial globe, is His business. Justice does not make it somebody else's business, far less does permission to use it for a time, have any bearing at all. Usage permission is not at all the same as ownership! Justice is always able to see that...

Now the second point which comes to light is this. It is quite possible to make war on God, in a highly concrete and visible fashion. There are of course many ways to do it, but this one is entirely easy to see. You need little education, imagination or perception to see it. ALL you have to do, for this most simple of cases, is to TELL Israel NOT to have its land (biblically specified), and lo, you are at war with God. God is most patient; but He has His times, as you see when you look at some of the arithmetic in scripture (such as the 70 year exile before the pre-cited Cyrus would return them, having beaten their aggressor, Babylon), and depth of scrutiny and plan is by no means equal to, or even has affinity with, lack of power. Rather is it one of its bases.

From an apologetic viewpoint, therefore, it is most interesting that NOT ONLY has the UN made war on God quite readily, in the 1947 announcement, and all similar divesting ones since, and they are not few relative to Israel (which is small and poor compared with the Islamic lands and billions from oil, and their very numerousness has a voting result), but the case has become aggravated. Now the World Court MAY conceivably use the term "JUSTICE", not only to breach justice, but to make the war on God to reach a new level of FORMALITY.

That in turn would be in the process of fulfilling the specification in the PROPHECY of Revelation, which uses this terminology of making 'war on the Lord' concerning  the NATIONS in their approach to  God! This comes relatively close to His end-time actions which radically change things, and present to the imposing powers of this world, not only an ultimatum, but an ultimate action (as for example specified in Revelation 19, but not there alone). Thus we see the APPLICABILITY of this sort of terminology, in verification of the predictions which contain it, and the movement towards ACTIVATING its relevance, already far advanced, in terms of DOING IT.

On both these counts, prophecy is being verified before our eyes.

COMFORT ? IN WAR ?
WITH HIM WHO OUTRANKS INFINITELY, ALL!

Yet one may say, what is the comfort in that ? It is to be found in the verification not only of the CONTENT of the word of God, but the PHRASING! Its contemporary relevance is acute, specialised and never in abeyance. Imagery may be used, but the point and the pith never vary from the fact, when the time comes.

This SAME WORD is it which provides the guide to life, not to history alone, and the grace for life, whether or not the nations like to own it or to have it! Indeed, the very rapacity of the nations is only one still further verification, and the simultaneity of all these things is simply an a fortiori point. It is like a flying buttress, if you will, for a wall which already stands!

There is comfort too in seeing this, that just as God is Creator and His will is openly breached in this world's powers, so is the way of this world in morals, such as the new, socially unrestrained lust for homosexuality and to no small extent, rush into paedophilia, openly rebuked. Thailand, South Africa, Russia, China face predicaments enough from their freedom in much, from God, in terms of teeming rains of infection and epidemic. Long have missions worked in such countries; but if it is not light, then darkness has ways of its own. There is an end, and things progress towards it with address. There has been no mistake about this address! The divine word in kind and in development of results, is both just and true.

Thus is the  PLIGHT of this world  more than understandable in view of its multitudes of rebellions.

Just as disease can be distressing in its pitifulness, so may it be instructive in its extent. If it is only in the latter that there is comfort in the sense of strengthening and encouragement, then it is not the less for that. If sic semper tyrannis, expressed the salutary word to all coming from the due death of a tyrant, so is it with other sin. It is hostile to human life, and if the emphasis now coming on the cost in these ways helps any to find the truth, and to walk with God, then this is most comforting.

If divine perspective is lost, then human muddle is gained. Thus there may be specific results of  REFUSAL to have brotherhood in the ONLY way it works, which is natural enough with ONE FATHER, the actual God in the manner which relates to HIS CHILDREN, who are adopted by His only begotten Son, who came not least for this purpose. Denial of the brotherhood that is dynamic and actual, may readily lead for many  to perverted premises instead. What is lacking may for some in horrendous confusion, be sought where it is merely contrary to design, and meretricious.

One such result can be perversion, where sex erratically and vainly is sought as replacement for spirit; and although there are many other ways of having this omission brought to light, this currently is becoming astonishingly prevalent.

What is it like ? It is like not wanting to use your mouth for eating, and seeing how skin absorption will do!

In the case of paedophilia's amazing expansion, this too has meaning. If people refuse to have a family in the sight of God, and to bring them up for HIS use, responsibly and with reverence to the Maker of all, then almost any type of abuse is possible; and this looseness can readily run riot with others, who ignore the nature of family and upbringing, and so the more readily invade its precincts. It may even be that in some cases, people actually seek through a perverted union with childhood, to return to their own, or to some better state which they may remember earlier in their lives. In this case, they force squalor into other children,  INSTEAD of being born again themselves, and becoming children of God!

In ALL these things, there is one common strand. There is the trend to IGNORE one's CREATOR (in theory, in practice, in both - cf. Romans 1:17ff.), and HENCE to give undue regard, or improper place, in this way or that - and there are MANY such ways, the way to hell being broad and accessible - to what is merely the CREATION. This may be to gain in this world, as if it were the end for ever, to implement self-indulgence in anti-programmed sexual abuses, to procure psychological enlargements, with survival the stress and love in abeyance; and hence it may lead to adolescent violence and follies, as if young missiles, without plan or program, went flying off with various bombs attached, to such places as suited the juvenile fancy. It may lead even to immaturity in the mature, since the nature of their life is hidden from them, and where spirit may be drawfed, distorted, disordered, this can lead to spiritual squalor which complacency may admire, and pride endorse.

As to youth itself, it is great; but it is not so great to let it act as if it were adult, for the very good reason, that the absence of this quality is precisely why it is YOUTH. Again, force is not the answer, though price tags can help thought; but the inculcation of and exposure to the way to God is free, and while governments often penalise the Christians who show it, in the great path and plan of peace with purity, love with liberty, truth with testability, there is merely a parallel to fouling the air. It is free ? yes but it is hard to find. Many defile it, and many governments do not 'permit' it, shielding their people from the fresh air of divine favour as if it were poison to man, rather than as is the case, death to paranoia and pride.

There is room for reflection. Hideous as are such evils, there is a wise word to the heart, confirming the cause of such eccentricites as now bloom like rampant algae. If you want do what is not from God and not according to design, both toward Him and the rest of creation: if this is your choice for your own nature, then what is erratic or despotic and defiled is not at all unexpected.

While each goes astray in his or her own way, obviously, the more the fractures of life occur, the more the results of it appear in their various delusive possibilities. In this way, you get a cyclotron effect: the rebellion leads to false ways, and false ways have their own penalties, which in turn can initiate more false ways. Small wonder, then, that this earth is for sin's pay, becoming increasingly uninhibited and uninhabitable, the plagues of vileness and violence alike, mutually supportive, expressing the lack of peace, perspective and godly power.

It is comforting to see that while the God of all goodness and comfort is being openly and vastly and continually contravened, in a world which although still most wonderful, is yet not only under curse (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 7, Romans 8), that there is no vacuity about it. Instead, although slow is His wrath, now that the impudence against piety towards Him grows like the whirlwind, there are damages along the coastline of man's living! It all comes under increasing duress because of witless-seeming wandering, as if this were a sort of international profession to be followed with rigour.

When you WANDER with RIGOUR, then things happen. Cause and effect are most evident, both in statistical billowing, and in the nature of the evils advancing. Natural affection, as noted by Paul in II Timothy 3, for the last times, is withering. Survival, exploitation, self-fulfilment, self-belief, self-awareness, unregulated lust, weird perversions, fruit of unnatural relationships toward God in the first place, and to one's fellows in the second, arise like so many pieces blown by a tempest from exposed houses. They show destruction and cause it, both.

Life is not for idle experimentation, and the fruits of it expose the roots of it. All this, though intensely sad in its actual nature, is comforting in that it is like seeing a medical prescription work, this time negatively - if it be disregarded; and  yet there is the positive side, that there is deliverance when it is pursued. The divine order and organisation for life is not in fetters; but life festers if it is not given to God. Pride and envy, with their invisible hordes, always are readily available as results of divorce from one's Maker; but the current gross parade of indecency and disregard, these things are like blood running freely down the side, as distinct from chafing sores.

It is not that they are necessarily worse, but far more obvious. Moreover, it puts others at fatal risk, whether from the madness of incessant murders in the concocted name of false religion, unwarranted, untested, unverified, unvalidated, or from the mere precincts of man's own private heart. What is it like ? It is like polluting the water supply with thick, corded algae, loathsomely destroying the purity which in itself is not only useful, but beautiful.

That is one of the troubles with wandering, for it ignores the way, and that is when you are likely to get stuck. The world is worse than stuck; it is becoming unstuck. Its war on basic and demonstrable biblical principles, which even here in S.A., include total Sunday trading which then impacts on employes who are yet further eroded not only in disobedience to the ONE WHO MADE THEM, with the equipment for which He gave specifications (namely themselves, for they did not make themselves), but on those who would prefer NOT so to work.

So does it sink (cf. News 82, Divine Agenda Ch. 3), lèse-majesté its increasing diet, disregard in any obedience terms to God becoming an imaginary source of splendour, as if one were to dive at 600 mph, towards the earth, and wait until one was one yard from the ground, before considering if, just possibly, any adjustment ... could be useful.

It is as likewise, a thing of international multiplication, not only in such epidemics as SARS, but in worse ways. Thus, in the earlier cited case of Britain being REQUIRED by its European connection, not to proscribe various aspects of homosexuality in its army (Wake Up World! ... Ch. 3, and see Ch. 7 above), there is imperial pollution, giving orders outside itself, to others. AS this world sinks in just the ways divinely pre-specified in the Bible (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8), then it is in a sense its own judge, for its rebellion from God is correlative to its condition, as one would expect, and again, as was forecast.

How COULD you so abuse the design and find, from a competent source of the same, complete with instructions provided, an EXPECTATION either of peace, or a lack of friction or pain ? On the other hand, when it comes, that too is verificatory. Indeed, verification is on EVERY FRONT, for as this site shows continually in its 7 million word reviews and considerations, you have only to open up an area, and behold, it rings like resonance specially prepared. What God has said, it is what is to be found. The perspectives and frequently the very details are all there. It is like a script written, and now you see the play. If it is sad, yet the authenticity of the script is a precious thing: that is, when God is the author, and life is the topic.

This is comforting. It is not that it is comforting to see ANYONE or ANYTHING act so wrongly and unjustly, let alone in calling the unjust just or the callow filled with character (cf. Isaiah 5), but it IS comforting to see the source of justice verified, and the source of assault on it in grave trouble. It would be far better to see repentance, but then this is not absent by any means, so providing a dual benefit.

Crime pays very well, but not in the end. Its errors are forced to be faced by the actualities, the realities it ignores. Freedom is vast, and so the time is often long before the results are made manifest, but the disease has its way in the end. Pathology is not health, and it cannot long continue in that mode. It does not. This is the generation of SEEING IT. That is very comforting. Some being ocularly smitten, may actually open their eyes and behold, in the grace of God, their time to see arrives. It is better than death, despite the shock, and when the eyes at last ARE open to God, the sight is incalculably wonderful, for truth and love, peace and comfort, the very fulfilment of all design, the answer to all questions arrives like a flight that lands.

Yet many remain, if you will, very much in the air! and such is the power of man now that the talent for sharing knowledge which God gave him has been used successfully for many generations, that the errors are being magnified. It resembles the case where one could magnify with a magnifying class, in the sunlight, the print on a page; and as the words were being magnified, because of the glass concentrating the rays, so the thing examined begins to burn. That is happening to this world. It is being corrupted by reason of its brightness, as in the case in Ezekiel 28:17,destroyed by that misuse of power which is pride, that misuse of perspective which is blindness, that misuse of gifts which is snatching.

The Lord however continues faithful and steadfast, reliable in discipline, reliable in promise, reliable in protection, performing His ancient promise to Abraham to this day (Micah 7:19ff. in context), in terms of the word to Moses in Leviticus 26, Dueteronomy 32, and He continues to offer the solution, His solution, and hence the ONLY SOLUTION, whether to Jew or to Gentile; and both are in trouble for both are in collision with the Almighty. He has no use for Saddam Hussein type dictation as to who shall go where, but provides for all, at His own will and discretion (Ephesians  1:11).  While those who forbear to repent will find nothing but everlasting contempt, this not from the wilful wresting of power, as is so often this world's way, but from the abiding testimony of truth.

When it is done, NONE shall be glorified but He among the nations (Isaiah 2:11), for Israel is restored by divine faithfulness and bounty, whereas Egypt and Assyria, age-old enemies, will have a place provided it is first found in Him (Isaiah 19).

As to Him (Psalm 83:18), it is He who alone rules, who alone created, who alone redeemed, who alone is to be worshipped, who is the truth, who has no relegation, delegate or substitute, proxy or representative to act as if it were He, for He has come HIMSELF, and in His own name, and not that of another, alone does He act:

"That men may know that thou, whose name alone is JEHOVAH, art the most high over all the earth."

Not too difficult for Him has it been to first call and establish Israel, warn and exhort it, prescribe its future and proscribe its sins, fulfil its departure from its land and scorn its follies, pity its plight and restore its place, discipline it yet in strifes innumerable since its repentance is delayed, rebuke its enemies on its return and give it power to display His authority. Meanwhile, He uses its predicament to focus the world on the place where He provided atonement in Himself, and all this before He opens the eyes of many in Israel and they mourn, while He secures triumph as at the Exodus (Micah 7:15ff.) over the inveterate enemies whose odium mounts like radioactive power to the very heavens.

He has now fulfilled to the last scene of the last Act, and the world is still as raucous as an aroused dog, barking and yapping (if little), resounding with grating voice (if large). Nothing is without measure, as the world awaits His advent, whether knowing or in pertinacious gloom and procured darkness; and the Gospel rockets, like a benevolent rocket-propelled grenade, to the last vestiges of ignorance, if any might receive its light. So it was to be (Matthew 24:12), and so it is.

So does the drama of deity move to its inexorable end for the land, rich in pity, planned to perfection, faithful in honour, bringing all sin to the bar and leaving One only name to be glorified, who comes with it in a little, just a little (Answers to Questions Ch. 5), always moving if by any means any may be saved, any may revive and repent, always in control, always true to His word.

When He removes His saints of Jew or Gentile extraction, that is the beautiful extraction, the call to "come up here" (Revelation 11:12 cf. Acme, Alpha and Omega :Jesus Christ Ch. 5; cf. Matthew 24:27ff., I Thessalonians 4),

v     and returns with them in His glory (Zechariah 14:5, I Thessalonians 3:13),

v     the earth will be exposed like a nerve to the truth it has for so long sought to avoid,

v     until the day comes when its departure is determined (Isaiah 51:6, Matthew 24:35),

v     and light and darkness acquire their final placement for their lovers.

Then, all established and finalised, finished and terminated, composed and complete, the earth itself with its heavens gone away, those who sought to adorn themselves by its control will have nothing to control! The lie of self-made man and self-made world will lie desolate, as in truth it has always been (cf. Wake Up World! ... Chs. 4-6).

Meanwhile, as we look to the coming glory of His advent and return, there is none to boast. If the Jew ? why did they lose their wonderful opportunity at Calvary ? If the Gentile, why have so many persecuted the Jew in falsetto pipings of untrue self-glorification, as if hating error is the same as loving truth! Was this the way of love! As to the great, where is the grandeur in sin ? As to the small, nothing is cute without Christ, for all have sinned. As to the knowing, where is the knowledge without God ? As to the ignorant, who is not ignorant without Him! "Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill made low, and the crooked places will be made straight and the rough places plain" (Isaiah 40:4).

This too is exceedingly comforting: He never goes off-track, and with all the majesty of His splendour is perfectly content to keep PRECISELY to His word, to one, to all. Reliable to the uttermost, His mercy is the most intense, but it moves on its own terms, gracious because costly to Him, firm because necessary for us. Nor is it some arrogant set of the privileged who look down on the outcast; for no one is outcast but for this, as Christ put it, "the light has come into the world, and men have loved darkness rather than light" (John 3:19); and since He would have all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (cf. Ezekiel 33:11, I Timothy 2, Colossians 1:19ff.), then the darkness is but for the lovers of it, in the very face of the light. This is wonderfully delightful: there are none out for any arrogance but their own.

Romans 3 to this point, arises like a new dawn, exploding the myths of pretended innocence, and the heart and basis of unbelief, passing beyond smooth overtones and charming courtesies to truth in its dazzling righteousness. Denial of faith is like cursing, for it throws out the kindness of God for imaginary conceits of flesh, and asserts its own power despite the demonstrability of biblical truth, like a poisonous puff-ball, full of itself and forgetting both its origin, its deserts and its destiny. There is a court for this world which is not of its own making!

v     ^“What then? Are we better than they?
Not at all. For we have previously charged both Jews and Greeks
that they are all under sin.

"As it is written:

'There is none righteous, no, not one;

There is none who understands;

There is none who seeks after God.

They have all turned aside;

They have together become unprofitable;

There is none who does good, no, not one."
 

‘Their throat is an open tomb;

With their tongues they have practiced deceit;

The poison of asps is under their lips;

Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.

Their feet are swift to shed blood;

Destruction and misery are in their ways;

And the way of peace they have not known."

§       ‘There is no fear of God before their eyes.
 

v    "Now we know that whatever the law says,
it says to those who are under the law,
that every mouth may be stopped,
and all the world may become guilty before God.
Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight,
for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
 

v   "But now the righteousness of God apart from the law is revealed,
being witnessed by the Law and the Prophets,
even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ,
to all and on all who believe.

"For there is no difference;
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
being justified freely by His grace
through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,
whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood,
through faith,
to demonstrate His righteousness,
because in His forbearance God had passed over
the sins that were previously committed,
to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness,
that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
 

v     ^"Where is boasting then? It is excluded.

"By what law? Of works? No, but by the law of faith.

"Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith
apart from the deeds of the law.

"Or is He the God of the Jews only?
 Is He not also the God of the Gentiles?
Yes, of the Gentiles also,
since there is one God who will justify the circumcised by faith
and the uncircumcised
through faith.

 

v     "Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law."

 It is all on track. It is the wrong track that multitudes follow; but at least some people are realising this more and more disastrously obvious fact, and that is comforting. Some will find from this horror the pathway of light which has been stained in blood, permanent attestation of divine love, and thus inherit the happiness of truth and the comfort of peace, irremovable because within, spiritual and God-given (John 16:20-23).

It is good that more are being rescued as the spiritual emphysema makes them listen to their own breathing. It is comforting that ANY should opt out of war on God, and most comforting when MANY do.

NOTE

*1

This lust to exterminate Israel is not limited to contemporary times, or even to the pogrom periods in Russia and Europe. It is found clearly attested for example in Psalm 83:

That could almost have been written yesterday, or after the Teheran Pan-Islamic Council in 1991, or at various other times whether relative to the UN in 1947, which effectually would have done much the same, or in those of Nasser where the push was to enable all Israel to bathe without returning, or in more recent dismemberment plans, so that Israel, already slender to the point almost of the anorexic, might be so readily assailed that given the odious imaginations against her, her demise might rather confidently be expected, by those who do not trust in the Lord.

On the other hand, and in the same Psalm, we find the desire that these mordant annihilatory enemies might perish, "that they might know that You, whose name alone is the LORD, are the Most High over all the earth."

Two things must at once be noted for justice to these aspects. First, this last quotation comes after an earlier expression: "Fill their faces with shame that they may seek Your name, O LORD." Here is the aspiration for the conversion of any of the enemy, for if they fight God, God's enemies they are; but ALL must repent and ALL need to be reconciled to God, so why should not some of THESE particular enemies showing their enmity in THIS particular way, be converted! If enmity become uncontrollable and final, however, what friendship is their in enmity and what accord in insurrection, for the LORD is the ONLY ONE, as the Psalm states.

The other point is this: that Israel is NOT CURRENTLY a people of the Lord, in the sense of being given up to His praise, and expressing His glory as an implement, as was their original place (Isaiah 43:21). Hence there is a complex drama, where their sin and ITS judgment (speaking of them as a nation), and the sins of their aggressors and ITS judgment, since God has ordained their return not their annihilation, is a hot pot. That is why the Middle East is a hot spot; but it is not the only reason.

In addition, there is a resolution as in Zechariah 12:10ff., and this is now very near indeed, for all the preliminary conditions are well met, as seen in that amazing chapter. Things are moving towards this. Further, there is an abasement of ALL, for Israel left its moorings in spirit, and then in land, and brought back exclusively by divine honour and mercy now (as in Ezekiel 36:22 cf. SMR Appendix A), it is in no position to parade. On the other hand, those who assault her who has been disciplined, and seek to grab more from her who has been robbed, these are asking for catastrophic calamity (cf. Ezekiel 39, Micah 7), not merely in terms of contesting God's property disposition with God, but in terms of such cruelty of inveterate hatred, or its practical equivalent, such chronic inability to find pity, that one can only tremble for them, and hope some out of the nations are saved in the very midst of this lust.

It is worth noting that similar attitudes and expressions of divine retort, though it be patient before final, are to be found readily in the Bible. Thus in Isaiah 51:21-23, we have:

                           And as the street, for those who walk over."

To be sure, Israel has not as a nation accepted that Messiah who alone is their hope, for this IS the LORD of glory who came on mission at the appointed time and way, and there is no other LORD for ANY, Israel or other. The fact that Israel was the site divinely selected for a nation to show forth the Lord's praise and way to this earth, and indeed for the incarnation of the Messiah does not alter the fact that as a nation it has for long, and as at the present time, rejected this. There is little glory in that. It is the DIVINE GLORY which is to be found whether the nations like it or not, in what the Lord has done through Israel, even if that nation is itself the butt of extreme discipline for extreme rebellion coming over hundreds of years before the Messiah and culminating in His execution. This is so despite the fact that that was part of the very same divine plan of salvation. If someone KNOWS the evil you will do, it does not reduce it!

Nevertheless, this shows that God is not only aware of the persecution of Israel, but has in mind action concerning it. If a teacher disciplines a child, it is no signal for his fellows to throw stones in the yard, at him.

Are they so perfect ? or are their hearts not filled with sneering or jeering ?

In this case, have THEY accepted the LORD! Hence in Micah 7, you find this along such lines:

                           Like mud in the streets."

From this, in Micah, we come to the forecast of a divine deliverance in store for Israel, on the scale of the original one from Egypt in the Exodus (Micah 7:15). This will be a rebuke not to one nation only, but "to the nations" (7:16), who "shall lick the dust like a serpent".

In this way will the unconditional promise to Abraham be met (7:20), but it will also involve this, that the Lord will act concerning Israel as well, in such a way that He will "subdue our iniquities." THIS is that Micah who in Chs. 5-6 foretold the suffering of the Messiah and the aftermath to come.