CHAPTER 10

In an article to be found in The Australian, p. 13, Worldwide, August 25, 2003, there is a statement that "geography makes a lasting Mid-East deal impossible."

Strictly, this is not so. It makes it the more difficult. It is true, and a valid point which the writer makes, that there is a real difficulty for financial viability and national integrity for any Palestinian 'State' set in this world's ludicrous endeavours, in the very heart of the tiny, and illegally reduced territory of Israel, which has had an act of international piracy, if you can use such a term of floating off land to others, to make it little already.

Palestine was lost to the ones to whom it was internationally given by the League of Nations after World War I, and as a home, by Britain in the famous Balfour Declaration (given in the generosity of war) of 1917. These ones ? The supposed recipients of a Jewish HOME! We have considered all this at some depth before, for example in News 108. They received small part of the offer, and Arabs most of it. Now the Arabs want more, and Islamic jihad is the argument. Well then, if you chop off the fingers of the left hand, and want to remove 3 or 4 of the right hand, there is to be expected a difficulty for your 'plan'. If it is ambitious, it is likewise vicious. So there is a 'problem' with the Jews.

But should there be surprise ? Suppose now, just suppose, that France having been rescued in World War II, was told, during that war and before the rescue, that it would certainly be allowed to keep its French territory on the Continent of Europe, and then, had this re-affirmed years later. Let us take this as a tableau for thought. However, let us further imagine things, international sorts of things.

Suppose now that France, a little later, was told that actually, it would have less than one quarter of France, and that it should realise the fact that at that, it would have only portions of it, and that these would not be connected. As if this should prove insufficient, imagine once more, a third time, that it was told in an international gathering that actually, once again, that convenient word, it would not be allowed to have Paris, for was this not a city to which many aspired, which many graded as superior ? This, of course, would have to be an international city.

Would it, perhaps be surprising, this done to France, you see, if upon a further international gathering most seriously meeting and declaiming and speaking with the most ferociously 'honourable' tidings and manner, that it was really necessary, in view of African difficulties in this world (it has not invented another for all its pomp and pretence, in ignoring its Creator), a new fact. This ? France really needed a Moroccan State, an Independent Moroccan State, and this would make as its capital one half of Paris ...Consider now such a case!

It is not necessary to consider what the French President said to Hungary, and what Hungary replied, recently, when he was (relatively) slightly stirred at what he deemed, apparently, too much acceptance by Hungary (aspiring to EU membership) of the US position on invading Iraq, at that time. It is not necessary because it is recorded in the volume on this site, Of the Earth, Earthy ... Ch. 9, just as French concern at having an adequately independent space Galileo feature, was noted in Cascade ...
Ch. 12. It can readily be imagined what France might say, should the one thousandth part of this intolerant international invasion of Israel be its own lot. That there would be no truckling, would appear as sure at least as that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Yet Israel is to suffer parallel indignities, concerning a territory which was its own during thousands of years, where alone its national heart and history have lain^*1, unlike the case with the Moslem religion, which has far more 'important' sites, such as Mecca; and as to the 'Palestinians', they have Jordan, where they might have stayed had there not been, when they did get admission there, efforts to use it as a base for further attacks on Israel. In the Dictionary of Twentieth-Century History 1900-1982, we read of the use by Palestinians, given free access to Jordanian citizenship in February 1960, of the land of Jordan, for what came to civil war, with armed camps. Indeed, the very government was at risk of losing control of its own country! Such is the destructive embassage wrought from its midst when it lay open for free Palestinian refuge ? no CITIZENSHIP!

Such is the way of international wit and wisdom, that Jordan, no longer so keen on Palestinians entrants, aspirations and presence in force, since the civil war which came last time from this cause, nearly losing the Jordanian government its place, is not seen as a base for Palestinians. No there is no question, no push, not thrust, no road-map for the land which was PALESTINE, given to the Jews, to house the Palestinians; nothing for this to be made available under stringent internationally controlled circumstances; or if anything, one does not at least hear of it. Of COURSE Jordan should not have the Palestinians; of course, what WAS Palestine in part should not have Palestinians. Of course, MOST of Palestine, already in this way given to Jordan, should not need to have Palestinians. How absurd the idea to the international courts of justice and peace, it appears. No, of course, Israel should suffer for the arbitrary and barbaric assaults made on it then from Jordan, now from the PLO, and of course it should lose more land. ANYONE who is used to anti-Semitism should be able to see that ...

It is not the case that the EU or the UN or for that matter, now, the USA are declaring this: PEACE will be REQUIRED by a special LAND GIVEN-LAND USED provision, and the Palestinians must go to the more than generous allocation already made for others than Israel, and be supervised in the transition. No Israel must go, in part, to the terrorists and to the Palestinians, to the Moslem-oriented people, and Israel must capitulate to terror. Can you imagine George W. Bush being told that New York must go in half to the British, and that there is need for California likewise, because British terrorists are agitating and will prove difficult if not sated with this sort of reward for mass murder, atrocities unthinkable and war on civilisation ? That is, if there WERE British terrorists, dissatisfied with the USA chunk of their America (as distinct from Canada, which they kept), can you imagine Washington being happy with such an ... accommodation ?

Does one not rather hear this, that TERRORISTS MUST BE BEATEN, no wavering is permitted, no reward is to be given; for they must be exterminated. Is then Israel, because it is already inequitably treated, and are the Jews since it is almost a European habit to kill, maim and thieve fortunes from them, to be that glorious exception in our anti-racial societies ? Perhaps habit is so hard to beat, like smoking ?

Not at all. It is not seen that since Jordan has already received by far the greater part of the Palestine promised to the Jews, that it should therefore accommodate them, and that the war and unrest, if any, should be confined to Moslems attacking Moslems in their appointed premises, so unjustly divided.

No, it is not seen. Instead, in a land where the capital is to be a subject of debate, where most of the grant is removed already and given to Arabs or their allies, there is to be not merely the loss of what was given, with great detriment to any sense of fairness, far less honour, but there is to be FURTHER gift, and to whom ? Why, it is to these Palestinians (those who lived in Palestine), not content in terms of religion and race with the Jordan they have ALREADY received or been invited to enter. The fact that they misused their opportunities in Jordan should be ignored ? They should not lose or be subjected to conditions ? It is rather Israel ? Perhaps some other word should be introduced into the vocabulary of loss in the United Nations, and increasingly, in the USA ? But no, and this ? It is justice of some kind ?

It is difficult to correlate it with the dictionary definition. Moreover it will prove even more difficult to correlate it with the divine word, the Book of the Lord as in Zechariah 12 (cf. Isaiah 51:22-23 which has a few things to say about this sort of treatment of the Jews, while Micah 7:15ff. shows that God will have some things to DO as well!). What God is going to DO is compared to the work He performed in the days of the Exodus from Egypt. It will not be small (cf. Zechariah 12, 14, Isaiah 59, 66, Habakkuk 3, Ezekiel 36-39^*2).

Thus our concern with the author of the work in The Australian is this, that for MANY countries, there being nothing special, to use them in this grossly inequitable way would not be EXPECTED to bring peace! It is outrage UPON outrage; it is whipping the victim, it is the 'international body' breaking sanctions, equity and peace, and some questions arising about why it is not working. It is then a 'road map' - but roads lead to places.

To what is this one, then, supposed to lead but to what the author of the above article also rightly noted: insecurity for Israel. How could it be defended with such a partition in such intimacy, in such a small country at the start ? How could Israel, he urged, be expected to find this road workable!

The world is not so keen on God; it loves to have plenty of varied gods on the tarmac, and to treat most of them with some respect, depending on their representatives and their position in the scheme of things, as it sees it. Of course, it is totally blind to the actualities, since the living God is not on the agenda; and incidentally, since Israel is most manifestly on the agenda of the living God, both in prophecy (which Netanyahu in a political address rightly saw as fulfilled in Jewish return to Israel), and in history^*3 , what then ? Then this world in its UN, in its EU, and now even in measure its USA, does not feel so drawn to Israel's might and strength. God, they think ? It is ... perhaps unsettling. God ? the actual one ? where in the world would HE fit ?

They, the worldly powers, the powers-that-be are all so intent on carving it up, heaping it up, using it up, and imagining things that would make any paranoid seem pleasant, impossible things that come from nowhere and do not bother to end, that it really does not have time or inclination to pursue the matters of the Bible ... not, that is, actually!

Thus Israel 'survived' wars deemed impossible by many, and became triumphant to an amazing degree, in 1948, 1967,1973 and rather more recently, though indirectly, in the first Gulf War. This was not because of probabilities, which would expire at the thought of a nation not even in place, in 1948, defeating a combination of nations very much in place, not to mention the later exploits against the Islamic masses which curse and make incursions so often, so murderously and so intransigeantly. Of course, the problems for Iraq, derivative of Assyrian fame as Hussein was keen to stress, its taking apart in its hostility to Israel was abundantly predicted, and that for this Christian era. That ? It is found in Micah 6, in some detail, in a chapter following that of the famous prediction of Christ's birth in Bethlehem. It is in Micah 7 that we find the final intentions of the Lord in delivering this people, just as it is in Zechariah 12:10ff., that we find some other intentions toward them!

Meanwhile, delivered as it has been in two Gulf Wars, and as predicted precisely concerning what is now Iraq, Israel remains pressed, since as a nation it is still not at peace with its own Messiah, and experiences, again precisely, both the victories and the pressures prescribed for the period before the return of Christ (as in Zechariah 14). This leads us back to the difficulties ...

NOT GEOGRAPHY BUT HISTORY,
AND THE HISTORY OF THE SPEECH OF
HIS HOLINESS, THE LORD

The actual impossibility, though it may come to the point of seeming to be solved for a little (as in I Thessalonians 5), just a very little time, is that PEACE could POSSIBLY come to the Middle East, while Jerusalem is for the boys, for the people with clout, for the usurpers, for the invaders, be they international and 'peace-plan' oriented, or more directly violent. God is against such an outcome as Zechariah 12 most clearly indicates, in describing the routine of events leading to Jewish repentance in large numbers IN JERUSALEM, yes even in Jerusalem as it says for emphasis. Repentance for what ? It is for "Me whom they pierced" says the prophet, in the name of the LORD!

It is for the crucifixion of Christ (as in Psalm 22 cf. Joyful Jottings 25), an event on the books, indeed in the Book of the Lord, from 5 centuries BEFORE the deed was first done! and in the Psalms, a millenium before! Imagine telling how it would be repented of, 500 years before they did it! or better yet, to deal with amplitudes, a millenium. That, it bears the signature of the Lord!

Jerusalem under international management ? They may try, but in the end, if God is against it, forget making it work. God against you is infinity to finitude, and this is asinine to attempt, as well as the very height of inequity as already indicated and shown. He has warned - it will be a burdensome stone (Zech. 12:1-4), He has warned, He will act with His historically seen might as in the Exodus (Micah 7:15), when the time comes. God does not hurry, but He does act! This Jerusalem in this epoch, for those who try their hand at its control, containment and disposition is decidedly an embarrassment, just as those who oppress her are an unlovely harassment, be they trio, quartet, of Madrid or any other name.

Israel then is being protected; but not from suffering. She herself, in mutiny against her own Master, her own Messiah, dying on the date Daniel predicted (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), has also a divine enemy. He is yearning for them (cf. Jeremiah 31:18ff.). It will repay us to look at this scripture, since it directly reveals something of the heart of God towards this ancient, and wayward nation:

Certainly, by grace He has brought them back as promised in Ezekiel, and on the advent of their King, never again will they worship idols, humanistic or others as 37:23 declares. Indeed, their coming back is into a milieu of Christ's return (as in Zechariah 14:5), and it is this which characterises the period which is now in the foothills of preparation, the preliminary as SUCH described in the earlier verses of Zech. 12 (that is, before the culmination in Christ in 12:10).

Thus the violent whirlpool, like the dynamics of the Atlantic Ocean swirling waters, the concourse and disputation between two seas, continues. God is being gracious ACCORDING TO PLAN AND PROMISE in restoring Israel; but He is also being CLEAR on the continuing PROVOCATION which Israel the nation makes, in refusing its slain Messiah. It is in LOVE He seeks them; it was in love He came to them, it is for love He desires them; for they are His creation as well as others, and have a past and a future (Jeremiah 29:11 with 33:2-16, 33:11). Yes, they have 'an expected end'. It is, as in Romans 11 and esp. 11:25ff., all planned to the last unification in Christ.

Yet UNTIL they come (the very word used by Paul concerning them in Romans 11), until the appointed time when Israel returns to a large degree nationally to the Lord, they remain 'blind' (Romans 11:25 cf. Isaiah 42:18ff.); and it is so until this branch once in the divine love-tree of life and now torn out, but to be re-grafted as Paul declares, is brought back by the inward power of the Lord, to its stock, to the tree of faith.

Until then, there is and MUST BE war and strife, as well as a gracious defence of them by the Lord: and as to that, it too is to reach a culmination not only as noted in Zechariah, but in Ezekiel 37 (cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, *3 and Ch. 3, *1, Divine Agenda Ch. 8, Galloping Events Ch. 1). The issuance is always the Messiah, reigning on this earth as in Zechariah 14, Ezekiel 37, Romans 11, coming to Jerusalem in power and with peace (Micah 4, Isaiah 2, cf. Isaiah 11). It is well for Gentiles of which the writer is one, to remember this: that the Jew is a focus for prophecy, that sin is a focus for any people, and that judgment is without mercy when the Gospel of grace is without acceptance. Truth does not vary at all.

Meanwhile the plight of Jerusalem, and with it the vultures and roarers of the Middle East, is INSOLUBLE because GOD is against the trifling with HIS LAND which HE has appointed (Galloping Events Ch. 4) at HIS pleasure, this being HIS property for HIS purposes. The world is against giving it back to Israel, as programmed, and it has been brought to the present position of double betrayal: first in not giving it as originally undertaken, but most to Jordan, and secondly in now seeking YET MORE OF IT for OTHER Palestinians, those of contrary religion, to a large degree Moslem.

It is INSOLUBLE in peace, because one of the prime actors is NATIONALLY not at peace with its own Lord; whilst another actor with a chief part is daring enough to set up attacks ON Israel in the NAME of a false prophet's attack on the Old Testament, as well as on its Messiah, as there depicted, in a way which is self-contradictory and aggressive (cf. SMR pp. 1080ff., 986ff., 1088Dff., 829ff., More Marvels ... Ch. 4). He accepts what is written ? yet he cancels it in the most extraordinary lapse of memory or scholarship or both! Such is the difficulty of being a false prophet.

Enough! it is assault on the God of the Bible, just as Israel assaulted, as predicted (Micah 5:1-3), the same on earth. It is all assault. The practice, it may amaze some to realise, is not limited to the Jewish nation! NONE of this assault is propitious for the peace which CAN come to this earth of creation made by God, from Himself.

In declaring war on God, you do not and cannot find peace. You only move from different meteorological regions of tempest, to those of typhoons, or hurricanes, until you are ruined or repent. The earth suffers long, for God is patient; but NOTHING is ever allowed to lord it over man with peace for long, since it is vain, futile, and mutinous (cf. SMR pp. 623ff, 743, and Ch. 8 above). There ARE divine targets (as illustrated in many nations, in Ezekiel 25-34 cf. SMR pp. 713ff.), and while God mingles His patience, His lessons, His rebukes and His trials with His word, most astutely, as love is most alive: yet do these devastations of the recalcitrant, these ravishing expositions on the renegades move till they litter history, nations like sins, turned to pillars of salt.

Will the UN then also ASSAIL God in His word, concerning Jerusalem ? So be it. That, it is likely to bring yet more peace to this already two-fold assault on God ? It is a trio to be more certain then of peace, when all are warring ? is this the picture ? Does piracy produce peace ? Does flamboyant rebellion incite it! and if the USA is foolish enough to continue on its present path with the UN on this matter, in its misled and misleading road, what then ? Then that power is likely to decline, as did England (at first so strong for the Jews, but not in 1948!), and the world Power of the evil Man of Sin is being readied at a fast forward rate (II Thessalonians includes details so sublimely ironic, as when he "shows himself that he is God."

No, it is not that the geography is making history, but rather that the historical foozles of many are making of geography one grand stage for the history to come. In a little, watch and wait for it, Israel will be defended by deity, but only after it has come, returned, to the Lord in no small measure. It is all written, it is in a small compass even to be seen in Zechariah 12. It will happen. At that, it is not merely or entirely Israel, but as for any TEST, any item chosen for EXAMPLE can do, and Israel is one, the Gentile world another (cf. Luke 21:24). There is a certain complementarity, the one following all too well the other, which it once so despised!

So is the Lord showing through that illustration, of Israel, the others of the nations cited in the prophets, such as Tyre and Babylon, Egypt^*4, and again through the vast concourse of Gentile nations (as in Matthew 24), the principles that operate ... beyond.

Beyond what ? Above the stage, where the lights cast shadows; beyond it, where the real events transpire; below it, where the fundamentals operate, on which it is founded. We shall see, the Lord told an Israeli remnant on one occasion, whose word will stand, yours or Mine! (Jeremiah 44:28).

We have seen the divine resultant so often, without fail, whether in nations, or cities, or Israel, or the Gentile world, in quality or in quantity, arithmetically or in power, in suffering or in triumph, so often, that it is like waiting for the sun to rise in the morning. It is mere routine; but the events He signifies, they are no mere routine, for they are individually hand-crafted in the counsel of the Almighty as you see in Isaiah 44:24-26. His word is indeed truth (cf. News 152).

Beyond the truth is nothing, but with it is mercy. If God were only light, then its sharp edges, unyielding reality would summarise, sentence and dismiss in one. Since however He is not only the truth, the articulation on which all depends, both for its creation and its maintenance, but mercy, lovingkindness, indeed love (I John 4:7-8), the despatch of Israel summarily for its rejection of the Rejected One, the Messiah, has not occurred.

Since however truth is not to be inveigled, Israel's sins have landed it in many lands (as per Leviticus 26, Ezekiel 36:19, 37:28, Zechariah 10:9), and now it is back in its own land, by divine apportionment in the first place, and divine appointment in the other; and yet the world with exquisite blindness hopes to outwit, outmanoeuvre, overpower or simply to dismiss the God of the Bible. It is as if, now that Israel has been summarily recalled, it is in truculent mood, and fingers to the nose, is aroused.

Yet this has no simplicity (Micah 7, esp. 7:15ff.), for sin is never simple: any more than murky water is clear. Indeed the Lord Himself declares that the human heart is desperately wicked, deceitful above all things, asking WHO CAN KNOW IT! It is He, the Lord affirms, who knows it (Jeremiah 17:9-10), it is He who both searches it and tests it.

Hence the case has many facets. Israel is surrounded by grace, and yet unmoving to divine mercy where it may be found (Isaiah 55), and so is tested yet; and one wonders continually HOW that tiny nation can continue to sacrifice its young and old, to the desperadoes of evil dynamism who fling their carcasses and destinies at it, as if life were a means of death, or Revelation 6 had to be implemented immediately.

It is of course true that it is now being implemented in the most precise fashion; but the world acts as if it wished by taunting and folly, to ensure that the promise of passion for death developing in a sick world, is not forgotten, and that the death squads of the unrighteous will breed vigorously, as they afflict the unrepentant earth. Is sin then an example of breeding ? good breeding ? If it were so, then it assuredly breeds well!

They DO implement indeed those prophecies indeed, in this jihad death passion, as predicted. It is perhaps ironic that such errors are made to serve the fulfilment of the word of God in such stark fashion, but then God has this also both covered and explained, asserting roundly that He makes the wrath of man to praise Him! (Psalm 76:10). It is useless as well as foolish, to play the fool with God.

Israel IS back as predicted, and victorious in exactly the style predicted. It is ALSO a centre of strife and turmoil, as predicted. Mercy keeps it intact, judgment keeps it where sin belongs, in the midst of suffering.

When will it at last hear ? How beautifully Jeremiah puts it, at the hand of the Lord, in 13:23:

Mercy comes like rain in drought, but yet Israel does not hear. Grace reigns like Victoria in her era, and majesty provides; but it yet does not repent. False gods attack it: as in the days of Ahaz (Isaiah 7, II Chronicles 28:16ff.), so now, as it lurches now here, now there, in its own errors. How readily would they all be devastated, who so assault it, if Israel but returned to the Lord, as it soon must do! (and consider what WILL happen in Ezekiel 38ff., Micah 7ff., Habakkuk 3).

It is wonderful that the Lord is who He is: the Light is the Mercy, and the Mercy the Truth (Psalm 85), for "mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed" - so that Love is not lassitude, but in the beauty of holiness, is tender and apt to provide.

It is splendid that the Lord is good, the source of all goodness (Isaiah 52:7, Nahum 1:7). As all must learn, from Palestinian to Jew, there is NO GOODNESS outside Him (Psalm 14, 53, 16:3); for in mutiny is no magic, and in rebellion is no release (II Samuel 15:23).

Fight goodness and where is your own ? Are you not then an enemy of goodness ? Even the Jew of Paul's day, he indicated in Romans 10, was inclined to set about establishing his OWN righteousness (judge, jury and athlete, all), and remained ignorant of that of the Lord. Is man to become God, because God became man! Is the temporal to become the eternal, because God is gracious! Is what began to imitate what had no beginning!

Read Isaiah 2: THE LORD ALONE WILL BE EXALTED IN THAT DAY! and the day of the Lord is coming. It is even near (Answers to Questions Ch. 5). HOW near we are not told. It is delightful fun waiting to find out; but in the meantime, work, for the night is coming in which no man can work (cf. John 9:4).

It is time to cease playing the Jew, a game of no distinction, over these many centuries in Europe and the Middle East, indeed to stop play altogether, to find the Lord and to "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" before Him (Philippians 2:12), who is a consuming fire. But first it is necessary to HAVE this salvation, which comes like every good and perfect gift (James 1:17) from God only, as a gift, and even that, by grace (Romans 6:23, 5:15, Ephesians 2). You must first of all receive it (John 14:12, 6:50ff., 10:9). Then you work it out! (Philippians 2, John 10:27-28).

Like fire, if it is feared and respected in a wholesome way, it is wonderful; but if you fight it, be warned, for with God there is no end to it (Mark 9).

It is time to repent, for Israel, for Palestinian, for UN, for USA, for one and for all (Luke 13). If not, "except you repent, you will all likewise perish" is the watchword. Consider what He says, and Zechariah 14:3 in its setting and sequence, in particular! "Then the LORD will go forth and fight ..." Fight what ? "fight against those nations" ... Which ones ? The ones gathered to fight against Jerusalem. You can see it here. It is written, and it is a preliminary before His personal return in bodily form (Zech. 14:5).

How then will any blessing come ? It is only a miracle. Yet miracles are not uncommon: the return of Israel was one, its wars were another, and the reconstitution of each member of the human race who comes to Christ brings a defined estate of "child of God", for He then adopts what then comes to Him, no matter the colour, no matter the wealth or poverty in mind or spirit or chattels. That too is a miracle (John 3, Titus 3, Ephesians 1:1-6).

There is however ALL substance in the CREED, that is what YOU BELIEVE; for by FAITH you please Him, and without it you CANNOT please God (Hebrews 11:6). Believing what you please may please some societies, simply as an act of will; but it will never please God, for He is the truth, objective, imperial, immovable, immutable, everlasting. You can no more create Him, than resurrect yourself.

Even if you thought you could, you yet could not, since the ability would be baulked at eternity; for all YOU do has a beginning. HE does not have one. You are outwitted before you begin. It is because He is eternal that anything else can be temporal, including the institution of that measuring order of time; and because He did not begin, that anything else could do so, including the inception of defined existence, rather than nothing.

No amount of slowness creates what is not there; and at that, you need time to be there, in order even to be slow. After all, if you have to begin, you need something to begin with, in addition of course to yourself; for nothing, you see is so very unproductive, yet we are produced! That something has needed all that anything would ever require, or else of course, those anythings are by magic, which is an idea better for fairy stories.

Reason requires God. God has provided kinds, creating copy-making generics with provision for particularities of various kinds. Such kinds nothing ever bypasses, as is enshrined in history, their violation omitted from palaeontology, the parameters recognised by great biologists, Harvard's Professor Simpson indicating that kind-change is not the kind of thing you find, as emphatically does Professor W. R. Thompson, while Stephen Jay Gould for one indicates imagination could not breach the gulfs between major kinds (cf. History, Review and Overview ... Ch. 5, as marked, Wake Up World! ... Ch. 6, TMR Ch. 1, SMR pp. 206, 199-200).

Indeed, Michael Denton adds not only this, “nor is there the slightest hint of an evolutionary sequence among all the incredibly diverse cells on earth” (cf. SMR p. 120), which are of an ingenious intricacy, but that in the DNA and RNA record, now becoming available in microbiology, there is shown both an “extraordinary mathematical exactness in the degree of isolation” and a disjunction from any concept of evolutionary sequence for the various classes of living things.

For example amphibians, supposedly close, “are in molecular terms as far from fish as any group of reptiles or mammals!” (p. 285, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis). After survey, he concludes that “molecules, like fossils have failed to provide the elusive intermediates so long sought by evolutionary biology.” Moreover, their arrangements and character show mathematical precision, definitive design unlike gradational concepts, and no convenient continuity. In fact, he concludes from empirical studies that “The concept of the continuity of nature has existed in the mind of man, never in the facts of nature” (op. cit. p. 353).

Thus of Gould’s reference to imagination itself not breaching the gulfs between major kinds, we can affirm this. It would indeed need to be operative, even to formulate the folly, for nothing else does: nothing empirical is ever found of this kind, not to be unkind, namely the type that makes without intelligence new and discrete, brilliant and diverse designs in kind. Nothing cannot do it; what is merely a design-designate does not do it, for the quality needed is creativity. Man DOES not do it in life-designs, merely snipping and pasting, excising or touching here and there, what God has made. The designs themselves only God can make - find someone else or something else doing it ? Let us be practical when it comes to major forms and formats of life.

Even if man ever managing to do some copying, in his own relatively clumsy fashion (SMR pp. 119ff.), there is merely that combination of the difference in man, that he is made with designing skill, in the image of God, as the Bible depicts it so precisely. It is God Himself who is there from the first having nowhere to come from if not; without whom, you have man the visible highest creator, still in swaddling clothes compared with the works of which he is one, himself endowed and endued with a creativity far beyond his very modus operandi of thought (cf. It Bubbles... Ch. 9, Little Things Ch. 5).

One must recall a little logic at times: with nothing ever, at any time, phase or situation, all that was (and of course it would not BE in the sense of constituting anything, since its name is 'nothing'), nothing would come ever, since from nothing comes nothing; and if it did, nothing would be a false use of the term.

Yet nothing ever coming to be, as would be the non-product of such a start ? this is simply contrary to fact. We, reader, you and I, we are here.

There has never been 'nothing'. That is because there is something. These two are antithetical. Nor has there been anything altogether which is incapable to the last of producing what has been produced, however it be construed; or quite simply the results would be less than they are. Indeed, if you envisage some system augmenting itself with skill and knowledge, then it needs the potential to be able so to develop and grow, and this is not nothing, but a creation in itself, like any other, and it needs that from WHICH the augmentation is to be gained!

Place all this imaginary system (really begging the question) together (and beg the question a little more), and you are in no different plight than now, seeking to find creation's myriad minds and phases of life, which require a basis divergent from nothing, on the one hand, and in being something adequate for the result, on the other. In the end, it is the self-sufficient which is always there, or you merely waste your time trying to make what is not so by definition, exist without anything else, a mere contradiction in terms. Always, you deny reason or affirm adequacy always without any cessation. You invent nature myths, whatever the particular 'nature' you have in mind, vacuous in definition or vacuous in implication, or you worship the Maker.

There is one other option: you contract out of reason, in which case, of course, you default on an agent of reason, a proponent of any rational viewpoint, the means of attack and the means of defence for your position, by means of argument of any kind! You void yourself in order to prefer a void; and this, it is a high price, for if you did actually what you here do symbolically, it would be a kind of murder (since you did not make your life), call it suicide if you will, a vacation of human premises, reason's bar and truth's domain.

To those interested in such escapades, one needs to say this: You may think smuggling is fine, if you can get away with it; but you see, we know the coves you are using, and getting away with it is just what you are not doing, even if this should appeal to you! Your subversive smuggling is not in the dark, for here it is brought to the light. It then becomes attempted smuggling, exposed as mere subterfuge.

To the contrary, we find that the sufficiency from the first is required; and likewise God has what is needed to the last, or would prove inadequate for the creation to come as it did. Accordingly, the term ' eternal' is not a theological fidget, but a logical necessity. When the temporary makes up its mind that there was nothing there to institute it, it is a wonderful expression of the liberty God alone does and can create; but it is nothing more. If all were temporary, then there would be a situation where the temporary inhered in the continuity of which its components were a part; which is another way of saying the temporary is not all what the name implies, and indeed could not be so. If it were permanent, indeed, how is it temporary ? If it is not, how do you proceed from the point where it is not there, and have nothing instead!

Avoiding these painful and ubiquitous dilemmas when you try to eliminate the logical, causal necessities of having what it takes for mind, matter and spirit as in man, whether by time or series (cf. SMR pp. 307ff.), and coming back to the point that assembly lines do not remove the conception of the assembly line, but merely stress and indeed demand it, which takes you back to the construction of the line, and so to the sufficiency which needs nothing, but invents what He will: you have simply the eternal God. He does not beckon things into being when they are not able to respond, by not being there! He invents them.

The beckoning of teleological thought is really the movement of the Spirit of God to the spirit of man to BE what he ought to be. It is not superman, alas, that is in the making in this beckoning, but defective man who is called to come back to where he belongs, which is where he both was and should be. THAT is the only empirical beckoning which anoints the eyes with evidence, or has means to back it, which appear. You see that in Philippians 2, Colossians 3, just as you see the renewal necessary to be able to discern what is happening, in John 3!

As to God, then, it is He who has done it, made the kinds as indicated in Genesis 1, pushed from behind to make each kind, and that, it is what you find. Basic kinds are the order of the Bible and of empirical fact. End of story. The inordinate effort of making some kind of machinery to upgrade, and hiding it so that no one would find it over the millenia, has always had the aura of the spurious, was ever unscientific in method, and is free from all but fantasy. The double ditch of having the hidden machinery (there but undiscoverable) and the hidden evidence of its results in changing design kind (there but never unearthed) makes of teleology a cause célèbre, in this sense, that it is a word void of meaning, except where the moon-beams dance, and have square dancing just for fun.

We are produced with our delimited systems, our legalised materials and our integrated circuitries, all enablements for expressing dependence or independence, towards God, the eternal prelude to the sinful symphonies of man; just as we also have attested evidentially, as by force of logic, the remedy for their follies (cf. SMR Chs. 5-6,8-10, The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy). If it were not so, we would not be here, for God is not mocked. This independence for man is expressed, however, rather than gained! Death is such a comment! just as irrationality is such a curse. It is so obfuscatory.

Faith moves mountains, but it still does not create God. Faith touches God, but it does not mould Him. Faith is like a child: it comes to the father with trust, and gains what is fitting from love. It does not attempt patricide, either by murder or by imagery, by attempt at sheer removal, or by substitution of some other 'man' or some other power. If it attempted the former, it would be remain patricidal in intent, low beyond all contemplation; if the latter, it would be the coping stone of presumption, the acme of arrogance.

That alas, it is where this world and its ruler is, right now (John 14:30). That is the flower of the present seed, which is of course is in symbol, the word of a witless world, spinning into ever increasing circles of unspirituality, dizzy to boot. It is not the word of God: it is not that which is the wheat; rather, the word of man, it is but a weed (cf. Matthew 13:24ff.)

That, it is also defined. The prince of this world who comes, said Christ, "has NOTHING in Me"!

The ultimate worldliness lives BY this world instead of merely in it. It is doomed with it, as if a baby kangaroo, dazed and paralysed with fear, were bent on staying in the maternal pouch, as the mother was caught in fire. The world is to be burnt up, together with its works (II Peter 3). Fancy trusting in the platform when you ignore the carpenter, the wood and the nature of design. Fancy trusting in the creation when you ignore the Maker, the Judge and the Disposer of Events. Fancy ignoring definitions when God is their author ... The writing however remains. It is both on the wall and in the book of the Lord. It never moves.

It is man who must move, back to base (Luke 13, John 5:39-40, 10:9). He must break with this world and its witless ways, and awake to the Lord; for He is not far from any one of us, and it is His love which draws, in which He came, for which He paid the cost to provide remedy (Colossians 1:19ff.). He has loved enough to create liberty and meet its misuse with love, the justice due to its vampings with sacrifice and the demands of truth with mercy: yet it must be sought where it is to be found. Do you seek an antibiotic in a flower patch ? Do you seek mercy by dreaming ? It is to be found where God's name is put, in His word, the Bible, alone able to satisfy the validity demands of evidence and reason (cf. TMR Ch. 5, Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 6 - 7).

His name, it is still as available as it was, for man to call upon it (cf. Acts 2!). It is still the definition for all terms, the definition of mercy, of goodness, or righteousness, of hope, of the way, of love, of truth, of remedy.

The drama is not yet past. In this defining time, awake and put on the garments of HIS righteousness (Isaiah 61:10, Romans 3:23ff.), and live!

*1 See Sharon's relatively recent comments on this aspect in Of the Earth, Earthy ... Ch. 13!

*2 See Of the Earth, Earthy ... Ch. 10, Divine Agenda Ch. 8, Appendix A of SMR, The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, *3, Ch. 3, *1, Great Execrations ... Ch. 4).

*4 Ezekiel 29:14 gives a fascinating future-path for Egypt, the subjugation of which to many nations in the New Covenant era, has been proverbial. Its former grandeur is no more; it has been a vassal and not a victor, in the sharpest possible contrast, for millenia now, to its former glory. Yet it has not been destroyed. On error in the Bible would not accord with its Author. In Egypt's case, continuance in a lowly position; with Tyre, destruction by stones into the sea; with Babylon, it was virtually to 'get lost' as it was for centuries.

Some of the underlying grounds for this vast judgment are seen, in all their instructive pathos, in Ezekiel 29-32, showing with what diligence the Lord brings judgment even on earth. In the Last Assizes, it will be perfected (cf. Matthew 25, Acts 17:30ff.).

	Fossils,
	micro-molecular data,
	cells’ structure,
	none support what is the most unscientific theory ever produced by man, that of organic evolution.
	Logic laughs at it,
	equipment is void of its necessities and
	delusive insistence replaces theoretical collaboration with the evidence.
	Scientific method is here in cardiac arrest.

	"Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem!
	wilt thou not be made clean?
	when shall it once be?"

	The war is misplaced; it should be on sin, not Israel.
	It should be on evil, not God.
	It should be in seeking cleanness of heart in the midst of pollution, not in providing scum for air and searing acid rain instead of showers of blessing.

	"And I will bring again the captivity of Egypt, and will cause them to return into the land of Pathros, into the land of their habitation; and they shall be there a base kingdom.
	It shall be the basest of the kingdoms; neither shall it exalt itself any more above the nations: for I will diminish them, so that they shall no more rule over the nations. And it shall be no more the confidence of the house of Israel, which brings their iniquity to remembrance, when they shall look after them: but they shall know that I am the Lord GOD."