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Chapter 7

 

Three Lines

and One Marker

 

News 245

SBS TV, News Radio, 1st Week November

 

The THEATRE

 

It is to be sure, a fascinating theatre. Far more people get hurt in this one, than ever in a theatre in Moscow. It would almost seem that the most amusing litany, screed and scenario to be found in this rather religious theatre, is that not written by or received for the management at all, but by outsiders whose guns seem rarely still, any more than their odious tongues, filling the air with desire for imperial conquest, when they are not filling it with complaints, that the city is not sufficiently receptive to their aims, or appreciative of their pains.

 

Of course, ‘pains’ ? There are pains and pains. They take pains, one must admit, to some degree at least to engage in the rather ghoulish occupation of killing themselves, and then, in this world at least, they feel no more. It is the pains which they give which is the intensely arresting feature of this theatre. If it is this theatre of operations, then many of them are carried out by the doctors, or with the dead, to remove them. Perhaps however it is the operation of grief, as people who have countless seeming lands of the most congenial religion for them, even those who from time to time all but spew blood from their mouths as they talk of Israel, so lustful is their eye and loud their voice of condemnation, refuse to use them or those in them refuse to receive them, or often more likely both. They prefer in the case of many, to wound or maim Israelis instead.

 

Often, as Israeli citizens, and thus receivers of some of the most painfully prepared blessings that this State now supplies to the once so arid region, and far less prosperous, they attack Israel, their home, and then  attack it for not being pleased with their not so subtle efforts. It is not a multi-racial matter so much as a multi-maiming excursion, and be it Arab citizen of Israel, or Palestinian with the PLO, the result is the same. If the guilt is even greater, then, so be it. In moral invasions of this magnitude, to double it is still to be in the highest of categories, as before.

 

Again, as non-citizens of Israel, they appear to wish to run the place which their fathers did not build, apparently without the thousands of billions that might represent value, now that the Israeli work has been done. We leave the  exact amount to the economists; but it would not be small, having made allowance for inflation, to compare the value of the land (with improvements now of course) occupied by Israel at this time, with the same land  before they came … Perhaps some rich Arab nations  could become poor in an attempt  to buy it ? But then, they have so much already, so vast a percentage of the whole littoral from Northern Israel, to the end of the coastline of Northern Africa, and then again, towards the Caspian. They have  such large borders, not to mention the littoral of much of that  latter sea again. They do not lack. They do want. They do not want what they lack, but what Israel, without these advantages would lack, if they, the Islamic squads of murder, got what they so evidently want.

 

The United Nations does not seem to  consider such mundane details… For what purpose, then, are they united – to the extent that they are so, indeed ?

 

ACTORS

 

PERES

 

Despite these machinations and efforts to reduce the mechanical efficiency of many of the bodies owned, under God, by Israelis, either drastically or to zero, since death is not effective, there are still those who are in the management in Israel, for the Theatre of Operations. 

 

One of these, until very recently, is Simon Peres. He occupied a very important post in the Israeli government, and has resigned. With many others, and evidently together with his Labour Party in particular, he has felt dissatisfied with PM Sharon’s budget allocation for aid to settlements for extension and expansion, within that territory which Israel has not received from the UN, though it was promised under international agreement following World War I. He would like to see such aid to those who will occupy it; and Labour would not. There lies a difference.

 

Hence he and others have left the coalition, and Sharon is left without (quite) a majority, and in need of some possibly quite small Party to buttress his (internal) defences, in the Knesset.

 

Before we leave our little look at the peaceable seeming Peres, one with much apparent kinship with the slain Rabin, a former PM  murdered by a Jewish Zealot, it would be an omission to go without noticing his very interesting broadcast remarks.

 

A particularly personal and evidently intentionally penetrating newsman was asking him questions so pointed, that had they been represented by a pencil, undoubtedly the point would have been broken even by a light pressure of the hand. Was he defeated ? No. Did he have a problem with ambition, with his present situation ? No,  why should he ? he had no need. What would happen to Sharon, would he limp on ? He might well do so, but only for a time. The great accomplishment of Sharon, Peres continued with his equable seeming manner, was to secure a time of national (political) unity. This time is no more. Hence his contribution of merit is past.

 

What then for Peres himself ? He had his friends, his contacts, his influence, which he would use without being in government, neither harassed nor rendered futile.

 

His thought ? In response, he avowed that there was no way in which a military solution would be practical. That was not the way. It had to be by negotiation.

 

We did not learn, at least in what was broadcast at that time, what the negotiated elements might be on Israel’s part. Self-immolation ? national suicide perhaps  ? Not, to be sure, from Peres.

 

The Situation

 

What then ? we might ask,  to continue the task of the reporter, while asking only the situation, not the man. What COULD be given ? Could they RECEIVE by means of negotiation, SINAI back again ? Perhaps that ? After all, that part of the tiny fragment appointed to the entire race of the Jews in this world as a country, would not make it other than small. Would this be yielded by the Egypt which made peace with this not least in view ? and which now speaks with considerable dissatisfaction concerning Israel.

 

However, when you negotiate, you do not usually RECEIVE something. It is just in this case that this may seem the only way the traffic might justly flow.

 

Perhaps again, Israel could offer to receive the West Bank, so much in the heartland of ancient Israel, and some expression of regret for not having been GIVEN it earlier ? Again, this would not be the usual method of negotiating, and would seem, though just,  not at all acceptable to militant Arabs who do not seem to lack, and who prefer to die in such a way that more die with them, than the one life they so strangely extinguish, apparently for land, for Allah,  for  glory, for dominance of the Middle East through  an even higher percentage of the land than  that massive amount they already have in Syria, in Lebanon (large Muslim element), in Egypt (the same), in Iraq, in Iran, two dominating powers within Islam, in Georgia, in Azerbaijan, in Chechnya, though to be sure this is wandering a little, but yet close at hand, in Saudi Arabia. Why not add Libya, Morocco, Algeria, and proceed down the Sudan, where apparently marauding Muslims have been given the grace to make captives of some of the young of Christian families, to give them a brutalized fate at which to be appalled, the more particularly if they be girls, of any sensibility whatsoever!

 

How then can the invasive diplomats prevent a smile when ‘negotiation’ is talked of ? Is a flea to negotiate one of its hind legs to satisfy a roaring bull ? Is the disproportion between Israel and Islam to be made even greater ?  What in any case does a bull need with a flea’s hind leg! One is reminded of David expostulating to King Saul, who was pursuing him with thousands of men in his army, his national army. What am I, that you so pursue, David asked him.  Am I a flea or a dead dog ? Saul had to acknowledge his gross and outrageous conduct,  and to his credit,  did so with no  little feeling.

 

Perhaps, despite

 

¨    the vast WEALTH already possessed by some of the surrounding Arab nations, and the vast potential for MORE WEALTH, that they already have;

¨    the vast TRACTS OF LAND that they possess, all partly or wholly receptive to their religion; and

¨    the tiny amount for the practice of the Jewish beliefs, undisturbed (however sad their failure to see  their  Messiah undoubtedly is, yet for the moment, it is comparison, and both being astray, religion is not a matter of right, but merely of  rights at this phase cf. SMR Chs.8  -  9, pp. 1079ff., More Marvels…Ch. 4):

 

 there is yet the desire that is negative. Yet the Arab, the Muslim is not dissatisfied.

 

Perhaps it is also important to them that the Jews do NOT practice their religion (or one might really rather more accurately say, religions,  for alas  they have so strayed just as Moses said they would in Deuteronomy 29ff.). When the USA helped Saudi Arabia, not a little terrified at Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and quixotic seeming annunciations of the propriety of grabbing, the Saudis reportedly did not want USA personnel to hold prayer meetings even in private. If this or any such thing occurred, it was sheer spiritual madness to agree. If there is ONE thing the USA MUST do before God, it is to act in His name and in no other. To be sure it is a Republic, but being a Republic does not mean being a dupe. You do not HAVE to agree to outrageous religious demands, which MUST offend many of your own people!

 

A Christian president at least could say that HIS motivating, activating force being Jesus Christ, he while President would never agree to any other name in religion being applied, but this. If they sacked him, does it really matter ? If they did not, he would have helped his country,  for ALL in it. However to give error its acceptance by allowing such restrictions while you aid their country is as gratuitous as it is provocative to heaven. NO Christian in ANY condition or position is EVER allowed to do something NOT in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. If others do not want you for that, so be it. They do not have to follow you; merely leave you to your own position.

In this world, however, the confused cowardice can often masquerade as public restraint. Would the Jews like to follow such a lead ?

 

Perhaps then the Jews could offer NOT to practice their religion in their land, and so make many Moslems, sworn to their destruction, feel better ? Would the UN wish to forward such  an effort as  that,  since they appear never satisfied with the humiliation they seek for the Jews,  from the days of 1947 when they wanted to internationalise Jerusalem (INSTEAD of giving ALL of Palestine to the Jews!), and make non-continuous tracts of land available for the Jew, to the present.

 

One is not in the last interested in whitewash in such an area as this. Israel is no angel. It can be angry when hundreds of its youth are maimed, and virtually crucified in one of the most barbaric of all operations of the century, the TARGETING as on buses, or total indifference to, the young in the murderous escapades of those who do nothing to commend their values, by this exhibition of them! To be sure, Israel can even act with zeal and rigour in efforts to remind the disloyal citizens, and the marauding residents, that murder is not a satisfactory way of spending your time in their country, which has some amount of civilization among men, at least for its own part!

 

Murder is not really a very nice type of action at all, and is to be sharply distinguished from war. War may spill over during invasion, to regrettable results; but the substitution of war by this war on children by choice, or even by likelihood, outside battle, this is for barbarism, a thing of joy, but not for ever! Is this then some kind of religious passion ? and if so, of what kind of religion is it such a passion ? Such however is the practical outcome of this Islamic code as the activists conceive of it (cf. Lord of Life … Ch. 8, *1). By their fruits … (Matthew 7:15ff.). In speaking of false prophets Christ declared that this was applicable: if they are NOT enlightened lovers of God, if in fact they are false prophets, then by their fruits you will know. Fraud will be self-attesting.

 

But to the point at issue … what COULD Israel then offer to the militant Muslims ? Could they perhaps offer to help bin Laden recover, as one report which has been cited earlier on this Site exhibited to be a desire (Lord of Life loc. cit), the lands the Muslim once held in this world, stretching perhaps towards … India. Would the Moslems, with only masses of millions both of dollars and suicidal personnel, using themselves as weapons, like to spread such enlightenment to the coasts of the Orient ? join with the Moslem State of Pakistan ? or perhaps move back into Europe, something that President Putin warned against,  when defending his actions in Chechnya, some years ago.

 

Ø   It would seem likely that even the UN would not find such  a deal attractive. Besides, Israel – and here is a most interesting fact one does not often see in print – IS NOT INTERESTED, in terms of any observable conduct at least, in EXPANSIONISM.

 

To the sort of agenda Adolf Hitler found near  and dear  to his heart,  they seem to have not the SLIGHTEST INCLINATION. They do not seem to want to possess Syria, or Armenia, Georgia, Iraq, Iran, Egypt.  One has seen them repel an Egyptian invasion in 1973, back to the other side of the Suez canal; but that was merely temporary; and one can consider that if someone suddenly lands a strong right cross blow to one’s jaw, one might at least temporarily, be inclined, if able, to reduce him to a state in which such a blow is unlikely to recur for at least some time, till the police come.

 

That was mere repulse. The Israelis left quickly, and not very long afterwards, GAVE BACK to Egypt the substance of the little triangle of Sinai, in the interests of what ?

 

Of what indeed ? for what reason was it HANDED BACK ? It was for peace.

 

Who then is the aggressor ? Israel for taking 1/5 of the land ?  more or less as the dice are tossed. The result is one way only, it seems in aspiration of their assailants: LESS, in the main being the thrust of ‘coming events’ in the eye of the outspoken Arab beholder, it seems.

 

Who is the aggressor ? Israel for fighting back when Hitler not having finished the job in exterminating from this earth, some 6 million Jews, was so ably followed up by the Moslem element, wanting to ruin and wreck the Jewish presence, to abort and destroy it, to deny them the land already internationally accorded to them ? Were they aggressors for finding strength after the holocaust, strength enough to exist on the tiny shelf of land they took ? Was it aggression to secure half of Jerusalem, as Zechariah 14 predicted they would do ?

 

Is it aggressive to exist ? Is breathing a fault then ? In what sort of a puddle and muddle of philosophy are so many nations moving, as they continue to seek to grate down the cheese that is Israel, while complaining vociferously in the interim, that Israel is getting cheesed off, and should be more peaceable as it is being reduced.

 

If it is comedy that is being played, then, in the theatre of Israel, it must be a most sophisticated one, appreciable only by the cognoscenti; and it has always been quite remarkable what these may appreciate, and not in all ways predictable.

 

 

NETANYAHU

 

Now it must be freely admitted that under “PERES” we have moved to an approach that is far nearer to that of Netanyahu than that of Peres himself, and quite utterly distant from that of the UN, and indeed from what Europe has voiced. This has come about, not in any ambiguity or impropriety, but simply in continuing, in an imaginary sort of way, the zestful quest of the newsman who spoke with Peres, and  addressing not Peres, but the situation all must face.

 

How then does Netanyahu, that former PM of Israel, face the questions such as have been considered here ? What he has had to say to EUROPE concerning their statement on Jerusalem,  in 1999, is in pith to be found in News 53. He thanked them not, for their zeal and reverse cycle solicitude. Intruding where one might have thought them somewhat reticent, they seemed willing to allocate for the JEW, NONE of Jerusalem. At least this was consistent, though only with the Hitler aspect of Europe. What then was this new zeal, so keen on the exclusion of Jewish sovereignty in their city, as if Paris were suddenly to be given NOT AT ALL to France, or Brussels in NO WAY to the European Union ? In News 53 we noticed a European dictum “refusing to acknowledge Israeli sovereignty over any part of Jerusalem.”

 

It is clear from these and others of Netanyahu’s remarks at the time of his great eminence as former skilled soldier, diplomat  to the USA, turned politician, become PM, that he does not lightly esteem the continuity at last of Jerusalem under Jewish control*1. This PM indeed showed himself a man with some sensibility towards the prophets in the Jewish contribution to the Bible, and some awareness. The eternal capital, as it is deemed by some in Israeli politics, and has been designated, Jerusalem: THIS is not for sale, for negotiation or for surrender. That has been Netanyahu’s reported approach.

 

Let us move a little deeper however. It is really not Israeli, this city, so much as Messianic. It is the property of one who became a Jew, Jesus Christ, and as landlord He received a treatment which alas, and to one’s great grief, though with perfect scriptural prediction behind it, has resulted in untold sufferings to Israel, from the days of Titus on! (cf. Matthew 23:37ff., with 24:1-2). Eat unripe grapes and you can have legitimate expectations. Treat God thus, and it is not a highway to mercy, since the mercy is what you so treat!

 

Who then is the one to whom Jerusalem properly belongs ? That One, indeed, is the Word of God. It is He however who has proclaimed in the clearest terms, that this is the place which HE had for the Jew, from which HE would expel Him in wrath, to which HE would bring him in mercy, and that this return would be a signal of the most categorical character, that the Age to His own return  was in full acceleration to its end (cf.  SMR Ch. 8, Luke 21:24).

 

His word, His own utterance and what He categorically endorsed from what had been sent before (the law and the prophets cf. Matthew 5:17-19, I Peter 1:10-12, II Peter 1:16-19), is that in which it is indicated that HE will return in person (Zechariah 14), and with no small power to direct events. In that day, many of Israel will both repent of NOT believing in Him, and thus CRUCIFYING Him, and put their trust by faith at long last, in Him, as Zechariah predicted some 2 and one half MILLENIA ago (half a millennium before the said crucifixion so much as occurred in the first place).

 

What however is the THIRD WAY ? If Netanyahu is returned as PM, will he take it ?

 

Let us then consider a little more what he said in a recent interview, broadcast this very month. It was short. Indicating PM Sharon, Netanyahu answered the actual or implicit question, relating to his own part or lack of it, in the imperilled government ranks, following Labour’s departure from the Sharon government ? Would be, of the Likud, join with Sharon as a Minister, filling the depleted ranks, by coming into the Cabinet which had just seen the exit of Peres, to whose words we were earlier giving attention ? Yes, Netanyahu averred: he would accept such a ministerial post, he replied, IF the time to the next election were short!

 

It appears that Netanyahu is not uninterested in resuming the PM role himself, having very distinctive ideas. This could only be expected to fortify Jerusalem as non-negotiable and Israel as not readily expendable as the politically bent nations roar for their further grating, their next taste of the national cheese that is Israel.

 

When we reflect on the (then) PM Netanyahu’s remarks concerning Har Homa area, "a hilltop of pine trees between Jerusalem and PLO-ruled Bethlehem". (News 6, The Australian, March 1, 1997), on which settlements were being made, it appears clear that his approach is expansionist RELATIVE to the tracts which cluster about Israel’s biblical heritage. Indeed, we find this, that he "would never sign a Hebron deal that would hand to the Arabs land regarded by his Likud Party as Israel's biblical heritage" in an assessment found in The Australian, Jan. 28, 1997 (News 4).

 

"Israel will not reduce itself to a fragile ghetto on the shores of the Mediterranean" he reportedly declared - Time, 13 June, 1997, p. 13 (News 20). This is a report of his speaking at that date.

 

What however about the present ? What for example of his reported speech before the US Senate, April 10, 2002 ?

 

(to be found at http://netanyahu.org/netspeacinse.html).

 

In this Senate address, Netanyahu makes some salient points. In effect, he applies back to Israel, Bush’s notes on terrorism in general. This, in Israel,  is but a particular case.  In fact, he scorns the view which gives “a reprehensible moral symmetry that equates Israel, a democratic government that is defending itself against terror, with the Palestinian dictatorship that is perpetrating it.” The point is just. Hence he is able to declare: “My concern deepened when, incredibly, Israel was asked to stop fighting terror and return to a negotiating table with a regime that is committed to the destruction of the Jewish State and openly embraces terror.” He points out that in the preceding 18 months, 6 million citizens of Israel have buried 400 victims of terror, “a per capita toll equivalent to half a dozen September 11ths.,” adding that this “daily, hourly carnage is also unprecedented in terrorism’s bloody history.”

 

 At such a time, he remonstrates, Israel is being asked to STOP FIGHTING!

 

It is at this point in his speech to the US Senate, that he all but mirrors the rhetoric of Bush concerning the USA. Rest assured, he asseverates, that “with or without international support, the government of Israel must fight not only to defend its people, restore a dangerously eroded deterrence and secure the Jewish State, but also to ensure that the free world wins the war against terror in this pivotal arena in the heart of the Middle East.”

 

Steps are to include the dismantling of the terrorist regime of Arafat, the removal of terrorist weapons and the making of physical barriers between Jewish cities and Palestinian population centres. In keeping with such an aim, days before his speech, Israel had proceeded, “rather than bomb Palestinian populated cities and towns from the air”, to the step of  “taking on the greater risk by using ground  forces that painstakingly make their way through the hornet’s nests of Palestinian terror.”

 

OSLO,  that agreement, he declared is doubly dead through the breach of two cardinal commitments there made: first, that the State of Israel would be recognised, and secondly a permanent renunciation of terrorism. While, one may add, from time to time Arafat manages to speak in strongly toned words about terrorism, a consistent depiction of it generically as crime is not easy to find; nor a consistent set of actions in conformity with any such renunciation. It is small wonder that when, some few years ago, he allowed the release of some of the most notorious terrorists from prison, thus enabling a new series of terror waves to build, Israel could not express satisfaction, nor could the OSLO accord find application.

 

If he can get East Jerusalem without terrorism, doubtless he would; no one is suggesting he likes it, but just that his State consistently fails to remove it, and when he was not so harassed in his liberties as he now is, there was to be seen the type of commitment which made of the PLO arena, a veritable oil gusher of Israeli blood.

 

Did he want international aid in order to make a rigorous removal of terrorists ? It is not to be seen in the release of murderers, specialised in the craft. Does he co-operate with Israel when, disgusted, it makes mini-invasions to do what he has not done ? In word, and occasionally a little, but in the main he seems to seek to portray Israel in its amazing restraint, as a terrorist body because it seeks to remove the uncontrolled bases of the atrocities, this new Hitleresque portrayal of racial hatred.

 

Israel, he has said on his more rumbustious occasions, can go to hell. Certainly, the emissaries from his land seem intent on fulfilling this thought, to their ability. To that extent, there seems to be some solidarity within the Arab ranks!

 

Much then as we can admire much of what Netanyahu is saying, the question remains, is this the way ? If it is not to be found in the UN in its decadent disregard of realities, both international in history and national in contemporary affairs in Israel; and if Peres’ thought of NO MILITARY SOLUTION does not appear to deal with the inflated terrorist mentality which is so common in the Muslim camp, appealing beyond national boundaries to scamps who part from love for force,  and from liberty for murder: then is it in Netanyahu’s blueprint that it is to be found ? If those who are deeply within the internecine assault on citizens within Israel, and this not for no religious reason by any means (More Marvels … Ch.  4), are  befouled as was Lady Macbeth with their ‘damned spot’, and negotiation with zealots has limits: what then ? Is the rigour of Netanyahu’s lucid thought to prevail ?

 

At least he is (apparently) avoiding the fatal flaw in Bush’s approach, the consortium with numbers of Islamic States and the false praise of a fallen religion (cf. Red Alert … Ch. 6).

 

 

THE ACTOR WHO IS ETERNAL

Whose Act is a PACT

 

What however of the positive side of it ? There is the little problem of the owner of the land. It is important in any orderly society to realise that the phenomenon of ownership exists. Otherwise, theft becomes a way of life, war a manner of procedure and death a negotiating instrument, whether expressly in the form of terror, or in some other pathological feature and focus. Israel, as admittedly is likewise the case with Australia, and for that matter with the USA, did not make its land. It is not its producer.  Certainly, if you buy a property, then the improvements are your own. They did not come with the original property. What however if you do not own the property, and then improve it ? In that case, there would appear a need to have agreement with the owner. After all, it IS his property, or in the case before us, more adroitly, His property. HE did make it. It is not so readily to be divested from Him, nor are His ways to be ignored in the any claim for ‘improvement’ unilaterally made on HIS land!

 

Does however Israel (or for that matter, Australia, or the USA) acknowledge of the GOD who has the advantage of existing, the One who actually did it (a phrase does not do it, but the One to whom it should justly refer) ? Alas no. Reference to ‘God’ is manifestly not enough. The Moslem has one whom bin Laden can cite for his practices, without basis or verification, and WITH anti-verification (cf. SMR pp. 1079ff., 830ff., 986ff.).

 

Again, an agnostic’s ‘god’ does not do, because if you ARE agnostic, then you do not KNOW what is there, though you think there is something. Something is not God, any more than ‘something’ is myself. This does not define me; reference to ‘something’ as myself, would not activate my cheque book (if I had one). Definition is needed for address. A letter addressed to someone is not likely to find the referee. The postman would advisedly abort the process of finding the box. ‘More information needed’ would be the kindest stamp from the P.O. to the sender.

 

For peace, you need propriety, even justice. If land is being seized from God, it is difficult to see the fitness or justice of the proceeding. If land is being seized from God after a NATION expressly put itself UNDER HIM, and hence and hence alone has historical RIGHT to the land, as distinct from historical ACCESS to it, the case is even (if possible) more striking! For peace, Israel has to come to terms with the Maker of the land: after all, it is about LAND. Whose is it ?

 

Unfortunately, despite the brilliance of people like Netanyahu, the resolve, this issue has to be faced. In the Bible, indeed in the Tanakh, there is a SPECIFIC point made. It is no mere addendum, end-note or cavil. It is foundational. ISRAEL MUST RECOGNISE GOD and repent of its own waywardness from Him. The land is theirs by COVENANT from their KING (cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4); and HE has decreed that theirs is to be suffering until they return to Him.

 

Deuteronomy 32:36ff. even is found to be giving the point that it is only when their power is gone, that He will act, and at that, the injunction that they return to HIM, not just to their land. 36:26ff. shows His outrage before they do, and the terms and the nature of it! Indeed, when He DOES act, we find the Almighty declaring Himself thus:

 

“He will say, ‘Where are their gods,

The rock in which they sought refuge …

 

Now see that I, even I, am He,

And there is no God besides Me:

I kill and I make alive;

I wound and I heal:
Nor is there any who can deliver from My hand.”

He then acts. “I will repay those who hate Me.”

 

What then ? This (32:43, cited by Paul in Romans 15:10:

 

“Rejoice, O Gentiles, with His people,

For He will avenge the blood of His servants,

And render vengeance to His adversaries;

He will provide atonement for His land and His people.”

 

That is the way it is. In Romans 11:25 we see likewise that Israel has had a period of theological blindness, and that at the epoch of their deliverance, this will go, as the Lord Himself prepares to come.

 

You must always remember the owner, not merely of land but of people. Now you may say, ‘Owner of people!’ and be rather inclined to expostulate. Is this not slavery ? In answer: It CAN BE, and often has been in the vile follies of mankind’s ethically illiterate terrorisms. Did traders, yes white traders who violated Africa for cheap labour, not do such things ? Yes it can be and often has been so.

 

How one can admire those negroes who have risen above such revolting assaults on their persons, and now flourish in their new land, new perforce. Yet this is not the ONLY way in which someone – more adroitly, Someone – may own a person. Indeed, there is an ownership which is both indefectibly and indefeasibly just. The MAKER owns what He has made.

 

Yet, one may say: OWNS IT ? If I give myself freely to my Maker, that is just.

 

Yes, it is just, for one who is free to give his liberty to another if he will; whether it be wise or not.

 

But DO YOU own yourself, and ARE YOU free so to act ? With what freedom do you give what is not yours to another ? Certainly, if the other has made you, your willing co-operation in being owned makes the matter a happy one. If however you do NOT care to be owned, and yet are, then that is war. The Bible expresses it thus: alienation from the life of God, allied with blindness of heart (Ephesians 4:17ff.). It gives the estate of such people as that of “children of wrath” (Ephesians 2), as we have been seeing in the preceding chapter.

 

Is this lack of peace and presence of war, then, the way in which to renounce terror, when theft without law itself is merely a seed-bed for the flower of violence ?

 

If GOD is against you, is it for peace ? If theft is against you, is it for justice ? If truth is against you, is it for happiness ? And then again, Where is your defence ? David could say this:

 

Ø   “My defence if of God, who saves the upright in heart!” (Psalm 7:10).

 

David was right, and for him, He did just that. Notice however the capital in this “He”. David did not DO it. God did it. Power, says David, belongs to God (Psalm 57).

 

Ø   “I will cry out to God Most High,

Ø   To God who performs all things for me.

Ø   He shall send from heaven and save me…” (from Psalm 57:2-3).

 

Then however, David

 

1)   acknowledged the actual God, the Lord, the King of Israel as such.

2)   by faith acknowledged that HIS POWER alone could save him.

3)   called upon Him to do so, by His grace. 

 

The old title styling for an aristocrat, “Your grace” has rather a tinny sound or a leaden clunk to the ear of the modern. It was rather fulsome. However when applied to God, it is just. It is ONLY by grace that One who made man, may yet receive him who is now seen as sinner, as wilful breacher of His will, way, and law - or in a way, perceived as in insolence, in moral insolvency (cf. Ephesians 2:1-8). Yet often the case is even worse than this: man then becomes an ignorer (like ‘squatters’ adorning a vacant property with their intrusive presence). You IGNORE your Fabricator, indeed Creator ? You dare! Were He a tyrant, we could admire your courage; since He is the most empathetic Lord who died the just for the unjust to bring us to Himself, one can admire nothing in His rejection, find no mitigation, only desolation in judgment and desert. Such is premised and promised (John 3:36).

 

The case is not improved by someone or some nation being thankful to whatever-it-is, and not calling on it since the person concerned cannot get the address right for the purpose and the process, as we saw! It is near enough to mockery, such a disdainful disregard that does not even look up this address.

 

It is as Israel should know, and indeed all the world should know, where it has always been. It is in the Lord God Almighty, MAKER of heaven and earth (not dreamer of fables as seen in the false prophets of the 21st and 20th centuries who are so good at dreaming that they seem unable to open their eyes to what is there cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, TMR Chs.  1,  8).

 

Israel then must face, as must all nations, the fact that God has given notice to one, to all, as in Psalm 2. To be sure this so clever world has shown its claws against its Maker; and when He presented Himself in the form and format of man, it was so vastly sophisticated as to give Him a crucifixion send off, marred only by His marring not being final, but fatefully overcome in the resurrection, which gunned His troops, not with bullets but with power and desire. These things led to the Gospel, precisely as Isaiah predicted it, and to its renunciation by the State of Israel, exactly as Isaiah had foretold (49:7), so that the Gentiles have now had their day, marked to proceed till Israel returned to its place in Jerusalem, though this is still of course bitterly contested, and no wonder.

 

Apart from all else, Jerusalem’s state is the FINAL and INDISPUTABLE indicator. Christ’s return is near (Luke 21).

 

Now, one of the things which, one imagines, would be most unpleasant would be the return to one’s side of the one murdered.

 

There would be a certain feeling not only of déjà vue, but of the grotesque … unless, of course, one had repented of the crime and was only too delighted to see the humanly impossibly divinely done. He was back.  The deed was undone. Yes, but the guilt is not thereby undone.

 

It is not Israel alone, which did the actual work on that divinely crafted body for the incarnation and on that divinely planned salvation thus presented. The guilt is at least similar in those, be they Jew or Gentile,  who having the access to the Gospel, reject it nonetheless (cf. Hebrews 10:29), who are seen as trampling underfoot the Christ, the Son of God: a not entirely innocent proceeding, to be sure. Unbelief is what induces condemnation (John 3:19), a fact as certain as this, that WHOSOEVER believes in Him shall not perish (John 3:16). THESE ARE THE CORRELATIVES. That the wrath of God abides on such, THIS IS THE CONSEQUENCE.

 

Now such a consequence is not terrorism. It is justice. HE OWNS His creation.  Man is part of it. Nations are part of it. Terrorists are part of it, and they are, each and every one, answerable to Him whose property they act to maim, murder or commit to mayhem.

 

There is then only one marker. Jesus is His name, and Jerusalem is a token of His early return, after two millennia. We do not know when; we do not know ‘near’ (Luke 21:24-28). The other lines of conduct, of action, of response to the plight of Israel: these are inadequate, some in one way, another in a different way. Error is not truth. Failure is induced by error. One must not fail, and one need not, be it nation or individual, in this, that GOD NEVER FAILS (Zephaniah 3:5):

 

     “The Lord is righteous in her midst,

He will do no unrighteousness.

Every morning He brings His justice to light;

          He never fails.”

 

Other things do fail. They must in the end, if in conflict with Him, since He is the truth, and His word is truth (John 14:6, 17:17, Psalm 119: 142, Zechariah 9:7). Pilate in the end has his answer: truth is the word of God. It is this: the word of God works and it is done. It is done because it is true. It never misses. If it is a matter of resurrection, it is done; of desolation, it is likewise wrought; of reconstruction, even on a time frame stated, as with Jeremiah 25, it is the same; of the incarnation and death of the Messiah at a date: these data are done. None is delinquent, none fails (cf. Isaiah 34:25-16, 8:20). We have often followed these things in significant detail. They are but examples in the principle: HE SAYS IT, IT IS DONE (cf. Isaiah 44:24-26).

 

Truth is what He says, history is what He has done, with protestation, or with delight: but done (Luke 19:42ff. gives an example of the former).

 

It is time to seek the Lord. This too – it must be DONE! It is useless to profess it; you must CONFESS HIM. How CAN you do that if you do not believe; but if you believe, then do it you both must and will, for truth will out. You believe you are to die tomorrow, then you will, if morally responsible, ensure your will is made. It is not a magical theory; it is what you do because you believe it. Faith without works is dead. One man in Israel some years ago, asked whether he should have a public baptism, since he would offend his family. If he believed, he would act. But public ? Of course: confessing Christ before man is quite clearly required as a testimony to reality (Luke 9:23-26). This is just one way to do it.

 

I never heard whether he did; but God did!

 

It is to God one must direct faith, to the manifest witness, Jesus Christ (cf. Revelation 1:5)  in whom one must place it, as the object of faith, in so doing, trusting in the God whose eternal word He is. Thus it must be, for in this way is the avenue of power constructed, not for a desert island, or a Pacific one, but for the service of God in the love of Christ, in the team of His making, that the unity of Christ be fulfilled, and the wonder of the Lord be seen (cf. Ephesians 4:11-13).

 

An aeroplane if a fast fighter, soon needs an air tanker if it is to continue aloft: Christians have one. The Holy Spirit continually wells up unto eternal life (John 4:14, 7:37).

 

This, it is far better than death. Certainly, the service of Christ involves suffering: so does the training of an athlete. It continually means service, self-discipline in love. So what ? Is it not good to be aloft, if one is a glider, instead of sitting, mere rubbish cluttering the ground, disorderly by desire, and out of place, refusing the gracious goodness of the Lord, never aloft! But we who are His are sitting in heavenly places (Ephesians 2:5-8), being saved by grace and powered by truth. What does it matter if it is ignominious and not at all glorious to be the partners in love of a murdered man! After all, resurrected, He evinced royalty and authenticated deithy (cf. Romans 1:4, 4:25ff.): far better a serviceable prince than a priestly stuffed shirt! Far better God than mere man, oneself or any other or combination!

 

But as to that, this one Marker, the Master, He is the truth (John 14:6). Without truth, what is the good of living! It is a mere mirage and most miserable existence. How those who do it can stand it, comes in time to be virtually beyond one’s imagination. They are not arbitrarily deprived, those who reject Him, but wholly responsible, wilful, arbitrary, inexcusable (cf. Ezekiel 33:11, John 3:16-19).

 

You fear YOU may fail ? What of it ? HE cannot and does not. The promise is His and sure: SHALL NEVER PERISH. There are built-in and providential procedures, and there is a divine power to fulfil it. NOTHING succeeds against God. Man merely ‘succeeds’ to the doom of his own soul. Love is not intrusive. It is however, when it is the love of God, when it is received in the channel provided, in the Christ, irreversible, incontestable, eternal.

 

Alas for man, the terrorism of sin has no other victor, and the famisher of the human soul that leads to such vices as terrorism, has no other answer. Rejoice however for mankind, for NONE excludes Him for lack of love. He is invited. ALL are invited (cf. Matthew 22:1-14, 11:27ff.).

 

Peace goes with the truth.

 

 

NOTE

 

*1 See on Netanyahu about that time, for example, News  4, 20, 31, 53.