Chapter 8

 

Parallels that Do Not Meet

 

Hussein and Nebuchabdnezzar

 

Principles that Do Not Cohere

Love and Lust

 

News 246

 

Guardian Unlimited, November 7, 2002

Robert Fisk, Independent,  December 30, 2000

David J. Scheffer,

Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues, Sept. 18, 2000

 

 PARALLELS ? Let’s just be factual please!

 

Of course Nebuchadnezzar was humbled, and before that at least, he was far from loving. It is the case that these two men do not parallel in much; and love and lust do not parallel at all. These however are in men, two useful examples to consider; and in principles, two most advantageous. Let us look.

 

Hussein was humbled in the Gulf War, his nation is ruins, to add to the rubble from the Iran assault with reputedly, on all sides, one million dead. That is a parallel.

 

Both these leaders were humbled.

 

Of parallels, this is not however the one which appears to be in mind for Hussein. In an article, Dec. 24, 1998, from Stephen Kinzer headed International with the logo, New York Times, we learn another view, preferred by the man in power, Hussein. “Little remains,” Kinzer declares, “of Babylon’s legendary glory. Desert sands long ago swallowed up the hanging gardens that were among the wonders of the ancient world. Archeologists who uncovered …” It is a matter for the archeologist, scarcely prime as real estate!

 

Yes, the biblical prophecy on Babylon, as if one today should speak in such a way, of Moscow (for example, as a seat of an empire), is fulfilled. It did not seem likely at that time. It is incontestable at this time. It has occurred, and the sand swallowed it up, revealed centuries later, for the dregs of history. In Isaiah 13, the case was forecast from long before: “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.” A tourist attraction is its modern fate.

 

But what of the tourist billboard there ? Says Kinzer: “A billboard that greets visitors to Babylon is dominated by portraits” – of whom ? Of “Nebuchadnezzar, who ruled from 605 to 562 B.C.” and “brought his empire to a peak of wealth and power” and as to the other ? Kinzer continues: “It is perhaps inevitable that Saddam would seek to bask in his glory.” Both these ‘kings’ are shown in strong portraits on the one poster. Indeed, a poster proclaims this: “From Nebuchadnezzar to Saddam Hussein, Babylon Invokes Its Glories on the Path of Jihad and Glorious Development.” Note the ‘jihad’. We shall return to this.

 

Of course both, Nebuchadnezzar and Hussein have this parallel, that their states have a significant degree of ruin, modern Iraq have deep poverty and contrasting riches for a few, and Babylon’s splendour of old being for the archeologist. Yet again, this doubtless is not what Hussein has in view as a parallel. Babylon indeed as an Empire was swallowed up like the rest, the Medes and the Persians eclipsing it with their own ways, and laying it, not so quietly, to rest, if you can call it that (cf. Isaiah 14:3-11). God in this passage declares that hell is excited about the coming of Babylon to its fold, and announces in advance, “Your pomp is brought down to hell!”

 

The reference to Jihad perhaps would both appease and inflame many militant Moslems, a caste entering into the world stratifications of society, a caste to cast down which really, is not very like a thrust to build up. Of course Nebuchadnezzar also grabbed riches (as Saddam TRIED but failed to do with Kuwait, another non-parallel), and ravaged Israel taking much of its wealth. Again, this is a non-parallel for Hussein. He did not take Israel, or its wealth, but suffered critically as he launched his missiles on Israel, in that the Gulf War engulfed him, sapping his wealth enormously. This with its no-fly zone and economic sanction aftermath has obviously severely impoverished his country: another non-parallel with Nebuchadnezzar, whose gross enrichments were symbolised not least in his Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and its vast structures, not pathetic imitations on a small or gravely reduced budget!

 

The most important difference is clear. It is not only that history refuses to equate or draw much in the way of parallels between the great impoverisher and the great enricher, though their aggressive pomp may be something of a parallel – yet at that, when you are pompous and powerful, though this be odious, it is a well-known combination. To be pompous and a failure in successive crucial wars, losing millions and billions, in men and money in the one, without much result, and your liberty in your own country, in the other, and to enfeeble your nation: this is another scenario than that! While such a thing is not perhaps unknown in the annals of pomp, it is more pathetic than standard fare of the pride of this aching world. It is the stuff of delusion.

 

It is, indeed, not only this historical difference: it is the REASON for it! In the day of Nebuchadnezzar, Jeremiah was filled with prophecies against both Israel in the short-term and Babylon in the long run. The former was based on sin and breach of faith between Israel and God, as in Jeremiah 23-25, with deep poignancy as in Jeremiah 9, and devastating exposure of hypocrisy in the nation, even religious, as in Jeremiah 7, on the departure from the law of the Lord as in Jeremiah 8:5-6,8-9 and 14:10, bringing sad laments lined with exhortation as in Jeremiah 2:13-14, 13:27, 8:7. This led to repeated warning and denunciations which were prelude to predicted destruction (25:9-14) at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. After this, a 70 year exile following destruction (as in Jeremiah 25:11) was predicted. That was one special feature in the ancient situation, in the day of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. 

 

Let us hear something of it from Jeremiah 25:8-17:

 

 

“Therefore thus says the Lord of hosts:

 

Ø   ‘Because you have not heard My words, behold, I will send and take all the families of the north,’ says the Lord, ‘and Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, My servant, and will bring them against this land, against its inhabitants, and against these nations all around, and will utterly destroy them, and make them an astonishment, a hissing, and perpetual desolations.

Ø   ‘Moreover I will take from them the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the sound of the millstones and the light of the lamp. And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years.

 

Ø   ‘Then it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity,’ says the Lord; ‘and I will make it a perpetual desolation. So I will bring on that land all My words which I have pronounced against it, all that is written in this book, which Jeremiah has prophesied concerning all the nations. (For many nations and great kings shall be served by them also; and I will repay them according to their deeds and according to the works of their own hands.)’

 

“For thus says the Lord God of Israel to me:

 

Ø   ‘Take this wine cup of fury from My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send you, to drink it. And they will drink and stagger and go mad because of the sword that I will send among them.’

“Then I took the cup from the Lord’s hand, and made all the nations drink, to whom the Lord had sent me …”

 

(Red added.)

 

In what sense, however, was Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, yet able to be called “My servant” in the ways of the Lord ? The question is important since there was a sense in which he did serve God, though ignorantly. Thus in Ezekiel 29:18-21, the Lord announces a reward to this king of Babylon for his services rendered in dealing with the proud Tyre, source of much idolatry, self-adulation and pomp. To him, Nebuchadnezzar, the Lord gave Egypt for a time, as a payment for services rendered! However, while God may use the wicked (cf. Psalm 76:10), His also is their judgment for what they have in fact done, except they repent. Thus we read in this Psalm:

 

“Surely the wrath of man shall praise You:

With the remainder of wrath You shall gird Yourself.”

 

God rebukes as He determines; and He uses even what is aligned against Him, as with Nebuchadnezzar, so both mocking their puny pretensions and effecting His skilful purposes.

 

Thus in the end, both Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon paid for their ridiculous excesses!  Ancient Babylon as noted above, is reduced to a nostalgic memory for one who perhaps has paranoia; and its greatness is being fastened to his coat-tails as if a sovereign stuck on the clothes of a beggar. Such is the disproportion in the historical realities. It does not match.

 

Let us however look at the parallel where it does, to some extent, exist. Nebuchadnezzar himself suffered a fate hardly less notorious than that so far of Hussein of Iraq, though it was one softened with mercy. Indeed, this with the ancient king turned to make a testimony to the Lord. There, now, that is a parallel one would, both in mercy and in truth, like to see apply to Saddam; but alas, it is not at the present one we find confirmed. It is only in measure, the first part, where each has been significantly humbled.

 

The case of Nebuchadnezzar is listed in the prophecy of Daniel, which has an annals of history aspect, since Daniel was a highly placed courtier, and more than that, even as a captive from youth, in a foreign land, he was revered as a prophet of the Lord. If you read Daniel you will find the detailed data, and it is rich in reward in its fulfilled predictions. One of them noted in the book itself, is that concerning Nebuchadnezzar. Rebuked for his ostentatious self-acclaim and pride - and his was indeed a time through rapacious grabbings of foreign wealth by armies, and ruthless and fearful wars, when ostentation could be paid for, he was to suffer a massive humiliation, but one therapeutic in kind. After all, not from nothing, but largely from foreign investments which he appropriated did the sudden wealth come! He was not really so very productive when you come to think it through; and he was at this time, in a dream, shown his humiliation to come. Evidently he did not act on the divine hint (cf. Daniel 4:27), graciously and courageously supplied through Daniel’s vulnerable mouth!

 

It was in fact 12 months that Nebuchadnezzar was given, before that prophecy that he would eat grass like animals in his mindless muddle, was fulfilled. The Englishman, Blake gives a most impactive and impressive painting of this phase, one famed and justly so. This work depicting the ancient king is poignant and evocative in the extreme, showing the glazed eye, the claw-like nails, the dazed atmosphere, the daftly muted hope all in one flashing moment of artistic inspiration. In Daniel 4 you read at the outset of this punished king’s words, acknowledging his error, and showing some of the material which he had learnt!

 

“To all peoples, nations, and language that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you.

 

v          I thought it good to declare the signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked for me. 

 

v          How great are His signs and how mighty His wonders.

v          His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,

v          And His dominion is from generation to generation.”

 

 

This is quite a change from the master of Babylon. It is this which one might charitably hope for any parallel with Saddam Hussein, in all pity. It comes to all sooner or later, and that, at the judgment where Christ is not the Saviour for the scurrying soul; and it comes justly, this exposure where mercy is excluded because its means are by man discarded (John 3:19).

 

What if you refuse your medicine ? Then stay sick.

 

It is disorder through arrant diversification from the way, plan and grace of God, fickle before His goodness, voiding virtue in self-will, withholding faith and so abandoning the call for life in unison with its revealed Maker; or else the prize of the provision of God, whose love envelops life itself, but not to the empty mutterings of measured mutiny, as if sickness were sovereign, and severed self its own lord, with whatever idols of profusion of confusion it elected to follow in the very face of the truth.

 

Refuse your clement pardon ? then stay condemned. This is the way of it (John 3:16-19).  Jesus the Christ whose death date Daniel predicted some 5 to 6 centuries before it came (cf. Highway to Holiness Ch. 4), is the provision.

 

The structure is clear. Even the world empire in whose day this divine sacrifice for sin would be made, was likewise shown, in the sequence of coming empires (Daniel 2, 7 cf. SMR pp. 886ff.), as the prophet expatiated under divine direction, on the course of world events in the centuries to come, into which God would place His own lustrous event. Come as man, the Messiah, the Lord, would not push, pummel or force, but make atonement in a loveliness the world had not seen, the criterion and the King alike (Daniel 9:24-27 with Psalm 45, 72, Isaiah 61, 48:16, 40:10, 50).

v          “For Him there is nothing,” comes the actual prophetic comment (Daniel 9:26, Highway of Holiness Ch. 4).

v          His beauty blanketed out with sin borne for those covered, who come by faith to Him (Isaiah 50:4-6, 52: 23-15, 53:1, 55:1-2,6),

v          He poured out His soul to death (Isaiah 53),

v          then to assume in a life inextinguishable (Psalm 2, 16, 22, 72, 110),

v          resurrected and regal,

v          in the divine role of manifest Saviour (Isaiah 43:10-11, Isaiah 53:5-11).

 

He is to be taken or left. If left, then all will be routed before righteousness at the judgment (Psalm 2). Refusing the word of God is refusing God (John 12:48-50). The dismantling of sin or dismantling by it, this is the division of the ways. Nebuchadnezzar is a prime exhibit.

 

Daniel in interpreting or even ascertaining dreams, was given inspiration from God, in the most oppressive and potentially fatal circumstances; and this faithfulness and courage before the God who acted, attracted great attention so that in his faithfulness, came relief, and in his courage, removal of ground for fear! His case is one to emulate indeed….

 

Having interpreted the first dream of Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 2) in the rather stringent and certainly notorious test situation cannily invented by that king, who appeared sick to death of his astrologers and magicians, and wanted some more scientific testing of their verbal antics and pretences, Daniel was in high esteem. That test situation, incidentally, it was this.

 

It was as if the King should demand in this fashion:

 

If, wise man, you want to want to have me, the king, BELIEVE what you say, then tell me not only meaning of the dream I had, but what it was; for unless you show your divine access, your supernatural power, by knowing what the dream was, how could I believe you could by some supernatural power, interpret it!

 

Only Daniel did it, and it is most delightful to ponder that way in which this saintly young prophet made this fact on total reliance on God, to be eminently clear, yet he did this in a subdued and frank way. In his action here, he was personal and personable, if at the same time in his remarkable nature, austere and awesome, as he showed that GOD HIMSELF, the God, the God of truth and of Israel had shown him the answer. It was one, as apparent for all to see, that ONLY GOD could possibly know. Who could know the mind of the king when he slept ? God could. God not only is, but knows, and only knows but cares, and not this alone, He acts in the faith of His redeemed servants (Isaiah 44:24ff., Psalm 145:18-19).

 

What a testimony for Daniel, apparently limp and weak in the hands of Babylon, but in fact strong and crisp in the hands of his God, the God, the God who acts for those who wait for Him, as Isaiah thrillingly puts it in 64:4. In 64:5 the prophet proceeds next to declare, “You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, who remembers You in Your ways…” This testimony is one that experience has taught to be utterly reliable, as is all the rest of the word of God, who IS faithful! and without iniquity, a delicious change from this world and its fallen ways. He says it; He does it, personally, prophetically, historically, spiritually.

 

Thus when in the second dream, with the amazing ability given Daniel to DECLARE to the king the first dream which he had earlier had in the night, and then interpret it with a grand and clear account, the king was told, he listened! But he did not act acceptably. 

 

Whatever other wonders had happened then, in the feats of these four friends, Daniel and his three countrymen– one might almost say spiritual musketeers, the king had been given by God ample reason to heed. If their ‘guns’ were grace, then their guidance was more even than the modern electronic, being far more powerful, that of God Himself, who succours the weak and can hear the cry of the afflicted the time came to interpret the second dream of his sleeping hours, yet the warrior king was eager to listen. He was most ready! He even encouraged Daniel to speak out, with something like tenderness, since obviously he was deeply concerned at the meaning which he saw, in this regal dream.

 

If the words were sharp, yet the prophet was tender.

 

“My lord, may the dream concern those who hate you, and its interpretation concern your enemies!” He went on to interpret the cut down tree and the rest of the king’s dream. He would be cut down, though his height reached (in mind perhaps) to the heavens! It is all about the man’s mind.

 

Ø   “They shall drive you from men, your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field, and they shall make you eat grass like oxen. They shall wet you with the dew of heaven, and seven times shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses.”

 

Then he would be restored. This occurred, the abasement, the mental derangement, the al fresco living, the desolation; and it ended as prescribed. Then the king made his testimony that there was indeed a Ruler over rulers, and over men, and that he had been humbled to perceive it; and he blessed His name.

 

In Daniel 4:34ff., we thus read this:

 

“And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding returned to me; and I blessed the Most High and praised and honored Him who lives forever:

For His dominion is an everlasting dominion,

And His kingdom is from generation to generation.

      All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing;

He does according to His will in the army of heaven

And among the inhabitants of the earth.

No one can restrain His hand

Or say to Him, “What have You done?”

^“At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my honor and splendor returned to me. My counselors and nobles resorted to me, I was restored to my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways justice. And those who walk in pride He is able to put down.”

 

Yes, there are elements in the history of Nebuchadnezzar that any would-be imitator could dwell on, with advantage, and this before any parallel should become … too complete! God is not mocked. Yet political dictators are not the only kind. There is an autonomy which appeals to the lusts of man’s flesh, his independence lobbying which is never heard, since it is death to be severed from his source, a spiritual death acutely symbolised in the actual rigors of Nebuchadnezzar’s plight.

 

If it is easy to contemplate the fate of others, albeit with a deliverance to follow in due and true humility as with Nebuchadnezzar, it is for many far  easier not to do so. Since mercy’s  definitive thrust is where God has placed it, using personal example and vicarious death, with victorious life overwhelming even the sentence on sin, making life available for ever in ways of the  most simple and direct, rejection of this criterion, Jesus Christ, is final, fatal and  forever. It is in Him, as Paul records (Ephesians 1:10), that all is to be given place (cf.  Acts 17:31, 4:11-12).

 

 

DIVINE INTERVENTION COMES AS PLANNED:
FOLLY DOES NOT WANT IT

But IT COMES AT ITS TIME

 

It is time to ponder the developing situation before us, now, in broad overview.

 

God intervenes, as in the Exodus of Israel from Egypt, as with Daniel and his friends in Babylon, as with Joseph in Egypt, sometimes highly dramatically, and in cases quite numerous; and, at the same time,   He allows things to follow like the blown chaff, their own wayward course (Psalm 1 describes this). There is it appears, a time to act;  and there is a time to let things work themselves out, lessons for all, to be appreciated by some, learned by all. Even these are all considered (cf. Romans 8:28ff., Ephesians 1:11), and the scope for history in its own right, is zero. It is constructed in kinds, worked out by individuals and nations, overseen in those things which seemed impossible or unnecessary, but which happen; and it comes to its completion. Again, it is met directly by the Lord, in answer to prayer, in fulfillment of prophecy, in determinations innumerable (cf. Psalm 13(17-18).

 

The one case, when God directly acts,  enables man to realise in drama and with incisiveness, God’s power and His knowledge. The other, when He is patiently occupied in another way,  allows man to feel the thrust of his liberty, and to become the more accountable for so using it. The system allows action; the Lord immerses it with His own actions at will, and with wisdom. Thus the world is a place for exhibits, both of the follies of man and of the power of God; as well as for the grace and lovingkindness of man with the power of God within him, as distinct from the shallow and superficial substitute for the grand mercies of God, with which little man sometimes seeks to adorn himself, to his own praise, like praise for brown coal dust, that it is not black!

 

It may be, then, that Saddam Hussein, already devastatingly subjected to humbling circumstances, especially in the Gulf War, and the leader of an impoverished people, despite all their oil, through his wild adventurism, may yet form a parallel to Nebuchadnezzar. For his sake, as to the mercy and the enlightenment given to the king of old, one hopes so, though it would not at this present time seem likely that such would occur for such a man. Yet who would have thought it for Nebuchadnezzar, his so admired (formal, but not functional) predecessor!

 

Meanwhile, with his unusual victory at the polls, with the most delicate and one must say, sustained and perhaps even patient negotiation via General Colin Powell according to report, not least, Bush seems hopeful of a break-through at the Security Council of the UN, with a removal of the palace exclusion zone for the inspectors wishing to assess whether Hussein is dangerously at work. In what way might this, then, be ? It could well be, in view of the evidence, in seeking glories of the past in the present, in terms of world subduing, or at least regionally subduing weapons, to parade his equivalence to the fallen but once great (in wealth and pride) king Nebuchadnezzar.

 

There seems, according to report, hope for President Bush, meanwhile,  that there will be NO EMBARGO on the USA, to prevent it from making war on its own, against Iraq’s regime, if it deems it necessary. When would this be likely to appear necessary ? It would be in the event that the conditions which the United Nations is to make, for freedom and adequacy of weapons inspection, are not met. That is the liberty which appears to be in view for the USA. On the other hand, currently, it appears that the USA will have to at least consult first, with the UN, should Hussein fail to meet specifications.

 

That is a protocol, but agreement resulting from such consultation is not represented as a condition for subsequent war.

 

What will happen then ? The report, the chilling and quiet but burrowing report of David Scheffer a couple of years ago is well worth reading (see head of this chapter).

 

The war crimes attitude and amplitude of Hussein as there recounted is so like what one reads of Nebuchadnezzar, not in success, but in reckless seeming glory-seeking, that one must admit, in this psychological orientation there is some parallel. Alas perhaps for Hussein, the result of that feature in Nebuchadnezzar lay close to the divine decision concerning what should befall him. If then Hussein were in this to come to be somewhat parallel, what if the Lord made the result somewhat parallel ? While God’s actions are His own, asking for trouble is not a step normally to be commended.

 

Again, if Hussein were to receive one ounce of this mercy shown to King Nebuchadnezzar, he would be divinely graced indeed. However, though he may not really seem jihad-oriented, in that his religious views do not seem paramount, but rather  his glory orientation, and though he can even use the word ‘jihad’ on a poster, and in some of his rhetoric, yet his gusto for war seems as great as in the jihad case, and perhaps as little blessed. Who likes the grotesque corpse-creating, writhing making results of the destroyers of this world ? Who blesses the inane pretensions of those whose greatness lies in the gun, not in the goodness that holds it ? Certainly, he looses the term ‘jihad’ with a freedom which is fit to enflame those who imagine it either right or reasonable to go the jihad way.

 

His national victories are notably devastating in their deficiency which by his own speech ^*1 shows his error in religion! If his oppression can be called ‘victory’, it is but over the dead, and in the poverty of the living, apart from the aristocrats of his making or acceptance. He has been stalemated and beaten, and lost enormously. If this is victory, then black is white. Black for that however, has too much pigment. It is what it is.

 

 

CREATING DISORDER: CAN IT HAVE SPONSORS ?

 

Though some, even in the US, and especially in France, seemed to make much of Hussein in some former periods, admiring perhaps his part in delaying Iran’s movements of power and fabricated glory, and even at times his decisive power – for the world loves power and tinsel in due proportion, the true glory being unavailable for mere lust – yet the mood is assuredly changing. If indeed this led to no small degree, to his power, yet the power is inglorious before those whom it now threatens, and the victims which in Israel, he calculating envisages, and the rewards he gives for such murders.

 

In fact, the time now has come even for many of those who strengthened him,  to depart from all of this! A tiger snake could be admired by those not discerning, for its skin; but when it bites, it is less attractive. Wiser is he who watches its ways FIRST, and THEN decides what to make of them, in PRINCIPLE and in truth! If this had happened, instead of help coming from these two countries (fighters for example from France – Mirages, gas from Germany, tanks from Russia, supplies from the USA), then the present spuming and funing decade and more in Iraq, might never have happened at all.

 

It has happened, and it is time for those who will listen (like Nebuchadnezzar ? or perhaps sooner than in that fateful case ?), to realise that you cannot participate in evil, for advantage. God may mock the great by using them, and then disciplining them, in His overall display of truth for all; but man is wise to recognise that participation as allies with those unwise and drugged with false vision, is like taking the taxi driven by someone on ecstasy, or heroin. Is it not clear ? It applied to Iraq when it was so helped; and it applies to bodies expressly and definitively against the God of the Bible, now.

 

It was perhaps obvious to circumvent such thoughts then; it may seem so now. It does not make it right, or wise now, any more than it was then. If indeed, the USA and Britain had not so co-operated in war with Russia (explicitly against the God of the Bible as it was), then the Cold  War and all the immense  sufferings to multiplied millions, the huge radioactive pollution of the globe, might have been avoided. Pragmatists operated, where faith did not, and payment is now made! It has been clear, and it is clear. 

 

But then the Gospel is clear. If you follow wisdom there you arrive. Goodness has given freedom, but also its end when it has flourished in folly, been brandished in terror or subverted itself in hate, maimed its own life or wandered forever from its path, chaffing at truth, and foreign to all mercy.

 

Who however is following wisdom ? It is not alas this world, which will in time become the world that was, just as that to come, will become the only kingdom for man. At that, from the word of God we find that it will be for redeemed man, and with this, for the spirits of just men made perfect, the sons of true Royalty, bestride the tasks of their rest, and the joy of their Lord, resurrected, realised and restored, where they would be.

 

This end of Christ’s tour de triomphe (Colossians 1:19ff.), the arc de triomphe aloft as the resurrection, buttressed by the testimony the truth and its unique validity, constant verification, millenial consistency, it is like all the rest of God’s word: it is what will be. You do not need a dream; it is written in the book which does not err, in which the minds of men are analysed before they come, events are depicted before arrival, and the condition of this earth is exposed before it is fulfilled. (Cf. TMR Ch. 5, SMR Chs. 1,3,6, 10, 8-9, A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 15, *2.)

 

That is the way it is. Fascinating is the way it comes to pass, however complex. Jews out for discipline, out for the murder of the Prince of Peace, but brought back into their land for the faithful competence of God, who keeps His word, victorious to be established. Brought back, what then ? (cf. SMR Appendix A). Then they are in trouble to be harassed, harassed to learn to seek, seeking to find, finding to come back to their own Messiah. Surrounding nations in this extraordinary scenario, bunch for the kill, UN for the legal kill, others for the blood one.

 

What of that scenario, for their overthrow upon their return to their land, after so long a time ? As to that, it does not happen. The opposite happens, as predicted (cf. SMR Chs. 8  -  9). They prevail in mighty victories, despite their continuing failure to acknowledge the Messiah (as implied in Zech.  12:10, which comes later, and decisively in Ezekiel 36-37). SO a new way is tried. Perhaps they can be overthrown not in direct battle ? Worth a try ? Intifada ?

 

Meanwhile, a Hussein trumpets once more, not satisfied with his initial dabble with Nebuchadnezzar, as if intent on finding to the full what happens when your plans are to be imposed on the God of the Bible. He has suffered extravagantly. Once again, pretending the word ‘victory’ can somehow ameliorate defeat, he awaits his turn. He  will take on … whom will he not take on … perhaps then he will seek to take on … God ? and seek to alter the course of prophecy ? Alas, has Nebuchadnezzar no message for him, yet, not even now ?

 

This ancient Assyrian nation, now basically Iraq, was always one to meet its come-uppance, both in its own time and predictively. (Cf. Isaiah 36-37 for the day of its ruin of old; while Micah 5 specifies the same sort of disastrous result in a latter day scenario in the Age following the Messiah of 5:1-3,coming now to its culmination, as days do!).

 

So it comes; and so it goes, as prescribed. The scenario components, such agents, will they not learn ? In the case of Israel, their results are announced, like those of examinations, long before they ‘sit’ (Zechariah 12), and the restless interest of their enemies on re-writing God’s agreement with Abraham and later actions, is not a blessed one (cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4). Alas for the suffering they seek by such oblivion! This world has not been made to follow what you want, but what is the truth. 

 

If however they will not hear ? One more or less Nebuchadnezzar (the real triumphant grabbing kind), or Hussein (in decisive instances, the failing falling kind) is mere illustration. However, as illustrations go, they are very instructive. Read now that Dossier on War Crimes noted above: it is appalling, devastating, an immersion in horror.

 

Then, read on …

 

It is always, only the voice of God which is heard in the end. Many mistake a chapter of rebuke for the end; but the end goes as the way goes, just where it is declared to be. On the way, consult the biblical chapters: they are precise, as interpreted by … history. How many Ph.D’s might history be awarded for its exactitude in interpreting what God says, in what it is found to provide! But then it is God who works the control, history His palette (cf. Isaiah 41,44, 48, Ephesians 1:11).

 

Unwise is he who tries to seize the brush.

 

 

 

NOTE on the Disorder of Declamations in the Light

Of the Order of History and the Word of God

*1

Below you see some of the ballyhoo which Hussein projects as his indifferent or defeated past wars of recent date, are ‘glorified’: as if words could evacuate desolation and poverty of their reality.

It is interesting for this shows one of the sources of the jihad movements, especially in view of Hussein’s rewarding some of the killers for their murderous assaults on Israel. His reality of interest in Islam has been questioned in view of his extreme commitment to a Nebuchadnezzar style glory, and grandeur in history; but then perhaps he has an amalgam which, in the domineering language of jihad, is not too difficult to make.

Such language has been the work of word plus force since Muhammad invaded Mecca with force, with his Islam, submission, story, the erection of dreams and visions into objects of dedication, without verification, ground or cause (and when better exhibited, then contrary to evidential requirements (cf. SMR 1079ff.).. Endless seem to be his harangues to fight, to find heaven in fighting, to succeed in war, to overcome, to execute believers of another kind, to dominate, to render them servile in subservience, to kill if they sought liberty and so on. Concessions are sometimes made, to a degree suitable for second class citizens; but once let them seek liberty, and death!

Force made way for him, and the surrounding peoples felt the brunt of it. It was with force that his religion was founded and made dominating in Mecca; by this that it invaded Europe and Africa, destroying and devastating as it willed; and by it that current efforts are being made by many, in considerable affinity with the Koran and its provisions, to do the same in this world (cf. More Marvels … Ch. 4 for this and the above). Formally at least, Hussein is one of these, and bin Laden another (Red Alert … Ch. 8); and not few are the nations which have spoken concerning Israel in one only way, whether directly or otherwise: eliminate by force.

In this, Islam, the religion of submission, is in stark contrast with the beginnings of faith in Abraham, and his procedures in the way of it. It is in total contrast with Jesus Christ. Man was not made to have his neck ‘scissored’, as Hussein reportedly said of one former Minister whom he (admittedly) merely suspected (Fisk, Saddam Hussein, the last Great Tyrant), for disbelief alone. In the image of God, man needs to be persuaded. To be sure, God is the final persuader, but with reason, with reality and with verification on all sides (Isaiah 1:18, 48). To seek by force to intimidate is mere irrelevance. Truth has to be found, not given futile substitution in force (I Peter 3:15, 5:1ff.). In vain do some claim that they do not follow the force provisions, and yet are Muslim; this does not alter what it is, merely what they are, if the Koran is to be authoritative for them. If not, are they indeed Muslim ?

As to Saddam Hussein, then, below also you see his Darwinist rubbish, as if history made grandeur, instead of being rather, a stage for folly and virtue. So grandiose a nonsense as he declaims, is dismissed in that banal reality called fact, in TMR, SMR, A Spiritual Potpourri, Wake Up World…,  Stepping out for Christ … with many other works on this site. Hitler was impassioned with the same reckless greed, grasping, rasping words and fateful actions to despoil his nation, and ultimately himself, in his pathetic end. Both have failed, except to harass their own lands and many others; for neither succeeded in making fast even his own region, though Hitler had a good hold for some 5 years, not exactly a millennium.

As the ancients had it, Sic semper tyrannus! ^* In the end, there IS an end. This sort of stuff does not last. It is a defilement of man and a revolt against the very creation which God made, in and of man (cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 16, It Bubbles… Ch. 9, Things Old and New Ch. 1, SMR pp. 348ff., Ch. 1, Repent or Perish Ch. 7).

In Hussein’s address, you see the State, as in Communism, above the people, which it would need  to be in  view of their wretched estate as a people. What IS the State ? a dictator using force, and a phrase ? people using force and a government ? (cf.  Questions and Answers  7).

What government has right to usurp (if it were possible) the power of God and pretend that it is the truth! Does a gun make wrong right ? What then if someone grabs the gun from you ? or as in the case of World War II, for the love of freedom makes a better one, say in New Mexico ? Or is it right to use force ? and if so, how is strength right ? What makes it so ? (cf. The Other News 19). It is the mere misuse of categories, a reductionism of the most specious. Strength for a little before the grave is strength for a little, and no more; and right before God is right. What happens is not right, but a subject for investigation. Theft is not right; and riches resulting are not right. They distort the realities of ownership, and the more so, if the owner made the article concerned.

What has that to do with truth and righteousness ? So do they contradict themselves. If power were right, how could it say so ? And if it is not, why say it ? Correction is required precisely because of insurrection against truth, or mere failure in it. Nothing will or can change that.

A government is to govern, but not dictate at its mere will; not to kill on suspicion alone as in Iraq reported and that moreover as a PRINCIPLE (‘red revolution’ not ‘white’ was the phrasing attested), virtually making the face of fun at right; not to act as if to supplant the Almighty whose speech is invested and attested in the earth at every level and for every test, in His word written, and as His Son whose blood was shed, but whose hand did not shed blood!

This, mere pretension, it soon becomes not government but spiritual paranoia! There are many almighty gods in phrase; but only one is in fact. The rest are but walking idols, or their devotees. They speak like gods, God declares of them; but they will die like men (Psalm 82). “Will you still say before Him who slays you, ‘I am a god’ ?” He pertinently asks (Ezekiel 29:9). Slaying does not produce right as such, to be sure; but it does when it is final, evacuate any claim to have moral right in view of being a ‘god’, knowing from yourself and your own conceptions, whether adopted gratuitously from another, or yourself.

The power of your arm and armies may simply come up for judgment sooner, as at Nuremberg, or later, as in the Day of Judgment: a righteous result not based on illusion, but demonstrable truth. Before then, mercy must be found, for it does not waver; and found where it is to be found, not in distortions, contortions and phrase-mongering (cf. Isaiah 55). But let us return to Saddam Hussein.

If you consult the words of Nusseibeh, President of Al-Quds University as found in the “Jerusalem Cloakroom #125” from Yoram Ettinger, September 22, 2002, you see evidence of the collaboration of Hussein and the PLO and the plan to make of Israel part of “a Palestinian democratic secular state, stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean,” and thus exterminating the Jewish homeland, in their paternal little way. He was reportedly arrested for trying to help Hussein in the Gulf War, to improve the accuracy of his missiles.

 

Excerpt from President Saddam Hussein's Address

on the 14th Anniversary of the ‘Great Victory day’ August 8, 2002 

 

In the name of Allah, the Most Compassionate, the Most Merciful 

Nay, we hurl the Truth against falsehood, and it knocks out its brain, and behold, falsehood doth perish! 

Our Great People,
Our Valiant Men and Women,
Our Men of the Heroic Armed Forces,
Our Arab brethren,
Fellow Believers, Wherever you may be,
Peace Be Upon You.. 

Regardless of details, and of the nature of evolution between successive historical chapters, the human lesson derived is that the present of any nation or people cannot be isolated from its past; and that, according to this, nations and peoples have established their present, even though it might be distinguishable from their past in terms of advancement or retraction. 

Of the lessons also gained from the history of mankind is the fact that greed and arrogance, when combined, lead the oppressor to do injustice not only to others, but to himself as well; once this combination of greed and arrogance has misled him into a sense of undefeatable capability and power, as he takes the road of falsehood and aggression, committing the most heinous acts and proceeding from that sick imagination, to fall down the precipice and then into hell. 

One of the lessons of recent and distant history is that all empires and bearers of the coffin of evil, whenever they mobilized their evil against the Arab nation, or against the Muslim world, they were themselves buried in their own coffin, with their sick dreams and their arrogance and greed, under Arab and Islamic soil; or they returned to die on the land from which they had proceeded to perpetrate aggression. This has been the case with all empires preceding our present time. If this is what history tells us about its judgment on all times and eras of the past without exception, can we then describe those who are trying to ignore history now except in the words which no wise or prudent person would wish to be described with? 

This is the inevitable outcome awaiting all those who try to aggress against Arabs and Muslims. If anyone wants to learn from history, anyone with greed and arrogance combined in himself, he ought to remember this fact and think again. Otherwise, he will end up in the dust-bin of history, as twentieth century politicians world say. 

We always stood, and continue to stand, to learn from all such lessons, whenever the horns of aggression loomed large against us. We never faced, nor will face, any aggression relying basically on our force of arms, or our muscles and the muscles of our people, but rather on the strength of our faith, in the belief that Allah always helps the faithful and their just cause to prevail over injustice. 

Faith, according to this rule, is the decisive factor in linking the final outcome to the good of the people and the nation, and to self-satisfaction, with all that Allah Almighty shall extend of the means of strength provided by the faithful on the basis of His Divine instruction: "Extend to them all the strength you can provide…". We have always, along with our comrades, our people and our armed forces, asked ourselves: Can fathers and mothers discharge their parental duties towards their children when they are placed in chains under the burden of servitude? Will the children be but ungrateful apostates, if they see their fathers and mothers in chains, enduring the heavy burden of oppression, and never move to save them, break their chains, or surround them with their protective chests of faith, against all misguided evil aggressors? 

Do you know, brothers in the Arab homeland, who our father and mother are, we the Iraqis, our armed forces, and the leadership of our army and people? Our mother and father are the nation and the homeland. It is on the basis of these meanings and what we recall from the lessons of history, that we took our stand in 1980 to defend our people and nation against those who sought to enslave them, put them in chains, and then leave them to decay. 

 

It is most interesting to find, to one’s virtual amazement, and considerable admiration, that this Al-Quds University is the Arab University of Jerusalem! They suffer this within ? How many nations would ? It is one of the best features of Israel, that despite its reputation with Sharon for using some concerted self-defence against these frankly exploitative and destructive forces, which act to USE its liberties in order to REMOVE them (one of the usual methods with the unscrupulous, one often found in the three world conspiracies q.v.), yet this little land does tolerate considerable presentation of views. The Arab way so epidemically found, at the present, of muzzling with machine guns, or cutting cackle (as they might deem it), so well verbalised by the ruthless Hussein in the above speech, is destined to doom. It is not merely the misuse of religion to force religion (cf. SMR  pp. 50ff., 1186Aff., 65ff.), but the arrogance of making dumb what is not answered, as if bullets could kill the truth.

 

 

* Slightly paraphrased, this means: This is the way in which the tyrant always perishes. Latin is marvellous for brevity and can be conducive to wit. You can almost see the sad eye of a mother looking at her falsely dedicated and deluded son, when his time has come to cease in death, his tyranny, reflecting: Thus  … always … the tyrant!