Chapter 10

 

THEY DO NOT TURN ASIDE, THESE ROBOTS

 

News 260

The Advertiser,  Feb. 8, 2003

 

An APERITIF

 

Ø     Before we look at pseudo-man, manoeuvrable ‘man’, that is, at engineered robotic agencies without life, soul or spirit, programmable like indoctrinated combatants, able to be more soulless than the most obsessively passionate jihad fanatic, bent on destruction of women and children, in part or whole, without regard to life, agony or other consideration than that of some guru or book without warrant^*1A, masquerading itself as if from God: let us look for one moment at man in the sight of God. Let us turn from this flood of alien execrations and calumniating cursings to the beauty of holiness in the sublime majesty of the living God.

 

 

There is no limit to the goodness of God, but there is a limit to man, as we saw in Ch. 9 above. Isaiah 57:15 tells us that God will not always strive with man, for the spirit would fail before him. Man is not exactly fragile, but in the tempests of judgment, in the toils of reality, when man is eking out his way in the light of truth, the very instrument can become twisted, like a bent ruler, the mind can become distorted and even glory in its fallen state, so that nothing measured is true. Where it is in the realm of the invisible, truth, validity, cogency, beauty, peace, majesty, humility, there can be a strange mixture: overweaning pride in one’s position, and complete confusion on its basis.

 

That, it is one of the fulfillments of Isaiah 57:15, reflected in the spoliations noted in I Timothy 4:2, and II Timothy 4:3, until the time comes that in the judgment of God, men come to be “speaking lies in hypocrisy”.

 

In such times, you may find impending or actual, indeed, such  judgments as are found in Ezekiel 21, which follows on the great graciousness (over generations) displayed in Ezekiel 20.

 

People can actually become hardened in self-sufficiency and a sort of striving, arriving, complacent spiritual self-assurance, built on a divine mercy both ignored and despised when it is raised to their view, so that when the actualities of Ezekiel 21 strike, they are amazed. How many nations have been amazed! How horrified was Jerusalem when judgment, long delayed on inequity, murder, false sexual and spiritual passions, foul ethics, corruption and cruelty, at last struck.

 

From Micah, they had been warned, and as century was added to century, how impelling the word of the prophets. How little they cared is shown by the treatment accorded Jeremiah, set in a stinking, sinking well, ready to be enclosed in the foul mud, but rescued by a eunuch who, having pity and no little courage, brought him up. The results ? Read the book of Lamentations.

 

How they lamented! “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by ? Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow, which has been brought upon me, which the Lord has inflicted in the day of His fierce anger.” Alas, was it nothing to them who passed God by, in successive generations, with here a revival under Jehoshaphat, under Hezekiah, under that fresh and invigorating breath of wind, Josiah the great reformer, and then went on their way. Professionally ignorant were the deluded priests, hazily unhallowed the confused prophets, delighting in gain (Ezekiel 34, 21-22), spurning spirituality, awry from all godliness! As to the people, was it not as Jeremiah put it, from the Lord! (Ch. 5).

 

·      “ ‘But this people has a defiant and rebellious heart;

o     They have revolted and departed.

 

·      ‘They do not say in their heart,

o     ‘Let us now fear the Lord our God,

o     Who gives rain, both the former and the latter, in its season.

o     He reserves for us the appointed weeks of the harvest.’

·      ‘Your iniquities have turned these things away,

o     And your sins have withheld good from you.

 

·      ‘For among My people are found wicked men;

o     They lie in wait as one who sets snares;

o     They set a trap;

o     They catch men.

 

·      ‘As a cage is full of birds,

o     So their houses are full of deceit.

o     Therefore they have become great and grown rich.

 

·      ‘They have grown fat, they are sleek;

o     Yes, they surpass the deeds of the wicked;

o     They do not plead the cause,

o     The cause of the fatherless;

o     Yet they prosper,

o     And the right of the needy they do not defend.

 

·      ‘Shall I not punish them for these things?’ says the Lord.

 Shall I not avenge Myself on such a nation as this?

 

·      ‘An astonishing and horrible thing

o     Has been committed in the land:

 

·      ‘The prophets prophesy falsely,

o     And the priests rule by their own power;

o     And My people love to have it so.

 

·      ‘But what will you do in the end ?’ “

 

(bold added).

 

What indeed! It is here that one sees in the following Chapter from that of our study in Ch. 9 above, Ch. 22, such words as these (22:16):

 

·      “Swords at the ready!

Thrust right!

Set your blade!

Thrust left!

Wherever your edge is ordered!”

 

It is here also that we read that classical words which laugh at probability and elevate morality to a position of judgment. It is the case of the King of Babylon, envisaged in consideration of his next step of conquest. Where will he go to ravage savagely, to destroy, to assert his majesty and seek his greatness ? At the parting of the ways he stood.

 

They make an augury, but it is considered a false one, improper, astray. No, they throw all that away and decide to attack Jerusalem anyway (Ezekiel 21:21ff.).

 

Why ? What is the causative element for this decision ? It is “because He will bring their iniquity to remembrance, that they may be taken.” It would seem the capital ‘h’ is fitting here, since the original does not include this information one way or the other. The LORD brings to remembrance what HE has been remembering in the massif of their immorality, a proverb for all time, enshrined in the parable of Ezekiel 23, and exhibited like befouled washing to the world, as in Ezekiel 22.

 

How sad that when confidence was high, self-esteem leaping in the best psychological manner, they did not consider God, who even to the very last, was holding out a way of escape (cf. Jeremiah 17), just as you see in in the midst of the impending judgments, at Revelation 22:17. WHOEVER THIRSTS, let him take of the water of life freely! It is dolorous in the extreme, that so many REFUSE to take the water (if only they were not so fascinated with mirage which is no water), because they WILL not take it freely! As a gift! they chafe. Yet this is the ONLY way it comes!

 

That, then is our apéritif, our entrée, our preliminary preparation. Let us move nearer, now, to home and consider what warnings, what developments, what parallels we may find.

 

ROBOTIC DEVICES IN STORE EN MASSE

FOR THE MILITARY,

 

says recent News

 

and GRACE STILL IN STORE FROM THE LORD

 

 

1.    SOME EXAMPLES

BEFORE EXAMINING

A WORD FOR OUR DAY

 

This is the MASS for the MILITARY, and judging by the report, it is a horrid one! In an article headed, “War without death” in The Advertiser, Feb, 8, p. 29, we find some of the work of Boeing and General Dynamics, with its Eagle Enterprise division.

 

Future wars, we are told, would involve masses of robots dropped from aircraft, these too unmanned in a human conservation role for the attacker; and this could be linked with a human devastation role for the robots. Almost as if smiling with the teeth of war, the statement comes that this could involve “little if any” domestic opposition to such a crusade (or parade, or insurgency, or territorial aggrandisement or empire nascency), for few would be killed in the realm of the technocratic power dispatching these robots, it is thought.

 

It might be added however that the possibility of early or eventual retaliation might arise, unless of course the slaying were envisaged as epochal! Then of course, as in the earlier atomic days, there might be questions of first strike! In history, somebody often manages to have either a massive overdose of some sense of human or national glory, direct or indirect as in the case of jihad (cf. More Marvels Ch. 4), paranoia or both.

 

Terrorists might have other ideas that simply suffering such assaults,  of course, but when the financial controls of Revelation 13, so often augured in various ways already (cf. SMR 906ff.) come into force, there will be no small difficulty for such as they! These controls, so much readied in the plethora of cards instead of paper, electronic financial media instead of tellers, numbers instead of people for reference, the diminution of personal access and the magnification of keyboard finance, which can be broken or pirated by law or otherwise, are looming like a tornado, clearly visible on the horizon. Meanwhile, the townsfolk keep busy, for is it not quite a little way away ?

 

On the other hand,  the view is put that many wars would not start, in view of the loathsome horror of such heartless armies of relatively unsquanderable robots. Unfortunately, that view is true only in part, for if there is one thing that history teaches in this arena, it is that there is a species of summary desire which quickly inhabits many, when equipped or thought to be equipped, so that they try out not the new vacuum cleaner, but the nation cleaner-up! This sense of experiment, may be imbued with hatred, revenge or simple self-congratulation.

 

In such ways, victory, triumph, glory and hegemony often call the ‘elect’ of the race to dominate, until they join the dusty battalions of others of the army of pomp, from past years. Ezekiel , given to speak of the demise of Egypt as a Great Power, had these words (31:13-18):

 

·      “ ‘On its ruin will remain all the birds of the heavens,

And all the beasts of the field will come to its branches—

So that no trees by the waters may ever again exalt themselves for their height,
nor set their tops among the thick boughs,
that no tree which drinks water may ever be high enough to reach up to them.

 

·      ‘For they have all been delivered to death,

To the depths of the earth,

Among the children of men who go down to the Pit.’

 

·      “Thus says the Lord God:

·       ‘In the day when it went down to hell, I caused mourning. I covered the deep because of it. I restrained its rivers, and the great waters were held back. I caused Lebanon to mourn for it, and all the trees of the field wilted because of it. I made the nations shake at the sound of its fall, when I cast it down to hell together with those who descend into the Pit; and all the trees of Eden, the choice and best of Lebanon, all that drink water, were comforted in the depths of the earth.

·        ‘They also went down to hell with it, with those slain by the sword; and those who were its strong arm dwelt in its shadows among the nations.

·       ‘To which of the trees in Eden will you then be likened in glory and greatness?

Yet you shall be brought down with the trees of Eden to the depths of the earth;

you shall lie in the midst of the uncircumcised, with those slain by the sword.

This is Pharaoh and all his multitude,’ says the Lord God.”

 

 

In the following Chapter, Ezekiel 32, at 29-32, we have this further perspective as the LORD attests what He has resolved, in the customary prophetic review, and reflects on what He is about to do. This is seen with security from the Sovereign, whose works to Him are as done, before history notes them (Isaiah 46:10). Note especially the line below, made bold in terms of divine CAUSATION in this matter!

 

“ ‘There is Edom,

Her kings and all her princes,

Who despite their might

Are laid beside those slain by the sword;

They shall lie with the uncircumcised,

And with those who go down to the Pit.

 

‘There are the princes of the north,

All of them, and all the Sidonians,

Who have gone down with the slain

In shame at the terror which they caused by their might;

They lie uncircumcised with those slain by the sword,

And bear their shame with those who go down to the Pit.

 

‘Pharaoh will see them

And be comforted over all his multitude,

Pharaoh and all his army,

Slain by the sword,’

Says the Lord God.

 

‘For I have caused My terror in the land of the living;

And he shall be placed in the midst of the uncircumcised

With those slain by the sword,

Pharaoh and all his multitude,’

Says the Lord God.”

 

Overall, it is as in Isaiah 44:24-25, where God specifies His intent, and when it is secure past all relenting, for He always seeks mercy: then it is made firm and nothing will change it.

 

“Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,

And He who formed you from the womb:

 

‘I am the Lord, who makes all things,

Who stretches out the heavens all alone,

Who spreads abroad the earth by Myself;

 

‘Who frustrates the signs of the babblers,

And drives diviners mad;

Who turns wise men backward,

And makes their knowledge foolishness;

 

‘Who confirms the word of His servant,

And performs the counsel of His messengers;

 

‘Who says to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be inhabited,’

To the cities of Judah, ‘You shall be built,’

And I will raise up her waste places;

 

‘Who says to the deep, ‘Be dry!

And I will dry up your rivers’;

 

‘Who says of Cyrus, ‘He is My shepherd,

And he shall perform all My pleasure,

Saying to Jerusalem, ‘You shall be built,”

And to the temple, ‘Your foundation shall be laid.’ ”

 

There is a resolution which once discharged into the atmosphere of His word, and laid in the concrete of declaration in His name as His intent, can be distinguished from the words of historians, the prognostications of the wise and the hopes of the ambitious. How is this done ? It is so contradistinct from other things because it ALWAYS happens, and the Lord sees to it that the gap between His word and that of contestants, spiritual provocateurs and the like, is that between the highest eminence and the lowest hell.

 

Cyrus of course, to take the case in point above, that King of the Medes and Persians,

 

v          did come,

v          did set the Jews free,

v          did write his Cyrus Cylinder which did set forth his intention to do so,

 

and these things did come to pass,

 

v          not only the destruction of Jerusalem as foretold by Jeremiah,

v          the use of Babylon for this destructive purpose, as foretold by Isaiah,

v          but the deliverance from Babylon by Cyrus,

v          as likewise foretold by Isaiah,

v          whilst the 70 year exile of Jeremiah’s declaration, this also came to pass.

 

What DOES NOT PASS, it is quite simply the word of God, as Peter acutely tells us in I Peter 1:24-25. Christ declared that not a jot (smallest letter) or tittle (smallest routine difference between two letters, a little pointed ‘horn’ that is added to one letter so that it is distinct from another) will pass TILL ALL IS FULFILLED! How fruitless is science, if its methodology is carefully kept from this WORD It is not so with a DNA code, which they labour to disentangle from its coiled complexities so artfully composed, but a PLAIN HEBREW and GREEK text, blatantly open, universally obvious, for millennia published to the world! There is, quite simply, no excuse.

 

It would then be timely to survey what JOEL has to say on our REPORT of ROBOTS, in his day, over 3000 years ago. His coverage has for many years delighted and incited the imagination of the author, and it is now that the events are becoming more concrete for inspection, less demanding in conception!

 

 

1.   JOEL’S LEGACY FROM THE LORD, TO OUR DAY

 

In a little, we shall plan to survey the newspaper report of recent military, robotic technology, and what it is planned to do. Meanwhile let us see the prophecy of Joel in this connection.

 

Joel deals at first with a locust plague, in Ch. 1. It is dramatised, but our own mouse plague of some years ago, reminds us that drama has little need of invention in such cases: it is openly self-declared. There is to be a progressive devastation from this locust source (Joel 1:4). To a fast, they are exhorted to turn, for a “fire has devoured the open pastures” (1:20), and this account is repeated.

 

We are, in the midst of this rank series of (relatively) minor, but still ravaging judgments (they are not destroyed as a nation, though greatly impoverished), told of the day of the Lord. It is not A day; it is THE day of the Lord. It is “a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness”. We are therefore reminded of the epochal judgment on Egypt at the time of Israel’s so famous Exodus.

 

Now however a clearly new element enters. We are reminded of Daniel 12:1 which imparts in the name of the Lord, that

 

“there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation… and at that time, your people shall be delivered.”

 

In context, this is the end of the prophecy of Daniel, and is in conjunction with the realm of the general resurrection and eternal judgments, for its dramatic topography!

 

 What then is this new element in Joel 2 ? It is this, in words close to those of Daniel, somewhat in form and mightily in force. The famous translator and commentator Keil, in his commentary on the Old Testament with Delitzsch, renders verse two here as follows.

 

·       “A day of darkness and obscurity, a day of clouds and cloudy night: like morning dawn spread over the mountains, a people great and strong: there has not been the like from all eternity, nor will there be after it to the years of generation and generation. Before it burns fire, and behind it flames flame: the land before it as the garden of Eden, and behind it like a desolate wilderness; and even that which escaped did not remain to it.”

 

From eternity backwards, history has known nothing like this, which is to come. Afterwards, you could not find the like to the years as long as you wish. It is unique in all history. Its devastation is not merely vast, but the manner of it is excruciatingly impersonal, imperiously disregarding man and his ways, pushing without apparent vulnerability, crowding and quashing they come, these strange and spectacular species that act as if alive, and yet seem to lack the very weaknesses of flesh. Of this we read in a passage taken from Joel 2:6-10.

 

 

·       “Before them the people writhe in pain;

All faces are drained of color.

They run like mighty men,

They climb the wall like men of war;

Every one marches in formation,

And they do not break ranks.

 

“They do not push one another;

Every one marches in his own column.

Though they lunge between the weapons,

They are not cut down.

 

”They run to and fro in the city,

They run on the wall;

They climb into the houses,

They enter at the windows like a thief.

The earth quakes before them …”

 

Keil’s rendering of verses 7-8 will help, in that it is graphic:

 

·       “They run like heroes, like warriors they climb the wall; every one goes on its way, and they do not change their paths. And they do not press one another, they go every one in his path; and they fall headlong through weapons, and do not cut themselves in pieces. They run about in the city, they run upon the wall, they climb into the houses, they come through the windows like a thief.”

 

It appears that in some way this action is serving God, but as we reflect on what He had to say about Egypt, and His own work in securing these downfalls in due time, perhaps after generations of patience, we must realise that by no means does this imply that they are specifically in alliance with God. Thus, Babylon was an enemy, as was Assyria, but God used both to bring His judgments  on Israel, before judging them both! (cf. Isaiah 14, Isaiah 37ff., Jeremiah 50-51).

 

It might be well to reflect also, that being ‘in alliance with God’ has nothing to do with His necessary power. With God, NOTHING will be called impossible; but it has MUCH to do with the outcomes for those concerned. A wife may be in alliance with a bold warrior, her husband, or married to his enemy. It is not what she does in the battle which counts at the onset, but where her alliance lies has much to do with the results.

 

In view of this coming judgment, this unique thing from all eternity which is scheduled for appearance in its time, this “day of the Lord,” we do well to ponder its end (Joel 2:11), for the Lord gives His voice before His great army, “for strong is He who executes His word.”

 

As to this phrase itself, it is necessary to consider Joel 2:31, quoted by Peter at Pentecost, where “the day of the Lord” refers to the actual end-of-Age judgment before which dread hour for the ungodly, people are to call upon the name of the Lord. Thus the term found in the earlier part of Joel 2 is paralleled later in the same chapter, and in the same tenor, style and sense of ultimacy for the flesh which loiters in this world. It is the “great and terrible” day, out of which and the environments of its terror, those who “call on the name of the Lord”, who is one Lord and not another! (cf. Exodus 20), will be saved.

 

Never from eternity, we recall, was there a day like this, nor does one arrive like it from generation to generation.

 

v          What then are the dramatically, though tersely described devices in view, as noted in Joel 2:6-10 ?

 

v          These are precisely robotic.

 

They act in some ways with an address and determination, a specific targeting of victims and the like, as if men; but their appearance is not that of men, and their vulnerability is not that of men. That is just what robotic devices are.  These are to be instruments of terror, of judgment and of overwhelming force as the final judgment scene comes into focus, and before the Lord actually sits in judgment. Locusts remind one of these things, in their smothering numbers, their ceaseless insistence, their devastating thoroughness; but these devices are not susceptible to death, like locusts, being merely engines of devastation, without life, but with plan and purpose in some way bent upon them.

 

This, is it not the way with robots! But what is happening NOW to forward such things, as a preliminary ? Why what would be more appropriate than this: TO MAKE THEM!

 

 

2.   THE NATURE OF THE CURRENT MILITARY PREPARATION FOR LOCUST-LIKE NUMBERS OF OSTENSIBLY INVULNERABLE DEVASTATORS

 

We turn now to the report in The Advertiser, February 8, 2002.

 

Let us take for illustration of the trend and preparation,  the Stryker of General Dynamics, and consider some of its capacities; but first we need to realise that its size is that of a small sports utility vehicle. It can SCOUT, and with this, SEARCH and DESTROY. It takes, we read, robotics to a new level.

 

It can detect enemy targets to 3 km. distant, and on receiving orders from the command post in its remote fastness, can launch Javelin anti-tank missiles. For eminently dangerous missions, its role is to replace … people!

 

Thus it is equipped “with an array of sophisticated sensors, infra-red cameras and images gathered by satellites updated by a highpower computerised mission planner 10 times a second.”

 

Referrring back to Joel, this gives the sense which we have already seen in this prophecy here,  of directness, protectedness and zealous, purposeful continuance! Satellite reinforcement to the data bank ten times per second is rather quick, even for a man, and facilitates the element of surprise, the sense of the overpowering as in Joel! A quotation from Arniss Mangolds of Foster-Miller’s military robot division is so apt to our present point that it seems best to cite it as given in The Advertiser’s report:

 

Ø    ‘When you see a robot coming down (on the battlefield), it’s interesting and even if it has a weapon on it, maybe it’s a little scary and you give it a little respect. But if you’re standing somewhere and see 10 robots coming at you, it’s scary.’

 

This is precisely the feeling evoked as one reads Joel: that it is a terrifying, a remorseless, and an inveterate foe that is coming, as insensitive to fear as locusts are, and as determined, yet without feeling the emotion, merely fulfilling the purpose for some reason. The reason, in this robotic case, would be clear. It would be the reason of the controller in his safe stronghold, well away from exposure to the easiest forms of retaliation. If you were in trench warfare and a group of 10 charged at you, then you could at least duck and weave, destroying their advancing forces in measure, and if others were with you, in concert; and however unlikely it might be that you would succeed, it would not necessarily be emotionally draining. You just do it.

 

In the robotic case however, their flanks are not open, their disposition is not easily deterred; their ‘intelligence’ is hidden from you, and not near!

 

With the Stryker, there is planned to be an assortment of other vehicles, from land or air, all unmanned. This provides the sense of overpowering multitude exhibited in Joel’s prophecy for the “day of the Lord”, yes that same “day of the Lord” noted later in this very chapter, as the finale and terminator for the history of our Age!