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Chapter 1
NEWS 149
THEY MOVE BUT HE
IS STILL
IMMOVABLE, COME
and COMING BACK
April 2000 TV News
The advice of President Bush,
to Yasser Arafat, that he hopes that a certain message comes through to him,
'loud and clear', is a refreshing change. The advice in question ? That
violence MUST stop on the Palestinian-Israel front. While he by no means
implicated this quarter alone, he signalled heavily to it, since it has not
been particularly notable for resisting the thrust to violence, sometimes
glorying in it, as in Hamas, sometimes fostering it, at times anointing
children with it, at others, indiscriminate victims.
This, together with the US
VETO in the United Nations, on the concept or proposition of having a UN
mission or delegacy or investigation panel in the
The
The use of death of an
indiscriminate character among civilians to ... shall we say, adjust thinking
is perhaps reminiscent of Hitler invading
As for the present in the 'holy' violence, as it seems to be regarded by many, the expenditure of foreign lives for policy aims, in terms of land, is certainly an interesting priority set. Whether it is to be revealed soon as nothing less than a proxy imperialism for Islam, oil and Arab interests, by the onset of events of a catastrophic character, or is simply to continue as a sort of psychological experiment, to find the exact rate of tolerance, and what major errors Israel may be prodded in making, in order to secure world support for a new eviction notice from all or part of their minor holding of the once internationally promised Palestine, is an interesting question.
That of which there is no question is this: that the predicted surge into Israel WILL come, and its repulse will be just one more landmark, like the case of poor Pharaoh in the Exodus, Sennacherib of Assyria in the demolition of his army by divinely ordained and not Israel-directed means, or that of a different order, but quite as successful, that of Cyrus of the Medes and Persians, purring like a sports car on a scheduled journey, when he fulfilled the prediction of Isaiah, who named him long before the monarch's birth, as the one who would restore a remnant of Israel to its land. This he did, implementing the prophecy in name (his own) and in deed (their release), by duly dismissing the Jews who wanted to go home, with his blessing, and a treasure of restored temple objects, to return from captivity. The Cyrus Cylinder likewise attests his action.
But for the future ? what then of the impenitent fury to come, so often voiced from the quarters in Islam which major on this ? When this comes, from whatever source, with whatever words, it will form a part in a parade, an item in a list.
When this predicted surge
into
it will add one more to
these notable events,
selected and noted above, as
to many more.
Like a time-bomb the clock
ticks; it is not silenced by talk.
As to this confrontation,
that defends
That Exodus event of ancient times, it led to that testimony of which at times Israel was so fine a testimony (Isaiah 43:21), as in the day of David, and of which later, it became an unacceptable attestation (Isaiah 30:8ff.), leading to the Babylonian captivity, and in the day of Christ Himself, the "Israel" in whom God delighted (Isaiah 49:3-6), to nearly two millenia of Gentile occupation of the city of David (cf. Isaiah 65:12-15), through the predicted departure (Isaiah 49:7 cf. Deuteronomy 32) from the faith once for all delivered and never changed, but brought to fruition in the Messiah. This moreover was a departure by the nation, Israel, which for all that, as in Ezekiel 36-37, was brought back to the land unconditionally assigned (Genesis 17), with the word ringing in its ears "not for your sakes do I this", as the Lord prophetically attested His own concern to be faithful to what He says, to those to whom He uttered His word of promise. (Cf. SMR Ch. 9.)
So the world squabbles
about the
Such follies of imagination, in rebellion, are less only than the dismissive wave of the world-weary hand, to farewell God altogether, like thieves who, desiring a house for themselves, convince their own thoughts for a little while, that he is deceased.
God however not merely
CANNOT die, since He has for ever known all things, including Himself, and does
not change from what He would be (Malachi 3:6, Hebrews 13:8) - though, to be
sure He evacuated the format of Christ, which was a format killed indeed, to heaven,
from which this same Jesus will return in glory, He who died to rule, offered
Himself to save, to conclude the operation for one, for all. As to the nature
of His coming, after He has removed His own (Matthew 24:35ff., I Thessalonians
4), the specifications of that judicial return, Zechariah does not hesitate to
demarcate
You thought, He says, that I was altogether such a one as yourselves, but I will rebuke you.
"Now
consider this, you who forget God,
Lest I tear you
in pieces,
And there be
none to deliver.
Whoever offers
praise glorifies Me;
And to him who
orders his conduct aright,
I will show the
salvation of God"
- from Psalm 50:21ff..
· the death of mortal man,
· in himself, in his nations, his systems and his selfish aspirations,
· a sound without meaning, in his so frequently godless wanderings, manoeuvrings and machinations, one which nevertheless deplores that it finds no meaning while spitting in meaning's very face:
· man subject constantly to plague, impurity, lust of heart and folly of mind, to scourges such as Communism, still viciously afflicting the Chinese victims of its unholy surges, Darwinism and Freudianism, that crew of the confused, removing the very ground of truth while they assert it (cf. SMR pp. 610ff., Ch. 4 Part 1, Chs. 2, 3, 10),
For
these, the physical onsets which of course follow, are like traffic
accidents for a child who insists on walking, gay and abandoned, into the heart
of massed cars on a city centre.
We deal with no speculation
or theory, not suggestion or submission. God has spoken as has been attested
multiply with no overturning, for years on this site, and for many more before
it, as by pilgrims for generations and centuries. He has spoken on much, on the
Let Allah provide out of
his own hand, if he were there, the needs from the incredibly vast Moslem
resources of land and money, for the people of this religion. God has provided
for the Jews were He said. The zest of the world to strip the Jews from their
pitiful sliver of land in the
His power indeed is so
great that it was quite able to send His only begotten Son into the world (I
John 4:9,14, from His everlasting life in the form of God before this
(Philippians 2, I John 1:1-4, John 5:19-23, Things Old and New Ch. 2), to have HIM exposed, mocked and rejected - as
if Einstein were deemed not good enough for a Grade 1 maths. class - and then
overcome it all by a plan duly forecast a millenium earlier, and likewise
expose the entirety as part of that plan! (I Cor. 2:9, Acts
Yet infinitely worse it is,
than the maths. class case would suggest: since this is God and He as God
came to us, and He was killed by His kin, just as now He is ignored by so many
of those other nations, of the race of mankind which He made. This is a fever
of wanton, irrational incredulity, one which will be purged in the end only at
Armageddon. Here is the God-dismissive lust that has lasted since
Now the nations erect new citadels of unbelief (cf. News 125). They will fare no better. Pity laments the folly; but only repentance can find atonement in that same Christ, rejected by strategy, who nevertheless fulfilled the divine strategy, even through this rejection (Isaiah 49:7).
God cannot be altered,
surely one of the greatest glories imaginable, since His perfection is total,
in compassion, in mercy, in truth and in rule. Misrule is not His, but man's,
and the greater and the longer it lingers, the worse is the affair of heart,
misled mind and needless sacrifice. In Christ, as whom incarnate He appeared
(John
Reason requires it indeed (cf. SMR). It is not however, a substitute for it, but an index to it (cf. Romans 1:19ff., John 5:39ff.).
With heart and soul, the life must be found in Christ, energised by Him, re-created by His redemption, inspired by His sanctification, past all mere form and ceremony, so that faith having found Him, life flows from and back to Him, like the tides on the shore, the waters based, upheld and enabled by His power. Neither is vacuity virtue, nor formality function; no more can empty words of seeming be taken in place of spiritual testimony from reality. He who has the Son has life; and He who does not, lacks it. No amount of life-support systems in fake psychology or self-seeking strata of pseudo-spirituality are even relevant.
It is then that truth is
lovely, the will of God is wonderful, His plan is implemented in the waiting
life, the watchful heart, and His word is found true, "Delight
yourself also in Him, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4).
NOTES
As to that, for both the predicted event and the relevant perspective, see:
SMR Appendix A and SMR pp. 502ff., esp. 510ff., and
The Biblical Workman Chs. 1,
3,
Tender TImes for Timely
Truths Ch. 1,
Divine Agenda Chs.
3 and 8,
News 33, 34,
It Bubbles, It Howls ...
He Calls Chs. 1, 3, 7, also
The Frantic Millenium
and the Peace of Faith Ch. 10
Galloping Events Chs. 1, 2, 3, 4, 8,
News
14,
Little Things Chs. 1, 4, 6, 10).
*2
It is perhaps not entirely
strange that the place God appointed for the Temple that PORTRAYED His Son's
death, in symbol (Hebrews 8-10), which was precisely likewise the site of His
repudiation when for purposes of grace and truth, He came, God manifest in the
flesh, to that scene, to replace its symbols with His own sacrifice, the
earthly gallows, both of justice and truth, and of His own incarnation, should
have a certain significance. Auschiwtz is not without significance to the Jews.
Atrocity does not lose its name because it hides its face.