CHAPTER 6

THE AGE IS AGEING

                                           Taiwan and The Plan

New York and Jerusalem

News 197
News Radio

Last Week-End Feb 2002
 

PART I

Just join Formosa, now Taiwan, with China! Just let the burrow to which Chiang kai-Shek retreated, this island,  Taiwan,  to which Chinese mainland economic prosperity appeared so signally to move: let it be open to China and look, is it not well!

So seemed to come the ideas of ex-President Clinton, fresh from strange revelations to the Senate, of which he once made an interesting remark. Soon, he was reported to say, they could no more stir with interest in the matters of his life.

Now he,  however, is stirring with interest in the matters of Taiwan's life.

Why ? On a world tour in which his flat lecture fee has been thought to be some $300,000, according to The Australian, Monday, Feb 25, 2002, he has unleashed something of what he deems a fitting movement for the world.

The really interesting thing about the report of his sentiments on Taiwan, was this: that it was to be a-political. Politics was the thing which did not apparently need to be brought into it. See their UNION, the mainland with the island, politics apart!

You might as well say, where in FACT, Communism rules, with its hideous irrational, wholly anti-verified rules of thumb about human society, its absolutist tyranny over the human spirit with its dispirited movements of spirit about no spirit, its utter follies about the insignificance of the individual, in terms of the private thoughts, later publicised, of an individual, called Marx, and so forth (see Index Communism)... YOU MIGHT AS WELL SAY THAT STARS ARE NOT SIDEREAL.

You might, to follow Alice in her own Wonderland, as well say that mathematics does not count, that voice is not heard, that sight is not seen, that frogs do not croak or that the square root of minus one is an excellent number to designate your bank balance.

To join together in the interests of that wonder child of the twenty first century, UNITY
(and see what the 20th century did with it^*1), delightful! How wonderful: CHINA united again! the burrow and the fox as one again, the hound with the hare unharried! Does it not make the eye drop some moisture, the lower lip quiver (an alternative to the stiff upper one of British fame) ... ?

NOT perhaps for those who being harried, even sought to the death by a godless, reason-defying, debased dereliction of humanity, substituting man for god and nothing for God, one showing it in ways anything but nothing, in incarcerations innumerable, affronts unthinkable, abuses to arouse pity, enhance concern to the uttermost! Not for those who sought a better life in an off-shore Island called Formosa and now crowned Taiwan.

The world has tended to view it, this Island, perhaps, as less of a market (though far more vibrant that the mainland), less populous, less profitable than mainland China, and so has visited upon it various debasements, insults as if its being smaller in some way made it less significant. Should it really be recognised at all ? This even seemed a real question to those who distanced Taiwan and embraced China.

In Truman's day, Taiwan was a place to defend! Again and again, over the years, US naval units have moved into the straits, to protect Taiwan, which flourished and grew apace, with nearer approximations to democracy arising, and some reminder of the near hell on earth being donated by the illusionist visionaries of vacuity, on the mainland. (It IS hard to have a meaningful vision when matter rules the waves! cf. SMR Ch. 3).

Now Clinton has other ideas for it. He is not the only one. Why do not all the things, like pepper and salt, which are so VERY different (I mean you can tell just be sniffing) get together! RIch and poor, pinioned and free, high and low, moving this way and that: what a wonder it would be!

It is normally called rubbish, for these things DO get together in one grimy, debased, disintegrating, increasingly meaningless offal of the universe. Their oneness in the end is undeniable, given time.

However pepper has a certain je ne sais quoi, grapes in their juices (some of us prefer non-intoxication as a plank) can have certain savours, dances, musics, topics, tomes, themes and approaches, perspectives and visions, arts and architecture... these have variety! Oh for a world with ONLY glass and steel office buildings ? Not really. They have their point of course, but so does the Gothic, the Corinthian, the Georgian, the Cape Cod ... It depends on the purpose of the structure, on the vision back of it, the imagination in it, the functionality, its spirit, for whom it functions and on many other things, does it not!

The need for unity is really, in this sort of setting, just the obverse of the need for disunity. It is just a question of UNITY WITH WHAT, and DISUNITY FROM WHOM!

The unity of the flesh with its philosophies (which amusingly NEVER agree, and love to show this of one another over the centuries), lusts and glamour, pride and potions, luxuries and lotions, dreams and desolations (well, look at that 20th century, in fact look just here) is that great dream which Satan instilled at the first, Babel exemplified (Genesis 11), Babylon lusted for, Alexander died for (being the Great), at a very young age, vacating the international togetherness so recently created by his exploits in the guise of a dead body and a spirit re-consigned to God who made it. This is the unity which Rome loved, both in the Empire and the oddly named Holy Roman Empire, which Hitler yearned to achieve (with suitable divisions and diversifications within, special reference: Aryans), Communism toasts and Satan boasts. It never comes. It can't do so. Godless, it is a dream without legs.

Man without God has only one unity, deception. Since he is NOT without God but has only the capacity to deceive himself, in his birth without his permission, death without his consent, accident without his knowledge, events beyond his control, equipment without his comprehension (notably his spirit which many do not even KNOW about, though using it continually^*2) , it is a pathetic delusion, but strong enough for a speedy walk into the various oblivious, traumas and confusions which often pass for politics, education and vision.

As he tries harder and harder with the power gained from ever increasingly knowledge of techniques and decreasing wisdom on their deployment, harder than nails, more diffuse than mist, man is drawing ever nearer to the end of his insurgent radical liberties, which always stop, since they have to stop, at his self. It is given, a datum.

He serves himself, without God, without His society, without even the choice of himself, and he serves with his visions (the willing directors), his lusts and his cunning, his capabilities and his yearnings, his burnings, strivings and turnings, his confusions, the product of drunkenness of the soul (cf. Ephesians 4:17-19, Romans 1). He lusts for power, for prestige, for being better, and is worse.

As all this progresses (even if mathematically, the spiritual direction is regress), Taiwan becomes merely the symbol of sacrifice of individuality, value and productivity. It MUST go, the world says, because it is so very different. SO too must Irish Protestantism, because it is not ONE with all the rest, and in a while, though the world will be both astonished and incredulous, must Romanism. That, for the same reason, in this leit-motif of the human opera: it is not ONE.

It wants all to be one under IT (him, the pope). The world loves to have the sacred symbols so long as they are irrational and absurd, or merely optional, but it will NOT be told. Hence Revelation 17-18 has to happen (cf. SMR pp. 946ff., Beauty of Holiness Ch.   4,  Pitter Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch.   1, Biblical Blessings Ch. 2). Of course the beast will buck her Romanist, regal highness, when the time comes. That is written. It will be. Many may secretly or openly want to have it the other way around, and for a time in the Middle Ages of such gaunt and haunting deafness to humanity and glorification of man, they moved that way, soon even to the point of allowing him to use the name of God for himself! (cf. SMR pp. 1032ff.).

It looked as if it might go that way. However it did not. The deception is not sufficiently subtle, and too obviously partial. Not all like miracles without performance, ceremony without licence or lordliness without authority. They have a taste for something else.

What precisely ? Certainly they want deception, or they would not have ceased to follow God! (cf. Romans 1). Yet it must be something which at least puts forth a presence, an aura, a mirage of being ALL for ALL. It must seek to unite the rich and the poor, the free and the bound, the wise and the foolish with some wonder of MAN's ACHIEVEMENT, bare, ultimate man, worshipping himself. In the end, the crass clownishness of it all will become apparent as

the "man of sin",
that ultimate of oneness, perhaps epitomising man in himself through various marvellous devices (as in Revelation 13:13-15),
that prestige product,
the ultimate prelate,
shows himself that he is god!

It is a true case of eating the fruit of your own doings (as in that glorious exposition of exposure in Proverbs 1), and that is the end. Thinking to be wise, they become so foolish that their very children could correct them (cf. I Corinthians 1:18-25, Romans 1:20-22). Of course it cannot last, and so in their white heat of delusion, the emblem is destroyed, the enmity is exposed, the delusions decimated and the whole political cancer of man in spiritual madness seeking to overcome and deny God is brought to its funeral (Revelation 19:19ff., II Thessalonians 2:4ff.). Who will attend such a funeral, voluntarily, for who by then will not have felt something of its mad lust for power, place and profusion of mankind, in the interests of rebellion against truth, as if it could make it, without its aid!

This, then, is the end of the line for bringing in a magnificent human unity - it is so profitable - so that in black and white, black becomes white. (But of course, it doesn't really, as Alice in her Wonderland would have been quick to point out in her inimitable disregard of domination!).
 
 

PART II

However, to keep to the week-end's news, Hilary Clinton has done rather better in Israel, this time, in her speech.

Visiting the pizza place ruin, that bizarre bazaar of Arab terrorism, she condoled. Looking at the numerous such cases, as reported to her by the Major, she was roused. Arafat is responsible! that was her reported dictum. THIS, she is stated to have asserted, is TERRORISM. She evinced empathy from New York (where after all she is Senator), for after all that city suffered, and the cases are parallel; now they are nearer in heart, in feeling for the people of Israel who suffer, they also, from Muslim^*3 fundamentalism^*4 . This seems to have been at least part of the message.

Although of course, the News commented that she seemed to have lost her empathy for the Palestinians (and in saying this, they were far more restrained than is the common glut of news oblivion to the actual issues), the fact is deeper.

Actually, it is the Palestinian Occupying Body which is in view, not the Occupied Territories. Not only was Palestine promised to Israel in 1917, and 1919, in national and international agreement, but she did not get more than a tiny fraction of it. Not only is she left with a premature baby, if you will, instead of the robust land designated for her, but even THAT! is not sacred! No, it too must be harassed, though it be in the humidi-crib, in intensive care.

What a baby is this! The world seems to want it dead at any cost. Born in a day (May 1948), this new nation, this antique renovated, this exiled restored, this dumped people brought back, this Israel is pursued by the world to the point, that though to be sure, the nation is ITSELF still asking for (and duly getting) trouble -  because of its rejection of the Lord who made man, who came as predicted in their own book, which duly and truly indicated the place, time and nature of His advent in the form of man thousands of years ahead of His coming (cf. SMR Ch. 9, incl. pp. 886ff.) - nevertheless the thing appears obsessive.

It is not its decline from God which the world finds unacceptable; rather it appears its origin as a people BECAUSE of Him! Their history is all sketched out in the Bible, which is old, very old, and new very new, and it is embarrassing to the secular man to be thus confronted with a people not merely a show-case for God (as they once were, Isaiah 43:21), but an object lesson in His discipline. With this world, all this does not go. It is not progressing in the current of regress, but denoting rather a reality to which its ear is shut. Not so many show the empathy of the US Senator, from that highly Jewish city, New York.

Israel MUST die! and so say all of us! is the normal invective of disestablishment accorded to the New Jewish State which in its very beginning and style of sudden arrival is quite miraculous (as clearly demarcated millenia ago,  in Isaiah 66:8ff.^*5), as it has been  in its continuance under the deadly barrage of oil money thrown at it in the form of weaponry, not for its use, but for its devastation.

Also contributing to such an end, has been to its harassment, through Russian money, before that that economy itself ignominiously collapsed in the early 1990's, and the rising tide of Islamic money, with jihad consciousness and not merely land-grabbing desire. Yes, and it has continued to live, this Israel, this site of God's ancient call, this place of His incarnation, of the Lord's crucifixion, this site of His power on earth, under the assaults of emotional hatred, born not least of its religious past and clearly prophetically fulfilling present.

Israel ?

It could not be; yet it is. It is that which is above all, to this world, unacceptable.

It could not continue, yet it does. That makes the solecism the more flagrant!

All this had to be (Zech. 12-14, Luke 21:24 cf.  SMR Ch. 9, Appendix A etc.), and it is. This is inexcusable to the febrile secular mind.

THAT is the ultimate reason. Israel has history, pedigree, portent, prophecy, and it is all stated in advance. Since man now, as so often before, is moving towards the concept of being his own god, this is in the last degree philosophically indigestible. The fact that it is equally inescapable makes it merely so much worse. It is like organic evolution: the fact that that dogmatic delusion is now little better than a comedy, gradualism long since hijacked to the circus, and the sudden arrival a mere mouthing of creation without phrasing, makes it also a grief indescribable. Bluster is becoming less and less becoming from the wide mouths of its empty cannons (cf. Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 13, Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming
Chs.  4 and  6).

It is even so with Israel, in its own dimension. The world not WANT it to be so. Of course, Islam and oil constitute an additional reason. Israel appeals neither, in the main, to the heart nor to the pocket of the anti-God lobby.

In fact, it is so common to act as if PRAYER is the ultimate last resort, instead of the means of procedure. It is said, An army marches on its stomach, but Hudson Taylor of China Inland Mission fame said rather, Proceed on your knees. That is the march that makes it in the end. Prayer that comes from one abiding in the word of God, and with that in him, is what prevails (John 15:7). God is pledged to do what He says; an He does (Joel 2:11, Isaiah 44:24ff., Amos 3:7). For the peace of Jerusalem, prayer has long been directed, and it is a multiple-edged  sword prayer. The New Jerusalem of the kingdom of heaven and the Old, itself a demonstration lesson of the faithfulness of God, and the site to be for the vast conversion episode to come to Israel before the Age ends, alike are objects of prayer (cf. Psalm 122:6 cf. Isaiah 66 and
With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Chs.  6 and  7).

As to Israel, just like its deliverer of old, Media and Persia, predicted as to the very name of the king, Cyrus, who would send the Jews back from their captivity in Babylon, and that freely, she does not know the Lord (cf. Isaiah 44:28 - 45:4^*6).

Cyrus was USED glorify God as the text cited in *6 shows, though he himself did not actually personally know God. The state of Israel is likewise glorifying God, though it does not know Him, having broken the only cable which is authorised and able to carry the knowledge of God to the heart, the Lord Jesus Christ, sent to earth for the connection, raised from the dead to confirm it and operate it, eternal in the celestial blessedness as God, available in the terrestrial trials, as man from  God, dynamic in bringing repentant man, through faith to God (I Peter 3:18).

Again, of old, when Assyria was seeking to intimidate Israel with false gods, victorious accounts of triumphs, the talk was mere verbal squawk, a squabble of words, with an arrogant high-handedness, which the Lord does not admire. To be sure, in those days, long before Judah fell to Babylon, there had been sin enough in the land; but they had a reforming and zealous king, Hezekiah, a man of mercy and strength, prayer and faith, who took the bombastic and seditious, intimidatory  words of the ambassadors of Assyria to God, and got an answer which preceded the fabulous destruction of the pride of Assyria, its host, and the return of its king, Sennacherib, to his land to be killed by his sons.

What was the divine answer at that time ? It was given through the prophet Isaiah as follows (in part, 37:22-38):

"Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying,
 

“Thus says the Lord God of Israel,

‘Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, this is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him:
 

“The virgin, the daughter of Zion,
Has despised you, laughed you to scorn;
The daughter of Jerusalem
Has shaken her head behind your back!

“Whom have you reproached and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice,
And lifted up your eyes on high?
Against the Holy One of Israel.

"By your servants you have reproached the Lord,
And said, ‘By the multitude of my chariots
I have come up to the height of the mountains,
To the limits of Lebanon;
I will cut down its tall cedars
And its choice cypress trees;
I will enter its farthest height,
To its fruitful forest.
I have dug and drunk water,
And with the soles of my feet I have dried up
All the brooks of defence.’

“Did you not hear long ago
How I made it,
From ancient times that I formed it?
Now I have brought it to pass,
That you should be
For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins.
Therefore their inhabitants had little power;
They were dismayed and confounded;
They were as the grass of the field
And the green herb,
As the grass on the housetops
And grain blighted before it is grown.

“But I know your dwelling place,
Your going out and your coming in,
And your rage against Me.
Because your rage against Me and your tumult
Have come up to My ears,
Therefore I will put My hook in your nose
And My bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back
By the way which you came.” ’

“This shall be a sign to you:

"You shall eat this year such as grows of itself,
And the second year what springs from the same;
Also in the third year sow and reap,
Plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah
Shall again take root downward,
And bear fruit upward.

"For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant,
And those who escape from Mount Zion.
The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

“Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria:

‘He shall not come into this city,
Nor shoot an arrow there,
Nor come before it with shield,
Nor build a siege mound against it.
By the way that he came,
By the same shall he return;
And he shall not come into this city,’
Says the Lord.
‘For I will defend this city, to save it
For My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ ”

"Then the angel of the Lord went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses - all dead. So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. Now it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place."
 
 

The divine answer for a lively Israel with a life in the person of its king, dedicated to God, was overwhelming. Assyria's army was decimated. They withdrew in a heap, their King soon to die.

That was one deliverance. The next one of current interest to us, was from consignment to Babylon, when Judah did not revive, and so was taken. Her time finished in humiliating exile, the 70 forecast years, she returned, or many of those of zeal and courage did so.

Who sent them ? It was the long predicted Cyrus (Isaiah 45). Even Cyrus, however, that mighty king who thus allowed Judah to return after Babylon had defeated them in the sins and follies which followed in the century and more after good King Hezekiah, the liberator, even this imperial monarch was remarkable in a further way. It was this. That Persian King, carrying the predicted name of the deliverer of Israel, duly fulfilled the prophecy and let the people return from their exile, even though he did not even KNOW God! In the Cyrus cylinder is archeological attestation of his action.

By divine arrangement, long cited in scripture, detailed in Isaiah 45 for example,  despite his ignorance, he was used to work the restoration promised to the people of God. God undertook to bring him to power, to make great his power and then to use him to restore the captive people to their land. Named long before Babylon so much as threatened Jerusalem, he let the people go when his time came, succouring them in this way, after the eventual devastation wrought by that nation in 586 B.C., upon Israel. The means ? HIS empire defeated first, that of Babylon. The predator gone, the prey were given liberty to return to their own land, to repopulate Israel. Then he let the people go.

Josephus affirms that he even saw the prophecy concerning himself in Isaiah 44:28 (Antiquities xi-xii), and that this stirred him in his action to restore the Jews.

In any case, what a type of Christ he was, in this, despite his amazing deficiency, as stated in the prophecy of Isaiah 45, that he did not know God (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch.1 ). Consider the parallel, partial though it be: Cyrus was sent for a purpose, he executed it, it was expected of him, he reversed the former practice of inhumane depopulation, with frank favour and brought a people back to the true God, although only in his case, by facilitating, indeed authorising their return, and that of many of the temple artefacts. Nor did he make provision for Israel only, but was more embracive, extending his moderation to other peoples of his domain.

But what of his role as forecast by Isaiah ?
 

True to prediction, he not only failed to know God, but in fact,  attributed his triumphant work to the primary Babylonian god, Marduk, thus fulfilling this amazing duality: he served God with the Jewish restoration as predicted, and did not know God in the process, as predicted. Of interest in this, is the fact that his trend, though mistaken in identification, appears to have been towards monotheism in the midst of the degenerating Babylonian plurality of gods. In a profusion of asymmetry, he declares in the cylinder,

"Marduk ... sought a righteous prince, after his own heart, whom he took by the hand, Cyrus, king of Anshan, he called by name, to lordship over the whole world he appointed him ..."

This is a precision performance of the prophecy.  It was a deliverance leading to the authorised rebuilding of the temple itself!

Israel, however, had not done with its inflammatory rebellion against the true God, itself, and some hundreds of years after this amazing restoration, proceeded, also in accord with Isaiah's prophecy, to kill its own Messiah. This had no small consequence for them.

Thus a far vaster conflict, a more potent mockery, a more shocking devastation, a literal incineration in many respects was yet to await the restored nation following this action. Is it surprising that it came, after they despatched their own Messiah. The fact that this was predicted (Psalm 22, Isaiah 39:7, 52-53, Psalm 2 cf. Joyful Jottings 21-25), in no way diminished the guilt or eroded the result, as foreseen in Deuteronomy 32, Daniel 9, Zechariah 11.   Demolished as Christ predicted and Daniel attested, was their beloved city (a destruction wrought in A.D. 70 by the Romans, Titus and Vespasian).

As if this were not enough: for long they were exiled from the site. For long many other peoples inhabited it. What had been the devastation of Jerusalem, became all but a picture of the whole people (cf. Jeremiah’s Lamentations in the first instance, secular history in the second!).

The predictions however did not stop there; nor did the Jews.
 

God however is faithful, punctilious with precision, abundant in mercy, wholly reliable. Again, the scripture forecast their return, again the restoration was to come (cf. Isaiah 11:11, 42, 49, 66, Ezekiel 36-37). This prediction of their resettlement, in shame at their offences, but expressly glorifying God in His faithfulness (SMR Appendix A,  It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls ... Ch. 10, The Biblical Workman Ch. 1, With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Chs.  5,  6, 10, for example), it has happened.

Our generation has beheld it! It has gripped the headlines, overturned the forecasts of man, made vain the splendour of human wisdom, vexed the knowledgeable and inserted into history, bypassed the treachery of the treacherous, attesting as proclaimed in advance by Ezekiel, the sovereignty of God in mercy, as also so markedly, after much forbearance for very long, in judgment.
 

“Therefore say to the house of Israel,

‘Thus says the Lord God:

“I do not do this for your sake, O house of Israel, but for My holy name’s sake, which you have profaned among the nations wherever you went. And I will sanctify My great name, which has been profaned among the nations, which you have profaned in their midst; and the nations shall know that I am the Lord,” says the Lord God, “when I am hallowed in you before their eyes. For I will take you from among the nations, gather you out of all countries, and bring you into your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.

"Then you shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; you shall be My people, and I will be your God. I will deliver you from all your uncleannesses. I will call for the grain and multiply it, and bring no famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of your trees and the increase of your fields, so that you need never again bear the reproach of famine among the nations. Then you will remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good; and you will loathe yourselves in your own sight, for your iniquities and your abominations.

"Not for your sake do I do this,” says the Lord God, “let it be known to you. Be ashamed and confounded for your own ways, O house of Israel!”

"Thus says the Lord God:

'On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will also enable you to dwell in the cities, and the ruins shall be rebuilt. The desolate land shall be tilled instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass by. So they will say, ‘This land that was desolate has become like the garden of Eden; and the wasted, desolate, and ruined cities are now fortified and inhabited.’ Then the nations which are left all around you shall know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted what was desolate. I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it. (Bold added.)

"Thus says the Lord God:

'I will also let the house of Israel inquire of Me to do this for them: I will increase their men like a flock. Like a flock offered as holy sacrifices, like the flock at Jerusalem on its feast days, so shall the ruined cities be filled with flocks of men. Then they shall know that I am the Lord.’ ”
 

One will note in the bold type above,  the dire, divine determination for the performance of the prophetic promises, in the very midst and face of the vulgar, promiscuous and alien ambitions of this world. It is purposed. It will be done. Nothing will deter Him, divert or overturn His will in this thing. "I, the Lord, have spoken it, and I will do it."

Now let us pass on to the parallel, the dramatic allegory in the ensuing Ch. 37.

In Ezekiel 37's famous dry bones re-assemblage, representing the dispersed Israel, assembled from distant places throughout the world, by the word of God (37:7-8), we observe that God in turn speaks a second time (37:9-11), when they are back from their so long exile, like skeletons erect. Of the second command, we find it written that it is to imbue with His Spirit; and it is then that there is announcement made that this is the everlasting covenant to which, exiled in discipline from the land chosen for them, and formerly inhabited, they will come. At first unclean, though bearing His name, they are at the appropriate time, to be sprinkled with clean water. When cleansed, they are a testimony to the eternal purposes of God. The millenium will come in its time (37:24ff.),  and the nations will no more afflict.

The vast proclamation is now under way. They are back. Their victories of Zechariah's prediction (Ch. 12) are accomplished. Their stressful tensions provided for those powers trying to 'handle their case' are as Zechariah depicted (12:3). First however, there is this great outpouring of God's Spirit on Israel, still to come (Zech. 12:10). They are, most particularly, to repent of the murder of the Messiah, as a people, to a characterisable degree!

Now, pending this next event, they look more and more like a terminally ill patient, where only a miracle, this time once more, from God can deliver them. It was worse before they were back! The next step is duly forecast and will truly soon come. In its coming, there is a tempestuous collision of forces forecast in Ezekiel 38-39, Micah 7:15ff., Joel 2-3, Deuteronomy 32, one reflected in Romans 11 (cf. The Biblical Workman Chs.  1 and   3). The end of the matter, however, is sweet.
 

Let us hear 37:21-28 (bold added):

“Then say to them, ‘Thus says the Lord God:

“Surely I will take the children of Israel from among the nations, wherever they have gone, and will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land; and I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all; they shall no longer be two nations, nor shall they ever be divided into two kingdoms again.

"They shall not defile themselves anymore with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be My people, and I will be their God.

“David My servant shall be king over them, and they shall all have one shepherd; they shall also walk in My judgments and observe My statutes, and do them. Then they shall dwell in the land that I have given to Jacob My servant, where your fathers dwelt; and they shall dwell there, they, their children, and their children’s children, forever; and My servant David shall be their prince forever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them, and it shall be an everlasting covenant with them; I will establish them and multiply them, and I will set My sanctuary in their midst forevermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them; indeed I will be their God, and they shall be My people. The nations also will know that I, the Lord, sanctify Israel, when My sanctuary is in their midst forevermore.”

Let us however return to the present instructive fact that Israel is back, Jerusalem is back in their hands (as in Luke 21:24), and the world is not pleased. Lessons difficult for it to learn are in process. Their learning capacity in this respect is as predicted, atrophied. It will take action.

• So now, after many vicissitudes,
• and many mockeries from a world sunk in sin and loving to live as if it were moral and fine,
• Israel is back;
• and God remains where He always is, in control,
• and His word is where it ever abides, in the cockpit of history (cf. Zechariah 9:7-9).

 

• He said it, repeatedly,
• He did it, dramatically,
• even in the WAY He said He would do it (cf. Isaiah 66 and *5 below),
• and Israel is now back from its far longer sojourn, than that formerly in Babylon, back as the Age comes to its coda, just as Moses predicted (cf. Deuteronomy 32-33, Leviticus 26).

History has gaped and gazed in amazement; but it need not be amazed. God is always like that.

But what of Israel ? What is the overall scenario ? It is this. If once it despised the prophets sent to it by the Lord (cf. Matthew 23:34ff., Jeremiah), then at the incarnation, it went so far as to despise its celestial King (as Isaiah foretold in 52-53 and 49:7). That was one of the axes of world history. From the abyss they have come, but restored to their ancient terrain, they now occupy the world. That! it was no small offence; the results were not short; it took a long time to culminate, but already it has done so, in Israel's eventual return as predicted (SMR Appendix A).

The detail of that is covered in SMR Ch. 9. Now that this people is back, it has been used once more, in a new way, to show the power of the Lord, precisely as predicted.

Our current point, however is simply that following its quite miraculous 'birth' in 1948, it has existed despite the international squadrons of major powers, like Russia, despite major menaces like those of Saddam Hussein, despite repeated massive assaults from Islamic powers, and  despite major betrayals, like that of Britain, in view of the Balfour Declaration (though for a time Britain was indeed a friend to her), major vacillations like that of the US, so strong at times, so weak at others and paying very possibly a September 11 penalty for her unfeeling attitude to TERRORISM being practised against Israel - for that with many other things, but that not least (cf. Genesis 12:3).

After many trials, in this 20th-21st century drama, indeed saga, following its return, as a nation present in its place, Israel has not fallen. It has not fallen in the face of the minatory machinery of fanatical religion, the streams of oil invested in weaponry, the screaming of zealots for her destruction; it remains despite the inconvenience to atheism of so obvious a fulfilment of the prophecy of millenia back, in the contemporary world, incorporating the testimony of God, following the incarnation of Christ, that His word is simply moving until the diseased world becomes the deceased world, and it is fallen into its own end (II Peter 3).

Thus Hilary Clinton's simple affirmations of EMPATHY when visiting the pizza place that was, and yet is, and is not (was operative, is ruined but is speaking in her ruins), of some SOLIDARITY with a nation suffering devastating and horrendous things from terrorism, in that her own nation has so suffered and is still much menaced (the newly discovered tunnel near the US embassy in Rome is meaningful enough even for the blind - hatred is inventive of destruction): this is not for nothing.

It means that in the US, there are some elements still willing to face the simple facts. Israel has been defrauded of what was promised, Jordan has at one stage seized part of Palestine, but not taken the Palestinian ejection squad, many of whose people left the land when victory was expected from the 1948 invasion, and their offspring still stay around, or their descendants; and so Israel is to be sliced further to provide for what neither Jordan nor Islam are willing to support, though the means abound, as seen in the immense weaponry, armaments and ambitious projects undertaken, in the trillions found from oil.

It is ludicrous: a nation promised a place gets a mere fraction of it; the people who are of the
same religion in the main, as are the Palestinians, these  will NOT, repeat NOT, take them. Meanwhile, Israel gives them opportunities to be citizens or workers, but hatred, ambition and seditious desire link hands together to TAKE OVER what remains of Israel in significant tracts, despite Israel's restoration of the Sinai peninsula freely. Yes there is desire for tracts of land, but also for one half its only religiously famous and former capital of many centuries, Jerusalem. Which part of London, or Washington, or for that matter, of Paris or Moscow would it be convenient to share ? to donate ?

Thus hardening occurs, as multiple murders tend to create a hardening. It is not amazing when thousands of citizens are ruthlessly defamed and destroyed, maimed and mangled, that there is a certain restraint in Israel concerning their intimate involvement with this portion of the population, who so revile and attack them! In what nation, might one ask, would one find it different ?

In the USA we have seen that even there, it is not so very different. It is indeed far more flamboyant in its response to what is, comparatively in terms of population and power, a small affront, though one with a flair of drama and agony of many kinds.
 

Let us pursue this picture of the two countries COMPARATIVELY. If then the USA finds it necessary to grind Afghanistan to seek out the culprits and reduce the severity of the attacks by aggressive demolition of the power base from which it comes, is it so surprising that Israel, with the enemy reposing in its very midst, and seeking, if you want to make some sort of a comparison, to annex Texas and the White House, along with say, the Pentagon, and to rule jointly in Washington, yes and perhaps Colorado too, should show a certain negativity to the people responsible ?

This tiny nation, Israel, appears to be far more restrained in its response than was the USA, and Hilary Clinton's visit, therefore, is not without a reasonable ground, her words without a basis, and her message without a cause.

Israel is a proverbial case, because of the triumphant Exodus, the prophetic perfections, the imperial time, the grandeur of her temple, the magnificence of the wisdom accorded her; and because, no less, of the flamboyant rebelliousness, the rampant hypocrisy (shown in Isaiah 1, as in Matthew 23) which made of her power, a puny thing, of her hope, a destruction, and of her grandeur, a mockery. Rebelliousness ? you may ask. Yes,  against the Lord (Zechariah 11:9-13).

In this, Israel is by no means a monolith, but she is the exemplar! The Bible has made of her a testimony, provided a laboratory report, forecast and fulfilled to the letter. It is to be pondered by those whose histories are yet to come!
 

Now England herself has had a grand day of Empire, with much testimony to Christ mixed with other and less worthy elements, and it has fallen into something like spiritual receivership, Charles talking grandly of Islam, as Ahaz in Israel's days of yore, talked of Syrian gods, and received the deserts of his folly, and his nation with him! while the voice of the national Church of England and royalty in diverse ways, of other religions or Rome, does not seem entirely diverse. The nation rose on the wings of a great faith, and is in danger of falling on the back of a doomed departure from it^*7.

USA, for its part,  is tending to meld with Islam in its political internationalism, and the people are saying in great numbers, how much they approve! But the syncretism is still folly, the religious aspect is still explicit as shown often on this site, and the reward is sure, unless there be repentance. Certainly, Bush has been decisive, clear-cut, eloquent at times, and the war on the evil axis has some point.

However it has some slurry as well. WHAT is evil ? what is that to be opposed, the butt
of the war ? Is it vile and violent use of force on what is innocent of offence justifying it ? Yes, that is an example of evil; but it is not its heart or its source. Worshipping false gods is insufferable lèse-majesté and confusion, and God will not tolerate it, nor suffer man to perform thus with impunity.

The nations who have specialised in it, have suffered, often poverty, war and follies innumerable, right down to such details as temple prostitution of young girls, all in the best of causes and the most sacred of enactments. The new nations which arise, they fall as they fold their spiritual hands and aggregate with the world, its ways, its witness, its religions, and now the USA joins England in desecrating what is sacred at the highest governmental level, and moving on the path of multiple religious secretions, instead of clear and pure waters from the eternal springs of the living God.
 

• It is just as Jeremiah said to Israel, and it is just as horrible, as deadly, as perilous for the moment, and fatal if continued (2:12-21):

 

• “For My people have committed two evils:
• They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,

And hewn themselves cisterns - broken cisterns that can hold no water.

“Is Israel a servant?
Is he a homeborn slave?
Why is he plundered?
The young lions roared at him, and growled;
They made his land waste;
His cities are burned, without inhabitant.
Also the people of Noph and Tahpanhes
Have broken the crown of your head.

"Have you not brought this on yourself,
In that you have forsaken the Lord your God
When He led you in the way?
And now why take the road to Egypt,
To drink the waters of Sihor?
Or why take the road to Assyria,
To drink the waters of the River?
Your own wickedness will correct you,
And your backslidings will rebuke you.

"Know therefore and see that it is an evil and bitter thing
That you have forsaken the Lord your God,
And the fear of Me is not in you,”
 

Says the Lord God of hosts.

“For of old I have broken your yoke and burst your bonds;
And you said, ‘I will not transgress,’
When on every high hill and under every green tree
You lay down, playing the harlot.
Yet I had planted you a noble vine, a seed of highest quality.
How then have you turned before Me
Into the degenerate plant of an alien vine?"
 

Repentance is necessary, not self-affirmation. The TOWER of TRUTH, the Shepherd who is Jesus the Christ, and not another (as in Zechariah 11:17 - the alien shepherds, alien to truth, alienated from God, these  are readily enough available! cf. II Peter 2). Faith is required, in the Lord, not in the arm of might in the flesh, or its 'spiritual' secretions. Purity is necessary; not slovenly, or even semi-surreptitious implications to be provided from comradely visits to mosques, and kindly affirmations of friendship with the religion which despises the Biblical claims of Christ, dismisses His Gospel, falsifies the testimony, and substitutes an anti-verified morass of visions without ground and declarations minus demonstrations or even validity (cf. More Marvels... Ch. 4).

Is equity acceptance of fraud ? Is solace for all at the governmental level of concern, the same thing precisely as commendation of stark enmity with Christ, as good! or the affirmation of forces of good as those incorporating the frankest enemies Christ has ever had, the false prophets concerning the multitude of which warnings all but innumerable have come from the Book of the Lord ? (cf. Matthew 24:24, Revelation 16, II Peter 2, I  Timothy 4, II Timothy 3...).

At least, President Bush talks still well of protecting Formosa, that is Taiwan of today,
but will it be ?

It is clear that not all think alike.

It is clear that evil is being re-defined. Past and present Presidents differ ... in emphasis.

How evil is profit (cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 6)? Is it the summum bonum ? Is its loss evil ? Are share-holders some sort of gods to be served with religious intensity and exemplary fervour ? Or is it merely the result of prudence and mercy, not the directive of dynamisms ? To ask is to answer, but many ask only their cupidity.

How bad is repression of the most acute and rampant character against Christians in China as seen often enough^*8 before on this site ?  and how thorough is the assault on even the poor Falun Gong, who want something spiritual, however vague it may be!

The forces of good, including idolatrous, or atheist, or nebulous nations, are to combine against the forces of bad, idolatrous, vicious nations ? Fine. God is forgotten. Truth is left fallen in the street (Isaiah 59:14). It is déjà vu. It is Israel all over again, in her days before the fall. It is what Paul said in Romans 11, in speaking of Israel and of the Gentile nations then arising, and to arise, to find the Gospel and then to flirt with folly again, as did Israel:
 

"And if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild olive tree, were grafted in among them, and with them became a partaker of the root and fatness of the olive tree, do not boast against the branches.

"But if you do boast, remember that you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, 'Branches were broken off that I might be grafted in.'

"Well said. Because of unbelief they were broken off, and you stand by faith. Do not be haughty, but fear.

"For if God did not spare the natural branches, He may not spare you either.

"Therefore consider the goodness and severity of God: on those who fell, severity; but toward you, goodness, if you continue in His goodness. Otherwise you also will be cut off. And they also, if they do not continue in unbelief, will be grafted in, for God is able to graft them in again. For if you were cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and were grafted contrary to nature into a cultivated olive tree, how much more will these, who are natural branches, be grafted into their own olive tree?

"For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:
 

'The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.' "

 
 

NOTES

*1
Examples, trends and Babel building, man elevating, religion contusing, life confusing emblems and movements may be discerned in that most productive century of de-civilisation, the 20th..

Consult for various aspects of the process and its cause, ends, beginnings, spirit, the following.

 The Frantic Millenium and the Peace of Faith (FM) Ch.  2 (actual and commonly suggested ... antidotes);  11 - twigs and towers;
Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Ch. 9 - glamour, stammer, hammer  ... flitter and glitter;

Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch.   3 (the soporific self, and the unity glide, under the sedation of sin),

News, Facts and Forecasts (NFF)  Ch.  8 - sham, shame and co.;
13 - symphony and seditions - two heady heads, 14 - deadly d's;

Repent or Perish Ch.   5 inventions in mind, gender, politics ...
(spiritual - political - economic surrealism, and reality, and various modes of escape from efficacious unity, where it belongs), and with this,

It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls... (CALL) Chs.  10,  11,  5,  4,
Pall of Smoke, Diamond of Light Ch.   1,
With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch.  11, Beauty of Holiness Ch.   5, Scoop of the Universe  42, Things Old and New Ch.  10 and Epilogue, More Marvels Ch.  10  (spiritual);

earth charter, religious summits and UN -
CALL 11, NFF 13, Things Old and New Epilogue,
Joyful Jottings Ch.  1,  Red Alert ... Chs.   5,  6,  8,  16.
 

*2
On this, see:

 SMR pp. 348ff., It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 9,
Tender Times for Timely Truths Chs.  6,  10,
A Spiritual Potpourri Chs.  1-3, 5,  6, 9 ,
Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Chs.   3,  10,  13, LIT  5,
Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Chs.   6,  7,  8,  9,
Barbs, Arrows and Balms Ch.   16,
Divine Agenda Chs.   1,  4,
Things Old and New Ch.   9, BAB Appendix  I, JJ  2, TBW  Appendix 2,
Benevolent Brightness of Brothy Bane  82,
SMR Chs. 1,  3, 10 incl. pp. 999ff..
 

*3
Cf. More Marvels Ch. 4.
 

*4
Cf. Lord of Life Ch. 3, pp. 68ff..
 

*5
See Galloping Events Ch. 8, *3, With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch. 6,
Deliverance from Disorientation Ch. 3, with SMR pp. 1109ff..
 

*6
Isaiah 45:1-6 declares these things.

"Thus says the LORD to His anointed,
To Cyrus, whose right hand I have held -
To subdue nations before him
And loose the armour of kings,
To open before him the double doors,
So that the gates will not be shut:
I will go before you
And make the crooked places straight;
I will break in pieces the gates of bronze
And cut the bars of iron.

"I will give you the treasures of darkness
And hidden riches of secret places,
That you may know that I, the LORD,
Who call you by your name
Am the God of Israel.

"For Jacob My servant's sake,
And Israel My elect,
I have even called you by your name;
I have named you though you have not known Me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other;
There is no God besides Me.

"I will gird you, though you have not known Me,
That they may know from the rising of the sun to its setting
That there is none besides Me.
I am the LORD, and there is no other..."

*7
Israel in the Old Testament times was a theocracy. It was a direct rule, with religious commitment not only formal, public and official, but mandatory and basic to its very existence.

It is of course true that England is not of this type, and has not been, in its last few hundred years of comparative glory. It has been more of a hybrid. While the elected people rule, and legislate without being bound to follow the Bible, there is on the other hand a series of laws which make it impossible for a Roman Catholic to be on the throne, for example, and at the coronation, a Bible is taken as representing the necessary wisdom. The Church is established, and of course in this situation that is exceedingly dangerous, and wholly unbiblical, since there is no guarantee, to say no more, that the people are all Christians, so that the wheels of government may as well act towards crushing as implementing what the Bible requires, for the Church.

One has only to hear what the laws nowadays are doing, or the lore becoming,  in many respects, to see that this is precisely what often happens (cf. The Other News 13). The joining with the EU has meant, as we saw in Wake Up World... Ch. 3 , that perversity become mandatorily acceptable in the army, and so on. You cannot serve two masters as Christ declared (Matthew 6:24). The result is a disservice to the one and an affront to the other, at times in spirit, at times in devastating breaches. The confusion may even be thought of as 'politics' today, since it is so common; but it is more than this. It is double standards where only a single will do, and the result is enervation of vision, debilitation of vitality, degradation of life.

In the case of the USA, there is even less resemblance to theocracy. However the underlying point, past all the reference to worship of God and happiness in the US Constitution, is simple. "Righteousness exalts a nation," (Proverbs 14:34). Where the opposite becomes entrenched, like rats in the basements of some New York buildings, showing their age as the Age progresses, there is an erosion, sometimes of explosive force in the last stages, and towers, invisible towers of uprightness fall. "Sin," the Bible continues, "is a reproach to any people." Look at Proverbs 1 and consider. Recalcitrance is not helped by a routine of righteousness in a former generation, by comparison. It has its own taste, testimony, fruit and finale.

The trend is world-wide, though some being nearer at the first, to Biblical standards, have further to fall; and the result can be sharp, unexpected but not undeserved. Calling on the mercy of God is not some religious exercise of purgative psychological functionality; it is a dire necessity. (Cf. Joyful Jottings  14.)
 
 

*8

See for example, SMR p. 684; Scoop of the Universe 37, Benevolent Goodness or Brothy Bane 69, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Chs.   3 and   4 (News 97 and 98) and
With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch. 2 (News 150). Also see Indexes.