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CHAPTER  6

JUSTICE IS FALLEN IN THE STREET

News 319

The Australian July 12, 2004

 

The COMMON ATTITUDE

Actually, the exact quotation from Isaiah 59 which relates to the latest writhing of the United Nations junta is this:

"Justice is turned back

And righteousness stands afar off,

For truth is fallen in the street,

And equity cannot enter."

 

It was a day of shame in Israel at whom the Lord had remonstrated (Isaiah 59:1), saying:

"Look, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it cannot save:
Nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear.

But your iniquities have separated you from your God

And your sins have hidden His face from you,
So that He will not hear,

For your hands are defiled with blood,
And your fingers with iniquity.

No one calls for justice,

Nor does any plead for truth:
They  trust in empty words and speak lies."

If then Israel fell into such a state before Christ came, so have the nations fallen now, before He comes again. There is a beautiful parallel, apt and instructive, almost total in its symmetry; and the anti-Zionist cancer that fills the lungs of so many is mere hypocrisy.

For one and for all, the resolution is to be found in salvation, not in His rejection, while the day waits before He comes a second time, not to die but to judge and rule as the scriptures consistently show and Christ emphatically pronounced to His disciples (Luke 24:25-26):

"Then He said to them,

'
O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in
all that the prophets have spoken!

Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things
and to enter into His glory?'


"And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself."

That glory into which Christ enters is first of all the resurrection (Psalm 16, Isaiah 26:19 cf. SMR Ch. 6, Joyful Jottings 22-25), and then it is the return in glorious majesty of Him who was so defaced as to be almost formless (Isaiah 52:14), so that His rule on this earth might be seen and His judgment follow (Matthew 24:25-51, Isaiah 59:20, Deuteronomy 32:43ff., Malachi 3-4, Little Things Ch. 6). It is then that "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Habakkuk 2:14). It is then that the love which sent Him,  and in which He came, will flourish; and the righteous, those invested with HIS righteousness (II Cor. 5:17-21) will shine like the sun (Matthew 13).

Meanwhile the Gospel is being preached throughout the world until He comes, as we were notified when He was here (Matthew 24:14). It is only then that the end comes. How it races to its task!

But what of Israel now ? what of this land before its repentance comes in like a breeze in a heat wave (Zech. 12:10). It is still detested, and the Lord is not yet invested in the hearts of many there (cf. News 33).

In the interim, we are finding that the International Court of Justice is showing up the Gentile world as in precisely the sort of situation in which Israel found itself when Isaiah was inspired to write that chapter 59 with reference to which this chapter commenced.

Truth is fallen in the street, equity cannot enter.

It is good however to note that occasionally some part of the media will be unimpressed with Jew-baiting, with the preponderance of Arab and Islamic forces in the United Nations, in comparison with the ONE presence of Israel, with the sham of 'justice' and the perversion of equity which is almost routine in the UN when it comes to this hated land and despised people. You may protest, Ah! but they are not hated. It is however a term used in a practical sense. If for example I were dying, and someone saw me bleeding to death, and said, Oh, look the other way! you may feel that this is not hatred; for how do we know the emotions seething in his breast ? Yet when you condemn the blood that is flowing and engage in violence to increase it, the emotion may be gauged with little likelihood of error.

You may protest, But suppose it was admittedly a wicked thing, but yet merely the price of getting some resultant, such as his wallet: is this necessarily hatred ?

In the strictly emotional sense, perhaps not necessarily so; but in the practical attitude of despising the very life of a person for some gain, yes it is. The person, although in the image of God, however marred by sin, is made a pawn for your game, and this is so to derogate his dignity and meaning as to form an equivalent to detestation. You cannot so treat what is made by God without rating it in the depths that belong to hatred. Yet you might still object, In the depths similar ? yes, but is this the SAME as hatred ?

What IS hatred ? Is it a feeling or a derogation such that the thing in view is stripped of its nature in your sight and condemned to a state which is other than its nature, and this not for justice, but for gain or some other motivation ? Is it to set the value of some person at zero ? You could argue that this is merely negative evaluation, and so it could be if it were not for the fact that it is a personal product of God, and hence in being given such an evaluation, it is entered into definitional arrest, stripped of its nature and aborted in its being. This is the ontological equivalent of hatred, and in that sense, yes it is hatred.

What however if someone is judged by GOD as wholly evil ? That is His affair: He knows. We are talking of men. It is sin and evil which is to be hated by those of our created station.

Call it however abomination, detestation, revulsion or hatred, ontological devastation, it is all one for our present purpose. Jew baiting, Jew derogation, Jew annihilation, the stripping from the Jew of his land, his dignity, his motivation, and the substitution of a propagandised judgment is what is being seen.

Justice cannot enter, equity finds no place, the mansions of the International Court of Justice are in this, built in air; and the air of judgment is aery at best in this matter, abysmal at worst.

Indeed, it seems fey, as well as making hay while the international sun shines.

Is Israel then to wallow in blood while the media routinely announces that (in its third layer efforts to continue to live at all in this woeful world), it has killed one child and ignores that the Arabs who murder in the first place, kill many more of Israel. Note how many times you HEAR of a Jewish child killed, and its age, and the reverse for the Arab adventurers, in the media, but especially on the TV. There is one station which one could not even view in this field, since its prejudice is so extreme that it seems almost to make it a participation in mockery even to listen.

 

WALLS AND THE UN

Is Israel NOT to have a wall when the UN fails to supply one by aid in this terrorist affliction on which it seems if not to smile, then to look with relative indifference ?

Did the UN supply a wall when Colonel Nasser wanted  to invade Israel ? Not at all, for it withdrew its troops while he flourished into the scene with a scenario of Russian built tanks and aircraft with which explicitly to sweep Israel into the sea ?

Its wall of troops dissipated into thin air.

To be sure, in accord with Zechariah 12, it failed dismally, and God helped the Jews, despite thier unfaithfulness to Him, just as He there said He would do, prior to their recognition of the sin of slaying their true King, who, incidentally, would give them far better care than that of murderers!

Did the UN supply a wall when Britain perfidiously gave land from Palestine to Jordan, and so breached the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and the League of Nations determination to confirm it ? It was not there then ?

Did it then protest at this when it WAS there ? Not at all, for instead in 1947 it proposed to make of the Jewish capital of Jerusalem (IN Palestine, already donated internationally to the Jews), an international city, and to give to the Jews bits and pieces here and there. It would make things worse. The Arabs were not satisfied with this, though Israel seemed ready to accept, so that the entire process now comes to be their responsibility; but who ever speaks of this ? Few do so.

That UN failure of course, in view of the divine ownership and disposition as He pleases of what is His, it one of the most outrageous outages of all time, even forgetting its breach of the former international ruling of the League of Nations! (cf.  It Bubbles ... Ch.10 and Great Execrations Ch. 4).

Did the UN act when Israel was being exploited navally, in terms of a siege or blockade in the Gulf of Aquaba ? Not noticeably, for Israel had to make a remedial war itself. Let us cite from Trust God... Ch. 5,  concerning Israel:

They show NO TENDENCY to expand beyond this. They even handed back Sinai when they felt sufficiently reassured, after breaking the deadlock via blockade of the Gulf of Aqaba, a Muslim action to harass Israel into submission. How eloquently Eban presented the Israeli position to the UN!

The UN, however, we read in the 22nd Edition of Information Please Almanac, was UNABLE to take any effective action when Egypt called for the removal of the UN Security force from the Egyptian border, to clear the way for invasion of Israel. Unable! All those nations in the security council and ability deserted them! How strange a disability, how distressing a forfeiture of power by the powerful! A tiny Israeli mouse is about to be scatted and catted with a purring paw and an angry mouth filled with a Moslem menace!

Israel delivered itself with a brilliance famous in the military annals with lightning action. Only God could help Israel then, and He did.

But you may say, Did not Israel receive a scathing divine rebuke in that very chapter of Isaiah, 59, which you have cited ? Undoubtedly this is so, and worse than that in the curses which were in advance noted in Leviticus 26, for repetitive rebellion, and again, worse than that has occurred in the Inquisition of Romanism and the pogroms in Russia and the scalping (metaphorical) in France in Louis XIVs days, as in the adverse laws then wrought and the Auschwitz mentality which Europe seems, if not to hold so dear, yet to find a virtual field for reversion so often, at least in type.

If it is Jewish, but especially if it is Israel, but above all if it is ZION, crush it! If it is not so, one hopes to see some evidence of this; love hopes all things - but it does like to see!

Good is better seen in deed than merely in word.

 

THE PLAN DIVINE AND THE HUMAN RETORT

God is committed to doing what He says. It is amazing how many are too proud to repent, but seem to think that the mere fact that God has eternity to know, omniscience to deploy, all might to do is not impressive enough to make it appear to them that when He says it He means it!

When He meant that Israel would be restored to its land DESPITE its unbelief, it seems for some impossible to believe that this is what He will do. In any case, He has done it, in 1948-1967 taking over the base and the city of Jerusalem with Jews. The background is seen in It Bubbles ... Ch.10 and Great Execrations Ch. 4, with SMR Appendix A and Divine Agenda Ch. 6, for example. They were to come back physically and then spiritually we there see. They have done the former but not yet the latter.

Hence they continue to suffer according to the word of God, even though they have been brought back, according to that same word. They have fought their amazingly victorious wars against incredible seeming odds as predicted in Zechariah 12  (cf. SMR pp. 779ff.), and commotion continues in the area, with those interfering learning to lick their paws, as predicted likewise in Zechariah 12. A burdensome stone indeed is Israel to others; but pathos of pathos, it is a trouble also to itself, as it continues even to make things difficult for the Gospel in its own midst, the Gospel of its own King!

Burdensome indeed when not only is the word of God being conscientiously confronted, but justice aborted. Let us cite from Three Anzas and One Answer Ch. 2, to which reference on Zionism also might be made:

Justice is related only inversely. You assail Jews

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per Romanists, in the Inquisitions.
 

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per sovereigns like Louis XIV of France, who sought riches through them, and made life near to impossible for them in France, so that Huegenots went not seldom to immigrate into America.
 

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per Egypt, as with Nasser, who sought the ocean for Israel, but not as an excursion.
 

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per Jordan, as in 1948 ... with its many allies with one heart seeking the devastation
of the then infant State of Israel, just days old.
 

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per the former USSR, in its long refusal in many Communist years
to let the Jews go home to Israel,
whom in millions it profitably kept in its own land.
 

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per Russia of old, in its pogroms to destroy Jewish property, inflame against Jewish citizens
and defile their name.
 

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per Syria, in its support for Hezbollah, so that the Jews in desperation
even invaded part of Lebanon
in order to have more hope of preventing the reckless raids and enormous bloodshed
of the terrorists, then in their infancy.
 

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per Italy, in the flaming days of the Inquisition, in particular,
where we read of sad boat cruises with something other than pleasure as their intent,
featuring ... Jews, being wafted so gently
to woes unspeakable.
 

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per Islam, seeking for years in Crusades to conserve the control of Israel's ancient land,
even building what was obviously the most inflammatory of concepts, their gold-domed cry
against the Jewish religion, in the very ancient Jewish temple site in Jerusalem.
 

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per whatever perversity of oppression man can devise,

such as the British effort by the 'Royal' Navy, to to block Jewish return
to the Palestinian 'home'
promised by Britain to it, in 1917, though
most of it was robbed to give to Jordan, in the 1920s ...

a naval blockade made the more noticeable in that the date for this was 1948,
and the oppressed seeking their 'home' were not least from Europe,
scene of Germany's contribution
at Auschwitz and other such ghoulish premises, to the 'solution'
to the Jewish 'problem'
by dissolution of their bodies,
using them perhaps for soap, or for gold.
 

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per the UN which in 1947 decreed bits of land enough for the Jews, here and there,
tiny scraps of
the formerly internationally promised ALL OF PALESTINE,

and would have made Jerusalem an international city,

and still acts with such hostility that one wonders if it could not be named,

in this at least, the UNITED ARAB NATIONS, AND OTHERS ... UNANANO, not UN.

The repetition in that acronym could be a symbol of its repetitive anti-Israel thrust,
never more apparent than in its aborted African meeting
to deal with ZIONISM AS RACISM.

This is considered in Of the Earth, Earthy Ch. 13, and
It Bubbles ...
Ch. 10.
 

Now al Qaeda, in a seeming infinitude of distortion, refers to Allied efforts to diminish the Islamic bullying of the Jews as a Crusade, though they retain a vast tract of territory on all sides, so that their wanton destruction appears approximately equivalent to world rule ambitions, and certainly such, if it be deemed necessary to have it, to destroy Israel. This fanatical hatred, on the part of those who like billionaires in property sprawling to Africa and Pakistan, seek to obliterate the tiny package which Israel has so bravely gained from the grasping treacheries of many, is as far from religious reality as one can virtually go. FORCE is its name. GRASPING is its way.

 

It is in this factual context that the International Court of Justice empowered under the UN Charter of the United Nations, has acted to banish from the annals of justice, the Israeli anti-slaughter wall.

It is more. As we realised earlier, there is a double mouse-trap situation in force for Israel, which seems likewise to escape the cogitations of international justice, or the thought of it, more generally. Consider this from Deliverance from Disorientation Ch. 11.

THE DOUBLE  MOUSE TRAP

Vengeance comes from some; self-protection from others. When Israel tries to defend itself, Oh , says the UN. How terrible! Look at these Jews. THIS MUST STOP. At once! do not use the land you took when the Moslems tried (explicitly) to send you into the sea. Give more and more of it back to the Moslems, just as you have already given Sinai back. How terrible you Jews are! almost seems to be a recurrent message from the UN. Fancy not giving back ALL that you got when your ONLY land was threatened by those who had ALREADY in Jordan received much of the former Palestine, internationally promised to Israel after its distinguished aid in Britain in World War I.

So there is a double mouse trap. First line of offence: if the Jews do not like being slaughtered in civilian places, indiscriminately and with passion that makes murder a flag waving morality on the part of religious assassins, calling evil good and good evil, then they may respond with force to empty the sites of assassins, of the same. If they do, then there is the cry to the international bodies, STOP them. Next: MAKE them negotiate - translation, we want more land, make them hand it over. Let us invade with words. Next: SHOW them up. How awful that they defend themselves, for this is offensive. We had better kill more of them too, in the meantime. That is all part of mouse trap ONE, in which various parties participate, ad lib, or by script as the case may or may not be.

In this the little tip of lives of Israel becomes a catch to make the thing snap on more.

The next mouse trap is similar. This time however it is the MUSLIM world which is activated. Shameless thing, that these Jews should come into a small section of their historic land, beat us when we ganged up to slaughter them, and then kill some of our people as they protect themselves. More money and more threats, veiled or not, must be activated AT ONCE!

Agatha Christie's Mouse Trap - that one, a mere play - ran for years. This one has been running for years too; but it is not a play.
 

Thus embroiled in turmoils unspeakable, in ironies international and depravities vying with enormities, outrageous outages of ethics and mutinies against morality, Israel continues its renegacy from the Royal Reality of the Lord, and the world pursues its recklessness in pursuit of its prey.

Is it the fear of being found to be in a world governed by God which makes it so determined to ruin anything of Zion, even making the whole concept in one blinding blight, to appear as racism, as if Tokyo preference for Japan's capital made them racists for Japan, or Paris for the French. After all, wars have been fought, agreements reached ... is this so different that powers must intervene to crush the mouse in favour of the cat!

Is it fear that the biblical depiction of the Lord Himself in person returning to Jerusalem in power and glory as in Zechariah 14, that stirs the blistering degradations of the nations so broadly? Is it pleasure in Arab oil, or peace where it is to be found ?

is it indeed horrendous beyond contemplation to an autonomy-loving globe, to have anything with such an evident and eminent savour of spirituality, of the Bible in short ? Is it this, so that it wants to gobble up Jerusalem or kill Zionism, or oppress the oppressed, as has become so much its habit for so long, so long as the name is Israel! Of course, they are not the only ones. To be sure, in the Sudan where killings seem to number in the ten thousands, even recently (as in July 2004), there does not seem a great deal of action. After all, it is government bands, doubtless not least Islamic hosts which seem to swallow so adroitly the blood of many.

Do the Jew haters/baiters not have numbers in the UN ? The Australian's leader in p. 6, July 12, 2004 declares this:

"The very fact the UN referred Israel's barrier to the ICJ in the first place reflects a brutal political reality: there is a permanent anti-Israel majority on the General Assembly."

Arabs are so rich and swim in oil, which some want, on the one hand, and Israel is but one, on the other.

 As the leader goes on to note,

"... yesterday's bombing in Tel Aviv was a vivid reminder." Of what ? "It is that Israel is in the unique position of having to defend it own existence daily in the face of suicidal terrorists whose fundamental motivation - like that of the neighbouring states who sponsor them - is racism. Israel's neighbours have launched four wars to destroy the Jewish state in 55 years..."

Whether the USA will veto any attempt to destroy this wall so well limiting the destruction of Israel, this new way of extending anti-Semitism, now that they are a nation again, or whether it will take a leaf from what appears to be the book of Spain, and safely escape the wrath which some Islamic bodies have tried to make clear is costly to resist, as in the Twin Towers war assault on the USA: this remains to be seen.

Whether any incoming US Government in a little while, should it change from the present one, would capitulate to the concept of removing a veto shield from Israel in this and allied matters, this too, remains to be seen. Whether the declivity in US policy towards Israel, already considerable from the days of Nixon and Reagan, will continue as that mighty nation is subjected to more and more moral enormities as in the cult of perversion, now so hideously effervescing in some bodies called churches in that land as in some others, and to the flow of religious declines (cf.  News 121, It Bubbles ... Ch.  11 ), this too remains to be seen. The direction of flow may be arrested, or accelerate.

When all is seen, it is abundantly clear from the Bible that the LORD HIMSELF will intervene when the time is ripe, and Israel seeks Him in large numbers once again.

While Israel suffers, and whether or not the USA becomes psychologicallly subject to a new sort of intimidatory tactics, to seduce it into allowing a new sort of extermination of Israel, associated with an old sort of glory seeking in this world, quite explicitly, on the part of some in Islam, it is in the end only the LORD who will perform. It is He who will undertake in His own time, which draws near (Answers to Questions Ch. 5),  that necessary task of rebuke for the insalubrious and inveterate odium which surrounds the approach to Israel from its grasping neighbours, whether the intention be land, no competition, religious assault or other. God is never subject to human devices, and while He suffers many as He then proceeds to use them as teaching instruments and butts for rebuke as we have seen so eloquently in the last 60 years, the end is His. Indeed, this divine action has been manifest for millenia (cf. The Pitter-Patter ... Ch. 4).

When God acts, it will be known (cf. Ezekiel 38 and refs. above). Assault on His word, whether in word or in military action will meet the answer of fatuous autonomy, whether or not idolatry is embracing it. There is nothing fairy like about the faith. It acts because God acts. Nations have risen and fallen at His word (cf. Jeremiah 1:10).  There is no lack of power in God, even if His patience is misconstrued by the ungodly; yet in the end, there is nothing left to miscontrue!

Then, as the Lord God states emphatically, HE ALONE will be glorified, but glorified He will be, and His word, it will be fulfilled to the jot and tittle as the Lord Jesus Christ, that ultimate arbiter and teller of truth, which indeed He is, has declared. On these things, see:
 

Isaiah 2:12-17, 59:16-20, Micah 7:15ff., Zechariah 12-14, Deuteronomy 32:8ff.,35ff., Genesis 17:7-8, Joel 3:9ff., Ezekiel 36ff., Romans 11, and consult
SMR Appendix D, Galloping Events Ch. 1 and Ch. 4, It Bubbles ... Ch. 10.

 

THE AUSTRALIAN LEADER BECOMES A NOTABLE EXCEPTION IN THE MEDIA

NOT ABSOLUTE, BUT ABSOLUTELY UNUSUAL

Comments of this type, in the two quotations above, are exceedingly rare in the media. Just as one national station seems so close to a mouthpiece for the Labour Party that one could not, as a potential strategist, were one to desire so to serve, readily think of many improvements in it even if the Party owned it, for their purposes, so one finds the international parallel. There are those media outlets whose anti-Israel and pro-suicidal squalour stance seems all but predictable.

It is not perhaps that they actually LIKE armed-suicide to kill so much  - a new variation perhaps felt better to reflect the importance of life in this topsy-turvy world, as that they like the idea of Israel being subjected to more subjugation. It seems to be desired by many that there really won't be even ONE illustration of the race called Israel, the people called Jewish, with the other end in view,  that there may be one more body which is an illustration of the crushing submission chant of Islam. If this is religion, it is assuredly not godly, but gulping for glory. Majesty does not need vicious force for its glory. It promotes justice so that what is may become what it best might be.

Perhaps again they have other reasons for their favouritism also, such as a desire

1) to spare the Arab world the need to accommodate their own, many of whom sought the downfall of Israel and many more of whom still do so, even if given access to Israeli citizenship; and

2) to work on the wasp-waisted Israel so that it should accommodate more and have less, in some sort of always-give and never-receive syndrome.

Perhaps this too is thought to be glorious.

Whatever, however, the motivation, there is this same address to the pawn of the powerful, seeking not their deliverance for life, but the subjugation of Israel, so that it becomes indefensible, violable and ludicrously without land. If they do not seek this, then their plan results in this; and giving them credit for some thought, it comes nearly to the same thing.

If it be said that prejudice arrests reason, this is often true in measure, but rarely entirely; and even if it did, that is a responsibility just as great as is the case when people choose some other form of drunkenness or inebriated spirit for some other reason.

The leader noted continues to note how very effective*1 the barrier now being built by Israel, the WALL, has been, declaring that there were 60 terror bombings in the first half of 2002, with less than 10 this year (to July 12), while there were none in the last four months - 'until yesterday'. That was the Tel Aviv extra, the blight of spite, dudgeon or both, to add to Auschwitz.

Injuries DO hurt. People DO suffer for months or years. Agony is not removed by the fact that an ARAB does it, rather than a Jew seeking to defend his homeland. Land IS available without seducing the slender remnant of Palestine graciously not yet eaten up by the Madrid Quartet, the Road Map, the Peace Plan or the UN directly.

 

THE AWESOME INPUT

The awesome input is that of God in

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CALLING Israel in the first place,
 

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EXPANDING it when its faith came to fruition in David's day,
 

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BEARING with it for some centuries until, with some revivals but much descent,
the time of the Babylonian exile of 70 years,
 

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ANNOUNCING when the Messiah would come at the end of this period,
in a divine and sovereign manner directing what would become history in its time
(Highway of Holiness Ch. 4),
 

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PERMITTING the execution of that same Messiah as an expiatory sacrifice for sin
available through faith,
 

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ENSURING the destruction of Jerusalem and even forecasting it with tears, not hatred (Luke 19:42ff.),
 

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and WAITING (as in Isaiah 32:14-17, and 30:15ff.), till the time of restoration should come, first physically and then spiritually (It Bubbles ... Ch. 10).

Let us however cite from Chapter 30 of Isaiah more generally, since its message is intensive
and difficult to truncate.

It is the WAITING and the WOE, followed by the DELIVERANCE for Israel when it responds at last,
which is in focus, and then  a deliverance which scatters the nations as needed.

 

" 'Woe to the rebellious children,' says the Lord,

"Who take counsel, but not of Me,

And who devise plans, but not of My Spirit,

That they may add sin to sin;

Who walk to go down to Egypt,

And have not asked My advice,

To strengthen themselves in the strength of Pharaoh,

And to trust in the shadow of Egypt!

Therefore the strength of Pharaoh

Shall be your shame,

And trust in the shadow of Egypt

Shall be your humiliation.

 

'For his princes were at Zoan,

And his ambassadors came to Hanes.

They were all ashamed of a people who could not benefit them,

Or be help or benefit,

But a shame and also a reproach."

                  "The burden against the beasts of the South.

Through a land of trouble and anguish,

From which came the lioness and lion,

The viper and fiery flying serpent,

They will carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys,

And their treasures on the humps of camels,

To a people who shall not profit;

For the Egyptians shall help in vain and to no purpose.

 

"Therefore I have called her

Rahab-Hem-Shebeth.

Now go, write it before them on a tablet,

And note it on a scroll,

That it may be for time to come,

Forever and ever:

That this is a rebellious people,

Lying children,

Children who will not hear the law of the Lord;

Who say to the seers, 'Do not see,'

And to the prophets, 'Do not prophesy to us right things;

Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits.

Get out of the way,

Turn aside from the path,

Cause the Holy One of Israel

To cease from before us.'

 

           " 'Therefore,'  thus says the Holy One of Israel:

'Because you despise this word,

And trust in oppression and perversity,

And rely on them,

Therefore this iniquity shall be to you

Like a breach ready to fall,

A bulge in a high wall,

Whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant.

And He shall break it like the breaking of the potter’s vessel,

Which is broken in pieces;

He shall not spare.

So there shall not be found among its fragments

A shard to take fire from the hearth,

Or to take water from the cistern."

             "For thus says the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel:

'In returning and rest you shall be saved;

In quietness and confidence shall be your strength."

But you would not,

And you said, "No, for we will flee on horses"—

Therefore you shall flee!

And, "We will ride on swift horses" -
 

'Therefore those who pursue you shall be swift!

One thousand shall flee at the threat of one,

At the threat of five you shall flee,

Till you are left as a pole on top of a mountain

And as a banner on a hill.

 

'Therefore the Lord will wait, that He may be gracious to you;

And therefore He will be exalted, that He may have mercy on you.

For the Lord is a God of justice;

Blessed are all those who wait for Him.'

 

"For the people shall dwell in Zion at Jerusalem;

You shall weep no more.

He will be very gracious to you at the sound of your cry;

When He hears it, He will answer you.

And though the Lord gives you

The bread of adversity and the water of affliction,

Yet your teachers will not be moved into a corner anymore,

But your eyes shall see your teachers.

 

"Your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying,

'This is the way, walk in it,'

Whenever you turn to the right hand

Or whenever you turn to the left...

 

"Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun,

And the light of the sun will be sevenfold,

As the light of seven days,

In the day that the Lord binds up the bruise of His people

And heals the stroke of their wound.

 

"Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar,

Burning with His anger,

And His burden is heavy;

His lips are full of indignation,

And His tongue like a devouring fire.

His breath is like an overflowing stream,

Which reaches up to the neck,

To sift the nations with the sieve of futility;

And there shall be a bridle in the jaws of the people,

Causing them to err.

 

"You shall have a song

As in the night when a holy festival is kept,

And gladness of heart as when one goes with a flute,

To come into the mountain of the Lord,

To the Mighty One of Israel.

 

"The Lord will cause His glorious voice to be heard,

And show the descent of His arm,

With the indignation of His anger

And the flame of a devouring fire,

With scattering, tempest, and hailstones."

 

            Isaiah 32:14-17 may be cited more briefly (bold added):

  • "Because the palaces will be forsaken,

  • The bustling city will be deserted.

    The forts and towers will become lairs forever,

    A joy of wild donkeys, a pasture of flocks—

    Until the Spirit is poured upon us from on high,

    And the wilderness becomes a fruitful field,

    And the fruitful field is counted as a forest.

     

    "Then justice will dwell in the wilderness,

    And righteousness remain in the fruitful field.

    The work of righteousness will be peace,

    And the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever."

    Of these things you see more in Micah 7, Habakkuk 3, Deuteronomy 32, Isaiah 59 and of course, Joel 3. However the point is simple: Israel is in trouble because of unbelief, is returned to its land because of divine faithfulness to His word, which was unconditional and held this explicit provision (cf. Galloping Events Ch. 4, It Bubbles ... Ch. 10), and is detested by the nations for reasons including their desires against her and her existence, its distinctiveness and its divine mandate from of old. It is is a democracy in a largely Islamic Middle East, and hence a danger potentially to absolutism and totalitarianism (religious or other) in cultural coercions, is affronted by the nations of force to which it appears an affront, and is persecuted by the significantly Arab influenced UN.

    Thus there is no peace, nor should there be expected to be, until ALL repent and ALL find in Christ the peace that HE ALONE can give. Israel was wrong to forsake the Lord when He came, the  Arabs are wrong to invent a new god, who is no God, thus doing precisely what Israel was inclined to do (as God indicts in Deuteronomy 32:15ff.), and its idolatry includes some pseudo-Christian lore and Jewish backdrop in a way which is a credit neither to any reality in history or realism with the Lord. Rome meanwhile has added its missions and presence, having been sadly silent in the persecution of Jews by Hitler, when it seems it had more concern for itself than its neighbour, and sadly vocal in adding so to the Bible, and subtracting from its laws, that it joins the duo to make a trio (cf. SMR pp.  1032ff.).

    How ludicrous to expect peace when you meddle with the land which killed its own Messiah and has been richly judged for it, and insist on judging it further with irresponsible alterations of mandates (such as that of the League of nations of 1920), breaches of trust, relative indifference to these increments to Auschwitz, instead of a repentance for an arrogant and disdainful distancing of the Jew. It is this which has so often been done on the part of those who have held to a heresy and a horror worse than that of Israel, if possible, in this, that they rejected the Messiah before He rose, but these reject Him in His free Gospel offer (Romans 3:23ff.), and while His Gospel is going forth and the entire pageant of divine prediction is being fulfilled continuously before our very eyes.

    To whom much is given, more is to be expected. It is not however being found in the distortions and the defiance which makes a trio of trouble singing in the Middle East, and that before you add the rest!

    What then of the wall being built  to limit the post-Auschwitz terrorism ? It is therefore good to hear that the dissenting US judge on the 15 member ICJ noted in his ruling in dissent, that insufficient account was taken of Israel's security needs in the prohibition of the wall. Prohibition ? There is talk of its being torn down, perhaps with international power. What would that be like ? It would resemble an adolescent who, having stolen a car (the land), now roars into police cars parked by the station (the predictions and appointments of God, in this parable)

    What then ? the US judge at least declares that they did not sufficiently regard Israel's defence needs in their attack on the wall.

    That is perhaps rather like saying that a shark took insufficient account of the life needs of its torn asunder victim. It is doubtless true, but not exhaustive, as Churchill reportedly  said of the fact that England was in debt to the USA!

     

     

     

    NOTE

    *1

    Less effective, according to this same leader in The Australian, is the point that firstly, the UN is itself a party to the Middle East conflict, being a signatory of the "Road Map", and secondly, that it is required of the ICJ that the parties whose dispute is to be settled by it, must agree to the matter being tested by it. Israel did not do so.

    It is of course one more mark of the coming bestiality which is to sit astride this earth for a little while (Revelation 13, 17), that such a totalitarian handling of the situation in a court of an international variety and clout should occur. There would, in any actual usage of justice, have to be an assurance that there was no ground for national, racial or other bias in the judges, at least in any ostensible way, that all the historical facts were given due attention, that the initiatives of all parties over the relevant period (about 3200 years) was taken into account, that the status of those who aided war on Israel in losing their homes, and continue to make it in inhuman ways be discerned. that terrorism be evaluated, and its methods rewarded in the way fitting and a whole array of considerations, ending with this, that Israel is almost obliterated by concessions for peace to its enemies, whom it has beaten repeatedly, and that there is little sign of any to it.

    It could even be argued that peaceable integration into Israeli society of some who wanted it that way, could be conceived, and honourable removal of those who wanted to act as a fifth column and subvert it from within should be urged.

    When it is all done, it is difficult to fight God, but man has made a business of it, and this is one of th