ULDAH MINISTRY

No,93　　JULY. 2003

【PEACE IN JERUSALEM 】

This is the word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'write in a book all the words I have spoken to you. The days are coming,' declares the LORD, 'when I will bring my people Israel and Judah back from captivity and restore them to the land I gave to their forefathers to possess,' says the LORD." …How awful that day will be! None will be like it. It will be a time of trouble for Jacob, but he will be saved out of it. …I am with you and will save you,' declares the LORD. 'Though I completely destroy all the nations among which I scatter you. I will discipline you but only with justice; I will not let you go entirely unpunished.' … I will build you up again and you will be rebuilt, O virgin Israel. … There will be a day when watchmen cry out on the hills of Ephraim, 'Come, let us go up to Zion, to the LORD our God.'" …See, I will bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the ends of the earth. Among them will be the blind and the lame, expectant mothers and women in labour; a great throng will return. They will come with weeping; they will pray as I bring them back. …"Hear the word of the LORD, O nations; proclaim it in distant coastlands: 'He who scattered Israel will gather them and will watch over his flock like a shepherd.'… So there is hope for your future," declares the LORD. "Your children will return to their own land. …
This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: "When I bring them back from captivity, the people in the land of Judah and in its towns will once again use these words: 'The LORD bless you, O righteous dwelling, O sacred mountain.' People will live together in Judah and all its towns - farmers and those who move about with their flocks. I will refresh the weary and satisfy the faint." At this I awoke and looked around. My sleep had been pleasant to me. "The days are coming," declares the LORD, "When I will plant the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the offspring of men and of animals. Just as I watched over them to uproot and tear down, and to overthrow, destroy and bring disaster, so I will watch over them to build and to plant," …"For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more." …he who appoints the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar - … "Only if these decrees vanish from my sight," declared the LORD, "will the descendants of Israel ever cease to be a nation before me."… "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the LORD.　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Jeremiah 30:1~31:36.　Lines added.

The two parties which had been involved in the Middle East conflict, Israel and Palestinians have at last taken the first step to bring peace back to the land. Both Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmound Abbas accepted the U.S. backed "road map" for leading to the establishment of a Palestinian state, thus consequently to peaceful coexistence and to an end to violence, bloodshed and terrorism. Needless to say, peace in the Middle East will not be brought in simply because of the two leaders' expression of determination to cease-fire and in fact the difficulty ahead has already been gravely apprehended. There are without doubt, piles of issues to be resolved to faithfully follow the road map; drastic reform of the Palestinian Authority, strict control over suicide bombings by Palestinian extremists on the Palestinian side and the dismantling of Israeli "illegal settlements" in the West Bank and release of Palestinian political prisoners and so on on the Israeli side. Historically, previous attempts of cease-fires have failed time after time because the two parties distrusted each other in worldly terms. Biblically speaking, however, causes of such tantalising indecisiveness of both parties fundamentally would lie in the spiritual nature of the conflict. In order that peacemaking process may be not jeopardised again, both parties concerned and also other interfering countries should recognise the need of returning to God, the source of all and of taking heed to biblical resolutions.
As past human history has painfully witnessed, and it has already been predicted in scriptural warnings, no human effort can bring about ultimate peace in the future and the only solution is to return to God and to be subject to the lordship of Jesus Christ. Right from the beginning of Scripture, age-old battles have been recorded between God's chosen people and their enemies, and between God's plans and Satan's schemes that interfere every purpose of God. The devil's scheme has been enabled through human agents and countries in forms of persecution, adversity and war. Briefly, examples include Pharaoh in Egypt, Amalekites, who first attacked Israel after her Exodus and who were generally viewed as the epitome of all the powers of the world against the Jews, Jezebel who brought in paganism officially and systematically into Israel in the time of prophet Elijah, Assyrians, Nebuchadnezzar, Babylonians, Haman, a wicked conspirator in the time of Queen Esther, Antiochus Epiphanes who plundered the Jerusalem Temple in 169BCE, Herod, an Edomite who managed to acquire a status of Jewish king from the Roman Authorities and Roman emperors from Nero in 54CE, through Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Marcus Aurelius, Severus, Maximum, Decius, Valerian, and Aurelian to Diocletian in 305CE, or more recently, Hitler, Stalin and his successors, all those who have participated in thwarting the purposes of God for His chosen people, Jews throughout their four thousand year old history.
There are several reasons conceivable for centuries' persecution over the God's elect.
1）The devil hates God and God's people through whom God will accomplish His plans. The devil who feared the ultimate fulfilment of the first messianic prophecy in Genesis 3:15: And I (The LORD God) will put enmity between you (the devil) and the woman (Eve), and between your offspring (sinful, unregenerate man) and hers (the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Nazarene); he (the Messiah) will crush your head (a fatal wound, suggesting Satan's ultimate destruction), and you (the devil) will strike his heel (a miner injury, suggesting Christ's seeming defeat on the cross by crucifixion), has made every effort to prevent the birth of the God-promised Messiah. For this reason the existence of the Jewish nation and also the existence of spiritual Jews who believe in Jesus as their Messiah have been threatened to death for centuries. The devil, who well knows his time to entice man is very short, is today more than furious to be looking for someone to devour. That is why we are recently witnessing more Jews, more churches and more Christians being shaken relentlessly than ever and at the same time this is an inevitable process of cleansing as God's elect and as Christ's bride. 　
2) Man's innate sinfulness hates its opposite; godliness, the faithful to God as at the very beginning of human history, symbolically depicted in the account of Cain's murdering of his brother Abel. There Cain could not stand Abel's righteousness simply because of his own wickedness. Jesus taught: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God (John 3:19~21). Jesus also replied to the Pharisees: I know you are Abraham's descendants. Yet you are ready to kill me, because you have no room for my word. ... I am telling you what I have seen in the Father's presence, and you do what you have heard from your father." … If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and now am here. … Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father's desire. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. … The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God."(John 8:37~47. Lines added). If we were to turn our deaf ear to the Lord's Word we would be able to judge our real heart condition and motive, whether we belong to the Lord or the devil.
3) The righteous and just God cannot dismiss sin without punishment. This means that God allows even His chosen to be afflicted by disasters to discipline the disobedient and thus, they are to be purified through the chastisement and the furnace of affliction. God's judgment by means of famine, flood, earthquake, plague, pestilence, wildfire and war proves to the world of His righteousness and how He is faithful to His own Word. Consequently and paradoxically, people will learn God's goodness and love through trials and afflictions as the Psalmist expressed: Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I obey your work. You are good, and what you do is good, teach me your decrees. … I know, O LORD, that your laws are righteous, and in faithfulness you have afflicted me. May your unfailing love be my comfort, according to your promise to your servant (Ps.119:67~76). The resurrected Lord also spoke to the church in Laodicea in His revelation to John: Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent (Re.3:19). One of Job's friends, Eliphaz, expressed God's unfathomable chastisement from man's point of view in the following: Blessed is the man whom God corrects; so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty. For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal. From six calamities he will rescue you; in seven no harm will befall you (Job 5:17~19. Line added). Eliphaz was firmly assured of God's last moment salvation, no matter how hard and how long times of affliction and trial might persist. Acknowledging God's unfailing credibility, Hosea was one of those who passed on the similar prophecy to the Israelites and encouraged them to return to the Lord and to press on to trust in Him to the end.
4) God proves that He is in control over all things beyond man's understanding and thus, that he is the source of all. God declared His sovereignty to the pagan king Cyrus: I am the LORD, and there is no other; apart from me there is no God. … I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the LORD, do all these things (Is. 45:5~7). Having sentenced judgment upon the unfaithful and disobedient Jerusalem, God yet shared His real heart desire with Ezekiel: I will surely strike my hands together at the unjust gain you have made and at the blood you have shed in your midst. Will your courage endure or your hands be strong in the day I deal with you? I the LORD have spoken, and I will do it. I will disperse you among the nations and scatter you through the countries; and I will put an end to your uncleanness. When you have been defiled in the eyes of the nations, you will know that I am the LORD (Eze.22:13~16. Lines added). God who initiated His plan, will also finish what He promised completely, through all the paths of proving His faithfulness and justice.
All these reasons behind the affaires in this world speak of the essence of God's attribute, love; and that His foremost desire is never to punish but to keep man living in accordance with His creation order, God's heart-cry is unchanging through the ages, which can be found in numerous verses in Scriptures: Therefore, O houses of Israel, I will judge you, each one according to his ways, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent! Turn away from all your offences; then sin will not be your downfall. Rid yourselves of all the offences you have committed, and get a new heart and a new spirit. Why will you die, O house of Israel? For I take no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Sovereign LORD. Repent and live! (Eze.18:30~32. lines added). As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, O house of Israel? (Eze.33:11. Line added). "I will come to you and fulfil my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plan I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you (Jer.29:10~12).

Bearing all the above in mind, it would come to be apparent why the cycle of retribution, repentance, and restoration has repeatedly coloured Israel's history up to today. It had to happen for the sake of Israel because Israel did not recognise the day which would bring her the messianic age of peace two thousand years ago when God came to the Jews in the person of Jesus. They rejected to accept Him as their Messiah. God's cycle of chastisement is today still going on because though God graciously allowed the Jews to re-establish their state in the promised land fifty-five years ago and has continually led the scattered Jews to return to the land from all over the world, the majority of them have yet not returned to God Himself. In the future, however, if they would recognise God's supernatural intervention, in their recent six epoch-making triumphant wars against the neighbouring Arab nations; �@the War of Independence against seven Arab countries in 1948~49, �Athe Sinai Campaign against the three allied countries of Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1957, �Bthe Six-Day War in 1967, �Cthe Yom Kippur war in 1973, �Dthe Lebanon War, i.e., Operation Peace for Galilee in 1982, and �Ethe Gulf War against Iraq in 1991, it would then be the time for the ultimate peace to materialise over the land of Israel. The path through all those wars was indeed marked by the mighty miracles of God for the tiny nation Israel, even in the third party's eyes.
If God still stands in His unchanging stance, declaring, 'For I will be like a lion to Ephraim, like a great lion to Judah. I will tear them to pieces and go away; I will carry them off, with no-one to rescue them. Then I will go back to my place until they admit their guilt. And they will seek my face; in their misery they will earnestly seek me' (Hosea 5:14~15), as explored above, we can say that in the present situation in the middle East no lasting peace can be expected between the two parties in the land unless Israel ceases to hold on to her own wit, ingenuity and self-reliance and unless she wholeheartedly turns to God.
God's prophet Jeremiah was given a revelation from the Lord while he was drowsing. Thinking of the situation Jeremiah was confronting, where Jerusalem was on the verge of destruction by the Babylonians, the revelation was an amazingly optimistic view of Israel. The vision quoted at the beginning pictures the ultimate restoration of both divided kingdoms of Israel as a peaceful united kingdom under the lordship of the Messiah. Although some verses about joyful and emotional return from the seventy year exile in Babylon to the land, might indeed partially have been fulfilled at the time of Haggai, Zechariah, Ezra and Nehemiah, the fulfilment of the majority of the section would further be anticipated in the future when Jesus Christ comes back as a Jewish long-awaited Messiah to complete His kingdom that He had inaugurated two thousand years ago at the time of His first coming. Before this final restoration of the Jewish united kingdom, the Scriptures declare that the Jews must go through severe sufferings (expressed as 'a time of trouble for Jacob' in the section above). As God, through Jeremiah declared the promise of His unfailing grace over 'all the descendants of Israel' as 'a nation' and also the certainty of the restoration of Jerusalem as God's city as long as His creation order over the heavens and earth remains standing, and also as the New Testament declares, so God never fails to be faithful even when Christians are and Israel is unfaithful. Accordingly, despite the unfaithfulness of the present Israel or despite her unconverted state of the present, God will keep His Word and everything prophesied in the Scriptures will ultimately come true. In other words, if we can rightly perceive the place of Israel in the purposes of God as depicted in the Scriptures, we, understanding the times, will be able to behave wisely by siding for God's chosen, Israel, whatever terrible judgment is to befall her.