“In the last days
the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established
as the highest of the mountains;
it will be exalted above the hills,
and all nations will stream to it.
Many peoples will come and say,
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the temple of the God of Jacob.
He will teach us his ways,
so that we may walk in his paths.”
The law will go out from Zion,
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He will judge between the nations
and will settle disputes for many peoples.
They will beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not take up sword against nation,
nor will they train for war anymore.
Come, descendants of Jacob,
let us walk in the light of the Lord.
You, Lord, have abandoned your people,
the descendants of Jacob.
They are full of superstitions from the East;
they practice divination like the Philistines
and embrace pagan customs.
Their land is full of silver and gold;
there is no end to their treasures.
Their land is full of horses;
there is no end to their chariots.
Their land is full of idols;
they bow down to the work of their hands,
to what their fingers have made.
So people will be brought low
and everyone humbled—
do not forgive them.
Go into the rocks, hide in the ground
from the fearful presence of the Lord
and the splendor of his majesty!
The eyes of the arrogant will be humbled
and human pride brought low;
the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.
The Lord Almighty has a day in store
for all the proud and lofty,
for all that is exalted
(and they will be humbled),
for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty,
and all the oaks of Bashan,
for all the towering mountains
and all the high hills,
for every lofty tower
and every fortified wall,
for every trading ship
and every stately vessel.
The arrogance of man will be brought low
and human pride humbled;
the Lord alone will be exalted in that day,
and the idols will totally disappear.
People will flee to caves in the rocks
and to holes in the ground
from the fearful presence of the Lord
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth.
In that day people will throw away
to the moles and bats
their idols of silver and idols of gold,
which they made to worship.
They will flee to caverns in the rocks
and to the overhanging crags
from the fearful presence of the Lord
and the splendor of his majesty,
when he rises to shake the earth.”
— Isaiah 2:2-21
When God sent the flood. He was acting as arbiter over mankind. That’s not what you want.
When my boys are fighting I tell them, you’d better figure out a way to resolve your differences without fighting, because if I have to step in, no one is going to like the solution that I come up with.
That’s what God does, too. He is ultimately holy – no one is guiltless before Him. That’s why the Messiah has to come. Because not even His own nation, that He delegated His authority to, and taught His law to, could meet His standard. Even they eventually ended up earning His judgment.
So at first, what you see in the Bible, is that God deals directly with mankind, and it doesn’t go well. There is a flood. Afterward, He says, I don’t want this to happen again, so what will I do? He delegates part of His authority to Noah. In particular, he says that humans should take care of arbitration – justice and order – from then on. “If anyone sheds a man’s blood, by man must his blood be shed.” Not by God.
A few years later, He gives the land of Canaan to the people of Israel. Why? Because the Canaanites weren’t managing it well. You see, there are some things God takes care of Himself, and there are some things He leaves up to us. He keeps our hearts beating, and fills our lungs with oxygen, but He leaves it up to us to find food. He makes the sun move across the sky and keeps the seasons changing in a regular rhythm, but he leaves it up to us to grow crops and maintain a good stock of animals on earth.
He can even arbitrate between the oppressor and the oppressed – but we don’t want Him to. Why? Because we are all oppressors. We’ve all been unfair, and unkind. “Agree with your adversary quickly while you are on your way to court.” So after the flood, He left that up to us, too. “The ruler does not bear the sword in vain.”
Now a time came for the Jewish people when they weren’t doing a good enough job of that, just like the tribes that occupied Canaan before them. You see, government is a privilege. If you don’t do it well – if you’re unjust, if there is disorder and the innocent have no one to turn to – eventually, you will lose that privilege and God will give it to someone else. That’s what happened to the tribes that came before Israel, and that’s what God warned would happen to them, if they didn’t uphold His moral law. And it did.
Once Israel went into captivity in Babylon – ever since then – the management of that particular territory was handed over to their enemies. Not until very recently did they finally have that privilege handed back to them. Because now, I believe, they are ready. And so far they have been doing an incredible job – but they still don’t have full control of their own nation, yet, as God promised they would. And God keeps His promises.
But let’s see how things are going around the rest of the world. There’s persecution, violence and injustice. Even the animals suffer under the cruelty of the demons that some people still worship. Look how elephants are treated in India. Look how children are treated in Thailand. Look at abortion.
Look how God’s people – Christians and Jews – are treated everywhere.
That’s why God sent His Son Jesus into the world. Now, Jesus was Jewish. Of course I believe He was the Messiah, but my Jewish friends disagree with me.
The Messiah comes for two reasons – first, He comes to restore the Jewish people to their homeland. That’s a kind of redemption, and Jesus hasn’t done that yet. Which is why they don’t believe that He is the Messiah. But He also comes to redeem all mankind. He purifies some of His children – Christians and Jews – by letting them taste the fullness of mankind’s capacity for evil. (When Peter asked to reign with Him, He told him, “You don’t know what you are asking; are you able to share with Me the cup of suffering that it is my destiny to drink?”)
Then He takes these innocent victims – like His Son Jesus – and He sets them up in place of all the other rulers of the world, those of us who have no clue what we are doing. Because they will truly understand how bad things can get, and what things should look like instead. And He supervises them personally. Like with Moses, anything that’s too hard for them, they bring to Him for arbitration. And that’s when you have the 1000 years of unimaginable peace and prosperity.
Now of course there are forces in this world that are opposed to justice. Forces that thrive on oppression, exploitation, and selfishness. And right now there’s a battle going on between those forces. So you see we humans still have a part to play – especially those of us who still have a say in our own government. Part of what God looks at to determine whether we are running things down here on earth the way we were meant to is, how are we treating the most vulnerable, especially the children?… and in particular, how we are treating His children?
So you can see all these conflicts throughout history, and so far mankind has tended to side with the weak. Societies that don’t, don’t tend to do well. God has left it up to us to stand against evil. And as long as we do, He doesn’t have to step in and put a stop to whatever it is we’re trying to do down here on earth.
That’s why I stand up for Israel. If ever there is no one left to stand up for what’s right, then He will have to come down again, in Person, and do something about it Himself. That’s the apocalypse.
No Christian who understands what the apocalypse is, wants it to happen. There are “Christians” who want the Jewish people to all return to Israel so that Jesus can come back, andthose people are fools. Jeremiah said, “I have not desired the day of the Lord.” And Isaiah said, “woah to the ones who say, let Him work His work in our day, so that we may see it.” Isaiah’s audience got their wish – unfortunately.
I don’t stand with Israel because I’m hoping that Jesus will come back in my lifetime. I stand with Israel so that He won’t have to. Because when no one else is left to defend them, Jesus Christ will come down here and do it Himself.
What a horrible day, what a catastrophe! No world wide flood could ever compare. Look what happened to the angels who disobeyed God – angels! And look what happened when His own, chosen, beloved people forsook His ways, and failed to uphold His mercy. What do you think will happen to the rest of us – God’s enemies? Do you think we will be better off than His own beloved children were, when He came to judge them – or worse?
No – it will look something like the book of Revelation. Beg your heavenly Father not to let this happen in your lifetime. “Now the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God. And if the righteous are hardly spared, where will the ungodly and sinner appear?” “Look up at the fields and see that they are white, already, for harvest. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth reapers [ie, evangelists].” Because, ultimately, the change that has to take place in this world, has to take place within the hearts of human beings.
In short, I stand with Israel as a Christian because God has delegated the management of human affairs to… well, to humans. As long as we rule with justice and mercy – as long as we uphold the cause of the helpless and the oppressed – He won’t have to come down here and do it for us.
“Do not exalt yourself in the king’s presence, and do not claim a place among his great men; it is better for him to say to you, “Come up here,” than for him to humiliate you before his nobles. What you have seen with your eyes, do not bring hastily to court, for what will you do in the end if your neighbor puts you to shame?”
“Again, you have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘Do not break your oath, but fulfill to the Lord the vows you have made.’ But I tell you, do not swear an oath at all: either by heaven, for it is God’s throne; or by the earth, for it is his footstool; or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the Great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make even one hair white or black. All you need to say is simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”
“Do not be quick with your mouth, do not be hasty in your heart to utter anything before God. God is in heaven and you are on earth, so let your words be few. A dream comes when there are many cares, and many words mark the speech of a fool. When you make a vow to God, do not delay to fulfill it. He has no pleasure in fools; fulfill your vow. It is better not to make a vow than to make one and not fulfill it.”
Also read the whole (very short) book of Habakuk if you want to see what happens when someone insists on asking God to step in and put a stop to human injustice.
“Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court. Do it while you are still together on the way, or your adversary may hand you over to the judge, and the judge may hand you over to the officer, and you may be thrown into prison.”
“Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day of their wrath has come, and who can withstand it?'”
“For Zion’s sake I will not keep silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not remain quiet, till her vindication shines out like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch. The nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory; you will be called by a new name that the mouth of the Lord will bestow.”
“You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest, and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth. The Lord has sworn by his right hand and by his mighty arm: ‘Never again will I give your grain as food for your enemies, and never again will foreigners drink the new wine for which you have toiled; but those who harvest it will eat it and praise the Lord, and those who gather the grapes will drink it in the courts of my sanctuary.’ Pass through, pass through the gates! Prepare the way for the people. Build up, build up the highway! Remove the stones. Raise a banner for the nations. The Lord has made proclamation to the ends of the earth: “Say to Daughter Zion, ‘See, your Savior comes! See, his reward is with him, and his recompense accompanies him.’” They will be called the Holy People, the Redeemed of the Lord; and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted.”
“Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended. For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing. Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.”