In this sermon, the speaker discusses the misinterpretation of scriptures by the church, particularly in relation to Israel. He references Isaiah 16:4-5 and Amos 9:11 to emphasize the importance of understanding the context and intended meaning of these verses. The speaker criticizes the church for taking liberties with the scripture and using it to suit their own purposes, rather than recognizing Israel as the intended object of these scriptures. He concludes by reading Isaiah 16:4-5, which speaks about providing refuge to the outcasts of Moab and the cessation of destruction and oppression.

So I can give you a significant place to look. This is Isaiah 16, verses 4 through 5. And then the following verse... Begin in Amos chapter 9 from verse 11. On that day I will raise up the booth of David that is fallen. What's the day? It's the day when God will sift Israel through the nations. It's not the 24-hour period, but what commences at that time, a final dealing with Israel, eventuates in not only the restoration, but the raising up of the booth that is fallen, which is, in my opinion, Davidic government and rule. And Isaiah 16, verses 4 through 5 seems to bear that out. This is so typical of the church's usurpation of taking explicit scriptures for Israel and turning it to its own context and to its own use, completely extrapolating or removing Israel itself as the object of those scriptures and putting it in its charismatic context. What a remarkable... What's the word for it? Effrontery. Because it's taking a liberty with the scripture that is an offense against God, as if taking liberties with God. Where does the church come off to bring such misuse as if it's our privilege to bring to the scripture those renderings and interpretations that suit our purposes and are in the context of our need, rather than what is being explicitly set forth as the first rule of interpretation. That's what happens... Let me note this. This is what happens when Israel is omitted from the consideration of the church. You set in motion a whole degeneration of respect for the God of Israel and for his word. And once you take these kinds of liberty in interpretation and setting aside what is the clear context in its literal sense and providing your own, where do you stop? And that might well be the line of progression that has led to the deterioration of the church and its authority, and in its final expression, even to the kind of cynicism where God is dead. If not stated, then actually in fact in terms of the way in which the church creeps along. So the whole genius of Israel is a nation intended for the recovery of all nations. So they're beginning to see the first fruit of that fulfillment. But how do you move from that into the context of worship through speculation when in the scripture that they are citing, James in Acts 15, what follows that statement that raise up its ruins and rebuild it as in the days of old, in order that what? That they might dance and carry on charismatically, but in order that they may possess the remnant of Edom. What does that mean? Own them? What does the word possess imply? Or have Edom come under the governance of that tabernacle that's been raised up? Edom not only refers to those trans-Jordanian people, but it's the symbolic Hebraic term for Gentile nations that have been adverse to God. So Edom comes into or under the possession in that the purpose of the tabernacle being raised up is that in order that Edom, that they may possess the remnant of Edom, surviving remnant, and all the nations who are called by my name, all the nations, what's the whole context of the faith? The nations coming under the Lord's banner and under His governance. The whole context is governmental. To make this a springboard as if what is really referring to as a form of worship is entirely to miss the greater significance of this context. And if indeed there is a form of Davidic worship that is to be enjoyed and to be employed, that's fine, but not at the expense of displacing the first and evident literal statement of God about that enormous tabernacle of David. That's presumption and setting aside the first intention of God and supplying our own. And that's characteristic of the church in its history, in its modern history, to do that. Well, let me read Isaiah 16, 4 and 5. Let the outcasts of Moab settle among you, be a refuge to them from the destroyer. When the oppressor is no more and destruction has ceased and marauders have vanished from the land. That sounds like a whole apocalyptic setting of great devastation. Then, in that context, then a throne shall be established. A throne only signifies one thing, its rule. A throne shall be established in steadfast love in the tabernacle of David, and on it shall sit in faithfulness a ruler who seeks justice and is swift to do what is right. That is a descendant of David. That's what makes it the tabernacle of David. And in fact, the ark of God that David returned, what is it? Not an object of golden calf equivalent to dance around. It is the place where God says, I will meet with you above the mercy seat between the wings of the turban, and there I will give unto you commandment and instruction for the sons of Israel. I'll give you governmental direction. So even the ark itself is the locus and the center of God's presence with his people for direction or rule. Well, I've got, looking through my papers, just maybe a point of beginning. In Ezekiel chapter 5, verse 5, thus says the Lord God, this is Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations with the countries round about her who live at the center of the world. The Lord has an epicenter, Jerusalem. I have set her in the center of the nations. There's a divine ordering, and the center of the nation is the ark of God, the presence of God. Even the tribes in the wilderness were set in an order, and they were so arranged around the tent of the meeting where the fire of God abided by day, by night and the cloud by day over the very ark of God's presence, and around it were distributed or arranged the various tribes in their order. Satan is the God of chaos, and this order, God the God of order. He has his own design. It's incumbent upon us to find it, to honor it, to cherish it, and to pray and participate in its being established. But at its center, I have set Jerusalem. And the commentary of Jameson, Fawcett, and Brown also describes in Ezekiel 12 a central position morally for being a blessing to the world. Why is Israel the center? That's the blessedness to bless all the families of the earth. It's got to emanate an issue from the point of the pivot that God has made it. And it's for that reason that it becomes the object of envy and opposition by other nations who do not want to submit to the divine order. The millennium is nothing more nor less than the divine order finally being fulfilled for the nations in relationship to that nation which he has chosen as the center of the world. And from it go forth the direction to mankind the world over. And that's what I believe Amos 9 is alluding to in order that they may possess the remnant of Eden and all the nations who are called by my name. Not possess in the sense of holding or keeping, but bringing the nations under the overview of God's authority from the one locus that he has chosen, Israel. And so the commentator continues, unless the world is to be handed over to confusion, I would say chaos, there must be a principle of order in it. If there is to be any stability, there must be a center of the world. And the author distinguishes between a moral center and a power center. Two kinds of centers that the world acknowledges. They're more disposed to a center of power than to a center of a spiritual kind, a moral center where spiritual leadership issues. But the distinction of the kingdom of God is that the center is one. It's both governmental and moral. It's both a practical ordering and a spiritual ordering. Because in the last analysis, what is moral? What is practical? What is spiritual? Can anything be right and good that's not spiritual? Can anything be spiritual that does not have practical consequence? So God's center, unlike the world, is not separating power from morality. It's the two. It doesn't coincide in the world, but it coincides in the kingdom of God and of David. And that, in fact, is a definition of what government should be. I'm very much blessed by the parting statements of David that summed up his government and is really a statement of divine government, of the kingdom of God. What distinguishes this center out of which one day will emanate the rule of God to all nations? We have a little glimpse and a foretaste in 2 Samuel 23 that's on my heart or in my spirit this morning to look at. It's very short, very brief, and very poetic, very suggestive. It gives us a glimpse of what this moral center will be for all nations when God's theocratic rule is established in the one place and out of the one nation that he has designated. In chapter 23 of 2 Samuel, I have in italics the last words of David. I think that the last words deserve a special attention. Now, these are the last words of David, the oracle of David, son of Jesse, the oracle of the man whom God exalted, the anointed of the God of Jacob, the favorite of the strong one of Israel. And here's the statement. The Spirit of the Lord speaks through me. His word is upon my tongue. The God of Israel has spoken. The rock of Israel has said to me. Okay, here's the statement that the God of Israel has said to this anointed David, beloved and favored son, the first king who sets the mark and the flavor and the character in preview of what will one day be God's universal rule. The kingdom of David has its inception in Israel, but its full manifestation will come over all nations. But the character of it must be Davidic. And that is what is summed up in this poetic description. One who rules over people justly, ruling in the fear of God, is like the light of morning, like the sun rising on a cloudless morning, gleaming from the rain on the grassy land. Is not my house like this with God? For he has made with me a everlasting covenant, ordered in all things unsecure. Will he not cause to prosper all my help and my desire? And then he goes on to speak about the Godless and the direction of that statement shifts away from what we want to consider. I wanted to see how the Amplified says the same thing. The spirit of the Lord spoke in and by me and his word was upon my tongue. The God of Israel spoke. The rock of Israel said to me, when one rules over men righteously, ruling in the fear of God, he dawns on them like the morning light when the sun rises on a cloudless morning, when the tender grass springs out of the earth through clear shining after rain. Truly, does not my house stand so with God? I've never heard a description of government anything like this. It's the antidote to bureaucracy and heavy handedness and self-aggrandizement to misuse of office and power. Give me a word. Give me a synonym. What is this suggestive of? What one word would you say is caught up in this poetic description? It has to do with power and authority, but expressed in the distinctly Davidic way that characterizes the moral center of the universe that Jerusalem one day shall be and presently is not. Present Jerusalem, present Israel, present rule, present government in that land today is a complete antithesis to this. It's exhibiting what the Gentile nations have always expressed. Power corrupts. How does the action go? And absolute power corrupts absolutely. And I have suggested that the reason for the establishment, among other reasons, for the present state of Israel is to prove to us Jews that that's so. That we are romantic and we're suffering from a delusion if we think that out of our own humanity being Jews that we can establish a form of government and rule that would be different in character than from anything that the world has ever known as it has been expressed through nations that are Gentile. Are we Jews going to bring some special quotient or dimension? That was our intention. That was the boast. That was the hope that Israel would, present state, would demonstrate to the world the uniqueness of a Jewish society of government. But after a half century, a lack and a less, the unhappy and melancholy thing is far from exhibiting anything uniquely different, it has exhibited what all the nations have expressed when in power because power corrupts. The only kind of power that does not corrupt is God's. When man is in power, necessarily there must be corruption. And the greater the power, the greater the corruption. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. And that's what we saw in Nazi Germany, what we saw in Emperor Shinto Japan and what we will see in the last days when the spirit of Antichrist has full sway and rule over nations. So we need to anticipate what will be the crowning glory of God after the last season of human government when the time of the Gentiles is past. The age of the Gentiles. Gentile dispensation which, ironically, Israel itself is exhibiting and demonstrating. So we have but this one little poetic description and I'm just trusting the spirit of the Lord to open that for us. What one word comes to you when you hear that? The sun rising on a cloudless day, the moisture as after a rain. I think not so much of a rain as dew on the grass that emerges kind of of itself gently. The one word that comes to me, if I was to summarize this, is the word gentle. The government of God is gentle. Of course it's benevolent, but the mode of its rule is not heavy-handed. It's a gentle thing like the sun coming up in the dawn in the early morning hours. What's our government in the church, let alone in the world? What's church government presently like in most fellowships and church structures? Is it Davidic or is it worldly? Does it throw its weight around and say the buck stops here and I'm the CEO and I'm the honcho? Or is it Davidic in the sense that it's so gentle? It seems to issue out of itself. It requires of necessity a head, which David himself was, but he was in the fear of the Lord. And in that kind of rule, it was the emanation of God, it was the revelation of God. So those who rule and reign with him, how does it say in Revelation? You'll be as an iron rod and break the what to pieces? Nations to pieces. Or what does it say in Psalm 149? We'll put rulers in fetters and in irons and in chains. How do we reconcile those images with this statement? Can you rule with a rod of iron and break and it's not blunt or cruel, but righteous and in the fear of the Lord? What kind of breaking will it be? Will it be because you have the authority and are heavy handed and men have got to bow? Think of Paul, as I've mentioned once or twice in the course of these days. Rarely if ever pulling rank and bringing any fear before men by virtue of his apostolic office. But rather he uses the word, I beseech you, I entreat you. Paul is acting divinically in his apostolic governmental office, gently as a sun rising in the dawn. That's the character of God's government. And to what degree has that kingdom come now in our own church situations, fellowship and homes? There's a degree in which thy kingdom come ought to be a growing and present realization and we'll know it when it conforms and corresponds to this. This is experimental. I've never spoken along these lines. But there's something in my spirit this morning that we need to inquire into the genius and character of what God's millennial kingdom will be that emanates from Jerusalem and out of the holy hill of Zion. Holy hill of Zion will be a complete antithesis of what is presently issuing from that place now. Which means what? It means that something very drastic, revolutionary must take place in that people and in that land that it might be conformed to this enduring image of God's Davidic rule. So Israel is to exhibit and show forth a mode of being in its nationhood as a model for nations so that all nations shall become Israelized or Hebraicized and live in the same kind of gentle demeanor and posture where Israel would be untenable in a nation that still retains their present Adamic hostility to God. So the first the one and then the many. Can you picture a world where all nations have at its center not a base for power but a moral center and that the issue of what is righteous is more important than the issue of greed or aggrandizement or territories or any of the kinds of things that have corrupted nations to this day and instigated wars and every kind of horror that has fallen upon this earth. We need to have a millennial anticipation that is very real. I came down this road today walking this morning singing Dixie. I was on cloud nine from just looking at a few things this morning and my spirit was ignited to anticipate the culmination or the consummation of God's intention for His creation. And I was already savoring and licking my chops and saying Lord let it come here. Let Ben Israel let this property begin to show something of what will be the truth and the abiding reality of your intention for all nations. In this locality here let something begin to come forth as the light of the sun rising out of the dawn and the moisture falling over the earth. Watch over us that we don't lapse into heavy handedness and all the kinds of things for which the temptation is with you daily. Because if we're saying that Israel is God's intention to exhibit and model that for nations what is God's intention? Who will exhibit it for Israel? Who will model it for Israel? That it might in turn replicate that and demonstrate that to the nations if not the church. It begins with the church showing forth the kingdom of God in its own rule in its own forms both in its homes and in its fellowship. Because what does that tell us about God? That His government is gentle as a dew and as a light that arises in the dawning and leaves a moisture on the earth. Because it's not David speaking. He said and God has said to me the God of Israel spoke. The Rock of Israel said to me and what does He say? When one rules over men righteously ruling in the fear of God He dawns on them like the morning light. Who's the He? Is it the man who rules? Or the God in whose spirit He rules? Could be the capital H is a reference to God being revealed in that kind of rule because that's God's essential character. Lowly and meek are almost synonyms or words tantamount to being gentle. We need to know who our God is for His government is not some officious bureaucratic pocket-stuffing self-aggrandizing bullying phenomenon which it is in the world. The government is the expression of God. His rule because He has the power. If He wanted to be without mercy and cruel and vindictive He could. Who shall deny Him? But what He exhibits when He can do what He will do as He will is the statement of Himself. Let me put it another way. What we do when we are free to do what we will is what we are. What we think when we are free to think what we will is what we are. How one treats the weak and the powerless when you have a power over them is the demonstration of what you are. Not how you favor the rich or are partial to those who are like you and one of the boys and you're riding high in agreement with them which is the way government is today. The cronies once you get into power you bring the cronies in. The guys who campaign for you and now they get a slice of the pie. That's not God. How you rule over the powerless what you do with regard to the weak who have no power in themselves is what you are. If we want a textbook on nations we will not examine how they exhibit themselves in other manifestations of their power but what have they done with the weak the defenseless and the powerless in their midst. In fact just to narrow it down right to the nitty gritty what have they done with the church in their midst where the church is the expression of the weak the powerless and the helpless in human terms. What they demonstrate is what they are. And what God demonstrates is what He is. And He wants to demonstrate it now. But how shall He if we have no anticipation of what His eternal intention is for all nations through Israel. And how shall we bear what must necessarily take place for that Israel if they are to be the expression of that governmental reality which would be the complete controverting of what Israel presently is. Why was Sharon run into power with the highest majority of all of the 11 or 12 prime ministers in Israel's 50 year history. Because he represents something that the nation wanted. And what is the axiom in political science that every nation gets the ruler it deserves. Germany deserved Hitler. Japan deserved Tojo. And we deserved Clinton. Israel deserved Sharon. Why was he brought in with such a gush of majority endorsement. Because he represents power. He represents military tactical genius. He represents a man who if you can meet him privately he might well say the good Arab is a dead one. He's grown up in a certain tradition of Israeli friction and violence with Arabs that knows that the only language that they understand is force. You're not going to expect from him gentility. Except as a perhaps strategic and expedient measure. But not out of his heart. He's not made that way. And this is what the nation wanted to avert. The increasing crisis of terrorism was a strong man who exerted power. So Hamse will have to say this. I'm not disparaging Israel. I'm inwardly bleeding and weeping that they have to so act this way. But they must. In order to come to the realization of the truth of their condition. And that the only rule in the last analysis that is just and benevolent is God's. And that they are fated and called to that rule. And how shall they be the locus and the expression except that they themselves be transformed and brought into the likeness of that great ruler. The king of kings. People that are like him because they are brought into that union with him through their own death and resurrection. If we don't understand this we ourselves will not only wince but we might find ourselves protesting or inwardly being in rebellion against God's necessary action toward Israel. We're going to see we're going to everyone at this table if you're not cut short we're going to see the most devastating experience for Jews in the world since the Nazi time that will eclipse the Nazi time. It will be horrendous. Greater in its fatalities. More extensive in its devastation. No Jew will be exempt. A whole other people pursued throughout over the globe. Children will perish in it as they did the previous time. The weak and helpless women. All you have to do is read the report of that bombing in the Jerusalem pizza place. A man who has changed his table and went to the back of the room watched the man who took the seat that he gave up be blown to pieces and came out of that smoke inferno of hell and saw body limbs and parts all over the place and people spread out blood pouring out of their mouths and incapable of doing anything and just a horror of that thing. That's a little foretaste of yet greater woes to come that will not be confined to Jerusalem but worldwide. How will you bear it? Will you not incriminate God? Will you not say where is he to allow his people again to suffer this kind of devastation? Haven't they suffered enough? Where is God? And maybe that may well be why Paul says that one of the signs of the last days is a great falling away. An apostasy of disappointment by people who cannot reconcile their God whom they think just and righteous with the remarkable devastation and atrocity that is yet to befall his people unless we understand the end. A man who though he has other options and has the power by which they can be expressed will not utilize them but respond to something where his own interests are being jeopardized or threatened gently. He will not invoke power merely for the attainment of his ends. Though he has the ability to do so. Someone gave a definition of meekness as power surrendered strength. Though you have it you don't employ it. Isn't that something? If you were without power then you have no alternative but to be meek but to have power and not to employ it. What does that imply? You're trusting the God of righteousness for your interests. Remember what David said when he had opportunity to do so in who was his tormentor unto death. Let God decide between you and me. Let him judge. Let him bring his retribution something like that. But I will not stretch out my arm against God's I'll not use the power in which I'm being egged on by my men to employ to get rid of this threat once and for all after all I'm the intended king of Israel and it's not just saving my neck but the significance to which I'm called but I'll not stretch let God judge let the Lord vindicate that's the word though he had the power he did not employ it in his own defense though it was an issue of more than his bodily survival it was the issue of his kingship and I believe that that critical juncture affected all of David's future and gave to his kingdom a particular definition and character that will distinguish the kingdom of the greater David for all eternity and ought to now distinguish us a gentleman is not some sop who's incapable of employing force but will not do so for his own interest but rather trust so here's a paragraph now that occupies me that if this is God's intention for Israel it's therefore his intention for all nations this kind of government and rule that at its heart is not naked power but what is moral and that this needs to be communicated to nations and now to Israel by the example that the church itself ought to be that it's a moral center rather than a power center that's an issue and that this is interpreted by the voice of God only when it's interpreted by the voice of God can we discern or write what we must do what is needed this commentator writes is the prophetic witness which again and again reminds the nation or the nations of the divine intention this is a pointer picking up from yesterday's issue of the proclamation of the word that the nations need to know what God's intention is for them and the nation Israel needs to know but how shall it know what the voice of God is speaking David said when God spoke the rock of Israel said to me unless it is brought through a prophetic witness which reminds the nation of God's divine intention so the critical necessity is again proclamation the voice the anointed speaking of this I won't say that I've had an experience except speaking in Jerusalem on the very Sunday morning it was what was the occasion it was commemorating when Jesus came down the Mount of Olives and they strew branches in the way Palm Sunday it was Palm Sunday and on that Sunday we could hear the rumble of tanks and troop carriers going up to Lebanon out of Jerusalem it was the commencement of Israel's military action in Lebanon that brought them into Lebanon almost expelling out of the capital Arafat the PLO and a remarkable sweep but the end of it was an occupation in Lebanon and then that engaged Israel for over 20 years with a continual loss of life until finally abruptly the Prime Minister before the present one just declared an end and called all of Israel's forces out of Lebanon and put up a fence in the hope that it would keep back the threat of aggression from the Syrians and other terrorists that are in Lebanon and right at Israel's northern border on that Sunday morning I was in a Baptist church speaking and I said when Israel will learn that the way to peace is not to go up with aggression and force and power but to come down as Jesus did from the Mount of Olives in the feast of Palm Sunday until it learns from the Lord that the answer to peace is not going up in power but coming down in humility on the back of an ass it will continue to have increasing strife and a man cried out Lord teach him the speaker the difference between what is spiritual and what is political I'll never forget that five years later that same man came to me and visited Israel and apologized because he realized that what is political is spiritual so though that was a vain cry coming out of a Sunday morning service it's a little glimpse of the kind of prophetic proclamation and cry that needs to go out to a nation that unless it hears it what does it have as a basis for direction or understanding about its own conduct not only Israel but any nation that moves in the direction of power rather than in the direction of righteousness we don't have to wait for the millennium we should but even now we have an obligation to raise a prophetic cry in the conduct of our own nation or nations where we are as the church of the things that are becoming to God and are offensive to Him the issue of power versus moral center needs to be brought to the attention of nations when I spoke in Nuremberg on Act 17 that God has appointed a day in which He will judge the world by the one who raised Him from the dead judge them for what for failing to seek Him though He was not far from any one of them seek Him for what and I suggested that night for the purpose for which their nation was established what nation has actually sought God to understand the purpose for their nationhood but are still in a posture of rebellion that goes all the way to the inception of rebellion in the plains of Shinar when the tower of Babel was raised and God had to disperse it in judgment a false unity being sought by men to count the man God and to be exalted above Him that rebellion it remains so I like what is being said here what is needed is the prophetic witness which again and again reminds the nations of God's divine intention for them according to the word of God and especially in the Psalms God says if you will but turn to me and call upon me I will hear and I will answer I will be your safety I'll be your refuge I'll be your defense what do we know from scriptures that God makes even our enemies to show favor toward us how does that scripture go? commands ways please the Lord ways please the Lord He makes even your enemies to be at peace with you listen either the word of God is true and we can stake our life upon it or we're willing to die believing that we can or we have no alternative but to defer to the practices of the world so let Israel increase its military action which it's doing let them bomb police stations let them bulldoze down houses let them remove 130,000 olive groves that have been the sustenance of Palestinians for generations and so doing that incur greater anger greater retribution greater vengeance it's a cycle that leads to nowhere but death what's the alternative? to trust God and maybe the crisis is engineered to bring us to that choice and so I would commend it so for us to commend it who are not living in the area of danger really heightens the foolishness of it and to what degree can we commend it if we ourselves are not equally living as radically on that trust it will be a hollow word it will lack conviction unless those who are speaking it are not just for the moment in order to validate their word but consistently in their lives living radically in trust for God that if he be not God if his word is not true if his promises cannot be trusted then we of all men are most to be pitied but what is the condition of the church? is it that thrust on God? or are we so insulated from the amenities of the world that he's not the issue of our trust? we're hedged about by other kinds of securities so that we cannot speak a word like this to Israel the issue of Israel's sanity the issue of Israel's fulfillment the issue of Israel's call and it's not to say that they will heed that word but it is to say that they must hear it well they're going to perish the one way or the other and they can only believe for the graceful martyrdom by those who bring the message to them as martyrs and not just giving a cheap counsel that we ourselves are not willing to bear the consequence so for example again from my experience big deal my experience is not some notable thing but it does touch these issues and you may have heard me share this before but it's worth hearing again in one of my last times in East Germany when the wall was still up and Christians were living under a very oppressive communist rule and that the rate of alcoholism and insanity was among the greatest in Europe because they were living a lie continually of propaganda everywhere I myself was chafed like Paul finding himself in Athens saw the city wholly given to idolatry he grieved as he saw the city I grieved to see East Germany continually bathed in propaganda lies every train station had on the platform big signs 45 years of German-Russian friendship that's a lie the Germans of East Germany still remember the rape of Russian troops and the taking of their factories and stripping them and even their heavy presence then was not a love at all quite the contrary but the propaganda and so I'm upstairs in the attic downstairs are six of the elders a little last time of fellowship and sharing before departure and I'm looking to the Lord what shall I share Lord I have an envelope with a pen and here's what I shared with them you have an obligation to confront the communist authorities of your locality and tell them that as the church and its leaders you have an obligation to stand for what is made in God's image and you have to raise your voice in protest to a campaign of propaganda that is destroying conditions of life for sanity that the nation is freaking out men are dying they're becoming alcoholic because they're continually bombarded with propagandistic lies and man was made to live in truth that if he does not have an environment of truth his glands will break his veins his heart his liver his organs were made for truth and don't think that you're going to be heated don't think that you're going to set in motion reform don't think that men are going to be converted communist officials because you have the courage and boldness to bring them this assertion that you have an obligation to stand for righteousness for what is made in God's image man because you're the church and you're in the leadership of the church don't think that you're going to see a result that the result might be ending up in jail or worse but the issue is this righteousness requires your statement you cannot live in silence and allow that system to continue without raising your voice in behalf of God and his righteousness it is the most fearful and terrifying requirement that could have come to leaders in the church you can imagine whether or not they acted on it it's not the issue whether you want to succeed the issue is we are not allowed the luxury of silence in the face of unrighteousness and iniquity in the nation as the church and so I think it's something like that we would have an obligation to say something not expecting that it would be heeded but if we are silent we are complicit with them in their line of conduct and we share in their judgment just to be perfectly mad I mean insane to go all the way to not only suggest to desist from the employment of power because the end of their there's a way that seems right to man but the end thereof is death but also to suggest a repentance of a kind that apologizes for any infliction of unrighteous deeds upon the helpless and the weak and to marshal them and move them and even now there's great talk about wholesale deportment of Palestinians out from Israel and that this will be the answer to the dilemma it's a kind of social engineering in which we think ourselves right to pick up entire peoples and to move them elsewhere because it doesn't serve our convenience Stalin did that in Lithuania and moved out the intellectuals in the time of the Assyrian defeat of northern Israel they moved wholesale populations into Syria and moved Syrians into what is Galilee and that's how it became the mixed bag can any good thing come out of Nazareth? the woman at the well the Samaritan what was the Samaritan? why would the Jews have no dealings with them? because they were a mixed breed going back to what? going back to the movement of populations so as to have political possession of areas and to break up the continuity and the dominance of the Jewish thing they moved Jews out and moved their alien gentile forces in Stalin did it and now Israel right within the realm of government there was lively discussion that the real answer to their predicament is to move the entire Arab population out whether it was circumstantial or human engineering to move how many hundreds of thousands out from the place where the present airport of Israel is in Lod was originally an Arab community and many of the places occupied by Israelis were from lands possessed by either the native fleeing or by threat of terror going or actually moved by force so there's there's more to this than we know and whether to whatever extent at least with some kind of an apology an acknowledgement that we have been unjust in the use of power we have taken advantage of wartime threat or terror for your expulsion to obtain your lands without compensation and it may well be that we have racial attitudes that we need to acknowledge that we did not we have great regard for Jewish life and if we could exchange one Jewish prisoner for 600 Palestinians we call that a fair swap because we do not value Palestinian life as we do Jewish and maybe we need to acknowledge what they have been complaining about all along that there's been a kind of injustice and a mishandling that is underlain by a racial attitude of contempt and superiority injustice and a mishandling that is underlain by a racial attitude of contempt and superiority by the Jew toward them and that we acknowledge it that it was more true than we have been willing to acknowledge that we ourselves have been the victims of prejudice in our history in the world now we ourselves have perpetrated upon you a prejudicial thing and we want to acknowledge that and ask your forgiveness and make restitution we don't know how we can make it and yet retain a Jewish homeland if we give you back your properties how then will it be Jewish but we want to begin by a recognition of what is true and come to you with contrition that what we are suffering now has largely been the result of misuse of power and the lack of concern for what is righteous and that we have taken advantage in expedient and pragmatic ways to assure our own establishment at your expense and we understand that your rage is to some extent justified and we want to make peace on the basis of righteousness that's insane can you imagine if anyone would suggest that if Rabin was assassinated in his own land by self-righteous and orthodox assailant imagine a man speaking that now but where and whenever has a prophetic proclamation ever been convened and why is it that more often than not the prophets are stoned rather than received because of proclamations of exactly that kind that call the hearers to a righteousness of God's kind that will be for them radically demanding and they chose not to hear it well if righteousness will exalt a nation will it exalt an Israel if they choose the way of righteousness will God not honor his word he is under obligation to honor his word his word shall not go forth void but accomplish the purpose where unto it is sent but it will have to be a moder word brought by modus like Paul going up to Mars Hill without any assurance that there is a coming down men might be very savage and gnash upon you with their teeth for they will call your proposal suicidal calculated against their best interest and that you are a threat to the security of Israel rather than a hope but prophetic proclamation requires that moder understanding that you're likely not only not to be received but you're likely to get your head handed to you on a platter what was the final word that the Lord gave me in Sicily just in keeping with this whole thing again the elders waiting for me to come down and the final word before speaking you know what my message was in those days the principalities and powers of the air and that Italy is today a second rate third rate nation with very little significance that was once one of the centers of civilization and culture in the world the time of the renaissance the great artist Michelangelo Dante poets, writers, and now what is it today the land of pizzas and cheap transactions and the pinching of the bottoms of tours women who come through I said the reason for the degradation of your nation is the lack of integrity and you've allowed an illegal mafia to dominate nation and government and therefore you have lost all authority and integrity and witness and the first obligation of the church and its leadership is to confront the mafia and to show that its intimidating fear is invalid that the powers are defeated and the only one who can show that and that the mafia who rules by threat and intimidation are those who will not be afraid and intimidated that is to say they're not afraid to die because if the mafia cannot continue in the threat of death on what basis shall it continue it's its only basis for being men will be bribed and take graft and pay it in order to be saved from death but if there's a people in the earth who are not afraid of death and confront this foul demonic phenomenon and say this far no further we stand against you that's a function that only a church can perform that sees the issue and is not afraid so again whether it was Sicily on the one hand confronting the powers of darkness as manifest to the mafia or the German church in East Germany confronting the powers of darkness in communist rule it was the church to whom the call and the mandate came requiring an exceptional if not an ultimate courage without any hope or prospect of succeeding the issue is not that your word is going to culminate in success the issue is it's a word that must be proclaimed and spoken the definition of a gentleman is one who renounces the use of power in order to stand for what is righteous though his own interest could be threatened, maybe his own life as is the case with Jesus Paul Tillich the name that might be familiar to some German theologian who came to America raises the question is it possible for a nation as such to renounce power? this could only take place where a nation is found willing to die as a state and be reborn as the church I've never heard such a strange turn of phrase as what he's suggesting that the nation that will renounce power changes its center from that which is political to that which is moral that is to say it goes from becoming a state to becoming a church not the church where services are conducted but a society that is ruled by the principles of the kingdom of God and whose rule is as gentle as the rain coming down upon the earth or the sun rising in the early morning dawn what is World War II but the continuation of World War I and the injustices that have come out of the Versailles Treaty and the great onus that was put on Germany reparations and that's the breakdown of the economy, all of those complex questions that later on gave Hitler a basis for ascendancy where was the church when World War I was brewing, where was the church when the armaments race was going on in 1912 through 1914 where the British Navy was in contention with the Germans and France and all nations were vying for power that made war an inevitability because their power and their status was in proportion to their military might those build-ups must have their inevitable consequence where was the church in its council where was the church in its prayer where was the church raising the standard where is the church recognizing the symptoms in the world that are evil and will eventually bring death there's a way that was right to the nations but the end thereof is death, the church was silent and complicit and when its armies went to war it blessed them, as I mentioned in one of the sessions standing in Edinburgh I think in Scotland at some war memorial for World War I, a great fresco of tile, what do they call it, a mosaic showing the noble British warriors on the battlefield with their gas masks were strewn out with their bayonets and dying and behind it, behind the British jack the Union Jack is Christ as if he's endorsing what they are about and as if World War I is somehow an issue of the faith or that there's no separation of nation, God and nation that somehow he's automatically thought to endorse the nation's policies even when those policies are not righteous how about the whole colonial rivalry between nations in the western powers taking over territories of the weak and the defenseless so as to gain the benefit of their produce and of their labor and how much was the church benefiting in the standard of living that came from the exploitation of colonial minorities and therefore complicit in the inevitable clash that came in competing colonialism that is called World War so all these things need to be considered the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but spiritual and maybe the mightiest episodes that affected World War II was not by Christian participation in the war but intercession about the war as we know from Reese Howells and the prayer in Wales at the Bible College that affected the Battle of Britain, that affected Germany going against Russia rather than Britain which was the turning point that brought defeat that brought the issue of Israel established as a nation so intercession was the more significant activity what I would have done had I been of age and a believer in that war and Jews are suffering at the hands of Nazis would I be a pacifist and say I can't bear arms like the Hutterites and the Mennonites and all of the Anabaptists who would never take up arms because they believed that thou shalt not kill and it's not it's contrary to our call to participate in the strivings of nations that employ bloodshed I can't say what I would have done in this way, it's tough we have come to an hour where the issue of God is no longer a Sunday matter if ever it was, the issue of God is the issue of reality, it's the issue of truth, it's the issue of life, it's the issue of nations and the church has been guilty in allowing itself to be seduced into compartmentalizing the issue of faith as being spiritual and the nations as being secular and the two shall not meet, that is an error we're called to, God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son and that love of God must be made manifest in the world the word of God and the way of God must be shown to the world because it's the only way of sanity, it's not an alternative to be considered it is the way, not just for Sunday services but for the conduct of nations and relationship between men and the relationship of the strong to the weak and the one race to the other, that if we do not bring that message and that reality and exhibit it in the conduct of our own life and the reality that the church is as a nation among the nations, a royal priesthood then what hope for the world and so by bringing the message and the authority because our life resonates what we're proclaiming the world is called to God and what is the millennium? but that final resolution that God is enthroned and that every nation has bent its knee and calls upon that God's name and refers to the center out of which the law shall go forth from Zion and the world from Jerusalem and study war no more. So Lord my God this is a prophetical school what's the idea what are you wanting to say what neglected aspect of faith and consideration are you wanting to touch by what you have put here in this little dot on the map my God we're not tooting our own horn, we're not celebrating an office or a call because we may to some degree be called to it but we recognize that in the absence of true prophetic word which is the testimony of Jesus this world is dying in a lie and in filth and in violence and oppression and every such thing to which correction can only come when a true word is addressed to it and so my God that's the church and how is the church the church if it cannot so speak to rulers Daniel spoke to Nebuchadnezzar and we need to speak to the rulers of our age whether they heed us or not and in fact Nebuchadnezzar did not heed and therefore had to suffer the very judgment that the prophet proclaimed and so may it be in our time also so my God bring us back for a final underlining an asterisk, an exclamation point on what you want to sink deeply into our hearts as those who are jealous for the church or we would not be here and we bless you Lord. Oh my God may we hear your heart and your voice this morning in what you're wanting to bring forth in all this we thank and give you praise for your mercy that will not let us go in Jesus name