Lesson 65
International Disaster – 28:20-26
We are working with the two circles that depict the two areas of
dimension to our faith; when a person becomes a Christian, God the Holy Spirit
puts him in union with Christ. This is
your legal position, this never changes.
That’s eternal security. However,
below this circle there’s a circle of experience; at any given moment you’re in
this circle or out of this circle. If
you’re out of fellowship you’re out of it; you get back into the circle by 1
John 1:9. This is a perpetual problem in
the Christian life day by day. The thing
you want to remember is that this principle, these two circles, apply to the
nation
These cursings were administered by angels and in Heb. 2:1-2 we have a
reference back to the angelic administration of the cursings. This is the author of the epistle to the
Hebrews in the eleventh hour asking the nation to reconsider seriously the
claims of Jesus of Nazareth to be Messiah, for if the nation is to be saved
historically and is to remain in the land, they must, in this eleventh hour,
come to grips with the person of Jesus Christ.
And if they don’t, then the destruction will come upon them. This is what he says: “Therefore, we ought to
give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, lest at any time
we should let them slip. [2] For if the word spoken by angels was steadfast,
and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense of reward,
[3] How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation,” etc. But the point here in verse 2 is that the
angels administered these cursings. Every disobedience to the Law, every
transgression and every disobedience nationally speaking received discipline by
these angelic agencies operating in and through history.
Turn back to Deut. 28 we’ll pick up the outer ring of cursing. Moses had so structured his sermon at this
point that it’s a series of concentric rings; in the center we have the
relationship of the nation to God, or the question of Lordship, who is going to
be Lord over
It’s a chiastic construction, he starts out in verse 7, he goes to the
next problem of domestic health; he goes to the problem in verses 9-10 of the
Lordship of the nation, then he comes back and deals again with domestic policy
and then he deals with international relations.
And this was a device that was used I the ancient world to emphasize a
point. You have to see that the
Scriptures are structured this way in order to bring out the centrality of the
issue of Lordship over the nation.
Now these were the blessings, but the same thing holds for the cursings,
the first one from verses 20-26 and 58-68 is the outer ring. These verses deal
with the cursings upon
The discipline that is going to be administered through these curses
consists in five degrees. The Mosaic Law
basically has an either/or to it; inside that bottom circle
In Deut. 28:20-26 we get involved with the outer ring, or that area of
discipline that has to do with destroying
The cursing here is a legal sentence and when God disciplines He
disciplines by law; it is not an arbitrary discipline, it is a principle
discipline. This is why the section of
the Old Testament that we have before us is so much different from contemporary
law in the ancient world. In the
ancient world when these treaties were enforced we first had the gods, then we
had the cursings and then we had the blessing section, these three sections to
the treaties. However in the Bible they
are exactly reversed; first the blessing, then the cursing and then the gods or
the angels who administer it. The reason
it’s reversed in the Old Testament instead of the Assyrian laws, etc. is
because in the Old Testament God wants these cursing and blessings done by
means of His laws. The angels can’t make
up the discipline as the thing goes on. The laws are specified and the angels,
although they administer the law are not free to make the law. The angels only minister what God has already
written out by way of orders. So the
discipline is regulated and the word “cursing” draws attention to the fact that
God imposes legal sentences upon the nation.
This is important from out position in history because the liberals, for
a long time now, and they’ve managed to get this in all the history books so
you can’t take a history course without getting this, have said that the
prophets of the Old Testament correspond to the “prophets” (quote, unquote) of
our day who are calling for social revolution and all the rest. Nothing could be further form the truth. The
prophets of the Old Testament were simply men appointed by the angelic council
to announce to the nation the imposition of the curses. The prophets did not originate their message,
the prophets were not revolutionaries overthrowing an order, the prophets in
fact were absolute reactionaries. They weren’t revolutionaries, they were so
reactionary they were going back to the Mosaic Law; they were not
revolutionists in the sense of the word today.
So these prophets of the Old Testament under no condition can be
compared to Martin Luther King or somebody else as all the TV programs like to
do. We’re not commenting one way or the
other on Martin Luther King or anybody else like him; all we’re saying is that
these men are doing something else but it’s not what the prophets of the Old
Testament were doing.
The Old Testament prophets went back and were legally appointed
ministers by the angelic council to announce, not what the discipline was going
to be but when the discipline was going to occur. Everybody knew what the discipline was, it’s
right here in the Word of God, Deut. 28; it was no mystery what the discipline
was going to be. So when you have Isaiah
announcing, O Israel, this is going to happen to you, this is going to happen
to you, that is going to happen to you, Isaiah was not inaugurating something
new. He wasn’t making up a set of threats
to scare the people of his day; he wasn’t sitting down and saying well now if I
analyze the political factors today it looks like this is going to happen. That’s not what happened in the Old
Testament. Isaiah simply read Deut. 28,
that’s all, and he knew exactly what would happen. It involved absolutely zero revelation as far
as Isaiah was concerned to tell what would happen to the nation. What did involve revelation was that God had
to give the time table to Isaiah and say Isaiah, this nation has 15 years to
go; in 15 years I’m going to bring the fifth cycle onto this nation and they’ve
had it.
So at this point you want to remember that this defines the role; this
chapter is tremendously important, that’s why I’m spending so much time on
it. Deut. 28 sets up and controls every
other book of the Old Testament, every book, all the prophets, Amos, Hosea,
Malachi, Jeremiah, Zechariah, Ezekiel, Isaiah, all of these prophets have to
operate within the framework of the treaty cursing. They always do this. And
when we get into these prophetic books I will show you how they did it and what
kind of a legal format they used to administer this. So don’t buy this line that is pedaled from a
lot of liberal pulpits today about these prophets were great revolutionaries. They weren’t revolutionaries at all, they
were men who administered the laws of God and they had gone back, not forward,
backwards, to the Mosaic Law to get their principles.
Continuing in verse 20, “The LORD shall send upon thee cursing, vexation,”
the word “vexation” emphasizes the mental suffering that will result from the
cursing. So first you have the
imposition of the curse, this is the discipline. As a result of the discipline there’s going
to be mental suffering; vexation means that the nation is going to want
business prosperity and they can’t get it, all they can produce is
calamity. They want military victory and
all they can get is military defeat. They want to occupy the land and all they
can find is they are dispersed out of the land.
They want to be a worldwide testimony and all they are is a testimony to
adversity. And that produces vexation in
the inner mental attitude and this is one of the results of discipline.
Christians who are under discipline, who are outside the bottom circle, are
very miserable people. This is why the
most miserable people that exist are not unbelievers, in one sense; the most
miserable people that exist are believers who are out of it. The reason why they are miserable is because
God is spanking them. God doesn’t bother
to spank those who are not His own children.
But those who are His children He spanks and this is why people are
miserable today, oftentimes within good fundamental churches with good
backgrounds but it’s because somewhere along the line they’ve gotten off the
track.
“Cursing, vexation, and rebuke,” the word “rebuke” is a specialized word
used in the Old Testament for a pronouncement of judgment by God, a verbal
pronouncement. When God was ready to
judge He would say I rebuke. Now if you
want to see the tremendous, immediate, split-second effect of a rebuke from God
turn to John 18:5-6. These are two verses in this Gospel that would be very
easy for you to read over quickly and miss the whole point. The scene: the Garden of Gethsemane, after
Palm Sunday, on the night before the Lord Jesus Christ was crucified. The first party comes up the hill, they hear
that this man was a rebel, and they hear that he’s got a lot of people with him
and so on, and there’s 300-400 disciples up there, etc. and rumors going
around, of course there’s nothing to it because all He has is 12, He had 12,
one is a treasurer and the rest are sleeping, so there’s not too much of a
force up there but nevertheless, the authorities don’t take any chances and
they bring a group of Temple police and they come up with lights and
weapons.
Verse 4, “Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon
him, went forth, and said unto them,” He has nothing to hide, the police are
coming up the hill so the Lord steps out and says what do you want, “Whom do
you seek?” Verse 5, “They answered Him,
Jesus, of Nazareth. Jesus said unto
them, I am,” the word “he” is not in the original. If you have a King James you notice “he” is
in italics. “Jesus said unto them, I
am. And Judas also, who betrayed Him,
stood with them. [6] And as soon, then, as he had said unto them, I am, they
went backward, and fell to the ground,” the whole group of police. Now these were armed soldiers and they didn’t
fall down because somebody would just say “I am.” “I AM” is the Hebrew word for God; remember
what God had told Moses when Moses said who is it that sent me, and God said
tell them that I AM sent you. So I AM,
from which we get the word Yahweh, the one who causes to be, “I AM” is a
pronouncement of the deity of Jesus Christ.
So here these troops are, a mass of them, they come up the hill, and
this one man, lone man, 11 disciples are sitting there sleeping, there’s nobody
else awake except the police with their lights and their weapons and the Lord
Jesus Christ said two words, egw eimi (ego eimi) I AM. Bang, the
whole group falls down. Now why? Because this is a sign that you find again
and again in Scripture of the rebuke of God.
When God speaks these words people fall apart. And if you want to see some graphic
illustrations you can see some in the book of Revelation. But when God speaks there’s a tremendous
reaction—a tremendous reaction! And here
is one example of a rebuke.
Turn back to Deut. 28:20, “The LORD shall send upon thee cursing,
vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thine hand to do,” in other
words, this is going to involve the total society, it’s going to involve every
element in the society and every area of each person’s life. And this discipline is going to be kept up
and kept up and kept up and kept up and kept up until this laborious refrain
keeps on going on “until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly,” in
verse 21, if you skip down you’ll see “cleave unto thee, until he have consumed
thee. The last of verse 22, “until thou
perish.” The last of verse 24, “until
thou be destroyed.” The last part of
verse 25, you “shall be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.” See the refrain, you’re going to be destroyed
and I’m going to keep the heat on you, Israel, until you are nothing left; I
have chosen you for My elect nation and when you get outside of that circle I’m
not going to let up.
And this is the way it is individually in the New Testament age,
believers who are outside of that bottom circle are never, never, under any
circumstances going to find happiness.
If you are outside of that bottom circle God is going to make sure you
are one of the most miserable people who has ever lived until you get back with
it. That’s just the way God works because we are in His family. See, this is the other side to the doctrine
of eternal security that people don’t like. A lot of people like to take part
of the doctrine of eternal security and run with it, once saved always saved,
but what they fail to realize is the fine print on the contract and it says
yes, once saved always saved but it means you’re always in God’s family and it
means that since you’re always in God’s family, guess what? Big Daddy is going to spank you, and this is
the other side to eternal security and this is the side that people don’t
see. And incidentally, this proves
eternal security because if this were not true then you could lose your
salvation but God keeps hounding you and is after and after you of course, and
this is why you can be eternally secure, because of the doctrine of divine
discipline.
Verse 21, “The LORD shall make the pestilence cleave [cling] unto thee,”
the word “pestilence” here is a word that means epidemic. God is going to break
down the strength of this nation by means of destroying its internal
health. And God is going to promote
disease, God is going to promote all sorts of things, mental illness, physical
illness, epidemics to destroy this nation from the inside out. [21b, “until he have consumed thee from off
the land, to which thou goest to possess it.”]
Verse 22, “The LORD shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a
fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the
sword, and with blasting [blight] and with mildew [and they shall pursue thee
until thou perish.]” These are all
various things… inflammation and extreme burning have to do with high fevers,
these are the kinds of epidemics that will spread rapidly throughout urban
areas, taking I the whole nation. And
the word “sword” refers to military disaster.
War and disease go together and the word “sword” there has been taken
and says what good does the sword do in verse 22, everything else is talking
about illness. And some people have said
that must be a wrong word; it’s not a wrong word, in 1 King 8:37 you have the
same kind of structure so it’s the normal way of explaining it. Surrounded with emphasis upon the internal
diseases that break down the will of the nation, the outward thing, the sword,
that destroys the people from outside, warfare, “and with blasting, and with
mildew,” that is the forces of nature directed against the crops of the
nation. In an agricultural economy
everything hangs on the crops, so “blasting” and “mildew” are going to ruin the
national economy. So you have three basic forces, you have the forces that are
operating on the individual, destroying and weakening the citizens of the
nation. You have the outer invasion from
military forces. Then you have thirdly
the destruction of the national economy by these elements of nature.
Now all of this is there to show one thing, that God, when we are
outside of the bottom circle, puts nature over us. Here’s nature and here’s man and man is a
victim of nature outside of that bottom circle, nationally speaking with
regards to Israel, but inside the circle then it would be man over nature,
because remember the blessings, God will work it so that the man would be
blessed in their crops, the economic structure of their society would be strong
and healthy, in other words nature would be a servant to man. And yet outside the bottom circle it’s
exactly reversed, then men are going to be crushed under the power and forces
of nature. And all this talk about
ecology today and the pollution in our environment is just another sign of
God’s discipline upon the nation; we’ll see this in a little bit.
Verse 23, “And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass [bronze],
and the earth that is under thee shall be iron. [24] The LORD shall make the
rain of thy land powder and dust,” here is the climatic adversity that God will
introduce into the nation and this stuff “shall come down upon thee,” and keep
coming down, and keep coming down, and keep coming down “until you” as a nation
“are destroyed.” If you aren’t destroyed
by sickness, then you may be destroyed by war.
Those citizens who are left because they have not yet been destroyed by
war and invasion, the rest of those will die off and be subject to tremendous
pressure by the collapse of the national economy. So God has a three-fold pressure device by
which He is going to squeeze this nation into submission.
Verse 24, again, “until thou be destroyed.” Verse 25, “The LORD shall cause thee to be
smitten before thine enemies,” be constantly smitten, every engagement they
encounter they will never experience victory.
“…thou shalt go out one way against them,” which is a Hebrew idiom for
perfect order, they will go out with perfect plans, they will have the best
military plans that can possibly be made at that time, go out one way, but
“flee seven ways before them,” and seven is the word for completion, it means
there will be a total scattering, absolute scattering. You will go “flee seven ways before them” and
as a further result, you “will be removed into all the kingdoms of the
earth.” This is what historians call the
Jewish Diaspora. That means that no one
can explain it but the Jewish people have always been under this problem in
history of being dispersed, the Diaspora, of never having a place for their
feet, never having a legal homeland, except of course since 1948.
I want to go to two other passages in the Old Testament, one of which
will show you that at any time this discipline could have been stopped by a
simple act. As you’ve read down through
these things and you’ve seen all these pressure devices that God has devised to
bring these people back to Himself.
Please remember God is not a meany, God never likes to discipline people
because He enjoyed it. God’s aim and
goal in discipline is to bring people to Himself and He doesn’t get pleasure
out of discipline. There are two major
passages in the Word of God.
1 Kings 8, the dedication of the Temple, and here you will see the
provisions that God had made for the nation to rebound to confess and to get
back in that bottom circle, beginning in verse 22. This long chapter in the book of Kings is the
chapter in which Solomon has finally finished the great edifice known as the
Temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Solomon’s Temple, it’s not too well known,
the exact design of it, but what a fantastic building, never before equaled in
the architecture of the world, and Solomon has just built this thing and now
he’s dedicating it, in verse 22 he’s turning it over to the Lord.
Verse 22, “And Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the
presence of all the congregation of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward
heaven. [23] And he said, LORD God of Israel, there is no God like thee, in
heaven above, or on earth beneath, who keeps covenant and mercy with thy
servants who walk before thee with all their heart. [24] Who has kept thy
servant, David, my father, that which thou promised him; thou did speak also
with thy mouth, and has fulfilled it with thine hand, as it is this day. [25]
Therefore now, LORD God of Israel, keep with thy servant, David, my father,
that which thou promised him saying, There shall not fail thee a man in my
sight to sit on the throne of Israel,” Solomon is claiming the promises of the
Word of God in this prayer, something you should be doing when you pray, have
knowledge of the promises of God and using these in prayer. And he’s claiming the promise of 2 Sam. 7,
that God said your throne will be established before you, and so Solomon is
claiming this promise in his prayer, he’s appropriating it to himself and to
his kingdom.
But then he says in verse 31, “If any man trespass against his neighbor,
and an oath be laid upon him to cause him to swear, and the oath come before thine
altar in this house, [32] Then hear thou in heaven, and do, and judge thy
servants, condemning the wicked,” there’s the plea for discipline, “to bring
his way upon his head, and justifying the righteous, to give him according to
his righteousness.” Verse 33, “When thy
people, Israel, are smitten down before the enemy because they have sinned
against thee, and shall turn again to thee, and confess Thy name, and pray, and
make supplication unto Thee in this house.
[34] Then hear Thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of Thy people,
Israel, and bring them again unto the land which Thou gave unto their
fathers.” Do you see the provision? At any given time in history Israel could have
gotten back in fellowship as a nation.
The Temple was there, the provisions of God were there, and all they had
to do was to confess their sin nationally to God.
Now as you read these horrible things and last time we went through
about women eating their children in Josephus, I want to read that to
deliberately shock you to see the horrible things that came off in history as a
literal result of these curses. But as
you read these things, never forget the reason why they are coming is because
of negative volition, not because they have to.
This nation could have gotten out from under the discipline in a split
second of time by simply taking advantage of these things. Verse 35, “When heaven is shut up, and there
is no rain, because they have sinned against thee, if they pray toward this
place, and confess thy name, and turn from their sin, when thou afflict them,
[36] Then hear thou in heaven, and forgive the sin of thy servants,” again
provision was made to stop the cycles of discipline from coming upon the
nation.
Verse 37, “If there be in the land famine, if there be pestilence,
blighting, mildew, locust, or if there be caterpillar; if their enemy besiege
them in the land of their cities; whatsoever plague, whatsoever sickness there
is, [38] Whatsoever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all thy
people, Israel, who shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and
spread forth his hands toward this house, [39] Then hear Thou in heaven, Thy
dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his
ways, whose heart Thou knowest (for Thou, even Thou only, knowest the hearts of
all the children of men),” so you see, this provision was always available,
just like today that provision is available to you.
As a believer in Jesus Christ here’s your position, “in Christ” legally,
however in this bottom circle you may be out and yet God says listen, I have
given you 1 John 1:9, at any given moment you can use it, you don’t have to be
miserable, you don’t have to go on doing this thing out of fellowship, you can
simply acknowledge that you have failed the will of God, specifically in this
area, whatever the Holy Spirit brings to your conscience and once you confess
this then immediately He says I am “faithful and just to forgive you your sin
and cleanse you from all unrighteousness.”
And you’re back in the bottom circle, out from under; it doesn’t
necessarily mean out from under pressure but now that cursing turns to blessing
and God’s promises give you the meanings of sustaining yourself in that
situation. So it’s the same thing,
directly analogous with the nation.
There’s another passage in the Old Testament that tells you they did not
do this. I took you to 1 Kings to show
you they could have, now what did they really do? Turn to Amos 4; in Amos 4 you’ll see
something that these prophets very frequently did. Oftentimes as the saying goes you have to bat
someone over the head with a 2 x 4 to get their attention. And the nation Israel often had this
experience. And this is why the prophets
were kind of rough in their language and why they used sarcasm. Incidentally, sarcasm is not carnal; sarcasm
is one of the greatest tools used in the Word of God. The trouble with it is that in our day we
have associated sarcasm with hate; people who hate use sarcasm and yet in the
Word of God the Lord Jesus Christ used sarcasm; people can be sarcastic in
love. Great sarcasm has been done by
many in history that truly love the people they’ve been sarcastic to, but it
was the only way they could get their attention.
In Amos 4 you see one of these great sarcastic prophecies against the
nation. “Hear this word, ye kine [cows]
of Bashan,” you fat cattle, that’s what he’s telling them, look fatty, hear
this word, “that are in the mountains of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who
crush the needy, who say to their masters, Bring, and let us drink; [2] The
Lord God hath sworn by His holiness that, lo, the days shall come upon you,
that He will take you away with hooks, and your posterity with fishhooks. [3]
And ye shall go out at the breaches, every cow at that which is before her, and
ye shall cast them into the palace, saith the LORD. [4] Come to Bethel, and
transgress;” do you see what he’s doing here in verse 4, come on, you want to
sin, let’s have a real good orgy, so you come to Bethel, and you transgress, “at
Gilgal multiply transgression, and bring your sacrifices every mourning, and
your tithes after three years, [5] And offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving with
leaven, and proclaim and publish the free offerings; for so ye love to do,” for
this fits you, that’s just exactly what you’re doing, you’re religious phonies,
“O ye children of Israel, says the Lord God. [6] And I also have given you
cleanness of teeth in all your cities, and lack of bread in all your places;”
cleanness of teeth means you have food to get your teeth dirty with, “and yet
you have not returned unto me, saith the LORD.”
See, he’s already begun to take the curses of Deut. 28 and move them
into history. And in Amos 4, in this chapter, you are reading about the very
cursings that you’re reading about in Deut. 28 and here’s where they have
become actual in history. Verse 7, “And also I have withheld the rain from you,
when there were yet three months to the harvest; and I caused it to rain upon
one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city;” notice how God did
this, He caused it to rain on one city and caused it not to rain upon another,
“one piece was rained upon, and the piece upon which it rained not, withered.
[8] So two or three cities wandered unto one city, to drink water, but they
were not satisfied; yet have ye not returned unto me, saith the LORD. [9] I
have smitten you with blight and mildew,” exactly the same vocabulary as Deut.
28, this is an announcement in history that Deut. 28 truly came off, “when you
gardens and your vineyards and your fig
trees and your olive trees increased, the palmer worm devoured them; yet have
ye not returned unto Me, saith the LORD, [10] I have sent among you the
pestilence after the manner of Egypt; your young men have I slain with the
sword, and have taken away your horses, and I have made the stench of your
camps to come up unto your nostrils; yet have ye not returned unto Me, saith
the LORD.”
That’s pretty strong language but this is an announcement in history of
the imposition of Deut. 28. I show you
this because I don’t want you to ever get the impression that what we’re
reading back here in Deut. 28 we’re not reading about something theoretical,
we’re reading about something that actually came off in history; it’s a
horrible thing.
I want to take you to some more references in the Word of God that have
to do with this business of the fowls of the air. We’re going to read in Deut. 28 about the
fowls eating flesh. This is a nice gory
illustration; this talks about the scavengers, these are the birds like the
eagles, etc. that prey on dead, decaying flesh.
And the picture here is that when God gets through disciplining in
history He is going to send His cleanup squad around and the cleanup squad, the
garbage men you might say, are these birds of prey, the scavengers, and He’s
saying let them come on, I’ve got a bunch of piles of good juicy rotten flesh
here and this will give you a good supper for a while so come on over and eat
and eat all you can. This is an image
that is used again and again in the Word of God, a very horrible image but it
is an image of the judgment and wrath of God.
It is an expression that when God is finished with His judgment in
history there’s nothing left but to call for the scavengers. I want to show you how this theme occurs
again and again throughout the Word of God.
Turn first to Psalm 79:2, again showing you that what you read in Deut.
28 is not just theoretical threatening.
Think of it this way: as Christians you are glad that God has promised
you something. We are glad that in Rom.
8:28 it says “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them
that are the called according to His purpose.”
We are told in 1 Pet. 5:17, “Cast all your care upon Him for He cares
for you.” Those are promises and they’re
true and you trust them. These are
things that promises blessing to the Christian.
And God says listen, will you trust Me and I’ll give this to you. So therefore you’re confident that God will
always respond to His promises. But
here’s something else that maybe you haven’t thought of before. God is equally
faithful to His curses. And He is just
as faithful to His curses as He is to His promises. And as He has promised blessing to those who
trust Him, so He has promised cursing to those who disobey Him, and He is as
faithful in the administration of the cursings as He is in the administration
of His blessings. So we find in Psalm
79:2 that Deut. 28 has already occurred by this time, and the lament of Asaph
in this Psalm is, “The dead bodies of thy servants have they given to be food
unto the fowls of the heavens, the flesh of thy saints unto the beasts of the
earth.” These are believers, these
aren’t unbelievers, these aren’t professing believers, these are true believers
who have gotten out of line in history and God says all right, cursed to you,
and by Deut. 28 I am going to turn you over so that as far as the nation is
concerned, you’re going to go into disaster conditions and your flesh is going
to rot out on the grass until these birds come along and pick it up and eat
it. That’s what is going to happen, and
this is what Asaph is saying in Psalm 79, a very putrid, morbid illustration
but nevertheless it communicates.
Turn to Ezekiel 39:4, a prophecy as to what’s going to happen to
Russia. Gog is the word in prophecy used
for the Russians and it’s a prophecy of a time in history when close to the
Second Advent of Christ in the eastern Mediterranean the Russians are going to
try a two-pronged attack; they’re going to try to attack from the north land
and they’re going to try and attack from the west by sea and this is called the
attack of Gog; Gog is the Russian people because this is their name in the Word
of God. And this means nationally now,
whether they’re still under the communist regime is something else, but
nationally they are identified. And they
are going to try to attack the Holy Land.
Incidentally, this is one reason why today, thanks to Congress, the
United States is no longer the first naval power in the world; this is why 50%
of our fleet is over 20 years of age. 1%
of the Russian fleet is over 20 years of age so you can figure it out. We have 1600 naval vessels, the Russians have
1800 and only 1% of theirs is over 20 years old and if we had to do battle right
now we couldn’t hack it; not one way we could do it. While we were disarming the Russians were
arming and the Russians haven’t stopped arming themselves.
In order for this prophecy to occur Russia must have an entire fleet so
powerful it completely dominates the Mediterranean Sea, and they are going to
make this attack, described in Ezekiel 39, but God is going to intervene, and
as they come into the Holy Land in verse 4, “Thou shalt fall upon the mountains
of Israel, thou,” O Gog, “and all thy bands [hordes]” or armies or the
divisions, “and the peoples that are with thee; I will give thee unto the
ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the fields shall thou be
devoured.” In verses 17 and 20 he goes
on, “And thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God: Speak unto every feathered
fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves and come, gather
yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a
great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink
blood. [18] And ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of
the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of
them fatlings of Bashan,” these are the fatties that he was talking about
sarcastically before. Verse 19, “And ye
shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunk, of my
sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you.”
That’s a gory description but this is the way God sets forth His
prophecy.
For the final description turn to Revelation, again, you can see how to
interpret Revelation is simply understanding your Old Testament. Rev. 19:17, here we have an announcement by
one of the angels, the Lord Jesus Christ has come, verse 15, “And out of his
mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it he should smite the nations, He shall
rule them with a rod of iron; and He treads the winepress of the fierceness and
wrath of Almighty God.” Verse 17, “And I
saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all
the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together
unto the super of the great God, [18] That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and
the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and
of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and enslaved,
both small and great.” Jesus Christ is
going to clean up and when Jesus Christ gets through at the Second Advent the
people on negative volition who have worshiped the beast are going to gather
together and try to stop Him and He’s going to clobber them and absolutely
destroy their armies. This is not going
to be some quick supernatural thing; it’s going to be an actual engagement,
military engagement, what the armies are we don’t know, it’s just kind of an
outer space type thing, invasion from outer space [blank spot]. There’s going to be a planetary war, and the
Lord Jesus Christ, when He returns is going to annihilate the opposition and
it’s going to be call for the garbage men to come and clean up and that’s what
verse 17 is. So you see this theme repeated again throughout Scripture.
Now come back to Deut. 28 and I’ll show you where it all began, verse
26, “And thy carcass shall be food unto all fowls of the air, and unto the
beasts of the earth, and no man shall drive them away.” The picture here is a graphic one; the
picture here that was used, after an ancient battle the wounded would be lying
in the field, the dying would be lying out on the battlefield and they would
usually try to take the wounded off the field after the battle, you think we
have casualties today, you can imagine what it was when thousands of armies
came together with swords. Talk about casualties, they had casualties that
would make our casualties list look like nothing. This is why they had to have
tremendous reproduction and large families in the ancient world, to keep the
army supplied with bodies because when they had a battle they had casualty
lists that make ours look like a Sunday School picnic. So there would be these
thousands and thousands of people moaning all over the field. Of course these birds of prey, the vultures,
etc. smell blood and rotting flesh and they gather together to try to eat it. [Small blank spot] And God says it’s going to be such a
disaster, Israel, when I get through with you there’s not going to even be one
person out there to fan away the birds, that’s how graphic this is.
[Small blank spot] this section on international policies. This is at the end; Moses comes back to the
problem of loss of international position.
Deut. 28:58, “If thou will not observe to do all the words of this Law
that are written in this book,” this book refers to the Law that Moses had,
“that thou may fear this glorious and fearful name, THE LORD THY GOD.” Those of you who have King James will
recognize that it’s in capitals. The
reason for this is the word “glorious and fearful name,” the word “glorious”
here means that the name of God, name in the ancient world was a revelation of
character, Isaac was called Isaac because the Hebrew means laughter; when God said that his mother was going to
have a child at 99 or whatever she was, she said ha-ha and she was behind the
tent, and so God said oh, ha-ha, that’s a good name for Isaac, so your baby is
going to be known as ha-ha; Yitzhak is I laugh.
And so Isaac was called laughter and so every time Sarah would call
Isaac Isaac she was calling Ha-ha, and she’d be reminded of her big goof. So the Lord just in His grace reminded her
every time she’d call her child she’d remember she was the one that
laughed. [Can’t understand words]
…increase, and he was the one that caused the nation to increase in Egypt, so
again and again we have these names; Daniel means God rules, and Daniel’s book
is the story of how God ruled the nations.
You can go on and on and see how these Hebrew names mean something.
Well, God Himself has a name and it’s called in verse 15 “the glorious
name,” and “glorious name” means one that reveals the essence of God. God has sovereignty, righteousness, justice,
love, omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence and immutability. And this is God’s character and this is what
is revealed and when you see the word “glory” in the Bible that’s what glory
means, a revelation of the character of God.
So the Lord thy God reveals His name, “fearful name” means a name worthy
of respect. Those two words, “glorious”
and “fearful,” should tell you something.
In context, where is the name of God found? In the context of verse 58 what’s
discussed? It’s the Word of God that’s
discussed, and so here the emphasis is on the national response to the Word of
God. The Word of God reveals God’s
character and the Word of God is worthy of absolute respect and that’s going to
be the test that is going to signal the administration of this discipline, the
attitude of the nation toward the Word of God.
Then verse 59, if they don’t respect the Word and show their respect by
submitting to it, “Then the LORD will make thy plagues wonderful,” this means
they are going to be so fantastic, so absolutely fantastic that they are going
to cause amazement, not only in Israel but outside of Israel, “and the plagues of thy seed, even the great
plagues, and of long continuance, and severe sicknesses, and of long
continuance,” means that they are going to keep on and keep on and keep on;
these are the five cycles, the five degrees of discipline. He is going to keep the heat on, keep it on,
and if they don’t like that and they don’t get straightened out, He’s going to
turn it up a little hotter, continually forcing them down to the position of
national loss in the realm of political relationship.
Verse 60, “Moreover, he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt,
which thou wast afraid of, and they shall cling to thee.” This is again a picture of the worldliness,
they had escaped from Egypt, Egypt was always a type in the Bible of world,
you’re past a pre-salvation situation, and all these problems that you had as
an unbeliever you’re going to get again. See, carnal believers share the
miseries of the unbelievers. If you’re
outside this bottom circle and God will visit the same kind of problems you had
before you accepted Jesus Christ, so that as far as your behavior patterns a
person could look at you and say are you a believer or not, you don’t show any
sign of it, you’re miserable, you’re unhappy, you have all the problems you had
before you were a Christian. So people
say oh, he lost his salvation; no, he didn’t lose his salvation but it’s just
like the nation Israel, didn’t lose their position before God but they lost
their position in the land.
Verse 61 “Also every sickness, and every plague, which is not written in
the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon thee, until thou be
destroyed,” and verse 61 shows another principle of the Word, i.e. the Bible is
not comprehensive. In other words, the
Bible gives you enough data to see the principle but the Bible does not give
you every answer to life. This is the
justification in the Word of God for secular study, studies in science, art,
music, history, etc. The Word of God
gives you very little, in fact, in these areas; the Word of God gives you
enough to give you the principles and it’s up to you to go out and move into
these other fields of life. This means
that you as a Christian are called upon to erect a divine viewpoint framework
in the mentality of your soul. You are
called upon as a sinner to put God; out around God you put Bible doctrine, and
in the mentality of your soul you are to absorb Bible doctrine until you know
it, till you can think it through. And
then out around Bible doctrine you begin to line up the areas of study in your
life. You think of science, you think of
history, of art, of music, these are things in the general culture but they
should be underneath Bible doctrine. So
you begin to erect a divine viewpoint framework in the mentality so you can
walk into art and you can begin to evaluate art from the divine viewpoint; in
the area of music, etc. and all these things should be brought under the
submission of Bible doctrine. Then you have your personal life, your job, sex,
your possessions, health, you have these things that are individual and
personal to you; are you controlling these things by attitude derived from
Bible doctrine or not? If you’re not,
then you haven’t yet built a divine viewpoint framework in the mentality of
your soul.
Then you have the things that left, not only in the culture but you have
the other things that are left, you have fellowship with believers, do you let
Bible doctrine control your fellowship with other believers or do you get
hacked with some believer and walk off and pick up your marbles and go
somewhere else. Just remember that every
believer has a sin nature. You have a
sin nature, I have a sin nature, everyone has a sin nature, and you might as
well recognize it. Then you have the
other things, you have fellowship with your friends, etc. and you have
fellowship with society, etc. So these
things are areas that I hope you think about. [small blank spot] The trouble
is, the culture is sending waves into us, we ought to be the ones that are
making waves and waves ought to be going from us into society. Why are they coming the other way? Because
Christians haven’t got hold of this concept and use it. You have a high mandate from God and that is
to get going in some of these other areas and let the Word of God spill over
into all these areas of life.
This is what it means here when it says “sickness … not written in the
book of this law” means that there are going to be some things, Israel, that I
haven’t explained to you in the Word of God, you’re going to have to discover
this on your own, but it’s in the refrain, “until thou be destroyed.”
Verse 62, “And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the
stars of heaven for multitude; because thou would not obey the voice of the
LORD thy God.” “Stars of heaven” refer
to the Abrahamic Covenant, they were to be a multidinous people, but under
discipline they would decline in power until as a nation they would be a
pitiful small remnant. In fact, if you
think Israel is back in the land today, listen, Israel isn’t back in her land
today. Look at what her land was. Israel occupies a little skinny beachhead and
since the Six Day War they have something down here but Israel’s boundaries in
the Word of God go all the way over to the Tigris-Euphrates Valley, that’s the
boundary in the Word of God so Israel isn’t really occupying the land at all;
she occupies a fraction of what she is going to when Christ returns. So Israel is not technically in the land,
really, as far as this is concerned.
Verse 63, “And it shall come to pass, that as the LORD rejoiced over you
to do you good,” and this is the verse I referred to before, “and to multiply
you, so the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you,” that does not mean that
God gets a thrill out of discipline.
What it does mean is that if you go back to the character of God and His
essence you find God has certain characteristics. He has the characteristic of love and this
love flows unobstructively towards you because of the cross of Christ, but if
you’re not under the cross of Christ righteousness and justice flows toward you
and “rejoice” means that He has no hindrance in expressing this attribute
toward you and just as He has no hindrance in expressing His love toward you,
He has no hindrance expressing His righteousness and justice toward you and
that’s what it means here, “the LORD will rejoice over you to destroy you, and
to bring you to nothing; and ye shall be plucked from off the land to which
thou goest to possess it.”
Then in verse 64-68 comes the last horrible conclusion to the national
destiny of Israel, for they are going to go into the Diaspora and they are
going to find in verse 65 that as they go and are dispersed among the various
nations of the world that “among those nations shalt thou find no ease, neither
shall the sole of thy foot have rest; but the LORD shall give thee there a
trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind,” not of mind but of
soul. A “trembling heart” refers to the
inner mental attitude and “sorrow of soul” refers to the outer activities of
life. These people are going to be nervous wrecks; these people are going to be
so maladjusted that wherever they go they’re going to stand out, and this is
why historically it has been the Jewish people that have been behind many of
the great revolutionary movements of our time.
This is why men like Trotsky, they are Jewish people and the reason why,
it’s not because the Jews necessarily want to do this, it’s that the Jews
themselves don’t know what they’re supposed to be doing and this is why in
unbelief, in category negative volition, they are experiencing this thing in
verse 65, wherever they go they can’t find a home, and they can’t understand
why it is, why can’t I settle down, why can’t I assimilate like the other
people can. Why is it, for example, that the Scotch Irish could come to the
colonies of America and absorb into the population, but why is it that the
Jewish people, wherever they go on the face of the earth, can’t find themselves
absorbed into the population? What keeps
them from being absorbed, although they themselves often times in most cases
don’t know it, is this verse. God is
going to see that they are never assimilated into any population because He
wants them separate for Himself. They
are undergoing the dispersion from 70 AD and God says you’re never going to
find rest in any nation. This is what
has led them to be agitated, this is what has led them down through history to
organize themselves; this is why it is that many of them were behind the early
communist revolutions in Russia in 1917, because they think that if they can
get involved in some revolutionary thing they can bring in a society where at
last they can find peace and assimilate themselves. This is what drives them forward all the
time.
Now the solution to the problem is to evangelize the Jew and set it off
with positive volition; that’s the solution, and that’s why we had Arnold
Fruchtenbaum here and others to give you an idea what it means in Jewish
evangelism to present the gospel to the Jewish people. This is what stops this
thing but you let the Jews experience, as they did during the Middle Ages, the
self-righteousness pharisaical attitude on the part of the church, they get
negative toward Christianity because of what happened, and you’ve heard Arnold
say how he was first introduced to Christ in a Polish ghetto when some priest
came up to him and said you kneel before this Christ, you killed Christ, we’ll
kill you. If you had that introduction
to Christ I’m sure you wouldn’t be too enthusiastic about Christianity. So this is what happens again and again in
history and it’s all because of this chapter.
This is an important chapter. You
can’t understand history without understanding Deut. 28.
Verse 66, “And thy life shall hand in doubt before thee; and thou shalt
fear day and night, and shalt have no assurance of thy life,” you’re never
going to settle down. Verse 67, “In the
morning you shall say, Would God it were evening! And at evening you shall say,
Would God it were morning for the fear of thine heart wherewith thou shalt
fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.” They’re going to
look out on their situation and it’s going to be fear, fear, fear, fear, upset,
they just get settled down in an area and bang they’re in the middle of
something; it’s always going to happen, it’s predicted to happen in the Word of
God, and will go on and on and on until the Second Advent of Jesus Christ. That’s the clear teaching of this section of
Scripture.
Then lastly in verse 68 “And the LORD shall bring thee into Egypt again
with ships, by the way whereof I spoke unto thee, Thou shalt see it no more
again; and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for male and female slaves,
and no man shall buy you.” Josephus
tells us that when Titus finished the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD they
took 17,000 adult Jews and took them down in boats to Egypt and sold them except
for all teenagers under 17 years of age.
All teenagers under 17 were in such miserable shape that nobody would
buy them, fulfilling the prophecy of verse 68.
So in history this literally came true; the curses of Deuteronomy.
What can we learn about this? The
first thing we learn is it tells us about tongues. I’ve had a request to explain what is the
connection that I’ve made between this chapter and tongues. So if you take a tour of application for a
moment, turn to Isaiah 28. The tongues
movement today is a satanic movement generated to confuse Christians. It is a movement that is deliberately
designed to promote the ecumenical movement by citing a unity among everybody
irrespective of doctrine; it is putting emphasis on the emotions and mysticism
instead of upon the Word of God. Every
where the tongues movement goes it splits churches, everywhere it goes it
detracts from the Word of God, everywhere it goes it causes people to place
emphasis on feelings over doctrine. That’s exactly the way Satan wants it to be
played.
Now in Isaiah 28 you have the true purpose of tongues, verse 11, here is
why you had tongues happen in Corinth and these other places, it goes back to
the principle of Deut. 28. Isaiah was
announcing the fifth degree of discipline.
Remember I said the administration goes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5; at the third
stage what was going to happen? They are
going to be dispersed and they are going to be dispersed among whom? What’s going to be the sign that they are
dispersed among Gentiles, verse 11, “For with stammering lips, and another
tongue will He,” that’s the Lord, “speak to this people,” that’s Israel, now
“stammering lips” is a word which means Gentile languages. That’s how the
Gentile languages sounded to the Jews.
Frankly, Hebrew sounds that way to me but evidently when they hear the
Greeks of somebody speak it’s stammering lips.
So in verse 11, “stammering lips and another tongue,” not a language,
Paul cites this incidentally in 1 Cor. 14, he is saying that when the gospel
comes to Israel through Gentile language, that’s going to be the sign Israel,
that the fifth cycle of discipline has started.
And of course we find Gentile languages in Acts 2 when Pentecost comes
and the Holy Spirit does not bless according to Joel 2 because if the Holy
Spirit blessed according to Joel 2 and the day of Pentecost the sun would have
been blackened, etc. and you have astronomical events occur. But on the day of Pentecost nothing happened
that was right, absolutely nothing. The
Holy Spirit came on schedule but there were no other signs of Joel and instead
of all the signs of Joel there was the sign of Isaiah 28:11, namely tongues and
the tongues were given to announce to Israel at that time that Israel, you have
just entered the fifth cycle of discipline, you have just moved into a
situation of suffering and the gospel now will be administered to Israel
through Gentile languages.
And this is why in Corinth you have the same thing, Corinth was a great
merchant center, in Corinth you had a tremendous number of Jewish businessmen
and you had to have them receive the sign that Israel now was no longer into
the fellowship of God, she was outside, she was in the fifth cycle of
discipline, the gospel was coming to the Jews of Corinth through the gift of
tongues. This is the only prophecy of
tongues in the entire Word of God and I want you to notice the context. The context is the fifth cycle of discipline.
Where does this leave us today? I
want to point out something because someone asked a second question, if it’s
true that the nation, when it goes into discipline, can’t stop itself except
positive volition, then why should Christians be concerned about strengthening
the military; why should Christians be concerned about good citizenship at all;
why should there be any attempt made on the part of Bible-believing Christians
in a society to right the wrongs that they see if it does no good to right the
wrongs that they see.
The answer to that is found again in the same book of Isaiah, chapter
3. We have a passage that tells us how
in practice these curses are oftentimes administered. Verse 1, “For, behold, the Lord, the LORD of
hosts,” now this is an explanation of the cursings, you see, He’s going to
start cursing the nation but watch how He does it, “doth take away from
Jerusalem and from Judah the stay and the staff, the whole stay of bread, and
the whole stay of water.” There’s economic pressure being put upon the
nation. But now watch what happens, and
here is the answer to the question what does the Christian citizen do when he
finds a society under the wrath of God, does he spend time getting involved in
politics or does he spend time with the Word.
The answer is of course that you emphasize the Word of God, you
emphasize the teaching of the Word because you’ve got to right the basic
problem that’s wrong. However, it
doesn’t mean you forsake your citizenship responsibilities, it doesn’t mean you
get on a campaign and a big high horse about it but it does mean that when you
vote and when you do other things you exercise as far as you can your volition
to influence a society because of what happens in the society as discipline
falls upon it.
Verse 2, God says “The mighty man, and the man of war, the judge, and
the prophet, and the prudent, and the ancient, [3] The captain of fifty, and
the honorable man, and the counselor, and the skillful craftsman, and the
eloquent orator,” I’ve taken all those away. Do you see how God administers
discipline oftentimes in the nation? He
deliberately works it out so that in the process of the social thing, whether
it’s a democracy or an aristocracy, a monarchy or whatever it is, the leaders…
and every society has to have the men here, these men in verses 2-3, every
society has to have these to go on; you’ve got to have your leaders. All right, what God is going to do, he works
through elections, He works through political processes, He works through
various means of relieving key leaders from that society. And so that in the end the discipline and the
wrath fall upon the nation because that nation has lost its true leaders; its
great men are no longer there. And
notice please in verse 3 that this includes the arts, notice in verse 3 the
skillful craftsman, the eloquent orator, elements of culture are also removed.
This is why, perhaps, why is it that there are no great Christian
artists today in our generation; why is it there’s no great Christian composer
of music in our generation? Why is it
there hasn’t been in the whole 20th century a man of the caliber of
Rembrandt and others? Why is it that
this happened? Is it perhaps that we are
under the wrath of God and one by one He’s closing in on the culture and this
is why you have junk in the area of music, junk in the area of art? Why has the whole creativity dried up? Is it because God is removing these
people? Why is it that as in verse 2 our
great military leaders have been removed and why we have made some of the
greatest asinine decisions in the area of military warfare that we have ever
made as a nation, that anybody has ever made?
Is it because God’s slowly behind the scenes working to remove the men
of wisdom? Remember the signs that we
say… oftentimes the Christian reaction is when we see this, oh, we’ve got to
watch out because the judgment of God might come upon us.
Listen, by the time these signs have come we are already in the judgment
of God. The very fact you can look
around our society in America today and see the kind of things you do isn’t a
sign the judgment of God is coming, it’s a sign that the judgment is here and
operating before our eyes. And the only
way we as Christians can do it is start with that divine viewpoint framework at
the center, take in the Bible doctrine, wherever we can, in our area of voting,
the local community, in our own home, our own local church, teach the Word,
teach the Word, teach the Word and apply it in every area we can. That’s the way to change society; you are
obligated as a Christian to do these things but always realize that ultimately
it hangs on the discipline of God. God
will remove these men. One of the great
men that I think has been removed from out country is General Douglas
MacArthur. He was a man who may or may
not have been a Christian but he had many vital Bible principles.
I’m going to read a short section in one of his speeches in which he
critiques what’s happening in our country and I think we ought to listen and
pay attention because this probably was one of the last great men that we have
had in our society. This was a man who
understood warfare. MacArthur said this;
this was a speech that he gave to the Texas legislature, Austin, Texas, June
13, 1951. This is the time after he had
been removed from command and he was criticizing our policy for Korea, which
would apply to Vietnam, but I cite this in the context of Isaiah 3. Remember,
he was a man who had discernment and he was a man who was rejected. He was a man who said the way to solve the
Asian problem is to go in and blast Manchuria, to show them that we aren’t
about to move off from any ground that we hold.
We never did that because we were afraid that we might offend someone,
and with the result that American lives were lost.
“As I appear before you a great debate over our political and military
policy is stirring the nation. The issue
which has been raised is a simple one but the potentiality of its consequences
momentous. What is our policy for Korea?
On this issue rests not only the lives of countless American boys and
their allies committed to fight in that distant land, but as well the future
security of our country and the advance of the national leadership in the
affairs of the world. I have been amazed
and deeply concerned since my return to observe the extent to which the
orientation,” watch this, this is a man who has come back to the United States
after many years in the Orient and he’s come back and he was shocked to see
what had happened to America, “I have been shocked to observe the extent to
which the orientation of our national policy tends to depart from the
traditional courage, vision and forthrightness which has animated and guided
our great leaders of the past, to be largely influenced if not indeed in some
instances dictated from abroad and dominated by fear of what others may think
and hear of what others may do.”
Nowhere in the history of America have we ever made a foreign policy on
the basis of what somebody else thought; we figure this is our policy and if
you don’t like it lump it, but now we’re so concerned about what someone is
going to think. “Never before in our
history can precedent be found for such subordination of policy to the opinions
of others with a minimum regard for direction of our own national interests. Never before have we geared national policy
to timidity and fear; the guide, instead, has invariably been one of high moral
principle and the courage to decide great issues on the spiritual level of what
is right and what is wrong. I am no seer
to predict whether or not the Soviet aims at ultimately provoking and engaging
in a global con-struggle; I give them infinitely more credit, however, than to
believe that they would embark upon so reckless and ill-conceived course. Up to now there is no slightest doubt in my
mind but that he has been engaging in the greatest bulldozing diplomacy history
has ever recorded.”
Listen to that again because we are so afraid of what Russia and China
are going to do. Up to now there is no
slightest doubt in my mind but that he has been engaging in the greatest
bulldozing diplomacy history has ever recorded.
Without committing a single soldier to battle, he has assumed direct and
indirect control over a large part of the population of the world. His intrigue has found success, not so much
in its own military strength, nor indeed in any overt threat of intention to
commit it to battle, but in the moral weakness of the free world. It is the weakness which has caused many free
nations to succumb to and to embrace the false tenants of communist propaganda. It is the weakness which has caused our own
policy makers, after committing America’s sons to battle, to lead them to the
continuous slaughter of an indecisive campaign by imposing arbitrary restraints
upon the support we might otherwise provide them through maximum deployment of
our scientific superiority, which alone offers hope of early victory. It is the weakness which now causes those in
authority to strongly hint at the subtlety of the Korean conflict under
conditions short of the objective our soldiers were led to believe were theirs
to attain and for which so many have yielded their lives. The existing policy of appeasement is to send
in on the ground that if our military action be conventional and we carry the
war to the enemy in a manner calculated to destroy, his capability of killing
our sons and those whose protection we have assumed, we would incur the wrath
of the soviets and provoke the start of a world at war. No argument could be more fallacious. The surest way to insure World War III is to
allow the Korean conflict to continue indecisively and indefinitely. The surest way, the only way to prevent World
War III is to end the Korean conflict rapidly and decisively. Like a cancer, the only cure is by a major
operation. Failure to take such decisive
action, as in cancer, is but to invite infection of the entire blood
stream. If the present plan of passive
defense envisages the indefinite continuance of the indecisive stalemate, which
is compounding losses, in the vain hope that the enemy will ultimately tire and
end his aggression, this or that in some indefinite future date we will adopt
the very policies of positive action designed to win the war and secure our
stated objectives which we have now deprecated and decried. Could anything be more naïve, more
unrealistic, more callous of our mounting dead?
Could there be any greater inconsistency than the argument pursued that
we can defeat Red China and Korea without risk of a Soviet intervention but our
attack upon a sustained basis across the [not sure of word, sounds like Yalou]
would render intervention inevitable.
The defendants of the existing policy vacuum are the same who suddenly
and without slightest preparation or seeming consideration of the military
potentialities threw us into the conflict.
These are the very men, who in the face of mounting peril, deliberately
demobilized us at the peak of our military strength.”
Do you hear what he said? After
World War II we had the strongest military machine in the world. So what
happened? We dismantled it and then we got Korea and it was the same men who
said let’s dismantle our World War II army [can’t understand words]. “This is a moral concern; we have a loyalty
to the men that we send out on the battle field. They demobilized us at the peak of our
military strength and then at the lowest point of our disarmament, with no
slight of preparation or word of warning, plunged us into a war which they now
seem afraid to win.”
Then he goes on in another speech and this is just a short paragraph
describing the mental attitude of war, and you as a Christian should know this
because spiritually it applies to you directly.
“From the elephant of Hannibal’s day to the modern tank and airplane,
the story is always the same. The tactics
in one war are always deficient in the next, but the endless purpose remains
immutable, victory. I, myself, have
witnessed this evolution over a span of more than 50 years. At the turn of the
century the target was one enemy casualty at the end of a rifle. Then came the machine gun, designed to kill
by the dozens. After that the heavy
artillery reigning death upon hundreds; then the aerial bomb to strike by the
thousands, followed by the atom explosion to reach the hundreds of
thousands. Now electronics and other
processes of science are being perfected to raise the destruction potential to
encompass millions. But at each
introduction of a new weapon or a new method, new tactics have been devised
based upon the one unchanging fundamental purpose and ideal: victory. Always the aim has been the same:
victory. But now oblivious to the
lessons of military history and American tradition a new concept has arisen
from outside our rank which tends to disavow victory as the combatant objective
and to advocate in its stead a new kind of tactic on which to base the
battle. The result can be nothing but
failure; nothing to repay the terrible human sacrifice of war. We of the military shall always do what we
are told to do but if this nation is to survive, we must press the soldier,
once our statesmen fail to preserve the peace; we must regain our faith in
those lessons and traditions which have always sustained our victorious march
through the military perils which have best our paths. We must recapture the will
and determination to win what may, once American arms have been committed to
battle; we must reject the councils of fear which strange and alien doctrines
are attempting to force upon us. We must proclaim again and again and again an
invincible adherence to the proposition that in war there can be no substitute
for victory for this is a thin gray line and it must stand.”
There’s a man who understood Biblical principle and he may or may not
have been a Christian, I’m not arguing the case; my point is that MacArthur was
one of the great men this country had because he saw principles, and we are not
as a nation going to move an inch until we have a restoration of that kind of
leadership and this can only come back to you personally as you personally respond
to the Word of God. God is able to turn
the United States around 180 degrees tonight if the Christian people would get
with the Word of God and we’d begin to move out, building divine viewpoint
frameworks so that the gospel and the Word of God spills over into all areas of
society. This could be attained in our
nation and don’t ever think that it’s beyond call. Isaiah saw a revival in his day; Isaiah
taught the Word of God to a generation that was far more hardened than our
generation and for 300 hundred years through Isaiah’s ministry he staved off
national disaster. We can have a change
in our country but it’s going to come by a return to the Word of God.