The Official Journal of the Ensign Trust, London

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THE ENSIGN MESSAGE

COUNTDOWN TO CHAOS

By

Read Jeremiah 6:10-19

EVEN a cursory reading of the Biblical history of God’s dealings with the people of Israel would lead one to the conclusion that He is a very long suffering God. Other wise He would have wiped the People of Israel off the face of the Earth long ago.

Perhaps it is true that Old Testament history seems to be too far fetched for our secular societies – which is why people look at you and say, ‘You don’t believe THAT do you?’ when we try to explain how Almighty God made and raised up a special nation to do His will in the earth.

The scripture we read was written by the prophet Jeremiah at a tirne in history when the TWO-tribed House of Judah was being punished for their sins – for their rejection of Jehovah and His Law. The people, the scribes, the priests AND the House of David – all came under the condemnation spoken by Jeremiah.

Unhappily the Old Testament is a closed book to our leaders these days. Our leaders of government and of the church appear to be completely ignorant of the record of History. In fact our 20th century leaders would flatly refuse to accept the idea that present day events could bear any resemblance to events in the far away Palestine of the 6th centuryB.C.

Perhaps WE can see the situation put into the words of the prophet Isaiah …

They have not known or understood for He shall shut their eyes, that they cannot see, and their hearts that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge or understanding. (Isa.44:18-19)

When one thinks about it there must have been a time when men, leaders of this Israel people CONSCIOUSLY turned away from God’s Word and God’s commandments. After all, they did have the five books of Moses which contained their national history, and the Laws of Jehovah their God, AND the record of the unbreakable promises made to their forebears, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob: together with the listings of punishments which would fall upon them as a result of disobedience. It is obvious that the Israelites addressed by Isaiah must have consciously ignored God’s Laws, just as later the men of Jeremiah’s day did.

And are not we and our leaders exactly the same? With history repeating itself once again? Almighty Cod saw the hearts and minds of Ancient Israel and can NOW see the hearts and minds of modern Israelites. He turned away from the people in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah … Is He not doing exactly the same thing Now?? … so our leaders have lost ‘Knowledge and Understanding’.

We meet this whenever we, as individuals, try to explain ‘B.I.’ to friends or acquaintances … we get the usual response ‘I can’t accept that’- just as Isaiah said they won’t consider in their hearts, so there is no hope of knowledge or understanding.

So – rnost of us today believe we have reached a point in the history of God’s Israelites which is perhaps the greatest crisis that has ever happened.

History is not a fashionable subject these days. No-one, neither the clergy, nor the politicians, nor the ordinary people want to consider the numerous events in past history which could give warning or hope regarding the present situation.

History, especially that of God’s chosen people as recorded in the Bible, is a closed book today, just as is the history of our own country – and this applies to Canada as well as to the United Kingdom – and to New Zealand and Australia also for that matter. It is only recently that the Australian PM. exhibited a total lack of knowledge of WW2!

In Britain, History has, until recently been considered an essential subject on the school curriculum but no longer is anyone encouraged in anyway to value our past be it good or bad.

There IS great concern at the present time about the teaching of Christianity in our British schools. The presence of large numbers of aliens who are either Muslims of Buddhists or members of the smaller heathen sects in many parts of Britain is really the source of the problem. Although the law states that there shall be a Christian content to school worship we hear of schools where modern ideas of ‘multi faith worship’ take pride of place. Nor is this surprising when we hear that such as the Archbishop of Canterbury, instead of measuring the problem against the Word of God written, believe that ALL religions are valid, and concentrate on developing modern ideas of ‘multi-falth worship’.

How many of these, clerics, scholars, politicians etc. entirely miss the point. This has nothing to do with ‘religion’ – it is a matter of LAW. Not for nothing did Alfred the Great start his codification of the Law with the first Commandment given at Sinai … ‘Thou shalt have no other gods but Me’. Of course we know that Old Testament Law dealing with sacrifices, ritual and offerings ended at Calvary but the Law given at Sinai was, is, permanent.

Jesus Himself said that He had not come to destroy the Law but to fulfil the requisites of the Law for the redemption of Israel. He gave us a summary that we ‘Love the Lord our God with all our hearts and our neighbour as ourselves’.

I am sure that this audience knows that the Greek word Agape used by Our Lord does not mean just physical or sentimental affection but means Love with overtones of duty and self sacrifice. (See Bullinger etc.).

From reading the Bible – or even studying our own history one might conclude that the keeping of the Law would be a matter of self interest, especially if one considers the Blessings and Cursings listed by Moses in Deut. 30:19-20. But we must not forget that Moses was also a prophet …

Israel then, shall dwell in safety alone, the fountains of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine, also his heavens shall drop down dew. Happy art thou 0 Israel. Who is like unto thee, 0 people saved by the Lord, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency. And thy enemies shall be found liars unto thee, and thou shalt tread upon their high places. (Deut. 33:28- 29)

A people saved by the Lord! We who live in the British Isles know full well the repeated outworking of this prophesy but these days it would be no wonder if The Lord God despaired of us and left us to our own destruction. Indeed at the present time it looks as if that has in fact happened. For someone of my age the changes which have taken place are simply unbelievable. As a child and a teenager I lived in two very different places, one a town in Cheshire, England and the other a small prairie town in Canada. They could not have been more different – but they were also very much alike being poor, perhaps old fashioned, but church going and law abiding with streets safe for young and old. Should one really have to choose between being poor and law abiding or affluent in a lawless society?

So where have we, the modern descendants of the Biblical Israelites gone wrong? Why is it that In 1992 Law and order in society is at a premium. How and why have law abiding people degenerated so rapidly? It would be easy to sit self righteously and blame it on THE WAR, on the modern MEDIA – or even on SATAN. But Satan can only be successful when men and women listen to him, and begin to believe his lies.

How easy it is to believe that the Bible is out of date and has no relevance for the 1990’s. How easy to believe that there cannot be a loving God in heaven – or on Earth for that matter when there are millions of innocent people all over the globe living in unspeakable squallor and dying of starvation and disease. And – what is more to the point, when there are so many poverty stricken people in our own lands. In Britain we have a new word for it. They are DISADVANTAGED.

Our Lord had something to say about our kind of society …

For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? Whosoever therefore, shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also shall the Son of man be ashamed when He cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels. (Mark 8:36-38)

Such were the words of Jesus and surely are a clear indication of the malaise which afflicts all the Israel nations today

The prophet Ezekiel had a very pertinent comment to make …

When the land sinneth against me, by trespassing grieviously, then will 1 stretch out my hand upon it, and will break the staff of bread, and will send famine upon it, and will cut off man and beast from it. Though these three men, Noah, Daniel or Job were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord. (Ez. 14:13.)

This shows clearly that every man – every woman is responsible for their own soul. Unhappily few churches seem to be able to preach and teach such a simple sense of responsibility but without a doubt there is one great cloud hanging over our world, our Kosmos and it is sirnply lack of confidence in the Word of God written. Is it any wonder that we look with increasing concern at our world and begin to think that indeed we have a COUNTDOWN TO CHAOS!

Which ever way we look, in every continent there is trouble. When I was preparing this talk the NEWS centred on Yugoslavia and particularly on Bosnia. There was still trouble with Saddam Hussein who is quite happy for the UN to blow up his nuclear factories – for since the break up of the Soviet Union atomic arms are readily available on the black market. And I expect todays news casts will bring us the latest on riots, civil wars etc..

It cannot be a coincidence that the last date in the Great Pyramid was August 20th 1953. Next year August 20th,will be exactly 40 years from that Pyramid date. 40 means trial, preparation, probation – the time of Jacob’s trouble, and as Jesus said, nation rising against nation.

We Identity believers consider that we not only understand the situation, but we also believe that we have the answers. The fact that we, the Anglo-Saxon-Celtic peoples ARE – as can be proved in so many ways – the descendants of the ancient Israelite tribes of the Bible should somehow enable us to move people to turn again to the Bible, to the God of Jacob and to the laws and constitution He gave us … So why does it not work? My friends, do not think that I am criticizing your efforts. Anyone like myself who has worked and lectured for this teaching for over 30 years knows full well how many good and true Israelites have given their lives in the service of this cause. It simply must be admitted that Identity groups all over the world are small, and in some places simply fading away, seemingly unable to attract younger more active members.

I am sure we have all thought along these lines at one time or another … In my working life as an analyst in the laboratory attached to a large chemical factory I was sometimes given a sample which had lost its label or came from an unmarked container. Its exact contents must be determined so that it could be safely dealt with. It could be a poison, or an explosive, or even a harmless salt … One could get a clue from its appearance or perhaps its smell, but such were scientifically just guesses. I had to produce facts. And in Chemistry there is only one way. One must go back to basics and determine exactly what elements are present and in what proportion.

So it seems to me that we Identity believers, with our invaluable key to prophecy should be prepared to go back to basics, to our basic argument, to make sure that in our eagerness on making the literal modern identification of the Descendants of the Biblical Israelites we haven’t overlooked some point or factor which might give us the light and incentive we need in these dark days. For we do have the word of God written and unless we interpret God’s words correctly our teaching will be in vain.

Ever since I became interested in the historical aspect of, our teaching I have been finding in my reading of books, newspapers etc., etc. items of historical or archaeological interest which shed, little by little, more light on the history of our migrating forefathers. Perhaps we should ask ourselves whether we do as much research into the Bible … Certainly it is a question that I have asked myself. There are more and more English versions of the Bible being produced and while we must admit that from a scholarly point of view some of them are little more than paraphrases, we must also admit that our treasured King James version has its share of errors. Sometimes it is not so much actual error as change in the meaning of a word. A good example is the Greek word AGAPE which is translated in I Corinthians l3 as ‘Charity’ in the A.V. but as ‘love’ in the Revised Versions. Sadly other errors are not always as easy to recognise, but a book such as Dr Bullinger’s Companion Bible, or Scoffield’s Reference Bible can help. Important also is prayer that God will guide our studies.

Now I must stress that I am not a Hebrew scholar, nor do I know any Greek (I was lucky that the High School in Lloydminster had a teacher who could – and did, teach Latin!) So in my researches I have to rely on others for some of my information. Well … as I said, in the Lab. we would go back to basics. Back to the scriptures we would quote if we were telling someone about the Bible promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob for the first time.

As we all know – all Identity talks, or teaching if you like, begin with …

Now the Lord said unto Abram, get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that 1 will show thee. And 1 will make thee a great nation, and 1 will bless thee and make thy name great,. and thou shall be a blessing: And 1 will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee; and in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed. (Gen. 12:1-3:)

And if we want a second witness we quote … Seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. (Gen.18:18)

Do we have a problem here? If we all believe that we are nearing the end of the age and the return of The Lord Jesus what about these promised blessings?

When I First heard a B.I. lecture in about 1933, the statement that in Abraham all nations would be blessed seemed to be a plausible argument. I remember the lecturer pointed out that Britain had abolished the slave trade because she controlled the seas. Britain stopped the practice of suttee in India. Missionaries from all the Israel nations took the gospel to many, many countries. Many of them were doctors and nurses dedicated to taking modern medicine to backward areas. Even the fact that we fought wars to protect small nations from aggression could be said to be a ‘blessing’- at least for the rescued nation if not for the rescuers who suffered very many causualties …

Can we really look at the world in 1992 and say that the Israel nations ARE a blessing to ‘all the nations of the earth’? We might try – and hope …. but ARE WE???

Looking into History can we discover a time, even in the Bible when these blessings existed? In Abraham’s day there were few people to be blessed. The Israelites were not blessed in Egypt, they were slaves, and certainly the Egyptians were not blessed. When the Israelites reached Palestine they were told to exterminate the Ammonites and Moabites – that was no blessing! We cannot describe the lives of the Israelites under the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities as blessed. Were the people of the Roman Empire blessed, or the millions who lived and died during the Dark Ages? Nearer our own time the men, women and children who perished in two world wars could not be described as blessed.

So we do have a problem! We must go back to basic Bible study. Even if we do not understand Hebrew we can consult translations with notes and references such as Bullinger, as well, as other translations such as the NIV, Moffat, Ferrar Fenton, and Young.

The statement we must examine is simply ‘And in thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed’. In other words we need to identify the ‘families’ who are of the ‘earth’. Further study reveals that the families are those families or nations who in time were literally descended from Abraham. We haven’t time in one lecture to explore the history of Abraham’s descendants which includes those of Ishmael, of the sons of Keturah and those of Esau. But we must realise that one by one these families were rejected in that they were removed from the families of promise leaving only the 12 sons of Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel.

Let us therefore look at the only other noun in this statement – the word ‘earth’. You will think that that is easy as we all know that – it means the planet, the world. But does it? We do use the word often to describe the planet, but it does have other meanings, it can mean soil, or the nest of an animal. However we must use scientific methods in our research. I have always been told that if we have problems with a word in scripture we can turn to the very first time that word is used in the Bible. This will illustrate the exact meaning of the word.

Let us then look at the first tirne the word ‘earth’ occurs in our Bibles. Nor do we need a concordance for every person here can quote the opening verse of Genesis:

In the beginning God created The Heavens and the earth.

The word ‘earth’ occurs 20 times in Genesis chapter one and it is obvious that it means the planet Earth. There is a change in Genesis chapter two. It states that ‘Elohim CREATED the heavens and the earth’. In Genesis chapter two verse four we read that ‘THE LORD GOD’ made the earth and the heavens. So the two accounts differ, Elohim ‘created’ and The Lord God ‘made’. Dr Bullinger tells us that this title ‘The Lord God’ represents Jehovah, He Who revealed Himself to Moses and the Israelites at Sinai. There is another point to consider. In Genesis chapter one we have ‘heavens and earth’ – in Genesis chapter two we have ‘an earth and an heaven’. For further witness to Jehovah MAKING the earth we can look at the fourth commandrnent where we are told ‘The Lord MADE heaven and earth’ (Ex.20:11) and again in Exodus 31:17.

Genesis chapter two goes on to tell us how The Lord God caused trees and herbs to grow in the earth or ground that He had rnade  – then he FORMED Adam frorn the dust of the ground.

The Bible continues with the story of the ‘earth’ the Lord God made, of how Adam and Eve ‘fell’ and were driven from the Garden – How in time most of their descendants became so corrupt that God destroyed them all except Noah and his family in the great Flood. How Noah and his family were told to ‘replenish’ the earth and so we come to Abraham who was told (in the Hebrew)… ‘Leave thy Earth and go … unto an earth that I will show thee’.

So we come full circle back to Abraham. The land or earth promised to Abraham, then Isaac and then Jacob-lsrael. was the earth which The Lord God had MADE and the blessings conferred on the descendants of Abraham as in Genesis 12:1-3 are also for these same people ONLY. Or to put it another way, these blessings, promised in turn to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/ Israel were and still are applicable to them and them alone. It is necessary to note that in Genesis 12:3 the word translated ‘earth’ is in the Hebrew adamah which properly translated means ‘ground’ or’soil’ under foot. If it is used in association with people it refers to the soil of the region which belongs to God – the region He made.

As we know the Covenant with Abraham was repeated to his son Isaac and finally to his grandson Jacob who became Israel. The history in the Bible tells us how the other descendants of Abraham were either disqualified like Esau (by his own action) or given their inheritance and sent away like Ishmael.

There is no doubt that the world in which we live is a terrible place. Even the modern Israel Nations who have God’s Laws written on their statute book now ignore them. The churches are no longer the worshipping congregations of the Lord – and our cities are become like Sodom.

Lest we are accused of quoting the Old Testament only, let us remember our Lord’s own words in Matthew 15:24, ‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the House of Israel’. And in Matthew 10:6 when He sent out the disciples He commanded them saying, ‘Go not into the way of the Gentiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not: but go rather to, the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel, and as ye go, preach, saying; The kingdom of heaven is at Hand’.

Was it not the Lord Jesus Himself who asked ‘Shall He find Faith in the Earth?’ – The Faith!! It is time we who know and believe in the wonderful truth we call the Identity must accept that whenever we have tried like the theologians to widen the scope of God’s blessings to include nations and peoples other than those literallly descended from Jacob-lsrael we are in fact working against God and will find no blessing for either ourselves or for the nations and people we try to help. Surely we can see from our history that when our people were God fearing and lived by God’s laws our achievements and fame were incalcuable. Satan is, or so it seems, rapidly achieving HIS objective. But God does not of necessity need great crowds like a Billy Graham mission. There were only seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal in Elijah’s day and Gideon triumphed with 300. If we believe that we are in very truth counting down to the final chaos, and can we doubt it? WE MUST BELIEVE and TEACH the Word of Jehovah exactly as it is written.

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