One day when Your tears cease to fall
For the ones that go astray
And You reach for them from Your throne
Your power to display;
I will praise
I will rejoice
I will join the heavenly throng in song
For the return of the lost
For whom You suffered for so long.
- Cathryne Allen
There
will come a time when the House of Israel shall know that Jesus Christ is the
Lord and their God, and when He will not let them pollute His holy name anymore
(Ezekiel 39:7,22). Unfortunately, there will be a high price to pay for that
knowledge.
The
Lord makes it plain to understand that He will be the mastermind behind the great
battle of Armageddon which will usher in the Millenium, wherein all the nations of the earth will come
against the ‘unwalled villages, without walls and having neither bars nor
gates’ in the mountains of Israel ‘to take a spoil, and to take a prey’
(Ezekiel 38:8,11). Think of how the ancient world protected itself from enemies
by building walls and gates around their cities. Now consider how open the land
of Israel is today.
The
great Gog, the prince of the land of Magog who will lead the great army of all nations to march against Jerusalem and the
prosperity of Israel, will be a pawn in Christ’s hand to afflict and bring
God’s covenant people to their knees and claim victory for Himself ( Joel 3:1,2;
Zechariah 14:2). The Lord makes this clear through Ezekiel with simple repeated
declaration of “I will”:
-
I
will…put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army
(38:4);
-
I
will…cause thee to come up from the north parts, and will bring thee upon the
mountains of Israel (39:2);
-
I
will…smite thy bow out of thy left hand, and will cause thine arrows to fall
out of thy right hand (39:3);
-
I
will… give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the
field to be devoured (39:4);
-
I
will… send a fire on Magog, and among them that dwell carelessly in the isles;
and they shall know that I am the Lord (39:6).
-
I
will…gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle (Zechariah 14:2)
This
army that will come upon Israel will be so great and so terrifying it will
‘cover the land as a cloud’ (Ezekiel 38:9).
“Joel stated that the army would be the
greatest army in the history of the world up to that point (Joel 2:2). He
described it as being like a “fire” that devours the land, leaving what had
looked like the “garden of Eden” before their coming as a “desolate wilderness”
(Joel 2:3; see also Joel 2:2,4-5). Joel also said that the army would be highly
disciplined in warfare and virtually invincible: “When they fall upon the
sword, they shall not be wounded” (Joel 2:7,8,9)” (The Battle of Armageddon: A Prophetic
View, Enrichment I, Old Testament Student Manual Book 2, p 291)
But their defeat at the hands of the God of
Israel will be equally terrifying. As the army descends upon Israel, “the Lord
will then come, and all men shall shake at his presence, there will be such an
earthquake as has never before been known, which will throw down the mountains;
there will be pestilence, blood, fire, and brimstone which will descend upon
the armies; the forces of Gog and Magog will be destroyed upon the mountains of
Israel; the Supper of the Great God shall then take place as the beasts and
fowls eat the flesh and drink the blood of the fallen ones (Rev 19:17-18;
D&C 29:18-21); and the house of Israel will be seven months burying the
dead and seven years burning the discarded weapons of war (Ezekiel 39:8-13).
“The
armies of Gog will turn upon each other, perhaps in the panic and confusion of
the great earthquake (see Ezekiel 38:21; Zechariah 14:13). A great rain of fire
and hail will shower down upon the army (see Ezekiel 38:22; D&C 29:21;
Revelation 16:21). John said the hailstones will weigh a talent, which is about
75.6 pounds or 34.3 kilograms (see Bible Dictionary, s.v. weights and
measures).” (Old Testament Student
Manual Book 2 p 284 and 294)
And
this is the price that Israel will pay for its betrayal of their God and for
profaning His name: “Zechariah says that only one-third of the nation of Israel
will survive this final extremity when the “city [Jerusalem] shall be taken,
and the houses rifled [looted], and the women ravished; and half of the city
shall go forth into captivity” (Zechariah 14:2; see also Zechariah 13:8-9;
14:1); and 7,000 will be slain and one tenth of the city destroyed (Revelation
11:13).” (The Old Testament Student Manual Book 2 p 294)
“So
the house of Israel shall know that I am the Lord their God from that day
forward.” (Ezekiel 39:22)
And
thus this prophecy of Isaiah will be fulfilled:
“Speak
ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is
accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned; for she hath received of the
Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”
(Isaiah 40:2)
Like
Israel of old
I
foolishly sought man’s protection
And
trusted in the arm of flesh
Until
you showed me the strength
Of
Your invincible arm
And
how much easier You can make
My
journey’s difficult path.
How
foolish I was to trust in man’s might,
How
foolish to seek mortal comfort
And
settle for feeble sentries of the heart.
- Cathryne
Allen
When
I read Ezekiel 36 this week I came to see a very serious result of idolatry
which caused the scattering of Israel:
“…when
the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way
and by their doings…..wherefore, I poured my fury upon them for the blood that
they had shed upon the land, and for their idols wherewith they had polluted
it…and I scattered them among the heathen, and they were dispersed through the
countries…..and when they entered unto the heathen…they profaned my holy name,
when they said to them, These are the people of the Lord, and are gone forth
out of his land.” (Ezekiel 36:17-20)
What in reality Israel was saying to the
heathen nations they were scattered amongst is this: We had a God but He was
really not so good in looking after us so we had to turn to your gods for
protection and prosperity. They in reality profaned Jehovah’s name by their
idolatrous betrayal of a God who in all reality delivered them over and over
and prospered them as many times. They did more than reject their God, besmirched
His name….
For
this betrayal, Israel’s God has sworn that He will recover His holy name and
wipe away the negative influence Israel’s idolatry has had on the world. Israel, who was a chosen nation to bear the
name of Jehovah, did in fact do the opposite. How many people would they have
turned away by this negative influence rather than bring the awareness of the
only source of salvation to them? In all their boasting that they had Abraham
for a father (Matt 3:9; John 8:33,39) they totally over-looked the
responsibility which the Abrahamic covenant placed them under to bless all the families
of the earth (Abraham 2:9-11).
Herein
is the ultimate wisdom of God and herein is Jehovah’s vengeance. He would not
utterly destroy them but save them….no destruction, but salvation… and here is
why:
“But I had pity for mine holy name, which the
house of Israel had profaned among the heathen, whither they went. Therefore…thus
saith the Lord God, I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for
mine holy name’s sake, which ye have profaned among the heathen, whither ye
went.” (Ezekiel 36:21,22)
To
clear His name, the Lord promises restoration of Israel instead of destruction and
likens it to resurrection in chapter 37, verses 1-14:
“The
exiles are represented as having lost hope (their bones are dried up) of ever
living again as a nation. But the Lord shows them that they can be restored
through His mighty power even as the dead will be raised in the resurrection…..The
symbolic meaning of this [dual] prophecy as it relates to the gathering of
Israel is apparent. The bones represent Israel in its lost and scattered state,
the graves indicate where Israel is as well as its condition of spiritual
death. The spirit…means the new spirit of righteousness the people will have
when they have been resurrected, that is, restored from their fallen state.” (Sidney B. Sperry, The Voice of Israel’s
Prophets, pp 225-26)
I
wondered at first why the Lord would liken the restoration of Israel to the
resurrection and upon reflection I came to understand that this so because
‘restoration’ is a component of the Atonement. The Atonement performed only by
Him hence His power to destroy or to save. Resurrection in its proper
definition is restoration (see Alma 40 & 41). Notice the cleansing power of
the Atonement in this verse referring to the gathering:
“For
I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries,
and will bring you into your own land….. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon
you, and ye shall be clean, from all your filthiness, and from all your idols,
will I cleanse you….A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I
put within you…...” (Ezekiel 36:24-28).
But
that is not all. After they have been cleansed, the Lord will turn the desolate
land of Israel into a fruitful one akin to the Garden of Eden (Ezekiel
36:33-35). Put simply: I will show you
who I really am…”I will do better unto you than at your beginnings: and you
shall know I am the Lord”. (Ezekiel 36:11)
The
Mighty Jehovah will clear His name before the heathen nations when He again
gathers Israel and establishes an everlasting covenant with them in the midst
of His temple, and the heathen will know that the Lord does sanctify Israel.
(Ezekiel 37:26-28)
Referring
to the gathering of Israel, the Lord repeats this phrase five times in the book
of Ezekiel: “I will be their God, and
they shall be my people” (Ezekiel 11:20; 14:11; 36;28; 37:23, 37:27). Is this
not a God of mercy???? And the God who never breaks His covenants (Deut 4:31;
Leviticus 26:44,46; Isaiah 49:15,16; 2 Kings 13:23).
We,
modern day Israel have a responsibility to show the world the God of mercy, the
God of integrity and the God of power through the influence we wield. May our commitment,
dedication and love for the Saviour of the world bring honour to His holy name.
Your
lessons, so piercing
And
so raw
Leave
me spent
As
I exhale the hurt and let it go;
Your
wisdom prevails
And
tutors me when I need it most;
You
are the healer who saves
The
broken hearted and the lost.
-
Cathryne Allen
Over
and over again I come across the inexhaustible mercy of Christ in the Old
Testament. I used to think His mercy was excessive and that He should have
wiped people off the face of the earth more often than He did, until I realised
one day if His mercy was any less than what it is, there would not be any
people left … that’s how frustrating humanity is and that’s how
tolerant God is.
I
mentioned in one of my recent posts that I have been collecting Christ’s
attributes and characteristics for many years as I find them in the scriptures.
I would like to mention a few that I see in Him and why so I will start with MERCY.
I
have always felt a stronger sense of justice than mercy and wondered how Christ
came to be so merciful until one day during reflection I saw the Saviour in my
mind on the cross and I understood that even though He possessed this attribute
before He came to earth, His inexhaustible mercy was born during His
earthly life and in particular on that fateful day when He bore the culmination
of all pain and sorrow and He understood to the depths of His soul our
humanity.
I
also see the Saviour as a God of STRENGTH. Strength has to come with mercy
because strength brings with it self-control. It is His strength that doesn’t
allow us to be obliterated because we are weak and stumbling in the dark most
of the time. But at the same time strength is needed to correct, chastise and
command the children in us.
With
strength also comes power and with this POWER He does not spare the wickedness
that proceeds from the enemy who seeks to destroy us. I have noticed this
especially this year in the book of Ezekiel. His mercy does not rob justice but
neither does justice rob His mercy. Because of this we can be assured that the
balance between justice and mercy will be so perfect on Judgment Day that we
will not be able to question it.
Another
quality I admire in the Saviour is MEEKNESS. Meekness is not weakness but self-restraint.
The Saviour never used His godly power for His own purposes whilst in
mortality. It was solely used for the purpose of humanity’s salvation. There
are examples of this in the scriptures.
The
temptations of Christ are a perfect example to this end. When Satan came to
Jesus after 40 days of fasting in the desert, following His baptism and at the
onset of His ministry, he appealed to His ego by tempting Him to prove that He
was the Son of God and therefore had power to assuage His, by then, overwhelming
hunger (Matthew 4:3-4). Turning stones into bread was easy. The Saviour knew it
and Satan knew it. What lay at stake was succumbing to the use of His power for
His gain and His purpose. This Satan also knew. He knew that Christ’s power was
only meant to be used for the benefit of others and not His own. And so the
Saviour of mankind would not feed Himself even at the peril of His life but He
would feed 5,000 others who ‘might’ have been hungry whilst listening to Him
(Matthew 14:13-21).
Another
example….after walking from Judea to Samaria, He was thirsty, hungry and weary.
As He sat at Jacob’s well to rest while His disciples went to buy provisions,
He who had power to draw food and drink from the elements, who could have
transported himself at will to any location, didn’t. He chose instead to
subject himself to the proper experiences of mortality and waited for food to
come to Him and asked a Samaritan woman to draw water for Him to drink (John 4:6-10)
The
greatest example comes from the pinnacle of the temple where He confronted
Satan’s temptation to perform some dazzling feat by casting himself off the
temple’s heights which would attract crowds of amazed onlookers to prove His
superiority. It would have given Him public recognition and would have caused
many to believe that the Messiah had indeed come. It would have been so easy
for His ministry to prove who He was by such a feat.
It
is one thing to study the scriptures and be informed, educated, spiritually fed
and even entertained but to know the Saviour through them is the real
challenge. I realised this years ago. We are meant to know HIM, not to know OF
Him.
I
have come to see Him differently in each book of the Holy Writ. In the Old
Testament I see the Merciful Jehovah; in the New Testament I see the Loving
Saviour; in the Book of Mormon I see the Resurrected Christ; in Doctrine and
Covenants I see the Powerful God; in the Pearl of Great Price I see the
Promised Messiah. He is all of that and more……He is everything.
Speak
to me softly
What
you would have me hear;
Speak
to me gently
In
my willing ear.
Leave
nothing unsaid
Kind,
good and everlastingly true;
Speak
to me softly
And
reveal the splendour of you.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
It can be discouraging living in our world. There are people who fully believe we are heading for total annihilation from one source or another. I am always grateful, as someone who fully believes in Christ, for my knowledge of what is really to come when I hear messages of doom. Just one serious study of the Book of Ezekiel can make us see that the adversary who seeks to destroy us can never win the destruction of humanity.
It seemed for a long time that the adversary was winning anciently as the Canaanite nations afflicted Israel and led her into idolatry but when Israel fell into captivity, Jehovah revealed His mighty arm in vengeance by destroying these nations and empires of Egypt, Assyria, Tyre, Sidon, Damascus, Persia and Idumea. The Lord calls them ‘the mighty that are fallen….which are gone down to hell’ (Ezekiel 32:27). Egypt, which was the power to be reckoned with was probably the greatest tragedy. Ezekiel devoted four chapters (29-32) to the description of Egypt’s beauty, prophetic destruction and lamentation. Much like Tyre of which I wrote in part 1, Egypt’s splendour was destroyed because it sought to exalt itself to the status of God (Ezekiel 29:9; 31:10).
After pronouncing judgment on these ancient nations and affirming that the destruction will be His doing (71 times no less), Jehovah testified: “I have caused my terror in the land of the living” (Ezekiel 32:32). Why such terror and such terrible destruction? Because these nations were built up on excessive pride and what is built on pride cannot stand. Pride is the foundation of a kingdom that cannot last because it seeks to elevate itself above God and we all know who HE is.
This is what fascinates me. Ezekiel made every vision he had of the destruction of these nations known to the exiles in Babylon but the exiles got complacent with all the prophecies. Their prevalent belief was: “The vision that he seeth is for many days to come, and he prophesieth of the times that are far off.” (Ezekiel 12:27)
I think of how bad our world is becoming with division amongst the people, the hatred, the crime, the wickedness that never ends. The Saviour has promised throughout centuries that He will return to crush the enemy of all righteousness and reveal the arm of His power. The Second Coming has been prophesied throughout the ages (see Matthew 16:27; 24:30; Isaiah 40:5; 3 Nephi 24:2; D&C 45:44, 49-50; 63:34; 88:93; 101:23, Moses 7:65; Malachi 3:1; JST4:1; Acts 1:9-11; 3 Nephi 24:2; Revelation 1:7; John 14:3). It has been believed in by the Christendom at large for over 2,000 years but in the world at large Christ has become something of a folklore……until that day when every knee shall bow and every tongue confess….(Romans 14:11)
Let us not become like the exiles in Ezekiel’s day who think the time of the Second Coming is ‘far off’ or that it will never happen. There is nothing that the Saviour has promised and not fulfilled. The promises are delivered in our time but fulfilled in His. He is a God of integrity and keeps His word. If promises don’t become fulfilled, it is because the fulfilment is a lot of times dependant on us. We either repent and avoid destruction or we become disobedient and prevent blessings promised. The Second Coming is assured but it will very much look like that: destruction to the wicked and a blessing to the righteous who repent. If we want to fall into the second category, we need to be prepared. Let us remember that the time of waiting will one day come to an end:
“Therefore say unto them, Thus saith the Lord God: There shall none of my words be prolonged any more, but the word which I have spoken shall be done, saith the Lord God.” (Ezekiel 12:28)
He
will come and crush the enemy who sought to elevate himself and the nations of
this world with pride. He who has said: “I will exalt my throne above the stars
of God….I will be like the most High (Isaiah 14:12-15), has never received a
body, and though the king and ruler of world-wide empire of spiritual Babylon, he
shall never have a tomb or monument to his name and the kings of the earth will
exclaim in amazement when they see him cast down to hell: “Is this the man that
made the earth tremble, that did shake the kingdoms?” (v 16). Like the prideful nations, he will be stripped
of his power and his pride, and he will not stand…..
Where is the sting of death,
The enemy of righteousness,
And humanity’s foe?
The fire of its power lies in ashes
Quenched at Calvary long ago.
- CATHRYNE ALLEN
