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Originally posted July 2005.  Since that time we’ve had a war in Gaza, so my optimism about relinquishing that may have been premature.  But the whole system of settlements and how the State of Israel administers the West Bank continues to be a source of difficulty in its own right.

Back in the late 1970’s, I attended for a bit Robert Tilton’s Word of Faith Outreach in Farmers Branch, Texas. Tilton was then one of the most prominent “prosperity gospel” preachers, and he hammered away Sunday after Sunday that his congregation needed to have the “God kind of faith” to become prosperous and powerful, and to ultimately “take the city.” Sitting there listening to this, I thought, “If they’re right (and I had my doubts,) they’ll control this city in short order.” That’s what they were thinking too.

Today of course Tilton is gone from the scene, undone by scandal, and his congregation scattered, probably packing the many charismatic churches in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. With more than a quarter century of “God kind of faith” behind them, they haven’t taken the city either, as a lesbian Dallas County sheriff will attest to. Not even the great (and well respected) T.D. Jakes can make that claim. Many will say that their objective was unrealistic. But why, with all of those Scriptures behind them?

To answer this question we need to turn to a far more important issue, namely that of the State of Israel and its own return to “the land.” One of the greatest doctrinal reversals Christianity has ever experienced has been the attitude of evangelicals towards the Jews. Starting in the early nineteenth century with the likes of J.N. Darby, evangelicals have come to see that the Jews do in fact have a place in present salvation history (as opposed to the idea that the Christian church completely replaced Judaism after Christ’s work on earth) and their actions are key for Christians and Jesus Christ’s second coming. With the Holocaust a fading memory (especially in Europe, where it took place) and anti-Semitism becoming fashionable again, the Jews have found evangelical Christians to be a friend in a world where friends are in short supply. They have also found that their presence in the Holy Land is essential to their survival, an interesting by-product of anti-Semitism.

Part of this friendship is an insistence by many evangelicals that Israel has an absolute right to all of the land which God gave the Jews in the Old Testament. This squares with Orthodox Judaism’s view of the matter. Togther the two lament the loss of settlements being implemented by the Sharon government. Under this is a fear that prophecy will be undone by the act of weak men.

Prophecy cannot be undone by the act of men. The Jews’ claim to the land is Biblical. But we must look at the whole picture, and the best way to do this is to relate this to the first conquest of the land. Before they entered, the Israelites were charged with the following command:

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When Jehovah thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and shall cast out many nations from before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou, and when Jehovah thy God shall give them up before thee and thou shalt smite them, then shalt thou utterly destroy them: thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them. And thou shalt make no marriages with them: thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor take his daughter for thy son; for he will turn away thy son from following me, and they will serve other gods, and the anger of Jehovah will be kindled against you, and he will destroy thee quickly. But thus shall ye deal with them: ye shall break down their altars, and shatter their statues, and hew down their Asherahs, and burn their graven images with fire. For a holy people art thou unto Jehovah thy God: Jehovah thy God hath chosen thee to be unto him a people for a possession, above all the peoples that are upon the face of the earth. (Deut. 7:1-6, Darby)

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This command is simple: the Jews were to take the land to the exclusion and destruction of everyone else. If their claim to the land is valid, then the method and thoroughness of taking it is also. Unfortunately the original invasion did not fulfil this charge. In some cases the Israelites were tricked by the locals, as was the case with the Gibeonites (Joshua 9.) In others it was complacency. In either case the result was the same:

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And Jehovah was with Judah; and he took possession of the hill-country, for he did not dispossess the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. And they gave to Caleb Hebron, as Moses had said; and he dispossessed from thence the three sons of Anak. And the children of Benjamin did not dispossess the Jebusites, the inhabitants of Jerusalem; but the Jebusites dwell with the children of Benjamin in Jerusalem to this day. And the house of Joseph, they also went up against Bethel; and Jehovah was with them. And the house of Joseph sent to search out Bethel; now the name of the city before was Luz. And the guards saw a man come forth out of the city, and said unto him, Shew us, we pray thee, how we may enter into the city, and we will shew thee kindness. And he shewed them how to enter into the city. And they smote the city with the edge of the sword; but they let go the man and all his family. And the man went into the land of the Hittites, and built a city, and called its name Luz, which is its name to this day. And Manasseh did not dispossess Beth-shean and its dependent villages, nor Taanach and its dependent villages, nor the inhabitants of Dor and its dependent villages, nor the inhabitants of Ibleam and its dependent villages, nor the inhabitants of Megiddo and its dependent villages; and the Canaanites would dwell in that land. And it came to pass when Israel became strong, that they made the Canaanites tributary; but they did not utterly dispossess them. And Ephraim did not dispossess the Canaanites that dwelt in Gezer; but the Canaanites dwelt among them in Gezer. Zebulun did not dispossess the inhabitants of Kitron, nor the inhabitants of Nahalol; but the Canaanites dwelt among them, and became tributaries. Asher did not dispossess the inhabitants of Accho, nor the inhabitants of Zidon, nor Ahlab, nor Achzib, nor Helbah, nor Aphik, nor Rehob; and the Asherites dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land; for they did not dispossess them. Naphtali did not dispossess the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh, nor the inhabitants of Beth-anath; and he dwelt among the Canaanites, the inhabitants of the land, but the inhabitants of Beth-shemesh and of Beth-anath became tributaries to them. And the Amorites forced the children of Dan into the hill-country, for they would not suffer them to come down to the valley. And the Amorites would dwell on mount Heres, in Ajalon and in Shaalbim; but the hand of the house of Joseph prevailed, and they became tributaries. And the border of the Amorites was from the ascent of Akrabbim, from the rock, and upwards. (Judges 1:19-36, Darby)

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The Israelites suffered the consequences of that failure through the time of the judges and the kings. It is important to note, however, that this failure did not end God’s plan for the Jews or the Gentiles.

Now we turn to the modern State of Israel, as great a miracle in its own right as those the Israelites in their departure from Egypt those many years ago. Their “taking the land” has been as compromised as that of their fathers.

To start with, they were forced to accept the partition of the land forced on them by the U.N.. The partition would have been worse except that the Palestinians decided to attempt to drive the Israelis into the sea. The result of this decision was to increase Israel’s share of the land, one of many similar decisions on the part of the Palestinians.

From there they allowed the “Israeli Arabs” to stay within Israel. This was certainly the humanitarian thing to do, but did not square with the Biblical mandate. But the Bible is a better guide to the Middle East than most realise, as now Islamic radicals are getting traction with voting Israeli Arabs.

After they overran the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, the Israelis had their best chance to “finish the job,” as we would say. Instead they resorted to a combination of using the Palestinians as labour (setting themselves up for the same situation as they faced with the Gibeonites) and scattering the settlements throughout the West Bank and Gaza. The settlers believed that they were fulfilling the Scriptures, but the government was using them to make it more difficult to force the Israelis to leave, which would strip the country of the security buffer it acquired in the Six Day War. None of this, however, really amounted to “taking the land” as the original Biblical mandate directed.

Now we have the spectacle of the Israelis evicting their own people from their own land which the government had encouraged them to settle in the first place. Many have characterised the Sharon government’s actions as an attempt to appease the Palestinians, but in reality it is a calculated response to two factors. The first is world opinion. The second is the need for the State of Israel to have strong, defensible frontiers. Forcing the IDF to defend scattered, insular settlements is an expensive and militarily trying process. Setting up the fence (which has worked) and getting rid of places such as Gaza (the original land of the Philistines, the original Palestinians) gives the IDF a shot at really keeping terrorists out of places where most of the Jews live.

The one group of people who understand “taking the land” in its original meaning is the Palestinians. Their objective of driving the Israelis into the sea (they would prefer genocide so the Jews wouldn’t come back) and eliminating their presence in the land altogether has been their objective from the start and remains their goal. This does lead to one question to secularlists and liberals: why is it that an opinion that is considered reprehensible if held by Christians and Jews becomes acceptable when it is held by Muslims?

In any case, the result is clear: once the State of Israel decided to abandon the Biblical standard of “taking the land,” compromises such as we are seeing in Gaza and the West Bank are inevitable. These compromises are personally painful to those who are evicted and theologically painful to many Christians and Jews, but they are as unavoidable as those which the Israelites of old made in the wake of their entry into the land those many years ago.

Now we can consider the matter of Christians “taking the city” and “taking the land.” We hear so much in the US about evangelists and pastors who want to “take the city for Jesus.” But no US city has really been taken in this way. Christian involvement in politics has as its objective “taking America back for God.” But the methods used virtually guarantee non-achievement of the stated objective. Like the Israelis–who in a worldly sense have far more going for them as they are Jewish–the Christians state an absolute goal but are headed for compromise.

There are places in the world where the cause of Christ is making great strides and benefiting nations in important ways. But this is being done principally through conversion, education and prayer, one believer at a time. The principal territory in this case is the human soul, and, for the Christian, once God reigns in this territory the land will take care of itself.

So the lessons for Christians and Jews alike is similar: if you’re going to “take the land,” take it, because the alternative is half-measures and compromise. The alternative is to create unrealistic expectations. For the Jews, the land is “the deal,” and they must do what they can. For the Christians, territory comes in another sense, and once we focus on that we will find ourselves with more “land” than we anticipated.

One of the most complicated transactions I have ever been involved in was the purchase of the rights for a Russian concrete pile cutter (shown at left.) The patent had around a dozen inventors and two research institutes, spread out from Moscow to Vladivostok. The sheer logistics of getting everyone to agree to this, to say nothing of the financial considerations, made it a daunting task.

After six years of work on it we had actually made quite a lot of progress, but the Deputy Director General of the main research institute was trying to hold out for more money. Since the market for these things is pretty limited, we had to be careful.

At this point the Russian government sponsored a Russian technology exposition in Washington, DC, and the institute was one of the exhibitors. They sent their Director General; we thought it would be a good time to make some progress without the expense of another trip to Russia. So I went to Washington, was met by my translator, and we set out to have a meeting with the Director General.

On the way we stopped by the hotel room which the institute’s people were using as a headquarters. It was a mess; clothing and trash were piled everywhere, vodka bottles being the most prominent. Evidently these people were having quite a time during their trip to America.

We got to the exhibit hall and managed to pull the Director General aside for a meeting on the patent. In preparation for this meeting, I had prepared a “protocol” (we usually call it a “letter of intent” in the U.S.) which outlined what was for us an initial negotiating position. So I presented this and asked the Director General what he was prepared to sign to conclude this agreement.

At that, my translator looked me straight in the eye and said, “He is prepared to sign anything.” Needless to say, I wasn’t prepared for this; I was used to a lot more “horse trading” in negotiations, particularly with people outside the U.S. But sure enough, he was; he signed the protocol. Back in Moscow, his deputy was enraged at this, but there was nothing he could do; the negotiations were completed and we obtained the patent assignment.

We live in an age where people are said to be deceived by all kinds of “isms”: moral relativism, secular humanism, post-modernism, and the like. But having been in the real world for too long, I like to look at things a little differently. The problem with people today is that, after years of excessively rapid upward social mobility, blistering technological change, and relentless manipulation by those who own and operate the society, they are, like our Director General, prepared to sign anything, to go along with anything so long as their lives go on as they have, no matter what the long term cost is to themselves.

“For a time will come when people will not tolerate sound teaching. They will follow their own wishes, and, in their itching for novelty, procure themselves a crowd of teachers. They will turn a deaf ear to the Truth, and give their attention to legends instead.” (2 Tim 4:3-4) This is where we’re at, with the disintegrating families, eroding human rights, and the growing consumer debt which is turning a society of owners into a society of renters, at the whim of those who control the financial destiny of the nation. Christianity, which takes a definite stand on many issues, is looked on with hostility as a menace to the stability of this house of cards, proclaiming as it does an ultimate authority beyond the state.

But there’s always a payoff of some kind in the end. Our Russian inventors and institutes were paid off in U.S. dollars, a valuable commodity in Russia in those days. Those who sign with the rulers of this world have another payoff altogether: “The wages of Sin are Death, but the gift of God is Immortal Life, through union with Christ Jesus, our Lord.” (Romans 6:23) It’s your choice. Are you prepared to sign anything?

In early 1994 I went to Russia for the purpose of visiting a factory in Bryansk, which is located at the meeting point of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. This was not a factory producing high tech military hardware, but something more prosaic but important for our modern world: diesel pile driving equipment, used in the construction of roads, bridges and buildings.

Below: a YouTube video of the inside of this plant.

Soviet diesel pile drivers on display. Did our intelligence services mistake these for a new missile technology?

These were the days when the Russian Mafia reigned supreme, so we had to be careful. The plan was for me and my representative to cross Moscow via car and metro to the Moscow Kievskaya train station, board for a six hour “overnight” train trip to Bryansk, spend the day there, and return as we came to Moscow. Except for our plans for avoiding the criminal element, this wasn’t a very difficult trip.

So we made our preparations. No US cash, no credit cards. I even switched my wedding band to my right hand. We were planning on travelling light, but we had to have some spending money. So, as we prepare to leave, my representative whips out a wad of Russian cash and asks me, “Half a million roubles. Is it enough?”

I was boggled by the question. Not even family trips with my mother to the Ritz-Carlton cost half a million. But here the currency had collapsed with communism; the exchange rate was about 1300 roubles to the US dollar. So we were only talking about US$385, which was a reasonable sum considering that much of our travel (especially by train) was subsidised by the government.

Some of you reading this live in a place where the currency is parcelled out with many zeroes. But it’s interesting to note that, to my knowledge, no currency started out that way. If we look at major currencies today, we see that all of them are either “substantial” in their value (dollar, euro, pound) or were at one time (yen, and of course the rouble itself.) But there is a greater lesson here.

If Islamicism has done one thing, it has put monotheism on the front page of the news, whether the secularists like it or not. (And they usually don’t.)  This is something, of course, that Islam has in common with Christianity and Judaism. But there are still many who believe that there is more than one god, in fact that there are many gods. The most important representative of this is Hinduism, where literally millions of gods are resident and demand worship of some kind.

But then there are those religions who take things a step further: they posit that it is possible for people to become gods. This was the first proposition that the serpent placed in front of Eve:

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Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’””You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Gen 3:1-5, from New International Version)

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Becoming (or in some cases being) divine is a cornerstone of New Age religion; however, since everything is relative in this movement, it is sometimes hard to know what method will work. (At least the serpent presented a definite technique, albeit false.)

A religion with a more concrete game plan in this regard is Mormonism. This is odd in one respect, since the Book of Mormon itself is consistently monotheistic:

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And Amulek said unto him: Yea, if it be according to the Spirit of the Lord, which is in me; for I shall say nothing which is contrary to the Spirit of the Lord. And Zeezrom said unto him: Behold, here are six onties of silver, and all these will I give thee if thou wilt deny the existence of a Supreme Being. Now Amulek said: O thou child of hell, why tempt ye me? Knowest thou that the righteous yieldeth to no such temptations? Believest thou that there is no God? I say unto you, Nay, thou knowest that there is a God, but thou lovest that lucre more than him. And now thou hast lied before God unto me. Thou saidst unto me–Behold these six onties, which are of great worth, I will give unto thee–when thou hadst it in thy heart to retain them from me; and it was only thy desire that I should deny the true and living God, that thou mightest have cause to destroy me. And now behold, for this great evil thou shalt have thy reward. And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God? And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God. Now Zeezrom said: Is there more than one God? And he answered, No. (Alma 11:22-29)

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As was the case with many things, Joseph Smith found a new revelation after he received the “fullness of the everlasting Gospel” (Doctrine and Covenants, 20:9 and 27:5, referring to the Book of Mormon.) In his “King Follett Discourse” (a funeral oration,) Joseph Smith stated that “In the beginning, the head of the Gods called a council of the Gods; and they came together and concocted a plan to create the world and people in it,” and moreover “Here then is eternal life–to know the only wise and true God, and you have got to learn how to be Gods yourselves.” (Journal of Discourses, VI, 1-11) This began the concept that is enshrined in Lorenzo Snow’s mantra, “As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become.”

This is the promise of Mormonism; to make men gods. Their missionaries use this as an incentive, and portray this as superior to Christians’ promise of eternal life with the one true God. The problem is this: once you’ve made millions of men gods, what does it mean? How significant is that, even if you give them authority to rule, as Mormonism does?

A good illustration of this is the current situation in the United States Senate. Senate Majority Leader and Mormon Harry Reid, resplendent in his Temple underwear, wanted to get his and President Obama’s agenda through the Senate, if for no other reason than to show who’s boss. So why did someone who is waiting for deity have so much difficulty pulling this off? Because there are one hundred senators, and many of them didn’t agree with him! And one of these was none other than Temple Mormon Orrin Hatch! How can someone expect to rule with millions of other gods around when he couldn’t even rule over one hundred senators, and in many cases over all of those in his own party? Or his own religion?

This is the central problem with any system of belief that affirms the existence of more than one God; the more “gods” there are, the less meaningful the whole idea of deity becomes. Like the roubles we took to Bryansk, there may be many of them, but they’re not worth very much. Both Russian roubles and Mormon gods are the product of the same process: too many of each were “created” for the intended purpose. Religions such as New Age and Mormonism attempt to exalt humanity by debasing divinity, but they end up debasing both. As with currencies, we are better off with one God who is worth it all than many which are, individually and frequently as a group, worth very little. The promise of divinity doesn’t look all that good when seen in this light; it is a mirage that vanishes as we approach it.

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Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates. (Deut 6:4-9 from New International Version)

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Socialist states love to trumpet their own successes, real or just propaganda. The collapse of the rouble left just about everyone in the Russian Federation with more than a million roubles (about US$770 in early 1994) of net worth. So I declared to my representative, “Seventy years of socialism, and everyone’s a millionaire!”

His response: “It was their greatest achievement!”