I Am Who I Am

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘The Sinner’s Charter’ by Steve Maltz (SP Publishing, 2020)

"I will pour out my Spirit"

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘Mount Sinai in Arabia’ by Joel Richardson (Winepress, 2019)

Frances Rabbitts reviews a compelling DVD series about the events recorded in Exodus.

A fearful message.

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘Restoration’ by D Thomas Lancaster (2016, First Fruits of Zion).

How will God deal with Britain?

An incredible battle is raging over Britain. It is raging in the heavenlies above, and on the earth below, where it is centred upon our Parliament. Our MPs are in total disarray, fighting each other and not understanding the battle. Few of them realise that they are being driven by the powers of darkness intent on destroying this great nation that has turned its back upon God and despised its spiritual heritage.

The battle in the House of Commons is being fought between those who want to see Britain free from the European Union and those who want to see Britain continue enslaved to the rules and regulations of Brussels. It is as simple as that. But most of our MPs have no understanding of spiritual warfare and do not perceive the forces of darkness that are moving them like pawns on a chess board, driving them to destruction.

Come Out and Be Separate

The Prime Minister appears to have panicked under pressure and turned to Jeremy Corbyn, a notorious Marxist atheist, as her saviour, in a last-ditch attempt to get her deal approved by Parliament. As a professed Christian, has she never read the warnings in Scripture about being unequally yoked with unbelievers? The teaching of Paul could not be clearer:

Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? (2 Corinthians 6:14-15).

In verse 17 Paul urges “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord.” This is an instruction that all our MPs should take to heart in dealing with Brexit. Undoubtedly, the best outcome for Britain and the most feared outcome for the EU is that we leave next Friday without a deal. But if that cannot be achieved, provided we leave with any kind of deal that leaves us free to make changes in the future, that would be better than a long delay with the possibility of never getting away at all, which is the objective of the majority in our present House of Commons.

Undoubtedly, the best outcome for Britain and the most feared outcome for the EU is that we leave next Friday without a deal.

Egypt…or Babylon?

A number of commentators, including prominent politicians, have compared the present situation with the time of Moses and the release of the Children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. But this is not the best biblical analogy, because we are not having to fight the EU for our freedom, as Moses fought Pharaoh. We are having to fight the morally corrupt and spiritually blind Members of our own Parliament, who do not understand the issues that face them.

A more instructive biblical analogy is the release of the faithful remnant of Israel and Judah from Babylon in 538 BC. Babylon had fallen to the Persians whose Emperor, Cyrus, issued a decree freeing all political prisoners. The people of Israel were free to return to the land of their forefathers, to rebuild Jerusalem and to restore the shattered economy, social structure, and towns and villages across the land.

A wonderful new opportunity was presented to Israel if they could face the one-thousand-mile trek across difficult country and undertake the great task of reconstruction and renewal. For many who had become comfortable in exile, the offer of freedom in the Promised Land was rejected for the fleshpots of Babylon. They were too comfortable and prosperous to risk embarking on an uncertain future.

But for those who had faith and vision and were prepared to put their trust in God, a wonderful new opportunity was presented. They obeyed the call to come out from Babylon and totally put their trust in God for the future. They were the faithful remnant who God would use to rebuild Jerusalem and prepare the way for Messiah and the coming Kingdom.

Yes, they had lots of hardships to face and difficulties to endure in the rebuilding of Jerusalem and its surrounding walls, but they had a shared vision which enabled them to work together, and God blessed their labours - especially when they rebuilt the Temple in the heart of the city and re-emphasised their faith in God at the centre of national life.

A more instructive biblical analogy than the Exodus is the release of the faithful remnant of Israel and Judah from Babylon in 538 BC.

Calling on God

This is surely a biblical parable for us today caught up in the conflict of Brexit with an unbelieving Parliament leading the nation.

The great unknown at the moment is precisely how God will deal with Britain. We know that judgment is thoroughly deserved for the way we have rejected our spiritual heritage, squandered the responsibilities we had for bringing the light of the Gospel to more than a third of the world’s population in the great Empire to which God entrusted us, and in the terrible way that we reneged on our promises to Israel - as Charles Gardner shows elsewhere in this week's issue of Prophecy Today.

Despite deserved judgment, we know that our God is loving and merciful – more ready to forgive than we are to repent. And we know that the Referendum result was a gracious allowance from God to give us a greater opportunity to return to him. Now is the time to petition God for his help to overcome the powers of darkness that are trying to sweep Britain into an abyss of chaos, which will inevitably result if we fail to leave the European Union within the next few weeks.

We ask all Bible-believing Christians to call upon the Lord for his mercy and intervention in what appears to be a hopeless situation. Let all the prayer groups and intercessors throughout the land acknowledge the plight of the nation before the throne of grace and call upon God for an outpouring of his power, which is the only means of saving Britain from the folly of its own leaders.

In the current confusion - our only hope is in God!

Freedom won’t be won without a furious fight

Watching the television news of teeming London crowds calling for a second referendum over Brexit sent my spirit plummeting towards despondency – until the Lord reminded me of the Exodus!

I saw that they were slaves in a foreign land who had become so moulded by subservience to godless ideologies imposed on them that they were blinded to the fact that they were in chains.

And this filled me with hope, as I realised that the deliverance from Egypt of millions of Jews after 430 years of enslavement was no quick-fix arrangement – just like the tortuous negotiations involved in extricating ourselves from Europe (and we’ve only been tied up with them for 45 years!).

Let My People Go!

Moses was called by God to demand that Pharaoh let his people go, and what followed was a protracted battle of frightening proportions. And the Lord was well aware of this, for he said: “I know that the King of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him” (Ex 3:19).

In the same way, a ferocious spiritual battle for the soul of our nation is being enacted before our eyes. Back then, it took a disastrous ten plagues for Pharaoh to act, and that is something of what we are experiencing now, certainly in the spiritual realm of a nation whose heart has become hardened to the Gospel and the blessing it has brought on Britain over the centuries.

Plagues of blood, frogs, gnats, flies, the death of livestock, boils, hail and locusts were not enough to budge the king. The ninth plague – darkness – is perhaps where we are now in the UK with all the chaos, confusion and lack of clarity. But it’s also a sign of hope, as darkness eventually gives way to dawn, and it was the tenth plague that unlocked the door to freedom for the Israelites.

The deliverance from Egypt of millions of Jews after 430 years of enslavement was no quick-fix arrangement – just like the tortuous negotiations to extricate Britain from Europe.

The Sacrificial Lamb

The death of the first-born proved a step too far for the Egyptians, but what brought death to unbelievers was a lifeline for those who trusted in the God of Israel.

The Jews were instructed to daub the lintels and doorframes of their houses with the blood of a sacrificed lamb, and the angel of death would ‘pass over’ all who carried out God’s command. They were thus also able to pass through the Red Sea as on dry ground on their way towards the Promised Land.

The blood was the sign. Blood that had brought death to the Nile now brought life to all who trusted in God’s provision of a spotless, perfect lamb, prefiguring the coming of the Messiah, Jesus, who has taken away the sins of all who trust in him (Ex 12:13; John 1:29).

Former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, who this week called on the PM to 'channel the spirit of Moses' and declare to Europe 'Let my people go!'Perhaps for Britain too, the Lord is looking for a Moses figure (not necessarily the Prime Minister, but who knows?) to lead us out of Egypt. We have worshipped Europe’s humanistic idols for too long. God has a destiny for Britain – in the past we have stood alone against tyranny and led the way in missionary zeal by taking the Gospel of Christ to the four corners of the earth. We even played a significant role in the restoration of God’s ancient people!

If we would only return to our first love for Jesus, and for the Judeo-Christian values which made our nation great, there is ‘a land of milk and honey’ within our grasp – of a people once again living at peace with each other, at ease with itself and devoted to the God of our fathers.

Miracle Needed!

Yes, there will be those who will long for the ‘leeks and onions’ – the way things were. But inheriting a land of promise will not come without a fight. Even after finally giving in to Moses, Pharaoh changed his mind and chased the Israelites all the way to the sea.

A miracle was still needed – and it came when Moses lifted up his staff and the waves parted. This prefigures the resurrection of Christ, on whom we once trusted as a nation.

That is the way out of the present stalemate – not a second referendum, or a half-baked deal. I like the way American preacher John Hagee put it when referring to Christ’s return on the TBN UK channel: “He’s not coming to say, ‘Let’s make a deal’. He’s coming to say, ‘This is the deal!’”¹

I also believe God is saying that at some stage we will be asked to ‘leave quickly’ (Ex 12:33) and that we should be ready to go at any moment (Ex 12:11), that we should not leave ‘empty-handed’ (Ex 3:21) and that, in some form, our eventual exit will have been the ‘long way round’ (Ex 13:17f). Or am I reading too much into these Scriptures? You decide.

If we would only return to our first love for Jesus, and for the Judeo-Christian values which made our nation great, there is ‘a land of milk and honey’ within our grasp.

Hope for the Future

Still on the subject of slavery, the late Selwyn Hughes pointed out that the abolition of the slave trade came about, not through the enslaved organising a revolt, but through the passion of a man set free by Christ to defy furious opposition over many decades in pursuit of his noble goal.²

LAND OF MILK AND HONEY: The verdant hills of Galilee. Photo: Charles Gardner

For all that we betrayed Israel in many ways over the past century, we did pave the way for her national restoration. But God was only able to use us in this way because of the biblical revelation of his purposes for the Jews given to faithful evangelical Christians of the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

Tragically, Christ’s first coming was met by a national rejection from his own people which led to their exile for nearly 2,000 years. Just as tragic is Britain’s current national rejection of Christ.

But think on this. That first Passover led to a national revival for Israel as they all trusted in God’s provision of a blood-soaked sacrifice, and prefigures a national revival still to come, predicted by the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans, when “all Israel will be saved” (Rom 11:26).

Could Britain also be blessed with national revival through trusting once more in the blood of Jesus for her redemption?

References

1 TBN UK, 24 March 2019.

2 Every Day with Jesus, 24 March 2019, referring to William Wilberforce.

Paul Luckraft reviews ‘Plan A’ by Paul Parkhouse (ICEJ, 2017).

Subtitled ‘What modern Israel reveals about the original and unchanging purposes of God’, this short book aims to unpack the reasons behind “an event unparalleled in human history” when “one of the world’s most famous ancient nations suddenly reappeared on the map” (p6, 7). This was not just any nation, but God’s original covenant nation – which makes this event well worth exploring.

Parkhouse’s key concern is to unpack why God’s salvation plan for the world still needs Israel (this may be baffling to some, but for others it is equally puzzling that the common Christian understanding of God’s plans includes no present or future need for Israel).

The author sets out to refute those theologians such as Karl Barth who claim that “The first Israel, constituted on the basis of physical descent from Abraham, has fulfilled its mission now that the Saviour of the world has sprung from it and its Messiah has appeared…Its mission as a natural community has now run its course and cannot be continued or repeated” (p21, quoting Barth’s Church Dogmatics).

This common view is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of covenant, which Parkhouse explores. Jesus initiated the New Covenant in his own body and blood, but not in isolation from the other covenant promises which God had previously made.¹ It is also important to realise that the New Covenant was originally promised to the Jewish people (see Jeremiah 31 and Ezekiel 36). God has to be faithful to all he has covenanted to do if his plan is to reach fulfilment.

‘Divine Delay’

Using the biblical Feasts as a roadmap to guide us through the details of God’s overarching salvation plan, Parkhouse points out that it was always God’s intention that there should be “a long pause between the new covenant being established in Israel and Israel being established in the new covenant” (p68). This ‘divine delay’ comes with a certain amount of irony. Its primary purpose is to allow the Gentiles to come in fully – but it has become one of the main reasons Gentile Christians use to demonstrate that God must have replaced Israel with the Church.

It was always God’s intention that there should be “a long pause between the new covenant being established in Israel and Israel being established in the new covenant.”

Parkhouse makes it very clear that there is no alternative to ‘Plan A’ and that Satan has never been able to derail it, nor will he be able to stop its future fulfilment. It is secure within the purposes of God and we can remain confident that God will see it through.

Invitation to Investigate

The re-emergence of Israel is a sign for our times, and one that must be investigated just as Moses needed to take a closer look at the bush that burned but was not consumed. When he did examine the phenomenon in more detail, Moses discovered that at the centre of the bush was God himself. We are invited to make a similar discovery concerning Israel today.

Overall, the author provides plenty of scriptures and uses them well to bolster his arguments. The book is well written and is of a size and style that makes it useful to give away.

‘Plan A: What Modern Israel Reveals about the Original and Unchanging Purposes of God’ (94pp, paperback) is available on Amazon for £4.99 or from ICEJ. Also on Amazon Kindle for £1.99.

Notes

1 Only one of these (the Mosaic covenant) was superseded by the New Covenant – for further reading on this see for example ‘By God, I will: The Biblical Covenants’ by David Pawson (Anchor, 2013).