ISAIAH 57



13 When thou criest [for help], let thy companies [ kibutzim] deliver [save] thee; but the wind [ruach] shall carry them all away; vanity [hevel] shall take them [carry them all away]: but he that putteth his trust in Me shall possess the land [inherit eretz], and shall inherit My holy mountain; [Har Kodesh]

The Latter Day Kibbutz of Israel will provide no safety from the Gogian ruach (invading storm which covers the land). The agricultural communities shall not escape.


Thus, then, there are three parties, yet constitutionally one family, who are heirs of the world as it will be politically organized in the future age, namely, Abraham, Christ, and the believers in the promises made to them, called saints; who are in Abraham as their father, and in his Seed as their elder Brother.

These are the inheritors of the kingdom and empire attached to the land of Canaan; "the children of the promise who are counted for the Seed;" and "not of the world," or subjects. These are men in the flesh, Jews and Gentiles, whose lives and fortunes will be at the disposal of the Royal Family of God. The members of this circle are not known now by the world which has set its affections upon those who mislead it, teaching it to look for a visionary elysium beyond the skies! But such leaders have no light in them, for they do not speak according to the law and testimony.

The word of God converts their wisdom into folly, declaring in the teeth of their traditions, that "he that putteth his trust in God shall possess the land, and shall inherit His holy mountain" (Isaiah 57:13); while Israel in the flesh "shall be all righteous; they shall inherit the land for ever, as the branch of the Lord's planting, the work of His hands, that He may be glorified. A little one shall become a thousand, and a small one a strong nation. I, saith the Lord, will hasten it in its time" (Isaiah 60:14,18,21,22).

Elpis Israel 2.2.




21 There is no peace [shalom], saith my Elohim, to the wicked [resha'im].

The allegorical signification of the sentence became the plan of "the foundation of the world," [Matt. 13:35; 25:34; Luke 11:50; John 17:24; Eph. 1:4; Heb. 4:3; 9:26; 1 Peter 1:20; Rev. 13:8; 17:8; the word for "world" in all these passages is "kosmos"] under the altered circumstances which sin had introduced. It constitutes the earth the arena of a terrible strife between two hostile powers, which was not to terminate until His law gained the ascendancy over the sin of the world and but one Sovereign will be obeyed by the sons of men.

The enmity He put between these parties was not a mere unfriendly verbal disputation, but one which reeked of blood. It began with the dispute which caused Abel to lose his life, and has continued unto this day. For nearly 6000 years has this enmity made the earth a field of blood, and yet the war is not ended. The sin-power still lords it over the world, and is marshalling its forces for a last decisive blow.

The "powers that be" [Rom. 13:1] have laid low the saints of God in all the countries of their dominion; they have bruised them in the heel; and are now taking up their positions, and preparing themselves to arbitrate their relative and future destiny by the sword. They have forgotten, or are indifferent to, the enormities of the past. They know not that the righteous blood they have shed upon the earth cries loudly for vengeance in the ears of God.

Truth, justice, and equity, their souls hate; and all that they propose is to destroy the liberty and happiness of mankind, and to make eternal their own vicious and hateful rule. But God is as just as He is full of goodness, mercy, and truth. "The death of His saints is precious in the sight of the Lord," [Psa. 116:15] and He will not permit them to go unavenged.

The "powers that be" [Rom. 13:1] can therefore no more perpetually exist than convicted robbers and murderers can escape the punishment due to their crimes. The law of retribution to which God has assigned the adjudication of their punishment, says, "Give them blood to drink, for they are deserving; because they have shed the blood of saints and prophets" (Rev. 16:6): "Reward them even as they have rewarded you, and double unto them double according to their works; in the cup which they have filled fill to them double" (Rev. 18:6).

But, though the Scriptures of truth are so explicit with respect to the blasphemous and felonious character of the governments of the world; though they denounce the judgments of war, pestilence, and famine upon the nations subject to them; though they declare that the wicked are the Lord's sword to execute His judgments upon one another; though they most emphatically and solemnly aver, that God says "there shall be no peace to the wicked" (Isaiah 57:21); and though men see, and profess to deplore, the whoredoms and witchcrafts of the Roman Jezebel, and the enormities of the cruel tyrants who pour out her victims' blood like water to uphold her: notwithstanding all this, there are multitudes of people who pretend to take the Bible as the rule of their faith; who claim to be "pious," and class themselves among the saints of the Lord: I say, men of these pretensions, headed by political and spiritual guides, are clamoring for the abolition of war, and the settlement of all international differences by arbitration!

Such persons may be very benevolent, or very covetous; but they are certainly not very wise. Their outcry about "peace" evinces their ignorance of the nature of "sinful flesh," [Rom. 8:3] and of the testimony of God; or, if cognizant of them, their infidelity, and shallowness of mind. Before peace can be established in the world, "the enmity" [Eph. 2:15-16; cp Gen. 3:15] which God has put between good and evil, in word and deed, must be abolished.

Peace is to be deprecated as a calamity by the faithful, so long as the Roman Jezebel and her paramours are found among the living. "What peace, so long as her whoredoms and witchcrafts are so many" (2 Kings 9:22)? Will they destroy the divisions among powers and people, which God's truth is ever calculated to make where it is received in whole or part?

Arbitration indeed? And who are to be the arbitrators? The popes, cardinals, priests, emperors, and kings of nations? Can justice, integrity, and good faith proceed from such reprobates? Do the Quakers, and financial, or acquisitive reformers imagine, that a righteous arbitration could emanate from them upon any question in which the interest of nations as opposed to their's were concerned?

Really, the conceit of pious infidelity is egregiously presumptuous. If this peace-mania be a specimen of "the light within," [Luke 11:35 (John 11:10)] alas! how great is the darkness [Matt. 6:23] of that place which professes to be enlightened by it.

Elpis Israel 1.4.