Education For the Nation

The prophets have always had the most timely and necessary messages for the people. God knows what people need to hear. And in His love for them, He does not fail to offer His advice and warnings through His prophets.... Not that people want to hear them, however!

Isaiah recorded the inevitable end result:

Therefore My people have gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; their honourable men [those most respected in society] are famished [lacking the ability to spiritually feed themselves and others], and their multitude dried up with thirst (Is 5:13).

A captivity looms on the horizon for this nation.^[1] (More about that later.) But there is another captivity that occurs first, before the physical one that will soon engulf this people. It is a captivity to delusion.

The invisible ruler of this world, Satan, has done his dirty work:

...our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them (2 Cor 4:4).

Not only are people deceived in the world, but there is an equal range of deceptions gripping the Church. Isaiah prophesied of that, too. There are worldwide deceptions in the Church! depicted by the number of the chapter (52 = 4 x 13) where the account occurs. 4 is a numeric symbol for the world, or the whole earth, and 13 depicts Satan.

God had Isaiah write these veiled prophecies down. Their impact is greater today than in his time, because it is meant to be a time of revelation and deliverance for the Church, now. Yet, more and more, we see a people who willingly succumb to the traps of the devil. Too many prefer error to truth. They prefer to stay in bondage!

Awakening the Church

In Isaiah 52, the Church is represented by the metaphor of Jerusalem, or Zion. She was the city where God had placed His name at that time. It was the place where people were commanded then to come before Him at appointed times (Heb. moedim) of the year (the annual festivals, see Leviticus 23) to pay homage to Him and to be recommitted in obedience to the laws revealed by God to Moses.

In today’s Church, obedience is downplayed and even dismissed when it comes to observing these appointed times! While we don’t need to go to Jerusalem to keep these occasions (John 4:21- 24), the record of the apostolic Church shows that they were certainly still kept (see our booklet The Festivals of God), and should be observed today.

These truths are on God’s agenda to restore before the end of this age, prior to their complete acceptance in the Millennium to follow (Zechariah 14:19). So, the Church is sent a messenger from God who alerts her to her lack in this respect.

He calls for her to:

Awake! Awake! Put on your strength, O Zion; put on your beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city! For the uncircumcised and the unclean shall no longer come to you. Shake yourself from the dust, arise; sit down, O Jerusalem! Loose yourself from the bonds of your neck, O captive daughter of Zion! (Is 52:1-2.)

She can’t see the captivity in which she is held. Nor can she see the false ministers (the uncircumcised and unclean) who deceive her over these customs. But the fact remains that she needs to put on these beautiful garments which God originally gave Israel to be markers in His calendar. They are the times HE appointed, not times Israel appointed. They are not “Jewish”.

In Isaiah 52:2, she is commanded to rise up, throw off the filth of human (satanic) traditions (these include Easter, Christmas, etc.), take her position beside the throne of God, and loose herself from the bonds men have bound her with. How many in the Church will do this, however? God has shown us that half the people will not!

This is directly in line with the parallel parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25, where half of them were foolish and half were wise. When the Midnight Cry rings out to prepare for the coming of the Bridegroom (Jesus), half of the virgins don’t make the necessary preparations. Devoid of the oil of the Holy Spirit, they fail to see.

The startling revelation of that parable is that half of those who profess to be Christ’s are not His at all!

Another shocking home truth is that the whole Church is asleep! Not half the Church. The whole Church!

 A few months ago, I received a circular from one of the most prominent evangelists, who has outreach activities that reach vast numbers of people – millions! He wrote about that parable, saying that half the Church was asleep. It’s surprising how many misread Jesus’ actual words!

Perhaps one reason is that it seems too bizarre to be true that the entire Church of Jesus could be asleep?! But it is.

One way is that which I am moved to write about here. Virtually the entire body of Christ does not recognise the relevance of God’s holy days (other than a very small segment of believers who keep these festivals [and who are not Jewish] ). They are deluded by false teachings into thinking that they were superseded by other observances that are ‘Christian’ such as Easter and Christmas.^[2]

Ironically, the majority of those believers who do keep the Festivals of God, are themselves asleep on other essential points of true belief and practice. There is an abysmal lack of the moving of the Holy Spirit in these ‘Sabbatarian’ churches! Most of them don’t appreciate the baptism in the Holy Spirit, or accept the complete quota of gifts of the Spirit on offer through this experience.

Whichever sector of the Church you look at, she is certainly sound asleep! And there needs to be an awakening. That awakening comes via the parable’s description of a Midnight Cry. It comes late in the plan of God, just before Jesus’ return. It comes in a time of increasing darkness over the earth. And it is a prophetic call to awake and put on garments that she has not yet put on.

Those robes of righteousness are being presented to the body of Christ NOW!

‘Elijah’ Is At Work

I make no bones about the fact that this work we are involved in is part of the prophesied activity of the end-time Elijah.^[3] While there are certainly many others involved in this task besides ourselves, I know of no-one else to whom God has given the prophetic commission of bringing these two sectors of the Church together via a public witness.

I have heard of others who are doing this in their own areas and churches and fellowships. God is moving by His Spirit to bring together the movements of  Word and Spirit about which Smith Wigglesworth prophesied in 1947 (explained in our last newsletter, N13, page 7). Jesus has been reaching scattered individuals, primarily in the pentecostal / charismatic sector of the Church, convicting their hearts of the need to keep the Sabbaths. But, as a proportion of the entire Church, this is small. Much more is going to be done via a public witness.

When the entire nation of Israel was challenged by God through Elijah (see 1 Kings 18), it was one man who was given the assignment. The prophet Elijah. When the way was prepared before Jesus’ coming, one man – John the Baptist – prepared the way. God only needed one man – a prophet – to sound the call to repentance, and to reach the entire nation.

It is somewhat different today in that the witness which God is taking to the world is a global witness, and more than one man alone can achieve. Revelation 11 indicates that with mass publicity, two men are sufficient for the final task. However, we are not in that phase just yet. That is to occur during the 3½ year Tribulation which is a matter of a couple of years away. For now, prior to that time of worldwide calamity, others are involved in the task. And it is a privilege to be used.

Our contribution is primarily through the written word. God separated my wife and me from our former church association in 1990 and then led me to write a set of publications which address these pressing issues for the Church. He gave Helena a dream about me digging and concreting foundations under the clock tower in Aylesbury.^[4] That dream has now been fulfilled. The written foundation is laid. It has taken nine years to complete.

What is contained in our literature is sufficient to form a complete doctrinal basis for the Church. The body of Christ need not wonder about whether there is a secret rapture, or argue about whether the Holy Spirit is a third person in a trinity, or whether hell burns forever. More importantly there need be no argument over the relevance of Sabbaths to the Church today, or the viability of spiritual gifts. These questions are all answered by accurate biblical exegesis in our publications.

“Isn’t that a bit arrogant of you to say that?”

Was it arrogant of Elijah to claim he had a divine right to challenge all the false prophets in Israel? Was he presumptuous in claiming that he alone had a divine prerogative to re-establish true worship in the land? No. Because he had that commission. God appointed him for the task.

And if I, by divine appointment, have been commissioned to lay down a doctrinal foundation for the Church at this late hour, all who would challenge that commission are challenging, not just me, but the One who has commissioned me. So I say to all who question, “Check it out!”

Zechariahs’ Amazing Prophecy

One Sabbath in May, we gathered together for fellowship and, on that day I was led to read some things from the book Zechariah. This book contains some of the most obscure prophecies, mostly relating to the end times.

In Zechariah 10, he begins by saying:

Ask the Lord for rain in the time of the latter rain (Zech 10:1).

‘Former’ or ‘latter’ in relation to the agrarian cycle refers to autumn and spring respectively. The former (first) rain was expected in Israel after the harvest had been gathered and the latter rain would come in the spring.

So, here we were gathering for worship in the spring, in the time depicted in the prophecy, and God tells us to ask Him for rain – for His outpouring from heaven.

In the previous newsletter (N13, page 6) I explained how God will make a particular prophecy come alive to you in your circumstances – if He is fulfilling it in your situation, He will show you how it fits. In that instance it was Habakkuk’s prophecy of being revived in the midst of the years (Hab 3:2).

Now, God was about to enliven another prophecy to us, this time using Zech 10 and 11.

Zechariah 10:2 speaks of the all-pervasive presence of false religion, of idolatry, of lies, and of false prophets telling false dreams. The charismatic church is full of them! These dear people, who have trusted God for guidance through the avenues of spiritual gifts, dreams and visions (and God certainly gives these!) have been duped by many false prophets, and false doctrines.

God’s anger is kindled against these ‘shepherds’ (Zech 10:3). Historically, leaders have been the bane of national fortune. The prophecy relates directly to the leaders of Judah who did little to prevent the nation lapsing into idolatry. The prophecy has been recorded for the sake of the end-time Church, whose leaders have caused it to err also.

The Church must not be dull of hearing or blind to these prophecies. They are powerful warnings about apostasy, repeated in the NT (see 2 Thes 2:3,10-12). A huge falling away is looming on the horizon!

Zechariah 10:6 predicts the time of national restoration, when the split nation will be reunited.^[5] This will occur during Jesus’ 1000-year rule on earth. Zech 10:6 uses the term ‘Joseph’ to embody the 10 tribes of Israel (those which did not stay with Judah during the secession). And ‘Ephraim’, the leading tribe, will be restored to greatness again (Zech 10:7).

I will bring them back... For I am the Lord their God and I will hear them (Zech 10:6). I will whistle for them and gather them, for I will redeem them and they shall increase... (10:8).

This has not happened yet. It is Millennial.

I will sow them among the peoples, and they shall remember Me in far countries; they shall live together with their children, and they shall return (Zech 10:9). ... So I will strengthen them in the Lord... (Zech 10:12).

This is a prophecy with a futuristic fulfilment, but it is not far away from us now.

The chapter heading in the NKJV correctly reads “Restoration of Judah and Israel”. Through it, however, God was also speaking to us about restoration that is not far away from us (in this ministry) now. This restoration of our personal fortunes is not for our enjoyment or ‘glory’. It’s to do a job. A prophetic witness is to go to this land before it goes into captivity. (See under “Prophetic Witness for Britain”, following.)

Also, the restoration of truth to the Church, so that the movements of Word and Spirit can come together, is part of God’s agenda for this ministry. As we came together to fellowship on that momentous Sabbath, God was about to unlock the meaning of Zechariah’s prophecy to us as we read it. It was about this very restoration.

Zechariah 11:1-11 Explained

Zechariah 11 verses 1-3 “concern the devastation of [Judah] coming in AD 70 as a result of [Judah’s] rejection of the Messiah. Josephus relates that about 1½ million Jews perished during the Roman siege and conquest.” (NKJV Believer’s Study Bible footnote.)

While this is certainly one fulfilment of these verses, there is yet another more devastating fall to occur. It will be fulfilled in modern Israel’s prosperous progenitors. “How do you know that?” you might wonder. “Zech 11:1 is about Lebanon!”

Yes, Lebanon is mentioned in connection with her magnificent cedars, as are the oaks of Bashan. These trees were the most majestic and huge. They were the tallest and the strongest. They depict Israel’s modern nations of (mainly) America and Britain.

Interestingly, as an aside, you may care to know that the cedars of Lebanon mentioned there are not the trees today known by that name. Cedrus libani (Cedar of Lebanon), despite its majestic form is not the tree described in Zech 11:1-2. The tree that boasts the greatest glory, and which was the Cedar of Lebanon mentioned in the Bible is the Californian Redwood, or Sequoia sempervirens, which is the tallest living thing in the world, depicting America’s position as the greatest nation in the world.

How fitting that the tallest specimens of the Sequoia are to be found in California, some reaching more than 112 metres (367) feet high, and having a massive girth of up to 13 metres! This tree is so big that one large bole (trunk) has been cut out to allow a road to pass through it! Cars can drive through this living tree, while it stands majestically astride the road!

These were the biblical cedars of Lebanon. The oaks of Bashan were equally stately, although not so massive. Bashan was a rich, fertile area, which also raised prime cattle. The use of these terms in Zech 11 depicts the most prosperous and proud modern nations, which again have Israelite origin (for whom the Bible was originally written).

So, when you read Zechariah’s lament:

...the mighty trees are ruined... there is the sound of wailing shepherds! For their glory is in ruins. There is the sound of roaring lions! For the pride of the Jordan is in ruins (Zech 11:2-3),

...the typology in our day befits America. And it has great relevance to the Church, because America has fuelled the greatest part of gospel outreach throughout the world. The shepherds of Zech 11:3 are not just the secular leaders, but the religious leaders too. They are the objects of this terrible judgement of God.

It is a prophecy foretelling the total devastation of the Church. Its physical destruction follows on from the apostasy that its leaders encourage:

Feed the flock for slaughter, whose owners [church leaders] slaughter them and feel no guilt; those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich’; and their shepherds do not pity them (Zech 11:4-5).

Does this remind you of the condemnation against Laodicea? (Rev 3:17.) It ought to! The denunciation goes on:

I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land [God’s grace is removed], says the Lord. But indeed I will give everyone into his neighbour’s hand [captivity at the hands of foreign countries] and into the hand of his king. They shall attack the land and I will not deliver them from their hand (Zech 11:6).

The activity in the Church prior to this slaughter and captivity are then portrayed:

So I fed the flock for slaughter, in particular the poor of the flock (Zech 11:7a).

The Two Staffs

Then, Zechariah was directed to do this:

I took for myself two staffs, the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bonds; and I fed the flock (Zech 11:7b).

As I said previously, this is one of the most obscure prophecies in the Bible, and has not been understood until our day. Here is the meaning as God showed us in May this year.

The staffs represent God’s guidance among His people. A staff was used by shepherds to keep sheep from straying. Jesus, the Shepherd of His sheep, is at work amidst the Church, depicted in Revelation by Jesus walking among the lampstands or candlesticks (Rev 1:13; 2:1). He is continually guiding those who are receptive to Him.

But the two staffs depict something more. I have explained in The Ten Virgins that there is basically a divide through the Church which separates it into two distinct spiritual ‘segments’. There is the charismatic or Spirit-led sector of the Church, and the opposite end of the spiritual spectrum – those who understand and observe the relevance of the laws of the OT which Jesus did not rescind at His first coming. For convenience’ sake I usually refer to this segment of the Church as the Sabbatarian sector.

So, we have the two staffs – two distinctive areas of God’s guidance through His Spirit in the body of Christ:

1) The ‘charismatic’ Sunday-observing part.
2) The Sabbatarian sector.

The former fits with the title Beauty, or Grace (as the margin renders this word in Zech 11:7), and the latter is depicted by Bonds (or Unity); the more legalistic emphasis being the fruit of God’s guidance in this sector of the Church. If the Church wants total unity (which most don’t want!), it must accept and abide by all true doctrine, for true doctrine unites. False doctrine divides. Keeping the Sabbaths, holy days and other ancillary laws of God are part of that true doctrine.

In Zech 11:7, God is describing in couched symbolism how He has been leading and feeding His flock in two segments. Now, it is time for these two movements of Spirit and Word to come together as Smith Wigglesworth prophesied, and as we described in Newsletter 13 (p 7).

The Three Shepherds

I dismissed the three shepherds in one month. My soul loathed them, and their soul also abhorred me (Zech 11:8).

The footnote in the NKJV Believer’s Study Bible says: “Few verses in the Bible are more difficult to interpret than this one. Even conservative scholars differ widely. One ancient theory is that the ‘shepherds’ represent the prophets, the priests and the kings (civil rulers) of Israel. The Messiah’s impatience with them would be of the same sort with which He spoke against the scribes, Pharisees, and hypocrites (Matt 23). They rejected His grace (John 1:11).” That is a very plausible explanation, but there is more.

The number three is a biblical symbol for finality. The dismissing of three shepherds could represent the final rejection of the Church in our age, when those who fail to accept the truths which God wants them to accept, invoke God’s wrath on them. It parallels the part in the parable of the Ten Virgins where the foolish virgins are shut outside the door. It is their final rejection by God, because they didn’t accept what He was offering.

When the Sabbatarians fail to accept the baptism in the Spirit with spiritual gifts, and the Sunday-keeping ‘charismatics’ fail to accept God’s Sabbaths, they will all be part of this rejection. God loathes disobedience. He rejects believers for deliberate disobedience. They are not true believers; they are hypocrites. When you correct the rebellious, they hate you for it. Zech 11:8 depicts this response.

Zechariah 11:9-11 goes on to warn of the departure of God’s Spirit from the rebellious, and of the awful consequences. Charismatic believers who fail to accept the Sabbaths when this truth is made clear to them (and God will do that through us by performing miracles of raising the dead to confirm that we genuinely speak for Him, that we are not false prophets) will lose the Holy Spirit. Demon spirits will take God’s place in their lives, and everything will fall into disarray and confusion.

God will withdraw from them, terminating His covenant of grace (11:10) which He offers to all races, not just Israel (also confirming that this is the new covenant being described here).

So it was broken on that day (Zech 11:11).

The phrase on that day is primarily a reference to the time of the second coming of Christ, which indicates that the prophecy has a fulfilment in our time.

The Black Peoples Listen

Thus the poor of the flock, who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord (Zech 11:11).

There is an alternative to the rendering ‘poor’ in verses 7 and 11. It is the Canaanites. I have heard that the Canaanites could have been black-skinned. After they lost their favoured land to Israel, they ended up being pushed out into less fertile areas.

It may be that this part of this prophecy refers to the black peoples of Africa in our time. If so, it is significant, because these people have welcomed the gospel far more readily than the white races. The vision of a blood-washed Africa, which has been the spur to Reinhard Bonnke in his preaching exploits in that continent, is also reflected in these words:

Thus the poor of the flock [the Canaanites], who were watching me, knew that it was the word of the Lord (Zech 11:11).

Song of Solomon contains a reference to a dark skinned woman whom the King loves (Song 1:5-6). She seeks Him out (Song 1:7). These underprivileged people tend to recognise or accept the Word of the Lord more readily than Israelites.

Jesus Is Rejected

Zechariah 11:12-13 contains the well-known prophecy that was fulfilled in Jesus’ rejection by the Jews and His betrayal by Judas.

What is significant, and which cannot be refuted by sceptics, is that the amount for which Jesus was betrayed – 30 pieces of silver – was precisely fulfilled (Matt 27:3). Even the allusion to a potter finds significant fulfilment in what occurred several hundred years after Zechariah wrote down the prophecy (Matt 27:3-10).

The Emergence of The Antichrist

Zechariah’s words of judgement are no idle threat. They will be fulfilled. The western Church, which is so complacent about judgement, is about to find itself engulfed in the most terrible times in all of history, shut outside the Door.

Not only will the charismatic sector of the Church suffer the withdrawal of God’s grace for its rejection of this coming witness, but so will the Sabbatarian sector, depicted by the metaphor of the staff named Bonds (Zech 11:14). 

While the major fulfilment of this verse is in the schism that occurred between Israel and Judah in the reign of King Rehoboam, it also depicts the factionalism that has engulfed the Sabbatarian churches, especially in the last decade.

For example, we have presented truths about spiritual gifts to numbers of these people, only to have them rejected without meaningful consideration. Pride and presumption have closed the door on humility and hunger for truth. The result has been division and further disunity because of the departure of the Spirit. There has been a real ‘breaking of the brotherhood’ amongst these people in recent years.

Had they listened to the witness we brought them with further truth, they could have been revived. Instead, their rejection of Jesus’ witness through us, brought their own rejection by Him.

In this context, God predicted the arising of a foolish shepherd (Zech 11:15-17), meaning one who is not serving God nor His people. “These verses describe the consequences of Israel’s rejecting their messianic Shepherd – they will have a foolish (morally corrupt) and worthless one. This would be partially fulfilled by all the ungodly rulers the Jews would have, but the singular ‘shepherd’ suggests the primary referent is the Antichrist (John 5:43; 2 Thes 2:3,4; Rev 13:1-10).” (NKJV Believer’s Study Bible.)

The end-time Antichrist or Beast is one fulfilment of the foolish shepherd prophecy. But it is also fulfilled by church leaders who are guided by Satan and who exert their dominance over God’s people in organised church structures, particularly in the cults.

In one example, the Worldwide Church of God inherited a foolish shepherd (leader) in Joseph Tkach between 1986 and 1995 (and continues to suffer similar spiritual demise under its present leadership). Tkach’s leadership fuelled an apostasy unparalleled in any church’s history. His lead followed on the heels of the church’s founder, Herbert W Armstrong, who fulfilled one part of the symbolism of Zech 11:17 literally. He became blind in his right eye.

He exerted iron-fisted rule over the church’s doctrinal teachings. He prided himself on his strong-arm rule over God’s people under his control, as if it were a divine fulfilment of the meaning of his name (Arm-strong)! He also ascribed to himself the position of God in the Church (2 Thes 2:4). Nobody was allowed to contest his decisions, and what he said was law in the WCG!

How ironic that all that Armstrong established was rapidly demolished by the next WCG leaders, fulfilling the words of Zechariah: “a sword shall be against his arm... his arm shall completely wither” (Zech 11:17).

The Prophetic Witness For Britain

Son of man, when a land sins against Me by persistent unfaithfulness, I will stretch out My hand against it; I will cut off its supply of bread, send famine upon it, and cut off man and beast from it (Ezekiel 14:13).

On 30th September 2000, Helena had the following dream. There were no eggs in stock. She said, “I tried to buy eggs from a supermarket, but there weren’t any. I asked someone where the eggs were and they said that there weren’t any. I felt that the eggs were unavailable because of the risk of disease.”

Significantly, the Daily Mail carried a front page article on November 4th, 2000, entitled “Food Bug Fear Over Chickens”. The dream may be predicting a further development concerning eggs, which will cause them to become scarce in the shops here.

As of writing there is no outbreak of disease affecting chickens or the egg supply, but it will come. We have seen the terrible consequences of the Foot and Mouth Disease epidemic among farm livestock which began in February 2001 in Britain. As God showed me in a dream on 21st March this year, these troubles are the mere tip of an iceberg. (See page 4 of Newsletter 13.)

Ezekiel 14:13 is highly relevant to Britain!

What people don’t see is the connection between what happens in the physical and what they do in the spiritual. Tell people in the street that their evil thoughts, sexual debauchery, selfishness and dismissal of God in their lives have a direct bearing on the lack of eggs in the shops and they would think you had just escaped from the ‘funny farm’! A minority, however, will listen.

God has His ways of reaching people. When they don’t listen to prophets, He uses ‘ordinary’ folks combined with circumstances. Amazingly, in London’s Daily Mail of 26th March 2001, the letters page included a selection of comments by readers some of which suggested that there could be a Divine Hand behind the recent devastating Foot and Mouth outbreak and other disasters. There were three such letters:

Someone Up There Isn’t Pleased With Britain

1. ...For the religious-minded, one could easily consider that the storms and floods that have ravaged the UK reflect the first Horseman of the Apocalypse, train crashes the second, and mad cows / foot-and-mouth disease the third.

I expect if New Labour win a second term in office [which they have done – Editor] we shall get to see the fourth, which I predict will arrive in the shape of a complete financial meltdown – which is probably the only thing New Labour really fears.

One thing is sure: someone up there doesn’t seem very pleased with us all down here. If I were Tony Blair I would be shaking in my boots and be thinking of changing parties.

Acknowledge Guilt

2. In view of recent and present disasters, whether acts of God, malicious or accidental damage, is it not time for the nation to consider her relationship with God?

When God pronounced blessings and curses, they were the natural consequences of doing good or doing evil, following God’s wise laws or rejecting them.

Let us all acknowledge our corporate and individual guilt and ask God that Great Britain and Europe will be delivered from evil.

Sins Punish Us

3. There have been so many tragic happenings recently that all over the country there will be the cry: ‘How can God allow these things to happen?’

Many years ago I read something that made a great impression on me; we are not punished for our sins, but by them.

The Creator had two choices when He made Man. Man could either be a robot, or someone with free will. We all know the choice He made and we ought to bear this in mind whenever we are tempted to cry out, “Why?”

Forgive me for repeating myself, but Britain will receive a prophetic witness. Ephraim (Britain in Bible prophecy) will be punished as “their congregation has heard” (Hosea 7:12).

Because Ephraim has made many altars for sin, they have become for him altars for sinning. I have written for him the great things of My law, but they were considered a strange thing... Now He [God] will remember their iniquity and punish their sins... For Israel has forgotten his Maker and has built palaces... (Hosea 8:11-14a).

Judah’s Wound

Hosea’s prophecies centre on Ephraim, the leading tribe of Israel, but God also speaks to Judah (the Jewish people):

...Judah also has multiplied fortified cities; but I will send fire upon his cities, and it shall devour his citadels (Hosea 8:14b).

When Ephraim saw his sickness and Judah saw his wound, then Ephraim went to Assyria and sent to King Jareb; yet he cannot cure you, nor heal you of your wound (5:13).

Britain was sometimes referred to in post- war years as ‘the sick man of Europe’. To heal her economic maladies she has looked to the European Union. How ironic that Israel’s former enemy Assyria is now in Germany, and Israel goes again to seek help from ‘King Jareb’ (the powerful ruler of Assyria, Tiglath-Pileser III, or Pul). Instead of returning to her God, Israel woos her lovers, seeking a humanistic way out of her difficulties.

And Judah? What is her wound? There is a jihad (‘holy war’) being mounted by Islam against the Jews in the nation state of Israel. Suicide bombers will stop at nothing to achieve their evil aims. It will not be long before this dreadful wound will be evident to all.

And where will Judah go to look for help? Once again it will be King Jareb’s descendants in the European Union. With America and Britain retreating from the world military scene more and more, Germany and its European allies will fill the vacuum, eventually with the pope playing a significant rôle in diplomatic negotiations.

But these Gentiles will not care for Israel...

...and they will tread the holy city underfoot for 42 months (Rev 13:2b).

Because of the flashpoint Jerusalem has become internationally, and because the city’s holy sites are claimed by three world religions – Christianity, Judaism and Islam – a papal move at being the ecumenical intermediary could well establish him as some ‘peacekeeper’ in Jerusalem.

Malcolm B Heap, July 2001