landrights

Hello brother Bennett:

Thanks for Friday night at Byron. I felt your prophetic song on the guitar was profound. And as always, I enjoyed your revelations and felt nourished by your love of God. You're still owed a nice meal there one day though!

I've had the following question in my mind for over a week:

If we assert Israel's territory based on her biblical/historical boundaries and deny Palestinians the right of an independent State within those boundaries, then what about the indigenous inhabitants of Australia and the Americas? do the Aborigines and Native Americans have the right to assert their original authority over the land of Australia and the Americas as well?

It's one thing to tell the Palestinians you can have a State but not here - but would we who are of European descent be willing, by the same token, to concede the right of governance over Australia and America back to Aborigines and Native Americans? It's a question of consistency.

When you've got aboriginal friends you can feel how sensitive an issue it is. Do you sense anything about it? I thought I'd ask you.

Lately I've been meditating upon both God's judgments and His plan of redemption - and I've been absolutely thrilled to see how the two have worked together in history, and also how the two will work together in the final day of judgment and redemption. Perhaps there's an answer in it to the Aboriginal Land Rights question as well as to the Middle East issue.

Mankind wouldn't have these problems if we'd never sinned and been kicked out of the garden of Eden. Adam was originally given dominion over the earth, but he committed high treason, and Satan became the god of this world, wielding the power of death over mankind. That's when all the problems began. The segregation of mankind into different tongues and nationalities was one example of a temporary response by God to the problem. Throughout history there has been a series of other interventions or judgments by God - but these are always only temporary fixes, a limited response, to the problem.

The final and thorough solution to mankind's problems on planet earth will come on the last great day of redemption - also called the great day of His wrath - when Christ shall come in His Kingdom, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who obey not the Gospel, when the dead will be raised, and the righteous shall live with God in Paradise restored, new heavens and a new earth.

A permanent solution won't be reached until all the wicked are finally separated forever from the righteous. But in the meantime, both the wicked and the righteous live alongside each other in this present world - and that's where the problem lies. God could move-in now and bring about this final judgment/redemption and all the earth's problems, including physical death, would be forever abolished. But the reason God delays this final judgment/redemption solution is because He is not willing that any should perish, but that all men should have time to repent. He wants His Gospel of the future restored Paradise to be announced, so that al men may know the way to escape judgment and to enter His glory. And the way is the cross of Jesus.

The last judgment is called eternal judgment. It will bring about the final, eternal, thorough restoration of all things. In the mean time, evil and good, wicked and righteous, continue together. Occassionally therefore, it becomes expedient for God to enact a series of smaller decrees, enactments, responses, interventions, chastisements, or judgments in the earth - not the final judgment, but judgment none the less. I've been meditating on God's ways in some of these smaller judgments. These judgments can affect either individuals, families, churches, governments, or nations. Some of them are permanent, others have a designated time frame. But the important thing I've noticed is that everything that happens in history happens from Him, by Him and for His purposes - everything.

David was a person who loved meditating on God's judgments; he sang about them, he taught them. Paul was another one, and this is New Testament! Paul didn't only preach God's coming eternal judgment, but he taught about God's ways and His judgments in the affairs of individuals and of nations - and whenever he thought about it, it caused praise to spring-up out of his mouth. There is great reward in meditating on all of God's judgments - and His eternal judgment is just one of His judgments - He has other ones. Which brings us to Israel, the Palestinians, Australia, the Aborigines, America and the Native Americans:

The first point is that these problems only began with sin.

The second point is that all the earth stands guilty before God, worthy of judgment, worthy of death. All of mankind has broken Divine Law, and all men have lost their landrights and the right to life itself.

The third point is that following the cross and the resurrection, all power in heaven and earth was given to Jesus.

The fourth point is that the thorough outworking of the cross - the thorough solution for planet earth that was accomplished on Calvary - will only completely manifest on the day Jesus comes again. It won't matter in the next life whether we are Jew, Arab, Aboriginee, Native American or European. And there won't be any wicked left in the land who won't acknowledge the authority of Jesus over the earth and over all things. It will be glorious!

The fifth point is that our current role is to declare that coming glorious day. Our role is to teach all nations how they can enter it.

The sixth point is that whilst we await certain aspects of our redemption - such as the restitution of all things; the resurrection; the redemption of our body; the eradication of all the wicked from the land - we actually already have all these things intrinsically the moment we believe, through the power and promise of the Holy Spirit.

The sixth point is that God gives the land to whomever He wills, and who are we to reply against His decision? Everything that happens in history comes from Him, by Him and for His own ultimate purpose.

For example, I would say that the land of Israel belonged to Jews rather than any other nation, not because Israel was there first (because they weren't there first - there were other nations there first). Rather, the land belongs to Jews because God said so. It's not a matter of who was there first. It's a matter of what God says.

God promised the land to Abraham, but the reason the promise was delayed hundreds of years is because "the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full". In other words, God would not move in judgment against the wicked Canaanite nations until their iniquity became "full". But the time came when their iniquity was so full - without remedy. So God used Israel to come in judgment against them. Some judgments are temporary, but this was to be perpetual.

But Israel shouldn't be proud - because if they become wicked like those lands whom God destroyed - then God will also destroy them. The land was God's, actually. So that's why even Israel has had difficulty staying in the land. God used enemy nations to judge Israel too - but not a perpetual desolation this time.