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Life - City & Nation
“Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken” (Jer. 6:17). |
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When God speaks of His people as a city, or sometimes as a vineyard, God assures them that His promises do sustain Israelite protection and defense against all enemies that would, or do seek to, invade, so that, in the case of an invasion there is an inevitable victory against them. It is said in Deuteronomy 28:7, “The LORD shall cause thine enemies that rise up against thee to be smitten before thy face: they shall come out against thee one way, and flee before thee seven ways.” Again it is said, “And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword” (Lev. 26:6-8). These promises proved to be real surety in the face of impossible circumstances; in real wars, shockwaves of Israelite victories gripped the nations with fear. The ripple effect went worldwide, and the nations esteemed the Israelite God as a God of war, but who knew it more – those smitten by the Presence of God or those empowered to smite standing in the Presence of God? Nay, none knew it more than the darling ransom of God, Israel by name. An Israelite learned to herald and hope in the good confession: “The LORD is a man of war: the LORD is His Name” (Ex. 15:3). Though the Israelites do cleave their hands to swords and spears and so make ready for the battle charge, they do never shout the courageous hoorah until the sacrifice is made! Nay, though the army is arrayed and at attention, every man’s valiance is stayed until the ark of God enters the camp! The military acclamation of the Israelite army was: “The LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’S” (1 Sam. 17:47)! Hands may cleave to the sword, but hearts only to the Lord.
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Psalm 33:16-17 Psalm 35:1-3 Psalm 68:1-2 |
As it is with the weaponry of “hand to hand” combat, so it is in the case of Israel’s walls and fortified cities: built for protection and the vantage point of invaders at war. If Israel builds fortified cities of high walls and high towers, they may look down from the height of the walls and towers – but their hearts look up to the LORD. They are not out of reach of the enemy, except by the hiding place of His Presence. “My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from Him” (Ps. 62:5), they pray. “Thou art my hiding place and my shield: I hope in Thy word” (Ps. 119:114), “for Thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy” (Ps. 61:3); “my fortress…my buckler…and my high tower” (Ps. 18:1). Fortresses of war may be the pride of the nations, emboldening them to boast and devour, but an Israelite painfully disdains this pride and reattributes all the successful instrumentality of any object of war to the glory of God. “Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence from the pride of man” (Ps. 31:20), the psalmist declares, and so “the Name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe,” (Prov. 18:10) HALLELUJAH! Watchmen stand awake until daybreak and the alarm of war rounds ready the soldiers for war, but the prophets’ preaching keeps men from vain hopes deceiving – “Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, whose heart departeth from the LORD” (Jer. 17:5). They alarm men to the watchful eye of their Maker, and declare that this is the supreme matter. If men can wake up to God, then He will awake for them at a time of war. Thus it is written, “Except the LORD keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Psalm 127:1).
It is not the wall that protects Israel, just as it is not the sword that saves; it is God, through the agreement of His promises. The wall of protection circling a fortified city is like a barrier of the promises of God, and as a host of Israel is unbeatable while they are blessed by the power of God, so the wall of Israel is impregnable, unbreakable, and un-breach-able while it is sustained by His hand. The wall is protected and sustained by the promises of God, and if the promises of God are breached and invading aliens do attack, they will breach the wall of fortification and conquer. The aliens’ victory through the breached wall is only a physical manifestation of the wrath of God which already breached the Israelite promises of salvation. Now, if in the time that the wrath of God is kindled against the people when God is intent on breaching the promises of their protection, being intent to destroy them by an invading host, if, before the invading host arrives, a prophet hears and sees the spiritual state of Israel as it is then, even beholding the wrath of God, as it were, breaking forth through a breach of promise, if that prophet stands in the breach to turn away God’s wrath and avails, then the city is saved and the physical manifestation of their destruction never arrives. In this very context it is said of Moses:
It is not the wall that protects Israel, just as it is not the sword that saves; it is God, through the agreement of His promises. The wall of protection circling a fortified city is like a barrier of the promises of God, and as a host of Israel is unbeatable while they are blessed by the power of God, so the wall of Israel is impregnable, unbreakable, and un-breach-able while it is sustained by His hand. The wall is protected and sustained by the promises of God, and if the promises of God are breached and invading aliens do attack, they will breach the wall of fortification and conquer. The aliens’ victory through the breached wall is only a physical manifestation of the wrath of God which already breached the Israelite promises of salvation. Now, if in the time that the wrath of God is kindled against the people when God is intent on breaching the promises of their protection, being intent to destroy them by an invading host, if, before the invading host arrives, a prophet hears and sees the spiritual state of Israel as it is then, even beholding the wrath of God, as it were, breaking forth through a breach of promise, if that prophet stands in the breach to turn away God’s wrath and avails, then the city is saved and the physical manifestation of their destruction never arrives. In this very context it is said of Moses:
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“Therefore He said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen stood before him in the breach, to turn away His wrath, lest He should destroy them” (Psalm 106:23).
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If enemy nations do conspire against Israel or Judah to say, “let us go up against Judah, and vex it, and let us make a breach therein for us, and set a king in the midst of it,” “it shall not stand, neither shall it come to pass” unless God has inspired them to bring it to pass (Isa. 7:6). Prophets do hear the alarm of war (Jer. 4:21) from the trumpet of the watchman, as if then, at that very moment, he was sounding out the arrival of an invading host, and this is long before the day when it actually happens. They hear it as a spiritual utterance; they see it as a vision; they are overcome and outwitted by it as a revelation in the Spirit of God. It is as if they are “caught up” (2 Cor. 12:4), and they could say, “so the Spirit lifted me up, and took me away, and I went in bitterness, in the heat of my spirit; but the hand of the LORD was strong upon me” (Ezek. 3:14) – “whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell: God knoweth” (2 Cor. 12:3). They feel it, experience it, are in the utter grip of it, as if they are in the death-grip of a Giant Man – thus at a time of judgment they are gripped by the wrath of God, by the noises of war, and by the travails of those weeping in pain under the suffering to come. It is then that these prophets do take upon themselves the holy and exhausting endeavor to wrestle the wrath of God, if haply, they could have grace to rise and stand against it, which is to intercede, and so shield it back. Just as the promises of God protected Israel, if then Israel was defeated, then it was the wrath of God, on the part and favor of the aliens, using them as His instruments of wrath to afflict Israel their recompense. Before the physical manifestation of the wrath of God, it is spiritually living as the real threat, and it must be taken with more urgency than physical enemies approaching on the horizon.
At times like these, the prophets were the only hope. The prophets who stood in the breach “stood between the dead and the living,” pressed, as it were, in conflicts for eternity, even as Aaron did when he “stood between the dead and the living” as the plague of wrath broke forth upon Israel at the events surrounding the gainsaying of Korah (Numbers 16:46-48). Can you imagine it? Moses and Aaron frantically casting their holy bodies upon the ground! Having fallen upon their faces they dare not look up, and they plead and cry petitions of mercy! Moses and Aaron interceded against God’s wrath set, at present, to fully annihilate Israel (Num. 16:45). Crying and pleading, the face of Moses lifts up from the ground and gives the brisk command to Aaron – “Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun” (Num. 16:46)! Aaron, leaping from his knees to his feet with his priestly gown covered in dust, sprints with all his might across the camp of Israel toward the Tabernacle. Like running through the chaos of modern warfare, Aaron strides across the camp, and the plague is breaking forth upon the people like airborne artillery falling from the sky. His chest heaving for air, he prepares the censer of incense. Making it ready, he then “ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague is begun among the people… and he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed” (Num. 16:47-48).
My reader, we should wonder at the time that Aaron took to run to and fro to prepare the intercession – how many thousands dead stacked upon thousands – until he stood right before the dead like a wall of protection from the plague, and thus, at the moment of his able intercession the plague of wrath was shielded. That sober stand of Aaron – how fearful it is! As it is in physical war, so it is in breaking and breaching wrath – every second counts! Is this how seriously you take intercession? Aaron, hasting for the intercessory stand, took a good while, and how precious were those passing seconds for the living and the dead on that day! During the plague, though it was eventually stayed, in the elapse of time thereto “fourteen thousand and seven hundred” Israelites died (Num. 16:49). Real intercession stands to reflect and turn back real forces of wrath – even so, all intercessors stand for the noble cause of mercy and life. Yet onward in generations to come, not as Aaron, they wrestle against spiritual forces yet to manifest plagues or armies, but as Aaron they are raptured in the time-press of urgency as souls hang in the balance, and even, as they are slain before their eyes, YEA, before them is the same gripping scenery of Israelite slaughter as thousands fell and tens of thousands lifted their weeping cries to heaven; thus the visions seize the prophets in heart-wrenching agony. The prophets do not only hear the sound of the trumpet and the alarm of war, but voices of men and women weeping like an aerial view of a nationwide cry (Jer. 3:21, 4:15)!
At times like these, the prophets were the only hope. The prophets who stood in the breach “stood between the dead and the living,” pressed, as it were, in conflicts for eternity, even as Aaron did when he “stood between the dead and the living” as the plague of wrath broke forth upon Israel at the events surrounding the gainsaying of Korah (Numbers 16:46-48). Can you imagine it? Moses and Aaron frantically casting their holy bodies upon the ground! Having fallen upon their faces they dare not look up, and they plead and cry petitions of mercy! Moses and Aaron interceded against God’s wrath set, at present, to fully annihilate Israel (Num. 16:45). Crying and pleading, the face of Moses lifts up from the ground and gives the brisk command to Aaron – “Take a censer, and put fire therein from off the altar, and put on incense, and go quickly unto the congregation, and make an atonement for them: for there is wrath gone out from the LORD; the plague is begun” (Num. 16:46)! Aaron, leaping from his knees to his feet with his priestly gown covered in dust, sprints with all his might across the camp of Israel toward the Tabernacle. Like running through the chaos of modern warfare, Aaron strides across the camp, and the plague is breaking forth upon the people like airborne artillery falling from the sky. His chest heaving for air, he prepares the censer of incense. Making it ready, he then “ran into the midst of the congregation; and, behold, the plague is begun among the people… and he stood between the dead and the living; and the plague was stayed” (Num. 16:47-48).
My reader, we should wonder at the time that Aaron took to run to and fro to prepare the intercession – how many thousands dead stacked upon thousands – until he stood right before the dead like a wall of protection from the plague, and thus, at the moment of his able intercession the plague of wrath was shielded. That sober stand of Aaron – how fearful it is! As it is in physical war, so it is in breaking and breaching wrath – every second counts! Is this how seriously you take intercession? Aaron, hasting for the intercessory stand, took a good while, and how precious were those passing seconds for the living and the dead on that day! During the plague, though it was eventually stayed, in the elapse of time thereto “fourteen thousand and seven hundred” Israelites died (Num. 16:49). Real intercession stands to reflect and turn back real forces of wrath – even so, all intercessors stand for the noble cause of mercy and life. Yet onward in generations to come, not as Aaron, they wrestle against spiritual forces yet to manifest plagues or armies, but as Aaron they are raptured in the time-press of urgency as souls hang in the balance, and even, as they are slain before their eyes, YEA, before them is the same gripping scenery of Israelite slaughter as thousands fell and tens of thousands lifted their weeping cries to heaven; thus the visions seize the prophets in heart-wrenching agony. The prophets do not only hear the sound of the trumpet and the alarm of war, but voices of men and women weeping like an aerial view of a nationwide cry (Jer. 3:21, 4:15)!
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“For I have heard a voice as of a woman in travail, and the anguish as of her that bringeth forth her first child, the voice of the daughter of Zion, that bewaileth herself, that spreadeth her hands, saying, Woe is me now! For my soul is wearied because of murderers” (Jer. 4:31).
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The howling agony to come they do see in their now, they hear it beforehand so that the prophesying of its coming electrifies their prophetic cries to the nation, and they do behold a man in agony! Can a man such as this be altogether ignored? Can the waters of emotion be altogether unstirred when they behold a man in the agony of the message and murder to come!? Howling and crying holy men should pierce the hearts of the unholy! Channels only, can you imagine the prophets living out the animation of such prophetic words - “Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames” (Isa. 13:6-8). Before the nationwide face of Israel is as flames, they do behold a prophet enflamed, amazed, speechless, weeping, and rent asunder – arising time and time again from gate to gate, preaching and pleading: “Thus saith the LORD!” It is a breaking burden, and thus it was declared:
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“The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land. A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease. Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it. My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath He turned into fear unto me” (Isa. 21:1-4).
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Can you imagine it? Imagine if you were a prophet dwelling in Israel, going about your daily business, or perhaps you were in the middle of the engagement of a sweet hour of prayer, and suddenly, you heard the horn of the watchman’s trumpet sounding its citywide alarm in your heart? Then, after the trumpet’s long sound, after the fear of annihilation and death grips your soul, then, in this state of emotional grip under the sensation of God, the very words of the Lord forcefully pound into your heart with spiritual power and authority! Thus is the reason why prophets tremble. According to the message they do sigh and cry. It is because they are dwelling in the spiritual reality of what will soon arise upon a condemned people, who, at its sudden arise will also tremble, but had they trembled with the prophet, they might have escaped the hour of wrath. Nevertheless, they will be seized with like agony the very moment they hear the actual trumpet of the watchman sound from their city wall. The prophets do see and hear things like this to amplify the message. Their bodily image makes real the words so that the people can see what danger they are in at that very moment, if haply they might understand that personal and national security are in danger and potential breach because the promises are, at present, being breached! This is the experience of a true prophet under the alarm of wrath, but false prophets preach the seductions of peace to a people in need of repentance. False prophets candy-coat poison by preaching the sweetness of the promises of God to a people disqualified from them. Their ministry is like a silent bite from a serpent while walking through the pricks of a thorny and swampy region. Like life-threatening venom moving through the veins of the body, so are false prophets through the city streets. “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and My people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof” (Jer. 5:31)?
False prophets do see and hear false messages of peace. They are deaf to the alarms of God. Their theology forbids wrath and breaches, and if there was a breach in the wall of God’s promised protection for Israel, they would neither have the courage or selfless care to stand in the gap and build it up again so that the wrath of God does not enter into the city. “Ye have not gone up into the gaps,” God said, “neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD” (Ezek. 13:5). Intercession is city-saving, and at the hour of wrath, the mercy of God looks for a man to stand in the breach! It is written, “And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge (wall), and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. Therefore have I poured out Mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezek. 22:30-31). False prophets wear the clothes of an intercessor, but it is a lying vanity; they are neither rent, dusty, ashy, nor worn. God says of them that they do NOT stand in the breach or build up the wall: “And My hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies… because, even because they have seduced My people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter” (Ezek. 13:9-10). Again the Lord says, “And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken” (Ezek. 22:28). The false prophets do build up the wall and fill the breach, but it is a counterfeit trust. Do you see it?! The true prophets give true promises in their rightful place, and they give true warnings in their rightful place, but if you fill a breach of promise by standing against the breaking forth of wrath at the gap in the wall with an unbiblical, misappropriated promise which the people are disqualified from, you are building the wall and filling the breach with a false promise – a false confidence like as untempered morter. False promises of peace give the perception that the wall of God’s protection is standing firm, but they do fail to turn away the wrath of God in the midst of a spiritual dilemma like the crumbling of an untempered wall. Therefore the wrath of God comes and the actual walls of the defenced cities are breached, the cities are taken, and the people are ravaged with destruction. God warns:
False prophets do see and hear false messages of peace. They are deaf to the alarms of God. Their theology forbids wrath and breaches, and if there was a breach in the wall of God’s promised protection for Israel, they would neither have the courage or selfless care to stand in the gap and build it up again so that the wrath of God does not enter into the city. “Ye have not gone up into the gaps,” God said, “neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD” (Ezek. 13:5). Intercession is city-saving, and at the hour of wrath, the mercy of God looks for a man to stand in the breach! It is written, “And I sought for a man among them, that should make up the hedge (wall), and stand in the gap before Me for the land, that I should not destroy it: but I found none. Therefore have I poured out Mine indignation upon them; I have consumed them with the fire of My wrath: their own way have I recompensed upon their heads, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezek. 22:30-31). False prophets wear the clothes of an intercessor, but it is a lying vanity; they are neither rent, dusty, ashy, nor worn. God says of them that they do NOT stand in the breach or build up the wall: “And My hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies… because, even because they have seduced My people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter” (Ezek. 13:9-10). Again the Lord says, “And her prophets have daubed them with untempered morter, seeing vanity, and divining lies unto them, saying, Thus saith the Lord GOD, when the LORD hath not spoken” (Ezek. 22:28). The false prophets do build up the wall and fill the breach, but it is a counterfeit trust. Do you see it?! The true prophets give true promises in their rightful place, and they give true warnings in their rightful place, but if you fill a breach of promise by standing against the breaking forth of wrath at the gap in the wall with an unbiblical, misappropriated promise which the people are disqualified from, you are building the wall and filling the breach with a false promise – a false confidence like as untempered morter. False promises of peace give the perception that the wall of God’s protection is standing firm, but they do fail to turn away the wrath of God in the midst of a spiritual dilemma like the crumbling of an untempered wall. Therefore the wrath of God comes and the actual walls of the defenced cities are breached, the cities are taken, and the people are ravaged with destruction. God warns:
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“Say unto them which daub it with untempered morter, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it. Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it? Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in Mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered morter, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the LORD. Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered morter, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it; To wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord GOD” (Ezek. 13:11-16).
“Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant” (Isa 30:13). |
A breach in an actual city wall is sure destruction for a city, and so, the breaches of God’s promises, which are the true defenders of Israel against alien foes, also are sure to end in the destruction of the city. If the promise is broken (breached), so is the wall. The false prophets speak peace – they promise the promises of security and salvation to a rebellious, disqualified, and unrepentant people. In principle, they see and believe there are no conditions to the promises of salvation. In this metaphor, the message is emblematic of the city and nationwide state of Israel, and we see that in this sense, like as other senses, it is breach for breach, break for break, and gap for gap. When the people breach the Covenant, God breaches His promise, and when the promise is breached, then the wall is breached. Therefore true prophets build up the gaps, breaches, and breaks in the promises of God, and so also, metaphorically, the walls of Israel’s protection. Again, in another metaphorical term God speaks on this wise - tearing down His oath-bound protection and blessing – “And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the wall thereof, and it shall be trodden down” (Isaiah 5:5). A generation given over to such breaches of promise and salvation do cry the lamentations, “Why hast Thou then broken down her hedges, so that all they which pass by the way do pluck her” (Psalm 80:12)? “Thou hast broken down all his hedges; Thou hast brought his strong holds to ruin” (Psalm 89:40).