[Please access the complete book under the title, The Temple, the Mosque, the Vatican, and Building 7, listed in the “page” titles in the heading above.

Lawrence S. Jones, email:  lstewartj@sbcglobal.net

Chapter 14: Secular Israel as Golden Calf ; The National Mythology as the Statue of the Beast

“Then I saw another Beast rising from the land; he had two horns like a lamb, but he spoke like a dragon.  He exerts the full authority of the first Beast in his presence, causing the earth and its inhabitants to worship the first Beast, whose deadly wound was healed.  He performs amazing miracles, even making fire descend from heaven on earth in the sight of men, and by dint of the miracles he is allowed to perform in presence of the Beast, he seduces dwellers on earth; he bids the dwellers on earth erect a statue to the Beast who lived after being wounded by the sword, and to this statue of the Beast he was allowed to impart the breath of life, so that the statue of the Beast should actually speak.  He has everyone put to death who will not worship the statue of the beast…”[1]

 

i

We have discussed under many settings the proposition of Scripture, the proposition of the prophets, and the proposition of Yeshua that there is no holy Temple, no holy people, no Israel of God apart from the work of the Spirit of God.  We have equally established in many contexts that this holy work of God by which he restores mankind to himself is founded on the cross of Yeshua, the eternal sacrifice to which every old covenant sacrifice looked forward in hope and expectation.  It is this holy work of the Spirit of God and its divine foundation which the world labors to deny, be it Satan in the garden, be it the Roman Catholic institution, be it inscriptions on the Dome of the Rock, be it apostate Protestant denominations denying the in-historical kingdom and denying that the in-historical promises to Abraham are the true inheritance of the children of Yeshua.

In this final chapter, having established that nearly every avenue of culture and religion conspires in this very denial, we see that the governments themselves share and benefit from this same misrepresentation of what it means to be a people of God.  So the nations, in particular the United States of America, support the modern mythology that the secular Zionist state of Israel is that very entity holy to God which deserves the cream of history, the promises to Abraham.  The United States adopts the cause célèbre of defending this surrogate “people of God” with all the apostate religions of the nation in tow.

In defense of this surrogate, this usurper of the holy name of “Israel,” the United States reaches out to defend us against our shared “enemies,” and in the process we run rampant through the world, bringing to its knees one Muslim state after another.  This is mythology in the service of power, mythology in the service of a roaring Beast.

When secular Israel becomes enshrined as an inviolable icon in the Western consciousness, we should consider whether or not we have been restored to the Roman paganism wherein heads of state design and control the shrines which otherwise would be the reserve of priests and shamans.  Scripture assures us that the final global empire is none other than Rome, and here is evidence of its resurgence.

This present assumption of divine prerogative by the state is born out in the fact that the state has become a purveyor of inviolable mythologies which its citizens must acknowledge.  Embodied in these mythologies are simple guidelines enabling the public to determine in an acceptable manner the forces of good and the forces of evil in the world.  These guidelines are meant to relieve us of the need to find fault with those who have power over us.

The state mythology of modern times is gradually assuming the proportions of “the statue of the Beast,” that edifice, mentioned in the Revelation of John, which must be worshiped if one does not wish to forfeit one’s life.

Like the great golden rendition of himself which Nebuchadnezzar presented to the people of Babylon for worship, we see that the myth-edifice is hollow, that it is a gross exaggeration of fact, and yet we accept that to despise it is unthinkable.  As President Bush advised us so shrewdly,

“If you are not with us, you are against us.”

The stature of this mythology is so immense that we shudder to think that it might be made of paste.  Movies feature it.  Wars are waged for the sake of it.  Citizens are arrested, tortured, rendered, and killed for failing to honor it.  For its sake drones and missiles violate the sovereignty of nations and curtail the lives of innocent families.  It is too awesome to imagine that this state-sanctioned mythology might be a web of lies.

ii

One intended lesson of the prevailing Western mythology is that we live under a fearful threat of terrorism; at the base of this mythological fabrication lies a gross misrepresentation of what it means to be the holy people of God.  This distortion, as we have said, is but another edition of the same lies promulgated by the powers and the orthodoxies of the earth since the beginning of history.

On October 27, 1994, President Bill Clinton spoke before the Israeli Knesset in Jerusalem, and addressed this entirely secular institution as if they were the holy guardians of the divine covenant:

“’If you abandon Israel, God will never forgive you,’ [quoting the warnings of his childhood pastor]….It is God’s will that Israel, the biblical home of the people of Israel, continue for ever and ever….Your journey is our journey, and America will stand with you now and always.”[2]

Taking the atheist Zionist state as the inviolable darling of God, Clinton promised the resources of the United States in faithful and eternal support of all her purposes.  This mindset endures in the national character: our government does not flinch as Israel bulldozes the orchards and wells and homes of its Palestinian citizens.  It does not flinch as Israel surrounds these people with three-story concrete walls such as have not been seen in the civilized world, unless perhaps to enclose the Warsaw ghetto.  We do not flinch as the Zionist state robs land from its Palestinian citizens and annexes it to lands devoted to the welfare of Americans and Russians and Europeans who can prove that their mothers have an acceptable ancestry.  Nor do we flinch as the Zionist state rattles its sabers and plans for war with the state of Iran.  We, of course, will stand behind their “holy” purpose.  Their war will be our war.

iii

On September 11, 2001, three controversial attacks took place, almost simultaneously, each involving the supposed hijacking of aircraft by Muslim terrorists.  Following the concerted attacks [on the Pentagon; on the World Trade Center; and a purported attempt on the Capitol by an airliner which crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania], the United States government claimed to have the names of the various hijackers and claimed to know that they belonged to a group called Al-Qaeda, a loosely structured Muslim terrorist organization under the control of a man named Osama bin Laden.

A video was ostensibly discovered by the U.S. government and released on December 13, 2001, in which Osama bin Laden “confessed” responsibility for the events of 9/11.  However, this video, besides conveying to the American public gross mistranslations, is of questionable authenticity.  Meanwhile, it is well established that on September 28, 2001, three weeks after 9/11 and one week before the war on Afghanistan, Osama bin Laden gave an interview to Ummat, a daily paper in Pakistan, in which he vigorously denied involvement in the events of 9/11:

“I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States.  As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie.  I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other humans as an appreciable act.  Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children, and other people….Whoever committed the act of 11 September are not the friends of the American people. I have already said that we are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed…..We are against the system, which makes other nations slaves of the United States, or forces them to mortgage their political and economic freedom.  This system is totally in control of the American Jews, whose first priority is Israel, not the United States.  It is simply that the American people are themselves the slaves of the Jews and are forced to live according to the principles and laws laid by them. So, the punishment should reach Israel.  In fact, it is Israel, which is giving a blood bath to innocent Muslims and the US is not uttering a single word….”[3]

Who should we believe?  Unfortunately the facts surrounding the events of 9/11 do not favor the claims of the United States government.  It is not my purpose here to weigh the government claims, as the evidence [visual, historical, and scientific] is available and ample on the internet.  I merely posit the general nature of the three 9/11 events.

1.  In Shanksville, Pennsylvania, although a large plane with many passengers is supposed to have crashed into the field, astonishingly little debris has ever been recovered and there were only traces of human remains…nothing to compare to the usual twisted fuselage and gruesome carnage associated with fatal airplane crashes.  A small amount of research reveals that the official investigation of the crash is stained with many suspicious circumstances.

2.  At the Pentagon, all possible security footage which might reveal the nature of the collision of the jetliner with the building has been gathered and stored as confidential.  The original hole in the side of the building was narrower than the distance between the two engines of the airplane accused of entry, while deep in the building the continuation of the damage was witnessed by an even narrower penetration through many yards of concrete fortification, as only a missile might do.  The scene of the attack was not secured in yellow tape and preserved for the witness of material evidence.  Rather it was immediately bulldozed in order to bury the material evidence.

3.  In New York, at the WorldTradeCenter, apparently each of the twin towers was struck by a large airliner, resulting in the collapse of both structures.  However, it is unprecedented that airplane collision or fire at the temperature of burning jet fuel should cause the collapse of a steel building.  The buildings, rather than wavering right or left, fell straight to the ground as in a controlled demolition, fell at nearly the rate of fall of a free-falling object.  In fact, analysis of the debris from the collapse of the towers reveals the extensive presence of traditional and nano-thermite explosives.  As soon as the steel debris of the towers could be gathered it was loaded into ships and sent to China to be melted down.

And then there is Building 7.  Across the street from the twin towers stood Building 7, a fifty story building with a massive footprint.  Not long after the collapse of the taller towers, Building 7, untouched by any aircraft, without known threat from any terrorist, without any serious threat or apology from any person at any time,…this building fell to the ground in what could only be a controlled [long planned and long prepared] demolition, also descending at nearly the rate of fall of free falling objects.  The internet is awash with videos of this bizarre event.

Controversy legitimately surrounds the other events of 9/11.  But there is no controversy surrounding Building 7.  There is no controversy because there is nothing to be said.  For the part of the government, Building 7 goes unmentioned.  Building 7, fallen, is an emblem of the falsehood of the claims of the United States government.  When Building 7 can be explained honestly, and with it the other tragedies of 9/11, then we may begin to believe that our government expects our allegiance to be rooted in reality, not in its mythology.

In the mythology which has been generated, we are given a falsified piece of theater, a supposed attack of Muslim terrorists against the heart of our greatest city, for the contrived reason that “they hate our free way of life and they are angry at us for supporting Israel.”  By forces within our government we have been given this “Pearl Harbor” event so that we will lend our hearts to the battle against the natural enemies of the Zionist state.  But at the core of this contrivance lies the deception so deeply seated in our culture, the misrepresentation of the secular Zionist state as the heirs to God’s covenant promises to Abraham.

As subjects of the Messiah of Israel, we can not acknowledge a false mythology which rests upon a misrepresentation of the true nature of the holy people of God.  To silently acknowledge this mythology is to enable the worship of a Beast. 

Many will say that there is no evidence of any “Beast” or “statue.”  To which we must reply: If now we are able to endure and acknowledge the most outrageous distortions of the truth, if now we can so bow before this most wicked mythology which ushers death to the nations of the Muslim world, then shall we really have a problem bowing down to a caricature of power or to a cartoonish statue when such a tiny gesture might preserve our families and our lives?

We must fear the judgment of God if we see this danger in the world and fail to warn our brothers.

iv

In the first few centuries of the Christian era, during that short period before the installation of the state-sanctioned hierarchical church, followers of Yeshua greeted each other with the phrase, “Jesus is Lord.”  For them it was the core assertion that Yeshua is the anointed king of their transcendent kingdom, the long awaited Messiah of Israel, and that he is also the person of God.  Public identification with this core loyalty cost them their lives: it was an offense to Rome.  Rome needed to preserve the mythology that Israel is nothing more than a genetic group, whose leaders are bound within the sphere of Roman political power.  Rome could not tolerate the thought that Israel should be a power outside its control with a king beyond its control, a king who is also God, who holds his people to a call above the call of Roman power.

So now the resurgent Rome which rises from the ashes of history takes delight in its new rendition of the Final Solution: the apparent eradication of the Israel which is allied to Yahveh, the God of Israel, and the promotion of an Israel which is purely genetic, one of the nations, fitting comfortably within Roman global power.

The radical enthusiasm and spiritual power of New Covenant Israel, which fully survived the physical destruction of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. by Rome – this enthusiasm and power now enjoyed by the Jewish and Gentile remnant within the enduring Israel of God – this was, for the broader culture, subsumed and rendered tame by Constantine and his Roman state religion.  Constantine favored and promoted the bishops who had been traditores in the persecutions of Diocletian, bought them off with basilicas, made himself the gracious arbiter of their theological differences, and married the filthy whole to the times and practices of his national pagan religion.  Orthodoxy became but a label for compromise with the state religion.

The comfort of modern religious life within the status quo is not due to some advanced condition wherein the modern Rome is more tolerant.  The comfort of the modern religious institution is due to the fact that it has given away the core being and the core assertion of the dissenting kingdom and in its stead has settled into a faith with purely personal ramifications.

This private “iPod” sort of faith will never be an offense to Rome.  Under the modern cultural regime of Tolerance you may believe whatever fantastical thing you want to believe about Jesus or about any other imaginary God, so long as it has no implications beyond your own personal being, so long as it suggests no political imperative which might be a challenge to the authority of Rome.

But the time of the witness, the time of the martyr, is at hand.  Only a handful of nations stand in the way of the completion of globalization.  Rome will soon raise its standard, claiming authority over the whole earth. Unless we are ready to give away our humanity, it will be necessary in this time to speak the truth that Rome does not want to hear: We who belong to the Messiah of Israel are the polis of God, true children of Abraham, not one of the nations.  We are the great and eternal political imperative of Yahveh, the God of Israel, the God of all worlds.

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 Lawrence S. Jones

email: lawrencestewartjones@gmail.com