Truth Is Fallen In The Street

The prophet Isaiah was inspired to record for us the spiritual
condition of the people of Israel.

A passage that is especially applicable to 21st century America
is found in Isaiah 59:13-15, “In transgressing and lying against
the Lord, and departing from our God, speaking oppression
and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of
falsehood. Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands
afar off; for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot
enter. So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes
himself a prey.”

Consider the issue of truth in light of the current contest for
the presidency of the United States. Each day it seems there
are more lies, denials, and attempts to hide the truth. The saga
that has unfolded with the Hillary Clinton email scandal is a
vivid illustration of what happens when one fails to tell the
truth.

Imagine how sure of a position Mrs. Clinton would be in at
present if when the news of the private email server broke, she
admitted the error and told the truth about what she did. It
would have ended the matter at that point.

Sadly, by lying about the matter, scrubbing the server,
destroying phones and seeking to obliterate the evidence it has
spurred a deeper pursuit of the matter. The process of digging
for the truth has exposed lying on many levels and jeopardized
Mrs. Clinton’s bid for the presidency.

Isaiah points out that the lack of truth among the people of
Israel had reached the point where they were speaking from
the heart when they uttered falsehoods. As lying is a standard
operating procedure, it reaches a point where the truth is no
longer important. Lying is just a means to self-protection,
self-preservation, or the accomplishment one’s selfish desire.

Who cares about the collateral damage that comes from
falsehood?

The collateral damage that stems from lying is that justice and
righteousness, which depend upon truth, are difficult to find.
Justice which should be fundamental to the legal system is not
attainable when lying is widespread. We only have to look at
the F.B.I.’s handling of the email server matter to more fully
understand what Isaiah is talking about.

When a society reaches the level of corruption described by
Isaiah, the person who tells the truth and departs from evil
makes himself a prey or target.

People tend to completely forget that God is quite aware of a
society’s condition. We are given God’s view in Isaiah 59:15-
16, “Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there
was no justice. He saw that there was no man, and wondered
that there was no intercessor; therefore His own arm brought
salvation for Him; and His own righteousness, it sustained
Him.”

God sees the falsehoods which contribute to a lack of justice
in our nation.

More importantly, God notes the sorry condition in which a
society finds itself when there is a lack of truth. God in verse
16 notes that “there was no man” who would correct this
problem. In fact, where it says that He “wondered” that there
was no intercessor, it could be translated “He was appalled”
that there was no intercessor.

This verse tells us all we need to know about the election of a
president. No matter who is elected they are not going to
correct the problem of lying. No matter how much enthusiasm
a presidential candidate inspires they do not have the power to
correct such a fundamental problem as truth failing to be a
society’s standard.

Our only hope is referred to in Isaiah 59:20-21, ““The
Redeemer will come to Zion, and to those who turn from
transgression in Jacob," says the Lord. “As for Me," says the
Lord, "this is My covenant with them: My Spirit who is upon
you, and My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not
depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your
descendants, nor from the mouth of your descendants'
descendants," says the Lord, "from this time and
forevermore."

In other words, our Redeemer will bring us to repentance,
redeem us from our sins, and God’s words—the truth—will be
in our mouth forevermore.

Happy Sabbath

Gary Smith

Bible and Sword: On the Edge of Prophecy

I am currently reading, Bible and Sword, by Barbara W. Tuchman. It is an exposition on England and its relationship to Palestine. She covers the time from the Bronze Age to the time of the Balfour Declaration which paved the way for a Jewish state. It is a most interesting discussion of how the English took an interest in that small section of the earth that we as Christians would designate the Land of Promise.

In this week’s Sabbath Thought it is my goal to note one particular section of the book which I found to be amazing. What I found to be amazing was that there was a time when a group of Englishmen sought to literally implement God’s laws, judgments and statutes on a national scale.

In Chapter VII titled, “On the Edge of Prophecy: Puritan England and the Hope of Israel”, she gives an overview of the Puritans. For most people in modern America and in England, the Puritans are seen as “the lunatic fringe.”

She states, “With the Puritans came an invasion of Hebraism transmitted through the Old Testament, but distorted by the effort to apply to post-Renaissance England the ethics, laws and manners native to a Middle Eastern people of more than two thousand years earlier. In their devotion to chapter and verse of the Hebrew testaments the Puritans, undaunted by the mental jump of two millennia, adapted to themselves the thoughts of tribal herdsmen groping their way out of idolatry toward monotheism in the time of Abraham, or of slaves triumphing over Pharaoh in the time of the Exodus, or of warriors carving the frontiers of a new state in the time of Saul and David. . . .It did not matter that it covered a period, from Abraham to Maccabaeus, of nearly a millennium and a half; the Puritans swallowed the whole with equal zeal.”

“It was not a narrative ideally suited for transplanting word for word, as principle and precedent, to seventeenth-century England. But that was what the Puritans attempted” (Bible and Sword, Barbara W. Tuchman, page 108).

In other words, she sees the Puritans taking the teachings of the Old Testament and seeking to implement them in their time. In other words, they were seeking to take the scriptures and apply them in everyday life. They were seeking to apply God’s word to the whole of England.

There is actually a specific year in which the Puritans sought to bring about implementation of this lofty goal. “For in the year 1653, with the calling of the Barebone Parliament, the “remarkablest” of the modern world according to Carlyle, the peak of Hebraism was reached. The little band of stern, impassioned men hand-picked by Cromwell convened on July 4, 1653 with the set purpose of so remaking England’s constitution as to put into actual practice Mosaic Law and the pristine principles of Jesus. On the Exchange, in the courts, in the markets, the Englishman was willy-nilly going to love his neighbor as himself. It was, says Lord Morley in his life of Cromwell, an attempt “to found a civil society on the literal words of Scripture . . .the high water mark of the biblical politics of the time.

“Cromwell himself was inspired by the move and in his opening speech to the Little Parliament he seemed almost carried away by a vision of himself bringing, like Elijah, a nation back to God. “Truly you are called by God as Judah was to rule with Him and for Him. . .You are at the edge of Promises and Prophecies, he went on, and quoted the Sixty-eighth Psalm: “There it prophesies that ‘He shall bring His people again from the depths of the Sea’ as He once led Israel through the Red Sea. And it may be, as some think, God will bring the Jews home to their station, ‘from the isles of the sea’” And he rose in eloquence, quoting psalms and prophets in every other sentence and assuring his hearers that the triumph promised by the Sixty-eighth Psalm to God’s people of old would be realized by the Commonwealth, God’s people now on earth” (Tuchman, pp. 122-123).

The author is incredulous that the Puritans could not see that the literal implementation of the ancient word of God, formed and shaped over 1500 years, was an impossibility. For her, the Bible applied in its time only, but had little or no application beyond that time. The Bible is ancient and has little modern application.

Was there any positive outcome of this zeal for God’s word among the Puritans? Matthew Arnold wrote of the impact of the Puritans and their zeal to obey the law. Their zeal he says, “left a lasting imprint on the nation.”

“Our race,” Arnold declared, “has yet (and a great part of its strength lies here)…..a strong share of the assuredness, the tenacity, the intensity of the Hebrews. This turn manifested itself in Puritanism and has had a great share in shaping our history for the last two hundred years” (Tuchman, page 113).

From her interpretation of the Puritans, I have two observations.

First, is it really so unrealistic to apply the word of God on a day to day basis? She sees such application as impossible, but is it? What would happen if a nation undertook a full implementation of the word of God? The outcome would be revolutionary as the prophet Isaiah clearly stated.

Isaiah 2:3-4, ““Many people shall come and say, "Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, and we shall walk in His paths." For out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He shall judge between the nations, and rebuke many people; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

The second observation is that England was impacted positively by the Puritan effort to implement the principles of the Bible. It was not a trend that lasted, but it paved the way for freedom, parliamentary government, liberty, the rule of law and many other positive results in the English speaking world.

The Puritans didn’t fully understand the Bible, but they did understand that God’s way of life is to apply to a nation and our individual lives. Their approach was heavy-handed at times and at times misguided, but what they hoped for will be a reality when Jesus Christ returns.

Have a happy Sabbath,

Gary Smith