Credo 2
` Unless the LORD builds the house . . . '
These opening words of Psalm 127 are the pivotal point of this Credo and have often been used by zealous disciples looking at the ruins of man's efforts to `work for God' - proving once again that the thought-pattern of our western minds has been formed over the long centuries by Greek culture which sees and understands only `what is' and calls it history. Indeed, many a respected Bible teacher has used the expression that `history is His story' when embarking on a series of ongoing events in some sort of chronological order coupled with the occasonal hiatus, flashbacks and over-lapping events. With such thinking it is but one small step to turning the Bible into a `pick and mix' story book in keeping with our cultural mind-set. Not so with the Jewish people, who revere `The Book' handed down to them by faithful scribes over long centuries. In fact there is no such word as `history' in classical Hebrew concerning the LORD's people! In their collective thinking, all - from Abraham through to the promised Messiah, David's Greater Son - are God's family, not separated by time which we call `history.

Such thoughts come to mind when listening to `country folk' talking of their families, many of whom have been in their graves for some long years, but in talking of them they are alive still in their thoughts for the memories have often been passed down orally and are part of their collective memory even though they are separated by time. Unfortunately the Jewish `memory bank' does not extend beyond the Book of Malachi, `the Seal of the Prophets', and so they still look for the Most Treasured Member of the Family, the promised Messiah, who is included in their family gatherings at every Sabbath meal. Such `Greek thinking' in the hands of western theologians over the past 2,000 years has cut the Family of God into two, particularly seen in our Christian Bibles with its Old and New Testaments. Indeed, such `butchery' has cut so deeply as to form a fault-line in the understanding in most Christian circles as the New implies that the Old is inferior. Perhaps we are all in danger of leaning too heavily on the words of the Writer to the Hebrews where it says `... Jesus has become the guarantee of a better Covenant' and so miss the point of what is being said by that Writer. The Christian Bible is one complete revelation of the purposes of God, and we who are privileged by having had the Lord Jesus revealed to us need our minds renewed to see the whole Family of God, and our place in it. For that we need to see the `completeness' of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation.

With this understanding of our `spiritual ancestry' and taking the historical time-set of Psalm 127, our thoughts were led from that point back some 300 years to the time of Solomon, and then from that same point forward 100 years to the time of Ezekiel - a total of some 400 years in the life of the Family of God, and because such `spiritual ancestry' is under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, this is as alive to us in our `Family Gatherings' as memories were for those country folk we mentioned earlier. To cut the Christian Bible into Old and New sections, using the Old as merely examples, is to rob our `Family consciousness' of the richness of God's family and to truly `bury the dead' in the vaults of past vanities. So we turn our thoughts back to Psalm 127 and to the time of King Hezekiah, for Psalm 127 is the central Psalm of a group of 15 Psalms known and entitled as `The Songs of Ascent'.

Readers will recall that they refer to the time when Hezekiah became ill and "was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz went to him and said, `This is what the LORD says: Put your house in order, because you will die; you will not recover'." As we read on in 2 Kings 20 we find Hezekiah responding with heart-felt repentance for his unbelief and trusting for his security in his own strength. Speaking through Isaiah the word of the LORD went on to say: `I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you. On the third day from now you will go up to the Temple of the LORD. I will add fifteen years to your life . . .' But Hezekiah still could not fully trust the LORD, and so he asked for a sign that God would be faithful to His word. The sign, you will recall, was "shall the shadow (of the sun dial) go forward ten steps or back ten steps", and in choosing that the shadow should go backwards he accepted at last the faithfulness of God to His word that he would be healed. Now would follow the Songs of Praise from Hezekiah, which we call the 15 Songs of Ascent, in praise of the 15 years added to the king's life. The central Psalm is Psalm 127 and you will find two Psalms ascribed to David on either side of this central Psalm, leaving ten Psalms written by King Hezekiah in remembrance of the shadow going back ten steps -penned by Hezekiah who promised "to sing his Songs all the days of his life in the Temple of the LORD". We leave the readers to grasp the significance of the numbers and their clear yet unspoken message to all who read these Psalms at `Family Gatherings'. Before we leave Psalm 127, albeit temporarily, we need to note that this central Psalm is ascribed to Solomon which, as we have said, takes us back in time some 300 years to the time when Solomon was called to build the Temple of the LORD. Being ascribed to Solomon it therefore points forward to David's Greater Son, the Messiah of Israel, whose finished work on the Cross sealed God's faithfulness to His people.

Such thoughts therefore take us back to the time when Solomon began to build the Temple of the LORD in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah where the LORD had appeared to his father David: (2 Chronicles 6:1-4).

"Then Solomon said, `The LORD has said that He would dwell in a dark cloud; I have built a magnificent Temple for You, a place for You to dwell for ever'. While the whole assembly of Israel was standing there, the king turned round and blessed them. Then he said: `Praise be to the LORD, the God of Israel, who with His hands has fulfilled what He promised with His mouth to my father David'. "

This, then, was the `collective consciousness' of Hezekiah and the people who knew what was happening in their time which caused Hezekiah to make Psalm 127 the central Psalm of the 15 Psalms of Ascent. This Psalm of Solomon - whose name was also Jedidiah, with a meaning of `beloved one', a beloved son given to David because he was beloved of God just as surely as David's Greater Son, the Messiah Jesus - was given to Israel because of God's love for His Beloved. At this time Hezekiah was childless, but he knew that through the kingly line would come the promised Messiah, and in turning in repentance from his unbelief he spoke through this central Psalm ascribed to Solomon of the certainty of a coming son who would continue the kingly line. In such a way as this is revealed the collective consciousness of the people of Israel where there are no living or dead but only the Family of God, kept by the faithfulness of the LORD. From here we can move forward some 100 years to the time of Ezekiel - a very short time in the collective memory of the Family of God. Much has now changed, but still deeply embedded in Israel's thoughts, emotions and national memory is the knowledge of the LORD's faithfulness, for that is the purpose of memory, of collective consciousness, and it must logically lead to a deep-seated knowledge of the Source of that knowledge!

First we take a look at the Book of Ezekiel. Its setting is not strictly chronological for certain of the words spoken and visions seen are set in order of importance according to the purpose of the LORD God of Israel, but for the purpose of our thoughts in this Credo it is noted that there are 13 dated years in the Book, which number in itself speaks of rebellion (one more than the perfect order of God). These 13 dated years cover a period of 21 years (a total of 3 x 7) and the dates when arranged chronologically show 7 as the central date with 6 dated years on either side. It is this 7th dated year that concerns us in this Credo and it is recorded in chapter 20 of Ezekiel. Enough of numbers, but they speak their own message to those who would learn from the Word of God. The chapter opens up with the elders in captivity in Babylon coming to enquire of the LORD. False reports about a speedy return from captivity had come to them and they gathered to hear the LORD's response and six times they were to hear His reproof: (v 32-33)

" You say, ` We want to be like the nations, like the peoples of the world, who serve wood and stone'. But what you have in mind will never happen. As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign LORD, I will rule over you with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm and with outpoured wrath'. "

The following `I wills' speak clearly of the end of the captivity and a regathering into the Land through the hostility of the nations, to whom they had turned for their protection with the promise that: "I will take note of you as you pass under My staff and I will bring you into the Land of the Covenant". There is here a direct link to the Law given to the Israelites and is seen in the Book of Leviticus, which gives understanding as to what was being said in the reproofs of the LORD for it speaks of tithing and redemption: (27:32-33)

" The entire tithe of the herd and flock - every tenth animal that passes under the shepherd's rod - will be holy to the LORD. He must not pick out the good from the bad or make any substitution. If he does make a substitution, both the animal and the substitute become holy and cannot be redeemed (that is, its path is firmly determined). "

We need not dwell on the obvious implication in these verses. It is sufficient to say that the passing `under My staff' tells of disastrous consequences for many. We have set out briefly three examples from Scripture of the LORD's dealings with His people, but as we have shown these are not isolated examples as our Greek-thinking minds would have it for they are a part of the total wholeness of Israel's collective consciousness, its `family memory', fully understood as such at all national `family gatherings' to hear the Word of the LORD.

There is, however, a clear link in these three examples which will please our `Greek minds' for all three concern sons or children and therefore speak of another generation other than those contained in the examples. First with Solomon: We have noted in earlier Credos that the Book of Ecclesiastes - ascribed by all serious scholars to be concerning Solomon - opens with the words `The words of the Preacher, the son of David king of Jerusalem'. The name `Preacher' comes from the Latin Vulgate's version of the Bible whereas the Hebrew word is `Koheleth', meaning `an Assembler or Convenor'. The Chaldean Targun (that is, Jewish writings) says:

" These are the words of the prophecy which Koheleth delivered when Solomon foresaw by the Spirit of Prophecy that the kingdom of Rehoboam his son would be divided by Jeroboam the son of Nebat. "

Solomon saw here what we would call a paradox - that the kingdom entrusted to him by the LORD, spoken of in a `promise to your servant David, my father' by the Spirit of Prophecy - would be rent in two at his death! His trust was in that promise spoken to David his father: (2 Samuel 7:12-13)

" When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom He is the one who will build a House for My Name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever. "

Solomon knew the LORD God of Israel and trusted in His Faithfulness to outwork His promise, and from that trust would come Psalm 127, Solomon's `Song of Trust:
" Except the LORD build the house, they labour in vain . . . . "
A child would be born beyond the time of the rebellion of Jereboam and the throne would be secure in the hands of the LORD. Hezekiah, at the time of his sickness unto death, was childless, and Isaiah was sent to him with the message of a promise of a son but . . . . `they will be taken away and they will become eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon'. But in his distress he remembers the LORD's promise to David, sings His praise and places Solomon's Song of Praise at the centre of his Songs of Ascent. Now, some 100 years later Ezekiel, himself a captive in Babylon, speaking of terrible visons and harsh words given to him by the LORD to the people of Jerusalem, speaks of a gathering of the people of Israel out of the countries where God had scattered them to pass under His rod in order to bring them into "the bond (the binding obligation of the LORD) of the Covenant". All three - Solomon, Hezekiah and Ezekiel - spoke of seemingly impossible situations, but all three spoke also of the certainty of the LORD's providence for their trust in the LORD came from knowledge of the LORD. Time, as we know it, separated these three, but the nation's collective consciousness, when brought into a `Family setting', became a living experience.

Leaving the Scriptures at this point is not to separate ourselves from Scripture but to widen it into contemporary events. We could call it a `seasoning' of current affairs, a literal meeting of Scriptural thought with contemporary events, but even with these thoughts we give grounds once again to Greek thinking which always seeks to separate `the sacred from the profane'. Israel lived, and still lives, as a people separated by God in a wider world, yet their national collective consciousness extends only to the `sacred'. Without wishing to offend our readers there are, to our understanding, only two other `separated people' who have this `national' collective consciousness whilst fully living in this world. The (Roman) Catholic Church has its central core of belief that they alone, under the headship of the Roman Pontiff, are the people of God, the New Israel. They are secure in their belief that eventually all other `Christian groups' will be drawn into the fold of the Universal Church of God in order to reveal the Glory of God to an unbelieving world. Meanwhile the Protestant branch of the Church, rent asunder by schisms and sectarianism and shot through with individualism, lacks this collective knowledge of their calling and have slipped into social work in the world and attacking `error' in the Church. The second people, the people of Islam, in spite of their sectarianism, which is far more violent than that of the historical Christian Church, `know' that eventually the whole world will become the Umma, `the Community of the Faithful'. At the heart of this religion is the `knowledge' that all will become Da al Islam - the Society of Submission to the Will of God' - shortened in common parlance to Islam.

Such thinking now brings us to the heart of the paranoia of western countries. There are earnest people seeking to understand the terrorist threat of Islam, not only as an exterior threat - such as might come from a traditional enemy - but an interior threat coming from those who at first gladly accepted the hospitality and benefits of a tolerant society but who now want to change it into a society similar to the one from which they once fled, or at the very least left in order to find a more comfortable life free from the restrictions of Islamic law! Coupled to this is the rising awareness that this aggressive restlessness is coming increasingly from first and second generation immigrants. Concerned groups of people point to the ghetto mentality of these immigrants and their disadvantaged lives springing from poor educational opportunities, and so officialdom rushes to find ways of opening the doors of those communities by embarking on a programme of integration, causing much distress in many established organs of the State with the cries of `institutional racism'. More recently there has emerged a new concern that the radical cries of Islam spring not from the disadvantaged but from well-educated people who are well-integrated into the professions, `enjoying' a life-style which those earlier immigrants could not imagine. Clearly integration and institutional racism is not a problem with these disgruntled young people!

At the heart of this paradox lurks a total disatisfaction with the leaders of the British Umma, `the Community of the Faithful'. In the main, these `Communities' are dominated by elders - often original immigrants who want to cling to the old ways of their past. They control the mosques by appointing elders in sympathy with their origins and generally control the social and religious lives of their communities, even to the extent of appointing imans (teachers) who speak no English and have no contact with western liberal culture. Added to this they see `their' Government at war with other parts of `the Community of the Faithful' throughout the world and its constant association of their religious belief with terrorism. Their answer is to seek a `purified' Islam, bypassing their elders who seek only to remain undisturbed in their community ghettos, assimilated and enjoying the benefits of western nations who are engaged in a war with the wider Umma, the Community of the Faithful. However, rejecting their elder's authority and seeking a purer form of Islam leads them into direct conflict with western cultures and into the fulness of the violence of Islam, for in their religious belief there is only the Land of Peace (submission to Islam) or the Land of War (rejection of Islam). Once embarked upon such a journey it can only lead to violence for there can be no assimilation, no living at peace with other religions - for them there is only the Land of Islam or the Land of War!

Let us turn now to the nation of Israel, set in their protected status within the western nations yet set in a geographically hostile area. Through the recent `34 day war' a huge shock has come to the people of that land. Secure in their belief of being the people of God, with visionary leadership and an undefeated IDF the nation went to war, and to quote from a recent article:

" They (the Hezbollah) surprised us this summer with our own weakness. They surprised us with ourselves. They surprised us with the low level of national leadership. They surprised us with scandalous strategic bumbling. They surprised us with the lack of vision, lack of creativity and lack of determination on the part of the senior military command. They surprised us with faulty intelligence and a delusionary logistical network and improper preparedness for war. They surprised us with the fact that the Israeli war machine is not what it once was. While we were celebrating it became rusty . . . . . Any national idea was rejected because of the sanctity of the private sphere. Every cooperative ethos was dismantled in favour of the individual. Power was indentified with facism. Masculinity was publicly condemned. The pursuit of absolute justice was mixed with the pursuit of absolute pleasure and turned the reigning discourse from a discourse of commitment and enlistment to one of protest and pampering . . . . The Israeli elites of the past 20 years have become totally divorced from reality. The capital, the media and the academic world of the 1990s and the first decade of the 21st century have blinded Israel and deprived it of its spirit. Their repeated illusions regarding the historical reality in which the Jewish state finds itself, caused Israel to make a navigational error and to lose its way. Their unending attacks, both direct and indirect, on nationalism, on militarism and on the Zionist narrative have eaten away from the inside at the tree trunk of Israeli existence, and sucked away its life-force. "

Yet in the midst of this despair there is an increasing desire amongst Diaspora Jews to make Aliya, to return to their roots which, they believe, are in the Land of Israel, whilst within the people of Israel we shall find an increasing rejection of their trust in their elders who led them into what was clearly a national psychological defeat!

Let us briefly look at the third group of `separated people', the Church. Surely enough has been written exposing `this and that' - indeed, a whole new `ministry' has appeared within the Body of Christ (and that not only in the Protestant branch). But whatever title is given to this `ministry', the word condemnation could well be a good blanket one. But countless numbers have left the established churches - whether they are truly born of the Spirit of God is not our concern in this Credo - and countless more true believers have left their fellowships and churches, disillusioned with the `life' that has come through unscriptural doctrines being expounded by their leaders. The western Church, long assimilated into the prevailing culture and well integrated into its Christian/Judaeo heritage, has increasingly become the `social arm' of the State. Compromise with western moral relativism has caused it to, at the very least, accept unscriptural practices and life-styles, and this will only increase and threaten its active existence through financial pressure and civil actions being brought against `State Dissidents'. Many `ministries' have issued calls to restore or reinstate our Christian/Judaeo heritage into our civil society, a heritage one such ministry called `our proud heritage'. We wonder whether such ministries have ever read such `English classics' as Charles Dickens or Charles Kingsley or can recall a more contemporary `heritage' seen in TV articles of the 1970s (only some 30 years ago!) such as `Cathy Come Home', or have read a recent Book Revue of life in Great Britain in the 1930s where half the children of the country enjoyed their `heritage' without shoes or even the hope of any throughout their young lives.

Such leaders are surely little different to the others seen in the first two examples, for they preach a message of maintaining the status quo (which led many to the point of protest in the first place). However we are not intending in this Credo to embark upon a moral crusade but seek to point to the Scriptural examples seen in the times of Solomon, Hezekiah and Ezekiel where national or community leaders had come to the realisation that their work was crumbling away into ruin and yet there was a clear understanding of the faithfulness of God to complete His finished work through a new generation. In our contemporary times, we see in Islam, Israel and the Church the same trend of a disillusioned new generation of people seeking to find their fulfilment through a return to a purified form of their own particular religion - that of a separated people living in a hostile world, hostile because that secular world knows that their intention is to change it. Which brings us to a new word much bandied about by the media and those earnest people who seek an end to the ongoing crisis. The word `multiculturism' is now under the spotlight as being the cause of unrest in the western nations. Indeed, one Christian ministry has gone so far as to call it unscriptural and `an abomination to God', calling for a return to the Ten Commandments which "every religion in Britain would honour . . . if we had a Government that honoured them as a common basis for our nation". Such is the confusion in our Christian leaders' thinking!

We would refute the comment that multiculturism is an abomination to God for it is entirely Scriptural, if we are to believe the words of Paul the Apostle. Paul continually wrote to the Church in Corinth, in Ephesus, in Galatia. Never once did he write to the Church of Corinth, for the brethren were those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy in Corinth, a people separated for service. James, wrote to the twelve tribes scattered amongst the nations and Peter wrote to God's elect, strangers in the world. The Holy Spirit calls His people out of the world: ` . . . a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God that you may declare the praises of Him Who called you out of darkness into His wonderful life . .' Our heritage is not to be found in the kingdoms of this world. Those first apostles knew it and under the anointing of the Holy Spirit they wrote of it for those who would follow on. Such is the depth of the integration of the western churches into the kingdoms of this world that our leaders have lost sight of a Separated People, aliens and strangers in the world, to enable us to proclaim the Kingdom of God to those who dwell in the darkness of our `Christian/Judaeo heritage'.

However, we would draw this Credo to a meaningful conclusion, which brings us back to Psalm 127, the central Psalm in the collection of the 15 Psalms of Ascent. It is placed in the Fifth Book of Psalms, which corresponds to the principle seen in the Fifth Book of Torah, the Book of Deuteronomy. Here Moses spoke `to all Israel in the desert east of the Jordan'. Moses spoke those words `in the fourtieth year on the first day of the eleventh month' and they were a recitation of all that had occurred during those fourty years:

" Where your fathers tested Me and tried Me and for fourty years saw what I did. That is why I was angry with that generation . . . So I declared an oath in My anger that they shall never enter My rest. "

These were the words of the LORD to a new generation who were about to cross over the Jordan, under the leadership of Joshua and Caleb, into the inheritance promised them by the LORD. Therefore Psalm 127, placed in the Fifth Book of Psalms, in its contextual setting was speaking in Hezekiah's time to a new generation who saw what unbelief had led to. They understood from the Songs of Ascent, written and compiled by Hezekiah, of God's faithfulness to His Word that He alone would build what He had promised and what He built He would protect and provide for. All else would eventually fail, as Hezekiah had come to see at last! The central message in this collection of Psalms and in the words of the Fifth Book of Psalms is one of total trust in God . . all that human hands build is in vain . . all that human hands defend will fail . . all that human hands work for is as dust! This Psalm, in being ascribed to Solomon, points forward to David's Greater Son, the Messiah of Israel, Whose finished work on the Cross seals God's faithfulness to His people.

Surely what we are seeing here is a stirring in the hearts of a new generation of the beginnings of a new move of God. We can look back and be concerned at the outworking of this . . young Muslims seeking to destroy the vehicle which has ensnared their religion in the West . . young Israelis, in disgust at their leaders' compromise with western nations' patronage bullying them into a false security . . within the Church a `new generation', new in spirit, not necessarily in the flesh, tired of condemnatory ministries, are seeking a return to the purity of the Word (free from the corruption of assimilation) that will speak clearly of the Kingdom of God. Such a world-wide movement of the Holy Spirit occurred in the 1960s. Not all responded in the way we would have hoped and many Church leaders with blinkered eyes sought only to revive their own denominations. We need to look beyond our narrow vision to where Christ Jesus is seated in His finished work and seek understanding of what He is doing in the circumstances of today's world affairs. Such was the understanding of Solomon, faced with a paradox . . such was the trust of Hezekiah, childless but with a promise . . such was the trust of Ezekiel, called to speak of the coming destruction of Jerusalem and captivity for his people, yet resolute in his knowledge of God's faithfulness to His Word. And such understanding, trust and certainty is the hallmark of those who stand and wait for the Holy Spirit to outwork the Lord's purposes as we approach the end of this Fourty-year Probation!

We recall some 15 years ago standing in a place which had seen a mighty move of the Holy Spirit in revival and evangelism some years earlier, but we stood in dismay at what we saw there just a few years later. We felt impressed upon our minds the words, `Forget the Saul's; go and look for the David's'. We stood again in that same place in the summer of 2006 and could have been even more despairing at notices inviting us to use their tearooms for `tea and food to the sound of chilled-out Gospel music', if we had not drawn upon our `collective consciousness' and remembered the words `. . . look for the David's' - who was anointed even whilst Saul was king. It is such despair that is causing educated young Muslims, `aliens and strangers' in the western world, to destroy `the vehicle of integration' and so purify their religion. It is such despair that is found in educated Israelis, who for far too long have been led into the belief that the mighty Israeli Defense Force is the source of their strength and survival, who are increasingly turning to Judaism in their bewilderment over the country's recent `psychological defeat' in Lebanon. It is the same despair that will see the Holy Spirit bring forth His `Davids', a new generation who will proclaim the Kingdom of God in all its power and glory! `This is that' which we are waiting for with the same understanding and trust and certainty as those faithful men of God we have set out as our examples from Scripture!

We have often used an expression, that it is of little value looking at the full bloom of a flower for at that point it is already in the process of dying. We should be looking instead at the seed which lies at the heart of that beautiful but dying bloom, for in that seed lies all the promise of another glorious flowering. The `Davids' have already been formed for they are embedded in The Seed, and our understanding, trust and certainty is that the Holy Spirit will bring forth a new generation who will be faithful to His Word: (Psalm 127:3-5)
" Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
children are a reward from Him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man who has his quiver full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate. "
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