Will Yahweh give His mercy and forgiveness to the world,
to the dogs (as the Scriptures refer to them)? Yahshua Himself said in Matthew
7:6 - "Do not give what is holy to dogs, and do not throw your pearls before
swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."
Yet Yahshua did give His pearl - the kingdom - to the 2,000 year long swine
church (addressed in other writings), and He also gave what is holy to dogs.
A Canaanite woman in the district of Tyre and Sidon came to Him, asking for
His mercy and healing for her demon-possessed daughter. The disciples asked
for her to be sent away (much as Christianity is doing for the world), and
Yahshua first delayed fulfilling her request saying - "It is not good to
take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs." To which the woman replied
- "Yes, Lord, but even the dogs feed on the crumbs which fall from the master's
table" (Matthew 15:27). Yahshua then healed the Canaanite woman's daughter.
Will He then give the crumbs from the Master's table to the dogs - the world?
Yes indeed He will. He has already shown us by this miracle that He will
- "for His lovingkindness is everlasting."
We see clearly from the Scriptures Yahweh's nature to repent from the wrath
He plans for people. Four times Yahweh was going to destroy the Israelites
- once in Egypt, three times in the wilderness. Yet, each time He repented
of the evil He planned against them (Ezekiel 20:1-26, Numbers 14:11-19). Very
significantly, why specifically did Yahweh repent of His wrath against them?
In all four cases the reason was the same, bearing great light on the ways
of Yahweh - "But I acted for the sake of My name,
that it should not be
profaned in the sight of the nations" (Ezekiel 20:9, 14, 22). In Numbers
14:15-19, the basis of Moses' appeal to Yahweh gives us equal insight concerning
Him. Moses' appeal was on two points:
1. Concern for the nations - "Now if You slay this people as one
man, then the nations who have heard of Your fame will say ...."
2. An appeal to His lovingkindness - "But now, I pray, let the power of
the Lord be great, just as You have declared, 'Yahweh is slow to anger and
abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgression ....' Pardon,
I pray, the iniquity of this people according to the greatness of Your lovingkindness,
just as You also have forgiven this people, from Egypt even until now."
Yahweh's response to Moses' request is most interesting here, revealing
exactly where His qualities and concern will lead:
So Yahweh said, "I have pardoned them according to your word;
but indeed, as I live, all the earth will be filled with the glory
of Yahweh" (vss. 20-21).
This is a most unusual statement following Moses' appeal. It is an amazing
and hope filled anticipation that following Yahweh's repentance from His wrath
based upon the abundance of His lovingkindness, He would then say that "
all
the earth will be filled with the glory of Yahweh." Is it not this wonderful
and amazing quality or way of Yahweh shown for the Israelites that will indeed
prevail to all generations, in the end bringing His glory to all the earth,
to all nations, to all people? Yes indeed, with hope and great confidence
in Yahweh's lovingkindness, which Moses appealed to in the time of God's wrath,
we can know all the more that He will repent of the evil He plans in "the
great and terrible day of Yahweh." If Yahweh forgave the Israelites so many
times for His names sake, that it would not be profaned in the sight of the
nations, He will also forgive the nations and repent of the wrath He intends
for them and the earth and for Christianity. If Yahweh forgave the Israelites,
He will also forgive the nations whose boundaries, very significantly, have
been set "according to the number of the sons of Israel" (Deuteronomy 32:8).
Yes indeed He will, "for His lovingkindness is everlasting."
And is it not written, "we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ
the righteous; and He Himself is the propitiation for our sins;
and not
for ours only, but also for those of the whole world" (1 John
2:1-2)? Is it not also written - "And we have beheld and bear witness that
the Father has sent the Son to be
the Savior of the world" (1 John
4:14)? Paul concluded - "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself,
not counting their trespasses against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). And the
Savior of the world, Yahshua, declared - "For God so loved the world, that
He gave His only begotten Son .... For God did not send the Son into the
world to judge the world;
but that the world should be saved through
Him" (John 3:16-17). The same mercy that saves the believer, also saves the
world for whom Yahshua died. And it is this mercy, this complete and total
work of Yahshua, that we can likewise call upon on behalf of the world.
And if one cannot concede at this point that indeed God does not have to
carry out His plans of wrath as written, let that one consider the prophecies
of Isaiah 13 and the 110 verses of Jeremiah 50 and 51 concerning the judgment
and absolute total destruction of Babylon by the Medes. These chapters are
filled with God's clear statements that Babylon would be judged and destroyed.
For a brief example, in Jeremiah 50:3 we read - "For a nation has come up
against her out of the north (specifically the Medes - 51:11 and 28); it will
make her land an object of horror, and there will be no inhabitant in it."
In 51:2-4 we read - "And I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they
may winnow her and may devastate her land. ... So do not spare her young men;
devote all her army to destruction. And they will fall down slain in the
land of the Chaldeans, and pierced through in their streets."
One might think it almost sacrilegious to ask if these prophecies came to
pass; but the fact is -
they never did! When Darius the Mede did invade
Babylon as prophesied, he and his army diverted the Euphrates River, drying
up its bed (a prophetic type of Revelation 16:12), crossed on dry land, entered
Babylon without any resistance or bloodshed, killed only King Belshazzar,
and took Babylon as spoken that very night by Daniel. There was no bloodshed
in the streets, no pillage, no devastation of its land, and no destruction.
All the wrath Yahweh spoke concerning the judgment of Babylon
never
came to pass!
Were the prophets wrong? Were they to be stoned as false prophets? No more
wrong and no more false than was Jonah who equally spoke in behalf of a merciful
God. Yahweh, in His everlasting lovingkindness, always reserves the right
to repent of the evil He plans. Babylon came under the just rulership of the
Medo-Persian empire, was later the capital of the empire of Alexander the
Great, and existed in the time of the apostles (1 Peter 5:13). They were never
destroyed as it was written.
Once again we see Yahweh not carrying out the wrath He plans. If Yahweh
can write the chapters of Isaiah and Jeremiah concerning the judgment of
Babylon and not carry out their wrath, but fulfill them in merciful peace,
then He can write the chapters of Revelation and not carry out their wrath,
performing them equally in merciful peace. I assure you, for a wrath in which
it is written - "who can endure it?" - you who are reading this would come
under its judgment equally as well. You can rejoice that Yahweh repents of
the wrath He plans; for even as Babylon was spared in God's mercy, the great
harlot mystery Babylon Christianity will equally be spared.
So much could be written here concerning Christianity's place as mystery
Babylon. Many since the time of Martin Luther have seen and evidenced the
relevance of the Catholic church as mystery Babylon, and in part they are
right. But the fact is, Christianity whole has been mystery Babylon who has
committed harlotry with the world. The mercy Yahweh showed to Babylon, is
a foreshadowing preluding type of the mercy He will show to mystery Babylon
Christianity (read
THE ISSUE -
II, page 16).