Going Up to Zion — Art Katz

The Hebraic Faith and the Mystery of Zion

So this is an attempt to draw from a source here that will give us Something of the mentality the Hebraic Tent of Shem the Intrinsic elements that compose the distinctive faith of Israel lost to present-day Jewry But will be restored and will be a millennial glory when it shall be Fulfilled at the end of the age so I'm really so impressed with the way this scholar And his study of the Psalms has called out some of the distinctive elements that constitute the Hebraic Mindset or the Hebraic spirit.

And so the word Hebraic is much more than just the designation of something generic or racial. It's a spiritual reality it's ultimate spiritual reality and It was once Israel's distinction and needs again To be ours and has been lost to us so Lord grant grace as we review this and Bring to our attention what you will from this he talks about finding in the Old Testament Psalms Something of this distinctive that celebrates the God of Israel and that Yahweh Shabbatot the Lord of hosts Is present in the sanctuary in Jerusalem.

Zion is the place of God's presence. Zion is a mystery word. I don't even know that it's Hebrew. And it's interesting that it's located in the Jebusite stronghold. It was the last stronghold of the enemy of the enemies of Israel.

All that was Canaanite all that was pagan was caught up in this final stronghold that mocked and dared anyone to take it. I forgot the name of the general who volunteered to go up and to take it and became the seat of David's Reign in the Davidic government the city of David the hill of Zion, but the fact that it was a Canaanite stronghold Indicates the powers of darkness celebrating that place above any other and thinking themselves indomitable and Give me another word Undefeatable so that it was taken By a man whose name I've forgotten now one of the generals whose name has to do with the father satisfying the father That is altogether significant.

Anybody know the name of that general Abner is it Abner? Bob is father probably Glorifying the father as the incentive to go against great odds and yet to succeed so It's interesting that CEO Austin Sparks who is a Source of great blessing to us has written a booklet on Zion something the mystery of Zion that completely excludes any reference to the things that we're going to set forth today and Tries to understand that mystery word in the context of a kind of spiritualized faith Removed from its Hebraic roots.

Well, he's an Englishman after all and that may well explain it but what he writes is Significant, but I think that the ultimate understanding of the mystery of Zion has got to go back to its very origin and what it meant to Israel as the very center of its faith.

Israel's Pilgrimage to the Presence of God

So there was an annual pilgrimage to Zion three great feasts That required God's people to go up. Anyone who's gone to Jerusalem knows. It's a going up and it's a tortuous going up. It's not an easy ascent it's quite a demand both physically and spiritually and Yet it was the heart of their relationship with the Lord who?

Whose presence they expected to find at Zion and would make their whole pilgrimage worthwhile. He writes it is not the imminent holiness for the magic Saturation with the numinous that these prayerful people seek.

It's not some magical pseudo-spiritual Something that flesh can conjure. They enter into a meeting with the majestic person of Yahweh. The mystery of the City of God is this wonderful occasion. Yahweh is in the midst of her.

Psalm 46 verse 5. Therefore Zion is a fountain of life. Psalm 36 9 he's deriving all of his Understanding from what is deposited in the Psalms of the celebration of Zion as the place where Israel meets with her God.

And of course if you meet with your God, that's the fountain of life. It's the refreshing that you can go back to the place where you were and carry that blessing and encouragement and renewing with you.

The sanctuary lies in an eternal radiance. Here shalom peace reigns according to the fullness of the word under the shadow of the wings of Yahweh. Yahweh Y a w e a e h is an optional pronunciation of something that no one knows for sure how the famous Tetragamaton the four consonants yod he vav he should be pronounced to be Jehovah Jehovah Yahweh and other optional renderings, but I like the Yahweh Seems very much to touch the sense of that name.

Yahweh is present when the ark is brought through the gates of the sanctuary. Remembrance is made of the first historical events. It was David who liberated the ark from its emergency quarters and brought it to Jerusalem.

Reminiscences of the late great central sanctuary of pre-davidic times of Shiloh are heard in the cultic name Yahweh Shabbat. The Lord sometimes since they will not say Yahweh or pronounce the name they'll say Adonai the Lord.

Shabbat the captain of the host Is present when the ark is brought up. Thus the entry of the ark recalls the basic event that brings home to the present the cultic legend of Jerusalem that is attached to the shrine of the ark.

Which Yahweh chose as his habitation and as his resting place. This basic event is the foundation and the center of the present worship. So there's a whole history and a tradition of the bringing up of the ark of the Lord.

Which is the presence of God by David into Jerusalem remember how he danced and how he scandalized his wife. That his behavior was undignified as a king. So in coming up to Zion for these pilgrimages, there's a rehearsal of all that preceded there's a reacquaintance with the history of Israel itself.

Going even through his pilgrim wanderings in the wilderness and out of bondage the Lord opening the way through the Red Sea. And the law at Zion and then establishing his habitation in Zion. They have to enter.

There was something called the gates of righteousness. In Hebrew shari sadaq word sadaq is righteous and The ark itself is taken out and paraded and brought through again on these great and solemn occasions.

Who may ascend the hill of the Lord who may stand in his holy place? These are the Psalms that are read as the ark of God is lifted up and moved in the sight of all of the Pilgrim worshipers who have come up to Zion to be restored in their relationship with the Lord whose presence is actually to be found there.

Where he dwells that is his habitation for us. That's poetry for them. It was literal fact where there's no understanding of the sacrifice required except the incentive that in the going up they would be Touched again and united again with the sense of their God who dwells in this particular place.

We know he's on the present. And yet at the same time there is a particular sense of himself Reserved for those who will make the pilgrimage and in making the pilgrimage they are renewed in the historic Understanding of what the ark itself represents and where God has been pleased with the positive.

And this is central to the whole identity of Israel as Israel. And that this God is a God of justice and righteousness and worship in the Old Testament is Not a magical renewal no dramatically engineered Performance.

But an encounter with the Lord of all of life that precious He's making sure that we don't Misconstrue this as if this is some theatrical thing that Jews are themselves performing to give them a high Which would be more descriptive of our charismatic experience.

No. This is an authentic solemn God ordained Encounter with him who is the God of all of life. He who enters the place of the presence of Yahweh confronts the Lord of all life. And we need that renewal of who the Lord is and in that sacred and solemn place or by process of erosion and Attrition just by the forces in the world that impinge against the faith and threaten it.

God would necessarily become Trivialized if there's not a place of meeting a place of Union a place where he waits to be Found again as the Lord of life and who is the Lord of justice and righteousness holiness.

God will necessarily Become diminished in our own understanding and comprehension celebration so that he himself become trivialized. If he becomes trivialized in those who purport to believe and are sincere in the belief.

The Church's Loss of the Sense of God's Holiness

What shall we hope for in the world? So to maintain an acute sense of God as God is central to the whole of Israel celebration of God. This isn't just Ceremony, this isn't just religious Play, this is the more a significant renewal.

For the world's sake and for the nation's sake that those who are brought again in the contact with the life of God at Zion Will make him known as he in fact is and not as men think him to be. Would to God that we have something like this Correspondingly in our Christian life and maybe for the want of it.

God in fact is trivialized in our Christianity. We need to wince every Easter with the Easter eggs and the bunnies and the Christmas trees and all the kinds of things That are threatening to swallow up This sense of God Given at Zion to this people as did the very heart and the distinctive of their life.

Into which we who were far off without God or without hope of the world have been brought. We who are in the pagan world and reveling in in orgies and pagan celebrations and sacrifices to Beasts have been brought nigh by the blood of Messiah.

Think on that Into the Commonwealth of Israel. It's not just a political structure into this framework of understanding and of reality itself. In fact, I would not exaggerate to say this is reality. This is the touchstone this is the the nexus of very reality itself for reality is God and Any deviation from him is unreality.

So here's a place of renewing and here's a place into which those who are far off and without God have been invited and brought by the blood of their Messiah. The pathetic and the unhappy thing is that those who are far off and have been brought nigh Have themselves lost the sense of that privilege that distinction and that grace.

It's a mystery Paul said now being revealed that that's the Gentiles shall have be one with Israel in the household of God and be made one new man. It's a remarkable framework but if we don't appreciate that and that appreciation needs to be kindled anew or it will diminish and Diminish to the point that we forget that we were brought into an already existing body not all Israel rejected Messiah they were faithful ones who expected him and received him as being the very fulfillment of their faith and Continued and kept that messianic and biblical faith alive into which you were brought into an existing body.

So the church has lost that sense. Maybe it's another habit and has become an autonomous and independent entity. Without any recognition of that connectedness and for which reason it itself has suffered and suffered great loss.

I believe that More than any other factor this will explain where the church in Japan is a trifle less than 1 after generations of missionary effort Constitute the church in Japan. You'll not find the congregation as a rule of over 30 people and it's dormant stultifying.

Fixed it has a certain Limitation because all it is is the replication of what was brought to it by Western missionaries who themselves did not have this conscious. I have a book called white man's the white man's gospel written by an Indian Christian.

He's that one of the leaders of the the work to the Indians with the Christian missionary alliance. He spoke here at one time and his book repeats what he shared with us. He said the reason that after a life of involvement with my own Indian people seeing how difficult it is to win them to the gospel and those that are all one often fall away.

So quickly very few retain the faith. I'm persuaded after all these years to say that the heart of what is wrong. Is that we have not communicated in the gospel the issue of Israel and the centrality of the Jew and the faith into which?

The Gentiles have been brought they have received a truncated Gentile eyes Version of the gospel that somehow does not enable them to be sustained. I don't want to get romantic and fanciful, but we know the propensity of Indians for alcohol.

Which may be the up for sight of the coin that says they have a capacity for spirituality. Of an uncommon kind and if that is not met in a significant way, they're going to find deviant ways to fulfill it.

So We're being called back to something that has been neglected and I think that's on time. In the domain of the sanctuary the pilgrim is surrounded by the indescribable glory of Zion that is celebrated in hymns and poems.

Like the high heavens in psalm 78 is the sanctuary built the perfection of beauty the joy of all the earth. What seems to us to be poetic and fanciful language is just nuts-and-bolts. Statements of those who are experiencing something at Zion.

That is the joy of all the earth. They experienced it as a joy for us. It has become a kind of fanciful language in poetry for them. It was a graphic description of the reality to be found in the place that God had reserved for himself as the place of his dwelling.

It is the joy of all the earth. Yahweh is in the midst of her and that is the secret and the wonder of the unearthly splendor and inviolability of Zion this it's the epicenter of Israel's whole Distinction and life and meaning and being so praise and glorification are in the last analysis always applied to Yahweh or Jehovah himself on Zion the festival congregation pays homage to the presence of God on him the highest God the king the creator and the judge of the World is this honor bestowed.

We talked here already that we've lost the sense of God as creator which was alive in their consciousness because there was a rehearsal of the entire faith of Israel and That to the degree that we have lost the sense of God as creator.

We have lost the sense of God as king. He's king by virtue of being creator. He's the Lord of of what he has created. He has the right to govern and rule because it's his creation. But if you lose the foundation you lose the rulership and then God himself is diminished.

So all of these things are revived renewed in the comprehension and the experience of those who make the pilgrimage and come up to Zion. That's in the wisdom of God to require it three times of the year.

God's Manifest Presence and the Call to Renewal

So in powerful descriptions the phenomenon of a consuming fire announces his appearance lightning and thunder. Accompanying the radiant advance of God his face flashes the worshiping congregation praise shine forth from.

Expressed in Psalm Psalm 80 94 they plead let thy face shine. And also the individual prayer calls out arise awake awaits an overpowering self-manifestation of the God of Israel. They're expecting something they call for something they get something they get an overpowering sense of the God of Israel.

Lest they fall into kind of a religious mentality and continue to perform perfunctory Services because they were required but they lost the sense of the God who is honored by those Observances that needs to be renewed by every going up.

You can see the spiritual application of this for them a physical ascent for us a spiritual ascent. And of course the the pathetic thing is that modern-day Jews have lost this entire sense of their own history and The church has not been in the place to remind them.

Maybe again, which we're repeating ourselves. This is what will move them to jealousy that we who were not used by birth have a greater sense of the uniqueness of their God and his holiness in his Character and his presence and his sense of himself that we know by the Spirit seeing that our sins have been forgiven and the blood has washed us that we have an Atonement at one mint with God the Father and we can communicate through that reality that which has been lost to them for the very reason of the forsaking of the salvation of God and That they would be jealous to consider what they have rejected.

Paul says they are the enemies of the gospel. They are so blinded in their rejection because of how has it been brought to them? I'm just reading the manuscript of a book by David Barron that chronicles Something of the horrors that Jews have had to face through the centuries in Christian lands and every Easter season and every plague and every Thing for which Jews could be blamed wholesale I mean wholesale slaughter entire communities dying at their own end through suicide.

Rather than face the alternative of that be baptized or die. They'd rather die Than to be baptized into this gentilic thing that has been forced upon them at the point of the sword. How could that be have anything to do with the God of Israel?

So we see in Paul as the Apostle who communicates the sense of God who entreats the Gentiles. I Appealed to you. I entreat you never at the point point of threat or force. There's a gentleness that is characteristic of God that Jews have not seen Historically by those who are trying to compel them to the faith at the threat of the loss of their life.

If that is that the alternative will take the loss of life. Thank you, and we'll call that loss of life Kiddush Hashem sanctifying the name. Then that the God of our fathers is more sanctified and revered by our suicide wiping out our own children and wives then by submitting to the mob and He just documents that in every nation England that the wholesale course.

It's a trophy to kill Jews and to obtain their possessions so. The motivation for enraged mobs who are nominal Christians who have not the Spirit of God is so inflammatory that it recurs again and again and again the whole history of Israel is steeped in blood and Associated with a name that has been so poisoned and corrupted that they'll not consider it.

My mother could not speak it. I could not speak it 38 years ago. I required a grace from God to call upon the name of the Lord. The only way I had ever spoken Jesus was as a curse word. And now I'm called to honor and revere that name.

But there's no other name given on the heaven and earth whereby a man may be saved if God did not give me the grace. That morning on May 26 1964 I'd not be here. No, but a grace actually was given To get that name out.

So poisoned and corrupted was I by all of this history, which I did not know in measure as I know it now. But the sense of it is in the air the Jews breathe and as I say taking it from their mother's milk so that the name Satan has done a Colossal job and so corrupting that name because he knows if we don't know well enough that there's no other name given Whereby a man may be saved and so in order to keep Jews from that calling that name has suffered Remarkable atrocity at the hands of supposed Christians now for an unbelieving Jew.

Any Gentile who's not a Muslim is a Christian and these knights and Crusaders who locked them up in the synagogues? Where they were burned to death had crosses on their chests and when they destroyed them in Jerusalem.

That the legend is that they went around the walls of the burning synagogue singing something about adoring Jesus so that's fixed in the history and consciousness and memory of this people and Provides for us what concern a remarkable obstacle That only the grace of God the power of the spirit can overcome so the the hymns that honor the God of Israel as highest God King creator and judge of the world and The titles bespeak the majestic greatness of his power.

Yahweh alone is El yom el kol haaretz The most high over all the earth. The God of Israel is not a provincial deity. He's not a tribal God. He's the God of all the earth and the sense of the breadth and majesty of that God is Renewed and found again in every pilgrimage to Zion.

His throne is established from eternity. That means if Jews are suffering mishap and Opposition it's not because God is ignorant of it. It's a statement of something that has to come probably the consequence of our sin because he's enthroned in the heavens forever.

There's that sense of God's majesty, which is of course lost To Jews today and therefore they can blame the Germans. They can blame Arafat. They can blame the PLO. They blame the visible Human thing before them not recognizing that there's a God enthroned in the heavens for whom These are only his instrument and his rod.

The worshiping congregation pays homage to him with the shout Adonai melech Yahweh is King and Acknowledges the universal power of the God King whose splendor fills the whole world. But the one who is God most high and King is at the same time the creator.

He has overcome the powers of chaos and Has given stability to the earth in wondrous order and conformity to law he has permeated all of creation. Also the heavenly sphere in the constellation of the work of his hands the acts of creation is the basis of God's world's dominion.

Where does this German scholar get all of this out from the testimony of the Hebrew scriptures themselves out from the Psalms? Cold out from the whole remarkable depository that the Psalms are Celebrating this God as created as King as the ruler of all the earth the enthroned one.

Where shall we get that sense who have neither never had it? Or have lost it in the same place where he got it in the Psalms in that remarkable literature that celebrates God as God and Finally the king and creators also the judge as enthroned in Heavenly height above the people's and judges the nation's in all these perfections of power so clearly expressed.

Here the worshiping community Pays homage and glorifies the God of Israel enthroned on Zion. I wrote here little note what Gentile Christian of even the most celebrated kind Has the faintest intimation of this Semitic glory?

Intrinsic to all Israel and to those who are in identification with her. Who has the sense of God enthroned on Zion? Who's the judge of all the earth and the nations and who is King by virtue of being creator and Is enthroned on Zion?

How many Christians and leading Christians have this sense and communicate it not perhaps necessarily is the direct message? But whatever the message Something of the tremor of this ought to be insinuated ought to be expressed with every expression.

It's something like preaching Christ. Does preaching Christ mean that he necessarily has to be the explicit subject of every preaching? Or is it that whatever the subject even the subject of Israel and the restoration of Israel is at the same time a preaching?

Of Christ a bringing of the Substance the ethos the spirit the nature of the sense of himself into every proclamation. And I'm saying if that's true, this can be true also and the fact that it's not true has robbed us.

Who here who sit in those congregations and you on? Something of the majesty in the sense of God is God that was central to Israel's whole identity has been lost. It needs to be returned to Zion or an entering of that tent to find the sense of God and to communicate it.

Not only not to Jews, but to the world itself. There is not enough regard for the mystery of Yahweh. Which is everywhere attested everywhere in the Psalms is the statement of this German scholar? With which I certainly agree.

The Davidic King and the Church's Regard for Israel

So that's where God places his king. I have set you upon the hill of Zion at the right hand of Yahweh as the unimpeachable anointed of the God of Israel and From from whom and out from where the law shall go forth and the word of the Lord Out of Jerusalem to all nations that they study war no more God stands in unshakable faithfulness to this covenant and will establish it.

This is the faith of Israel and it should be the church's expectation and Expectancy also so this chosen king of the lineage of David occupies a key position in the worship of Jerusalem as Lord of the temple and as the anointed one he assumes a mediating function.

He's the instrument of Yahweh's rule and judgment of his hope and salvation. It's talking here about King David the literal physical King David. Who is the prototype of the Jesus to come who is also a son of David?

And will be a ruler from that same throne. The king himself is a model and a statement of God so the Psalms Have profuse expression of the glory of the anointed one of Yahweh. Even when the significant significance of a nation that is shrinking does not keep this Sense of him and the knowledge that they will rule will issue from the throne of David.

There's something here. I'm wanting to get up the congregation of Israel surrounds David as king with a sense of respect and esteem. Even though The profess expressions of glory of the anointed of Yahweh may itself diminish the congregation of Israel celebrates King David.

Even in view of his sin and his own fallenness and even in the growing sense of Israel's kingdom diminishing. There's still a respect and esteem paid to the figure of David enthroned at Zion. That is intrinsic to the character of Israel.

When I read that I thought. What kind of respect ought we as the church ought to pray to have for a diminishing Israel? Even though they lose their luster and they lose their character and they are diminished would it be appropriate and becoming for us to maintain a certain respect and and Reverence even for that whose light is fading or has faded as Israel paid that kind of respect to King David.

Wouldn't we be more the church if we would have that kind of respect for them? The festive congregation comes together before Yahweh not only for praise and jubilant homage for adoration and for meeting the manifestation of the Word of God of Israel that Proclaims Yahweh's great deeds of the past and present in time of great afflictions.

It also enters the holy place with prayers and petitions in sackcloth and ashes. It's not just a celebration and a high Feast day. It's also a time of authentic brokenness. Isn't it remarkable to balance those things that the Lord can be celebrated in the majesty?

But because he's Lord because he is majestic we come also with a certain contrition and a brokenness and petition and pleas for restoration and for forgiveness and so many of the prayers. And supplications of Israel are caught up in the Psalms that speaks of the grievous Afflictions of Israel and that Yahweh has rejected his people.

On this account not only the history of salvation becomes problematic. But even the foundations of the earth have begun have begun to totter. If Israel salvation is in question and God is rejecting his own people.

What what are the foundations then of the world itself. They begin to totter if the foundations fail. What shall the righteous do? So Israel the guardian of the foundations. Seeing that there's a sense in which God has departed where their armies are defeated or Rome has come to prevail over Israel or its temple this destroyed.

Come with a sense of being afflicted and come to cry out to God and to plead with him not only for the restoration of that glory to themselves, but that the whole of the foundations of the world are at stake and That this kind of an understanding is totally Hebraic that what is particular to Israel is the issue of reality for all the world and Therefore if Israel is not jealous for their God and come with supplications and pleas for their restoration to themselves.

What can be hoped for or expected for the foundations of the world which are tottering. There's great stake. There's great weight Involved in Israel's relationship with its own God not only for itself, but for all nations.

So so many of the Psalms are this kind of a cry and Congregation has occasion to look back on the occasions of God's faithfulness when restoration has come and trust that it will come again. How are we to explain the great catastrophe?

Why has the wrath of Yahweh been kindled? These questions break out with elemental force. Are the sons bearing the iniquity of their fathers? How is Yahweh's conduct to be understood? Psalm 44 expresses the conviction most clearly God's people are suffering for Yahweh's sake.

Because of its ties to Jehovah Yahweh Israel is assailed by insult and enmity. So not only the issue of its own sin and failing but it's very identification with God makes them candidates for oppression and Devastation that come from their enemies.

What does it say in the Psalms for your sake we are killed all the day long as sheep. So it's not only for the our sins or the sins of our fathers that we suffer affliction. We suffer affliction by virtue of our very identity with you because all the nations of the world hate this God the world is at enmity with God and it will find out those people who Are representative of him to ventilate not only their scorn but their physical abuse and their violence.

So here comes here comes the Jews up to Zion battered By by these hostile forces and crying out to God either in Acknowledgement of their sin of the sins of their fathers or acknowledging that for your sake all the day long.

We are we are Sleep sheep to the slaughter and crying out for vindication Lord so long as you allow us to suffer this without any evidence of your ability to intercede in the behalf of your people. How then are you God?

Your own testimony is at stake in your ability to stand with us and defend us in the afflictions that we bear. This is the deeps of the cry of the psalmist. It's not just as I've said before a relief.

That flesh desires that with that We don't have to bear affliction more important than our personal suffering or national suffering is the issue of God's reputation. Which is at stake because it seems to say to the world that God is not God.

If you'll not stand the defense of his covenant people if he's nowhere to be found and we're suffering a sheep That led to the slaughter. Where is the testimony of the God of Israel to the nations? This is the cry of the Psalms and this cry as well as the celebration of God is Intrinsic to the faith of Israel.

It's a remarkable tension of a claim and acknowledgment in worship and at the same time elements of travail supplication and Deepest cries for the vindication of God. We're trying to identify. What is the genius of Israel?

What what is the quintessence? What is the character that God established with a people so as to demonstrate it? To the nations and to the world and to bring others into that tent and into that reality.

Corporate Lament, Persecution, and the Faith of Israel

What are the constituent elements that make Israel. Israel the ability to celebrate and worship the God who was enthroned in Zion and At the same time to have the deepest kind of travail and sense of tragedy.

For our failure and sin that have shamed him and blasphemed his name. But also at the same time that measure of affliction that we have to bear by by the very identification with that God. And yet why isn't he quick to answer?

Why the delay? These questions and this cry comes up in the pilgrimage to Zion. They supplicate and they groan for they've come to the place where they they ought to meet with him. Didn't Solomon say that when he dedicated the temple Lord when when we are cast out of the nations and and when we're suffering affliction.

Let us turn to you and to the place that you have Designated where you ought to be met and you ought to be sought hear us in that day here. I'll cry and give answer. This is the faith of Israel. So God's honor is at stake and the nations have mocked Yahweh.

What we find so often in the Psalms is the torment and the mock of the psalmist. Suffering these afflictions with the great Tormenting goading question. Where is your God? There's no evidence of him. How dare you boast in him when he's not coming to your aid suffering the affliction that we put upon you.

So The sufferings of the people of God are no passing political crisis they are imponderable afflictions that arise in view of the foundation of the history of salvation and Yahweh's universal power over history.

It's a remarkable drama that God allows himself to fall into eclipse. He's not quick to answer. He's allowing himself to be defamed. Because when he will come through he'll come through with unspeakable glory and his honor will reverberate to the ends of the age.

But meanwhile the people who are appointed and elected to make him known have got to suffer the tension of that waiting. That's not only true of them. It's true of us. Let me read that statement again.

The sufferings of the people of God whether it's Israel or ourselves are no passing political crisis. It's not going to be alleviated by a new prime minister or a Christian president so-called. They are imponderable afflictions that arise in view of the foundation of the history of salvation and Yahweh's universal power over history.

If there's anything distinctive about the mindset of Israel is that God is the God of history. History is not some mindless Accumulation of events that take place independent of him. History is his story.

It is God acting in the affairs of men and of nations and moving through these events to bring us to a final Consummation. We lose that sense of God in the history of nations the actuality of events. We've lost the Hebraic sense and we become then an addendum.

We're just a Sunday phenomenon. We're not expected to see God in history and we don't invite his participation and we don't express it. For that reason, please PLEAS cries Are raised that Yahweh step forth from seclusion and shine forth when you read in the Psalms Lord show thy face.

Why he sit as his face from us or let thy light shine forth. This is what the People are crying for that. He would demonstrate himself In time and in history and before nations that he would restore Israel correcting the frightful call of judgment By hearing the lament of those who pray.

Because the all-encompassing question is Yahweh Lord of history would will Jehovah display his might in the midst of this world. In fact, aren't these the final scenes of history. God in fact intervening the Lord himself coming with his feet on the Mount of Olives that split and Defeating those enemies of Israel that have already reduced the nation by two-thirds.

God's actual coming. What that we expect when we shall look upon him whom we have pierced when he comes as deliverer. The whole consummation of history is this visible? Interjection of God in time and place no longer abstract.

He's the the principal actor as Himself this is the whole hope of Israel which has been lost to them. But is alive with us and I'm finding this theme expressed in the Orthodox commentary on the Psalms.

They have this eschatological expectancy. They don't talk about seeing him Whose wounds that we have inflicted but they talk about the visible coming of the Messiah God. To be our deliverer in the last day going all the way back to the deepest traditions of Israel.

Will God counteract the devastation of his people with a sign that will manifest his control of history among the nations. The prayer songs of Israel events the unfathomable mystery that the nation's who do not know Yahweh Jehovah and yet hate him rise up against the witness of God saving and ruling will in order to destroy him.