Editorial - Fighting in a Lost Cause

If a person is fighting in a cause that he knows is hopeless he could be forgiven for feeling less than enthusiastic, and we could understand his being half-hearted in it. This kind of scenario excites our pity and we wouldn't want to change places with such a person.

But if the cause is hopeless, yet the one espousing it is completely unaware of the fact, then that is perhaps even more pitiable, especially if the ignorance could have been avoided, as there is available information that could have been tapped into.

In God's Word there is so much information regarding world events, past, present and future, and in particular as they have to do with God's people Israel and God's land Israel, that we need not ever be unsure of the success or otherwise of any cause we espouse in this connection.

After all, as we look back to events recorded in the Old Testament, we remember that there was a time when Israel was up against the hostility of the Philistine peoples. They had even captured the Ark of God in the days of the prophet Samuel, yet every place where the Philistines put the Ark was plagued by God's judgements. As well, they were struck with tumours on their own bodies, so that they were afraid of both the Ark, and God. They finally realized they were fighting in a lost cause and so returned the Ark.

Events in our own day since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 have shown how futile it has been for aggressors to fight in a lost cause, as witness their attacks against Israel in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973.

And now we have the cry for a Palestinian State. This is something relatively new, as there was no push to establish a Palestinian State during the nineteen years when Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria (the West Bank), and indeed East Jerusalem too!

The Palestinian cause, right-sounding as it may be, but yet aiming as it does for the total destruction of the Jewish State, is a fight in a lost cause. God Himself will have the final word, for He refers to the land of Israel as "my land" (Leviticus 25:23) and the people of Israel as "my people" as far back as Egypt (Exodus 3:7, 10; 5:1).

Tenure of the Land was always dependent on obedience to God's Word, and we have seen this worked out in the past with the nation scattered to the four winds over nearly twenty centuries because they rejected the Sent One, their Messiah.

As to the present, though the Jewish people are partially back in the Land, they are still not reconciled to God as a nation, nor living in obedience to His Word. But it is certainly Almighty God who has brought about their return to the Land, and it is in order that they might face the truth that they have rejected the Messiah, the Prince of peace, their only hope. So seeking to establish peace on any other terms than on God's terms is fighting in a lost cause.

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