Peace On Earth

"When dreaming, we opt for butterflies, for horses grazing, for a Lion which became a Lamb and rules as King over all."

THE PROPHET HOSEA married a prostitute at God’s command then named their children after the sins of Israel. When his wife ran away to be with another man, God told him to go get her but not to touch her as his wife, the action symbolic, again, of Israel’s behavior. What we see as ridicule, God spoke as redemption. Today, a modern-day prophet has a dream or a vision of the nation and it immediately takes on the flavor of damnation. What God meant as a picture of who we are and what He intends to do is instead greatly misunderstood.

“Why are there no butterflies?” I asked the Holy Spirit. Why is every prophecy full of war and condemnation with everything around us about to jump off a ledge? Why horses armed for battle and Jesus as a battle axe? Where is the river of God through the desert which heals the waters of a very dead lake?

“And it shall come to pass, that every thing that liveth, which moveth, whithersoever the rivers shall come, shall live: and there shall be a very great multitude of fish, because these waters shall come thither: for they shall be healed; and every thing shall live whither the river cometh.” (Ezekiel 47:9)

Hosea has a fantastic verse in chapter 10, which speaks to God’s heart. With Israel and Judah divided into two nations, which was not His will, and self-centered men worshiping false gods, which was not His will, and money as the height of glory and pagan nations leaving larger footprints than God’s, also NOT HIS WILL, there in verse 12 is what He desired to see.

“Sow to yourselves in righteousness, reap in mercy; break up your fallow ground: for it is time to seek the Lord, till he come and rain righteousness upon you.” (Hosea 10:12)

Fallow ground is growing nothing. Unused, uncared for, it is walked upon and discarded. God desires seeds of right-standing. Not foul seeds, not thorns nor golden calves, but those which would look like Him and smell like Him and reap His goodness. Plant these, He says, until my presence rains down upon you. Instead, ungodly men in the name of arrogance and godly men who tossed their godliness away sought advancement and honor from their own ideals.

If we lined up all the false images of creation, we’d see how far away from truth men’s minds have roamed. Take a human and raise them in the forest without language, without learning, and they do not become the boy of the Jungle Book. Instead, in the instances where it has happened, what we find is the “image of God” grunting and spewing like an animal. Men can’t create good men outside of God’s design. What is fashioned instead is a house built on sand, and so the winds blow and the rains come and great is the fall of it (Matthew 7:27). Meanwhile, men think God in heaven has His feet up because He’s enjoying the show.

No, through Hosea, the prophet, He asked for seeds of godly living. In Hosea 11:1, He calls His own Son out of Egypt. In verse 9, He calls Him the Holy One. In Hosea 12:5, the Lord God Himself is the memorial of Jacob. What does this mean? Well, the other translations have it wrong. The King James says it best. It is that Jacob wrestled with God and came away as Israel, and God will never forget. Therefore, since God is everlasting in His remembrance, we now read verse 6, “Turn thou to thy God: keep mercy and judgment, and wait on thy God continually.” One only waits for what will be fulfilled.

Hosea 13:4 says, “Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me: for there is no saviour beside me.” He’s it. While Israel danced with slavery and mourned the loss of lives that they’d endured; while they slipped away after false prophets (for men can come up with words but not fulfill them), and despite their disgustingness in the temple which Ezekiel saw; in the midst of the desolation of Jerusalem, Jeremiah lamenting their loss with God’s heart in his grasp, God, the Father promised them a Saviour, a Son of God, redemption. Read that again.

“O Israel, return unto the LORD thy God; for thou hast fallen by thine iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the LORD: say unto him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously: so will we render the calves of our lips.” (Hosea 14:1-2)

We can compare John 5. Here, Jesus speaks of the salvation of the Father. In verse 19, He says, “The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do.” This, after He healed the man at the pool of Bethesda, the House of Mercy, on a Sabbath. Then, verse 24, Jesus says, “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life.” On Him that sent me, meaning the Father. He adds a third thought in verse 26, “For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself.” The will to heal, the mercy to heal, the one you should believe in, and the life that gives salvation are all the Father’s. We must believe IN HIM.

Jesus says in verse 30, “I can of mine own self do nothing.” He was completely dependent on the Father and the Spirit of the Father who filled Him and anointed Him. He came to be THE WAY to the Father, THE LIFE of the Father, and THE TRUTH of the Father. Here is everlasting life. Here is the spirit made new, and the mind and body healed. Here is a nation’s rescue from self-guided, selfish men. Here are the words spoken into the ears of Mary who did not question the work the Father asked her to do. Nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). While we mourn men and the work of men led by devilish schemes, while we push back against those who don’t know their zipper from their shirt buttons, while we hold creation in our hands and it gurgles and coos in a voice strangely like our own, we place our belief in a faithful God who walked the earth to heal the earth.

It is His name on our lips, and His power in our grip. It is His vision in our gazes, and His paths we choose to walk. When dreaming, we opt for butterflies, for horses grazing, for a Lion which became a Lamb and rules as King over all. We dream of a home faraway where a Puritan sits at table with D-day veteran, and a President shakes hands with another, which lived a hundred years before, a place with no hatred, no envy nor jealousy, no sin, no graves, whose will came down among us and remained. The cross itself is gone, a wooden structure desiccated into the earth. Golgotha remains where it has been but with a different look to it today. The olive trees in the garden have aged to gnarled remnants of those where Jesus prayed. But peace on earth shines in the eyes of the Father whose gaze looks out at us in the face of His Son, the Prince of Peace, who will not fail to do His Father’s will still.

We need only look at where the towers fell to know it. Or stand in the field at Gettysburg and wonder at the depth of it. Or close our eyes and hear the rain falling, that of the former and the latter rain together, a picture of millions of people who have lived here and loved here and sighed here to make of this land a nation, God-ordained. We are a light of redemption prophesied, defended, rescued. As Israel was removed from Egypt, as she was sent home to Jerusalem when the Father had spoken it would happen, so will His heart be seen among us. For the end is not yet. Nor does He dangle it over us. We are not child’s play nor a wrestling match with the devil. We are a Constitution, a covenant sworn between earth and heaven that heaven honors still. Though time may pass, there it sits. Though buildings age, its words cannot be erased. Nor does the blood in our veins become less human until our Saviour comes to catch us all away, and that day is at the timing of the Father.

Did Babylon exist when Israel left it? Did Egypt? Where are others who have conquered and won? Rome took over the world. So did Great Britain. Different eras, different methods, same result. Except the glory of Rome is in its people and the British monarchy now held in God’s hand. Where He will resound it, and also the nation birthed from them. One driving in the right lane, one in the left, both headed forward, moved by Him.

We must believe.

“But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light:” (1 Peter 2:9)

“But you, who trust God and build upon the Stone, are a select and special people—royal ministers of God’s healing Remedy, a clean and purified nation, a people whose hearts and minds are in unity and oneness with God—who with words and lives may commend him who called you out of the darkness of fear and selfishness into his wonderful light of truth and love.” (1 Peter 2:9, Remedy)


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com