There was no need to fight that battle, all that the people had to do

was to set themselves or take their stations, stand still and see the

salvation of the Lord:

'So the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet: for his God gave him rest round

about' (2 Chron. 20:30).

Jehoshaphat, like David, Solomon and the best of men, was in himself a

failure (see 2 Chron. 20:31 -37) but the type still holds.  Just as Edom said

concerning Jerusalem, 'Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof'

(Psa. 137:7), so will the nations at the time of the end.  Indeed almost

identical words have been reported in the Press recently.  The presence of

Israel in the Devil's millennium will prove a great disturbance to the false

peace that for the time obtains and so all nations will be gathered against

Jerusalem to battle, as in the day of Jehoshaphat, so they will gather again.

'Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when He

fought in the day of battle.  And His feet shall stand in that day upon the

mount of Olives' (Zech. 14:3,4).

It is this war upon Jerusalem and Israel that necessitates beating

plowshares back again to swords, and which ends with the judgment of all the

heathen in the 'valley of decision'.  In that day 'Egypt shall be a

desolation, and Edom shall be a desolate wilderness, for the violence against

the children of Judah ... but Judah shall Dwell for Ever, and Jerusalem from

generation to generation.  For I will cleanse their blood that I have not

cleansed: even I the Lord that dwelleth in Zion' (Joel 3:18 -21 margin).

Here is proof that at the selfsame time that Israel are restored (Joel 3:1)

the nations will be gathered unto this valley of Jehoshaphat (Joel 3:2), that

at the selfsame time when Judah and Jerusalem are safe for ever, Egypt shall

be a desolation.  Yet after all this, Isaiah declares that:

'In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria,

even a blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of Hosts shall

bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My

hands, and Israel Mine inheritance' (Isa. 19:24,25).

(For a fuller examination of Isaiah 19, see the article Egypt8).

It is an axiom of all rational thought that 'a thing cannot Be, and Not

Be at the same time'.  'In that day' includes too many opposite events to

allow us to think of the Millennium as a period of unsullied glory and

perfect peace from the beginning of the thousand years to the end.  What does

fit all that is said, is that Israel will be a nation 'born at once' (Isa.

66:8), whereas gross darkness will still envelop most of the nations.

Nevertheless, light and truth shall radiate from Zion as a blessed centre,

until at last the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters

cover the sea.  God's ordination at the beginning was that 'the evening and

the morning' should constitute a day.  A thousand years in His sight are like

a day that is past, and the Millennial day may conform to the same pattern.

The Millennial reign begins with an 'evening'.  When the Lord comes the

second time to inaugurate that reign, He comes to Make War at the first (Rev.

19:11).  There is not a word to warrant the idea that at the stroke of the

clock, the moment the thousand years commence, all will be peace.  The Lord

will reign in Zion in the midst of enemies.  The nations will learn slowly

the law of the Lord from Jerusalem, and only as the thousand years (the day

of the Lord) come to their close, and the Day of God succeeds, when all