in cursed condition (cf. Romans 5, 8:17ff.), and
impoverished, its sufferings and vanity a result of divine action,
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CHRIST THE CITADEL,
THE HOSPITAL, THE ACQUITTAL,
THE CREATOR,
THE RESTORATIVE,
THE CELESTIAL
REGALITY:
LOOK! HE COMES
Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson
VOLUME 159 of
IN PRAISE OF CHRIST JESUS
Published by World Wide Web Witness Inc.
March 2009
ISBN 978-0-9806138-5-8
INTRODUCTION
Be ready! For some 2000 years, since the arrival of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, on this globe, He has operated in spiritual hospices, hospitals, operations, missions, in His people throughout the world. He has continued His application of redemption (cf. Acts 1:1).
Millions have been acquitted; many wooed, regaining life, made gentle who were fierce, escaping the curse along with the total citizenry of the kingdom of heaven. The taut have been taught from within, impacted from the record of His incarnation and death, from outside, another spirit has been sent within them, kindness has displaced cruelty, healing injury, fellowship fury. Such has been the lot in the Lord for a few (cf. Matthew 7:15ff.).
The spuming floods of the spiritually spurious have been from the evil powers, driven with devious dynamic and power designed to envelop the followers of Christ, but the Lord has delivered them (cf. Revelation 12:15-16), though many have added their blood to the flood, faithful and fearless, smitten but not seduced.
The celestial citadel of Christ Jesus (cf. Psalm 18:1-6) has rendered them in spirit secure, in life meaningful, in heart directed, in mind founded on the objective reality of God Himself, translated into a visible life on this earth in the person of Jesus Christ the Saviour, who faithful through death has led to the other side (cf. John 14:1ff.); so that we who are His are secure.
Meanwhile, menace has sought to mesmerise this world, to seduce to compromising policy, as did blind peace-niks in the 1930s, ignoring the due and just warning of Winston Churchill, till the whole land was near to repossession by evil and lustful forces from Europe.
Generations earlier, a fascinating example of penetrating and biblical faith appeared in Archbishop Cranmer, who seeking peace for the Church and the kingdom, wavered, for a short time accepting the ultimatum which would have made blatant but popular idolatry acceptable, but then realising his confused submission, that all must be subordinated to the truth and honour of the Prince of peace, Jesus Christ, without whose rule no rule is righteous, in him grace prevailed. He drastically rejected the agreement, turned from it and entered the band of martyrs in high drama and magnificent testimony.
Denouncing the folly of the nation, in the very speech in which he was supposed to cringe, at the execution, he burnt first the hand in the fires prepared for him, as a testimony against compromise and an elegant if sacrificial signal: NEVER COMPROMISE WITH CHRIST, for any motive whatever. Thus grace assisted recovery and he with others who did not waver, stood. They fought, wrought and taught; and for a time, many listened to these and multitudes of others, murdered by the Romanist conspiracy*1, which displacing Christ's command of non-violence in religion, used it to the uttermost (John 18:36).
These were examples of faith in grace, and it is not a litany of the lost which they enter, but one of those found who found it not acceptable to be found where faith is not!
A wall not of concrete but of fire has surrounded these and millions of others, so that in death, as epitomised from the Bible in Stephen (Acts 7 - a man of faith and wonderful works through it in the name of the Lord), the presence of the sublime Sovereign overshadowed all the disastrous and evil devilish competition with the spuming furies, which this world provided, courtesy of hell. These who stayed put in their place in the Lord, being kept by the power of God to salvation consummated in heaven, as given on earth (I Peter 1:1-8), loving Him who first loved them, have secured their place by grace, through faith, and their spirits were not quelled.
When GOD keeps your spirit, hell is beaten before it begins; and indeed, as in Ephesians 1:11, those who by faith have been saved, have received already an inheritance, which history simply confirms, being predestined to the faith they have, before this world began (II Timothy 1:9ff.). And that ? It is by the God who IS love, who would have ALL to be reconciled to Himself by this self-same blood of Christ (Colossians 1:19ff.).
But this world, it is broken.
All things of the curse continue in this world, by nature now
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in cursed condition (cf. Romans 5, 8:17ff.), and |
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impoverished, its sufferings and vanity a result of divine action, |
so that the very surrounds, while keeping much of their original beauty, become a fit surrounding for those who strive to arrive, and do not receive the life of God as a gift, redemption as a necessity and the call as a mercy as water to replace the flames.
Brutalities in nature and in the nature of man continue in their unblessed measure of correlation, the one sin and the other its consequence, this the very mirror of sin, though something of this world's created loveliness, love and solicitude are seen remaining in faithfulness to death in many cases of parents for offspring and those who love, yes, even in the animal realm. Nevertheless, much brutality mocks man within created and cursed nature, though it does not reach to his refinements of devilishness, not being spiritual in kind. Yet such a condition exposes him to an insight by sight, and to a rebuttal of sin by display of its nature in the very lower creation, to which he relates as one given place as a race, now forfeited in pollution, reduced through rebellion and spoilt by sedition.
These things, therefore, mock the more as man increasingly seeks to ape the vanities of nature, taking it as a paradigm, as if to look at a car crash, and to use the crumpled result for a factory specifications for making cars. Education follows; folly mounts like tsunamis aplenty; and pain flows on as the waters of life first withdraw from the tribes in revolt on this earth, unkind to each other, uncontrite before God, and these self-same waters come crashing down to rebuke avarice, greed, faithless lying, ludicrous inventions of the mind and dreams of spirit (cf. Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 14). Man creates the waves, calls for correction and slanders God as they return mounting, after their withdrawal, unwilling to repent, unable to remove reality.
Such is the way, as the evil one seeks to rifle the store, and is increasingly outraged at his impotence, for he can snatch only what is spurious.
Let us then not be bemused as man is confused, a result of unremitting sin and refusal for its remission (cf. Romans 3:25). Let us instead look up to reality, see the challenge and be down to earth about it, not living in a fallacious dream, but walking in the Spirit as students of heaven, so becoming rather exponents on earth, acting, teaching, preaching as able, dutiful members of that kingdom of heaven which now is, and then will be consummated, now is invisible but effective, then will be visible and perfected.
While this world is on its odious way, a partly anaesthetised and ever increasing horror, stanching its wounds with poisoned philosophy, its sleazy practices an engine of grief, man meddles with invented, unproven, unverified religions (cf. The Kingdoms of this World and the Kingdom of Christ) , dreams of the heart. So in seduced crowds he acts, instead of eating the free bread of heaven, as much a gift as was life itself in the first place. Thus does he not receive the blessedness of new birth, the cordial result of such eating, such faith in Him, nor in such unbelief is found the creation of the spiritual and redeemed life, that regenerated life, that second birth which restores what was lost in the first place (John 6:47ff.,Colossians 3:10).
The world sinks; Christ has risen. Do not therefore bathe in its industrial waste, dead, morbid and mortal from the factories of sin.
Time is running out (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5); Christ is coming back. It is not a flood this time, a universal deluge (cf. News 1), but instead the very Judge in person, who comes to reap and then to rule (cf. Acts 17:31).
What then ? Make peace through the blood of Christ, that expression of life given to death to deny judgment to sinners and to elevate life back to God, and responding to the Gospel, meet with the Resurrected Ruler whose grace has given so far 2000 years to our Age, a time in which to respond to the Gospel, in individual hearts, in tribes, races, families, nations, in this world as one whole! In all this time, some have come; but the tread of the mundane feet of this earth is resounding with increasingly stultified rebellion, mighty in envy of the Lord, secure in its sedition, aligned for devilish dynamic soon to come, at which time it is soon to go, merely exhibiting its freakish finale before it is manifested with such a clarity that divine light strikes it down (II Thessalonians 1:6ff.).
Make peace while you may, with Him who IS
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our peace (Ephesians 2:14-19), |
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peace-maker by proclamation, |
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sacrifice by crucifixion, |
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the end
for sin's guilt by dynamic over death, |
Don't then mix with water to obtain the dilutions of the devil,
or deal
with his manifestations of duplicity,
his impudence of spurious serendipity or
his prescriptions of rebellion, on line in many a body called a church,
on show as they dive to hell for new morals,
and abandon the
purity of the Maker,
for the insistence on which, in the love for His people, He
has died.
Not for some other mortal race in the universe did He die, not for some other design, not for some other specifications, not for some other people. He died for this one which He made, and rose for this one, to which He has offered ablution, and remission. His word carved in this sphere is not lightly designated for some other world; and His face, though bashed plentifully while He was here, is simply not available for more post-mortem, post-resurrection slappings. The sting now is in the simple strength of sin, which, when past mercy by such devices, is raw like a whipped hide, and awaiting the blow-flies of corruption for its follies.
Consider Zimbabwe. At best, there, you cannot mix good intentions with evil additives. Therefore follow His word in an obedience out of the love of that Citadel Christ, as one belonging to Him and make sure you do, by repentance and faith in His redeeming blood, in His resurrection power which operating on Him, is now for us who believe. It holds fast at His coming; it is a love not at all this world and its tricky ways, truthless views and pestilential proclamations. Already its flag is being furled, and it acts to bring increment to the curse as it rages towards its final confrontation with God (Revelation `19).
Be in the Citadel: enter it (John 10:9), while you may.
NOTE
*1 See SMR pp. 911ff., 1032-1088ff., esp. 1086ff., at *9).
CONTENTS
THE MUNIFICENCE OF MAGNIFICENCE
Christ the Creator, the Restorative, the Celestial Regality
YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUN: HE IS ALWAYS THERE
TILL THE END OF THE AGE:
THEN JUDGMENT LOOMS
ON THE
PREDICTED DATE
OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST
Christ, the Citadel, the Celestial Regality
THE ULTIMATE IRONY
DON’T PUSH, IT’S NOT THAT SORT OF KINGDOM
LUKE 16:14-18
Christ the Citadel, the Hospital, the Restorative
THE RIGOUR AND VIGOUR OF DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS
Christ the
Citadel, the Hospital for the Charge of Righteousness,.
and the Guardian of Truth
Righteousness and Justice are the Foundation of His Throne (Psalm 89:14)
THAT EXUBERANT DAY OF REST!
Christ the Creator and the Celestial Regality
APPENDIX to ...
THAT EXUBERANT DAY OF REST!
Praise for the Day and the Way of
The Author of Salvation
Whose Work completed the Creation
by Redemption
A Biblical Exposition
avoiding the twin pitfalls of two extremes, and one
prodigious, biblically-defined heresy - SDA
Christ
the Creator, the Hospital for Righteousness,
the Acquittal and the Citadel
ATTRACTION, ACTION AND APTITUDE
Ezekiel 47, Luke 10-11
Christ the Hospital, Acquittal,
Restorative, Celestial Regality
with Excursion on
THAT BUILDING SUBLIME
WHICH IS THE BIBLE, THE WORD OF GOD WRITTEN,
WROUGHT BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD
FASHIONED IN PROFUNDITY, FUNCTIONAL IN SIMPLICITY
FROM HIM WHO IS GLORIOUS IN HOLINESS,
WHO MADE NOT ONLY MAN'S BODY, BUT HIS HEART AND MIND
Christ the Hospital, Acquittal,
Restorative, Celestial Regality
The INTIMATE and the ULTIMATE
SIX INTIMATE ANSWERS TO ULTIMATE QUESTIONS
from the Word of God
CHRIST THE CREATOR,
THE RESTORATIVE,
THE CELESTIAL
REGALITY:
LOOK! HE COMES
THE NEW, BUT NOT THE INNOVATION
New and not Novel
Old but not Aged
Christ the Citadel
Shades of Rome, the Obama past, USSR, China
THE NEW, BUT NOT THE INNOVATION
New and not Novel
Old but not Aged
Christ the Citadel
Part 2
The Immutable God calls to His creation
past all the connivings of unconscionable mutations,
that bring only grief, being mere deceptions served with panache,
achieving nothing. We return to the things new,
but not innovation;
for with God the truth is forever fresh as the morning dew,
operational as any aircraft taking off in power,
but devoid of alteration of its pith,
unlike all philosophy and the governments of man.