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SECTION 7

PERSPECTIVE Group

INTRODUCTION

I

The false perspectives of unreason and the bouquets given to the not merely disabled dis-dynamics but to the nonentities of nothingness, whether seen at once or in stages of vacuity as source, are ludicrous to watch, astounding to observe, instructive to examine and a feat of modern fairy-tale so distinctive that it begins to demarcate this generation and to distinguish very well its grounds of devastation.

It matters not at all whether you invent nothing as a source, which by definition defies being anything, whether potentiated, poly-potentiated or merely lazily productive; or whether you make of it a continual additive basis for the invention of aspects of what you want, need or try to produce from the hat of vacuity: in stages or all at once, in logical principle the same relative to causation, you are merely making nothing the origin and the origination, a begged question infected with fantasy and delinquent in deviousness as to method

Try again! if you want truth. If you have it, rejoice, it meets EVERY demand of reason, as you would expect when its existence is a pre-condition of valid thought.

The design for the salvation of deity, the sublime divine reality to become available to man, is as seen further in Ch. 9 below, prodigious in concept, grand in installation, perspicuous in plan, the plan of salvation. It is however, as we trace further in this Ch. 7, delightful in deposition in the prophet Isaiah, and has an inbuilt defence system against the theft of spiritual property by unscrupulous thieves, just as some seek to protect intellectual property in commerce! The word of God and His work, the Lord's Christ and His salvation: these do not bend to mountebanks, nor alter course at their hoarse voices (cf. SMR, TMR, Deity and Design ..., Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ).

Various elements are considered below, one at a time, followed by an extensive coverage of the perspectives of truth and reality which lead onto grace and eternity, salvation and assurance, their grounds in the DESIGN OF GOD.

There is

The Wit and Wisdom of the Word of God, the Bible True to Test

 2     (definition of design, delinquencies in anti-definitional aversions; more universes merely mean more creation, avoiding nothing, and nothings as sequential sources do no better than having nothing as the total original: unoriginal, it originates nothing as in Pride of Life Ch. 5 below) and

 7 (desire, design, purpose, potential and programmatic aid in areas of creation),

with

Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 9, incl. End-note 1 (esp. programmatic psychology and its ilk),
Marvels of Predestination Ch.  7,  including *1, It Bubbles... Ch. 9, the entire reality of the matter being that what is programmed has not independent, critical or objective access to truth, and that in the models which are naturalistic, as well there is not any to have! and while in fact, much in man is programmed, much exhibits a different facility in its focus, cosmos of operations and source-relationship - these references bordered by To Know God ... Ch. 1 and Uncomprehending Darkness and Self-Revealing Light Ch. 6 where the intensity of liberty and apportionment, love and authority is resolved in terms of the Designer of man;

and

The Wit and Wisdom of the Word of God, the Bible True to Test Ch. 4 (the helpless hiatus of the hypothetical, the inglorious fulfilment of the definition of myth and the contrasting indices for actuality: as to the last, the creation criteria relate and may be seen more extensively in the next item, below).

With this is

Christ Incomparable ... Ch. 2 (cf. Wisdom and Wit ...  Ch.  7 ),

Glory, Vainglory and Goodness Ch. 1.

Here is more detailed analysis in terms of the definition of design and its numerous evinced criteria in life;  and it includes survey of the 'books' of knowledge which are inherent in man, the ignoring of which is like bombing all the libraries on earth, and then proclaiming there are no book collections: however the bombs are mere illusion and the books remain.

Also sited here are, Massifs of Pure Splendour Ch. 1,

 exhibiting the nudity of secularity and the necessity of divine action  for articulation and logical basis  of vast arrays of human reality, realisation and operation,

Sparkling Life ... Ch. 8

removing the invisible scaffolding which holds up nothing.

Providing more depth are,

Dig Deeper  

   I (the result when you disestablish nothing),

2  (unity of creation, history, past, present and future before God, and survey of design as scientifically required), and

Bon Voyage Ch. 2.

The latter shows the mutual and cumulative cohesion in anti-empirical, inequitable, unenlightened parades of incoherent thought and self-defeating persistence of FALSE VOYAGES in daft plans which never work and inflame the world both intellectually and politically as false gods and spurious furies spew their bilious contents into the too receptive earth.  

It rests with

Message of the Words of God to Man in the World , esp. Chs. 6  ,    7,   8 and    9.

The Saying to the Straying,
the Bible to the Braying and
the Truth for its Lovers.

The latter deals with the concept of the Moon Ark, noted in 2008 in the Press, and consider its basis, the beliefs imported and the folly exported in a new work on Design.

As one hypnotised, men in masses continue creating callow and haunting models as they despise the Creator and 'create', themselves like young and disruptive children intent on mayhem.

This Chapter integrates various apparently unrelated realities to show their mutual and correlative corruption, force confronting fact in many a futile campaign, while remorseless culture, religious and scientistic, confronts it with bovine displays of spectacular unwisdom.
 

	Reckless, heedless religion with force its sovereign (and false prophets, both secular and spiritistic, its anti-evidential base (cf. Divine Agenda ... Ch. 6, More Marvels ... Ch. 4, News 37, 98, Highway to Hell);
	anti-creationism with the same god of forces not however always recognised, a scamp hidden in the verbiage, a vamp that opposes all virtue and wisely directed strength, operating mute and inglorious, vicious and vainglorious, void and vacuous (cf. TMR Ch. 1,  Secular Myth and Sacred Truth);
	anti-Israel, anti-Zionism with the same background of world regulation of what God has already proposed, disposed and done (cf. Ch. 4 below):

these three move like prongs on the pitch-fork.

Sometimes in tune, often twisted awry, they arise and  are powered by the same base. They  move with the heckless irrationalism always present in explosive assault on the Bible and on Jesus Christ, always ending in irresponsible defeat:
these are a display of quarrelsome corrolaries of error, that work in various combinations of unholy hostility to the living God, now apart, now in part, together.

God openly mocks them in history, logic and science, and confines their pretensions to the manacles of myth, echoes of hope from the heedless ramblings of unreason.

Thus this Chapter equally shows the cohesive constraints of deity in vast realms of life and history, cumulatively operative.

 In another critical area, we come to another group.

Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic  

Ch. 3

Here is a critical reviewing of wrong method. Thus: religion and reality, performance and power,  process and perquisites do not suddenly cease to have meaning because prejudice rules  or desire has vehement  drive: nothing changes in logic, in law or in the Lord, and definitions continue to apply.

Shrieking for the desideratum and neighing for the nostrum do not provide the truth any more than any other emotional obsession ... it never did, never could and never would.

Ch. 4 The death of Darwin is double and its reek as an -ism is esteemed floral fragrance by those who are enemies of method, antagonists to thought and terrorists against evidence; and while there are plenty of evolutionists to acknowledge this Darwinian decease, creation among the mentalities of delusion is as loved as was Christ by the Pharisees.

In fact,  tradition amiss wilfully, wantonly or woefully excludes what thought commands while truth is never still, cutting at the root of any evasive establishment, however thoughtless the latter or astral its aspirations. The definition of myth is fulfilled by organic evolution, fairy-tale fantasy lacking the interface between what is adequate and its imagined results, while that of creation is super-abundantly fulfilled in looking around, and considering what is found relative to what is required by the TERM!

Ch. 6  Meet Mr Moron, for by report his works exceed those of the mighty. Yet the finger of minute ministry of logical organisation did not probe into space by nothing, for nothing, nor did the colour scheduling of creation, nor yet the functional aspects of awe arise in investments from no capital, by no mind, but then as now, NOTHING comes for nothing, and all systems as now operative, do not create themselves, but attest their creation. This is the testimony of the empirical, the logical and the readable laws of the universe.

With the above two chapters, see also

Gratitude for His Glorious Grace Ch. 4, SMR pp.149ff., 330ff., 149ff.,  as you survey the anti-scientific (in method), the scientistic fallacy, the cult of the forbidden, the fashion parade of discursive, irrelevant exclusivism, and TMR Ch. 1 with its insistence of following testimony of eye and reason, not of imagination and hope, in science as elsewhere, rather than making philosophy the dictator to pseudo-science and hallowing its name in a distension that is mere eructation of rebellion both from rationality and the Redeemer.

Indeed, in this furrow, we find an appropriate impact from Dig Deeper, Higher Soar, Divine Glory Delights the More Ch. 2, *2 as below.

 

For the cult of the forbidden, see SMR pp.330-331, in Book 2 Glossary, in terms of bathos.

Evolutionism is a bathetic degradation from creation. The phrase in question is added below, largely as from the text in SMR at this point. See also the SMR index on this phrase.

Bathos - adjective, bathetic. Bathos is a ridiculous fall from the stupendous, grand or outstanding, to the ordinary or the unimpressive. In literature, this can disgust, offend or amuse.

In science, as here, it can scarcely amuse.

As Professor Thomas Barnes of El Paso University (famed physics researcher) put it in Scientific Studies in Special Creation, Ed. Lammerts, pp. 330 ff.:

''No laws of science are more firmly established than these three laws ...'' Which? He referred to: ''the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Law of Biogenesis and the Second law of Thermodynamics'' - p. 331. The first (''also known as the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy''), implies that despite different forms (''including mass''), ''total energy remains constant.'' The second means that in a self-contained system, processes have ''an irreversible tendency ... to go toward lower order'' - to degrade - decay and disorder increasing. The third ''states that life comes from life.''

Obviously a static lump of energy-mass (1), a life for life procedure - not non-life for life (3), and a decay liability (2), these are the observable material or visible facts to be expected, if creation happened, and stopped. That is virtually an identity statement. It is this which is observable, and that is a creation verification with which evolution cannot for its part compete.

We are in the maintenance phase. The thing to be maintained is in the finished phase. What is maintained, miracles like the bodily resurrection apart, tends to wear out. This is scientific and also a matter of common observation. That is distinctive, detailed verification of the Bible.

Why then, in the full scope of the evidence and the concepts already seen, is creationism not taken as the only 'theory' which can currently be considered scientifically, rather than the only one that cannot! (See pp. 129, 135-144, 149-151, 158-159, 202-203, 208-209, 213, 252A-C, 284-290, 315C-316A supra; cf. Ch. 2 Suppl., and pp. 332E-G, 421ff. infra.)

The rules are broken in this, that it is not so received. There is a metaphysical paralysis of thought which has made the many consider this: that if PROCESS be not ASSUMED to be the author of process... in the sense that the CURRENT is not the father of what is current; or if PRESENTLY OBSERVABLE THINGS or a CURRENT CONTEMPORARY REGIMEN are not the source of living things, then this is unscientific.

THAT however has nothing to do with science.

To LIMIT and REDUCE the scope of hypothesis to some preferred sanctum, some sanctuary hidden free from reality: this is precisely what science is not, what scientific method forbids. It is what begs the question a priori, and sets mere philosophy in state at the head of science, with prejudice for its queen by its side. From this its place, it mocks science. (Cf. pp. 252I supra, and 332E-G infra.)  

In evolutionism, this is the CULT OF THE FORBIDDEN, where certain areas of thought are excluded, irrespective of the validity and virtue, indeed the eminently and uniquely verified position which they attain under test. One is FORBIDDEN by frightened secular traditionalism to even look at this superior-performing area. This obsession with exclusion is a cult because it is irrational, and posing as science, is pre-eminently unscientific, the very acme of prejudice, and the method of blindness.

The source however should be conceived especially in terms of its product, the hypothesis should be esteemed in accord with its power to cover the data, the case - to work to meet specifications of test in neutral and fair play. WHATEVER theory works, which is uniquely verified, is relatable well to other effective theories, the one suffering no loss to any test for verification: THIS in science has superiority. What fails verification in adequate test, even one, is already excluded; what knows no verification is not included.

Thus to refuse a 'theory' on the basis of its source... is like academic racism; "Give us an answer from an 'accepted' source, or its merit will be entirely disregarded!" - so goes the philosophy of alienated prejudice (which, as we have seen - is also the metaphysics of irresolvable antinomy in this case, cf. references above). This is the 'word' of this discriminatory metaphysics masquerading as science.

Let it! it has nothing to do with science. When it also 'accepts' what tests of verification in fact exclude, it is merely comedy.

What the Bible states however - finished creation which is wearing out (e.g. Isaiah 51:6, 49:26, 45:12, 48:12-13, Colossians 1 - the first declaring: ''The earth will grow old as a garment''), and what is basic scientific law are in entire and absolute agreement.

What disagrees is undisciplined imagination! evacuated of verification, parachuting bathetic follies of irrational creeds, evolutionism, dispelled by logic, is humbling science by force-feeding it with these deceptive and hallucinatory dreams. Now what is there? ... the wonder of creation, and the folly of such delusive dissertation, doctrine, decrees - and in that ? you have bathos to perfection.

 

Again, the 'cult of the forbidden' it is met in a governmental approach made last year, close to the following:

What however is the 'cult of the forbidden' ? It is that cultural negativity, fear or subtlety (depending on motive) whereby certain matters are (ostensibly) ruled in advance of all evidence, 'out of court' - the court of culture. Whether it be deemed to be politics, religion or other field, the result is a mental crimping that too readily becomes downright dishonesty if not, indeed, hypocrisy, in which dimension the noted scientist Løvtrup is most (justly) critical - cf. SMR pp. 202, as seen in his work, Darwinism, The Refutation of a Myth.

In this parody of scientific method, certain things are out of cultural bounds, being inconsistent with desire, ethos, illusion or delusion; irrespective of their truth. Even research as Løvtrup notes, can be compromised in this way.

In its opposition to creationism in religion, it may involve the detestable folly of pretending that evidential procedures are irrelevant, and, worse still, that it is illegal to be logical and alert with evidence and reason, lest emotions be roused. This subordinates truth to convenience and not for long may one justifiably expect the continuance of such folly, or of any society where it distinctively rules.

Reality is a dangerous enemy with whom to trifle by such policy and contempt. By this means, irrelevant irrationalities and absurdities - such as is organic evolution in terms of scientific method - may be 'allowed', in that by a mythical or even at times mystical oversight, their merely mythical powers are ignored; whereas the more scientifically oriented view of creation is 'excluded' as 'religious'. (Cf. pp. 211-222, 226-234, 330-334 infra.) 

Myth, the attribution of executive power to what gives no attestation of its very existence, is not to be desired in any rational pursuit. This is precisely the methodology of organic evolution. Whilst modes of variation about a kind occur, as the very shape of mankind attests, response to stimuli being marked within many designs of life, and damage is not unknown, yet transmutation is as often seen as billion dollar notes (cf. SMR pp. 106, 236), increments of information in more advanced design have yet to be discovered as self-engendered, this being the nature of information science, which has its own variety of the second law of thermodynamics, natural loss: and as to its imagined methods, these are found not at all.

Myth is its just and definitionally apt name for organic evolutionism. It is not in the least abusive; for on its proposed basis, it is an accurate description.

And this ? it is science! What a testimony to the alienation from God, that what is irrational is proposed as science, and what meets its ways overwhelmingly and with conspicuous accuracy in every dimension testable, is cultically excluded.

On the very contrary to these pendulous propositions of organic evolutionism: coherent, confirmed rationally sustainable presentation as in creation, short-circuits nothing by mere human fiat, nor does it need to; for creationism acknowledges the just result of free verificatory procedures on this basis, compared with those of other and alien kinds.

Thus, Christianity unlike this organic evolutionary degradation,  with open heart and incisive mind is quite freely available for 'inspection' - and meets any intelligently administered critical test with overwhelming results, that are as unified as they are unique; and it alone systematically meets logical requirements of consistency and rationality. (Refer SMR Chapters 1, 3 and 10). This becomes relevant for biblical creationism, as one particular variety of it, which has no humanly imposed limits to its field or its testability, no arbitrary exclusivism, but speaks by its works.

Contrary to this and to this openness,  this cult of the forbidden has become an anti-logical discriminatory device, protective of irrationalisms and, in educational circles, often excluding the only logically sustainable answer even from consideration! The exclusion of the nature-Maker, the temporary by the Eternal, the limited by the One limiting, despite the verifications which validate and the rationality which is unique, becomes a fad, a passion, a prescribed blindness.

Endless ragings between competing anti-theistic theories, where this indefeasible, necessary and self-attesting Creator is excluded, is as PREDICTABLE as it is an ACTUAL result. What is rationally certain is what is empirically found. It is also verification. If you refuse that 2 plus 2 equals 4, there is sure to be strife among the exclusivists! Confirmatory consequences of creation, on the other hand, abound to the point it is almost impossible to stop attesting them (Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ).

It is time students were made aware of their options, and educated fairly, and not fairily or merely airily in this realm. To the end of the creation in its just and due judgment, as surely fabricated as other functions relating to life, there is and never will be any excuse for the extravagances of mental manipulation.

These have excluded the precisely indicated and continually confirmed source of matter, mind and spirit, in their relationships, as no less the inordinate co-ordinations of exquisite sympathy and rationality which  betoken them empirically, using a riotously irrational model of a causeless universe, itself a subject of casuistry, inventing itself from nothing at once or in stages - the case is indifferent - and giving itself a cause for the causality which operates equally from the cause-free basis of its day-dream models, mangled machinations and irascible antilogies. Thought that makes its dependence on what it denies is as useful as a spoilt child who declares his independence from the parents on whom he subsists.

So, in the morbid models of feisty fancy, does reason make its commands and countermand itself in one self-crucifying breath (cf. Ch. 8 below).

 

 

 

The Pride of Life ... Ch. 5

There is no argument if we are to objective. Thus in 'nature', design, and its counter-movement in the designed minds of man, the latter valid only because of the right design by the Truth, is so candidly featured that it is felicitously found in the empirical as in the logical realm to be wholly hostile to its additive oddities, inconsistencies and artless explosions, these the precise contradictory of production, let alone that of the inadequate into the magnificent.

That is a domain of felicity of mutuality, implicit correlation of command and power to receive it, with ingredients to fulfil it, linked with constructive imagination solidified in produced moulding to vision. In practice, there is programmed hostility to interference, which as in all design, needs understanding of the original to avoid inconsequential or harmful clash. In the DNA it is almost as if a copyright had been taken out, so intense is the provision for perpetuation of the integrity of the whole command structure and its integral outcome.

Defining life is an exercise in mirroring the definition of design, in a highly specific case. When desire turns into observation, and chance which always pre-supposes system, is traded in for the source of system, you begin to find facts that cohere and considerations that are relevant to life as it is, its source, its ingredients and its implications. With this, dwelling especially on the implications of language, might be read: Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ... Ch. 4.

The magic methodology of the cult of the forbidden figures, with its comrades,  in the next group.

Stepping Out for Christ

Ch. 9 This is concerned with matching facts with words, and so, on the one hand,  avoiding the self-contradictory effusions of riotous imagination, and on the other, the dicta of the cult of the forbidden, which magically knows what to exclude, all experiment and rationality alike, apart! As to that, we see in this Chapter, reference to SMR pp. 85, 150ff., and the hideous apartheid from logical reality in the interests of purely prejudicial preference is exposed further. Illicit in logic, it is a foul in scientific method.

Instead of doing this, the movement in this Chapter validly and conscientiously proceeds to find the combined import of the words that essentialise the facts.

Ch. 10 Even the worm speaks into  such a mêlée of misology: going up is not going down, and watching ways of erosion is not building soil, nor are paths in the gullies so made that they become in fact the means of constructing the sanctuary. Thus simply assuming all the need is not having it met, and watching things not do it, is not finding them performing, nor is endless evacuation of action the observation of it, in the relevant sphere. Nor for that matter  does the imagination of other universes remove the necessities both of those and of this. Circular reasoning in this has its apex!

A further emphasis comes in

Joyful Jottings   8   Here we are involved in seeing the situation in biblical prophetic perspective and analytical reality together.

Anti-confusion  criteria follow in

The Defining Drama Ch. 3 

It is not logical to 'explain' a model in terms of another, and this the less so when the other has rational demands, that are un-negotiable, of its own.

From Dancers to Answers Ch. 5

In this, we consider science per scientific method and its illicit ally, scientism, or the scientistic, which is merely seduction of definition by mind-wandering. Instead, we meet specific definition for design in creation of life as it is found. With this goes Life, what is it ? and TMR Ch. 1.

        Earth Spasm ... Chs.    1 and    7

The Defining Drama Ch. 3  (it is not logical to 'explain' a model in terms of another, and this the less so when the other has rational demands that are un-negotiable of its own)

Earth Spasm ... Chs.    1 and    7

 

Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable  Ch. 4, where rationality and validity combine.

   SERMON Your Identification ? Please produce! It is necessary if you base yourself on the word of God, the Bible, to see what it is, says and does, and align; or else disalign. Hybrids are sterile. Perspectives do not marry when they are as diverse as heaven and earth. Efforts to solemnise such proceedings readily form a null mixture of the jocose and the juvenile. With this, see

The Majestic Might of the Merciful Messiah Ch. 1, and

Swift Witness   6.

Massifs of Pure Splendour Ch. 6, especially as marked.

 History, Review and Overview (cases of design in man, morals, ancient and modern history, including political elements)

Let God be God Ch. 8 (the design of deity for dealing with man, the law and the leading of the Lord)

Highway of Holiness Ch. 1 (cases of the design of holiness, not hollowness, reality of the model of the Master)

Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable

Here we are seeing the positive and the negative. In the latter procedure, we observe the disjunction of the devious, the disenchantment of the unnaturally detached denizens of this earth from the deity who defines them, the idolatry of the empirically preposterous and the logically disenfranchised.

Dominion, liberty and necessity, irrationality and invalidity, the programmatic and the personal, indomitable truth and irrepressible mercy, all are weighed but Christ is the mountain without limit.

In Him only as authentic ,do  find in contrast the plateaux of perfection in Biblical perspective, covering all, disturbed by nothing, answering all.

Germane is the listing in Ch. 2 above:

Particularities, Peculiarities of Non-Design Models and
Empirical Odes to Impartiality in Perspective:
Creation is Incomparably Indicated

See also: The  two volume work, LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST, provides detail.

The perspective of Isaiah on salvation, in particular, is gloriously clear, delightfully evocative, calamitous to the impure, protected in imprint, impervious to dissolution. This element of perspective follows, as taut and impervious as wrought and effective now that it has been fulfilled, as then, when it was exposed from the thoughts of God for man. This shows what was to be, and it is just what came to be, as the Gospel itself, foretold to unfold amid the Gentiles, while Israel rejected their Messiah, did just that. Its content, its impact, its rejection by Israel, its glorious liberties and exact basis, all are revealed as testable and verifiable realities. Nothing changes here. Man is without excuse, and if he does not yield to the Lord, he is without salvation; and since as we see below, this is the Lord Himself, then without God, he is without hope, a cut branch that withers in the sun.

Had he only been restored to the vine, then the Sun would have enlivened growth, even the "sun of righteousness with healing in His wings" (Malachi 4:2).

II

SALVATION IS OF THE LORD

WHO is the Saviour ? Is it man, Israel, a segment of the elect of Israel, a political regime, an educational program, a pragmatic pillorying of truth for effect, a banal psychological manipulation, a Gentile manufacture, or church digression: or GOD!

Isaiah is very clear on this point, as is history, which in all its turmoils and conversations with disaster, has become a veritable pageant of WRONG WAY, GO BACK statistics of horror, and climaxes of discontent.

The LORD, says Isaiah, has become my salvation, speaking of those to whom it is to relate. One would think that clear, in Isaiah 12; for the Lord as infinite (cf. Psalm 145), and man as finite, these being far more readily differentiated than heaven and earth, the matrix of salvation is perspicuous. You could not miss it even if you tried, short of being intoxicated, or shutting the eyes of your mind.

in affirming salvation to be of HIMSELF, the Lord is by that very fact affirming it of none other. In case any should think finitude adds to the power and glory of the infinite, however, we find even this spelled out, and that repetitively. In Isaiah 44-46, He is at pains to bring home even to those deafened by cultural delirium, that

	1) there is no other God,
	2) there is no other Creator,
	3) that He created by Himself
	4) that He will save by Himself, and
	5) that this is a personal matter between the soul of the sinner, and the power of God.

Such things appear constantly and consistently, and obtrude for example in such verses as 44:6,24-26 45:11-12,17-25, 46:10. HE, and  ONLY He, created (44:24); and created man in particular (45:12); and this being so, it is HE who as Judge blots out transgressions (44:22) and indeed, He goes to the trouble of frustrating the efforts of liars, frauds and pretenders, who seek to intervene between man and His very own SELF! (44:35ff.).

There is neither other option nor alternative (Isaiah 45:5), and He it is who blesses and afflicts (45:7). It is He who can respond to petition and act without restraint, restriction or subjection to anything or anyone (45:11), and can as readily therefore tell the future as respond to petition (45:13-21). Likewise to Him ONLY will all bow, for there is none other (45:22-25), just as there is no other Saviour (45:21-25, cf. 43:10-11).

HOW does He plan, however, to save ? HE ONLY, we have already learned, is to DO it and BE the salvation in Himself (as in Hosea 13:14, Ezekiel 34). What plan, method, perspective is there for the MEANS for it ?

Isaiah 12 is clear that the LORD has BECOME the salvation, and that there is a free drawing of water from the wells He provides, those of salvation. Isaiah 55 tells us that it is witless to seek to obtain such things elsewhere, or to seek from what man makes for what God gives, and focusses on the Son of David, who is to be commander, witness and leader. This being so, the Lord stands ready for those who seek Him while He may be found (and hence in the perspective and in the Person nominated), to abundantly pardon (55:7).

Isaiah 41-42, in the transition, advises us that NO ONE ELSE has ANYTHING to offer here (as does Psalm 49:7,15, for ONLY GOD is the Redeemer, and no man can at all redeem his brother). The same is found in Isaiah 51:19ff. as prelude to the annunciation of 52:13-53:12. There is NONE to help, so God DOES IT. Check, search, there is not one.

There is not even a counsellor to help, for the counsel as the compassion, the salvation as the Saviour, it is of, in and through the Lord HIMSELF (Isaiah 41:28, 45:21,11:10), as will rest for the disquieted soul also  be found in Him, who is found to be God incarnate through the line of David (11:1), equipped with inerrant knowledge, wisdom and insight, total majesty and illimitable power (11:4-5), along with an indomitable, incorruptible concern for the poor and needy (11:4, as in 72).

It is this Saviour who saves by a clear method. Sin means death. He means life. He takes the death and gives the life. Isaiah 53 details the matter in terms both monumentally physical and incisively spiritual, perspective and means wedded like man and wife.

Yet it is closer even than that, for here the beauty of His holiness and the ghastly horror of what it takes to rid man of its opposite is a mangled, mashed, rejected, displayed, ruined remnant of the glorious incarnate God, as to format (Isaiah 52:13-15, Psalm 22); while the indomitable deity flicks off these abominable wickednesses, both in the perspective of His (predicted) assassins and their worst works, to take those who are to be His, as the prize of His labours (53:10-12, cf. Psalm 22:14-26, Psalm 16, cf. Joyful Jottings 22-25).

Not only so, but it is the good pleasure of the Lord not only to show up the fraudulent imposters who try to seduce this salvation by confusion or effusion or profusion of delusion, by anti-verifying their foolish prognostications, while He

"confirms the word of His servant, and performs the counsel of His messengers"

(44:25-26). Thus in 44:24ff., you see the Creator who continues His work in communication to the man He made, and

"frustrates the tokens of the liars, and makes diviners made, who turns wise men backward and makes their knowledge foolish."

He just goes ahead and foretells the plight of the Israel of Isaiah's day and that to follow, that it would be taken over by Babylon (Isaiah 13), but that they would be brought back by Cyrus, 44-45 who is named over a generation in advance, to make the power and authority of Author of the prediction clear. Similarly, He proceeds in the long term prophetic word (48-55), and communicates further of the Messiah, the Christ (see Christ and Cyrus). Let us however go back to earlier in the prophetic word of Isaiah.

In Isaiah 4:6 we see refuge and deliverance in "a tabernacle" characterised in just the terms found in Isaiah 32, where He is focussed and found to be a MAN, indeed a KING who is to be a hiding place from the wind, the shadow of a mighty rock in a weary land, in whose reign folly will be turned to wisdom, the vile will be recognised, and not a surreptitious subversive any more; and thus will "wisdom and knowledge" be the "stability of your times", yes and "strength of salvation" (33:6).

We quickly find that this is no easy task for such a provision to be made. Thus in Isaiah 48:16, in the midst of an address by the LORD,  we find that the LORD HIMSELF, the REDEEMER  comes as sent from the Lord God, and His Spirit, so that the trinity is in operation (cf. Ch. 9, below as marked). From this, there flow glorious words of comfort so like those of Christ as recorded in Matthew 23:37, Luke 19:42ff., the lament of love (Isaiah 48:17-22) and the action-packed program to follow (49-55).

This is seen developing in Isaiah 49, where we learn that the salvation of God, already found to be HIMSELF, in His own personal action, is itself the prerogative of this King, even to the end of the earth. He is to BE that salvation to the end of the earth, for salvation and Himself, these are inseparable, since it is He and He is it (43:3,10-11, 49:26, 60:16). Indeed, as in 42:6 and 49:6, Gentile as well as Jew are the specific recipients; for the GOD OF THE WHOLE EARTH, as He designates Himself as its Creator, is likewise the Saviour for any, and in all ways, days and times, it  is He! The covenant ? it is HE (49:8), the mode ? it is His (52-53), the result ? it is His (55).

Thus He has taken action, or from the perspective of Isaiah's day, He is going to do so. Now in our own day,  He has done so, proceeding to accomplish the death for sin vicariously, victoriously foretold and done, at the date specified (Daniel 9, cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4). Following the revelation of the One whose mouth has been made like a sharp sword, that Israel in whom God will be glorified (as distinct from the other - Isaiah 30:8ff.), more of the method and its perspective then appears. Israel, we are succinctly told in 49:7, will not only reject Christ but ABHOR Him.

MY SERVANT then is the correlative, the parallel for 49:3, when it appears in 42:1, 49:1, 52:12ff. Here is the Israel who is the Mighty God (Isaiah 9:6 cf. Bible Translations 20). It is He, the LORD who will hold the lambs in His arms (40:9-11), being that Good Shepherd of Ezekiel 34, that One as whom GOD HIMSELF pledged to come.

His death is sure, unequivocal, horrid as the segment of Isaiah 49-55 reveals; and His power is unsusceptible to intimidation. He uses death as a lever for pardon (53:6-10), on an individual basis (cf. Bible Translations 3, Number 20).

THIS is the Israel who saves. The other one was NOT AT ALL His servant in salvation, but rather the recipient of exclusion and breach (Zechariah 11, Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32), as likewise foretold.

The Israel, the nation, they were not too cosy with Jehovah often enough (cf. Exodus 32:7,10); and indeed, their continual recalcitrance, rebelliousness and mutterings, so like those of the scribes and Pharisees, and Sadducees indeed in Christ's own day on earth, led to Moses taking drastic steps. In love, in one case, he was willing to be blotted out of the book of life (Exodus 32:30ff.), if God would not forgive them for their disastrous and depraved pursuit of the gross and the grotesque even while being delivered. In another, in mounting frustration with their cavils and quarrels, oddities and upsets, he flexed his moral muscle and instead of simply asking God as usual, to provide water for the vast assembly, in millions, in the desert, he hit the rock TWICE in anger, and calling them "you rebels", asked an inappropriate question.

"MUST WE fetch you water out of this rock!" he queried (Numbers 20:7ff.).

That folly, so like that of the papacy, but in his case the work only of a moment, cost him his own personal entry into the promised land, although of course it did not alter his intimacy with the Lord. The IDEA of any mere man getting up and braying about his authority^*1, position, power and primacy is so abhorrent to God (for Christ said, ONE is your Master, even Christ, YOU are all brothers - Matthew 23:8-10), that He made an example even of His close friend, Moses.

How close that friendship was, you see most clearly in Numbers 12:6-8. Whereas to some the Lord would speak in vision, to Moses He spoke face to face! Indeed, the Lord even tested Moses, as you see in Exodus 32, as if to blot out the people and let Moses continue the testimony ALONE; but Moses stirred for the name of the Lord, passed this test with the criterion of love, for he was a man of restraint by nature! Because of his knowledge of the Lord, one would expect this; but sin like the hooks of briars, can readily grab the garment of the saint who for one moment, yields to the thrust of circumstance and the piercing of thorns.

It may seem harsh on Moses; but that flaw was in an area most sensitive; for none must exalt himself at all before God, as if to come in between, there being indeed but one mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ (I Timothy 2).

With all of this in mind, therefore, we do not find it too amazing that Israel was predicted to ABHOR Christ (49:7), who is Jehovah incarnate, the Lord Himself (Isaiah 49:16ff., Psalm 45, Psalm 2, Zechariah 12:10, 2:9, Hosea 13:14, Ezekiel 34, Isaiah 45 with Philippians 2), and to put Him to death (as in 52-53) in that mode and mood. This is the perspective on Israel as 'saviour': they sacrificed the Saviour who is God only.

An elect group within Israel ? a remnant ? could this save anybody from anything at the spiritual level ? As to the first query: Yes there is such a thing as a remnant. Indeed, God forecasts in Isaiah 11 that in the context of the Messiah on earth, He would seek to bring back A SECOND TIME, Israel to its land, from the world-wide dispersion. But as to their status in that day, "Behold God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid, for YAH the LORD is my strength and has become my salvation" (Isaiah 12). THERE is the exposition of status, and what more need be said when you read in Isaiah 30, of the entire nation that AS SUCH

	"this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the LORD, who say to the seers,
	Do not see; and to the prophets,
	Do not prophesy to us right things; speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits... cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us."

That of course is precisely what the scribes of the time of Jesus on earth, actually sought to DO PHYSICALLY!

Man is a spiritual being in a physical format, and what he thinks in his heart, so is he in character and so does his action show.

ANY ONE IN ISRAEL therefore, as in the Gentile case, for all are in sin (Romans 1-2), needs the LORD, for salvation is of the Lord, and the status is LOST; and for all such, the question is not what to provide, but whether there will be a finding or complete and permanent loss! But what of being found, if so be ?

Then,  "In returning and rest you will be saved; in quietness and in confidence will be your strength; and you would not... And therefore will the LORD wait, that He may be gracious to you, and therefore will He be exalted, that He may have mercy on you, for the LORD is a God of judgment; blessed are all those who wait for Him"  (Isaiah 30:15ff.).

Indeed, the Lord, He tells us so Himself, will "WAIT that He may be gracious" (Isaiah 30:18), "that He may have mercy", for that is the only proposition allowable! Indeed, in mercy, He delights (Micah 7:19ff.), and it is only from its exercise in casting their sins into the depth of the sea, that the covenant of Abraham is at last consummated in Israel, as Micah proceeds to show.

Salvation is not in parade of promiscuous self-esteem, as if to make of a man an idol in his very own person (cf. Luke 18:10ff.). In the end, ONLY the name of the Lord will be exalted (Isaiah 2:17-19). He WILL NOT share His glory with another (Isaiah 42:8). Hence for salvation (Isaiah 43:10-11), He comes in person. There is not even anyone LIKE Him in heaven or on earth (Psalm 89:8, 46:9). He is the non-pareil, the incomparable, the unsoiled, the unspoiled, the eternal God and source of spirit for any; and in Him only is there found that purity of purpose, incandescence of holiness which alone is the standard of righteousness; and those who think Him low, are brought down for their self-esteem, pride and folly. The Lord waits! It is often long, but this time, He waits for a highly specific event.

For what then does the Lord wait ? It is

"until the Spirit be poured forth from on high ... then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field,
and the work of righteousness shall be peace;
and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever"

(emphasis added).

And what happens then ? It is as in Zechariah 12;10, when the Holy Spirit, that of supplications and grace is poured out on the people, that in great numbers they see Him whom they have pierced, and repenting in depth, wash in the fountain (Zechariah 13:1).

Salvation from Israel as basis (not a channel for incarnation but for salvation direct), or the human psyche, or some political system, psychological manipulation or verbal subterfuge, mental creation or emotional bedazzlement as in some Pentecostalism (cf. A Question of Gifts), this is as far from truth as chaos from commission or a kaleidoscopic configuration from meaning.

It is its construction which is systematic, using law to allow freedom (that is, here non-intervention, the heart of the kaleidoscope). The construction of salvation is also highly systematic, though its source is eternal, and this involves not a rattle but a Redeemer; for in this case, intervention is everything, and other options are nothing (cf. Isaiah 11:10, 12:1-3, 48:16ff., 41:28-42:6, 51:18-43:12, 30:8-16, 8:19-9:6, 40:9-10 and 52:7!).

It is all a matter of beholding on the mountains, how beautiful are the very feet of those who bring GOOD NEWS (Isaiah 52:7), the proclamation of pardon and the production of the means to it underlies all (as in Isaiah 49-55). Even their most lowly parts have a derivative beauty from the glory of their mission, their commission, their Gospel of grace. As to that, it is all about Christ, and what He did, and how and why; but as to man, it is all about what is his reception, or deception. He takes it or is left, lost.

The endemic human desire, as the heart snuggles in its sin, is for non-intervention; but last time it was the flood, next time the fire (III Peter 3), and in between there is the Saviour who is sent from heaven (Isaiah 48:16), commissioned from the womb (49), foretold from the first (Genesis 3:15) and proclaimed to the last (Isaiah 59:21, Ephesians 1:10).

	Islam shuts its eyes to Him (cf. SMR pp. 1080ff., More Marvels Ch. 4) and initiates some other scenario in vain;
	Israel shuts its eyes to Him, as in Isaiah 6, penalised for their profundity of rebellion (30:8ff.),  and shunts its train onto the siding;
	the broader Gentile realm seeks to socialise, syncretise, politicise, anachronise, trvialise, symbolise and in any other way cast dust in the eyes, lest it should believe Him (like the Jewish nation in Christ's day, as in Matthew 13:13ff.).

The testimony of God in the Bible, the Lord Himself on earth, history, hearts of those who know Him, actions that attest Him, the words that invest Him as man on earth, Saviour and Lord, not over empty spaces of abandoned hearts, but to reason and righteousness alike: this remains without logical contestant so much as worthy of a glance in merit. All else is meretricious, pernicious, puny with no attestation of reality or warrant for truth.

As a simply shut-eye; is not sleep, so neither does it, nor can it find truth.

NOTE

*1 Authority is merely deputed to man, and is from God who alone has made man, the law, the licence, the highway to love and the freeway to lostness, that man not being programmed by power to become a midget manipulable, like a car, great in complexity, zero in personality, but a spirit with equipment to dispose wisely, answerable to the God who made both spirit and means for it, should answer the call to God, with spirit, mind and means.

On these things, see It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, Little Things Ch. 5, SMR pp. 348ff., Spiritual Refreshings ... Ch. 9, *1. In fact,  the programmatic can never find truth, since the power to investigate is programmed by another, and truth as such is not ascertainable by what lacks the analytical liberty to apply the criteria, being personally defunct in the function of the master of the program. Where, moreover,  the model involves no God, then there is no absolute truth to find, and what is not there, cannot be proclaimed. Man however is vocal in truth, in ideas and ideals, in systems and requirements, whether affirming or denying God, and all of these things depend not merely on the fact of God's existence, that truth may be found, but on His declaration of it, that it might be known. Sensings of the great deep or whatever other invention man may make, logically are irrelevant, You find God or have no power to inform on what you exclude at the outset, and hence dumb, have this much wisdom to contribute to your fellows.

If however you do find God, then the power of God is available to verify, validate and prevail, and as is in fact the demonstrable case, all fits as nowhere else, and all is answered for reason as nowhere else (cf. Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ). 

If then man  does answer the call of God, then the absolute authority, absolute power and absolute love of the Creator, being channeled not through mouth  of flesh, but the word of God, shows itself in the Plan of Salvation, designed for man, which involves the incarnation of Christ and the denial of Him, so brilliantly composed that this becomes the very means of salvation, the Cross of hatred becoming the sacrifice for sin and the rest of reality comes to those who so acquiesce in truth. (Cf. The Meaning of Liberty and the Message of Remedy.)

Where, however,  man seeks to use his own deputed authority of convenience, to become a source of absolute authority, as in the case of Communism, the papacy and Islam for example, in terms of either a man or a system, neither of which either look like, act like or have the wisdom of deity, but fail immeasurably in performance, then what follows ?

It is  this, that the most heinous and horrendous of results MUST happen, and observably do, millions paying in servitude of spirit  as far as possible, to ludicrous contradictions, such as appear in Canon Law with its multiple references to what is not even in agreement with itself, or to the necessities of history as in Communism, where it never becomes willing to act as required by the theorists, or to the failure of the alleged all might of Allah to secure the most obvious of results or to provide the least of verifications (cf. SMR pp. 829ff.).

That millions pay with torture, suffering, expropriation, banishment, agonies unthinkable and denunciations unthinkable, is a beginning (cf. The Divine Agenda Ch. 6, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 14). That nations are corrupted, world peace is dethroned, insanities arise and violence becomes for many a way of life, devastation a desideratum and the pulping, in part or in whole of the young, a method for many, this is another resultant. Power without God is inglorious; principles without God are vainglorious; all of it is spiritually insalubrious, and hate begets hatred.

As Christ declared, there would be many false christs and false prophets, and as the time of His return to the place of divinely legislated authority approached, then iniquity would abound. (Matthew 24).

When science, that is human knowledge based on certain methods ostensibly, but like so much else socially, politically and militarily, often breaking the rules and speaking with authority that is merely aped from appearance and free of fact: when this body becomes an authority absolutely likewise, the same diligent demonism becomes quickly apparent; for it is all one thing in the end (as shown in Scientific Method, Satanic Method and the Model of Salvation).

 What is that one thing ? It is man on his little hind legs daring to dispute with deity the path of peace, the place of power, position of personality, the rule, law and Messiah, and seeking to confront and replace, with varying degrees of hypocrisy and unruliness, the same with himself, allied with demonism as may occur, and devastation as must.

When various powers get together, such as science improperly so-called (of which knowledge our grossly misused version is one aspect - I Timothy 6:20), and Communism, or Islam (cf. More Marvels from the Majesty and Mind of the Almighty Ch. 4), or the misnamed 'church' and papacy (cf. SMR pp. 911ff.), then various configurations of carnal approaches to chaos inflict themselves on the ordered life of man. Pride in science, or Romanism, or Islam or Communism, or some combination, has been as much a downfall for the human race in expenditure and rapine, the seizure of assets and their destruction, the abortion of peace and the devastation of human power based on God, as the fall in Eden; except in this, that the last-named was the beginning of sorrows, and the rest are their acceleration, as this and that cyclotron of folly is deployed, at times directly by demons, to the devastation of the human race (Matthew 24:22, I Timothy 4:1ff.).

Contrary to the desires of some, this gets nearer than may be realised. There is a limit to the abuse of any design (cf. Isaiah 57:15-16), and the outcry about the destruction of the environment is merely one of the elements, as stress and outrage brew in their own cauldrons (as foretold in Luke 21:26, II Timothy 3:1-5). It becomes one of the elements of the final roll-call of developments arising from the departure from the power, presence and purity of the living God, the Creator, as shown in Romans 1:29-30. While hating and being hated is part of the par for the corrupted course of man (Titus 3:3), this is to become an evil flower in the intolerance to truth which is to characterise the last part of the Age before the return of Christ. Making death and its dealings a way of life is thus to become, as it has become, a mark of the end of the Age (Revelation 6 cf., Answers to Questions Ch. 5).

Even the Beast and the Harlot will come to be at odds (Revelation 17:16ff.), this coming when, after long acquiescence,  at last the former becomes the hater of the harlot, and in her overthrow as in Revelation 17-19, there is a wallowing in wickedness, as if an octopus and a whale should fight, and the deeps will be stirred, before it is all purged (as in Revelation 17-19), with the return of the King whose has been the role of presenting the kindness of God contrary to the conflicts of man - Titus 3:4ff.. To Him however also belongs judgment and justice (Acts 17:30-31), and when mercy is forfeited through infidelity and faithlessness, then the latter has no bar or barrier!

Nor should philosophy be exempted from the roll-call of folly. While there is a true Church based on the Christ of history as recorded in the Bible, and true authority, derivative and dependent on God for the correct handling of practical affairs in government, and there is likewise sound knowledge which actually comes through scientific method, not its abortion, so accordingly there is true philosophy, in the special and basic sense, love of wisdom. Yet in practice as with the rest, the case is far from this. Philosophy has become so ingrained with the diseases of the spirit of man, as to become one more criterion of pride, and place of passion for anti-God lust (cf. SMR Ch. 3 by contrast with SMR Ch. 5).

Many are the methods and machinations of man without God, either formalistically acting as if it were not so (as in II Timothy 3:1-5, one of the fixtures of prophecy for the end of the Age) or in direct confrontation. But one is the result.

Seizing power that man cannot handle since he is not designed for it, and since the power of God is allied to the correlative wisdom, which is above man as the heavens above the earth, and without God simply not obtainable, man becomes weak and wicked both, this leading to the abominations of the last 100 years. Look at it, the flower of Christian British youth (as in many cases it was), for one, cast into the furnace of WW I, with four years of filth and agony; the arresting assertions of race and anti-Semitism in Hitler and the devastating alliance with Communism to rid the world of Nazism, and the payment of the Cold War for some 46 years, with effloresences still, as Putin seeks to extend it somewhat, declaring by report that if there is to be confrontation then the modes of the Cold War might return. Accordingly, by news report,  a Russian bomber appears to have played the fool near to British air-space requiring several fighters to respond close to it, in the air, before goofing off. Such games for such a race!

To this unspiritual squirming are added the ghoulish murders of Islam, whether wrought in Israel or the Sudan, in Afghanistan or Iraq, massed increasingly for the Large Generation, where number is the name of the game, and delusions of grandeur the substitute for the glory of God.

So do these phases of human sin reek with blood of violence, passion and insolence against the God before whom they are insolvent spiritually, at whose destiny they might well tremble.

They ignore to their destruction this simple Gospel fact, inscribed in the word of God which alone stands over the millenia, irrevocable, irresistible, practical and performed:

"But when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
not by works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to His mercy He saves us,
through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour,
that having been justified by His grace,
we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life."

III

EXCURSION ON MAN'S OSTENSIBLE SALVATION,
FROM POPE, SELF OR APPOINTEE,
AND GOD'S DIVINE SALVATION
BY GRANT OF GRACE

In making it ludicrously necessary for salvation, that each person be subject to "the Roman pontiff" as in Unam Sanctam (cf. Open Door, Closed Mind ... Ch. 4), the papacy is simply making a permanent business of what Moses inadvertently did under extreme frustration for a moment only. THEY are to be the necessary conduit, and it is at their will... that is the transparently uppity claim. This is so abhorrent to God that not only does Christ delineate it in the realm dust, horror, evil (Luke 11:52ff., Matthew 23), but Moses suffered for merely advancing into that realm at all, even in momentary exasperation. Of course he did it as leader and in the most conspicuous manner and matter!

Naturally, a measure of administrative authority is needed in any government, but in that which God has appointed to man in the case of His Church, in Moses' case, the church in the wilderness (Acts 7:38), it is so limited that even elders and pastors, like Peter himself, are not to be lords over God's heritage (I Peter 5);  and there is no NECESSITY in salvation to have teachers (I John 2:19). It is a SERVICE and he who exalts himself will be humbled. It is the word of GOD ONLY which is to be exalted, because it IS exalted (Matthew 5:17-20). The assurance of salvation is direct, divine, determinative and eternally based (John 10:9, 27-28, Romans 10:9, 8:16, Ephesians 1:11, I John 5:11-13, II Timothy 1:9ff.). It depends neither on oneself nor on any other but the Lord Himself. It is HE who saves, HE who paid and HE who keeps (I Peter 1, Galatians 1,3, Romans 3:23ff.).

What says Paul, WHO HAS BEWITCHED YOU! Have you begun in the Spirit, based on Christ and Him crucified,  in order to continue in works that you do! Some however insist on being co-Saviour with God in a manner most sad, grotesque and often not fully realised. Faith, as with Abraham takes the gift, and this is counted as righteousness. ALL of Abraham's relevant works FOLLOWED and SHOWED the reality of His faith. They did not generate it or its results! You do not make fruit by wiring it onto a tree; you PLANT the tree and then the fruit follows! (Matthew 15:13). First God must PLANT you as a tree of righteousness (Isaiah 62), and then, planted with Christ, you abound.

The ground is that of faith, and the vitalisation is that of Christ, who said, Because I live, you will live also; and that whoever should drink of the water HE gave, would NEVER thirst again. The water ? free (Isaiah 55), the result ? everlasting joy on their heads (Isaiah 51:11), the power to keep ? that of God (I Peter 1). See Assurance.

In fact, there is no wisdom in having the superficial substitute for biblical faith which is found in the ideas of those who imagine that it depends on themselves, and hence, though they may not realise this, on their works, and hence project a works approach to the freedom of eternal life, which in fact is outside the works of the law (whether or man or of God), outside the accolades of attainment and the wonders of one's own life, as Paul so clearly depicts.

	"This only," asks Paul,
	"I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith ? Are you so foolish ? Having begun in the Spirit are you now being made perfect in the flesh!"

Salvation is of the Lord. Thus Hebrews tells us that by ONE SACRIFICE (and that of Christ, Heb. 9:12, 10:10,14), we are made complete for ever. Indeed, Paul in intense irony in Romans 4:2, declares: "If Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the Scripture say ?

"Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness". Paul adds, making even obtuseness impossible:

"But to him who does not work but believe on Him who jsutifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness." He proceeds to parallel the case of David, where in Psalm 2, he declares,

"Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin."

Indeed, Abraham believed and had this imputation of divine righteousness (Romans 5:17) BEFORE any of his works, and the works following, indicated that his faith was alive, real and hence functional, operative, able to sustain the life which its premisses proclaimed, and to issue in what its reliance of the God of power provided! Hence was the statement of justification justified, and any such statement or position would be justified by the results of its reality becoming apparent. These however, declaims Paul and the Lord through him, are nothing whatever to do with the justification.

It is merely the justification of justification which is involved. Even at that, it is not before man that this is obtained, for theirs is not to play God, but to deal with facts that are certain, not dubious estimates (Matthew 7:1ff.). It is a relish to confirmation that works follow; but it is not at all the essence of believing (cf. SMR pp. 520-532). It is its result (cf. Matthew 15:13).

Faith trusts, and receives what God has offered; and that is that. It is eternal life (John 6:50-62).

If it WERE to be made dependent at all on man, then it would not be faith, for it would be mere hypothesis, with man co-saviour if so be. There is however NO Saviour but God Himself, and the attribution of ANY salvation to man is nonsense, extravagant and ungainly (Romans 3:23ff. makes the point with no little mockery of the flesh, and no less does Galatians 3).

But FAITH, as Hebrews 11:1 tells us, it is the assurance of things hoped for, the attestation of things unseen. Christ rebuked His disciples, or His hearers, accordingly, when they did not rely solely and wholly on His word, but had to be convinced by what happened. That is the wrong way around! (cf.  Matthew 6:30, 8:25-26, 14:30-31, 16:7ff.). Reliance on His word and correlative works is the criterion of Christianity and has results incontestable by that same word (cf. John 10:9,27-82, I Thessalonians 5:9-10, I John 5:11-13, John 5:24, Romans 8:17,29ff., II Timothy 1:9ff.)

Faith shows the truth of the reality of justification by what it does, not as an inward criterion, but as an outside consequence. Dead things do not work; living things do. What they are, they show by what they do. This is no ground for JUDGING (as Christ refused such action as in Matthew 7:1); but it is good ground for appreciation, and can be used where evil looms, or the obvious is in view, which of course often it is not, for the left hand does not know - or ought not - what the right hand does, and gossips make a world of their own (cf. II Corinthians 12:20-21).

But as to the man: he is justified by faith (Romans 5:1, Titus 3:5ff.), and that is that, the thing is past and the deed is over. That is faith, biblically, divinely, dowered.

As to his faith, it is justified by his works. As to  God, HE and HE ALONE is the One who knows past all confusion; and mercifully indeed, it is He and He alone who is the judge (Acts 17:31). Let us be clear: IF you have faith, then you believe. It is not dependent on what you see, but on HIM who is invisible. You are saved without works, but not without faith, and faith works.

 If your works seem to fade, faith is not vanquished, but stirred to operate the more and the better on the principles, on the word of God, and to claim and to obtain the grace needed in the events accruing. Faith, being in the God who acts (Isaiah 64:5), gets results. It may be thin, at times, like hair on top, and even David sinned both gravely and grossly with Bathsheba; but it was shown as in Psalm 51, where the regenerate nature of David reveals itself and the mercy of God in correlative and glorious wonder, to him. (see SMR pp. 520-532).

Indeed, in II Timothy 1:9, we see how far deeper and higher is salvation than something depending not on the Shepherd Himself, but in any regard, on the sheep (which is BORN one by regeneration - Titus 3:5-7). It is not even possible for a sheep to degrade into a goat (I John 3:9), for as to what is born of God, says John, its SEED REMAINS IN IT. But Timothy - II Timothy 1:9 ? We shall briefly consider it here, and return to it for more later.

First this verse tells us that we have been saved.

Secondly, it is with a holy calling. It is not some passing mutter.

Thirdly, it is not according to works - that is not its domain, type or kind,
nor has it kinship with it.

Fourthly, it is according to God's own purpose and grace that we have been saved.

Fifthly, it is a grace which has been given to us in Christ Jesus before time began.

Let us pause here. Time is processive, eternity is investive. We who are saved, have been chosen before the processive began, in the knowledge, the foreknowledge of God; and as to that, this has been predestinated for us (Romans 8:29ff.). As to God's "own purpose and grace" through which we who have been saved by Christ have been granted this place, it has been revealed by the appearing the Saviour, Jesus Christ. As to Him, He has "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel."

Such is the GRACE and its MAGNITUDE, the KNOWLEDGE and its ETERNITY, the FUTURE and its INTERMINABILITY, which God has provided for His people, who have been saved, as is any one who enters through that door, which is that of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ; for any such, this is Christ's affirmation. They will be saved and go in and out and find pasture, and are given eternal life, so that NONE can snatch them from His hand, and indeed, they SHALL NOT PERISH.

In such depth has God prepared the plan of salvation; such is its design, such is the case for those designated by Him who find Him, and such is the result of redemption, eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12), the cover perfected in one offering (Hebrews 10:10,14).

Let us then move on from the perfection of God's provision to the examination of the pass-port, in customs terminology!

	In accord with the demands of divine perspective, and the results, it is imperative for each one to consider: If I were challenged, as nations challenge, by the Maker of nations, how would I, indeed how COULD I answer ?
	What follows enables suitable questions to be answered, and thus this chapter includes the APPLICATION of perspective in a personal fashion: it is easy to apply, easily checked, and being fashioned by the Almighty for his creation in His own image, that is what you would expect.
	Some things are demanding, and our minds are constructed to handle them, with fortitude and resolution; but this, it is not the most difficult, and it IS the most important. God is gracious, in this as in all.

First we consider relationships (as in the passport case - who are your parents, or what is your place), and then who is your God; and after that, who breaches limits, and who remains in the name.

 

PASSPORT PLEASE

Identifying Answers,

Identifying People,

Case of Mistaken Identity

Restoration of Discipleship by Designed Salvation
Designating Eternal Life

Who is my mother ?

Jesus was told that his family desired to see Him, but His work did not suffer this for the time, and He asked this: WHO IS MY MOTHER ? It is, said He, everyone who does the will of God (Matthew 12:48ff.). These too are His brothers. There are no queens in heaven, nor popes (Matthew 23:8-10): Christ ONLY is the Master and Teacher, and Mary is the mother of the human format of Christ, not 'of God', a contradiction in terms. The limit of lords, it is one; the origin of God, it is non-existent, for He is eternal, without whom nothing could be ever, and through whom all things come directly, such as creation, or indirectly, such as sin.

In the kingdom of heaven, all relationships are subject to superiority on the part of the Creator-Redeemer. This gives rise to the word from Luke's Gospel, to the effect that if you do not 'hate', that is give entire relative hate, or allow a total secondary character to ordinary and indeed precious human relationships, then you cannot be Christ's disciple. Otherwise put, if you do not get it straight about the pre-eminence of Christ in your life, then He neither is nor can be your Lord. Hence any statement to the effect that He is, when He is not, is null and void (Luke 14:26).

To prevent misapplication of this perspective, Christ's words are as always, most apt. You must HATE YOUR OWN LIFE ALSO, He adds (Luke 14:26). In other words, he who seeks to save his life will lose it, but he who for Christ's sake and the Gospel's, loses it, will keep it (Matthew 16). Christ Himself voluntarily allowed elders and the desecratory mob to degrade, scoff and leer at Him in their hatred; He expects people to take it from ANY source likewise, whatever is necessary in Christian courage and grace, however ludicrous, libellous or ludicrous.

This is the elemental relationship, no less important spiritually than the heart physically. You cannot go, as a Christian, at all, without it. Hence those unwilling to be so consecrated, dedicated to HIM first and foremost, to each one comes the message: you  "cannot be My disciple."

When it comes to Mariolatry in particular, the application is clear. ALL who do the will of God are His mother. Blessed those paps, said one to Him ? Rather, said He, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it (Luke 11:27-28). This error of Romanism is compounded by their confusion of the bread of life, a matter of spirit and life, as Christ declared, for "the flesh profits nothing" (John 6:50-64), when it comes to 'eating My flesh'. It is what He did with His flesh, not what we do that matters; and in no way is He to be found in some inner room, ecclesiastical or other: for said He, if they say He is there, DO NOT BELIEVE THEM!

To this, adequate attention as given earlier, in Massifs of Pure Splendour Ch. 6 as marked
cf. SMR pp. 1086ff.)..

WHEN HE quits the splendour of heaven (Matthew 24:24-27), it will be contrast with this inner room bogus belief, be like the lightning surging from East to West! It is in THIS SAME JESUS that faith lies, not some anti-scriptural substitute. The contrast could not be more complete, whether with mother or the pretence of pap. It is Calvary alone which stands, and where it is changed, it becomes a rock on which man will fall and fail.

Who is my brother ?

His brothers are just the same characters! He did not come to earth as a man in order not to have brothers, but since He had no seed of His own (Isaiah 53), it is those regenerated by Him and for the Lord, who are His brothers. They are now in the same realm, though created and redeemed, as their Redeemer: they understand spiritual things (I Corinthians 2:15-16), and while they must grow (II Peter 3:18), yet they seek them, move in their milieu,  and live for the same values, in the presence of power and peace divine. The same priorities of wisdom and grace and love and peaceability are theirs, and from that courage which is Christ's as King, they also partake. Though for them, it is a conferment inside the wonder of regeneration, yet it is the conferment of a brother's spirit.

It has repercussions, with OUR brothers. We know how we should treat brothers, but what of these ? Do we so act ? To be sure, many 'brethren' are bogus: for deceit is the name of the devil's game from Eve onwards (Genesis 3), with lures and distortions. Indeed, the Bible especially prohibits even fellowship (Ephesians 5:9, 6:9) with those who use the Saviour's name and hold to idols of their own theological or other manufacture - such as "another Jesus" or "another Gospel" or dealing with "another Spirit" and receiving it (II Corinthians 11). Paul deems people like that, "deceitful workers" and "false apostles" if they are teachers! When you have brothers, it is important to know who they are, and not just to be expansive, any more than isolationist. It is, says the apostle, devil's work, for the devil can transform himself as if an angel of light. Fraudulence is not faith, and non-faith does not save.

Who is my God ?

In the Adelaide Advertiser Monday, August 13, 2007 we had the story of an Anglican bishop, Spong by name,  who conceived that there is a mental dictation to others in the Sydney diocese of the C of E. For him, we find then as on August 17, there is a need to let people make up their own minds. You do not need the bodily resurrection, or the virgin birth, you need an updated Christ, fit for the 21st century, not one bound in the volume of His day.

First, this seems so very out of date. Thus when your pastor was preaching in the South Island of New Zealand in 1966, a contretemps broke out, which broke up the church in the end. It was in the Presbyterian field, where one abides (for example the Scots Confession of 1560 seems quite good, although every confession for a Bible believing Christian MUST be read as subordinate to the Bible, that is so that if there is any question, the Bible alone rules) and where indeed one was ordained in 1966, to the Ministry. A certain Professor Geering, principal of the theological tertiary training centre or 'theological hall' in N.Z. announced to the press that he did not believe in the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. The dust of His body, he averred, lay somewhere in Palestine, or what adjoins.

This new religion (Acts 2:23ff., I Corinthians 15:1-4), with its new christ resembles this very case noted today, that against which Paul warned (II Cor. 11), a spiritual novelty factor arising from those whom Paul THEREFORE is defining as false apostles (II Cor. 11:4,13-15), this being the genre. It has used and does use Jesus Christ as a gum tree is used by mistletoe. One saw a detailed picture of a little mistletoe plant sticking on a gum tree branch, getting ready to insert its probe and so live on the gum as a parasite.  This is it.

However this is far worse, for in this case, it is not only parasitic, USING the foundation of the faith as a ground of departure for baseless comedy of errors in making things up, but an empty parade, using the name of Jesus Christ to make a religion founded on nothing. It has one only merit: it fulfils the prediction of Peter for the last days of our Age, providing the 'mature', the 'updated' version of the Christian faith, as in II Peter 2. People, he said, will arise in your own church and make merchandise of you, bringing in destructive heresies. Jude puts the kind more amply!

It has been done for centuries, in different ways as man dares to trifle with the Lord, with Christ the clown, the revolutionary, the non-supernatural, and anything else that reflects faithless culture, lacking all basis except vapid imagination and shameless disregard of historical constraints and faith alike (cf. SMR Appendix   C and   D, Swift Witness 6).

Such was the species of cry in 1966 in NZ where also a new christ was being formed and in the end, though your pastor condemned it roundly in the Assembly of that year in Wellington, and refused at Assembly, to read its words from the pulpit in the St Ninian's Presbyterian Church in Blenheim where he preached, nevertheless the vast majority followed this thing, or were so indifferent to it that one could believe it or the Bible, at will!

When challenged on that day, they would not hear, any more than they heard Jeremiah in his day, before the fall of Jerusalem. Such is the way of unbelief. Indeed, some seem either to have been sleeping or avoiding the issue. However, there was a great commotion and to miss this would be like missing an accident, when an aeroplane landed on the main street of a city!

Hence in 1966 one's word of dissent, provided formally for Assembly records concerning the Resurrection Statement of that year,  was after the direct confrontation,  lodged with the privilege used, of sending as an Assembly member, the reasons for that dissent. In fact, this was a document of 17,000 words of denunciation, before one eventually left that former Christian church.

Here too, as parallel to the present Anglican case,  the word of the vagrant church academic concerned, was that the twentieth century man (the 21st doesn't seem to have changed him much) could not believe the supernatural and all that... Most important this twentieth century man, but one does not find that he has so very much to boast about.

In SMR pp. 839ff., we review this aspect. If in 1992, it was like this, it is easy to see the developments these 15 years later, not least in the heartless tornado of distressed energy in militant Islamic terrorism. What follows is close to that original word.

Thus academic, national, political, communicational, traumatic means interact cumulatively, like industrial smog, high in the atmosphere, where the sun compounds and threatens with even worse results. The TWENTIETH CENTURY, how debased is this which is so high, how demeaned, how degenerate, how devilish and vicious, how elevated and how low: man without God, even for 74 years formalised in Russia's grandiose rejection after centuries in which at least the name of Christianity was there...! Man? This is precisely as the Bible depicts him (Romans 1:22 ff., 1 Timothy 6:3-6); and he fits further syndromes as he REJECTS THE REMEDY, than the case was in his merely corrupted state (1 Timothy 4:1-3, II Timothy 4:1-8, II Peter 2:1-17, II Thessalonians 2 - cf. pp.1074-1082 infra.)

As with the killing of famed heart-surgeon, Dr Chang in Australia, when you lay vile hands on a healer, it is a new dimension of madness; but when you so act on your God in His remedy, it is the very smoke of hell. (Cf. Psalm 2, Acts 4:25-26.)

What set the hearts of millions in the clouds of fanciful philosophy, with the prospect of casting aside the 'chains' of Christianity and the restraints of meekness, of helping-the-weak, in exchange for the philosophy of the superman so dear to the heart of the (literally) crazed German philosopher, Nietzsche... that delirious offshoot of the mystic mythology of evolution! The result is simple: it has cast them down. Germany paid supremely for the privilege of evolutionism, Hegel, Nietzsche and Wagner - they helped to prepare the way. Much of the world is also waiting now at the cashier's desk, and more are joining the line.

Delusion has become degeneracy, delight doom (cf. II Thessalonians 2:10, Proverbs 1:20-33). This twentieth century of glory and liberation has become a sub-standard century: not a time of enjoyable naturalness, but of the devilry to which the explicit rejection of God necessarily leads, constantly verifying that man is made, and not man-made; and he inherits what His maker's design and conferment of potentials renders apt.

Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind remains as true as when Hosea wrote it (8:7), at the mouth of God. The ethical, moral, cultural and spiritual verification of these things is intense, specific and of an irony for this century of the superman... that makes history a teaching medium par excellence. In particular, the predicted "fearful sights", a sign of Jesus Christ's near return as we saw, are blazoned across the skies by the courtesy of TV, with spectacular and grisly spectacle, as if to lecture man through his own attainments, the more graphically and horrifically, on his follies in forsaking the Lord. To lecture ?

One part of this lecture is the precise verification both intensively and extensively, of this prediction. It fits like a black diamond in a carbon crown, as one of the predicted syndrome of signs to attest the near coming to judge of the Lord Jesus Christ, that only Rock, only reliable One in whom power and purity, precision and faithfulness are shown to be inherent, in perfection. His rejection, the madness of the Jews, is becoming increasingly the mania of the Gentiles, in fulfilment in turn, as we have seen, of the prediction of Paul of a great "falling away" (II Thessalonians 2), and that of Christ of many false leaders and an avalanche, as it were, of iniquity to attest the progress of a world rejecting His redemption, on the road to judgment.

As always, as a matter of experimental fact (and history is the experiment...), whatever the Bible says, whatever the Lord there indicates, whatever the apostles predict, it comes: it is, and it has history as its servant.

The twentieth century ? what has happened to its face!

By an irony approaching historical satire, it has become a very distinctive epoch indeed. Not the day of superman, free from Christianity's moral restraints, but according to the plan of the philosopher: rather that of terrorist madmen, on a cultural basis, seeking new ways, killing in the process perhaps 10 million in China, 20 million in Russia, 2 million in Cambodia, with a master torturer, Iraq's Hussein allowed to proceed.

This went on to occur, after means were at hand - perhaps within hours - to end the agony soon, in 1991's 100 hour war. Stopped abruptly, it spread to hundreds of thousands of Kurds, incited to revolt, as Time magazine reported at the time, then allowed to fight the mauled and angry Hussein, apparently alone. There are ways of torturing: by fear and flight, by ice-cold mountains and by leaving children without food. This can add to the repertoire of the more... usual methods. Spoiled and devastated, Hussein yet proceeded against the vulnerable Kurds, being still able to proceed. Whatever the intention, the result shrieks to and of man, man forsaking the Lord.

Terrorism has become a profession, slaughter in the city, a modus vivendi. Man experiments and history comments: and behind history is God. Events are commenting as Proverbs 1:20-27 comments - forever unflattering to autonomous man's wisdom. Other ways don't work, they fail, while the Bible's comments are verified, when divine mercy is put aside, is murdered; and with this, failure occurs, with the rigour of natural law. God did not invent sin; but He does not suffer its dominance. As Ecclesiastes 7:29 puts it:

God made man upright, but they have sought out many schemes.

Variations on the scheme of Psalm 2's depiction of the debased and in human, the vicious and pernicious work of  casting aside the bonds of God and of His Christ, these have continued for nearly 2000 years; and this scheme is 100% a failure. It is failure when it is soft, when it is hard, when it is at Oxford, when it is in Berlin, when it is in music, in art, in literature, in philosophy, in religion. It is like the wrong equation; nothing helps it, and it helps nothing.

Other aspects of what was called the 'terminal madness' of man in this fleeting Age have been considered (e.g. pp. 664-727 supra) in such terms as those of inter-active plagues, while the degeneracy of mores and religion to secular ideology, and thence downward to mere practical pragmatism has also been attested in its place (e.g. 730 ff.). The Prince of this world (John 14:30 ff.), in accord with the prediction of Jesus Christ, is making his presence greatly felt, knowing his time is short (Revelation 12:12).

The sheer vigour and utter virulence of it all is a further verification of the Bible, in its depiction of the state of this evil and ungodly operative cause of what was to come, is coming, is currently visible; and is yet to come (Revelation 12:12, 13:12, II Thessalonians 2:7, Matthew 24:12).

Let us however return to the case of the demise of the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, when with ONE known exception, this author, the Assembly voted for the Resurrection Statement, which made it a matter of choice whether you liked the physical raising of the body of Christ, or denying it, called something or other else by the same name.

This desultory and disgraceful equivocation deserved every part of the denunciation it received in Assembly in one's own address to it, and is an example of deceitful workers, deviously twisting the simple realities spoken of by Peter and witnessed by the disciples, that His body did not rot! This indeed was made part of one's address to that forlorn and bewildered, confused and counterfeit Assembly: it was pointed out that any SCHOOL BOY knows what it means to rot, that no other interpretation of the words in Acts 2 was possible, scan and look where you will in the dictionaries, and that to try to make it an issue of will, when it was one of fact was shameless. Such was the nature of the denunciation which covered various thematic points in similar style.

This gross corruption is merely one of many, and we have even had since that time in New Zealand, an Anglican Primate in Australia wanting to have other ways of finding God than through Jesus Christ. Here is the Protestant papacy, which by mere word, becomes as wholly contrary to Christ as is Romanism, with its innovative conundrums (cf. SMR pp. 911ff., 1032ff. -1088). The human carnage in such cases is less obvious than with Rome's unhappy past of physical torment as in the Inquisition (cf. Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 14); but the fact remains that here in such places as these so amiss, young men are being trained in torturous misuse of plain scripture, in engineering false paths, in following false apostles (many of whom are called 'modern theologians' cf. SMR pp. 861ff.).

It is like sending someone to a knee-capping games, in order to become athletes!

Thus the Anglican case earlier noted, concerning denial of the virgin birth and bodily resurrection of Christ, it is nothing new; it is merely an index to the increasing consistency of impact of inconsistent, indeed deluded non-Christianity, denying the heart and expecting the body still to live. Small wonder, a couple of decades ago, an Anglican bishop in Australia espoused the view that the church in the future might have to meet in private homes!

Thus, the New Zealand case of 1966-67, what of it ? It  seems very like the contemporary very wrong, Spong song, which as a type, is soon the swan song for a church, if it be followed, just as it has been set out before and is nothing original. It is Christ who is original, and THE ORIGINAL, there being none like Him (cf. Psalm 89:5 with Psalms 45, and  102:16-20, Isaiah 61:1-3, 48:16, Hosea 13:14). SMR Appendix C and D speak of His impact, word and incomparable performance in history, as does Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny Ch. 9, and dwell on His fulfilment in precision of contracted word (Matthew 26:53-54), deed, Gospel basis and work of power. History has been busy fulfilling His words ever since (cf. SMR Chs. 8-9).

He was full of grace and truth as became the only begotten of the Father, the word who WAS God (there is only one God in the Bible, and it is of Him John 1:1 speaks, the others being mere creatures, as in Psalm 82, Ezekiel 29). In the latter chapter, we find God asks of these fakes, these would-be gods, "Will you still say you are god when I slay you!"

It is He who took the virgin's womb as in Matthew 1:23, and why ? for how else could God become man but by bringing His own deity into our realm, this the direct engendering into the virgin's womb of the eternal Word, the the Lord of glory (I Cor. 2:8-1); and how avoid sin as a heritage but by allowing the Fatherhood of the everlasting God to act in incarnation of the sinless Saviour, and how save, had He had sin of His own! (I Peter 2:22-25)!

Thus there is the question: WHO IS CHRIST ? The biblical answer, the only one demonstrable by reason (as in SMR) and clear in revelation, like the case of an aeroplane asking, Where is my aerodrome from which I came! as it gets lost and looks for it: it is this. It is the One, O believer, from whom you came (John 1:1-3), who became sin for you that you might become the righteousness of God in Him (II Corinthians 5:21). This is He who is NOT 'another Jesus' whose is not 'another Gospel' and from whom there is not sent, from the Father, 'another spirit', as Paul denounces in his definition of the deity of Jesus Christ in II Cor. 11.

In God, nothing changes (cf. Galatians 1, Psalm 102, 91, Malachi 3:6, Habakkuk 3:6, Hebrews 13:6).

Another Jesus, so far from saving, is an invention of man.  If worshipped, he is an idol, and if not, a mere secularity, fashioned in clouds of desire, immune to history, useless to help. Idolaters, now, they do not enter the kingdom of heaven (I Corinthians 5-6), whether these be unrepentant adulterers in spirit or body. It is because eternal life is to KNOW GOD and JESUS CHRIST whom He has sent, that knowing the wrong christ, and thus the wrong God, since Christ is His definitive declaration (Hebrews 1) is not to be saved! Wrong doctor, wrong operation!

No one with the name of Christ at heart should BE in that hospital, far less accept the ministrations of its doctors (cf. Separation 1997).

Worse than merely receiving is giving this sort of thing in the name of Christ. Thus, if the novelty-maker be a preacher, the opportunity misused leads not only to preaching what is lost. It works towards more loss, but there is an accelerator function. Thus, to use Christ's own depiction of such misuse of HIS truth,  such persons are neither entering into the kingdom of heaven,  nor suffering those who were entering to do so. This is precisely in the manner of the scribes of Jesus’ day (Luke 11:52).  In this, Jesus was condemning those who condemned Him, since they did not believe in Him, and hence were holding a view that MUST  (since they purportedly believed the Old Testament) have been centred in another Jesus!

Condemn truth and it condemns you. Resist reality and it resists you. In this case, the destruction of Jerusalem resulted: idols fall!

The One who was before them, as He has been before the Church for 2000 years, and more before it in prophecy, Him they murdered, as Peter roundly, fearlessly and needfully declared to their faces (Acts 3:14-15). These authorities too were greatly disturbed, because through Jesus the apostles preached the resurrection (Acts 4:1). As to that, it was the body that was the point: that's what they murdered, not His spirit (Matthew 26). That's what they buried (cf. I Cor. 15:1-4), that's the thing that was raised, as defined, so that Christ even challenged them to touch Him and SEE! for, said He, a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see Me to have (Luke 24:39).

This is not a religion of philosophers but of observers (Acts 4:20, 5:32), scientific, testable, perceptible, just as organic evolution is not (cf. SMR pp. 931-943, 973A). There, there is the myth (cf. Secular Myths, Sacred Truth, The gods of naturalism have no go! and Ch. 2 above). Here is the fact.  On this all stands, and has stood and will stand till He comes, and again, then once more, He is seen  once more directly for Himself.

And then, then ? It is then that "all the tribes of the earth will mourn because of Him!" (Revelation 1:7).

So far, then, from the bishop's christ being an updated version, it is outdated. This is but the renovation of an old hat, no different in design, from the same factory.

If you then are asked as it were, for your spiritual passport, then the reply might refer to your education, and this, it is not to be identified as in the halls of horror, in the sites of disbelief, where fiction and fable replace fact and authenticated reality (cf. LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST).

This author, when in such a seminary in Melbourne, confronted the evil teaching (we were allowed to do so, indeed CHALLENGED as to our intellectual integrity if we did not follow their neologies), and was removed for it, along with slander and other evil deeds. To be sure, ten years later, I was re-instated in the PC of Australia, but by that time, I had completed training in Westminster Theological Seminary in the USA, one committed at least in intention, and in much, to the Bible, and before long was sent by the Lord to New Zealand, in time to confront the denial of the Christian Biblical faith in that place, as before in Melbourne.

When therefore in the New Zealand Presbyterian Church, this infamous resurrection deception was raised, there had to be another confrontation, and amazingly, this author was the only one from the Bible believing platform make such a challenge, and the only one known to have been the subject of formal DISSENT to the church, concerning its new and appalling Resurrection Statement. Why so few ? If one chooses to be in some evil institution, even if it is only now just changing from being sound, then confrontation is the only option. This is so,  if after debate, challenge and sustained exposure, there is no movement. If the confrontation reaches nil result, then one must depart (Romans 16:17).

AVOID, says the apostle, here. Do you avoid something by being taught by it!

Who crucifies Christ afresh ?

Biblically, then, this phrase is used in Hebrews 6 of those who have

1) tasted of the good word of God and the powers of the Age to come
and the heavenly gift 

2) were once enlightened and

3) have partaken of the Holy Spirit.

They tasted, but did not go further (cf. Mark 4:16-17 and see On Stand-By A and J).

This reminds one of King Saul, who menaced as a youth, the one to become King David of great name and fame. At the first, the Spirit came on him and he prophesied, but evidently to no avail. It is one thing to taste, as we all know and often see in wine-tasting exhibits on the TV, but it is quite another to swallow. EATING the heavenly 'bread' does not omit this point! (John 6).

The crucifixion that counts, it is that of Jesus Christ at Calvary, not of Christ on the altar of a renegade heart! Note, in passing, that this is not a thing of in and out of the Faith, but rather, of one who did not swallow, having gagged, then moving from the superficial attachment to the eternal exclusion (Hebrews 6:4ff.). Playing with fire helps no one (cf. Leviticus 10)!

The faith of a little child is no enemy of the mind (I Corinthians 14:20 - indeed ALL words in public worship must edify), for indeed there is no other faith or religion or approach that can stand logically (see http://webwitness.org.au).

Nevertheless, it  DOES REQUIRE total acceptance of this living and changeless Jesus Christ, the anointed, predicted, appointed Lord and Saviour, the Messiah from heaven (John 6:51). What counts in salvation is not some immersion of the body (for it is sprinkling which is noted in Hebrews 9:10ff. of various baptisms), but that of the spirit, when one is crucified with Christ, buried with Him, indeed planted with Him! (Romans 6) and thus remaining with Him. I Peter 3:21-22 makes that delightfully clear (cf. Questions and Answers   3). This planting, it is permanent, not episodic (Matthew 15:13).

It is this eternal Christ who paid (Romans 8:32, John 8:58), and not another Jesus: it is He whom faith receives,  whom one follows, taking up one's cross DAILY! (Luke 9:23-24, 14:27ff.). It is He, and not another (John 10:5), who keeps what is committed to Him against that day (II Timothy 1:12).

Persons having crucified Christ afresh do not present a valid passport. Their toying and embroiling without submission to the Lord and Saviour, it is this which sears the soul (cf. I Timothy 4:2). The good news is this: If you have erred, and call in faith on the name of the Lord for pardon, that very fact GUARANTEES acceptance, since it is promised (Romans 10:9, Acts 2:32-38); but it requires repentance (Luke 13:1-3), for the promises are two-sided, covering negative and positive as from the first in the day of Moses.

It is by grace; but it is not by disgrace; and what is graciously forgiven, is not applicable where the heart is not on its knees for its misdeeds and foolish ways.

Who is justified ?

In Luke 18:14, we see the tenor here likewise. The parable concerns a Pharisee, full of self-congratulation and works, and a tax-collector, facilitating the Roman occupation of Israel, and notoriously of a group who used some of their takings to further their own fortunes, so making a double calamity of their lives. The former thanked God he was not like other men, but purer, while the latter asked God to have mercy on him as a sinner. It was THIS ONE who was JUSTIFIED rather than the other, said Jesus, who also indicated that many harlots would enter the kingdom before some of the religionists (major clusters of whom, after all, killed Him!). Justification is by faith, not by works, not even some, not even ONE of them! (Romans 3:23ff.).

The saving works are Christ's! It is ONLY then that man's works can be wrought in the right spirit, as in love, not in the boundless foundation-less mist of futile fog. PLANT the tree, and THEN look for the fruit! (Matthew 15:13): and plant it in Christ, the right one, who died at Calvary, not some substitute creation who arose in the mind of new-christ-makers, fresh from the factories of hell (cf. Jude). As to the Christ who saves, see the Gospels; and as to the significance of it, see SMR Ch. 6, and pp. 582ff., 611ff., 570ff. Justification is free (Romans 3:23ff.), finished for the believer (Romans 5:1, Titus 3:5-7) and final (Romans 8:29ff., 8:17).

That stamp on the passport is thus an embracive one.

Who is a liar ?

I John 2:22 tells us that this is the person who denies that Jesus is the Christ! What is that ? It is as defined in I John 1, the One whose IS eternal life who became flesh and whom they could handle, real from heaven, eternity in temporal dress, who having in His gift eternal life, gave it to believers in Him. You cannot rise higher than your saviour! Have one of earth and earth is your store; but flesh and blood CANNOT enter the kingdom of heaven, "nor does corruption incorruption." It is the LORD from heaven who is the second man, whose work annuls for believers that of Adam in the fall (I Cor. 15:47), and propels into heaven, those who receive Him (John 6:50-54).

Choose another and you lose heaven. HE is the door. Windows may be fine in electronics, but as for heaven, they are illicit. In other words, He is the point of entry, and this is not like a mathematical point, without magnitude; His is infinite magnitude of spirit and the beauty of holiness (cf. Psalm 110).

HE is not a piece of bread, movable by man, nor does He grow mouldy, but rather moulds His own in our race! He is not in an inner room as with the Mass (Matthew 24:26) but WHEN HE appears, it is like lightning arising from the East and flashing to the West! You COULD not mistake the Lord of glory! It is not HE who is manufactured in the mind of man, but man who was manufactured by the power of His Spirit! (Genesis 1,John 15:26); for God is a Spirit, and those who worship Him must do so in Spirit and in Truth - like Thomas, who worshipped Him as Lord and God (the God, literally) on seeing the demonstration that His body had in fact risen from the dead! (John 20).

The lie defies and defiles (Romans 1:25); the truth liberates and loves (John 8:31-32, II Corinthians 3:17).

Lies do not figure well, nor are they acceptable on a passport, and this becomes absolute when the Examiner is God.

Who is kept by the power of God ? 
 

Part I

First, it is by God not Symbol!

Now we come to the opposite to straying, the apposite opposite. Those who are kept by the power of God, says I Peter 1, are those who by God's abundant mercy have been begotten again in a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In fact, as in Romans 10:9, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead (not some spiritual imagination, but the testable corpse – John 20, Luke 24), then you will be saved.

Let us start with I Peter 1:3-5.

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away,
reserved in heaven for you,
who are kept by the power of God
through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

The Christ in whom you are to believe, then, is not some made up again as bread or mere man, but the One who came from heaven (John 6:51, 62, 17:1-3, 8:58, Acts 3:19ff.) and returned there, there to remain till the final restoration of all things through His own power and in His own return and rule! His overpowering might is so contrary to the Wrong Song of which we spoke last Sunday (cf. John 8:19) that the Lord will even dispense with the heavens and the earth, and this soiled old world will go! (II Peter 3, Matthew 24:35, John 5:19ff.) with its works, to be burnt up in much power and noise and heat! HIS words however will remain.

Daring to suggest that the demonstrated power of God is a 1^st century hang-up, this Anglican Spong is in fact espousing a last century hanging of manifest truth, a neo-crucifixion, out of due time, an insurgency 2 millenia too late, demanding the excision of the Christ of God, biblically defined, historically exhibited in power, glory and grace, prophetically precise and never invalidated, nor invalided and sent home, but rising on time from the dead, in the face of all who could do nothing to stop Him, or dissolve His Church. He is not the first, not will he be the last, for such assaults are naturally predicted in the Book of the Lord, the Bible (Matthew 24:24). Christs out of the mind of man are two a penny, based on air, spiritual symbols shoved witlessly into the supernal, in violation of the word of God, made according to demand, dolls of false doctrine, show-bags of unspirituality, paps of pretence.

You can have your twentieth century man, as with Professor Geering of New Zealand (and sad it is to consider the plight of those who remorselessly abused the resurrection, when it comes to the day of it!), or the twenty first century man as with this Wrong Song, but it is not after all man at all, of whatever century – you can take your pick with William the Conqueror in the 11^th century, 11^th century man for England, or the Man of the 19^th century, with his industrial might and mechanistic views as so often in England, with Darwin a coping stone of this solecism, this ranting blindness to what the mechanisms are FOR, and where they are FROM, and where they are to GO. You can take the 1^st Century Man of Israel, rejoicing in the crucifixion of Christ if you want, but what difference does it make ? They are all wrong.

They have the wrong song, invented without ground, this recent one nearly 2000 years too late; they sing of man and his works, his ways and his day, and look more than a little ridiculous with the spectacles of time; how much more are they vulnerable to the inspection of eternity! The changeless Christ (Hebrews 13:8), the very Word of God will judge according to truth, not fiction, history (cf. SMR Appendix   C and   D), not faction, holy harmony of the peace He purchased from the plan of heaven in the dirt of earth, not the product of empty desire; and His words will remain though the heaven and earth depart.

He is not available for reconstruction, for this He accomplished physically Himself, as the action of the triune God at the resurrection. Yet there are some who would tie Him up again, merely in their minds, and misleading many, surge into the swamps of carnal infestation. Paul met it with the utmost rigour (II Corinthians 11), denouncing the godless infestation of truth with human imagination, desecrating that Christ whose words will not pass away (Matthew 24:35), by inventions from the realms of fancy, untested, unverified, unvalidated and presumption on legs. False apostles are they, the apostle declared, who present such stuff (cf. Swift Witness  6).

Let us consider the world’s way, its immunity from morals in its own mind, and tremble. One example will suffice of what is found widely, but with convicting horror in China, as illustrated recently in a recent article in The Advertiser, August 18, 2007, dealing with China. This  shows such a sophisticated, robotic, surreal and sensational indifference to the welfare of toy factory workers, that it is hard to consider how much more cruelty could have been shown, without making them unable to work at all. Let us ponder this report from The Real Toy Story, Eric Clark.

Here we see unmanned man (or in this case denatured woman) from a land whose god is the State: and as to it, it has neither mind nor moorings. Based on illusion, unelected man dictates. Falun Gong has been an earlier revelation of its workings, as hordes were assailed by a State evidently determined to rub out the spiritual aspirations of man, be they true or false. 

Second,
it is not by Truncating Truth or Tying Up Man

The hours could be as long as 20 (one died after a bout of that), the ability to leave was made impractical for many not only by the guards and the gates, the dormitories and the little food, the poor efforts almost ludicrous to consider health, and the intensely demanding rate for work, but by the fact that something like 6 weeks salary could be docked if one left. 

With starvation wages or something like it, and small food, bad health and great, indeed vast tiredness, this were rather like the Siberian cases, which at least the USSR propagandised as receiving punishment, though in one way, this only made it worse by evilly attacking their moral standing whilst being wholly immoral, and devoutly cruel towards them. How could one go home with the guards and dogs abounding in Siberia, or without money in China! 

The occasion of this news article was the fact that a famous toy company had to recall two million toys because of lead paint dangers for children, and parts coming off, and liable to enter children's throats. It has however helped to concentrate focus on the drab situation, the dire dynamics of the factory and the inhuman practices that would seem to make contempt a compliment.  

Fresh from rural China, a migrant may thus come to the city situation. One is traced, after a time in the factory. Skin has many open cuts, neck, chest and forearms are heavily mottled; red patches of allergy are raised, from toxic chemicals, while there is much coughing and with this, chronic aches and pains, frequent headaches. Vision is blurred. 

This is one case ? but when one considers the reported conditions, it is scarcely surprising that she looks older than her 18 years. Many, the report continues, return from the factory with disfigurements and illnesses. One was reported to have actually run 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, for lack of automation of part processing. Grime and sparsity of water and bathrooms is reported notorious.  Toilets may require a queue, enabling with other impediments, bed perhaps by 2 a.m.. 

The article, statedly based on the book, points out that China has dominance in the vast toy market, much of which finds buyers in the USA.  To achieve by competition without rules, the pre-eminent low cost, there is this amoral pressure on the workers. The individual is trashed.  

But what of the human erosion and spiritual corruption involved ? Such political and commercial like other virtual prostitution of man by man for the pulse of power is no part of man's mandate (Psalm 8:5-8, Habakkuk 2:12-14 - Berkeley, Amos 5:12-15, James 5:4-6), but abhorred by God.  

“Woe to him who builds a town by blood and establishes a city by iniquity!

"Consider, it is not from the LORD of hosts that peoples exert themselves
and that nations exhaust themselves for nothing; for the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD
as the waters cover the sea." 

In other words, so massive is the Lord's determination to expose evil and forward good, that His aversion to greedy withholding of wages, misuse of man by man, exploitation and violence (as in Amos 5 and James 4) will be seen when the earth is filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea.  

It is not saying that He is espousing these exploitations because the earth will be so filled, but that He is against them so that, by contrast, in His OWN will, when times of test are past and His rule is most direct in the millenium,  this blessed fact will be seen well enough. In what way ? It will be the precise opposite, coming in terms of His love of justice, mercy and judgment, equity and truth. He may send evil on a city - that is devastation or trouble, but it is man and his sin which engenders it, it is sin which occasions it and brings its own reward. It is sin which eats the fruit of its own doings (Proverbs 1).

Hence the words of James flame with fiery ire.  

"Come now you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries
that shall come upon you. Your riches are corrupted
and your garments are moth-eaten...

"You have heaped treasure together for the last days.

"Behold the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields,
which is of you kept back by fraud, cries;
and the cries of those who have reaped
are entered into the ears of the Lord of hosts...
You have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.
You have condemned and killed the just ..."  (emphasis added).

The riches of Communism are just as aristocratically disproportionate as in many another regime, and redress is even more difficult than in some, since all the weapons of power are put in man, the legislative, judicial and executive in one bundle, undivided; and justice becomes his plaything, morality his invention, and power his tool of selfish extraction, as in Communist fiasco, which crucifies morality only to make itself the moral law, based on nothing, and doing nothing ultimately good, for it is lost before it speaks and null before it opens its mouth. It is a dummy exhorting, a moral zero in its own perspective, berating its victims.

Secular misfits make new morals from air, ecclesiastical ones new christs from their culture, inner or outer; but while man degrades, he degrades only himself - truth and judgment remain the same, whether man becomes drunk or stays sober. Take the secular case, exemplified in cases such as that of Communism in its dallying with anti-verified imagination and illogical imposture (cf. SMR pp. 925ff., News 98).

It is then both a moral and actual holocaust, inflamed in alienation and by bluster banishing truth, assailing justice and evacuating mercy. Such is the trend for those who amend goodness into their own hearts, justice into their own wills and truth into their own models which deny it at the outset, though they affect to speak it. Its rule is as in Isaiah 59, showing you can come by this or that folly of idolatry, whether of man or other objects, to the same bitter end. Communism, idolatry of man, is merely one of these ways. Consider this exposure of the mechanics of formalised and defeatured man in Isaiah 59, spoken of backsliding Israel, but horribly applicable to Communism's lair. . 

"Justice is turned back, And righteousness stands afar off;
For truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
So truth fails, and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey.

Then the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him
That there was no justice.
He saw that there was no man,
And wondered that there was no intercessor;
Therefore His own arm brought salvation for Him;
And His own righteousness, it sustained Him.
For He put on righteousness as a breastplate,
And a helmet of salvation on His head;
He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing,
And was clad with zeal as a cloak.

“According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay,
Fury to His adversaries,
Recompense to His enemies;
The coastlands He will fully repay."

It proceeds to describe the coming of the Redeemer (as in Romans 11:26-28), for which we wait by faith (Hebrews 9:28), by whom we are, who are His, kept by the power of God to an inheritance incorruptible, that does not fade away, reserved in heaven by the God who made both us and our longings. He provided the precision of prophecy that expounds itself in history: and the very spirit prophecy and its core (Rev. 19:10) is shown to the universe as the testimony of Christ whom none can destroy; for even death is in His power, and life is His love. Man can die in many ways; but life comes only by One, the fabricator of matter, the maker of mind and the dower of spirit. To this life, He comes again, the surgeon of spirituality, deleting the cancers of scoffing sin and proud disdain, restoring knowledge where wisdom had long fled.

As He came at the first, to die for sin and declare deity, the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus (II Corinthians 4:6), so He comes at the last to judge what seeks or acts to dam grace and damage that face with new gospels, new christs, or no christ at all, asleep in the deep till judgment rolls (Acts 17:31).

Make fast therefore your reservation in heaven by THIS Christ from heaven whose is the work that endures, the word that rules and the way for man (John 14:6).  Only the Trinitarian God is the Saviour (Isaiah 43:10-11, 48:16, 45:22-23),and there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which they must be saved, than that of this same Jesus Christ, incarnate Deity Himself, inviolate, immutable, beautiful in holiness, vast in praises, eternal (Acts 4:11-12, John 8:58).

As to the culture of the flesh, there are words, but in testable deeds, validated virtue, verified performance, assessable from distant past to the future continually being born, and characterised by Christ and the prophets in advance, there is nothing else!

Glory in that name, pray in it, abide in His words as the fruit forms and the joy increases in His presence: for the Lamb is worthy of worship (Revelation 5), and it is for Him not to be sacrificed again, godless task, but to receive the sacrifices of praise. Sacrificing Christ in efforts to make novelties and call them 'Christ', new christs, new 'man', new oldnesses, erected from the pit of pollutions past and unthinkable, this is merely to tread under foot His blood, and to measure a coffin for one's own mercy.

Not wise are they who dash from the doctor's hand the saving medicine, or assault the life that brings salvation. Foolish is the foggishness that disdains clarity, hides from truth and blots out God; for it is only from the wind-screen of the soul. The reality remains and when one persists, then as Amos 4:12 has it, "Prepare to meet your God!"

Who is kept by the power of God ? 

Part II

We have been considering being KEPT by the POWER of GOD! and have seen that is by the true God not mere symbol, nor is it by imaginary christs from false prophets, of whom Peter warned (II Peter 2:1ff.) as did Christ (Matthew 24:24), who do violence to truth and very frequently to man as well! It is God who knows what is good for man, and neither doctrinal dyspepsia nor dynamic oppression is this!

On the doctrinal dyspepsia, we were looking at the bread-god of Rome, the heresy exposed by the Reformation, a thing to be worshipped contrary to explicit direction, at which we paused in "Who is my mother ?" Now however, in all responsibility, one must draw attention to the fact that in The Advertiser, August 23, 2007, in an effort to distance a major Pentecostal body from the fall into fallacy of Spong, the Senior Pastor of the Paradise Community Church, renowned for Pentecostal specialisation, made a declaration of great significance. As reported, after leaving Spong out of the throng he endorses, it reads as follows: "We are orthodox Christians with orthodox beliefs. We stand with all the Heads of Churches, the Lutherans, the Catholics and the Baptists; we are united."

This definition of 'orthodoxy' is as fallacious as the fondness for Romanism!

For long many have been the Pentecostal bodies which have had fellowship with Romanists, sharing tongue speaking with them; and of great interest in that respect was the report of one who attended, indicating that for that one, there was an even greater emphasis on Mary than before! Since this emphasis has her as Queen of Heaven, even mentioned by popes as Redemptrix, one to whom prayer is made whereas from the lips of Christ,  EVERY ONE who does the will of God is "My Mother" - Christ Himself declared it! it is apparent that this meeting was fruitful in forbidden and fraudulent claims (cf. Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ... Ch. 8, SMR p. 1086 *10). That was a beginning; but the child of disfaith grows! Put differently, the contours become sharper.

Now that is merely a foothill to the approach to the new mountain of man-made religion (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 6, News 121, 122), as the final multiply attested realities rocket into shape (cf. SMR Chs. 8-9). This brand of Pentecostalism is now revealed as one more chute to Rome, or friend for her, embracing not only her position as ORTHODOX, and hence accepting what in fact are her idolatries (cf. A Question of Gifts VI, SMR pp. 1032 -1088H) as not only tolerable but orthodox, but also making Romanism one of the CRITERIA of orthodoxy itself!

How far is this fallen, which makes the famed errors of this cult about Mary, Mass and pope, to become a measuring rod for truth! Thus not only has the Lutheran Church fallen heavily in its recidivist moves to fellowship with Rome (cf. News 88), but in its decisive departure from Luther in this very thing; for behold now it is being used as a double-model with Romanism for Christianity!

In Revelation terms, it is like making a harlot (cf. SMR pp. 946ff., 955ff.), the criterion of chastity, the model of young ladies and the quest for spirituality!

It is apparent that this is a fine, a splendid example of movement by degrees of disobedience into the very pit of failure. Thus fellowship with those who embrace anti-biblical heresy, as does Rome, is biblically forbidden (cf. Separation 1997, Romans 16:17), so that the tongue-sharing episodes of many years ago in their beginnings, were a putting of tongue preference above doctrinal requirements, the command of God! Now the error advances.

The fruit of that sowing is plainly seen, so that this brand at least of Pentecostalism, and it is by no means unusual, is seen as adding its own fall into that association of Bible-compromising, doctrine adventurers, heresy hallowers into which many major churches have now fallen, and into which confusion, others of the sects may now seek to find a further fellowship for themselves.

In this way, the biblical second beast of Revelation 13, the religious one, is becoming more visible, and his prospects for rule more obvious as the end of the Age surges into sight.

This is one part of the Revelation 13 expose from God. The other part is of course the first beast, the relatively simple combination of industrial, financial, military, social and economic power to assault truth and degrade man in the interests of its own glory (cf. SMR pp. 886ff.).

Thus, we were also considering the parallel between some of the evils of ancient Israel as in Isaiah 59, and Communism, and before we expound our texts on the power of God further, let us complete this review.  

What then, indeed, of the human erosion and spiritual corruption involved in the Communist fraud, the people its messiah, but themselves oppressed ? 

Communist hypocrisy makes it, if possible, worse with the high words and low deeds. It highlights the miserable miseries, with hideous irony, of what this toy factory case merely reminds, hideous events that have been effected through bitter years of hypocritical condemnations, removal of whole tracts of people to Siberia or prison or commercial ruin by dishonesty and greed, or to death by execution.  

This, as Solzhenitsyn points out in the USSR case, was worse proportionately than under the Czars (SMR 971-972). Death here indeed has been like a giant sea creature swallowing whole populations, whether slow or fast, many engulfed in corrosive glamour and clouds of burning air (which some Chinese cities are in danger of conferring almost literally, it appears) in the intoxicated rush to glory which fades at advent and appals in its onset).  

That one should wish to help the afflicted is one thing. Moreover, the righteous show their foundations by the delight in justice and equity, kindness and grace which is a mark of the one who knows God, who does not condone exploitation at any level, opportunistically or otherwise.  

But to afflict both in your soulless propaganda and ruinous oppression of spirit and body, that is rather different. Indeed, some  years ago, Time magazine told of multiplied loud-speakers throughout rural areas, dinning the materialistic philosophy into the diquieted ears of the literally ear-bashed peasants. 

Alas for man: Neither Nazi man nor Communist man nor Imperialist man, sleazily selfish man  nor deluded god-making man nor any other mini-man in the van of the vanguard of illusion and freedom from truth is the way. He has his day, and it sets.   

Third: How are they Kept ?
It is by the Predestining, Loving and Sure Power
of the Changeless God 

MAN is NOT the way! He is always trying to put himself in front of God, by making a new one, or ignoring the actual One, doing it theologically, geologically, frantically, in wars and in words of deviousness as frequently, while seeking ruthlessly to dispose of God’s  assets in man for Him, tilting at His authority, or ignoring His design of and for man; but God does not move.

God has His own way. The body of Christ He moved OUT of the notable and marked tomb of Joseph of Arithmathea (Mark 15:42-47) and this was one case where a person COULD take it with Him ... but what a Person! for with God nothing blocks, no not death itself. It is His own sentence, and He took it for man, as many as received Him. In His own time, He can and will take His people with Him, for He always does what He says; nor is He available for manipulation in mass, mind of minister or priest, or political regimes. His word rules while this world fools.

It is in GOD’s OWN POWER that the Christian is engendered, to become a new creation in Christ, and is kept, to become a place of grace and a testimonial of truth. Imagination without ground never competes with reality verified under fire! God Himself acts.

The Lord's people are kept by a power which knows no counter, and controls in the end, whether the degraded mannishness of man,  the brutality of beast or the dynamic of the devil!(I John 4:4) But to what are those who so believe KEPT ? It is, says Peter (I Peter 1:3-5), to an inheritance (as in Ephesians 1:11, it is sure, as in I John 5:11-13, 14:3).

^"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope
through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away,
reserved in heaven for you,
who are kept by the power of God
through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

It is to an inheritance

	1) incorruptible (it CANNOT be spoiled)
	2) undefiled (it IS not polluted) and
	3) that does not fade away (it is permanent);   and further, it is
	4) reserved in heaven for all such – its mandate is unalterable (John 4:14, 5:11-13).

Such is the lot (Daniel 12) of those who are begotten again, regenerated (I John 3:9).

These ? It is the ones in whom the Lord is like a well of water springing up into eternal life! (John 4:14) who know God and so go with God (John 12:26, 8:12, 17:1-3,24), who have received Him as He is and so believe; and while they may stray (as did Jonah!), yet in Him is their life and He is their Lord who pardons, reprocesses and reproves, yes and restores (as He did Peter, John 21).  

In Him is no shadow of turning, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8, James 1:17), more reliable than the mountains, deeper than the sea, broader in grace than the winds and stars: the power, righteousness and wisdom of God ( I Corinthians 1:24,30-31, Hebrews 13:5).

Indeed, in II Timothy 1:9, we see how far deeper and higher is salvation than something depending not on the Shepherd Himself, but on the sheep (each of which is BORN to be one,  by regeneration into the everlasting - Titus 3:5-7). It is not even possible for a sheep to degrade into a goat (I John 3:9), for as to what is born of God, says John, its SEED REMAINS IN IT.

 But Timothy ? -

“the gospel according to the power of God,
who has saved us and called us with a holy calling,
not according to our works,
but according to His own purpose and grace
which was given to us in Christ Jesus
before time began” (emphasis added).

First this verse tells us that we have been saved. It is not a process merely, it is not a hope of any uncertainty, nor is it a possibility to be plumbed, any more than is a birth an option, once it has happened. This new birth KEEPS its seed, its new nature, IN IT (I John 3:9, 5:24).

Secondly, it is with a holy calling. It is not some passing mutter. Those so called are kept. God from eternity has resolved this, and is holy, not partial or problematic. The nature of God is in it, and nothing can snatch it from His hand (John 10:27-28): His voice has declared it as surely as He called the universe into being. This small new universe, the newly begotten soul is here, it has come; for

"it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 4:6).

	Thirdly, it is not according to works - that is not its domain, type or kind, nor has it kinship with it. Divorced from human contribution at the outset, in it He works.
	Fourthly, it is according to God's own purpose and grace that we have been saved. It is not a dependency of our abilities, power or purpose, but of His own. The love of God has found His own, He who would have all (Colossians 1:19ff.), has known who are His and secured them before time, for ever (John 6:50-54).
	Fifthly, it is a grace which has been given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. Time does not erode it, but merely conveys it! It conveys what is the case, and time can no more age it than distrain God Himself! Inviolate, He suffers none to violate or vitiate the eternal status of His own property.

Thus we have seen a little further in what we began earlier, and remind ourselves.

Time is processive, eternity is investitive. We who are saved, have been chosen before what is temporal and the processive began, elect in the foreknowledge of God; and as to that, this has been predestinated for us (Romans 8:29ff.). It is in God's "own purpose and grace" that we who have been saved by Christ are granted this place: the whole gamut of grace revealed by the appearing the Saviour, Jesus Christ. As to Him, He has "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel" (I Timothy 1:10).

Such is the GRACE and its MAGNITUDE, the KNOWLEDGE and its ETERNITY, the FUTURE and its INTERMINABILITY, which God has provided for His people, who have been saved, as is any one who enters through that door, which is that of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ;. For any such, this is Christ's infallible affirmation (John 10:9,27-28). They will be saved and go in and out and find pasture, and are given eternal life, so that NONE can snatch them from His hand, and indeed, they SHALL NOT PERISH. This is the mind of God revealed.  

In such depth has God prepared the plan of salvation; such is its design, case and position for those designated by Him, who accordingly find Him, being found by Him; and such is the result of redemption, eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12), the cover perfected in one offering (Hebrews 10:10,14). Let us then work out our salvation with fear and trembling, being sanctified by truth (John 17:17, Philippians 2:12-13) and fearless in mercy, truth and love, turning aside for none and for nothing, investing our lives in the security of Christ.

 It is HE, this Jesus Christ, and not another, who is the passport to felicity, the object of faith, the active and living Saviour, the performer of all the works needful for salvation, the example in life and in death, rising from the dead with the same indelible, physical certainty which defying death and devil, man and circumstance alike, is the prelude to that future act for all who are His (I Thessalonians 4, I Corinthians 15). His body, it is this which He collects (Isaiah 26:19, I Thess. 4). It is He who is the religion of the children of God; it is His resurrection which in body, is the felicity and dower which awaits them (I John 3): it is His righteousness in which they regale themselves and which accredits them forever (II Corinthians 5:17-21, John 10:27ff., Romans 5:17) and as to this, not only is it a gift, as in 5:17, but a GIFT BY GRACE (5:15), assured in Him, His word and deed (Romans 5:5-11).

Let us then work out our salvation with fear and trembling, being sanctified by truth (John 17:17, Philippians 2:12-13) and fearless in mercy, truth and love, turning aside for none and for nothing, investing our lives in the security of Christ.

 It is HE, this Jesus Christ, and not another, who is

	the passport to felicity,
	the object of faith,
	the active and living Saviour,
	the performer of all the works needful for salvation,
	the example in life and in death, rising from the dead as is the future act of all who are His (I Thessalonians 4, I Corinthians 15).

It is He who is the religion of the children of God; it is His resurrection which in body, is the felicity which awaits them (I John 3): it is His righteousness in which they regale themselves and which accredits them forever (II Corinthians 5:17-21, John 10:27ff., Romans 5:17) and as to this, not only is it a gift, as in 5:17, but a GIFT BY GRACE (5:15).It is He who as I Timothy 1:10 declares, who has "brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel", by the glorious means of the "appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ", and "has abolished death."

Death is a fearful curse and it is apt for sin; but grace is a glorious wonder, and it is apt for salvation. In bringing immortality to light, God did not simply show the positive, but trampled on the negative. Declared in Christ, He not only healed and fed thousands, but raised the dead as a prelude to His showing in Himself the total power of God, even representing man the sinner severed by evils, breaching death itself.  In this way, all who receive Him according to His word, that binding covenant,  the true God who so appeared,  find freely en masse the abolition of death. Its guilt and dire discipline becomes pardon and past premiss; and at the general resurrection the full fulfilment is to be.

Immortality is no more a desire for philosophers; it is a donation for Christians. Life that does not end is no more a fear or a desideratum, but a finding and a deliverance; for in God, the author of eternity for man, there is authority that is not void, and love that never dies. Life abounds. Death is no more a fearful bludgeon, but an abolition, like slavery of old, in Europe. There then is Jesus Christ Himself, whose is the abolition of death for life by His gift.

HE, and He alone is the passport of the faithful; and He is mine, in whom I am well content (Ephesians 1:6, I Timothy 6:6): for His life is mine, as is that of a tree branch, and by His Spirit He enables me, guaranteeing by His power which keeps me. In His grace is my sufficiency (II Corinthians 3:5, Ephesians 1:5-11). HE seals and NONE steals!

Praise God for the living Passport. The perspective of the passport ? It is that of the Prince of Peace, whose kingdom does not end, but grows, and in the end, the pledge of the beginning is revealed (Matthew 12:28); and the kingdom of heaven having swept up upon us, we who believe are open to that very power of God which He displayed in the resurrection, by which immortality being promised, is provided (I Corinthians 15).

Life is eternal, the simple solution to the dismal yearnings of misled man. It is however not obtained by talk or innovation; it is by salvation in the Christ of God, who came and did what was required, returning till the test of those upon this earth is concluded: His return and restoration awaits. Ignoring God is unwise; imagining that He has ignored us is spiritually slanderous, grossly untrue to the facts and the demonstrations, validations, verifications concerning Him, and is merely to receive the result that reality gives to the lie (II Thessalonians 1-2, cf. Swift Witness    6).

Many are asleep; but when some snore, as in II Peter 2's case, the lie has a double meaning. Awake! says Paul (II Corinthians 6:1ff).

But Timothy ?

First this verse tells us that we have been saved. It is not a process merely, it is not a hope of any uncertainty, nor is it a possibility to be plumbed, any more than is a birth an option, once it has happened. This new birth KEEPS its seed, its new nature, IN IT (I John 3:9).

	Secondly, it is with a holy calling. It is not some passing mutter. God from eternity has resolved this, and is holy, not partial or problematic. The nature of God is in it, and nothing can snatch it from His hand: His voice has declared it as surely as He called the universe into being. This small new universe, the newly begotten soul is here, has come; for
	"it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness, who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (II Corinthians 4:6).

	Thirdly, it is not according to works - that is not its domain, type or kind, nor has it kinship with it.  As noted earlier, you are saved without works, but not without faith, and faith works. THIS is the result; faith in Christ, this is the cause.
	Fourthly, it is according to God's own purpose and grace that we have been saved. It is not a dependency of our abilities or power, but of His own. The love of God has found His own, He who would have all (Colossians 1:19ff.), has known who are His and secured them before time, for ever.
	Fifthly, it is a grace which has been given to us in Christ Jesus before time began. Time does not erode it, but merely conveys it!

Thus we have seen a little further in what we began earlier, and remind ourselves.

Time is processive, eternity is investitive. We who are saved, have been chosen before the temporal and the processive began, in the knowledge, the foreknowledge of God; and as to that, this has been predestinated for us (Romans 8:29ff.). As to God's "own purpose and grace" through which we who have been saved by Christ have been granted this place, it has been revealed by the appearing the Saviour, Jesus Christ. As to Him, He has "abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." 

Such is the GRACE and its MAGNITUDE, the KNOWLEDGE and its ETERNITY, the FUTURE and its INTERMINABILITY, which God has provided for His people, who have been saved, as is any one who enters through that door, which is that of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ;. For any such, this is Christ's infallible affirmation (John 10:9,27-28). They will be saved and go in and out and find pasture, and are given eternal life, so that NONE can snatch them from His hand, and indeed, they SHALL NOT PERISH. 

In such depth has God prepared the plan of salvation; such is its design, such is the case for those designated by Him who find Him, and such is the result of redemption, eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12), the cover perfected in one offering (Hebrews 10:10,14).

Let us then work out our salvation with fear and trembling, being sanctified by truth (John 17:17, Philippians 2:12-13) and fearless in mercy, truth and love, turning aside for none and for nothing, investing our lives in the security of Christ.

 It is HE, this Jesus Christ, and not another, who is

	the passport to felicity,
	the object of faith,
	the active and living Saviour,
	the performer of all the works needful for salvation,
	the example in life and in death, rising from the dead as is the future act of all who are His (I Thessalonians 4, I Corinthians 15).

It is He who is the religion of the children of God; it is His resurrection which in body, is the felicity which awaits them (I John 3): it is His righteousness in which they regale themselves and which accredits them forever (II Corinthians 5:17-21, John 10:27ff., Romans 5:17) and as to this, not only is it a gift, as in 5:17, but a GIFT BY GRACE (5:15).It is He who as I Timothy 1:10 declares, who has "brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel", by the glorious means of the "appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ", and "has abolished death."

Death is a fearful curse and it is apt for sin; but grace is a glorious wonder, and it is apt for salvation. In bringing immortality to light, God did not merely show the positive, but trampled on the negative, in Christ, not only healing and feeding thousands, but raising the dead as a prelude to His showing in Himself the total power of God, even for man the sinner severed by evils, through faith in Him who so appeared. In this way, all who receive Him, the true God, according to His word, which is covenantally binding, find freely en masse the abolition of death. Its guilt and dire discipline becomes pardon and past premiss; and at the general resurrection the full fulfilment is to be.

Immortality is no more a desire for philosophers; it is a donation for Christians. Life that does not end is no more a fear or a desideratum, but a finding and a deliverance; for in God, the author of eternity for man, there is authority that is not void, and love that never dies. Life abounds. Death is no more a fearful bludgeon, but an abolition, like slavery of old, in Europe. There then is Jesus Christ Himself, whose is the abolition of death for life by His gift..

HE, and He alone is the passport of the faithful; and He is mine, in whom I am well content (Ephesians 1:6, I Timothy 6:6): for His life is mine, as is that of a branch derived from the vine, and by His Spirit He enables me, by His power keeps me and by His grace is my sufficiency (II Corinthians 3:5).

Praise God for the living Passport.

The perspective of the passport ? It is that of the Prince of Peace, whose kingdom does not end, but grows, and in the end, the beginning has already occurred (Matthew 12:28); and the kingdom of heaven having swept up upon us, we who believe are open to that very power of God which He displayed in the resurrection, by which immortality being promised, is provided (I Corinthians 15).

Life is eternal, the simple solution to the dismal yearnings of misled man. It is however not obtained by talk or innovation; it is by salvation in the Christ of God, who came and did it, which was required, and went while the test of those upon this earth is concluded: His return and restoration awaits. Ignoring God is unwise; imagining that He has ignored us is spiritually slanderous, grossly untrue to the facts and the demonstrations, validations, verifications concerning Him, and is merely to receive the result that reality gives to the lie
(II Thessalonians 1-2, cf. Swift Witness    6).

Many are asleep; but when some snore, as in II Peter 2's case, the lie has a double meaning. Awake! says Paul (II Corinthians 6:1ff).