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Of course it could, with justice, be said that the religious marvel of killing people with a grenade at a wedding party is most moral, most tender-hearted, most valiant, most impressive, the sort of slaughter which endears any religion, and helps all men see its grandeur.

Certainly this would be ironic. However, it might be pressed that it was ONLY a matter of some half dozen people killed and perhaps 20 people injured. How minimal a minimisation! Again, it might be urged that the man MEANT to become a living bomb, but was prevented. His efficiency on the one hand does not rate so highly, though his failure is one of the better features about it. There is no redemption from the display, the exhibition of Allah's way, in this civilian affair. We want land. We have only some three quarters of the Palestine, promised to the Jews by God and man, and we want more.

Again, this is not an impressive protest. It seems to lack something.

Or further, it could be put: We have tried by military endeavours, MANY larger nations to this mini-Israeli place, to thrust them into the sea; we have used masses of money from oil rich neighbours, combined strategies, attacked from the North and South simultaneously, called on Allah, gloated over Israeli deaths, and still have not won; so what do you expect ? NATURALLY, since the land is obviously infinitely more precious to us than any moral restraint, thought of justice or concern for judgment upon us, we shall attack the only thing left, wedding parties and things like that. This should make them sit up, if they are still able!

If this is the logic invented for the case, one cannot find in it that flair of faithfulness to justice or mercy which is so attractive with men, since that is what allows them to live together at all.

Again, it could be urged that ALLAH demands it; but even if this were so, why has he not succeeded ? (cf. SMR pp. 822ff., 829ff., 874ff.).
 
 

It was just one day before that one heard in an interview on the radio, that a Palestinian perspective was something like this: Sure, the US is finding some grounds for the Israeli presentation on the topic of the ARMS SHIP which was seized, brimming with sophisticated weaponry; but can you trust the USA ? We, said the Palestinian urger, we cannot. Look at the weapons they give them!

Now this too is not particularly impressive logically. Is there not something called peace ? Is the word perhaps forbidden ? Is there not something else called dictatorship and is it not felt at times, such as during World War II, that it is undesirable, that someone who considers himself above all, should not be so, and cruelly tear the fabric of society before ending in dishonour, disgrace and futility, like Hitler, and according to one report, like Stalin, possibly murdered in weakness at his end. It does not have attraction to mind or body, to limb or life, to rationality or credibility, but to credulity alone!

Would the Arab nations rule Israel as they often rule themselves, by little family groups, grown larger, with immense wealth and directive authority, with religious auras not verified, validatable or effective (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4) ? which mistreat women, rendering in much ignominy where there should be grace,  and periodically call on religious fervour in order to disrupt the world, or signified parts of it, without warrant, basis in factuality or rationality, on the say-so of certain men, who act as if God were either irrational or arbitrary, being unwilling or unable to speak with grounds to show it is He, and yet demanding what any 'voice' could demand, be its source what it may be.
 
 

Is it this for which He apportioned minds to men! Is a dream, a vision to be from this or that source, and implemented while millions are slaughtered, without testability ? Is man to be able to test, but God only unwilling to provide assurance ? The thought is as foolish as superficial, as unnecessary as wanton in this, that it attacks the entire mind and will of the One who gave to all both of these things, as if He did not know what He was doing, care for what He had made, or else could not be bothered, and ignores the mind of His own creation.

It has been shown (SMR Ch. 1,  pp. 580ff., Repent or Perish Ch. 2, Deliverance from Disorientation Ch. 9), that nothing of this kind is even within the bounds of reason. To set up bounds of reality  by His own will, in creation, and have them assailed and assaulted by man's will in injustice, lie and deceit is mere self-contradiction. To assume arbitrary folly in the mind of God, to seek some kick or desire from the abuse of man, is merely to assume Him without sufficiency, inadequate, needing fulfilment, and hence as unfulfilled, subject to system, limit, so that our topic becomes simply that of a creation. In this, then, the one so termed 'god', cannot be God, is a mere creation, and an imaginary one at that.

To assume Him evil, so that having no need, He yet so acts in despite of His own works, is merely another way of declaring that He DESIRES the destruction, or the abuse of what He has made. Since He has no constraints to have to overcome, no limitations to meet, this would make of Him, a being of two minds, which do not agree, and hence one subject to system, limitation, albeit internal.

To say even that He desires two minds, being by nature double minded, is not merely to contradict the brilliance of the integration of myriads of components in His works, and for that matter, verified words in the Bible: it is also to plant a solitary will in a double mind, so that He lacks identity, being a complex of contradiction, requiring its Builder, since to desire self-contradiction is to be opposed to oneself, now in this side, now in that, so making a system of self-negation. Since He is Almighty, either side would eliminate the other, and such a putative position is therefore simply self-contradictory.

If however, you envisage different beings in God, each contrary to the other, it is simply necessary to observe that you cannot with infinite power promote in beings of equally infinite power, a power struggle without the whole thing being eliminated; and if it be put that there is also infinite desire that the infinite power in each of these beings be not able to eliminate the other, it is flat self-contradiction. Infinite power CANNOT be so limited without mere mouthing of opposites, that do not permit, each one, the definition of the other.

"You cannot with infinite power promote..."  The case is indeed worse. The beings could not be, if in such a case; but it is observable that you need SOMEONE to do the promoting. At once the contrived complexity of such thought is apparent.

What then ? ONE BEING with infinite power cannot without flat self-contradiction, promote or approve clash between infinitely powerful beings, without these eliminating each other.  If these are His creation, then we are not talking of God at all, but creation. If it is Himself, then with infinite power He seeks to have opposing thoughts, systems, values, decisions, desires in Himself to remain in mutual opposition. If however they were HIS desire, all being God, either one, it would prevail. If both are His desire, who is infinite in power, then the opposition is either finite or infinite. If finite, it is not a work of God in Himself, for He IS infinite. If not finite, then there is self-contradiction, for infinite oppositions are clearly a contradiction in terms, any one of them being unable to be so defined in the presence of the other. In that case, it is an irrationalist whim, not the divine being who is being logically discussed as to His minimal powers.

It is in such an imaginary case, merely then a PERPETUALLY frustrated duality, always seeking what it does not find; or if it has power to find, then it is a programmatically restrained system in two parts, not finding what it wants without extraneous means, and hence insufficient in itself for its will, and thus a composite with a total system, with limits and conditions applicable, and hence not the Creator but some imaginary creature, with limits imposed by the actual Creator, not relevant to such a froth of imagination.

If the point be made that it is not a program but a person who so adheres to mutual contradiction of parts within itself, then in neither part is it satisfied, not with that as it is, since it puts one against the other, so that in the one part such a being is dissatisfied, and again in the other part, each reciprocally, so that there is a double dissatisfaction, each aligned against the other, to preclude it being what otherwise it would be. Double dissatisfaction is not satisfaction; and dissatisfaction is inability to secure a desired aim, impossible where all power is present and no limit can restrain. In such a being, the infinite God is not to be found. It is purely imaginary.

What then do we find ? There is no way for a Being to BE, which contradicts itself, while possessed of infinite power and knowledge. There is likewise no way for any being to be GOD, which has internal beings in self-contradiction, opposed to each other.

Again, if it be thought that internal PRINCIPLES would be opposed, within Himself, the one to the other, what then ? Principles however are merely names for modes of procedure, priorities or assessment, verbalised and symbolised. To whom do they so appear that they may be so known ? To the BEING whose they are. If then HE is dissatisfied with this principle in that it is contrary to His desire, and with that also, in that He finds the two opposed to each other, so that neither is in itself as He would have it, so that the one acts against the other, then as before, we come to a ready conclusion.

Either with all knowledge and power, He can change the principles until each satisfies Himself, without the restrictive force of opposition the one to the other, or He lacks the power, since their opposing one another is merely figurative; it is HE who finds them opposed. If He be conceived as changing each till it is entirely satisfactory to Himself, then there is no action past that to remove obstruction to His will. He has all power. If on the other hand, there is a perfect acceptance of each principle, yet factually they do not cohere, they are still not consonant the one with the other, then He merely lacks the wisdom to choose and manufacture principles, systems, creations or whatever concerns Him, so that His will is not limited by internal resistance, but implemented.

If He WANTS mutual obstruction of the symbolical construable principles which apply to ways of working within Himself, these nevertheless are HIS. In that case,  His own being being infinite in power, the want to have infinitely powerful procedures working against each other, merely makes a triplicate of nonsense, three almighties in collision, a fiction of the mind, disallowed by its own definitions.

Such a Being not being God, we are left with one conclusion. There is no way for such a FUNCTION to operate. It would be annulled, eliminated, aborted.

Thus in all this contradiction and contrariety, there is no way the Lord relates; it is mere mish-mash of created things held in thought, self-contradictory: it cannot be, or cannot be God, or else cannot function. However it is because God does function that we are, as has been demonstrated in SMR!

Hence God is not in any of these positions, contradicting Himself, having internal beings which contradict each other, or having principles which contradict each other.

You would survey the imaginary scene again ? Then let us take any two persons imagined to be divergent in the deity. The clash of desire inherent in the war between two persons then becomes inability to meet either, and hence a powerlessness not adequate for the Almighty, fitting for the unlimited. In other words, it is merely an imaginary creature that the discussion evokes, nothing to do with the issue of God and His ways.

Since it is of selves that we speak, and two are opposing each other, and so dissatisfied with each other, this implies a certain restlessness, a degree of unfulfilment, unattainment, and hence a device, be it internal or not, which is a limitation on the limitless character of the wholly unconstrained. If they were both infinite, as God, then each would overcome the other, and this is merely another formulation for the fact that it is a contradiction in terms to presuppose such power and such contrariety.

They cannot simultaneously exist, and hence do not. God is not like that, very simply. No more could infinitely backed thoughts, preferences or procedures. The concept is self-contradiction, does not cohere; and if the thought explodes, it is of nothing that it speaks.

If a third person be conceived as the overviewer (and someone must make the decision as to what it is to be, for the being to be coherent at all, whereas all mere systems require a creator), one possessed of a desire to see the other persons frustrated in Himself, His own being, then apart from the above impossibility, where each is omnipotent, representing God, this also would imply that He is against Himself. If that is system, it is a creation, and hence non-God, irrelevant to the point. If however it be free Person, then the person desires self-obstruction for his domain, each being a self. Over the subordinate selves is the Person, whose playthings they become.

As to them, we are talking in that case of a figment, not a fact, for the requirement is then not met, that there be no limit, inward or outward, partial or total. Limits can only exist when there is what it takes to provide the limit. In the end, the imposer is God, the imposed is non-God. These then would be non-God and hence irrelevant here.

What however of the third self, which desired the others to war ? (though this is now seen to be a mere logical invalidity) ? He also is then merely an imaginary god who wants created beings to war, for the entire concept is shown fallacious. But if it be said, instead, that it is His desire that He be contrary to His own self, then as what is above such a Being is self-contradictory, what would have power to oppose it is impossible, infinite in opposing powers, the concept is mere delusion, a panorama of self-contradiction even to thought. Whether the 'He' or the 'self', it is God, and either contrariety, let alone both, eliminates the other from existence.

Put differently, if the one exists, the other cannot; if both be construed to exist, then each construct excludes the other. It is then merely a matter of mental exercise, like imagining money does not have purchasing power, or force that does not have dynamic.

Moreover, a question simply needs to be put. Who is this "He" who is so contrary ? and what is the 'self'?^*3 If it be other than deity, then it is a subject to a desire above it, as noted, and not God but a creation. If it be He, then He condemns or opposes Himself. In the former case,  in that He is contrary to Himself, He is setting a plateau of morals above Himself, by which He is self-condemned. In that case, again, it is not God. This is merely a creature in a system above himself. If however it be said that it is merely a conflict of WILL, without morals, then He opposes Himself, so that then there is an infinite will to annihilate what is Himself, and who would prevent it! If moreover there were an infinite will to block in part or in all, what is Himself, then either the self imposed on (and thus not God), or the self imposing, being infinite, precludes each one, the other. It is the same barren collusion of mutually exclusives that is the logical invalidity of the concept.

Annihilated in this construct, such a Being cannot exist; and does not.

Does He have standards below what He wants ? They are there, implemented before time and for ever always, for there is no future for Him to await, and what He wants to be, He already therefore and always is. Does He have dual standards not mixing as He wants ? then they are no longer there, for all His wants are implementable, there being no limit. Are there imagined to be opposing principles which He wants to be that way within Himself, irreconcilable, in mutual contrast and constraint ? then His will to act is circumscribed in this invention, and nothing can circumscribe that by definition (SMR Ch. 1). Further, contrary procedures in His almighty being are mutually annihilative.

Hence this consideration is dismissed. It is a stay on His will, attributed to His will; but such a stay is a defeat of His will, impeding His action and prohibiting outcomes, so being a mere self-contradiction in logic. This cannot be. Reason must go before this can come; and this is reason for faith. To this, there is only one answer: God Almighty, eternal in power and of divine nature, such as here discussed.

It is enough, then. He is not God who moves with infinite power to deal with, limit, dispose, what has infinite power and is divergent, since all the infinites would be intolerable, each to the other, and it is merely a classic case of confused definition, logically invalid, a reductio ad absurdum, leaving no such being in existence, but God only, who is in NO WAY contrary to Himself.

Thus, God cannot be logically and validly construed as contrary in anything to Himself.

Otherwise, the self-contradiction merely puts us as always in such matters, into the realm of irrational imagination, instead of rational progression. Imagination can be great fun, but if you want reality, it must be disciplined by logic. Indeed, if you wish to argue, reason is the means. Ditch it and you are self-defeated.

In reality then, what minimal features obtain ? Nothing internal to His will is contrary to it or capable of resistance to it, long or short, whose power has no opponent that can work even the small dust in the balances to resist Him; none can intrude, none can overcome, no system contains Him, no considerations detain Him, by whom all that is not He has to find its Creator, from whom all that abuses His creation has to find its justice, and in whom all that waits in faith and truth upon Him according to His word, the Bible, finds its pardon.

In His word, it is not for Him, who is in all things at all times and before all times, what He would be, the times  of process  being His creation (Romans 8:33ff.) - it is not for Him who preceded them, that there is limitation, but for man; and from that word, redemption finds itself dominant in dealings, as mercy prominent in desire.
 

We then move to God, and find what He is like^*1, apart from these imaginary demi-gods. At peace with Himself, always what He would be, with neither internal nor external impediment, nothing resisting His will, no desire beyond His capacity, no capacity beyond His infinitude, He provides information to the image bearers, man, so that they too may find Him, and be at peace with Him and with each other. There is no escape; and who would want it, since to escape from God is to avoid the remedy to non-concurrence, to secure the reward for it and to land oneself instead, in the realm of not being what one would be, or for that matter, where one would be!

The eternal power and divine nature of God are indeed manifest (Romans 1:18-20). It is from Himself then that we must discern His will for man, and the glory of His majesty.
 

• As to His works, these in principle likewise express what He is, themselves in harmony with Himself. In principle! but in practice liberty has led to lostness.

 
• What can remedy it ? what but God Himself.

 
• And how will it be known, except from Himself, His word.

 
• Hence there is no desire for the destruction of His works, except in judgment on the misuse of the liberties He has created.

 
• Hence He is averse to ignorance of His will, leading to denial of it, and thus the imagination that He has not given scope to man to find it, is impossible.

 
• Hence the Bible is to be found, as alone giving such ground.

 
• Never does it use or imply force for faith, or in such a domain, and if it did, it would at once implicate God in making man without liberty, so that He would be in self-contradiction as before, in the derivation of conflict, contradiction and corruption.

 
• Such a Being not being God, and God not being such a being, we find the Bible in normal harmony not using force in the arena of faith. (Cf. the Moslem error here also, as in  More Marvels Ch. 4, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30, and SMR pp. 63-71, 978ff., 986ff;  and see also SMR pp. 1186Aff..)

Hence the Bible is to be obeyed. Hence also the will of God concerning all things is to be followed from His statements; and hence it is most unwise for Moslems to continue without warrant or evidence, to ignore what alone is valid and validated, empirically attested and coherently possible.

Further there is Christ. He too is ignored, by being recreated in the Koran, not revealed out of historical record, but out of one man's non-autobiographical mind, so that only a fraudulent name remains, a 'Jesus' the concoction of a man, as in II Cor. 11 earlier, so now later, another Jesus, one without evidence from God, and wholly contrary to what is evidentially attested and prophetically fulfilled in detail, whether in the date of His death from Daniel, or the dealings of His life, as attested in Isaiah, Micah, Psalms, Ezekiel, Zechariah and other prophets in detail.

God did not visit this earth without a calling card, a large one in some 39 books, the Old Testament. He did not leave without a resurrection. He did not come without a mission. It is as written, and has proceeded as written, precisely these millenia. There is no other option, alternative or question. Reason knows nothing else. Revelation is self-attested nowhere else. It is simply rebellion or redemption. The world is smitten again and again since it rejects the latter and insists on the former, often calling it grand names. Its end is gory, not glory.

Since God cannot be created, this being called 'Jesus' in the Koran and created some 6 centuries after the historical Christ, is not God, and hence it is at once in principle as well as in practice, an assault on Christ, just as Israel in its own day, also assaulted Him. It has depth of denial, in daring to use the name of the Saviour for non-salvation, of the Redeemer for non-redemption.

Thus these two opposing religions contest, Islam and Judaism, the latter renegade from its authentic base, the former an assailant on the base itself; and the result is horrendous. The irony of the Mosque in the Holy Hill follows from the fact that God Almighty has, precisely as He said, provided the Lamb of God which is the end of all acceptable sacrificial atonement of man with God. No temple is therefore now needed. The irony of Islam, is that their almighty pretender cannot show from his word, any 'all might', despite all the political bluster of nations rancorous against the humble site of Israel, nor can he oppose in any manner, the might of the Almighty whose contrary word in the Bible declares just what is to happen, is happening and will continue to happen (cf. SMR Ch. 9).

In this, the Middle East is indeed the Middle Yeast^*2, for the two main contenders are denying the God who made them, and both departing from the divinely provided testimony of Him, both in prediction, and in fulfilment, ignoring the only redemption in that they both deny the Redeemer who has come as and when announced; and in this way or in that, they are running foul of the only Saviour (for there is no Saviour but God - Isaiah 43:10-11, and no other name but that of Christ - Acts 4:11-12), refashioning the Christ, according to various fashions. In running foul of Him, they run foul also of each other. They are like motorists, each ignoring the laws of the road, each colliding, each with the other, each with the law!

Small wonder therefore, that there is such a profusion of confusion. It will not, because it cannot finally cease, until one or both repent. It is like a row between two contrary and misled mathematicians. The one never knew the truth, and follows his inventions which do not work; the other departed from it, and follows his inventions, which do not work. The Jews have Jerusalem, not the temple site; the Moslems do not have Jerusalem, but do have the temple site, albeit with a Mosque that is wholly alien to the famed site, in its inventions.

That is why the Middle East is a spiritual hub, for it is an active concourse of error, against God, His word and His Son, in two erroneous dimensions, from two warring parties. Other parties as noted previously are concerned and will be; but these two, they are our current focus.

Biblically, much of Israel is to repent (SMR Appendix A, cf. Zechariah 12:10, SMR loc.cit.); and of course, individuals of any 'faith' or land, may repent and return to the Lord, and to His stated will, and follow it.
 
 

But let us return from these considerations,

obvious enough when one comes to the Maker of all unity,
and displayer of all coherence,
who in man has made a mind which operates in the same way,
so that man may progress by unity of thought in system,
to more and more comprehension,
and even find the truth in Christ,
but only by the amazing grace of God who knows His own, and secures them -

to the Palestinian terror groups.

Hamas and some others of the ilk are now declaring NO, they will not cease their terrorist works, their civic murders, in effect their processive but not progressive work of turning Israel into one large hospital ward. They wish to make the point that they want more of the tiny residue of land to which Israel is now ludicrously restrained, and in order to induce acceptance of such a position, it is their desire to wound, humiliate, tumble, rumble, mess into morass, cover with blood, ruin young and old in the tiny nation of Israel, returned from millenia of dispersion, so that Israel and the world at large may say, YES, you are right after all. Have yet more of Israel.

It is a bizarre method of obtaining such agreement; but it takes all types. This is one multiple and diverse, self-designating Moslem grouping.

Again, said the Palestinian on the radio interview, noted at the outset above: you cannot trust the USA, so therefore you cannot simply think that the Palestinian authority is really guilty in this arms matter. No, not at all; we need an international group to come into the area and start making dispositions of things.

This of course has been the long-term strategy.

In one respect only, it is quite logical. If you cannot beat a tiny nation by arms, by money, by oil-wealth, by surrounding them with dozens of hostile nations, by using the name of Allah, by jihads, by blockades, naval or otherwise, by intimidation, by international intervention (such as by the UN in 1947 in declaring Jerusalem an international city and giving to the returning Jews, from the squalor of society over millenia, a few tracts of territory here and there): if you cannot then do it in these ways, then try something else.

What for example ? Why this, they indicate:  blow up people on the one hand, making the rest tender, and appeal to the UN on the other, seeking a brokerage, and with people concerned for oil and blood alike, ask for a BARGAIN. Is not this the apparent procedure, striking the stricken ? In this way,  the plan would seem to be , you get something after all, from the wedding bodies, and the others tediously blown to bits, or left in rotting bits, or agonising reductions, as testimony of your own good will, reliable reason and wholly wholesome intentions and thoughts.

It is strange, man. In much, he does not seem able to learn. It is not his head; it is his heart.

It is sad, with mankind, that so many are taking the highway from God to His exclusion. In this, there will in the end be plenty of bits, in the everlasting destructions predicted by Christ repeatedly (as in Mark 9, Matthew 22, Luke 16:25ff.). If this is the desire, not the mercy and justice of Christ, then who can stop it! God does not use force in faith.

It is His word which can stop it. Hence it is always from this site as from many another source, being preached. What fiend would be silent in such a case! Thus it always seems seasonable (II Timothy 4:2). And in what does the apostle Paul tell that there should be ever seasonable action ? It is to this:

• "Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season.

 
• "Convince, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and teaching.

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine,
but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears,
they will heap up for themselves teachers. "

Indeed false prophets such as Muhammad has repeatedly been demonstrated to be, were to be in a glut according to Christ, as the time of His return comes nearer (Matthew 24:24). They were to be; they now are.

Of this inundation of many in such falsity, condition, Paul in II Timothy 3, I Timothy 4, Peter in II Peter 2 all speak. It is better to warn in love than watch destruction in sorrow. As to that, it is coming, both on this earth and beyond (cf. SMR Appendix A and Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30, Mark 9). The criterion is as it has long been, before the God who is Almighty, whose word attests itself, who gives reason for faith and faith for reason, who frustrates liars and performs all that He declares (Isaiah 44:24ff., 45:20-25, I Peter 3:15, Isaiah 41, 43, 48, Ezekiel 38ff., Romans 11 cf. The Biblical Workman Chs.  1 and  3, SMR pp. 510ff.).
 
 

	It is not Palestinians (some are Christians, not all are violent in desire);
	it is not Jews (some are believers there also, many have suffered much and endured more);
	it is not the United Nations:
	it is none of these things which of or in themselves are the ultimate or the answer.

It is in the truth and justice of the Creator of the earth, that solution is found.

It  is in Him who, having one will, not self-contradictory fragments, and one power, who is in all things content within Himself and in all-knowing harmony with Himself, hence in nothing opposed to Himself, needing nothing and without any power of restraint, possessed of all either desired or needed, incapable of frustration, being one Creator of all systems and subject to none, that the solution, the resolution, the justice, the peace in wisdom, and the peace in wisdom, is to found.

It is in Him that solution lies:  who in nothing is able to be restrained or successfully opposed, though in love He bears much. It is in Him who in mercy redeems those who come in faith to the ONLY and the AUTHORISED and the long PREDICTED Redeemer whose death on time (SMR pp. 886ff.) and whose return in His own time, is sure. (Cf. Isaiah 14:27, I Thessalonians 4, Acts 4:11-12.) It is to Him that a man, woman, child must come, to Him who spoke not with the sword and battle array, but with blood as a willing sacrificial victim for man, offered to all, available to all, ineffectual to all who do not so receive Him, and this by His desire.

He is not desired ? (John 3:19, 36). Then is peace and truth not desired, whatever be the delusion of the mind or the confusion of the spirit of a man. Then is war to be found. It is being found, and it is to continue to be found until the peace is found which comes from the One who is AT PEACE, but not with sin, not with injustice, who has planted man and bears with Him, but does not for ever prolong His forbearance, bringing to an end the self-manifesting follies of man: whether in their own spiritual juices, or else in the eternity of truth, where justice is met, lie dies and love prevails.

He is very deep. It is utterly vain to try to outwit Him.

As He says, always by revelation confirmatory of the testimony of reason, which also He has made, and always in majesty beyond the thoughts of man, just as attested by them:

"But the wicked are like the troubled sea,
When it cannot rest,
Whose waters cast up mire and dirt.

" 'There is no peace,'
says my God,
'For the wicked' "
 

(Isaiah 57:20-21).

THAT, it is the way of wickedness, divorced from reason, from reality, from God. How could there be peace ? Intrinsically it lacks it, its source, its substance and its way. Rest is endemic to  God, for there is no place to go, He being at all times what He would be. Thus there is no resistance outside the composure of His planning, its doom assured, no counsel against Him who declares the end from the beginning, no ascertainment yet to be made, by Him whose understanding is infinite; no process, no productivity is His need, for all things are His, the first and the last. Those who know God, these know rest (Matthew 11:27ff.). There is not other (Ezekiel 21:26-27, John 14:6, Acts 4:11-12).

But with what does the Lord precede this word in Isaiah 57:20, but with this for the penitent, with this for those who praying in faith come back to Him where He is, not satisfied with mock, make-up gods, with this from the God of truth, whose word is truth; for from it all things come, to it all things go, by it all things have being, who from the splendour of His composure and the certainty of His dealings is the only criterion, and total assessor ... With what then does He precede this word to the wicked, whose hearts have declined from Him, the only God, but with this!

" 'I create the fruit of the lips:
Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near,'
says the LORD,
'And I will heal him.' "

From the increate God, the Creator, comes this boon to man, who contrite comes by faith to receive Him who first came, not to judge the world but that the world through Him might be saved (John 3:17). It is His word which judges (John 12:48-50), and those who are His judge this, that His judgments are true, and to be followed (I John 1:7ff., 3:9 - the practice is imperfect but its character is forged in the heart by faith, the law of truth written on the invisible tablet of the heart as in Hebrews 8:10-12). .

Healing can come only from truth, truth only from God, its criterion, basis and sanctuary, by Himself (cf. SMR Ch. 3, Barbs, Arrows and Balms  6 - 7, TMR Ch. 5) . It also is by His word, witness and decision, the remedy of Isaiah 52-53, in Christ, God Himself as man (Ezekiel 34, Micah 5:1-3, Psalm 45, Isaiah 48:16), of whom it is written, "By His stripes we are healed." It is He who heals, who pardons and provides, who keeps His sheep (John 10:9,27-28,17:3). It is His sheep who know Him and follow Him.

Man's endless wars, within and beyond himself, are testimonies to what is ungodly in some or all, a striving which does not fulfil the realities of the God of peace and power, but the follies of what is not God, and does not abide in His ways. God has need of nothing to fulfilment, being already as He would be, and always so, unlimited, unpotentiated, complete: nor has He devious desires to exhibit what is contrary to Himself, for the lack would be the intimation that He is not God, but dissatisfied, awaiting fulfilment, and hence potentiated by an outside source, who IS God! Such a 'god' is mere imagination.

He may use human follies, abuse of privilege, implicit as to power at man's creation, but not required in principle, to illustrate what man has become, and provide in 'Nature' an overview of and rebuke to such follies (Romans 8); but as to righteousness, godliness, while judgment is richly deserved and may be implemented as God disposes, this is not forced by violence as if it were in the domain of 'faith'!  Nothing is created by such means (cf. Beyond the Curse, The gods of naturalism have no go! Scientific Method, Satanic Method and the Model of Salvation).

The war which counts is the one which insists on truth, and in love pursues its application, with spiritual weapons (Ephesians 6). That God so tests and invests man when he finds Him, leads in wisdom to what is redemptive, for which the Lord has paid abundantly. Rampaging for land or desire is false fire. Such follies tend to end in vengefulness, to proceed by pragmatic desires far from peaceable, and in inflaming passion that abides in nothing the Lord has said, produce a series of holocausts, whether for one or another, in the end.
 

It is also true that in declining from His just mercy, a mercy which promotes and does not decline from justice, His ransom and redemption, the rebellious soul impels itself to hell, that domain for those who reject His dominion, that decease that does not die, that perpetuity of shame and stamp for the gilded guilt, too royal to find release in redemption.
 

• Thus again He declares (Psalm 50:20-23),

 

"You sit and speak against your brother;
You slander your own mother's son.
These things have you done, and I kept silent:
You thought that I was altogether like you;
But I will rebuke you,
And set them in order before your eyes.

"Now consider this, you who forget God,
Lest I tear you in pieces,
And there be none to deliver;
Whoever offers praise glorifies Me,
And to him who orders his conduct aright,
I will show the salvation of God" - cf. John 14:21-23.

After salvation slighted, in the end there can only be judgment indicted (see Psalm 2, cf. Joyful Jottings  21).

But for joy, He has this:

"You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
Trust in the LORD for ever,
For in YAH, the LORD, is everlasting strength ('rock of ages'),"
Isaiah 26:3-4.

It is not in or from man that the solution could come, does come or will come, but it comes rather in this way (Colossians 2:13-15). :

 
"And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh,
He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses,
having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us,
which was contrary to us.

"And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities and powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it."

*1

Reason points to the truth; but the truth, who is God, reveals Himself from His own heart, in His word, in His Son and by His Spirit (I Peter 3:15, Romans 1:17ff., Hebrews 1:1-3, Amos 3-4, Isaiah 8:20, Psalm 45, Micah 5).

Even reason shows the righteousness and irresistibility of the sovereign God, just as likewise it depicts the sin of man who defames His Maker and defiles himself (cf. SMR Ch. 1, Repent or Perish Chs. 7,   2,  That Magnificent Rock Chs. 3, 5, 7.) It is moreover reason which can demonstrate so clearly the Bible as the word of the living, eternal, unchanging God who is truth (SMR). Reason attests where truth reposes; man has no excuse. However,  it is revelation which invests the very mind of God to man, in a site where its declarations may be read. Man is then not merely responsible if he avoids it; he is invited when he finds it! Having identified the fountain, you must come to the waters.

Therefore

• it is only when consulting that direct revelation of which Peter and Paul, with the prophets have spoken (cf. Isaiah 8:20, 59:21, 34:16, I Cor. 2:9-13, I Peter 1:10ff., II Peter 1:19ff., cf. Chs. 1 and  2 above),

 
• and which in all verification without any exception speaks for itself (cf. SMR Chs. 4-9, Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming Chs. 1, 2, 5, 6, Stepping  Out for Christ Chs. 2, 7-10),

 
• that we learn what the heart of God has done,
• in Christ (cf. II Cor. 5:17-21).

Only then do we see something of the full scope of the beauty of the divine light which He is, and which man so obscures with fallacious reasoning, while morally befouling with the smearing of opacity, the lotions of pride and the coating of lust, the gift of God. They have done it physically; now they proceed spiritually, and always in spirit, except where the miracle occurs, is this torpidity towards truth itself (John 14:6), though He has precisely no competition as in life so in logic (cf. Repent or Perish Chs. 2, 5, 7, SMR Chs. 1, 3, 5, 6, 8-9, TMR Chs. 1, 3, 5, 8, Barbs, Arrows and Balms Appendix IV, Biblical Blessings Appendix IV).

The generation of modern man, quite like the Pharisees and scribes of Christ's day, appear in parallel with them, to be bringing upon themselves the fury of fraudulence as they turn their backs in overweening contempt on faith. Their works also, these speak for themselves in blood of millions, the starvation of millions more, the lying and deceit, the making of truth into mere convenience (cf. Isaiah 59:14-15), and the diseases which sin spreads and now increasingly, even invents (as in the wonder methods of making clones and even children for lesbians by genetic manipulation of the utmost danger to the lives in view, the children who would follow - Advertiser, Jan 21, 2002, p. 8 I/N). Politically, a little smoking of the  pot of spiritual marijuana, to combine the false prophecy of Muhammad, can be tolerated by many, as they seek military aid.

Terror, however ? A just terror ? at the final assizes of God, at judgment ? There is nothing like sin in this respect, in the wrath of God, when mercy rejected, justice is meted out (cf. John 3:36,19).

So they act. They invent terror, and forget the fear of God, which makes clean.

What is the equal, on earth or in heaven of this living exposition of the heart of God, the word of God, the Christ, God incarnate (Psalm 89:6, 45, 2, 16, 49, Isaiah 48:16, Zechariah 12:10, 3:9, Isaiah 43:10-12, Acts 4:10ff.)! The Designer inhabited His own design. It is He who is equal with God (Philippians 2:1-12, John 8:58, 5:19-23). Thus, it is God who is the ONLY creator and the ONLY Saviour, who is also the Christ, God expressed (Isaiah 43, 45, Colossians 1, John 14, Acts 4).

That is the declaration of life. The furores are  those of death.
 

In heaven, as on earth, there is none even LIKE the Lord, the trinity, like Him who came to earth as man (Micah 5:1-3). There is no other God (Ex. 20), and of gods there are but idols (Psalm 96).

Not in clash but harmony, not in disjunction but intimacy is the one God expressed; and it is HE who expresses HIMSELF, presenting His will, law and predictions, then taking the very form of a man (Romans 8:1-3)!  Not in the limits of creation, but in the illimitable power of the Holy Spirit does He then apply the work He has done to the hearts of man (John 16:7ff.). It is from Him sent, and in the word given earlier sent on many occasions through the prophets, that God has spoken (Hebrews 1:1-3), and quintessentially in His Son (Luke 1:35), whom we must hear (Mark 9:7). Death does not make a good hearing aid. Imposing on mortality with erratic improvisation can be mortal.

It is in God, in Christ His wholly expressive expression, the brightness of His glory, and express image (Heb. 1), that we find truth, as man giving it to mankind. And what did man do but take the Lord  so sacrificial, whose zeal know no bounds (Psalm 40 and cf. Joyful Jottings 22), whose compassion was like volcanic passion, whose eruption was mercy, whose death inflicted was on Himself, for man, as many as received Him (John 1:12)... and sacrifice Him! This ? It was not in the solemnity of achieving atonement, but in the vehemence of rejection, which wisdom turned to account! (cf. I Cor. 2:8, Luke 11:53).

No reason could foretell a divine righteousness that was at one with a love so intense, that nothing complete till justice was met,  the Son should bear the judgment that would open the way to home in God,  for those who should come to Him, in our stricken race. Christ ... did they not make Him  like Goma in stricken Congo ? as it were, in a day a city with no inhabitant but He: for He was immersed in the ash of human contempt!  When HE had finished His redemption (John 19:30, Matthew 26:52-54, Zechariah 3:9, 13:1, Hebrews 9:12ff., 10:10,14), He cried, "It is finished!"

It has stayed that way (Hebrews 9:25ff.) There is no other and there is nothing more.

There is no more for love to do, nor further righteousness for redemption to receive; but as to the souls of man who exposed by His light, see the ruin they have escaped in this celestial Goma, wrecked on their behalf (Gal. 3:10-13), and risen new from the ashes, alive for their shepherding, who in faith, repentance and surrender, come to Him, these are caught up in the resurrection realities He displayed. They  know the very power and the presence of God (Luke 14:29-33, John 14:21-23, Matthew 28:18ff., Hebrews 7:25, Ephesians 1;17-19, 2:6ff.), before their final home-coming to Him who commenced our race.

The many however continue to seek their own ruined Goma, spiritual self-made victims, like the shoe-bomber of aeronautical fame. They have to do it - so they say; and despite mercy, they continue to seek the glory of man till  its shame reeks to hell. The last century has been acrid with sulphuric fumes, evil emissions, as man pollutes even in a figure, his elevated Lake Kivu, with the molten passion of Mt Nyiragongo. Yes, even his hope in the Lake is polluted with the ash and molten imaginations of man; and ever new fraudulent versions of the authentic Christ are made, as if by so many breaches from hell (II Cor. 12, II Tim. 3, II Peter 2, Matthew 24:24). Pollution, not the British Navy of yore, it is which rules these waves, while it waives all rules. Foolish however is the one who thinks to fool the Lord!

Meanwhile many escape the acrid penitentiary for Christ's sake: these are the children of light, who do not seek to add to the words and works of God, or to subtract from His free and final redemption, complete these millenia (Galatians 5:24, Ephesians 5:8, I Thess. 5:5, Titus 2:7ff., 3:5ff., TMR Ch.3 , Barbs, Arrows  and Balms 17).
 
 

*2 See TWO     CHOIRS.

*3

Indeed, there is no 'self' as something set up, constituted, given and a datum, for given by whom ? With God this is not an element. Of Himself He declares, "I am what I am." That is His name.

Such a concept, a 'self', by contrast, is a mere import from creation, which has precisely this BECAUSE it is creation. In deity, it is a mere irrelevance of thought on the part of the one who proposes it.

God is what He is, nothing conferred, the ultimate Being, logically necessary and ontologically unimposed on or constituted, being eternal and the basis for and source of all not God, the One living as life's ground and definition, in all its compartments and parallels, extravaganzas and excellencies, ratings and livelinesses, confined by nothing: illimitable but distinct, without submission to dynamic, but author of it as of the universe.

Capable and not constructed, encountering nothing that can resist except by His permission, His placement with any other being, expressly or by implication, is mere self-contradiction on the part of the human thinker, not on the part of God!

The illimitable power, neither of any imagined god-beings, partative or partial, ostensibly imperial or not, could have, nor any such: since each would limit so making the conception self-contradictory,  and even if this were not so, then whatever was butt to it to such power, to prevent it, being opposed, would end!

Parts, whether conceived in spirited beings or partative elements, of comparable kind (to be relevant at all), constitute creation's image of kind, construction and imbuement with form through which to deal: a matter of delimitation (by whom), construction (by whom), whose conception as entities at war merely denies the infinite power which God alone and altogether has; and similarly, any being desiring such beings, such entities, each God, merely implies lack of infinite power on his own part, since frustration is the necessary result, and self-contradiction the necessary mode for the model.

God thus does not have gods in any nature or form or degree; but what He is, is one God whose word and Spirit, infinite in intimacy, each fully God, not diverse in nature, are diverse in operation at will, infinite in harmony, filled with sociality, devoid of artificiality. He has existence, not consistence, since not constituted; and far less subsistence, since He is over all. Source of bonding, He is unbonded, but can confer on creation what in Him is infinite and eternal, in temporal partial parallel.

Moreover, God is integral, diverse in operation, consistent in nature, persistent in immutability, unfading in beauty, source but not result of mathematics, and being One as a Spirit, He is three in the persons who operate as one, with diversities of desire, singularity of counsel and fulfilment that waits on no time, itself a creation, but being complete before the beginning which is time, indeed apart from it, He has completely covered for all time, the crisis and the drama, the fall and the restoration in part, as to number, but in whole, as to quality: of man.

These persons of deity are not parts, for God is spirit, nor are they mere aspects, since each relates personally to the other: they comprise God, but do not compose Him, since He is not composed: God IS thus with no 'nature' beyond, since all lack nothing in nature, and are neither linked, subsumed nor apart, but in effusive communion move as one Being, inseparable, in operational integrality which knows no integration, since always one, being apart from all synthesis, but rather the basis for any.

In being, One, in persons three, His is community with unity, and facility for creation, even incarnation; though in His eternal wisdom, He has from the first made clear to sinners in mankind, the consequences of sin, the coming of its resolution, and then the mode of its execution, as salvation is secured in time, for eternity. He did not create, and then lament His lack of power to incarnate to secure salvation; but creating, He knew the resolution of the fall, and so in control, acted (as in Isaiah 51:16, cf. 49:3).

See -

	The True God has God, Gives Growth and Glory Ch.   5,
	A Spiritual Potpourri Ch.  12,
	Barbs ...  14, 17, 23, SMR Ch.7, Section 4,
	Biblical Blessings Ch.  13, Extension 3 ,
	The Biblical Workman Ch.  7,
	REF 15; Of the Earth, Earthy or Celestial in Christ Ch.   6;  The Bright Light and the Uncomprehending Darkness Ch.   10.