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Chapter  Five

NO DALLIANCE and

NO OTHER WAY

Things Unamendable ...

Matters Unamenable to Amendment

Actuality and Dream

Some people do not like things to be about to happen. They torture themselves, the truth and the realities as far as lies in their power; they consult together, talk, equivocate, congregate, opine, formulate, forge partnerships, make announcements, counter-announcements, force claims, live with counter-claims and are altogether such a robust and likely group as to make of journalism, an essay in possibilities. Thus the facts are several removes away, and the forces of compromise, aspiration and consultation move in a little world of their own.

Meanwhile, the actual world moves on to where it is going, very often to a place of ethical ill-fame, enormities of mismatched duties and needs, until man faces his next major fright, as there is consternation and fear among the nations, estimating what new enormity, plague, concoction of evil is about to strike, like a ruminative adder, only needing the slightest provocation before acting. The time of "men's hearts failing them for fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth" has come (as foretold in Luke 21:26)..

This has mounted till reaching the current complicated complexion of things (like a lady's face made up to the utmost with every kind of eye-shadow, would-be blush, flush, false eye-lash and the like) becomes a work of presentation, of image; but what it is imaging, that is entirely another question. Man reaches to such things and then over-reaches, like one leaning on an invisible wall at the edge of a precipice. Hence the shocks which come, when it is successfully realised that what is being done and even what many of the competing ideas prescribe for what ought to be done, are far from what needs to be done; and that what is being 'seen' as distinct from what is there, are things so diverse that these two worlds simply do not agree.

Then there are spats, not just with the major players, but multiple, such as evoked by the nuclear and quasi-nuclear and pseudo-nuclear powers, and other dubious players with mortality as sport, concerning the way in which, if any, life may continue on this globe. Since this is to become IMPOSSIBLE as Christ foretold, except at His return, which has judgment afoot, there is therefore room for sudden change, and call for desperate measures for desperate times; and one of the first casualties will be freedom, freedom of speech in particular.

One could almost be forgiven for mentioning 'President Rudd' whose style may seem so imposing in appearance, yet moves to be one so disposing in reality; for he is embarking, we read, on Internet Control, a vast and marvellous scope for an intellectual Tian-Anmen of our own, a funeral to expression with all sorts of liberties annulled, possibly in the very name of liberty, always a useful ploy for some, as in the former USSR where the mere mention of such things could be seen as a method for their dispersion, if not from the globe, then at least from their part of it. If not to be discarded in the NAME of liberty, however, for the ways and means committee is not inactive, then free speech may  at least be severed in the name of some sonorous seeming principle or other, so that the State can rule out what it really does not want, and yet seek to put a good face on it.

TRUTH AS INCONVENIENT

Christ too was inconvenient - remember Caiaphas (John 11): "It is EXPEDIENT that one man die for the people, and not that the whole nation perish". Otherwise put, it is not CONVENIENT for Christ to live: we profit more if we kill Him. In the above quotation, two words are left out, now replaced: "It is expedient for us that one man die for the people..." There we find the central "for us" that cynosure of doom, that led to the near perishing of the people, saving themselves in guilty folly, removing the greatest, purest, most munificent, merciful light that shone directly from God, His Father, the very Christ, for some sort of survival, which replaced a massive revival, the real need. When it is not convenient to have truth, then of course man is unmanned, and becomes a sort of controlled robotic reactor, as far as the State can contrive it.

Truth then dies, as far as the State is concerned, so that everyone can get on with living an impossible life, impassive to truth, unperturbed by reality, changing anything just to keep going, and not minding unduly to what destination that is. Impossibilities can take a while at times, to show their teeth...

Rites to wrongs can be bought at the United Nations by making racial declarations, or attempting this, in the name of attacking racism ^*1; and the coming junta can make 'all things new' as Blair and Obama and Rudd have all tended to do in oracular statement, before election, without too much undue preoccupation with what that is ... until afterwards. Innovation, like cloud bursts and new paths for hurricanes, has a very variable history. It needs some practised charting ...

Let us then listen to a little conversation between two friends, for when it is fiction, it is not so rude to overhear.

THE DIRE DIALOGUE

Well, as far as I am concerned, this world is empty, corrupt, unjust, merciless, fraudulent, gross and incompetent in all that matters most.

Do you think so, Ben ? If by 'world' you mean what is IN this sphere of life and environment of the earth, as persons, and is NOT in Christ, rejecting Him, I could not agree more.

Look Frank, even in false religions, it is breach of trust, denial of goodness, flagrant misuse of grace, daring denial of reality, erection in the very place of God of the mere thoughts of man, masquerading as something worthy of worship. What could be more corrupt ?

I must say, Ben, it is sobering when you read about 'idols in the heart' in Ezekiel 14:4, and using the temple of God for foreign images (Ezekiel 8), as if you could mix the drinks of philosophy and invention with the draughts of the refreshing waters that never fail, without becoming a recently deceased contortionist. As to the thoughts of man, even if psychically shot through with the claims of mysticism on the one hand, and on the other, those from the God of creation and redemption: they mix like plus infinity and minus a million.  It is He, whose word has struck the world like a sudden squall, calmed it like a zephyr, awakened it like a freezing wind, and instructed it in what alone is verifiable among all the religions, and this for millenia: there is no hope for what ,seeing the one, chooses the other.

The Lord puts it vividly. I was reading, in that Chapter of Ezekiel, that God saw elders who came to Him even though there is, in the heart of each of them as seen in in their religious practice, "a multitude of his idols" . "They are estranged from Me," He declared, "through their idols." The first instruction is clear: "Repent, and turn yourselves from your idols, and turn away your faces from all your abominations." God abominates spiritual substitutes for truth, far more than a good doctor abominates spurious drugs which intoxicate but do not heal. They are wrong, wrong-headed in construction, wrong in intention and wrong for the system. They speak of good, who sell them, but they accomplish ruin; they are what misleads, breeds sorrow, giving medicine a bad name and their imbibers a bad life, perverting the desire for health and life, even this, to destruction.

How much more when the results are eternal!

So evil are these machinations and so desperate these devices, that God can even allow the subverted soul of each who so deludes himself to become deceived, and bring on him the disaster of the psyche which waywardness first invites, just as excessive smoking can actually CAUSE a train of events, physically. These may become right out of the control of the one who has it, so that he becomes a site for corruption and his very bodily resources contribute to his own ruin, being taken over.

In that context, Jerusalem was about to be invaded, the temple destroyed (Ezekiel 14:20ff., 21:8-17). They had resisted and even resented tremendous offers, opportunities, pleas and reminders from God, given in the time of the weeping prophet (Jeremiah 9), the heart-broken Jeremiah, and some of those offers were mercy itself (cf. Jeremiah 17). Now came the flustering bustle of judgment. It at length became as unattractive as unerring, impelling as repulsive.

Perhaps there could be some ... resolution, some Obama style bargaining, reasoning together, patch-work quilt in a religious setting, something for all, some agreement about things of God which could settle human differences and make some kind of peace, perhaps a little praise for this false religion and for that (cf. God's Gift of Grace in Christ Jesus Ch. 3), a concession here, an allowance there ? Yes, by all means there could be this: but the permission for, admission of, or even praise of idolatry is merely a provocation that increases the judgment. Idols in the heart are not welcome to the Maker of the heart.

No, there is no palliation. What does one read in Ezekiel 14:20 ? It is this: "Though these three men were in it, as I live, says the Lord GOD, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters, but they only shall be delivered themselves." WHO would be delivered ? Which are the three men who, even in they were then living in Jerusalem, would deliver not the city but ONLY THEMSELVES ?

Why, they are "Noah, Daniel and Job". Daniel had been taken early from Jerusalem to be made a cadet wise man in Babylon, and early distinguished himself in many ways, in heroics and acts of prayer of an amazing kind, gaining deliverance which staggered the King as he was faithful to God in an alien environment.

Yes, and Job was exceedingly famous for the suffering he endured and his wonderfully inspired and uplifting words found in Job 19, "I know that my Redeemer is living," going on to declare this, that in the last times HE would BE on this earth, and Job, though his very body should be destroyed, would SEE Him with his own eyes, thus indicating the faith in the resurrection of his body. This, indeed,  despite the rawest of sufferings and the most pitiable of diseases with which he was afflicted, during his famous trial. Then what of Noah ? He was one of 8 delivered from the flood, who presumably amid unspeakable mockery stood firm as by faith, he built a vast vessel, though there was no apparent water worthy of it ... at first!  and through him the race was spared.

Would one of these, would his prayer, that of a saint, help ? No. God emphatically refuses any such proposition. You deal with God or you have the persuasive powers of sod. What then if TWO of these great saints had been in the city and prayed for it ? Surely God would hear then ? Not in the slightest degree. THEY would be delivered, but none would adhere by any sort of sticking, to them. Well then, surely three ? perhaps, in united prayer could turn away judgment from the city which dared, like Obama, to PRAISE another god while naming HIS name. No (Ezekiel 14:20 is insistent), even that would do nothing.

I see: Resort to those ways and what then ? Even the whole THREE of these most famous saints joined in intercession, they could NOT deliver the city, for it was BECAUSE of mixed gods, gods deemed good enough for praise and position, that it was meeting its term, and faced devastation. NAMING the God of truth and JOINING Him in some sort of recognition of other gods is abominable to Him, detestable, unthinkable as it were, a thing of dereliction.

But what of America now, and what may be coming over the horizon of horror for Australia, if truth becomes an unthinkable encumbrance because of political gods who dictate, surreptitiously corrupting integrity and truth, in their NAME, which is what it would amount to ?

America does well if it disjoins from these horrendous deals^*2, started in Bush's time and now made worse by Obama: religious patch-work jobs. Even a surgeon might not be too pleased if half-way through an operation, for an instant,  you came to and demanded a co-surgeon at once. Far less does God permit joining His infinity with the creations of men, called God, be they operative as ideals born of some conception that rules as a god, or more direct worship that supervenes and directs in its own rites, or wrongs called rights!

You are right.

I'll go further.  If there is one thing the Old  Testament makes as clear as ANY other, it is this: that God is not mocked, that He does not endure liberties with His name, that He has a vast ZEAL for truth in the heart and that all the gods of the other nations are heathen, as in Psalm 96: in the next Psalm, they are instructed in a delicious and satirical irony, to WORSHIP HIM! Little gods worshipping the only One worthy of it, how delicious a rebuke!  In the New Testament, we read this, that there is UNDER HEAVEN NO OTHER NAME by which men  MUST be saved (Acts 4:11-12). It is not an option, nor is the method an option. If you can't replace readily E=MC², how much less can you replace Jesus Christ, crucified! Again in Jude and II Peter and II Timothy 3-4, we are reading of the corruption of turning from the living God to what others construct, innovative concerning the truth, wrong in logic^*3 , unrepentant in heart, deluded.

The contemporary push, which dares to become a religious putsch with a Temple of Understanding and endless inter-faith dialogues^*3A and other forbidden fruits of unbelief, is of course predicted (Revelation 13, 16-19), there being even a SECOND DRAGON, or spiritually imposing force of cohesion and direction, predicted to handle ... the religious aspect of the this-world rule. This, an improvement on the mindless follies of Communism, morals from nowhere, laws from nowhere, but authority from everywhere, and will be more palatable to the antics of asininity than was that. This religious move is predicted to come before judgment comes, and it is multiple in measure, though single in purpose, as Revelation 13 and 16 show.

Yes, it moves to this entire world, like mould spreading, just as in Ezekiel's day, it brought ruin on  Jerusalem for its two-timing follies.

It escalates for the Gentiles, then... But again, their world is somewhat larger! It is a magnified case in government as in pathology!

This however does not make it any better, but merely shows that the foretold spiritual syndrome is known to God, its modes, methods, aims, ambitions and end! That makes it the more horrendous, for it is like someone who already afflicted from cancer from smoking, now using stronger cigarettes, where the smoke blows more broadly, instead of ... stopping at once and altogether.

Is it good for Biblical Christian Apologetics that we have these horrendous movements that compromise the Lord and dare to name Him while praising and participating with idols ?

In a way it is, for it is verification. History readily COULD have been different; the whole world COULD have gone for Christ as it seemed possible it might in the days of Emperor Constantine, and at other times when misled people systematically and spuriously used force in the name of Christ, though this was expressly forbidden (John 18:36ff.), and so showed that their Lord was another. It WAS however predicted that while on the one hand, there would be enormous openings up in the nations outside Israel, to the Gospel, including the hearts of kings, yet the way would always be NARROW.

Yes,  BROAD would be the opposite, leading to hell!

In the end, it is quite clear, the anti-Christ forces, the relativists, the authors of compromise and conditional alliances and the like, using the name of religion in the process, applying the screws, increasing the penalties for non-conformity, on a universal basis: all this is TO COME. It has come in places, and these are whole large segments of humanity already. When there is no opposition, nothing for comparison, no USA with its freedom force and Europe settles for convenience and so forth: then of course the sheer audacity of the thing will grow as fast as its specious hypocrisy and deceitful ruses. The sheer pomposity of it is seen in Revelation 13 and 17, its militarism in 19:19, its corrupting and corrosive hopping about, in 16:13 and on.

It is, then,  evidence of the truth of the word of God; but it is attestation of doom to come.

Why yes! If Jeremiah wept for what was to come to his city, his beloved people, what does one do when the entire world faces condemnation, and many in the same mode; and indeed, so vast has been the very spread of the Gospel of Christ, as foretold in Matthew 24:14, as what had to happen before Christ the Saviour returned as King,  as long forecast  by the prophets (cf. Isaiah 4, Micah 4, 7, Psalm 72, Habakkuk 3, Matthew 24-25), that more and more, the whole world is coming to resemble that little nation that Ezekiel and Jeremiah so loved. Movement is ... from Israel the case study, to this entire world as its consummation in grief and horror!

At first, it was the same one for which Jeremiah sorrowed,  little Israel. Now it is the large world, more and more alive and alert to the Gospel, but perverting it, diverting it, disjoining it, making new carpentries to conjoin it for convenience.

If Christ Himself wept over Jerusalem, which ignored the "day of your visitation" when HE came and offered all, and knew what would come when they removed Him, how much more does one wonder and weep for the whole gamut of nations, skewed from salvation, seeking escape from truth and finding appointment with justice, which THEN becomes judgment.

The track of truth leads elsewhere.

Yes, while the super-cars of power and pomp parade on the highway to hell, let us be frank, who are pilgrims and strangers in this world, we walk on the narrow path of divine righteousness. While some are impressed, the many, the multitude is either uneasy or queasy, or attacks, or despises, or condemns ... and kills as in the Sudan, often in China, harasses and hates, attacks as in some Moslem countries, seeks to control, to be a Lord to Christ, instead of owning Him as Lord.

The result ? It is not hard to see. Wars, rumours of wars, distress of nations fearful of the things to come. That is the word, like a news outline, from two millenia ago.

That is what is happening now. But the world puffs away, as if intent on the tobacco tar that spoils, passionate about it, smoking with ruin in false philosophies, idolatrous religions: demeaning Christ the way of some, ignoring Him of others, seeking to control Him of still more.

It is well, for it does not last, though before its focus is final, it will be seen, both what it was to be and is, as one which will soon both consummate its folly and find its judgment.

In the meantime, Christians face unparalleled troubles, before the return of Christ; but let us bear up, for He comes, and the work of testifying of Him is a privilege unspeakable, if by any means some be won to Him. It is not the statistics which should bear fruit, but the souls. MANY will be won to something else, some combination of idols, as in the case of the Alpha course^*3B.

It is popular!

Yes, its background shows a force strong on the acceptance of Romanism, its mode of not answering criticism of Christ over a significant period during the course, damping criticism of error as a means, is set on what actually is a way merely sets the course for a grand 'tolerance' on what is in fact nothing less than an hostility to Christ according to the Bible, and an evil combination that merely shuts up truth in a silence which breeds contempt for what is eternal. Ploys that suffer unanswered contempt for Christ, for weeks show an honour that puts means before character, and in this case, fit too well with the avowed desire that large denominations simply become agreeable, as if the myriads of martyrs to Rome, and the integrity of the word of God were to be replaced with a feeble fellowship of no meaning, immersed in self-contradictions and convenience.

Where then are those who like the disciples, stand when murder is about ? speak when hostility abounds ? act when slander is a medium of life, and refusal is a path of the many, even of a multitude who dare to name Christ, while making in effect a game of His stringent conditions. They are not hard to bear if you love Him: love bears all things, hopes all things, but REJOICES IN THE TRUTH (I Corinthians 13). Paul would not give place for ONE HOUR, to heretics in his own day, and had the matter settled in Jerusalem in vigorous and denunciatory dynamism. What is precious is not for the wolves. While it is not right to use force, as some have done while themselves erring, it is wholly alien to let evil rove like a bull bellowing at a meeting.

The meadows of mercy are quiet, despite the distant din on the highway to hell.

Dwell here, then, with Christ as Saviour and Lord according to the Bible, not mixing it with idols in the heart, on the tongue, in the spirit of your living. The beauty of holiness is untainted where HE is; and He is not to be found here or there, as those who say, Look, there He is! or there! as we see in Matthew 24:26ff.. He is in no mouldable mass, in no combination of syncretic religionst^*3C, in no praise of what disdains or excludes His deity and His redemption, or makes Him into a material element^*4 ; for HIS words are SPIRIT and they are LIFE, and He asks, "What if you shall see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before ?"

He explains this, following His imagery about eating His flesh and drinking His blood, doesn't He ?

Yes, you see it in John 6:50-63, the imagery moving on from animal sacrifice to the ONE sacrifice which ONCE made peace for all who so receive Him, which ends by His declaring the principle in view: "It is the spirit which gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you, they are spirit, and they are life."
 

But what of ANOTHER SPIRIT and ANOTHER JESUS and ANOTHER GOSPEL ? Doesn't the Bible make plain the uttermost peril attaching to this ruse or dream ?

Indeed, it does. In II Corinthians 11, Paul declares that those espousing such things are false apostles, deceitful workers.  They are transformationists that do not change, but are endued from what is evil, surrogates for Satan or illustrations at least; for says Paul, it is no marvel that such people can seem angelic, for "Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light." What then ? "Therefore it is no great thing if his ministers also be transformed as the ministers of righteousness, whose end shall be according to their works."

We can but pray^*5 for any among such that they may be found; for the Lord takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked, and many, misled, follow paths as do youths in their ignorance on the roads, without understanding what they do. It is a great day when, praise to the Lord, some are delivered from the various devious departures, slithering slips and at times, robust rambunctious renegacies that dare to use the name for another thing, word, Gospel, and god!

The word of God however does not change; and wise is the one who follows it (Matthew 7:15ff.). For this, for Jesus Christ, there is no substitute; there is only fancy dress, the moment of folly, the dressing up ... but the truth CANNOT be dressed up. As it is, so it continues, and he who is Christ's disciple continues in HIS WORD, as He states so very clearly (John 15:10, 8:29-31).

Yes, I recall in Isaiah 61:10, the truth is something to be PUT ON, not as a dress up, but as a garment that Christ gives (the one missing in the parable of Matthew 21, for the wedding guest, with disastrous results!). And that ?

It is the righteousness of God, a gracious gift, just as He states it in Romans 5:17. It is a gift by grace (Romans 5:15), by devotion, and is as a wedding garment provided for the bride by the Lord.
 

NOTES

*1

ON racism: see Ch. 4, *2 above.

*2

On syncretism, especially at the national level:

See Red Alert  Ch. 5  (in biblical terms is the infamous multi-'faith' prayer breakfast )-Lord of Life Chs. 4 and 8 Dastardly Dynamics Ch. 10, including  *2; Red Alert Ch.   6, 13.

See also Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Ch. 3, re Bush.

For more on the Bush era and remarkable preliminaries to the Obama betrayal, the multi-faith reverence, and more in the Moslem field, see Dastardly Dynamics Ch. 10, *2! The important point here is the status of the officer making these statements in the US.

*3

See Chapter 4, above, *4.

*3A

See Of the Earth, Earthy ... Ch. 13, NEWS 152, 

It Bubbles ... Ch. 11, News 121, 122.

*3B

See:

Hapless Hitches and Holy Healings,
Godless Glitches and Divine Dealings  Ch.    3,  

See: Bewilderment, Bedazzlement, Bedevilment
or the Beauty of Christ's Holiness Ch.   7.

* 3C

One of the tragedies of the ending theologically cosmopolitan syncretism, the World Council of Churches, and various unity movements, is that they deal subversively with the Bible, 'creatively' with the Gospel, delusively with the Christ, inventing from philosophies of social, psychological, political or biological kind, various additives and performing varied extractions, till the very name of Jesus is used as if it were that of some captive maiden, adjusting to the needs of libidinous captors.

This is of course mere dalliance, and has less than nothing to do with either the Gospel, or Christ, or salvation. This sort of imagery is to be found in the Bible, where the idolators in Israel were found lusting for the 'young men of Assyria' and the like, as if it were sexual, whereas this is a mere image for the translation into spiritual terms, Israel here conceived as a maiden. The point is that here are SPIRITUAL masters, whose idols are imported, whose ways are to some extent honoured or even venerated. It was for the exclusion of this that Israel was to be made an example (Isaiah 43:21). The Church is in principle not different: it is to be as a shining light in the darkness (Philippians 2:15-16, Jude), reflecting Christ: not a soot coated former-lighting agent, now hidden underground below who knows what messes.

Alas, many in ancient Israel, here an expository example, and many leaders in fact wanted the power, virility, arrogance, pride, security of arms, the explosive force and uninhibited living style which such powers showed, and sought the religion of what were enemies, attracted, at times entranced by the idols involved, to combine it, and even as in Jeremiah 7 and Ezekiel 7. They proceeded to combine such things with the name of the Lord. It is summed up in outcome, as seen in II Kings 17, especially for our present point, vv. 17-33.

As to the combination and the defilement, consider the outrage of Jeremiah 7 (to which are allied the words of the Saviour in Matthew 21:13).