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CHAPTER 7
PRAYING AND PREYING: THERE'S A DIFFERENCE
News 478
Australian Welfare News October 25, 2014
Rambunctious political adventurism in religion, in Australia -
A Strange Speech
A leader of one of Australia's major political parties has chosen to address what is deemed a 'conservative' group, called the Australian Christian Lobby, and in so doing has attacked biblical Christianity, warped its wisdom, contradicted its commands, changed its Christ. To this we will return. It is not clear that he realised what he did; but it is most apparent that people need to beware of the confusion of culture with Christianity involved, and the misuse of terms. In this speech, we have sanctions against any God or god who dares to depart from the political script presented. Religious entities can conform or else fail to gain recognition from the speaker, or those who may agree with him.
Recognition ? There are greater thing than such political recognition; and indeed, the God of the Bible in one notable case declared to those who were giving Him the come-uppance, "Will you still say you are a god when I slay you ?" Ezekiel 28:9. That of course was at the end of a long road of militant arrogance on the part of some; but it is a concept that must be considered. God at His own will can create life or remove it. You may not depend on Him, but you ARE dependent on Him.
In Isaiah 40, for example, God makes the distinction between God the Creator and man the created very clear! Indeed, a whole nation can provoke Him with casual arrogance, dismiss Him as if an underling or seek to tab, tame or control Him. Contest in these premises, even if unrecognised, must be understood; for God's patience is not the same as indifference, and where His people are in danger, He acts, as the Good Shepherd. But let us revert to the words reported in this politician case.
In the speech concerned, since the appeal to these divergent ends is made in terms of Christianity, this has all the appearance of the false prophet, and hence it is the duty of Christian pastors to seek to deliver people from this type of confusion. The aims may have been this or that, seemingly good or otherwise on the part of the speaker; known to God are such things. What was said, however, requires a warning to the flock, and to all who, heedless, unaware, might be caught up in this confrontation with the God of the Bible, which has of course been going on in other ways in South Australia to name but one State, full tilt since 1988*1, in the forcible indoctrination with nature myths*2, turning schools and colleges into indoctrination units, this even being associated with science, though as far from its method as could be imagined*3.
A Transcript of Shorten's speech
has become available
through
Australian Welfare News, October 25, 2014,
and this we must pay attention.
https://www.facebook.com/australianwelfarenews/posts/1489254961344533
Bracketed sections in general are responses.
THE WORD OF GOD AND THE CONTRARY WORD OF MAN
"I am a Christian and a supporter of marriage equality under the law," Mr Shorten told the Australian Christian Lobby national conference in Canberra on Saturday.
(What law declares marriage to be definable as between same sex, and per se non-reproductive agents ?)
The opposition leader began his speech, we read, as if it were a sermon - by quoting from the scriptures.
He went on to say "so when I see people invoking the scriptures to attack blended families like mine, I cannot stay silent".
(What scriptures revoke the condemnation of same sex liaison, far less same sex use of the term 'marriage' for something categorically condemned in the Bible, whether with death as in Leviticus 20:13, for the theocracy, or as in the New Testament, as in I Timothy 1:10, and I Corinthians 5:11 and 6:9. In Timothy, such practice is linked to some of the worst possible moral lapses - in the listing of what is against "sound doctrine", while in Corinthians such persons are categorically declared NOT to have an inheritance in the kingdom of God. Life is lost in the theocracy; place in heaven in the New Testament covenant, and as in Corinthians, in certain cases keeping company even with such people is disallowed. This does not mean that they cannot hear preaching or receive teaching, and is confined to those who take the name of Christian, but to conduct oneself as if indifferent to their actions, is something spiritually excluded, and fellowship on such a basis is utterly disjoined.
Endeavours to ignore scripture which prohibits repeatedly a particular thing - as in the list, like murder or sexual perversion in biblical terms - in terms of some kind of generic merely presumes to define the nature of the love of God. "He who has My commandments and keeps them, Christ declared, it is He who loves Me," (John 14:21), and again, "If anyone loves Me he will keep My word," He declared. A divorce of Christ from His word is not only impermissible (as with any character deviously rebuilt, but here as it is God who is in view, far more so); it is a violation of love, the love of God.
"As My Father sent Me, He announced, so do I send you," was His word to His apostles (John 20:21). What sort of love rewrites the word of God, which is to be fulfilled to the jot and tittle (Matthew 5:17-20, cf. I Corinthians 2:9ff.), making what is the antithesis of the teaching of the Bible, to be not only holy and just and pure, but by contrast, to become touted and pushed, demanded as a right!
Mr Shorten shows here a remarkable power to mix up matters. But we come to that.
"And no faith, no religion, no set of beliefs should ever be used as an instrument of division or exclusion," Mr Shorten said.
(Christ indicated that He came to bring division even within households, so that Mr Shorten invents a new Christ (cf. those false apostles so-called by the apostle Paul, who had a new Gospel, a new Christ and a new spirit, being deceivers and false apostles, as in II Corinthians 10-11). In fact, in dealing with delinquencies, Christ made it clear that here He came NOT to bring peace, but division, and said so (Luke 12:51-53). He even as there shown, went into the details of such division. In the robust speech involved in that interim before judgment (as in the prophets, Christ and the apostles Peter, John and Paul, and the deacon Stephen for example), there are outstanding examples (as in Matthew 23, Acts 4:18-20, 5:29-32, 7:44-60, 13:8-12, 23:6-10), and the matter progresses further in principle in the incandescent writing of Jude, which is nevertheless scripture, and still concerned amidst the declarations of truth and condign punishment for deceivers, with any possible compassion which might be applied (Jude 16-25).
The ultimate result comes through the interim division, as men war with God, with each other and with the truth. If then no acceptable religion dare divide devils from saints, or sin from virtue or the word of God from the word of evil, from rebellious or self-acclaiming definers of religion, then Christ is out. His word and authority in Himself and as given is aborted, His will and word thwarted.
But how is this Christian ? The reconstruction of Christ was the work of Judas, who in effect acted to be rid of Him and helped the difference to be perceptible in the removal of His body. In fact, man's definition of God is called idolatry; it is God's definition of God which weighs in Christianity (John 12;48-50); and in the resurrection of that same body of Christ (I Corinthians 15), He made His point not only in ransom, but in triumph in the midst of treachery. If you do not like what Christ did and requires and showed and authorised, then to use the term which denotes Him as Lord and Saviour of yourself in total obstructive opposition is merely misleading. It is much more, but not less. How do you make up a Lord, or serve a concoction ?
The concept of placards of man-made morals and desires which makes any god who wants to say anything disallowed from disallowing various forms of religion, or belief is merely obtruding the modes of propaganda into the ways of God, on the basis of nothing but desire. All gods, fraudulent or false and true, however are not one, and biblically, you see this continually, whether in II Chronicles 19:2, where King is rebuked for a forbidden and foolish association, to Romans 16:17, where prohibitions on mixture of the word of God and His teaching with contrary products is made very clear, such association being rejected.
If GOD wants to speak, even MPs have to listen; or at least, not put their mouths inside His and declaim what ought to have been said by Him, in their view; but especially they ought not to mix their words with His, in opposition, and then claim that they are following Him. You can have any number of gods you may like, but it is confusion and worse to put your words as if commands, contrary to those of the whole Bible, even to the point of flat contradiction, and imagine that in some way you and God are sharing the platform. At lest, for integrity, you have to use another name for your religion, the same as other religions normally do.)
THE NEW VOCABULARY
"Freedom of worship does not mean freedom to vilify."
(This is true, but it is not vilification by biblical standards or Christ's words to speak the truth, and this statement merely changes the character of truth, so that what is good is called evil, and what is evil is called good, as cursed clearly in Isaiah 5:20. It is simply a new religion, attacking what it allegedly holds, and showing a stringent word of abuse against what the claimed religion continues to declare. This is in itself a division, fostered, festering. How then is division so wrong!)
"These prejudices do not reflect the Christian values I believe in."
(To call what is written in terms of Christian doctrine 'prejudice' does not face the fact that what this calls truth thus becomes subject to your thought, and YOU become the criterion of truth, for no known reason, and with no known competitive base. It is however Jesus Christ who is the criterion of truth, one of the actual foundations of Christianity as in John 14:6, 8:58, Philippians 2 and Colossians 1:18), whose work results amidst other things in this, "that in all things He should have the preeminence" which is not to be translated into subordination to sinners, which is a quality of the condition of all men.
"These attitudes sent a message that Christianity was incompatible with modern life," said Shorten.
(The message - depending on what is in view, but assuming it is one including what is noted in Leviticus, as to type, in Corinthians and Timothy, for the New Testament - is rather that they send a message that making man the criterion of man is anti-biblical, foolish and dysfunctional; for who is man to determine, he who did not create or make himself, and who is he to specify all things concerning himself through voices such as this, which announce their religion and then define it freely precisely as they will. To usurp, denounce and decry the message of what is written in a religion, its basic propositions founded on its entire perspective, merely shows that that religion is not compatible with YOUR OWN APPROACH to modern life. This does not magically become modern life as such, for you are quite simply, not all of it, nor your views, all of them, nor your reactions, all felt.
In fact, in modern life, like any other time of life, it is not a matter of your own invention nor is it that of any political party you prefer, nor any in which you have any proprietary rights to conduct or control by mere preference, let alone in terms of what contrary to manifest construction and function, as well as discordant divine law in the Bible.)
The current laws in Australia are discriminatory, and it was time they were changed, he said.
(However change should not force onto people a cohesion of opposites by misapplying definitions. That is just a verbal take-over. You can do that if your form of government permits it, but this does not alter what it is. To insist on submission of all to such bullying is merely bluster.
From the text of the Shorten speech as provided, October 25, we find that this politician cited certain generic scriptures, not the ones dealing with the case in view, but others, in order to establish certain ethical guidelines, to which he then appealed as disposing of the particular case, contrary though it is utterly, to what is in fact written several times in the most stringent fashion in the Bible. To this citation we will return, but in the interim, the case needs attention.
It is like having a teacher thump his fist on the desk in emphasising some point, and then addressing the class after he has done so, saying, "He means that he agrees with the opposite."
It is like saying, On this ship we will endeavour to be kind to everyone and thoughtful, and hence there are no rules about what is acceptable behaviour, and if you want to stand on a dining table, we will not abort your liberty, for who knows if this apparently dysfunctional act might have something to teach us all. We will not be divisive.
In such cases, however, the LIBERTY of the speaker becomes the DIVISION of those who do and do not in particular conceive it fitting to take such particular actions. Just so, Shorten does not think it good or expedient to interfere with certain non-productive and ultra-participant usage of racially procreative organs. At once he divides both from design*4 and from the viewpoint of many.
Yet you CANNOT avoid division whether you lampoon, name-call or otherwise verbally assault those with whom you differ, or even if you insist that they are wrong! let alone if you want to make a law to SHOW THEM! Verbal assault may be a term used, and what is deemed this may be simply the free and necessary expression of principle, applied; but it should never be confused with the holding of the principle and the exhibition of it in practice, in the liberty which the Australian Constitution insists on giving in the field of religion in Section 116.
The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth.That is in force whether for the modern man or the conservative, and the entire putsch appearance of this laceration and activation with which we are dealing, one however kept for the moment in reserve, is precisely dictation in this field with a sense of exasperated insistence, despite what is biblically commanded, which nevertheless is given the appearance of acceptance.
THE POVERTY AND MEEKNESS OF TAKING GOD HEAD-ON,
AND USING THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT
TO DO SO
Let us consider then, what the politician does cite.
Now Shorten cites from the Sermon on the Mount and the beatitudes, concerning being poor in spirit, humble and not setting yourself up as a criterion of judgment on your neighbour. But this is precisely what he is doing. Despite the Bible's definition of what is in accord with the manifest creation of God, he is setting himself up as a criterion of judgment against those who in fact follow it, thus setting himself not only against many, but against the Bible as well, and this in using the name of the God of the Bible as if he related personally to it in some special fashion.
The Sermon on the Mount, he declared, you see "universal love, tolerance and service" and this underpins the Gospel. Indeed, says he, we must love our neighbour as ourselves.
Such misapplications of spiritual qualities in isolation from the words of the Speaker ignore the immense emphasis of Christ on the precise statements of the Bible and their fulfilment (Matthew 5:17-20), and His warm comparison of those who really serve Him with the prophets in their persecution, as they acted for Him in faithfully insisting on His word.
He makes clear the importance of His actual words (John 12:48-50, 14:21-23). Now the prophets never imagined that their due tolerance excluded truth, but were sure the truth does not admit error or the false attribution of ideas to the God who abominates them (Jeremiah 23:16-24). Changing what He has to say at any point is ground for scorn and divine denunciation as there shown. The way in which we serve God is not to be confused with the way itself on which the Christian walks, which requires the pastor to exhort, rebuke, correct with all authority, while preaching that same word (cf. I Cor. 2:9ff.).A gracious attitude neither abolishes the word of God, nor removes the necessity to warn those who by any mode, would make a new Gospel built not on what God says, or another christ, teaching or testimony (Romans 16:17); but is as far as may be, to accompany faithfulness, not to oneself, but to what God and what He has said. A KIND surgeon does not forsake medical stringencies in order to be so; but the more is careful, to show that kindness with wisdom.
What then ? Would the physician having the touted universal tolerance despite the facts of smoking or aids or other considerations, not dream of indicating care and negative decisions needed, lest this puncture his tolerance ?
Does toleration mean intolerance of truth ? Does Paul's injunction that only a curse comes to those who would preach another Gospel than WHAT HE HAD PREACHED, indicate a toleration of what God has not said, even when it is attributed to Him ? Is a curse tolerant ? Yet this is the apostolic word to those who so act.
Is an equation manipulable at fancy's hand ? Is the grace and patience of the Christian then to be confused with total disloyalty to the commands of his Lord, as if it were the greater grace to become a surrogate lord, and take over with your own substitute commands from the One in whom you profess to believe ? Is Luke 6:46 to be completely overlooked! "Why do you call me lord, lord and not do the things I say!" Is all warning to be ignored, while the Bible is re-written and the words of prophet and Prince trashed as convenient!
Would a patient could die of cancer before a physician would intrusively and insultingly have his eyes opened to the fact an evil disease was at the roots of his physical being ? One does not feel much admiration for that. After all, the doctor is supposed to help keep you alive, in general terms, and departure from that is no small matter! Thus Christ indicated just this intolerant ostensible toleration, when people closed their ears in intolerance of what He in fact SAID, LEST they should be converted. What He said was necessary, inevitable, truth, ground for judgment (John 12:48).
Tolerance of truth is a great thing, and of the grounds for finding it; but making up platitudes and attitudes and attributing them to the One whose judgments on those who did just that sort of thing in His own day (Mark 7:7ff.), excoriating those changing or adding to the word of God (Matthew 23 cf. Proverbs 30:6) is neither meekness nor the work of one who "trembles at His word," which God finds acceptable (Isaiah 66:2). Is it poverty of spirit shown if one is to outcrow the commands of God ? To contradict His word, to declare what God has to be to become acceptable, this is meekness as in the sermon on the mount ? One would never have thought it.
This is logically ludicrous. It contradicts in word and theme precisely of the One appealed to. Having a road beautifully smooth does not become the direction of that road; this is laid down, as is the highway of holiness (Isaiah 35:8). Trying to decide the direction of a path by the way in which it is to be taken is an intrusion of such arrogation of divine liberty, as to make the concept of poverty of spirit as in the Sermon on the Mount, appear as light compared to darkness.
For such changes as here so vigorously surging from the politician in view, you need a new christ, a new bible and a new definition of good and evil, a new god. When Christ said "Judge not" He did not mean that you should suspend observation and the Bible, and refuse to put them together. Thus a good tree bears good fruit; a bad one does not; and this appears in the same Chapter as the "Judge not," and indeed in the same sermon.
False prophets dressed as lambs, but in fact wolves, also appear in this famed Sermon, and the falsity is always defined in terms of the word of God. Failure with that is a basis of explicit judgment. In Matthew 7, the area in view for 'judge not', was the case of the plank in your own eye and foolish judgment, comically showing the folly of being fault-finding in a personal way, so that while you testily condemn something in someone, yet you yourself are far worse!
Further, when you apply a law to a case that fits it, this is precisely nothing to do with any plank in your eye, but the requirement is accuracy with such humility that you do not MISAPPLY it, far less contradict it as here! To misapply the word of God to a case is judgment and forbidden; to apply it is agreeing with the prior judgment of God.
It has nothing to do with suspending the word of God and HIS judgment, in order to substitute this with your own. This sort of conformist activity, Shorten does not seem to realise, is not the same as YOUR OWN JUDGMENTS! Citing the law is not creating it. Biblically and in Christ, God has already made His own judgments and He asks us to keep HIS commandments. APPLYING these is the work of faithfulness (II Timothy 4:2), not judgmentalism. It is God who declares what is the law, the way, and hence it is with God that Shorten's issue lies, in confrontation on the basis of his own thoughts. God is well able to hear.
Again, concerning loving your neighbour as yourself, is this in what appears to be the Shorten pseudo-bible (one apparently adjustable as and where required) to mean that the content of character and truth and of need is to be defined as you (or your religion), from day to day discern, or some group in which you are pleased to inhere, as you allow (say same-sex 'marriage') or disallow (the soundness of those who agree with the Bible, which does not tolerate many things, including murder, theft, killing parents and same-sex activity as in I Timothy, in just that linkage).
Is love from and because of God so lovingly to institute what He abominates, and include what He excludes from His kingdom ? Does a loving son cite his father's love for him and through him as he wilfully aborts what he has ordered, even attributing the very opposite to him! Is this not rather provocation of the source of love with an all-wise divergence of pet principles, like a break-away son, misusing his father's name and love! Further, it gainsays the wisdom of that father; and when it is God who is the Father, fathering such discord from He who IS love (I John 4:&ff.), is in itself disruptive if not dispersive of love. Love has its source, which has its oversight and knowledge, and hence its own ways for good.
Does then love mean lawlessness ? do as you want. Is this the direction of the idle surge ? But biblically, love rejoices in the truth (I Corinthians 13:6). This appears abysmally to differ from the direction in which the Shorten religious declamation is moving; and if love means lawlessness even in part, why does Shorten wish to make a political law concerning what he deems love, in opposition to the Bible, and to use this as presenting standards of operation! What moves against law is to use law!
It is true that love transcends law, but the law remains as Paul makes so very clear, for law-breakers, for those who disobey these commands, divinely desired for man (I Timothy 1:5-11). Be as loving as you will, but do not make up new laws, new christs, new religions and use the name of the God of the Bible, of the Christ whom He sent. That merely brings you into the law-breaker category as in I Timothy.
THE MARITAL AFFAIR
THE PHYSICAL AND THE SPIRITUAL
HOW intolerant of marriage can one become, when the term is to be corralled into action to refer to something different, diverse from functional laws, when these become obsessively despised, so that change is to be initiated on ONE NEW BASIS, selected without election, asserted as if incorrigible, a psychic blast! It is like a new sequence. We think it; you ought to have it. It is our moral code; what is sought is that you must by law follow it in terminology, as in permission.
It is not so very tolerant at that, is it!
What superior basis then is this change of what LAW INSISTS ON as to what is right and wrong ? It is that it is intolerant to differ from a world in which it all goes and flows (with certain exceptions and exemptions to be determined from time to time), and to insist on the social chameleon approach more nearly, it is this which is to be commended. Such dictatorship however has no place with reason or biblical revelation, and makes Bible and State not separate, but inseparables. Thus all are to be marvellously willing to follow any religion (with certain exceptions), and to praise any approach, as if love were to be blind, and goodwill were to be predetermined by an anti-biblical bias
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which gives no
logical ground for its validity, |
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appearing merely a
desire or thrust to stray from limits, while |
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seemingly slithering back to enduring basics,
and this when |
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yet inventing a new basis, while not acknowledging something. |
By not acknowledging what ? it is that this is merely a radical and forceful take-over, a reversal of values and terms, of approbations and disapprobations, while acting to divide those who do not desire such a change from those who do, as if this were not a very acme of division. Is it then not 'divisive' or must it too have a very special exemption!
So the step is
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divisive, while
condemning division, |
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intolerant, while
condemning intolerance, |
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authoritarian
while sweeping past authority |
And this: it is with a view to
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prescriptive
legislation which any decent kind of a god had better obey, |
That appears the path, as its pebbles are considered, and their alignment.
Thus, as we saw, he declares this, "And no faith, no religion, no set of beliefs should ever be used as an instrument of division or exclusion," despite the fact that Christ being the ONE WHO He was with the WORDS He had been given, indicated one reason for His coming was to create division (just as an operation creates pain), so that not pseudo-harmonious hypocrisy, nor totalitarian religiosity should rule, but His word. But Shorten disallows such an aim. In reality, something may seem painful but that does not make it wrong. The love of God ? It is challenging; but neither does that annul it or change its way. Sin has problems which have to be faced, and neither flirted with nor fashioned as if virtue; and the love of God does not move to comfort innovators, with viewpoints diverse and wandering, or working on some other plan, with no basis. As to the love of God, it "rejoices in the truth," and paid the price of sin for those who receive Him, covering all, not denying it or recreating its nature!
Truth is like that. It is unmanipulable and found only from God, past all the relativities of man.
It does not say that all the religions ought to have respect for one another, as you notice in John 10:1-10. On the contrary, such a word as "robbers" is used by Christ in that context. The truth in love allows diversities, not requiring the endless legal suppressions currently kept in power, but it does not alter whether in physics or physiology, the reality: it is what it is and kind words for it while it is being face-lifted are mere ointments of poison.
Christ would rather die than pretend He was not the Son of God (Mark 14:61-65), since just as an antibiotic is what it is, not a suggestion box, so and infinitely more so, He is as He declares in from Exodus 3:14 on, the I AM: I AM WHO I AM. This was that same Jesus Christ, incarnate from the regions of eternity (John 8:58). ALL truth matters, and in any discipline, to vary from it is only by confusion to be equated with some kind of kindness!
It is no work of politics, let alone one with the concept of separation of church and State in its pocket, to blend the religions, ignore the contradictions at the heart and source within that category, and dictate the religious way for the land to go, eviscerating the concept of truth in the realms of a vague nebulosity of contradictions. But if the State wishes to make such a preposterous commingling, let it at least put the thing to the referendum, and announce before an election its intention, very clearly, without cunning. The sale of the soul is a very serious affair.
Is it for the State to award honour to all religions ? Is this to be a supervening condition of being Australian, a new piece of morality to come near to being put into law by crushing free speech, which still means to be allowed to present grounds for truth, and to proclaim it, not to be reduced to a quivering mass of law-blinded lock-jaws! or else to face legal sanctions. What oppression lies in such steps. What then of such approaches and dictations concerning God, liberty and law ?
Is this not a trifle imposing ? a case of posturing ? of being beyond yourself ? of taking too much upon yourself ? of dealing with eternal issues by the methods of the political provocateur ? If it is not, it is entirely difficult to see on what basis a difference could be found. Moreover, this is not at all as described by the politician, a matter of being officious or intrusive or judgmental about WHOM YOU LOVE.
Recorded in the Shorten speech is this: When I see people hiding behind the bible to insult and demonise people based on who they love…I cannot stay silent.
There is as yet no such prescription, and any attempt to make it so is simply to confuse loving someone with having carnal copulation or other same sex actions.
You can love, in this country, with all that tender delight in the welfare of the loved one, all that kindness, all that joining of minds, without having to use reproductive equipment to fulfil it in some way, as if your capacity to love were bound to your power to reproduce, even when this is in a relationship obviously not indicated by the equipment concerned.
This is to demean, to canalise ' love' , to minimise it, specialise it to one expression of it in the case of family, and it thus constitutes one more form of reductionism such as materialists for example, love to have, as they make not only a stripped down religion, but a stripped down world. It is as if flight were reduced to wheels, wings and engines, with no idea about what is being DONE with it all! and to achieve it (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 9, Reflections ... Ch. 5, Deliverance from Disorientation Ch. 8); and other means for it. This is simple reductionism, insistence on part for the whole, or indispensable for the whole, or to constitute the whole.
You are not by any means told whom you can love, but whether or not you can use the term 'marriage' for a certain type of sexual relationship. Even for the usage clear in the reciprocal relationships clearly installed, to confuse sexuality with love is a gross abortion of the very meaning, depth and reality of love. That is merely an instrument of its expression in a particular case, which has results very often in children who need the love to be as much as may be, clear in their deposited new state, as in their conception. It is specialised.
To equate a specialty with all is simply confusion. Love is free; even much is left free in sexual actions; but the limit is on using terminology for one thing, to apply to another, thus reducing the nature of the distinction by abuse of terms. But what of the entire approach to these things ? Must it go swaying or swaggering on, like a steam-roller out of control because of manufactured momentum ? Moreover, this is related at base to the religious domain to which Shorten has made such strange reference. What then of this religio-political thrust as in the speech in view ?
If Australians - as in a referendum - were to desire to make such vast changes in attitude and values, realism and reality for their laws, then that is their own affair. If this is, to any degree, because of politically induced confusion (whatever its actual intention may be), misuse of definition and setting up of a new christ, contrary to the biblical one, with no assignable logical or historical basis: then it is time to warn people. In politics, go wallowing where you will, provided in a democracy you KNOW what you are doing and WHY, and do not merely fall into a flow of a blind radicalism, one fearless of contradicting and twisting truths made exceptionally clear in what it (in this case) affects to believe. If you want another christ, here is something for you. But at least, KNOW what you are doing. If you want another world, designed by yourself, that is your affair, a massif of admitted ignorance masquerading as adequate. But wake up to what is occurring!
Again, Shorten seems clear verbally at least on loving your neighbour as yourself, a sector of the Bible which he endorses. But this begs the whole question in this case. Would I like to be led astray in the interests of a smooth or self-satisfied feeling or one of comfort and so forth, and deem anyone so acting toward me as loving me ? Of course not; for it would be a low estimate of my needs which would call itself love. THAT is mere self-indulgence. Always the truth comes at the head, and love moves with it, rejoices in it, and they are inseparables. Loving someone involves knowledgeable concern and care, not dashing on with them in some surge, with which they happen to agree. Love is not another name for wings without the bird, its heart and its specifications.
If what is to be done, is by shepherded people into such a novelty, without knowing that the new is merely an unvalidated additive to the religious data, where misuse of biblical concepts is applied to mislead from biblical injunction, laws and ethics, then how is this different from the blindfold! If you want to put dung on a flower garden in Winter, don't instead put on gravel in thick swathes. The one hurts the environment temporarily, but does good ultimately; the other kills.
But let us hear a little more of the new religion with its new christ, like a new marriage for political purposes, replacing the one to God and His Christ, the same one, spiritually, not a new one! (II Corinthians 10-11). In Ephesians 5, there is the concept of spiritual marriage, a matter of metaphor, and physical, and they are compared as type and parallel. In our present situation in this land, it is as if an innovative thrust proceeds towards making a new spiritual marriage though it uses the same name 'marriage' as in Ephesians 5, which makes the comparison.
'HIDING', 'DEMONISING', THE LAW AND THE LIKE,
AND THE WORDS OF TOLERATION ?
“When I see people hiding behind the bible to insult and demonise people based on who they love ... I cannot stay silent.” So, according to the textual report, said Shorten; and this requires further watchfulness. Let us then continue.
Let us analyse this bitter, judgmental, vilifying statement based on the personal psyche of Shorten, its preferences and its taste. First, those who USE what the Bible repeatedly STATES are to be accused of hiding behind it ? They are simply assumed to have an ulterior motive, not sincerely following this teaching at all.
On what ground is this empty, judgmental and cynical charge laid! Is it not rather, as in the Communist Manifesto, a matter of declaring what it says. True, in the Communist case, most devious aims may be present in many, duly exhibited in history, and this may have hidden for many their grasping, odious motives; but you cannot simply assume this for all, not even when their case includes explicit mockery of morals!
Indeed, when it comes to the actual text of what is written, taking the present case of the Bible, in what way do you hide behind something which is most forceful on a given point, in STATING THAT THIS IS THE CASE! That is simply a vilification by Shorten. These people did not even WRITE the Bible, or determine its values, not at all. How then can such motives in JUDGMENTAL passion be levelled at them except by intolerance, distortion and the assignment wantonly of odium!
How does such wrathful contempt differ from vilification ? but if it HAD been based on evidence, not an assumed new religion, then the case could have been considered. But here, it is mere rant, rant in terms of alleged preference for tolerance, while it is being declaimed most intolerantly. There is a name for that. What law makes this judgment merely an application ? What determines the intention of those who believe the word of God, the Bible, so that it may thus be judged as hiding ?
Again, is it even to insult a man to tell him he has a cancer in the lung ? IF you KNOW there is no such thing as cancer, you might BEGIN to make a case for such an opinion as being more than ranting, and riot. Does then Shorten KNOW that no acceptable God could possibly want the sexual organs, heavily expressive of design in exquisite complementarity with necessary functional result, in relationships to be used exclusively within that domain of male and female ? Is it manifest from some basis that keeping to such limiting situations, where the perfect match applies, the one that has worked for the race for thousands of years, is all but inexpressibly horrible, unloving and unlovely ?
How ?
Did God mis-express Himself when He spoke with such vigour in both Testaments on this topic! What god can know this! Should He be sorry, should He repent of His exquisite provisions and the general terms for their usage ? and not man! Should man now arise as at Eden and diverge on his own precious will with his own inadmissible combination of self-assurance and ignorance!
It is SIMPLY THIS: THIS POLITICIAN IS HERE IMPLICITLY INVENTING AN ACCEPTABLE GOD ON HIS OWN OR WITH HIS OWN GROUP, AND IS IN THE SEXUAL RELATIONSHIP AREA SHOWING INTOLERANCE OF ANY OTHER GOD, AND OF ANY WHO FOLLOW A DIFFERENT ONE THAN THIS, HIS NEW CREATION, WHATEVER THE EVIDENCE OR THE PAST OR THE LOGIC.
But consider again terms used, including the charge concerning those disapproving certain modes of sexual activity of DEMONISING those who yet practise these.
Is it, again, to "demonise" people to say that the Bible has a WAY for life as from the Creator and Saviour, and that this as in any hospital, army or friendly association, has rules, and that these my be contravened in such a way that insistence on and persistence in such breaches means you are excluded from the club!
Is God then not permitted to have His own cleanliness, rules and foundations for heaven, and is it NON-LOVE to match design and function ? and to show that if you want to be in the Christian body, it has certain ways, for which it is made, and certain for which it is not made! Is it intolerant to play cricket with rules ? Is it intolerant to have a religion which does not conform to all the latest liberations from discipline, law and function, ON THE GROUND that this new religion is THE GROUND for assessment, so that what is contrary to it and applied is not only judged to be wrong. It is also cited as a matter of demonising (as Shorten did relative to Bible believers in this utterance), and judgmentalism (as he personally showed in judging those with whom he does not agree in such terms).
It is necessary to be fair-minded, certainly; but to use distortion and recrimination, however devious, as a basis for demanding of what YOU want on the unvalidated principles that appeal to you, or some group you like desires, that this be received, or commended or acclaimed, what is it ? It is mere propaganda. Take the case of sexual relationships among the same sex (let alone calling it marriage).
What of the blatant insistence on the biblical acceptance of this ?
or the necessity of social endorsement ?
What of the methods chosen to present this here, and the results desired ?
Whether it be bullying, or bluster, or reckless, feckless confusion,
or some mixture of these is not quite so important to determine
as this, that what is commended is:
biblically an explicit ground for exclusion -
from the nation in the theocracy,
there deemed an "abomination",
as likewise from the kingdom of God, in the New Testament,
there listed amid heinous actions;
wholly contrary to most spectacularly clear design*4,
and the natural continuity of the race.
In this Age, there is always the option to diverge, in essence, however costly this may be when legal or physical violence erupts.
"Remove from me the way of lying, And grant me Your law graciously.
I have chosen the way of truth; Your judgments I have laid before me."
That is Psalm 119:29-30.
In the Bible, there are two ways, those of the living, Almighty God and those not. There is the way of God and the way of NOT-GOD, clearly contrasted (Deuteronomy 32:17-21). There are not millions of ultimate options, just as man is one kind, and not various. You can choose the way of truth, which the Creator defines, or what is called "the way of lying," for the Bible declares that His word is clear (Proverbs 8:8) and departure from it is simply an digressing and created option.
Some wanted to depart: that was almost a norm for centuries in ancient Israel, and the results came painfully at last, though with much divine patience (as seen in Lamentations). Do the Australian people want to follow what the Bible calls the way of lying ? It is an option. Does it also want law to buttress the change ? to impose suffering on those contrary as well ?
It is necessary, as in taking a flight, or jumping off a cliff, to know what you are doing. If someone calls NOT jumping off a cliff, chicken, cowardly, pusillanimous, or have no heart if you don't, then are you so weak that you respond in doing what you are told by such abuse and its very forcefulness!
TRUTH MUST BE TOLERABLE
It is essential for their welfare, that the Australian people realise that this is one part of a vast, radical, confused and confusing program not only to change religious basis, moral approach as inherent in our Constitution and its Pre-amble, but to do so while PRETENDING that REALLY, it is in the Bible, which most vigorously and to the uttermost degree condemns it. Shorten the politician in search of laws potentially crippling to truth, capable of making feeling of insult a flame for legal action, and dignity a ground for overcoming truth, looks for "shared faiths" as being "ours" along with philosophical world views, and "mature political deliberation" to set up what is to be for the religious structure at the political level.
That appears a shared vision from his mind. The biblical approach leaves you free without duress to follow your will or the word of God. In this it has contributed to our land much of the independence of spirit for which it is noted. To turn from it to crushing laws, some already in place, one despite an election undertaken now broken at least for the time, this is a move against grace and kindness; and to suffer it politically, is to sanction its woes.
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That then becomes part of the new and looked for
basis |
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the State the determinant of what you
can and cannot do, not truth; |
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and some kind of
maturity and shared faiths what rules. |
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This of course in
principle annuls several of them which reject that relativism, |
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so that this become the new RELIGIOUS AND SUPERINTENDING BASIS. |
What power for the politicians! what meddling, what implicit annulment of claims to absolute truth, what a new gospel, a new look, a new orientation to ponder. It is precisely that of Revelation 13, where - as in 13:11-12, the religious part of the ruling junta determines what the faith is to be, sets up an image by the religion department of the State, and seeks to control all in terms of this totalitarian substitute for the liberty of truth, which needs no patronage.
Such a basis of mature deliberation and dignity and thwarting and presumption about religions becomes a new foundation, and displaces others therefore. It is competition by law, by emotion, by feeling without open contest*5, with mere pronouncements which are neither logical, in view of the extreme contradictions of the various religious and philosophic items in view, with one another, nor feasible, since the selection is by man, and the criteria are then simply of his own choosing.
This comes at the very heart and basis itself, in itself; and failure to establish such things in the court of reason as amenable to it, while religions are dissected and reconstructed, becomes a superficial substitute for reality. It is a posturing of religious thrust, a warning of the coming pronunciamento. It is a new basis based on desire, bypassing God with the findings of man, with the fundings of the State, with the appearance of conformity, replacing it with an enormity, man using the name of God in the service of his own will.
ANY basis condemns a contrary one. It is necessary to find the one which logic and reality supports, and this has been done on this site (cf. SMR, TMR and the other 228 or so volumes). It has also been done often by many for millenia. It is necessary to be sure where divine revelation lies. The Bible has such support not only in its intrinsic power to predict and to direct, its unending establishment in the face of history and life, but in the use of reason, God-given, confirming it. Condemning what it commends and commending what it condemns is certainly merely an assault on it; but making it appear that this what it REALLY means is an assault on truth: it is libel on the Bible.
God does not take legal action, but in Christ rather suffered it. Judgment will come, but liberty is its prelude and those who seek to take it over on cloudy nebulosities, have their name in the Bible as you see in Jude. It is a matter of dreaming, in close defiance of the word of God as given (as in Jeremiah 23 and II Peter also).
Let us then keep the actual issues clear. It is not legal action however which God takes on abuse of this. In fact, His Gospel based mercy providing the sin cover in the Cross by sacrificial love bearing the blights of judgment on mankind, in the Saviour, this extending from the God who instead of changing His ways, met their impact on man for man, leaves man free to decline. It is for those who accept their own sin, repent and receive Him who does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17). If others want to inhabit a declining world (cf. Matthew 24, and the Second Law of Thermodynamics), with their own wits and desires their god or goad, then as if falling over a cliff, it is a free option.
Judgment comes in the end in terms of reality, the work and word of God at length after all mercy, acting in judgment. Meanwhile, freedom is still given, till it be seized, bringing on the judgment times for the Age. It is a wonderful thing in the Gospel Age that there is no divinely authorised use of force itself, or law authorised to force, whether to compel or compress presentation of Gospel or other approach, past keeping order from civil riot and damage and for normal productivity. To look for these things, force, compulsion and bullying in the field of religion is the work of what is inadequate, and needs such support. It is also unconstitutional in this land.
Effective government in this our time, is not dictatorial, for who are these who so speak ? It knows its job, does it without impress and impact using force to compel adoption of concepts and aims; and it seeks to enable liberty to find its own action, truth its own place and righteousness to come not by forceful touting of bright religious ideas, as here, but because of its superiority in logic, in time, in testimony and in resolving power, and above all, in its divine source.
But man frequently loves to bind what God has left free, and to make free what God has by design made basic. It is part of the wantonry of sin in the human race, that it often wants discipline where freedom is granted, by compulsion and direction, and yet at the same time, freedom from the laws of God. It reminds of Christ's comparison of that generation in its wilful and woeful wondering of children never satisfied: when dancing is in view, they will not, nor will they mourn when that is in view (Matthew 11:16-19).
Proverbs 1 puts it very clearly. If you WANT to go the path of what it calls, with good reason, "the way of truth," then all kinds of help accrue (1:22-23); but if you want to follow what the Psalmist calls "the way of lying", then (1:24-33) as if ignoring aeronautical laws and directions alike, you inherit for the life God made, a blighted course. It is not only will versus revelation but will versus reason (cf. Ch. 6 above, SMR, TMR), evidence and actuality. There is no group immune to anti-God action, confusion and propaganda on the part of activist relativists and materialists; but to join such groups as these, in their oversight parade, it is an immense decision, far beyond a career choice, for its ends are eternal.
NOTES
See Government Approach, covering several years of action, conjunction with That Magnificent Rock, Ch. 8.
See The gods of naturalism have no go! a work of several million words.
See Scientific Method ..., an extensive analysis and application.
See for example, Deity and Design..., esp. Sections 2 and 8, with Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, Who Answers Riddles and where He is, Darkness Departs.
See Department of Bible ... Vol. 8, Ch. 4 on the danger of the sacrifice of truth, a hideous opening that develops not least in Australia, as man becomes more imposing and important in his own eyes.