"Therefore
thus says the Lord God,
Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone,
a tested stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation:
he who believes shall not make haste."
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Chapter 6
FREEDOM: THE RESOURCE OF LOVE,
THE PRIZE OF MERCY
THE GIFT OF GRACE
THE ROCK SHOCK
It is good in this Chapter, to start where last time, we finished, so that we can in one sweep continue our theme.
It DOES end, this Age of Gospel grace and trial (I Peter 4, II Peter 3, Acts 1), like other trials and tests. Always remember that. God who created the universe and man within it, and the Gospel for man, and man's creativity, alike, does not try for ever, for as He declares (Isaiah 57:15-16), the spirit (of man) would fail before Him. Therefore endure, be courageous, valiant, strong, fearless, valuing each day as an opportunity for the service of God, the testimony of Christ, that many might find rest in Him, release and commission, before the end. He creates "the fruit of the lips: Peace, peace to him who is far off and to him who is near"- Isaiah 57:19.
When He DOES come, it will be an end indeed to this earth's arrogance (Isaiah 2:27, 24), as with the servant, so with the master; but it will be the beginning of rest from trials for His servants. Therefore rejoice in infirmities, for these are opportunities for the Lord to show His power, and wonders to behold, when He acts (Isaiah 64:5). When He has shown the earth the better way (Revelation 20, Isaiah 11, Psalm 72), then it will go, no more space or time for it (Matthew 24:35. Yet a new heavens and a new earth will be CREATED (Revelation 20, Isaiah 65:17, II Peter 3), in which righteousness dwells.
I look forward to this, in the end, a new earth and heavens CREATED. How staggeringly creative is the Lord! It will all be made new, until the final eternity surpasses all that has been, and new bodies, themselves a new creation in a world, will endure past all worlds, in the wit and wisdom, knowledge and power of God. When the architect makes gifts of houses, whether bodies or spirits or worlds, it is always better to know Him personally, since He may give many worlds, when this passes, but when this world is past, relying on it leaves nothing.
But let us return to the present, in terms of the past, while viewing the future, so that in the blessed ensemble as shown from the divine eye, from the vision which God Himself transfers to us in the Bible, we might have understanding of our challenge, opportunity and way, while there is yet time.
From the word of God, Isaiah 50-52, there is wisdom to be gained. Let us seek it.
At first, we read of the majesty and power of God, who asks a declining Israel, Where is your mother's bill of divorce ? Have you been sold to a creditor of mine ? He asks in exquisite irony. Obviously not, so what then has happened to make for this dumping ? It is the delinquency which has led to the dumping, that is what (Isaiah 50:1). It is no mystery or matter for investigation.
Set in their sins, they do not answer when He calls. But is He impotent in the face of their wilfully induced predicament ? Is He whom the very heavens are an agency, to express His will, incapable of effecting a cure ? If the whole heavens were clothed in sackcloth, emblem of tragedy, death, what then ?
So they must listen. Then suddenly, the whole testimony changes to a new level. We see majesty become meekness, harangue become a holiness that impels admiration and wonder. The speaker "I" becomes one who gives His back to the smiters, the strikers, that He might be stricken. Whatever for ? God is suddenly seen as one on earth, instructed from heaven, morning by morning, someone who will "speak a word in season to the one who is weary". Love has led to lowliness, mercy to meekness, divinity to duty, regality to resolution. God in heaven will help Him (50:9), and "THEREFORE I HAVE SET MY FACE LIKE A FLINT." That, foretold here of the Messiah yet to come at that time, is echoed by Jesus the Christ, as you see in Luke 9:51-55). There we read that
"Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up,
that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem..."
In the fulfilment of His testimony just before, that He cannot be baulked, has a remedy, God has a solution. He is not frustrated by man's rebelliousness, because He for His part when He came in the flesh and so was tested (cf. Matthew 4), He "was not rebellious" (50:5). Instead, we find in the preview of history given in Isaiah, that He is perfectly willing to give His back to those who smite Him, to be smitten in lowliness for the aim and remedy from His majesty on high, dipped in the very depths, where indeed He is being treated as Himself the victim, the enemy, the wrong-doer, punished by those who deserve punishment, captive of those whose own transgressions make themselves prisoners (50:1) of folly.
Indeed, so vast is the pit into which man is in Isaiah seen to be putting this God-as-man, that He exclaims, "He is near who justifies Me." Further, there is going to be further abasement, as many will obviously try to condemn Him as if He were really a criminal, and deserved what in duty, out of mercy, in love He had borne. Therefore He challenges, as when He came to earth, He did, as seen in John 8:46, "Which of you convicts Me of sin! and if I say the truth, why do you not believe Me!"
In other words, SINCE they can show no sin, amidst their mulish malignancy, why do they not believe the One whose words cannot be broken! What hinders ? Why deny what denies them and affirms Him, the truth ? Why not find the remedy and reject the rebellion which currently was damaging their hearts and bringing tragedy as the ruling force in their destiny!
As in fulfilment in Person, so in prophecy of that Person in Isaiah 50, it is all one, the prediction and the fulfilment:
"He is near who justifies Me. Who will contend with Me ?
Let us stand together. Who is My adversary ?
Let him come near to Me.
Behold, the Lord God will help Me. Who is he who will condemn Me ?"
Immediately, that very love that led to lowliness, that devotion to mercy that led to the endurance of misery for man's cure, as many as believed (Isaiah 53:1), and sacrifice to secure remedy for man, those who are His own, brings out a message. This ? It is for others who, not being as He is, the remedy, yet find in persecution a need for guidance in the Spirit of Him who loves enough to become lowly, is merciful enough to endure whipping and slander, to achieve remedy, and is cast like stray flotsam and jetsam upon the shores of life, ready to be exterminated like a criminal (Isaiah 53:9-10).
Do YOU fear the Lord ? He is asking. Do YOU obey the word of the Lord ? Do you find a pall of darkness over you as you seek to achieve the duty God has set before you, in flaming testimony of truth ? Then listen to the word of the One who IS the remedy, who achieves and (when this is fulfilled, some 700 years later) will have achieved it! TRUST in the NAME of the Lord, and stay, rely on your God. Those who instead make their light from their own fires of rebellious hearts, these with their futile sparks will find a result instead of a remedy, a naturally deserved result for disregarding both diagnosis and gift of grace: they will "lie down in sorrow." An uprising of folly without faith, they will find the result readily enough: LIE DOWN then in sorrow.
He cries out, in Isaiah 51, pursuing this theme. Do you follow after righteousness, instead of rebellion ? do you seek the Lord ? Then do not forget history, the beginning for in this is the lie OF the land, and the remedy for lie in the remedy of righteousness.
"Look to the rock from which you were hewn,
and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug."
Look to the covenant, He tells the Jews, that of Abraham: not that this double-pronged covenant was for Jew alone, since through Abraham as in Genesis 12:1-3, there was to come blessing for all the peoples of the earth.
Resuming the perspective from above, He tells them that He will comfort Zion, bringing joy and gladness. The very earth will grow old, cast off like old clothes, but HIS righteousness will remain and HIS salvation will have no end. In Isaiah 54, He tells us this, that
"the mountains will depart, and the hills be removed,
but My kindness will not depart from you,
neither will the covenant of My peace be removed, says the Lord,
who has mercy on you.
O you afflicted, tossed with tempest and not comforted,
behold I will lay your stones with fair colours,
and lay you foundations with sapphires,"
so precious is His salvation, which as we have already been seeing, is found in the God-as-man to come, on whose works He dwells in Isaiah 52-53.
There He shows that when He comes in mercy, to serve and to save, then that Man who will be the focus and forge the basis for saving faith, "will deal prudently; He will be exalted and extolled, and be very high." This is immediately understandable. Why not ? If a President visits a country which depends on him, will he not have admiration and honour ? But then it changes:
"As many as were astounded at You -
His face was so marred more than any man,
and His form more than the sons of men -
so will He sprinkle many nations;
the kings will shut their mouths at Him;
for what had not been told them, they will see."
Here is the astonishing character of the remedy. It shocks and shatters. It transcends kings in majesty, and these like any other will find here the unthinkable, a sovereign coming in personal salvation by bearing the guilt (Isaiah 53:6) of those who come to Him to be healed (Isaiah 53:5). Those healed by Him, it is these who sins He bears, these, "we", being healed by His stripes and having their sins borne by Him. Surely it is but a remnant, but to what everlasting mercy are these called, from whom at length the very earth and heavens will be removed, when they grow old, but who will everlastingly dwell in His salvation and His righteousness.
Now we find that as one looked to Abraham for a view of beginnings and covenant (Isaiah 51), we have a far more penetrating proposition, to look to the Messiah, to which the Abrahamic covenant pointed like the bead in a rifle, used to focus direction (Genesis 12:1-3). Of Him, Isaiah 28:16 provides this in the name of the Lord:
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"Therefore
thus says the Lord God, |
That is, will be so founded as not
to founder, and act accordingly.
THE BLIGHTING BLOCKADE AMID SELECTIVE SALVATION
He is there. To Him
man must come; but as to coming, what wits, what wiliness, what wilfulness makes
even of a gift, of such a gift, room for malady on the way ... Isaiah 29
specialises on this, declaring in the name of the Lord,
"This people draws near Me with their mouth,
and with their lips do honour me,
but have removed their hearts far from Me,
and their fear toward Me is taught by the precept of man."
Because of this, He would Himself do a marvellous work, in which we have been dwelling (Isaiah 29:14).
Because of sin, it is not so simple for man in love with sin, to sever. He wanders, He chides himself, churlishly chides others, erodes truth, erupts with false visions, try to combine what he wants with what is offering. They did it then (Jeremiah 23); they do it now.
Inside himself there would love to dwell, one vast enemy: wilfulness, fretfulness, misused courage and tainted capacity. Man is a sinner, and he loves his sin; he may do so amiably or with inflammatory zest and zeal, but he loves it. He loves to parade, whether with humble appearance or not (Romans 10), seeking to establish his own righteousness, utterly irrelevant, since even perfection for the future could never atone for the past; nor are the spots of the leopard in the heart (Jeremiah13:23) going to change without divine work from the Creator of that same heart.
He who sins is the servant of sin (John 8), and hence man has self-made manacles on his spirit, like a bird in chains. He still flies, but it rubs, chafes, he seeks to do what he cannot, and cannot do what he wills.
So he seeks to soar the more, in flights unthinkable, sin making of the rebel the doer of deeds of derring-do, the flamboyant, the confident, till as with the universal Flood, the next desolation comes to him, in part because of the folly of his misplaced ambition, and in part because of divine judgment, when the time comes, though the Lord wait long before imposing it.
We find the Lucifer syndrome: "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High." It also has, this spiritual disease, a prognosis (Isaiah 14:15): "Yet you will be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." It may be a leader, or it may be in the heart-passion of the misled that it comes, but its end is one. Be LIKE God, in this, that you have your own commandments, use space as a toy, an adventure, forget Psalm 115, forget yourself, whose you are, from whom you come.
The Lord has completely opposite and apposite instructions. "Look to the Rock from which you we hewn, and to the hole of the pit from which you were dug." Which ? "Look to Abraham, your father, and to Sarah, who bore you; for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. For the Lord will comfort Zion." In fact, not only is His people, feeling confounded, confused or misled, vapid, without virtue, troubled, to look to their BEGINNING, but to what is to come. Thus,
"My righteousness is near; My salvation has gone forth, and My arms shall judge the peoples;
the coasts will wait on Me, and on My arm will they trust."
Indeed, more than this, we find in that other universal application, in Isaiah 24, for right in the very midst of desolatory dynamics defiling the earth for its sins, there is this marvel of attestation of the Lord from those who, in the furthermost parts of the seas, have come to know Him (24:16 - bold added):
"From the uttermost parts of the earth have we heard songs,
even glory to the Righteous.
But I said,'My leanness, my leanness, woe to me!
The treacherous dealers have dealt treacherously;
yes, the treacherous dealers have dealt very treacherously...
the earth is utterly broken down,
the earth is thoroughly dissolved, the earth is moved exceedingly.'"
It proceeds further into universal judgment, just as it earlier dwelt in passing on songs of praise to the redeeming Lord from the uttermost parts of the earth. These songs come in the midst of judgment, as in Isaiah 24:4-12,19-20, following the annunciation of the Messiah in Isaiah 7 and 9, and His coming rule in divine power over the earth in Isaiah 11, His occupation of the priestly office as in Isaiah 22, and just before the revelation of His rule as Redeemer refuge in Isaiah 32, with the words of Isaiah 28-29, in support, speaking of the strange work of the Lord, when He dispels the presumptuous wisdom of the wise and shows His own glory. Here then, as a prelude to the glory of Isaiah 40, when He takes the lambs into His bosom, and is so revealed that there is to be announcement to Judah, BEHOLD YOUR GOD!
What then is the meaning of these songs ? It is very much in the vein of Zechariah 11, where Christ derides in advance, with ample scorn the miserly price they set on Him in the betrayal, and evokes piercing irony as He, speaking in textual continuity as the Lord, proceeds to indicate that, having refused His shepherding in this betrayal and sale, the very sale of God, they will gain a very different sort of shepherd. This they assuredly did, one who did not spare the flock, and Adolf was not the only such, though perhaps the chief.
The songs then are one of those leaps of view you often find in Isaiah, where he looks forward to Isaiah 49-55, where the Redeemer is shown in depth and detail in His work - and it WAS work - of redemption. The Gentiles would indeed come to the brightness of His rising (Isaiah 60:2-3). They did; and they still do.
As to the songs of this same pre-statement of the Gospel of salvation which the Redeemer would enable through His WORK, finished on the cross, acclaimed in the resurrection (as in Isaiah 26:19, when you keep to the Hebrew in which it is written, always a good idea): what of them ? They exhibit joy in the enduring faithfulness of the Messiah, the King of righteousness, and they are made the keener in view of His own statement concerning the abhorrence of the nation of Israel for Him (49:7), on its way to the betrayal which was foretold so often (as in Psalm 109, 69). THEY who sing , glorify His grandeur of heart; HE shows how keenly He felt the betrayal, and the impending outlawry of His atoning sacrifice, when He was indeed numbered among the transgressors, but vicariously.
In what way was this done ? It is that treachery led Him to the cross, a contemptible work of His own familiar friend indeed. His endurance on mission was a light of magnificence. He was accorded betrayal, on the way to the cross in which in infinite contrast, He Himself displayed munificence of mercy that let them lead Him to the gallows, where guilt was transferred from sinner to Redeemer.
Nevertheless for the time there was woe for Him: one element being this, that whereas there might be abundance of joy in harvest, jubilation in merry-hearted friends, as He approached His redemption for man, yet instead He was delivered up by treachery, even He who delivered Himself up for truth, that He might freely pardon sinners through salvation. Being so delivered that He might deliver many, it is even verbally such a seeming contradiction! Delivered up by deceit, He delivered many. By whom was this unfaithfulness performed ? One who was foreknown.
Whom did He deliver BY being delivered up ? It was those whom He foreknew, those who were not out of love bypassed, and the treachery became part of the way to truth, so that He even incorporated it in advance into His plan for salvation. Deceit led Him to the Cross, which in His own honesty He met out of love, for the sake of pity, in the toils of compassion, that man, those who received Him, would not be left abandoned (as He was), and bereft, a grievous burden to the universe, but have hope in his end!
With such a thing as this in mind, famed and notorious with His infinite impact as Saviour, those redeemed were delighted in His faithfulness who endured past all this leanness, this low, cunning, contrivance and sheer wickedness, and who thus wrought their salvation.
Glory to the righteous! this is their song, while as it were, in the very midst of it, lending it poignancy, there is this exclamation about treachery, which always hurts far more than mere enmity! That a FRIEND could do such a thing! we all find this a horror, and so did He; but it was all part of the leanness, the humiliation and indeed desolation which He had to suffer (summed up in the cry shown in Psalm 22, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me!" - a Psalm which proceeds to foretell the crucifixion in some detail)! Even to these very words, He fulfilled it, and in so doing, filled the graces that would bring deliverance to many. Here was experience in reality, not drugged suffering, acuteness of perception as all was endured, that man might live free from the drainage of death, the dereliction of guilt and the baneful uncertainty of separation from God.
While then a vast train of magnificent and atrocious events was moving to its consummation, the Redeemer sufficient for any Jew, any Gentile who should come to Him, all are given the focus on the way which, refused, leads as it has led, to sadness for those who join their own treachery to their Creator, the Saviour, to that of His betrayer. Many have used this act of treachery to make war on the Jews, who have often used for profit; yet their own hearts are no better, as they seek ways to liberate themselves from the morality of the Messiah, the holiness that is fitting for the the content in the knowledge of God, and to play god with their foolish hearts.
For one and for all, for Israel and for Gentiles alike, there is the need for them to awaken acute, urgent. It is like flying blind in an airliner, with the guidance equipment dead. Those of Israel, with others among the Gentiles, need to awaken to their plight, and seek the Lord as in Zechariah 12:10, for He is their life, and has not forgotten them. Though He speaks of His plans for them, there is no movement at any time by any party away from the Gospel of grace, with God's blessing. Indeed, to move from that renders ANYONE accursed (Galatians 1).
There is a desperate need for one and for all to seek what is right in the righteousness of the betrayed Messiah, in whose 'leanness' they find the way to plenty, for "though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might be rich" - II Corinthians 8:9.
What then for Israel ? Like the rest, they must see the beginning and the end to become secure in the middle.
Just as the last vast judgment, the universal Flood, brought ruin on a complexion of corruption, ceaseless eveil thoughts from youth upwards (Genesis 6), so now there is hope, before judgment settles in, like volcanic ash, now over much of Europe. Then it is too late. That is a symbol. There is ash that passes and there is darkness that does not, where God is not and His mercy is disdained, disregarded, divorced from the heart of man. It is time to act, to be no part of the betrayal of Christ, to be part of His redeemed, of the sons and daughters whom He makes His own, sent to save, sufficient for any.
It is not in this world. It is not in its 'nature' or any part of it! On this, see Jeremiah 2:27, Isaiah 44:14-20, where naturalism has its gods made out of part of nature, as is now common and commonplace in the antics of no-go gods of naturalism, this once more, in our own time. This is one of the inveterate diseases in the heart of man, verging on pandemic proportions. The disease is ever the same; while its manifestations vary - cf. Spiritual Refreshings ... Ch. 13.)
No, it is not in the shallow, seduced and seductive folly of looking to any part of creation, as if a child worshipping his beloved Teddy Bear, should draw the conclusion that it was Teddy who made the house, and this is 'really' the active ingredient that is basic to all. It is not from a part that the whole has come, and it is no feature of an invented thing to have invented the system of which it is part, and the conditions for that system in which it belongs. It is bad enough to put the cart before the horse without having the ground create both of them.
Naturalism is mere seduced folly. Look instead to the Word of God, a rock immovable (I Peter 1), to the covenant of grace in Abraham, through whom not only was Israel to find peace and power and goodness and direction, but all mankind would in this receive blessing. This is the intense impactive message of Isaiah 51, before the salvation and redemption which answers the call, is made clear in 52-55 following.
As the covenant with Abraham, God's way to the Messiah, is to be looked BACK on, so the consummation of that covenant, the MEANS by which in mastery God would BRING that blessing must now be attended to: that is the sweep of Isaiah as hitting the eyes of those then challenged. The same need, in perspective, persists for all.
This has happened: this is fast forwarded to us who now see it all transpired, and it is to this we must look, starting at the beginning and tracing it to the point, the Cross, the focus, the Christ and the salvation, free as in Isaiah 55, eternal as in Isaiah 54, 51:11. Moreover, the charge is to RESPOND to His plan, work and salvation now, while He is near! It is not a push button matter; it is a spiritual urge and urgency, swift, sudden at times, unreproducible at will, but rather to be found in acute repentance and realisation of the redemption which in Christ Jesus one take. Seek the Lord, says Isaiah 55, WHILE HE IS NEAR.
Israel failed once, and many Gentiles have failed likewise: let it be so no more!
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So does the passion of Isaiah |
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complete the charge of Isaiah 51; |
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just as the revelation of the very mind and heart of God in Isaiah 52-53 |
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absorbs the ready spirit, |
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realising the eternal wonder of it for ever and ever, |
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mellows the emotions as in Isaiah 54, |
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and in the practicality of Isaiah 55, charges the will. |
It is for one, then, and for all, this gift that came when Israel failed, when God did it all personally in Himself (as in Isaiah 41:26-42:1-7, and in 51:17-20, before 52:13ff.). There is an all-exclusive way to salvation, as far as man is concerned, and an all-inclusive offer to man, as far as God is concerned.
It is HIS offer and HE paid; and to HIM ONLY is man to come, making of His soul an offering for his sin, that HE might have children not of the flesh, but born of the Spirit (cf. John 3).
It is not in imaginations in trances of things that never have the grace to happen. It is not in a 'nature' which is to have made itself from nothing, singly or in stages, few or many, and made time and space while it was at it, and the laws of logic with that, and penetrability by the intellect of man while moving along, as well, to fashion the entire fairy tale. No such guessworks in irrationality or gasworks in empty verbosity, are in view. It is the God who in the BEGINNING made it all, and after the first vast judgment of the Flood, called Abraham: it is He who speaks.
It is He who, giving him a covenant, a solemn and divinely forged agreement, as to what He would do, a direction and a place for understanding, not just what goes on, but WHY, showing to what one is to look for comprehension of life, kept it. He worked with him and his successors, the patriarchs, as the nation developed which would present the scriptures of prophecy and truth.
But if what God did in Abraham gives perspective and faithful reminder of the Gospel then to come, so looking to God Himself gives the procedure in this, that it has come. Seen in advance, shown in performance, it is to be taken to heart at all times.
It is to the God who called Abraham that one must look. It is, indeed, as in Isaiah 45:22ff., once one has surveyed how it began and where one is, expressed in these terms, that this comes to the fore:
"Look to Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth; for I am God and there is none else . ..
Surely, shall one say, in the Lord I have righteousness and strength... "
Justification is to come from Him ONLY! It is IN HIM, that it is to be found: He here says so.
It is to Him one must look, the Rock of salvation, the sure, immovable, declared way for man.
To what then does this immovable Rock, this prophetic word of God (I Peter 1, Isaiah 40:8), its fulfilment, to what does it lead ? this word that endures forever, to what does it point ? It leads to His coming as man, His actions as man, His grief for sin as man, His cancellation of its guilt for believers, His determination and the application of all these things to come, His sure return to rule and His eventual removal of the heavens and the earth, while in His many abiding places, He retains His servants, and keeps His sheep, each in his place, who worship and rule with Him for ever and ever (Revelation 22:4-5).
At once in Isaiah 40, we see:
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"O Zion, that brings good tidings, get up into the high
mountain! |
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O Jerusalem, that brings too tidings, lift up your voice
with strength, lift it up, don't be afraid, |
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Say
to the cites of Judah, Behold your God. |
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Just as before, in
Isaiah 50, we saw the sudden descent from majesty to man, |
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Here is intervention
immediate, human, in a life-time sojourn, that of God among men. |
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Rather than force it,
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We return to the itemisation in Isaiah 51. The heavens will go (51:6), but the eternal salvation will come.
We then remind ourselves of the thrust of Isaiah 51.
First it leads to its full characterisation and presentation. To Israel is given the site and the land in which to have a consolidated, national presence, where the rule, will and covenant of the lively grace of God is to be rendered, in a way statuesque, consolidated, clear, where the religion of truth will flourish. That nation duly received the word of God, including the coverage of the remedy which God provided. He is not too weak, as you see in Isaiah 51, but is well able to put sackcloth over the heavens, to show a universal mourning for the sin of man.
Indeed He who made these self-same heavens is able to penetrate within them to earth, to man with His all but incredible answer to man's all but incredible sin. HE will act; HE will do it.
He will comfort Zion (Isaiah 51:3). Indeed Israel, the chosen vehicle to put a national basis to His message, and to have a priestly presence to exhibit it (cf. Isaiah 43:21), will fail, Isaiah predicts. It will as a nation, ABHOR the God of creation in His new lowliness of incarnation (Isaiah 49:7), Get out of the way! will be their new song! (Isaiah 30:11). Whereas in confidence was their strength, resting on the Lord, yet in rebellion from the Lord, then, as with many Gentile peoples, now, their choice is found.
This, the Lord says, should be written down and kept, that
"this is a rebellious people, lying children, children who will not hear the law of the Lord:
Who say to the seers,'Do not see' ; and to the prophets,
'Do not prophesy to us right things.
Speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits.
Get out of the way, turn aside out of the path,
cause the Holy One of Israel to cease from before us."
This is flagrant manipulation of the word, testimony and Gospel of the Lord, unashamed, blatant, foolish as sin, lying as a trade. It cuts cords. It inures hearts. It brings on judgment, so that they say, Whatever happened. With Israel it came with Assyria for the North, with Babylon for the South, and those who had belittled the salvation of God lost their very temple. It came with Rome, and those in indolent carelessness about the fear and beauty of the Lord, lost their city and nation.
Thus for a time, Israel's day, it provided for God and by the power of God, a focus of revelation and presentation; this was its job and this it did. However, since it turned from Him, ABHORRED the Lord when He came in meekness and sacrificial mercy (Isaiah 49:7), and made their traditionalistic culture of many items, their guide (Mark 7:7ff.), with naturalism their forte (Jeremiah 2:27), therefore there will be a natural penalty, supernaturally supervised indeed.
Thus:
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"In returning and rest, you will be saved; in
quietness and in confidence will be your strength: |
Result ? "Therefore you will flee." Is there some addition ? Just as they also said, "We will ride upon the swift," the result comes. To wit ? "Therefore those who pursue you will be swift." Inexorable rebellion brings inexorable pursuit; intransigent sidetracking brings intractable truth.
Is this for all ? It is, as it was to be (Hosea 1), for a long time for the nation, but not for all in it.
By no means was it for all.
"Therefore the redeemed of the Lord will return, and come with singing to Zion,
and everlasting joy will be upon their head.
They will obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning will flee away." I, even I am He who comforts you.
Who are you, that you should be afraid of a man, that shall die,
and of the son of man who shall be made like grass, and forgets the Lord, your Maker,
who has stretched forth the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth;
and have feared continually every day because of the fury of the oppressor..." (Isaiah 51: 11ff.).
Thus though the majority would, and indeed DID walk otherwise, there was a remnant, including for example the apostles of Jesus Christ and the thousands who came into the Christian Church in that time. For them, it is as in Isaiah 61:1-3. Yet the nation will be excluded, was the message, AS IT WAS, for a long time, until its return (Ezekiel 36-37) would come into the scheduled layout of history, and indeed, there would come near the end before the Lord's own return (Zechariah 14), a vast repentance in the land for ever having murdered their Messiah (Zechariah 12:1--13:1, Romans 11:25ff.).
That is in the very hinge of the final drama. The return is now; the repentance awaits, as the fire of the Gentiles breathes now the neck of Israel, and the incendiary talk abounds against it.
Meanwhile, from the death of the Messiah to the present, there is an exclusion. Israel for long was to participate in the world-wide rebelliousness, become even a part of it, not believing in their own rest in the Messiah. As it was to be, so it has been.
The total world situation was to become, as it HAS become, one intolerant of truth, rearing at mercy like a frightened horse, or seeking it amiss where it is not to be found (Jeremiah 23, Matthew 24:24, II Timothy 3-4). Meanwhile some from Israel and from the Gentiles nations come, and perhaps millions have come in the two millenia of awaiting the END of this MIDDLE time.
But what an end man presents to God, as his corrupted cultures reach their inverted summits! Its nature is as outlined in Isaiah 59. That by this time, a humbled Israel will not be the only participant is clear in Isaiah 24, where the entire earth is to tremble before God. Indeed, just as in Isaiah 2, in that day of world-wide judgment, God ONLY will exalted. In Isaiah 59:18, the atmosphere and sins are shown in their broadest domain, immediately before the return of Christ, nor will He bypass Jerusalem in this, His return (Isaiah 59:20 as cited by Paul in Romans 11), when He comes WITH His saints (Zechariah 14:5).
It is in Isaiah 59:18, we see clearly that this judgment concerns all nations. In this context, we find the divine justice, at last moving on from the mercy for so long provided to all nations in this same Redeemer, moves to the apparels of judgment.
This will blight the evil, as He "puts on vengeance for clothing", so that "they will fear the name of the Lord from the West, and His glory from the rising of the sun" (Isaiah 59:19). That in turn is precisely as foretold in Psalm 2, where the uproariously belligerent nations, intent on dealing with the Messiah without submission, meet their come-uppance, after so long a time. They rise like bread in an oven, to demonstrate their infidelity, foolishness, rebelliousness, vanity, false teaching and exuberant rebellion. It is there that we find the Lord laughs at their presumption, arrogance, endeavours to subvert or suppress the Messiah or the Gospel or both as it pleases them. His coming with His saints will not be a pleasant Sunday afternoon (cf. Revelation 19:17-20).
THE CULTURE BLOCK and BLOC
Indeed, so horrendous is the rebellion to come, so extreme throughout the whole earth, that the Lord gives a preview of its extremity in Isaiah 59:14, as follows.
"In transgressing and lying against the Lord,
and departing from our God, speaking oppression and revolt,
conceiving and uttering from the heart, words of falsehood."with its evils striking on all sides, the world reels in unready preparation for judgment.
Cited are the iniquities of style, form and function in that heedless day before judgment fires (Isaiah 2, 59, Micah 7), as they were parallel (Genesis 6) to those surging before the former vast desolation on the earth in the Flood. Christ speaks in terms of the comparison (Matthew 24:38). Just as evil only and always was in the minds from an early age then, so in the final and climacteric days of woe before judgment, darkness will be like a brilliantly lit room, in reverse! It will be like a room of goodness on which an extraction pump has long worked.
Thus:
"justice is turned away backward,
and righteousness stands afar off;
for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
"Yes, truth fails; and he who departs from evil makes himself a prey. And the Lord saw it, and it displeased Him that there as no justice."God had waited long enough (II Peter 3:9), indeed very long, saving some as many came; but now came an action that many would rather dread than avoid!
"And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.
Therefore His arm brought salvation to Him; and His righteousness sustained Him.
For He put on righteousness as breastplate, and a helmet of salvation on His head;
and He put on the garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak."According to their deeds, accordingly He will repay...
So shall they fear the name of the Lord from the west ....
and His glory from the rising of the sun."
These things God bound through Isaiah for all time. Nothing would change them (Isaiah 59:21).
Thus as
Israel forsook its blessed task (Isaiah 43:21), that of raising a standard for truth, being an exhibit of the glorious salvation of God, showing the sacrificial splendour of the loving heart of God and the highway of mercy which through prodigious labours He was to construct (Isaiah 53),
so
it would meet rebuke.
Not only would it become sundered for its folly till its mercy should come to it as a nation, much later (Isaiah 65:13-15, Isaiah 51:11ff., with Isaiah 11, Micah 7:1-21), but the message of Gospel gladness of divine mercy would be channelled to and then through the very Gentile nations themselves (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, 66:19-20, 60:3). It was to be and it has happened, as always, the thing that the word of God said.
But what of these same Gentiles ? It is with them also, an increasing folly lamentable and inveterate; but a remnant was to come as you see in Isaiah 42:6, 49:6.
So great, however, is the spiritual warping applied to this other field, the Gentiles, to THIS, the other part of the world, the non-Jewish section, some of these the newly elevated recipients (Romans 11) of divine grace, that as in Isaiah 59 (and Revelation 13, 17, II Thessalonians 1), only judgment can now come on it also. There are those (Isaiah 53:10), who make of Christ a sacrifice for their sins and SO give Him the children which a murder, when He was young, forestalled. These are the remnant of the Gentiles, the bit left over from its appalling ruin, just as some came from Israel also.
But what of this sacrifice for sin, which when you receive Christ as this, enables Him to see His children (Isaiah 53:10) ? It is not when GOD makes a sacrifice that Christ sees His children, for that was the OPPOSITE! but when you receive Him as a sacrifice, as in John 1:12-14, that He so gains millions of children: He who had none of His own on this earth. These, then, are Jew and Gentile (Galatians 3:28-29).
Nevertheless, as for what is NOT so to come to Him, as to this world, as described in Isaiah 59:13-16, as to the bulk of it, what of this ? As it was to grow, so it has become. Indeed, its course is just as it was traced in advance for the sin-disease, in Romans 1. We are now there!
So it was to decline, so, indeed it HAS degraded as in Isaiah 59! This is the prelude to the coming again of the Messiah, in Greek, the Christ (cristos). When He has collected His people (I Thessalonians 4), those who are His own, then with them He comes (Jude 14-15, Zechariah 14:5, Revelation 19). This time, no more is it NOT to judge (as in John 3:17), but rather in order to judge!
FREEDOM, FAITH AND FATHERHOOD
Yet for all that, it is as Redeemer He comes (Isaiah 59:21). It is as One who WILL not judge what might be redeemed (John 3:17), and who has known before all time who are His (Ephesians 1:4), with that same outstretching love which would embrace all (Colossians 1:19ff., I Timothy 2), but WILL NOT take any by force, manipulation or contrivance; for the Lord KNOWS the heart (Jeremiah 17).
Moreover, in what He foreknew, and with the principle of desiring that ALL should be reconciled to Himself through the blood of the cross of Christ in His heart, whose word is truth (Colossians 1:19ff.), He acts (John 6:44). He takes in history whom He knew before it, before creation and our time, reaching any person where love would come, doing so before sin could intervene, before sin could make superior and inferior, where only God knew. It is on this foreknowledge that predestination is built, an ensuring that the truth will out and His people each one, none lost, will be in, within Him whose they are, for ever.
Indeed, He even, in His perfection of precision and inordinate faithfulness, though Israel did what it did nationally, and contributed apostles individually and many in the founding of the Christian Church, went much further. THOUGH (Ezekiel 36:22), "as they called to them, so they went from them" (Hosea 11:2), Israel ignoring their prophets in the very tenderness of the Lord's dealings (Hosea 11:1), and though the covenant provided that continuance in this would eventually lead to their removal from their land (Leviticus 26), yet He INSISTED that He would in any case, bring them back to it as a nation (Ezekiel 37), where at last the Lord Himself, incarnate, would rule (Ezekiel 37:24, Isaiah 11:10 cf. It Bubbles ... Ch. 10), as over all the earth (Psalm 72, 2).
Liberty without love is meaningless; but HIS love GIVES liberty and to His redemption He calls this one or people, as He will, and where love finds its place, so mercy shows its face (Isaiah 55).
He has made freedom; He knows how it may be understood, is the light, loves people to walk in the light and to have no fear of the light; for the night in coming in which no man can work (John 9). Then "the power of darkness" for its feeble little time with splendiferous splashes of pride, flourishes, like a crop before incineration (John 14:28-30, Colossians 1:13, Luke 22:53, Revelation 19:19ff., Matthew 3:12, I Thessalonians 1, Revelation 13). He has made SPIRITS in the IMAGE of Himself, so that these, though mere creations, are susceptible to love, pride, folly and capable of faith in Him, through which mountains may be moved (Mark 11).
Indeed, freedom is delicious in this, that although without God both logically and practically, it is meaningless, yet with Him, there is as a son with his father, but this amplified in quality and power beyond measure, there is a walking in the Spirit of God, as children of light, HIS light, that is the bloom of life, caparisoned by love, met by challenge, filled with responsible duty. Man tries to remove liberty from man; but his efforts make his pretensions like soiled linen, smelly and finished. It shows by contrast the glory of having Someone Worthy in that place of control and knowledge, even God through Jesus Christ. Here is life. Man loves death in multitudes who scamp spirituality, gyrate around godliness but do not touch it, and flush with folly, go where their legs lead them
Freedom is not the capacity to do what you will, but to be freed IN will so that you may know what you are doing and why and with whom, and understand your way, and loving the One who made it, relish the reality of life in Him. It cannot be obtained in controversy with Him, since this is unwisdom, He having infinite wisdom; nor will He wreak havoc in the will of man, unman him to find him. In liberty known to God, amid mankind, He saves whom He will: He would like to save all and to man only attributes the loss of any (John 3:19, Colossians 1:19ff., I Timothy 4:10, I John 2:2). Yet in purity He harasses none into an anaesthetic substitute for love; and in the love of truth, there is no room for fiction.
Freedom is a precondition of love, and its abduction by well-meaning pioneers of thought or speech control is a mordant exercise. God knows; as to ma, let him have liberty to present and to persuade and to find; and not be given a premature terminal illness by the needless shackles imposed on his computer terminals by the peremptory princeliness of misled States! Nor is this the only means of communication in view; it is merely that it is the currently most visibly harassed one of these.
God has chosen His own, not by peremptory exclusion of those He does not want, but by incursive finding of those where His love may rest, as many as come. Indeed, it is THIS which is the condemnation, that in the very face of the come light of Christ, they have PREFERRED (despite HIS preference to have all), darkness. Darkness likes to remove passage way for light, and to control communication so that it may have only the preferred perspective, mode of speech and cultural norms applied. The preference for darkness is in fact the cultural norm, taking the matter internationally and nationally, in views of John 3:15-19, and it is to come in such a rush that for a little while, it will almost blot out the light on the horizon of man (John 9:4-5).
He is the One who knows, and in this knowledge, nothing is lost of all those who might be gained. You see the sense of this in John 13:1, and how much it takes of His kind iontercession and action with Peter Luke 22:31-34).
Indeed, for the many who abhor Him, or worship their folly in not yielding, maintaining an elaborate indifference, if they were taken to heaven, it might seem hell, to be near on such terms to the One whose it is, and whose by an ultimate preference, they are not!
These things being so, to return to a major theme of this volume, the time comes when not only are many Christians slain, or children, kidnapped, as in Sudan, churches destroyed as in Orissa, in India, but when even INFORMATION about Christ comes to be in jeopardy. This is done by fallen former churches, who change the Gospel as did many much earlier (II Corinthians 11), but now it is being done with a will that grows like locusts (Isaiah 59, Jeremiah 23:30 in 23:16-31, II Timothy 4, II Peter 2, Matthew 24:24); and it is done also by government.
INFORMATION, DEFORMATION, DEFAMATION AND GOSPEL GRACE
ONE way in which this generic and evil trend against the light of the world, Jesus Christ (John 8:12), can be forwarded is in INFORMATION control. It is certainly NOT in passing it on (except lawless violence against public safety and seduction of the bodies of the young), that people may find and know. It rather lies in the adjustments to that information, its deployment, its RULE, its subjection to human overlords, who CAN become faith filtration plants. It is imperative that such elevations be removed, if this nation is to avoid a wild provocation to the Lord, and a foolish denudation at its whim. Light requires exposure.
There has been an information riot, a new field of endless seeming aggregations of information. It has embarrassed China, which has ideas of its own, it has troubled parents, who seek filters and it has appealed to governments, who seek to prosecute those who do not give precisely what they see fit to permit.
It thus moves, through irreligious fantasy and misplaced zeal, to the point
|
|
where the permissive
society, brought up short, |
|
|
where the amoral
society, wallowing in filthiness of mind and heart, |
Such trends and movements, given their maturity, grow as a powerful prelude to the man of sin who will make a major feature of playing God, and really work at it (II Thessalonians 2).
Thus already in place in this land of Australia, is a Broadcasting Act (cf. Chapters 1 - 2 above), which can with its various extensions and references, allow for removal, by a kindly arbiter for all, things which are too emotional in presentation, too deep in penetration, too ultimate or intimate in disposition, things religious, marital, whatever may bring ... wait for it, OFFENCE, to the growing minds of chaste minors. Major things are thus made minor for minors, instead of criminals being prosecuted; truth becomes a liability and governmental mandates the master of what may be put from the minds of men.
As to minors, these may have drugs and alcohol, but they must not be allowed to meet, only by their own wills of course, things too searching lest it blight their tender minds. The thought of delivering their minds must diligently be put aside, and political physicians may well bid fair to be more knowledgeable than Christ, and even to diminish the liberty with which His light may be shed from His word.
With marvellously magical information minors, students, are constantly being filled in schools (cf. Ch. 3 above), but with information of another kind, what lasts and is not put down by reason, but upholding it, is upheld, this may be too rich. Could such things be allowed ? might they offend someone ? The Control Board would have to see: it would be their province to decide. In view of what was shown in Ch. 3 above, it is not likely they will sing with a more logical song, if they are to pronounce again, who are the transmitters of culture.
Such nonsense. such peremptory powers, are actually stated as if serious, though one is tempted to regard it as burlesque, and reminded of John McEnroe, saying to the umpire, "You can't be serious! You're joking." But they do not joke.
The power to remove cleansing in the presence of filth, beauty in the presence of evil, the Gospel in the presence of endless rebellions in naturalism, of secularism and social mores cast anew as often as desired, like new bombs, manufactured and awaiting use, is certainly in view. In the next month or two or three, it is most likely that some of this suppression of Gospel preaching or teaching or defence of the faith, categorical presentation as truth, will be made restricted through Internet control in this land. In Victoria, there was even a long-going court case because some body felt oppressed because somebody else showed reason for disbelieving what they said.
This was UPSETTING. The judicial sentence went one way, and then was reversed; but close it was indeed, to religious oppression, so that feelings and fancies become the fad, and exclusion and even crime is talked of, for exposure. Think, a criminal act in this land to expose religious error, because it is adverse to someone's sense of contentment IF they CHOOSE to read it, freely! To be sure, scholarly work has some protection, but in view of the rampant intolerance of demonstrable truth in the schools, in creation for example, and the new model of the weapon of trying to make all the Ph.D. scientists who are and have been creationists, in some exotic way, unscholarly'', there is no assurance of anything. What is sure is this: that to give such powers to government borders on national suicide.
You may trust God or man; and if the latter, the folly of it has been shown so often even in recent history, that to allow it, one would have to have philosophical or political blinkers on, as it were, one foot wide.
Hand liberty of speech to those specially anointed to be cultural watchdogs and you will find soon enough, as did Victoria, that bark becomes bite. Scoffing assurance that these powers will never be misused is irrelevant: goodness of intention may be real, often is not; but results of lordly licence given are not predictable by one, of another.
Of course, as the US Ambassador pointed out, there is already provision in criminal law to deal with criminals. The use of intrusion into freedom of speech to gain protection, when law is already for that purpose, is a cost far too high for this aim. You can prosecute child-molesters, for their work, wherever it may be placed, and bomb makers who tell others how to blow up Parliament or the like; but as to molestation of freedom of speech, as an entity beyond normal law, so that in advance certain topics or emphases in all truth may be not presented, so that criminality may attach to righteousness, even to the very presentation of the Gospel and the word of God and reasons for it and results from it, to show its implacable logical certainty and the attention required: what of this ?
It is in line with Isaiah 59, where truth is fallen in the street. Where truth in the eyes of the blind, does not exist, where their models do not allow for it, as often happens, in unspeakable irrationality, they tend to become irritable with those who tell it. They tend to become even more so, when these provide reason for believing it, in its testable singularity, as derived from deity, indeed from the Bible, rather than crediting men of various kinds, in their particular penchants and findings about culture.
As God in mercy allowed majesty to become lowliness, and love to bring pardon through provisions in truth, so when man plays God and seeks by majesty and myth, to subdue truth and righteousness, making laws about licence to speak, preach, teach, present, as if 'reasonable' were the same for all, and as if many did not check the cultural map to find what ought to be acceptable and then apply it: then the counter-Christ movement is flourishing. Then man in a greatness that is not his, is merely making a muddle of evil. Then he uses law to suppress outwardly, what the spirit of man often does inwardly, now extending it in a public manner, so that the psychic the oppressor, and the cultural the king.
And what is culture but what man happens to be thinking and saying and doing, and what is man, that one should trust in him. As Jeremiah puts it,
"Cursed is the man who trusts in man, and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart departs from the Lord.
For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see when good comes...
The Lord is not a private compilation, but publicly proclaimed as you see in Isaiah 45:19. One trusts in Him or in what is not He.
This, if it were to come to pass in Australia, in the PM's new vision for the land, this time not in insulation or school halls for billions, but with potential for freedom's obscuration for millions, so that any such law were passed, then man would become unmanned, or ready to be attacked by culture-keepers, with their bellicose bleepers, their culture clocks sounding an alarm. Then indeed would this land of sweet independence and toleration readily become an enemy of truth, a place of prey for the wild, and an obnoxious intrusion site for the workers of what biblically, is simply false prophecy, what biblically is defined as spurious unspirituality, for ideas without ground and a glory without bound, a false glory that sinks to the dust as it must, when not from God, for God and for His people.
You may have liberty for many, where the truth is free, or using this or that excuse, licence liberty and become intolerant of truth in the name of culture, that is what people think a good idea, and legislate a land into a sullen submission or a persecuting fire.
Living together is one thing; having many 'die' in their functions, because of preference of some, making it a scorched-internet society, this is another.
There is some and indeed much liberty now, based on love and lore, mercy and humility, in a land once founded in its government, by a nation which put the Bible as the source of wisdom. If this is to be executed, not the biblical truth, as something to be done, but the freedom to present it, as something to be removed, it moves in the direction which executed Christ for speaking the truth (Mark 14:60-65). As history shows in many lands, when it is a peril to speak the truth without legal and other harassment, then the nature of this land will change suddenly, as a generation drinking from other waters, and such intemperate tampering shows itself for the bane and blight of the whole land.
Will educational manipulation allied to indoctrination with philosophy and an implicit State or National Religion, though ostensibly forbidden in the Australian Constitution for federal power, in fact illicitly come to rule ? Will it be so ? In this land, it will soon be seen for the present time.
May God be merciful, for while such movements as THIS ONE is, are the predicted trend for the nations, it is quite another thing to give way weakly to any such abhorrent misuse of truth, as such a proposed legislative action could readily portend. It is easy to fall; but you insist on doing so next to a precipice, never say you were not warned. Such is the case here.
Beauty, and in particular, the beauty of holiness is a thing with ardour to be gained, and it is to this that man is given access as he seeks the Lord with all his heart, on the Gospel basis, as he is sanctified. Freedom helps. While it is, however, hard to find, yet when once found, its suppression is easy to impose, and then return to it is far harder to find again.
Australia is facing mercy or judgment. Let us hope this additional step of cultural imposition of idols, idolatries and reversions to follies for so long seeking out this world, like viruses, does not now take place in increasing measure, building on irrational restrictiveness already in place in schools in this State. IN mercy God delivered this State, in the Internet environment, and that by a small margin a few years ago. Now it is the nation that is at risk!
God Himself, however, remains our joy and recourse, however much any given nation now among the Gentiles may ABHOR Him, not always by their words about Him, but by what they do not PERMIT people to publish, or in some contexts, even to say of Him where it is fitting and right. When the time comes, as in Isaiah 59, Matthew 24, II Thessalonians, judgment will sit. Judges will be judged (Psalms 82, 2). Indeed, this world will itself go.
Its time will come. For the Christian the time is always now: the truth has come in lowliness, and mercy in meekness and grace in courage in Christ, pardon in sacrificial love, and power in the resurrection of Christ in that same body which was interred (I Corinthians 15). Now is the time of testimony in God's holy name, in Christ, who is to come again, so that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God as the waters cover the sea (Habakkuk 2:14, Isaiah 11). It is part of the foretold plan from millenia ago, everything without exception now moving precisely according to pre-announced divine plan, in the Bible. The end will come. It always does.
The beginning gave access to God; the middle enabled redemption by God; in the end, judgment awaits. For those who find the meekness of the Messiah, and in Him their salvation, there is no condemnation (John 5:24, Ephesians 1:11, II Timothy 1) in the end, for it is excluded, because in Him it was included, and by faith He has been received. As to His people, for ever their faith was foreknown, and their predestination followed the foreknowledge as mid-day the morning dawn, and it is assured.
Those who seek Him still, may yet find Him in that one Gospel, which alone is the word of God to man (cf. SMR); and if they seek Him who has first sought them, then there is no exclusion. With God, not only truth, but true repentance is desired (Luke 13:1-3, Acts 3:37ff.); and when it is found and faith finds the grace of God in Christ, then this world which has come, can go - with all its false and fraudulent inhibitions, impermissions, intermissions of truth - as it is to do, when its time comes (II Peter 3). It is ultimately to be burnt up, to which its deteriorations and ageing processes contribute (Isaiah 51:6). To trust in it and in its governments is like trusting an earthquake, in its full power.
Nothing is gained but acrid fumes in any such misalliance. In God, freedom with truth, a future without inhibition, an expectation without deletion, this is the way; and for those who love Him, nothing less or other is the prime desire, or has any place beside Him (Psalm 27:4ff.).
It is not the first time that the world has been threatened with dictatorial attitudes (through communes ? yes but these as CONTROLLED, through democratic republics, yes but often these as fronts for those who would control the frontiers and inhibit both liberty of mind and body, yes and soul!); it is however now drawing near to the LAST time (cf. SMR Ch. 8, Answers to Questions Ch. 5). That is the greatest universally oriented effort to subdue salvation, anoint man and take over the universe in the thrall of a mixed ignorance, ambition and devious deceit, that ever was. Conditions as it reaches its climax will reflect this (Revelation 13, 17, Matthew 24:29, Daniel 12:1). In fact, from the lips of Jesus Christ we find this of that period:
"For then shall be great tribulation,
such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time,
no, nor ever shall be."
The last act is rather turbulent; and it is near to culmination. So is the return of Christ also near, for as He declared, WHEN Jerusalem would be in the hands of Israel and it was no more "trodden down by the Gentiles," THEN His return time would be near. "THis has happened after some 1900 years; and it has arrived, this situation. We do not know when that time is; but we do KNOW two things: its pointers have come, and it is "near".
God is still nearer. Draw near to God, says James, and He will draw near to you (James 4:8). "Purify your hearts, you double-minded, be afflicted and mourn..." So is repentance the road to reality (Luke 13:1-3), where mercy and pity mixed, where the majesty of God become meekness, where the love of God liberally shed mercy, where truth and peace provide in divine and everlasting alliance, the site for man.