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CHAPTER TWO

 "FOR THE LORD, FOR A GENERATION" -

There is one generation that is predicted: are you part of it ?

Psalm 22:27-31

See also Joyful Jottings 25. 

News 436

The Australian January 3, 2011

THE SLAUGHTER OF COPTS AND THE SLAYING OF CALVARY

There is a Connection

All the world is like a flag furled, but for a few, its glory waves. The flag is that of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ. You cannot foil it, but you can for your own part, furl it. Then however you fool only yourself.

Consider as one more illustration, the recent onset of explosive violence. Coptic Churches are incensed by the recent Egyptian attack killing many. It is stated that this element in Egyptian society is some10% of the nation, and there has been a massive disturbance, many killed in the very environs of their place of worship. Grisly goads are continually distressing the nations, violent advocates of this or that constantly scheming their seditions, clamoring for their stipulations, vilifying their victims and bringing an inflamed viciousness systematically like viruses into the body, into the body politic. The thrill of kill becomes the will  of ideological perversion, the  captured souls of men exported their passions where they can do most harm.

The basis remains the same.

Killing is contrary to the 10 commandments, that is, murder is. It IS murder when you attack within a nation a group who are worshipping without provocation. Intimidation by militants, whether in secular confusion or by religious militants of one kind or another, does not alter the case. God has already spoken categorically on His will for our epoch, as for that which preceded, and it is to love your enemies, though by no means to bow to them.

There is either corruption and evil collusions amid the nations, and within them, ceaseless strife and scheming, or else the Christ of Calvary. There is sickness in the nations, and He, the Prince of Peace, is the cure. You CANNOT avoid it, never could and never will. There is no subsidiary and no substitute, either^*1 in attenuated churches as forwarded by the World Council of Churches for example, or by engineered social experiments.

There is no room for crucifying people, in part or whole, in this or that mode of adaptation to modern circumstances, or crucifying their tongues. As to the latter,  in danger in this is our own country by web filtration on a ghastly and grisly scale, confusing purging sexual impurity directed to the young in particular, along with freedom of speech on religious, ideological and other issues which can upset people, as if a psychological plastic surgery were in view, rather than vigorous and fearless life.

However such assault and savagery is still popular, whether with such sudden incursions with fire or bomb as in Egypt, or with illicit law and sacrifice of truth, loss of liberty to seek and to find, with in sedated and seditious speech control, so that you find a nation which, having fought for freedom, in giving it away in a silly seduction, strangling by law the path to peace.

When sickness becomes endemic, so often does vomit; and this is ideological vomit.

Making peace is a gift, but it is not the same as making war on truth.

THE WISDOM AND WONDER OF PSALM 22

Christ, the Truth, had war made on Him. It was to enable this, in large measure that He came. Man's warlike modes could then be sated by splurging with HIS blood, and finding in this their own condemnation; for in love, He came to propagate peace ONLY IF man would be purged of the sins that inflame the heart, massage the ego, maximise the take and immunise morals, and repenting of it all, take pardon from their murdered victim, who became as planned, in fact a sacrificial offering in their stead to God. Such was the offering of Jesus Christ.

He rose from the dead, breaking its hold, removed Himself from the tomb which had become a notorious thing among the grieving Christians, well-marked by the women, and has made Himself available through the power of the Holy Spirit and the message of His word, the Bible (the Old He endorsed and the New He authorised). In the Old part of His word, the Old Testament, in fact in the Psalms and the 22nd of these,  there is foretold what He would do, and here you see some of the elements, carefully fulfilled in detail, of what would happen later, indeed, at that time, some 1000 years later; and it did.

The offering does not lapse, but time does not linger. The assault on the Coptics, like so many others by so many different contingents with various inflammatory passions, such as militant Islamic groups, is war without wisdom. God is good in many ways, and one is this: He lets you know what He is doing, and if you are willing to come to and learn of Him, then you need no ache of heart, mist of head or soulless glaze for life. The wisdom of God has provided far otherwise, and though in judgments He has in times past purged this earth, His peace offering continues while its rejection is accomplishing greater and greater blood baths which do not cleanse, the intolerant atrocities of misled minds and those who reject the peace on God's own terms, costly to gain by Him, costly to dismiss by man.

It is the prediction of this great offering, the very hinge of mercy, that we consider today, in terms of its wonder of an impact available to this day, and its staggering coverage of things a millenium and far more than that indeed, away from the time when it was made. NOW is far from THEN, when this Psalm came undisturbed in its supra-temporal coverage, that sees time as a mountain range from lofty peak,  beneath one, discovered all at once.

THE SPECIAL GENERATION

The part of this Psalm which is of special interest today, is the last piece. After reviewing the roaring horror of the foretold sacrificial crucifixion, just as Psalm 40 told of the coming Messiah's  willingness to do it, being sent from heaven for the purpose, and Psalm 16 of the resurrection of His body which was to authenticate His work, it talks of the results of His coming sacrifice. Thus we find at the end of Psalm 22, these words:

"All the ends of the world will remember and turn to the LORD:
and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before You.
For the kingdom is the LORD’S: and He is the governor among the nations.

"All those who are fat upon earth will eat and worship:
all those who go down to the dust will bow before Him:
and none can keep his own soul alive
A seed shall serve him; it will be accounted to the Lord for the generation.
They will come and declare His righteousness
to a people which will be born, that He has done this."

 

THE MEANING OF PSALM 22:27-31

After the Psalm in earlier verses, had been showing the howling horror of taunting verbal brigands, lauding evil and glorying in the crucifixion of the Messiah,  in verses 1-21, we find a sudden change. What had seemed certainly mortality, death amid cursing, is suddenly total deliverance with blessing.  In Psalm 16, it is made clear that death DID occur and that resurrection was its sequel. The reason ? the dead flesh of Jesus Christ did not rot! The rot stopped at the condemnation and the death. The grandest, most poignant and gloriously purposeful action of God on earth came in death of body and resurrection of the same, to its epochal and indeed totally historically invasive consummation Christ is risen  (Luke 24:39).

He will tell it to His brethren (as fulfilled in Luke 24:13ff.,28ff.). It is a flame of wonder for praise! Here is the ultimate divine mercy, not only toward the human race, in that death is demonstrated NOT to be the last word, but in this, that God is demonstrated to have been the One to SAY SO. This is now, not only in word as in Psalm 22, but in deed (Romans 1:4). Mortality is subject to immortality and the march from one to the other has been made by One without sin, incarnate, falsely accused, offering Himself to take the just accusations against every other member of the human race who ever was or will be, upon Himself. 

People like King David (Psalm 17), THEREFORE will be satisfied when they 'awake' from  death into glory, being founded in faith on the Rock of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, One who died on behalf of all (like the sacrifices of old, of animals, but this of man for mankind), so that some might find a funding for judgment met by Him: even as many as believed in Him (and so taking Him at His word, find the offer fulfilled).

God did NOT "his Hide face from Him," (Psalm 22:24), nor was there any rupture of the divine plan: "when He cried to Him, He heard," and when into His hands He committed His Spirit (Luke 23:46), He received Him; for He had faced the fires of judgment in a love for the world, which eschewed judgment on man to such an extent that He would rather take it upon Himself, than leave it where it could only ruin man in His own image, His creation. THIS is the God so many are so swift to condemn with their counterfeit condemnation, being like those who crucified Him in this, that they both cannot and will not believe in Him, but attack the mercy of God as they forsake it.

The Lord Himself, the paschal Lamb, HE however will praise His Father who sent Him, and where will He do this ? It is to be  "in the great assembly," Psalm 22:25; and as to those who seek Him, their heart will live forever (Psalm 22:26). This provision is precisely in accord with the Day of Atonement sacrifice in Israel, provided for all, proclaimed to all, but effective ONLY for the believer, because ONLY then is the transfer of guilt made (as when the hands would be placed, in individual sacrifice on the head of the sacrificial sheep (cf. Leviticus 4:32ff., Deuteronomy 29:18ff.). Thinking about it did not do it, nor intending to do so; nor did what others did or had done for them, become some kind of automatic transfer. Faith acts. Bogus faith but talks.

How broad is this sacrificial provision ? It is for the entire world (cf. I John 2:1-3), yet it is  as narrow as faith (Hebrews 11:6, Romans 3:22ff.). THEREFORE it is not for any aristocracy, in order that they might enjoy their rightful dominion in enduring superiority to the masses; nor yet is it for the masses that they might clamour for what they do not believe. Rather is it  for those who believe, however poor they may be, and poverty will remove NOTHING of the blessing provided.

How extensive will be the reaction IN the world, because of this ? "All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord" (Psalm 22:27); and even the prosperous will have no other salvation, deliverance or provision. Such is the generic.

What however of the particular ? How MANY within this vast concourse of response in this world, will actually respond, receive, believer and be redeemed ?

Here we read on from Psalm 22:30. "A posterity will serve Him." Counted up, we are told that it will constitute for the Lord, the generation. All time will contribute, and what follows from what He did will lead to an entire breed, the generation in view, something generated with a spiritual rebirth, giving a family likeness! It will be that concourse of people, that generation over time, a chosen and special people (as in I Peter 2:9). To the Lord, it will constitute a generation, indeed will be HIS one, THE generation; it will be counted as one.

Selected from all, it will comprise over all time a brigade, a division, no! a generation itself, a people of faith in the invisible who became visible, in the dead who became alive (Revelation 1:18), and thus it will be for the One who did not hold back on giving up His very flesh to the agony of slow death, with anguish of heart as the guilt of sin in transfer crushed Him, before the eyes of heartless mockers. It is this action which Psalm 22 had been so graphically showing in its earlier verses. In one sense, it had almost been like a painful child birth; but it was more: it was clearing the way for such birth which in view of this, could be conceived and begotten.

From this select 'generation' will come those who in faithfulness to Him as Lord and Saviour are to  "declare His righteousness to a people who will be born,"  (Psalm 22:31). Over time, constantly and consistently, those who receive Him and so  become part of His people, come to constitute ONE body for Him who is timeless and invaded time to remove, for all time, death's fear from those who find time  for Him, and believing,  will speak of Him (Hebrews 2). Each ordinary biological generation will have those who believing, tell others, and so it will be (as it has been) passed on over time till the entire invisibly assemblage is saved, when the manifestly changed body of Christ is metaphorically complete. We note the emphasis: it is on what HE HAS DONE (Psalm 22:31), that they will speak. His one non-rotting body has thus become a basis for an immortal body of those thus rescued, with Him as Head.

The text has no word 'next' added concerning 'generation', as the NKJV erroneously and foolishly has added here. To add to the text is pernicious, however laudable the intention: it is not wise. The sense is as given. Who ARE this generation ? It is as noted, and as in Isaiah 53:10, where as in all of the deep chapters 52-55, not once does 'you' refer to God, but only to those who are  to hear, to respond, to believe, to  receive, and so to constitute this 'generation' of the godly.

Indeed, it is the same theme in Psalm 102, where we see the Lord look down from heaven to declare the name of the Lord, succouring the troubled, meeting the need. When ? why, when the 'set time' (as quantified in Daniel 2, cf. Christ the Citadel Ch. 2), has come (Psalm 102:13). This is to lead to the Lord now to be seen, so that He will "appear in His glory" (cf. John 1:14-17).

For whom does this come ? It is "for the generation to come," says Psalm 102:18; it is not the present to which these wonders will be ministered but in THE GENERATION yet to be found, forged, arrive. Here is the posterity which will serve Him (Psalm 22:30), and here is the generation which "will come and  declare His righteousness to a people who will be born." And how greatly will they declare this HIS righteousness, since as in Isaiah 53, "By His knowledge shall My righteous servant justify many" ! HOW is it declared that He will do this ? It is as in Isaiah 53:11, because "He will bear their iniquities." Here comes the new heart, the regenerated life (as in Jeremiah 31:31ff.).

Here in Psalm  102, then, as in Isaiah 61, part of which was read by Jesus Christ at Nazareth in the synagogue, He will "hear the groaning of the prisoner," and it is He who "will  declare the opening of the prison to those who are bound" so linking Isaiah 61 with Psalm 22 and Psalm 102. Indeed, the latter Psalm tells us that then, in that generation, "He will regard the prayer of the destitute" (as you see in Mark 5 and Matthew 8, where the meteorological, the biological, the pathological, the mental and the spiritual all yield to His allaying and overcoming power in sequence, as if it were a vast march-past to show His power, compassion and concern).

In fact, from the prison of sin as in Isaiah 53 and John 8:34-36, He releases as in Isaiah 53-55, Micah 7:19ff. (following 5:1ff.). Though His days were shortened (Psalm 102:23), yet He was heard in that He feared (Hebrews 5:7).

As to His  appearing in glory, then, "This shall be written for the generation to come." (Psalm 102:18).  Who is this blessed generation, and why is it "the" generation ? In what is it singularity, which is to be so full of praise and testimony as in these places so clearly indicated ? How are they of such oneness of mind, and so specifically designated apart from all other generations, and how are they from many nations ?

For more data on this, we return to Isaiah 53, who as in Psalm 22, 102, refers the declaration of HIS generation! In what way is THAT generation, statedly not biological in generation to be what it is, to be formed ? Here we learn categorically.

What then of these highly relevant Chapters of Isaiah ? When God speaks here, it is as "I", or "He", and when the people are in view, it is "you". Thus

"Put on YOUR strength O Zion," (Isaiah 52:1),

and

"You have sold yourselves for nothing,

and you will be  redeemed without money," (Isaiah 52:3).

People are to say to Zion,

"Your God reigns!" (Isaiah 52:7),

while those

"who bear the vessels of the Lord,"

are to touch no unclean thing, and

are referred  to as "you"(52:11).

WHO HAS BELIEVED OUR REPORT ? the prophet is divinely moved to ask, as Isaiah 53 starts.

Then we learn of the love for mankind of the Father, for

"it pleased the LORD to bruise Him;

He has put Him  to grief.

 When you make His soul an offering for sin,

He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days."

Only if you ASSUME

	that God in this prediction, one fulfilled in magnificent precision,
	somehow forgot His precision, and using 'you' only for the people who stand to benefit from His action, and "I' and "He" for Himself,
	from the lips of Isaiah for many Chapters following the call to focus faith  in this core (53:1),  a dynamic, divine omission,
	suddenly decided to remove all  clarity by grabbing the 'you' for Himself in the very heart of this composure of divinely inspired prose:
	only then can you even begin to force such an anomaly, contrary to the rest of the text, into it.

 The 'you' as consistently in this sphere of the prophet Isaiah, is not God, but man,

not the giver but the recipient,

not the one addressing but those addressed.

In addition, this definable usage not only extends in this way, on from Isaiah 53:1 to Isaiah 62. It continues further backwards  as well: except on one occasion when the Messiah Himself, not the Father,  is  empathetically addressed, and on occasions where the focus is on the distant past, as in events associated with the Exodus. Here then you have this singularity and this reinforcement.

Thus, if you want what it says, this is it:

IF and WHEN you make His soul an offering for sin (for His very SOUL is involved and not only His spirit and His mind and His body), His physical life which of course has the rest in conjunction with it: if YOU  make HIS LIFE, in other words, your offering, then He will see His children. If this is done, so will His seed be, and such the generation to flow from Him as in a genealogy.

If you by faith acclaim His past offering as your present basis, and so believe in Him whom death could not hold (Psalm 16, 22), then you will be REGENERATED (Titus 3:3-7) and so become a child of God, a people THEREFORE with a new name, Messiah-ans or Christ-ians (Isaiah 62:2). Then these His own, will be "as a crown of glory in the hand of the Lord, a and a royal diadem in the hand of your God." So will it be for converted Jews, so for Gentile converts, in this one family (Galatians 3, Romans 11) in one tree, one spiritual genealogy once and for all.

This of course in no way negates the Lord's territorial display and historical usage, but it does as made so very clear in Isaiah 65:13-15, show the ONLY basis for SPIRITUAL community with each other and unity with the Lord. The past in this regard has to yield from its symbolism spiritually, to the substance, from the pictorial presentation to the biological, the physiological, to the blood of the Lamb (cf. Isaiah 53); and it is statedly as a sheep to the slaughter that the all-atoning Christ is brought. Yet it is for those who BELIEVE the report that the effectual result obtains. These, these then are THE generation which is repeatedly stated to be that which is TO COME. Let us consider this a little further.

Make His incarnated life an offering for your created life, and then, indeed only then, but certainly then, this transaction of salvation, of justification is done (Isaiah 53:11). It is as if you were a priest (for we are said to be a nation of priests by Peter in I Peter 2), and offering up not an animal sacrifice, but His finished sacrifice by faith, you therefore obtain pardon and peace with it. This then MEANS that HE who had no children of His own, in this way has children after all.  As this is done, a child borne, is born.

We are moreover, in Isaiah 53:8, asked this question:

"Who will declare His generation ?"

Since He is taken from judgment to death, who will be able (as with Abraham or Noah), to declare the following his line from Him: where are His offspring ?

It is the same term. HIS generation. It is the self-same term in the Hebrew, the same underlining word, whether THE generation or HIS generation. In and through His children on earth, on earth will He 'prolong His days', though returned to heaven.

In this way (Isaiah 53:10),

"He will prolong His days."

How could you state the genealogy of those proceeding from Him in the usual way physically,  since without having had children as a father on this earth, He was cut off from it. WHO WILL DECLARE THIS ? why nobody, obviously, since as the text states, He was cut off from the land of the living. Indeed, 53:8 gives this very reason explicitly, for our being asked the rhetorical question: SINCE He was cut off from the land of the living who would be able to declare His generation ? In any genealogical list,   who could trace "His generation"! Normally and physically, for the reason just stated by Isaiah, it COULD NOT BE DONE! This is part of the litany of grief at this atrocious action  taken against Him!

 

THE IMPLICATION OF PSALM 22:27-31

It is in verse 10, that it proceeds to the relief for this situation. It was, after all, part of the good grace of the LORD to have all this happen, so that - sad as it seems, and is, yet in terms of His generation, there is a cover, an action which when taken, will not only RESTORE to Him a generation, but add for all time a base to which addition will be made,  beyond all normal expectation.

WHO is concerned, and HOW is this to be found ? It comes in this way:  "WHEN YOU WILL MAKE HIS SOUL AN OFFERING FOR SIN, THEN HE WILL SEE HIS SEED." That is the glory of it, and that is the tenderness of it and this is the genius of mercy in it, that stripped, He is multiplied, killed He confers life, and by faith when He is so received, people give Him His children and they become children of God.

Thus the next verse, 53:11, tells us that "He shall  see the labour of His soul, and be satisfied." What IN SOUL He wrought (remember Gethsemane, Luke 22), THIS He will find leads to an abundant return, munificently satisfying, gloriously fruitful, utterly triumphant, mercy in felicity forged through faith into consummation for many. With the animal, its flesh is all; but with the Lord, incarnate as man, how much deeper go the nails than merely into the body, for the repudiation is such, that as one has said, "the soul of His suffering was the suffering of His soul."

It is "by His knowledge," that "He will justify many," (Isaiah 53:11). Thus it is in this very substitutionary horror of holy sacrificial atonement that He will remove the guilt, confer eternal life on, and blot out the ruinous calamities of His 'generation'. It is one successively to be apparent on the earth, and in every mortal generation, will be HIS IMMORTAL REGENERATED GENERATION, of whom, each one, "He will bear their iniquities."  Thus there is a close sequence, a logical link between YOUR receiving His soul  as an offering for sin,  and His being seen to justify many by His knowledge in aweful anguish, bearing their iniquities.

Thus the usage and the logical sequence are one.

Just think, then, WHEN and IF you are not a Christian, at such time as by the grace and in the mercy of God, you make of His soul, His life, an offering for YOUR SIN, even the life given to death of the Lord's Christ (Luke 2:36), that offering, by faith, then you extend His days, and by you He sees His seed. It is through faith in the Person and accomplishment of the One who breached death so that His very flesh did not rot, and thus relate to the living and changeless Christ (Hebrews 13:6), as Lord and so know Him, that you fill in for His spiritual genealogy! It is then FOR HIM that you become one more of His line, His seed, of what He has instead of immediate family, of His extended family, the children of God.

 

THE APPLICATION OF PSALM 22:27-31

One may ask, But how can I make of His soul an offering for my sin if not yet a Christian, I therefore have no faith ? The answer is simple. At such time as you DO make of His soul an offering for your sin, of course of necessity you MUST have faith or it would be ludicrous to attempt to offer such a thing! It would be as if  you gave a cheque to a bank for funds, well knowing that it was not negotiable there. IF you so act, it can only be BECAUSE you believe in the reality of that in terms of which you act. Simultaneously with such an act, you believe. The faith and the action are one in movement, since without faith, you would not act, with it you certainly will, since faith without works is dead and death is precisely not what relates to this, but life. There is therefore a simultaneity in this spiritual scene.

The sovereignty of God in the Bible is no substitute for the reality of faith, just as the reality of faith is no substitute for the gift of Christ crucified as Saviour. By grace you receive the faith and the Lord; and He who would have ALL come to Him, and whose offer is as wide as this world as before God (Colossians 1:19ff., I Timothy 2, I John 2, John 3), to deliver it from judgment, provides a path to it which yet is as narrow as faith. Yet such faith, saving faith,  is as sure as to its distribution as His pre-creation foreknowledge.

He has known before even this world was, as with the love He proclaims, He found the people to be His, and He has secured them eternally. Indeed, there are no limits to Him or to His penetration, and time is all His and of this He is the alpha and the omega, seeing past it as one does beyond a river to the other side, and from before it starts.

SINCE it is HIS choice and His LOVE is as broad as He says, thus this is the extent of the movement of His love in its integrity, which neither bribes nor imagines things, but knows His own whose hearts come to Him, before ever sin shamed the shams of men, man fell, or the triumph of the Cross and over the grave were needed.

When you are dealing with God, God much more is dealing with you, and it is He who knowing all things, knows His own. Yet if you will NOT so offer His soul, for sin, using His comprehending and utterly sufficient death in this way, do never imagine that He will fund your debts or cover your case in some other way. GOD DID NOT SO COME, having SO LOVED,  when other means would do. THAT sacrifice is the ONLY ONE, and God knows His mind concerning the ONLY WAY He has chosen to pay; and He knows what it cost, even if some do not choose to realise this.

It is a fund for faith; it is a family to whom each new Christian is added, to become His seed, being begotten by the word of God (I Peter 2), so that Christians taken altogether and jointly become as I Peter 2:5 declares, through the mouth of the apostle, we who are His are

"chosen generation,

a royal priesthood,

a holy nation,

His own special people,

that you may proclaim the praises of Him

who called you out of darkness sin to His marvellous light,

who once were not a people

but are now the people of God,

who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy," (2:9-10).

Here Peter precisely follows the section of Psalm 22 in view in this Chapter. We are a "generation", we are those who will be accounted to the Lord "as a generation", a "posterity" after Him,  who yet were chosen before by Him; and it is our task to PROCLAIM the praises of Him who died, "that He has done this." This makes for us a duty which in Psalm 22 would be what would be done by those who become this "chosen generation." Moreover, it is a posterity indeed which in this will serve Him, since generation by generation, there come those from each which will at length constitute all, summed into one "holy nation".

Thus, the seed is found not at once, but in posterity when each one comes, so that "a posterity will serve Him," as if in grand-children and so on, as if He had His own genealogy after all!

So does all scripture mix together, like a lettuce, leaf on leaf to the heart, where the core is found, the rest symmetrically about it, and the seed transfers all this from generation to generation.

Thus as Peter transfers all this from prophecy to fulfilment and applies it to us who believe, we are NOT ONLY a chosen GENERATION, but a ROYAL PRIESTHOOD, for we ourselves "make His soul an offering for sin," as Isaiah 53:10 depicts, and so contribute to His family one more member, each one who comes, one at a time (as in Zechariah 12, when the time for Israel's spiritual restoration of many, suddenly comes).

Let us then right now praise Him, whose knowledge of all things is sublime, who faithfulness to all generations till judgment, is superb, who tells and foretells, with a Lordship divine, presenting eternal life in freedom and freely, and we who believe, might join Him where He is.

NOTE

*1

See for example:

News 121, 122, 126, Lively Lessons in Spiritual Service Ch. 6. 

As update on News 126, it is noted what was then a Dutch movement, is now becoming a much touted move by many in Australia. The considerations back of it, such as are so conspicuous when one considers the changes in the Uniting Church in our own country, and many similar moves (cf.  The Bright Light and the Uncomprehending Darkness Ch. 1, Member Notes 31-33), do not alter.

Here you see the point that it is not only the RATE of flow of degeneration in our race, but the DIRECTION of that flow. It is easy to ignore the latter, and to become pre-occupied with the former, as if the latter were to be taken for granted.  It is rather like piloting a plummeting Spitfire in WW II, and becoming so occupied with the instrumental confusion following a direct hit, that one forgets for the tragic moment, where the plane is headed.

An excerpt from News 126, now more relevant to developing events than ever, follows. 

 

We might as well be frank. It is human self-aggrandisement. The glory of humanity... All that! You get it to some extent in the games, at times. You do it like this:

'We are great, our morals are great, our minds are great, our bodies are great and we shall rule and overcome and be whatever we want to be, and you had better believe it! Moreover, if you try to stop us, we will stop you: further, we will defame you while we defile ourselves if that is how you want to see it, we will make mulch of your gardens if we happen to like mulch, and we will destroy your standards in favour of ours, and we will REBEL. Right we will call wrong: not merely another nothing. Oh no! OUR morals are not nothing! Yours are. Also there are no morals.'

So the self-contradictory confusion, riddled with irrationalism, cradled in cant, proceeds. It is WRONG to have morals. It is WRONG to look at the way we are made. It is WRONG to have ordinary families based on physiological facts, in vogue. They may be permitted but they are NOT permitted to be right, merely tolerable. We are of course talking of the latest corruption in morals (since it is WRONG to criticise, there are implicitly acknowledged to BE morals!). The country taking leadership in this matter, will also appear shortly.
 

But wait a minute, you say! Before you unleash on your topic, let us be clear. YOU cannot say their morals are wrong, merely that they are wilfully pretending there ARE  no morals when they call for their particular line of action as right, and criticism as wrong. They ARE confused. They DO show that morals are being activated by THEMSELVES, they DO show that they have very special ones of their own, and that they INSIST on having them RULE to the point that they CANNOT, MUST not be criticised. Yes, this is so, you may say; but you cannot just simply say, these morals of theirs, blatantly real as they are in suppressed claim, are wrong! THAT  is going too far.

Not at all. They are wrong for the following reasons: they are product of naturalism, the mysterious process by which nature makes itself from nothing in depth, and then in dimension; which is as often shown on this site (as in Barbs, Arrows and Balms 29, That Magnificent Rock 1,  7,  8) ludicrous and a form of intellectual suicide. Whatever is, is, it says, and so whatever wants something other is wrong, it proceeds. Not so. You CANNOT have a prescription from a description. What IS, does not because it CANNOT, if it be merely 'nature', MAKE what is right. If it happens, then it is merely a matter of whatever it is that is happening, going on and doing it. NOTHING could then be wrong. It COULD NOT be wrong to criticise this or that happening; for that too would be a happening, and if it is going to happen, and happening is god, a weak and vacillatory god without power or appearance, evidence or even rationality, then there is a result.

And that ? It CANNOT be wrong to criticise those who want this or that. It is on that irrational basis, but for the sake of consistency let us note it, NOT wrong to criticise ANYTHING as wrong. There IS not standard. The empirical is its own master. If it wants to criticise those who criticise, or to criticise those who act, one and all, it is able. There is no difference. It is a madhouse and in madhouses, without doctors, nurses or standards, anything goes.

Hence it is just a matter of voting warfare. It is not a question of being wrong or censurable if you criticise those who want to adopt children for a same sex partnership, or even them in vitrio as has been a movement here, so that something of the unnatural (this is a fact) parentage at least might become actualised. If people want to murder, that too is just a happening. That is the nature of this approach.

As you may notice, we are not commending it, but we are expressing it for survey!
 

Ah now, you may say, this is not so. It is inconvenient to be murdered, and people in general do not really like it. It is abortive of plans and so forth, and can hurt. Why should people hurt one another! No good! no good at all.

You may SAY this; but on the naturalistic basis, its inherent irrationalism comes out on all sides. If it hurts, that is a happening, and there is no naturalistic reason why it should not. But you may say, we can FORCE it not to happen. Since when, however, has force been a measure of morals ? We are talking of right and wrong, not of force, which merely directs by effort and victory. Might is right! you may say.

But no! Might is victory if it also has whatever else it takes; but it is not because it cannot be right. Right implies a standard. Very well, you may say, the STANDARD is FORCE.

Yes, the standard, as with Hitler, Stalin, Mao, of ACTION may in some circumstances appear so (before they die or are murdered or commit suicide or whatever, and within limits which they cannot alter, but which in the end alter them, irremediably); however the EFFECTING of something does not have anything to do with the quite different question, SHOULD it have happened, or be happening. THAT it can be made to happen is one thing; whether or not this is good, or right, or meets certain standards of judgment will of course depend on JUST WHAT those standards are.

Standards. They are inescapable if anything is to be judged as right or wrong. You may surreptitiously^*1 want to make the vote of the majority the STANDARD; and this too is wrong, for it is merely the statistics, a sort of numerical display of force. It is not a standard. You may want what ALL men in a TOTAL world vote want, and show, to be the standard. It would be a legal standard, if you made a law to say so, but it COULD not be because it IS NOT, a moral standard. There is no possibility of making such a vote a moral standard UNLESS you FIRST state that the REAL MORALS are these: that whatever most people want, especially in the whole world, MUST be right. Why ?

There is and can be no reason, at the risk of mental nausea let us repeat it, why description (they voted thus) can become prescription (and how right they are in doing so!). The ONLY way you can do that is to DEFINE right to MEAN what most people vote for. That however IMPLIES MORALS, namely, that rightness in its very essence and meaning is just what most want. If most in Germany wanted death to Jews, then that was right; and if most did not, then if most in government in Germany wanted it, then that is right. And if in the world most people on the whole, ever want anything, death to this or that group, that too is right. That then is your commandment.

 
This, you are saying is the first and the great commandment: Thou SHALT call right whatever most people actually WANT. WANTING, if widespread enough, is RIGHT. You OUGHT to do it.

Not so. All you are showing is this, that you are making PEOPLE WISHES the standard. That is a moral decision. You are inventing MORALS. They have no ground. History shows that this can be lethal to groups and countries, when passions rule. No matter, this is to be it. Then we ask, IF what is wanted by most is to BE the right, we must, to be rational at all, have some way of showing that this is so. Thus it could be because people are gods, with inherent powers of discernment, so that although some may go astray, if MOST want it, their very nature and construction warrants the view that this COULD not be wrong. They are too well made to be mad enough all to be wrong, or to have most wrong at one time.

Does history show this to be so ? It must therefore be RIGHT to cut off the hands of thieves in some countries, and NOT RIGHT in others. Then if those countries be internationalised, and the total then votes not to cut them off, then that is right. Thus right CANNOT depend on the construction of man, since it would vary, whereas the construction does not.

Even if it did, however, you still have the implicit god of naturalism. It is ASSUMED that man is so made that this result occurs (since morals CANNOT arise from mere action, this being a contradiction in terms: happenings happen, and do not construct their own evaluation). IF man is so made, then the question must arise, what was the source of this happening, when it is so great that it even mandates by the wiring, the electronic and physiological marvels, the code work in his cells and the design specifications in his mind, the right and correct way! WHAT MADE MAN ? then becomes the anterior question, to this sort of morality (humanism is its name).

IF nothing made man, then there is nothing in it. That is the end of humanism.

If God made man, then it is GOD, not man, who is the criterion. If you say, GOD cannot be known
(how do you know? if you knew this, you would know absolute truth^*2, unavailable without God, and a mere self-contradiction for naturalism, and so would know God, which you have however just denied to ANY),  then you cannot know the criterion. Then you must not say, It is right! If God is excised (in theory, since it cannot happen in fact as He is there - SMR Chs. 1-3,10), then nothing is the standard, and nothing is not a standard. If you simply want to say, however, Very well, there ARE no standards, so when you TRY to impose YOURS, we will resist and condemn you, you err.

If there ARE no standards, then you CANNOT use what, on this model, is not there in order to condemn as WRONG the criticism or standards some use. If you CANNOT be wrong, then neither on that self-same basis, can they.

It is merely ... inconvenient to your religion. There are ALWAYS standards. IF there is to be neutralism (one of the things in addition to humanism, and naturalism, implicit), then it simply is not neutral to condemn a view. Hence when neutralism condemns what condemns something, it is itself condemning and a particular basis, and hence not neutral^*3. It is just one more moral, but in disguise. If humanism condemns what is not following human voting patterns, then it is not humanism, for those who follow other patterns are still human, and humanism cannot raise up some aspect, such as voting arithmetic, in order to CONSTRUCT what is right, without implicitly assuming that the CONSTRUCTION of man in general is sound, and to be imposed on any group or individual. However that assumes that the MAKER is the standard, but if that is so, it is NOT humanism, and it is imperative to find His mind.
 
 

THE SO OLD NEWS

If it is ASSUMED that this CANNOT be found, then there is no standard to be found, it is all guesswork, and guesswork is not morals. It merely acknowledges that there is no standard and that it would like to have one so it is going to ... guess. Humanism contradicts itself if it invents standards; neutralism does no less; naturalism is the same.

You CANNOT condemn what condemns this now pending

Dutch Liaison Law of Unnatural (fact) Families^.*4

giving formal 'marriages' and
rights of divorce and
wider adoption rights over children to boot,
to same sex couples -

on those bases.

 If it were wrong to condemn, it would be just as wrong to condemn what condemns. It is all a matter of condemning condemnation, so that  any nation may do precisely what it pleases. But what is the use of touting confusion ? If NO moral law is allowable, then one which declares or implies this, that it is wrong to declare what people want as wrong, is merely instituting another one, and ignoring its own sanctions. You cannot protect yourself by reasoning against reason. If you want to violate the way we are made, and achieve liaisons in families which do not produce families, and ignore the constructions and constrictions that produce - in ways of immense complexity and specifications, these family results, then defence by appeal to a pretended neutrality is not one rational option.

By the way, it is now known whether Sodom and Gomorrah reached the level of

1) having such families of two of the same gender
2) protecting them legally
3) seeking to have them adopt children (but of course they would not know HOW, presumably,
to bring in some physiological resemblance from the parents to the children)
4) making it wrong to say it is wrong
5) making it right to do it.

Certainly, it would be pushing it.

There CAN be no moral tone to the condemnation of what condemns, as the Bible does in I Timothy 1:10, this sort of thing, if naturalism, humanism and neutralism are the gods going for the code of conduct to make it wrong. All you could on such a basis say is this, that it is inconvenient and a nuisance for people to condemn this conduct. You cannot look down a non-moral nose and condemn without morals what condemns it. You can appeal to precisely nothing morally.

On the other side, there is the fact that it is unnatural. If so, you may say, what of it ! Cannot people be unnatural if they want to be ? They can, if the law does not for example give them the death penalty, the Old Testament routine (Leviticus 20:13). The question is not whether they can, but whether it is right. It cannot be right when there are no morals; it can only be a happening. Those who want to condemn such conduct (for example, on the ground that it helps terminate the race, since there is less disease protection and disease here can and does spread and so on, this being not in the design), on this self-same model, cannot be wrong. It would be on that same basis, that those who commit it cannot be wrong. You cannot have it both ways. Follow this motif, and then NOTHING is wrong, but merely legal or not, convenient or not, expedient or not. Expedient ? for whom. For all people taking into account all things ? and what is this idea that this works meekly out ? Some want pleasure, self-affirmation and do not care what is the result for others.

The neutralistic, humanistic,
naturalistic, irrationalist, relativistic basis

But on this same neutralistic, humanistic, naturalistic, irrationalist, relativistic basis, there is no question of its being wrong to violate what is in the survival interests of all humanity. WHY SHOULD it survive! That is the moral question. It is not a STANDARD that it should survive. It is a desire.

Those who do not have this desire, and prefer other desires are not, on that basis, wrong.
They can only be expressed or suppressed. To the extent they constitute a danger to survival, since this sort of thing is simply a fact, for it moves towards what is physically more dangerous than normal sexual relations, then it is on this basis, merely morals smuggled in, to make it ‘wrong’. This irrelevant to such a basis. SURVIVAL itself, if to become a ‘right’ by decree, can only be legislated. But, you say, that is ridiculous. Survival is obviously moral. Why ?

Why is it ridiculous not to survive ? Christ died for sin. He could have stayed alive instead. He was raised from the dead, certainly, but this did not alter the great step of first laying down His life. Is it ridiculous if a doctor tries a drug on himself in order to facilitate research ? Why ? What standard says so ?

Survival is a desire. No more. That is its nature on this basis.

Moreover the basis is impossible, since irrationalism, basis of naturalism, must first forsake reason in order to be, and in doing so, forsakes its use for the particular piece of reasoning that it is right or wrong. Thus it is quite irrational to hold a ' neutral'  moral view and conceive it moral to survive, or wrong to condemn, for that matter, those who do not bother to survive. On that road, you have nothing but self-contradiction.

When you turn (with relief) to what meets logic, then of course you are forced to God, as shown in SMR, and then, finding it all coheres as nothing else either does or can, since you cannot be reasonable about the use of unreason: then the question is very simple. HAS HE SPOKEN ?

If so, right and wrong for the design called man will result from what He says. No, you may say, NOT SO. Why ? If God made us, some one may affirm, this is no ground for thinking He had it right! Very well, then on what grounds do you criticise God ? On grounds that it is not my desire to follow Him, you may say. But this is not relevant to what is right, only to what is desired.

How would you remove God as the standard, except in being at war with yourself, since He made you; and to be at war with yourself is certainly not feasible, since you are making war on what you are, in order to be what you want to be, but cannot be, since this is not what you are. Moreover to make God a taunting extortioner against man, taking satisfaction from his writhing is to make Him to be a psychic insufficiency, NEEDING something to complete Himself, and so would merely be a component in a containing system in which He has to live. That however is a part of a system and nothing to do with God. The goodness of God and the folly of man is the underlying issue at all times, and the fulfilment of His predictions is the overlying reality to be observed.

In history it is repetitively found, that when morals are subverted in licentious liberties of one kind or another, then dictatorial rule is an easy outcome. If you neglect the obvious, then the not-so-obvious comes welling up into the polluted, irrational midst of a decaying people, and what is it to be ? Reason being subverted, the black depths well up with this or that dark design. If pride of life surged into action in World War I, then instead of repentance you readily get racial pride, securing new squalor amidst the grim death of millions in World War II, required as a suppressant. If Rome luxuriated on mercenary soldiers for her protection, why not have indulgence indulged, and have them rebel against you^*5 in order for them to luxuriate for themselves ? If this is what you are for, then it is what they are for, but this time for their own sakes. Immorality is a maw that mashes much.

France mocks God in its 1789 Revolution, with the goddess of (some kind of) reason drawn through the streets ? Then having lost her head, as a nation in its throes, it becomes the non-benevolent basis for many, even some of its leaders, losing their own heads in ways not easy to remedy! Nor was the Russian Revolution of 1917 any kinder, but far crueller, as Stalin evidently used starvation as as internal weapon, the State seizing crops,  with an additional element in its exports of human labour fragments to Siberia, on inadequate rations, to realise the immoral dream that it is the State and not the individual that matters. Hence use up their residual vitality for the State, and simply on this model, have no concern for their souls, their lives, their livelihood, justice or morality of any kind. As for the State being the main thing, the star to guide, what is this if not a moral from nowhere! So they surge like angry waves, waiving away all that hinders wandering.