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CHAPTER ONE

THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES

THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS

AND THE KINGDOM THAT HAS NO END

THE MIST OF CONFUSION

What's the point ? says a banner for the Alpha Course^*1! That, as seen before, is close to an all-inclusive, all criticism barred,

Pentecostal surge, in which Romanism is a stated target of its founder, as part of the parcel of 'faith', so that traditionalism on the one hand and an open hand with the future on the other, enters in the sacred centre of Gospel testimony, rather like a python in the parlour, because it is REALLY quite a pet.

This new trilogy, open future, open past,  closed mouth for major churches and their new errant ways, may be crying: What's the point ? Why NOT join with the Canaanites of the land, for they are many; with the Philistines, because they are at least organised and cultivated; why not forget about Elijah, a false purism surely, and joining the Lord together with other things, just like Samaria after Israel was sent off into a final rout, and new peoples were placed in the land by the King of Assyria, do  a multiple act.

Which then ? one might ask.

Why, might come the reply, serve the Lord and  other gods! Why not ? Is it not unity which matters ? It is time to stop all this futile criticism, vexatious vehemence and join forces to get somewhere! What the point of not doing so ?

Let us see a potential parallel in II Kings 17:29-32, about the point of not doing so.

We look here at a time when, with the land now cleared of the original, admittedly misled inhabitants, you had the BACKGROUND of the Lord and worship of Him (like a tooth follow after an extraction), as a sort of inherent and underlying tradition, but then there is this ever so interesting new thing. It is the coming in of peoples from many lands to repopulate the ravaged land, and replace the exiled people.

What is the point of being puristic, and not realising the inherent worth of all of this ? they might ask. Thus they might avoid the issue.

But the point is not to be avoided.

       Is not Rome willing through a pope, to put a Buddha on the altar, for a more inclusive form of worship ?
(cf. News 101,  esp. as marked).
 

       Did she not join with the Holy Roman Empire, use State resources and prestige as an undergirding
while rampaging in the Inquisition, against those who followed a biblical faith!
 

       and is not the mediatrix Mary, a concoction of concepts,  a foolish addition, since Christ called everyone who did the will of God His mother and brother (Matthew 12:46-50) ? and since there is only one Mediator (I Timothy 2), one occupant in that category, by direct declaration of the Almighty, whose name is not Mary! 
 

       and is not the mass a worship of bread, since Christ not only did not die in the Last Supper,  as one broken into many parts, but called it a remembrance! 
 

       And was He not true man like His brethren in incarnation's format, except for sin (Hebrews 4:15, Hebrews 9:26-28, 2:10-17),
or is this too to be mutilated like the Gospel!
 

       If these things do not matter, what new import matters much! what restrains you ? Yet if you will not be restrained,
why invent another Gospel with another Jesus, and use the same name!

Is it not, this new regard for a wild and ravishing form of ecumenism falsely-so-called, a convenient one-stop shop for spirituality, while being in fact a cover for many things, bulked in an ecclesiastical  portmanteau! (cf. SMR pp. 743ff., with 750B ff.).

Moreover, what do we find here, that there is to be some type of special reverence for large bodies called Christian Churches, without biblical assessment, so that we ignore Paul's injunction, warning and advice! (Acts 20:28-32), and Peter's prophetic alert (II Peter 1:1ff.), and Jesus' divinely diligent perspective and presentation (Matthew 7:15ff.) which is so dire!

 Thus this refusal, this new-look aversion to such display and necessary criticism for continuance of the faith, to preclude addition  and subtraction, modification and innovation (as in Galatians 1:6-9), becomes a facilitation of  corruption, an  embrace of pollution! It includes this aspect, that it is against making biblical applications to things astray, exposing them, even if for 500 years they have been routinely denounced by the whole body of Protestantism on biblical grounds (cf. SMR pp. 912ff., 946ff., 1032-1088H).

Indeed,  this sense of spiritual alliance with a body famed for the arrogance of its leader when ONLY CHRIST is the Master and teacher whose authority can stand alone and determine an issue (Matthews 23:8-10, I John 2:27), is it not a more than passing parallel with this post-ravagement history of Israel! THEY were only too happy to import and endue, to sidle into a synthetic spirituality and to be inclusive, with what God had made exclusive, with other things which were traditions from various sources, no questions asked.

God however condemned it,  BECAUSE HE is Himself and not another; and what He says stands alone. His signature requires that there be neither substitutes nor allowances  for new materials to be imported, imparted and synthesised with the old. Such likewise is the report of these whose ecumenism is broad, whose stay on research and rejection is even now in the WCC and similar bodies, is a sign of our own times. In both cases, the end of an era was impending. Let us then look  at the last time! Moreover, while we do  so, we need to remember this, that long had this Northern Kingdom, the large rump of Israel, been enticed with just  such follies (e.g. II Kings16:7ff., even intermingling a new altar for a new traditional god of a nearby land, with the old IN THE TEMPLE), It is not necessary to follow, as in II Kings 17, the corruption of its ruin,  to follow as it were, the decay syndrome of its death.

Let us look, then, at II Kings 17:29-32 and consider it (bold added).

^"And so it was at the beginning of their dwelling there, that they feared not the LORD: therefore the LORD sent lions among them, which slew some of them.

 "For this reason,  they spoke to the king of Assyria, saying,

The nations which you hast removed, and placed in the cities of Samaria, do not know the manner of the God of the land: therefore He has sent lions among them, and, look, they slay them, because they do not know not the manner of the God of the land.

"Then the king of Assyria commanded, saying, Carry to this place one of the priests whom you brought from there; and let them go and live there, and let him teach them the manner of the God of the land. Then one of the priests whom they had carried away from Samaria came and dwelt in Bethel, and taught them how they should fear the LORD.

"However every nation made gods of their own, and put them in the shrines of the high places which the Samaritans had made, every nation in their cities in which they dwelt.

"The men of Babylon made Succoth Benoth, and the men of Cuth made Nergal, and the men of Hamath made Ashima,  the Avites made Nibhaz and Tartak, and the Sepharvites burnt their children in fire to Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.

^"So they feared the LORD, and they were also made priests of the mass of the people and the priests were preparing them sacrifices in the high places. They feared the LORD, yet served their own gods, after the manner of the nations among whom they were carried away."

It then adds:

"They feared the Lord, yet served their own gods, according to the rituals of the nations from among whom thy were carried away. To this day they continue practising the former rituals; they do not fear the Lord, nor do they follow their statutes or their ordinances, or the law and commandments which the Lord had commanded."

This dire commentary, this ruinous irony, this display of their hypocritical pretension and actual failure,  has a biting edge as well it might, and reminds one of the indictment of Jesus the Christ, when He spoke of the traditions of men, suffocating the word of God (making it void - Mark 7:7ff.). He detested the conjoining of religious cultures, even if ostensibly derived from the Law, with the actual word of God itself.

Thus to the Jews He, the Lord's Christ,  declared this:

'"Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written,

'This people honours Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me.
And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men' ...

"All too well you reject the commandment of God
that you may keep your traditions."

This commingling without due criticism, as in the Alpha course, this openness to new revelation, such as Romanism provides and Pentecostalism so readily enables, making two new entries for foreign material, relative to what is actually written in the word of God, snippets from the past and graspings from the future,  this sort of synthesis, it leads somewhere. Where is that ? It leads alas to Christ's flaring judgment of hypocrisy, for firstly, saying they worship Him, honouring Him with their lips in the approved, normal manner, while they invent their own ideas, bringing them from where they please, and secondly, polluting, and so annuling the force, purity and impact of the actual word of God.

Rarely did Christ speak with such scourges as in this dismantling through additions, of the word of God, this forbidden combination as here in Mark, but especially as also in Matthew 23, this alliance with tradition, what you will, on the one hand, with the word of God on the other, what He will. It is NOT open for all that people have thought or said (like the Canon Law^*2); or will say (as in much perfervid Pentecostalism).

On the contrary, it is closed to invasion, ancient or contemporary.

What is the point ? The point is this, that you may not add to His word lest He rebuke you and you be found a liar! (Proverbs 8:30).

Therefore let the Christian possess his or her possessions, accept the text of the Bible in all its purity and depth, its seven times purified beauty and precision (Psalm 12:6-7), and longing for HIS words, appreciate what HE has done in providing something supra-cultural, wholly spiritual, roundly realistic and apt for  every longing, pointing it where it belongs (cf. Psalm 119:20,80,129, 144, 147-148).

THE CLOUD OF WITNESSES

Grievous is the current, consecutively declining, devastatingly insistent, urge to decline, and the more the truth appears, the more the departure is vehement. That is its way: what you cannot counter, create a stampede of will and emotion to  avoid!

Thus,  while it is as so often before, yet now it rushes in an advanced degree; for a witless wisdom is embracing the Church of Jesus Christ, as far as it may, as if the tentacular horrors of long octopus arms were squeezing it, hoping that the creaking of the resistant boards in the boat, might yield a crack! There is, of course,   also the opposite, the apposite movement throughout the Ages. Before we turn to this, there are two points to note.

Firstly, in Amos 2:13, the Lord speaks of the sins of Israel, a nation chosen to disseminate and live the truth according to the word of the Creator, the Redeemer, God Himself who has no duplicates, in this way:

"Behold, I am weighed down by you,
as a cart full of sheaves is weighed down.
Therefore flight shall perish from the swift,
the strong shall not strengthen his power ...
the most courageous men of might shall flee naked in that day, says the Lord."

One of the problem areas was this, one of the causes of their pressures. It is

 "Because they have despised the law of the Lord
and have not kept His commandments.
Their lies lead them astray, lies which their fathers followed."

It is apparent that this problem is one like cancer. It ravages.

It comes as faith goes, as a nation or people or city or family moves into arrears, regions beyond the truth, and failing, becomes limp, flaccid in spirituality.

God INSISTS that no only will "man not live by bread alone but by every word which proceeds out of the mouth of God," (Matthew 4), but that you do not add traditions, for these annul its force and integrity (Mark 7). The word of God is singular and it is pure, its context itself, its teacher His Spirit (I John 2:27),  others merely ministering it, with conviction, but not as lords (I Peter 5). 

"Is not My word like a fire ? says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks rock in pieces!" He demands, comparing extra-biblical dreams to chaff (Jeremiah 23:29).

"The prophet who has a dream," He challenges, "let him tell his dream; and he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully," (Jeremiah23:28). Thus He denounces the additive phenomenon, work of false prophets:

·         "Behold I am against those who prophesy false dreams, says the Lord, 
and tell them and cause My people to err by their lies and their recklessness.
Yet I did not send them or command them:
therefore they shall not profit this people at all, says the Lord,"

 Jeremiah 23:32.

Scathing, He declares this (Jeremiah 23:31): "Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who use their tongues and say, 'He says.' " There is a place for tongues, but it is not to supply doctrine, when the pen of the Lord has already traced His word, and when those tongues are used to add revelation of doctrine. Woe betide the people who do this, as you see from these words from the Lord, through the prophet Jeremiah, as from Christ Himself. The canon is long closed (cf. SMR Appendix   C,   D, Revelation 22:18-19), and to "add to these things" as Revelation declares, is very decidedly not recommended there! You may not subtract from the words God has given,  and you are refused permission equally to add to the things in view.

These then are not the sources of witness, nor are these components, such approaches, in the CLOUD of WITNESSES of which Hebrews 11:1 - 12:1 speaks. What does it say after such a survey of the testimony in word and deed as it has traversed in Hebrews 11 ? It is this:

"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,
let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us,
 and let us run with endurance
the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of faith,
who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross,
despising the shame,
and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

It is to this cloud, in some measure of overview, to stir our hearts and thoughts, that we now look.

Consider the delivering testimonies, the strategic hills of testimony, the mounts of fame,  those who by acting as led of the Lord, delivered many. They do not compare with Christ, but they were activated in many, by the Spirit of the Lord God.  It is He who acted as He later did, definitively (cf. Isaiah 48:16, Hebrews 1), the Lord God Himself sending the Creator, the First and the Last; the Lord God sending the Lord who speaks, and the Spirit sending likewise as Isaiah 59-55 goes on to  show in prediction. This led on to the substitutionary atonement,  God for man, the Redeemer for those who are redeemed, love to faith and faith in love to God.

The cloud of witnesses has the Sun or Righteousness beyond them, and as in  stained glass windows, it is He who gives them light and brings a beauty to the conspectus, the harmony of the whole. It is the Head, He who gives lustre to His body which is that to be resurrected (Isaiah 26:19); and it is He who laments for the needless, heedless transgressions of Israel ... nor is it of Israel  alone (cf. Jeremiah 48, 51).

Now we should  look at Abraham, set deep in his region of Ur (Genesis 11:31).

ABRAHAM

There is Abraham, post-deluge, post-Noah, in the settling times, and he is suddenly called. This call is straight, contrary to all else, incapable of confusion,  directive, assured. He hears it.

The preliminaries may have been large, but the event appears to have been short. Get out of this land and go to a land I will show you! That was the preliminary pith of the call from the Lord to Abraham, as to action. This he did. When faith and call come together, action is the result (cf. James 2). There was blessing for such an action, for such a faith which embraced and secured it. It was this: first the land had a peculiar divine significance for his descendants, and would be consigned to them; and secondly, one of his offspring according to the flesh, indeed, would become a blessing for all people (Genesis 12). He went.

There were many vicissitudes, but he kept his eye on the calling. A people arose and was forged in the course of time, and to them patriarchs and prophets came. A people had now been formed through whom God would speak to what had become a sodden world, if now physically,  it dried out. Post-devastation time needed guidance, and God gave it. Early it was shown that the sacrifice required was not just of something near and dear (Genesis 19), such as a pagan land might practice. Indeed, not only could children be sacrificed in surrounding cultures, but burnt for the delectation of idols,  as seen in II Kings 17 above

Ít is with horror that we realise that this included for them in some cases, burning their children in unholy, sacred pagan flames! It was not a practice like that, that God Himself would provide (Genesis 22). He would GIVE, not grab.

Abraham's faith, that though he was to have a generations from himself to which the promises applied, and one in particular, was robust. If  need be, he was assured,  God could raise his son Isaac from the dead, if such a sacrifice was necessary (Hebrews 11:19). Such faith was vast; but not relevant. H e had to be free of insisting on his son at all costs, as if to modify what God might want of him, but there was good, not evil to be found for all in this. His error was corrected, and the lad lived. It did however make the point that Jesus declared (Luke 14:26). He did HAVE to be willing to obey in such a manner that only the life of God would count; and yet, since God is a loving Father to His children, by no means did this involve detriment to life, violence to the very ones whose welfare he must seek,  members of the lineage to come, of the Messiah.

This ?  It is that when you live for the Lord and walk with Him, there can be no competition. Let God be God! Just as you must NEVER allow anything outside the written word of God to be for doctrine, or what contradicts it to stand for truth, SO you must never allow any living situation to subvert you, so that you serve the Lord PROVIDED THAT this and that is not involved. Now the beauty of holiness is spelled out clearly in the 10 commandments on the one hand, and in the Sermon on the Mount on the other, the ethics without and the spirituality within, simply to take examples: there is no danger of any evil if you follow the Lord. His word is publicly on display and has been for millenia. It is not the content, then, but the purity of resolve which is in view. It is this which so often has activated the CLOUD OF WITNESSES, and made their actions memorable.

Thus Abraham consolidated within civilisation, after the flood, so that a nation, Israel it would be called, was  to come, with amazing consequences,  for all their errors. As to Abraham, as in Hebrews 11:10:

"He  waited for the city which has foundations,
whose builder and  Maker is God."

JOSEPH

Down to Egypt went the people in the time of drought, in the patriarch Jacob's era, and there was a testimony from Joseph of patient endurance (Psalm 105). Before he became virtual CEO, or Prime Minister for Egypt, because AFTER suffering long for what he did not do, and for the cruelty imposed by others, he then was used by God so singularly that the Pharaoh was moved to elevate him. As  a result, this Egyptian ruler became so became rich, in that instance; but the land also had stability and could feed many after the forecast abundant years, such as  Joseph had foretold, and the succeeding  drought period. In this way, many lived, much testimony of the power of God in detail and in knowledge was given, and a mighty civilisation was penetrated. Moreover, Israel  lived too!

Not only so.  Joseph did not become morbid for the loss

       a) of his father, left behind when his brothers sold him, when young, into slavery.
 

       b) of his reputation, when falsely accused in Egypt,
through a designing woman, and put in prison.
 

       c) of his sense of any fair play, when left in prison,
even after two courtiers were in it with him,
and he interpreted correctly the dream of one of them,
who should have been grateful,
but did not tell the Pharaoh of the plight of Joseph ...
who stayed there yet longer!
 

       d) of the society and ways of his people, a sadness when alone in rule,
as shown when he so tellingly wept
when his betraying brothers came as suppliants to Egypt,
for food (to be paid for, but still a thing in itself, NECESSARY in famine).

He freely forgave them with great emotion of kind solicitude, and had them settled in a rich land, and even saw that the Lord had meant the evil the brothers did to him, to bring blessing to all his people, now delivered in so timely a manner, by what the Lord had done for him in his extremities. Here was a deliverer who kept control of himself, and considered the ways of the Lord.

Joseph is assuredly one of the cloud.

MOSES

Then they were put in a stranglehold: after some centuries of proliferation, the Egyptians made them into slaves, and sought to kill their male babes. God called Moses, whose heart was stirred, the man who had in an extraordinary providence been raised a prince, though one of the slave people; and when he had learnt much, and been patient for 40 years, God employed, yes deployed him to confront the now persecuting Pharaoh. This ruler was one of a new lot, intemperate, tempestuous,  self-willed, sure of himself and of his gods.

God however met him face to face, step  for  step,  and showed as much power in devastation as necessary, in the 10 plagues, to impress on a confrontational ruler of a vast nation, with enormous cultural riches, one thing. IF he would not let the Lord's people go willingly, then God would cause them to go, and that with great affliction because of the presumptuous, the arrogant persecution and humiliation imposed on them by the Egyptian. Moses was used in this continuing spectacle of divine determination, in its modes of mercy and exhibition through ironic use of plagues to mirror the false gods in which the people of Egypt tended trust; and they left.

Even their going was miraculous (Exodus 14), and ironic, since the means of their escape, a maritime convulsion, was the means of the destruction of the pursuing army, which was 'baptised' that is at most sprinkled or exposed to deliverance in the sea motions (I Corinthians 10:2). They were not immersed and so drowned; and anything that touched them that way would have been no more than moisture scattered by the wind (cf. Ezekiel 36:25ff., where a new covenant is allied to these things). They were 'baptised into Moses', learning the true and basic meaning of baptism, as in I Peter 1:23, where it is not a matter of water but of a pure faith that has now come to being in the resurrected Jesus Christ, and a clear conscience.

They learnt, moreover, being so baptised, that obedience is the crux (Jeremiah 7:22-23); you cannot do and say just as you please, and then attribute it to God, or imagine His word is just what your religion or religious culture with desired social immersion, may wish. You learn, like Abraham and Moses, to take the covenant given and to do the thing divinely directed. When it comes to God, there is NO ROOM for manoeuvre of any kind; and if in personal matters, you seek and gain His favour, then this is not doctrine but mercy!

That then was a third massive deliverance, that of Moses; but that there be no tendency to glorify those used, poor Moses for all his meekness, patience, nursing cherishing and concern for his people, could not himself personally enter the promised land, since he has acted rather imperiously on one crucial occasion, striking the rock as bidden, but doing so TWICE in the sight of the people, and acting as if he and Aaron were having to act for the people, in his own tempestuous emotion: MUST WE ... do this and that!^*3 God is just as determined that His will be done (for after all, it is no good making up our own manuals for the use of the equipment of mind, spirit and body given), as He is that His servants be not popes or masters or directors, but ministers, those who provide in purity and faith, correcting if necessary, but not as lords (I Peter 5),  but rather leaders, and that, from His word.

For all this discipline, Moses had a heart so strong in love, so that even when his people shockingly returned to an idol through manipulating the priest, Aaron, even one suggestive of Egypt from which by divine deliverance they had just come, and so were imperilled, he put himself on the line, asking the Lord, if He did not forgive THEM, to blot HIM out of the book of life (Exodus 32:31ff.).

What an amazing and keen love for those so unruly!

God, however, replied to the effect that this was for him to determine; but that He would continue with this people, and not dump them. Thus we see Moses the intercessor amid the deliverance, putting heart and life into the work. Yet in one thing he having erred, the Lord while continuing His power and majesty about his rule, did not let him have everything: but Moses having been involved in so much for so long, and suddenly taken such fast hold of the reins, He brought on another for the actual entry into the land.

Therefore another was needed to complete not this time, the Exodus, but the entrance into the promised land. Its nature has been traced and its implications in The Whole Counsel of God. If Moses was massively used in the Exodus, Joshua was the leader for the entrance into the promised land, at last.

JOSHUA

The next one, then, called to major deliverance, here noted is Joshua. He was outstanding from the first. Moses had him accompany the other  eleven spies, one from each tribe, when  they went to reconnoitre the promised land, when at last they reached it, and  would be expected to be yearning to enter it. Moses, at this time, we learn from Keil and Delitzsch, in their Old Testament Commentary, in changing the name of this spy from Hoshea to Joshua, moved from the meaning 'help' to Jehovah-help', equivalent to 'whose help is Jehovah.' It seems then that either Joshua's gift of leadership was even then  beginning to appear, or else this may have been a prophetic, proleptic move.

Either way, we find Joshua already the subject of some focus. They went into the land to see (Joshua  13). They searched the land. Yet, on their return, instead of a commentary, they made it a political matter, worse, a contrary theological statement. First,  they conceded the richness, the fruitfulness of the land; but instead of rejoicing in this, they used it negatively.  The people and works in that land were impressive, and this to such an  extent, even apparent in their fortifications, and with various peoples settled there, that those who saw were aghast! Such lack of faith or indolence,  led to a massive slide, corrected much later! They were not all, however, of this mind.

As this account squandered opportunity with fear,  Caleb, one of the twelve, quietened them, saying,

"Let's go in at once, for  we  are well able to  overcome it."

This fine statement (in view of their call from the Lord, who had Himself been restrained, as in Genesis15, for  some 400 years before taking action against the Canaanites), a voice of conviction from  Caleb was adversely met by most of the rest, who  simply completed their  report with these words,

"We are not able to  go up against the people, for they are stronger than we."

They extended their report into  propaganda, as if the land would devour them, stressing giants and the like. "If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness!" came the  clamour of the people, their hearts swept to one side, like crops by the wind, with no more resistance! A new leader! they cried, to take us back to Egypt. It certainly would not be Joshua!

Moses and Aaron fall on their faces. Joshua however and Caleb exhorted the people.

 It's an exceedingly good  land," they cried, "and if the Lord delights in us,
then He will bring us into this land and give it to us ...
only do not rebel  against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land ...
their protection has departed from them, and  the Lord  is with us.
Do not fear them!"

Joshua is now beginning really to look like someone with his new name: one whose help is the Lord. For every Christian on the way of the Lord, there is such help (cf. Psalm 84:7).  The Lord, then, would not suffer the disbelieving to enter the promised land, but Joshua whose work was spreading the message, believing in it, as one whose lord IS the Lord, and Caleb, these lived on and entered the land when the time came. Notice in this, that death is not a fatalistically conceived event for the people of the Lord, bt precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints (Psalm 116:15). So their lives on this earth are precious too, the date  and time, the manner and occasion of their passing, all matters immensely and their way is KNOWN to the Lord (Psalm 1:5).

Thus Joshua and Caleb not only endure in spiritual readiness during the 40 year tribulation for disfaith, inflicted on the almost casually treacherous nation, at times almost seeming in some of their vagaries to USE God, rather than acting as His servants.

They flourished to the point that when the other generation, the one that had rebelled at the very entry to the promised land, was passed, they were alive and strong, strengthened in faith and by faith in the Lord who is active in the hearts and lives of His children. Joshua was even ready for one of the most spectacular events in the history of his nation as leader, and Caleb to secure the portion  allotted him, the Mount of his inheritance, being fit as when far younger! How this reminds one of that great Psalm of old age, Psalm 71, and of the faithfulness of the Lord. 

He will not allow His servants to  fail, for HE never fails.  Blessed be the name of the Lord. Indeed, consider Psalm 78 which deals with His longsuffering and mercies, and let us learn from three verses. Put in context, we see them below, verses 8-9, and 38. These are set in italics for this purpose.

"That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God,
but keep his commandments:
and might not be like their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation,
a generation which did not set their heart aright,
and whose spirit was not steadfast with God.

"Nevertheless they flattered him with their mouth,
and they lied unto him with their tongues.
For their heart was not right with him,
neither were they steadfast in his covenant.

"But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity,
and did not destroy them: yes, many a time turned he his anger away,
and did not stir up all his wrath."

       Three things impact on us in verse 8. Their hope had to be in God,
not in subjective illuminations, objectively in God, operationally in the Lord.
 

       Secondly, they were to remember the facts of His works, creation, redemption from Egypt,
power and provision in detail over an extended period, and not subject these realities to fancy.
 

       Thirdly, they were to keep His commandments, and not relativise these according to cultural norms, forms and favourites.
 

       How simple! Again, we find this in verse 38, that God in the face of multiplied provocations,
acts and attitudes of unfaithfulness, was full of compassion, even forgave them,
and did not remove them from the laboratory of history or the testimony,
like a publication, being permitted to continue, and not withdrawn.
 

       Then as to the faithful,
He kept them alive till their time came (just as He kept Joseph when in prison, till HIS time came (Psalm 105:17ff.),
and enabled them to have the massive strength of heart and limb necessary in order to fulfil their mission,
even after waiting 40 years following the folly of the rest of their generation!
 

       How gracious, how reliable, how wise, how attentive is the Lord: therefore trust Him and act like it.

Meanwhile, let us look back on the situation after the refusal to enter the land and consider some of the elements.

 Moses again intercedes for the people (Numbers 14:11ff.), and so appears as even more of an intercessor.  But Joshua and Caleb had to  wait 40 years, since the Lord determined that that generation would not, except for these two, enter the promised land, having despised His power and call when it was there. Their office was patient waiting in spiritual discipline and strength of heart, to live conformably to godliness.

This relates in one way to the young manhood of Moses,much earlier. He had had to wait a similar period after the manslaughter, when he sought to help a Hebrew in Egypt, against an Egyptian contending with him, feeling the oppression of the people. As a prince he did not want just to sit and watch, but discretion seemed denied him as to how to proceed, at that time.

He had much to learn; but he had learnt it and God used him, when the time came, in an  epochal manner! Back to his former haunts he went, back to the Court in Egypt and he went from confrontation to confrontation, with much self-discipline, a useful operational function to possess! That, it is one possession which we ALL need to possess! (II Peter 1:6).

This teaches us to be patient, loyal, faithful, unvarying, not subject to fits and starts, but coherent in purpose, perspicuous in overview, trusting in the Lord.

What God may use to restrain one, He may use to season another.  At all events, neither Moses nor Joshua was to be a youthful leader! When Joshua was handed the leadership by Moses, as ordered by the Lord (Deuteronomy 31:14), he was no youth!

As the time for Moses parting and going to the Lord came near, he appeared to be made increasingly aware of the continuing rebelliousness which would manifest itself in Israel, in the coming years (Deuteronomy 31:20). "I know their inclination," the Lord declared (Deut. 31:21), and the word given to Moses at this last step in his leadership was to serve as a testimony, for he traced in Deuteronomy 32 a long series of spiritual vicissitudes for his people in time to come, which was hardly flattering, but which showed the patience and care of the Lord, who would eventually deliver them categorically, who believed in Him, among the people, a testimony to all nations, so that many of them would rejoice with them at such a terminus (Deut. 32:34-43).

Paul quotes from this in making the point that Jesus Christ became man to serve the nation and to confirm the promises made to the fathers, and that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy.

As testimony he cites, "Rejoice O you Gentiles with His people!" from Deut. 32:43, thus in the preceding context, preserving the contextual meaning of Israel and Gentile clearly. So we learn from him, Christ moved maximally to the Jews, and in confirming promises to them, instituted what would in its time,  give occasion for the Gentiles to rejoice (Romans 15:7-11). God has not forgotten Israel, and has His plans as in Romans 11, as the nations surge and  resurge with malice, inequity and molest her. When HE sees their strength is gone, HE, He declares, will act and the might of His actions will resemble those in the Exodus (Micah 7:15ff., Isaiah 59:20, Romans 11:23-36).

No confusion can allay these facts, but God has made them clear beyond cavil in this collation of terms. He does not change definitions in mid-stream, but His word is clear (Proverbs 8:8), to the one who understands, and the chief point of this is not to ignore what He is saying, when you interpret it, or attribute confusion or equivocation to Him. He is clear, says so, and knows how to make it so.

His purposes do not fail, nor does He resort to equivocation, being mindful of His name and zealous at all times for truth and reality (cf. Ezekiel 36:22-24). When He acts, the nations will know, He declares, "that I am the Lord, when I am hallowed in you before their eyes." Thus there we see the nations on the one hand, Israel on the other, and a resultant impact on the former from the latter. Truly, nothing could be clearer than this sequence (cf. He Calls ... Ch. 10).  It is this which leads on to their national return, followed by their spiritual regeneration in terms of the Messiah, in large measure as a people (cf. Ezekiel 37:11-24).

Meanwhile, we return to the days following Moses and the termination of his ministry, as the Lord calls him to Himself.

Joshua was by this time duly installed as new leader, and was engaged in communion with the Lord, communication indeed, and was assured of the Lord's presence with him in victorious completion of the entry into the land, so long delayed: moreover the dimensions were  indicated for the land (Joshua 1:4). There was an absolute divine assurance concerning the power available for the performance of his mission and the sustaining of his role (Joshua 1:5). Two injunctions followed:  MEDITATE on the word of  God as given, day and night, and to be zealous in following it. That is, KNOW and DO.

Indeed, these things being so, Joshua actually met someone who aroused his concern, but he found it was none less than the Lord, appearing to him, the human  leader, as Commander of the host! (Joshua 5:13-15). What a revelation, such as Elisha knew in his day (II Kings 6:17).

Joshua, equipped with faith, sent by the Lord, duly seasoned, then proceeded. He ordered the people to prepare to cross the barrier, the Jordan river, a time of some danger through exposure in crossing. It was to be in three days, a prototype for the resting of Christ's body in the tomb, before His crossing in a figure, of the Jordan of physical death, constituted entry into the promised land of resurrected power, in which all power is given to Him (Matthew 28:19-20). It again is such, that to HIS people, Christ gave  the injunction: PREACH the Gospel and TEACH ALL the commandments. So there is the parallel in type,  all the more strongly indicated in the name change for Joshua, except in this, that Christ IS the Lord.

The victories of Joshua had their dramas. Preparations were made, a better spying expedition yielded excellent results, and through the pausing of the sun in its goings (Velikovsky, in Worlds in Collision,  has an interesting theory about possible means the Lord might have used) and such events as the fall of Jericho's walls (cf. SMR pp. 1185ff.), we see the state of the power and provisions of the Lord. NOTHING is too hard for Him, and if only we will believe in no merely formal way, for His assigned purposes,  there is vast opportunity for working in the wonder of His name.

The people then, the new generation which had not refused to enter when they first had the opportunity,  entered at last;  and when Joshua's day of mission, after some years was complete, this great work of deliverance (from dumps, from fear, from division and disturbance, from lack of enterprise) which the Lord enabled him to forward, he like Moses gave a great charge to the people. Before leaving this earth in spirit, he had much to do in his final address.

DON'T serve the Lord, it is too hard. That was the challenge. But we WANT TO, say the people. Very well, says He, then DO IT. There was to be nothing merely ceremonial or  self-serving about it. If you want to walk and work with God, it is against fallen human nature, so face up to the cost and  don't dally with tantrums and uncertainties. Such is part of the message of Joshua 24.

In other words, Joshua first charged them to follow their directions from the Lord, a people sent for a purpose IN the Lord, and when they perhaps too glibly replied, he challenged them by telling them they COULD NOT DO IT, implying only by divine power and thrust could it be done.  When they insisted, then he declared:

"You are witnesses against yourselves
that you have chosen the Lord for yourselves, to serve Him.
Now therefore, put away the foreign gods which are among you,
and incline your heart to the Lord God of Israel."

If anything, any procedure, ever had made it clear that inclusivism, as in Alpha course, the WCC, Rome, is stringently forbidden to any extent, and that the word and way and wisdom of the Lord is contradistinct from all else, this does it!

Here then is another of the cloud of witnesses, and how strongly you can see the sun of righteousness shining through it . .. him!

SAMUEL

Moses' forecast and Joshua's injunction and prediction (Joshua 23:11-16) were  all too right in their impact. The people did not finish the job, allied themselves in various ways and at various times illicitly with peoples, gods, cultures, political protectors and the like, and throughout the period of the Judges, as indeed later on,  performed many actions to bring dishonour on God. This is not to say that that was all; but it was much. One of the magnificent exceptions, another deliverer, was Samuel.

A King had been chosen, with some dubious ideas mixed in the thoughts of the people, to be like other nations; and this teaches us one thing, as you read of the account in I Samuel 10:17-19 (cf. I Samuel 8:5-9). And what is that ? It is that it is not only WHAT you do, but WHY you do it, that matters; for God is a Spirit, and we, we ourselves have a spirit, each one of us. Thus God suffered them to have a king, despite their motives being impure. A King was a good idea, but NOT (as in I Samuel  8:5), in order to be like the other nations. They are the last ones to follow as to style and  mode and wisdom!

An entirely different sort of king was needed (cf. Matthew 20:25-26). Samuel therefore went through the ceremony as the Lord showed him, and made the warning at the same time. Saul the new king proved as misplaced in himself,  as was the popular REASON for seeking a king. He used his own nous in spiritual matters, went contrary to the divine perspective, interpreted orders 'broadly', began to make it more a shared partnership in which God would have him do this, but he could adjust it as so many of the sects do, this way and that, until an entirely different countenance could come on an issue. Failing in using opportunity to deliver his people, including his designs with those of the Lord, he eventually received dismissal. God rejected him as king. This was quite, categorical. The terms are seen in I Samuel 15:22-23:

"And Samuel said,

'Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices,
as in obeying the voice of the LORD?

'Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to heed than the fat of rams;
for rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft,
and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.

'Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, He hath also rejected you from being king.' "

Has God so much delight in sacrifices, devices, imagined ways of proceeding, adjustments to the divine program, personalised religion in which bargaining and compromise ensues, as in OBEDIENCE! The difference ? It meant, the failure to recognise this principle, that the man who was king was king no more. Such leadership is abhorrent to the Lord, an intolerable twisting of truth, making those who so lead catastrophes rather than pastors, confederates of confusion, not leaders in the way. Again, the message could not be clearer, and is just as it is in Luke 6:46, in II Corinthians 13:2-7, 4:1ff.,  Galatians 1:6-9, Acts 20:26-31). When these liberties are set as traditions, then you get the special, enhanced evils of Mark 7:7ff.. Let us take heed to the word of God, and not merely let its sounds pass over!

This is a generation which requires this warning (II Peter 2), and hence it must be and is given.

Samuel, following Saul's dismissal was saddened (I Samuel 15:35), but the Lord had determined the matter and asked him how long he would grieve. There was now a reconstruction to perform, and Samuel was set to Jesse to find a new king for selection and rule in due course.

They had learned; and it must be noted that Samuel knew from the first the error of the people's motivation in seeking a king and said so! God had shown him that this was actually a populist rebellion (I Samuel 8:7); but the choice was given its opportunity, so tht the people might see in what way any king should be chosen, and in what spirit! Now the divine method came into sway (I Samuel 16:1ff). The lesson would be learned both negatively and positively. Young David, son of Jesse, at first not even thought relevant as Samuel came, sent by the Lord, to look, was nevertheless selected, as the Lord gave counsel to the prophet. In fact, God told Samuel that the point was not the appearance, but the heart; and so it proved, when this fresh-faced lad was called to be king - WHEN the time was ready! (I Samuel 16). Thus did Samuel anoint young David as King to be.

Samuel's obedience to God, as leader from the near chaos of Judges (with many lights amid the shade), to the stability and security of the Davidic kingdom, with the Messianic prophecies from the pen of David, inspired by the Lord (II Samuel 23:1-4), and the other Psalms a magnificent heritage lasting for all ages, was a notable and deep thing. His life showed a work of remarkable insight, patience, tender obedience, watchful serviceability and diligent seeking of the Lord. He was not obtrusive, but both diligent, decisive and of a merciful disposition; and for all that, when it came to a major point, there was no hesitation.

 After all, when Saul as King failed to execute the leader of a pagan cult in the land, to deal with the people who had opposed Israel's entry and would constitute a thorn in their side, Samuel himself did it himself! (I Samuel 15:32ff.). As the king (in fact of the Amalekites) whom Saul had spared, had slain many in Israel, so would he be slain, the prophet announced.

Thus judgment was executed as well as the King, but in a different way: for the one was thus sustained, and the King removed. He who had needlessly occasioned death, then met it. For all that, Samuel mourned the loss of Saul as King, the defeat of promise, the loss of integrity, and it grieved him.

This was a leader choice indeed, delivering from erratic dynamics to a more consistent arrangement and establishment, one which in David, the one chosen, would lead onto the very threshold of the building of the Temple, with a massive testimony to truth and the wonders of peace and the beauty of holiness in the Lord, going to many lands.

With this further one of the CLOUD of WITNESSES, we turn to the king whom he was used to select (by the direct counsel of the Lord, leading and restraining him!), the often noble, always notable, and if not perfect, yet intensively spiritual David, whose on vast error was so mightily used for help to many for millenia (Psalm 51 in its personal setting). 

DAVID

Like Samuel, David began young: though not SO young as the child Samuel, chosen in a startling manner that has instructed the imagination and conscience of many for long (I Samuel 2:22ff.).

David was persecuted by Saul (almost a prelude to power - a teething, searching time being spent as with Joseph, Joshua, Moses and now David). He had to go into a wilderness, pursued by 3000 men of HIS OWN NATION, following the increasingly crazed, jealous notions of Saul. Eventually delivered, after many vicissitudes, like Joseph, he became King. Even before this he was used in remarkable battles against the enemy, one most notable the killing of a giant.  A deliverer indeed, as a man from the Lord, was David. Though only a youth, sent to bring provisions for his brothers, arriving on the battle field he found a Philistine, unbelieving giant daring anyone to fight him in single conflict as an index for battle. The mature had failed to meet the challenge.

This David could hardly believe, having had to deal with lion and bear when sparing the sheep. Challenged even here as big-headed, he persevered, a lesson in itself, since this sort of thing is usually not worth the time, a routine trip wire for those doing their duty amidst rebelliousness or weakness.

The armour provided was too heavy, so he went with only a sling and stone. A further lesson appears: trust in the Lord and don't attempt to win by mere means! At once he showed a further point. "You come to me with a spear and a sword," he told the giant, "BUT I AM COMING IN THE NAME OF THE LORD," he announced (emphasis added - I Samuel 17). So saying, he slung the successful shot to the precise spot uncovered in the giant head, then beheaded the stunned braggart with his own sword, and thus entered into the nearer time to his enthronement as King of Israel. This however was not to occur until after much tribulation, many tests, to toughen, to teach patience, to elicit spiritual wisdom, as he waited on the Lord. His Psalms^*4 often show this!

As King he was loving, often brotherly (II Samuel 23:15ff.), was loved, fearless but watchful (II Samuel 5), and brought to the kingdom a name, a stability and a moderation mixed with mercy which has always distinguished his reign. To be sure, he failed massively on ONE occasion (not so terrible a record! - II Samuel 11-12), but his constant faithfulness was a thing of beauty, for all that.

Here is one more of the cloud of witnesses both of the power, and the love, of the tender-heartedness and of the truth of the Lord, in sharp contrast to the troubles before him, and the harshness following Solomon, his son, in grandson Rehoboam.

Since Solomon was used to confirm and to establish, he is less now in the line chosen, that of deliverers, so we pass on to the prophets in our selective overview of salient features.

THE PROPHETS

Isaiah

What a call had Isaiah, one of the phalanx for deliverance, of prophets whose writings from the Lord adorn the Old Testament^*5. It was of these that the Lord Jesus Christ affirmed, that not one jot (smallest letter) or tittle (smallest notable different between two letters) would pass from these writings till ALL would be fulfilled (Matthew 5:17-20). In fact, believing and teaching, holding and following these commands, these things was made a criterion for greatness in the kingdom of heaven, even for the small, while not doing so and not teaching so was enough to make the greatest small.  Such was the teaching of Christ on the Word of God written.

'This fulfilment exactitude of these writings has been verified continually and never, since the time on earth of Christ, has this been so volubly exposed or seen so much as in the last 100 years or so, most of which has been in this author's lifetime, making for an evocative  pageant and inspiring scenario.

Let us return to Isaiah. In Isaiah 6 we find his call set in symbols, yet in a vision of God. His lips being unclean, as he protests, a coal is taken from the altar, and touching his lips, purges them. He is afraid to have seen this vision of God, showing his sensitivity, but he is assured that his iniquity is taken away, his sin is purged (cf. Psalm 103,  Micah 7:19ff.).

He hears a question being asked: WHOM SHALL I SEND ? as from the Lord. "Here am I!" he cries, "Send me!" How heavy is the message, for it is one of judgment on perennially dull hearing and blurred vision on the part of a people who refuse to "hear with their ears and understand with their heart, and return and be healed." One might have thought that they would RACE to be pardoned, purified, healed; for what could be surpassing above that! But they would not, while yet drawing near to God with their LIPS! (Isaiah 29:13). Yes, it was a hard message for Isaiah to present, but there were many many mercies and opportunities given through the prophet, from the lips of the Lord, for the people. He commanded His words clearly, and the prophet had no quandary, though it is said that he was sawn in two - whether or not this be correct, it is clear that he ran the gauntlet as he dealt with kings and people alike, in the name of the Lord, not as an authority, but as prophet sent and surrendered to do the will of God.

In Isaiah 7, a tricky King facing a pair of arrogantly invasive nations is afraid, and offered through Isaiah an absolute carte blanche for his needs, high to the heavens, deep to the depths. It reminds one of Ephesians 3:20, Mark 11:23-24). However, the king of the day equivocated: I will not tempt the Lord. How ludicrous! What a mismatch of words and deeds...

It is as if he could not HEAR that it was the Lord who was making an offer. You are dying of thirst in a desert, and as your heart fails and your mouth begins to blacken, you find someone freely offering drink. Oh, I will not test you! the meek and mild you replies. Impossible ? near to it. Yet something quite like it was in fact managed by King Ahaz in reply to the offer of Isaiah from the mouth of God! Naturally he received no help for his disfaith (not mere lack of it, but a sort of cancerous and invasive substitute for it); but while the two nations concerning him were not to be so significant, a worse thing was to come! (Isaiah 7). Yet with all this, the coming of the Messiah was at once disclosed^*5, and fortified in the prophecy in Isaiah 9, as in 11, 22, 28-29, 32, 40, 42, 49, 51-55, 61, 65 and so on. If the Israel of that day would not listen, then the gift would come in its time, and the failure would have effect long before then! (Isaiah 7:17ff.)

I Peter cites  Isaiah as does Christ, and his work is one of the most amazingly sustained evangelical presentations in the Old Testament, so that one feels he has seen it himself, experienced the throb of giant events, like that of a vast motor on board some passenger vessel on the high seas. So did the Lord instruct His people of the coming Christ, 7 centuries before He came, in consort at various times with the prophet-king David, who like Micah, Zechariah, Haggai, Joel, Zephaniah, Jeremiah and Daniel also spoke of these things . Like a floral glory in some splendid garden, the beauties of this display are overpowering, their scent superb, the combination glorious.

Jeremiah

This next prophet, Jeremiah, is one also seen in the setting of deliverer, though Jerusalem was in fact destroyed at the end of his time, was placed in this category for these reasons.

First, he did not seek his office; but he was called to it by God who affirmed this (Jeremiah 5),

 "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you;
before you were born, I sanctified you;
I ordained you a prophet to the nations."

Indeed, he was ordained for a known task in the mercies and seeking of the Lord. God never fails.

Secondly, he was told to "speak whatever I command you," 1:7. While Jeremiah did have a passing mood of rebelliousness and expostulation, it was more exasperation than revolt. You see that in Jeremiah 20:7, after the rejection by Israel of almost every conceivable exhortation, invitation, presentation of opportunity; and here is Jeremiah, as unloved, disregarded, hostilely or at least distantly considered, as if a menace, a thief. It is hard to take; and he writhed a little, in some measure of torment.

"O Lord," he expostulated, "You induced me, and I was persuaded.
You are stronger than I, and have prevailed," 20:7.

Later, he continues (20:8-9):

"... the word of the Lord  was made to me a reproach and a derision daily.
Then I said, 'I will not make mention of Him, nor speak anymore in His name.'
But His word was in my heart like a burning fire, shut up in my bones;
I was weary of holding it back."

He was mocked: give us your report and we will report you! they menacingly seethed. One knows this mood and mode, this almost naked exposure of evil, as if the devil were himself within hailing distance. I felt it particularly in the 1964 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, which by the power and the grace and mercy of God, routed the efforts of those determined to remove me from the Ministry and keep me out! It came in some, was opposed in others, but when some acted adn spoke, there was a sense of vehemence, intolerance, virtual hatred, seething scorn and a lively malice which was spiritual rather than personal. Like any great sight (good or evil), one recalls the vividness of it, and as with a disease seen by a doctor, you keep a lively impression. It is a thing to watch with care!

When you see it, you do not much need more lessons on his ways! It is something to see them at work.  Jeremiah felt them; as he said at the first, he was but a youth, and did not feel himself gifted with any special speaking power.

They watched, he tells us, for him to stumble, saying (20:10),

'Perhaps he can be induced,
then we will prevail against him,
and we will take our revenge on him.'

There: it did not last long. Now we find the elastic stretched one way, is as if pulling him back sharply from any waywardness of spirit, though it was but natural he should feel the twang! "But," he says, "the Lord was with me as a mighty, awesome One. Therefore my persecutors will stumble and not prevail ... their everlasting confusion will never be forgotten." This reminds one of Psalm 109! When the MERCY of God is reviled and despised, what is there left! If the disease of sin kills, what happens to what kills the merciful and only treatment for it!  Yet for all this reassurance in the Spirit, Jeremiah feels the thrust of his personal, collegiate, political and social rejection, fuming: "Cursed be the day in which I was born!" like Job beginning to wish that at birth, he had had his life snuffed!

However, from these inward turmoils he recovers; yet they do serve to show the unselfishness of his work, the cost of his composure and the strength of the adverse psychological winds within, as well as the social ones outside, which he suffered.

His work did not noticeably suffer from this little time of tempest! Thus, in Jeremiah 9, we find him wishing that he could weep day and night for the "slain of the daughter of my people," because it is increasingly clear that there is no escape from the coming judgment for them: only negativity, only organised dismissal and mockery, only modes of not listening, not heeding, these are the responses. If it hurt a little personally, yet it moved him profoundly as a prophet, to see only ruin ahead in the short term, for a recalcitrant people, gifted in divorce from the spiritual realities of God. It was well that there was a glorious ending, but what tragedies lay in between! (Jeremiah 23:5-8, 31:31ff.).

In Jeremiah 17, we find him given a message from the Lord to the nation, that if they will ONLY cease from breach of the covenanted SABBATH rest day, ceasing burden bearing, giving their bodies and minds a chance to recoup and recover, in this way, and their spirits opportunity more deeply to commune with the Lord (cf. Isaiah 58:13-14), then "there shall enter into this city kings and princes sitting on the throne of David ... accompanied by the men of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and this city shall remain forever." That reminds us of the offer of Jesus Christ to give eternal life, but they were otherwise engaged (cf. Matthew 13:11-16, John 5:24, 38-40).

Thus Jeremiah gave them opportunity in the very simplest terms, to continue on and on, in grace and government as the Lord would lead them. What an instant solution! But it searched deep, for who not believing, can REST at all in the Lord, and who, unsanctified, can sanctify the day before the Lord! Nevertheless, if there were any simplicity, any hope, any scope for the earnest, here it was. But they did not take it!

At length, Jeremiah was falsely charged with falling away to the armies of assault, those of Babylon, when doing something commercial for his affairs. Not merely was he imprisoned, but made to appear a traitor. This was the sadder for, as with Christ, PERSONALLY sent from God later, it was ONLY  by doing what he said that destruction could be avoided for the city! In this respect, then, Jeremiah was a 'type' of Christ, with words so pointed, so disregarded, while he himself was mistreated. Indeed, he was  in danger of death through starvation or sinking in the muck of the well, made into his prison. Christ, however, did die and was raised, the emblem and core, centre and dynamic of reality, leader and deliverer for all at any time who come to Him.

With Jeremiah, the case continued, the people resisted, the King was ambivalent, distressed, weak. Indeed, King Zedekiah was personally frightened,  asked to see the prophet who was brought to him. When sought and brought, Jeremiah told the king that he had to surrender to the Babylonians, and if he did, the city would be spared and those in it. If not, the case would be very different. But, said the King, I will be mocked and mistreated if they put me with the other captives: he did not believe in the divine protection in view! He lacked faith; he evidently did not even KNOW God!

Therefore the safe conduct offer, this also, was refused. Jeremiah had to suffer what might have seemed something altogether too close for comfort to uselessness, futility, since whatever he proposed, offered, to great or small, few or many, with solicitation and exhortation, with loving lament or with dire warning, it was rejected, and he personally was treated almost as if a criminal. In fact, in this latest development he was falsely charged AS a criminal, so again, becoming a type of Christ, and this to an increasing degree.

Later, when Jerusalem  fell, he was offered a safe place in Babylon, but did not opt for it. Rather, he stayed with the remnant of the people. When the Governor of those left in Jerusalem was appointed by Babylon, and their troops had withdrawn, in a very short time that dignitary was murdered, and the people took Jeremiah and asked for his advice. WHATEVER you tell us from the Lord, we will do, they assured him. It reminds me of two pastorates I took, when similarly assured, one in New Zealand and in in Chicago; but when in each case the pressure came, convenience replaced conviction, if indeed it had ever been there.

Jeremiah, thus commissioned by the residual people in Jerusalem, duly sought the Lord and gave the message in reply. He told them BY NO MEANS to go off to Egypt, their former abode, for if they did they would only find devastation there. In fact, Nebuchadnezzar would go there! Fleeing there would be into his arms; but this appears to have been precisely what they did, advising Jeremiah, having sought the answer from the Lord, of the answer he was to get from them. In a gloriously tragi-comic response, they wrote as if for their epitaph, these words, but spoke them at that time (Jeremiah 44:16-17):

·         "As for the word that you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord,
we will not listen to you!" they intoned.
 

·         "But we will certainly do whatever has gone out of our own mouth."

That included burning incense to the queen of heaven, something that anticipated Mary's mistreatment by Romanism^*5A, by several thousand years. One has heard of cases where people state or imply that they do not know what they THINK until they have SAID it! One can imagine such a practice; but this was more even than that. What came out of their mouths (with or without counsel, reason or righteousness), this would constitute what they would do. It reminds one of a dog. Some bark and wag the tail, others being more aggressive. But whatever comes out of their jaws, this bark, it signifies query and provides for possible violence. They do it, and so it is done. With a human spirit, however, this becomes the essence of the peremptory.

To the last, Jeremiah's gracious messages and offers were resisted, even resented. Will of man, carnal commandeering of the people by their own selves, fearlessness in the very face of God, these became their hall-marks, thrall marks and tombstone epitaph items.

That Jeremiah kept on offering is a testimony of the great patience and love of God IS his deliverance; for it may well have delivered many over the centuries since, in securing for their hearts, an understanding of the goodness of God, the intensity and sheer immensity of His love and the reality of our human plight, which He has met, stirring them to faith. What others reject, from the very passion and grace, wisdom and concern of its proferment, becomes a ground for acceptance. The fate of fatuity becomes an appeal to avoid it!

Further, after the 70 year exile which he was told to predict for the coming exile of Judah, was duly fulfilled, it would be a comfort to those returning to rebuild, to know how foolish had been their provocation, and how great had been His mercy, that they could live at all, let alone come back!

After all,  even after all that, it was the Lord who would move historical wheels, so that the next Empire, that of the Medes and Persians (also predicted, in order, by Daniel, as by Isaiah, who in Isaiah 44-45^*5B, added over a hundred years before it happened, the name of the King who would allow them to return to their land), would perform a benevolent act. It would freely release them from  their exile, and Cyrus would institute proceedings for the restoration by command. When and how they were to be freed, was foretold. Jeremiah foretold such things, such as the 70 years of exile for Israel (Jeremiah 25), and even something of their more eventual deliverance (Jeremiah 23:5ff); and thus ever since has been a strength for the saints, through the word of the Lord given through him, and the testimony of the reliability and patience of the Lord, which he depicted.

DANIEL

When the city was to be rebuilt, was it not in terms of this 70 year prophecy for the exile, that Daniel could prevail in prayer! (Daniel 9:2)! From this we learn not to be too subjective, but instead, to stick closely to every part of the word of God, to take it as authoritative, and as to what He promises,  to assume this, for truth is no presumption, and on this to act.

God did act, and in addition, showed to Daniel not only the death date of the coming Messiah, but a host of data before His coming, and much after it, thus forming a type of partnership with Jeremiah, like people in an office. They are called in, one after the other, to the Boss, who speaks in coherent and integral terms, some things going to the one, some to the other, all things to go according to plan. With God only, ALL things actually do, including the 'chaff' of rebelliousness going where it is carried, as if blown away. If man wishes to depersonalise God, he is asking for just such impersonality in his own life's results! On the other hand, God KNOWS the path of His justified saints (Psalm 1:5-6).

Daniel of whom much has been said in this site already (cf. Highway of Holiness), was a cadet selected when looming near, was that catastrophic  downfall of Jerusalem at the hand of Babylon.

 His training at once distinguished him, first for godliness and then for that nearness of God which enabled him to interpret what none of the other counsellors could. This, like his foretelling history for millenia in crucial aspects, often highly detailed, was simply a resultant of his knowing God personally, walking with and working for Him, loving and trusting Him, and being appointed to this special function.

No one else could meet the challenge of the frustrated King Nebuchadnezzar. After all, what was the good, he seemed to feel, of being King and having all these wise persons if they could not be relied to tell him what he needed to know about his life, especially AS King! He had an important and pre-occupying dream, and he wanted its meaning. If not at once, near to it.

 Imperiously if not impetuously, he wanted so-called wise men killed or come up with the meaning of this dream which he had experienced, WITHOUT being told what it was. THAT would give some experimental verification to their clamour and claims! One might almost imagine his majesty permitting himself a smile of royal disdain, aglint with wrathful glee.

In fact, no one but one cadet who had been exported from Judah, could understand. After all, to know a dream which you did not dream, and which the dreamer will not divulge, and then to interpret it and to do so in a situation where hostility is in the air and disbelief is virtually professional in the person of an outraged and fed-up King, weary of prevaricating prognosticators, and then to convey it with such intimate accuracy as to dismiss these doubts and command a hearing: this was a work of God. Daniel was assigned to do the performance, God supplying the knowledge and His Spirit. While we do not all have the same task, the seeming impossibility of ANY task duly required of us by the Lord according to His written word, should merely whet the appetite. With GOD, NOTHING is impossible. It is a privilege very often, to find out in experience, just how He does it from time to time. It is of course not for pleasure, as it may involve perils and pain; but it is an exposure of the spirit to the clean and perfect winds of heaven, better than any merely physical breeze, since they are holy and provided in a love not only for the agent, but for those to whom His servants are sent. Thus, even His mercy rejected has the bloom of His glorious desire in it. Daniel therefore could and did act; BECAUSE God having sent him, supplied this extraordinary need.

In fact, it was for precisely with such purposes in view, that God had anointed him for this amazing prophetic ministry in the midst of a career as a cadet to become a statesman, that he so prevailed. A statesman in the country which devastated his own, and on his own spiritual terms! This was possible because God did it, and the ways to this end are seen as one reads the various successive, successful steps in the book of Daniel. It is well, however, to remember how early Daniel could well have been cut off in this affair; but God having a long-term ministry for him, acted to forestall any such action.

Where better do you find what the Lord can do with one converted sinner whose trust is cardinal, whose heart is purified, whose mind is zealous for truth! A lion's den did not have the usual result, such as was found for the hungered lions in the stadium events for Roman pleasure much later, in the day of Daniel's predicted Fourth Empire^*5B. Daniel not only came out unscathed after a night with them, but the  King, now Darius,  was deeply concerned and saw the issue for what it was: Has your God been able to deliver you! Since He was, and Daniel had a long-continuing testimony as walking with God, the God of the 'impossible', therefore Darius made a decree - rather like that of Constantine, but rather more strenuous! - concerning the God of Daniel and His worthiness for worship. He, said Darius, is the living God.

The testimony thus mounted as Daniel's reliability continued, and his prophecies as shown in Highway of Holiness, in no mean detail,   leave nothing but  amazement and delight at their depth, profundity of wisdom and coverage of detail, not even stopping at the death date of Christ or the nature of His removal; indeed carrying on to the present and what in a little, is still to come. Such was the word of the Lord through Daniel, as far above man's abilities as the heavens above the earth, as Daniel was consistently careful to make clear: he was but an agent to deliver what he was given (Daniel 2:30).

There too is a deliverer, who himself often enough was delivered, who stands as a double-acting deliverer, both knowing and showing the work of the Lord.

Ezekiel

But what more might be said of Ezekiel, showing in personal parables things to amaze the people that they might listen; yet for all that finding that in the main, his case was like that of Jeremiah in this, his words were largely disregarded. Thus in Ezekiel 33:30-33 (emphasis added), we have this tableau, like the words of a play, though this was for life and death, for all that.

"Also, you son of man, the children of your  people still are talking against you by the walls and in the doors of the houses, and speak one to another,
every one to his brother, saying, '   
'Do come and hear what is the word that comes forth from the Lord.'

"So they come to you as the people come,
and they sit before you as My people,
and they hear your words, but they will not do them:
for with their mouth they show much love,
but their heart goes after their covetousness.

"Indeed, you are to them as a very lovely song of one
who has a pleasant voice, and can play well on an instrument:
for they hear your words, but they do not do them not.

 

"Now when this comes to pass,
(behold! it will come), then shall they know that a prophet has been among them."

What it is that was going to come to pass, and DID, was stated a little earlier in 33:29: the Lord would make the land "most desolate because of all their abominations which they have committed."

Yet it was from Ezekiel that we get some of the most poignantly compassionate and enduringly reassuring, tender and moving statements from the Lord, as in the far famed 33:11, and the challenging words both in that chapter and in Ch. 18. His predictions ranged from the immediate contemporary situation, to the coming of the Messiah in his special figurative format (Ezekiel 40ff.), and the FINAL return of Israel to the land, when they would be sprinkled with water as they came back to the Lord (Ezekiel 36), and be ashamed for their own faithlessness in the face of His faithfulness.

First back to their land they would come, and then back to the Lord in heart, and then at last, David their King (that is the Messiah as promised, a descendant of David according to the flesh side of things), would rule (Ezekiel 37:24). This would be to a new covenant (36:26-27, 37:24, Jeremiah 31:31ff., Hebrews 8) and so its introductory rite would change accordingly. It would lead to restoration to the Lord, the Prince, to Messiah from David's line (Ezekiel 37:24).

Thus in depth and detail, Ezekiel, amid the passion for his people in the very last crumbling rock of the precipice before judgment, was used to delineate and define crucial elements of what was to come AFTER the crushing, from the mercy of God.

Moreover, as in Micah 7, there is in Ezekiel 38-39, no small note of the repulsion by direct divine power of one of the near terminal assaults on the land, by Northern powers in alliance, the Lord showing the nations two things: Israel was exiled for its sins against the Lord and He is able to bring them both security and peace in the Messiah. There will then be for them as for the Gentiles (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6, Jeremiah 16, with 31:31ff.), a New Covenant (Ezekiel 37:26) just as there is a vindication of the divine sending of Israel TO its land, and removing them for an extended period, FROM it (Ezekiel 39:23-29. 37:13ff.).

People will realise that just as God uses bread as a symbol in the Lord's Supper, so He has used Israel as a symbol of His faithfulness and reliability, veracity, wisdom and understanding, throughout whatever vicissitudes, desolations and difficulties. Israel itself, and the nations, said Ezekiel in the name of the Lord, they will BOTH know what has been done and why.

Always there is in mind with this prophet, both the charge, to WARN those who err of their sins if by any means they might come back to the Lord, as there is opportunity, and not to WAVER but to TRUST in the Lord, because (33:11):

"Tell them,

'As I live, says the Lord GOD,

'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked;

but that the wicked turn from his way and live:

turn, turn from your evil ways;

for why will you die, O house of Israel?' "

Others of the prophets, like Micah, Jonah, Haggai, Joel cited in Acts, Jonah, Zechariah, give a whole series of tableaux such as those concerning the coming Messiah, and the eventual return and history to come with Israel when it finally comes back to its land, as it has done now, and to that same Lord whom they crucified and to that same Gospel which the apostles presented. These and more are there, who in the Bible speak in His name to constitute one living body of that divine deposit, the word of God to man, in its sole authorised system, setting and presentation.

So does Ezekiel join the cloud of witnesses in assiduity, avoiding the promiscuity of his people, an ardent herald of truth, prepared to perform gruelling deeds in miming and little dramas to stir the imagination (Ezekiel 3-6), grip the heart, while challenging his people both to give and to receive warning (Ezekiel 18, 33), and to realise to the uttermost point the meaning of responsibility before God. In this, he was used to do what resembles a dry dock work, to remove the covering of conscience and to assist the realisation of warning, as the very breath of the pit was discernible, for the wandering people. Moreover, in his first chapter, he provides the record of the vision of God which is full of wisdom and breeds understanding. This is to be found in Massifs of Pure Splendour Ch. 9, while another enthralling and instructive vision not readily forgotten, involving the very Gospel itself, is found in Ezekiel 47 (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 5).

Indeed, there are others of them,  whom we find similarly constituting more and more of the CLOUD of WITNESSES of which Hebrews speaks, for they inhabit both Old and New Testaments, both having one faith in one God through one sacrificial system concentrated into One sacrifice to perform in One New Covenant what is required for free and everlasting acceptance into the kingdom of the Lord (Isaiah 52-55).

THE LORD,

THE DYNAMIC DELIVERER WHO IS DEITY:

JESUS

In this survey of some significant foci of divine grace accorded to mankind, between the flood and the coming of Christ, on the one hand, and then,  in the coming to the present, there is need for perspective.

As God proceeded from the carnage, the water death of myriads, too corrupt to live, permitted to continue till their end declared itself in the mind of God as inevitable, in that flood which man loves to minimise or ignore, to the point that it becomes ludicrous, there were many steps of information, first to Christ's coming to suffer as sacrifice. Warning, exhortation and extensive detailed preparation for the arrival of His Majesty, Jesus Christ, were given, enabling His recognition when He came, and stirring the heart for realisation when it happened (as with Simeon, Luke 2:25ff.). The prophets, and above all, the Christ Himself, had mockery in vain, since His is the testimony that endures, and His word HAPPENS unlike any other, whether from science or knowledge of any kind. Science changes radically, often; the word of God has no need of change..

What of that flood, our present point of departure for development ? With vast regions of the USA, for example, exhibiting what finds no other rational explanation but maritime deluge and overlays without surrounding fractures, signifying not omissions but upheavals, while surfaces supposedly separated by millions of years show no signs of wear and tear at the margins, and trees soar up over millions of years of layers of rocks, by magical theories, without decaying in that time, rootless indeed, while diamonds supposedly millions of years in age turn out to be constrained by C¹⁴ residues^*6, to far lesser ages, we merely start^*7. The list continues remorselessly, and flood evidences^*8 are regional, not merely episodic.

So has been the case of the testimony of truth throughout this post-diluvian period. Both the flood and the testimony since that time are strenuously resisted by many, for whom the mere savour of salvation is abominable, since man MUST, standing ovation, be able to paddle his own canoe, and the flood would have been too big for that symbolic craft. He just must or bust, seems to be the sad folly of the philosophy of many, who nevertheless face astronomical dangers threatening constantly, while man now threatens himself with nuclear discharge, staggeringly easily used as mere scatter over cities, making almost a tragi-comedy of his grandeur, susceptible to extinction by madmen, of whom this world has no lack.

How can man BE what he wants to be, so that he can ROB the universe and RULE its enormous energy by sheer cleverness, IGNORE the catastrophes of the past and the biblical warning concerning that coming from the hand of Him who produced the first one, that nearly extinguished our race ? How can he control himself so that he can rob quietly and get on with living by his own wits and wants and wisdom ? This is the unanswerable question which sends men to space (along with curiosity and mutual distrust), millions into poverty and pain, and wise-heads into interlocking, sharp and piercing horns murderously poised over each other, ready to penetrate to the heart, backed by intimidation, and forwarded in mutilation, exploitation, corruption socially, militarily, with political means both rife and ready to expand.

'The alternative is to return

       to reason (SMR cf. Romans 1:17ff.), and

       to God which it requires, and to His word which HE requires (the ultimate in 'required reading'),

and

       to face its realities and the overall control of history there displayed,
its verifications and validations^*8A,

       to humble oneself in His presence,
repent of follies, idle ignorings, idol bearings,
the folly of humanistic, secularist and sensationalist outpourings, and

       to seek redemption through the divine provision (cf. SMR pp. 582ff..  TMR Ch. 3).

Of this there is only ONE. What would you expect ? That ONE God with ONE race of ONE kind with ONE major defect of misusing the fantastic functionalities of his gifts of mind, spirit and body in blaring belligerence, the one made towards God made him: that this God would have a variety of opinions ? If man whom He made can be decisive, how much more the One who created this quality, whose wisdom knows no limits, who changes not at all, whose principles do not alter, whose ways are eternal, beyond our time! Breach with God has one common them: that it is separation and segregation from God, and hence from His word and His commandments, operational perspectives for man; and so requires in justice simple death. Why justice ? It is a form of reality: breach what is essential and die. Invent yourself at odds with what you are and suffer collision from your corruption, an infantile seeming misuse of rational power to invent what is irrational as a basis for living (cf. SMR Ch. 3 and Ch. 5 in contrast).

One result comes, it is the Gospel. One action is found, it is that of the cross. It has background, God sending not only His written word which stands unabashed over the millenia, but His personal expression, His Word, to become man and as man, being yet deity, to bear with the infinite capacity of deity, the sins of all who are willing to come to Him,  just as Jerusalem, in Christ's day on this earth, was not. That they are willing, any of them to come to Him, this is a fashioning from eternity (as with Jeremiah the prophet, whom God knew before his birth on this earth), in which the stated love of God that ALL might be reconciled to Himself (Colossians 1:19ff.), is narrowed down by His foreknowledge beyond created actions, of those who prefer darkness to light, in the very face of His desire and gift.

Heaven is to have no second-thoughts opportunists: God knows. Come to Him if you will, but it is He who enables you because He has foreknown the truth concerning you ( Ephesians 1:4, Colossians 1:19ff.). Reject Him now and it simply attests that even back of your sin, in His foreknowledge, this is the 'you' that wants none of Him, at any price, under any conditions. Most of this world is rather like that, and those snatched from the burning are monuments to mercy, like a train with carriages hanging from a broken bridge, but not yet fallen off into the raging tumult below. It is good to be met by mercy when the One who gives it is pure, peaceable, gracious, kindly, all-knowing, has a heart of love, suffers no folly, enables wisdom, like a Shepherd knows how to look after his sheep, and in fact, being Creator knows a great deal more even than that.

This brings us to the present theme. As many were used, in the presence of God and at the gracious invitation and activation by God, to bring deliverance to man, in the past, and we have traced some a little in overview above, so there is that centre from which the  delivering motive, motif, power, wisdom and control of events proceeds. Some are sent; but there is One who does the sending, Himself sent as Saviour, that He might send.

In this aspect, we find HIM, and HE comes forth to be seen, heard, attested, invested with such grace on this earth as befits the only begotten Son of God (John 1:14), for to become man for this purpose it is necessary to be born, and in so being born, the Word of God assumes a singularity as the only begotten, not being a type, but a Person unique in utter expression of God.  Thus now, not only is He the very Word of God, eternal and all-wise (John 8:58, Micah 5:1-3, John 1:1, Philippians 2, Revelation 2 with Isaiah 44:6^*9), but His arrival on this earth is not by abstract irruption. It is by conduction in the way necessary if one is to become a man - that of a child, which requires an embryo which requires a womb, which requires what is tantamount to inception as in Luke 1:35, which means that the express image of God, His eternal Word, Himself becomes the only begotten on earth, the first-born (Colossians 1:15), since this acknowledges the place of pre-eminence, even for Him, who as the living Word of God, is Creator!

Why, then, the firstborn ? As Colossians states it, it is BECAUSE He is the Creator. The "image of the invisible God" He takes this place among men because all things visible and invisible were created by Him.

He came.

It happened once.

It could happen once since God has use the image of Himself in man, for such an introduction to live among men.

He could die only once, since this is the lot of man (Hebrews 2, 9). This He did but not for Himself, as Daniel declares it (Daniel 9:26). Why then was He cut off as Daniel shows it ? It did not relate to His own 'fate' or due arraignment. It had nothing to do with Himself as one obligated justly so to suffer.

In this, HE was not the point; MAN was. This is one translation meaning. The other is that there was nothing to Him, that man left Him no congratulation, no thanks and nothing but death in his authoritative dealings with the Son of God. The translation enables either and hence is susceptible to both meanings. He was deprived of all, on the one hand, and on the other, the death was not on account of His dealings, as if they required it as a proper and due focus of legal condemnation. Both meanings are true.

Not for His sins was He cut off; and being cut off FOR the sins of others, who should believe in Him, that they be freely cleared and pardoned and given peace with eternal life, liberty from the control of sin and relish of relationship with Himself, He therefore suffered sin's impact. This left Him with nothing, for in so bearing it, He had to face it, and it defaces. While His sinlessness as God could not alter, since God who is changeless, in becoming man did not become a sinner but stayed the Saviour, yet His suffering of the CONSEQUENCES of sin could not be allayed. Hence there was  NOTHING TO HIM, no ground of condemnation to be affixed, and NOTHING FOR HIM. He was bereft, all authority deposing, all psychology deriding, so that nothingness of status, stature (on the cross it is difficult to maintain that) was left to Him, but desolation and degradation as far as man could reach, this was man's gift to Him.

It was a strange exchange: a massif of mercy, a marvel of grace, an eternal pillar of righteousness, an outrageous manifestation of love in the face of pitilessness, so that it was as open as the lily, perfumed as wistaria, beautiful as the  rose, this combination of delights. AThis is on the one hand. On the other ? In bearing sin, He is left derelict till death, even amidst the stony heavens which affix the condemnation,  and the abominations of this earth which caused it. This vicarious victory was a triumph of mercy, a campaign of love and a wonder of witness of God to man.

Yet that is God: He does not change, His ways are the same, wise and adequate, and not in vain does He cry to man (cf. Proverbs 8), though many deride and dismiss Him, as if to dismiss their own hearts, which consequently can harden to the point of a black diamond. He does not clear or acquit the guilty (Nahum), as if to deny their guilt, but being abundant in mercy (Micah 7:19ff.), He solves the problem by becoming sin's sacrifice, and thus granting pardon freely, graciously, but to those who receive it unreservedly by faith, liberally.

Venerate ? respect ? admire this Christ ? When God so displays Himself, not so deeply affronted by man that He WILL NOT tolerate it any longer, but so deeply concerned and grieved for him that He WILL not decline any godly step in love and pity to save him, there are at once three grounds for worship of that same God.

Firstly, as Creator in absolute power and status, HIS is any wisdom, goodness, understanding, beauty which can be conferred on man. leading to gratitude and acknowledgement, then worship. Secondly, as concerned for the misuse of the staggering powers of thought and action, imagination and understanding given to us, He has acted on our behalf, the very image of God surpassing all imagination with reality. Thirdly, there is this also that enables worship, that He BOTHERED to the point of action. Unlike common politics, it HAPPENED, all that He said, and what He said, He could do and DID. There is ground for worship in such a Being as this.

Fourthly, His action was not only relevant and pointed and understanding and wise and adequate, it was personal and here His longsuffering turned into direct suffering, and this into human suffering, so that whereas before, IN all their afflictions, He was afflicted (Isaiah 63), now FOR ALL OUR AFFLICTIONS, He was afflicted; only for those however who came to receive this.

Even for dinner, you do have to come, unless of course a stewardess brings it to your seat or some such service is provided. You can decline. Thus,  even here, it is as if your seat is marked, "NO FOOD THANK YOU!", since you evidently prefer to sleep or to work before the plane crashes for some reason. Proverbs 1 is a classic illustration of the vast kindness and interest, availability of God, offering to reach and to teach you, to give you understanding; but this refused, you inherit the 'nothing for you' at length, which your refusal requires. Often He may solicit, but if in the end, this is your beginning of final destiny, then so be it.

 He did not make us programmatic modules but man! Glorious in opportunity, is this creation, and glorious is the God who gives it, and wonderful is the cost for it which He was willing to endure, even though we as mankind were beyond any pale mentionable in sinning against so great a Creator. Accordingly, inglorious is its rejection, and squalid is the sin which insists on this.

Ít is one thing to sacrifice oneself, to bear with false reproach and insult and unglamorous humility for long in patience and motivated by love, to seek mercy for the object of one's love. It is another to have this tender-hearted grace mocked and despised and relegated to curse and disdain or arrogant indifference. It is not that this is beyond all patience, merely; it is rather than it despises what it is to be, what it is gloriously endowed to become, and SO does not become it, but becomes a remnant, as in a crash of an aeroplane, or a car in a race.

Meanwhile, glorious indeed is the result when it is received^*10, for to know God is of all things the  most blessed, beneficial, beautiful, overwhelming delight in reality, in restoration with grace, through enlivening with truth, activation with dynamic, more than one could even imagine.

Here then is the SOURCE and the SUBSTANCE, the ORIGIN and the ACME of deliverance in Jesus Christ, so humbling Himself that the arrogant and the self-centred may, being blind, dismiss Him and smile for a while; and yet so exalted in His actions and His power and grace, that transit from ruin to redemption moves like a train on rails. His overcoming of every obstacle and performance of all as written beforehand for Him, meant that none could disestablish Him from what He claimed to be: Truth itself. Now the days of His humiliation merely add lustre to His crown. What prince who DID what was princely at COST and with self-sacrifice of the utmost kind, would NOT receive more lustre, a prince not for pleasure but for pity.

When however it is God Himself who so acts, here is found the Prince of Princes and the Lord of Lords, and His is worship due and just. In the very waterfall of love, is His wisdom, and the spectacular rainbows above the falls, speak volumes from the volumes below, forever.

APOSTLES AND MARTYRS

REFORMERS AND WINGED FEET

Since that time,

       what apostles (Acts 1-20 for example),
 

       what miracles of sustaining power (cf. Acts 3-10),
 

       what imprisonments,
 

       what deliverances of deliverers who gave out the message, the Gospel,
the word of God,
who specialised in its dissemination, application and illustration
(cf. Acts 6:4),
 

       what martyrs of brilliance, laced with miraculous results of specific faith
(e.g. Acts 6:8ff., 9:31ff., 19:12ff.),
 

       what directions (Acts 18:9ff., 11:1-17, 16:7,8ff.),
 

       what attestations in power (Acts 13:4-12),
 

       what escapes by angelic intervention (Acts 12),
 

       what masses of martyrdoms, for the impact of grace and the attestation,
enabling more recent exhibits of the sufferings  Christ
through those of His body who are still on earth (Colossians 1:24),
 

       what anointings (Acts 2), by which the Babel dispersion
and confusion of languages was overcome by miraculous power
on the birthday of the New Testament Church in fully functioning form,
a sign of things to come with more effort but no less effect,
 

       what revivals as in Wales, Britain and the USA notoriously in the 19th. century,
 

       what goodnesses as in Shaftesbury and Wilberforce,
seeking goodness in their nation,
 so that it should be more than merely formally related to Christ:

what joy in heaven has been caused and what wisdom on earth
has been granted
 

       indeed what millions have been slain, even through the teeth of wolves
 dressed as lambs (cf. Ancient Words ... Ch. 14),
 

       what atheistic purgations (as in the USSR,
and many Islamic countries now, constantly attested,
and indeed even in Orissa, India),
 

       what burnings as at Smithfield in England,

 

      what yearnings

 as in The Small Woman who went without obvious support for a remarkable missionary work in China,

      as in Hudson Taylor, in whose train 600 missionaries came to be in China.

Moreover,  

       what a model of marvel has sprung forth,

to continue the deliverance of millions,

through the preaching of the Gospel

the teaching of the Biblical truth,

through diligence in prayer,

goodness in living,

grace in spirit and

fearless courage in the face of tyrants.

Indeed, people have braved papal armies, as in the case of the Waldensians in Italy, attested biblical truth in the face of national perils from kings and nobles, as with John Wickliffe, the very spellings of whose name seem to reflect the variety of his accomplishments, with John Huss whose work impacted like lightning in Eastern Europe, centuries before its great fall in the latter part of the 20th century, of Knox and Calvin, Luther and Tyndale, Ridley and Latimer, martyrs to burn, hundreds more as in Foxe's Book of Martyrs, not now so popular just as those destroyed in their bodies on this earth, were not so popular from the days of the Roman Empire onwards. Some were slain for Christ, some quickly, some bit by bit, some in flames that were slow to catch, some more roaringly, some with pretentious displays of pompous religiosity, as they were condemned, from State or false Church.

Many have been expelled, refused teaching posts, removed from them, their names have been blackened, but not their hearts, their intelligence has been banished, but their spirits remained. Subtlety in subversion has been met by integrity in continuance, and all the wiles of the devil have not brought the Jerusalem which is above, in its current format, to the dust; but they have seen its citizens on their knees, a constant need.

Here then are arrows sent by the Lord, lights reflecting something of the Light of the World, Jesus Christ, without whom it has no hope, though its doctors are many, and because of whose rejection it piles faggots on its own fires, fires of untruth, passion, fever, febrile imaginations and fearful protestations, hatred playing with destiny, using bombs like toys, toying with death, playing with life, as in a dream, maddened by omission, men without their Maker, who spit on Him, ignore Him, despise Him, seek to eliminate Him by craftiness and dishonesty, to rule without Him, seeking bombs and starving citizens.

It continues to the end, just as Daniel 9, that great Chapter which announced from centuries beforehand the death date of the Christ, said that  it would (cf. Daniel 9:27.

This thrust to the terminus is notable in Daniel 12, which provides the very end of all this turmoil and travail;  the Gospel continues just as Christ said it would, till job done, judgment enters (Matthew 24:12ff.); and Israel is back as Christ indicated it would be. Thus the game plan proceeds as God said it would in Zechariah; and the nations will reel as indicated beforehand, and the plagues mount as foretold. Indeed, it is as in the days of Noah, when people were occupied and pre-occupied with 'getting on with things', and while the Ark had been in process of construction for years, maximally visible, yet for all that, it left without them.

Our Ark is Christ. Do not be so unwise as to let it happen a second time, and leave without you: for this Ark is not left in a mere flood for a time, but its escape leaves to judgment for ever.

 What an inheritance in the saints begins to appear, even now before the glory (Ephesians 1:18), and what a cloud of witnesses has this sun of righteousness shining through it, the very silver of it conferred from the light of the Sun, our righteousness!

Ah, says Paul, to the Church at Ephesians, I am  making mention of you in my prayers:  

"That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory,
may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him,
the eyes of your understanding being enlightened;

      that you may know what is the hope of His calling,
and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,
and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
which he wrought in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead,
and set him at His own right hand in the heavenly places,  

      far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion,
and every name that is named,
not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
and has put all things under His feet,
and gave Him to be the head over all things to the church,
which is his body, the fulness of Him who fills all in all."

Praise the Lord for His goodness, for it never fails.

NOTES

*1

See on the Alpha Course, for  example:

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

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

*2

From,  we have the point applicable here. See pp. 1088A, 981.

*14 John Paul II in The Code of Canon Law (prepared by The Canon Law Society of Great Britain and Ireland et al.), 1983, states:"It is hoped that this English version of the Code will be a fitting resource for an attentive and fruitful study of the law of the Church...We order that henceforth it is to have the force of law for the whole Latin Church, and we commit its observance to the care and vigilance of all who are responsible."

*3

See Grand Biblical Perspectives Ch. 1 on this episode in its setting. God permits with His blessing no slightest strain of the imperial, the papacy, the commandingly governing in attitude and mode, in His people, as you see in the attitude of Peter, shown in I Peter 5, as in Moses, whose norm was indeed a work of patience and care.

*4

See for example Joyful Jottings 22-25.

*5

On Isaiah 7, see SMR pp. 770ff., at *2. See also on Isaiah, With Heart ... esp. Chs.4-7, and the verses f.

See for example, With Heart ... Chs. 4-7, and  Bible Study.

*5A

In Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming Ch. 3, we see something of this latter day movement into many things contrary to the Bible, while the Bible is ostensibly affirmed. Yet it is this same Bible which forbids as we have been seeing (cf. Proverbs 30:6,  Mark 7, Revelation 22), precisely this synthetic treatment. Europe is interesting in this regard, since now it has had enough for the time, of Romanism as an entity, the EU, and speaks in broader terms of its intentions, while refusing so far, to include Rome in the reference to the past.

All this is precisely as forecast, both the rule of Rome in wrongful and deleterious use of its religious power in political ways, and its displacement.

Certainly, the Council of Europe in its Article 1 (a) stated:

·         "The aim of the Council of Europe is to achieve a greater unity between members for the purpose of safeguarding and realising their ideals and principles which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress" -  SMR p. 923.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE LATEST BRITISH CORRUPTION,
IN THE CORRIDORS OF EUROPE

In that place in our trilogy, this comment is made on that assertion of common heritage:

What however are the 'ideals and principles' which loom in a 'common heritage'? The rule of the force of a Hitler ? of a Bonaparte ? of a Mussolini ? Is it then the ungodly horror of pope and (Holy Roman) Emperor, striving for supremacy, the one over the other, for so long as to leave a... tradition! Is it their use of material power to implement (Roman) Catholic imperialistic ends (the term is just: the explicit claims are already noted). And what have these ends, these aims, involved ? not only the elevation of the pope at the expense of Christ, but the effectual belittling of the commands of Christ in the Bible, in the interim. The interim ? that until He personally returns, as He so clearly and so often stated, to deal with King impersonators and disbelievers; for they cannot stay, who will not stay with God, for God remains (cf. Zechariah 9:7, and pp. 623 ff. supra). And He remains God, and He alone (Isaiah 45:21-25). Even among the sons of the mighty, there is none like Him... not even like Him! (Psalm 89:5-6.)

Is this occasion of war - on Christ, on Christians (cf. Revelation 19:19), is this the 'common heritage', is it found, this communal past, in the Inquisition - so astonishingly long-lived, as we saw, with its ferocity still so readily unleashed in 'new ways', even this century ? Is it here, perchance! Is the torture of Christians, the butchery, no less, by Romanists to be seen in the light of a common heritage, as if blood reduces all, and being drunk with it effaces thought ? Forgiveness is not stultification... Is it like a game, with both sides part of the whole show ? Which side, then, is death, in union ?

6. The Illusions of Unity and the Marshalling of the Marketeers

Is the Reformation and the anti-Reformation a common heritage ? Is the despatch of corpses by burning, and the experience of being burnt, a common heritage ? Is it so when the very Canons of Trent remain unchanged, and 'infallible' ex cathedra popes have called to the heavens to sanctify their desire to exterminate... extirpate... any who dare diverge from their pontifical, dynamic dogmatism in doctrine ?

Ever new, this dogma reaches to the very heavens, where last century they installed Mary complete with a sinless life, having loaded her with blasphemous titles such as redemptrix (i. e. female redeemer, versus Acts 4:12, Hebrews 9:12-28, 10:26-29, Luke 2:23-24 with Leviticus 12:8 and Hebrews 9:15; Psalm 49:6-7,15, Romans 3:23, 1 John 1:8-9, Hosea 13:14, Isaiah 43:11), queen of heaven and sundry pagan insults to the very name of God and indeed to Mary (Jeremiah 7:18 and 44:15-30) who did nothing to earn this abuse of her name (Isaiah 26:13, 1 Timothy 2:5-6, Ephesians 1:10, Hebrews 10:20,29, Matthew 12:46-50). The category of redeemer of the soul of man is herein, by the word of God, shown to be exclusive to God, to a non-sinner, and once again Rome confuses Creator with creature, insulting the purity of Christ. This function of redemption excludes all help, aid, or work, but that of the one God Himself!

Is then political pragmatism and religious innovation (versus Galatians 1:6-9 which damns it) deemed a common heritage ? Is the infallible word of the unchanging God, Himself alone the mediator in the form of man, who once was in the form of God (Philippians 2) and now has a name above every name, by which alone salvation is to be found (Acts 4:12): Is this, leading to pure and sacrifical adherence to the scriptures, to be put with that!

Do we cast the beauty of freedom from the threefold papal crown with all its political assertions and worldly, carnal pretensions (versus Philippians 2:8; 2:20-22; Matthew 5:5; 18:1-5, 20:24,27-28, 23:11 Ezekiel 31:10-18, II Corinthians 10:5, Isaiah 2:10-11, 1 John 2:27, Luke 22:26, John 13:14-15!) into one common pot with the rule of the 'spiritual' OVER the temporal, of Pope over prince (verses John 18:36): as the accepted tradition of ALL!

This rugged, and all but comic craze, sent Europe almost reeling for centuries as Emperor and Pope pursued their unseemly quest for dominance, with grandiose papal bulls scouring the heavens for further means of higher exaltation of that name which is not "above every name": since it was never that of Jesus (Acts 4:11-12, Philippians 2:9); and has not been so elevated, since no pope did ever, leaving the form of God, take the form of a man, a servant, to the point of becoming obedient to death, even the death of the cross (Philippians 2:5-9), the cited Biblical preliminary for such exaltation of Him who alone will be exalted in that day (Isaiah 2:10-11).

It is this same Jesus, who sinless, unlike every pope (1 Peter 2:22-25) or invention of the pope, or of his dogmas, did not need to first pay for His own sins (Hebrews 7:27), as do all sinners, who must be redeemed, men and women (Romans 3:23), all other members of the human race whatsoever: but by the body of His flesh through death redeemed all sinners who are His, those wholly dependent on His unique act (Colossians 1:22-23, Romans 5:1-10, 8:32, John 10:26, 8:24). That act depends, as Colossians there shows, on His unique post as co-Creator of all that was created, and His having all the fulness of the Godhead dwell in Him (Colossians 1:19-23, 2:9).

Indeed, He "in all things has the pre-eminence", it is here scripturally stated, because it so pleased the Father that this Person, with His plenary place before and with God, should so humble Himself and so act, in life and in death on earth. His is no meretricious exaltation: He was God, and HE humbled Himself to become a servant. He did not exalt himself to become a Lord, from the status of a creature; but, quite the reverse, as God assumed the status of man, so that He might bring us back to God, from whom He came.

This in its magnificence of uncreated humility, a common heritage with pope and emperor challenging and humiliating each other, in the way so famous from the medieval era, so 'infallibly' enshrined within the Roman church's structure of power and concept and Trent itself: is this 'common' to all!

Will unity then come because Rome will repent ? Yet in modern times from John Paul in his 'ecumenism' to the present Pope, there is constant reiteration of Trent! It is like Lenin to the Marxists. Must one be blind and deaf not to hear the Popes, per se, constantly reiterate this dogmatic determination to stay what they are: with their bundle of traditional infallibility, like a bionic electrode, sticking into their very beings. Do not mistake. This is one example only of tension and empty words, in a full program and agenda for that Europe, with its special emphasis on Rome that Daniel foretold as being the kingdom of the end. In Europe it is; and Rome is the name for it, the exemplar and the base in history to which Daniel refers (cf. SMR pp. 912ff., 946ff., 1032-1088H).

Current pope, Benedict XVI, according to the Catholic World News. November 27, 2006, noted that Mary's acceptance of the divine will is the ultimate reason, she is Queen of Heaven. In that case (cf. Matthew 12:48-50), there are thousands of such queens, and we might as well have kingships for the men who do the will of God. But Christ did not say this. Rather he impugned all concept of elevating Mary in any singular fashion, not coming to the urgent call but completing His address and delineation of her role first.

EVERYONE, He said in her near presence, 'stretching out His hand to the many,' who does the will of God is sister and brother and mother to Me. Consider His exact words:

 "Here are My mother and my brothers!
For whoever does the will of My Father in heaven, 
is my brother and sister and mother.

Such ramping up of regality in the face of the Saviour's statement is not only adding tradition, but subtracting one authority by means of another, that of Christ by papal power. If this does not make papal procedure anti-Christian, a supplanting, what would or could! However, on the other side, much the same is done by some Pentecostalists, when they parade words and doctrines as if they were just authoritatively inspired, and the Bible is not a warrant for these. Exhortation is one thing; new doctrines are another.

As noted above,

The canon is long closed (cf. SMR Appendix   C,   D, Revelation 22:18-19), and to "add to these things" as Revelation declares, is very decidedly not recommended there! You may not subtract from the words God has given,  and you are refused permission equally to add to the things in view. Cf. What is the Chaff to the Wheat! esp. Ch. 8.

*5B

Daniel predicted Medes and Persians after Babylon in Daniel 5, and dealt with succeeding Empires in Daniel 2 and 7 (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 8 especially, with SMR pp. 886ff.. Isaiah predicted the assault of Babylon and Israel's deliverance by the Medes and Persians in Isaiah 13. Here also was a curse on Babylon, that has been amply fulfilled.

Isaiah in 44-45, shows the dextrous irony of the Lord. The pomposity and verbosity of man who puts his own words into the packets of profundity and dares to compete with God, as if his own wit and wisdom were not derivates of the creative power of the Lord. Such human elevations are put in place beautifully in Isaiah 44-45.

Thus there we find this in Isaiah 44:

" Remember these, O Jacob and Israel; for you are My servant:

      I have formed you; you art my servant: O Israel,
       you will not be forgotten by Me.

^"I have blotted out, as a thick cloud, your transgressions,
      and, as a cloud, your sins.
      Return to Me; for I have redeemed you.
      Sing, O ye heavens; for the LORD has done it: shout, you lower parts of the earth:
      break forth into singing, you mountains,
      O forest, and every tree in it: for the LORD has redeemed Jacob,
      and glorified Himself in Israel.

^"Thus says the LORD, your redeemer, and He who formed you from the womb,

'I am the LORD who makes all things;
      who stretches forth the heavens alone;
      who  spreads abroad the earth by Myself;

Who frustrates the tokens of the liars,
      and makes diviners mad; who turns wise men backward,
      and makes their knowledge foolish;

Who confirms the word of His servant,
      and performs the counsel of His    messengers;
      who says to Jerusalem, You will be inhabited; and to the cities of Judah,
      You will be built,
      and I will raise up its decayed places,

Who says to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers:

Who says of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure:   
      even saying to Jerusalem,
      You will be built; and to the temple, Your foundation shall be laid.' "

Here the Lord is exulting in His intended, future act of restoring Israel from Babylon by the vehicle of a coming King by name Cyrus.He is going to confirm this into history, and in so doing, leave as mere gaspers those who want to say that there will BE no exile,or it will be only a short one, or this or that speculation posing as wise or divine or anything else. Incompetent prognosticators, men of affairs, these only imagine things, but God alone knows them, He their only source.

Cyrus and not another will release Israel from exile, and Jerusalem, being rebuilt, will be inhabited. Now we come to more in Isaiah 45, for God avows this, that He is personally going to supervise the history of Cyrus so that victories will fall to him, and difficulties being overcome will allow and indeed enable him to deliver Israel. This will fulfil the dual purpose of liberating His people (just as He liberated Israel from Egypt, telling Moses of His plans), and illustrating once more His power when His purpose is defined, to fulfil it, that people might learn to return to Him, and trusting Him, find His salvation (as in Isaiah 45:22-=25).

Man's wisdom is not as God's. Thus He proceeds, concerning this same Cyrus, who unlike Moses, will not even KNOW God, but is for all that quite capable of being used by Him, for His purpose. This is found in Isaiah 45:

"Thus says the LORD to His anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have held,  
      to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings,
      to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.

"I will go before you, and make the crooked places straight:
      I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron.
      I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places,
      that you may know that I, the LORD, who calls you by your name,
      am the God of Israel.

^"For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel My elect,
      I have even called you by thy name:
      I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
 

"I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside Me.
      I girded you, though you hast not known Me:
      that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west,
      that there is none beside Me.

"I am the LORD, and there is none else.
      I form the light, and create darkness:
      I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. ^"
 

*6

See for example. Where millions of years on common cultural postulates are required for a sealed unit to decay, and it contains radioactive carbon,
 which should long have ceased to provide significant residue, it is apparent someone is dreaminghttp://creation.com/diamonds-a-creationists-best-friend.

The capacity for rapid increases in decay have been examined in various aspects   , and not least in radiohalos. On the latter, for example, see http://creation.com/the-collapse-of-geologic-time

See also, for example,  Radioisotopes and the Age of the Earth, Wardiman, Snelling and Chaffin, from the RATE group of co-operating research scientists.

*7

See Alpha and Omega Chs.   1 and   2, also TMR.

*8

See for example News   1.

*8A

1) DEITY AND DESIGN, DESIGNATION AND DESTINY, esp. Section 8.

2) LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST

WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES

3) Serenity Not Serendipity Ch. 6.

See also What is the Chaff ... ? Chs.   3 and   4.

 *9

On the Trinity, see

SMR pp. 532ff., with A Spiritual Potpourri Ch.  12.

See also:

The True God has God, Gives Grace and Glory Ch.   5;   Barbs ...  14, 17, 23, 

Biblical Blessings Ch.  13, Repent or Perish Ch.  7,

Let God be God Ch.   5, Extension 3 , Dastardly Dynamics ... and Immovable Faith Ch.   3,

The Biblical Workman Ch.  7, Spiritual Refreshings Ch.  15; Sparkling Life ... Ch.  4;

Biblical Blesings Ch.   2 ,  Christ the Wisdom and the Power of God Ch.  3;  

Of the Earth ... Ch.   6;  The Bright Light ... Ch.   10, Grand Biblical Perspectives  Appendix;

Serenity not Serendipity ... Ch.  12 (trinity, reality, man and liberty); Sums, Summits and in Sum Chs.   9, 10 (2010);

The Lights and Perfections in the Lord Ch.  2, and book

*10

See for example SMR pp. 582ff..