AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH, December 21, 2014
A Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ without Compromise
by Faith
CHRIST, THE RAPID FIRE DYNAMIC OF DEITY
and
THE TRUSTWORTHY SAVIOUR
Atomic bomb - a dynamic centre of destructive activity, matter expository of matter, matter inspected, dissected, deputed, routed and deployed by intelligence. This overshadowed ruthless releases from the past - coming down to more elemental matter through the machinations and despatches of the mind of man..
Let us now turn from destruction to production. We find contrast to this in Christ - a dynamic centre of constructive activity, the Spirit of God expressing through the Word of God, in incarnation itself, the very heart of the nature of God, this His living Word acting like a cheque, or an embrace, in His name. This explicit manifestation of God in Person, overshadowed the prophets, even Elijah. Christ Jesus ushers into view deity direct. He declared God definitively (John 14:9, 8:58, Hebrews 1, Isaiah 48:15ff.).
In each case, a new era came. Both were predicted: the pillar of vapour as an outstanding feature as the Age drew near to its close, in Joel 2:28-32, and cited by Peter at Pentecost, and the prince of peace, to be born at Bethlehem and sold for 30 pieces of silver, humanity on the cheap side (cf. Zechariah 11:12, Micah 5:1-3, Iaaiah 9:6-7). Both predictions and performances were very direct, the one releasing power from the heart of matter for devastation, the other releasing the truth from the heart of Deity, matter's maker, leaving preliminaries not vacuous, but portents; and yet, all of it is valid and validated by His coming. That it must be is clear from logic pointing irrefragably to the Bible; that it IS is found when that transmission of truth is actually located in the domain of speech of deity, and it is verified when this is shown in profusion without confusion, in detail, while clustering about Jesus the Christ, sent Saviour (cf. Isaiah 43:8-10, 48:15ff.) and wholly manifest exhibit of God, both in person and in performance, in pity for man, on this earth.
God provided the Messiah; man murdered Him. God raised Him; Rome razed Jerusalem, scene of official murder of the prince of peace, leaving of course war, and many more crucifixions from the power, reported at that invasion time, round about Jerusalem. Man raised his self-glorification, and warred till wars became almost like breathing in their pulsations, in the 20th and 21st centuries. The man found a way to satisfy the most savage of wickednesses, spoil the earth, make the good evil, and spattering matter, to spatter blood or vaporise it, by his inventions, his foretold pillar of vapour. How tidy is the process; how vast is the prodigy of evil in its generations in the mind, heart and for the body of man!
How vast was the wholly contrary wonder of Christ Himself, before murder and resurrection (itself predicted both in Psalm 16 with 22, and by this same Jesus often enough - as in Matthew 17:22-23, in sacrificial splendour as foretold by John the Baptist, in John 1:29 as by David, Isaiah and extended to a further vastness, in Hosea 13:14, where the Lord undertook to be the base for the destruction of death. In fact, let us focus on some of the ways and words of Christ in a startling sequence of unique power, purity and impact, to attest the same.
Consider staggering series of marvellous majesty, unlimited power and tender compassion, in this one place, this one Person.
We have a series of vignettes.
1) Luke 6:27-36 THE EPIC ETHIC, THE EPOCHAL WORD
Heed this Sermon on the Plain. Enemies ? love them, do good to them. For curses, give blessing, set up a standard: what would I Iike to be done to me, If our places were exchanged ? what would really do me good and meeting my need, help to restore me ? If I were you ... DO IT.
This is personal! It is not dealing with faith, as if to call evil good, in squirming in some verbal skirmish. It involves conduct. Love is a tough fabric - it does not tear easily. Here is biblical realism. Even those caught in treachery or evil, love! This does not mean extend their evil capabilities, massage their tumours into flourishing condition, or ignore their dangers to others. It DOES mean do what needs doing, look at it as if you were caught in folly as obviously as they are. Would you advise following your own follies ? Of course not; but put effort into the cure. The patient may not bless you for it, at once. In the long run, it may be very different. Be then responsible with good heart to help.
Such is the wisdom from God into a warring world, a hating whirled woe, a striving, confused, spiritually illiterate bundle (John 17:8-10, James 4:3-8. Here is the vocal virtue, the line of love, the part of Christ's wisdom.
2) We turn at once to its complement. THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE, with divine depth.
a) Luke 6:6-11 In this vignette, we come to Christ in an especially challenging situation. Here is the test. Do not eschew a test, welcome it, and prepare for it as in cricket or tennis or golf, WHENEVER it may come.
Christ had unlimited gift of healing, fitting for the very Son of the living God (Luke 1:31-35). But any gift has its ways, what is fitting, however vastly viewed in its place, and with whatever depth of concern, compassion and understanding. In the case of the healing of Elsie Salmon, whose was a vast and sustained healing ministry as recorded in various testimonies, including "He Heals Today", there is one distinguishing feature other than the pure power of the thousands of healings. It is a sending of the truth out with simplicity - it is not she that does it, but the Saviour. It is low key. It has NIL association with hype, and never would you be concerned with the healer, but instead, only the source!
Christ, though the very Son of God, did not do otherwise, for He came as a servant. Nevertheless there was never any question of power, reliability in healing or fault or folly. He said, He did. It was done. His was the selection of an individual, or crowd, where He might heal ALL of a multitude (Luke 6:19). Then He acted!
In the case of the withered hand, noted for Luke 6:6ff., above, the test was this. It was the Sabbath, and although God is categorical about the need to rest on this day, it is not an oblivious rest. Even a cow, He pointed out, if caught in a pit, might be drawn out on a Sabbath. One principle does not delete another. To be sure, Paul in Colossians 2:11 makes it clear that new moons and sabbaths are in the New Covenant not obligatory, and indeed, THE sabbath is not even relevant in this epistle, since the issue cited deals with things to come, whereas THE sabbath of Exodus 20 deals with the PAST, the creation criteria, things clearly past and not future. Yet for all that, while there is no cancellation of the wisdom of God concerning a one in seven day rest, there is cancellation of misconception. You do not cease to be ready to meet the unplanned, the unexpected or to shut your heart as if a snake gone into its hole.
The issues require thought, but have tremendous clarity both for obedience and for charity. Nor does one forget enough to make the sabbath a matter of commerce, as in John 2:13-22. Mercy incidentally, is not the same as planned violation of the very spirit of the day!
How then did Christ respond to the withered hand episode ? He was watched to see if He worked to heal on that day. Pointing out their own practices, He not only healed. He COMMANDED the man with the withered hand to hold it out, as if this had no problems. That is a vastly important matter. When GOD HIMSELF is concerned and HIS name, then the impossible is merely an episode. When divine power is present, its absence is not imagined to be lurking. How infinitely destructive had HE failed, having chosen not to listen to culture! What if the man simply said: "I can't!" It is precisely because such things never happened, tests did not fail, that Christ became so exasperating to those who, in envy or sloth, hated Him.
This response to direct confrontation was dramatic indeed, reinforcing the point that it is NOT a matter of shambles and shameful equivocation as you face in the Church or out of it, the ramifications of CULTURE and its kingdom (an organised, sin saturated bundle of habits and ways, currently becoming a source of worship of self or for others in a naturalistic idolatry, politically reinforced). If culture commands what God forbids, the latter is decisively to be followed. The division is given the air. Truth and mercy is given the floor. Practical boldness in good prevails over quizzical quandaries and compromises. Remember Peter and John as in Acts 3-4! Whether, it is said, it be right in the sight of God to obey you rather than God, YOU JUDGE! they said as they categorically disobeyed the apostate authorities. The undeniable good they had done inhibited the more violent response by the authorities, at the time.
b) Following this, Christ selected His apostles to be, all night being spent in prayer, and still before the Sermon on the plain, coming upon a huge multi-national assemblage, wanting healing of their diseases, including exclusion of devils, and as the whole multitude was seeking to touch Him, He healed them all. This prodigy in deed preceded the prodigy in word, the beatitudes of Luke 6:20ff., which we have been following.
After the beatitudes, He used a tree and its fruit for identification purposes (granted of course that you know what the fruit is, and you need Him to deliver you from superficiality or impetuosity in judgment), then a house built on sand or rock to depict the folly of not abiding in His word as foundational, this before proceeding to distance healing (Luke 7:1ff.), with the servant of a centurion of good report, on whose account many sought in intercession. Here was a case in which the implicit AND explicit faith of the centurion was made an example to Israel.
After all these things, He was tested. Both qualitatively and quantitatively, He had shown His power, compassion and imperturbability in completing each task, of whatever dimension. But now a challenge comes, even from His most notable supporter, from him who had as in John 1:29 identified Him as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, so directing many to seek Him, since John the Baptist had an exquisite fame. ARE YOU HE ? asks John. He was not only facing prison, but a beheading when a foolish passion came to a head on King Herod, who lost his head to a dancing girl, so that at her conniving request, this same Herod had John beheaded, and as a nice touch, brought to him on a platter.
In answering John's desire for reinforcement in affirmation that He was indeed the One to come, Christ did not bluster, or make an egotistical speech. Instead, He proceeded with healing of blind and many others with various diseases and afflictions, and in true experimental style, asked them to pass on to John what they saw. "Go and tell John," He said, "the things the things you have seen and heard, that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised," and then He made a most interesting addition. What was this ? "the poor have the Gospel preached to them." It is easy to affect comradeship with the rich, since they have much to give that the carnal, the worldly preacher might covet or desire. When the reward may be minimal or nil, however, you exclude a certain variety of impostor! With Christ, the poor were precisely those who received good measure!
As this vast dynamic of divine power and unfailing dynamic proceeded, Christ contrasted John the Baptist, whom He greatly praised - he having gathered multitudes to his desert site, for repentance, as well as acting as the predicted forerunner to the Lord's Gospel, index to His come, a crux for identification (Isaiah 40:3, which Christ there cited). With what did He contrast John the Baptist ? It was with the foppish, the lovely, the grand, the associates of regality in their finery. Not so John.
This was not enough; and it is such strong series of unremitting events that mark out the genuine, the power its source. He taunted the cultural oddities, the nod-agreement squirming and betrayals of this world, in terms of what had been happening locally. When John came, Christ declared, he was criticised as being so saintly, having do little contact with the affairs of this wobbling world; and when Christ came, He was criticised for being the opposite in large measure, even a FRIEND OF WINE-BIBBERS AND TAX-COLLECTORS. As to the latter, did not Rome rule by force of arms, and were they not traitors to Israel ? Such would be a popular attitude. Hence Christ is depicting the loathing which His not leaving such sinners, but viewing them as one with other sinners, in this: that they needed to repent and believe in Him for pardon and replacement.
Neither way appealed to these critics! What do they want ? the starkly and obviously spiritual, or the activistically dynamic in power, mixing freely where spiritual disease was, both physical, and moral! Would nothing satisfy the corrupted cultural mouthings! In this ridicule, His dynamic depictions would strike many a conscience, as if a surgeon's knife, and could become prelude to conversion.
Thus the request of John concerning His messiahship had a vast answer. "That very hour," when the query from John was brought to Christ by messengers from that prophet, He performed the laboratory work of the healings and reminded of the reports. The messengers were given tangible and audible evidence. There was no delay for committees. It was all public, notable, and both performable and performed. Here was no excavation from philosophy, but exclamation from miracles done, as if to order, but in the normal floods of compassion, self-control and vast power. Here was no claim, as if some process could be found, but it was just that it never was, as in the heinous naturalistic violation of scientific method, basis for the current idolatry so broadly dinned into student ears. With Christ, it was seen, not hypothesised, done, not fancied, wrought by power, not by the seething tongue in its acidulous nullity.
Here, then, Christ showed adaptability to very various challenges, agility, ready power, magnificent teaching authority, and all this an innate and not merely episodic, as also in Matthew 9:16-26, where a double issue of great need was met swiftly. It came just as He finished speaking in answer to deep challenge on issues relating to a different spirit in man, and what spiritual pathology could readily follow to the mind opened as if by a rupturing can-opener, leaving the contents to rot. His example was that of a cleansed and perfumed house, delivered from one devil, but left unprotected (like an open wound, covered with gauze and temporary antiseptic), only to find seven worse ones ready to invade the foolishly unprotected premises!
Such was the press and the impress, and such the print of power, magnified in many issues, in fast production, with never loss of self-control, or control by power of the impurities and assaults of man and his mind, his machinations and his malice. All these things followed, any one of which would have been a marvel in itself, but here joined in an effulgent flow, like rivers of radiant waters in the sunny rivers pouring through high paddocks, released from snow, pouring in purity, with an unreluctant domain of their own!
There then, open to sight, was the lab work. It was not as in the naturalistic myth of organic evolution, a matter of saying, as is reported of Professor Dawkins of Oxford University, that yes, the event in view, the change that is being touted in this evolutionary marvel, is there all right. Though it would need to be one which no scientific law could stop (such as the Second Law of Dynamics and the correlative ways of genomic entropy), certainly it is observable. But how is this so ?
Yes, the words come freely from the Professor, observable, that is what it is. But where is the DEED to go with these words ? Where is this observation to be found ? Where is the intimate knowledge of 'nature' which will result in its being FOUND doing things that have NEVER been illustrated in the lab!
Where ?
Oh! comes the report concerning the incident. Yes they have been observed.
This then is news. Where then, where and when was this the case ? Oh, it was just that no one was there when it happened. Observation occurred; but viewing it did not. How remarkable. When it happened you did not happen to be there, but observable it surely was. How remarkable. How many law cases could successfully be resolved by witnesses who just knew what was there, and so in some mystic manner apparently, observed it!
That is precisely blind faith. Instead of offering immediate evidence, or reliable access to it. In this sort of bogus scenario, a word passes for a deed, and a term is given a hideous mistreatment (cf. Lewontin of Harvard, Ch. 8 of The Way of Truth and the Way of Error). A thing is "observed" but never seen or heard or found or reportable. What sort of witness to a murder or a theft would that be, which saw it, witnessed it, but alas, was not in fact there. It was just ... perceived in some way, too recondite to be related.
Not so was the case with Christ, just as not so in the intensive realism of the Almighty, each word of God foretelling comes to pass. Christ Himself has always been an ultimate and utter contrast to myths, as were the prophets, their words and His to this day and hour, vigorously fulfilled, and in this last phase of the Age (cf. Luke 21:24), we have a torrent of fulfilments (cf. SMR Chs. 8 - 9 for example), which only grows. The entire Israeli episode is just one them: they are back, they are assailed, they have so far prevailed, many have been the peoples attacking them, and they are a burden to those who act as if to manoeuvre them. It was to be. It is. It has happened. It is observable. Truth is like that; and when it is the TRUTH HIMSELF, the very word of God incarnate, who came and was able to be questioned, queried, criticised, challenged, it was a summit and a substance jointly, nothing lacking. Yet, characteristically, majesty moved like the sun in the heavens, but this, the Son on earth.
It is well to reflect a little. The work of Christ, then centrally and directly, now through those whom He sends, has it ceased ? Is it now trivial ? Even when massive and sustained intelligence is used over generations, and the very model of life is sitting there for inspection and working already, even inside the investigators' bodies and minds, even in the marshalling of their thoughts, even then man has not made life; but Christ could make it in a moment. An illustration ? a gifted sportsman can execute a batting stroke in the midst of an ingenious ploy to dismiss him, and none might be in a position to imitate that; but this, it is not a matter of degree, but of kind!
Not only then did Christ eclipse all, but He did it to predicted specifications, at a predicted date, with predicted results, including the turning of praise to envious condemnation, and fellowship as in Judas, to sickeningly hypocritical abuse of privilege. It was true in lab immediacy, in historical fulfilment of prediction, and in staggering terms of dynamic, all. Truth does not wilt or bow. Even when it is smitten, it cannot be hidden. In Him, it was seen in its ultimate form, as in the Creation, and it worked at that level. Even the poor were helped, and the Lord of all showed that humility not personal self-acclaim, performance not impious pretension, is what matters. It is necessary to open the eyes! (cf. Matthew 13:15ff.).
3) THE AGILE TEACHER
As we have seen, Christ not merely answered the query of John, He made His response a multi-part presentation. One part was the exposure of the exalted post that John the Baptist had fulfilled. He, a man of the wilderness, had played the part, indeed worked in it, of a voice in the wilderness making straight paths for the Lord as noted, in Isaiah 40:3. He had his place, his prophetic siting, his obvious vast popularity and enormous results all moving towards the Christ, for whose work he was a grand preparation and pointer. Nevertheless, Christ declared, using the occasion, effectively, the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he! How could this be ?
It was clearly not a question of performance or public acts, for in all this John excelled; nor even of dealing effectively with divine power in terms of the need for national repentance. That was a great prelude to the national disaster which would happen when they forsook both John and Christ, the Son of God; and in mutilating the Messiah, they did the same for many years, to their own future. Why ? It was because in Him lay their deliverance, and their mercy. If there were only one banker in town, and only he had the key to a fortune for you, without which you would be in penury, and you killed him, obviously results would flow. This was worse, for not only was it murder, and self-destructive murder at that, it was murder of mercy, in its crux! It was a national thing, and that has had national results, now half-way to an end, in that as predicted, Israel the nation is now back in place, an indication and signal that the time of the end of the Age is near (Luke 21:24). A crucial step to follow as in Ezekiel 37 and Zechariah 12, is a vast movement of national conversion in repentance in Israel, to the Christ whom they crucified.
Thus history can be an apt teacher; but Christ Himself was more than this, He was agile, articulate, invasive of pretence and neither exalted man nor his religious pathology, as if it deserved 'respect', favourite modern word (as if to 'respect' someone who declared that he had the exact number for the square root of minus one), nor left man in despair and disaster (cf. SMR Ch. 3) among the cynics. Instead, He showed power, redeemed the hour, provided in Person the evidence, and that without interruption or cycle, in the full flow of faithfulness that comes not from acting, but from authenticity. How beautifully He had exposed the variable and insincere criticisms that the social speakers made of John, of Himself, and how deftly He laid to rest, the hollowness of hypocrisy. Truth is like that: it does not need to exaggerate, nor is this any part of its spirit.
4) Luke 7:36-50 THE DISCERNING EYE
Later in the round of celestial power and person in human Messianic motion, we find an awareness, alertness, watchfulness, circumspection joined to sensitivity, dependability and penetration to the heart, that showed up by contrast, as so often, the religionist without reality.
Christ had been invited to the house of a Pharisee, Simon by name. Despite, however, the opportunity which this provided for a gracious host at His coming, He received neither washing for His feet, nor kiss of welcome for His cheek, the situation lacking in all warmth. Into this function-free hospitality, came an element of test. One should not resent tests which complicate already difficult enough situations, for they come for a purpose, like an exam. It is not good to fail tests, and they should be welcomed in the power and grace of God as one works for Him. But this was no follower of Christ who figured here, but Christ Himself; and His host was no mere sparrow of a man, but a notable Pharisee.
The situation developed. A woman of ill-fame came, and knelt at His feet. Not once, but constantly, not in mere repentance, but in demonstrative grief of heart at her (known) sinfulness, the woman continue washing not with water from the ground of the earth, but from that of her heart, falling from her eyes. With her hair, she wiped those feet, and with fragrant oil, she anointed them. Here was an intimate spiritual depth exposed to the eye. But who saw what!
The host thought inwardly and derogatively: If this man WERE a prophet, He would know what KIND of woman that is whom he is actually allowing to touch Him! She a sinner, and he a prophet in this affair! Not likely.
Christ was not unaware of his thoughts.
He poised in readiness, and announced to His host: Simon, I have something to say to you. Say on! came the uppity sounding, assured response.
This woman, Christ declared has not
ceased to wash My feet with her tears, and wipe them with her hair. But you ?
You neither gave kiss on arrival, nor did you anoint my head with oil; but this
woman has used fragrant oil on My feet! She was declared forgiven, for she had
loved much. But WHY had she loved much ? It was because Christ had loved more,
and not only come as Saviour from sin, provider of peace with pardon for those
who receive in Him their remedy through faith. Here was a faith which was most personal
and tangible, from which the love flowed; and so faith showed its fruit in such delight and reverence
for the gift of grace assured in Him.
REFLECTION
Thus we have yet another instance of Christ's power, perception, sympathy, grace, gravity and the wonder of goodness meeting evils with ineradicable majesty, irrefrangible confidence, irrefragable decisiveness and irresistible victory. Overall we have seen a staggering sequence of power both personal and delicate as the case required, love, eminent practicality as if from an unlimited flow of divine, uniquely celestial characteristics.
While not all were villains who were
prominent, yet as in Matthew 23's exposé, many were the highly placed prelates
and religious performers who appeared mesmerised by a sense of self-importance,
stimulated by rules without reality, and eminence without goodness. Many of
the first would indeed be last, as Christ declared. Yet this was not all. Many
were so carried away with their carnality that they could scarcely even conceive
of the grace and power of God. One remembers a story about a so-called Christian
school, where according to report, the authority would declare that they having the
place, the students and parents alike should as Christians, be humble, receptive
and willing to accept whatever came. Yet is it not that ALL must be clothed with
humility! Does not Peter, having told the younger to have due respect for their
elders, proceed with these words (I Peter 5):
"Yes, all of you be clothed with humility, for "God resists the proud,
But gives grace to the humble."
The sheer serviceability of the non-pompous yet prevailing Christ was arresting, enlivening and covered with gifts and grace. His presence itself became like perfume to those who understood and relished at last the purity of the Godhead in human form, the dynamic of deity in human-channelled action and the lustre of light in the words which propelled results in bodies as well as in minds and the spirits of those finding here the very acme of life: God in Person, His incarnate word at work.
Such was this pre-eminence that it was almost as if going from a pea-shooter to a hydrogen bomb, where however the bomb was one of a substitute kind, not destructive but constructive, releasing not worse-than-poison, but better than ordinary human life from the depths of its very Founder, Framer, Former and Maker. Yet even here grace abounded the more. Thus as in John 14:12, Christ indicated than even His faithful followers could become vessels of His power to an astonishing degree. After all, through Peter and John, as through Paul and other apostles, many were the miracles wrought, and one finds amazing cases to this day, where the MEANS being magnified, as in broadcasting and available technical facilities of many kinds, the sheer scope of godly action in Christ's name can become staggering.
In His time on earth, there was no option in DEALING with His goodness, healings, power, grace, majesty, knowledge, wit, wisdom, but murder. It was duly used. Its propulsion is seen clearly in the fear and frustration shown in John 11:45-53. ALL MEN would believe in Him unless, murdered, He were sacked from the situation. This then, they did, as predicted (Isaiah 49:7, 50-55); and when (cf. The Christian Prescription, Ch. 2). The same truthless, ruthless use of violence is currently more and more used today in the less and less restrained tyrannies of tyrants, whether in religious or political enslavements. There is no other answer for those who deploy such evil dynamics, violence replaces reason and horror mocks truth. Self-condemned are those who have this to offer, as many in Islam do, as Hitler did, as Stalin did, as did Pol Pot, and Mao, variants on an unoriginal theme.
Yet there is only one Jesus Christ, and He is unduplicable. There has never been any like Him, nor will man ever come near, for God is One, and man is many by the throughput from creation, in organised procreation. The knowledge implicit creation, that still propels each new generation into being, is now seen to be more massive than ever imagined, its singularity more obvious and its magnificence more startling.
The works of God in actual practice, are not in facility and depth of production, duplicable by man, though our race often tries to find aspects of what has already been done, to apply. This remains so, even looking at what God has already done and put on display in such sites as man's own created being, this human agency; and even with this, man is being student not teacher in cognition. He tries to find out by logic the inherent logic in what is revealed, so that the logic God gave to his mind, reaches out to the mode of organisation and operation of what God has created outside man's mind, in a vast universe displaying almost incredible creativity, diversities of method, like a musician with symphonies, concertos and bands, with a host of other illustrations of the power of creative thought. Our efforts are human; His are divine. We limp, we learn, we marvel.
THE SITE OF FAITH
But what of worship ? In Him, faith, on Him confidence may rest in terms of performance, precision, prediction both to and from Him, of power, of peace, of total crematory failure of every foolish option where man misuses and even abuses his natural proclivity to worship,
 |
bowing to 'nature', as if other creations
with their demonstrable limits, |
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or even directly ascribing all to
nothing, as if reasoning itself bowed to this nothing, |
Nothing else works, since other than God, there is nothing else of such input capacity. If ever only nothing were there, then that would be all; if only what is inadequate, then the result would never come. But it did. Thus God is eternal. He is. He created. He showed. He has attested. He has been merciful, He has given time, He has ruled history precisely as He said, till its fiascos and power lusts have brought sinning man to the brink of rendering this world inoperable; and of that time, He specifically spoke in assessment of the times to come (Matthew 24:22).
Faith in Him is not, as in others, a work of illusion; and reliance on Him is the opposite of delusion; and when He is known - and it is fatal not to respond to His offers with unbelief since these are without other option in truth, like an only antibiotic left, when all others have failed: then what ? Then light explains all, leaving no part dark, and it even enlightens one's own soul*1.
NOTE
See on this explicatory uniqueness, self-verification and fountain of validation:
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST
WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES
AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS
Bible or Blight,
Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God.
See also Ch. 4 above.