AUSTRALIAN
BIBLE CHURCH January 30, 2011 and on to March
covering several weeks
A
Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ without
Compromise by Faith
Sermon Notes
DIVINE MULTIPLES
Concentrates and Foci for Faith
A Multi-Partite Presentation from
the Bible
For the ORAL presentation for the FIRST FIVE
THINGS, below,
use
this hyperlink.
One of the things
that makes brilliant architecture patent is its symmetries and curves, its
cohesion of concept or style, its artistic interpretation of its field, its
complementarity of treatments, as of one mind, which knows what is in it! In the
Bible, you find much of just the same characterisable overall style and
design. It is fitting therefore to consider these elements in their mutuality
and simplicity, as also in their depth, but in this case, with emphasis on the
overall sweep and completeness for the householder, in this instance, mankind.
As Paul is given to
say (Titus 2),
"But
when the kindness and the love of God our Saviour toward man appeared,
not with works of righteousness which we have done,
but according to His mercy, He saved us,
through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit."
Again, he declares,
"For the
grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men ..."
Let us then
consider these things in their beauty and design.
5 THINGS THAT COULD NOT FAIL TO COME
The Incarnation
(Genesis 3:15, Isaiah 51:6.16.
49:1-6)
The Substitutionary Atonement
(Hebrews 2, Galatians 3, Isaiah
53, I Peter 1-3)
The Bodily Resurrection, the Vitality Attainment
(Psalm 22, 16)
The Ascension
(John 8:21, 16:28, 17:13,
16:10, 20:17)
The Personal Return of the Lamb in Judgment (Psalm 2, 110, Revelation 19)
and for salvation (Hebrews 9:28), so coming
"to appear a second time".
For the ORAL
presentation of the above, use this link.
5 THINGS THAT HAD TO HAPPEN
The Crucifixion of the Redeemer
(Psalm 22, Genesis 3:15,
Zechariah 12:10)
Redemption
(Job19:23-27, Isaiah 53-55,
42:6, 49:6, Hosea 13:14)
The Sending of the Spirit (Isaiah 32:15, 44:1-6, Joel 2:28)
Failure of large-scale, revised and subverted model of the Christian Church
(Revelation 11, II Timothy 3-4,
II Peter 2, Revelation 13, 17)
but NOT of the testimonial valour of the saints,
(Revelation 12:11,
Matthew 16:18, Psalm 23, I Peter1:5-8,
Ephesians 1:11,
Luke 21:15),
founded on God the only Rock
(Isaiah 44:8, Psalm
62, II Samuel 22:32,
I Corinthians 10:4,
John 8:58):
these
therefore unable to be rocked, consolidated with their Keeper
(Isaiah 44:8,
Psalm 62, II Samuel 22:32,
I Corinthians 10:4, John
8:58).
Multiple false prophets and false christs, heightened as the Return of Christ
draws near
(Matthew 24:24),
epitomised in the False Prophet
(Revelation 16:13, 19:20),
parallel to the political beast, symbolising all that is on Satanic mission:
these being deceived, deceptive (John 8:44).
These are
unsavoury, seductive (Jude, II Peter 2),
manifested in the False Prophet,
fiery symbol, a baneful figure awaiting its doom at the hands of the Truth,
Jesus Christ (Revelation 19:20ff.).
See further on this phase in The Appendix, below, which
continues immediately from this point.
There we dwell further on these, and in contrast, on the Lord's Christ
(Luke 2:26, II Corinthians 11,
Acts 4:11-12).
5 THINGS THAT CANNOT BE ELIMINATED
Jesus
(Hebrews 13:8, Psalm 2 (esp. vv. 4, 8), John 5:19-23, 8:58,
Revelation 1:17-18, 5:21-22, 12, 21-22; I John 1:1-4:
eternal deity in Person, in salvation singular, in judgment
determinative).
Jerusalem
for Israel and for the Kingdom of Christ on earth
(with the Jerusalem which is above, and free,
'which is a mother of us all' -
Zechariah 12, 14,Micah 4 - esp. v. 8, Isaiah 2, 11, Luke 21:24,
Galatians 4:26):
site of promise, incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection of the
Messiah,
of vindication and rule of Christ -
Micah 4, 7 esp. 7:10, 7:15,
Matthew 19:28, Zechariah 12:6-8, 14:5ff..
Israel
Israel in context,
restored from long sojourn after blessedness,
for example in that 'You' came out of Egypt -
to which time, reference is made
cf. SMR
Appendix A;
site of endurance past travail:
Matthew 24:34-39, Deuteronomy 32,
Isaiah 11, 66, Micah 7.
The Wonder of Christ's Salvation
(Matthew 13:44-46, Luke 15:8-10, Isaiah 61:10, I John 1:1-4)
His Sufficiency in Every Crisis for Each of His people
(I Corinthians 10:13, Psalm 145:18-20, I Peter 4:12-19, II Timothy
4:17-18),
with the blessed distinction between being 'faithless' and 'denying' Him:
"If we are faithless, He remains faithful,"
II Timothy 2:13,
whereas "if we deny Him, He ALSO will deny us,"
Thus, smoking flax is fanned, not banned (Isaiah 42).
Even Peter, being His, was arrested by Christ's look (Luke 22:61),
in the midst of his flamboyant denials,
and moved to weep out his woe and repent.
Archbishop Cranmer being committed to the flames,
first burnt off his hand which signed the temporary recantation,
then suffered in glory for the testimony of Christ.
5 THINGS THAT MUST BE ELIMINATED
"Youthful lusts"
Failure to "Pursue Righteousness" (FTP - R),
Like failure with
"Faith"
with
"Love"
with
"Peace with those who call
on the Lord out of a Pure Heart"
II Timothy 2:22, 2:19.
For the ORAL
presentation of the above, use this link.
5 THINGS THAT MUST COME
Jerusalem in the hands of the Lord's People, Site for Christ
(Luke 21:24, Zechariah 14:5, Matthew 19:28, 23:39,
Isaiah 2, 11, 49:6,
Revelation 20:4-6, Romans
11:25-27,Micah 4:1-7)
The international Assault on Israel
(Deuteronomy 32:36ff. , Ezekiel 37-39, Zechariah 12, Micah 5,
7:13ff.)
Divine Assault on the Assailants
(Deuteronomy 32:36ff. , Ezekiel
39, Isaiah 66:14ff., Micah 7:15ff.)
Rescue of Christians via the transforming bodily Resurrection
(Revelation 11 cf. Alpha, Omega . ...
Ch. 5,
I Thessalonians 4,
Revelation 19:8ff.,
Matthew 24:29-31, II Corinthians 5, Isaiah 26:19),
Personal Return of the Lord Jesus Christ to Rule, and Judge
(Acts 1:7ff., Mark 14:62,
John 5:20-23, II Thessalonians 1),
both on this earth pending His pleasure
(Revelation 5:9-13, 20:4-6, Isaiah 9:6-7, 11:1ff., 59:20, Psalm 72),
and after the Dispersal of the Earth
(Revelation 5:10,
20:1-11,22, 22:3, II Peter 3)
in the full glory of the triune God.
For the ORAL
presentation of the above,
use this link.
5 POINTS TO REMEMBER
"He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'
"
THEREFORE, "we may boldly say, The Lord is my
Helper," Hebrews 13:5-6
Know your place: Peter's life tenure was to end in violent death, John's in
extended life on earth (John 21), both by favoured divine appointment.
Those not of the kingdom cannot enter it (John 3). These cannot even see it
(John 3).
Illumination requires the spiritual eyes to open,
not to avoid light as if glare, securely shut (Matthew 13:15).
Christians receive better promises (Hebrews 8:6), so USE them! (John 15:7).
This is because
a) their promised land is already inhabited by them (John
10:9).
b) They have direct, non-priest directed access to God by faith
(Hebrews 4:13)
c) They have already direct disclosure of God (II Corinthians
4:4, 4:6).
d)
The return of Jesus Christ by resurrection and grace
gives the haven of heaven already guaranteed direct
(I Corinthians 15)
and individually to each member of Christ's
kingdom,
now on this earth, personally sealed for it
(Ephesians 1:13).
The resurrection for now and for then, has a special application as a
distinctive in D in the Appendix.
e) All His people of all ages will be one in Christ
Jesus
(I Thessalonians 4:15-18, Colossians
3:8ff.).
5 CONCENTRATION POINTS: A QUINTET TO HEED
The Person of Christ (who is IN YOU, if you be Christian - Colossians 1:27)
The Written word of God
(II Timothy 2:15, 3:16,
Isaiah 34:16, I Thessalonians 2:13),
inspired, infallible as given
(Matthew 5:17ff., Isaiah
59:21),
neither requiring nor tolerating revision
(Revelation 22:18-19, Jeremiah 23:23-32),
or addition -
(Mark 7:7fff., Proverbs
30:6).
The Power of God (Ephesians 1:19) available to believers in Jesus Christ,
the Lord's Christ (Luke 2:26): even that of the resurrection to perform His
will*1.
The Love of God (Ephesians 3:18-19), that this is all His initiative (I John
4:10),
and is transmissible toward others (Mark 12:29-31)
Love for the brethren (I John 4:21).
For the ORAL
presentation of the above,
use this
link.
THE APPENDIX
This
gives an extensive bases to some of the elements in the sermon.
Here we dwell further
on false christs and false prophets, and in contrast, with the Lord's Christ, as in Luke
2:26, II Corinthians, Matthew 24.
CHRIST BY CONTRAST
SYMBOLS AND SUBSTANCE
Christ however is no symbol. His sacrifice was no mental quirk,
void of ground and evidence, unlike the rest of those who are pretenders.
He was no parasite (leaning on the work of the Lord, like surrogates),
but pre-eminent,
not foundering like ambitious pretenders,
but founding the Christian religion on testable fact, potent performance,
prophetic fulfilment and address to the future,
on His own Person
as active, reliable, faithful, equipped to the uttermost with purity, truth,
resurrection the culmination of His resurrection of others,
a thing very easy to see.
Then the body is
simply not available for triumphant parade by His enemies,
being resurrected, and for 40 days occupied with teaching, confirmation,
explanation, the future direction of history,
personal commission as in John 21, and then, ascension before return (Acts 1).
In
Him put your trust, not as a mere formula, verbal format or form,
but actually: so that your action is so governed, just as He governs results.
In Him have reliance, for He is the Rock (Psalm 2) who laughs at atoms
and their contrivances of power, for He made them,
and grants salvation: not only life (Romans 6:23) but
life more abundantly (John 7:37, 10:10, Galatians 5:21-23).
But what of the multiple false prophets and christs predicted, one of the lurches
prominent towards the end, as it looms to enter history (cf. II Peter 2, Matthew
24)!
What of the complements of false religion or confused contention, as grist
for the mill of the Second Beast,
the religious one, of Revelation 13:11.
A) Muhammad, who made up a new christ
called Jesus
but without redeeming death, deity status or free atonement,
is of course, as with other sects, a false prophet, so definable
from the lips of Christ (cf. More Marvels ...
Ch. 4, Divine Agenda
Ch. 6 and Indexes, Islam and Moslem).
B) The papacy
presents what is more nearly a false christ,
making claim to being between God and man (cf. SMR pp.
911ff.,
1032-1088H),
presenting in itself a teacher above the brethren (contravening Matthew
23:8-10);
while sects denying deity in Christ are false prophets.
These engage in
remodelling christ,
just as efforts were made to do the same in the crucifixion
and the preceding events (Luke 22:63ff., Isaiah 52:13ff.), by other means.
This is done just as Muhammad also instituted changes without warrant some 600 years
after the historical work of the incarnation: all this after the triumphs of the
revelation of
God, who specified the Messiah decisively, and sealed the year of
the death of Christ
from Daniel (cf. Christ the Citadel ...
Ch. 2), just as He, Christ, for years worked and
testified
lavishly, and proceeded on time to His majestic sacrifice
to cover repentant, believing sinners: for them, breaking death like an
egg to liberate life,
being broken Himself, but rebuilt, murdered but resurrected,
like a site of atomic blast, restored in 3 days: for nothing is too hard for the
Lord,
to bring life and immortality to light, or to apply his salvation to cover the
cries
of the lost, blasted by sin, awakened to life
(II Timothy 1, Titus 3, John 5:19ff., 39-40, 6:40,54, I John 1:7ff.).
C) Communism,
as well pointed out by de Koster in his Communism and the Christian
Faith,
has the proletariat as Saviour, with other parallel
mockeries, though these,
the poor proletariat group, are in fact the recipients
of a dictation from the professional
politicians, commissars and their enduring
types, to the point certainly of sacrifice, one
both ineffective and cardinal in
horror.
This therefore represents a false christ, without logical base,
a world of matter and motion without possible truth,
though they profanely declare it anyway, even though their predictions likewise
fail.
See for example:
Aviary of Idolatry,
Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch.
5,
News
37.
44,
69,
97 (the exploiters, the fanciful,
the Communists, the de-godders and the realities),
98,
News
150
- Taiwan,
The Grating
Grandeur and Aggrandisement of Man,
and the Meekness of the Majestic Messiah Ch.
2
Beauty for Ashes
Ch.
6 (and
Hong Kong, and the movement
of nations in the last century a concern),
Tender Times for Timely Truth
Ch.
8;
SMR pp.
925ff.,
971-972;
Beauty of Holiness
Ch.
3
(war and force, rising downwards, Tiananmen and truth),
Ch.
4
(liberty, Tiananmen,
worship and its direction in time, its terms and code of truth);
History, Review and Overview
Ch. 1,
Impossible to Men, Open to God Ch.
5
See also Lord of Life Ch.
8.
D) Pseudo-Christian Quasi-Secular Society
Many are the
delusions which may offend man, make him stumble without sight, which he may
attribute to second sight, but alas, which is often none. The ignoring of the
bodily resurrection of Christ is one of these, and the power back of it is
promised to the Christian people in Ephesians 1:19. It is not an alternate to
suffering, as the cross of redemption shows, but its attainment is categorical.
As will be seen, in the fanning of the flames of lung-spoiling gases, some who
even use the name 'Jesus' with some acclaim, do not know if God exists, far less
that the cross was by no means the end of Jesus, but rather a glorious exhibit
of the love that saves, before the thrust of the power which confirms (Romans
1:4). The transformation of the earthy to the celestial, the desecratory to the
dynamic, the challenge to the triumph, in a resurrection which only
irrationality can ignore, and folly bypass, is at odds with all false religion,
because as with Christ's whole messianic ministry, only truth can provide divine
power, diction, prophetic fulfilment in substance and entire coverage of every
point, evidence that is irrefutable, as is here the case.
(See for example:
SMR
Ch. 6,
Great Execrations ... Greater Faith
Ch.
7;
Barbs ...
Appendix 3,
Biblical Blessings
Ch. 15,
Extended Endnote
2,
BIBLE
TRANSLATIONS
33,
Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ
Ch.
11,
With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength
Ch.
3,
Spiritual Refreshings Ch.
5
The Magnificence
of the Messiah,
Endnote 1
See also,
Index on
resurrection.)
What
is other, has other talk, work, and witness. Let us see some of it.
Here
then there is some resumé
of the consummate confusions which offer an alternative religion, rather like
alternative medicine, but not so helpful as it can sometimes be!
Revelation provides much data on coming things, and one of these is a 'beast',
the last in the series, which is to be a financial-military-political-social
take-over, international, but otherwise with some resemblance to the power
lust and thrust of Hitler, Mao and Stalin, each in his day. In Revelation 13,
we are introduced to the religious specialist, a parallel beast to amplify the
work of the first and major one. It is by then realised that the way to power is
not ignominiously to ignore religion as in Communism, but to manipulate it, like
diverting a flood of water, rather than trying to stop it in its tracks.
In
order for this second beast, the religious one which is to fan the
psychological flames for the first one, become a religious lien and
authority, there is enormous scope for various approaches to religious appeal
minus authority, so that such things directly, or in terms of the wake they
leave, may attract attention and so secure popular support, so that there may be
opportunity for the final religious deception betokened by the second beast,
which speaks like a dragon but has horns like a lamb, as described in the
duality of beast found in Revelation 13.
We have had many theological
neologies, that is, branded departures from the biblical faith which, were it
possible, would deceive even the elect (as in Matthew 24's prediction, in verses
11 and 24), and one of these, Barthianism, with some 8 volumes of
nescience is a classic. Thus in that, you cannot know God since He is entirely
other, but somehow something or other manages to pierce the impenetrable
barriers. This is just as in Kant's insurgent noumena, which simply cannot
either keep their place in obscurity, nor make themselves too clear in a
convenient obfuscation, wrought by an impossible philosophy which removes what
it knows, and obscures what it does not cf. Predestination and
Freewill Section IV
and SMR Ch. 5).
Hence the Bible MUST not be allowed
to be the word of God, since it is too much that to be lucid, too divine to be
available and accessible, God-type things having something of an immigration
barrier. That is the model employed in contrariety to reason, but with great
results for disfaith! Such an expert knowledge over 8 volumes of the unknowable
is impressive as a contingent for that confusion which helps misplaced authority
in the second beast, and is here merely an illustration of a type. It was called
neo-orthodoxy, since it said nice things were believed, though it changed their
character. Thus the virgin birth means that God is gracious. Things are not
allowed to come in their normal mode, and definition becomes dubiety. It is a
welter of self-contradiction, a testimony to the writhing or working of unbelief
wanting religious clothes.
That was the austere side of folly
(cf. Cornelius Van Til's Christianity and Barthianism), whereas
Liberalism was the more straightforward species of deviousness, seeking to keep
the revelation of God to some extent, while injecting other things from
other sources - perhaps with another Jesus thrown in as an extra,
one not deity, or not involved in substitutionary sacrifice, or later on, as the
riot invaded other fields, one made into a revolutionary or a clown or whatever
else seemed suitable for lodging His name as a hostage. So do fevers
develop from chest-colds.
As to this illiberal
liberalism, it attacked what stood, and did not itself stand, having nothing to
give but premature explosions at scholarly matters, readily dismissible as both
perfidious and unsustainable, with the insertion of junk into the packages
served up, like salmonella in pies. On this, see SMR pp.
255-267,
361-368 which covers more of the
input modes for these religious phenomena,
374-385 which further extends and
exposes, 857-884, which covers
developments which ramify broadly in New Age, and
999, which touches some of the
underlying deceptions which grow like toadstools in the dank forests. These
treatments of the impossible, like plagues accounted for, but which rage where
they find room, and exposures of the illogical in philosophy, society and human
relations, academia and education, are expanded considerably in
The gods of naturalism have no go! in 6
volumes.
All these phases, threads and
developments are fit for synthesis, either directly or as to their spiritual
thrust, for the final concoction which is invented to deceive; for the devil is
astute when it comes to diverting and converting things, even some which at some
time may have meant well, to evil; and moreover, he is diligent to a
point, though the energy be misapplied. He gets the world for a little, and
loses his life for ever. Poor transaction if ever there was one!
In addition, however, to all this,
there is the youth-phase, where a plethora of experience enters in, and some
good resolutions are used without a basis in reality, so that a movement, using
some religious tonality, seizes some and tosses them about as it lets them loose
in life, partly healed, slightly restored, yet still missing a foundation. One
more recent example follows.
JESUS
AND THE GENERATION THAT DROPS DILIGENTLY
News
The Week-End Australian Magazine
March 5,
2011
There is a so-called Y-generation (or Gen-Y) which seems to be concerned with
Jesus-concentration, one which is modish, cool and accompanied by ecstatic
vision, but which has a belief-in-God complement of something around 50% only.
It has been compared to the Hippies in their Jesus-emphasis, and like that,
is explicitly not too concerned about doctrine. It is strongly moving into
social action, empathetic involvements, being real, avoiding mere
formality, and thus some of its emphases appear like a rocket take-off where
everyone is watching its flight, only to find a blunder has occurred and it is
the wrong rocket - because they de-emphasised definition and wheeled out one
for another purpose.
A Jesus in which there is but light involvement in the biblical
portrait is rather like Muhammad's original effort, and in his indeed, the
relationship to the historic record is so slight that he even has two versions
of the matter of Christ's death, one in which it comes, the other in which it
is said that it was, rather than was. He appears to dither on this
point. He is doctrinally dogmatic of course in specifically denying the heart
of the message of the Bible concerning Christ, while it seems doubtful that
the Y-generation would bother to articulate so much. Both are innovative
concerning a name which they dress up in their own clothes. The name has been
attached by the writer of the book, The Spirit of Generation Y: Young
People's Spirituality in a Changing Australia, Dr Andrew
Singleton. Let us then pursue the theme.
It is vastly important to note the extent to which this
nescience of the Y's can go. For example, a pastor, one of the more thoughtful
seeming among 'emergent'*1 churches,
speaks of the fascination and joy many of the Y's have, but he appears to
stress that there is something that sobers up the self-pre-occupation that
seems so common in this movement,. It comes, he indicate, when - apparently
in a comparatively rare reflective moment, they find that it all ends in the
death of Jesus! They are said to 'discover' this, and perhaps it is in the
same way that Hitler discovered compassion when he initiated the Holocaust.
Intended as a contrast with their emphasis on joy and contentment and action,
this reveals a colossal gap. In fact, the account and the reality not only
does not end up with the death of Jesus, but this is the lake at the bottom of
the mountain, intensely beautiful and astonishingly restoring; for it has
soaring above it, the range of the Resurrection.
Yes, it is with the resurrection of the body, that the Bible's message
reverberates. Yes that epic and epochal event is in this world, and yes it is
the very body of Christ which did not rot (Acts 2:31-32), so that though
David's body (that of the one who wrote the Messianic Psalm 16, concerning
Christ's body that would not rot) did rot, Christ's did not. Why ? It was
because of its being raised, that it did NOT ROT. Further, it neither did nor
could, being impervious to any lasting association with death, impregnable to
ultimate desolation, that of the Creator of and Redeemer for life, a sacrifice
that being raised, closed animals sacrifice for ever (Acts 2:23, Hebrews 9).
What then of those who come to think of Jesus' dying as the end of the story ?
What is it like ?
Omitting the 5th Act of a Shakespearian play and then commenting on that play
in that truncated form as if the original, this would be marvellous accuracy
compared with the omission of the point God makes, that of death He will be
the destruction, and that in Christ, life and immortality is brought to light,
that in Adam all die, while in Christ, all His are made alive, for death has
been swallowed up in victory.
So if such a report be true, this appears to give some of the flavour of and
attest something of the criteria of a cult. Superficially biblical if this be
any index, in that case, it would be minting spiritual coinage with talk of
Christ, that bears no relation to the realm of reality. To be sure, It appears
that with an emphasis on practical action, it is intended to follow some
follow some of the emphases of Jesus Christ, concern for others, a deep
pursuit, all to the good, but this, without bothering to find His address,
whose name they use, His permanent address, His meaning and gift .
There seems, indeed, to be indicated in the article's review, almost a
de-emphasis on understanding according to the biography of Jesus Christ, set
forth in God's name from the time where the report was made, so that while the
name and the lustre of some of His works, and the launching of some of His
crusades against hypocrisy is held dear, yet skimped or scamped, it seems, is
the reality that it is as the exact image of God, the eternal One from Age to
Age, that He comes as His domain, so that He who has seen Him has seen the
Father (John 14) and thus it is God who through Him we know, and nothing less,
the ultimate answer to and for all, brought to bear and to be seen on this
earth.
But what of this Christ ? Not only was He deity, to show deity, so that He
"led Him forth": (John 1:18), but He was so
concerned to continue the previous revelation in its precision, that He would
not even allow His own defence. As a lamb to the slaughter He had to come, and
how, He asked, could the scriptures, the prophecies, the predictions
concerning Him from the Jewish prophets be fulfilled, if force were to be used
to stop it and preserve His body! Did He not have 12 legions of angels if He
wanted to use them ? But for this purpose He had come. It was to die
sacrificially, to show declaratively the God who is there, who made and is
sovereign over all, and to demonstrate His love and power in raising the
sin-smitten body from the dead, perpetual index to the eternal life He had
secured from His own redemptive act, for those who receive Him as He is (John
3, 6).
It was prelude, like the sinking of a ship, to His raising to
break the power of death to bring man's guilt to mortality, and mortality as a
funnel to immortality. It was like a ship sunk with foul cargo, so that the
raising of the wreck, its refurbishing and restoration till it was far better
than ever before would be an everlasting signal to all mariners to come. So
death is exiled in Christ, and though for a time before the general
resurrection (I Corinthians 15:43ff., 57ff.), it lurks, yet it is beaten; and
when the time comes, this too will be fulfilled as all believers are removed
from an impossible world, to His glory (I Thessalonians 4, Matthew 24:36ff.).
Indeed, said the Christ of the Bible and of history, IF HE DID NOT RETURN, the
human race would not be able to stay alive on earth any longer (Matthew
24:22).
We are approaching that. It is the power of truth which has it all covered
from the first, fulfilled to this point to the last, awaiting the final
consummation. Ignoring such a context in making a 'Jesus' to relate to history
in part, is like making a chest for a new man, but forgetting the rest of the
body, and then exclaiming what a fine chest it is.
NOTE
*1 See Faithful is He who Calls You, Who also
will Do IT, Ch. 2 in Possess Your
Possessions Volume 5.
An excerpt follows
below.
Elements in Decline
Emergent Agonies, The Emergent Pseudo-Church,
a Submersible Decadence and a Subversive Culture:
This is not All, nor any Excuse.
Thus
when God is NOT made the centre of attention, the criterion of living, the
source of commandments and the Lord of life, then life languishes. It may become
a resource, like inherited capital, which had been abused, distorted, aborted, or
for a time enjoyed in a benumbed sort of way, far below its capacities,
capabilities and heights of constitution.
In
the individual, it becomes almost like a thing of chance, because the purpose and principles
being ignored, there is no way in which there can be a deft derivation for it:
as if one took an exquisite motor vehicle and insisted on driving it over
craggy mountains without track. There are ... challenges, opportunities for
heroism, courage; but in the end, it does not fit the case. There is a
possible combination of courage and determination, talk and intention but
it merely allows an airliner, if you will, to taxi along the ground. It is
vain and often vainglorious as it speaks volubly of the air, without flying.
Such is the way of godless philosophy, always in controversy because ill-founded (Romans
1:17ff.).
A
thing of chance then, for the ungodly way ? This is so, if
rightly understood:
in the sense only that it has no proper supervision and stature,
provision and place, being dispossessed of Deity, its Creator. Thus it meets what is not fitting and moves where it is not
apt. It may hunger for food, money, praise or gain, comfort or
contentment, vengeance or glory, and this the more, and superficially get it;
but there is a hollow within, as it has forsaken the
actual glory behind life. It may seek such glory illicitly, in proud or spurious
efforts to replace the reality; and this is the explanation of much of this
world's militant religions. They seek this world. They are intoxicated with
illicit desire, and have a lust in the thrust of their desire for glory, where
it may not be obtained. Hence violence adds to vileness, and the earth only
writhes the more. These religions may be mystically secular or profanely sacred;
but the result is in much the same.
The
elements of human pathology, without the God of all grace, so far from
being inexplicable, would be amazing were they absent! What then of the desire
of the abstracted heart ? It may become simply sallow, but it may react into
aggressive force. Its ways are unstable.
It may be mortified and flash in anger; but there
are no rules for fools (Psalm 14:1), except what they make up. In other words, as Psalm 1 announces, this way is
like the chaff which the wind blows. Is it so even for those in simple ignorance of God
? This however is partly a false designation, since there is nothing simple
about ignorance of Him as in Romans 1-3! Moreover, while there are degrees of besottedness with nature and false gods, yet a key in an intricate lock is one
thing, and many bashes at the keyhole are decidedly another. When the lock is
that of God, the key is vital (John14:6). The Maker of life knows with what He
deals.
In
other words, life without God is subjected to what it is not subject to,
in procedure but not in principle; and it is not subject to Him for whom it is
subjectible, being His subject; and hence is intrinsically demeaned. It
is not that it is absurd, such life, but this way in itself, is a distortion,
contortion and abortion of life, and as to pathology, becomes in this indeed, the height of absurdity.
That has nothing to do with life as made, and available; but only with life as
detachable by will, but not in essence. The very thought of it is absurd. Yet
God has made freedom for love to become shove, the free grace towards Him to
become the disgrace far from Him, for no good reason.
Some
philosophers mistake the disease for what bears it, as if to call leprosy
absurd, rather than horrendous disfigurement; and this merely complicates
the position, making the sin of man the would-be arbiter of life, instead of the
recipient of its necessary cure from the only source capable of it, its Maker.
This
entire world, indeed, taken as a pulsing unit, but now with special
attention to its major grouping outside the God of creation and salvation,
becomes a recipient in principle not only of the pangs of misuse, the
agonies of abuse, the contrivances of deceit and the waverings of
disappointed ambition, as now this and now the other form of fraud seeks to
demonstrate its superiority (as if all students failing,
selectively, became Lecturers), but of the institutionalisation of fraud. The UN
is a perfect case, mouthing morals from no rational base, selecting what
it wants and pretending it relates to reality, not desire. Such froth confuses
confusion till it becomes the maestro in charge of the thoughts of many which,
had they retained some little common sense, might have done far better; but now
are they bewitched by this secondary infection.
More
than this, false churches, as so often foretold (cf. Matthew 24, I
Timothy 4, II Timothy 3-4, II Peter 2, Revelation 2-3, Jeremiah 23), add a voice
of witless authority, taking the word of the living God, like a
child taking a nuclear power station, and changing it to taste. This they do
often by contradiction, while appealing to the seduced to follow them, where
and as it goes,
to its own theological destiny amid delirium: man speaking for God without
acknowledgement of the imposture (as in II Corinthians 11).
Such
is the Emergent Church*2, which would
be Protestant and Romanist, Biblical and Liberal, and anything else
that some might want, so that in an array of mutual contradictory
allegiances, its actual vacuity might have a name! Its name is confusion;
and it submerges with the submersible world, a submarine source of subversion.
Culture acclaims it; politicians name it; it is convenient, it is a
significant step toward the second beast of Revelation 13, the one
which decides to make the religious bit a real winner, by
planning and providing it formally, officially, and in the end, by
compulsion. China has already shown the way in its Three Self Church, its
specially protected, State nurtured, atheism-led institution of horror. Here in
part is a prototype of what is to be. In the end, what is desired in religion by
the authorities stomping in power as their privilege, will be compulsory
for all, like other imperial things of the past.
Such
a case was that of Imperial Rome, where the Emperor had to be worshipped.
The famous case of Polycarp shows just how this works out, the venerable saint in his
old age becoming quite willing, in a peaceable and friendly way, to
suffer death, rather than worship the Emperor. He in fact declared that he could not so speak against his so faithful
Lord whom he had known as such for so long, but that death was
perfectly acceptable if so desired by the authors of State law!
It
is... as Hitler and Stalin and Mao knew, convenient to have any
forms of religion directly controlled, especially if they touch the integrity of
the pollution (that is the functional realities of its pollution) of the State.
Since man IS religious, coming from God and always needing Him, and
the denial of religion is largely what ended the
USSR, thus even the limited spiritual intelligence of those who deny the God of
creation and salvation, can and will see that you had better ... THIS time
... make it official and controlled.
Many
are the ingredients in pain. Much is the cause of sorrow, both for the race and
the individual, for societies and their leaders, for the misled and the
confused. Great is the suffering for truth, whether in mind or body, society or
profession, sawn-off fellowship or insidious, sinuous slander. Vast is the peak
of enterprise, for the kingdom of heaven, and soaring the eminences to be taken,
as one seeks to effect the will of God with grace, patience and spiritual
savour, for the Saviour. These things are in one arena of pain, with glory; but
there is that other one. WHat of it ?
The
pangs and pains of all of these combinations and permutations of pollution and
loud, proud talk, denials of demonstrable reality (as in
organic evolution cf. SMR pp.140ff., and above references to naturalism),
assertions of demonstrable myth (cf. Secular Myths and Sacred Truth), are
of their own kind, sui generis. There are here so many layers of deceit
and deception, rejection and irrationalism, irrationally argued for, and
against the nature of man, that his nurture becoming disfigurement, his
whole civilisation is to become racked with a ruin first of all psychic, then
physical, mental, moral, spiritual and its aches like
arthritis of the body, will be sudden, variable and complex.
There
is nothing in the least difficult to understand in all of this, concerning
the nature of suffering, once you see its sources and the misuse of
resources, its effects in spreading circles, like ripples in a lake where a
stone is thrown, or vortices from suction in the ocean, where a vast liner sinks; but it
is most difficult for this world and those of its citizens who are denizens of
darkness by design, desire and blindness carefully nurtured (cf.
Matthew 13:15ff.), to endure. When they also curse the God whom they bypass,
verbally, notionally, psychically or morally, then there is a new type of
spiritual cancer, colonising throughout the nations, and it all proceeds,
with reminders of judgment even from the merciful God, that it becomes
inextricably intermingled with ruin, hatred, boasting, roasting, toasting,
hatred, contempt and contemptibility that it writhes like an angry sea. In
this, there is no rest.
*2
An informative article on the same
is to be found in Israel, My Glory, September-October 2007.
This in turn relates to Becoming Conversant With the Emerging Church
by D.A. Carson and The Emerging Church by Dan Kimball.
E Secular society
often has, explicitly or implicitly, humanism,
where with time, mankind is a false christ, and amongst other elements,
scientistic distortion becomes part of the work of the false prophet (Revelation
16).
This is wrought not least by a secular trade union of some scientists,
with vast union power to sack, to sever, to sanction duress, to prevent
appointment,
to seduce scientific method, till a plain verification NO! is ignored,
and confirmation of creation by contrast is regarded as contaminated
by philosophic penchants in which they regale themselves
(cf. SMR pp. 140ff.). Recently in
the USA, one area decided that youth
taught science in Christian High Schools, where creation is included,
would not qualify for tertiary entrance. It is ruthless, unreasonable,
transformative,
bypassing truth (see Scientific Method ...).
Meanwhile, the nations tread on each other, deluded, deluding (cf. Matthew
24,
Revelation 13:13-15), till they come to the cresting of the antichrist
pimple
(I John 2:18, Revelation 13, 17);
but Christ lifts the heart to its proper place amid heavenly things (Ephesians
2:6),
while for pilgrimage, He is the Rock (I Corinthians10),
which nothing can make to tremble,
beyond all the shores of time,
invulnerable to the oceans,
a fortress amid the deep.
Errors are many; truth is one. Speakers multiply; the One who did it,
at infinite cost, is the ONLY ONE capable,
the ONLY ONE attested, whose word rules the nations,
and who Himself will rule this earth (Rev. 5:9ff., 20:6, Isaiah 11, Psalm 72),
despite their furies and flurries (Psalm 2),
and whose caution addresses their lusts and longings:
"Kiss the Son lest He be angry, and you perish in the way,
When His wrath is kindled but a little.
Blessed are all those who put their trust in Him."
Amen.