AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH January 29

AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH January 29, 2012

A Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ without Compromise by Faith

in agreement with the thrust of the Constitution
of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, 1901.

The Path of Pilgrimage in Christ the Conqueror,

Part III.

GRACE COVERS ALL ACCOUNTS

Grace Proficient

The Marvel of Divine Impact and Perseverance

The Site IN WHICH The Call Comes

We have been seeing the vision glorious by which the saints of the Lord being freely chosen by the fingers of embracive love, as wide as the world (I John 2, John 3:16, Titus 2-3), are not dragooned into discipline, but enabled into life, and now we come to the continuance, the character of their environment both physical and social, spiritual and personal. This, their environment has then many facets. Let us consider first briefly the physical. This is provided as a help at a simple and basic level, and it is given in a little detail, though time will not be spent to the detriment of the message, on its oral exposition. This section is enclosed between the signs #.

#.There are three major physical laws at this level of creation. Matter came and stays, and the First of these laws, that of the Conservation of Mass and Energy, a given, attests creation. It came and here it is. It is a dowered, like a book. The second, is The Second Law of Thermodynamics. According to this, entropy increases, or available energy runs down, and there is a downward drag. It is a law because this is what is actually found. From SMR p.330, indeed, we have this (colour and bold added).

As Professor Thomas Barnes of El Paso University (famed physics researcher) put it in Scientific Studies in Special Creation, Ed. Lammerts, pp. 330 ff.:

''No laws of science are more firmly established
than these three laws ...''

Which? He referred to: ''the First Law of Thermodynamics, the Law of Biogenesis and the Second law of Thermodynamics'' - p. 331. The first (''also known as the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy''), implies that despite different forms (''including mass''), ''total energy remains constant.'' The second means that in a self-contained system, processes have ''an irreversible tendency ... to go toward lower order'' - to degrade - decay and disorder increasing. The third ''states that life comes from life.''

Obviously a static lump of energy-mass (1), a life for life procedure - not non-life for life (3), and a decay liability (2), these are the observable material or visible facts to be expected, if creation happened, and stopped. That is virtually an identity statement. It is this which is observable, and that is a creation verification with which evolution cannot for its part compete.

We are in the maintenance phase. The thing to be maintained is in the finished phase. What is maintained, miracles like the bodily resurrection apart, tends to wear out. This is scientific and also a matter of common observation. That is distinctive, detailed verification of the Bible.

The matrix and the marvel of creation is instituted with law, runs down, and life comes through life to life transmission, the Law of Biogenesis. Evacuate dreams, and this is what is seen to happen, to be characterisable in this our world. It is precisely as the Bible has depicted it. How long ago did it begin, this creation ? Many theories in astronomy, geology and biology are extent, but in only one account is there no logical flaw, and is all a matter of verification, that in the Bible (SMR, TMR, Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, Deity and Design...).

Of interest, as noted in Dr Jason Lisle's book, The Ultimate Proof of Creation, are the radioactive carbon data. That variety of the element carbon, it is estimated, could not persist for over 100,000 years meaningfully, but it is found in diamond which, by a circular reasoning type of geology, now currently in vogue, within rocks supposedly some billion years old, or more. This date with current dating is just one of the many fiascos.

Similarly, undecayed blood has been found in deposits allegedly millions of years old, far beyond all informed thought on its durability, since it is a complex and a sensitive substance thought of more in terms of thousands of years as a maximal age. This does not tally, and is far out. Again, uranium is found in the contents of deposits with relatively little decay residues, but with much of the original or undecayed radioactive material remaining (Dr Jonathan Sarfati, Refuting Compromise, p. 361-4), despite ages given to these rocks of up to hundreds of millions of years. This result is flat contradiction of dating theory, adopted by the 'long-age' variety of scientists.

Further, rocks with radioactive materials that at current rates would take billions of years to degrade, are found complete with early indications of their radioactive lives, in rocks of sedimentation type, of vastly less age (Sarfati loc.cit.). Collision of such loose theories with data is continual. Indeed, it has been found that radioactive decay rates, used to date the earth in one mode, can be increased by billions of times, when the atoms are stripped of electrons, in plasma form. Some guide is this RATE of decay to length of life! It is a variable yard stick, and an assumption instead of a reasoned basis.

Again, the earth has long been shown by such as Professor Tom Barnes, to have a decaying magnetic field, giving it a maximum time of thousands, not millions of years (Sarfati, The Greatest Hoax on Earth pp. 208ff.). Reversal of magnetic fields, apparently occurring often, would only hasten the decay, he notes ( p. 213). There is a limit to how powerful the original magnetic field could be, and observable decay rates give a young earth. Indeed many are the indications to this effect (Sarfati, op. cit.) and long and often have these things been shown.

Indeed, the earth was deposited, and its creation was in vast, interlocking modes of law and constraint, the DNA a vast linguistic field which makes man by command and allows procreation by will. These marvels degrade, in their designated powers, do not develop in kind, and Dr Sanford of Cornell University has pointed out that the human genome currently is dangerously degrading, so that the spouting of man can continue on a sinking ship, contrary to his unheavenly aspirations and pretension.

The Spiritual Site TO WHICH The Call Comes

The word of God, it does not degrade. Creation exhibits His building word, but the Bible His binding word. As to the former, it is not only discernible in law and in birth, in language of our DNA and in a vast array of conditions, constraints, laws and unique forms, filled with information for their running, from bacteria to man, but in the fact that one language runs it all. Cells from the first, notes Dr Michael Denton (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis), are NEVER matters of development, being as sighted, ALWAYS mature and utterly sophisticated in their intricate and complex marvels. There is no gradation upwards. A gradual continuity of change, he notes (op. cit. pp. 71, 73, 253) is found ONLY in the mind of man, never in nature at this level.

Nothing could be further from the truth, than such gradualistic imaginings, we read. Micro-biological developments of late utterly confirm this (op.cit. p. 290). "It is now well established that the pattern of diversity at a molecular level conforms to a highly ordered hierarchic system." It is ordered from above, not founding itself, unordered from below. Classification itself, in the realm of living objects, works aptly on this sovereign, organised basis. Moreover, information in itself, on which all life is built. Dr Werner Gitt of Berlin points out, is not found without intelligent action (The Desire of the Nations Ch 2, Epilogue, Jesus Christ, Defaced, Unfazed ... Ch. 4). ALL life depends on intelligence; wisdom requires its acceptance #.

Let us then proceed more specifically with the spiritual. What is present physically, is also found spiritually, in the children of God, productions of the same Creator, by HIS sovereign chosen method, the Cross of the atonement. These are brought back from rebellious dismissal of God, or His truncation, and as with the earth, it is by command; for God commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:31).

His written word is for the heart, for life, as His DNA word is for the body, the physical equipment in this world for mankind. The one constructs; the other instructs. Few listen as a percentage; but these are many. Secured, they progress; sent they attest; enabled, they profess Him for whom they go. We have noted the harrying by the unhappy, the negative thrust by the lost to detach the Christian from the Lord, to muddle his environment or to afflict, whether small or great. The above illustrates this.

Many are they whose names have been covered with slanderous filth, because of jealousy, persecution or convenience in saving face for persecutors and the like; but they are as vitally impressed into service, by a mixture of constraint and submission that is yet voluntary, being born of the Spirit, as others simply to fame. Volunteers, they serve (as in Psalm 110), and amid the writhings of a corrupted world, yet they must shine as lights in the darkness, not because of their personal worth, but through the reflection of the light of Christ, and the transmission of His power and love as in John 7:37-38. Harried by what in itself my be harrowing, they endure; silenced by nothing, they attest.

It is love that makes the world continue before judgment in this, that the Lord is longsuffering, "not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance."

As in Colossians 1:19ff., having made peace by the blood of the Cross, broad enough for all, but in fact covering His people (Romans 8:32) for whom are all things, He would have ALL reconciled, without qualification. The only entry point to truth, however, being repentance and reorientation, a movement from darkness to light, mere desire IS qualified; for desire for knowledge and truth in all things everywhere comes only with disciplined realism, realisation, alteration till the prize is won.

In this case, the acquisition is not by prowess or wonder, but by acceptance of gift, reception of the Redeemer, HIMSELF the prize (Isaiah 42:6,49:6), the covenant and the mercy (Isaiah 54). Hence in this world, the people of Christ endure with joy, the tides of oppression, if need be (I Peter 1:6, II Timothy 3:12). It is not the world's opinion which matters, except as a warning; for it is that of Christ, our Captain, who wise in limitless knowledge, acts in truth, that most delightful commodity which this world does not know, or even understand (cf. Romans 1:17ff., Ephesians 4:17ff.). Indeed, it is perilous to be highly esteemed by this world, for this word of Christ shows it:

"And He said to them,
You are they which justify yourselves before men;
but God knows your hearts:
for that which is highly esteemed among men
is abomination in the sight of God," (Luke 16:15).

The Site FOR WHICH The Call Comes

Indeed, Hebrews 11:33 - 12:3 in its itinerary of faith and its faithful participants, faith in the God of glory and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, has this to say:

"Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword,
out of weakness were made strong,
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens."

There is for every Christian, new or old, in this way or that, in this function or another, appointment more real than any medical or dental appointment; and you pay not in coin, but in character, in heart, in longsuffering, in patience, in tribulation amid holy joy, but why not ? If the journey is commanded, this is what is commended by the Captain whose word is cure for heart disease, soul distress and ground for that joy of which Peter speaks, "unspeakable and full of glory," in I Peter 1:8. Do you trade comfort for such joy ?

You might as realistically ask this of someone in love and now married to the joy of heart in the form of some spouse divinely appointed and beautifully fitting, cause of admiration and relish for the heart, and ask whether the freedom of the bachelor has been traded in for this! It is incomparable and to the called in heart, seems irrelevant.

Each state of service has its trials and some have these or those comforts; but when what is of God has come, like growing from an infant, to the position of being able to speak, thus making mistakes but yet having this facility, you do not consider the demise of infancy. Rather you ponder the gift in grace of new dimensions, and use such things, before His face who so gave. This is responsible before God, being responsive TO God and a relish because it is life as He has designed it for the one concerned. HE knows, and to "deny oneself" is not equivalent to self-affirmation, let alone self-despotism, where one's desire is king! (Matthew 16:24). The case is precisely the opposite.

To give such faithful reliance to any sinner, to anyone limited below God, would amount to virtual creature worship, a folly of the first order, unfitting, illusory, elusive, ephemeral, mere sacrilegious superficiality! To God Himself, however, such fealty is not only permissible. It is due, and who could withhold it! Many do, this their defeat. They leave the victory of life to others, as if wilting before the line, falling prostrate when the prize is within reach. Failure to be particular with God, to know and walk with Him is like leaving the estate of a rose, for the realm of swept up petals, past their peak, readied for rubbish.

Sorrow for insignificance is real; but what is of God lacks this flaw. It is never insignificant to be SO loved amid the tumultuous passions and persons of mankind, that the God of all glory stretches out His hand and redeems, discovering the soul in grace, liberating it in love and showering on it a mercy without dimensions! The insignificance syndrome amid man, leading some to melancholy and others to rashness, seeking to exploit this pathology for fun or licence or lust, no longer applies. In Christ it is not merely resolved, but replaced with a sense of wonder and the delight in the intensively significant Saviour, whose passion has procured peace.

Again, no more does the meaninglessness syndrome raise its malign head. This is but one more of the results of avoiding truth. Meaning is now intense, its application intensive as for commandoes, its basis eternal, its duties challenging, its basis sure. Men fumble and mumble and stumble without the light of Christ (John 8:12, 12:35, II Peter 1:10). There is a way, and Christ is it (John 14:6), not only in precept, but in power, not alone in direction, but in company, not only is enlistment but in enablement (Ephesians 1:11).

But why not respond! The call is from the Almighty, not some mere strutting mortal: HE has shown His life by His death, His heart by His resurrection, His grace by the call to each, and His remedy for the fall. Here then is both basis and beauty, providing dynamic living. Here death has no sway and here by the Holy Spirit, life abounds (John 14:18-24, Eph. 3:16). A change of form ? yes, for this one waits to the hour of His return, when the resurrection is in the twinkling of an eye (I Corinthians. 15); but sudden also was birth. Then is that place revealed, prepared by Christ for each Christian (John 14:1-10). and that body (II Corinthians 5), testimony of the power of God. Small wonder there never lacks the one who in Christ, born to serve as He to save, is in particular sent, and rejoicing, walks with Him who sends (Isaiah 64:5), till called home. If it were not so, said Christ, I would have told you!

Then is mortality left for immortality, and corruption for incorruption, in the everlasting knowledge of God. Then probation as in Eden, through information concerning God, and defamation of His name by the devil and human connivance with this, in Christ who gave for the record the reality of redemption, is left behind. Its guilt is all buried as in the depths of the sea; for His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting. Now comes consummation, that end to which those who are His come, "with everlasting joy upon their heads" (Isaiah 51:11); and of these, Jew or Gentile, for in this there is no difference, "the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed." Thus says the Lord, and His word, it is the rock on which to build, Himself the foundation, that never shakes (Psalm 46, 62, Matthew 7:15ff., Luke 6:48, I Corinthians 3:11, 15:58, I Peter 1:3-8).