AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH July 8, 2012
A Presbyterian Church following the Bible without Qualification
and the Lord Jesus Christ
without Compromise by Faith
Absolute Authority
and
Absolute Grace
Suitable to God Only
Necessary to Man
PSALM 110
Absolute Authority
and
Absolute Grace
Suitable to God Only
Necessary to Man
THE ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY
In Psalm 110:1-2 we have something to which the 21st century in its uninhibited fresh look at humanity, can give no consent. It is absolute authority. It has seen the bent, the blighted, the indicted, the conceited, the mentally tormented as leader, and has become disenchanted with everything but itself, defined differently by different powers, each seeking to lead, to be notable, to achieve some kind of victory for some kind of purpose.
President Putin, for example, seems wedded to the concept of Russian might and majesty, through the ages, whether Communist or any other, whether THEREFORE slaying millions or only achieving a continuing presidency by various arrangements, or authority of his own. China seems to find it almost impossible to repent of Tiananem Square, and the round contempt it has displayed towards so many for so long, bursting out in the Red Guard phase, as ironically in many of the factory conditions, in mental oppression and indoctrination. Not least in this, is found in the direct downvaluing of the individual man, by some individual men, who happen to have power to do so, though not to themselves, each of great importance!
The USA seems to be following a demagogue whose way is her fall, not into desired disaster as such, but only into religious affront to the Lord God, new affinities implying irreverence to what the vast Christian past and substantially continuing present religious base of the country deems, from the Bible, to be idolatry. This, meanwhile, is mixed with meddling with morals, and a bow to naturalism to the point of dismissing as irrelevant that creation without which logic has no place in life (cf. (cf. Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny, SMR, TMR).
While this estrangement goes on, Islamic fragments seem to unite in being divided, as if that is the one thing on which they can cordially agree when it comes to PRACTICALITIES, and many of them have such enlightened major aims as the physical extinction of a particular nation, apparently at ANY cost to morals or truth or justice or righteousness, because ... the reasons are obscure at the ultimate! So they team in tens of millions and scores of countries, more or less committed to or fascinated by the concept, to extinguish that particular nation, as if life itself were scarcely worthy of more than this, except in some congratulations from the alternative to the God Almighty and Redeemer of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. This they expect as they slaughter all ages, in efforts to delete a nation. THAT NATION IS ISRAEL.
This onrush of popular and populous schemings, in ordinary terms, genocide, does not seem to receive that name in the palaces of this earth, for reasons which are also obscure. Even more obscure has been the United Nations itself, containing many Islamic nations, which at one time - before thinking again - named it racism for a particular people of a particular past who had long inhabited, and that famously, a particular region, to want to regroup there after some 2000 years of exile. Small though its current fraction of its past territories is, what it has won amid this multi-national lust for extinction, even the UN wishes to have reduced still further, complaining constantly, as if the disproportion of the assailants to the restored little people (population about that of Australia in 1937, now some 3 times greater), in a land compared in size of New Jersey.
The circumstance that after World War I, the League of Nations, the congregation of nations then current, appointed Britain mandate over that territory, and confirmed the British undertaking (Balfour Declaration of 1917) that this would be the site for Jewish homeland, one to be sure, where it would give due concern to other peoples, but a homeland for all that, does not seem to many genocide wishers, or dealers, to matter.
This, in ordinary term, genocide, does not seem to receive that name here, for reasons which are also obscure. Even more obscure has been the United Nations itself, containing many Islamic nations, which at one time - before thinking again - named it racism for a particular people of a particular past who had long inhabited, and that famously, a particular region, small though it is, on this earth, to desire to regroup and continue there. The circumstance that after World War I, the League of Nations, the congregation of nations then current, appointed Britain mandate over that territory, and confirmed the British undertaking (Balfour Declaration of 1917) that this would be the site for Jewish homeland, one to be sure, where it would give due concern to other peoples, but a homeland for all that, does not seem to many genocide wishes, to matter.
What did matter were wars in 1948,1967 and1973 (cf. SMR Ch. 9), when vast arrays of peoples from many such nations and allies, sought to extinguish the hated nation. However, though the disproportion in the land holdings of those nations, in their forces and in their vast engulfment of the little nation was outrageously apparent, they never succeeded. On the contrary, the little nation took considerable lands back (though only a small proportion of the gift of the League of Nations), and this even though a large percentage of the scattered people of the little nation (as it became once more in 1948) had been slaughtered with a specialised European human abattoir technology, which did not omit to garner even the gold in the teeth of the people who had been in that little nation, despite all this, returned there after so long a time.
The additional circumstance that AS A NATION, they had slain the Messiah, predicted in great detail with date of death (Daniel 9:23-27, The Christian Prescription Ch. 2), in their own Holy Book, which now we call the biblical Old Testament, ruined them, bringing on a severance from their former power as predicted (Micah 5:1-3). THAT MESSIAH IS JESUS CHRIST.
Even this did not lead to their utter failure, some escapees from these German camps of squalor and torment, even returning in order to fight for their traditional heritage, with amazing victories (Zechariah 12:1-13:1), to be followed by massive national conversion in faith abundant in the crucified Christ, a faith spiritually informed!.
God IS an authority, THE authority, a fact often missed. What HE says in the Bible, as in our genes (the linguistic basis on which babes are built by a library of correlative commands with power to act), is easily checked with all other claimants to the divine, and found to prevail in this, that His biblical word, as stated, happens, and this, whether apparently impossible or not. Scientists, as in the current particle news, may become inordinately famous when some one idea, such as the current 'boson' bit, apparently appointed amid the multiple systems, is verified within its created framework, just as Einstein showed a mathematical mass-energy relationship. The Bible in all is verified over millenia in vastly diverse directions, making points far above those of our environment, even concerning the environment of our souls, the tenure of our spirits, the workings of our nations, the power of the God of creation and the testimony of His REMEDY for man, which works; and is justly famed above all contest.
When verification is not for a moment but for a millenium, and when the predictions are not in one layer of reality, but in many, then you look to the Creator for the nous and the will and purpose, and in fact, find there answers to all the problems of philosophy and politics, thought and ideology. It is so because truth works (cf. Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ). Thus in Psalm 110:1-2, as in Psalm 2, you find a feature later in the historic field, than the reference to salvation through the grief and sacrifice of the Messiah. This is information concerning the AFTER-CARE, following that operation. Indeed, it is considerably later. Having noted the expulsion of Israel - for that is the little nation which God predicted would return and wage against staggering assault, victorious warfare - it foretells this result on its national resumption. Indeed, it predicts the return of many in the nation, yet to come in this context, and nearly next in order.
The return is to the Judge, the Saviour Jesus Christ. At this time, Israel is to be vastly assaulted (Ezekiel 38-39, Isaiah 66, Deuteronomy 32,Micah 7), a thrust God Himself will repel. The royal sacrifice will return after gathering and rescuing His people of all sources, who trust in Him. THEN will be found an ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY, loathed by those who flee from the Lord, though some may be even awakened by the sheer peace and splendour of it all. THIS majesty works (cf. Ezekiel 21:27). It is what is needful, due and fitting, after the nations have had their day with all its squalor, sometimes with shafts of light, only to be extinguished, as so largely now the case for example both in England and in the US. "Overthrown, overthrown!" the Lord gave Ezekiel to cry, "I will make it overthrown! It shall be no longer, until He comes whose right it is, and I will give it to Him."
THAT KING IS THE LORD JESUS CHRIST (Acts 17:31). Not only is the Messiah, 110:1-2.5-7, to RULE on this earth (cf. Psalm 72, Revelation 20), but where rebellion tries for the umpteenth time to overturn this finale to the vast divine drama for man, it will be met with a rod of iron (Psalm 2:1-4,8-9). It is like the launching of a vast ship: first for many years the preliminaries are wrought, and much do many suffer as it proceeds. THEN AT LAST, the vast vessel is LAUNCHED, and with a certain maritime majesty it floats and moves on the river to the sea, a spectacle in vast contrast to the hulk when it was being prepared. NOW the time is up, the day has come, the spectacular replaces the laborious. In our terms, moving back from imagery to reality, Christ having borne the sin of many, His blood shed for the redemption of many as He said at the Last Supper, and man having had adequate time to digest and disseminate the Gospel, the rule of the Judge, the King of glory, proceeds.
What liberty has man had! What merciless slaying of millions in more than one land, has occurred in the last 100 years, by people of what in some things, have been opposite mystifications and myths, both Nazi and Communist, both ignoring the reality of man as they slam the authority of an unmandated mission on the serfs of their day, to subdue them to unreality. The heavenly State does not come by force, as BOTH of them have proved, given massive opportunity. They but illustrate the obvious: man has a liberty of heart and thought and conscience, and a capacity to seek truth which no force can ever eradicate. You CANNOT govern man in that way. As you see at the end of Joshua, the people have to WANT it, and for that matter, at the private level in that particular individual drama, so has the heart of each one. Without that, it is all only pretence and pretension.
Thus absolute authority, in its time, comes to this earth before the same departs, like a Sunday School Anniversary stage, when its job is one (II Peter 3, Mat. 24:35, Isaiah 51:6).
THE VIRTUE OF VOLUNTEERING
Man has come close in many millions, to worshipping what he can find out, and calling it science (cf. Scientific Method ...), now increasingly with disregard to what actually happens, when it comes to his origin and source and the evidence for that (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!). Many of these conceptions change, often ludicrously, men of science attacking with almost venomous relish, at times, the ideas, each of the other (cf. Wake Up World! ... Chs. 4-6). Lately, actuality is explicitly made subject to preconceptions in a landmark confession from a leading scientist at Harvard. There are parties even in science, though it is not so when scientific method is followed, for it has an inherent deference to the empirical (cf. SMR pp. 140ff., TMR Ch. 1 , The Splendour of the Biblical Coverage ... Ch. 3): even this by some of them among the secular, selectively subjected, even to open disdain.
This is mere humanistic self-worship in its ultimate spiritual dynamic, though many do not seem to realise what they are doing. When absolute authority comes, not only in evidence as now, but in actual rule over this world, there is a prelude as in Psalm 110:1-2,5-6, 2:1-2,8-9). The Psalm 2 showed what in Acts 2 is cited, the effort to eradicate the Messiah when He came (as in Revelation 12), and the divine retort, raising (as in Psalm 16), of the slain body of the Messiah, freely making of Himself a sacrifice for sin.. Then Psalm 110 as in the latter part of Psalm 2, shows the eventual restoration, not just of Israel (as in Ezekiel 36-39 for example), but of its rejected King (Isaiah 49:7, 61:1ff., 11:1ff.). Indeed, to be is the restoration of much IN Israel TO that King and this as part of the entire overthrow of the fallen follies of the Gentiles, who became as bad as Israel of old, in their rejection of the Messiah. None but God will be exalted in that day (Isaiah 2, 19).
Preference for folly, at all levels in human society, scientific (where God is concerned, by a devious contrivance, irrationally viewed by many almost as a competitor for the rule of man over the equipment, given within himself), or other, has shown to the uttermost what man is capable of in heart and spirit. He is not an incompetent by nature, but merely passionately impure in his efforts to delete not only the emblematic Israel (former agent of God), but God Himself. This is consummated when Christ returns IN ABSOLUTE AUTHORITY as in Revelation 19, when the actual preferences behind thought and the strivings, connivings or aspirations of many hearts are then exposed, as in an X-ray, but one of spiritual intensity.
Thus the FACT is that people DO volunteer to go to war (when not merely sent), a possible use of human will, or to woo a lady, or apply an idea; and when it comes to the ultimate, as in the present millenia since Christ's crucifixion, you see this. THEY WANT Christ (or not), they DESIRE salvation (or not), they SURRENDER (Luke 14:28-32) to Christ as Lord and Saviour (or not), and they state at times their reasons. However crippled by sin they may be, God knows their hearts from eternity, and makes no mistake. Desiring all to be retrieved and cured (Colossians 1:19ff.), He yet does not force. "Your people shall be volunteers in the day of your power," we read.
This the ultimate liberty of sovereign and divine provision and gift, takes account of the realities of man, unlike the specious subterfuges of man, who uses mere force over hundreds of millions, as if this even COULD be an answer. What do they sell Christ to obtain ? only the rule of birth and death, sickness and seduction of spirit, body, mind or heart, free from God like a car free from oil, or a building from foundation, particles from structural appointment, or a stream from purity.
JESUS CHRIST: THE PRIZE OF SUBLIME PRIESTHOOD
Psalm 110 tells us that THIS kingdom, at last instituted before this world goes, with divine power, which works, unlike the human power of the millenia which does not even meet the needs of man, will relate to One of singular beauty. "In the beauties of holiness, from the womb of the morning, You have the dew of Your youth," verse 3. Such a King has more than charisma, and less than merely superficial appeal as you see in His compassion, pity, justice to the poor and praise in Psalm 72, yes even in His redemption for those who are His!
The figure used in Romans 12, I Corinthians 12:12ff., and Ephesians 47ff., is that of a body, with Christ the head, and you see this applied in the resurrection as in Isaiah 26:19. Thus vitality comes to those who know Him, and the griefs of age are supplanted by that glorious combination, wisdom with the holy loveliness of a dawning of light, no more a stricken sunset of pollution. Instead of brew, there is dew, and instead of deceit, there is the glory of unimpeded light. His people receive the realisation of what has been latent, and defiled, now patent and anointed. The lead in ? THE COMMAND IS TO REPENTANCE (Luke 13).
What had been the hope of the past (as in I Peter 1:3ff.), and the spiritual experience of Christ in prelude, becomes the happiness of the day. Christ having done all in one sacrifice once made in the end of the Age, and that by Himself and not another (John 10, Hebrews 9-10), is the only priest, just as even in prelude, in Hebrews 7-8. There is NO MORE SACRIFICE, we read, and hence no more priest. The latent priest becomes now the patent priest, the looked for, found within, becomes the ruler, seen outside.
HENCE when the time comes, and the confrontation in the madness of oppressed man becomes direct with the Lord, there is no stopping for luxuries and leisure, for "He shall drink of the brook by the wayside," instituting the deliverance for man after so many of his own racial deceptions, in celestial truth. God does not stay because of man's way, but waits till all being unveiled, and volunteers being given their due, and time its come-uppance, the scene is ready. Thus from these two Psalms categorically, we see the divine counsel behind the actions, the human folly in their midst, and the eventual outcome, glorious as the original creation, and more so, because now made pure, not until some fall, but forever.