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CHAPTER 8

THE PATH OF PILGRIMAGE IN CHRIST THE CONQUEROR

THE SITE AND THE SURGE FOR CONQUEST

In Revelation 6:2 we find a chapter of conquest: "And I saw, and behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given to him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer."

This follows in Revelation 5 such a testimony to the Lamb of God, the sacrificial Saviour, so great that the symbolic representatives of the people of Christ declare this, amid the creation of God:

"You have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priest to our God; and we shall reign on the earth. "

And again, it is no mere power invested, for it is priority attested, so the ten thousands around the throne of God in the vision are heard declaring of Christ Jesus:

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom,
and strength and honour and glory and blessing."

Why ? Love. How ? blood. When ? through eternal purity as God, sent to save as man, falling upon sin to deliver, felled by its sentence now on Himself, his very body risen to show it, sending His Spirit that we might know it (John 16: 5 -17:1-3, Titus 2-3, Philippians 2:1-10, Micah 5:1-3, Isaiah 48:15ff.).

All creation is heard attesting His glory, and it proceeds: "Blessing and honour and glory and power, be to Him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever!" From this base, we plunge into Chapter 6. In continuity with the theme in Ch. 5, one of victory and triumph, the re-investment with glory of the vindicated Redeemer, and the people there made kings and priests, centred in Christ in the heart of God, then we come to this white horse of Revelation 6.

"Come and see!" comes a participatory voice. It is then that we find as in 6:1, just what was seen. It was the white horse, given a bow for impact and a crown for place, and it is this lively emblem, this humanly directed abiding galloper which goes forth "conquering and to conquer." In the context (and the chapter divisions are humanly added divisions for ease of comprehension, so that it is all one here), the white stands for washed, the redeemed kings and priests made so to God, in Christ their sponsor, Saviour and Leader. The horse itself attests speed of coverage and intent, purpose and impact, while the conquest is what relates to THE KING who is worthy to receive blessing and honour and glory and power, forever and ever.

Is this white horse thrust of Revelation 6, then, a territorial victory, and is the Lamb transmorphed into a worldling, making a come-back for regal power while the gospel goads the earth ? To ask is to answer. It is when this Age is over, that God will rule the earth with that power which the preceding liberty makes proper; but not yet (Acts 1:6-8). This is the Gospel Age where mercy is paramount (John 3:17), for preaching His word and teaching to keep ALL His commandments (Matthew 28:19-20), from which so many ostensibly His, now resile, as foretold.

What then is it but a spiritual victory! What would it mean ? This: that there would be an immense and intensive, a fast and glorious thrust of this self-same Gospel and these same commands for living which would come upon this world, so that instead of Christ and His name being a thing of history, a thingummy of the past, an event as we pass on, it would lead to national and international, personal and popular thrusts so great that there would be an escalation from one site of impact to another, one victory leading to another at the spiritual level. It would rise; its thrust would overcome: the spiritual territory of the Gospel would surge into sight and vast arrays of victorious presentation and saved people would be found in an irresistible overcoming, attesting Christ in the earth.

That happened, so that the message was not only consolidated even in Jerusalem (before the predicted ruin of Matthew 24:1ff. came), but in those intervening 40 or so years of earlier apostolic dynamic, and then past the city's fall, it would surge into Europe until the entire Roman Empire, in line with this "conquering and to conquer" in the name of this puny Galilean as some thought, would formally attest Christ the Lord and Saviour. It was paralleled in the 16th to the 20th centuries in Britain, that Protestant Empire which avoided the perils of Romanism (SMR pp. 911ff., 1032-1088H), its subversive infiltration and its petty tyrannies of papal self-exaltation contrary to Matthew 23:8-10 to an entirety. Indeed, many were the vast national impacts, whether in due course, in Holland or Sweden, Finland or Germany, or the USA or Canada, whether in insurgent revivals in the 18th and 19th centuries, or in earlier thrusts into the very hearts of those nations.

Nor were these all. Places like France and Czechoslovakia for example, were to have considerable works of Gospel substance, though these in no small measure were made into scorched earth by the political and Romanist powers, the lax luxury of exploitation and counterfeit attesting darker interests at war with these testimonials galloping their way on. Accordingly, the Huguenots in and from France, becoming something of a national export, lowered the power of that nation, while Moravians attested further in their movements a love for the crux of the cross.

It was no pleasant excursion however. The words of Christ still included many like these to follow.

WORD ONE

"If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me," as in Matthew 16:24. Note the "deny himself". This is not triumphalist journey of arrogant attainment and subjugation in the world (Mathew 20:25-28, Luke 22:25-30), even if the horror of the papal dynasty in Rome made it so for their part, for as Christ declared, "the prince of this world is coming and he has nothing in Me!" (John 14: 30).

In Revelation 13, we see that this is in due course shown in two beasts, the international one and the religious one, the one to be worshipped and the one to incite to worship. Thus the two are to collude, the lustful lord and the propagandist for him, using religion not only to attest that impostor, but to invest him with power, an outcome given a prelude of attrition, in the Investiture Contest in the Middle Ages, when pope and Emperor played power politics against each other in efforts to be supreme. There is to come, however, a final resumption of the interplay; but this time, the imperial being firmly established, the religious will be merely a fraudulent addition, seeking to bend the bent in man's mind for worship, properly given to his Creator-Redeemer, till it snaps in submission to worship of the Beast and its leader (Revelation 13:1-16), a vicious perversion of spirit.

That is part of the fight, the spiritual fight; for as God acts, so the devil seeks to infiltrate, to react, to reach up for glory, having been cast out of heaven (Revelation 12), to earth from which he seeks new summitries of passion and power till his final crushing as in Revelation 19-20. Never was there a more blatant 'sleeper' than he, who deceives whole nations, while suppressing his identity, just as there have been those in the highest places in secret service associations in the nations, who have in fact been SO secret, that they came near to ruling them, though utterly against them. Being HIDDEN is part of the plan of devilry, so that the presence is not realised, though the works of deception and loss of agents are evident enough.

Reaction there certainly is and has been, but it is "conquering and to conquer" that the white horse goes, and myriads are won by these crusades of the cross of Christ, these attestations of His victory over death and desire, to bring about a new nation entirely, a spiritual people, one of priests and kings, since in Christ they have immediate access to the God of all glory, power and particularity (Ephesians 2:17-22, Hebrews 4:14-16).

THE TYPE OF CONQUEST

This, then, is a victory of many facets, but its nature is spiritual, though its implications and consequences are vast on all sides. Nevertheless, it is not victory for personal swagger, but quite to the contrary, these victors deny themselves. How do you do that ? It is not easy, since it is a battle with the very nature of what has been oneself.

WORD TWO, A COMPOSITE

The impact of sin, culture, political programming, educational folly has been vast. When therefore, one is awakened to spiritual reality, there is a self, a nature, an 'old man' as Paul names it (Ephesians 4:22, Colossians 3:9-10, ), who has to be put off in constant correction and cleansing, and in principle IS already discarded, as these biblical passages, in that order, attest. The 'new man' has to be put on, or if seen as one's garb already, then renewed.

Like a plant ready to be watered (if it could object), but now acquiescent to all of this, it is fertilised and pruned, yes and placed where desired; and it is one planted "by the Father" as in Matthew 15:13. Thus one has to "deny" one's very self, however misused one might have been, by brambles and weeds, false fertilisers and gloomy overhead from former wrong placement, or however crudely some might seek to intervene by temptation, resisted with all Christ's own wisdom and keeping power in view and in mind as one waits on the Lord. To Him is all power being given, and against Him there is no effectual impediment (John 10:9,27-28, Ephesians 1:11, II Timothy 1:8-12, Romans 8:29ff.).

IN these conquests then, there is victory over the 'old man', which being a war (as in Galatians 5:17-24), involves sacrifice and effort; yet this is not in one's own strength, for this can be subverted by sin. Rather, it is in His who has overcome and in whom is the power for this victory (Romans 7 leading to Romans 8:1-10, I John 5:1-14). If sin fells you, you must fall as one having an accident, to find His victory, never swaggering. You have likewise to "take up your cross", which of course is not the cross of Christ's redemption, since only He could bear that (Colossians 1:22). Indeed it is by Him AS crucified that one is crucified to the world and the world to oneself as a Christian (Galatians 6:14), and it is He only who is the ransom (Matthew 20:28, Hebrews 7-10), bringing eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12), by one offering covering for ever (Hebrews 10:10-14).

What then do you DO in this respect ? It is this. TO everyone who is a Christian, there is a place accorded, a site for non-surrender to subversion, for victorious attestation of Christ, for living in God, and whether it be in teaching or preaching or administration or brotherly kindness or healing or prayerful prevailing, and whether it be in wealth or comparative poverty, in privation or in privilege, in tempting power structures as with Daniel, or in imprisonment as with Joseph, it involves difficulties of one kind or another. Incredible as it may at first seem, life 'at the top' in terms of civil power or privilege can be almost harder than that in humbler positions, since the essence of the thing can be a perpetual problem needing constant vigilance, as we have seen in the case of Nehemiah; and big-headedness and little-heartedness are constant enemies!

Yet though they fight against the Christian, they will not prevail against him (as exhibited in Jeremiah's call - Jeremiah 1:19, cf. Ezekiel 2:6ff.), for each of God's adopted children (Ephesians 1) is "sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance, until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory." God is most zealous for what He has purchased at such cost, just as He removes fraud and equivocation, Balaam-esque intrusion, preserving His own from such devious self-promotion and self-deceit.

Then amid this composite SECOND WORD showing the reality of the suffering and the discipline of discipleship, but also its joy, you have also, said Christ, to "follow" Him.

THE PARTICULARITY OF CONQUEST

WORD THREE

How can this be ? In John 12:26, we read: "If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honour."This followed an application by some Greeks to "see Jesus" (John 12:22), and this brought forth some items for recognition, for the sight of Jesus is not primarily of a physical format. First, in answering this request, He declared this: "the hour has come that the Son of Man should be glorified," John 12:23.

In other words, to the point here, seeing Christ, is not going to exclude the torture, the kind of barbarities He suffered, the false religionists and the political harassment. All this was to come (John 14:30), and Christ made it clear that it was part of the vision of truth to realise these thrusts of evil power and Christ's victory over them, through meekness and sacrifice trouncing the sin which they represented, and to observe and realise how it was done and for whom and why!

HOW was He about to be glorified ? It was to happen in two chief ways.

It was in

1) His glorious fulfilment of the whole historic and epochal,
indeed universal necessity of atonement, in Himself, as in

2) His testimonially elegant, simple bodily resurrection (Acts 2:25-32),
Himself raised as He had wrought for those whom He had raised earlier,
such as Lazarus in a marked introduction to His passion.

Such was evidence of the achievement of atonement! (Romans 1:4),
in far healthier ways, and more dramatic even than the mushroom cloud
and the radioactive cloud with the destructive atomic bomb,
Its pillar of vapour foretold in Joel 2:30 with Acts 2:19.

Moreover, that sign brought vast radiation and continuation of woe,
but this resurrection brought vast radiation and continuation of triumph,
constructive not seductive, solving the worst of problems,
death from sin, with the best of performances:
the love that joined to wisdom,
knows the answer, with the courage to carry it out,
the purity to make it effectual. and the power to apply it

Indeed, this being glorified, on the part of the Son of Man, to which Christ in John 12 referred, included the entire follow on from that, just as Revelation 5 exhibits its basis in a kind of orchestration of praise. Christ went on, as we see in John 12:24, to indicate that as He for ransom would die, so those ransomed by Him would die to the old man, to their former way of life, indeed to the very heart of their old natures, being invested by the power of God with a grand and ordered life, irruptive and challenging, bursting with a new productivity. What do you DO then ? Enlist, volunteer (Psalm 110), repent into regeneration, trust Him for life eternal (John 4:14, 7:37, Galatians 6:14).

Next, we shall look into the personal particularities and the abiding realities together in their mutual involvement, at dramatic dealings and the high supervision from the Lord.

The Path of Pilgrimage in Christ the Conqueror,

Part II.

We now continue our theme. Meanwhile let us note that with John 12:22-26, we have moved on to WORD FOUR.

WORD FOUR

It is this which shows the reality both of the challenge and the life in Christ, thrusting in His spiritual vitality of conquest, not in imperial pomposity, but abundantly into life itself (Ephesians 3:16).

GRAIN AND GAIN

As a grain apparently just dies, but in fact has a closely related but entirely different life in the visible light of life, arising after the hidden little life in the earth which preceded it, so would it be in the victorious working of God in His people. In other words, to "love" your life is the way to lose it, and far from a victory if you achieve its ambitions at all, is the most miserable of defeats, a defiance of deity and contrary to the necessities of living before God.

Positively, He proceeded, IF you so die like the seed, not evaluating your nice plump and perhaps golden seed condition, but freely abandoning this for life in the Lord, as provided, then you will bear much 'fruit'. Stalks arise and each may have much grain, jointly a marvel of multiplying productivity. It is profitable spiritually, personally productive and a work of God in you. Indeed, if you could even be said to "hate" your life, that is realise that so far from being the 'real' you, it is detestable and as infected has to be seen in its sinful source and in Christ overcome (I John 5:4), then it is the properly planted eternal life.

It is this which constitutes the grant to the surrendered grain, to the pardoned person, arrested by the Christ now seen, and endued with the gift of eternal life. It is one of the special features of this victory, that faith is its means, so that the gift being given, the discipline and growth follows (Hebrews 12), and the task being assigned to the newly reborn, there is no turning back except by transitionists, those who only fell a little in mid-air, swirled about, and never hit the earth for regeneration into a growing plant.

But WHEN the seed falls to the earth, and WHEN repentance has led it so to do (as in Luke 13:1-3), for this is always prior, and WHEN the heart has a new Master and life a new dimension (as in Titus 2-3, John 3), THEN eternal life is already present, so that categorically there is no passage on to judgment, and there is a steady state. It is one having passed from the past turmoil preparatory to eternal death, to the present estate of life (John 5:24). Hence John 5:47 simply states that "he who believes in Me has eternal life," while I John 5:11ff., signifies the need to realise this and Matthew 11:27ff., the need to rest in Him who gives it, as indeed does Hebrews 4.

What however of the person who is thus adopted as a child of God (as in Eph. 1:1-11), who has in Christ already "obtained an inheritance" as in I Peter 1:3-7, where it is reserved in heaven ? Then the case is this: WHERE I AM THERE WILL MY SERVANT BE. It is so at the present, where the Lord sends, it is so in the end, where destination becomes a glorious destiny in Him and with Him, who has gone to prepare a place. It is so in toil on earth, in rest in heaven, in preparation and in consummation. He will NEVER leave nor will He forsake His own. He is to be consulted, for He is King; and He is to be followed because He is God, who having come to this earth, now deals in diligence with us.

THE CAPTAIN IN THE CONQUEST

AND THE CATAPAULTING INTO THE FIELD

John Newton, famous for his 18th century womanising, slave-trading, Christ-mocking, horrendous reception of lashings and oppression when his enemies gained power over him, as for his humiliation and his continuation till deliverance came, was unlikely to be called ? In one way, yes: for such a prelude does not bespeak such a passion as became his. However, just as not many are great who are called (I Cor. 1:27), so some are much abased who are delivered from the ranks of ruin, flamboyance, notoriety not to be desired and positive evil, to placement by God in His service. In between are many a mental, spiritual, moral or intellectual concussion, yes or even physical; and there may be seethings of spirit which are precipitated into scorching volatilities that assault the soul. Yet in the end, there is God and there is man, and there is no limit with the Lord.

Consider Newton's prelude to becoming a famous proponent of anti-slavery and a mighty worker for the Lord. He was flogged for failure to keep to ship's orders, kept in slave-like humiliation by a proud slaving family, among slaves, and seemingly had a bullet pass through his hat, but not his brow, when out hunting. He was nearly overcome by a mutiny, despite his attempt at especially merciful treatment of crew and slaves, nearly lost with a broken life in a drifting ship on his way back to England; and thus sensitised, but not sanitised, he was at last brought to realise his errors and come to his senses ? ...

No, far better than that, to gain vision and understanding of his Lord (Jeremiah 9:23-24), whom he at last recognised as having preserved him not once, but often, from a deserved death in a storm of mocking, spiritual antipathy, to a doomed end. He had intervened in mercy and in majesty. How amazing the Lord's grace, how special His deliverances, how singular His provisions, how personal His interest, how provident His grace, how powerful His control, how utter His wisdom! Here in essence, liberty finds love, love Lordship both authentic and divine, and man is rescued from secession of spirit.

GRACE COVERS ALL ACCOUNTS

Grace Efficient

The Wonder of Divine Love

All this, it is true of the Lord; and Newton was staggered by it, delighted and awe-stricken, as well he might be. He later encouraged the delightfully merciful and devoted William Wilberforce, whose tenacity for deliverance of slaves is one of the choicest of career characteristics, in his crusade against British slave dealings; and then went on to become a famous preacher and hymn writer. One hymn, the internationally beloved "Amazing Grace," is indicative of his sense of selection by grace for service in faith. A copy of some of it follows.

Amazing grace! (how sweet the sound)
That sav’d a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found,
Was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
And grace my fears reliev’d;
How precious did that grace appear,
The hour I first believ’d!

Thro’ many dangers, toils and snares,
I have already come;
’Tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
And grace will lead me home.

There is a local position of every Christian for God: be it as in Newton's prelude time in slave trading and debasement, as preparatory to conversion, or as in Paul's many episodes of imposing chains or floggings. There follows a vocal time, a testimonial day after divine deliverance. Thus Paul willingly himself suffered these very things in serving Christ, that he had earlier imposed on others (Colossians 1:24); while Newton, former slave-ship Captain, in his testimony before Parliament, deep, detailed, empathetic laboured to help slaves, his writing knowledgeable and convincing. This helped Wilberforce, seemingly almost like a son to him. So does the Lord move in particularity, whether to bring repentance in terms of both the severity and the kindness of the Lord, or to bring precious goods of spiritual life to those without them, the case requiring suffering for successful transport of the report to the site of need.

There is a place in grace for every recipient: foreknown, foundering but granted faith, forlorn but finding repentance, feeble but finding strength from the Creator, one that endures and has wings (as in Isaiah 40:26ff.). There is nothing haphazard to the sheep with a Shepherd, total in sincerity, indefatigable in care, sure and steadfast in salvation, a rock in every tempest, a cover in every scorching sun.

There is appointment, as with Paul and Barnabus - Acts 13, and disappointment, as with young John Mark, who evidently left a missionary program too early - Acts 13:4-13, 15:36-40. There is reproof and restoration, as when Mark is chosen by God to give his name to the Gospel of Mark, one of only four! and by contrast with earlier failure, is asked by Paul at the end, to help minister to him in old age and suffering (Philemon 24 and II Timothy 4:11). While Paul was being betrayed and judged in preparation for death that seemed impending (II Timothy 4), was it not to Mark that he looked for special help! So does God localise, particularise, vindicate his selections and institute His corrections.

Divine appointments of the redeemed include direction, protection, reprimand, realisation, restoration and in service, that special blessing of the Holy Spirit which attends obedience (Acts 5:17-32). It is not in psychological extravaganzas that blessing rests, let alone in solicitation of self-centred comfort; nor yet is there exclusion of seeking the Lord's face for understanding, direction and nearness that one might KNOW Him truly and adjust continually to His leading, as by sails, a craft may to the wind.

Let us turn from the maritime to the agricultural, for one theme can bring many images. Intimacy with God is in falling to the ground, taking root (Matthew 15:13, Ephesians 3:17), and hence bearing upward the fruit, result of that digging downward, not with pick and shovel, but through the Lord bringing devotion and surrendered joy, reaching to the grasping of the very depths as one later reaches from there to the heights appointed, to grow and to show the wonders of the Lord, being rooted and grounded in the love of God by faith.

Daniel was selected, be it noted, not only by Babylon for cadetship, as an exile from Judah deemed capable for higher service for the Empire, but by God AS he sought to follow Him in all his ways. Thus he came by faith to meet a deadly peril with which he was confronted by the imperial monarch who, being weary of the pretensions of the wise, wanted a religion or approach which WORKED manifestly and incontestably amid the actualities of history, and one's life in it. God having determined to answer the seeking sovereign in ways most notable, used Daniel to do it, and in so acting, delivered from the Lord, for all time the very heart of what was coming for all, Jew or Gentile.

In what way ? Daniel was used to show the power of God, the wisdom of God, the purity of God, the ways of God and the will of God for the salvation of man, including the date at which the crucial part of it, a sort of constructive rocket to rain not doom but deliverance, would come. That was done by simply referring to 70 years which Jeremiah, the prophet, had predicted for exile of the nation for their chronic sinfulness, in Babylon, and in a vision, showing Daniel that 70 lots of seven would make for not a mere return to Israel, but for the basis of all righteousness to be shown, and of crucial salvation through the death of the Messiah, to be accomplished. (This has been shown in detail in such sites as Christ the Citadel... Ch. 2 and The Christian Prescription Ch. 2, and pursued in SMR pp. 886ff., 959ff.).

As always in such matters, what was prescribed, whether in divine action, prediction, power, purging, discipline or enduement, duly arrived on time, and the results remain unobscured.

Thus Daniel the cadet, the prophet, the maker of dates, not with fast women but with steadfast history by inspiration from the Lord, became a particular person, sited where he would not in the flesh like to remain. Rather was he appointed to serve in strange places, and it was there that there he served in unusual manner, with outstanding result. What then of Jeremiah, strangely called and divinely appointed by the wisdom of God before even he was born, as seen in Jer. 1:5-13 (for time is merely a venture into a type of reality by the Lord, in one way, rather like providing a setting for a novel, but this is not fiction but fact).

Let us then REST in the Lord. Jeremiah had to meet challenge of integrity and sincerity, as shown in Jeremiah 15:10-21, where we see him momentarily flinching, then being challenged, his spirit discernible as responding to this with readiness to continue. It is this which those who are born of God come to show, though they may have occasional altitude drops like some airline carriers, that can to a point, create some damage! David and Bathsheba is one noted case (a telling repentance seen in Psalm 51). This neither deleted the site for service given to King David nor slighted his connection with the Lord; but it DID lead to a discipline as deep as the disorder required (II Samuel 12).

It is however not only the great and the famous, of which Christians show no majority by any means (I Corinthians 1:27), that so live; for it is enormously hard for those rich in funds, favour or fancy to humble themselves to the Lord, rather than revolving around their own personal suns, natural or invented; and self-satisfaction can be most beguiling (Matthew 19:24). Many are those whose lives do not reach record, or 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.

The Lord knows both how to reach them and to sustain them, as foreknown in the thrust of a loving desire for all (Colossians 1:19ff., Titus 2-3, Matthew 23:37ff., II Peter 3:9), and found in the wisdom that knows no barrier, but that of liberty, divinely interpreted and applied, so that things unseen taking wings, events arraignable submit to the sovereignty of so gracious a Saviour, and before judgment each one of them is found. All who are found are written with the pen of love, the ink of mercy and the cost of His blood in ransom.

Liberality and liberty meet with grace to produce peace: always with one focus,

"God forbid that I should glory

except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ

by whom the world has been crucified to me,

and I to the world."

One must notice an option: Let my will, says the unbeliever in essence or in heart, whichever or in both, forbid that I should glory in the cross of Jesus Christ, where I would crucify him afresh, if it served me, to keep my autonomy. Through much confusion, many may not allow their minds to frame their discourse in that way; but ONCE their will is consulted, from the first to the last, before time or in it, despite knowledge and appeal, ANYTHING must be sacrificed to secure it as a worshipful thing, the most immense and intense thing in life. If the ear must be closed, the eye shut, so be it; and whatever else it takes, to delete vision and destroy the entry of reality into the soul.

The world therefore so trained and so misguided can become incandescent with hated of truth, and make for more reversals for Christians, as if to reassure itself that it is supreme!

Next Sunday, Lord willing, we shall proceed to Part III of The Path of Conquest in Christ the Conqueror.

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 unto 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).