TRUTH WILL OUT

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CHAPTER 7

TRUTH WILL OUT

Revelation 5

How ludicrous is the nature-worship of today! They make sharks safe in their thousands (we read there may be up to 2000 Great White Sharks alone, swimming in Australian waters, The Advertiser, Nov. 30). They even protect crocodiles, when in some parts of Queensland, there is real danger of consigning humans to their innermost parts. Man is becoming super-sensitive to the environment because he does not know the Maker of it, and so clings like someone left by her busband with a rapidly declining fortune, watching it eaten away.

It is not that God is dead to man, but man is dead to God. Exceptions ? fewer than might appear, since the number of supposedly Christian bodies putting out their own ideas on morals, doctrine and Christ grows like weeds. FEW there be that enter the narrow way, Christ declared and MANY will be those who futilely come to Him at the end, claiming great works for Him: I NEVER KNEW YOU! is His predicted reply (Matthew 7:20ff.).

People try to downgrade Christ and upgrade nature, but in the end, the mere object of God’s creation cannot save you: you need HIM who made you for that! WHEN you have found Him, well might you join the angels singing to the shepherds at the time of Christ’s birth (Luke 2:13-14), “Glory to God in the highest and on earth, peace, goodwill toward man.” The pitifully small body of texts making it “to men of goodwill” merely attests man’s roving romancing about things. It is the GOODWILL OF GOD which is in view, and CONVERSION is needed to find it, not a preceding goodwill in the hearts of men! (cf. Luke 13:1-3, Colossians 1:19ff., Ephesians 4:17-19). To God’s standards, NONE comes except by the sacrificial offering of Christ (Hebrews 2:1-3).

Titus tells it similarly: “But when the kindness and love of God toward men appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Saviour, that having been justified by His grace, we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.” It is the serpent who teaches against it.

I PRAISE IS RAIN FOR THE HEART, SUN FOR THE SEEDS (Rev. 5:1-10)

When you find Him, and know Him in this way, then with the angels, praise is your heart’s desire (cf. Psalm 149-150). Not only did the angels sing it at the nativity, but in our text in Revelation 5, we find something like an appalled silence, as the scroll of events of come stands untouched. WHO will take it ? None can do so; for history and judgment await, as the following chapters of Revelation very well show. Indeed, without that real Israel (‘prince of God’), that true servant, that Christ, God would not have so much as created (Isaiah 51:16, 49:3), but having His Word to send, His Son to be crucified in view, He did create and did know the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10), His Son being “slain from the foundation of the world” before the face of His Almighty wisdom (Revelation 13:8).

It is this very Lamb (Rev. 5:6), who takes the scroll. HOW could this world FACE such judgments as
come ? ONLY because in the love of God, the antidotes are prepared, the path is well trodden, the costs of its construction are fully paid (Hebrews 9:12).The one who will not walk on it is not a pitiable spiritual foundling but a rebel. Force is not employed here; but faith is required. He has His people covered, not from suffering, but from the meaningless, the ungoverned, the doom and the deceit (Mat. 24:24): the path for each is prepared (Psalm 32). YOU are His ? then your path is prepared and your way is provided, so that surrendering your own willfulness, you inherit in Him (Proverbs 3:4-5).

The silence then, sudden - as in Rev. 8:1's immensely dramatic but only temporary hiatus - when at first none could take the scroll, becomes praise, as He, the Messiah, comes and receives it. WORTHY is the LAMB, the Redeemer, avaialble for any in all the earth, the only cover in all the universe (Col. 1:19ff.), to take the scroll, open the doors of history; for He has redeemed His people, making them kings and priests (cf. Romans 5:17, Rev. 22:5, Hebrews 4:16). The atmosphere depicted is fraught with prayers like incense, poured out, as history at last moves to the deliverance of the people of the Lord, and the consummation of the divine kindness. The newness of their Song is the freshness of the occasion, the axis of history turning on Christ, exposing His people to a full realisation of His wonder, who alone is sufficient as sacrifice and Saviour, Shepherd and Example for man (Matthew 24:35).

He it is who is the First and the Last (Revelation 1:17, 2:8), as is the LORD in Isaiah 44:6, even He who there declares, "Besides Me, there is no God." This signature like that on a cheque, is the divine assurance of the deity of the Redeemer. Indeed in Isaiah He declares Himself at this very place, the Redeemer, in this very singularity of deity as the Being on whom alone all depends, who alone created, who alone is distinguishable from fraud and falsity, deceit and vacuity in the religious propensities of man (Isaiah 44-46). The FIRST and the LAST is not 'a' first and last, since of this, He is the exclusive occupant, dramatically, exhaustively, continually so acclaimed in Isaiah as in Revelation, now in this way, now in that.

Nor is it less of the reality for the enormous magnitude, both in intensity, ascription and multitudinous vastness, of the singers in Revelation 5, that He is God who did it, than that this is what He did. It is this joint reality and realisation of the depth of His service, the depravity faced by His clearing House operations, in digging into the pit to extract man, the humiliation He suffered, the grandeur of His being and the baseness of its execution, that raises praise to echo through the universe.

It is this which leads man, failing to provide in his carnal multitudes now on earth (though many are they who constitute the small percentage of functional Christians as distinct from the phenomenon of form and lip service, with synthesis and syncretism with other religions as in Isaiah 29:11ff., and 6, then as now), to become recipient of horror and murder. If he will not praise reality and appreciate truth, then the void of virtue and the very abyss of criminality, often glorying in itself as if maleficence were goodness and cruelty kindness, will be - and is - his lot.

His world trembles

as now this false cult, sect or heresy,

like Islam

(cf. More Marvels Ch. 4, Divine Agenda Ch. 6),

Romanism

(SMR pp. 1032-1088H)

or Mormonism (q.v. in sects),

now that,

either murders man or mars His word. This he does while adding as prohibited and breaching the integrity of the Lord who gave ONE SON, ONE WORD and guaranteed both (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, TMR Ch. 3, Psalm 119, 111, Matthew 5:17-20), yes and ONE GOSPEL, exclusive from the first of change (Galatians 1, Revelation 22:18ff.), whether transmutation, addition or variation of any kind.

New religiosities compound (News 122, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 11) and abound,

Earth Charter declares its post-communistic void, and man makes his declarations for the earth to hear, whether from political, ecclesiastical or religious generalities, as if man had all made it, rather than grabbed the goodness of God and held it to the heart as his own, like some child taking his teddy and not letting mother or father or sister or friend near it, in a veritable passion of childish appropriation.

If then the world is its own oyster (and old fish gets smelly), then what is found is what is only to be expected from its rottenness in claim, in audacity, in continuance in an aggrandisement of corruption, as if the very passion of Christ were of small account compared with the passion for possession, control and manipulation of earth and world, environment and man; as if the power of God were mere availability to be seized, as Christ was seized, and lashed into service, as Christ was lashed, as if all this were the credible objective for man in this pearl of a globe.

As it is not credible but mere lust; so it is not creditable, and is designed to bust.

Is then God the author of confusion ? far from it, the design is good, the liberty is lovely and the opportunities are prolific, specific, terrific; but when the design of the Maker is subverted in the glory of liberty of man, then the desire of the Maker becomes no more operative for the glory of His name and the wonder of His splendour and love to man. He WOULD HAVE all to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth (I Timothy 2, Colossians 1), yes even in the bald context of God on the one hand and man on earth on the other; but if love is not so to be received, so that it is not found by many who reject it, there result foundlings to be confounded. That God has always known this is nothing to the point. It is not WHEN He knew, before all time, but HOW the things were so arranged. What HE WOULD HAVE being what many WOULD NOT HAVE, then the responsibility being man's, the wonder of what was prepared and available does not become man's.

Weeds are burned in the end; and what would you ? That where weediness comes from omission by morbid spirit of the transformation available, there be some pretence ? there be some assumption that did not happen, did, or that the cleansing avoided nevertheless occurred ?

As to the unbelieving spirit of the Age, the assumptions for example of the secular majesty of man: |

it ignores its own beginning
(though there are some who become more aware -
cf. Sparkling Life, Ch. 8),

and bewails its end rigours,

yes rigor mortis as it quickly comes to be,

while culture proclaims mandate

and folly takes the rostrum,

lest anyone should think –

in endless seeming TV programs, journalistic conformities and ndoctrination programs

substituting in many universities for education,

with straight face (cf. Wake Up World! ... Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Beauty for Ashes Ch. 3).

No, the object of 'think' was not omitted in error. It is 'think', it is this action in its soundness and depth into which rush endless loud radio noises, parties and frivolities, preoccupations with techniques, psychological, engineering or social, yes or political (where statistic for success can overshadow principle for truth, as if by divine right). It is this function of man, which these true aliens in spirit, act to quash.

Quash what ? quash truth, understanding and snuff light.

Man must not think, lest he awake; and he must not awake lest he die to his delusion, solve his dilemmas, scholarly, philosophical, political and psychological (cf. SMR Ch. 4, Question and Answer 7), and live. Is this not what Christ was implying amid other beams of light, when He spoke of man shutting His eyes LEST he should be converted, healed and delivered! It is the same world to which Isaiah spoke in Ch. 6, to which Christ spoke as recorded in Matthew 13, with the same waywardness.

There is however one significant difference from those situations. Several millenia have passed since Isaiah, and two since Christ's advent; and as Christ put it at the onset of His slow and deliberately tortuous death, "If they do these things in the green tree, what will be done in the dry ?"

In other words, if in that relatively early point in history, they had such antagonism to truth, such deprecation, depreciation and depredation towards redemption, such singularity of odium towards God, what would they be doing when the full effect of their failure become a world-wide phenomenon, as He predicted in Matthew 24, it would become; and as has happened!

Praise is the other option; it is rigorously realistic, utterly truthful and passionately apt; but it is not common. In Revelation 5 it reveals that though this world in percentage terms is corrupt, and callow and a refusnik to truth and virtue, honour and reality, yet myriad is the number of those who over all time and in every dimension of mankind, in this or that group, high or low, have cherished the Christ, realised His redemption, and now freed from the persecutions of this world and its dumb mouth, in joint and brilliant chorales deploy all their strength and wits to His praise!

The time to begin is now; but in time, the purity of this praise in the Lord's knowledge will be revealed in the massed choirs of heaven, rejoicing at His anguish, that it was effectual, at His power, that it is so controlled with such patience that such results have been attained, even in the very midst of a world which has sung the hymns of carnal passion and walked the broadway to hell, rejoicing. Such do we see in Revelation 5:9-10,12-13.

Gone then in that terminal day is the casual slaying of what may be millions in Sudan, many Christians, as in the days of the Inquisitions, vast thousands of victims who loved the Lord. Gone then is the cold of Siberia, gone the depth of the Gulag, gone the exultation of fallen flesh to a divine seat as in Romanism (cf. SMR pp. 1042ff., 1032ff.): for now in these massed choirs of open hearted praise situated where sight replaces faith, the Divine Majesty is seen and it is delighted in. By those it is delectated, those who once by faith, but now as in Revelation 5, by sight regard what is relished to the uttermost. Sublime and superb is our Author, and His praise is just and truth; yet without the redemption which the choir attests, darkness obscures and sadness and anguish sit in the midst of its dimness (cf. Isaiah 8:19-9:6).

Praise God, now in our time ? It is to honour beauty, to delight in sound morals, to rejoice in reality, to see the Source transfigured into its true wonder, it is to relate to the Creator, rejoice in the Saviour and to appreciate the glory of the God who made all creation, suffered defamation but through it all, prevailed to defeat a deserved death for man, to present in honour of His triumph and in deliverance for His believing creation, the gift, the very donation of eternal life. It is to work in His presence, walk in His Spirit, obey His written word and in so doing, find the very presence of the living God alive in one's own spirit, directive, corrective, conforming to His own image in glorious power and leading in intimate graces (cf. II Corinthians 3:18, John 14:21-23, Psalm 32, Proverbs 3:1-5).

II PRAISE with BLESSING BREAKS LIKE TORRENTIAL RAIN (Rev. 5:11-12)

Then it is like a delightful carnival, for whole multitudes bring out their own song, a resounding acclamation. What lacks, as praise shatters the silence and covers the heavens! Power, riches, honour, wisdom, strength and glory are for Him, slain and sovereign, redeemer who is eternally royal, the everlasting God in human form (cf. Isaiah 44:6, Revelation 2:8ff.). It is no question of mere aristocratic estates; for if He had nothing, now all is for Him; yet He had all (Philippians 2:6), and now it is freely conferred again by the very heart of His redeemed.

Never such a king! (cf. Ezekiel 34, John 10). He knew, He gave, He saw, He tested, He came, He suffered, He performed all required, He offered, He rose, He sent His Spirit, He assigned to history its movement (cf. SMR Ch. 8), and He returns as the whole galaxy of attestations of His coming mature to the Day itself.

A name above every name has a fame above every fame! (Philippians 2:9-10). Let praise therefore lighten your face, inspire your spirit, touch your heart, provide a radiance about you, as you do as does this uncountable multitude of angels. It is only the truth which you utter; and with what happiness this may be done when love meets love in reality and truth, when mercy implants pardon and history claps its hands, delighted to see its final day come when anguish and mere passing ecstasy move out and solid joys and lasting reality supervene, telling the world continually: It is time, it is time! Yes it is high time.
(Cf. Little Things Ch. 6).

Do not despair or become extreme, but following the Lord of creation and the Saviour of redemption, who alone has spoken what operates and divulged what endures, repenting of sin, receiving His gift of eternal life, await His coming with cleansed heart, joyous spirit and acclamation with praise.

III PRAISE Cries for ETERNAL BLESSING, worship rises like the sun (Rev. 5:13-14)

You may sometime have escaped death by cancer; and it is not a pretty thing, and how would you tend to honour the doctor who did it, delivering you! as you praise God for your escape. Yet here, it is no mere physical death, but spiritual and eternal contempt which you escape, the wrath of the God who is a consuming fire, leaving no dross. Deliverance a grant to His people (Romans 6:23), it is gladly received, while He is gloriously loved. Is then His praise to be feeble like the last dim strands of light at dusk ? On the contrary, we read: Blessing and honour, glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne and to the LAMB for ever and ever. No sanction will define it; not authority will demean Him, who saves eternally.

There is no end to this – FOR EVER and ever! No new aspirants, no new plans ever arise (Ephesians 1:10); for they are all crushed, hopeless in history. Grace has won; goodness has conquered; peace prevails because truth is loved, and pardon is free. So do the elders fall down and worship (Rev. 5:14).

Now can history flow to its terminus, and as it does, now do the children of God find and know Him, an innumerable host ( Rev. 5:13). Now can heaven and earth come to their end, judgment sit and all the actions of God through the millennium to the dismissal of the very earth (Rev.20:1ff.), mature like cakes in the oven. Grace has provided; mercy has paid; love has come to do it and wisdom has found the way. Bathe in the everlasting kindness of the Lord, or as Poet Laureate John Masefield put it in the title to one of his great poems, The Everlasting Mercy. No race is excluded, no blood is too unclean. God has cleansed by the washing of regeneration and decontaminated by the blood of the everlasting covenant (Titus 3:4-7). You enter in Him the everlasting doors to the everlasting family of God, saints procured by payment extraordinary, children born by intervention both spectacular and spiritual.

How well does the spiritual exuberance of Psalms 148-149 express it, for as to Him, He “will beautify the meek with salvation”; and He places in the hands of His saints “a two-edged sword”, enabling them to “bind their kings with chains and their nobles with fetters of iron”. So does He enable the testimony of truth through His people and His Church, exciting praise, even while the world damns, and imbue with delight even when the world wilfully is covered with sorrows, abuse and vehemence, speeding to its witless end. HE is not like that: He enables eternal life freely, so PRAISE HIM! His it was, and to many has He given it (I John 1:1-4), breaching death as a baby the womb, alive from the dead in the aweful solemnities that end the fear of death and the wrath of judgment alike (Hebrews 2), providing peace!

“My peace I give to you. Not as the world gives, do I give to you!” He declared. Like Himself, it is very deep and very delightful. Naturally by all means we seek to disseminate the truth that the peace and the beauty of holiness in the Lord of all praise may be found. This life is the completion of the life which fell in the trial, the consummation.

There is no end to this – FOR EVER. No new aspirants, no new plans ever arise (Ephesians 1:10, Revelation 5:13); for they are all crushed, hopeless in history. Grace has won; goodness has conquered; peace prevails because truth is loved, and pardon is free. So do the elders fall down and worship (5:14).