CHAPTER 17
 

THE ANSWER, THE ANTIDOTE AND THE ADORATION
 

Render to the Lord, the glory due to His name

 

Self-adoration, self-congratulation, self-esteem, self-defence and self-fulfilment are the orders of the day. The human race loves little more, it seems, than to congratulate itself, convince itself that it is well, fine, or if not, getting better, to be well, to be fine, or if not, that it deserves to be and will think of something. It is so very wise, but alas, instead of a cure, this is a curse, as it is written, one might almost say smitten since the disease exposed is approaching the endemic: "There is more hope of a fool than of him who is wise in his own eyes," and again, "as the sparrow flitting, and the swallow flying, so the curse without cause will not alight" (Proverbs 26:10,2)

.To be sure, there is the exotically ‘normal’ graph, the elevation and then the despondency, but man is inclined to look to man, my race, tribe, civilisation, culture, the coming one, the one ‘we’ invent and so forth, and then to lapse and relapse into the euphoria of false hope, like a flea in a cauldron, tempestuously reflecting that at least it is not cold.

A WAY will be found! they chant, and not infrequently add, even if it must be over your dead body. This charming rhetoric has been much aired of late, not lest via the redoubtable station in Qatar.

The Middle East is seen by many as a problem. Of course the answer is to give it to the pope, so that it might render fealty to him/ give it to the United Nations, so that it might be an expression of intrusive humanism/ leave it to US mediation, so that it might be a tribute to negotiating sophistication/ give it to the Moslem groups, so that it might excel all things past in religious imperialism, a rule for Hitleresque suppression whether of Jews, women, or liberty, or perhaps even all three.

None of this works, has worked, or will work. It is partial, or wrong, or foolish, or strutting.

Man is made by God, and is only for Him. He is never ready, steady, stable or at peace for long, even in nations with all their guile, without Him. False religions may rule as Rome did with armies of inquisition, and armadas of invasion, with the torture instruments on mind and body; as Islam in many of its phases is trying to do now, with various means of terror, thoughtful, and as imaginative as devilish and inducing divine curse for their presumption against the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9).

False idols set up in the heart (Ezekiel 14 specialises in this disease and its results) may avow themselves, and many worship at their feet, talking of Nature as if it were wonderful, though like every other idol it NEVER does what it is supposed to, in these spiritistic scenarios masquerading as science: eyes such idols have, but they do not see. Those who make them, says Psalm 115, are like them. This, alas is not to degrade, but to tell the divine grading of such action.

It is GOD who made man, and in his thought, he cannot rest till he rests on that Rock.

There is no other rock, "for who is God, except the LORD, and who is a rock, except our God" (Psalm 18:31), "There is none besides You, nor is there any rock like our God," declares I Samuel 2:2.

"Talk no more so very proudly;
Let no arrogance come from your mouth,
For the LORD is the God of knowledge;
And by Him actions are weighed," it proceeds.

In the Lord is "rock of ages" translated everlasting strength (Isaiah 26).

It is not in matter. It is not in the mind of man, which so inconveniently ceases visible operation when things happen to the thoroughfares of the heart, which are no longer apt, or to the lining of the lungs, when the air flow dulls or the oxygen takes wings. These things attest it, but they are not the rock.

The cruelty of man in power attests thought; but this is not the rock. The swagger of the rich in money or armies, these may assert it, but they turn to dust. Friendship seeks its place, but it does not endure on this earth, past the fall of the body. It is God who gave the power to appreciate and to realise, and it is in God that the adoration is to be placed.

He is the answer. It is not mere power. It is not mere religious or armed self-assertion or any combination. The Taliban concept is as foolish as that of Hitler. Not from the mind of man, or his heart, or his spirit does the answer come, not even when oil smooths its way. When God speaks, it is sure. When the Lord gives information, it is attested. When the Lord speaks words, they are verified (Isaiah 41, 43, 48 cf. SMR Chs. 2, 3, 8-10, ), whether to logic or empirically.  His word is sure, His ways do not change, and His words have been for man from the first, and their testimony lies from the first in one place only (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17, The Biblical Workman Ch. 7, SMR Appendices, 1080ff., Galloping Events Ch. 7).

When the Lord shows in human form a face, there is none in all history who is even in the same competition. This is the only super-power. It does not fall to anthrax. It is not cruel. It does not seek for itself, what it already has. It has no need. It would be superfluous. It does what can be done, it gives, and lavish is its gift of grace, just as lavish was its gift of place. Man was made in such a style that parodies of His grand design are mere fascinations of bathetic man. Divine grace is given proportionately, not in small measure. The race is inundated with it, but seeks to hire small boats (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 5, Ch. 16 above, *1 ).

The answer stares Arab and Jew alike, in the face. There is no other face. The first deform it in their book, the second did so in their cross, and in this the Gentile Pilate assisted most astutely. Alas the hands are more easily washed than the heart.

Lest however there seem so very much difference, it is now the US which by its President and varied potentates is telling the Arab what a fine religion he has, or Britain via its PM, speaking words not far different, yes addressing that religion which dismisses Christ from His place, function and deity.

So in the past, in the present, is this world a recipient of words that do not wear, adorations which do not endure, compromises that cause to stumble the rapid march of the feet of man, of vanities which are indeed as Jeremiah called them so long ago:

"O LORD, my strength and my fortress,
My refuge in the day of affliction,
The Gentiles shall come to You
From the ends of the earth and say,

'Surely our fathers have inherited lies,
Worthlessness and unprofitable things.'

"Will a man make gods for himself,
Which are not gods ?
Therefore behold, I will this once cause them to know,
I will cause them to know My hand and My might,
And they shall know that My name is the LORD" - Jeremiah 16.
 

Alas and what grief, when Gentiles peoples who have known better, ally the name of the LORD with the baseness of Gentile unbelief (cf. Galloping Events Ch. 7, Stepping out for Christ Ch. 1).

There is no rest in such synthesis. There is no wisdom in such alignment. Diplomacy cannot rule, any more than other idols.

The answer is repentance to the LORD whose word has directed history for thousands of years, and does so at this very minute, visibly in the Middle East as we have noted over a decade. It does not hesitate. The 'impossible' it does not shy at:  undaunted it does what it has said. It is ever so with the LORD. IN creation, in maintenance and in management it is so.

It is to the LORD, the one who showed His face, that gracious Lord Jesus Christ,  that heroic and definitive declaration of deity and divine hero, to Him that Arab, Jew and American statesmen and policies must come, Russian and European. The victory is gained. It simply requires acceptance. It is even provided with the power to implement (Romans 8).
 
 

THE UNANSWERABLE ANSWER AND THE UNSWERVING AVOIDANCE

The answer is so clear. Each State has a place, and a LORD who is ONE, and there is one set of principles which need to be done and followed faithfully, and the LOVE which is to one is to all, even to enemies (Matthew 5:44), for the vengeance on sin is on Christ, and the grace to forgive is from Him.

It is NOT a matter of seeking one's own,  just as we have known this for millenia (I Cor. 13). Christ GAVE His own, He did not seek it.

There is the answer to the selfish squabbling, the inane striving, the endless vengeances, both in the giving and in the taking. It is not possible to overthrow God. It is insanity of spiritual hue to try it; but it is being tried by the participants who will not receive His Son. It is all predicted, the whole outline in Psalm 2, 110, 22, 40, in Isaiah 40-66, yes and in Isaiah 7,11, 9, 22. It merely accomplishes itself. It is in vain to throw away the 'cords' of divine direction, morally, spiritually and physically. They may not so be treated with impunity; and there is far more of immunity to anthraz and to Aids, than to this!

Man exalts in a crucifixion, in an inquisition, in an Islamic impact on the World Trade Centre, and says how powerful am I! Yet it passes. The dust shall not praise it. Any child can destroy, given a button. Anyone can jump over a cliff, given a push. It is the purpose and result which matters, to build or to destroy; to perform a plan of purity and love, of grace and divine sanction, or to execute one's own soul in hatred and contempt of Christ.

Before hatred is love; and before either is adoration of the Lord, for without the knowledge of Him who is love, there is none, merely sallow, seduced, superficial or squalid, debased or deprived substitutes, which neither proceed from nor reach the heights, restricted zones, carefully kept, emblems of self, or aspirations that despise the heights which they seek to conquer. God is not available for conquest; only for reception on His gracious terms (Galatians 1). Man does not prescribed to God; it would be hell if he could: it is God who prescribed to and FOR man.

There is an adoration which is necessary. If man does not adore the adorable, he adores the iniquitous. He puts his heart into it, and makes it worse. He is like a drunkard in his cups in such cases. He cannot rest. He must always be at it, ramming the sickle into the harvest of flesh, the scimitar into the heart of resistance, crying with blazing eyes and shouting with intoxicated voice that soccer, or wealth, or science, or nature, or some idolatrously conceived god is great; and killing what does not accept this accolade to vanity, vacuity and powerlessness, as if that showed its power, which merely illustrates its evil. Sometimes he acts more slowly; even sedately; but in the end, it evaporates, or else in passion, invades. Man in his contempt of God becomes contemptible.

If you do not worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness (Psalm 96), the gap is infinite. It may be that you worship your own success, your moral elevation, like the Pharisees, of whom Christ said they were like whited sepulchres, white in the outer layer, full of dead men's bones within. But you say, I do not murder ? Yet to be angry with a brother without a cause is compared to it in the Sermon on the Mount.

To ignore Christ^*1 is to put yourself in His place. HE tells you, and you IGNORE the telling. YOU are the author of your soul ? YOU are its destiny ? Vain hope for a created aspirant.

So be it: and this is not sin ? God is not heard and this is profound innocence ? You assume God has left the world in innocence of His desire despite the irrevocable evidence which is 100% constant, continual and kept in all dimensions, from all times, in word and in the works of God Himself, performing and indeed coming as announced and when announced to pay the price of redemption: this you do,  and imagine this can stand! (Cf. SMR pp. 100-101, Repent or Perish Ch. 2). You adore your perception while imitating the blind ? You do not tremble when you hear Christ say of others:

• "Hearing you will hear and shall not understand,

And seeing you will se and not perceive,
For the hearts of this people have grown dull,
Their ears are hard of hearing,
And their eyes they have closed,
Lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears,
Lest they should understand with their hearts and turn
So that I should heal them" -

from Matthew 13:14-15.

The time is coming when the Answer will come, again.

Like man, He is personal, and it is an answer personally expressed, just as His ways and promises, principles and procedures, His policies and gospel have been propositionally expressed. He presents His word, His will and His person. All are transgressed against. The world wallows and then withers. In such ways, it could do nothing else.

As to Him, however, who is the Answer, He always does what He says; in Himself, it is provided. Then, in the end,  the ones who have wilfully refused to be covered with the cover He has provided, will be cast out (John 3:16-36). It is not just for their sin. All have sinned, but the Saviour, who is essential for  mankind, to brush Him aside, even Him who proceeded from above for our deliverance, it is an action astute in iniquity, wooden in heart.

Sin, then is to be in your own control, personally, politically, universally ...

It is the refusal to be covered for it, which counts finally, irreparably. It is easy to forgive what repents, in this one thing, that it is willing to be changed. But when it refuses to repent, it is in essence asserting it would do it again, has the right, the eye to do it again on sight, has a warped heart as well as a fallen one, is misaligned and embraces malevolence as if a sweetheart.
 
 

JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT, IN THE LIGHT OF LOVE AND TRUTH

The pollution of our elevated heavens, our atmosphere is merely a parable, in intensity, compared with this. The spiritual atmosphere has many pollutants, and the more physically obvious are merely the more visible expressions of it. In tongue and unfaithfulness, disloyalty and self-esteem, in the vanities of the heart and the wantonness of wilfulness, man has long loomed into the dooms he deserves. The Middle East is like an X-ray. Here is the fraudulent holiness which kills as if it were a pastime, which lusts for the lands of others, which ignores the dispositions of God, which appeals to MAN to solve what GOD has spoken about, otherwise, far otherwise. It reaches to the West, to the East, as if to involve all in its cauldron, in the place where the Lord died, and where He will revisit (Zechariah 14), in judgment.

It is here that FORCE is being used with Arab monies against slender Jewish resources, and many nations endorse a civil war, and help it, and the UN does not condemn the practice noticeably, but rather would dismember still more, the midget state of Israel.

The Christ has come on time. He will come again in terms of the completion of the prospects for it, as announced and as we have surveyed in Answers to Questions Ch. 5 and SMR Chs. 8 -  9, for example. On Biblical grounds, we have found that there is no time like the present, nor ever has been. It is unique, and it is profoundly so, and it is the testimony of this very thing, that His return is near. This is scarcely surprising. Power and pollution have combined to broadcast the dead philosophies of men, often enshrined in governments.

But God is neither impotent nor mocked. The world has had its day, its freedom, its delicious liberties, its sexual innovations, its social experimentations, its political masqueradings, its making of gods and goals^*2. The latest Moslem outrages, reviewed in kind and portent in the preceding chapters, fuelled by not a little in the Koran as we have seen, are merely one of a number of such assemblages of distressed minds and violent doings in the name of what is not there, but as opposition to the God who is, alone is God and demonstrates that fact in His work, word and ways (Isaiah 45:6-8,18-21, 48:1-8 cf. SMR).

How readily might they, like so much of the past rantings, have been quelled had the nations who had the gospel been faithful! There is example and there is leadership, and there is restraint. Health has a look, and it has a power to help, which inconsistency and formalism has not.

But on all sides, folly has raved, whether secular in its own strength of visionary delusion (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 18, Divine Agenda Ch. 7), or religious in dreams that do not endure in the light of common day (Jeremiah 23:16-29^*3), and faithlessness has stumbled. Great nations have arisen only to fall. In that day, when Christ's passion is openly vindicated, GOD ONLY will be glorified (Isaiah 10, 24), and the glory of mankind, all of it, will be humbled.

That is the point. Man was NEVER glorious, nor his religions, nor his ways. It is as a matter of FACT God who is glorious. It is He who is to be worshipped, because HE ONLY is the Creator, has the love which gives and has no need of requital, but seeks response in man since without it, man is worse than the beasts (Psalm 49:20), though he be mighty or likewise arrogant with self-congratulation, self-esteem or other worse things in the endless accolades of self-centredness.

Even morals he makes, and then falls down to admire his own conformity to them.

It is however all tarred with one brush. It is CREATED things, gods, societies, sociologies, philosophies, spiritisms, vast abysses of vacuity, torn from the truth like bleeding limbs, and propped up as prosthetic devices for man. They are in fact, if not in the glamour of appearance, not only pits of horror, but towers of pride. Their building is on on the pit; their elevation is a descent. They pass. They always do. They cannot stand, though their claim be so great; and then they are gone. This is both their doom and their destiny.

But it is more. It is necessary. They are setting themselves on high, where ONLY GOD is to be found. They do not belong. SO they go. In the end, when history has coughed its last drop of cancerous blood, in its fatal diseases, what has been achieved ? It is only what is wrought in truth which stands, and it stands because of the truth, and in the truth, because nothing ever removes the truth.

Man is made for God. He is of clay, but not limited to it. His equipment is of one kind, to correlate with the earth; his feature is of another, to have fellowship with God, and one with another. He is accountable, responsible and instructible from spiritual sources, to delinquency or to glory. it depends on which one or ones; if of God, he will endure because of God. If he teams with untruth, he is not the less accountable because blinded with impenetrable darkness.

The light has come. Jesus is the light of the world, which it is continually inclined to switch off, or replace with a dark light (Matthew 6:23, John 8:12, 9:3-5). The latter is far from illuminating. The moral inertia, the vengeful self-seeking for self or religion, the imprudent pushiness and the vaunting triumphalism alike leads only to reaction from other reactionaries, revisionists, or consignment in death, with others lacking all spark, insight or vigour whatever.

Quite simply: Other ways do not work. Man is quite prepared, it seems, to make a less than happy contribution to the destruction of the world^*4  in his insistence on the irrationalisms, the ethical enormities and the delusions of his greatness^*5 (either per se, or per self-elevation in his own inimitable imagination of himself as coming into being and maximising his advent, all out of nothing or nothing much, and certainly nothing adequate). So infested, his life is invested with the sort of decline that any great thing might provide, misused, abused and persistently misunderstood.

God has worked and provided, and the imaginations of the human heart that IT can satisfy HIM, are the final and fatal illusion. Illusions do not stand. They do not let you stand. They fail, they fall. Whether you seek to run the world, or ruin it, in Islamic, in Roman, in Communist, or sundry other ways, or in your own private fashion, or to ignore it and run your own world in your own private fashion, as if it were yours and not a dower of the power of the Prince of peace, there is no peace.

How could there be ? A lie does not help. Illusion does not enthrone. Destiny does not bow to dream. Here is found neither answer, nor antidote, nor ground of adoration.

Judgment, after all, is according to TRUTH (Romans 2). If in truth, you ask for it, it is yours. If in truth, you receive the judgment of Christ vicariously, then to Him as Lord come and there is your way, your antidote, your adoration and your answer.

• There is no right to be wrong; there is only liberty. This is not amorphous, any more than man himself is so. It is an activation and an access, found in the God who made man, and who can remake him without confusion, but ONLY in humility and in truth (II Cor. 5:17-21, Matthew 5:1-10). It is the poor in spirit who can be enriched; and the meek who can be given much. God has given, but man is to repent and receive, and how will he ever do that, unless he first beileve in God, and then in His word and Son, and so find his place in the haven of His holiness, in the scope of His mercy, adopted and allied with God Himself (Romans 3:23ff., 4:25-511; 8:1-16)!

Consider how long and how much has been the provision of the Lord, looking in Isaiah from areas of 50 to 55.

50 )

"Thus says the Lord:

'Where is the certificate of your mother’s divorce,
Whom I have put away?
Or which of My creditors is it to whom I have sold you?
For your iniquities you have sold yourselves,
And for your transgressions your mother has been put away.
Why, when I came, was there no man?
Why, when I called, was there none to answer?
Is My hand shortened at all that it cannot redeem?
Or have I no power to deliver? '

“The Lord God has given Me
The tongue of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
He awakens Me morning by morning,
He awakens My ear
To hear as the learned.

"The Lord God has opened My ear;
And I was not rebellious,
Nor did I turn away.
I gave My back to those who struck Me,
And My cheeks to those who plucked out the beard;
I did not hide My face from shame and spitting.

"For the Lord God will help Me;
Therefore I will not be disgraced;
Therefore I have set My face like a flint,
And I know that I will not be ashamed.He is near who justifies Me;
Who will contend with Me?

"Let us stand together.
Who is My adversary?
Let him come near Me."
 
 

51)

"Lift up your eyes to the heavens,
And look on the earth beneath.
For the heavens will vanish away like smoke,
The earth will grow old like a garment,
And those who dwell in it will die in like manner;
But My salvation will be forever,
And My righteousness will not be abolished.
“Listen to Me, you who know righteousness,
You people in whose heart is My law:
Do not fear the reproach of men,
Nor be afraid of their insults.For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
And the worm will eat them like wool;
But My righteousness will be forever,
And My salvation from generation to generation.”
 

"So the ransomed of the Lord shall return,
And come to Zion with singing,
With everlasting joy on their heads.
They shall obtain joy and gladness;
Sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

“I, even I, am He who comforts you.
Who are you that you should be afraid
Of a man who will die,
And of the son of a man who will be made like grass?
And you forget the Lord your Maker..."

53)

"He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied.
By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many,
For He shall bear their iniquities."
 
 

55)

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts,
Come to the waters;
And you who have no money,
Come, buy and eat.
Yes, come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without price.

"Why do you spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And let your soul delight itself in abundance.
Incline your ear, and come to Me.
Hear, and your soul shall live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you -
The sure mercies of David.

"Indeed I have given him as a witness to the people,
A leader and commander for the people.
Surely you shall call a nation you do not know,
And nations who do not know you shall run to you,
Because of the Lord your God,
And the Holy One of Israel;
For He has glorified you.”
 
 

"Seek the Lord while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the Lord,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
 

'For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,' says the Lord.

'For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.

'For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth;
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.

'For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace...' "
 
 

NOTES

*1
The objective, declarative and differentiated magnificence of God-man among moral midgets, yes the lost, is dwelt on often, but in such places as:

SMR Ch. 6, Appendix C, BB Appendix 1V , Barbs, Arrows and Balms Appendix 1, esp. pp. 279ff., Repent or Perish Ch.  2, pp. 41ff.,  7, Galloping Events Ch. 7, Joyful Jottings  5, 14, Tender Times for Timely Truths Chs.  7, 8.

*2
Cf. Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Ch.  9 - glamour, stammer, hammer  ... flitter and glitter; Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch.  3 (the soporific self, and the unity glide, under the sedation of sin), News, Facts and Forecasts Chs. 8 - sham, shame and co.,14deadly d's; Repent or Perish Ch.   5 inventions in mind, gender, politics ...
 
 
 

*3

Jeremiah 23:16-32 is such an indictment and an exposure, categorical and reaching back for millenia, and forward till the end, that it should be studied with zeal.
 

"Thus says the Lord of hosts:

Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you.
They make you worthless;
They speak a vision of their own heart,
Not from the mouth of the Lord.

They continually say to those who despise Me,
‘The Lord has said, “You shall have peace” ’;
And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say,
‘No evil shall come upon you.’

For who has stood in the counsel of the Lord,
And has perceived and heard His word?
Who has marked His word and heard it?
Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury—
A violent whirlwind!
It will fall violently on the head of the wicked.
The anger of the Lord will not turn back
Until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart.

In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.

I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran.
I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
But if they had stood in My counsel,
And had caused My people to hear My words,
Then they would have turned them from their evil way
And from the evil of their doings.

Am I a God near at hand, says the Lord,
And not a God afar off?
Can anyone hide himself in secret places,
So I shall not see him?” says the Lord;
Do I not fill heaven and earth? says the Lord.

I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying,
'I have dreamed, I have dreamed!'

How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, who try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal.

The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream;
And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat?” says the Lord.
Is not My word like a fire? says the Lord,
And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

Therefore behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who steal My words every one from his neighbor.

Behold, I am against the prophets, says the Lord, who use their tongues and say, ‘He says.’

Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,” says the Lord, “and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies and by their recklessness. Yet I did not send them or command them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all, says the Lord."
 

*4
Matthew 24:36,22.
 

*5

Jeremiah 2:24-28, Deuteronomy 32:15-22, 29ff..

See Barbs, Arrows and Balms  29, SMR Chs. 1, 10, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch. 11, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 9, Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming ... Ch. 5, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 13.