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CHAPTER  3

What is coming home to roost in Russia ?

Not so cordial disputing between

Putin and Khodorkovsky

News 314

The Globe and Mail, Canada, June 19, 2004

See also The Face of God ... Ch. 3

A BONZA BONANZA ? FOR WHOM ?

Whose bonanza ? Was it that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky (The Pride of Life ... Ch. 2, esp.*2) , billionaire, in grasping vast wealth in the discomfiture of his country ? Was it legal ? If so, whose fault was that ? Was it illegal ? Is this by authoritative Star Chamber trial, by cunning manipulation of law, or by clear criminal intent, in defiant breach of law ?  Is there a contest which makes a change in the relationship between Putin and K... ? between law and commerce ? Is this because of political aspirations of Putin ? because he cannot abide those of ANY other who could in ANY conceivable way, threaten his primacy ? If so, is law being bent to the purposes of oppression, in the best sense of the oppressive Tsars ? or more than these ever did ? If so, is it being done with the mistaken idea that justice cannot survive without manipulation ? that it is best for his country ?

Is Putin involved in a power bonanza, and was K... in a commercial one, feeding like a vulture on the fallen country ? If so, was he K... helped by inadvertent confusion, or intentional corruption ? If not, why is he being assailed AFTER becoming vocal in seeking independent political parties, not under the control of Putin ? Is this not a strange coincidence, if it is one ?

As DW TV showed on June 17, 2004, is this not in the very social environment of hunted journalists, many sacked, one of prime attraction conspicuously, who attests that OFTEN he had been warned NOT to present some documents, data, and that he had resisted this dictatorial intrusion into freedom, only to be sacked. Not now, said one, do we literally lose our heads, when we incur the displeasure of the autocracy. Now there is commercial pressure, we lost our jobs. We have to watch, said another, in case we transgress their wishes. Some will be afraid even to touch difficult issues, others will be afraid to go far into them.

It is in this sort of an objective removal of freedom of the press, and the demise of various organs of transparency over the last few years, that Putin's attack on K.... has occurred.

It would fit the plan to remove all opposition. It would fit an astute performance in using the question of some having made ludicrous gains when the Communists were being replaced, perhaps trading in party power for commercial grabbing, and the popular resentment, to target not the Communists who gained so much in the process, but commercial parties NOT of their political ilk, so transferring the impression of guilt, and giving for themselves, a scape-goat.

Whose bonanza is it now ? Is it Putin's, boring into the rich vein of human opposition, to reduce it to rubble and collect a king's ransom for his country, and a power ransom for himself, settling in more and more appearance of right, while conceivably merely performing in the autocratic model to which he was so long accustomed ? Was it K ... , in any such thrust, earlier ? One thing appears particularly clear, that this nation has been misused viciously by grotesquely persecutory Communists, has had a wild spree in the transition to another economy, has transferred inordinate power to the President, and now that this is a determined and clear-cut person, has put at risk all the gains, so that ONE MAN's philosophy, with or without guile or corruption, rules all!

HIS view of independent press, which appears to be that it is best otherwise; HIS view of commerce, which is strangely related in time at least, to grabbing leaders when they become dangerously politically active, raising various questions of earlier collusion; HIS view of Israel... all these things have that erratic danger of the autocrat. Does absolute power corrupt absolutely, as Lord Acton announced ? Not really, and it is never absolute, but with God^*1. However great power can cause great egotism, eccentricity, aspiration, or some combination, and lead to a lack of counsel, through fear or appearance of agreement for safety's sake, so producing folly.

SELF-sufficiency, whether in the spiritual comedy of the 'sacred self', the awesome marvels of which may fascinate the callow, or political power, is merely another name for humanism with wheels, philosophy at the personal level of action, and in so dealing, it leads to injury to all, as when an arm seeks to direct the body instead of the Head. As to the Head, HE has announced that in the multitude of counsellors, there is safety. Without the fear of God, the follies of man are certain to follow, whether in racial arrogance, as with Hitler, national  arrogance as with Japan in WW II, commercial arrogance as threatens some of the USA, or political arrogance which similarly threatens Russia.

HUMILITY IS REQUIRED FOR TRUTH,
TRUTH FOR REASON,
REASON FOR DISCUSSION

AND WITHOUT IT,
THE RIOTS OF UNREASON ARE A MERE KNELL BELL

Humility is possible only when God is in charge of one's life, since otherwise one lives in a dream of illusion, and whether one places trust in oneself direct, or in some personally chosen idol or model, the result is the same. In the latter case, it is merely rule by proxy! Who CHOSE the proxy ? The self. With God, it is not a matter of choice, since He cannot be made, and has made us. If we reject it, logic is in abeyance^*1; if we receive Him, truth is in command. It is then, and then only, that peace is possible, since truth is a pre-condition to any peace that can last. If not, then reality obtrudes, like bulging flesh from the side of some super-fat person, and it CANNOT be contained.

But why is humility to be desired ? It is not because it is a lie. God is the truth, and without Him there neither is nor could be any truth, only the reactions of the unknowns, and the observation of happenings, the significance of which could not be known, the superficial being all, and this incapable of being truth, since it is mere happening. What happens is occurrence; the knowledge of it is truth. But if the knowledge be merely that receptors proclaim an occurrence, why then does it occur ? and what is it that is occurring, past the appearance, in reality ? and what is its point, its purpose, its origin, its end, or its way and its value or values ?

What then ? If it be maintained that it is true that it happens, provided this is an implicit tautology, namely, it is a happening that it happens, there is no harm to logic done. However, this does not progress. To be TRUE that it happens, it has to be not merely beyond doubt as to the observation being apt to man's perceptors, and conceived aright in relation to reality, as distinct from images gained, but these perceptors, receptors, image bearers and conduits would need to be endowed, endued with an implicit TRUTH power, or their concourse and compilation, to know that what is seen, is the actuality, and not an appearance that does less than justice to the reality which is in fact occurring before one's eyes, but not in subjection to them.

Of course, that would mean that it COULD not be true that all is perception (the conception that all is perception at once removes this, as does the absence of truth from the agenda in such a model as that now being critically assessed). Truth is more than a dimension, since that would be merely one of many occurrences or vistas. It has to proclaim what actually is, in all its aspects as seen above.

It could not be true that nothing is known, either, or that all is known, or that everything is merely this or that. There would, on such a superficial model,  BE no truth. Hence there could be no argumentation about it. Hence all who use such models are disestablished at the outset, defunct at the onset. It could not even be true that there is no truth, or that there is truth. All logic and reasoning would become a mere noise. Logic collapses. It is destroyed by pertincacity, lost through lack of perspicuity, modelled out of existence by the use of itself; which is in itself, a contradiction in terms. If it is valid to destroy itself, then the assumption of validity precedes the result of destruction. It is the acme of unreason, the consummation of inconsistency and a mere collision of concepts which could not be confused with rational thought, and hence is irrelevant to all argumentation.

If moreover you reject logic, you must reject language, since its discriminating definitions are continually using logic. In that case, speech becomes a mere noise. Then it would be folly to listen to these irrational belching, as if to try to understand a volcano in its earlier turmoil before eruption. The model models itself out of existence and implodes, having nowhere to go.

Manifestly, this is not so functionally; so that the model is at variance with the facts. It does not cover them. NOTHING which denies truth can have any place in truth, for or against, or in what implies it, such as language. It is verbal irrelevance, conceived in chaos, relieved by nothing. In short, as shown previously, without God, you are orphaned of your mind, your reason and your language: logically. In other words, logic is beyond you, and its use to defend or attack is outlawed by the model's own efficiency.

It is necessary to find, not the interstices of the system or systems, which is a current pre-occupation of much that is called science, yet is superficial: but instead their meaning, reality, origin, basis, nature and place. It is useless to use reason to deny it, to employ and even with minute intelligence to deploy causative concepts, in order to deny them when you look to the totality, as if quantity elided reality, or size removed rationality.

When however you do look with a consistency of reason, and a scope for any rationality at all, at all that is systematised, formed, correlated, integrated, consummated in functionality, and in the case of man, this with the tri-systematic glory and wonder of mind, matter and spirit, endued with form, enlivened with individuality, groomed for thought, enabled in error, granted means of self-discipline of reason and conduct: then you find the necessity of what is eternally sufficient for all, being never able, since all is conceived, to be nothing since there would then be nothing now, which is not the case.

Then you see how to KNOW what is the adequacy beyond the systems, and to FIND what is the nature of this, the Creator. Then you look for the minimal qualities as we did in SMR, and you find them, and you look for the collision of the fiascos of self-destructive man, his lies, his injustice, his woes and wantonries, and the spiritual beauties and godlinesses and the virtues and the forbearances and the sheer beauty of goodness so often found, and the invasion of the realities the Creator has made, and the response.

Did God indeed enable collision with truth, by lie, and with justice, by fraud, of the realities He made with the unrealities and incohesions of plain astute wickedness and corruptive corruption, like a plague ? Did He indeed make a liberty which both can and does distress His own agility in creation ? Certainly, for it operates, both to conserve and to disrupt, both to be faithful to what is the virtue and nature of creation, and to be feckless, to machinate and to seek proud glory in pretence through deception. Did He then observe with impotence this agile agency in its impudent affront to the truth of what He has done, arrogating functions to destroy at will, whether by defamation, deception or delusion ?

If He had done so, then collision with His own planning would enable excision of His own reality. He would be a defunct nonenity, and not even exist. Then where is His word to man and why does He tolerate such disruption and deception, such delusion and confusion, on this earth appallingly, wilfully and artfully operative  not least!

It is not difficult to find. In fact there is NO OTHER TESTABLE entry but the Bible, no other VERIFIABLE contestant but the Bible, no other so much as valid option, but the Bible, since religion is not the point, but revelation which contains remedy for this defilement of His creation. All this has often been seen on this site, and in detail in SMR Ch. 1, with opportunities for many such excursions, such as Repent or Perish Chs.  2 and   7, Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 16. So man must abase himself before the word of God, and since this is the word of GOD, before God, and since this is his Creator, as creation must he do so.

HEIGHTENING THE PROFILE OF HUMILITY

That is merely one reason why humility is necessary. Without it, you fail to be and to see what you are, and so cannot operate with integrity and in truth. Humility is never the pretence that you lack powers you have; but it does involve your conception of them, and of other powers, and of their relative place. If there is doubt, to be sure, humility at once assumes it is the less rather than the more, for self-awareness if more intimate than awareness of others, and this is the corrective at the outset. Humility above all sees in God the Creator, the Redeemer, the source of remedy biblically exposed as just that; and in Him, he sees the only excavation power to remove one from the slightness of one's powers to the grandeur of truth, and from the sins of one's heart to the purity of truth.

If humility does not so operate, then truth being absent, confusion, delusion, mismatch of one's place and reality is certain. As to humility itself, indeed,  even that is granted only in the grace of God, since such actual humility is not even in existence before faith has found the God who, giving true perspective, enables vision to implant it, and reason to confirm it, understanding to grasp it. It is not some kind of self-abasement in emotion which is humility, but knowing the reality of one's place and being content to operate at it, and to be grateful for so much as knowing it, and with conviction following what is so granted. Otherwise, the perspective of man even lacks the force of logic, having aborted before it found its Creator, and found implicitly at least, to be indicting Him for failing to do what anyone of power could do, to improve this world, reduce its disorder.

This however is precisely what He has overwhelmingly and uniquely attested in the Bible: that He has NOT so failed. It would be the acme of revolt so to place negative imagination in the very realm and place of attestation verging on the infinite, and requiring the infinitude of wisdom to create. His word controls all things, and nothing ever is permitted to go against it and abort its predictions, retrodictions, principles or conspectus. All things merely cohere and show consistency, when direct test is over, in endless confirmations such as is the métier of truth (cf. SMR Ch. 5).

Again, to review the negative: If He had not spoken to man, such an indictment would make sense, an ascription of failure and the status of nonentity.

That would constitute an impossibility from the 'wisdom' of a creation which cannot surpass the Author of all. Such an impossibility however does not arise, so that the reason God has created, confirms its validity, and the impossible departs with the morning mists leaving the actual answer, the assured remedy, the divine prescription, like the rock of Gibraltar as one passes in heavy mist, wondering if it is not there at all, and then finds as it clears, that it has been there all along, the obscuration not being of the reality, but of its sighting! So does man in blindness, blaspheme and continue in frustration, following an impossible course in confusion, because in wilfulness, he has simply omitted to open his eyes.

Moreover, in another aspect, it could not make sense, since the power to indict would rely wholly on logical and perceptive, not to add cordial powers and conceptions which would transcend His, who gave us ours. It is not only the inadequacy of the agent of indictment, as created by the Author of all, but the non-existence of somewhere to go in order so to act. There is no such place.

Simply, to assume that God is willing to witness the desecration of truth, what He has said and is and has made, by what cares little for Him or it, is to assume that either He lacks the power to quash the assault on His ways, or the will. If the power, it is not God but a creature that is in view; if the will, then it is One whose ways are not covered, whose systems made are not in accord with Himself, so that His actions are beyond His quality control, which is merely a lack of power.

EVACUATING THE UNHALLOWED

If even to pursue the absurd for the sake of its due burial, He WANTED attack on Himself, then it would mean that He believed it just for Him so to be attacked (which could not be, since error is a lack of power of perception, implementation, reason or several of these), or that He felt guilty (which could not be, since it would mean that standards above Him, ruled Him, whereas all depends on Him as we have seen in SMR Ch. 1, by His position and nature, demonstrably), or even that He enjoyed being lampooned, or caricatured or defiled with the words of others. Enjoying anti-truth however is a measure of consent to it, so that there would be in God, a measure of anti-truth potency or preference or both, which would make Him a composite of antithetical opposites, and as a composite, composed, and hence not God.

Further, nothing of contrariety can be in God^*2, since if it were, the stronger would subdue the weaker, or if they were of equal force, there would be an inoperability which would be contrary to the evidence of His operations, and would moreover, mean that the Being who is God, was by nature a clash without resolution, a merely self-annihilative imagination, never achieving the light of day, far less able to create it!

Such a nature would be impotent, vacuous, absent; but it is the results of His actions which enable us to think, the world to be, law to regulate, DNA to be composed, mind to have validity in reality, not superficial illusion, and so to argue meaningfully whether that all is meaningful or that nothing or any combination. Further, it would comprise a system which operated, in thought, but which imploded, in resultant; not a Being whose nature without a founder, is eternal resulting in derivatives such as man.

You may ask, Why could not a nature which was a clash of opposites BE eternal ? It is for this reason. A clash of opposites is not a person at all, but a program. It needs a programmer. The necessary nature and power of God is sufficient to be beyond our persons, but needs to be adequate for them. The very conception of various powers and resources lying around, being 'opposites' to be confronted and utilised, ready to be activated, like circuits, in God, is the idea of a produced thing, where what is has to be accepted.

In God, however, NOTHING  can BE around, data for operation; for there is nothing around to be in, except God has made it. In Himself, there is nothing that lies around, since these are the conceptions of a product imported into the Producer. There is Himself, and His will. It is confronted by nothing, met by nothing, equipped by nothing. It is what it is, and nothing intrudes or obtrudes. If He wants, it is; if He desires against, it is not.

It is of course possible to have items and prescriptions for a producer, in terms of many producers in a system; but our realm of discourse and concern is the Producer of ALL. There is outside Him, no around to have; and within Him, no around to be environmentally His condition, since there are no conditions, there being nothing else to set such.

NOTHING however has to be accepted by God. NOTHING is able to withstand Him, for it has no base, and if it had, it can be eliminated by His thought and power, and since He cannot grow, this being a fulfilment of donated potentiation, He knows already, and so does not need useless experimentation to find out, such concepts merely being an import from creation to Creator, which is an irrational abuse of terms in such a consideration of the nature of the Creator Himself.

If then a conflict with God be external, it can be deleted by illimitable power. If it is within Him, it can be resolved by illimitable wisdom. If it WON'T be resolved, then the personal being concerned is not God, being delimited from outside. If He wants it unresolved, then He desires opposites, and so is either unable or unwilling to resolve. If unable, this is not God. If unwilling, then His will instead of covering all, and executing itself over all, is under something, an antithesis, so becoming subject to a set or series of internal circumstances, which govern Him, so making Him  a creature, a creation, a resultant of His own division. There can be NOTHING contrary to His will. He cannot deny Himself, in just such a way, without not BEING Himself.

Indeed, If He wanted something contrary to Himself, this would mean He was not satisfied with His own nature,  and hence entail an incapacity to achieve what He wants, so that such a being could not be God. If He wanted to have in Himself something contrary to Himself, it is still the same - dissatisfaction with what He is, relative to what He wants. Implicit self-criticism however is merely another creaturely import into God, who is given no nature by outside force, the opposite of the case for man, into the Creator who has no 'reality' to which to aspire or to conform, being in Himself, and by Himself, all reality, the rest being mere derivation like books written, poems wrought or buildings made.

Self-criticism implies failure; failure implies lack of power or ability; lack of power in the presence of the desire of will implies integral insufficiency, and hence, a system by which such can be measured, not the God who makes all conditions. NOTHING can be beyond Him, in NOTHING can He be behind His will, all such things implying a set piece situation, a creation of which He is part. As always, however, we speak of the nature of the Creator, and changing the topic, here no less than elsewhere, is merely a confusion. It is however confusion we are confronting, and its way have less than no appeal! or relevance...

Let us consider it a little further, in terms of contrary religion, to show yet again the devastating insufficiency in consistency of such concepts.

Thus, a divided being is either not one, so that if it were conceived to be God, there would need to be the Maker of the system for the two; or it is not governed by One, so that the concept of the one is merely nominal, the actual power lying with the two contrarieties, the opposites which rule. If then we are faced with two opposites ruling, going towards Zoroastrianism, we find that there is an implicit system in which they inhere, being mutually incompatible, so that they can be contained and maintained in existence, communication and interaction. Whatever made that, would then be God. It would become a project not a property.

Again, if such imaginary powers were equal, they would annihilate each other, and that would be that: a useless enterprise for Him who, knowing all, knew it. If it were for fun or pleasure, then He could not be satisfied with Himself, hence would have a constitution which needed development which He could not perform, or was limiting in performing, and hence was a mere creation, and so misnamed God in the first place.

If the powers were unequal, the greater would win, a fact He would, as before, have known so that the enterprise would be meaningless. Either way, it is a contradiction in terms.

In short, God is unlimited, and hence lacks both internally and externally what inhibits or restrains His power. NOTHING is all that can restrain Him; and there is nothing much in that, as may readily be seen, for there is nothing to see! Hence He HAS His will and nothing can invade it, to this or that point, within or without. Hence it is implemented without obstruction, internal or external. Structure and components are irrelevant, since NOTHING is conferred on Him, and all that He is operates wholly freely, He being eternal that anything might be ever; for nothing has no future. (Cf. Calibrating Myths, Machining Dreams, Keeping Faith Ch. 6.)

It is He who is relevant, and imaginary self-obstruction being merely based on the assumption of a nature which is at odds with Himself, a Being dissatisfied with itself, containing in Himself the byproducts of inability, this then would require the founder of that limited nature. THAT then becomes before our eyes, the actual God, who in this case would have made both that creature and that nature, a mere imagination which again, is otiose, since He knows the outcomes.

Whatever limits God is imposed; and its imposition cannot be His own, since this simply stops Him from being who He is, an imaginary breach of His power, so in time  implying change and potentiation coming into actuality, an invasion from the model of creation, misapplied to the Creator, and hence the height of irrelevancy. If moreover it be conceived analytically, as if this were always so, it merely dynamises instead of having the thing chronological, so that the change is notional instead of progressive; but change it is. He who would be in fact God, is thus prevented by internal contrariety.

If He were so limited, He could not act.

He would be countermanded, but by whose command ?

Obviously, to recapitulate in this particular context, it is not His own or He would be dissatisfied with Himself, and at war, implying a resolution unattainable, or a desire for internal strife, which involves a differentiation and contrariety of aims, and so an immersion in a system which is not His own, and so is created by another.

Strife within always implies a dissatisfaction of the being who is in that state, either with Himself, or with one side or the other, or some combination. If He were dissatisfied with Himself, it would imply inability to do what He desires; if with one component, being unlimited, He could remove it, so with the other or both.

Thus such a scenario is a contradiction of the nature of God the eternal and unconditioned Creator, as shown in SMR Ch. 1, as Almighty.

Moreover, He has acted, so He cannot be so limited. If He were once, at some other time,  unlimited, then He was once one thing, now another, so changing, so subject to the development of the potential, which must therefore have been given to him by the actual Creator. Hence, always able to act, and never limited, He is subject to nothing. What is subject to anything is never the ultimate, because of this subordination. Nor can this 'arise' since that too would be change. Moreover the outcome is not only sure, but foreknown. Further, time as we know, a set piece construction for happening, being a trial of patience and implicit limitation, is not the case with God.

Naturally you see such a declaration, in fact in Romans 8:30ff.. It is a creation. The application of the irrelevant to God is again confusion, and irrational, a mere collision of concepts requiring correction, not a point of reason. As to God, then, He gets what He wants, is what He wants, is not aborted in His wants, internal or external, hence has no opposition to His wants, no inhibition to His objectives, is satisfied with what He is, if He were not would become so, while time being irrelevant in any sense of waiting, there is not even any scope for any imaginary resolution of what cannot in any case exist in such a setting. Nor is it a 'setting' in any prescriptive sense, since nothing for Him is set, but what He sets His mind to, and as to His mind, it is satisfied in all things, since if it were not, attainment would be implicit before the need were even felt!

Such is the grandeur of God; such is the wonder of this "DIVINE NATURE" of which Paul speaks in Romans 1:17ff., and the failure to realise its grandeur is mere rebellion from reason, escapism from reality and request for judgment.  As to that however, we learn in the biblical declaration which is necessarily the truth, that God loves mercy (Micah 7:18-19), delights in it, and indeed (II Peter 3:9), He is not concluding the world intemperately - it was a rather profound thing to make, and is not removed arbitrarily in haste! but only when He is ready. As mercy pulses, so profundity operates, and God is bringing many children to glory in the interim, a real product of His productive dynamic, and an enduring consequence of His patient work in the time He made, and the purposes He performed in the creation of such a world as this. Stunning in wonder, it is impounded in thunder, as riot against reason, reality and truth proceeds with an internalised arrogance which is the very nadir of humility, the height of irrationality and the implacable petitioner for doom!

THE CASE FOR MAN HAS NO ESCAPE HATCH:
THE TRUTH OF GOD OR DUE JUDGMENT

In the case of mankind and creation as it actually is, one must stress that although here too He knows the outcome, it is not a mere intellectual exercise. It is a GIFT to man which is in view, and ACTUAL people who come into being. The outcome is foreknowable and foreknown (Romans 8:29ff.), like all else of necessity given the scope of His sovereignty and the inexorability of His penetration into all things made (cf. Isaiah 46:10). Yet there is not merely an outcome in this case, but an income. The income is not to GET but to GIVE and what is given is eternal life I John 5:10ff.).

His resultant, which He has caused to be, is this: it  is not merely to know, but to have created what is, what continues, what enjoys not the summitry of circumstance, but the Maker of the same. Man's chief end is indeed to know God and to enjoy Him for ever, not however in mere hedonistic delight, but in the huge wonder of truth, the eminent delight in His mercy, the purity of His pardon, the inimitability of His creativity, the scope for being creative in His presence, the thrust of personality and the supra-empirical empyrean of the Eternal God. It is not forced; for who is forced to come to Him who proclaims, HOW OFTEN WOULD I HAVE GATHERED YOU ... BUT YOU WOULD NOT! (Matthew 23:37), and laments, IF ONLY YOU HAD KNOWN ... BUT NOW, desolation!

Is then God frustrated ? Not at all. He does not dirty His love with the dust of violence; He fulfils it in the purity of truth. Does grief then constitute an inadequacy ? On the contrary, it is attestation of adequacy, that there is no lack of sensibility, so deficiency of love, no absenteeism towards His creation, as if it did not matter, nor any dictatorial imposition, as if it were all a dream, a defiled continuation of hypocrisy for results. God is Spirit, and all that is to occur, must face this reality. It is not the appearance, but the reality. And in this reality, humility is one of the most essential feature, being sister to truth, and brother to holiness.

Is man frustrated ? In much and very often he is, since he is not God, and in millions neither knows Him nor listens to Him, and hence, being contrary to what cannot be changed, and resisting change in himself, he is frustrated. This results in eruptions, corruptions, and of course is in itself initially a corruption, since with humility awry, it does not acknowledge its place, either denying God, or bypassing Him, or ignoring Him, or seeking to make up a god instead, or in confusion doing so with internalised constraints of unreason, violating the inviolable in delusion.

In some, this leads to the violence of murder, in others the vileness of defalcation, either commercial or psychological, either emotional or procedural, philosophic or cultural, racial or tribal, depending on the case. In a few, it leads to the extrapolation of such vileness in dictatorship, or its actuality under another name. In others, it leads to leadership, like a concert for the damned. At times, it can be humdrum and an order of evasion, seeking to hold out the surging sea, from the sinking ship, by ad hoc devices; at other times, it can be dynamic, as in the ceaseless wars, where the ephemeral seizes the vital, and man murders man, calling it just, which is just cruelty, self-aggrandisement at the national level, or some other deficiency.

The humility of a contrite heart, however, before the holy God, this is needed to replace the extravanganzas of delusion, the bonanzas of self-exploitation, or their extension to this world or its other occupants. At times, there is question, which in time history tends to answer, whether there is just such a case, or whether some relatively exquisite deception is proceeding in history, pretence and deceit masking folly as if holiness, and futility as if spiritual function.

Let us then return to our initial scene, and consider the possible scenario.

HUMILITY AND TRUTH BEING INSEPARABLE,
MAN NEEDS TO KNOW HIS PLACE

AND THAT INCLUDES POLITICIANS

What then of Putin ? and of Mikhail Khodorkovsky^*3.. ? What of humility ? What of wisdom ? What of the fear of God ? What of justice ? What of Russia now ?^3A Is it in the control of an autocrat, or a determined social reformer ? If the latter, why does he close down independent press so sweepingly ?

If this is gone, who can criticise ? If none can criticise, where is humility ? If actions are to be perfect without opposition, so that one mere creation ostensibly has all wisdom self-enshrined, where is truth ? If truth is gone, where is man ?

Russia seems in sad case, no resultant harmonious with wisdom appearing near. Perhaps it will change and allow self-criticism in conditions neither psychologically forced, nor politically staged. As to the latter, you see the unhallowed self-criticism sessions in that famous Chinese epic, Wild Swans, only too clearly; and the Solzhenitsyn has exposed the art of pretence in innovative pretension in Communist Russia in such works as First Circle, adroitly and well. It is not SELF criticism which is needed, but the liberty for OTHERS to criticise which is needed. Other people are also made by God, and the assumptions of autocracy tend always to become politically solipsistic, immune in power, immune by power, free to be lord, whether with this or that assumption, making humility a pawn, and power a god.

It is of the most intense irony that man, whether in the French or the Russian revolution, in 1789 or 1917, or in some of the more outwardly discrete social revolutions, tends to have WORSE oppression when he has lampooned and with or without blood, lost the tyrannies he deplores, and set up the latest model of ostensible release. The revolutionaries tend with few exceptions, to become icons of revolt, and their ways revolting: unresisted, they rush, rushing they crush. It is so, simply because the ONLY model which has humility is that of God, as it is the only one which allows even truth.

Since this is not desired, what is done is of necessity always undesirable. Revolution without God, in the end, is revolution from Him, in surging inconsequence, except to the victims.

Where however there is some balance of power, as used to be so focussed in Britain, some concern for reason, then there is a mitigation of loss. In the multitude of counsellors, there is wisdom (Proverbs    11:14).

Even there, however, as you see in the charming works of James Hilton concerning Mr Chips (say, his To You, Mr Chips!), there can come the lambent and pleasant hopes that in toleration and concern, in justice and care, in kindness and watchfulness, there would be stability and truth. Yet in the historical reality, without the governance of God, in a toleration which does not first find truth, this quickly degenerates.

Hedonism, disarray, diversity of aim, motivational cocktail: these lead to vacuity, error, uncertainty and then the likelihood of that hideous certainty which has no basis but desire, and finds its due discipline in treachery, trickery, vain regrets or empirical failure. Did Britain, the one James Hilton so delightfully extols in his own quiet and rather fascinating way, really find a tolerance without truth which enabled the noble and aided the gentle ?

Alas, in its very Common Market deliberations, in which the new UKIP party, the United Kingdom Independence Party, is showing itself a considerable force towards Euroscepticism, there is division. England wants in and it wants out of the EU.

There is resistance to being swallowed up; there is desire in a commercial hope from the days of PM Heath for commercial advantage (perhaps attractive to the thought forms of a millionaire, in that day, a more significant amount); there is fear of being 'left out' and so compromised. There is indeed a bifurcation: the old human desire for unity which comes from its source in God, its destiny in God and its departure from Him, so making an intense yearning; while simultaneously, there is a cautious turning away. These are mutually operative, thus tending to lead to muddle, or the MUST of dictatorship in the end.

If truth is not the founder, then the result will certainly founder, or else there will be categorical repentance. There have been times when, both in Britain and in the USA, this has come near to fruition, in the mid and late nineteenth century, with staggering revivals of zest for God, of contrition and return to the living Christ Jesus. These have then abated, wars have erupted, vision has lapsed, vices erupt, and you have those two nations now alike, like those dreaming, steaming in nightmares, gripped in contrary goings, not knowing where to go. There is no way but back; then only can it go on, to something better than ambivalence as prelude to presidency, and that to compulsion, and that to ruin. Truth does not hide its face; those who hide from it, lose face as well as faith in the end.

Thus in England, the sweet virtues of creeds and ways whatever, as man learned to be gracious, is spoiled by the question being unanswered: If all creeds are acceptable, then either truth is not known, or does not matter, since they vary enormously, whether in morally and metaphysically, religiously and in behavioural outcomes, in international associations that follow this or that, or do not.

If it does not matter, then it is true that it does not matter, and so there is self-contradiction, that infamous prelude to confusion.

If it does matter, how is it tolerance which tolerates such an imposture!

RUNNING FREELY IN THE RAPIDS

BEFORE THE FALLS IS MOST UNWISE

Without God, there is no knowledge of wisdom. Hence there is no way to act in it. SOMETHING or other comes, and is rejected or not. If it is accepted, it supersedes without reality, merely with authority.

If it is rejected, then wandering continues. There is neither direction nor protection in this, since the purpose of politics, of life, of man when shelved, merely leaves vulnerable the unformed resultant.

Thus in the UK this massive UKIP has arisen, and taken a significant percentage of the vote. WHETHER we enter the EU or not, or retain Foreign Relations and other powers or not, this for the Britisher, is the question. By what, then, would you answer this question! if toleration and forbearance and no wisdom about what is the truth, no meekness in short, before the Creator and Redeemer is to be found , how can you avoid foundering in fiction ? Reality then cuts and it hurts. It is similar to crossing Bond St in London with your eyes shut.

There is then nothing by which to determine, so statistics replaces wisdom, and the result wanders now this way, and now that, which is precisely what has been happening in the UK for some time, indeed since World War II was complete.

When however, as was, formally the case in the UK, the Bible was the book of wisdom given to the sovereign, and there was a religious Protestant affirmation, free from a European ecclesiastical hierarchy with its own traditional notions superadded at the will of one man^*4, then at least despite all the errors made in mixing government with Church, there was some signal of direction,  value and truth. The loss of these, so far from  being Britain's maturing process, has become its devastation and could well, if PM Blair has his own way, lead to its submergence into some European entity which knows only that it wants to be itself, with this or that religious background, and ambition in its foreground.

Ambitious ? for what ? For living by bread alone ? or defence ? or bread and defence ? or hegemony ? or for continuing the cultivation of your culture ? which one ? in what direction ? for what purpose ? for peace ? with God ? with other nations ? on what basis ? with what values ? Democratic ? and the people, they charge like bulls, change like fighter pilots in dog fights, so that what is the purpose of the project is a topic always unknown. It is like being guided by your shadow, when on a desert plain. And the constitution of the EU ? with all the joviality and the jostling, the art of compromise so vigorously put from Germany, one finds from many reports, that in effect  it appears to be about human agreement in something or other which, in some way or other or some reason or other, to some extent or other, can find acceptance from contrary cultures, diverse nations with extinct or distinctive, or some combination, ideals.

Justice ? on the basis of man as the model, without God, so unjust from the outset!

Thus does the putative power of Putin, and the uncertainty of his motives and wishes, even if they be in principle good in intention, lead as an illustration, to the questions which man in myriads is not facing, and so to the slackening of that beautiful suggestion of peace and truth, moderation, toleration, truth in combination until He comes. When He comes, the truth of Isaiah 9:7 will be seen, as already that of 9:6; and in the meantime, history has liberated some wonderful glimpses of the way, but nothing so dramatic in beauty, rich in duty, salient in service, pure in heart, holy in purpose and efficacious in kind as the presence of Jesus the Christ Himself, on this earth^*5.

The truth needs to be affirmed, as it was in Britain for so long when it was so great a power; and in much in the USA when it too became a great power. Righteousness visibly DOES exalt a nation (cf.  Proverbs 14:34), while sin is a disgrace that reproaches any people.

Toleration needs to be given to those who do not follow it; and peace needs to be cultivated in grace. However, where truth itself is in abeyance, the violence of the violent comes like a whip to the worried, the straying, the distancers from truth for convenience, while unholy pragmatism meets unholy activism, antagonism, of which al Qaeda is a mere symptom and symbol, so that man shall be humbled.

That too, it will happen, it is happening, it has happened with address and passion most starkly apparent in World War I, in version II, in the Cold War, in the Korean War, in the African wars, in the mockery of liberation in Aids in Africa, starvation and worse tyrants, if possible, now than ever it knew before. Man is desolating himself, until the very 'one who makes desolate' as Daniel's revelation from God puts it, makes his final entry. Playing with fire can be so foolish when you do not use the fire-place, and insist on putting sticks for conflagration on the carpet.

Man is being humbled, and God is being exalted: but this is mere prelude. Even so, it appears, like a first course before sweets; but these sweets, they are not even bitter-sweet, but bitter only. Isaiah 2 is eloquent of this:

Jerusalem was the scene of the Saviour's human execration; it is not surprising that He will use this gallows site as one of government, when He comes, to complete His operations, before the world goes (cf. I Thessalonians 3:13, Matthew 24:35, Isaiah 51:6, II Peter 3).

	But as for man ?
	When he IS humble, and repents, and returns to the Truth, to God his Creator and Redeemer, then and then only will he have peace. Biblically, this is not yet, but will come with the return of that Redeemer, yes to the very city where He was crucified.

Crucifying Him afresh in the interim does not really help,

no, not even the revolt against Him, against God, against reality;

for He is no longer available

for spoliation,

by individual or any nation.

He will be available, however, shortly, and on His own terms:

 truth and humility.

Humility does not spit out truth, but loves it.

 

Now is the time to love the truth, and hence the Lord, and so to delight in Him.  Each person has a responsibility NOW, and no nation, no culture, no society or organisation can reduce this fact. Ignore it, and your 'gods', whether these be secular or religious, will not help.

As Jeremiah 10:11 declares:

"Thus shall ye say unto them, The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth,
 they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens."

In these things lies life; and from them, lies death.

The actual God is He with whom it is necessary to do business. What is for the Jew is also for the Gentile.

If the Jew (Zech. 12:10), is to mourn in deep contrition,

and look on "Me whom they have pierced",

as the prophet proclaimed some 500 years before the death happened, and some 2500 years before the present, when it impends in a Jerusalem fulfilling every other prophetic declaration (cf. SMR pp. 776ff.):
 

then it is so for the Gentile,

whose illicit thoughts and practices have pierced the very texture of truth,

and whose disregard of the infinite love of God

has been an  assault as real as any of Islamic monstrosities of 'terror',

which is really anti-truth error, abbreviated.

Bonanza ? It is time to forsake that foolish concept; and instead of finding and seeking funding from the temporary riches of oppression, whether of conscience and truth only, or others as well, to find the riches which are unsearchable, without limit, where and where alone they exist and abide, in the God who made you, who needs no human substitute for your help, but became human, man, that as substitute, God AS man, He could annul the sins of all who receive Him,  who in repentance, then return to the truth, close friends with peace, holiness, godliness, virtue, reality and love. He came on the date announced (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4).

	It was not in some other century, clime, culture or world (cf. Colossians 1:19ff.).
	He came with no other motive, than love, with mercy and pardon garlanded.
	There is no other testimony; there is no other God; there is no failure in God.
	There is failure only where it is perennial, inveterate, radical and repetitive, in man.
	As to the remedy, it is irrevocable, single, singular and as original as the Lord is.
	It is Jesus Christ, not imagined by Muhammad, or Bultmann, or any other cultural pawn, Western or Eastern, but presented as God, by God, with credentials nothing can touch, inviolable, unique.
	Truth has no other resting place nor righteousness other domain.

These things, you cannot invent them; but God has sent them. You MAY reject them. You MIGHT well inspect them. But if in the end, they are not for you, then you reject our manufacturer and seek from other manufactured things, other creation, what is the power and place of God - just as Romans 1:17ff. signifies.

And that ? That, as an error, whether with or without the specialised and modern ingredient of terror, is an infinite one.

NOTE

*1

See Acme, Alpha and Omega, Jesus Christ, Ch. 9, SMR Ch. 3,
Predestination and Freewill Section IV,

Barbs, Arrows and Balms  6  -7,

Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch. 9, for example,

News 82, 84, 94,

Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 3.

With this, in parallel, the studious, equipped with zeal, may indeed want to refer to Spiritual Refreshings... Ch. 13 and Ch. 16.

*2  Let us visit Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch. 8, from which an excerpt appears below (slightly extended).

 

If it is thought He may have an internal constitution, such that it is limiting to His freedom (material - or other): then who made it, was sufficient, was the reason for it ? If nothing, we end as before. If something, then that is God, for the same reason as before with a 'natural' setting. He therefore can have no internal constitution confronting Him, no essence to which He is bound. What however if He were merely susceptible to something because of an internal potential drift ? Then what is the reason for that drift ? If nothing then this is ruled out as before. If something, then as before, that would be God. Therefore He is not subject to it, but sovereign over it, always was, and always would be.

God is not subject to anything, confronted by anything,  forced to do or be anything. Neither need nor contrary desire controls Him; nor can any lack move Him, for what is not, has no results.

He is, in sum, illimitably free. Neither time with its partial processes nor space with its constraints and confinements, nor matter which exhibits dependence on both is or can be to Him a restriction, therefore. Contrary in nature to His essence, they have existence conferred on them by creation, being caused to be for one reason only, this: that He wants them to be; and for as long as He wants them to be, they will be.

As limitations, they do not and cannot exist. They serve Him.

Neither within nor outside God can limitations rule, neither intrinsically nor extrinsically, except by decree at His will; and even then their 'rule' is their subjection to Himself! Neither can they intimate to nor teach Him, who makes them serial and limited from His unlimited estate. Toys or contrivances, this trio of time, space and matter are derived at will, removed upon desire.

The creation of time in particular, of course, implies an episode originating the series, instituting the limit so that it might be applied wherever God saw fit; for an underived derivative is a contradiction in terms, and the partial cannot be co-extensive with the complete. What is arriving on the scene cannot already be totally present, consummate and unchanging. Beyond time, God is not subjectible to sequence or that special form of it called development. Or if He were to develop, what would be the base of potential which would realise itself in such consequences! That would be a dowered, a donated, a given nature or character, a simple contradiction in terms.

Take man. If God wanted to rule by violence, He need not have made him in the first place, or He could have made him without freedom, preserving His own principles in peace. He is what He wants to be and is limited by nothing, driven by no constitutional constraints, for no one constituted Him who, being self-existent and almighty, needs no 'completion' by man or anything else.

Conferring freedom out of the disposing of His own will, with freedom, God made man to be what he is, because that is how He wanted him to be, in his essential capacities. To man was given potency and potential. Responsibilities result; but these are not beyond God; He is beyond this phase of His creation, as beyond every other. He does not outdistance His wit, for that would imply a disparity between His desire and His ability, a constitutive limit, which contradicts a non-constituted being, someone not derived, contrived or set up within a situation and limits. It is necessary to remember that in consistency there is not and cannot be any system or constraint whatever above or over God, for if there were, the formulator, fashioner, creator, sustainer of that limit would be God's disposer, and that would be God! It is a contradiction in terms.

As for God, He always is what He wills to be, and is not subjectible to or limitable by sequence with its directions, institution, execution and directedness. He does not impact negatively upon Himself, in terms of some auto-militancy, schizophrenic squalor being the potion of incapacity; and knowing what He wills to be, He is not in two minds about what that is, since that would be mind limiting mind and a barrier or limit to freedom, a constitutive constraint impeding what He wants in an eternal duality of being, so that it would be polytheism.

Even if it were maintained that He wanted to be contrary to Himself, that would ultimately entail that His wants were those of two gods, which need their maker of system for joint immersion in it; or that His will was operative against itself, being moved eternally in two opposite directions, so that He was not free, but bound by constitutive incapacity for resolution, at war with a self which is merely an anthropomorphic reflection of our own created conditions, whilst contrary to His necessary freedom. He, however, and a 'self' constitute two eternal entities, so that the case is essentially equivalent to the former one. There can be no war within when there is nothing to resist, present, past or future, over and before time, timelessly in eternity. (Cf. pp. 88ff., 92ff. infra.)

 

*3 It is reported in Canada's paper, The Globe and Mail, June 19, 2004, that although reputed to have a financial fortune of some 8 billion dollars US, Khodorkovsky has since and because of imprisonment suffered a staggering reversal. Unless he is released, the case is put that  an outstanding $3.4 billion tax bill is being sought from him, and that his oil firm, Yukos has lost 25 billion in market value, including another 12% of remaining value on June 18.

Such colossal losses show the autocratic appearance of the thing. The eminent change suggests eminent assurance of what the political powers will do, as for centuries they have often tended to do in Russia: please themselves. It seems less a question of guilt, in the anticipation of the market, it would seem, than of the superior power of government, when it can strip what it will, decree how it will and make a machination happen with exceeding lack of opposition at the human level, when it can kill and strip at will. It is rather like a wrestling match when one party only can use a dagger at will.

Has anything, then, been proved ? Is it true that the Jewish billionaire funded opposition political work contrary to Putin ? Assuredly, this seems to be the case.

Has he protested with vigour, flair and vim at the appearance of increasingly authoritarianism in Russia ? Without doubt.

Is this contrary to the trend of removal of independent news sources by Putin, in preceding
years ? Totally. Would this conform to the hypothesis that Putin is rather ruthlessly removing whatever it takes to ensure stability, authority and his own view of what the nation needs to
be ? Unhappily, it would.

Does this prove that this is his motivation ? Not actually, but it is exceedingly suggestive.

It would be helpful in such a case, as one seeks to be fair to all, unjust to none, if there were ANY evidence of a clear and impactive nature, that Putin, gifted with the absurdly total presidential powers gained by Yeltsin, and now transferred,  is not so acting. It would be useful for the point,  if there were something which stands out to the contrary of such a schema. In such settings, words are not so effective when evidence is hard to find to support them; and Putin has used not a few of these. It is the other side, the deeds which call for visibility. Perhaps they will come to be seen; but one hopes they will not be furtive in conspicuousness.

After all, was not Communism a form of 'democracy' to the nauseating point that some political prisons, otherwise named countries, were actually CALLED the Democratic Republic of this or that, and some may still flaunt such summitries of deception, as they readily become in such cases.

Is not an agreeable relish for keeping the work going, to be presented as the real endeavour and the actual motive of Putin in these closures, whether of billionaire's liberties or press independence ? In that case however, we do not have an answer, but a question which remains as imperious as ever. GOING WHERE! for whose purposes, and with what intention ?

Is it taken as natural, in Russia the great haven of Csar, Commissar and now ex-KGB control, that authority comes first, with only lip service to what ideals are meant to be ? Is a cultural background irrelevant ? Is a life time of conformity to such an oligarchic tyranny a figment, a fiction, an error ? Is its unelected basis somehow a dream ? Is unauthorised authority to leave no trace, and this of course! Such may be so, but for such a miracle, one would seek some evidence.

Or is it still perilously close to being the case, that  in Russian politics and the political apparatus, the authority comes first concept remains  an underlying assumption of those in power ? In practice, is form to be the only depiction allowed to liberty, and in fact is there to be found compulsion, assumption, the sovereignty of the Sovereign, and the Lordship of the life of a few, over the destinies - on this earth, or currently in that land - of all ?

It would not be the first such adventure on this earth, and is merely, if this be the case, a little different in form and formula.

Even if Putin entirely means well, this is not identical with doing well. If man does not in humility find the scope of his reduced status from the Bible, he is inherently unstable, and power in his hands at this level, is extraordinarily difficult to diversify from delusion, the solipsistic sovereignty of whatever it is that takes the fancy, feeds the culture, finds its home to rest and roost in man. In the end, there is one God, and when He is not in operation as Lord and Saviour in the heart and head of man, truth is an evacuee.

It is however in returning, the same was always the case, to Him, the Creator and Redeemer, who is personal and profound, infinite and able to judge, in the person of that same Jesus Christ who, in His own self, having shown man's will toward Him at Calvary, equally has provided for man's release from the arrogance of defiance, in the agency of the Cross. The portrait of corruption, made Christ's as He vicariously bore the penalty for the sin of all who receive Him, becomes the power of peace.

THIS is the way. It LEADS somewhere indeed, to friendship in pardon and peace with God. Without that, nothing outside will ever be able to imitate it, and the nuances and necessities of fleeing man will ever make havoc on this earth, talk of peace though it may, till it is radioactive to  its very face.

 

 *3A

From Divine Agenda iCh. 3, we have a basis for earlier evidential construction and prophetic consideration. It follows, inset.

2) Where are you going, my pretty Russia ?

The area about Israel and indeed within it in certain places, teems with hostility, and brims with opportunity.

We come to another focus in the Middle East, which blends nicely to the East, through the Caucasus which are an index to the predicted invasion scenario for Israel (cf. SMR Appendix A, and pp. 656ff., 516ff.). We have earlier traced through the Scythians, the Caucasus and beyond, together with other surrounding nations in the arena. Now we merely note a recent development in contemporary Russia, with its satellites which, with Moscow all but due North of Israel, lies in the direction of flow specified in the prophecy, though it is not necessarily all involved as such. It would, however, be entirely in keeping with the indications if it were, or at least a good part of it.

Thus it is interesting to find that Putin, who, without disputation, is a former KGB official, apparently with all that sort of flair which would make him successful in East Germany, has been moving in his reconstruction of the Russian IMAGE. He has adopted the Hammer and Sickle illustration of the power hungry and love vacuous days of the regime which slaughtered in a way which would have been horrific for cows, using the sort of transport to Siberia likewise, which might have ruined the beasts. That of course was only the beginning of the years of removing whatever it took to do whatever they listed.

It did not work.

It was a campaign of hateful power in the endorsement of powerful hate; it was odious, reprehensible and lifeless, dead to humanity, alien to God, asking for the punishments such as those of World War II, and beyond. In the litany of defilement, refined brutality and misery of mind, it stands as a place where the volume is turned up to the full. Visions of splendour and drab realities of torture, of mind as well as body, make this amongst the most continuing exhibitions of devilishness one could ever wish to behold, before the antichrist himself comes in person.

Putin's place as a KGB officer was not in the days of Stalin. It was perhaps in a somewhat more restrained rule in mindless propaganda, over the sea of the people. Nevertheless, he was working in the not entirely delightful realms of the KGB. Is it possible that the glory days have not left him ? Is it possible that the concept of GETTING IT DONE, is still with him - and MAKING IT HAPPEN, with anything of that rambunctious indifference to cost which has distinguished and substantially but far from entirely, extinguished this dare-devil spirit which entered into Russia in 1917 ?

Perhaps not. Perhaps it is merely that the sunken atomic submarine of year 2000, would have revealed too much, and thus it was that the rescue was not mounted with all speed; perhaps however it was that it was humiliating, demeaning to Russia ? Who can tell why incredible delay occurred ?

Perhaps the adoption, by Putin, of the hammer and sickle as one of the OFFICIAL EMBLEMS for Russia now, the heavily financed Russia, recipient of aid to the tune of billions, perhaps it is merely nostalgia for getting things
done ? Perhaps it is NOT nostalgia for the WAY they were done, and where it all led !

In any case, the adoption has apparently outraged many, for whom it stands for the whole unwholesome and unholy reign of terror, which would appal, it would seem, many of the original Reign of Terror in the French Revolution for its unhallowed inhumanity and heartlessness. It has been adopted, this symbol of atrocity, inhumanity and gross abuse of power.

Then the double headed eagle, symbol of the old Empire has been adopted likewise. What do these two official symbols, now instated in the new Russia, signify ? A love of glory, of power, of status ? A relative indifference to WHAT SORT of power and an emphasis on its FACT and PRESENCE ? THIS WE HAVE DONE, these are symbols of our being able to MOVE!

Without wishing to endue such things with too much significance, one cannot well endue them with none! To use the hammer which smashed minds (using, anomalously, very often a combination of drugs and viciousness), though not the mind of Solzhenitsyn and many like him; and the sickle which reaped ruin, sending whole areas into famine, which has responsibly been considered as very possibly intentional disciplinary and disruptive force (SMR pp. 658-659), and slicing off heads of people instead of grain: to use this is more than tasteless. It is false glory and resembles the use of the SWASTIKA in Germany now. Imagine, now, if you will, the German government MAKING THE SWASTIKA a CURRENT SYMBOL of the new Germany!

Enough said.

Hence, in addition to the fact that the area surrounding the Caucasus in a broad scene -

namely Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, together with that victim of Putin's strategy as likewise of Yeltsin's determination, a name like a cancer sufferer's pain, Chechnya, all linked  with Iran, Iraq, Syria and its north, not distant and well placed for assault!

is indicated as a likely source of the invasion of Israel predicted these 2 and one half millenia, for the New Covenant era, there is more.

It is quite possible that Russia will either PERMIT or not interfere if the Muslim south of her area so acts, or may even in some way be involved.

This is merely an indication of movement which enhances the preliminaries in the scenario of the nations just mentioned. This in turn is in the era of the restoration of the Jews to Jerusalem, both a portent and a pivot for the end and return of Christ (Luke 21:24), while wars thunder on with a rapidity, multiplicity, almost mindless ingenuity of cause and indifference to effect, with rumours continual and ruin unspeakable, just as this era had to do, to qualify (cf. SMR pp. 648ff.).

Meanwhile the new oil pipeline scheduled for the Caucasus area, together with the Islamic surge of force as mission and religious desideratum, a trend of which few have not heard, and which is far from lacking attestation in the Koran (cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 6), there are more dynamics building like a tornado in the initial stages.

What however of the UN ? Would it impede an invasion of Israel ? After all, let us be realistic not only the 1991 pan-Islam alliance to DEAL WITH Israel, but the year 2000 duplication of belligerence by the Muslim powers, these things do not signify peace, or irenic, amicable intention. The Arabs are to be supported. The festering wound in the tiny heart of Israel is to be administered inflammatory drugs.

The UN however ? If the UN does what it did to stop Nasser, it will make no difference! If it acts as it did in 1947 in removing Jerusalem prospectively from the Jews and giving them bits of Palestine, then it may conceivably do MORE than merely not intervene to rescue the 'normal Jewish victims'.

Where are you going my pretty Russian maid ? Are you looking at power play with your symbols and your scheming ? are you looking the other way, if the empire advances ?

 

*4 See SMR pp.1055ff., 1032ff..

 *5

See for example,

SMR Ch. 6, Appendix C,

Christ, the Wisdom and the Power of God Ch. 8,
The Magnificence of the Messiah,

Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Ch. 2

Lord of Life Ch. 9,

Acme, Alpha and Omega Chs.  6,   8.