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18
ASPIRATION
TO ASCEND,
THE
NECESSITY TO DESCEND
AND
THE
TO AMEND
There is a trend in the
heart of mankind to ascend. Hilary thought it good reason to climb
This can be quite healthy. It can increase knowledge simply by applying the matter-analysing powers of mind, in order to ascertain with the comprehension capacities of spirit, what is what and what, for that matter, is not.
However
there has been a pathogen that has crept in, perverting this blessed ascent in
understanding of the universe, into something more akin to curse, and as so
often, it is a fine blend of human pride and autonomy which seems back of it -
short, that is, of that maestro of all anti-God confusion, the devil.
Listening-In to the Musing of the Beautiful
Bureaucrat
1.
Manufacturing Cloud Nine
There he was, immersed in business in his spacious office.
The Commissar for Cloud Nine was at work. It was interesting work, even fascinating, but suffered from cost over-run. It had been found by the cost-accountants that the methods of sustaining that altitude necessary for efficient functioning of CLOUD-NINE COSMOLOGY, which had been up for around one and one half centuries, had grown disproportionately in recent years. *1 )
Darwin had of course fallen... *2; too many atheists and agnostics were criticising his non-happening theories to be comfortable, and only the tangible successes of Cloud Nine Propaganda Section were really clinging to it any more: especially in places like Education Departments which might take a few decades to catch up with the facts ... but too many actual influential thinkers were now proposing wholly different solutions because neither the Cambrian Age nor the Mammal Record nor the Genetic realities would conform to the Idea. Other theories always verged on the obviously fantastic, never worked and so forth.
The Philosophic Section was doing much better. It was quite remarkable how they had taken over whole universities with a sort of unspoken assumption and assurance, presumably because
Anyway, it worked well enough there, but the bickering about what was the best theory about it all when none of them even approximated the facts as a base, WAS embarrassing!
The cost was high. There had to be a LOT of very hard work to butter up the dry toast before it broke into a thousand fragments and make it at least tolerable, rather than downright disgusting to even casual analysts, of whom there were more and more.
However, the results were for the time not disastrous. "It is just the cost," he mused. "There have to be enough inane TV sessions - and really, even for a True Believer, which I suppose means in this case a false zealot, but one has to do SOMETHING - to keep the popular mind at rest, and a constant supply of preachers of unrighteousness is absolutely essential."
Newspapers had to be inclined in the right direction, for if even ONE of them were to follow the actual evidence, only disaster could be expected. The trouble with a lot of the academics was this: MARKETING. They did not seem to realise that far more conformity was needed in their thought for marketing purposes. Imagine if the Army before a war could show only a divided series of wholly incompatible theories about meeting the enemy.
It had started well enough: ah! those were the days! In the thirties before the Second World War, there it was, and even before that, as World War I began to loom. There was that lovely EXCELSIOR, ALWAYS MORE, IF NEED BE BY WAR! slogan. It had stuck, and to be sure, a couple of world wars had been related - Kaiser with the German State in its philosophic, striving and evolving beauty as supreme - wonderful gift of Hegel, that! and Hitler with his god of forces, hit the Jews and run with the loot concept, a sort of developed Hegelianism with a Nietzsche backing (poor fellow that last one! went mad! wish they would think more of the CAUSE we're fighting for, before doing that sort of thing).
Yes it was a simple plan, worked quite well to a point, or had done so in the past. Someone had to be better, so ...
evolve through war and then encore!
But that was passé if anything ever was. There were too MANY wars, and people were getting sick of them, he mused. Peoples couldn't war ALL the time, or they wouldn't have enough to blow up left after lthe ast time, and it was tiresome. I mean, he reflected, there has to be some reward!
Then there was the nasty
mood change. Of course it was good to bleed the
However they bought it, that was the main thing. Yet even there now in Time Magazine in April of this blessed year of 1998, you see reports of hundreds of schools, a large percentage indeed and Government schools at that, with prayer groups and the like, after school, some with some permission even to advertise these things, in the premises which had been dedicated to no-God.
Nevertheless it worked just fine at the time when it happened and God, the God of the Bible was OUT: THAT! it was a coup! God as a dispensable extra! Magnificent! It just showed you, he reflected, what secularism could achieve when it appealed to some vague feeling of liberty.
The Philosophic Section,
now, it had run into troubles of its own...
2. The Descent from Cloud Nine
There was that horrible, almost horrifying outburst of Leary-ism, drugs, fall-by-sensation, it's all your life! sort of stuff. The very name almost seemed to describe it. Surely they could have thought of that: surely the boys could have done something if they had only grasped its significance earlier. Still, to be fair, at that time it was all sensationally and almost ecstatically ga-ga, so that even such a name as that might seem attractive.
It could only be temporary. They should have seen that. Abstraction from reality is certainly in the right line for any propaganda machine, but then we need the minds to manipulate if we are to have a really strong society-in-secularism; so that as a long-term project, it had to go. Now it was getting out of hand, as if ruining minds were the intent in making them... "Oh dear!" he pondered. "Here am I using words like that! I'll be talking of design and creation next. It just shows the strain of working in such a situation, such an atmosphere... I might say!"
Then that mood of disillusion. Surely! ... it grieved him it WAS SO complicated. Sure, disillusion was good for anti-morals. Frustrated and morose people could do almost ANYTHING, and that, it liberated; of this he felt sure. Yet it had a certain negativity of feeling. No class! The old German Kaiser had some of that - something you were going to GET, rather than a pain in the neck, a heavy heart, a disordered mind and the need to rely on your parents or the secular State, bless its heart, to make you even financially sufficient.
And then all this business of ... crime! "Because of drugs!" That was TERRIBLE for the trade! True of course in many cases, but not necessary to blather about it; surely the newspapers and communication arm can manage better than that. Couldn't they MAKE them see that we need better co-operation than that.
"Falling ... falling ... falling!" he stared within without joy. "It reaches me that. It is all, always falling, and the structural, psychological reality of it all is that you CANNOT ... let me say that again, C.A.N.N.O.T. maintain any really workable altitude in CLOUD NINE COSMOLOGY when this sort of thing is its practical expression in what some people even dare to call reality - the actual results in the flesh.
"FALLING statistics ?
Oh no! Rising statistics in about all the crime you could wish, rising
suicides, assaults, school deaths, madnesses of every kind. It makes my flesh
creep. There is simply NO discipline in the ranks any more. There HAS to be
SOME sort of dignity given to this thing soon ... If the Creator is to come
back then where will we all be! We try that 'nice little Sunday school
boy!" derision sometimes, but then that has a back-lash, for a lot of
parents seem to heave a sort of nostalgic sigh at that thought that nice
children with obedient temperaments, obedient to truth no less, and moral tone
could actually exist on this earth. You know, the other day, I actually heard a
parent SAYING THIS! that it was as if children had all but ceased to exist.
That is, only after a few years at school, cool school! Oh well, we MUST do
better and all these private schools. Sure, it saves the
"Incidentally,
it also helps in this, that it empties a goodly number of Christian pockets,
parents who PAY for private school, parents who WILL NOT have their children
taught that self-assertion and Darwinian survival are the spice of life and
indeed its cause; though frankly, how they EVER thought that survival was
arrival is always a mystery to me. But there it is. We have a job, that's what
we're paid for, and the fact is the ALTIMETER is not looking good for CLOUD
NINE."
3. The
"You hear a lot about this Christian stuff," he reflected. "Repent and seek the Lord. Do not ASCEND because without God you only DESCEND; have no CLOUD NINE! (absolutely absurd, no job for me, and it IS interesting!) ... and find the Messiah, the Christ who is King, and He only will Rule, with righteousness, justice, mercy, love, kindness, consideration and so forth; but you have to be SAVED! Frankly, I prefer hell with all its mess to being saved. I mean, where would 'I' be! Obviously this re-structuring of the soul, as they call it, it is an absolute abomination to anyone who wants to be the centre of the universe, as with all modesty - due modesty - I do!
"No! The ONLY alternative is this. Have an antichrist, a real charmer, a man of steel with gloves of velvet, a man of technique, with computerised augmentation to make a really good IMAGE. Let him use force. I am sick of al the slick and slithery work I have to do, for all its interest. It costs too much. It is ruining my own self-respect.
"No, you need system, plan. What war doesn't, and let's face it, this IS WAR. The territory to be claimed, gained: it is MAN! All the other wars were so petty in a way, but I suppose technology helps us now. After all, if you control MAN, why worry about this little (or even large) bit of territory. YOU have control.
"Charm them and then get it, then tell them and make it happen. I mean, ants and all that, termites even better, and bees: fantastic things can be done when you ORGANISE people! Economics is a soda with the computerised techniques available, and they've been testing laser methods - yes, yes, I know just as the Bible says, marks on the body to identify and all that - soon NO ONE could MOVE financially without permission. And there is the beauty of it all!
"Ah sometimes I WISH, I really do, Hitler had made it, but then, a bit unsophisticated! Now it would have real clout. In the sort of set-up I look for, you don't have to GIVE PERMISSION: you simply PREVENT the money from being available. Your number is NOT AVAILABLE! "Dear Sir, Your Account Number no longer exists! It has been regrettably necessary to cancel it!" Beautifully neat. No blather.
"What do they do then!
"So
... Wrap up every kind of aid, legal and otherwise in the system, make even the
richest eat humble pie: after all, when YOUR NUMBER IS OUT! They actually were
reported to have SAID that this would be an option in the U.N. some time past.
Most indiscrete, but then, some of these are simply uneducated in what it is
all about!"
4. Leaving our MUSING OFFICIAL,
let's consider it!
There is only one
opportunity to avoid this endless clenching of the eyes, lest they should see,
closing of the ears, lest they should hear: aborting of thought, lest you
should think and see and comprehend and be converted, being convicted of subterfuge,
sin, and folly incredible and eddies of vagrancy innumerable (cf. Matthew
The other 'answer' to Christ is antichrist, a substitute machined by social engineers, augmented by electronic engineers, groomed by political engineers, until the whole of the world lies in all but prostrate submission to the Lie Leaders, Mind Suppressors, Convenience Committees, in manifest and open war with God (cf. Micah 3:5, Revelation 16:14-15, 19:19).
Avoiding that mythological mysticism and miasma of fraud (cf. SMR pp. 750B-D, 857-873, 909ff., 923ff., 611ff., Questions and Answers 7, 4), there is but one.
THAT! It is
Jesus Christ the Righteous! Lord of creation and Author of Salvation.
"OVERTURN,
OVERTURN!" Squalid substitutes for divine rule, aspiring in vanity, will
not last; for God is not with them.
Does not
Ezekiel, in
All this ersatz stuff, this psychological manipulation, now exceedingly difficult, already, to differentiate from insanity in its irrational writhings and twistings, this man-makes-man illusion, delusion and fraud, HAS TO HAVE force in the end, and charm as an agency on the way.
The only way to expect to make folly "work" is by force. And that is not kind! It never was and it never will be! It has been seen times innumerable, and its name is make-believe. Truth is an invariable ingredient of anything worth while, and freedom is possible when truth rules.
And as to truth, of course, truth will out: not only because there is otherwise interminable friction, not only because mankind is made for it and squirms in its absence, however bold the exterior: but also because God who is the truth, has never abdicated! His foreknowledge has put Him in charge of the last from the first and He is as He always was and will be, unchangingly what He would be, knowing all things and implementing His desire in concert with the prophets and history in perfect accord. (Cf. SMR pp. 26-35, 545ff., 580ff., 44-45, 88-89, 269, 313-315; consult Malachi 3:6, Psalm 102:25-28, I Peter 1:23-25, Isaiah 40:6-8, Jeremiah 33:19-26, Matthew 24:35.)
CLOUD NINE
cannot be maintained, but its illusion can be ENFORCED. Biblically, the latter is the way
man will take - MAN! let us be rather more fair linguistically! "It is the
way the world will take!" Man? Dear old mankind, so sadly lassoed by the
cowboys of the devil, the task-masters of illusion, it divides and will till
the end comes (Matthew 10:35-36, John 18:36-38). The sheer force of
administered people-control will surely come as it came in
As the
gave illusory
strength to rotted
fallen into its rough-cut Communist woes,
helping create a myth in the midst of their madness,
before some realism crept in, as when Reagan called
things by their names, and before long this folly fell;
so now it
is aiding the withering bureaucracy of
There comes a pouring in of funds and help in the name of "our interests",
with query on query of dangerous exports,
that leads on
with the appearance of action,
the dynamic of development significantly imported,
thrust in from where
freedom has more place.
In this way does the
soul-assailing substitutes for functionality,
feeding on what the regime does not create,
a colossus astride their human heart, directing it to its mouth,
maintaining itself in the name of stability (Time p. 45, July 6, 1998)*3,
at gun-point, instead of meeting reality with reality, and
matching the dissidents with truth, not torture,
too well-attested by Harry Wu and his researches,
reported by him to the U.S. Senate,
himself subjected to
imprisonment and duress.
Is this not economic profiteering at the expense
of those the system does not answer,
and is it soulless arrest of souls, compounded by their abuse for gain ?
while others flee or are restored, or rot
because their mouths are
not where control would have them be.
When the continuance of life becomes its chief purpose,
Its value is self-defined at zero*4,
its character, contributions and resources
prostituted for mere continuance of ... whatever,
and indeed, as Christ said,
"Whoever will save his life will lose it: and whoever shall lose his life
For My sake, the
same shall find it ,"(Matthew
Here in these sad assaults, however, the control-mechanism
is formally geared to Intrusion of loss
as a national pastime, not individually determined.
As in the
spells State alienation, that may mean alienation of liberty,
or life.
And again, as Christ said, "What shall a man be
profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall
a man give in exchange for his soul?" - Matthew 16:26. And if the State would make the soul-sale
vicariously, what is the place, then, of that State!
Thus, what must be said
when the
It imprisons and deals for gain,
exploiting the virtual slave-labour of people inconvenient to them,
with manifest injury to truth and equity,
disdaining their heroism and concern,
substituting alleged national economic well-being-with-Communists-in-power
for that freedom which fears nothing BECAUSE it is true.
When the
certainly there
is to be expected, payment.
There was payment in the
American Civil War after the exploitation of slaves, and
A little here, a little there for profit, and security and happiness in the US (or a lot here and there, in China) whilst some are tortured, despite their courage, endlessly and tiresomely humiliated in mind and body, if by any means the spirit of the nation might be broken on behalf of alien illusions, not fit for any man: the US cannot do this to encourage tyranny in China, and hope not to be infected with that to which, thereby, it morally yields.
The time will surely come
when the world withers, its ideology a caprice, its deceit and force then
internationally potent as they have been in the Russian and Chinese empires*5, to name only two. THIS! it is no insult to the
Russian people, or to the Chinese. It is to their immense credit that heroes
have arisen in the very face of intense psychological tyranny which, in the
case of
Here was a case of oppression which Russian hero Solzhenitsyn characterised as numerically worse than the Czars managed. But the system of the world started in our contemporary world, to expand in these two Empires; and it moves and will move till its last gluttony for souls is finished, and it is famished ... when HE COMES TO WHOM IT IS DUE, THE CROWN, WHOSE RIGHT IT IS, the Lord JESUS CHRIST (Ezekiel 21:26-27, Revelation 5:6-9, cf. SMR pp. 623ff.).
That too, it will happen. With the word of God, without any exception to the slightest degree, it ALWAYS HAPPENS (cf. SMR Ch. 9).
There is a better way, the way of truth, the way of sacrifice, in which Christ having paid the ransom for sin, those who come may receive it, each one covered in the predestining foreknowledge of God, each with his/her place in the infinitude of the magnificence of the Creator, who knows His people. He made them. He loved enough to SEND INTO THE WORLD His only begotten Son (I John 4:9), NOT to condemn but that the world might be saved.
The result: either YOU will be saved, or you will not be. If you are not, since HE WOULD HAVE ALL MEN TO REPENT AND TO RECEIVE THE TRUTH, YOU only are to blame (I Timothy 2:4, Luke 13:1-3). If however in faith, you call on the name of the Lord (Acts 2:21,36ff.), you will be His. Want it? Take it. Don't want it? You get what you want. It's coming.
So is He, the Judge of all men. To all who look for Him, loving His appearing, this is a sheer delight (Hebrews 9:28, I Corinthians 16:22). Man is made for it; divorce from it is unthinkable, though the drug that is sin can make illusion captivating until its inherent cruelty is found; but then, it is too late.
History has been a long time coming (cf. II Peter 3:9, Matthew 24:14, Ephesians 3:9-12); for you, it is wise that you should be a short time coming. There is NOT a kind heart in the centre of the Universe; for it is a mere though multitudinous creation; but there IS a kind heart in the Creator of that universe. It is folly to disdain it. And this, says the word of God:
Truth,
it is indispensable, memorable, marvellous. It puts things in place, and what a
place is this, "Christ in you, the hope of glory!" (Colossians 1:27.)
Endnotes ...
*1For some of the reasons for this, see SMR pp. 422Eff., S15-S34, 100ff.,Ch.2 , 999ff. etc..
*2 For some reasons, see SMR pp. 226-236, 145ff.,251ff., That Magnificent Rock Ch.1 , The Other News, 12, A Spiritual Potpourri, A & F Schools etc..
*3 See also
*4 See What is Life for? -Ch.6, That Magnificent Rock.
*5 See News 37, End-note 5.
19 MISSILES,
MEANING
AND
FAITH
HOW do you escape
'meaningitis', the mere wafting
in miserable profusion of thought;
missiles -
the just vulnerability to evil;
and find
faith, faith with an object worthy of it ?
Being sacked doubtless is not the most genteel of operations. If however you are sacked for good reason, that is serious.
Being a dreamer, a wafter, a drifter, a casual, a temporary, always in some item or element that is unsound, untested, unverified, some floating hope or obvious folly: that is much more so. Here the employer whose services you despise, is God.
In fact, the world is likely to support you to a point (the point where it hurts it more than it hurts you is one possible case). It too loves to waft (within economic bounds), and drift (even into war if it may pay) and to loiter in philosophic fantasies (provided they do not interfere too apparently with the 'good life' of having and getting and being somebody and so forth).
It may even let you know of
its great religious operation.
1. YOU CAN BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU LIKE,
PROVIDED YOU DO NOT THINK IT IS TRUE!
It runs like this - YOU CAN BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU LIKE, PROVIDED YOU DO NOT THINK IT IS TRUE!
This is very popular in practice, but not normally actually said, since its hypocrisy is then too apparent. The idea is simple. People have their vagaries and dreams, and what does it matter, a mass, a spiritistic contrivance, fortune teller, fire dance, rain dance, blues ... it is really their affair. But ONCE LET THEM GET THE NOTION IT IS TRUE, not 'true as the priest says' or 'true to us' but actually factual, really there, then they tend to become concerned. THEN you may: 1) start wars 2) increase present wars 3) tend to make new conflict within old wars (they call it 'stirring ancient hatreds' in one hollow piece of folly) 4) activate rebellions 5) break social harmony - I could go on, but let THEM write their own propaganda, this is enough.
It is true that some people who 'believe' something may do such things; as may other people who try, as in Vietnam to 'contain the Communists' without actually defeating them, lead to a few hundred thousand maimings, deaths, lacerations of mind, soul or spirit. However the point is really violence.
Yet if you do no violence, then they will still be likely to be concerned, since others may find in what you say you believe, some sensitive ground for violence - on their part! (Imagine them using the same argument about making money or a profit - If you make money or a profit, it might go: then others who do not do so, may find in this your action, or your public balance sheet, some ground for envy or upset, and it may stir them to revolution etc..)
However in this case, it is really a question of God, and if there is ONE THING the world does NOT WANT, it is God. Goddishness any day, the vain, inane, vapid 'virtue' of 'being religious' by all means. But really to know and to love and to serve God: NO! or ONLY if you believe it,
WITHOUT THINKING IT IS TRUE.
Now by this is not meant that you are an obvious hypocrite. A bit light on top perhaps, but not that. They mean that you hold it in a watertight compartment of your being; preferably one which you 'prefer not to discuss', since that will have the 'socially desirable' result of 'making you happy' (like any other unreality producer, like heroin? but these, they do not think!), without threatening...
Threatening? What? Well, this to their consciences, like missiles, which, if threatened can lead to unhappy or tense dreams and scenes within, self-accusations, self-doubt and the like, which are not good for the reposeful avoidance of God.
SO: BELIEVE
WHAT YOU LIKE PROVIDED YOU DO NOT THINK IT IS TRUE, BECOMES A JUST THOUGH
DEPLORABLE SUMMARY OF MUCH WHICH I HAVE MET IN THE ARMY, IN THE UNIVERSITY AND
IN THE EDUCATION SYSTEM.
2. Believe the truth!
whatever you MAY like
In fact, it is better to believe the truth, whatever you like. After all, if you believe it is going to rain, and it does not, you are not helped. If you believe there is no hell, and act like it, you are not helped upon arrival. If you believe that God does not care and He does, you are avoidance your own mercy. If you do not believe the truth, you are deluded or confused, derailed or about to be.
Truth does what the case is; and you do not? You are then driving on the wrong side of the road, as I did once in a land where they drove on the opposite side to the one so used in my own country. I marvelled at the man about 1000 metres away who kept coming on the relatively deserted road, straight at me on 'my side'. I had just moved from a gas station and then, in a flash it came to me. HE was not being obtuse and odd; I WAS ASTRAY, with a hundred or two yards to spare, I MADE THE ADJUSTMENT to the fact. We passed happily.
You must have faith, it is true, a bent to believe and receive and act with understanding and conviction, in terms, however, of the correct object. If you have faith in your swimming and SO do not allow a life-saver to rescue you when you are in trouble, then your 'faith' is your death-warrant. The same applies if you have faith in some incompetent helper, with whom you may - certainly in company, certainly that! - drown, not quite so happily.
If you are simply vague, wandering, alone amidst facts unknown, you are like someone driving this side or that, always prone to an accident being non-compus mentus, or else so slack that you do not know what is what.
Now in Christianity, the case is Christ. Objectively He stands alone (SMR Ch.6), and His words are unparalleled in factual power (SMR Ch.8), while the Bible on which as doctrine it stands, alone is and can be valid on due survey in the depths of the matter (That Magnificent Rock, Ch.5, The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, Chs.1,3,10). It works, it stands and logically, it stands alone, as does He.
But then the trouble starts in a new way. The world is full of such ways: it is as if an Uncle gave you a 'new start' with $10,000 and you AT ONCE 'misunderstood' and bought heroin with it - some new confusion or other.
It is better to treat it
right.
3. TREATING IT RIGHT
Now here, it is best to use your mind. It says, "Love the Lord with all your mind" as well as with all your heart. If you were sick, and a specialist had just said, "Operation for cancer or death!", then it would be good to check out what he had to say, and its reasons.
In the Bible, the word which alone stands as 1) valid and 2) able to give evidence of its origin, 3) able to point to the power to get done what is needed,
you are told to call upon
the name of the Lord and be saved! (Acts
SO being a slightly better 'boy-scout' is NOT the way. 'Grace' means a kindness not deserved, without your merit as its base. It is in this spirit that God saves those who are to be saved. 'Faith' means an inward assurance and conviction to which evidence also relates, but which acts with confidence in its object. The 'object' or focus here is Jesus Christ, the Saviour. He is like the life-saver in our case above, equipped with the features, in the figure, of being able to swim and able to save, as well as willing to do so. He is the 'correct' object of faith, being available and active on request in the necessary way.
So long as you think that the slightest addition of yours will 'produce salvation' or effect deliverance in the affairs of life and of God its maker, then you are not 'using it right'. It is fake, fraud and will end if continue, in fiasco. God is both keen that no one will boast ('I had a beautiful faith, in fact it runs in our family' and so forth in the realms of self-satisfied boasting), and that people should come to Him and be saved. Hence it relies on the One who can DO it, always and to the uttermost, without any vulnerable ingredient. Besides, our best works are imperfect, and salvation is perfect, without flaw.
How? Heaven with unheavenly
people, let's face it, is not heaven. God supplies the difference in Christ,
who as Saviour, and being perfect, is the model to which all are conformed in
spirit at the end. Here, we are moulded 'from glory to glory' who are His; but
there the process is complete. Here however, we gain a PLACE AS CHILDREN OF
GOD, and all this is "the gift of God", as Paul puts it, in Ephesians. "For," says he, "the wages of sin
are death, but the gift of God is eternal life" (Romans
SO you have to receive a gift! Some WILL not. Others are quite happy to have it, but want it to be available for making profit (like selling masses, against I Peter 1:18-19) or for ordering you about (contrary to I Peter 5), or as a sort of insurance, while living their own lives quite hypocritically, as if it were some dead necklace about their necks, and not a living lead.
That of course is not treating it right. It is a gift which means that you know God (John 17:1-3, 10:9,27-28), which is a transforming relationship, a rock of strength and a resource of delight. It is actually knowing the Being who made you, the Person who saved you, and finding in Him, the vitality and understanding which is apt and appropriate to such a creation as man is.
Let's sum this up then:
YOU ARE SAVED WITHOUT WORKS, BUT NOT WITHOUT FAITH,
AND FAITH
WORKS.
4. YOU HAVE TO HAVE IT RIGHT AT BOTH ENDS
Having learned to treat it right there, you need to avoid other pitfalls of philosophic folly which try to catch men, yawning open for the wayward, the wanderers and the confused.
Thus the God to whom you look IN FAITH, whom you love with all your MIND as well as heart, started the universe as an author starts a book, but more absolutely. He started mankind as an author creates a character, but more pervasively. NOTHING is given. He is the CREATOR. Nothing did not make it, nor did anything inadequate for the whole universe of worlds, of the mind, of rational thought, of imagination, of conceptual ideas, of practical implementation capacities, of emotional texturing, of words, of physical action, of validity and so on. The Maker had the lot and that is how there was made a synthetic marvel called man. Man is temporary, God is eternal; but man is made.
Let's just look for a
moment at something I wrote earlier on this, for convenience here: we look at
the idea that what did not have it made what does have it.
STARTING
AT THE BEGINNING
(Excerpt from A Spiritual Potpourri, Section 1).
One of these says that we 'just grew', like Topsy, amongst the wilds. However
1) when we look for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence units, or space-men, orXTs, what do we find? None. The expectation relates to the idea that others too, just grew...
2) when we look for Extra-Terrestrial Life, XTL, there is furore, but facts do not co-operate, no not when billions are spent in the search.
3) when we seek supermen, SM, on the ground that some might just grow better in the wilds of our 'cultures', we find disillusion, betrayal, pride wounded and nations destroyed. Hitleresque pictures do not work, any more than do Communist bee-sweat proletariat productions. They never have worked, and never began to work, whether based on race or ideas. What did work was slave labour and ultra-bestial violence in both cases, soon shed, as history goes. It improved nothing but the death rate.
4) when we look for laws by which such progress expectation might be justified, we find none, only the precise and direct opposite in the Law of Thermodynamics, the 2nd. which tells us that specificity tends to reduce, not increase, in a given system such as our universe comprises.
5) when we look for creativity, which alone would justify the expectation of such a law, we find our own tempered but impressive originality - which does not create life, or matter, or mind, as part of our parcel; but we do not find the MIND in the materials provided, which creates minds.
It is curtains and blinds when it comes to man making minds: only servile slaves occupied with man's visions and his dreams and his hopes, these arrive to attest his subordinate status, and sometimes to feed the insane pretences of many. Minds however? no. Spirits? Far from it. They do not come; they do not arrive. Thus is not the state of our case on this present earth.
6) when we look for a line of transitional objects, TOs, from major type to major type in the rich diversity of different kinds of living things, we do not find them. Variety is the order of the day, incredibly ingenious combinations; but no transitional sequences.
7) when we look for mutational episodes, ME, even brought on by 40 years of X-ray bombardment as in the case of the famous fruit fly Drosophila, we find they do not provide the advances desired. Nul and void is the effort to make impact create design. Increased design specifications do not "arise" however much they are looked for. This is scarcely surprising; but surprising or not, it is certainly fact. Intelligent work and effort is needed.
8) when we look for means of variety production, we find them in abundance, precisely as scripture implies:both in its selection of the term, 'kinds', and its specification of variety, as in the case of giants. But variety is not kind; it does not advance vertically, merely spreading horizontally. Ingenious provisions for variation, as in skin colour and eye shape, are included; and the spice of individuality is as surely programmed into being, as is the basic type on which variation is made, like musical variations on a theme.
9) when we look for Upward Design Increments, UPIs, the 'arising' of superior kinds of things all out in the wild, by themselves, we do not find it. NEVER do we find it. NEVER have we found it, NEVER does law lead us to expect to find it, NEVER could the evidence, law and logic be clearer. UPIs are not there. They do not happen in cars, in Ph.D. theses, in things old or new, high or low. Design by its nature as by its practice, takes understanding, and this is not resident in 'Nature', that bogey-woman of imagination which is crowned, 'mother nature' by the superstitious.
10) when we look for Downward Design Decrements, DDDs, then on the contrary, we have no trouble at all in finding mutational descent, when things get damaged. We knew all this. It is not new and in many cases, not accepted because it is not desired. There is no other reason.
In fact, NOTHING is the result, wherever organic evolution is used. In what could be terms a wry humour, were it not that it is presented as sober physics, Paul Davies then apotheosizes nothing, and says, Well yes, it does seem that this is where it all began! (for details, see That Magnficent Rock, Ch.7, Models and Marvels). For what is not there, that is quite a leap, especially definitionally. Still, when there is nothing else to talk about, one supposes it can serve; though not of course logically.
Definitional dilemmas apart, and amusement aside, there is only one place where the answer is YES. In that place, ALL the answers are yes. In this place, there is NO answer which is 'No!', 'Nothing doing!' or, 'What are you talking about!', as is the case in this tedious prodigy of the nineteenth century, organic evolution.
(End of Excerpt.)
If you want more, see That Magnificent Rock, Ch.1, or The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, esp. Ch.2, but also Ch.1, or A Spiritual Potpourri, Chs.1-9; and there is more, to be found by looking in LIBRARY under the topic heading, CREATION, on the home page of World Wide Web Witness, http://kern.com.au/users/wwww
Then you are walking in a
real world with the Maker, not a world where you believe anything you like, so
long as you do not think it is true.
ENDING AT
THE RIGHT END
But there is the other end of things. Death.
The God who made it all,
has counselled and planned it all (Ephesians
Death is the end. Christ rose physically from the dead. The 'object of faith' which did not do this is just another mirage, dream, vagueness, temporising, human invention, about as useful as a baby doll when it comes to life-saving, to pursue our oceanic image from above.
You see this in Luke 24, in
I Corinthians 15, in Isaiah 26:19, Psalm 2,22,16 and so forth. The point is
this: any 'christ' who did not do this is a mere waste of time. The one in
history, of the book, whose works attest Him, did do it. Any who did not is a
fraud, a mental fiction, not able to serve as an object of faith, not the
Saviour (Matthew
As to the evidence to the
mind, see SMR Ch.6, and pp. 931-942 and 'resurrection' in the Index,
available by clicking on The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, in our
homepage. But to return to the Bible, Peter said it so frankly in Acts 2.
David, the King of great name and fame in
But He arises (Psalm 2 is very vivid and dramatic on this), and in His time comes to bear rule. In the meantime (II Peter 3:9), there is an interim in which the WHOLE WORLD is to know this "GOSPEL" or good news (Matthew 24:14). Then He returns TO this earth, just as earlier, He arose FROM it (Matthew 24:300ff., 25:31ff., II Thessalonians 1, I Thessalonians 4 etc.).
God had it all planned (Acts 2:23) from the first, and even before it, as far as this present world is concerned - it's rather like a stage on which the programs of man are played, and the work of God in salvation and all that follows in it and from it, are wrought (Acts 17:26-31, Ephesians 1:4).
Death has no terror for the
Christian because the Saviour has dealt with that one already. It is only a
passing from this stage to the next one. It is indeed horrible if you do not
know the saving power of God in your life, do not have the status of a child of
God, have not been pardoned and reconstituted and accepted in Christ (Ephesians
1:5-6). In Christ, however, it is like dirty clothes when the dry-cleaner is at
hand (Hebrews
Of course, the Christian life has great depth, simply because God has. Thus in II Peter 1, you see the sort of GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT work which enlightens and often really ravishes the Christian. It is a delight as I Peter 1:3-9 makes so clear, to know God. He IS delightful and He is praised because it is DUE to Him. In His presence there is life in such abundance that it grows.
Some of the growth plans are shown here in II Peter 1: they include perseverance, godliness, virtue, brotherly kindness, self-control and love. Brotherly kindness is a rather beautiful thing, for example. To be kith and kin, means to be of the same family, in its broader ramifications, cousins and the like. Kindred are your people. Kindness is the sort of happy concern which goes with godly families. Brotherly kindness goes with the family of God.
One of my special delights is seeing just how like ourselves are people like Vietnamese, Chinese and others who, superficially in culture and history, in appearance and education might be so very different. Yet I find again and again that the sense of humour is such that they could almost have been brought up 5 miles away from myself, and their seekings and searchings for peace or beauty or goodness are the sort of thing we may find here.
Certainly there are refreshing differences at times, or even ones which have gone astray, just as in this country there would be the reciprocal of that: but it is the ESSENTIAL similarities which amaze me.
When the children of God are such in the sense that they have been pardoned and received in Christ back to the One who made them in the beginning (Ephesians 4:24, Colossians 3:10), then there is a real spirit of kindness, of kindredness if you like ... And so the growth goes on. Love ? love and then grow in love as Paul again says - and does (I Thessalonians 1:9-12, 4:9-10).
But with all the growths,
never forget the foundations (Galatians
6. TRANSITION
Finally, there is one thing which we could have mentioned when looking at STARTING AT THE BEGINNING. THAT was physical. THIS is spiritual. God made both.
Luke 13:1-3 tells us that except you repent you will likewise perish. The point was this: a tower had fallen on people, passing, and it seemed remarkable, raising the question whether you have to be very wicked to qualify for a 'natural disaster' like that. Jesus made it clear that this was not so; just being unrepentant in the sight of God left you vacant lot material, well equipped for any calamity. Were you not out of sorts with your maker ?
This does not mean that no calamity can befall a Christian. It DOES mean that for the Christian it all has meaning. See Psalm 1 - THE LORD KNOWS THE RIGHTEOUS, but the wicked, the divorcees of the spirit, these are like chaff which the wind blows. IF a Christian suffers, it will be for a good purpose (Romans 8:29), and may of course involve a demonstration of the love and power and wonder of the Lord, as Christians have provided so VERY often to persecutors of this world, in Roman times, in World War II, and very often since in China, Russia and so forth. IF, as frequently happens, amazing courage, grace and wisdom stays with the Christian despite all the torture and evil, then often people who could not otherwise see the love and wonder of God begin at least to see it there. Their eyes can be opened.
In the whole Bible book of Job, this test - DOES JOB SERVE GOD FOR NOTHING ? which was a sort of taunt, suggesting that mere self-interest was in it, was met very neatly in this way. The whole book deserves a deep search, and one version I have found very good here, is the New International Version, though I prefer more generally the New King James (concerning which see Bible Translations, Ch.9 in The Kingdom of Heaven ...)
Repentance from sin, a whole-hearted detestation of it is a prerequisite for faith. EXCEPT you repent, you perish. You do not waft into the kingdom of heaven, you repent and believe and receive, retaining a vast hatred of sin, like someone who having been on the brink of a slow death from lung cancer, is invited to have a smoke...
Let's conclude with a quotation from the very famous Scotch martyr (throughout much of his amazing life), man of courage and inspiration for a whole generation, Robert Bruce. Of noble family, he nevertheless stood firm in a way which bypasses the age, and reaches home now. Look at this, concerning his repentance:
20
Religion in
Unity only from a Former
Adversities and
adversatives to come,
in what for the
time seems incapable of resolution:
before for
many, the holy communion of Christ.
It is one of
His prerogatives to render possible, yes even to perform what to man is without
hope. God, the Lord, is like that.
TIME Magazine, this first week of May 1998, has within it
a rather
unusually good article on
It sketches with some depth the various religious and secular groupings (not in breadth, but with some 'nose' for the aromas). The little more than 30% religious Jew estimate, with around 1/3 of that Orthodox; and the resounding increase in secular Jews, following the huge influx from Russia, of returning Jews: both are noted. Tensions are becoming very deep and strong.
Thus, the DESIRE of some of the Orthodox Jews to MAKE people respect the Sabbath on Saturday, itself of course an Old Covenant SIGN for the reverence of the Lord, and have some ideas of things religious, on the one hand; and the ZEST of the secular, to resist this, and to be a democratic republic, is shown as a vigorous conflict. It is seen in something of its uneven, unequal and uneasy match.
The GREATEST DIVISION, it reflects, following an Israeli's viewpoint to that effect, is what ? In modern Israel, it is RELIGIOUS!
There does NOT seem to be
any ready resolution, the article continues.
One suggestion it notes from
its survey ? It is not CALLED apartheid, but it amounts to separate living for
the two groups; another and less constructive suggestion, civil war, is mooted.
There is however a very READY RESOLUTION of this whole affair. Doubtless, this will eventually, and possibly sooner rather than later, occur to many in the nation, to the point of becoming a significant if not indeed a mass movement. It is very simple, very straightforward and very necessary for peace and truth.
It is traced with that quite normal, and entirely supernatural skill which belongs to Deity alone, in the OLD Testament (surely an excellent resource for the Orthodox Jew!). In Zechariah 12:10 we read of it. It concerns SOMEONE whom they had PIERCED, an act of which they are here PREDICTED to REPENT, in a very lively and very personal way, family by family (12:12-13). The PERSON PIERCED, who is the speaker, is the LORD. This SAME LORD is also noted in that 500 B.C. approx. prophecy, to have been SOLD for 30 pieces of silver, and to be coming on the colt of an ass, into Jerusalem, as the Jewish KING, indeed, as one HAVING SALVATION. (Zechariah 11:4-12, 13:6, 9:9).
THAT is the ONLY and the PREPARED resolution of the very UNDERSTANDABLE Jewish tension. It is a DIVINE SOLUTION, and it is THE DIVINE REMEDY for this, as for all the imponderable problems (cf. Isaiah 9:1-7, 11:1-10; The Shadow of a Mighty Rock - SMR, Ch.9, and Balms, Arrows and Balms, Ch.17).
Do not be mistaken. Some people seem almost to love misunderstandings in this sphere, as if to add mayonnaise to salad. The non-Jew world has m