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It is really quite a black hole sort of cornucopia, this which begins to appear in its special 21st century dressing.

After all, tribulations, famines, diseases, pestilences, earthquakes, warmongering, war-fears, distress at the international level, martial madness, desolations, roistering religious rampaging, signs in the heavens, man in his marshalling yards preparing, through his coming leader to declare himself GOD: it is a tall order. However, it is an equally tall provision from the humanistic marshalling yards and the divine judgments, which jointly are getting it all there.

SMR Ch. 8 covers it all in considerable detail, but there are now some interesting concentrations of the munitions for all this, which are agreeable to the enquiring mind, watching for the necessary verifications of what is truth, and what are confirmations of biblical prophecy.

Assuming in your minds the detail of the above SMR reference, let us look at some news today.

While we hear on ABC News Radio these days, of the sudden revelation of enormous inroads of AIDS into China, those infected in multiplied millions, and of need to take rapid action before the thing is a gross disruption, we already have long known of the terrors in Thailand, not only for illicit sexual activities on the part of visiting predators, but for the expected consequences in AIDS; and South Africa with an intense irony, appears almost a desolation as the percentages climb, though more of Africa may excel it in this decline!

India likewise suffering from the plague, is probed by this pestilence and with this allied to famine whether in Africa, India or Afghanistan, while disasters from earthquake in Iran, giving geological form to the constant thud of blood hitting the earth, ex-veins, as Palestinians show the nature of their religion: there is a cacaphony of ruin (Matthew 24:6, 11-12, 21).

Meanwhile, while Vietnam persecutes Christian leaders, as Ambon butchers Christians more generally, the Sudan is seen walking off with slaves in an incredible frenzy of Islam with force seeking the lives of those whom it seizes from Christian areas. To add to the imbroglio, Russia insists that Arafat, Bush to the contrary, MUST be allowed as elected leader (qua elected leader, Guardian, June 28, 2002), while Europe, seeing Bush's intent of cutting off funds if need be, while Arafat rules, has made more funds available, so that the terror can continue where it is apparently being led.

A strange move is this, but certainly one showing independence, that Europe, just because the US to such an extent paid for its rebuilding, is not, apparently at least,  about to help the USA fight terrorism in that site, not at all events, in this little way! (Guardian, June 28). It becomes increasingly like the case of Milosovic before the war crimes trial, except that the UN was considering making the victims of the endless parade of murders of civilians, the defendants, before its little game misfired.

Thus we can expect the Palestinian folly, its tour de force, to continue for a time, thus fulfilling that combination of Israeli hegemony and intense international upset and hubbub, as predicted for that arena (Zech. 12). Beware kind benders of Jerusalem: your case does not savour well in the Bible (Zech. 12:2ff.), and if for a little you have SOME success (cf. Daniel 11:45, I Thess. 5:3), it is but for a very little time. As in many acts against God, the time of performance may be small compared with its cost. They will certainly, at some coming time,'say' Peace! but rarely would peace be more misnamed than this!

Meanwhile Putin, the former KGB officer in East Germany, and not without wit, is insisting that his country has needs for living room in NATO headquarters. It is nothing if not dauntless, that the enemy which caused the erection of NATO now, having reached the precipice of bankruptcy and used vast American aid, should want to be able to apply more pressure to the levers of the body which helped to baulk  its not so long past international aims to rule the world, as one of the three international conspiracies (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30, Joyful Jottings 21, News 100, 69 at The Idol that Insists).

Now we see past Romanism, Communism and Islam, the fourth, the budding giant long sustained by the ungodly, humanism with a place for face. Krushchev seemed to be one of the leaders in rehabilitating a face for man, under the routine rule of bureaucrats (cf. the 'vision' more generally in News 37); and of course likewise Gorbachev, the "Gorbie" of "Gorbiemania" of a little over a decade ago. His glasnost is famous.

He is not without more than routine present occupation in such matters (cf. the blatancy, at Beauty of Holiness Ch. 4).

As Gorbachev works in his Institute on his Earth Charter, a technical parallel to the UN, with an indirect issuance for communism without Marx; and many countries, apparently for want of finding anything better to do, align themselves with these or other grotesquely godless moral impossibilities, setting up SHOULD from WOULD, or prescription from description, slapping God with fists of aluminium, a metal readily bent but still nasty, the world catapults towards capitulation, using space travel and weaponry as the better expression of the spree; but it is like many sprees, equipped with fees. It comes to the point, prophetically, and increasingly obviously politically^*1,  where liberty will be replaced by a lordly lust for human domination, to make not slaves of some, but serfs of all. The better part is to try to make them like it, and not to realise, at first at least. That, it is perfectly normal in such cases, is it not, or at least understandably popular!

While China in the political realm, works out its own damnation, less fearless with the injection of foreign capital, easily appropriated at will when its weapons program flowers, we are seeing the appropriate consolidation of power. Is it not highly placed in the Security Council ? Security, however, for what or for whom ? : this is the pressingly obvious question, as good and evil are significantly re-defined, and à la 'war on terrorism', made to include much that is itself both a laceration to liberty, and a base for terror^*2!

What power is this ? Why if Russia manages to cajole NATO into an internal erosion or corruption, and achieves some measured power of VETO, as noted in the Guardian's news report of developments at NATO headquarters (Nov. 24, 2001), what then is the enemy ? If it is not Russia, and if all the West now includes Russia to an increasing extent, against whom do you fight ?

Ah, of course, terrorists! As a US politician recently announced, they are working on identity cards and measures to make it all but impossible for some aspects of terrorism, making everyone so tab-able and so watch-able that with kind regards to liberty, such a pleasant visit for several centuries, THERE WILL BE SECURITY. That appeared, past the face of it, the intestines of the matter as divulged from his mouth.

That, it is the USA! What of the rest ?

Europe as we noted, is not unduly sensitive to the mere disappearance of a couple of Towers in the US, it seems, but seeks a measured perspective; and does not quite see that Arafat's removal is necessary, despite the US claims that they have validated evidence that he was actively giving monetary aid to al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an armed group linked to Arafat's Fatah faction. The point of Bush: we do not want to have dealings for peace with an active terrorist participant, but prefer one ready for peace NOW. Of course, the case of the arms shipment aligned to PLO officials does not help either (cf. News 195).
 
 

It is always difficult when a 'man of peace', consigning himself to a future of peace, in which he would help manage a State within a State, intimate to the other's very heart, and within almost stabbing reach of that organ, politically speaking, leads an organisation specialising in provocation and death. If such a leader of such a State,  is nevertheless to be the leader for the rapprochement, the planner for peace, what then ?

Is it to be nearness ? Nearness to ... what ? and for just what purpose ? The question is ineluctable. When such a leader is being sought by international pressure (dangerous, like blood pressure to the heart), to be imposed after almost unlimited immoral murder and mayhem from a tiny State, next to the heart of Israel, it is hard to find the wisdom in this discordant aim!

To invite a danger of an angry marauder to be near your heart does not seem the height of wisdom. Tony Blair went on TV to acclaim the concept of democratic election, but to blight the thought of such an advocate of peace as this.

Sharon of course is seeking to counter the invasive molesters of Israel, and in his war of terror, so slightly advanced, verbally at least, even by the USA, he is taking much time to respond to the message of multiplied murder, by which the PLO and its allies, seek to instruct him. Churchill was similarly unimpressed with the same sort of message from Hitler, and so was Hezekiah (Isaiah 36ff.), from Assyria in his own day.

Thus there is this constant stir about Jerusalem, which was noted as if for negotiation by President Bush in his major Middle East speech (June 24, 2002, BBC News): there is the constant eruption, disruption, vying there. There is also the growing centralisation of global power, which the NATO fiasco attests as much as does the UN, for NATO has considerable power, and the EU increasingly exhibits  in its growingly independent line, so that the aggregation is to be that, rather than a simple USA affair. The world, one could say, is growing up: but one prefers to say what the facts better attest - it is growing down.

The Proverb has it: "The way of life winds upward for the wise,
That he may turn away from hell below" - 15:24.

That, it is salutary advice. But what of this ? Are we nearing at the international level of the 21st century, so like that of the 6th B.C. ? Is now the whole world inheriting what was the case when Babylon was menacing the earth, intent on having its most famous religious fiesta, fiasco, farrago and feast, before its end came. It was Isaiah (14:9) who announced it predictively, declaring: "Hell from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming",  to its king! Assuredly it is: the cases are parallel, and each in its turn has been forecast.

The stage is set (cf. SMR pp. 750Bff., 743, Beauty of Holiness Ch. 4), and the lights are being dimmed in preliminary power drop, as the darkness is invited.

Watchman, what of the night ? as they asked in Babylon's days (Isaiah 21:9-12):

"Babylon is fallen, is fallen!
And all the carved images of her gods
He has broken to the ground..."

In the midst of the pandemonium, we read of the warning:

"He calls to me out of Seir,
'Watchman, what of the night ?
Watchman, what of the night ?'
'The morning comes and also the night.
If you will inquire, inquire.
Return! Come back!"

As the calamities came to that crucial part of the world of that day, focussing one of the mightiest world empires of all time - and in its height, it reached low to its time of measured judgment : so the time of this, our own generation is coming. This time it will be a world dominion, for the extent of which the British prepared so well, and for the rigour, Russia gave so profound an early imitation from 1917-1989!

Indeed  as the 'night' approached for Babylon, being well foreseen by the prophet Isaiah for one, and Jeremiah (50-51) for another, and as there proceeded that reckless renegacy of religious indifferentism clouded in a haze of religious objects and invention, for which Babylon is famed, so in a little,  there came the convulsions, rocking more than any earthquake known. Judgment fell, like a timely forerunner of the end not for an empire only, but for this Age, a preliminary to coming judgment.

The nations did not heed then; and many fell, Judah escaping for a time by divine miracle (cf. Isaiah 36ff.), yet later falling with the excess of more depravities, in the end (II Chronicles 36). Though in the divine mercy, it was only for a 70 year exile which she faced, at which the restoration became a saga in itself (Ezra and Nehemiah outline much of it), yet the loss of the Temple alone, was prodigious. Then, however,  Babylon itself duly fell, the Medes and Persians taking over as Daniel's words so decisively and dramatically forecast (Daniel 7, 8). It was to be a time of falling, following a time of failing. Predator and preyed on alike, each failed, each wilted; but Israel being corrected in measure, was in measure restored. Its judgment grew like a wild fire, when killing their King, they entering the bond of their covenant (cf. Leviticus 26). It has suffered. It has returned as promised (cf. Appendix A, SMR Ch. 9).

The world is intriguingly, volatile in its imperious strictures on Israel, the product of God's mercy in its restoration (Ezekiel 36-36). It prepares to harden its heart to smash the restoration with fragmentation. It prepares itself for that final assault noted in Revelation 19:19. It has not learnt from what Israel has suffered. Many have taken the cross of Christ, but many nations who once had some image from it in their midst, even nationally, are now declining, and like a stone rolling, moving with increasing power to their appointed end.

So now is the world the stage, and man acts as though impassioned for the tragic Act V.

Yet it is no play, and his acts, for all their misplaced oratory, and misguided enthusiasms, are approaching judgment as the environment itself begins to crumple. It has been long enough harassed.
 
 

From China and Russia to Africa and India, it is all becoming more and more a matter of one mint for the many coins, and a falling value in the coins!
With the economic interplay, the growing European political syntheses^*3, the thrust to unity against 'terror', the time has come for strange new collaborations, beyond the phase when the increasing mutual fear and alarm of the Cold War stand-off divided the world.

That status quo  of over 40 years is being replaced by something far more virulent, more subtle and more humanistically voracious, so that its thrust is to be inclusive of all the nations, even the USA  itself being caught up in the wildest folly of some form of rapprochement with Islam, which is itself one of the 3 conspiracies, Communism, Islam and Romanism, the failure of which, each in its turn, to force the earth, is a warning (cf. Ch. 7 infra). The efforts made in the past centuries by these three, however, is a precedent for what is to come.

When this comes, the imperial world-rule of tomorrow,  like Babylon's yesterday,  will be powerful for a time; but unlike the former case, this time it will be for a very short time (cf. Revelation 17:12). The Messiah has come; His gospel has pulsed through the globe (cf. Matthew 24:12), and His return's specifications and criteria are amply met (Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8). Things will not linger. When the new world empire arises, it will almost like physical exercises: one gets up to go down!

Even now the pieces are being placed, as on a chess set for the 'Check mate!' just as foretold, in depth as in detail.

Islam, as in the parallel cases of Communism and Romanism -  tried VERY hard in its history (cf. *3). Indeed, they all made a quite prodigious effort. Almost no price was too much to pay, in the flood of blood of their victims, the ferocity of the onsets, the crushing deployment of force. Their symbolic faces were all notable, the Inquisition, the scimitar, the Hammer and Sickle. Small tenderness to man did the works of violence in which each excelled, procure. But for all that,  they failed. They were outfaced. The God of grace and all comfort has allowed each to show its fangs, each to make its totalitarian claims, each to be exposed, each in the mode chosen and in the area of the arena desired; and He has brought them from their efforts, without glory.

Now it is the face which comes, not a pleasant one, nor faithful, and it will if possible surpass the evil deeds of all its predecessors: indeed,  as we have seen in the prophecy of Paul, the face is to be quite a literal one in the end. Stalin tried for it, and failed; so Krushchev; so Mao. They were all outfaced. Pope and Mullah alike have not prevailed.

The face to come be will be a subtle one: of course insane, but only in spirit: and  look at how far Hitler went, despite a paranoia at once extreme, and religiously activated, for say what you will, his evolutionary racist philosophy, allied like Stalin's with Darwin, founded on force, looking for underlying necessities of direction, to a summit, and was a form of absolute religion, invoking morals of a kind, using methods of a sort, evoking worship...

The 4th advent comes, the 4th world conspiracy. Quasi-religious humanism will not long endure as atheistic. It will move through forms of agnosticism and with political and cultural adventurism, will at last unleash a bomb worse than any atomic one: the blast of self-adulating insanity, making a religion of its own vanity, at the helm. Thus you get not only the normal symbol of one best, in Revelation 13 for this development. Alas, there are two: the secular and the religious, working in concert. One is dressed like a lamb, speaks like a dragon. The intimidation of obviously synthetic, syncretistic religion is clear, for if it were possible the very elect would be deceived, as Christ put it (Matthew 24:24).

The ROCK, however,  has always been there. The face of this Rock is strong and superb. There is no other. It was marred beyond human recognition in the sacrifice He deliberately made (Isaiah 52:12ff.); but it is the better for that, both tested and triumphant. It showed what man does to himself, in that, being a sacrifice for sin, His very form was transmuted into horror by ravages multitudinous. It shows what God acts to do for man, in that despite all this, He simply rose from the dead^*4, able to die, able to live, and not to die evermore (Revelation 1:18-19), but rather possessing the very keys of hell and of death, turning in deliverance, where in His prodigious love for mankind, it is apt (Colossians 1:19ff., I Timothy 2:1ff.).

The Rock which is Christ, remains. It does not move (Hebrews 13:8).

THIS ship of state, however, this new and whole world imperial power to come for the whole earth will impact on the Rock,  almost at once (II Thessalonians 1-2, Revelation 20, Daniel 2, 7); and great will be the fall of its rebellion.

Like a dawn of black light, it comes. Man posing as God is not yet the vogue entirely, but there have been Little Red Book approaches, and Stalin's dalliance with Lysenko, Hitler's with destiny. The merger of inert happiness together in mixed religions, forwarded maladroitly by Bush at the international level, intensely and intensively desired by the UN, as when Anan advised various religious leaders met with him to ensure their happy mutual accommodation: such an international aim is to bring the final chapter to this world's sorrow, preceding the return of Christ. It now proceeds, all according to plan.

It proceeds according to the Book,  just as was the case with

His first coming,
the return of Israel,
its international menacing,
its national triumphs (SMR Ch. 9), and
its agricultural marvels (cf. Isaiah 35, SMR pp. 790ff.).

Let us consider however this Rock which is Christ. It is a rock much better to be stood on, than met as an overlay above one! (Matthew 21:44). It crushes to powder, because truth in the end, reality, does not suffer that combination of rebellion and vacation from all remedy, all mercy, which is the final assailant of our race. Truth remains true whether mercy is vacated by the recalcitrant, or whether it is not. The cost of the redemption is the very measure of its need!

Recently we were considering the rock formations near the River Murray, around the region of Mannum. One large rock seemed so delicately poised, massive in kind, high in elevation, and ready to roll to the ruin of much, if it fell. One would not wish to be near the site.

SO now, there is this Rock which, if it fall on a man, will crush him to powder. That is how Christ put it, He who in mercy became a sacrifice, and knew full well the cost, for He bore it for those who will receive such a benefaction (I Peter 2:22ff., Galatians 3:1-13, 5:1ff. cf. Hebrews 5:7).

The world is therefore not without a Rock; it is not without foundation (Isaiah 28:16): and its failure to be founded on Him, means this, that its demise is sure (cf. Matthew 24:35, II Peter 3). The "beginning of sorrows" obviously has an end of them (Matthew 24:8, 14), and then there is the epilogue, after the millenium, when the inveterate character of sin is clearly demonstrated, and the untiring truth of God is exposing it with the clearest of light, to the end (cf. SMR pp. 502ff.).

Eternity is a long time to use for reflection. The data will by then be complete, for the events have been many, and the laboratory of history has been well equipped.

History has been a marvellous tutor, as you see the more clearly when you follow its script in the Bible. It will be yet more marvellous when this world and "the works that are in it" being burnt up, there is the savour and the flavour of depth and height, from the source of both, in the Lord.

It is not that He has forgotten His redemption: CHRIST IS THE ROCK (I Corinthians 10, Psalm 62), in whose cleft one may find God (cf. Exodus 33:21-23), of whom He is the declaration, the Son, He Himself the Saviour in that place which is for God alone (Isaiah 43:10-11, 52-53, 48:16, Philippians 2).  God has declared Himself - it is Christ who when seen, has revealed the Father (John 14).

Incarnate, He is the Captain; and resurrected, He is the reality. He came to seek and to save what was lost (Luke 19:10). When the lost are so by choice, for such is the preference potential for man, to negate, then those gained by HIS choice (John 15) are not lost. He knows His own (II Timothy 2), for love does not blind God, nor does grace force, nor yet does wisdom not know (cf. SMR Appendix B, Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 11).

God does not say, 'Get lost!' but 'Come!' (Matthew 11:28-30).  As for His own work of atonement to cover ALL who come, HE came, and did it (I John 2:1-2, 4:14). There is the beauty of holiness. Man ignores ? Then the tragedy past all play, this is the folly of it. Instead of beauty for ashes, unbelieving man takes his ashes and tries to build a tower with them.

As to that Rock of Ages, however, it needs no building, being eternal. The horrendous tragedy is this, that man, who was indeed built,  looks at it distantly; but it is near. This, indeed,   it is decidedly dangerous to do! A rock stood on is one thing: a rock on one's head is another. When one's heart is as stone (Ezekiel  11:19) , is one's head then to be smitten ? Christ has told us from the first of the stakes for our lives, as of the stages for this world's quality of history. The collapses are routine and occur precisely as often specified in the Bible.

It is always better, and sounds far better, when it is God who says "I told you so!"
 

What then ? Will judgment be the better because it is according to His word (John 12:48-50), already spoken ? He has told man what is good, and what is to be, and where to find Him (Isaiah 52-55, John 3). Is it wise to be lost, irreparably lost when the day is done, and to find the guile and the guilt of evasion in facing the word of God, itself declaring individually to your heart and conscience, 'I told you so!'

The more magnificent the rock, the more deadly the peril. The more munificent the mercy, the greater the judgment (cf. John 14:21-23). The world is to end. It is better to know its Maker (cf. Isaiah 51:6). It has nothing to offer. It is a SITE for SPIRITUAL LIFE, and a place for CHALLENGE for the winning of souls from the abyss of hell beneath, ready for those who refuse foundation, and find the bottomless, their bier. They stand on nothing; but not nothing is their judgment (John 3:19, 36).

As to the Christian: take heart! for their gleaming in the sunshine of His strength, like a vast rock in the middle of the raging sea, is the refuge, strength, lofty and serviceable beauty and wonder of the Christ, Jesus, rising ruggedly reliable and irresistibly secure. It heights penetrate past the mist of the ocean's toils, and on its crest, it is crowned with the radiance that is never diminished.

It has continued past all the smashes and residual ashes of the burnt-out dreams of man, the wrecks that feckless fantasies have provoked and promoted. It is quite simply God as man, available for leadership, command, tender solicitude and divine compassion (Isaiah 55:4-6); yes and for pardon from sin (Psalm 103:12-13), power and meaning for living, and much more than all of this. He is there to provide the majesty of that meaning, the truth (John 14:6, cf. SMR Chs. 1, 6,10), in which alone is mercy meaningful, and where the marvels can be appreciated.
 
 

*1 See Joyful Jottings Preface, 13, 14, pp. 99ff.; News 145, Diamond of Light... Chs.   3,  10;
Galloping Events Ch . 7, Deliverance from Disorientation Ch.  6, p.  92, The Other News Appendix 1.

*2
A pair of brothers brought up in the Islamic mode, now professors in Baptist areas, have interesting insights to share, as shown in New Life, June 20, pp. 10-11. Wanting to attain some balance of good over evil, in order to inherit paradise (always difficult to make eternal results depend on a fraction of a percentage!), they indicated that many seek the 'certainty' (as in the Koran) of paradise by death in battle. "Only one thing guarantees eternal security for a Muslim: Martyrdom after a declared war and jihad." Acknowledging that the term 'jihad' is not in the Koran, he notes that the concept is, and such quotations appear often enough in our own coverage.

In the June 27 issue of New Life, p. 8, there appears an extract from the Berean Call, which includes this: "It may be that {the leader concerned} has never read the many verses in the Koran condoning and commanding violence (especially for temporal and eternal rewards) and he simply was misinformed." As shown earlier on this site (cf. More Marvels... Ch. 4), such verses certainly appear, and they mount for this cause and that, in this context and in that. The crooning of Islamic leaders about Hussein of Iraq in Beirut, recently, and the strong words of non-repentance re terrorism from Egypt to Malaysia, at least trying to justify it, and the strong weaponry made available in terms of such Moslem incitements to Palestinians and others against Israel, in Teheran in 1991, and since: these things suggest the method of choice.

The god of choice being Allah who fails to exist, and the methods being as in the Koran, the results are as in history. Rome controverted and as far as possible, subverted Christianity notoriously, not only in doctrine, but in violence (John 18:36, SMR pp. 911ff., 946ff., 1032-1088H); but the Koran is similarly controverted and condemned by the concept of violence in the faith area of religion, as shown in detail through our reference above (More Marvels... Ch. 4, cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 6, Red Alert Ch. 10. *4), together with its lack of redemption (cf. It Bubbles … Ch. 9, Dastardly Dynamics … Ch. 1, SMR pp. 50ff., Highway to Hell, Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8).

Again, it is interesting how Communism was notorious (cf. Solzhenitsyn's First Circle, One Day in the Life of Ivan Ivanisovich, Gulag Archipelago) for its effort to change minds by force; and Romanism's inquisition must have been primary data as to methodology for the same. Islam is in the same mould. Force and more force is a means of spreading! It is supposed to honour Allah, but it dishonours man and God alike (cf. SMR pp. 51ff., 65ff.).

*3
ONE empire is to rule there cf. SMR pp. 867ff., 886ff., 918ff., 923ff., 967ff.,Biblical Blessings
Ch. 2, Beauty of Holiness Ch. 4, The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch. 1.

*4 See resurrection in Index, including SMR Ch. 6.