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EPILOGUE

Where Bon Voyage is not Malaprop!

How can one wish any person 'Bon Voyage!' if wilfully the voyager sets forth in a canoe to cross the Atlantic in the midst of a squall ? or if he tries to sail an ocean liner up a small stream ?

If having come from the Creator of systems, the origin of logic, implicit in systems and explicit in words or code, a person sets out to return home, whether over 50 years or 5 minutes, how vain and with what vanity can come his action, if resolved without using that same logic. How vain if he so acts without seeing the paramount obviousness, as Paul so rightly declares in Romans 1:17ff., of submitting to the Creator with the relish of realising ALL good one has had this origin from the heart of Him whose giving is endemic, whose needs are none and whose divine grace is not another name for human audacity. The devices of sin are misuse, abuse and unacceptable.

But suppose, just for one moment, that our voyager, to resume the image, at this very moment tenderly waving with every hope of a warm and friendly send-off, as such obvious errors in choice of vessel pass unnoticed, has in fact realised the obvious, and has submitted, as he or she thinks, to that overpowering, overwhelming overview and oversight of God, and yet goes with no name on the prow of his ship ?

What then ? Is it not good at least to have realised the deity and to have come in submission to Him with this intent in the mind ? Yes, it is good, just as presenting a bunch of roses to one's spouse is good, but not good enough if it follows a night of roistering or festers in the midst of a life of indolence!

It is not only a good act or attitude, which is necessary, but the finding of goodness in its source.

But how is this to be found ? It is not in manufacturing thoughts of what goodness is, and for example, making very sure that one's own life is soundly in the centre of the definition. No one who expects his company to be received as upright and honest, can expect to do his own audit and to announce triumphantly, See this, you hearers, for I have found my books honest with no discrepancies, so that this company is one you can trust!

People would not even bother to laugh, and probably not to snigger at that.

It is not enough to rest in words made in the mind, and to expect external reality to applaud one's solipsistic preoccupations. It is required that reality attest, as well as words invest the scene with their dicta.

It is therefore necessary to find the God of the manufacture of man, and to know His will, and then need one add, to DO IT! What is the good of a ship's captain triumphantly or even pleasantly announcing to the shareholders or to the Chairman of the Company that he has sailed the seven seas and enjoyed every moment of it, and thanking them or him cordially while awaiting the results of the expected retirement fund to accrue like the rippling brook, ever anew pouring in supplements of income ?

Is this the result of sailing, even if every week one sent a report to the Chairman, though  one had not received his letters in return, incorporating such small things as the WILL of the company for the captain of the ship, showing what he is supposed to be doing with the craft, for the purposes of the Company, made available!

Scarcely would that occur. Rather the reading with a sense of reality and responsibility, the general DIRECTIVES as to conduct and procedure and the DIRECTIONS as to this or that port at which to call and WHAT TO DO THERE, on arrival, would be expected. If it were disjoined from life, then perhaps a police boat might arrive, or an attack could be made, depending on the riotousness of the case ...

One could scarcely wish Bon Voyage! to such a Captain as he sets forth on his journey back to home, with such credentials as those.

Indeed, if one loved him at all, one would point out that there was a need, most urgent, for a REAL and not merely a verbal submission to the Company via its Chairman, a giving of grounds for the hope of being forgiven and an appeal for mercy.

But on what grounds, if one were friend to such a man, could one recommend an appeal ? Having misused the vessel for his own purposes, and those of whatever moral system, if any, happened to appeal, for so long, and so exploited the company's resources in a way scarcely distinguishable from theft, and worse if this is done with self-approbation,  and having worn down the ship as originally appointed till it is perhaps now near its end, either through misuse or age, is a man simply to say, So sorry! here is your ship! or worse, Thanks for having me, I liked it, see ya!

What is required is this: IF the company by some marvel of mercy and kindness and grace, has some  settled policy about what to do with miscreants who misuse its majestic vessels, who indeed neither report back nor receive orders, or if some effort is made to this end, for those who may have heard of orders but yet do not exactly read them with any sense of need to know and to do what one is told, as servants customarily do: then this plan should be found immediately. No friend would hesitate to show it to the Captain in this, his hour of need.

If this plan had said, Stand on your head! and you will be forgiven ... perhaps one might realistically recommend that this be done. It is not exactly hard to stand on one's head, particularly if the amount of time to be devoted to this activity is not precisely specified. If however it requires that one have a SINCERE repentance of the heart for mischief and folly and arrogance and pride and disregard and irresponsibility, and so on and on, as the  case requires, then this would be presented.

In fact, the Gospel of God's grace is just that Company or rather Creator offer, which in love to man, His making, is provided (Titus 2:4-3:7), and has been for millenia made clear; since He does not desire to destroy His people but to deliver them, yet not so that they are mere miscreants, nor yet so that they are forever in the throes of guilt and penalty either. It provides free pardon on repentance and return. But if our friend, the foolish Captain makes bones about the degree of sincerity of his repentance, as some  astonishingly do, then one would remind him that it is not a matter of achieving one's own pardon, but of receiving it; and that the work involved is not consigned to oneself, but was to Christ, who became man that the madness, muddle and folly, the sin and the evil of the human race might, in those taking the remedy, be duly remedied.

After all, for what else is a remedy made! It is to be effective. It is not the degree of sincerity with which you swallow the antibiotic which counts, but your DOING IT.

If then a man does NOT perceive his sin, then what is the good of hypocrisy, to be sure ? If on the other hand, he sees that he has in fact acting the fool, taken the makings of another and used it for his own purposes, with whatever choices attached. as made by one's own person at one's own sweet will (or other as the case may be), and in the mercy of God confesses as much, because it is true, then he is ready for the remedy since it is there and relevant.

If then he takes it, the death of Christ on the Cross of Calvary because of love, so that He might die the just for the unjust to bring us to God as II Peter 3:18 is inspired to write on behalf of the Creator, following these predicted actions on the part of Jesus Christ, then the remedy is on board, like a letter of pardon, and then, in that case, we might well wish him, Bon Voyage! as he returns to base, or perhaps, if God be so kind, if he continues his voyages for a time on this earth, this time with due reference to the Company's desire, and the will of the Chairman, who in this case is the Redeemer, Jesus Christ, Lord, Lighthouse for the Way and the God of all comfort.

If moreover he realises anew that Christ who died for sinners, being God, was never intended to remain dead, since death could not hold the Son of God, that eternal definitive expression of Almighty God (Acts 2, Philippians 2), and that death in Him is not only remedied, but borne triumphantly, so that WITH THE PARDON goes the POWER even over the grave, so that eternal life is the conferment of grace, despite all the sins that went before, then WITH CONVICTION one would wish one's friend, Bon Voyage! and with more than sympathy, indeed with confidence look forward to seeing him at the end of life's day on this earth, in the very presence of the God who made us all.

Bon voyage! my friends, bon voyage! this is my wish; and may it be so for you, as it will be if you repenting, receive Him as He is, with this His Gospel (cf. I Corinthians 15, Galatians 1-3), as unchangeable as He is (Psalm 102, Ephesians 1:10), carried with you on the vessel, now one redeemed by grace.

It is so simple, as Romans 10:9 makes clear; and so necessary. But this is nothing new: so are wheels for a car, and air for an aircraft. Divine grace for man, not from bread of idolatry, or explosion of one's own will or supposed merits, but from divine grant of the sin bearer who died the just for the unjust to bring us to God who having broken death in His own Person has eternal life to give (Titus 1:1-4, 3:3-7, I Corinthians 15:1-4, 51-57): this is the gift, the requirement for reception, the lively donation to recipients of His regality and barrier to those too proud or permissive in heart to receive it.  

Do not despise it, or you despise your own soul! (Proverbs 1; esp. 8:32-36).