Chapter 9

 

KEEPING FAITH

AND KEEPING ALERT AMONG THE MACHINES

It has done

News 239

 

The Australian October 14, 2002

 

The Australian in articles by Peter Wilson and Greg Sheridan presents some valuable news for October 14, for our present purpose. While the machinery of man is working in Europe, the programs of God are working in the entire world, and the rate of both is like an air raid siren, concerning the near approach of Luftwaffe bombers, in World War II. In this situation, though the sound is not heard, the grinding is systematic in the first case, the act is cohesive and impactive, in the second.

 

 

EUROPE HAS BEEN HIGHLY EXPANSIVE

 

Our first call is on the extensive treatment of European growth data, by Wilson. It has been a topic of interest, in view of the biblical prediction of 2800 years or so, that Europe would be the centre of the last skirmish for sovereignty, the last redoubt of rule, the regime of the antichrist. Let us however be more precise: what is now known as the Roman Empire was designated in a sequence in Daniel, not by name, as one which would be partly strong and partly broken, and continue in this diversified state until the end (Daniel Chs. 2,  7);  and all these things have been considered in detail earlier (cf. SMR  pp. 720ff., 912, 905ff., 929ff., 958, 886ff.,  Biblical Blessings Chs. 1  and  2 ).

 

It has done so through the Roman Empire, Western and Eastern Branches, the Holy Roman Empire, with flourishes in its strength and weakness, through Napoleon’s world tour, Hitler’s close parallel, giving to both France and Germany an extension of their integration in Europe, to reach in close parallel to the Roman Empire, as in phase 1.

 

Britain, Holland, Portugal and Spain, not to mention to a lesser degree Germany, have also made their extension to cover more of the world as the knowledge of it extended, though all these ancillary empires, if you will, those of member units of the original Roman Empire, have now faded.

 

They have faded, but the Common Market quickly arose to take their place, like an urgent actor, knowing his time was near, waiting precipitate, in the wings of the theatre of life. Then has come the European Union, and on SMR pp. 719ff.  in particular, its growing strength, and the relevance of this to prophetic depiction, have been noted. How changed the vision since those few short years following the end of  World War II, when Europe reeled from the last lust of one of the member nations, for world rule. It was an idea to be fulfilled for a short period to come, as Revelation  13 and 17 show  most clearly, as well as Daniel; but the French (Napoleon) and the German (Hitler, Kaiser) method was too singular.  It is to be a multi-national affair, as has been explained in the above references and is seen in Revelation 17.

 

It has already demonstrated itself in many foci and features, and just as the new power in Europe has been featured often before, as in the above SMR reference, so now it rushes like a leopard narrowly regarding its prey. It is easy to de-dramatise death when you do not realise its sway or savagery for the slaves of it; but it is less so when Hitler lusts at the Channel, at Dunkirk, or the swagger of triumph again touches the next round of tyranny, which is to come. It is customary to dream the way to doom; that it is one reason why it is doom so often for so many; but not wise.

 

Let us see the machinery beginning to develop, then, which is to grow and grow to its heights in the depths, like stalagmites in a pit, but more devised, the mechanisms of dreams, fuelled by hope, driven by desire.

 

It is moving intractably to its coming features, as within the EU, now this and now that is being disregarded in the interests of magnitude, glory, safety, cohesion and power. It is so often the case. It is UNDERSTANDABLE how each step can be made; but it is the RESULTANT which weighs. You could see how Russia grabbed US power to help it repel Hitler, used US materials lefts (some purposefully, it seems, like the massive copper residue after WW II), used German scientists for rocketry, used menace for expansion (cheaper than hardware), destabilised eastern Europe, grasping, intimidating, invading as in the case of Hungary in 1956, and Czechoslovakia earlier, pursuing glory in shame, and power in weakness, eventually exposing that dilapidated system which was its own, in the early 1990s. So it came and went; and there were those who opposed it, and it subsided for the time.

 

 

 

THE EUROPEAN ASSEMBLAGE

 

Now Europe is to grow. Peter Wilson points out some interesting data to which we need now to turn. 

 

He speaks of the resistance to EU growth - after the first moral flush to furnish Eastern Europe with Western privileges, and of course integrating some of it with Germany - as the collectivity of it all sparks resistance. However, what influenced Britain not a little, as one argument, the economic advantage, the markets, the integral opportunities, is still influencing others. Britain was an interesting case, for the advantage of insularity in WW II was obvious. Nor was it only at the physical level! Being somewhat apart, in more than physical ways, ostensibly indeed in religious ones via nationally adopted Protestantism as seen clearly in the depiction of the sovereign’s duties in Britain, at the coronation, did nothing to hinder it in its successful struggle against the European invasion. This threatened nothing less than chains for liberty, philosophic chains, racial chains, ignorantly crude chains, rough and rusty.

 

That, it was per Herr Hitler, but after all, it was from  Europe, one being militarily integrated in that case, rather forcibly than pleasantly. For all that, this did not proceed without considerable concurrence on the part of many, who for opportunism or glory, were interested in the Third Reich.

 

In the post-war period, many sought to stall the Common Market  appeal. They were told: it is purely commercial, not political, does not intrude into national integrity, is not a super-State, and  all the other sorts of things we have grown accustomed to hearing from the World Council of Churches, about its not being a super-church,  and so on; though in each case,  the composite body does begin to get a life of its own,  and one far removed from its initial pretensions.

 

Against this stalling,  this resistance in Britain to integration with Europe, came economic advantage, amazing markets, mutual stimulus to new  glories of co-operation, facility for travel, ease of organisation, a sense of having more things to own, be in, experience, call one’s own  and so  forth. Slowly the European Parliament, Atomic  Energy Commission, Coal  and other massifs arose.

 

More and more, however, the issues were moral, as in the disastrously sodden movement towards having homosexual elements explicitly in the Army, despite the dangers of emotional pressures with shame not dead, making for internal perils. The Blake-MacLean period of corporate betrayal is not forgotten.

 

When Britain was CENSURED for not adopting adequately this homosexual aspect in the army, by whom was it so paraded ? It was by the European Union; and there we came to have direct evidence of something far from mere business, indeed a sort of immoral crusade^*1A at the spiritual  level, invading Britain  from Europe. That is the biblical picture, and it conforms to the total control forecast biblically in Daniel and Revelation. For the data on this episode, see Wake Up World! … Ch. 3, which treats these developments in some depth and detail, and might profitably here be consulted.

 

To be sure, it was CLAIMED at that time,  by the relevant EUROPEAN court, that the British actions to which they objected, were not for the British themselves, FOUNDED ON MORAL principles. This does nothing to mitigate the impact of the IMMORAL PRINCIPLES, biblically defined, that were being forwarded in this anti-spiritual invasion of Great Britain, one worse than any physical one could be.

 

How is this so ? Obviously, then, if you die or are wounded for righteousness, this is no shame. You live, have values, stand for them, exhibit them, and your testimony is true: so be it. You suffer and good is done nevertheless. In patriotism, people feel the same, though the cause is far less. If however, instead of suffering for what is right, you imbibe under pressure what is wrong,  whether knowing it to be so, or not, but yielding to pressure, then your corruption merely increases, your life loses yet more savour and truth, and you are more in chains then before. 

 

Thus, it is not surprising to find, as Time Magazine reported (October 25, 1999, p. 18) from the European Commission President, such words as these: "for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire we have the opportunity to unite Europe…”

 

The uniting is political, judicial, moral and all these things cannot but impact on and lead the spiritual, except for those who, knowing God, have divine resources to overcome merely worldly pressures.

 

Very well: resistance to the whole scope of European unity, conformism, is still present, but successively and successfully being overcome. The pound sterling has been a point of resistance, but alas, with the European Parliament, Court of Justice and Commission, this commercial symbol, taken alone, grows almost comical. The reality is that Britain eschewed Romanism with the utmost ground, including the desire to eliminate persecutory murder, Romanism, as also the imposition of foreign rule, with papal power in the background, as in the notable failure of the Spanish Armada. That ? It pre-dated Hitler not a little, but was of one mind with the later assault, though more overtly religious. ALL had to be done, by FORCE!

 

This Romanism was centred in Europe (cf.  SMR pp. 923ff.) and was a major part of the deployment of military power in the Holy Roman  Empire, remnants of which lasted to World War I. Its oppressions are manifest (see Inquisition), and were political through the Jesuits (q.v.), to the point that many were  expelled  from many European countries, in one of the great episodes of their history. Such elements are to be seen in detail in such works as Edmund Paris’ History of the Jesuits and may be pursued in the many works of Avro Mahattan.

 

Britain however was to be apart, separate from this, with the Channel  as not mean historical exemplar of the value of distance and water in independence! This was an embracive ground of separation; and it worked well till the Common Market began to erode the conscience, while the Church of England, already long eroded in popular support and scriptural integrity, was largely fallen before it fought, in the Common Market era (cf. A Question of Gifts  VI, Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 7, Stepping Out for Christ … Ch. 5).

 

Undoubtedly, various features and factors were operative to tame British integration with Europe and retard this adventurism: England’s famed liberty, tenderness for freedom, help of the enslaved in World War II, valiant stand, historical development to encourage initiative and enterprise, despite the unhallowed effects of some traditions, its deliverances from political  and religious take-overs in the past (not without falling first in some cases). These waned;  the new was wanted, and largely now operates, so reducing this historical bastion of Protestant independence,  toleration and power, which, in the days of the British Empire, had a fascinating effect in delaying the imperial European power, while in another sense, implementing a power of its own, though remarkably restrained for religious reasons, allied with their political consequences.

 

The British are IN!                    

 

 

THE NEW UNITY

 

 

No longer is this powerful British Empire extant; and as to what remains, this is in now accepted and installed in Europe.

 

Thus Europe need not be concerned about another Waterloo, and another D-day. It can arise with higher hopes of glory. There is just that United States, not the European one, but the American one. That made such a difference in two World Wars, being a sort of resource and recourse for independence; but what is to be done about this ? Let it not be imagined that such concepts are ruling in Europe at this time, any more than imagined that they do not exist. From the satanic viewpoint, the interest in making the world ONE WITHOUT GOD, and many are they who explicitly wish this, though they may formulate it now in this way, now in that (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 18). The eventual medley of the WCC, the EU and the UN as the powers play, will be of interest; but the integrative force will come, as it does come when power and glory assert themselves without the God who lives, and opportunistically are brought to seek pre-eminence in history,  whether in pope, Sultan, dictator, regime or Empire.

 

As to the USA, the Moslem crusade is stinging it into an uneasy, but  increasingly conspicuous inter-dependence with Europe. Indeed, President Bush even rejoiced publicly when a European piece of aerial sophistication was sent to help in the time of the ruthless assault following September 11.

 

Currently, and prospectively, then, it is interesting to see the facts and figures. With 10 new candidates for admission to the European Union, Cyrpus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Polland, Slovakia, Slovenia, of some 76 million population total, and various provisions being researched, recommended or subjected to further voting, the prospect appears to be, says Peter Wilson, that the “EU will swell to 450 million in 2004 and then to almost 500 million by 2007,  when Bulgaria and Romania are expected to join.”

 

He adds this: “The current  expansion will make it the biggest grouping of rich nations, surpassing the North American  Free Trade Area with its 401 million Americans, Canadians and Mexicans.”

 

It is of no mean interest to find from Germany’s conservative candidate for chancellor, Edmund Stolber, this word: Turkey should be kept out, not just because of the threat of a flood of immigrants, but because he believed the EU was based on “Christian values”. This – if you ignore the actual idolatry of Romanism (cf. SMR pp.1032-188H), and concern yourself simply with nominal history, gives Europe just that sense of pseudo-christian continuity, of tradition (though heaven help the victims of its wild frenzies and orgies of oppression, unhallowing the hallowed name of Christ by crass misrepresentation in their violences cf. John 18:36), which is so nice for any take-over bid from rampant opportunists.

 

Hitler in his own way, with a different base but not without some parallel, did just the same, in the name of usefulness taking over, with considerable Romanist help, the power in his own way, and this for purposes slowly showing themselves wholly dissimilar from those initially in view (cf. SMR pp.  968ff.).

 

Here comes the way for the combination noted in Revelation 17 (cf. Regal Rays … Chs.   9,  10, 11), where the specifically economic-political-supranational power on the one side,  and with the expressly  religious, firmly in favour of the first massif, forms a double peak. The one is propaganda maestro for the other, and the object is to “worship the beast”. In more literal language, this has the following sorts of elements. First, it is the ACCEPTANCE of the universal and compelling nature of the international, interventionist regime. It rules over men, heart and head, and all. Second, it is the GLORYING in it: it has a worshipful element, its power terrible. Just as the young seem now to like in many cases, larger automobile exhausts for more noise, exhibition and power, in sports cars and even sedan models, thus catering to the delusion of significance through noise and engines, so man has this fatal pathological preconception, that power and glory are the last word. The difficulty ? there is no glory, when power is mere pretence or pretension.

 

All this you see in Revelation 13, 17 and allied scriptures (cf. II Thessalonians 2, Daniel 7, 2).  What is new is this: the fast-moving scenario in what is now Act V of the human drama leading to the return of the resurrected Christ who, just as He said, delayed this phase of the plan and  story of salvation for mankind, until the Gospel should cover the earth and the nations (cf. Matthew 24:11-14). It was explicit in this statement of Christ, who knew what was to be; and just as with enormous accuracy, He predicted it in such speeches as this recorded in Matthew, so history is formulating itself in terms that imitate the word of God with ever increasing facility.

 

It is like a sculpture before our eyes, as if there were a fast-photo presentation of the actions of Michelangelo over many years, showing the statue first formed, and then become alive, to the eye. The shape of things to come is already predicted from millennia past: the shape of history is acting as if it hero-worshipping that prediction, as with adoring eyes, though mesmerised, it takes on the shape declared.

 

 

THE NEW LEADERSHIP

 

If Churchill warned England for a decade or more before the German invasion plans were there to be inspected from the air, in their  material provisions, WE have been warned for over two millennia, and far more, as we find if we proceed to inspect Daniel (cf.  Highway of Holiness).

 

Ø   Let us however proceed with the article of Peter Wilson. The EU, with a view to the advancing plurality of its composition, is now seeking for 4000 public servants for its Commission, to bring its total to 30,000. There apparently are no less than 80,000 pages of EU rules and legislation “covering everything from mutual recognition of professional qualifications to food safety,  corruption and human rights.” Part of the reason for expansion may be the desire to stem the flow of refugees, since “creating jobs and higher incomes in eastern Europe”, may bring rapid growth in economies and less surge for emigration. The “lure of membership” in this vast, ruled and regulated scene is  great, with the sense of importance, power and even glory not far away.

 

His comment following is of importance. It is this: “Having seen power on the continent shift over the centuries, from city-states to empires, then to nation-states and now, to a multinational body, Europe is busily working on ‘deepening’ or strengthening its reach as well  as expanding it.” How much closer can you come to the prophetic characterisation of it:  partly strong, partly broken.    Indeed: “A convention  chaired by Valery Giscard d’Etaing, the former French president, is drawing up options for closer integration, and seems to be leaning towards a tighter federal structure,  rather than a ‘United States of Europe’ super-state.” This keeps the sense of integration strong, and makes it easier for power to be used when it comes, for the illusion is there, that it is multiplicitous as well as unified.

 

At the same time, there are forces seeking an end to the ‘clumsy’ rotating presidency of the EU, in favour of a 5 year term for a single president, “who could more aggressively and consistently speak on behalf of the whole union.”

 

So it goes, as it is written (cf. SMR pp. 683ff.). Enough said. Much more will be done, as the Express Train for Truth to return, and destroy the folly of man’s spiritual paranoia, gathers speed. One thing remains certain; IT WILL COME AS A SURPRISE (Matthew 24: 45-51, I Thessalonians 5). Many Britons found it MOST surprising when the Second World War loomed so soon after the first, despite clear warnings for long years.  It is not very surprising when people are surprised by what has long been announced; for you see, they do not believe. Again, the subtlety of the adversary gives them much for pre-occupation, and if there is one thing that is mighty to confuse and diffuse reality from clear vision, it is this. Thus, for example, apart from the predicted plagues (Matthew 24, Revelation 6), and death lust and thrust coming as predicted into the madness that was once seen as such and is now being accepted as part of life by many, the famines and the earthquakes, all in order as announced, there is the specialised phenomenon of the TERRORIST.

 

                                         

THE TERROR AND THE TRUTH

 

With devastation in Bali (of all places, ‘keep them guessing’), now added to an attack on a French tanker and the destruction of vastly symbolic Twin Towers in New York, while incendiary assaults occur now here, now there, the profile of Al Qaeda grows stronger. It is ironic that this deluded desire to implement force as a means of gaining power in nations, or recovering (as bin Laden declared in one document) lost glories of Moslem rule, itself based on error (cf. More Marvels … Ch. 4), will not lead to any inception of Allah for the world, any more than all the papal schemes of the millennia, will lead to his rule (cf.SMR pp.1032-1088H, 946ff., 912ff).

 

Each of these, like the Communists, that 3rd international world conspiracy^*1, has come reasonably close to the objective; each has been decisively beaten and exposed.

 

What awaits is true 21^st century drama, equipped with all stream-lining, innovation and eventuation. It is not popes with their abnormal and unbiblical requirements (cf. I Timothy 4:1ff.) about non-marriage of priests, lax approach to birth control, not at all correlative to population expansion, not devices to increase Romanist profusion or control; nor is it, for that matter,  the absurdity of communist calamities, ignoring the reality of persons and so inhabiting their rule with rulers themselves uncomprehended, but themselves comprehending very well their wildly disposed powers and infinitely inept playing of god^*1; nor again, is it wreckage by deranged assassination philosophies, it being obviously much easier to destroy whether by terrorist or by other means, than to build: and mere expertise in the former is no assurance for ability in the latter, which really needs doing!

 

No, none of these things will appeal. It is to be something which DEVELOPS, the century’s very OWN action, with its votes like those now current, such as the NICE  Treaty concerning further European expansion,  operating to interpret and apply the minds of the people.

 

So it goes until, large and like children on a bus tour, it finds the need for discipline,  especially when accidents occur (such as Al Qaeda ‘accidents’), so that naughty people shall not be ALLOWED to do such things as they do. If this sounds childish, be assured that it is,  for only in God is wisdom to trust; but man is not so bent, so that the next thing will be SOMETHING ELSE. It is arriving. Sophistication,  tradition,  economic power, civilised experience, religious unification, all this, the modern Babel, is growing like a Dragon Tree (they really are FAST). The translation requirements alone dramatise the fact that it is the final Babel which is building ! (cf. the earlier one in Genesis 11).

 

Al Qaeda is merely fostering^*2 the desire for co-operation, through its challenge: this leads to the concentration of international power and application to a point; and probably in a little while, there will be seen the intensification of the desire for international control of financial transactions, already  made impersonal and electronic,  so that easy control is a (relatively) simple result. The use of HIGHLY personal data such as on one’s forehead may seem necessary when the costs are high, so that blame and data can be augmented effectively, and such things quashed even better than Hitler did with his secret police, or Stalin.

 

Already, a decade or so ago, the beginnings were being seen in a perfectly practical and precisely predicted way (cf. SMR pp. 906ff.). Thus, with a derisible misfiring, this  multi-Moslem thrust that is not so far from numerous statements in the Quran (cf. More Marvels loc. cit.), will have not the desired effect, intimidation, reduction of the US’s power so that the Moslem one can be proportionately greater allowing greater access towards world rule, or that of large parts of it (as in bin Laden’s reported communication cf. Lord of Life Ch. 8,  *1, and Red Alert Ch. 8). Rather it will enhance the European power through the pressures of expediency, for the growth of the power where God has stated it will be, is now being attested precisely where it was to be. Thus opposition to the Lord, whether through Moslem terrorism, or European banality and pseudo-religious composition, increases the speed of fulfillment of His word.

 

There is a further but related development: judging by world reaction to the efforts of these multi-Moslem pressure-paks, including those of the Teheran Conference of 1991 and sequels, there is a broad Moslem hatred against Israel, leading to confrontation with whatever helps it, such as the USA.

 

That, it is the fascinating feature: for Israel, little as it is, has had without controversy, an ENORMOUS influence on world history for two major reasons. Firstly, through it has come the Bible, in both Testaments, almost exclusively, and in all cases in the closest co-operation. Secondly, through it has come Jesus Christ. These indomitable expressions of the Almighty (cf.  SMR) have led to a third feature for focus. It is this. The prophetic words of BOTH the Old and the New Testaments are being fulfilled in a way which is staggering in many dimensions (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Chs.
8   and   9).

 

This in turn has led to a fourth. The power of God is resisted by those who reject Christ, and the Moslem is a major contender here (cf. SMR pp. 1081-1082, 986ff., 1088Dff., 977f., 1079ff., 1186Aff., 809, 829ff. – for all of which see Index). Hence in Israel,  there is a FOCUS for obstruction, and a place to CONTEND. HENCE Jerusalem as specifically predicted in highly centred in today’s world, where the insuperably traumatic Middle East problem, really an extension of the unbelief feature in man,  continues to give reason to reflect on the One crucified there. It is His word which predicts the current aggravated assault condition of the frazzled old world, and the restoration of Jerusalem to the Jews, amidst amazing wars leading to their continuation there (cf. SMR Ch. 9).

 

The CROSS of Christ continues to have been wrought there; while the cross of humanity continues to be found in strong searchlight focus, just there. Man is not being allowed to forget. The word of God, then, surges on according to program in the utmost precision; and the works of man continue to oppose it, and the terrorist matter, according to the reported words of bin Laden, is to a vital extent, stirred and stimulated by US aid to Israel, that catastrophe to many of the Arab view, that incursion of history to their very midst! It is here that the cross-wires are coming sharply into definition: MAN versus God (cf. Revelation 19:19). For a little while, we learn in I Thessalonians 5, there will seem …  at last! – to be peace.

 

This, it is merely the brink of the volcano, which is about to spew its contents skywards, to settle on the earth. It is all part of JUDGMENT, and if man judges the living God irrelevant, what would you expect. Is a fire irrelevant ? Very well then, put your hand into it until it is gone. What does this show ? It is the case then that your faith is awry and your hand is lost.

 

Our God is a living, a consuming fire; but it is only the rubbish which is consumed. This, it is not an aristocratic matter of assigning grades; it is a matter of rejecting the God of love and being willfully absent from the redeemed (I Timothy 2).  HE, God has kept faith; it is for man to keep faith with Him, and this he does when simply, humbly, irretrievably, he repents and accepts not his opinions about God, not his will for God, but God’s will for him, God’s salvation, no mere formula, but not less, for his life, so that Christ being resident, rules it, and being love, intimates it (cf. Ephesians 1-3).

 

 

 

 

NOTES

 

*1A

On the biblical exposure of sexual perversion, see The Kingdom of Heaven … Ch. 7,  *1, and Index. Perversions can be of different kinds, and these naturally relate, since there is a person who is perverted, and the perversion of one function suggests an index, which may prove applicable in other domains. The domain where it is biblically certain, is the heart; for God has created and commanded a design, and its deployment in open combat with his words and ways, dysfunctionally and in rebellion, is tantamount to war against Him, but further, to a redeployment for other purposes, in which the designed use is made dispensable in terms of one not prepared, and specifically condemned. This is a spiritual feat against the function, and its Maker, through other use where it aborts the status quo.

 

Certainly it is not the only moral sin in the Old Testament, where the law was applied with rigour in preparation for the awareness of the “exceeding sinfulness of sin” (Romans 7:7-13, 3:31), for which the death penalty was applicable, which Christ in love duly suffered for the repentant who came to Him as He is, in faith, as Lord and Saviour. Nevertheless this specifically is called an abomination and is paralleled with sexual relations with beasts (cf. Leviticus 18:22-24). See further in the references noted above.

 

Though the theocracy no longer applies, the abhorrence is that of the Maker, to certain actions of the made. It is amazing how mankind loves so frequently, almost like a spiritual plague, to disregard the WORD of God, as though in all their journalism and fictions for the press, they alone, being made, had the power to speak (cf. Psalm 94:8-13). When you consider the sheer brilliance and  vast power implied in the CREATING of the logic, the thought, the freedom, the imagination, the  verbal propensions, the assimilating capacities, the grammatical predispositions, the creative capacities, the spirit of man indeed, on the part of the One to whom all man’s  foci and  features relate as necessary source (cf. SMR 1-3, TMR 1, 5, 7, 8), the sheer monstrosity of the conception that we only speak, and do not need to exercise the ear, must number amongst the most moribund of mental vagaries. Thus mind and body alike fall when such things are done.

 

Nor is it that this is the greatest of the sins, though it is abhorrent to the uttermost to God; for it may be forgiven on the normal plateau of pardon, where a new heart and a renewed mind, a changed spirit is part of the entire process of salvation (cf. II Corinthians 5:17ff., Luke 13:1ff., Hebrews 8:10-12). Yet in the domain of the willful, it has a special blaze of furore.

 

 

*1          

See on these 3 international conspiracies, the following:

 

Spiritual Refreshings … Ch.  4, p. 50, excursion *2;  Ch.  8;  News 69, pp. 24ff., 82 incl. pp. 207ff.; Lead Us Not into Educational Temptation Ch.  1 and passim, cf. SMR pp. 750Bff.; Beauty for Ashes Chs.   4,   7.

 

On the Communist malady: for its logical witlessness and historical default, see SMR pp. 925-926; for its psychological irrationality, p. 614 and for  its irrational metaphysical presuppositions, p. 127.
See also indexes for SMR and the Rest.

 

Playing God is hard work, and infinitely impossible, for spectacular is the gulf between Creator  and creature, the initiator of the realms of operation and the executives within them, the eternal and the temporary sojourners and pilgrims, with whatever bad grace they may take their place in the confines of their creation. Made permanent in the calamities of self-will, this gulf is germane to hell; overcome in salvation, not in its being, but in the consequences of presumption, for those who are delivered from such arrogations, it becomes an inspiring source of wonder, and a delight to ponder. The child of God being accepted into His presence, the profundity of such Fatherhood is part of its magnificence. That Christ became man that we might be with God, is the first introduction to such bounty.

 

 

*2

As Greg Sheridan points out in the Australian (date cited), so far is the thrust from Bali and such places, from removing the significance of the Iraq base for terrorism, that it rather increases its impact. If such people as accomplished this delightful little call on people’s leisure in Bali, could be equipped with atomic power, from such a nearly ready source as Iraq is rather assuredly reputed to be, why then think of how much more delight they could have in extinguishing not some hundreds, but hundreds of thousands! That is his point, and it is one of some force.