EPILOGUE

 

To Calibrating Myths, Machining Dreams and

Keeping Faith

 

THE FIT OF THE PIT

 

and

 

THE DELIGHTFUL NEED FOR ELEVATION

 

So have the nations calibrated their myths, making of man a model, of this world a harbour for enemy shipping seizing the land for themselves, ignoring God, or worse, reconstructing their Maker as if in some beauty parlour, for face-lifts, leg-waxings, or often, half-leg waxing as they mix it up, synthesise with the minds made for them, the mind which made them, in an inordinate contrivance of pride and folly for which the current world scene is increasingly a fitting parody of their pomp, and disclosure of their pretensions.

 

With great precision, they seek to occupy space, despite the divine apportionment otherwise (cf. Psalm 115:16); to occupy the DNA not merely for therapy where in some thousands of years (TMR Ch. 7, Section E), they have suffered amidst the curse and the slather of sin, but for reconstruction of who knows what bionic modeling, or with what results, proud, uplifted, unconcerned; to occupy themselves with immoral fiddlings, unproductive self-indulgences, saying to Nothing, YOU are our mother, or to the created and controlled Nature, now almost obsessively, YOU have brought us forth, though it is neither seen, nor found to be operative (cf. TMR Chs. 1, 8, Wake Up World … Chs. 4, 5, 6, Stepping Out for Christ Chs. 2, 7, 10, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, SMR pp. 140ff., Ch.   2).

 

Its machines its dreams, till in writhing fragments, they lick the dust, not merely in the hackneyed sense (derived incidentally from the Bible, Micah 7:17), but with venom, as if to find in it the ground of their hopes, in the very midst of their desolations. All things are to be controlled, if not by mentally invasive drugs, since psycho-therapy (cf. SMR Ch. 4) has fared but ill, having lost in all secular cases the very ground for the removal of guilt and the presentation of the joy for which life is made, then by politically correctness, with morals made in hell, or fashioned from philosophies, the very pride of irrationality and the very stuff of fraud (cf. SMR Ch. 3). When man makes a fool of himself, he does not make a fool of God, who has both predicted and shown the end of these follies.

 

In England, they have a number of rather quaint buildings called follies, which were erected by some original, or historical force, and now appear so strange, as if a power that moved were not fully sensible of the greater scope of things. So it is with man, his follies, his architectures for the soul of man, his forcible implementations of the same, his dreamy dealings and his mechanised exploitations of the same, his picturesque imaginings and his ground-out implementations, these leave the field of history with decaying relics, the testimony of the sad decline of the race. It imagines it rises; it succeeds in falling. It plans bright future, it produces disasters. It gets more power; it ruins more with it.

 

The mere contrivances excite wonder, and doubtless the cry, as predicted, will be to worship the beast which made the image before which they prostrate themselves (Revelation 13:11ff.). In Russia and in China already, the one past, the other passing, this is not merely de rigueur, in fact if not yet in form, but a requisition of political force, with secret police, or sometimes as in Tiananmen, not so secret, ensuring the proper prostration. It is Rome again, with its ‘divine’ but incredible seeming Emperors, requiring worship. The spirit has not changed. The result is not to be different.

 

From such unromantic romancing, man needs deliverance. Preoccupied often with his methods of implementing what is nugatory, nubilous and evanescent, niggardly with liberty but lavish in nebulosity, man marches like lemmings to the sea, without seeming to consider that he is not there equipped to swim.

 

The waters he needs are within, those of the Spirit of God (John 4:14,7:37), available not through meditation on yourself or your world, but a faith in the Creator, an adoption of His never failing testimony to man, for He has not left Himself without a witness, so that being adopted as a child of God, through HIS plan of salvation,  as starkly obvious as is the sin of man, in Jesus Christ, the singular sinless exhibit and exemplar in human form of deity Himself, man might cease autonomy, and find peace (Isaiah 57:17-20,  Ephesians 2:14-21).

 

WHAT is so remarkable about an autonomy, in any case, so puny, so impotent, calibrated myths to pre-occupy himself with vanity, mere dreams with machines to change them, but not himself!

 

The Gentiles may find His peace direct, without the preparations of the symbolisms of the Temple, without the animal sacrifices; for through the Jew, God has presented in the Bible and in the Lord Himself, what is needed (Ephesians 2:8-18). The Jew may now find it in the same way, having served so well in  so much, only to be deprived at the end, through failure in that date-predicted glorious moment of truth (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4),  when Christ as the TRUTH demonstrated Himself not only to be what was predicted, but what could,  would  and did meet  any test (cf. Biblical Blessings Appendix IV, SMR Ch. 6, Repent or Perish Ch. 2, Christ Jesus: the Wisdom and the Power of God Ch. 8).

 

Dreams can be sweet, or nightmares. It is better not to live by them. Machines can be useful, for implementing sound understanding. It is better not to abide by their sanctions. Man is gifted with much ability (Christ Jesus: the Wisdom of God and the Power of God Ch. 7, Little Things Ch. 5, SMR pp. 348ff., 620ff., 611ff.); it is better not to deify it. Deity came as man, not to uplift the mind of man to insane pretensions, before  he dies, each one, in his place; but to lift up the heart and life of man, for that eternity which is in his heart (Ecclesiastes 3:11), but which being lost, is the very indictment of his soul.

 

Man needs to be found, not impounded by philosophy, imprisoned by politics, or captured by his captivation with biology.

 

When he has lost his fatal fascination for himself, then he may and must look for the Lord (Acts 4:11-12, Ephesians 1:10).

 

As it is written (Isaiah 45:9-10),

 

“Woe unto him that strives with his Maker! Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay say to him that fashions it, What are you making ? or shall handiwork say, He has no hands? Woe unto him who says to his father, What are you begetting? or to the woman, What have you brought forth?”

 

Yet the answer is indelibly clear, as in Isaiah 45:21-26:

 

“Tell and bring forth your case;
Yes, let them take counsel together.
Who has declared this from ancient time?
Who has told it from that time?
Have not I the LORD?
And there is no God else beside me,
A just God and a Saviour;
There is none beside me.

 

“Look to me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else. I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return,
That to me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.

 

“Surely, shall one say, in the LORD have I righteousness and strength: even to him shall men come; and all that are incensed against him shall be ashamed.   In the LORD shall all the seed of Israel be justified, and shall glory.”

 

(Bold added.)

 

Israel or Gentile, there is no other God for that person, no other way, no other salvation. WE are engineered but likewise gifted from God with spirit*. The concept of engineering our own lives with dreams that dally with folly as a sister, with weakness as a rock, of even calibrating our myths, and making of our nothings, the cause of all, is so common that it is like dirt, taken as the ground. To rest on a groundless ground however, is to be arrested into falling. That particular pit, it has no bottom.

 

 

*Christ Jesus: the Wisdom of God and the Power of God Ch. 7,

Little Things Ch. 5,

SMR pp. 348ff..

 

KEEPING FAITH

 

There is a dream which never vanishes, but augments.

There is a rock which never splits to dust, but looms in majestic magnificence.

There is a door which never disintegrates, but proves strong beyond death.

 

Listen to Jeremiah 23 (today we use the New American  version, not necessarily the strictest translation here, but one giving some sense of the force, for this occasion). It has been divided into sections for illustration of the points of exegesis being here emphasized. For convenience these are marked alphabetically, so as not to be confused with the (equally inserted) verse numbers. Text is inset and in quotation marks, while exposition is at the normal margin level.

 

A.

"Woe to the shepherds who mislead and scatter the flock of my pasture,
says the LORD.
 

"Therefore, thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, against the shepherds who shepherd my people: You have scattered my sheep and driven them away. You have not cared for them, but I will take care to punish your evil deeds.

 

“I myself will gather the remnant of my flock from all the lands to which I have driven them and bring them back to their meadow; there they shall increase and multiply.

I will appoint shepherds for them who will shepherd them so that they need no longer fear and tremble; and none shall be missing, says the LORD.”

 

Here we see divine displeasure at pastoral laxity, which has contributed to Israel’s affliction. Shepherds ? Rather are they superintendents of downfall!

 

B.

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD,

when I will raise up a righteous shoot to David;

As king he shall reign and govern wisely,

he shall do what is just and right in the land.

In his days Judah shall be saved,

Israel shall dwell in security.

This is the name they give him:

‘The LORD our justice.’

 

'Therefore, the days will come, says the LORD, when they shall no longer say,
’As the LORD lives, who brought the Israelites out of the land of Egypt’;

but rather, ‘As the LORD lives, who brought the descendants of the house of Israel up from the land of the north’—and from all the lands to which I banished them; they shall again live on their own land.”

 

There is to be a time in the Lord’s overall historic plan, when HE HIMSELF, in the format of the Davidic descendant, the Messiah, justice incorporate, God incarnate (as in Psalm 45, Zechariah 12:10, 2:8ff., Isaiah 48:16, 43:10-11 with 52-53, Psalm 2, 72), will rule in righteousness, the real  and only Saviour for Israel, and to a restored people, brought back from dispersion, will He minister.

 

C.

 “Concerning the prophets:

My heart within me is broken,

my bones all tremble;

I am like a man who is drunk,

overcome by wine,

Because of the LORD,

because of his holy words.
 

^" With adulterers the land is filled;

on their account the land mourns,

the pasture ranges are seared.

Theirs is an evil course,

theirs is unjust power.
 

^"Both prophet and priest are godless!

In my very house I find their wickedness,

says the LORD.

 

"Hence their way shall become for them

slippery ground.

In the darkness they shall lose their footing,

and fall headlong;

Evil I will bring upon them:

the year of their punishment, says the LORD.

 

^“Among Samaria’s prophets

I saw unseemly deeds:

They prophesied by Baal

and led my people Israel astray.

 

^"But among Jerusalem’s prophets

I saw deeds still more shocking:
 

Adultery, living in lies,

siding with the wicked,

so that no one turns from evil;

To me they are all like Sodom,

its citizens like Gomorrah.

Therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts against the prophets:

Behold, I will give them wormwood to eat,

and poison to drink;

For from Jerusalem’s prophets

ungodliness has gone forth into the whole land.”

 

The moral testimony of untrue pastors is overwhelming, but for evil, not for good. Their end is sure. 

 

D.

"Thus says the LORD of hosts:

Listen not to the words of your prophets,

who fill you with emptiness;

Visions of their own fancy they speak,

not from the mouth of the LORD.

They say to those who despise the word of the LORD,

‘Peace shall be yours’;

And to everyone who walks in hardness of heart,

‘No evil shall overtake you.’

 

"Now, who has stood in the counsel of the LORD,

to see him and to hear his word?

Who has heeded his word, so as to announce it?

See, the storm of the LORD!

His wrath breaks forth

In a whirling storm

that bursts upon the heads of the wicked.”

 

Here we take both what is above, and the next parts,  D-F, together.

 

Human arrogance impudence, presuming to ‘deliver’ with dreams of their own  devising,  fragile dreams that founder on the rock of reality, and do anything but save from evil, being themselves evil concoctions of human fancy, are making many fall  and fail (cf.  Luke 11:46-52). The TRUTH, the very word of God ALONE has power to save (Isaiah 8:20, 45:22), but these imposters ruin the people by attacking their vulnerabilities for empty dreams,  mental machinations of nothing, calibrations of what is not there.

 

God Himself however will perform His own counsel, and in the latter times, at the edge of history before the Messiah comes to rule, the phenomenon of false prophecy will reach its very zenith (cf. Matthew 24:24, II Timothy 3). Runners with news not given, scholars with spiritual librettos of their own devising, they substitute the evil dreams of their mesmerised hearts, muddled heads and cultivated incomprehensions for the living word of the God of all comfort. Sin is the ruin of any and of all who subject themselves, in the end, to it. There is no exception; none is exempt.

 

There is neither wisdom nor comfort in that. God knows all, nothing confuses or bemuses Him,  and His will is to be wrought despite the undivine dilemmas created by rebellious thinkers with blinkers, obscuring and not exposing what is divine!

 

 

E.

“The anger of the LORD shall not abate

until he has done and fulfilled

what he has determined in his heart.

When the time comes,

you shall fully understand. (“In the latter days, you will consider it.”)

 

“I did not send these prophets,

yet they ran;

I did not speak to them,

yet they prophesied.

 

F.

“Had they stood in my council,

and did they but proclaim to my people my words,

They would have brought them back from evil ways

and from their wicked deeds.

 

G.

“Am I a God near at hand only, says the LORD,

and not a God far off?

Can a man hide in secret

without my seeing him? says the LORD.

Do I not fill

both heaven and earth? says the LORD."

 

H.

“I have heard the prophets who prophesy lies in my name say,
      'I had a dream! I had a dream!'

How long will this continue? Is my name in the hearts of the prophets
who prophesy lies and their own deceitful fancies?

By their dreams which they recount to each other,
they think to make my people forget my name,
just as their fathers forgot my name for Baal.

 

I.

“Let the prophet who has a dream recount his dream;
let him who has my word speak my word truthfully!

What has straw to do with the wheat?

says the LORD.

Is not my word like fire, says the LORD,

like a hammer shattering rocks?"

 

The leading edge of these futile dreams, these miasmic meanderings, these lyings philosophic intrusions into the very word of God, yes which can with astute arrogance even be delivered in HIS NAME! – it is to mislead the people. There is no question of integrity where truth is defiled, and the name of its Giver is put, as with some dishonest artistic forger, on the paltry canvas of the dishonourable artist who steals another name, for his own exhibit.

 

It is in any case wholly vain, futile, an ‘expo’ of vice in the name of virtue, the seductive and misleading propaganda of zealots for evil, disguised in beautiful garments, or as Christ put this sort of thing, they neither enter nor fail to hinder those who would! (Luke 11). Are they confused ? the word of God is not confused. It acts.

 

God has His own word which has this advantage, that being HIS, it happens, His predictions occur, His intimations are the exposition of supernatural reality, of what is there, of the almighty allegiance to the truth which He both is and has even made available for man’s need, by creating derivatives like the human race at all, then providing this light.

 

The dimensions ? The case is different. It is not a case of added dimensions or different dimensions, such as a time, space, gravity, dimension; for it is WITHOUT ANY DIMENSIONS. NOTHING hinders the reality of the truth: the word of God is subject to nothing and does everything it says. NOTHING is comparable, nothing has His power, peace or persistence, plan or program. What He says, goes; and what conflicts with it, this goes to, but as to that, it is to an oblivion, spiced with shame (cf. Daniel 12:2).

 

J.

 

“Therefore I am against the prophets, says the LORD,
who steal my words from each other.

Yes, I am against the prophets, says the LORD,
who borrow speeches to pronounce oracles.

Yes, I am against the prophets who prophesy lying dreams, says the LORD,
and who lead my people astray by recounting their lies and by their empty boasting.
From me they have no mission or command,
and they do this people no good at all, says the LORD.
 

And when this people, or a prophet or a priest asks you,
'What is the burden of the LORD?' you shall answer,

'You are the burden, and I cast you off, says the LORD.' ”

 

The prophets become a burden, a forsaken hiatus in the testimony of truth, and those who use them are like them. Suppliants  to human majesty, to human arrogance and pretension, they fall with their mentors, unwise in trusting flesh,  and not the word of the living God, which endures ineluctable, which transpires irrevocable, which does not flit to the pit, with the companions of pretentious dreams, but shattering rock, is itself the rock for all human building (cf.  Matthew 7:15ff.). Those who forsake it, are forsaken.

 

This then is something of the tenor of Jeremiah’s words. Here you see from the Bible itself, the weak ineptitude of all these human dreams, put forward as having sanction, but unsanctified as sewage, going down the drain of history; and the shattering force of the word of God which, though it is delivered in patience, from the God of all mercy, yet inflicts itself on those who imagine a vain thing, a futile thought (cf.  Psalm 2).

 

What then do we find ? The machined dreams that fall, made smaller here, inept there, like those of Communism, the Moslem faith, Romanism, secularism, New Age, existentialism, in the parades of things old and new (cf. Aviary of Idolatry, Highway to Hell, A Spiritual Potpourri 1-9, Repent or Perish Ch. 5, Stepping out for Christ Ch. 1 and see Indexes), and the rest of the bevies of them over time, foolish in philosophy, unkempt  and  rejected before God who judges BY HIS OWN WORD (John 12:48-50, Isaiah 8:20, Matthew 5:17ff.), and respects no other gods (Psalm 96) which He deems idols: these are dismissed with disgrace by the divinity. Those responsible will be held so. Those who follow them are demeaned and disgraced by their false allegiances. The use of His very own name, does nothing to improve the situation.

 

But HIS WORD ? Its vision does not wither, because there is NO NEED to diminish it now here, now there by ‘adjusting’ to history. Revisionism would be and is ridiculous, like dispensing with your Rolls Royce in favour of a push-bike.

 

The word of GOD MAKES HISTORY.  As to that, it follows like a pet lamb. He can foretell an event,  and then  ‘repay’ the human resource used to accomplish it, like an employer (Ezekiel 29:18-21),  as in the case of Nebuchadnezzar. He can ANNOUNCE a coming king who will deliver His people  freely, by name, before he is born (cf. Isaiah 44:24-45:3), as with Cyrus; and as man’s comprehensive  Creator (Isaiah 45:12,18),  as that of the Universe, He speaks a decision, only to have it done, and this is the criterion inexorable (Isaiah 44:25-26). He frustrates the babble of the flatterers with their incompetent dreams, and confirms the words of the prophets. As Isaiah says, so it comes to pass, for this is always the case with the word of God, since after all, He IS God.

 

When the test came, that almighty test, in this, that the Almighty unleashed  His own Son in the human form,  to run the race against the cruelty of man,  to cover the sin of his submergence, even allowing the death of His own Christ, indeed requiring it as an atonement,  a payment, a ransom,  ground of release, actuation for liberty, cancellation of curse (Galatians 3, Romans 3, Matthew 20): then He fulfilled what He had said, even in magnificent exposure (cf. Philippians 2).  

 

Even in vulnerable fragility of flesh (Romans 8:1-3, 9:1-5), even in humble circumstances (Isaiah 53:2), performing as man in the power of God, yet not without the burdens of humanity - sin apart (I Peter 2:22ff.), what was needed.

 

He did it perfectly, and no one failure, even for the One, the Messiah in the very name of God exhibiting His nature and power, was permitted to occurr.

 

He did not lie; He did not flinch, nor did He compromise. He neither became arrogant in power, not weak in submission, was never servile, never selfish, never at a loss, never swayed by success, never arrogant in triumph, always available, always resourceful, always pitiful, but never inveigled by craft, satanic directly or indirectly, by human guile or subtlety (Luke 11:53-54, Matthew 12).

 

Raising the dead as a supplement to healing vast multitudes of incurables and others in one voracious mass of need, He took care to be raised Himself, so that He could be tested also in this (John 20, Luke 24 cf. SMR Ch.  6). Not only so, but HE HAD TO DO THIS SORT OF THING or else be exposable as mere flimsy pretence Himself (cf. Isaiah 29,  35, 52-55). Truth is what it is, and does what it is. It is not difficult to be true, when you ARE the truth (John 14:6), under ANY circumstances; for indeed, the truth is under nothing, but over all. Christ IS the truth, as well as the way and the life, and the ravishing trilogy of reality in one, is the need for all, the deliverance for any one (Matthew 11:28-30), both in word, and experimental fact, for those who trust Him and not themselves, their carnal mentors or current culture.

 

He even died on the date foretold (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), and leaving nothing to man’s mesmerism  for false dreams, He continued to teach after this, even committing His disciples to the power of His Holy Spirit (cf. Luke 24), and His Church to His own programs, based on Himself, deity: for He is Himself is the ONLY ROCK which by His own word, He ever recognises in spiritual things (Psalm 62:1-3, II Samuel 32:21-22 cf. SMR pp. 98-99). These things we have seen in detail often before, and now merely review together.

 

Nor did it fail, nor did it fail to be invaded as He also forecast (Matthew 24:24); nor was there any lack of false prophets after Him, as He likewise forecast, even false christs. Nor did the race evolve, but merely degraded itself, being filled with its own conceits and fancies, and alien to God, as He predicted  (cf. Ephesians 4:17-19). NOTHING needs revision. NOTHING fails to happen.  NOTHING is left in disarray. The disease of sin is analysed, dealt with, its cure by personal sacrifice of Christ made potent and available FREELY. This being the need, it is a great relief and wonder, though it was most costly to secure so that man, one by one, might be immersed in immortality.

 

Meanwhile,  the all too natural progress into regress for this our race, where outside Christ, even to be immersed in immorality as if it were the ocean for children at the sea, this too was forecast.

 

This too has happened with a vehemence and a vigour which astonishes many, but even this evil energy was forecast likewise (Matthew 24:11-14).  The SCHEDULE meanwhile is for the GOSPEL to grip the earth, though rejected by the many, to encircle the globe, and when the job is done, the Lord will return.

 

Jerusalem was to be destroyed (Luke 19:42ff.), and it was; but the Jews had to return (Luke 21:24) and re-possess it after a long time (Hosea 3:1-5), which they did. This was to mark the approaching end of the Age, the time of the Gentiles having been long, but not for ever. It does. All the other signals march in order, precisely as appointed for the  tapestry of this end time,  the composite tartan which is its inheritable and now inherited program (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Chs. 8-9).

 

A time appalling is in the making, for the patience of God though long, is never to be confused with participation. Evil has an end, and its end is appalling (cf. Matthew 24:21-22, Daniel 12:1), unexampled, exemplary. Even now it hastens, and its testimony increases as the world flurries and worries in the midst of corruptions incredible, but to the eye of faith, in their depth and dynamic.

 

Nothing withers in the divine vision; nothing falters in the divine words. There IS no calibration for God, and it is He alone who should be worshipped.

 

There IS no machining for His vision; for truth yields neither to flattery or battery of arms.  It stands, when all else falls. It is a privilege to be a servant of the truth, as is this preacher - with all who are the Lord’s, one delighted so to be.

 

This gift of life eternal and its function, has the dignity of truth, but it has the loveliness of the personal as well, for God has shown Himself not only personal, but capable, having made man in His own image, of fellowship with man. What delight is in this, what privilege in such compassion, what more than ecstatic relish, for the whole mind and heart and strength can walk with Him,  and He infuses it with His own vigour and life (cf. John 14:18-19). When your Teacher is God, what do you lack ? When your God is love, what is the need ?   “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” – and do not!

 

Believing in Him is faith; what one believes from His word is THE FAITH; and how one lives is BY FAITH, walking as in that delicious estate, children of light (John 12:36, Ephesians 5:8).

 

What is the good of darkness, then, or the dismal light of dreary dreams. Alas, if such darkness as these relay be in you, HOW GREAT IS THAT DARKNESS! (cf. Luke 11:33-36, Matthew 6:23).