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'Galileo'! The title, that of the forthcoming vast European satellite venture, brings reflection. Galileo, the man, has got the better of the Roman Catholic organisation. He was right. They were wrong: at least according to the latest pope.

The infallible in pretension is so fallible; but is it not so with so many of the human race! They know, but they merely affirm; they are certain, but they merely assert; they will not listen to the Lord, and their knowledge is so much vapour, here today, and critically wrong tomorrow, but the word of the Lord abides forever. That is just the way that it is. That is one of the penalties of putting man in the place of God: his so famous pronouncements un-pronounce themselves sometimes in days, years or centuries. Those of God establish themselves day by day, and forever. The word of Peter in 1:23 is merely factual.

It was so too in the matter of Darwin. Now after years, the  pope has decided - just as Darwinism has become not only logically impossible but monumentally absurd, abandoned by masses of Christians and notable secularists, just as it should have been for major breaches of scientific method from the first - to accept that too. (Cf. SMR pp. 140ff., Stepping Out for Christ Chs. 2, 7-10, Wake Up World ... Chs. 4-6, Spiritual Refreshings Chs. 13, 16.)
 
 

It is perhaps with this sort of performance in mind that EUROPE has now advanced its Galileo challenge to the US GPS, or global positioning system, so that billions of Euros are to be spent in setting up a vast new system of satellites, to make Europe free. That is, they may be one reason why they so NAMED it!

No more, we learn from France, is Europe to be threatened with the position of VASSAL to the USA (often enough much of it was vassal to the pope cf. SMR pp. 1032ff.). No more is there threat of "vassal status" (from French President Jacques Chirac's contribution to the discussion, noted in the Financial Times). Not now will it have to suffer "subjugation in space matters" (CNN, March 26, 2002). It will strike out on its own, protect its armed independence and commercial thrust alike, its international cohesion and impact: all. As one pointed out, is not the US’s GPS militarily controlled!

To be sure, this is not mere France, along the lines of  General de Gaulle with his sense of la gloire de la France, that highly special French glory that savours of the not so glorious guillotine when man's rights were asserted over depraved Romanist rigours and State repression, only to become a riot of liberty without law, or something so near it that the mere form of law did little to reassure those who in more than one way, were to lose their heads.

There is of course far more to it than this verbal volcano today, and social one yesteryear; and perhaps there is no little touch of hope, in view of the 1870-1871 German success in taking Paris and gaining Alsace and Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian war, and the French failure in World War II to hold the Germans, indeed collapsing into their hands, with their own fleet scuttled, even though France appeared on the victory podium in the end, with its allies. In World War I, though they fared better, showing a courageous resistance, yet long were they forced to cede much territory.

Far be it from this author to deprecate the French resistance in World War II, but the fact remains that France has had times of great Empire and grandeur, and they are not those of the present time.

Is it possible that this impossible-to-deny sense of glory, for France, is what has been ONE of the underpinning struts, for Chirac's rather volatile sounding verbal explosion about VASSALS! Now what is important for us to realise is this: that it is not now for FRANCE that the liberty is being sought, or the relief, at this time, by the new and advanced space technology for Europe, to give it independence in many GPS types of areas of knowledge. It is in terms of EUROPE^*1 that this liberty, this deliverance from vassalage is being savoured by Chirac.

This is merely one more indication, symptom if you will, of EUROPE's sense of destiny, of glory, of independence, of proceeding - now in no small measure rebuilt from ruin following 1945, by the USA - to feel its wings and fly.

Fly ? But not into our work please, says the USA. Thus CNN on Dec. 28, 2001 listed a word about US displeasure with the FREQUENCIES that Galileo may use. Air Force Lt. Cc Mc Clellan, a Pentagon spokesman is cited s declaring this: "The two proposed systems are on the same frequencies." The result, he averred, could be inadvertent 'jamming' of signals form one satellite navigation system to another. Other concerns variously expressed ? This, that US specialised military work could suffer interference, such as occurred in the cave blasts in Afghanistan. What if Iraq gained access to the European project. Stupid! was the strangely non-politesse reply of one of the European advocates. It is however not stupid to believe in esponiage and its by-products. One of the chief aids to Britain in WW II was the King George aided system that broke a key German code. The term 'impossible' in such affairs should not be too gaily advanced.

At all events, Europe is flexing its muscles, stretching its wings, and preparing to take off. We have often seen signs of this before (see Europe in Indexes), and now it is to the eye that beholds, this Galileo and allied projects, a matter not merely of glory potential, but commercial and military aid to Europe, of no mean measure. That INITIAL reactions should even now incorporate talk of not being vassals, not suffering subjugation exposes, like a MRI scan, something of the emotion and spirit which would appear in some parts at least, clearly to lie behind it.

Another aspect ? While the US manages, even in defence, it appears, from its own GPS, some 6 metres in accuracy, the Galileo positioning probe enables accuracy of 1 metre, or rather is projected to do that. The US response  ? We are upgrading our own system.

In SMR pp. 886ff., 905ff., 912ff., 922ff., 928ff., we see something of the Biblical predictions and contemporary fulfilments concerning the continuity of the European power and its coming eminence and sad position relative to the unifying world ruler to come (cf. also SMR pp. 683ff.). In this last reference, one notes the utterance of former President of the Council of Europe,  Henri Spaak: "Send us a man who can hold the allegiance of all of the people and whether he be God or the devil we will receive him."

When then you have glory lust and leader lust, together with prosperity and self-awareness, and a tradition of religious unification by FORCE (courtesy, if one could conceivably call it that, of the Inquisition in military terms, and since then, in authoritarian arrogations cf.  cf. SMR pp. 923ff.,
1032-1088H), you have - shall we say, not a Molotov - but a Spaak cocktail. It is highly inflammable, and its results inflammatory. The wild insult to God in such a program as Spaak declared and the papal powers have often enough forcibly followed; the inveterate humanistic glory without goodness of the former, something explicitly provided for, these are things which should be suggestive enough for the illiterate.

Indeed, had our race been as good as gold for its millenia, such matters still might most wisely be questioned as to their coming fulfilment, when a President can with apparently adequate acceptance, speak in this way. But when from Genghis Khan to Napoleon, Hitler to Mussolini, Hirohito to Bismark, Stalin to Mao, Lenin to War Lords in Afghanistan, papal armies to dungeons and duress applied religiously to Scotland, the record is as it has become, it is only wilful blindness that does not see^*2.

That of course is the most effective kind that there is. It has led to such slackness in Britain, despite the early warning system called Winston Churchill, that it almost lost the war. It has moved France to establishment assurance that the Maginot line was a good defence, despite the ludicrous ease with which (literally) Hitler circumvented it. It led Rome to being overcome by the uncultivated hordes of her disaster in the 5th century, USSR to its fatal fascination with what was increasing a source of dispirited ennui, a system so deaf to facts (cf. SMR pp. 925ff., Barbs, Arrows and Balms Appendix IV) and inane in composition that only the German and allied industries, scientists and other grabbings after the war, together with enormous allied efforts during it, could help it keep going long enough to see out its short life!

China uses the system, but only in word, for its power is being propelled not by theoretical follies but by Western money, pouring like a torrent into its capacious maw, where, perhaps, in due time, it will be harvested by nationalisation. It is a sort of parasitic thing, then, using what others have differently created, and employing profit in a way that at times seems to make the West seem restrained.

Blindness is the necessary, or at least a most convenient, preliminary to disaster. That is approaching at a suitable rate, to match the degree of the blindness. Blindness is the necessary, or at least a most convenient, preliminary to disaster. That is approaching at a suitable rate, to match the degree of the blindness. Various forms of humanism and religious syncretism brashly and carelessly construct themselves, like grease to assist the fall (cf. Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 1, News 87, the 10th Movement, News 121, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30, Appendix IV).

It is not a small thing, but rather terminal, when the OBJECT of it is not mere Israel, but THIS WHOLE WORLD, so that the failure of one  becomes now the failure of every nation, in a sinister and deadly repetition of its own making and kind! That is one of the major differences of this generation (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5). If you want a good parallel, you have to go back to the flood, which is precisely what Christ did, when comparing the end of this Age, before His own personal return, to that earlier maritime catastrophe (Matthew 24:35-44).

Let us hear this:

• “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will by no means pass away.

 
• "But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only. But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and did not know until the flood came and took them all away, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be. Then two men will be in the field: one will be taken and the other left. Two women will be grinding at the mill: one will be taken and the other left.

 
• "Watch therefore, for you do not know what hour your Lord is coming. But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect."

 

So Europe now soars to its appointed place, step by step.
 
 

If someone were to object, Oh come! this is not now the name of any tract of territory, he would be right. It is however often valuable to remind people of broken promises, such as those of major powers following World War I who, following Britain's gratitude to a Jewish chemist at work in munitions, also endorsed her Israel for Palestine declaration, made in 1917 by Lord Balfour.

Now Israel has evidently less than one quarter of the territory assigned and MORE is desired, to be snatched from its pledged lands, by a grasping Moslem world, seemingly seeking to subdue any residual sense of international justice which the USA government might feel for this and other reasons, by removing the Twin Towers. One is almost tempted to wonder if these twins symbolised in this scenario, wisdom and justice!

Like a dental extraction a double one in the same area, it raises the question of falsity, new false teeth.

Is this to be the outcome then ? The deadly suavity of one Arab leader who, near the time of that September disaster, spoke of the US needing to learn from this act,  the nature of the problem, was little more than a veiled threat. ACT to abandon Israel to our tender mercies (often articulated as being its destruction, and often implemented in frustrated but feverish bellicosities and invasions), or we will abandon YOU to our devastations. Threats in this case were veiled. The concrete inferno, however, was not veiled. Bodies are still to this hour, being excavated.

It is a while since foreign invasion, airborne or other, has been used to weaken American resolve. It is an interesting if ghoulish experiment from the Middle East, where many in this last week meeting in summit, yesterday endorsed the so brilliant Saudi plan. That ? Oh how novel! It is rather like France telling Britain to evacuate London, and hand over Kent in exchange for the ... what is it then called ? ah yes,for the right to EXIST.

Right to exist! What a boon what a bonus, what a blessing... such kindness to endow Israel with such a right as that. Surely if the Arabs were God, one could at least understand the position. Since they work for one Allah, not gifted with existence (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4), their position is a flamboyant extravaganza of braggadocio; or propaganda if you prefer that term. The result is much the same.

The relevant point for this chapter however, is this. Europe is recognised quite unambiguously as the PATRON of the Arab cause in that little part of Palestine that Israel did get (NOT by gift, but through a war to prevent extermination by the Arabian nights that followed Hitler). An Arab leader speaks of seeking UN support for its little suggestion, now an Islamic and Arab Declaration: that they will give peace in exchange for withdrawal from half of Jerusalem, and from the rest of the land gained when Nasser was frustrated in his declared intention to drown Israel in the sea (or otherwise fatally associate her in that element of the creation).

That is not all. There must likewise be a Palestinian State, for reasons perpetually unclear, set up IN THE BOUNDS OF THE QUARTER or so of Palestine, which Israel gained, in default of the rest, through breach of undertaking! Are there not already many Arab States, and is not one of them at least, largely out of Palestine!

UN support for such a nice project (as the lawyers might call it, in their terminology) ? Yes, but the UN depends so very much on the US for its headquarters, wages and armed force. Anyone 
else ? Yes, the Arab leader desired also EUROPE's consent and endorsement to this efficient little plan. After all, who else FAILS in REPEATED WARS, being many, before a tiny nation, being FEW, to remove from it more of that little it has dishonourably been accorded, and with that, half of its historic capital city; and then asks 'other nations' to ensure that it gets it all anyway.

It is rather as if, after the war, Germany had asked the "international community" (though such an obvious verbal anomaly did not exist just then) to GRANT it London and Kent in exchange for the British right to exist.

One major difference or distinctive  is this, corruption. If this is done, will there be peace where the oil is ? That may be one relevant question in the minds of some.  Again, they may ask themselves, If we strip Israel of its tiny residuum of what was freely granted to it, and exacerbate what would fairly be susceptible to the term, robbery, will you stop being nasty to her ? You would not, for example, try to get the OTHER HALF of the city of Jerusalem would you ?

No ? No, we have your word. Ah! yes, the word, it is so important from an international assemblage, such as the Arab summit. We have only to look at the Balfour Declaration and its international successor to see just how sacred, such undertakings can be.

With Sinai restored to the Arab world, freely in the interests of peace, with territories made available to them which now they use for bomb refuges, and armed assault tacticians, with Egypt making peace as land was handed back, and now the Egyptian President freely BLAMING Israel for its efforts to contain and stop the terrorists, CONDEMNING these endeavours: it appears most clear that the program is mere fatuity if adopted. The GLORY of Allah, the GLORY of the Arabs, the GRASPING for this world's goods, the insatiable desire for Middle Eastern supremacy, and on the part of many such as the bin Ladens of this world, documented as seeking world supremacy, it is all an incentive, an impetus.

It is not lacking, this desire for domination, even over faith in many instances already cited repeatedly from the Koran. To trust such a history and such a series of principles would be like trusting an executioner with your neck. In this case, this particular executioner, freely depriving hundreds of Israeli families of their children, or parental support by intimate bombs in intimate places, has already sought to sever it often enough, quite apart from the works of such as Nasser.

With Israeli holy days a now repeated target during the murderous invasive efforts of the present, there is no point in ignoring the religious aspirations of the Koran, or those of many of the people who hold to this false prophecy. Oil, religion, glory, false prophecy, intimidatory tactics, total disregard of human life, such are ingredients in Palestine, the ruptured, the thieved, and now, the butt of further depredations. Since the Arabs COULD not take more of it, they now APPEAL, like a frustrated child, to the UN, or to EUROPE to help them TAKE it.

A more disgusting exhibition of lust it is hard to conceive. If EUROPE continues on course, and even goes so far against justice and equity, as to lose its heart further, and to progress on the same course as it followed under Hitler, also furiously anti-Jewish, and so endorse this infamous Arab proposal, then its own way will be clarified. Then the days when, as in Revelation 19:19, the world power is seeking to fight with God Himself, would be both brought nearer and made more easily comprehensible.

Will EUROPE so fall ? It would seem likely that something if not this, then in an Arab direction will continue, as in the past, to characterise its conduct. How otherwise is it going to move into the predicted place of world leader, enforcing folly ? It is possible that this may be delayed, relative to Israel now, but it would be of the first importance if it occurs, and some sort of endorsement to this delusive program from Beirut is achieved, from Europe.

Another point: If there is one thing which sticks in the humanistic, bureaucratic throat, it is any thought that any religion could be right, except a man-made version. The Moslem one will not prevail not only because it is false, and you cannot beat God, though He suffers you time to show your colours before responding (as with Hitler, cf. Jeremiah 50:33-39, 30:16). We saw something of this in our last chapter. It will fail, in the end, as will Romanism, because, not least, it is not popular enough in the secular world, to command obeisance, safe enough to command respect, or unifying enough to command acceptance. The world wants to be ONE WORLD, very badly indeed. It will therefore need a concoction, a sort of religious Molotov cocktail, for the intoxication needed to rule in that way. It is working at it, as our references above have shown.

Thus the too entirely obvious correlation of the return of Israel and such passages as Jeremiah 30-31, Ezekiel 36-39, Luke 21:24 with Matthew 23:37ff. (cf. SMR Appendix A, The Biblical Workman Ch. 1), is a fish bone in the throat of humanism^*3 .  It is obvious, like the mushroom cloud. It is impossible to hide it. Moreover the Old Testament prophets' fabulously precise fulfilment of predictions about flowers and forests (cf. SMR pp. 791ff.) makes it not only worse, but far worse. Furthermore, the super-mouse sort of victories over enemies, repeatedly, enormously numerically superior, is part of the main historical flavour of the 20th century. That too is merely fulfilling Zechariah 12.

Prophecy was there. Fulfilment has happened. History is out. It cannot be repealed, not even by faithless international meetings!

What could be done, of course, is to gang up on Israel, and attempt to force her to capitulate from her "eternal capital" as it has been called, and to yield up its territory, until, just as Chirac did NOT want for France, she indeed should become a VASSAL NATION, subject to international help in any war upon her then further deprived and diminished territories.

This may well be attempted. The Biblically predicted results have also been outlined in the preceding chapter, as also in SMR pp. 510ff.. These will speak for themselves, except to the deaf, who cannot hear. Such a condition was rehearsed, if you please, by Israel in its own day of folly (Isaiah 42:18-20):

“Hear, you deaf;

And look, you blind, that you may see.
Who is blind but My servant,
Or deaf as My messenger whom I send?
Who is blind as he who is perfect,
And blind as the Lord’s servant?
Seeing many things, but you do not observe;
Opening the ears, but he does not hear.”

Europe however is the present question, and soon the immediate answer will be found. For long it has been supportive of the Palestinian posture, just as receptive of the oil of the area.

What now ?

Will the UN the USA and the EU all bring their clacking clangour to Israel ? For their sakes, one may hope not. Whether or not at this time, the increasing force and ferment to disestablish Israel bit by bit, by international bullying, by devices (such as the removal of UN troops making way for Nasser's invasion, handing over authority on the part of Britain in 1948, to the Arab Legion), by destructions (such as of the Trade Towers), by intimidation, if not of Israel then of the US (if so be), by domestic fears, by suicidal murders (an interesting combination of follies): it continues. The dénouement has been out for around 2500 years.

The news is ancient, yet out before its time.  You do not need to wait for CNN. See SMR Appendix A , The Impregnable Tower Ch. 6, and read Ezekiel 36-39. It is a sad tale.

The gloating predicted for the time when the world thinks it has peace, this has yet to come. It may come soon. Then other things come, of a very different order. The New World Order, incidentally, it will assuredly come (cf. Sparkling Life Ch. 10). It will not, however, in the extremities of its fateful impositions for human glory and the making of a god, last very long (cf. The Other News Ch. 5). Its end is both swift and severe, and it will sever much (II Thessalonians 2:10ff., 1:8ff., Revelation 20).

Fiddling with the word of God does not alter it. It is this word which alters this world. The major impacts of love securing redemption are forever finished (Hebrews 1, 9-10); and the reaping from the sowing of this seed is shortly to transpire. The major imprints of justice likewise await.

• It is our hope that many who read these facts
• will relegate their own wills to the blessed and benignant will of God, whether Jew or Arab (for both are currently astray, in their national postures, from the religious viewpoint
• that they may find in Christ, Jewish in the predicted incarnation of long ago, but rejected by Israel the nation (though in it the Christian Church most vigorously and blessedly started as in Acts):
• and in Him find peace.

Peace starts in the heart, is a divine dower to the spirit, is a result not of pacification, as by intrusive power, but of atonement by blood, not that of Jewish settler or Arab insurgent, but that of Christ. It is one for all and all for one, and this One, it is He who alone has attestation, validation and verification from God (cf. Repent or Perish Chs.  2,   7, That Magnificent Rock Chs.  5 and 7 , SMR Ch. 1, Colossians 3:11). Moreover, His gift is not commercial, but a spiritual cascade; despised at a price, it is priceless, and its torrents never cease, as pure as crystal, as dynamic as life.

As to Europe, can one not lament at its prospects, so much of culture, of history, of vigour, of intelligence, of wit and charm, that this, so long in so many accustomed to papal direction, or dictators' antics, should now, and more also, find in another and more  ultimate evil, the final deception, that leader as Spaak put it, which be he man or devil, will come devious, to misdirect, insidious to secure power, and corrupt, to deploy it in a final paranoia of the whole human race. It is towards this it has been tending now this long time, inventing its own ideas, ignoring both truth and love, in war and hate, in woes unspeakable with more to come, directing itself to this abortion of all good, shaped as a man, but scarcely with a man's heart.

But that! it is a terminal episode in a series of nations. Man is not a nation, or even a conglomerate of nations. Each is an individual, and each individual may now with repentant heart and awakened mind, seeing the truth in Christ Jesus, committing to Him the spirit within, resting on His attainments and atonement, on His crucified and crumpled form as payment, live in His resurrected power as privilege, as one of the many millions of the children of God. For as to those who receive Him, these are given authority and power to become the children of God (John 1:12). Europe has suffered many scourges, and this one to come, it is the last. Many have escaped those which went before, with crucifix and torture chamber, with fires of hatred and grabbing of wealth from their victims, whether secular or sect such as Romanism; and many may escape that which is now to come.

Nor is it merely an empire to be escaped, but the very spirit of this world which spawns so many of them, the "god of this world" as Christ called that devil, whose many forms and vast deceptions have long confused so many. There is no need to be confused; there is no need to have such a god as that, in this or in that of his deceptions, present or to come.
 
 

EUROPE, ALERT!

To you, Europe, no less than to all, this appeal is addressed, to each citizen: Come to Jesus the Christ, not wedded to scurrilous and unbiblical traditions, but as He is. What did He say of such traditions: Holding them and making VOID the word of God (Mark 7:7ff.). The traditions of men are not all past; more are to come, if possible, much worse, for more ultimate, more universal in their fleeting, splenetic moment of deceit. Avoid them like the plague; and live in the power of God; for there is nothing too hard for Him, and in Him is fulness of joy (Psalm 17).

It is in HIM that you should all belong, each one, just as the Jews each one must come (Zechariah 12:10ff.). Make sure that it is TO HIM that you do come by faith, trusting in His integrity, purity and wonder; that FROM HIM that you are named: not from denomination named, owned or operated by man or beast, but from the denomination that is CHRIST'S people, forged in heaven, paid for on earth, ransomed by His blood plus nothing, directed in peace, kept by His own power.

In HIM only, find your righteousness like David of old (Psalm 71:16), and in Him, your peace which passes all knowledge (Ephesians 3, Philippians 4), like His love, a matter of profound rest in the best (Zephaniah 3:17).

What is the character of this rest ? Let us hear Zephaniah:

"The LORD, your God, in the midst of you is mighty; He will save; He will rejoice over you with joy; He will rest in His love, He will joy over you with singing."

*1 See p. 155, later in the present section. Germany, despite much panache and glamour in its proud determination for dominion, and lebensraum, failed to win 2 World Wars in the last century, finding increasing opposition to its policies. It is not impossible that a certain relish may attach to its appreciation of greater, even if regional, independence for the European corpus of nations. Independence is part of the spirit of the Age, especially of course, and above all, independence from God. See God of forces, SMR pp. 707ff.. This concept from Daniel appears in Nazism, Communism and power politics alike, in different measures and degrees, in its unprincipled rigours and rigors, wearing now these clothes, now those.

The lust for leadership is perhaps no less, and the thirst for glory is a natural, if pathological residue from the rejection of the only actual one, that of God. These ingredients move with other forces of evil, to the appointed end (Isaiah 2:12-22).

Whatever lacks God, does not lack end, though it be interminable in its contempt (Daniel 12).
 
 

*2 In fact, as a contemporary reminder, war lords even in thrice devastated Afghanistan, are still reported interested in following their destructive and arrogating trade!
 

*3
Cf. Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch. 9, Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 3 and Barbs, Arrows and Balms 18.