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Not only is there a psychological, an intuitive, a rational, an emotional, a perceptive aspect granted to man, but there is a scope for subtlety and joy, in the human race: it is a profile of function and interaction that bears one family resemblance, pattern and image. There is of also a delight in beauty which over ages is found in art, emotional expression, exaltation of spirit, delight in each other when the season is ripe, whether this be the beauty of personality, as it is perceived or hoped to be, or of form, of spirit, of disposition. There is a love of faithfulness, of trustworthiness, of being ABLE to trust someone, exhibited in friendship and in the rest of kindred spirits. It is like a yielding bed after a harsh hike.

Again, there is approval of and looking for character that does not yield, except to truth, of the work of love, of the delight which some have in others, of the harmony this presages, of the testimony of the child, the smiling potential, the hope for what may be. There is in an overwhelming proportion of the race a sense of relationship beyond nature, to its source, in terms of God Almighty, spirits, the Creator, or various relics of the relationship which man has evinced whether in gruesome pathological distortion, in vapid antics, or in a deep inner concern to worship. This may be traced as has been done by some, in the sorts of degenerative dispersions which man's racial divorce from God in practice, is sure to bring (cf. SMR pp. 1026ff.).

It is even traceable in Chinese characters and Greek mythology. The former is as shown by specialist Dr Edith Nelson, a retired medical pathologist, who has published on this topic ("God's Promise to the Chinese"), and whose work is mentioned in Repent or Perish Ch. 4. This is given attention in Creation Magazine, June-August 1998 where the monotheistic background and outcome is seen even in Chinese words, usage and characters. She points out that some 4000 years ago the Chinese Emperors were sacrificing to ShangDi in what was called the Border Sacrifice. Confucius, she indicates, mentioned Emperor Shun's having "sacrificed to ShangDi." Literally "the heavenly ruler". She cites from recitations at the Border Sacrifice, including "To Thee, O mysteriously--working Maker, I look up in thought." Expressing worship, the Emperor declared the Heavenly Ruler's goodness inexhaustible, and bowing the head reverently, looked for abundant grace.

Nelson also points out that in this ancient literature appear these words concerning ShangDi: "You made heaven. You made earth. You made man." Like much of decadent doctrine, the case is not as clear-cut as in Genesis, but as to the Maker, it is explicit. Of interest as slightly resembling Genesis, is this of Shang-Di: "He called into existence heaven, earth and man. Between heaven and earth He separately placed in order men and things, all overspread by the heavens." The bull sacrifice also resembles the Old Testament legislation. Further, Edith Nelson points out, Chinese characters for words such as woman, tree, desire or covet; serpent, tree, negative; mouth, tree, restrain and others, taken as one whole, give remarkable evidence of pictographic concepts correlative to Genesis teaching.

In the Technical Journal Volume 17(3), 2003, we also find a presentation by Robert Bowie Johnson Jnr. concerning Greek mythology and figures such as Zeus and Hera with a serpent-entwined apple tree. Hera is taken as the mother of all, an interesting correlative concept. Johnson traces a continuing relationship of a fascinating kind in the Greek mythology, with the Genesis account moving down the generations.

Of great interest because well focussed, is the fact that the ATTITUDE to these things is not guilt but glory! Man was by no means repentant of his substitute foci, and the evidence on all sides, now as then, is precisely this. The most intricate distortions of reality appear with passion; but the testimony of one God is unearthed on all sides as well; and if this civilisation continues much longer, it will only be by supernatural power that the term 'unearth' will not be appropriate!

Thus in the field of religion, not only does man show an inveterate approach to the divine source of his life, but an equal tenacity to dethrone Him. It appears as seen in the SMR reference on both sides, finds attestation in large numbers of cases, sometimes with very considerable, even remarkable purity of doctrine and understanding, but usually with additives or distortions at some point.

This we could regard as part of man's culture, in that it is not in general pure, is mixed, is bloated or convoluted often, bears marks of arrogant assurance in man, or mystic miasmas; and although there is attestation - not least in Syrian Ebla's excavations (cf. SMR pp. 377ff., 68ff.), often of amazing depth or strength, yet there is nothing too pure about the remnant attestations from the human race. It fell then; it has fallen now: it is much the same in this. One thing however has varied categorically: one theme, one book, one Lord has been attested in consistency and with verifications innumerable, has proceeded systematically and educatively to a conclusion in a personal and testable presence, and has assigned to history the status and nature it is to bear from that time to now. This is the singular, the word of the one God to this one race.

Thus, not only is there the logical thrust to look to God, but there is the historical context in which His knowledge has been strong in ancient times, whether in China, Pacific Islands like the Gilbert and Ellis, or even as Max Mueller points out, in a monotheism which precedes the polytheism of the Veda, in Sanskrit literature. It is found in Burma, amongst the Santal north of Calcutta. Indeed, as noted in SMR, Schmidt in his 4500 pages of research (Ursprung und Werden der Religion) and analysis presents this conclusion: "Probably 90% or more of the folk religions on this planet contain clear acknowledgement of one Supreme God." You see it likewise in aboriginal testimony (cf. TMR Ch. 8). It surges, it declines; it comes and states and stipulates; it is enchained in servitude to fears and philosphies. But the testimony is not lost.

These most varied imprints of the image accorded to man, which at times includes the workings of his reason and the desires of his heart come from a pattern which seeks virtue, courage, character and grace on the one side, which even reaches out for God; yet when depraved, produces a result mixed with swerving power, possessive puniness and all the other ills of mankind.

Like a loosed colt, man without God turns virtue to vice, power to violence, reason to recklessness, honour to squalid ambition, tenacity to ruthless extermination of his fellows, and lurks ready to destroy, as now is the lot of al Qaeda, what is built up, to make it level with the dust. Like a wilful child, he comes to delight in the devastation of the family mansion. In regress, his progress becomes a curse, wholly banal, so that whether his is the lot of virtue and truth, in its vast appeal to many over the ages, or the result of backing instead of moving soundly ahead, there is this dual testimony: use or misuse, logic or irrationality, faith or philosophy, delusion or truth.

There is for all the temptation; there are many who resist it. The overall dynamic is that of one ultimate image, nestling in the hands of a freedom to be a fool, or wise.

Now let us consider the positive side. There is in man such an imprint of such an image that when it is facilitated by truth, motivated in mercy, activated in love, there is a sheer delight. How do the millions rejoice when a prince or princess seems set for gentle rule, just passion, righteous service, and how do they applaud! How do the many crowd to see someone 'sainted' as a mark of humanity's breaking free from disruption and disperson, in something far better.

To be sure, such Romanist practices are a ludicrous shambles in view of the New Testament's clear designation of ALL Christians as saints (cf. Romans 1:7, where all are called for sainthood, while in II Cor. 1, we see Paul speaking to a Church "with all the saints who are in all Achaia", which is a universal application, not a restrictive address to some miniscule set of mysterious and unknown individuals. Similarly, when he speaks in Ephesians 1 "to the saints who are in Ephesus", it is apparent that he is not feeling need to speak only to the remarkable, but to all! It is a letter to the Ephesians, not some sub-sector. In the Epistle to the Philippians (1), he speaks "to all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi", and it is apparent that not all are remarkable for holiness (cf. 4:1ff.)!

Yet they are set apart as the Lord's. There is no commissioning process for 'saints', which would be a mere additive, contrary to the Lord's permission: DO NOT ADD to His word (Proverbs 30:6). In addressing the churches, Paul talks to the saints, correcting as necessary, exhorting or rebuking. Doubtless as in the Lord's apostles, there is room for the deceptive devil; but the texture of the society is "the saints" and so are they addressed. Leaving this to specialists is one of the chief causes of the evil testimony provided by so many for the name of Christ. It is like being in a football team and not bothering to train, for the 'saints' will be announced in their season. However, we are ALL soldiers who are Christians, and must put on our battle clothes (Ephesians 6).

This human desire is of course that thrust to adore, to worship, to be impressed, to seek glory, to find exemplars, to look past decline to delight in reality, to find goodness, and eventually, its source itself.

Such is the mark and image on man; and such his usage of it, as in this deviant misuse of the term 'saint' shows once again that even in his desire for good, he can construct evil means.

As to the distortion and the duress, however, its antithesis is declaring itself in nearly every conceivable fashion. Thus in the British magazine, This England, or the American magazine, Ideals, and as an underlying facet in that magnificent production, Character Sketches from the pages of scripture, illustrated in the world of nature, from Rand McNally and Co., there is an undoubted delight in the things that are noble, excellent and enduring, virtuous and beautiful, conserved from the turmoils of the past, alert for the developments of the future. Not in visits to some barren arena in space, but to the cultivated past of man, yes, to the Author of man Himself is the journey seen now here, now there, now more obviously, now less, in such works.

The vain passions both of spurious religion, often a mere guise for world dominion and human pride which being vain when man is vain, merely makes him as ridiculous as a particularly self-infatuated turkey gobbler. These things and their violent ilks tear man apart; but in the very presence of the objective testimony of truth, not even possible without the absolute truth in His intensity, immensity of grandeur and super-spatial, ultra-time self-sufficiency before all that is not of this kind, there is an enlightening, and a lightening of the load of man, so that he might have rest.

Not in vain did Jesus call man to rest where rest might be found, in the God of Truth, the King of Eternity, the Creator of Man, the love of truth, and in the truth itself, known in person as Jesus Christ (Matthew 11:28-30). God's dispatch to man, sublime in His eternity, the everlasting Word of God incarnate is the beginning and the end of the redemption that God has given, He has come and done, and none can undo it, or its predicted parameters, all objectely checkable and none capable of being shown unfulfilled.

All that went before being but pictures and symbols, the reality of the King of Heaven Himself came to a world not without warning, indeed with centuries of warning. Then the world simply did to Him PRECISELY what God had long said in the Bible, it would do.

There is nothing symbolic in losing blood, in being tortured, in enduring hatred and bringing goodness in return. Mathematics cannot match it! Logic might love to have it; but it cannot invent it, merely attest it as it does (cf. SMR Ch. 1, Beauty to Ashes). One member of the Radicalism of Ignorance crusade (it does not call itself that, of course, for Satan prefers naturally enough to disguise himself as an angel of light - II Cor. 11) declares that Jesus had no doctrine of God. In so saying, this leader is in the midst of a batting and battling for some new kind of man-made god, to fit desire and help man do what the authors of this ignorance want man to be able to do. They not only play God, in this, they work at it! What they lack is eternity and omniscience, omnipotence and understanding; but it does not appear to concern them.

It is precisely this sort of infamous ignorance posing as advanced scholarship which shows the inveterate hostility of man towards God. Christ had no doctrine of God ? it is surely the most monumental testimony to ignorance that one could hope to see, even in dreams. Contrast the fact.

He who has seen Me, said the Lord, has seen the Father (John 14). This, in the context of Christ's actual life, means at least as follows: God is personal, compassionate, self-sacrificial, knowledgeable, wise, knows all things and is willing to act in love to rescue a fallen creation. He so LOVED the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son (cf. Luke 1:35). We learn from John 4 that God is a Spirit, and that He is willing to send His Holy Spirit to man, on faith in the sacrificial Saviour Jesus Christ.

We learn in Matthew 5-7 of the sublimity of humility, the wonder of suffering for righteousness' sake, of the delightfulness of savouring righteousness without thought of gain, of the supernal wonder that comes to the pure in heart, who see God, of refusing evil by wisdom, so that it be overthrown without the fancies of personal arrogance or undue dignity that it lusts to have (as for example in Christ's own temptation by the devil, narrated in Matthew 4).

We find clear statement that Christ did things in just the way His Father did (John 5:19ff.), and surely one could go so far as to LOOK, then, at His doings and learn! I, said He, and My Father are one (John 10:30), for which they sought to stone Him, since they saw this was making Him equal with God, which is precisely the case (John 5:19-23). HE is the doctrine of God. Is it not possible to realise that SEEING Him being equated with seeing the Almighty IS a basic doctrine! It is therefore applied in His speech and actions, character and motivation.

We could fill books in this way, but it is enough that the ridiculous desire to fashion christs, either racial christs, or radical christs, or revolutionary christs, or mischievous christs, or clown christs or anything other than what you find in the four biographies of those who were there, is just a modern form of idolatry.

Man amiss makes himself a god-maker and then follows what he has made. He has been at it for millenia, but the millenium that now is, is the one that yields to the onset of judgment in the return of the ACTUAL CHRIST, this SAME Jesus (Acts 1, I Corinthians 11, II Cor. 11), who having done what He did, is not about to be revised by theological playwrights who despise history and seek to make the equivalent of a capitalist Marx, a creationist Darwin, or a pure-in-heart-presenting Sigmund Freud! There are limits to the ridiculous, one might have hoped; but the hope is dashed.

Oh yes, a small percentage, as Christ declared from the start (Matthew 7:15ff.), find the narrow way of actuality. It cannot be stretched, since it is what it is, and reality is not available for reconstruction by part of it, only for eventuation from the Capable Imagination which made it for man.

He made the universe not least as a teaching platform, a reaching platform, a testimony of magnitude, a scope for freedom, a site for exhibition of the truth, an opportunity for love and peace and truth from Himself, and hence for mankind, towards each other. It may be taken or refused, this suite; or man may seek to appropriate it for his own purposes. The irony is deep and exposes the abyss: the more man is glorious in his arrogant pretensions, the more he is wounded and pathetic. The more he is virtuous and self-controlled, seeking ideals of goodness and grace, finding and disseminating kindness and righteousness, the more he is humble before his Creator, the more does he rise! England and the USA for example have had periods of almost unbelievable 'glory' when they put to a large extent, nationally, glory where it belongs, in the Creator of the outfit.

The inhuman race, the violence-seeking, the dehumanising reductionists: they have other plans. They will subdue, yes even the most delicate, they will seek to crush what REFUSES to conform to whatever god and man they choose to make, obviously for the good of all! It may kill tens of millions as in the USSR and China by report. What of it ? They are gripped by decline, a thrust amok. They care not at all.

Even the time comes when their ideas are to received, as with the madness of Mao, as the very definition of good: though their conduct approximates the very flush of evil.

What, make an ant the definition of height ? a ship of the sea ? a space-vehicle the meaning of space! Is man to be deluded forever! Is the endless arrogance of the amply deceived to be seen ad infinitum in its reductionism, that leads in turn by power misused, to such reductions of man as appeared in Nazi Germany, or in Mao's banditries with the manipulated Red Guard 'revolution'! Whether it is Rome of old with its mad emperors, or the papacy of the past or present (cf. SMR pp. 946ff., 1032ff.), calling itself "God Almighty on earth", while for centuries practising torture to inspire any Stalin (cf. Index Inquisition); whether it is the wild vision of Alexander the Great, who deceased before he could well realise it, and left near chaos: whether near or far, grabbing and godless man, or god-making cultural man in his intoxication, the process is its own commentary.

Ignoring history, or even seeking to make it illegal to consider, man rides for a fall as his horse of State clatters in confusion along the steely tracks made for trains. His admixture of system and life, passion and prancing are an atrocity in advance of any actual deeds. The derangement is in thought and system before ever it hits the track.

Far from it. The beginning as noted by Christ in Matthew 24, has already ended; and the end is arriving in multi-stages, like a rocket, and it is all but complete (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8). Some of its steps are traced in considerable detail in SMR Ch. 9 as well (cf. SMR pp. 502ff.)..

What is needed now, for any person on this earth, it is no striving episode in trying to comprehend what without God is by definition incomprehensibility (cf. SMR pp. 931ff., Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 6 -7). The religions in the main are full of it, and hence much of their 'mystery' which is with many merely another name for irrationalist postulations and rebellious dreams as in Jeremiah 23, in our modern equivalent.

What is needed, it is not the logical oblivion of a part of the whole, in its working, surveying the scene AS IF from beyond the scene and pretending to be seeing it as it is, without such limitations as the model imposes. If that is what you are, that is what you cannot do. It is an exercise not only in theory, but in practice, in futility, an expedition in frustration and an illustration of the fruits of rebellion against the Maker who alone CAN BE the truth, who is beyond all, instituted all and is limited by nothing whatsoever.

Nor is the need for some new era of spiritual pathology, in making new symbols as if this sated or suited mankind. In fact, biblically, what was given from the first was never mere symbols, but depictions of principles of God and exhibitions of His actions, agents and ways, with the fulfilment and meaning indicated from Genesis 3:15 onwards, in the proto-evangelium.

The need is rather for repentance towards the only scientifically attested religious reality there is, or ever has been, towards Jesus Christ, the Bible which foretold His coming, date and ways, and in His words, and those of His apostles, foretold our ways and goings!^*1

Needed is the payment for pride, the asininity of autonomy, the presumption for example of imagining that any God who is there can jolly-well accept such good stuff as you, so that if He needs things like repentance and redemption He can have it alone, and such exudations of the slitheringslime of blasphemy (cf. SMR pp. 99-100), which does not consider that truth has its own ways, and even earthly majesty prescribes the way for entry to the palace!

What is needed likewise is the repentance for slackness, for living by one's own morals, if any; or even if they constitute a magnificent structure on which boasting can build itself, for that, imagining that again, any God worth his stuff MUST take such a manufacturer of morals as you. Such is the way for man without God.

All endeavours simply to start from oneself, when to be factual, one never did or could start from oneself, have simply to be paid up in the redemption that is in Christ Jesus (II Cor. 5:17-21), and put to rest, where the flames mercifully burn the rubbish. This is the need, whilst YOU, if an unbeliever in the Saviour, Jesus Christ, who alone has put paid notices up for sin, available on request by faith, are detached. Indeed you are acceptable ONLY if detached, from such rubbish!

The stamp of the imprint on man, it has then the two sides: what it is like when smashed up by spiritual opportunism, trying to make a good thing out of Someone else's creation; and what it is like when it is restored to the original contours and character (cf. Colossians 3:10). Both are seen however in considerable amplitude on this earth; and in the long run, only one is admired, for conflict with reality always bruises and confuses when it is done. These are spiritual races, founded in one image, the dynamics of transition appallingly obvious. The potential of liberty for licence and lordliness is there, as part of the image. Its application is mere function; but its results are spiritual dysfunction.

Man unmade needs remaking on the original plan, at cost. This is twofold: to God in providing the way, and to man, in humbling himself to accept what he has become, and what he must now be formed into. Though this panel-beating be imperfect, yet the vehicle called man is given a new heart and a new spirit (as foretold right back in Jeremiah 31:31ff.). Indeed, to return to the personal: the heart of stone becomes one of flesh (Ezekiel 11:19). Always in view, it is now actually paid for, at Calvary!

Then two practical steps attend our way, as we look towards the coming culmination, and the currently needed cumulative disposal of the culture of sin, while restoring in its place by the grace of God, the charity of truth, rich in the fertility of growth into godliness.

In the former, we shall see just how broadly characteristic this ARISING is of Christianity, and feel the thrill of its surrounding power and performance without pomp; and in the latter,
the stimulus of challenge comes in that endearing wonder of the friendship of God Himself, as we walk in His Spirit, follow His route and find in Him, the pinnacle that surpasses all peaks, yet provides no sense of vertigo. Call it a space launch ? this, it is into the ways of the One who MADE space!

“I WILL ARISE…” – Micah 7:8

WHO WILL ARISE ? Let us follow through the steps in the Bible on this.

1. The LORD HIMSELF - Ezekiel 34:11ff., Hosea 13:14, Matthew 17:22-23.
The Lord did not regally regard fallen man, but came after him, as a farmer after straying sheep. When surrounded and murdered by ‘wolves’, and dined on by ‘foxes’, Christ simply fulfilled His destined deliverance of the sheep, dying not for His own failure, but for their sin, a sacrifice performed by hate, worked in love and stupendously effective: Matthew 26:28-29. So it was foretold as the mission was given advance notice for millenia, in increasing degree in the last one before God actually did it (cf. Isaiah 49-56, Hosea 13:14, Ezekiel 34, Psalm 40, 22, 16, Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Chs. 5 -6, Joyful Jottings 22-25).

2. The SOUL REDEEMED – Luke 15:18, Ephesians 2:6. Recall how the prodigal son, coming to himself, filled with the workings of repentance, deep in grief at his own folly, thought of his father’s house, and said: I WILL ARISE and go to my father! Such is the repentance not to be repented of! (II Corinthians 7:10). This done, one finds as written through Paul in Ephesians 2:6, that one is sitting in heavenly places, being firstly, justified in the presence of God by His redemption, a residence for the Holy Spirit by His grace, imbued with His inspiration and kindness, then enabled in HIS perspective, to see far further and to know more clearly than ever before, and indeed, to find the liberation from cultural, geographical, even hereditary limits, in the presence of Him who being infinite, can expand at will what is to be done - as at the Exodus and cause it to be done, while we marvel.

3. Our PRESSING PROBLEMS – Mark 11:23 : like mountains these will ‘arise’ to be cast into the depths of the sea. To be sure, you may suffer, and WILL if you are His, for all who wish to LIVE in godliness MUST suffer persecution (II Timothy 3:12); but the mountains are the things that offend righteousness, block the will of God for your life. TELL THEM! In faith do it in the name of Christ, and they will go.

Always remember that confrontation with evil can be purifying, its overcoming glorious, and the good you seek however chastened you may be, wrought with joy. It is a joy that no one takes from you (John 16:22). Indeed, Peter tells us of the JOY UNSPEAKABLE, like a solar flare, an outthrust not form the sun but from the Son of righteousness, which envelops you in its holy brightness.

4. ISRAEL as the Lord acts at the END OF THEIR ROAD –
Micah 7:8, Ezekiel 39:1-3, Zechariah 12:10.

Micah 7 is one of the most affective chapters in the Bible. Thrust down, degraded, despised, the darkened mass of Jewry looks to its deliverance after suffering the penalties of abominable disdain for the Lord Himself, their King when He came, and for hundreds of years of intrigue and guile before it, culminating in it.

Then for many the light comes, their deliverance arrives, and as we read in Zechariah 12:10, the Lord Himself is active in bringing these back to the faith, and casting out the rambunctious nations which would not let Israel live! Into the true Gospel they come (as in Micah 5 where you see His birth in Bethlehem); and into the covenant true from Abraham they return, focussing on that same Messiah in whose name was smitten the head of the ‘Serpent’, the Satan, the adversary who lost his place and lives in disgrace with so many followers. This cast down, they come.

Rhapsodic with delight at this divine deliverance after all their own faithfulness:

WHO, they chant, WHO IS A GOD LIKE YOU, WHO DELIGHTS IN MERCY.

Nor is this all, for He acts both to “SUBDUE OUR INIQUITIES” and “CAST ALL OUR SINS INTO THE DEPTHS OF THE SEA.” The very name ‘Micah’ signifies WHO IS LIKE THE LORD! The Christian, Jew or Gentile alike, knows that there is absolutely NONE like Him (cf. Psalm 89:6, John 1:14, John 8:58), and the knowledge of Him as Lord and Saviour fills us with “joy unspeakable and full of glory” (I Peter 1:8).

So does a vastly increased Jewish contingent join the covenant Christ gave to His Church, on equal terms (Romans 11).

5. The SAINTS at their RESURRECTION – I Corinthians 15:42-44, Revelation 11:12.
These also, they arise!

Since the saints are beleaguered as the antichrist comes towards his final rule, short like lightning, but like that too, dangerous for the dazzled, there is momentary rejoicing by the people of polluted heart and fallen spirit. Yet the Lord cries to His faithful body of witness: COME UP HERE! and they are gone, as His angels gather together His elect (Matthew 24:27-31, Revelation 11).

“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye,
at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible,
and we shall be changed” – I Cor. 15:56-57.

6. SATAN with his messy ‘messiah’ with fraudulent ‘faith’ in the RELIGIOUS ASSEMBLY of the doomed, arises only to meet the LORD IN HIS FATAL IMPACT - Revelation 19:17-20.

This shabby spiritualist has long inhabited many synagogues of Satan (Revelation 3:9, cf. II Corinthians 11!), spurious assemblies and even ‘churches’, and led a vast multitude astray. Such, who if unrepentant pay for their presumption, now are exposed as false witnesses, not sects only, not unfaithful Jews only, but masses in fallen denominations, no small part of the entire fabrication of fancy which for many replaces the faith. Seeking to attack the Lord, this Satanic morass of misled mortals is arguing with a hand, with sheer steel. The Lord in His majesty as the Word of God, with His saints, brings condign judgment and due end to this flamboyance of flashy delirium which has snatched from many, both their heads and their hearts.

It is then that the CURTAIN … FALLS
on the FLAGRANCY OF EVIL,

and the LORD RULES on earth, for “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God
as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).

Rejoice therefore, if you are the Lord's, for this moment is approaching like an express train, and you can if you listen, already hear its thundering roar on the vibrating rails, as it comes in a D-day for which Normandy was merely a human prelude. But this, it is divine! Delight in Him, you saints, and if you find evil, “OVERCOME EVIL WITH GOOD”, for this is your calling, meet hostility with holiness and hatred with pity, seeking always to provide and present the Gospel of divine Grace if by any means some may see His face, and not their own disgrace.

Are you downcast ? arise! Are you troubled with self-pity ? Arise. Are you stunned by some defeat ? Arise and go to your Father. Cast ALL your care upon Him, for HE CARES FOR YOU
(I Peter 5:7). He cares so much that He came and did it all; and will return, and then you will indeed arise, who trust in Him. On Him, you can rely, though the heavens and earth depart (Matthew 24:35, Isaiah 51:6); and they will, but He will neither leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5).

Let us then pursue our second step, if you have already 'arisen' and found your own spiritual Father, and the Saviour whom He sent when, not wishing us to be ignorant, He took the intimately and infinitely personal step of coming to earth to be seen, as His own living and eternal word, and by aweful labour, to make the bridge home, a swift transition to the Kingdom of Heaven, in which His servants even now live, by faith.

How can you launch if you have no boat ? How can you serve the Lord except you be sent ?

How can He go with you, without the resurrection ? How can He be resurrected without the crucifixion ? How can there be His crucifixion without our sin ? How can you seek effectively, without sin’s dethronement ? How can it be dethroned without Christ’s own action and His power ?

Yet if it be de-throned, how can you continue as if you were your own ? If you are not your own, to what then are you sent!

Such were and are basic questions, whether for apostle or Christian today! You either have your trust set in the only One sent to cover your sin, and constitute your life’s resource and Lord, and finding His sending, go; or if you do not, and having no Lord, you follow your own precepts, mind and pleasure, your own devices, with or without reference to religion.

You CANNOT however do both. Imagine riding two horses, jointly on their saddles, one leg each, as they gallop apart! Nor can you ride a horse, simply by your imagination. Faith is not a mere conviction, but one which leads you to ACT, and not to action in air, but to work with and for God: so that you entrust yourself to the ‘horse’ which you ride, the power of God, and the mercy of God in Christ, and with discipline, ride for victory.

Let us see how it worked out in the mind’s and actions of the disciples, not only before the drama, but also afterwards, when Christ resurrected, they had to re-orientate to the God of creation and the Saviour of the resurrection, not proceeding now TO the Cross but FROM IT! Isaiah 6 shows the great sending commission of the prophet Isaiah. He had to be cleansed and set apart for the Lord, by the Lord. So now by Christ are His disciples prepared.

Peter’s aversion and conversion both appear here. His Co-operation with the Lord, in providing the Boat for Christ's far readier preaching to the people, led to the Divine Fisherman’s Operation in that Boat. Away from the masses, but near enough to be heard, Christ was aided by the willing fisherman.

Then gave direction concerning their fishing, and rewarded them with a mighty catch.

The sheer starkness of the contrast that followed His teaching, that of empty nets and then huge abundance, spoke clearly in context of Christ’s other miracles. Peter first however was convinced of one thing, that he was not where he should be, that there was a clash of an intimate and personal kind, between the source of such power and his own sin. Pressed, he voiced the desire for the Lord to GO, because sin said so! He did not mask it, but Christ mastered it. Peter followed Him.

Faith in the Lord came, practically. They SAW, they REALISED and after Christ commissioned them, they FOLLOWED. Although there was much more to realise, yet they committed their whole lives to this Jesus, knowing Him to be authentic. So it is with us who believing Him, follow where He leads, His word in the Bible, now the guideline, His Spirit still the dynamic and the source of strength, sent in Christ’s name (John 14:26, 16:13).

Peter and John with James, partners believing in this Christ, followed Him and so entered the pathway of power, travail, beauty and wonder, leading to the foundation and formation of the Christian Church. How little they would have realised at the first; but it is so with Christ, that His life leads through the marvels of His creative power, to new wonders, new heights and new ventures, wisdom and knowledge of God growing in fellowship divine (II Peter 3:18, Ephesians 1:17ff.).

Before they left everything, to follow Him, Christ had given the sublime commission. It was this: From now on, you will catch men. This call would lead to a vast re-construction in the world, but not of it! Jew and Gentile in large numbers, alike have been drawn into it, but this world with its own satanic leader, continues its mockery, whether in indifference to, or flight from Him. What then was the hook for those who DID come to Him ? It was Christ Himself in the reality of His power, compassion, word and dealings, beyond all things past, in accord with the identikit of prophecy; and clear on all things to come. The very savour of His grace and truth (John 1:14) lingered like aroma. When the word of God was made flesh, flesh had seen nothing like it, nor would it again till His return.

Seemingly insignificant, these apostles would partake in the very foundation of the Church (Ephesians 2:20), along with the former prophets of name and fame, and joined with Christ the chief corner stone. As with God nothing is impossible, so with God man must believe and follow, not in thought or plan, merely, but in action and honesty, reality and submission. Let God be God: there is none like Him! Let us turn for more instruction now to John 21.

At their post-resurrection meeting in Galilee, Christ was soon to quiz Peter three times. Meanwhile, to the significance of that other repetition, that of the fishing miracle in this narrative, we now turn. The time for that came at a far later stage in this great journey, than was the first case. Now it happened while they awaited in Galilee, the meeting which Jesus had promised (Matthew 26:32) following His resurrection. Fishing seemed natural, and Christ, using once again the natural, invited them to find fish after an empty night, WHERE HE DIRECTS!

The action rushes as if to the present. The disciples do what He says, and nearly sink with the vast number of fish now caught. Then John recognises the Lord, remembering their first call, and despite his sin, Peter rushes to the source not of sentence but of commission, call and hope. “It is the Lord!” cries John, at which the impelled apostle Peter threw himself into the water, moving quickly to the side of the Lord, desiring above all His unrestrained company. He sought, after his own fall, the continuity of the comradeship of Christ.

Christ invited them to breakfast and gave them bread and fish to eat. Here was a joint breakfast, no doubt reminding them of the occasion on the very day of the resurrection (Luke 24), when Christ had come to them, asking them for food to eat, and eaten it before them. No! He there assured them, a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have!

Food showed to them, as later, after that resurrection day, the invitation to poke fingers in His wounds to Thomas (John 20), that this was physical, not poetic! In a physical world, the physically resurrected Christ has all power (Matthew 28:19-20). There is really no reason to be afraid, though suffer you certainly will, because of the devilries of this world determined not to appreciate what is authentic, loving and true.

Now however was the same question as at the first. Would they FOLLOW Him ? Would they accept the God of creation in this Lord of redemption manifestation! Would they still follow, this time the resurrected Christ ? Yes, indeed. Their queries were rather about who would do what. As for Peter, why was he queried on his love, three times ? It was just as he had denied Christ thrice, so now He was examined thrice.

DO YOU LOVE ME! The question, divinely put, resounded in his heart, searched his soul, tormented his memory until it found in his conscience the only possible answer. Yes, he had erred, but he DID love!

Three times the query came with the commission then from Christ; but it was not exactly the same query. Twice the word for ‘love’ was the Greek aptly covering religious significance. Did Peter have the love due to God for Christ ? Again, the first time, Christ added “more than these.” In other words, the issue was this: Was Christ the chief object of Peter’s love! This is valuable for people in churches. We love one another but we love Christ more (I John 5:2); and of course, prize Him more than our own lives too (cf. Luke 24:27ff.)! This leads to realisation, reverence, realism, obedience and so power (Acts 5:32). We do best for the brethren when we love Christ more (I John 5:2).

At first to Peter came the call, “Feed My lambs!” On the second occasion, Peter replying as at the first, “Yes, Lord, You know that I Iove You,” there came the commission, “Feed My sheep!”

The third instance came like a torrent of wind into the wind tunnels of Peter’s heart. This time Peter protested (as he had protested with swearing a little before the crucifixion, that he DID NOT KNOW Christ!): “Lord You know all things. You know that I love You.” The parallel now complete, the affirmations matching the earlier denials, the heart searching a match for the heart failures earlier, the depths of Peter’s heart reached now as the depths of sin before, Christ confirmed the call: “Feed My sheep.”

THIS was precisely what the ‘shepherds’ had failed so often to do in Israel, as shown for example in Ezekiel 34; and for this not least, Christ had come. Now that He had come, it was essential that His pastors and apostles should FEED the people with the word of God, in the presence of God, in the sight of God (II Cor. 2:17, 4:2-3), with the power of God. So did they continue the ministry which ended for Christ in the flesh, on earth in His redemptive death, bodily resurrection and teaching confirmation. This they and those who followed were and are to do, UNTIL HIS RETURN (I Cor. 11:26, Acts 1:7ff., Matthew 24:30ff.).

In the interim, you and I must be assured of our Christian call, convicted of sin at the first, brought to faith secondly, and in love, commissioned for service thirdly. It can be quite harrowing before it is made plain; but better to be harrowed, with crops to come, than merely harried, with no fruit but the weeds of a godless heart.

THEN, collected, careened, cleansed, called, commissioned and sent, as they were: we find the significance of the divine directive: LAUNCH FORTH INTO THE DEEP!

Launching … it can paralyse some at its sheer newness, as if into the unknown resembled the flight of a test pilot in unsure aircraft; or that of a business man into new kinds of company formation, with laws to which he is not accustomed; or that of a mid-life career change person, troubled about traumas when untested skills perhaps fail to materialise.

Yet when you have already ARISEN and come to your Father in repentance, and found in Him eternal life, with all the promises, precepts and provisions of His own company (Hebrews 13:55-6), what is a launching but a following of a divine constraint, an answer to prayer for wisdom (as in James 1), an assurance of His power to lead one to whatever launching may be His own will (Matthew 7:21), as He did Peter, who had sinned enough, but been forgiven (John 21).

Then it is pure delight, as this author found, when young, when galloping on a willing horse in the countryside near the farm the family had bought. Swift as air along the green sward we went, by the side of the road, the thundering thrust a wonder of facility, felicity and motion. The potential bumps of the horse which can be found in trotting, were now far away, as the back of the animal barely touched one’s seat, in an ecstasy of motion, picturesque views, tender intimacy with the horse, who would move to the slightest leaning to change the flow of events.

If the horse is right and the terrain is sure, what a delight to set out in power and find vitality in action! How readily now does one understand the scripture from the day of horse prominence, in David's time, when he declares in the Lord, and of the Lord: "I will guide me with My eye". He is affirming this just as He promises, "I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go". On the contrary, for the contrary sort of person, the Lord admonishes, "Do not be like the horse or like the mule which have no understanding, which must be harnessed with bit and bridle."

Here then is the ultimate in spiritual leading, as the Lord leans now this way, in the figure, or that, His eye on this or that target in the distance, and hence the bodily weight shifting this way or that accommodates the vision, which transfers itself through the responsiveness of the horse, into directional change, here or there, as this symphony of motion makes it way to the mark of the high calling in Christ Jesus! There is no bifurcation in the living Lord in His leading and His word, and the two eyes of the rider are in one vision from the life of God, our Saviour and Leader (Isaiah 55:4).

Word written and leading intimated in godly harmony, the living and the penned move as one, the word spoken the former, as the rider exclaims now this, now that, the motion transmitted likewise; and the horse is moved by ONE LORD in word and spirit.

Our Leader is Christ; our power is Christ (Ephesians 1:19), and this is no poetic symbolism. It is as sure as smashed face, gored hands and feet, risen body, relentless fulfilment of His own words over all history for millennia, as friendship with the Almighty, as the testimony of His word, as the triumph of His ways, given assurance constantly both in private and public manner, as He shows that HE is OUR SUFFICIENCY.

Therefore one must WAIT on the Lord and FIND the will of God, and work out one’s salvation with fear and trembling (Philippians 2): then knowing the way from Himself, with joy tread the path of pilgrimage, with or without glorious power assist provisions, such as the Lord in His goodness so often makes.

At times, of course, He teaches patience, endurance, tenacity of purpose; and it is all good; the Lord is good, and empirically in practice, as doctrinally in word, HE IS GOOD.

Whose is the power ? Whose is the wisdom ? Whose is the wit ? Whose is the work ?

You are right, it is all One: It is He who was dead, and is now alive forevermore (Revelation 1:18).

Christians, then let us then launch forth into the deep (John 14:12, I Cor. 11:1). Let faith embrace what wisdom provides in answer to believing prayer. Let nothing daunt. Rejoice to be found worthy to suffer for Him, if you do (Acts 5:40-43), the impact of suffering an episode by no means daunting their immediate continuance in testimony. Not for nothing was the experience of Acts 4:23ff.. This is like the Lord, who foreseeing what is to be, can prepare in tenderness that leads to triumph, for coming events.

If you are not yet Christ’s, then have Him take over your boat, as Peter did at the start, and launch forth with Him as Master, and find for yourself the salvation which He provides (John 10:9,27-28, Colossians 3:10, Ephesians 2:6).

His work in the flesh culminated on this earth in the Cross, and the resurrection.

Ours starts, following conversion, with taking up our Cross DAILY (Luke 14:27ff.), and labouring in the power of the resurrection. We ARISE to return to our Father; then we ARISE to serve our Saviour, and then we ARISE to meet Him when He comes. In the interim, we LAUNCH forth into the deep, fearless of obstacles, but wisely led of the Lord, moving mountains along the way, as the case requires.

Just as the Lord in the book of Acts leads in word and moves in His Spirit (cf. Acts 4:19ff., 23ff.), now requiring courage, now forming character, now insisting on obedience, now moving us to this or that course to follow His principles, but yet to understand the way He will go, just as the suffering is secured in heaven (II Corinthians 4:17ff.), in its significance and cleanness - as indeed a man remembers his horse's responses with relish and just as the understanding is moved to increase and the heart to purer and truer love in the midst of growing experience of the Ultimate Truth in Person, Jesus Christ: so comes the consummation.

On earth, the cumulative and the culminative, as the Lord returns, but in heaven is the finale when we know as we are known. Now the child is become the man as in I Corinthians 13, and we see God face to face (Revelation 22). What sort of relationship is this with the former things, when one is yet, as now, on earth ? When one is a child one senses, perceives, but when a man, in what is to the point, one conceives. When a child, one moves within the realm appointed, but when a man, rather by comparison at least, does one find the instruction behind it all, the wisdom that is in it all and the full-flavoured accomplishment of what was in the making, before.

Then the significance of suffering in particular is sealed; the formation of character is completed, and the ways of wisdom appear as if unscrolled, the gripping wonder of dynamic delight merging, as do fields and hills as a fast-moving car comes nearer to the mountains themselves, into direct gazing upon the very heights of wonder.

The house is now built; the body eternal in the heavens is conferred, and the challenging wonder of growth into maturity becomes the choice delight of seeing every wandering fibre part of the material, every element of earlier design now in place, as if by some artificer extraordinary, architect of infinitude of wisdom, and why 'as if' ? It is even because it is so. With what is real, there is always this difference from the rest. It has its own marks of authenticity; and just as in this life beforehand, these confirm themselves in every field, whether reason, or emotion, or spirit, or the configuration in the mind which attests the things the eye sees, the ear hears and the body touches, so in the consummation in the very presence of God do the former things reach into a declaration of wisdom so ultimate that rest is the very realisation of reality: we see God and know as we are known.

It is good to have been a child; and for my own part, I relish it. With SUCH a Father as this, who would not WANT to be a child (Matthew 18:1ff., I John 3:1ff). There is no end to the wisdom and knowledge, to the beauty and loveliness, to the prudence required and the infinite reservoir of prudence available, as one seeks for the holy, the happiness of knowing God and walking with Him, because of WHO HE IS, inimitable, unsurpassable, the beginning and the end of all creation. THERE is one's Father who has graciously provided the adoption to His own family (Ephesians 1). Therefore when one enters the haven of heaven in His presence, when quit at last from earth, moving into His very eternal presence on high, the bud flowers, the stream enters the lake, and the walks about it are choice beyond all comparison.

To end without ending, to reach the consummation without wavering, to find the finale on earth that is the introduction merely to the hallowed magnificence of heaven, not in mere pleasures of the flesh or mind, but in the delights of a love which is deeper than any ocean, higher than any heavens, broader than any space, of a truth which is splendid in sacrificial power, noble in being above all thought and the inspiration for every godly act, of a way which is so far beyond all mere prescription as to become like a novel into which one enters, a reality past all introduction, and to know that here is the God of creation and consummation, never varying, His word immutable, His way most beautiful, His being filled with light and its source and force: here is the blessedness of eternal life.

*1 Cf. SMR pp. 755ff., 931ff., 973A, Divine Agenda Ch. 6, Little Things Chs. 9- 10, Great Execrations, Great Envervations, Greater Grace Ch. 10.) See also in detail, Joyful Jottings Ch. 8.

	who turns peace in intimate terms with His loving Creator into internecine strife,
	who sunders human life on this earth, cutting bits off flesh in order to show how religious he is,
	who seeks power on an earth he did not even make, nor can he, over minds he cannot fathom, since he cuts himself off from the Author of his power to be an author in miniature himself,
	who turns splendour into squalor, seeking always to be divested of divinity.