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CHAPTER 8

New Hearts in Old Places

Only Hope for Old Races

News 304

News Radio March 23, 2004

THE CONTRAST

There has been a presentation by a US Presidential spokesman on the topic of Israel. Alas, alas, one would think perhaps that there had been another explosion in the heart of Baghdad, perhaps demolishing major civic buildings. What was the problem ? Only this, that one of the chief leaders of the murder brigade called Hamas, dedicated to the destruction of Jewish citizens and property, in this like Hitler, had been killed.

Is it then not war ? Do you kill hundreds of citizens of a sovereign nation and it is not war ? Or do you assassinate a Cabinet Minister and it is a thing of no consequence ? Or perhaps if you kill children in neat little batches, spreading their organs about the place, like some mortuary ready for transfer operations, that this is a state of peace ?

Yet if it is war, then is it not normal - ask the US, for it can tell you from personal experience: for is not the bin Laden or his counterpart to be sought ? Is not the US busily seeking just such a person in the mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan ? Would it be a catastrophe, as the US President put it, to 'get our man' using Texan custom as a basis for the remark, concerning an architect of the September 11 massacre in his own country ?

Do then morals change for the nations ? even in the eyes of some one nation ? Is conduct a chameleon, to merge with its environment ? Is there one law for US citizens and another for Jews ?

You must consider the CONSEQUENCES of your actions, said the Washington sage, in instruction to Israel on how to conduct war. That is true. There can of this be no question. If you allow people to kill your children, maul your youth, destroy your buildings, attack your elected representatives, terrorise your country, impale your citizens with nails or objects of sharp edges, and execute themselves, becoming unsolemnised auto-funerals in your midst, without consent forcing others to join not as spectators but for death, then there are assuredly results.

These CANNOT be ignored. Did not the US show that in its response to the Twin Tower audacity and slaughter from al Qaeda ?

 Was it then in acquiescent mood ? Did it perchance speak like this …

'Well you see this is unfortunate to be sure, but if some foolish people want to become dead in a flurry of death, in our land, then we must consider the consequences. We cannot by any means just go after their bases,  and try to hunt them down. If we were successful, consider the consequences: for you must ALWAYS consider the consequences.

'As for the idea of invading a country believed to be one of the bases for such action, that would be most provocative. Again, to invade a second country believed to be associated with such rank and ruinous action - I hope I do not speak too vigorously, for we must always consider the consequences, you know - this would be out of the question. It would weaken our financial position, aggravate polarisation in the international community and merely inflame the hatred of those who are seeking our extinction so explicitly.

'No, the thing to do is cede more of the USA to them, so that they could destroy it at will and by their own authority, if they wish; and as for the idea of building a wall to help restrain the murderers, why this again is so provocative that it needs to be reviewed. Again, to take even a small part of the land accorded to Israel, but robbed from her by the UN, in violation of the League of Nations agreement after World War I, and restoring it to her, this would be a clear provocation. Once stolen, always stolen is the motto here! Moreover, can't you see it, once a thing is stolen it becomes custom, so really you need to cede MORE, not less of Israel. It is quite simple when you see it.

'So, in accord with all this,  we for our own part shall not rebuild on the Twin Tower site: for since they took a fancy to it, even though historically it is ours, just as Judah historically was heartland for the Jews and is now involved in the West Bank, we are going to let them have it. From now on, there will be an  al Qaeda part of Washington, and it will be called Osada Bank. We are a great nation, and we are determined to do great things.'

Well, no, not actually. This was not quite the way the US responded to terrorists in its own midst.

Although the response to Israel's action might suggest that perhaps on similar principles, this WAS the US response to September 11, in fact it was not. Instead two countries were invaded outright, and in the second case,  alas the engines of war were more successful by far than the reconstructions of peace, and the consequences of that latter aspect have been horrific, both for many people in Iraq and for the US in the world.

THE CONTINUATION

 With Jews, however, as Europe has shown for many CENTURIES, it is different, and it seems that for all her good intentions - and it is useless to pretend that among all the US intentions there are not a number of good ones - the United States is not helping Europe to reform. Instead the buzzing bee with sting type scenario seems ready to be re-instituted, with German Foreign Minister Fisher telling Israel straight from the German people, who elected him and the authorities who instituted his position, that the WALL was not the thing. It should not go as it went. There was in this way a kind of European wail, and it was about the new wall.

Hitler was the champion and best-remembered, worst recalled anti-Jew horror outfit in flesh; but he was not so isolated, but rather the acme of Europe's centuries long misdeeds against Jewry. These came over the centuries with pogroms and dispossessions, Inquisition - that peculiar enormity of Romanism - and littering of bodies in fires, of wealth into coffers of conquest

	often in lofty violation of truth,
	in the very name of the One who was crucified,
	but did not crucify,
	who had no place to lay His head,
	and did not acquire territories or send armies for aggrandisement and rule,
	but restrained even Peter from combat for His own personal protection.

Europe now has some help from the USA which, to be fair, though often favouring Israel in many and sometimes critical ways, has for long, since Reagan’s day,  become more of a power broker and negotiator, to see how far Israel can be pushed towards the inoperable residue of tiny territories in the interests of what is called peace. In fact, it looks more rather like a prelude to war, the 'final solution', this time by invasion from the many Moslem mighty peoples which surround her like a noose, with of course UN participation in the ripening of the crop for execution, or is the term reaping – that is, fulfilment – in the strip tease act that reveals Israel the vulnerable..

Already sprawling on wealth all but unthinkable, though woefully distributed, with manpower making tiny Israel's forces seem almost an illusion, with lands of the vastest extent proceeding to Pakistan in the East and to Morocco and Algeria in the West, South in the Sudan where they have been massacring those called Christians without much restraint from the UN or elsewhere, and North to some of the USSR's former components, such as Chechnya, in whole or in part, is the Islamic word of that region. It spreads wide, this 'poor' Muslim swarm, alas 'needing' more of Israel to accommodate those of this persuasion. Why, for this, how could there EVER be enough!

Is it a form of madness which is replacing anti-Semitism, a neo-anti-Semitism, so that the vocabulary rather than the actions can be changed, then ?

Is there something in the Jewish blood which must show restraint, and be asked to do so, by those whose exhibition of the same in a closely parallel situation has called for two invasions thousands of miles from its shores ?

Whatever may be the impetus for that action ? does it suggest a parallel for the Jews ? Have the Jews then taken over Syria and Egypt, for example ? Is this their crime ?

To be sure, they were weary of Lebanon as an agency for murder, and a base for blasting their Northern farms - imagine Canada blasting from British Columbia, the State of Washington, and the US exercising restraint!

Certainly, Israel invaded Lebanon in part, to prevent that base from blasting its citizens, and afterwards left, so that now again it is being used, this time apparently for Hezbollah so that it might be better placed for its incursions into Israel. Actually, Israel, being small and not inclined to be murdered one by one, has asked Syria to desist from using Lebanon as a power base to exterminate Jews, as a sort of in tandem Hitler. It appears as one not inclined not to favour the existence of Jews, this time in Israel, their 'homeland' gifted by that League of Nations which apparently is not well remembered in the history of those who so act. Preferring people not to exist in their homeland is a very interesting sort of preference, and where it occurs, it is not likely to be conducive to peace for anyone about.

People often feel it is warlike when you use land to blast them over years and seem inclined to prefer either their non-existence or their redefinition. They often feel it would be a good idea to stop it. They often prefer murder to be in minor quantities, rather than a matter of scale, as if it were subject to economies of scale, and could be better performed in larger numbers.

Live and let live! they might say.  This is our way. Let us not kill so much, and please moderate your fatality count in our land, some time soon.

The problem with that, of course, that the thing is contrary. The rule is not Live and let live; but Die and do NOT respond! It is JEWISH blood being spilt, so do not seek to mop it up.

This is the reality behind the peace ? It does not sound too peaceful.

Israel was left for dead in 1948 when the nations sat back and watched a group of Islamic nations seek to overthrow her infant being, just released from the British mandate. They did not seem unduly concerned, IN PRACTICE. No one seemed to want to intervene, except perhaps the British, to the extent that they handed over their power to the Arab Legion, so assisted the 'poor' Islamic portion, which had to subsist somehow with only milling millions of surrounding partisans, and official power, and vast tracts of territory to the North and South and East; and to some extent, if you consider the Moslem element in Turkey, and follow the coast, to the West as well.

Israel was left for whatever would become of it by the valiant UN troops in the days of Nasser, who had expressed a desire in effect, to roll Israel into the ocean, which was not very accommodating, considering all the land about, and the small portion of the Arab nest, a stick or two, accorded to here. However, as the world watched, Nasser lost. God did what He had said in Zechariah 12, and Israel was like Mighty Mouse against the cat. Perhaps it is its sense of fair play ...

The world seems to love to help the cat.

THE PROBLEM IS THE GOD OF TRUTH,

SO THEY SEEK AN EXIT VISA

God however has His statements on Israel and what He will do; and He does it (cf. It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls ... Ch. 10, Ch. 1, Great Execrations ... Ch. 4, Of the Earth, Earthy ... Ch. 10, News 53 ).

 We have seen this in

	the exile of Israel as predicted in Leviticus 26 and then in Jeremiah and Isaiah;
	the destruction of Jerusalem as foretold in Daniel and by Christ, in Daniel 9 and Matthew 24, Luke 19;
	the restoration of the Jew as in Ezekiel and Isaiah (cf. SMR Appendix A),
	the victorious triumphant wars of so-designated Jew against its exterminators in battle (this is not the Inquisition case, where all that was invaded was flesh and property, in Europe, but the military one as characterised in Zechariah),
	and of course the strained tensions that continue, also as in Zechariah.

That prophet of course in Zechariah 12:10 proceeds to the forthcoming conversion of large numbers of Jews, in their own land, now realising at last what they did to their own Messiah, who happened to be GOD, their LORD, in the flesh. In Zechariah 12:10, it is made so clear, with Psalm 45 and Isaiah 48:16 and so many other passages such as Isaiah 43:10-11, and then 50-55. That is the Saviour and HE ONLY is God!

The situation proceeds, then: man versus God, with Israel in the right place in land, but not in heart; and the assailants in the wrong place in land, and in heart. It is not a pretty picture, and naturally and indeed necessarily, there is much loss, and confusion and abuse and folly. Back of it all, there is of course a desire with one of the idolatrous NOT-GOD camp of assailants (cf. Deuteronomy 32:21), the Islamic always concerned at the 'catastrophe' of Israel having ANY territory in its historic land, to SHOW its Allah's power by actions. So far, the OPPOSITE has been shown, Israel prevailing in its site (cf. SMR pp. 829ff.).

Thus,  even when still being divinely disciplined for unbelief in the Lord who came as Saviour, its own Lord, Israel is still being used by that same Lord to defeat the invaders who want her OUT, OUT and then OUT more, in the name of Allah! It is ironic, to be sure, that when Israel showed a divinely scorned desire for 'new gods, new arrivals that your fathers did not fear' (Deuteronomy 32:17), as was foretold in Moses, and so inherited rebuke from above, it was foolish indeed. Now others with such 'new gods' attack her, and in their name seek to overcome her. So does the earth writhe in its substantially godless devices.

Does it not remind one of sowing the wind and reaping the whirl-wind as in Hosea 8!

What Israel did from the security of spiritual wealth in the Lord, when she came nearer to walking with Him, becoming astonishingly ungrateful and misled, now others of her neighbours do, in their own false traditions, following an unbased religion in militant desire. That in some of its partisans, leads to desire to overthrow not only Israel, but as far as necessary, the United States as well. Even Putin expressed himself not too delighted with the brazen militance so often found in Islam, with whatever relevance to his own problems in Chechnya, and warned Europe.

Religious fanaticism, which uses the sword, whether overt as in Islam and Romanism when it had the chance, or covert as in Communism, the religion of which was philosophic but still ultimate in design: this is a major scourge of man. He inherits it because of foolishness and flamboyance, indifference or - ludicrous in asininity - his self-will towards the only God who has shown Himself in word and deed, consistently and clearly in the history of man. In general, the Humanist Conquest motif becomes cruel in the end, if not at the first, always KNOWING what is best, a nonsense thought when the only absolute truth is disdained on their own model. Mummy knows best, but never was such a mother as this, unless Lady Macbeth is on call for the part.

Indeed, man in large segments even shows the inveterate desire for novelty in religion, when truth is despised; and how readily this can be traced in fulfilment, pepped up in our present age with the vitality of ending its vicious intrusion into the peace which should be and could be for man. Of this, one may read more in SMR Chs. 8-10, More Marvels ... Ch. 10, Repent or Perish Ch. 2, It Bubbles... Ch. 8, Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8.

Hence the world does not find peace, and since the scene where Rome and Israel in joint action, murdered Christ, it is not destined for peace, until this same Christ returns as King. This is not a human religious program, but the divine determination from Genesis to Revelation (cf. News 87, TMR Chs.
2   -  3, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17). It is attested, and the Lord has invested in this program not only power and precision in prophecy, but a face which men marred beyond recognition (Isaiah 52:13ff.) in exhibition of their opinion of the rule of their Maker.

They have had thousands of years in which to experiment with the delicacies of Mao, Stalin, Rome's imperial power, Hitler, with philosophies of rule like Nazism, Communism, as barren as the bleak wastes of Siberia, impersonal, depersonalised, alive with fury and dynamic anything but divine, made for men who are without heart, to push plans which disregard the very people they allegedly seek to ... rule.

Their philosophies are as blatant as their wars, and their peace as obvious As their logic, which is to say, as deflated as a tyre which not only burst, but lies in shreds upon the bedizened road for miles back. (Cf. Red Alert Chs. 2, 16, and see SMR Ch. 9, pp. 965-966, 971, 925, together with Errors).

There is to be a short peace of apparent splendour for this dizzy program of man (I Thessalonians 5 swiftly brings us to see it); but this is for false self-congratulation; and it soon goes, leading to catastrophe indeed (cf. Highway ... Ch. 6). Is there irony in that ? Certainly there is opportunity, even then, for repentance.

What is needed is not a new peace plan from humanistic servitude to false gods, new gods rising newly up whether from Europe's fertile thought plans, or the Middle East with its militant religion of conquest as it undoubtedly and demonstrably is found to be, in some parts of the Koran, even where faith is concerned, thus excluding it at once from the fold of truth (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4, Lord of Life Ch. 8, *1, Ch. 3 at 'violence', Red Alert Ch. 16, 50ff., 65ff.,  977-986, 1186Aff., Errors). Violent religion, seeking to secure 'converts' by such means is merely violating the nature of man, the power of God and seeking His rebuke. If He wanted violence, freedom would be unnecessary, and He alone responsible for the carnage. Since in His alone validated and verified book, the Book of the Lord (Isaiah 34:16), He exhorts and appeals (cf. Matthew 23:37ff., Ezekiel 33:11) continually, the freedom He made is respected. He does not make persons and then unmake them; but for this same reason,  the results accrue and man alone is responsible for the misuse of a grand gift.

Indeed, man is doubly responsible, for not only is there the nectar of freedom with all the powers of imagination, thought and innovation, but the gift of mercy, with its gratis grace, its sovereign performance, its divine manifestation in Jesus Christ, its ransom grant to all who receive Him.  If the first is abused, as it is, for all men are sinners; and if the second is despised, neglected, as it usually is, for not many come to Christ as distinct from the cultural varieties of formalism or fire without reality in the word of God; then often there is a third offence. The word of God is not merely NOT accepted, but rejected with such distancing, disdain, contempt or unreasoning recklessness that it adds iniquity to folly and to folly, wild contumacy. That the world still even exists is testimony to prodigious divine patience (cf. II Peter 3:9).

Islam, Rome and Communism, in particular,  have long misused man for man and his dreams, whether as religious visions or philosophic trances (cf. SMR 965-966): there has been a religiosity about Communism, combined with a cynicism, alas too well captured concerning Lenin, according to report - cf. SMR. 966, 971). What is to come will do worse if possible, and Revelation 13 shows that in universal extent, it is indeed possible! (cf. Lord of Life Ch. 8).

Out-poping popery, the new humanistic mysticism to which New Age (cf. SMR pp. 866ff.) lends such marvellous aid as a seductive platform, is coming. Subduing Israel is important in this schema for several reasons.

¨     First, it is an explicit restoration in accord with the Bible. God MUST be shown to be wrong if man is to be the criterion: and man is not at all shown to be right. Action! Murders! Anything! Hence anything to dispossess Israel is on the humanistic agenda, in those philosophic flights where savants construct the new world for the new man, who is really the very old man, who does not change his spots. If some do not like blood, then they can always let others do it, and be amazingly slow … to intervene!

¨     Secondly, Israel is a possible platform for free thought, and if thought is free, how can man be bound, but if man is not bound, how can they feel safe from one another ? Not without God, and Him, they do not want now any more than at the crucifixion as is all too readily attested (cf. Red Alert Ch. 16, Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8, SMR pp. 857ff., 864ff.).

 

	Thirdly, Israel does not have oil, Islam does, and Israel is not large, Islam is; and it is easier to make peace between a poplar and a peanut by asking the peanut to make way.
	Fourthly, Israel MIGHT return to the Lord, they may feel; in which case who knows what power might again pour into her, so it is well, to be safe, to exterminate her, or so to  amputate that the effectual result is much the same.

Then exalting tradition and including mysticism (no good from logic, for mystic humanism, since that leads to God), this devious dynamic leads on to the new grab, not this time by Hitler for Europe, but by MAN FOR THE WORLD. It is a simple extension.

However, fish bones stick in the throat, if you are not careful, and this world, whatever else might be said of it, is not at all careful. Israel sticks, and will stick, though for a small moment,  the world may be allowed a diversion by a seeming peace! The Bible sticks and will not go. Christ sticks and the prediction of the TIME of His hour remains (cf. Highway ... Ch. 4). The saints stick, so it is very important to confuse churches, undermine them, unite them and do other things convenient for their subjugation, and in stubborn cases, bash them  (as in China, and earlier in Russia, including of course imprisonment of pastors and destruction of property, spiced by making appearance of evil in the process).

It is all SO very difficult, but subduing Israel is a good start, and so they are continuing in that vein with a brand of hypocrisy which makes the blood think about curdling; but then, since this would do no good, it declines, but is duly impressed.

God will act in the terminal way at the terminus, having already given due notice (SMR pp. 763ff., 774ff., Appendix A). Man seeks his illicit ends, now more, now less consciously,  as if a cancer patient sought the spread of the invasive disease, to the brain, NOW!

THE SOLUTION IS

THE WAY OF TRUTH IN CHRIST JESUS

Man cannot manage himself unless he returns to God. His nature is stressed, warped and it needs replacement, not with the wizardries of psychology, the invasive use of drugs or lobotomies, but with the reconstructive, reconstitutive, regenerative power of the divine Creator, on HIS terms called the Gospel. It needs thus to be RESTORED to what it should be, not turned into something else, as if a fountain pen were given to some factory with instructions to turn it into a plough. It is all slightly ridiculous. Man trying to play God is serious business, but it is ludicrous comedy, with tragedy in the fifth Act.

In fact, millenia ago, the solution was as clear as was the problem, in Jeremiah and in Ezekiel.

CAN THE LEOPARD change his spots ? pertinently the Lord put it through Jeremiah 13:23:

^"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots?
then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil."

The short answer is, NO!

Ezekiel provides the answer in Ch. 18:31-32:

	" 'Cast away from you all the transgressions which you have committed, and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit.
	'For why should you die, O house of Israel?
	'For I have no pleasure in the death of one who dies,' says the Lord God.
	'Therefore turn and live!' "

Indeed, we see this same appeal placed in the New Covenant setting in Jeremiah 31:31ff., and again in Ezekiel 11:19-20 we see the transcendent operation needed:

"Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God."

It is undoubtedly fascinating to see this dual requirement GET A NEW HEART, and I WILL GIVE THEM the new heart and new spirit. It is the same in John, in the negative realm, where God both indicates that He will CLOSE their eyes and again, that THEY will close them (John 12:40, Matthew 13:14ff.). Both are true. IF you refuse the truth, then YOU close your eyes; and if you do it, then an active delusion may come as secondary pathology operates more and more, so that in the end there is a divine result, and the Lord Himself confirms your position (as explicit in II Thessalonians 2:10). BECAUSE, the Lord there says, they did not receive the love of the truth, THEREFORE He will send an active delusion.

So here, let us look on the positive. The Lord alone can do this (Romans 9:16, cf. John 1:12ff.), but in so doing, He is not acting in a vacuum, any more than merely implementing your active and spiritually diseased will (Romans 7:16,21, Ephesians 4:17-19, Romans 1). Sovereignly HE implements His desire for all (Colossians 1:19ff.), in terms of those who are not VIOLATED in the process, which IS His desire: for love is like that. Force is irrelevant, except in judgment; faith is critical in love; and only God can act when man's whole being is in spiritual subsidence before Him. Accordingly, God thus exhorts, appeals and in Christ, provides weeping over those who WILL not, even in His sight, even beyond all sense and sensibility, to the uttermost in His own knowledge, receive Him. He knows who are His, and has always known (Ephesians 1:4, Romans 8:29ff.).

This world needs a transfer of sovereignty, and it is so hostile to God that it obviously and palpably can hardly bear to have Israel back in existence, the Islamic curse being merely one potent expression of this rebellion against reality and against God Himself. It is the Christ of the Jews who is the ultimate focus of rejection, often by means as insidious as the devil himself, who has no greater objective than a false Christ, a devil's messiah as in Revelation 13-17, who with plausibility would deceive the very elect, IF it were possible. This,  mercifully in God's faithfulness, it is NOT! (Matthew 24:24 cf. 13-14).

Meanwhile, with many false prophets creeping in just as II Peter 2:1ff. predicted for this end of the Age (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5), and much confusion, the Gospel yet in its elemental and fundamental clarity continues to bring man to GOD ONLY, for HIS AUTHORITY ONLY, so that the Church is a SERVANT ONLY and not a Lord (cf. I Peter 5:12ff., II Corinthians 13:8-9), and there is ONE LORD (Ephesians 4:4), and ONE MASTER (Matthew 23:8-10). We ? "YOU ARE ALL BROTHERS," said Christ.

It is ONLY in the word of the Lord that the Church can bind (John 15:7, Matthew 4:4, Proverbs 30:6), and it is so because HE ONLY is Lord, and visions and the rest of it, useful as they may be, as Paul so abundantly shows, are NOT the stuff of authority for the church (II Corinthians 12:2ff.); for man is to live by EVERY WORD which proceeds out of the mouth of God, and NOT to add ANY to His word (Mark 7:7ff.).

The world however will seek to conquer the church by insidious propaganda, humanistic infiltration and the like, and has been doing just that for hundreds of years (cf. SMR pp. 857ff., 914ff., 926ff., Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8), seeking continually to overthrow if not this part, or doctrine, or aspect of the Lord, then that, so that in the end, only the bits would be left over for the hyenas, the holy hyenas, to digest at their leisure, in the night ... which comes (John 9:4, Revelation 13, II Thessalonians 2).

Let us then who are of the day, as Paul puts it, walk in the Spirit, abide in His word, avoid the hyenas and secure the people of the Lord from the wolves in sheep's clothing of which Christ spoke (Matthew 7), continuing quite simply as soldiers of the Cross (II Timothy 4:7), till the end, and that delightful consummation when He comes.

Let us be kind, and so preach the same, unchanged Gospel (cf. Galatians 1:6ff. which makes ANOTHER GOSPEL mere curse), and continue in the same unchanging Christ (Hebrews 13:8), till we meet Him face to face, when all the little idiosyncrasies, and all the grand and robust elements of the End of the Act appear on the stage of life, and He calls us: COME UP HERE! (Revelation 11, 18, Matthew 24:29ff.). It is then that there will occur the expedition to make the D-day solemnities of 1944 look small, and the Coming King will come. It seemed impossible to many, to come and die; but He did it, even on time; and it seems so to many now, that He will come and reign, judge and conclude the Age; but He will come in His own time, which is to be UNEXPECTED! as Matthew 24 shows so dramatically. HIS ? It is the kingdom which does not end (Daniel 7:25).

But as to the unbeliever, whether in the funereal shroud of sect, or false prophet, of humanistic mysticism or other philosophic folly and irrational excrescence: REPENT! that is the word.

The world is growing old, and the deceptions, ludicrous from their youth (cf. Things Old and New Chs. 9, 10 Epilogue, Appendix,  SMR pp. 1032ff.), are wrinkled and cancerous, growing to be sure, but not well.

Whoever you may be on this earth, you are no different from the rest of us, in the face of the Gospel,  in this: that UNLESS you should repent, you WILL PERISH, and that is more than a little in its setting (cf. Mark 9). Receive the UNCHANGING CHRIST with the UNCHANGING GOSPEL, that Christ died for sinners, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God:

who broke death physically,

who gives new life spiritually,

who gives this life as a test and an opportunity and calls all to Himself and hence to His word,

to FOLLOW Him and AS His servants,

to OBEY His word.

Is it so hard to wash ? to trust ? to accept and follow God and not man ? He made us and we are made for Him!

To be sure it will require a miracle for this (John 3 makes that clear). But a miracle for God is like playing tennis for me: it is (or was) something readily to be done! It is not as if God is unwilling for you to come, for He would have ALL (I Timothy 2, Colossians 1); and hence the winds are favourable.

So COME but not to a mere formal word, not to the front of the church, not in some display, but in your spirit and in your heart, to God in Christ who came for you, and be thankful, for this is a service spectacular and sovereign, that He actually came and displayed WHO HE IS on earth, that free from philosophers and false prophets, we might readily find Him, unconfused, unbemused and simply glad at the simplicity of it all (I Corinthians 1): for the milk of the Gospel IS simple as Paul attests, and the way is open. Walk in, then, as in John 10:9, and rest in Him.