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Chapter 6

HIGH TIME

TIME IS TURNING UP ITS TOES BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS
DATES ARE INCLINING TO DECLINE ARCANE ANTIQUITY
AND INVITE CONSUMMATION
SHORTLY
 

A Date with what Is Real and Never Dated

The date game is up. The ludicrous insistences on assumptions, now better seen as guesses as Professor Andrews emphasised in his excellent piece of learned iconoclasm of science falsely so-called, God, Science and Evolution, Ch. 6, is contradicted on all sides.

It is spurned in terms varying from
 

), both in the intense proliferation, on current geological theory, at the outset and the comparative stability since;


but this is not a dating excursion*1, merely a date with reality. Let us proceed.
 

There is only one sum. It is simple matter of convergence of evidence and logic on the one hand, and divergence of gratuitous guessing and evidence on the other.

ALL is readily answerable in dates of thousands of years; incomparable complexities, perplexities and contradictions arise when science by guesses replaces science by evidence. These things are shown in much detail in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, Ch. 7, Part E, and for the more recent material within it, the reader may care to ponder *2,  *3,*4 and *5  in that section. The dating fiasco is becoming quite a nice parallel for a new kind of Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera,

He is the Very Model of a Modern Evolutionary Major!
Things animal and mineral,
things astral and dim pastel,
dates and rates and spates and bones,
the very matrix marvel!

NOTHING ever verifies.
Oh NOTHING ever comes!

The new delusion of trying
to make it come from nothing:
has nothing to it,
or for it,
or in it.

Nothing doesn't do anything,
since it cannot,
not being there to perform.

(The last line could be sung three times in their tempo conscious mode, with a suitable delay before ‘to perform. Gilbert was apparently very careful about the exact enunciation required. )
 
 

THE NARROWING CONFINES

While however the past is being concertina-ed into a more modest estimate of itself, and the man of the moment is being brought to the verge of self-imposed extinction, the future is looming closer and closer. Israel is back as required in Luke 21:24, for it could not be restored to the Jews from the Gentiles, without Israel being back! Moreover it was repetitively predicted in the Old Testament, which has that glorious disregard of the difficulties the secular find in time, by giving at any time, anything for any phase, as the prophecy provided. Thus before ever Israel killed its Messiah, it was told it would do it (Isaiah 53, 49:7), and the result (Isaiah 65:13-15), as well as the end of the matter (Isaiah 66, Micah 7:15ff. and see SMR pp. 502ff.), which is now gloomily looming in the wars and tensions with Islam and the secular pragmatists, felt and displayed towards Israel.

For us who believe, however, those we grieve for Israel and all who, deluded without the Messiah, find only violence or impotence in international affairs, there is a latent joy in all this, for it is all SCHEDULED prophetically, REQUIRED to happen, so that as it now happens, and is seen in its perspective (SMR Appendix A, Answers to Questions Ch. 5),.

It is time to realise that just as He said, God showed these things so that we could rejoice when we saw them begin to happen. The end is drawing near for this prodigal and prodigious Age, yes from its recent dawning in drastic style with the predicted pillar of vapour, now realised in the atomic bomb (SMR pp. 794, 803, 679). This has indeed with the restoration after nearly two millenia of Israel as predicted, and the recovery of Jerusalem, been a divine signature. The enormous collateral signals shown in SMR Ch. 8 and Answers to Questions 5 merely confirm, monumentally and continually, yes and increasingly.

The lightning wars of triumph predicted for Israel, among turmoil, against multiplied and multiplicitous foes, Zechariah 12 have transpired, and fired the imagination of military strategists (cf.  SMR Ch. 9). The TIMING for these is most clear. It is to be at a time AFTER the crucifixion of the Messiah by Israel and AFTER its return from the destruction which was to follow (Luke 19:42ff.).  It was to occur in the interval leading on to a coming repentance of Israel, when they would "look upon Me whom they pierced". (Zech. 12:10). It was to precede the personal, glorious and triumphant return of Christ to this earth, and to Jerusalem in particular (Zech. 14); and to follow the division of the city of Jerusalem into two (which happened in 1948, and continued until 1967) - as in Zech. 14:1.

This little schema from around 500 B.C. is noteworthy, for here before the sin, antecedent to the crime of the murder of the Messiah, not only do we see the death He was to accomplish (as in Isaiah 53, and Zech. 3:9), and the date of it (as in Daniel 9 cf. SMR pp. 886ff., Biblical Blessings Ch. 6), but the repentance of those who, some half millenium later, were to commit the murder in the first place. Such is the divine perspective which indeed knows the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10; 41, 48), because He understands everything. It is God, not man who does this; and it is God, not man who shows it! Vanity leads not merely to delusion, but to death.

That, that divine performance duly attested, exhibiting truth in the midst of human error, and what the error will in truth require,  it is scientific method in operation, in religion; for it is well able to meet it, with the rigour it requires.

Not only so, we see in this divine perspective deep  in the hearts of those who were after sad centuries of mockery as predicted or implied in Deuteronomy 29ff., and Leviticus 26, Ezekiel 36ff., were to return triumphant, as they did, only then to realise, in the midst of wars, that victory is defeat, unless you know God; and so it was they would come to Him. This is the next station.

It is all very simple and very clear, since God knows what He is doing, and our time is merely an invention of His. HE does not have to wait to find out, so He tells when it seems to Him good to do so (Isaiah 48, 46:10).

Meanwhile, the evils, in persons growing worse and worse as in II Timothy 3, the false prophets, sects and -isms, with their lethal loads varying from killing souls to murdering or maiming bodies, the tendency of much professing religion to ignore the power of God and to become mere form, these things are now all the rage; and they have been all the writing in the prophets who foretold. False prophets as predicted, abound (Matthew 24:24). Nearly every conceivable type of parody, distortion and contortion of the simple Gospel and the majestic word of the living God proceeds, as planned, provided and predicted (II Peter 2-3). Mockery of the flood in its earlier judgment and of the near coming of Christ are foretold equally for these last phases of the setting sun of our increasingly rabid Age (II Peter 3 cf. The Other News  1, Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 74, p. 103, Joyful Jottings  8, Divine Agenda Ch.   4; Answers to Questions Ch.  5).

Jerusalem has become a burdensome stone to those who concern themselves intrusively with it, like the USA and the UN, as Zechariah announced. Wars and rumours of wars as in Matthew 24 are morning breakfast and evening solemnity. Peace has gone on vacation for the squabbling incredibly blind masses of striving, perplexed, distressed, anxious humanity, fulfilling not merely Matthew 24:6 but Luke 21:26.

As to the last verse, this includes also concern at astronomical happenings, and it is common knowledge that not only have asteroids narrowly missed the earth as it ploughs through space, governed by God in fact: but with humanistic wrath at Him increasing, carelessness is stripped in the popular mind to fear. It is true of course that asteroid type impact is to come with fearsome results (as predicted in Revelation 8:10). Sea and waves roaring (Luke 21:25) are in line with the greenhouse effect, no longer a matter of any question, but of increasing rates of development, with polar melts leading to increased sea level, while the increased heat in the system from the reflective capacity of the increasingly CO2 invested atmosphere, means more energy for the greater waters to find surging through low islands in their tempestuousness.

These things have already developed significantly (cf. SMR Ch. 8, pp. 624ff. , Scoop of the Universe 29 and Repent or Perish Ch. 6). The sheer enormity of unrepentant ferocity provides the continuing testimony that we are on the last lap (Revelation 9:20-21). Unrepentance is a game, peacelessness is a plague, tension is a mirror both of the times and of the predictions for them (Luke 21:26).

Meanwhile the international machinery implied in Revelation 13 and 17, Daniel 7, in order to enable the oppressive control of financial transactions, and the massing of hypnotic forces to induce a complete collapse in the many, of real religion, and a transfer to the illusory projections of false glory by humankind, is not merely present. It grows and the stimulus for it, is growing.

Terrorism is making the UN and the European Union alike, look to their laurels. WHAT can be done ? HOW can aeroplanes, sophisticated emblems of man's control, being turned into skyscrapers, or other like items, to the destruction of both and of security: how CAN this be prevented ? What a mockery it is! How much combination, oiliness of mouth, State privilege, and soon, rejection of freedom of speech is involved... What is inexpedient, as for Caiaphas (John 11:50), is not to be continued. What is thus must soon go; and this is the mark, even in the end, the mark of the beast.  DO IT, or leave us (Rev. 13).

As to the last, freedom of speech, of religion, it is already presaged sufficiently (cf. Joyful Jottings  Preface, 13, 14, pp. 99ff.; News 145, Pall of Smoke and Diamond of Joy Chs.   3,  10). In Victoria its basis  is being effaced too efficiently, while in S.A. the threat is mounting: the Legislative Assembly now has before it, tabled for Feb 12, 2002*2A, a work of dictatorial dynamic relative to the internet, ostensibly and firstly concerned with smut, but actually, with its tentacular phrases, apt to prevent what the State DOES NOT WANT, what it deems unfit, what it seeks for its own liberty, at the expense of whatever does not meet its thoughts! It explicitly MENTIONS religion in its purvey!

But fit ? For what ? All but incredibly, it if for an under-18 year old of its dreams, envisioned and adjusted from time to time as the criterion varies in its social setting. Might it offend such a
one ? Ah well, then of course, it is offensive. Offend in what way ? in some way to be determined as the committee broods.

This is surely the worst law ever made in this land; for not merely is it intrusive, ill-conceived, flairing like a wild steed at the nostrils, but it is conceived in areas not explicitly faced, and facing with a firing squad of law in prison or fine, it seeks to intimidate what could well include the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Except it expressly provide to prevent such execution of religious liberty, it must be held guilty not only of the denial of what many fought for, in this land; but of a shadowy and subtle means of doing it.

Already it is so clear to so many in power as the world groans and heaves on its disastrous, Christ-denying way (and even some who profess him in lip, deny him in deed, mixing with Moslem religions as if prayer were favourably viewed by God, when Christ and antichristian thrusts, meet and shake hands, indeed bend knees ... to what !). Co-operation and international pooling of intelligence, of permissions, of approaches to make SOME MIDDLE way look ... comparatively, good. Thus in the USA you have the obnoxious and perilous business of congratulating idolatrous religion and joint prayer in the presence of the leader of the nation, to various gods, definably not merely different, but wholly diverse (cf. Red Alert ... Chs.  5,  6, and  8).

NO God can have/not have a Son, save by grace through faith/not save by grace through faith, incarnate as the Messiah and NOT do so, provide the Saviour as man, and not do so, be resurrected in that format and not using it anyway, and not do so. It is all folly, this foolish bending of heart to the shrines of many. It is one thing God has detested vocally for thousands of years. What do we read in the divine expostulation to a declining Israel of old, in Malachi 2:11-12:

"Judah has dealt treacherously,
And an abomination has been committed in Israel and in Jerusalem,
For Judah has profaned
The Lord’s holy institution which He loves:
He has married the daughter of a foreign god.
May the Lord cut off from the tents of Jacob
The man who does this, being awake and aware,
Yet who brings an offering to the Lord of hosts!"*2A

There is a supreme sanction against such dereliction of duty, such profanation of deity, such agreeable society on earth, doing despite to the divine conditions of purity and truth! It is to be "cut off".  Yet often they say, It is expedient, for then we will win this way and that! or, Why does it matter ? as if they forgot that God is PERSONAL, at all! or that He commanded anything.
 

God has spoken. Man has spoken. As God said through Jeremiah,  noted in Jeremiah 44:28, to the nation, indeed of the remnant returning after discipline, to their land:

"a small number who escape ..
shall know
whose words will stand,
Mine or theirs."


That is the way of it, and has been throughout history, and with lively drama in the last half-century while Islam has sought to grind the outcast people - in many surrounding nations at least - in fact, to thrust out the restored Israel into the ground,  and has been ground into pieces for it, as predicted of ANY who would try such things (Zechariah 12). We HAVE seen whose word will stand, theirs or those of the LORD who CAME to earth, and whose Bible is the book which He has chosen. It is this among all books, which He verifies, alone, and in terms of which what happens, is the exhibition of the draft model, over millenia. (Cf. SMR pp. 786, 829, and More Marvels from the Majesty and Mind of the Almighty Ch. 4.)

TIME is shrivelling. The ludicrous concept, contrary to all known law and to the necessities of logic alike (cf. Repent or Perish Ch.  7, TMR Chs.  1,  8), that what lacked did it all, is falling like Autumn leaves, red with blushing, incontinent to depart.

If, said Snoopy, I were a leaf,  I should cling and cling and cling ... or some such words. So does man cling to what is not robust, and hope in dream. But the world is no dream; history is no lullaby; and the incendiary sentiments towards the creator are a blasphemy of spirit before all words, and a spiritual conflagration. Is it no wonder that planes hit buildings, Maos and Stalins, with Hitler, kill tens of millions, and mercy is discarded as improvident. Yes now, more and more, for many powers that be, 'truth is fallen in the street' (Isaiah 59:14) - it is expedient that this should die, rather than the people. Alas, they did just that last time, when Christ the truth, was ventured for gain, even presented with death for their own convenience, their cultural containment.

What then was their penalty last time ? It was this, expulsion from their place for nearly two millenia. Now it is the WORLD itself which is falling into this expediency ... and what will be ITS penalty ? now that the Gospel has for thousands of years been preached, and before that shown most diligently in Isaiah, Zechariah and others of the prophets (cf. Balms, Arrows and Balms 17, That Magnificent Rock Ch. 3)! Alas, you see it in Isaiah 66:24 as in Mark 9. It is ONLY in the divine mercy that any may endure (cf. Psalm 32); for if the LORD should mark iniquity, WHO should stand as the Psalmist declares. When this is ignored, traded in or tampered in, there remains no more, but a certain fiery expectation (Hebrews 10:27, 12:25ff.). There is no need to be concerned about the flames for their own part; it is the fearful exclusion in the torment of guilt which burns the sharpest.

What else penetrates is little, after that! Justice scorches and mercy intervenes. Man is becoming a specialist in being merciless as his ideologies make him vain.

Yet man without mercy is less than a flea.

So in his fallen, forsaken perspective, clinging to the failed, the fallen and the promiscuous in spirit, man proceeds to the international consortium of powers soon to become a weapon wielded by a dictator, more suave and shrewd than Hitler, more manipulative than Stalin or Lenin, more embracive than Mao, and more deadly than all; for the world will be his field. England will not be in power to fight. Escape is to God only. The pressure as in Revelation 13, 17, Daniel 7, II Thessalonians 2, indeed Daniel 12 with Micah 7, Psalm 2 and Revelation 16, 19 will be ON! (Cf. The Other News Ch. 5, Biblical Blessings Chs.  1,  2 and SMR pp. 750Bff., 683ff., 909ff., 967ff.). Man will assuredly in the end, masquerade as God. He first seeks with nature myths and other impertinences to distance the Lord, then to exalt himself, then last to deify his own image. It is then that the end comes (II Thessalonians 2). It could not well do otherwise; for when the creature seeks to impersonate the Creator, and to rule the world in such spiritual perversion, the end has already come. It now merely needs announcement! (cf. Matthew 24:36-51).
 
 

ESCAPES CAN BE EXCITING, AND INVITING:
PARALYSIS HERE IS PRETENCE

Escape into the truth is sublime

HOW shall we escape ? asks Hebrews 2, in view of the prodigious performances of God,


 


 


In the perspective of truth, there is an avenue much used, very available, most sacred, entirely personal, individual and solemn. It is the cross of Christ crucified, who became sin that others might be covered in His shame, brought in love on Himself, rather than ourselves (II Cor. 5:17-21). It is in this one must glory, for its testimony is the truth (Galatians 6:14*3).

It is useless to be too good, as if unbelief were some better thing when pride or indifference propelled it, instead of carnality or deceit; for is it not in the end deceit to ignore the truth, to pretend the lie and to have things come from nowhere in particular for no particular reason, in a highly particular universe where all things have cause and demand its recognition (cf. SMR Ch. 3, Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Barbs, Arrows and Balms   6,  7 and Causes)!

There is nowhere to hide. There is no need to look. Christ is there, the rock of refuge and the tower which is higher than I (Psalm 61):
 


Attend to my prayer.
From the end of the earth I will cry to You.
When my heart is overwhelmed;
Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
 


A strong tower from the enemy.
I will abide in Your tabernacle forever,
I will trust in the shelter of Your wings."


NOTES

*1 If you want one, see That Magnificent Rock Ch. 7, and in particular Section E;  and Divine Agenda  Ch. 1, with Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 13, for example; also SMR Ch. 2.

*2A

In the form now tabled for the Assembly, there appears scope for some exemptions. The perfectly needless air of big brother's obtuse, not to say linguistically alien, 'coverage' however remains.

With such novelties of speech and statistical 'authority' in morals, or what is left of them in such a law, such basis for dictation, there is however perhaps the same measure of reliability with 'reviews' and decisions as with the strikes of some of the US 'smart' bombs in Afghanistan (capable of  hitting relief food or UN post, or even when called in swiftly, their own troops).

Like these, the programmatic law is fine, when provided with correct co-ordinates. It is precisely these however which are missing, with man pleasing not God, but himself, and turning himself legislatively into a very small, very incompetent because very ill-placed god.
 
 

*2B
Cf. Jeremiah 5:7-9, 8:7-9,18-19, 9:12-15. The categorical nature of the divine declamation in 9:12-15 should be observed. There is an intense hatred for any combination of formal religion towards Himself, and any other gods, which being unreal, make mockery both of the 'worshippers' and of God, who however is not mocked. The consequences are beyond all war, all calamity: for they are directive, the latter merely matters of means (cf. Amos 3:1-6 where this is noted)

Desolation comes where mercy, without repentance, is dumped like rubbish by the delinquent among men. Combination tops and trunks in religion are the top of the line for requisition of ruin. They appeal ... to that.

Amos 4 is eloquent in pointing out the progressive character which can attach to this sort of ruin. With Revelation 9:20-21, it shows that instead of repenting at these reminders, people may continue steadfast, liike wound-up toy soldiers, warring with the 'fate' they induce from a very personal source!
 

*2
See Barbs, Arrows and Balms Appendix 3,
Biblical Blessings Ch. 15, Extended Endnote 2, Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Ch.  11, With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch.   3, The Magnificence of the Messiah, Endnote 1, SMR Ch. 6 and  Index, KH 9, Section 14, JJ 25, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs.  15, 16, Stepping out for Christ Ch.  5, Things Old and New Ch.  2, Excursion 2A; Light of Dawn Ch.   3; Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Chs.  5, 6
 

*3
See Questions and Answers   2.