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DESERTS AND DESSERTS
DELICACIES AND DESICCATIONS
Spiritual News, Biblical Truths
Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson
Published by World Wide Web Witness Inc.
October 2005
ISBN 09757881 7 5
PREFACE
As the sub-Saharan stress continues, the creeping desert drying, the sun scorching in one of the natural disasters of our time, so the treasures of truth continue their offers to all, rich or poor, in desert or pasture. Times pass, and the once so safe USA is now on the line, in a way all but inconceivable for centuries, while Britain faces disasters which even Hitler could not consummate. Admittedly, those deserts of aridity in the green and fair isle are of comparatively small appearance, the national church growing smaller in size, in speech and in reliability and faithfulness to the Bible, while the land suffers from the sway of an increasingly mute testimony and cute amorality; but the point is made, the vulnerability is there, and these deserts tend to gobble when the situation changes, rapidly!
One alien dynamic to Christian testimony, truth and stability in that once so great land, is that from its alliance with the European Union, that religionless body looking for a soul, so far removed from the once great Protestant Empire of Great Britain.
Dry is the heart and desiccated the soul of many, and not in England or the USA alone by any means, as the former pastures turn brown, the plenty of morality and nobility, love and charity, turn into the relics of righteousness and the profane grab for self steals a march. This was almost literally so notable in the Qantas forced landing recently, when several persons appear to have suffered fractures because of a virtual stampeded to get out at any price, whether to one's self or another, intemperately. The women and children and noblesse oblige with them, appeared as near as Saturn.
Turning to sport, we now hear of definite intent in a cricket match to hit the batsman, to injure and terrorise. You may say that this is not so new, but it is so blatant. It is one thing to BE intimidatory because of skill and expertise; but it is another to SEEK to be so in terms of injury as an aim, by simple aiming to hit a body. It reminds one of hitting a building in the USA, on the part of the Islamic terrorists. Of course, that matter is in a wholly more advanced situation, murderous and not within sporting confines.
Yet the spirit of some of these things, where the infliction of serious injury is not so important as winning in a GAME, or the evacuation from danger is more important than who else suffers because of the mode of evacuation seized: it is this what is becoming more menacing, less noble, less attractive, more meaningless because of the omission of the mastery of the Lord whose it is, without whom there is but hideous calumny incorporated in confusion (cf. SMR Ch. 5, 10, 3, 2, Victory ... Ch. 8)..
It erupts in al Maida's querulous butchery, incensed that Israel is permitted to exist and flourish despite multi-Islamic assault (Lord ... Ch. 8, esp. *1), it smashes into the Twin Towers, it imprisons in China as spiritually minded people annoy the crass confusion that inveigles materialists (cf. News 68, Beauty for Ashes Ch. 6, The Christian Pilgrimage Ch. 9, Repent or Perish Ch. 7), it imprisons to teach, as far as one can see, to OTHERS a lesson, sacrificing justice for utility; it fashions a 'unity' without purpose other than prosperity for Europe, alive with hope amid dreams not even formulated as this world whirs its way to its natural end, reinforced by supernatural judgment which already strikes it for its impenitence, just as the end of Revelation 9. the Lord foretold would be the case.
The abominable is now not merely permitted in the most public fashion: it is lauded and even PROTECTED, as in perverse 'marriages' and the like, perverted pastors in former or would-be churches in the very appearance of slapping the Lord's face, and this not for the first time - in view of I Corinthians 5 and 6, not to mention I Timothy 1:10. Man is not merely coming of age, like a geriatric, but daring to USE the word of God and the Church of God for the defections from doctrine and morality to such a point that even the malignity of murderers in the Islamic world can try on the Puritanic role in disdain!
While the spirit of the Age matures
like greying milk, long overdue, the glory of power and pardon, peace and
goodwill continues like fresh breezes from the ocean, on an industrialised
shore.
In this volume, we hope to present some of the delightful taste of the desserts of the Lord, brilliant sweetness and appealing wonders, and at the same time, to see the inward beauty of His word and way, in contrast to the desiccation and improvidence of this world's current stampede to the exit, from the theatre of existence!
It is good to see and seek the good amid the evil, the glory amid the shame, the wonder amid the blunder and the truth from the very mouth of God, amid the destruction of the twin towers of Holiness and Happiness in the name of mankind, neither kind nor manly, as he degenerates to his Last Post, the tragic solemnity of which, as an attestation, does little to remedy his aggravation of judgment by spiritual bluster and blindness.
It is good no less to realise that the Last Post is not to be sounded for all! It is for this world's way that it sounds, as it comes to the precipices of eternity; but for its Age of opportunity in the Gospel there is another call, continued long and never wrong, never changing, that of the Messiah who came that we might go where we belong, not where justice unswerving speaks truth without redress, but where mercy is founded and not impounded, where Christ is Lord and Saviour and truth speaks because of sacrifice, His, to those who receive Him (John 1:1-14).
Nevertheless, with this grace increasingly categorically rejected by this world, there is an ushering in of a period of destruction and decline, with the aura of devastation.
The trumpets of Revelation remind one of this last post: those which came after the seventh seal was broken (Rev. 8:1), and the silence of half an hour in heaven is recorded, attesting the sheer horror to proceed, but perhaps no less the marvel of the testimony of the saints which continues (as in Revelation 12:11), despite any and every punitive effort and mesmeric madness in the governments which ending the Age, end also themselves.
For the saints of God, however, these trumpets, being near the end, remind no less of the near return of the King whose slaying, of which both Gentile and Jew must bear responsibility in Pilate and priest, was an invitation to plagues for peace, and confusion for clarity. If you cut your jugular, it is useless to complain about the design; your hand could have avoided such a pass!
These things have come, do come and will come to pass in their due place, in the divinely authorised series and according to the predicted edicts. But whether they come at once or in a little while, each day is a part of the way of wisdom, witness and wonder in the lives of those who, knowing God, know also both the truth and the love of God, and like a craft in turmoiled seas, sail on to the further shore.
For many, however, there are but the endless zones of rolling dunes, desert works without wonder, since this is their chosen path, track and line. By contrast, with such a Guide as Jesus the Christ, in the power of His Spirit, there is more than endurance, more than forbearance and more than wit provided: there is a joy which none can remove, as one seeks to deliver whom one may by the Gospel which like a helicopter, provides timely removal from the illicit train, churning the very desert of life in its befouling fiasco of misdirection, and this through an active anti-faith which now increasingly grips this globe.
CONTENTS
Isaiah 33:6 -
A Rare Dessert in the Desert
Isaiah 33:17ff.
A delicious delicacy
Drugs, Devilries, Despair, Delight and the Bypass Route
The Australian September 3-4
HOW GRACE BUTTED IN ON SIN AND BUTTED IT OUT!
Romans 5:12-21 with Romans 6:1-2
THREE NOTS AND FOUR BUTS!THREE KNOTS AND THREE BUTTINGS!
News 355
THE MISTS CLEAR
AS THE SUN OF RIGHTEOUSNESS ARISESAND HIS GLORY
IS THE CONTROL AND OBJECTIVERomans 6 continued
A STUDY IN SLUMP AND SPIRITUALITY
And a TONIC from the BIBLICAL TRUTH
II Timothy 3-4
News 356
ABC News Radio, September 11, 2005
TERRORISM AND TRUTH
News 357
TIMES ON LINE, September 14, 2005,
ABC News Radio September 15, 2005Enlightenment Magazine March-May 2005
THE DYNAMICS OF DEVOTION
AND LIFE WITH THE LORD:
A king displaying the contours of companionship with the Lord
A pageant of devotion from a disciple of deity ...
but WHERE does it BEGIN ? and HOW!
VALLEYS AND SUMMITS
in the Biblical Book of Revelation
Overview of its Mode of Depiction, and Concentration on the End
DANIEL - CASE IN POINT
DELICACIES OF
DELICIOUSNESS
AND DEEDS OF DIVINE DYNAMIC
ARE COMPANIONS IN GRACE
EPILOGUE on DANIEL
News 358
Adelaide Advertiser, October 5, 2005