Now again the world is filled
like the ocean with water, with mobile and often raging ideas of human agendas.
Nearly 3 and one
half millenia have not taught all or even the
bulk of mankind the futility of such will-bound fiascos, dampened its pride,
or tempered its arrogance. Neither the blood of millions nor the agony of
many in two world wars, and the follies of savage waste in the Cold War have
instructed it. Neither pending devastation environmentally or astronomically,
moves it to the tears of repentance or the beauty of faith in its Maker,
as He has revealed Himself so precisely, and definitively in Jesus Christ
(cf. Hebrews 1, John 1, John 8:58).
It still hovers
over its pad, as if it made it, ignoring God like a divorcee seeing her detested husband that was, in a crowd.
There is the UN,
NATO, the relic of Russia, the USA, the WCC, there are the
various PLANS noted in Ch. 11 of It Bubbles, It Howls … He Calls, such as
Earth Charter, Unification of Religions, the Swing mode and so on. There
are plans, programs and conferences, there is rapprochement and alienation,
co-operation and hostility; new things vie with old, and all is in a turmoil like a great interlocking couple of oceanic
whirl-pools, that know no rest, and together are pulsing to sink anything
near.
The world is near;
man is near and his end is precisely as programmed, very near, before his
King returns, to whom it last time showed such gratitude at His graces and
joy in His wisdom, pure devotion at His health restoring miracles and rapture
at His truth, that it decided for a program that would work very slowly indeed,
to have His life pour out on the dust. Indeed if that were all it was, there
it would have been; but He, being Lord, committed His Spirit to His Father
who sent Him from heaven, to which He returned, and duly rose from the dead,
to the transforming joy of His disciples and the rebuke of His murderers.
The spirit of murder has not gone.
Man is good at
murders, and in the last century managed tens of millions of them, always
of course in the interests of some plan or program, for wealth, or national
power, or self-assertion, or envy, or other moral cancers, or for idolised principles which never had the goodness to
work, or for prejudice or pride, or philosophical speculation or ethical
innovation, for land or for history, for tradition or the trappings of name
and fame.
Mankind in history
has shown himself to be expert at maiming; but when more than in this illustrious,
highly developed NOW ? The mind scarcely can face
the task of considering, or even conceiving the thousands upon thousands
of agonised lives, where limbs are missing, chopped
off in the young, as in some part of Africa,
or where starvation has compromised health, removed loved ones, desecrated
the reward of long labour; where health departs
and ruin stares icily, with eyes that see something not on this earth, and
proper only for hell, like an export.
The aid of sexual
gratification along bestial lines, has produce the AIDS of rebuke; and many
are those in this matter at least, innocent, whose pangs follow the
self-gratification of others, of whose follies they are, like passive smokers,
now the recipients.
The DIVINE AGENDA,
however, while rich in prediction of just such things as we have repeatedly
seen, and notably in SMR Chs.
8-9 with Answers to Questions Ch. 5,
has something better, just as it did for the Israelites in Pharaoh’s day, hold something
better than mere continuation in slavery. For the Jews then, the promised
land awaited their mere taking on the part of the power and promises of God;
but when they arrived around 1400 B.C., following miracles that made it seem
like a tour, requiring to be sure, endurance and faith, but giving water
and food to millions in the desert as they left behind perhaps the greatest
world army of the day, in triumph: what then ?
What then did they do ?
THEY DID NOT GO
IN. They were afraid. They would prefer, in many cases and indeed it appears
in the vast majority, the slavery of Egypt to the life of faith, in
the premises promised! Hardly ANY ONE of them wanted to go in, so that all
perished in the desert over 40 years, except those who had had the faith
in the first place to go in.
They went in,
after Moses had passed to the presence of the Lord. The others stayed where
unbelief had put them, and perished. They perished because when at the threshold
of promise, with only will in the way, unbelief in the heart, folly in the
mind as ruler, they WOULD NOT go in (cf. Luke 19:42ff.,
Matthew 23:37, Ezekiel 33:11, I Timothy 2).
It is not different
today, though the locale has changed, and the drama has reached its final
Act, with its ultimate scenes in the wings.
Now Gentiles and
Jews alike, faced with the Promise of the Messiah, who long ago came precisely
at the date assigned, did exactly what was required in the multiplied prophecies
concerning Him, so that in fact NO ONE has EVER been able, then or now, to
show ONE single case of failure in the exalted task which ONLY GOD could
meet. Being God in flesh, He however met it with a certain exuberance with
did not lack either joy or gravity (cf. Hebrews 5);
and offered Himself as the Key, King and Saviour
from the sin which is the basis of the afflictions of mankind (Isaiah 53:1-6).
Do they, mankind,
now ‘go in’ to this promised land, receiving the divine provision of Christ,
accepting the promises, the Person, the grace, the gift of eternal life,
the passport to heaven, the emplacement of divine power and provisions in
one’s life NOW, this the down-payment as also the harbinger of a peace incomparable, and past
all mere analysis, natural and supernatural, beautiful and profound, rational
and real, spiritual and from the Origin of all, the Lord ?
No. In large and
sophisticated ignorance, in wilfulness unspeakable,
they pick up the ruins of the last 200 years of savage folly, wise folly
and magnificent duplicity, in which they have long deceived themselves, as
they do now deceive themselves, wishing to believe themselves though their
own natures mock the very concept: what do they now do ? Why just the same
as is usual in this case. They ignore the only God there is: and either inventing
new ones which, as Moses put it in his own day, ‘came newly up’, without
having the advantage of existence outside the minds of their creator, duped
man, or else dispensing with gods altogether, like broken spirits deciding
never again to use ANY mathematics, and just to guess, they proceed like
lemmings into the philosophic sea.
They just drown
in incompetence, pride, pretence, words without reason, visions without basis,
ethical concepts without any POSSIBLE logical
ground, inventing their own purposes, programs but NOT their own selves,
so that like uncouth invaders into a scientific laboratory, they smash what
they find and lose what they smash.
The DIVINE AGENDA
provides for all this, and reading Revelation reveals the intractability
of the follies and vanities of man in their sequential character (read especially
the end of Revelation 9); and the inevitability, GIVEN the non-repentance,
of the result. It proceeds in stories, like a skyscraper, except that this
one is built downwards, into the pit.
As we cover recent
news and news of the past in synthesis, and ponder the program of God instead
of being impressed with the earthy programs of the earth, we find that exalted
beauty even in this desert, like the magnificent little flowers of the desert
which bloom unseen to most. The truth growing before our eyes as we watch
history, just as it is already written to all in the Bible, is found alive
in our lives, who believe, by the divine grace of His presence. This is the
triple alliance that counts.
Central is the
cross of Christ which is the greatest therapy of all time, the adequate therapy
and the therapy before therapy has any place at all. "God forbid," says Paul, "that I should glory except
in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified to
me, and I to the world" (Galatians 6:14).
It was so simple in
architecture; but profound in portent. It still is. The resurrection (q.v.
indexes) is past; that of us who
believe is to come. But what we WAIT FOR IS HIM, the Lord, the PERSONAL BEING
who came from heaven and will come, just as He left. Living in this life
without the air of heaven is like being in a room shut, and without windows.
Draw up the blind, then, and open the windows by faith and receive the Lord,
for it is time to come to Him, for He is coming for us, each in his category,
and in hers (John 10:9, Romans 4:25-26, Isaiah 55, Romans 3:25ff., Romans
8:29ff.).
Are you His ? You will be if you come in faith to the Lord’s Christ, Jesus Christ according to His word,
repenting and not constructing, being remade and not making programs instead.
He has always known His own (Ephesians 1;4). YOU
have not always known Him. When you come, you may, for by faith the results
are simply a gift, like your life from the womb in the first place (cf. John
3). If however you are already His, then the information of His word and
the confirmation in this world, is astoundingly
delightful, like a warm spring in the snow.
Let us attend,
then, to the DIVINE agenda.
CHAPTER 1
DIVINE AGENDA:
IT MOVES BUT IS NOT MOVED
News 134
A
Recent Look at the Heavens:
their
significance, their ways, their source
and
their consummation
Arp
and Astronomy
Back
to the Bible
Coming
to the Creator
CHAPTER 2
QUENCHING SCHOOLS
News 135
Misapplication of
the Government Fire Brigade
Reported in New
Life in a recent issue, near the end of our great A.D. 2000
CHAPTER 3
NEWS 136
Time Magazine,
Dec. 4, 2000, pp. 52ff.,
18th., TV News
Where
are you going, my pretty maid ?
CHAPTER 4
THERE IS ONLY
ONE, BUT YOU NEED THE RIGHT ONE
The
word of God continues in its orderly,
authoritative
way to cover its extraordinary scenario, towards the consummation of events
WHEN THE OBVIOUS IS DISTASTEFUL,
INVENT
SOMETHING THAT DOES NOT WORK ...
CHAPTER 5
Berlin DW TV, December 21, 2000
Christmas is
about to Come!
But first let us
think...
It is time to consider:
ISAIAH
9
and the SLIM LINE that is not
being FOUND by the LOST
THE CHILD AND
THE COVENANT
THE KINGDOM AND
THE WAY
in the light of
recent events
CHAPTER
SIX
News 138
THE LOST BOYS OF SUDAN IN THE LOST WORLD
AND THE FINDINGS ON ‘FOUNDLINGS’
The Australian, Friday, Dec. 22,
p. 11 Features
Where
it has come from, where it is going, and why
CHAPTER SEVEN
DEE-PHI
HUM
(or DEFY-HIM)
Floundering
about in the Foothills of Folly
or
Founding the
Foundations of Bubylon*1 the Great
(No, this is
not a plus and minus option,
but a question
of which negative)
OCEAN-STAR
REFLECTS
CHAPTER 8
TEMPLE MOUNT AND MOUNTING
WITH WINGS...
News 139
Who do
you think you are ? This is my land, mate.
The
little matter of Israel
and Islam...
CHAPTER 9
THE DIVINE
AGENDA FOR THE INDIVIDUAL CH
RISTIAN
Don't
be Haunted by Hebrews ... Vault on it!
INCLUDING:
EXCURSION into STATISTICS, SCIENCE and
SPIRITUALITY,
REDEMPTION AND ETERNITY