EASTER 2002

First a preliminary, then
the Rest of the Message at the hyperlink

This Easter is rather special. It is almost beginning to suggest blood in a way that leads the mind right back to Calvary.

On the Passover Day, admittedly one which Israel has yet to find fulfilled in Christ the Lamb  of God (John 1:29), because of an unbelief which has led to its vast ghastliness of history for 2 millenia, such as anything severed from its source might find (cf. Isaiah 51:1-2), what did another source of unbelief in the Prince of Peace manage to do, one which would similarly degrade Jesus the Christ ? It contrived to throw a bomb to kill many and injure hundreds, into an Israeli hotel at a beach resort. Some Passover, some awareness!
 

• Thus death of Jews, once more, has come at the very time when they assigned death to Christ, the past speaking as if it did not know how to be silent, and unbelief challenging unbelief as if it had nothing to learn from the history of the Jew, concerning its own future!

This sad event, evidence of human horror and the colossal fraud of humanism, in ethics as in metaphysics, reminds that the only place for peace is not Islam, not Judaism, not international humanism, with its contrived formulae and exaltation of man, who is anything but exalted in heart, but in the Christ who died, the just for the unjust to bring us to God (I Peter 3:18). No form, no man-made formulae whether for Israel or Russia, India or Pakistan, Afghanistan or Sri Lanka, will do it. Heads without hearts adjusted to the only true source of unity for man, his Maker, and without the invitation which alone brings one to Him, these merely fester, and foster whatever perilous substitute for faith and truth they contrive.

Contrivance killed Christ. Power resurrected Him. Contrivance seeks peace in the Middle East, while murder is set as the bomb for the pattern which preceded the ransom of Christ, the Passover in this year of disgrace, 2002.
 

• So much for man. But will he learn ? Today, for our Easter Message 2002, we invite you to ponder the item obtainable by hyperlink, and you will find how contemporary history brings you to the foot of the Cross.

Meanwhile, remember this from Isaiah 2 (NKJV):

"Enter into the rock, and hide in the dust,
From the terror of the Lord
And the glory of His majesty.
The lofty looks of man shall be humbled,
The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down,
And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

"For the day of the Lord of hosts
Shall come upon everything proud and lofty,
Upon everything lifted up—
And it shall be brought low—
Upon all the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up,
And upon all the oaks of Bashan;
Upon all the high mountains,
And upon all the hills that are lifted up;
Upon every high tower,
And upon every fortified wall;
Upon all the ships of Tarshish,
And upon all the beautiful sloops.

"The loftiness of man shall be bowed down,
And the haughtiness of men shall be brought low;
The Lord alone will be exalted in that day,
But the idols He shall utterly abolish.
They shall go into the holes of the rocks,
And into the caves of the earth,
From the terror of the Lord
And the glory of His majesty,
When He arises to shake the earth mightily.

"In that day a man will cast away his idols of silver
And his idols of gold,
Which they made, each for himself to worship,
To the moles and bats,
To go into the clefts of the rocks,
And into the crags of the rugged rocks,
From the terror of the Lord
And the glory of His majesty,
When He arises to shake the earth mightily."

But what is the end of this:

"Cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils,
Whose breath is in his nostrils,
For of what account is he ?"

Turn to Him who was and is despised, though many affect to follow Him,
yet seem oblivious to the will of God, for when your sins are cast on Him,
and your will is cast into His hand, then His hand is upon you and your life is not only hidden in Him, but bidden by Him! HIS sheep hear His voice and follow Him; whatever else would you expect sheep to do with their Shepherd, who bought them with Himself.

See John 10:9,27-28, Isaiah 53, Micah 7:19ff., Psalm 103, Colossians 3:1-3.

It is then that you KNOW that "our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transfom our lowly body whtat it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself" (Colossians 2:20-21).