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CHAPTER 5 "WHERE IS THE PROMISE OF HIS COMING..." ? (II Peter
3:4) 1
THE
CHARACTER OF HIS COMING THIS is a question put by mockers in the
terminal velocity area of world development. As this predicted phase, the
end is coming like an asteroid, sighted and sited by astronomers, too late
to alter its course, converging with earth. In fact, it is Jesus Christ who
is coming, but a rocket would be more desirable for many, who will, Revelation
instructs us (Revelation It is like the question of a school-child,
mocking and performing in some class, and on the whole, getting away with
it, and beginning indeed to think of himself as quite a lad, somewhat assured,
a touch of devilry, until ... at last the teacher perceives the situation
as inveterate, the child as intrigued with his own derring-do, and not merely
the victim of uncontrolled high-spirits, disruptive, inattentive and lacking
self-control ... and ACTS! The child would never have believed, but when
the time came, he soon learned to believe what he then saw! In our mini-parable, THEN it is too late!
When the Lord in fact returns, and calls His own for the very good reason
that they are His, and they have an appointment with Him ELSEWHERE, those
left are to be left in no doubt of their position, in preferred UNBELIEF.
Matthew 25's parable dramatises it in incisive style. The 5 virgins, waiting
in their irresponsible sleep for the bride-groom, whose coming SEEMS delayed,
are caught unready. It is no vindictive passion of a frustrated and disappointed
bridegroom which seizes on their sleepiness, like a disciplinarian.
Rather it is simply the fact that their
lights had gone out through lack of oil, through a) lack of care and
It meant that when the bridegroom of the
parable did (at last!) arrive, that they had to GO and try to GET oil so
that they could FILL their lamps and so be OPERATIONAL as they ought to be,
with their lights. THAT was a proper and due function! WHEN they had at last
found the merchants who would provide, the occasion was past. The doors were
closed. They COULD not do what they slackly did not BOTHER to be prepared
to do. They were not ready. He was. They missed. But there is more to teach us the nature
of the case concerning Christ's return, the promise of HIS COMING, to use
the words predicted in the text's depiction. The sleepy bridesmaids were not
girded by HOPE, but by sight. He was not there YET, so that their own form
of expectation led them to use their eyes of the flesh, not of the spirit
or even of the mind. Again, they thought the time long to the
point that they ceased to be operational, ceased to consider the realities
and requirements of FUNCTION, and allowed themselves to be in disrepair. Hence
the thrust is that the return is to SEEM long to some. II Peter 3:9 makes
the same point. We are not, says that apostle, to forget that one day with
the Lord is as a thousand years; that He is not slack; that He will come
on time (as in fact He did the first time in incarnation definitively of
the godhead - cf. SMR pp. 886ff.).
What does this imply ? Even in A.D. 60
or 70 or so, there was a need to realise that the actual coming of Christ
was not a matter of immediacy. Even at that time, perhaps 40 years after the
resurrection and ascension of Christ back to where He came from, the thought
world was in the region of a thousand years as to type. It was not a thousand
days or weeks; the order of magnitude which was, admittedly merely in an
image, but nevertheless in a selected image, such that 1000 years was not
an alien option. It was not outré, bizarre to think in that style,
but realistic, practical and temperate. Hence from these two sources, as elsewhere
from the study of Matthew 24 which made so many of the signs and signals
to be indicative (and which are now operative in historical fact) of His coming
being NEAR (as in Luke 21:27) to be merely "the BEGINNING OF SORROWS" (like the end of the beginning as distinct from
the beginning of the end) as in Matthew 24:8. Indeed, "the end is not yet" (Matthew
24:6) is the designation of Christ,
even at that advanced stage of the scenario, as set forth by Him in answer
to the disciples' question concerning the end of the AGE. Another
phase of truth to be drawn from Christ's parable of the virgin is this.
The doors are to be CLOSED. Now this is
obviously of intensely parallel nature to the SEALING OF THE ARK in the case
of Noah and family, when the floods came. It was not left to sundry human
initiatives of varied motivational source, when the time was actually come.
It would seem that decade after wearisome decade of heavy toil, enormous financial
expenditure (not so terribly sacrificial when you consider what would have
happened to Noah's possible investments if he had used the money in some
other way, right up to and into the FLOOD!) had passed, and people had been
decidedly unimpressed. This is shown by their ACTIONS. Did they besiege him
as he built a vessel so apparently far from actual WATER! Did the NATURALISTIC
considerations not make it so very 'clear', not to put too fine a point on
it, that he was nuts! Was it not apparent that only what had happened in
the past would happen now! It was so terribly and obtrusively obvious.
In retrospect, we see that their very
naturalism was unnatural, for nature is not its own maker, for the simple
reason that neither in its interstices of power nor in its operational expressions
of any such thing, does it do so! The ONE who DID make it would do as He pleased.
Just because some executive has used his company car for ten years never
to go beyond The bridesmaids were inclined, apparently,
to feel that - 1) it was getting so late
that one might as well not be concerned about the ... what, silly 2) it did not matter
so very much anyway Such 'bridesmaids' help
to insult the name of Christ, annul the teamwork in the church, betray the
ardent flame of the cause of Christ, and bring into the realm of spiritual
things, an anaesthesia of spirit which many, not realising, follow. Still
going to 'church', they sleep while night comes, infiltrate its voting, and
where a particular church is lax to allow such things, derail its progress,
while securing their
own doom (Matthew 25:11-12
cf. Matthew 7:23; Revelation 2:20ff., 2:16). Let us be clear, that is the issuance
of this matter. There is no way that God who
"must" be worshipped in spirit and
in truth (John 4:23-24) is worshipped in comfortable compromise; for faith
does not follow some other Lord (cf. Isaiah 26:13), and this one has issued
His command as well as His reason for it. The Great Commission (Matthew
28:19-20) requires both the proclamation of the Gospel and the
inculcation of the keeping of ALL the commandments. This second feature DOES
NOT SAVE, but it issues from salvation. Faith does not loot the treasures
of Christ for self, or group or voting bodies, but works by love (Galatians
5:6): and love ? "If anyone loves Me, he
will keep My words," says Christ
Dedication ? in these sleeping bridesmaids
? The word does not apply. Conviction ? It is not apparent. Faith
in their Lord ? It is no more evident than is trustworthiness towards Him!
So is the coming of the Lord, in the
Scriptural revelation. Many are surprised as by a thief in the night, even
those who 'go to church', and others sleep in the night which requires rather
alert action, and godly enterprise. Where is it then ? WHERE is HIS COMING!
THIS is our question, and this is our answer. (On this side of things,
you may care to read A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 18, (cf. Benevolent Brightness
or Brothy Bane 74, pp. 103ff.) II Peter 3 tells us much concerning the
specific character of the attitude to be developed before the Lord comes,
and as a sort of receptor site for it. It is not at all more conducive to
comfort than the first coming in the incarnation at A) The
Attitude of the Lord who is Coming One must note that Peter
in II Peter 3:9 makes it clear that there is a qualitative as well as a quantitative
side the matter of when the Lord actually comes. It is a special characteristic
of God that He is compassionate, not willing that any should perish,
and that the word should go as a testimony bringing the Gospel to all the
earth (Matthew 24:14). It is only then that we hear from Him, these words:
"Then shall the end come!" There is arrest until this geographical distribution
of the Gospel is accomplished. Peter gives light on why. First, as stated, it is for
a testimony; for as the Bible states through the apostle Paul, God has not
left Himself without a testimony, He is not mute; as Isaiah 45:18-10 declares
from the Lord, He, the Creator of all has not spoken in a secret place ...
I declare things that are right!" Secondly, the compassion
acts as a constraint, a restraint on terminating things, the long-suffering
holds back the finale until it must wait no longer. That is what II Peter
3:9 makes so very clear. In the context of HOW LONG, the apostle Peter makes
an indication that for the Lord, 1000 years is as a day. THAT is the immediate
context (I Peter 3:8). A delay of 1000 years is not at all to be gasped at,
therefore, should it arise. There is, then, MUCH TO BE DONE and for a LONG
TIME, before the Lord comes. That, of course, was THEN.
NOW, nearly all is done already. b) The Predicted
Prevailing Attitude of those to whom He comes What however is to be one of the foremost
spiritual syndromes of this terminal phase of the cancer of disfaith, before
Christ comes ? It is this: sardonic mockery. We had this experience when
two elders went to a University radio station in order to present something
(as they offered), and what we chose was the certainty of the truth in Christ,
relative to the follies of magical evolution. The interviewer grew agitated,
interrupted, seemed to want no answer, but mere scope for mockery, so that
the only answer appeared to be to ANSWER ALL that he in fact put, even though
it appeared to be his desire to hop about like a flea, stinging here and there,
never consequential, but flitting in fanciful pursuits. After the interview,
mocking music was played. It was the only 'card' that could be played!
The poor man had, in the abyss of ignorance,
advised us that one had only to go to the University across the road and
behold, all would be solved. Evolution would appear there. It would certainly
make South Our point in this context however, is
simply this: mockery is the EXPECTED agency of assault. It is one choice.
Reason has nothing to offer. Mockery is in training in the absence of logic.
Faithful even in our
weakness (as with Peter who swore when he should have testified, marvellously
restored, as in John 21:15ff., He keeps what is committed to Him against that
day (II Timothy What then do we find to our point ?
WHERE IS THE PROMISE OF HIS
COMING! they chant. It is all just as it always was. Nothing is being done.
It is all just the same old thing. It is this chant which constitutes them
mockers, as predicted for a pathological phenomenon for the end of the Age,
by Peter. Is this the historic picture
which we have developed on this site in many places ? Assuredly it is. It
has the panache of proprietary contempt, establishmentarian oppression, ignorant
mockery, blind allegiance, mixed with barren naturalism, epic evolutionism
replete with all the magic Israel ever mustered in its naturalistic idols
(Jeremiah 2:27), and while it changes the images and imagery, it does not
change the blind devotion to the creation as its own creator, even if nothing
has to become productive for the purpose. This being so, we have
a primary fulfilment; but in our present context, a precise index to the near
return of the Lord, as if you were on a journey from Moscow to London, and
had identified Paris as your train passed through. 3
THE
CHARACTER OF OUR TIMES IN FULFILMENT OF THE PREDICTION ABOUT IT
Clearly this will relate
to the above, but it has its own particulars, A) PERSONAL There is just that masterful and compulsive
contamination with evil of which Christ speaks (Matthew 24:11-3), and which
Paul amplifies (II Timothy 3), and also particularises (I Timothy 4:1ff.),
both of which enlargements are also abundantly fulfilled (cf. SMR pp. 660-674., 699ff., 1041, 578ff.). Even this week, a case of preoccupation
with the 'occult' revealed a man in serious crime in consequence; and naturally,
as evil views and news aggregate, mutually confirmatory, so lacerations of
society compound with original sin, which is highly unoriginal, but quite
inveterate until cured, so that the immoral teachings freely preached as if
history or sociology or even science, to our young, augment their infelicities
and direct their errors with even more force. Further the fears of the impending, even
from the viewpoint of overcrowding, food, disease, greatly aided by Aids and
immorality, which can lacerate the pocket of any democratic society, and
radiation, both actual and impending irradiates the race, whether in body
or in mind, the fears being the more feasible when nations erode and erupt
into ever new tiny bits, and terrorists of yesteryear adorn Parliaments. This
too is just as in Luke 21:26, with "men's hearts failing them
for fear". The teaching has already been mentioned,
is attested both in fact (That Magnificent Rock Ch.8) and in prospect (Lead Us Not into Temptation) in many places. (See Youth,
Education in Indexes.) Its impact on the young (SMR pp. 125ff.), and on those who in due
course are no longer so young, but no less contaminated by pseudo-science
witlessly masquerading as if knowledge (cf. That Magnificent Rock
Ch. 1, and A Spiritual Potpourri
Chs. 1-3), has been traced at great detail
on this site. Our present point is this: it is as PREDICTED. The "disobedient to parents", "unthankful", "unholy" elements shout from the streets, call from the
class-rooms, while in New York the gun in the corridor expresses the level
of social dissolution, attested in schools. The outcry in
Kansas because they made an exceedingly mild law to inhibit a little the religion
of evolutionism from swaggering monopoly is itself an adequate testimony to
the gravity of the disease, being
officially administered to the young (Creation Magazine Dec.
Feb. 2000, p. 8)... The breed of disloyal and unthankful, disobedient and
without natural affection (II Timothy 3:3) implies a loosening of kinship
ties, and what goes with it. No longer the pattern of propriety, but with
errant affections loose, there is soon to be found (as expounded in Romans
1:21-32), that perversity not only of temperament in wilfulness, but of morals,
sexually or other, which is a major component of the abstruse rebellion of
our time. The young age, and the Age ages with them. The point is simply that this aspect of
family, morals, education, aggravation, intemperance is THE code word for
the times, at the moral and structured level. This is what it had to be;
this is what it is. But while on education, it may prove
beneficial to survey some scenes of practical kind. These, excerpted with
minor editing from News 51, and adapted, follow
in indented format. After all, it is useful to be able to show that those
who live in a godly way, MUST suffer persecution, and that one's information
is not merely by reading of things! As a Christian, one is a laboratory
of the love of God, the truth of the Lord, and with whatever sundry imperfections,
one should be able to indicate something of the RESULTS in a practical way,
which ILLUSTRATE and VERIFY the principles which one proclaims, which indeed
are from the Bible and which the Lord pronounces. Below there is a part of
the various elements in this work, which do just this (inset). If never was so much owed
by so many to so few is one side of recent history in England; here rarely
was so much credulity forced on so many young human beings by so small a percentage
of the population, with such manifest obeisance to a philosophy at once vacuous
and irrational. Such however is and has long been the
froth of frivolity of thought, which has been like a party paraphernalia,
where custom rules and the magnificent and impenetrable perfections of the
result of scientific method applied to the evidence, are systematically refused.
Its very perfection seems to create offence. That is about as near to creation
as some of the obstructionists will come. If it is not always so, it is always
interesting to hear of an exception to the trend at any University.
An excellent but intriguing example
came in The author found in Again, as
noted elsewhere, when lecturing in Communications in what is now a University
in The place of imagination is great; but
it is NOT in this sphere, to create the facts; and then interpret what is
so created. It is rather to proceed with the deliberate dignity of scientific
method and to assess the result. Facts are before, not after theories; and
results are found, not propounded! Hauled up to explain my position, I
explained that some things which had been challenged were of a type best answered
at student option out of Class, as had been the case; but that in Class the
need to use such examples (of scientific method) was important. They
had with restraint and care been presented, and any error in the process should
(in effect) be documented! Without that, how could this differ from a divergence
from academic integrity, that it be suppressed! In so important a phase of communications,
it was imperative that students arise from the pit of mere cultural conformity,
to think for themselves. If an example of misuse of scientific method in the
grasp of current culture and contemporary desire, could be examined, one
of wide appeal and vast propagation, then this was in the interests of the
students to examine. The BEST case, the most impactive, arresting,
was not something lightly to disregard, as a matter of teaching method. In
a University, where presumably truth and knowledge had some position,
I indicated, there was no room, not even possibly, for entrenched prejudice.
Such was shown, it was explained, in the tertiary body's own treatment of
this topic of creation elsewhere. What balance was there to be found in this!
Only one monopolistic approach to such a topic was permitted ? This would
be disastrous, when it did not even meet scientific method criteria. I Challenge
was presented for an indication of error on my part, for a disestablishment
of what was presented. None came. It was "inconvenient" to have
me proceed in this way. Logic played no part, as is usual, in answer to me
in such cases, whether as student or lecturer, in such cases. Never can I recall that anything remotely
resembling reason appeared in that cultural conditioning process, which
often appears instead of lecturing, but bearing the same name, when challenge
has been permitted. Nor has the situation been essentially different elsewhere,
or from any who in turn, have been encouraged to challenge my own presentations
in free University discussion situations or elsewhere. The truth is ineradicable
by the most brilliant minds; after all, it fashioned them at the first!
Further, the Lord of His word is alive and powerful (cf. Luke Such opportunity to continue my Lecturing
without the scope for wisdom was as unattractive as unreasonable, and could
only be rejected, once the current needs were met in examinations. Shackled
with illogical and unethical bonds, unable to evoke truth, a social convenience,
what a fiasco that would be, as trite and trivial as insipid soup, a
soul sale in which I for one could not participate, a denial of student needs
for which I could have no sympathy. 'Inconvenient'! Also inconvenient,
it appears, is any answer to several challenges to debate at Adelaide University,
made to Staff or Student Body; and activated over years of offering in The
Truth and Life Club, to whom some came, but where none could overthrow
the simple proposition that Almighty God is, and has revealed His word in
one only authoritative declaration, the Bible, for mankind. None came near
to doing so. Moreover, the presentation
made in the presentation was to the effect that this proposition, this
statement was demonstrable. We must try to remember that not so long
ago, such a presentation at a school or university would not have seemed
at all strange. Ad hominem and so invalid attacks have rained like
hail; but there has been no logical answer on any common ground, though by
now, debate, writing and attendance have all been offered to This, then, was in
contrast with his initial position, in which at first he showed some
readiness, merely failing to reply when the work which he requested was presented
to him in writing. (End of adapted excerpt.
If you want more such testimony it is available at Scoop of the Universe51, and the immediate context continues on pp. 249ff., and this takes you into the secondary
school level for this phenomenon, with no less drama and decisiveness.)
Education
is not merely slanted: it is on precipitous terrain; and its manner is as
far from objective as was the fire of
IN
TERMS OF TIMING AND MUNDANE ATTITUDE,
EVIDENT
IN THE BIBLE
b) lack of foresight
and
c) lack of wakefulness.
thing ? impediment to comfort, intrusive religious necessity, optional
expectancy for service ?
(were they then
opportunists, like the Vicar of Bray, in the English rhyme, who could
change his 'doctrine' to match the sources of power, prestige and income in
the varying 'church' structure of England in persecution days - days not a
few actually, but mercifully not inscribed for ever ?).
(from John
and for more
detail on Christ’s preliminaries to His return, SMR Ch.
8, pp. 644ff..)
"For if we died
with Him,
We shall also live
with Him.
If we endure,
We shall also reign
with Him.
If we deny Him,
He also will deny
us.
If we are faithless,
He remains faithful.
He cannot deny
Himself."
This then is the
Biblical depiction of this last phase of the race before the impending judgment
and the Lord's return to His earth, with all His saints.
and they are
many. Hence prepare for the trip!
So silence shrouds the darkness,
and no light appears for many. How crucial at such a time is a faithful church!
Yet when you consider the courtesy and construction of this woeful chaos of
words versus needs, it is no meagre thing. It is a gross failure to meet challenge,
and then, to act according to the step proposed. It is as if a vast paralysis
occurs, when reason invades the dark sanctums of doctrinally directive silence!