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CHAPTER 3
THE
JOY OF THE INCLINE
AND THE DIZZY DYNAMICS OF THE DECLINE
THE CHARACTER OF SPIRITUAL DECLINE
AND INCLINE
MATTERS OF DIRECTION, INSPECTION,
CORRECTION, CORRUPTION
AND THE KING
News 377, The Australian June 8, 2006
TIME TO LOOK AROUND IN THE WORLD OF GOD
WAY I
Intractable sullenness, interminable sallies, love of this world like a rocket that refuses to soar, affirmation of arrogance, suppression, compression, expressions of hate, clawings for more, the insatiable maw, the dark light of violence, the glamour of assault, the sword of slander, the love of libel, the lust for this world, its territories and its rewards, the embrace of evil and the mania for false gods without credentials or valid curriculum vitae: these things afflict the earth. It is not all; but it is the pall which hangs over it, like radioactive residues, reluctant to leave, undesired but certainly summoned!
Physically born of the Spirit who is God, it crucified His Messiah, and crucifies yet, His memory (cf. Christ's Ineffable Peace and Grace ... Ch. 7). It invents another spirit, another gospel, another Christ of its own, not in some mere thrust of history (as in II Corinthians 11, the prelude), but as a passionate pastime, where nothing but corruption suffices. It lacks the power of the hour, and so daubs on another's painting, crucifying the crucified afresh, as if in passion to follow Hebrews 10:26ff. to its dim conclusion, fiery for the fires.
It dabbles in alien idols, idles with fallen ideals, falls into passion for them, and then cries, clamours when it is not too busy to service its pangs, in more adventurism, undaunted by devastation, unyielding in the engines of desolation, worshipping the earth and its matrix, or gods of forces*1, blighted by unbelief, like the Captain of the Titanic or the Estonia, supposedly unsinkable as it sinks.
At war with God, cursed by plagues, immersed in immoral squalor, forcing its idols on the young under the guise of education*2 , aloof from life, impassioned in living, ostracising righteousness and with vehement desire, exploring doom, it exhausts the generosity of divine gifts of human and physic environment, sullies its spirit, sallies into things unthinkable, glories in irrationalism*3, explodes into superficial knowledge without wisdom, and forces its hands into vice against nations, races, truth itself.
It grieves the Lord, seeks to extend His wounds, modifies His word or distorting it, exploits it for gain, when not reckless in direct godless abandon, delving into what it does not understand, blind to its own wilfulness, witless in false enthusiasms.
Inordinate in folly, co-ordinate with corruption, false in blasé extravganzas, it corrodes its strength, defiles its spirit, rushing headlong to its assured funeral, while acting as if it awaited a wedding.
Filled with its own evil devices, it plagues freedom, exalts force, multiplies the means of ruin, deplores the grace of deity, dishonours its body, is delinquent with effrontery, bows to wickedness, exalts its own way, and quarrels about what that is. Deadly, deluded, imploded with passion, it writes its book of doom, wrapped in the fabric of dreams, closing its eyes to the Handbook of Holiness, the Bible of its blessed Creator, shutting its spirit to the Prince of Life, alone exalted in truth, impossible to defile, able to remove defilement.
It specialises in desecration, talks of good while accelerating to evil, is tense with trouble, imprisoned in greed, even for itself and the ownership of all that is, is seduced by sects, clouds of inanity, secular, spiritual, always and increasingly passionately dissonant from what is both uniquely valid and immovably verified*4, the word of the living and immutable God.
In servitude to spiritual squalor, derailed from the track of peace, seeking help from the stored power of mater, by witless intelligence depraved, by assertion deprived, it sets targets without truth, deceptive, deceived. Expanding the inventory of unrighteousness, it amplifies the annals of arrogance, the imaging of its resources, while abandoning its resource, its available recourse, its actual Source, the God of all creation and comfort, by whose will it is made, by whose grace in Gospel love, the sin can be cancelled, the freakish folly overcome, the victory granted (I John 5:4, Romans 8:1-10, 5:17) and the vice vitiated.
It proceeds as if worshipping in awe, the divine prognosis against such sin against the salvation of God, as if it misunderstood as call to come, the exposition of the fiery degeneration and degeneracy which laps the woodlands of its life, found in the latter of part of Romans 1. Not however for performance, but for avoidance are these listed in direction and detail from Romans 1:17 to the end of that chapter, their direction, state and fate there progressively exposed. This follows the suppression of truth, as in Romans 1:17, and is its death in life exposé.
It acts as if this tracing of the vile ends of this spiritual disease were not a condemnation, but rather a command which it is bound to follow, like someone with cancer, told of the various growths and disfigurements, now seeking to cultivate the same, to advance ruin with relish and corruption with éclat. So great is this conformity to divine prognosis that it does, of course, constitute a striking verification of the Report of the Supernatural Physician! The disease of this world has Aids merely as an example; the exemplar is found in the word of God, and in the sight of the eyes is its exemplification. Such is this world, pulsating in its pathogens.
It moves as if obedient to that Pauline description of deepening depravity, seeking to marry males, unite females, sinning against nature, hating and hateful, elevated above itself, fearless in foraging without restraint into all fields, spiritual, moral, irrational, disaffected from design, whether physical, spiritual or irenic, the very masterpiece of dissonance and the cyclotron for grief, now wallowing in its own blood and incapable of stopping the flow.
WAY II
Yet God has loved.
He has loved it, so loved that He sent His only begotten Son in racial solidarity, spiritual uniqueness, irrepressible power, overpowering humility, sacrificial godliness and perfect manhood, to deliver from blight, to restore blind eyes to sight, inveterate in virtue, redemptive in reality: thus He came, paying the price for sin; and it murdered Him
That was its way, in the face of His way.
That some have come to Him, regardless of this world's cultured renegacy, cultivated rebellion, being indifferent to its hatred - for the servant is not greater than his Master: this is a testimony to His power, a tribute to His mercy and an example to all. To be sure, idolatry has sought to invade even these sacred premises: this is the religious perversity of this world, aflame for every oddity, if only it can control it.
His kingdom will not fail (Daniel 7:25, Ephesians 1:10); for God cannot fail, for whom time itself is an invention (Romans 8:38-39), and other minds, His own creation (Isaiah 45:12, 44:24-25, John 1:3).
That kingdom of His, it exists now in the splendour of His goodness, among many; and He has borne the iniquity of many. At Christ's return, that of the Lamb sacrificed in love, who has ascended in power, and disseminated His word of pardon, this whole earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of God before its day past, and at that time, it is consigned to the bin of has-beens, inveterate in vice, exempt from mercy by its own recognisance (II Peter 2, Matthew 24:35, Isaiah 51:6, Revelation 20).
Therefore, do not trust it, nor seek to adjust to it, for its day passes, the form and the fashion if it is already consigned (I Corinthians 7:31); but look rather to Him who made you, ensuring that you are pardoned by His payment, and by faith being regenerated by His Spirit, are so covered by His Messianic redemption, His shepherding skills, alive by grace through faith (Ephesians 2); and then, live for Him who gave you life, as human reflectors, enlightened by the divine.
On the beauties of this Kingdom of heaven, see The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 2. On its parables, see Matthew 13. On its King, see Christ Jesus, the Wisdom and the Power of God Ch. 8 with Repent or Perish Ch. 2 and Magnificence of the Messiah.
There is the incline, and if it seem steep, yet the end is granted and the victory is assured; it is merely that the development of life requires effort, and since it is HIS both in creation and salvation (cf. Titus 3:5ff., Ephesians 1-2), which has performed in both domains all that is required, it is for us who remain to mount the incline with a combination of expectation and assurance, endeavour and delight, labouring to enter into that rest which faith provides, and grace enables, in the very presence of the One who draws to the mark of the high calling in Christ.
One cannot but be grateful for the opportunity to strive, not to gain a place, but to attest it, not to achieve salvation but to express it, as love always delights in ACTING for the one loved, here the Lord! Does not a test attest what is best if it is there; and if it is not, is it not well to know! Yet in Him is rest, and His resting place, as Isaiah 11:10 foretold, is all that He has said. Test the rest and the rest will be merely an adulterating stimulus. What is it like ? it is like moving from the tumultuous seas, and setting one's feet not on some rock, ready to be submerged in storms, but on the rock that has no limit to its altitude, not grounds but its own, sufficient, self-sufficient, all-sufficient, the place for feet. His is the feat; His place is for our feet.
There is rest. For this, no gratitude can be adequate; but this too is delightful, for there is no thought of excess in adoration and activity for Him. It is wisdom that is needed, both to read His words and to heed, and to test one's own goings in the Lord, and that too, it is granted. What exuberant delight to have such provisions (II Peter 1:2-4), and such assurance (I Peter 1:3-7), and to know such a person as the Lord Jesus Christ (I Peter 1:8), whose goings are from eternity (Micah 5:1-3), and whose coming has brought His people to it! (John 8:35-40, 10:9,27-28).
NOTES
*1 See SMR pp. 49, 233, 809, 877-878, 911, 1077, 707ff..
There has been much ado, and not at all about nothing, in Australia in the last few weeks - it is now June 2006, about the abuse of English at the secondary teaching level.
It is, reportedly, being used for the transmission, prematurely and intrusively, of various political philosophies, among which sound ones are hard to find. In the mesmerism of diversities of Marxist folly, or other abominable failures
(cf. Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8; The Grating Grandeur ... Ch. 2;
SMR pp. 925ff.; Beauty for Ashes Ch. 6 , with News 98, News 37),
students are to express their estimate, for example, of Shakespearian plays, so that pumped in philosophy is readily available to disturb their unready minds, steal into their blinded eyes, and become a substitute for sight. It is like starting someone in a course of French, and insisting that the language be viewed in the light of contemporary Russian, in view of some theory about the origin of languages. It is untimely, miseducative, confused and presumptuous. It REQUIRES academically a strong education in philosophy, politics and economics, which being subjects in their own right, and the thing not being in Shakespeare, is inexcusable.
It is impossible more than adequately to condemn such abuse of English for the purposes of directed philosophy and politics, making anachronistic abuses of timely expositions of human nature, a substitute for education.
All things in their time; and when a student wants to study passions in literature, and the outflow of their forces, it is not necessary to make him find what there is of adultery in purity, or of cowardice in courage, or of harmony in jealousy. You do not need to specialise in the politics of envy to understand a play about the perversion of it. You may, in some highly specialised environment, but not as a basic study of what is aimed into the human heart.
It is a time to see each thing as it is, and to look for the basis of what is actually there; whilst in philosophy there is room to examine and compare, with a view to reasoned discourse on the entire spread. The misuse of language as a means of education in a preferred domain, selective of some parts, neglecting others, alien from the material studied, and hence neglecting its genre and contribution is like a divorce from truth, for the sake of propaganda.
It is of great interest that a highly placed and experienced academic has been most forthright in condemnation of this abuse of English. Material to this effect may be seen, for example, in The Australian, June 8, 2006. Here, in the middle of the front page, we are told that the dean of humanities at Australia National University, Simon Haines "said that English teachers felt the need to give poetry and literature 'political roughage' to make it relevant to students." It is further reported that "he rejected the need to wrap literature in political relevancy, saying any high school student could relate to the emotional themes portrayed by writers such as Milton and Shakespeare.
The initial summary in the article: "High school English is being turned into a political science course" with emphasis on various philosophies is not only clear, but poignant, for the abuse of children BY State authorities makes some of the individual abuses all but pall beside them!
Further, the philosophies cited for this intrusive and considerable invasion of literature were of a radical, reductionist kind.
To be sure, if one's topic is scientific method, for example, in the field of education, then the defence of logic and the exhibition of the logical parameters of such method is obligatory for thoroughness: it is not merely relevant but basic (cf. Scientific Method, Satanic Method and the Model of Salvation).
Where however the theme is not intrinsic to the material, and worse, is not even chronologically germane, the intrusion is so akin to mental conditioning, that its misuse of grand opportunities for children to learn something to give them a broader perspective by examining the past with sensitivity to ITS nature, becomes an affliction worse than passive smoking.
That the abuse of biology for the forwarding of dead philosophies is common is so far from being a justification for this further use of falsetto irrelevance, this time in the field of English, that it merely aggravates the whole arena of child abuse which is so common, so legalised, so legislated in this and that authority, unwilling to think again, and - as we have found in our own confrontation with government on this issue, even in the end - to reply rationally in this State.
On these things, see TMR Ch. 8, Deliver Us from Educational Temptation Ch. 4, Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 4 ; Worn-Out World and Coming King Ch. 4; Holiness, History, Review and Overview Chs. 5, 4 ; Beauty for Ashes Ch. 3, Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Ch. 8; Repent or Perish Ch. 7, It Bubbles ... Ch. 9.
See SMR Chs. 1, 3, 10, with pp. 611ff..