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CHAPTER   2

Making up Religions

and Finding the God

who Made you Up!

News 331

The Australian, December 18, 2004

 

Descent to Duty and Ascent to Asininity

Immortality for Life and Devastation for Death

Consider the Bona Fides of the Babe
and the Good Faith of the Believer

 A  

First let us get things the right way up ...

 You can make up a new religion, but it will be yours, not God's; and it will have neither the antiquity nor the power over the ages, to meet the case for man, whose sin has from the first been a rupture and a confrontation with God. This led to death from which salvation alone can deliver, and since God knows His own mind from the first, this meant that the word concerning salvation was issued first in Eden (Genesis 3:15). Otherwise, there would be nothing but devastation of a reviling and revolting race; but God chose mercy not desolation, and to become desolate on the Cross, in order to be just and the justifier of the one who believes in Jesus the Messiah (cf. Romans 3:26).

The religion of God is for export, not import, and the export is ACCORDING to the covenant, not into some other pseudo-divine realm with its own laws, ways, thoughts and ... mode of entry. It does not matter what Mecca, Moscow, Rome or Jerusalem do to Christ: God has commissioned the Cross once, but no more (Hebrews 9-10).

Moreover, Moses WITH the 10 commandments, set much more than rules (though not less). When these were given, they were already in the context of the historic revelation of God in Eden (Genesis 3:15), which he recorded from the mind of God, just as our first parents de-registered from the grace of God.

It is this God, not some concoction of culture, who has acted, provided, appealed and delivered, and it is He who in the first commandment is to be worshipped. The 10 commandments are not for sale. From the beginning to the last, the Bible deals with one Lord, always revealed, and declared from the first.

Thus the 10 commandments are but PART of a texture which is NOT to be added to nor departed from in any point (cf. Deuteronomy 4, 12). As in the Old Testament with its promise FROM THE FIRST of the divine deliverance through one to come to this earth as a man (Gen. 3:15), to His actual arrival, the seething air of a sordid humanity has been enlightened with shafts of a sunshine which has healing in its wings, and has come direct in Christ Jesus the Lord.

Hence when at last His time came, as predicted precisely by the prophet Daniel in Daniel 9:24-27, there were extraordinary events. As D-day in 1944 was the beginning of the end for the dictatorship of Hitler, so AD-day, the landing not in Normanby, but in Bethlehem, was the beginning of the end for the Age which, filled with grace, would end filled with the ruin for its neglect, the overthrow of the occupying regime and the reign of Christ. Meanwhile, since there is NO OTHER WAY, what you do with that way is crucial.

The world has foozled, bungled and disbelieved so well and for so long with such magnificent folly, believing in inert matter, law without legislation and vitality without source, as if magic were over-active even in mature adults, that its desperate hopes are constantly frustrated. These, like broken wings, are so far off that it is like trying to believe in the Third Reich after Hitler had committed suicide.

Man's suicide by disbelieving in his Creator, his Saviour, in the revelation of God in the Bible, in the redemption of Jesus Christ, his Lord, is becoming a messy affair. While the truth has been manifested in many prophets, consummately expressed in the Son of God, who was killed because He could not be falsified, not condemned because He was, who came on time according to the prophetic schedule and departed in the moral grime of godless hypocrisy, not His but that of His murderous detractors, and while His words have come true to the last detail, pending His glorious return to a world with just such mounting waves, both literal and social, both political and martial, as He forecast so confidently, and with such warning to seek His mercy and His pardon, yet it has been received not at all by the culture of this world, mere shadows being mostly to be found in high places, while the world races to its appointed end for this Age, and final removal.

Since mankind has become so many, there are meanwhile millions who have been ruined in the recent past, in jihad, world war, Pacific Island war, Balkans war, African war, horrible unholy war, wearing its fraud on its grasping face, in war on the environment by foolish industrial practices, on youth by magical naturalistic teaching*1, on children by foolish indiscipline*2, and on life by quashing its true ideals*3. Instead the world is intent on inventing flimsy things that do not work: and of all this, there is so much that the world is drowning in its own day-dreams and their atrocious outcomes. We will overcome! they chant; but they will not because they cannot, because the mockery of God is not paid in progress, but in regress.

Let us then look at the Bethlehem landing and consider well the provision of God for peace, when the Truth landed on earth, and was given to man.

 

I  The Bugle Call - Luke 1:35

Mary was to be moved on by the Holy Spirit, overshadowed by the power of the Most High God, so that the resultant child would THEREFORE be called the Son of God. Here is the divine inscription, the God of creation becoming man, so that man might find the Eternal God. To match this landing action, was another. Elizabeth (1:36), although long without child, would now have one in her old age, and back of this was one basic fact: WITH GOD nothing shall be impossible.

That is the first thing in our message today. You may be old, but your time is not past; young, but your time is not in this world's hands, if you are God's, but in His. There is no limit to what HE can do with you, provided you accept His call, go on His way and do not rebel. Thus came John from Elizabeth, Mary's relative, and he became Christ's precursor, His introduction. Out in the desert went John, living on honey and locusts, drawing crowds, warning them of the wrath to come, of the Messiah to come, of the need to be baptised by Him, which comes when His fire touches the heart, when He cleanses the soul and makes new children (John 1:12), born not of the will of man or of the flesh, but of God.

In this way, through John in the desert (Matthew 3), God was preparing for the last act of the Old Testament - which foretold this purging power in the Messiah to come, \whose arrival would and did become the first act of the New Testament. A baby, not a panzer division, a baby not a jihad murder squad, a baby, not a land grab, a baby, not stealing of funds as now seems so common in government leaders, in Japan or Europe. The baby did not have to be created, only formed; for it was a gift of God. It DID have to be received, when the time would come in adulthood, as the Grant of God by the Grace of God to clear the Guilt of Man, and cross the Gulf from man to God, for as many as believed.

Small wonder Mary sang her magnificat, for it was not wealth or human power which was the determinant for man, but the grace of God. "He has put down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly," she cried. Remembering His covenant with Abraham to have a descendant on the human side who would bring blessing to all the earth, God then acted (Luke 1:34-35). The bugle was sounding for recruits to come and volunteer in this, His day; it still sounds, but soon it may cease, for His return is coming near (Psalm 110, Luke 21:24-33). A different martial music is in store (Revelation 19)!

 

2 Simeon's Declaration of Salvation

In Luke 2:25-35, you see aged Simeon, assured by the Lord that he would not die until he saw the salvation of God, taking the Christ in his arms, and declaring –

¨    "Lord, now You are letting Your servant depart in peace, according to Your word;
for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which you have prepared before the face of all peoples,
a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel."

Here God's sure word in Isaiah 42:6 and 49:6, with 52:7ff. was being fulfilled, God as man becoming salvation in His own Person, and preparing to pay what it took to do so. Simeon, long in prayer for this giant blessing to his nation and people, and to the world, now could die in peace. The landing had come, the Lord was there, and he took the child in his arms. How fragile did the Lord make Himself, that a man could do this, even to the One who holds the world in His hands; but this was the mission, and with God NOTHING being impossible. If He could do that, how much more deliver your life in His hands!

Moreover, what HAD to be done by this Messiah (as in Isaiah 29, 35, 53) was done; and even though ONLY GOD could have done such things as maintain complete victory and triumph in the face of every challenge to heal, to answer the learned from the incarnate format of One not so brought up in this world, and die on time as prescribed, for only God can do what God uniquely specifies and performs, yet this child meets history with precisely that testimony.

However, there was a cost, and Simeon reminded Mary of this, saying of the Messiah, that He would be a "sign that would be spoken against," and that a "sword will pierce through you own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed."

It was clear that only SIN could rule where salvation was rejected, and thus the death of Christ was both the price of victory on the one hand, and the plan as announced for a millenium beforehand, that in being murdered He would in fact be offering Himself as an atoning sacrifice for sin. In this way, the happiness of His arrival produced at length the happiness of our survival, not in this mere life on a polluted planet, and this morally, spiritually, socially, financially and academically, but into eternal life in the presence of the God who cares, Himself.

This, it was merely one more attestation of the wisdom of the Almighty, but of the power displayed as of the ridicule justly deserved for those whom He predicted would so act and so much in vain, in seeking to dispense with the Messiah, a millenium earlier in Psalm 2 (cf. 22).

This Christmas, then, let us also be practical. In view of the light of life, Jesus Christ, what is to be revealed in you, in your hopes, ambitions, and for whom ARE you ambitious ? for yourself, family, or Christ! Not for nothing did Christ indicate that compared with the devotion to Himself, to God, even family is all but as if hated! (Luke 14). You may love horse riding, but for the kingdom, it is as a thing hated BY COMPARISON, so that Christ may be Lord in all and of all! Certainly, the priesthood of His day had its thoughts revealed, though a few later joined the Church! (Acts 6). Murder was in the thoughts of many of them!

 

3. The Angel's Assurance - Luke 1:37

With God, nothing is impossible.

Salvation is FROM all that is not right, and is first of all involved in the love of God, and secondly loving your neighbour as yourself, and thus, DOING what this shows. Have you waited for Christ as Simeon did, and received Him to your heart, as Simeon did. If not, do so. If so, rejoice in the Lord, for He will do great things. If you are His, tell others of Him; for accepted or not, He is king and His rule is to come. For you too there is a cost; for to follow the God who is light in a world of darkness must necessarily involve collision. Yet let it count! You will collide with corrupt culture, and must call others out of it to the King. It is difficult, of course: taking up your cross is not honey balm. But it is possible!

Blessed is it to make the possible actual, and the multiplication of the truth, practical.

Have you noticed the rebuke which Zechariah received for not believing, and Mary’s commendation though she asked a question ? Due enquiry about the nature of stark and unique miracle is one thing; a spirit of doubt about the merely extraordinary, is another. In either event, If GOD resolves on it, it is done. He does not dictate to the heart, but when He is Lord there, He directs it; and when HE directs it, there is NOTHING that can prevent His passage, His way for it, His call becoming a constraint, the constraint a pathway and the pathway a leading in the strength of His presence for the completion of His own mission assigned to you.

What IS impossible, is with man, if you rely on him, with woman, with child: it is necessary to lift the vision to Him who calls, and as seeing Him who is invisible, deal with the visible; as knowing Him who is almighty, to complete the calling; as fearless in His faith, to carve out like a speed boat in the waters, a direction in front and to leave a wake behind, as in Revelation 14:13,  where we learn,

“Blessed are they who die in the Lord from this time,
that they may rest from their labours;
and their works follow them.”

Mary rested in her assigned task; Simeon rested in his attained assurance; but John did not rest when as a baby in the womb, he came near to Christ, also in the womb. He kicked (Luke 1:44), or leapt! Thus though your spirit rests in His grace, your life must be abundant in His service, always looking for paths of peace in His name, of goodwill toward men, of spreading the Gospel, of walking in His love, overflowing with His merciful grace, imbued with His life, attesting His truth, being kindly, applying His word, equipped with His presence (Colossians 1:27, Matthew 28:19-20).

 

B

 

Next, Let's Look through the Wrong End of the Telescope

to see the Grand Delusion
as one New Christmas arrives for 2004,
some 2 millenia later

In our introduction to this volume, we considered the remarkable sense of obeisance which Turkey is to make to enter Europe. This Europe, we asked, what is it ? Has its Inquisitions, its World Wars, its considerable rebuilding with such things as the Marshall Plan by the USA, its failure to learn, its self-aggrandisement, have these things distinguished it as ultra-civilised ? (cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 3). Indeed, is its cultural elevation such that another land may come entreating the favour of its cultivated countenance ? Is civility its name and is self-control its hinterland, are the Balkans a notable emblem of peace and is the Franco-German past a flag of fervent fraternal fascination ? or perhaps infernal castigation?

One of the contributors to the DW TV documentary this week, which featured diverse opinions from varied European nations - and from Turkey - and this agreement to start negotiations, or at that time impending agreement on its possible  access to the EU, had an interesting viewpoint. It was replied to question on this individual's reaction to the Turkey Talks in the EU:

Yes, it would have its points, such an addition to Europe,
for then it would have territory from Britain to the Middle East,
yes perimeters impending or abutting on Iran. This would make Europe stronger in defence ...

That was the gist of it.

In other words, from a cultural point of view, the sense of glory and grandeur, of being the ultimate is never gone from the unconverted heart of man. To have such imposing or indeed imposed bounds, as in bin Laden's lust, for newly aggrandised Islam, or the desire of others for ancient Europe newly aggrandised, or for Rome, as in the Unam Sanctam (q.v.), or for Hitler's animated though amputed antiquities in terms of Aryans, or of the passion of Napoleon's land for that triplet of Liberty, Equality and ... what was the other one ? ah yes, fraternity! it is not unknown in that most cultivated and civilised continent. Why now this same magnificent expansion and potential ultimacy can come to Europe itself, just now so ruined, now on the magnificence trail.

Such expansionism! It seems almost as natural as breathing; nor is it Europe's alone, for the Islamic hordes which nearly caught Europe before, in 732 A.D. but suffered defeat leaving much of Africa in their galvanising grasp, leading on by their failure to the glorification of the Holy Roman Empire, never holy, often little in Rome, but certainly an Empire: these too have had their lust in their day, comparable in many ways to lust  or bust crash campaigns, ironically both Napoleon and Hitler falling foul of Russian winter.

Even if as in the case of Rome with its later Romanism, there was an illicit and ungrounded, wholly unvictorious effort to give it plausibility in visions and revelations which not merely suffered no verification, but the opposite (cf. Introduction, above), yet brutality and force, vehemence and mistaken passions crushed many, grabbed riches and showed a form of holiness in the most open contrast to that of the life of the Christ whom they named.

Thus while there is a rather ironic edge to the aura of a Europe rather too good for Islamic Turkey, in view of its most hideous moral and social collapses of the past, yet for all that, Europe has liked to come from its base falls with choirs and choral effects of uplift. What then is the mood concerning the Islamic aspect, since Islam does not have the Christ whose sublime deity showed in man with such monumental lack of violence. It does not have this standard in any pervasive sense, being Islamic in the main with its own 6 centuries too late reconstruction of the Christ*4. made without viable grounds or evidence of research (cf. SMR Ch. 6).

What Christ wrought by divine power and prediction, moral virtue and uniqueness, His calling and His deity, people being volunteers (cf. Psalm 110), Islam quickly acted in no small part to subdue with war and scimitar (cf. the principial attestation of *4 below).

If Romanism did something in the same vein later, it does not alter the fact that this makes two, rather than one, in the assault versions. God however, had He desired force, could have done so amply without any human aid, and has levelled the charge of sin against men who reject what He declares and the Son whom He sent, without fault, to fashion a mutation not adventitious, but auspicious, being the restoration of the image of God through pardon and regeneration (cf. Titus 3:5ff., Colossians 3:10).

Communism, the sleight of hand religion which smuggles in forces and principles and laws which attest, though contrary to verifiability, a power they deny, has added itself to make the inglorious trio of desolation in religious affairs which have shed blood, not in sacrifice, but in censorious slaughter. Communism*5 in its contemporary mode, by the way, came from one Karl Marx who had the felicity to live in Europe, and research in part of it (as currently defined).

Is Europe thinking well on this religious theme, since some like to call it 'Christian' in roots ? Indeed, there was a strong movement, unsuccessfully but closely fought, to have some such characteristation in its new Constitution.

Moreover, in   Three Anzas, One Answer Ch. 5 *6, Giscard D'Etaing, former French PM, has expressed the view that the EU Constitution should not mention Christianity, since it could be divisive, and in any case, the reference to its religious past would be understood by anyone, so that it could be read into a general religious statement  without affront to any, in the meantime.  Quite a concoction, but scarcely a statement of faith!

We saw at an earlier stage, similarly, that interviewed on Radio Vatican, the Minister for EU policies declared,


"A Europe which cannot say one significant word on its own identity is a Europe which is still searching for itself." He added: "This is not the arrival place for the historic process of unifying Europe, there are other stages of the journey."             (Emphasis added.)

Thus while intensive debate preceded the excision of reference to Christianity in terms of historic fact, in its roots, in the new Constitution, the gathering consensus is clear. There are other stages on the journey, there is the COMMON DESTINY which is formally touted for the EU, its nature, as with Hitler, being not so well specified as simply declared. The means to such ends, they ... arise. What is their nature ? as with any inadequate advertising, or commerce insufficiently defined, caveat emptor, indeed if what  you hear is braying, you would be better praying than prying! It is good to know what you are about; but Europe is currently engaged in the multiplication powers of majesty more than the marginalised matter of knowing where you are going!

Giscard desires us to avoid AFFRONT. People must READ INTO a general statement what they please. This is his testimony as reported and noted above.  In other words, words are for hiding not making manifest, a smoke screen and not a testimony of anything or a form not  formula.

Whatever has been present in the ruthless misuse of religion in Europe,

bullet the withering cries of the tormented in their thousands
bullet still audible to a non-suppressive society,
bullet which is too volatile to be permitted to forget,
bullet and has too often been cruel in its misconceptions of the concept of force in religion,
bullet to be suffered fond loss of memory:

it is now apparent that a new sort of religion is being built.

It worms its way in by means of uncertainties, ambiguities, readings of a subjective nature into an objective void. It expresses what is being searched, but it does so for a body which is finding something very material in its desire. It MUST NOT be disunified. It MUST be prosperous, it MUST take care that MANY are in it so that MUCH can be attained.

In The Australian, December 18-19, on EU's ORIENT EXPRESS, we have a quotation (or possibly translation)  cited from the financial daily, Handelsblatt, noting that Turkish membership of the EU could mean the end of "the old EU as we know it", yet this is not a lament, but an exhortation, leading on to this statement that such access nevertheless

bullet "could present a (sic) historic chance for a new EU facing the challenges of the 21st century."
 
bullet "Why shouldn't," the quotation continues, "the EU reinvent itself as a large community
of values, prosperity and security, which could integrate not just Turkey, but also Ukraine ?"

Why not ? There are more Moslems than Jews, so the inclusion of Turkey may seem politic for enlarging the breasts of the Lady of the Empires to come; and they have moreover more oil. There are in the end vast tracts of territory which they control. Perhaps after all, for these and other reasons, an inclusivism has attraction ?

See how BIG you are, my dear wolf! is that it ? is this the desire for the final de facto mammoth to replace Europe with its far flung field ? In fact, expansionist desire, lebensraum in one case,  has often been so in the past, and now, with the century of magnification, manipulation and mesmerism, the three m civilisation, the thing bids fair to take a new line in the imperial department, a superior vehicle for the ... majesty of man ? What then of such a view as this prosperity and security approach, a 'community of values', like a man of dollars. In the former case, you do not know which; in the latter, how many. The definition is somewhat defective, is it not ?

It is just that this sort of approach involves the transition from the EXCLUSION of reference to Christian roots in Europe's Constitution, to the INCLUSION of the concept of prosperity, security and integration, reinvention, including that of values. In this way, what prospers, what brings safety, what brings unity, what goes with this, these universalisable values ? Which are they ?

It is  not, as we have seen certainly in the case of the Ten Commandments, these! for their contribution is specific to the Biblical faith which is in basic clash with Islam and other religions of force in the faith domain (cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 6, More Marvels Ch. 4), and with ALL religions which reject the Biblical Saviour as basic, essential and integumental to all values. In this way, the Christ who came to fulfil the integral messianic predictions at the appointed date (cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), is the index to value: man has NONE before God in terms of what justice requires, much ONLY in love via mercy, and has NO ACCESS to values that are performable except through the MEANS God has provided in redemption (cf. SMR pp. 520ff., 1080ff.).

The conception of some kind of construction to achieve an appearance of integration from total clash, by ignoring the bases and the power and the evidence, is not merely principially illiterate, but it seems in the contemporary world, culturally almost irresistible. MAKE UP somehow, from experience, from history, from convenience, from pragmatism, something that somehow is likely to enable prosperity to rush in, much in the Chinese use of Communism - not at all in its basis, which has failed, but as a ground of maintaining authority while wild capitalist extremes enrich the opportunists. There is no more principle in this than in other grabs, no more ethics, no more hope.

Having made up something which assumes what it does not know, it enacts what it imagines, and makes what is not moral since it is merely subjectively preferred thought from within. Then,  applying it with civil law by force, they yet produce only what is not at all an obligation which is intrinsic to reality other than desire and force. It is no more moral than a gold fish which indeed appears somewhat golden, but is merely fishy nevertheless.

Giving the name 'good' or 'right' to what is the desired concept of social, goading as distinct from godliness, or violence more than virtue, desire more than reality, the ephemeral rather than the luminous, the incantation more than the explication, what then ? Then the EU could continue by seeking to make some religions seem to endorse it, to give it a religious oomph, convince the unhappy or coerce the wary.

Some may think that in the above, one sounded as if describing Hitler's 'views' and laws, or those of Communism ? To be sure the resemblance is integral, but not episodic. They all in common do what they will; but the European will, that of the conglomerate with the 'common destiny', this is a special will, not different in kind, but in culture. As with Hitler, the Jews were a sacrifice made without their consent, so with the Europe to be, there will be a sacrifice, and a good effort would be the 'fundamentalist fun', in which those who hold that God is capable of speech, and engaged in it, may become the targets for repression, since their cannot be two gods at odds, and the actual one is not desired.

Such is the trend, has been the trend whether with the force of the Holy Roman Empire, and its inventions, of Napoleon or of Hitler, yes and of Rome itself, especially in its latter-day efforts, when emperors rather liked the idea of being treated as God, so that they had to be worshipped. This could lead to an inclination to kill people who differed in not showing the external emblems of worship. Since it is not a specified born-die object which is the basis of law, this is indeed a delusion of grandeur, abetted by convenience and enforced by power.

That, it is no mere historical oddity or incident in this context, for it is precisely such a desire, but in a magnified realm of influence, though one still European, which is predicted, the final appearance of megalomanic self-aggrandisement showing himself that he is God, as predicted, in the temple. There, if you will, is show-case politics indeed! (cf. II Thessalonians 2, Daniel 7 and Highway of Holiness Ch. 10, with SMR pp. 886ff. 905ff., Biblical Blessings Ch. 1, Ch. 3).

This pretence about 'morals' and magnitude, it is mere dressing from the first, as it will be mere folly at the end. Thus,  there is no such consensus for reality, some imagining they are making God happy in their own minds, by doing this or that, such as killing unbelievers who oppose their thought and practice, as is at times enshrined in the Koran, in having jihads, or only having jihads, new-style ones, against people who do not agree that making religion serve mere aims of expediency is

bullet either expedient (since reality will crush this extemporaneous concoction),
 
bullet or wise (since wisdom does not rest in temporary conceptions of survival)
 
bullet or just (since made-up religions are mere misnomers, a sort of civic false prophecy,
or institutionalised subversion of spirituality).

It is, as we saw beginning to happen in Three Anzas ... Ch. 5, a movement for the third time arising in Europe within some 2 centuries, which has already been traced in the novel at THE MOON SOON, to its biblical end. It should of course be added that in this case, with the novelistic setting, while there is a  basic fidelity to the scriptural forecast, there is a created particularity to give the sense of movement and vitality.

Whether thus presented, in point form or in any other, in view is a movement towards a ONENESS for mankind which is omitting just two parties: those who dissent from such carols of convenience and pragmatic pieties, and God (as in Revelation 13, 17).

Since this is so, the predicted conflict with the Lord (Revelation 19:19) is sure to come; and since this world is already very old indeed, even to the tune of perhaps some 6 to 7 thousand years - one single day can provide such amazing events, and here are some 2,500,000 of them already, at all events*7 -  with a succession of subversions, inversions, conversions of truth from God into the trough, whether graphically or porcinely construed, there is a certain inevitability to the build-up. After all, when you start by jumping off a wall at 4 feet, and as you grow in strength or imagination or imagined power, you take next 6 feet, then 7, then 8, then 20, then 40, there comes a practically predicted time when you will break your neck.

This is unfortunate. Far more so is the unwise ignoring of the trend; of the truth; and of the parodies of reality so long dressed up in so many national rags and philosophic costumes, that the divine wrath as in Psalm 2, is not only predicted, but would be inconceivable to wait too much longer. As to the actual nearness, we do not know; as to the FACT of characterisable NEARNESS, see Answers to Questions Ch. 5, and with it SMR Ch. 3, Secular Myths and Sacred Truth, Wake Up World, Your Creator is Coming!

Witless, the world wanders like a half-blind sheep, at the edge of the maritime precipice, vaguely looking at the view.

Thus Europe, having so far sold its new Constitution into the market of

bullet convenience,
 
bullet ambiguity and
 
bullet nescience of its past,

now is looking in its various ripples and eddies, like a corporate European body moving to SELF-AFFIRMATION*8, and the attainment of POWER to survive, to endure, to be important, imposing and satisfying. In this way, it casts ahead the shadow of predicted events (cf. SMR pp. 886ff.), for it is coming where it has been assigned since Daniel.

Thus the religious aspirations are turned to the secular, with provision however, for some coming legerdemain in which the 'values' can take on any CONVENIENT form, suitable for INTEGRATION, CONTINUATION and SURVIVAL (cf. Christ, the Cumulative and the Culmination Ch. 4). It is a vacuum which is being built, or rather a vacuum chamber in which the need for an inrush is moving with considerable force on the slender walls, as if to cause them to collapse when the atmosphere is allowed to enter the chamber and begin its moulding work on the unnatural exclusion.

What beastly figures are forecast, fully satisfying to any sense of that vast progress which man is indeed making, except there is a mistake about the direction, for it is regress in spirit with more power to make it effective, extending the altitude of the jump! (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 2).

Here then lies the grating grandeur and aggrandisement of man, its aims, its methods and its works so contrary to that Messiah who having come, lay down His life; having issued from the glories of eternity, managed the things that pass, passing away not as a flower, but as a butcher's butt, nor yet involuntarily, but as a serviceable sacrifice, nor yet again, in the glory of self-adulation, but in the patience which bore contempt. To gain acclamation, it is one thing; to gain contempt, it is another. Then again, to deserve contempt, it is one thing; to accept it for deliverance of the contemptible that it might know the truth which sets man free, it is another. To be a power on earth, it is one destiny; to come as the power of God from heaven, to bring peace to earth, it is another role.

Man in his nescience felt so necessary, as in Europe quite explicitly when it comes to the background of Europe and its new Constitution, does not care to retain God in his knowledge, let alone the living God. Science plus nescience is one very characteristic ingredient of our twenty first century 'culture'. It produces and induces inhuman actions, pride of life, power of will, devastation of all seemliness, vitiation of virtue, folly of mind, craft of spirit; and as it arouses itself to the height of its power,  shortly to come to pass, as the winds blow it favourably to the everlasting rocks of truth, on which it is to be wrecked as it most due, it is instructive to see with what force it comes. (Cf. Dastardly Dynamics, Delirious Daubs,  Wandering Woes, Bleary Theories and Immovable Faith   Ch. 10.)

Delusion and dynamic mixed, it courses on its way, scouring a mighty wake in the seas, though its spirit sleeps; as if it used four propellers to approach the rock of truth the move surely, and impacting then to dive to its own depths.

 

 

 

NOTES

 

*1 See Beauty for Ashes Ch. 3, TMR Ch. 8 for example.

*2 CONCERNING TEACHING AND DISCIPLINE OF THE YOUNG

It is a vain and futile activity to slate one another with inapplicable extremes. Such can readily be the way as competing 'philosophies' seek each to overthrow the other, with more calumny than consideration.

In fact, it is NOT the case that harsh discipline is either humane or wise; just as it s NOT the case that godlike flesh, invented in the mind rather than parading before the eyes, must be bowed to as if an innate glory were on display, rather than a potential, by knowing God, to show something of His origin for man. Illusion like suppression is not to the point. Realism about origins, destinies and their vast divergencies is needed. It is rare, increasingly as modish fantasies displace the wisdom of ages, both in its tenderness and exquisite delicacy in considering what is available in the child, and in its discipline in dealing with oddities, neither glorying in itself, nor trusting in itself, but moderate, consistent and directed not to programmable kids, but to those derived from the Creator Himself.

 See  on this topic,

Joyful Jottings Ch.   13,

Beauty for Ashes Ch.   9,

Divine Agenda Ch.  2;

Agony, Ecstasy and the Mastery of the Messiah Ch.    5.

One of the main disciplines for the young, is the SELF-discipline
of their mentors, in not feeding irrational philosophies,
let alone without even mentioning the truth, or presenting it
for logical discussion.

See TMR Ch. 8 and the disgrace
still operative in South Australian government schools,
for which government after government has given no rational answer,
merely upon challenge both sustained and documented,
ignoring in the end the necessary reform from indoctrination
towards what could perhaps be called education, justly.

That other places may engage in a similar if not quite as gross religious outrage is not to the point. If there are ten murders per night, this does not excuse murderer number 10.

*3 See

It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 11 and consult

Outrageous Outages, Awesome Inputs and the Courage of Christ Ch. 5,

in which latter case, although endeavour is made to distance mere spiritual relativity or more assuredly vacuity, it is precisely the former which comes into play in a manner which now needs close analysis, since this has also been the direction of flow in the Bush administration as seen in  Red Alert Ch. 13, with Ch. 3 and Ch. 5 , and Lord of Life Chs.  4,  8, with News 82. See also Dastardly Dynamics ... Ch.  10, including  *2.

 

*4 See More Marvels Ch. 4,

Red Alert Ch. 10, *4, 16,  *1, Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8, *1.

 

*5 See Aviary of Idolatry, SMR pp.925ff., Divine Agenda Ch. 3, News 37 for example.

 

*6 Three Anzas, One Answer Ch.  5 gives biblical and contemporary coverage of the European crisis control for the End.

*7 See That Magnificent Rock Ch. 7, Section E

 

 

*8  Elements of such surges include this list and presentation from Dastardly Dynamics, Delirious Daubs, Wandering Woes, Bleary  Theories and Immovable Faith Ch. 10

 

Terror on the one side,

 

Ø     and internationalisation

o     from convenience,

o     from technological advance,

o     from markets to provide greater base for greater research and development, 

o     from debasement of Christianity in many subversive organs, like the WCC, which has been all but taken over by this or that political or theological slant from time to time (q.v.),

o     from trade utilisation of technical advance,

o     from sudden upgrading of markets such as Europe to and for itself, especially with Russian having such aspirations for Euro-participation, as also China and their immense economic potential (but for whom ? since politics may control more than a little of the economic phenomena by simple nationsalisation),

 

together with

 

Ø     Islam’s upsurge in immorality and strength as in the worst of former times, making cohesion more cosy (hence doubts about Turkey’s possible future admission…)

Ø     the Middle East and its confrontation platform in Jerusalem (where Europe is conspicuous for its Arab loyalties and hence less likely to suffer from jihad, and a most convenient shelter shed),

Ø     the apparently intractable character of militant dream-zeal cladding for various cultural passions:

 

all these things are pushing, pushing, for more European power.

 

They look for an issue in more extended European aggrandisement, greater integration with the USA, and of course, less scope for Israel, since apart from all else, they are small and unoily, whereas Islam is large and most oily.

 

The dastardly dynamics drive to convenience, survival, pragmatism, collaborations to overcome, control to subvert subverters, and principles to make it palatable, with various religious and cultural payments to these ends, proceeds. It moves, so that before long, why look, there is to be the attempted removal of the meta-religion*3, of the only one valid and rational and reasonable and intractable because of the truth, because it alone meets scientific method, because it alone stands when all else falls, and presents an interface with fact of monumental proportions.

 

If not ? Trouble. Was it not the same with Caiaphas when he actually set about having Christ killed, for all the world (John 11), like a religious Mafia specialist before his time ?