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CHAPTER 2

     Camps and other Vamps

If diversity can aid awakening,

Schismatic blindness can awake judgment

From Outrageous Outages, Awesome Inputs
and the Courage of Christ,  Ch. 3

CHAPTER 3

Battlers, Battling and The Battle

1) The Individual and the Group

There they are, battling, and they have a name, battlers. In the colloquial meaning, this refers to those who without distinction, yet carry on with their difficult living, not beyond them, not under them, just about them, as they seek continually, strive constantly to gain a hold on the slippery slopes, and to avoid the valleys.

It often has quite a good connotation, but the sense or atmosphere is if slightly warm, yet somewhat dismal.

The scene is not what would fit with the Negro spiritual culture, inspired with the Christian climate that so many brave slaves or descendants of the same in yesteryear displayed. Many of these overcame the disabilities, the prejudice and the discrimination; and the climate has improved markedly.

The 'battler' however has in this genus of things, no such inspiration, no such help, but continues in his or her own limited strength. If admirable in patience, it is less so in wisdom.

There is a strength which is superabundant, as Ephesians 3:16 puts it, we are to be "strengthened with might in the inner man".  It is not by our psyches, but by His Spirit that this is declared, and empirically found, to be done! For that matter look at some of the other '3:16s' which are floral borders to the faith. In Malachi 3:16,     we see a convicted people, loving the Lord, appalled at the sleazy substitute for spirituality which is so drastically exposed in Malachi, so that they had made a 'book of remembrance' to register thsoe who feared the Lord and thought on His name, were concerned about His honour, held zeal for His truth! IN I Timothy 3:16 you see God manifest in the flesh, justified in spirit, ascended to the Father, in II Timothy 3:16 you see that if it is scripture, the Bible, it is inspired by God and profitable for instruction and doctrine. This is a map of truth, not a quiz, so that the case is clear as the day is bright. In In Zephaniah 3:16, you see the revelation of a people returned to the Lord, to whom it will be said, "Do not fear; and to Zion, Do not let your hands be slack."

Whether then it be the authority of the word of God in all its phases, always clear and applicable, or the authenticity of the Christ, God manifest, or the zealous response of His elect to the dismal disarray before them, in terms of separating their names for spiritual identification, or the depiction of a restoration of many of Israel, now to get on with their phase of things, in the same glorious Gospel as alone now remains, or will come (Ephesians 1:10, Isaiah 65:13-15, Romans 11:25ff.), all these 3:16 seem to become like a team!

In John 3:16 we learn that the crux of divine grace is  a gift which is needed, not one to come, for it is delivered to earth's door already, Rather is it one to be received. Some tell the postman that they are not interested, while others kick the divine message about, especially in theological seminaries, where 'exegesis' becomes often merely another name for philosophical insertion, like tooth implants in the yielding gums. Not small are the infections many of these breed from their desolatory defections from the very One, Jesus Christ, whom they name! Others attack the postman, those who the Lord sends to bring the word, or to bring it to them! (cf. Mark 12:1-10).

Many are those who, following them, wallow in their own blood, wounded like Amasa, treacherously slain by Joab (II Samuel 20:12), as these 20th century Judases do their stuff on the formative minds of the misled youth who vainly trust them. They have tags and names, and schools of thought, like the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Herodians of old, and knowing the latest divulgement becomes de rigueur for those for whom the lupine fangs long.

The case is neither distorted nor exaggerated in this, for schools of thought, fostered in vain philosophy (Colossians 2:8), festering with infectious theological bacteria, become a thing of fashion. The truth itself as it is written becomes secondary, a derivative of the 'school', which itself becomes the effectual but ineffective 'truth'. When Christ's people take a stand against all this, as some do, and cities and pastors awake to the need for CHRISTIAN UNITY in the faithful word of God, not the chains of philosophy, or the ruins of neological substitutes for the word of God written, nor yet in vain traditions of men, or schismatic sunderings of squawling schools, saying  'I of Calvin', 'I of Wesley', 'I of Kierkegaard', 'I of Barth' and I of whatever-other-going-concern-wonder may strike the impressive eye and take captive the unwatchful heart, then blessing will flow like a fountain.

It is not that people like Calvin and Wesley, for example, yes and Luther too, did not in marked measure adorn the faith; it is just that they all contain significant patches of error (cf. Predestination and Freewill Section II), and neither they nor anyone else whose name is not 'Jesus Christ', or whose word is not the scriptures of truth, the Bible, is to be followed. Is Christ to be touted instead of followed ? Did He not make all this exceedingly clear (Matthew 23:8-10), and did not Paul level the bead of his theological rifle at this sort of schismatic folly which rends Christendom as if it were intent on default! Did he not emphasise it as with a twenty one gun salute (negative variety) in I Corinthians 1:12, 3:5ff.). Even 'I of Paul' is forbidden; for it is of Christ only that one is to be named, and by His word alone that one is to be bound (Mark 7:7ff., Proverbs 30:6).

It is time Christ was obeyed more soulfully and far more heartily in this. Christ is not a fashion show, nor a fission show for that matter. Adultery is out, and so is this sort of  exceedingly common schism. Is it that many theologians have forgotten how to read, selectively, when it comes to the Bible ? In all straightforwardness, in such a thing as this, one would be excusable for thinking so! Is it because so many are mature, that they do not need to bother with the commandments ? However, in this, the opposite is the case according to the apostle, who declares of such schismatic sunderings and emphases, that those who practise this are "yet carnal", hardly a hall-mark of spirituality or a garland for true godliness! (cf. Galatians 5:17).

Let us then cease the battling that does not profit (cf. the harmonies available for major emphases when the Bible and not some name is followed carefully, for this glorious light is very clear when you follow what is there written, instead of wondering who has recently said what and when, or at some other time bred this school or that  - Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 2, and references therefrom). Let us who are the Lord's cease from spiritual striving and rather relate to delighted ravishment with the very word of God, both written and incarnate, regaled in revelation by the might of His Spirit. We do not need theological battlers but spiritual believers.

The thought is not novel. Consider now more fully, I Corinthians 3:1-11. What is becoming far too novel is obeying this directive from the Lord!

	"And I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able; for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, "I am of Paul," and another, "I am of Apollos," are you not carnal?
	"Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one? I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
	"Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor. For we are God’s fellow workers; you are God’s field, you are God’s building. According to the grace of God which was given to me, as a wise master builder I have laid the foundation, and another builds on it. But let each one take heed how he builds on it.
	"For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. "

What do we here see in context that  the apostle Paul call this sort of schismatic battling ? Of such he declares, "You are yet carnal". Does this then make it so attractive ? How many times does the Lord need to speak to bring many to realise that HE MEANS WHAT HE SAYS. In this case, in case of hearing ailment, perhaps, He declares it again in I Corinthians 3:18-21. Let your boast be in the Lord then, as the apostle declares! and that you understand Him, not some derivative substitute (Jeremiah 9:23-24). Indeed, it is fitting to flit to Jeremiah and listen, here, for there is no word like the word of God!

                "Thus says the Lord:

      'Behold, the days are coming,' says the Lord, 'that I will punish all who are 
       circumcised with the uncircumcised - Egypt, Judah, Edom, the people of Ammon,
       Moab, and all who are in the farthest corners, who dwell in the wilderness. For all
       these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in
       the heart.' "

No ceremony, no tradition will help at all. It is the LORD or not so; it is the WORD of God (Jeremiah 23:23-30), and it is written, and not otherwise, to be revered not in the light of someone's eye, but as before the eye of the Lord, which is upon those who love, trust and reverence Him (II Chronicles 16:9). Indeed "the eyes of the Lord rove to and fro throughout the earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is completely His."

This much is for the Christian. But it applies in another way to one who is as yet an unbeliever. Battling in endless philosophies, often so vulnerable to logic as to be a farce (cf. Earth Spasm, Conscience Chasm ... Chs. 1, 7, Wake Up World! ... Chs. 4, 5, Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Chs. 7  -  8), the lost ones may find themselves wallowing in unwisdom, caught vainly in these are substitutes for thought, revelations of fantasy and symbols of social sickness. It is time to seek your God, your Creator, your Judge, the convener of your cells, the engineer of your physical artifices of your being, which like some superb aircraft with a cockpit of thousands of registers and gauges, spreads its declaration of invention in symbol, device and code for all to see. It is useless to hide. There is no place to go.

To be sure, the prophet Isaiah, like John in Revelation, depicts the futile attempts to come, when from the terror of the Lord many will try to hide in the rocks, saying, 'Cover us!', but there is no protection in 'Nature', in what the Lord has made, from the Lord (Isaiah 2:19).

The more powerful the person, the less you can hide in his products; when His might and mind are infinite, it is a useless prevarication.

The only protection is in the Lord Himself, who took the time and trouble to come to this earth and provide a security centre in the salvation of Jesus Christ, the Rock on which one is to build, if one plans to live for ever (cf. Matthew 7:15ff., Isaiah 28:16); for there is in plain historical and logical fact, no other one available, and this one has all! You see this in many places, but let us see three of them, first Isaiah 8:13-15.

"Sanctify the LORD of hosts himself;
and let Him be your fear, and let him be your dread.
And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many among them shall stumble, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.

"Bind up the testimony, seal the law among my disciples. And I will wait upon the LORD ,,,"

Again you find it in Paul, I Corinthians 3:11:

 "For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ."

You see it in David's Psalms, as in 61:1-4:

"Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy. I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever: I will trust in the covert of thy wings."

The elemental reality is this, that there is one God, one Creator and He is not someone else, nor will He (very understandably and mercifully) share His glory with another (an adventurer, perhaps a wolf in sheep's clothing, an antichrist, a mischief with legs on). Isaiah 42:8 declares this, but the heart should realise it. Is the infinite to grant equality to the finite, or the all-knowing to assemble in the common room of human thought with the learners ? Does God who made the ear, not hear, and who made man, not understand ? Is madness to become entirely unequivocal! (Psalm 94:8ff.).

It is time for battlers to find The Battalion of the Broken Hearted (Psalm 51), alias the Christian Church in its true clothing, those whose spirits are regenerated (John 3, Titus 3:5ff.), who become The Battalion of the Blessed, whose lives are under The Banner of Beauty, the beauty of holiness, in whose hearts the Lord Himself lives by His Spirit (Colossians 1:27): even He whose word rules, whose wisdom enables and whose faith is triumphant through grace (Ephesians 2:8, I John 5:4, II Cor. 3:17-18), resting where liberty has its home and cordiality its centre.

2) The Nation and the Peoples

These luxuries of schism and philosophic bacterial cultures, these anthraxes of desolation are not to be desired, which seek to substitute their wisdom and wares for the fulness of the Lord. Many things are good in their way; but NOT when they ascend to the heights, to become false criterion.

Yet if many are being misled into schism, and more into active revolt, there are more results as in many plagues, than these. The philosophic conduits which bring these tainted waters, or vaunted fluids to the cities of culture are more widely spread, insulting the intelligence, casting out evil like a plague into the waters; and many come to trust in them direct, robed in the dress of humanism, secularism, militancy and terrorism, vain religion and vicious position^*1 until their delusions disadorn the earth.

With what witless litter do you then proceed ? It is with Twin Tower destruction, like junior mentally astray, sawing up the furniture with his vicious little saw, but wholly averse and disenabled for any construction of the same; it is with endless executions by judges filled with vile passions, unhuman preoccupations;  and it is by the dynamics of dissent from reason, truth and anything worthy of life.

Such is the way of false prophets, but it has one salutary lesson.

Have many in the West come to worship freedom, as if it were some divine thing in itself ? It is divine in its conception, but not in execution without the Maker or in attempted execution OF Him, wrought in His flesh-format taken for sacrifice once, desired by many again for re-enactment of that crime, though in this without hope or scope, and so are they frustrated, and so do they fulminate against the truth, seductive of students, soliciting through the media for the hearts of the damned, as if they had some blessing to impart!

This simple fact is becoming more apparent

	with Jonesville, where it led to the death of the deluded, in a sardonic comment on the vulnerability of wealth, and the superabundance of foxes to collate with the wolves - with its many less famed factions of folly;
	with terrorism, where decapitation caps its encapsulation of brutality in the passionate thoughts found in heads not yet decapitated, and a certain hideous blood-lust moves in an unholy hypnosis under delusion, as they wander, adrift in the seas of undivine waters, with the glow of a turbid light that is as sulphurous as spurious, for it comes from sources impossible to confirm or justly to affirm, the devious works of darkened delusion. (Cf. SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff., 91ff., 1080ff., More Marvels ... Ch. 4, Divine Agenda Ch. 6.)
	with butterfly wings of flutter, flitting into many things, till beauty passes and the gossamer is gone, as in sects, a profusion of confusion in the very face of the simplicity and splendour of the unchanging and unmatched Gospel of divine Grace in Jesus Christ*2 .
	with depression from the state of things, anointing the cheque accounts of myriads of psychiatrists (as forecast effectually in Luke 21:26).
	with bipolar flights, often initially induced by tensions unspeakable, uncertainties profound and other unillustrious burdens for which the human spirit is neither created nor impervious, when it is without Him whose peace is like a river and whose righteousness is like the waves of the sea (Isaiah 48:16ff.).

What Israel went on to suffer, not responding to this divine appeal of Jeremiah 9 cited above: this was profound for the nation;

what this earth as one whole  is going on to suffer as so often foretold, whether in Habakkuk, in Micah 7, in Joel 3, in Isaiah 65-66, in Matthew 24, in Luke 21, in Revelation 6ff., in testament both old and new,
in prophet of old and Christ of the New Covenant, with one voice:

this too is profound and its end is nearing (Answers to Questions Ch. 5).

In short, Christ declares this:

"For then will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be."

As Daniel put it:

"And there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation, even to that time, and at that time, your people shall be delivered, every one who is found written in the book..."

Daniel 12 proceeds to the general resurrection, and its components.

Yet this is not doom and gloom, but realism and joy.

Joy! you exclaim. For me, yes. NOW we seek as we may, for those who will cease battling for their rights and being embattled in their plights, and come to find the peace already paid for and gained in Christ whose gallows were unique, whose courage superb, whose control perfect, whose sacrifice was sufficient, whose power never faltered, whose word never altered;

and if they will not, then God is just.

He does not force anyone. Having shown the unique and divine mercy in Christ, with wings and marvels, He offers it freely; and if it is made available the more impactively as saints sacrifice their all to find the lost and add to the sufferings of Christ those unredemptive but still exemplary works (1:24) this may bring the Gospel near and the word of God to application throughout this worried world; but it is neither cost nor part of that same Gospel (I Corinthians 15, Galatians 1, 3, 5).

He does not force anyone. Having shown the unique and divine mercy in Christ, with wings and marvels, He offers it freely; and if it is made available the more impactively as saints sacrifice their all to find the lost and add to the sufferings of Christ those unredemptive but still exemplary works (1:24) this may bring the Gospel near and the word of God to application throughout this worried world: yet this is neither cost nor part of that same Gospel (I Corinthians 15, Galatians 1, 3, 5).

It is freely offered. It is divinely assured by the total and embracive foreknowledge of God, beyond this world and its actions. It is divinely desired to the uttermost, so that He  sent His Son to this world; yet it is beautifully restrained, so that none is either shanghaied nor shunned in the outreach of His love (Colossians 1). In the beginning, however, the end is known, and the divine composure is sure even where grief ensures. The love is not thereby the less, but the more divinely pure. Nor is His compassion reduced, because its outcome is sure. The heart is not a companion of mere circumstance, when it is the heart of God!

And why then did He so act, and why do His people so freely offer what He has freely given ? It is that those in this maimed world might find Him, and He might rejoice at those who come. Are they not still rejoicing in Him ? If some come, that is delightful; if some do not, that is their preference. The case is pure, purely of God, and simply in mercy (Titus 3:5-7).

Further, is it so surprising that a world

	which both cannot and will not contain itself in its created composure, but must be searching Mars, or Jupiter past what God has not supplied diversely but specifically at His own will (cf. TMR Ch. 7 Section F);
	which cannot stand equity, but must be hammering little Israel in its name, if by any means it may once and for all obliterate it while the Arab world fills its own vast terrains and uses its money for exterminative purposes, as if commissioned in many ways, by a dead Hitler, but with another if no less vile and violent agenda;
	which pollutes with radioactivity for economic and military purposes, as if there were plenty of other worlds to retire to, when this one is ruined;
	which departs from the word of God as if it were a threat worse than that of terrorists, and proclaims itself free for humanistic embroilment in defiance of the Almighty;
	which runs amok and calls for help, that cannot help its dead;
	which makes gods of children and ensures that they do not find God, while it miseducates them with the fires of naturalistic folly by compulsion:

is it so surprising, I say that it lies in increasing ruin!

Once and for all, it should be realised that what it is facing with increasing severity and finality is not only a divine wrath enormously provoked for the last two millenia since peace from God, prepared at prodigious cost,  was disdained. This in itself mounts now in cumulative fashion and encouraged by post-modernism, it finds not only mimicry of hell itself, but a just reward. It faces also the facts of its disfaith (q.v.), the sepsis of its cynicism (cf. SMR pp. 257ff., 294ff.), and the cleavage of its inconstancy. All is awry when sight is lost  or skewed in the eye.

What is it like ? It is like a child who having set fire to his father's house, fears the cane instead of the flame, and execrates the punishment instead of conceiving its realism.

Life is not fairy-tale and the wail of witless and misspent enthusiasms for every evil conceivable seems but slow to reach the ears of those who create the row, the racket and the ruin,

	whether directly like murderous al Qaida thuggery,
	or by perverse sexuality,
	whether by the  slaying of unborn children in ways now appearing yet more obviously too close to savagery, as their sensitivies in the womb are more closely surveyed;
	or by sheer oppression of power and casual ideology over those whom they seek to intimidate, whether as the original apartheid or its reciprocal variety in Mugabeism, whether as Communist lord or EU commissioner.

A godless world does not have the privilege of having made itself in a fit of self-forgetfulness before it was there; and the other cartoons, such as those of Disney, happy because admittedly mere fun, do not redeem it from reality. It faces God because reality is not subdued by myth, by deviousness, by deceit or self-deception (cf. SMR pp. 380ff., 419ff., 422Eff.).

Prepare to meet your God! is not for the Jew only (Amos 4). Indeed, as the Bible makes thunderously clear, like high decibel resonance, the mistreatment of Israel is ONE of the grounds for the coming divine incursion. It is not however by any means all!

When the first instalment of final  judgment sits, the slain will be many (cf. Micah 7, Isaiah 51:17ff., cf. Zephaniah 2:10-11, Ezekiel 38ff.); for it will even resemble the events of Exodus when as before, but this time more broadly, the Lord delivers His people (Micah 7:15). As always, it is at His own appointed time, and this time those Gentiles who love Him will rejoice at the addition of the believing sector of Jewry  (cf. Deuteronomy 32:43ff.), when He comes to bring judgment to this earth.

That is just the beginning, which reaches its austere finale after His people are gone, and when He returns with them (Revelation 19:8ff.). This too is not all that divine judgment is offering, for the final books are to be opened (Revelation 20), when all exposed, all is deployed, whether to eternal shame, contempt and destruction, or to eternal light. As to that, it is befitting for that eternal life which the people of God even now are finding in delight, freely provided from that God who is love, but not laxity. The "children of light" (Ephesians 5:8, I Thessalonians  5:5) here find their eternal terminus, which is a new beginning in the blessedness of divine communion, comradeship and glory, of worship and of peace.

But what is it like ? It is like final examinations, when you have several subjects, some practical, some theoretical, and each examination posits a judgment, and the end is not until the last of all!

How simply it is put in Psalm 96:13:

^"Before the LORD: for He comes, for He comes to judge the earth:
He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with his truth."
 

How awesome is that divine input which follows the glorious output which was salvation, and condemns what insists on being deprived, not by inheritance, but by desire!

 

3) Preliminary Examples Usher in the Finale

We have often considered the tirades of the three, Romanism, Communism and Islam, and their execution not only of what they conceive to be their duty, but their victims. These sadly appear by reputable analysis and research, to number in multitudes of millions, some having collected data, like Foxe in his Book of Martyrs, and others having explored other scenes in the slaughterous programs and pogroms (cf. Paul Marshall, Their Blood Cries out, cf. Heart ... Ch. 3, News 74), from the Romanist Inquisition, to the slaughter in Yugoslavia and the case of Cardinal Stepinac (SMR pp. 951-952), to the more recent near genocide in Sudan (cf. Divine Agenda Ch.  6), Islamic hordes seeking to realise their religion in ruthless attacks against the more Christian south.

Yet these exemplars of fiascos masquerading as faith, of violence that cannot stand in faith's arena (cf. SMR pp. 65ff., 1186A, 1078ff.) are not all, merely world leaders in the art (cf. SMR  pp. 649ff.).

Hitler felt he was to be reaching some sort of new Tower of Babel, not so-called of course. He felt he could determine things so that that nation would MAKE what was needed, to happen. He was of course wrong with the same error as the Wearied Threesome noted above, all weary in blood. His words however give the sense of thrust when this sort of pathological passion grips man. Let us hear what he said, as reported in a speech before the Reichstag, January 30, 1939.

If the International Jewish financiers within and without Europe succeed in plunging the nations once more into a world war, then the results will not be the Bolshevization of the world and thereby the victory of Jewry - but the annihilation of the Jewish race in Europe.

He tried, but failed, yet equipped himself with a blood trail to resemble that of Communism and Rome quite closely, the pathological passion passing from this nation to that, in the international aspirations so often found in man, once and for all to control this world of the Lord's making, by their own taking! Vain hope, but bloodthirsty program, one and all!

What then of

	Stalin's necessary domination of the world by the Communism which in fact failed not only in Germany (where the theory predicted it), but in Russia (where it did not, but where it both came and went cf. SMR pp. 925ff.),
	Hitler's necessary domination of Europe as depicted by him above, and
	Rome's necessary control of this world (as depicted in the bull, Unam Sanctam, which says that it is its proper place to have it cf. SMR pp. 1070ff., 902ff. ) ?

All these were most exacting. All have had their swelling of Jordan, their acme and their hopes!  and not one has ceased way back in ancient times, for all have acted with vast vigour in the last century, for example. They are, however old or young, provided as modern shows, one and all.

These SHOW the prodigious human thirst for world power, world control, by junta or ideology, with the face of a man apparent whether in the pope, the commissar (or more precisely First Secretary of the Party) or the Fuehrer. Now maybe a Putin will find a way for a President (courtesy of the courage and popularity of Yeltsin) to make a little tilt for some semblance in this affair, and the EU for something that will dominate, perhaps forgetting its 'Christian' past, as in the recent and new Constitution, in favour of a mutable future, given to the same desire, aggrandisement and effectiveness for ... whatever it comes to be.

Commerce often shows the same lust for this or that number of billions, and this or that international multi-national power, so that ... this or that will come. Destiny gives dream to the mind, steel to the arm and hope to the deluded, as they battle on in belligerence unspeakable, the ruthless becoming a comrade, the feckless as often a brother.

Thus the battles rage, and this or that summary, summit or glory in its vainglorious viciousness or vice, proceeds to seek an eminence not to be daunted, or a control not to be thwarted; and behind it all, as increasing disillusion spreads through these irrational distortions of both reason and revelation, there is now the return to MAN, and yet MAN WITH MYSTERY. The world tends to love mystery as much as it loves to leave authority, while always seeking for that KIND of authority which none can breach, because it is 'us' or more exactly, 'we', or even, in the vernacular, 'us lot'! as one University Computer Administration Officer once put the group concept at his own level.

It never wins; it never gives up. It always finds brutality or a viciousness which even stoops to try to control the mind, manacle the spirit and rule mankind ... in peace or in war, the latter of which some make into a kind of God (cf. SMR pp. 877, 707ff.).

The battle ground where the enemy works with his weeds (Matthew 13), or his weapons, biological, psychological (cf. Spiritual Refreshings Ch. 9, *1, TMR Ch. 8, Epilogue), or military (cf. SMR pp. 743ff.), is the world as Christ made so clear, and its leader or prince, who has "NOTHING IN ME", as He declared (John 14:30), is yet to come, the delinquent, deluded, devilish despot to put face to disgrace, not only in the sense of shame, but in the sense of the opposite and contrary to grace (II Thess. 2, Revelation 19, Daniel 7, cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 2).

Our point here is this: he has been a long time reaching that flavour, that 'nose' as wine-bibbers might put it, that bloom, that flower of evil as Baudelaire might have it, which is to come. But its preliminaries are now not only vast, but cumulative, culminating increasingly in that humanism-plus-mystery typing which will worship man, and make of his wisdom, his wit, of his witness to HIMSELF (small 'h' in meaning, but with large intentions and hoped for inventions), of his unified religions (News 121, 122), of his impulsive 'necessarily' emissions from his incandescent after-burn race to the end: the object of its own devotion.

"WHO is like the beast!" is the clearly predicted adoration desired, which is to be required, as so many have required so much with so much blood before! (Revelation 13:4); and
"who is able to make war with him ?" This is their sycophantic and seduced scream.

It is not new in kind, but to be more developed in species. It is not new in conception, but to be actually universal in scope (cf. Three Anzas, One Answer Ch. 5). It is not new in lust (Babel's tower was the beginning, and before that, Eve's deception was the germ of it, as seen in Genesis 3 and 11); but new is the intensity and the immensity of its aspirations with force and rigour. The battle ground is beginning more obviously to look like one, in ideology and theology, normally neology; and the battle is spiritual, the blood being a tainting of the ground while the purists in their abominable filth, litter the ground from the political podia, prompting the follies soon to become a clash with no less than God Almighty (Revelation 19:19).

Soon the limited --isms depart and the inflammation of the spirit in man puffs him up to bursting point; while the battle before obscured with subtle pretences, now is outright.

It is therefore the more needful to be people of peace, bold in faith, loving in grace, that the contrast in Christ might the better be seen, and as at the first, so let it be emphasised to the last: it is the more necessary to return to biblical theology, not theological bibles, harnessed if not actually harassed by schismatic partyings, sects and divisions, as if the only thing that mattered was war on the word of God, or its lovers, not the peace which surpasses all understanding.

Is it then so surprising that the saints are made white and purified ? (cf. Revelation 12:11, Daniel 12:10), now that the axis of the Ages, Jesus Christ, shows the world turning to its final wresting point, and that past, proceeds to expose the ultimate rest in Christ ? It is this which even now is the lot of the saints, and it continues until this world, wrestling and wresting - though in vain - no more, this world which has shown so much, is turned loose and  evacuated, no place being found for it (Revelation 20:1ff.). So does it, as staging unneeded, disappear with the dispersion of the energies which it at first was given to contain (II Peter 3).

Then do the pardoned people, the purified personnel of the kingdom of heaven, the children of God, the sons of light, the daughters of holiness, shine forth like the sun in its splendour (Matthew 13:43).

There is an end to the race, as also to the human race, which has become so racy that is racket shouts at space, derides deity, and asks for deletion in tones of defiance, disharmonious with the fear and tension, the hatred and assault on one another, as it ignores its place, makes space a new race but one unfitting for those who have already lost the race, and find no desire to be of that new race, the children of God, which God alone can fashion, as indeed He alone could and did fashion the race in the beginning, when it got off to a false start.

Thus does the Lord in His goodness, bring awesome input into this world, in making it wisely, in crafting it creatively, in rendering it functional integratively, in providing for sin in sacrifice, for sacrifice in Christ incarnate, the Lamb of perfect purity with moral incandescence, meeting the tirade of untruth, the restlessness of rebellion with perfect obedience. This He took to the ultimate, winning His race, even to death in payment for others, for as many as would come, known to Him, proceeding further than this, even to breach of death itself. Thus has He restored the day of delight for man, towards his Creator, life needing no evacuation, but mere change of nature, and then of premises, according to the divine promises, always fulfilled. Now the Creator is,  for those who so come, their Redeemer also. The quest of the test has ended in the behest to rest! (cf. Matthew 11:28-30). That rest, it is one of the chief missing ingredients in a race which seems set to substitute motion and commotion for understanding and wisdom.

Yet when this redemption is despised, in outrageous outages, dismissive derision, intemperate division, as if branches tore themselves in contempt from their own tree; when indeed  mercy is ground into the ground, like broken glass into the soil: then not merely is there judgment individually. It is social also, and national, indeed international and cosmic; and it comes, thudding like the distant sound of an approaching aircraft, heavily laden with equipment. This, it is laden with justice, and loaded with judgment.

Many there be who have battled, battlers against the Lord, their minds warped, their wisdom on vacation, their creditable traits accumulating debits, their desire disordered, their lives in their own hands, which they do not even make; nor do they understand, nor can they. The world resounds to their cries, as nations and groups, militias and terrorists, simmering sects and boiling partisans insist now on this, now on that false and fraudulent way; and the world still turns, for it is only the people who significantly wobble!

When the wheels fall off, then it stops long enough to be judged with that truth which, being the truth, never waivers, never wilts. Judgment is according to truth then (Romans 2), justice is accorded to the lie of autonomy, judgment issues for the festering of will, for the mouthing of pride, the mountains of double dealing, the patronising dismissal of the Prince in His gory glory, now risen and resplendent.

Insight is gained when this polluting motion stops, and its makers sight what is within; and this, it is not so hard when what is outside is listable even now! It is necessary therefore to detach, it being a case of GOOD IF DETACHED, from this world in its spin syndrome, and to be still, to rest in the Lord and in His awesome kindness, His wonder in works, by which He has gained eternal redemption, and to accept that, at His hand, as a calf accepts its milk from the bucket. It is not only that the milk (of His word) is good, but that the Feeder is divine, literally.

It is God who is indispensable, and dispensing with Him dispenses not only with meaning, with comprehensibility, with harmony of understanding, awareness of duty, due fealty and loyalty, kin's relationship to its beginner, but with life (I John 5:12), till the dull stain of the dissolution of what could have been beautiful in peace and purity, shows the shame of the squalid end which ignored its beginning, and that without end.

Knowing the end from the beginning, He ends the conclusion with a finale that requires neither haste nor uncertainty. Destiny because of knowledge is predestinative, and predestination because of love, misses nothing. Without the redemption however, because of justice, there is no remission. Only Christ is good enough to make up the gap between the moral splendour of God, the necessary peace of heaven and the state of mankind. Seen from the first, He is sure to the end, although for His people, there is neither cessation nor consternation, for He who was from the first takes care to eternity, being eternal, of what is committed to His charge.

End-Notes

*1

Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch.  9 -
soulless seduction, glamour, stammer, hammer  ... flitter and glitter, and the unity that counts;

Spiritual Refreshings ... Ch.   3
(the soporific self, and the unity glide,
under the sedation of sin, the structurally simplistic substitute for reality),

News 121 - symphony and seditions - two heady heads,
proliferation of religious plurality and insinuation of spurious unity
is a sign of the times and a signal to what is more injurious than any 'fate';

News  122 -  deadly d's of humanistic dehumanisation,
rational irrationality
and the recompence they deserve,
compared with the results of reason and the consummation in revelation - necessarily;

OVERFLIGHT 5, New Age unity is so divisive from truth;

Repent or Perish Ch.  5 ,  7  inventions in mind, gender, politics ... 
attention to reality and its exposure to truth that does not vary:
justified inherently and empirically with imperial princeliness;
man as 'self-proclaimed mirror of a meaningless universe'
attests meaning in a fit of erraticism which spells one of two things,
doom or repentance, and that early;

Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Ch.   15
(spiritual - political - economic surrealism, and reality,
and various modes of escape from efficacious unity,
where it belongs), and  with this,

Delusive Drift or Divine Dynamic Ch. 3,

TMR Ch. 5 on Validity;

Divine Agenda Ch.    6
(specialising on religion miscalled demanding faith by force
and the pathos of power's puny imprint),

The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet Ch.  6
(world movements that cry for what is coming, the Judge, Jesus Christ).

*2

Barbs...  Appendix III;  

The Frantic Millenium... Ch.   9 ,

Things Old and New Chs.  9,10 Epilogue, Appendix