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CHAPTER 1
No Fly, No
Sky
News 250
News Radio,
December, 3rd Week 2002
US
Department of State, International Information Programs
THE DREARY,
THE WEARISOME AND THE WOEFUL
The
arrangements seem so snug and plausible. The three
THE FIRST
1)
THE SECOND
2)
So too there must be real EFFORTS to bring about a SOLUTION concerning the
Palestinian-Israel situation. Something simply MUST be done to dust this up, or
off, or clean it up, or whatever other cliché you may wish to enunciate,
announce or pronounce. It is all one. It has to be done. Why ? Apparently not
least because this will be pleasing to their lords, the Moslem Powers, who,
being a sort of partner in many cases with the US, by means of a thing called
diplomacy, are to be kept as happy as may well be. This assuredly keeps them
happy, so assuredly needs doing. While it is true that Williams Burns,
Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, refers to the efforts of
Whatever
the case, and whoever says whatever, the fact is that there is more than
abundant evidence of the Administration leaning over so far backwards to praise
Islam, and applying ever new pressure on
US
National Security Adviser, Rice, said,
we find in the same source and date, that “Islam is a great faith that inspires
people to lead lives based on honesty, justice and compassion and reinforces
the values of democracy and human rights.”
It is good
to know that such integrity rejects Christ, that the Islamic subjugation of
women is a reinforcement to human rights, that jihad, demonstrably in the Koran
(cf. More
Marvels … Ch. 4), is a matter of compassion, or
that honesty is to be found in annexing others as slaves, as in the Sudan. It
is quite useless to complain that these are actions only of some extremists –
for
He USED
force to get Mecca, USED it in wars with enemies who threatened his work
(unlike Christ, and on the contrary, in
full accord with what makes current wars seem endless – survival of the self
and its adherents in this world), made laws to subjugate to second class
citizenship Jews and Christians, with death if they tried to remove themselves
from such Islamic subjugation, spoke of having war proceed till only Allah was
praised and so on, as already shown in detail (More Marvels, loc. cit).
It cannot
be sufficiently stressed that Islam has been a religion of subjection, to its
prophet, to his successors of racial or spiritual kind, however chosen, to
force, with the use of force multiply used both in doctrine and practice, to
subjugate; and that in this respect, it is an enemy of freedom, of God, and of
humanity. It is as it was with Communism precisely, and for that matter with
Romanism. NOT ALL who embrace it like
all it does; and not all do what it says; but its nature is blatantly
against the reason, the need and the living God of mankind.
Praise for
it as a religion is therefore inept, logically, and an affront to Jesus Christ.
The ACCURATE statement is that parts of the Koran may in some things, inspire some people, despite its failure at
all to match the Bible in meeting logical criteria concerning the living God
(SMR Chs.
1, 10), and its reconstruction of Christ without warrant, and without
history, and its failure to provide any objective testimony for this creation;
and some do not want to be involved in its words in the violence direction, and
yet call themselves Moslems. Very well: far be it from any right-minded person
to call Moslems VIOLENT. All are not so. It is just that the Koran DOES
elaborately succour it, the prophet greatly used it, and this in the area of
faith IN PRACTICE; and that FORCE is widely used as a testimony of Allah, as in
Muhammad’s day, with victory a reward in ARMED conflict repeatedly.
v
The
other statements are simply not correct. This is not at all an accurate
statement of the burden of the Koran’s religion, and how many Moslems reject
the Koran ?
v
And
how many bypass the authority of those who in its name and that of Muhammad,
CALL on them for jihad ? Some reject all such mullah calls, perhaps, having a
fundamental divergence from this phase of the Koran, and an ideological
repugnance to some of its provisions, the actions wrought in the days of
Muhammad, and the accompanying words; but they are not readily characterisable
as Moslems in any normal sense! They do not submit.
v
Submission ? It is fine provided you do not submit to
the influenza, cancer or sin. SO is initiative, so long as you do not
transgress, but use your god-given gift wisely. Many things are good, when the
good is known, on good evidence, and not merely guessed, as if unverified
visions were a substitute for due care.
Why then is
the USA going to such wanton seeming extremes to praise this religion which
sought to take over Europe in the 8th century, and nearly succeeded,
to the extinction of freedom of speech, of the pursuit for truth, in the name
of an arbitrary authority which
does NOTHING in logical terms to confirm
itself and differentiate itself from false prophecy!
THIS at
least is new: this enormous official, governmental PRAISE for Islam.
It does
have results of course, and in estimating any conduct it is often useful to
seek out the obvious or even not quite so obvious results that could be
expected from it. It could be, of course, that there is some sudden realization
that Islam is the goods, or part of them, and so that the Biblical Christ is
not at all right, which it maintains so clearly, and that the New Testament is
a pot of bathwater (that is, is not true, is not accurate, its basic beliefs
being wrong and Christ not what is shown, and has been shown from the first, in
His claims and conduct – cf. SMR Ch. 6).
This is
inspiring ? To expect the early crowds who pressed into the Christian Church in
Jerusalem to swallow the bait about the supernatural Son of God whose works
they knew and had seen to attest Him, if in fact it was only a non-supernatural
Jesus who did non-miracles in non-profusion and who made non-claims to be the
Son of God, yes when they knew and had seen that this was not so, what would it
be like ? It would be like expecting to found a political party on the concept
that Australia was an island off Finland.
This distortion of history, this dereliction of history in
the favour of re-writing it without warrant of any evidential character,
contrary to all evidence, and indeed making an impossible rehash which nothing
can support, by words of empty ‘authority’, it is inspiring ?
That, whatever its intention, is a further lash for the back
of Jesus Christ, but the back is not bruisable any more. The claims of Christ
are inextricably integrated with the Old Testament prophecies and the
supernatural is a crucial part of all His claims and works. As Dr Schweitzer in
the last century showed so clearly, even as astray himself far from the Christ,
if you seek to remove the claims to deity and you cease to have a coherent
character, text or account at all. Schweitzer did not accept the full force of
His claim, but he could not accept the idea that it was not made, and made by
Christ!
Indeed, such claims HAD to be made for Him, the Christ, to
fulfil the prophecies, the fulfilment of which was one of the identikit signals
of His authenticity.
He had to know who He was, and that He was the One specified
and defined in the Old Testament prophecies such as Micah 5, Isaiah 8, Psalm 2
and 45. In HIM, they had to trust, though to trust in any but God was
forbidden; HE was the Saviour (Isaiah 53), though ONLY GOD is the Saviour
(Isaiah 43:10-11). Without this, there is no Messiah. Without this claim, there
is only nothing. It had not only to be made, but attested (Isaiah 29, 35), by a
power correlative with it.
It is easy for God to do that. No one else can. Jesus’ integrity stands when
all else falls; including Islam as a CONSEQUENCE. Religious romanticising is
worse than secular error: for it misrepresents God, who has been most careful
to attest His words, as He STATES (Isaiah 41,48, 43). It is necessary to have
discipline in religion, not in obeying what someone or other says, but in
finding and obeying the God who lives and shows and has shown who He is. To
politicize the matter, should this be done, would bring us nearer to the
Herodians of history, in Christ’s day.
The very terms “Son of man”
seen in Mark 14:62, Matthew 26:64, Luke 22:69, with John 18:36, and “Good Shepherd” in John 10, relate to deity in Daniel
7 and Ezekiel 34, and His most human claims, are thus most divine. The
blasphemy if He were not, in Mark 2:1-10 likewise, would not only be very real,
but incredibly arrogant, incorporating an impudence of irreligion past all
imagining. Indeed, here also, it was the “Son of man”
who had the “power to forgive sins”, that
stunningly magnificent figure to receive all the saved, and to have dominion
over all, as in Daniel 7:13ff.. There are no GODS in the Bible, there is only
one God; and the ‘gods’ are ridiculed greatly (as in Psalm 82, Jeremiah
When one acts as God with God’s approval, there is thus only
one result: it is God. He exists in diversity, but unity; and hence sent His
word (John 1:1, Isaiah 48:16) as announced, in full authority of His name,
without derogation or degradation. The only depreciation was that of the human
habitat, which of course was part of the need of procedure, that as man God
could dispense with death, overcoming in His incandescent purity, the sin which
clamored for it, and attributing to
those who accepted such a work on their
behalf, the results of it (Philippians 2, Isaiah 53:3-6).
These, whose sin He bore, are the healed ones, as Isaiah
declares. The other option is to bear them yourself, with an incredible
presumption, which will not pass muster at heaven’s gate (Matthew 7:21ff., John
8:24).
Thus did Christ
act. However, the power that went with
it, the knowledge and the fulfilment of the entire identikit of works that the
Messiah had to do, and only God COULD do*1A, provided the other approach. God did not
so honour an impostor, but provided power to His own, sent at the right time (Highway
of Holiness Ch. 4), place in Bethlehem, to the
right tribe, Judah, with the right works of healing (Isaiah 29, 35), claims
that went with it. God FORECAST the coming in place and date, so there was no
excuse for not believing it when it came on time, like a dentist appointment,
or a holiday!
Further, it only had to happen ONCE, one failure of ANY
kind, among such claims of such power and such eternity (John
v
“IF WE LET HIM ALONE LIKE THIS, EVERYONE WILL BELIEVE IN HIM!”
Christ’s works spoke for themselves (cf. John 14:9-11). Not
only so, but His ways were sufficiently godly to be beyond any capacity to
challenge them successfully (Luke 20:39ff.), and His words were unanswerable,
simultaneously with those actions. He did not seek His own, to rule His nation,
to obliterate His enemies: He did not call for a jihad against His opponents,
did not claim, as if not God, that you had to be cruel to induce results. He was not at all like
Muhammad, like the various ‘saviours’ of today, Hussein, Hitler, Mao, or
Stalin, with whom slaughter was required for the sustenance of their ideology.
His way was not the way of war but of peace.
The world cannot do without Him, and when it tries, it fails
in its way, and now goes to this extreme both in impudent rejection of His
name, and of His ways, to the point that it is the angst state we have noted in the last volume, and foretold by Christ
(Luke 21:25-28, cf. No Thanks for Angst! …). Instead,
Miracles of healing, answering and kindness poured out as from a Spring. It was
not a match, an event; it was a life.
That is WHY they felt they HAD to kill Him. At the level of
Godhead, He performed to perfection; and God ? His power is infinite. Nor is
this all. It was predicted that this would be the step which they would take!
It is like predicting Normandy Beach Landing in World War II, during the
Council of Nicaea. Even the METHOD they would choose for their nefarious
dealings were exhibited in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 (cf. Joyful Jottings 25), and
their abhorrence of the Messiah would likewise come, AS FORECAST in the
book of the Lord (Isaiah 49:7).
The Gospel resulting was likewise foretold (cf. SMR Ch. 9), and the Gentile acceptance in such
numbers, royalty included, this was part of the identikit for all ages, concerning the Messiah (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6,
60:3). The Old and New Testaments concerning Him are like woven tartan, the one exhibiting what was to be, the other
being it; and more than this, the actual coming as in the Sermon on the Mount
exhibited things with that veritable mastery of superb glory which was its own
bloom on the peach of perfection. He spoke as God, yet did not declaim against
His own word, contradict it, but rather fulfilled it (Matthew 5:17-19).
As they said, He has done
all things well! When the play is
to be God, that is an infinitely difficult proposition, except of course
for God.
In contrast to the demonstrability of the Bible as the word
of God (SMR), of which this is verification, is this document, the Koran, which
is demonstrably NOT the word of God, since it provides NOTHING to persuade the
mind, uses power to confuse the issue of faith (cf. SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff., 1088Dff., More Marvels … Ch.
4, Highway to Hell, SMR pp. 1186Aff.) in practice, and even
in numerous texts.
Such an approach, with power the judge, permitting on its
occasions, applied violence in the very heart of the faith, makes man’s will a
mere cipher, and hence God responsible for a history in which there is no
redemption, mere process of such power, as if man were nothing in the image of
God, a mere deterministic fragment, under a kind of religious thrust evinced by
power, and hence obliterative of the reality of human life, in its love,
licence, liberty and reality. On this we have noted the defects in
self-contradiction moreover (as in SMR pp. 1080ff.), and its rank contradiction
of available textual evidence to the uttermost degree. If anything COULD be
false prophecy, this has to be it, by all criteria, evidence and logic.
This is not to say one word against such persons who endorse
Moslem ideas, and yet do not carry them out, as to their CONDUCT. It cannot
however avoid being honest about the book concerned to which so many of their leaders appeal, and in terms of
which, form time to time, just like the pope, REQUIRE obedience.
That is the
second stroke, then, the USA going very non-democratic in its rank praise of
Islam. It is one thing to be kind and gracious, thoughtful and protective of
both the persons and reputations of people within a State: it is quite another
to PRAISE and PARTICIPATE in their religion, not your own, theirs in
God-forsaken actions against the integrity of the religion you yourself profess
(as in the case of Bush). You do not need to praise a religion except it is
demonstrably worthy of it. If a doctor inspired to health, and yet killed a few
of his patients owing to a psychiatric condition, or a political one, then
while we would on no account wish to remove our characterisation of the good,
it would be folly to ignore the other part. If,
again, the PRACTICE of a doctor were of this kind, but the doctor
himself were not given to such negative exertions, it would be wrong to condemn
the member of the clinic not guilty; but it would be no less folly to ignore
the fact that he chooses to remain IN IT!
The US like
Britain before her, prizes freedom; but freedom carries responsibility, and to
praise as a GOVERNMENT what is a human
imagination without logical warrant, when what HAS this warrant has long been
high in the nation, in its laws and conscience, this is a change which MUST be
realised. It can only have consequences; and it is time to cite the fact and to
be aware that God is not forsaking man, but man is forsaking God, more and
more, not only of course in the USA, but notably there where the testimony of
Christ was once so high. Do we not know that righteousness exalts a nation, and
that sin is a reproach to any people ? Is this not what is written in Proverbs
14:34!
Can the USA
buck the principle ? Assuredly not. It is better to have the living God for
your friend, than any number of others committed to a religion which has proved
in practice when it has power, again and again, that what is in the Koran is no
incident. It RULES.
THE THIRD
3)
What else ? what further work is the USA now doing. Let us be clear: the author
conceives of himself as friendly to the USA, because its past is so good in
many ways, and it is not yet submerged into the seedy future which religious
subjectism is likely to breed for it. Yet when it strays, will not even its
friends warn it ? and warn others not to follow these steps towards ruin ?*1
What else then ? Thirdly, Yemen must not be too irritated.
To be sure lethal missiles in its direction, intercepted in a boat arraigned
and inspected by the US in its Gulf … duties, could be unfortunate. Still,
Yemen is very needful for war on terror. One must not be too hard, but hope
that no double dealing , no theft, real or otherwise, no allegiance to Mecca
within Yemen, will lead those missiles to Tel Aviv, not a cargo, this time, but
going on their own.
Remember Cuba ? how the USA was not very pleased about the
use being made of it, in 1962 ?
SO IT GOES … BUT WHERE
?
So it goes. But WHAT is going ? and where is it moving ?
ONE THING that is moving is this. It has not at all been for
all time that the USA has categorically endorsed and sought a Palestinian State
INSIDE Israel. It is so now, and very emphatically so. You see it in Ambassador
Cunningham’s speech to the UN as US policy, but also straight from the stated
intentions of the President as shown earlier on this site. There is no question
of this. It is simple fact.
Thus the US, moving with Moslems, and seeking not to
alienate them, seeking not now for the first time, to be sure, but with new
emphasis, makes war on terrorism in association with one
of the bastions of terrorism, that Islam which is the State religion of Iran
and Iraq, and nearly so in Pakistan, as also in Saudi Arabia, famed source of
bin Laden, and Syria. Without doubt, to have trusted the Lord would have been
far wiser; and the leaning on “Egypt” which was a besetting sin of later
administrations of Israel in the Old Testament (cf. Isaiah 30, Ezekiel 17:15),
led to the divine expostulation:
Ø
“Woe to the rebellious
children,” says the Lord,
“Who take counsel, but
not of Me,
And who devise plans, but
not of My Spirit,
That they may add sin to
sin;
Who walk to go down to
Egypt,
And have not asked My
advice,
To strengthen themselves
in the strength of Pharaoh,
And to trust in the
shadow of Egypt!
Therefore the strength of
Pharaoh
Shall be your shame,
And trust in the shadow
of Egypt
Shall be your humiliation.”
That is found in Isaiah 30.
But note the word in Isaiah 31!
Ø
“Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
And rely on horses,
Who trust in chariots because they are many,
And in horsemen because they are very strong,
But who do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
Nor seek the Lord!
Ø
“Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster,
And will not call back His words,
But will arise against the house of evildoers,
And against the help of those who work iniquity.
Now the Egyptians are men, and not God;
And their horses are flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord
stretches out His hand,
Both he who helps will fall,
And he who is helped will fall down;
They all will perish
together.”
What then is to become of Israel,
that long-time friend of the USA from far off in time ?
Is it to be sacrificed in order to
make peace with sensitive … Moslem interests, who therefore and thus will not
be so likely to double-cross the USA, or to be
merely vocal in aid ? (the term is very
American, but poor America is not unlikely to find to her sorrow, that allies
out of place can bring one out of place oneself!). Is it in this way, they
would aggravate the profound and ludicrous situation where only some 23% of the
promised Palestine ever reached Israel, as a concession, in amazing breach of
undertaking at the international level;
and is it thus now to be made worse in that the capital is to be
breached, and Islam with its many ‘holy sites’ is to be enriched with half of
one more, while Israel must sacrifice not only large amounts of the Palestine
never given to her, but even more now of the residue!
She can have, maybe, half a capital
city... and maybe a pretence of a nation. How extraordinarily kind!
It is in one sense, so delightful,
that God has spoken otherwise, concerning the end (Ezekiel 38-39 cf. SMR Appendix D), which is to be His own, in His own
place, where man gave Him no place, that is ? Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:6, where the irony is prodigious, 14:5, Micah 4,
Isaiah 2, 11, 24:23, Ezekiel 34:23ff., Zechariah 6:12-13, Jeremiah 23:5ff.,
Joel 2-3 cf. Sparkling Life in Jesus Christ Ch. 10)! This, God has devised,
Mecca or no Mecca, just as earlier, Moscow or no Moscow – and Moscow that
desired Him to depart, where is that now ?; for in this matter of Jerusalem,
not only is He Almighty, but He statedly plans to act (cf. SMR pp. 502ff., The Biblical Workman Ch.
1, *3,and Ch. 3, *1).
The Lord God also loves justice, so
let us return to the current UN and USA intentions for Israel, amazing though
they be.
Is this justice ? Is this equity ?
Is the undoubted problem of the Palestinian cause to be met not in putting them
in the vast majority of Palestine given to the largely Muslim Jordan, but in
Israel in its miniscule little residue ? Is even more of the residue to be
removed ? Is it to be a nation virtually indefensible (except by God, and as we
have seen, He is committed cf. The Impregnable Tower Ch. 6, part 2) Is
its tiny apportionment to be surrounded and its capital invaded by the
militancy of a spurious peace, till they have nothing to call their own, that
is not menaced by an Islam which STATEDLY again and again has sought its
destruction, Arafat himself having told them that they were free to go to hell!
o
Is
Hitler II, then, to come of age ? Is this the intended scenario of a global
(but not universal) Islamic-sponsored terrorism and invasiveness which has been
seen since Teheran’s Pan-Islamic Conference of 1991, and much since as they
support the cause of the Palestinian invaders, who want more of what was never
theirs, and to rule their hosts ?
o
Is
it to be endorsed in Europe, or much of it, just as Hitler I was endorsed by
many there, in 1939 ?
o
Is
there no end to this puny but politicised human desire to evacuate Jews in
favour of Islam, or oil, or whatever combination seems appealing (we have seen
earlier, a top level British admission
to this effect some years ago in the
words of then Foreign Secretary, Bevin*2), for some sort of imposed peace, or whatever
it may be called ?
o
Is
Auschwitz to be repeated in a new and more humane way, by simply reducing
Israel itself to the status of a resort ? and an endangered one at that ?
o
Is
the multiplicity of Islamic nations surrounding it, to be given one more piece
of the prey, fresh-cut from the shoulder ? Let us be realistic.
God is not mocked, and both foresaw
and forecast this endeavour, after the return (as predicted) to Israel of the
Jews, to remove it. He has made it clear that Jerusalem will be a BURDENSOME STONE
(Zechariah 12) to those who attempt this, before He brings to pass that great
Evangelical Excursion, the conversions of many of the Jews in Israel as
forecast for so long (Zechariah 12:10). It is so, has been so and will continue
to be so until the denouement comes into line (as in SMR pp. 510ff., 502ff.).
Unwise is he who tangles with the
living God in His works of compassion, honour and disposition of His own property.
After all, this world, He made it. No
man made any land. They may translocate pieces of it in Holland; but they do
not … make it. It belongs to God, as does history, as we have seen these
millennia, do see and will continue to see.
It is sad indeed when some straggle
into the wrong line in this queue of history; it is great grief. One can only
hope that the USA will awaken to her peril; for the fear of man is nothing. It
is God Almighty who is to be feared, and this not only because He IS almighty,
but because He is the truth. Without
Him, there could be none. Without that,
terror drools. It is seen, as terrorism, drooling in Ezekiel 38. It ceases
abruptly by Ezekiel 39 …
FAITH IN
CONTRAST TO THESE DREARY DEALINGS AND WEARY WOES
Israel has asked for it in rejecting its own
Messiah; and it has got it. Let not the nations however hypocritically waggle
the finger. They do not believe either (Psalm 2 – cf. The Biblical Workman Ch. 1,
*3,and Ch. 3 *1).
Israel of
old was constantly,
in its latter days, seeking to idols of the mind, the body, the heart, the
spirit and alliances were made because of lack of faith.
v
This
was seen, for example, in the notorious case of Ahaz seeking help from Assyria,
noted in II Kings 16:8ff., in the midst of a religious revisionism of the first
order,
v
as
in that of Asa, who having done well, suddenly grew too wise to trust in God in
political matters. Accordingly, seeking help from Syria, he inherited a divine
rebuke for his paltriness, as a spiritual poltroon, even he who had been
conspicuously brave earlier!
It is not Israel only which is concerned. It is the case in
ANY NATION which actively seeks, endorses, allies itself with evil religions, such as naturalism in all its eccentric follies (cf. Wake Up
World! … Chs. 2, 4, 5, 6, Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Ch. 8, Earth Spasm, Conscience Chasm and Renewal of Life
Chs. 1, 7, Joyful Jottings Ch.
3), Islam, or even one of the other re-inventers of Christ, who just as
Muhammad imagined one in the 7th century, now image for themselves,
others in the 21st., daring to use HIS name for their conceptions,
as if someone made a Church doll!
It is going far past democracy. The case is this: the matter
is moving to the assertion, acceptance or alliance with what not merely is NOT
Christ, but what assaults Him. It is not limited to any one nation. There is a
principle in the matter as Solomon declared (Proverbs 14:34).
If ANY PERSON does the same, the result, unless there be
repentance, is that they are just what Paul calls them in II Cor.11: “false apostles, deceitful workers”, or their
lackeys, ignoring the purity of Christ and inventing an impure caricature. Let
then there caricature arise and save them!
As Jeremiah put it in 11:10, “The gods that have not made the heavens and the earth shall
perish from the earth and from under these heavens.”
Again, relative to our phase of evolutionism, so rampant and ridiculous a doctrine, Jeremiah in his
day addressed the parallel rebellion thus, in 2:27-31:
Ø
“As the thief is ashamed when he is found out,
So is the house of Israel
ashamed;
They and their kings and
their princes, and their priests and their prophets,
Saying to a tree, ‘You are
my father,’
And to a stone, ‘You gave
birth to me.’
Ø
“For they have turned their
back to Me, and not their face.
But in the time of their
trouble
They will say, ‘Arise and
save us.’
Ø
“But where are your gods that you have made for yourselves?
Let them arise,
If they can save you in the time of your trouble;
For according to the number of your cities
Are your gods, O Judah.
Ø
“ ‘Why will you plead with
Me?
Ø
“ ‘You all have transgressed
against Me,’ says the Lord.
‘In vain I have chastened
your children;
They received no correction.
‘Your sword has devoured
your prophets
Like a destroying lion.
O generation, see the word
of the Lord!
Have I been a wilderness to
Israel,
Or a land of darkness?’
Ø
“ Why do My people say, ‘We
are lords;
Ø We will come no more to You’ ?”
Let imaginary superiority of some part of nature to another,
some race, some secular ideology, human religious invention as if to harass
God, let some cultural production of the race’s religious bent in the form of
gods from the mental machinations of man, denizens of stupour, never effectual,
be used in war and in life. It will not profit
Ø cf. Wake Up World! Your Creator is
Coming … Chs. 4-6,
Ø A Spiritual Potpourri Chs.
1-9,
Ø That Magnificent Rock Chs.
1, 6-8.
Sin is a reproach to any people. Making light of God makes
the heart heavy, and leads to the sort of follies that arise when Israel is to
receive the ‘treatment’, this time from the United Nations, or any other party
bent on internationalising Jerusalem.
It is an expensive business, to ignore the proclamations of
Almighty God and it is not too much safer when you use His own name as well,
even while doing it!
What is it like ? It is like someone wanting to penetrate
the very skies, like Icarus in the fable. He yearns, he makes preparations, he
devises. Yet if he WILL not use an aeronautical device of some kind, how does
he expect to get there ? It is the case: NO FLY, NO SKY!
If on the other hand, he flies a waxy device (cf.
Ecclesiastes 7:29), a delusive aspiration will not keep him in the air, only in
the clouds that hold nothing up, and let everything down.
To fly in spiritual life, to work with God, you see the
‘wind’ of His Spirit which He gives to those who obey Him (Acts 5:32). It is
not that obedience qualifies for this gift, for faith does so (Romans 8:9). Yet
it is when you follow His word, live in His Spirit, like Peter find it joy
unspeakable and full of glory to be near Him in spirit, give glory to God and
not to popes or false prophets, whether religious, biological, economic or
psychological, it is then that you find yourself “sitting
in heavenly places” in Christ (Ephesians 2:6), adopted, alerted and
accepted.
Yet if you want to earn your way to the infinite purity of
God, and so blaspheme (Titus 3, Romans 3), so be it; and if you want to think
your way to making up His word for Him, so be it. Think what joy you would have
if someone did that for you, say in business, and even signed the contract for
you! How joyful would you be!
With God, the case is infinitely worse.
Not thus do you mount up with wings as eagles (Isaiah
40:26ff.), and not thus is your strength imparted, in spiritual terms, so that you youth is
renewed like the eagles.
v
You fly with faith, and the wind is from His Spirit, and the
Spirit is sent to those who are His, and leads those who walk in the way with
Him. But if not ? If you will follow paths antagonistic to His word ? Then it
is simple: NO FLY, NO SKY!
v
Stay earthy.
NOTES
*1A You see this by His own testimony as
in Numbers 14:19-20, II Kings 24:4, II
Chronicles 30:18, Nehemiah 9:17, Psalm 25:11, Jeremiah 50:20, 33:8, Isaiah 55:7ff.. In the last, the
testimony is made that man’s thoughts are not as God’s and it is GOD who
pardons; whilst in Jeremiah 5:7, the Lord’s own divine prerogative is made
clear, His own discretion determining the nature of the desire; and this is HIS
OWN response. Indeed, in Ezekiel 14:20 it is made clear that so far from man
being able to pardon man, the most holy of men could by no means have reached
God at all in any search to pardon Israel at that time. You trust in God not
man (Jeremiah 17), and the latter if forbidden and folly.
If
anyone should seek to forgive therefore in Christ’s name, it can only be
on the basis that the conditions being fulfilled (faith in Christ according to
His Gospel), the result is applicable. In such a case, like that of Judas, the
hypocrite is of course NOT covered; so that it is all conditional on the
presence of a faith which ONLY God knows (as in II Timothy 2:19). Unwise is he
whoever he be, who ever puts his trust in man. It is forbidden.
When all is said, man
is man and God is God and he who fails to recognise the infinity of the
distinction is like someone who in mathematics, cannot differentiate between
unity and infinity. This, it is a sad condition, and one to which pity must be
drawn.
Christ in personally
announcing forgiveness in His own name, and this explicitly, is simply
declaring what He elsewhere declares (John 8:58, 5:19-23), that He is God as
man. THEN it becomes blasphemy NOT to accept forgiveness from HIS hand. You
would know His, by the holes which were imprinted (cf. Zechariah 13:6).
*1 Thus one could not but feel
apprehensive for the USA on one earlier occasion, in August 2001, when it seemed too insensitive to the
terrorism being suffered at that time in Israel, speaking at that time chiefly
of some sort of peace, as this murderous and invasive horror occurred.
What, one asked, would happen if
such things happened nearer to home in USA or in Britain ? (The
Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet
The matter is precisely presented in
the above reference. The Lord weights all things, but this, in itself, was a
cause for a very explicit concern from one watching, as was this author at that
time; and it was expressed!
Is there any pleasure in this ? No but there is profit in giving warning when
a nation trespasses into the terrain appointed by God to Himself!
As events now move even further, one
must realise that when God speaks as He does in Jeremiah 30:16, it is well to
take heed, and even listen…
*2 Bevin, British Foreign Secretary is reported as having made
this statement, as shown in Regal Rays from Revelation Ch. 1.