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Chapter
10
It
is Coming…!
HE
is coming.
News
254
ABC
News Radio,
Delirious daubs are to be found on all sides. There is the
conception that humanism is the thing: you are kind, compassionate, fight to
love and love to fight, enjoy yourself, endure where necessary, eat, drink as
far as possible, be merry if within reason, and occasionally without reason for
the sheer libido of it, and continue to accumulate wealth, friends and helps
until your age increases and your children can take over. That of course is not
the normal definition of humanism, but perhaps it is seen as an ideal for a
multitude of those who espouse it.
MAKING CULTURAL GODS IN DIFFERENT WAYS
Many might object.
It is not I, such may say, who would follow such grossly
hedonistic prescriptions.
To be sure, the idea of man as god is attractive, such may
continue, but you don’t have to wallow to be a god. You need to more ethical,
more attractive, to make life easier for others so that they can make it easier
for you, use your wits, that’s why you have them, and enjoy what measure of
peace you can; be wily; be foxy; be anything, but intend well.
But what is ‘well’ ? one might respond.
It is what makes you happy, with due respect to the future,
and what will make others happy.
I am neither self-wrapped not self-rapt.
What then is happiness, for this expansive being whom you
describe, your very own self, however hypnotised with it or hallowed from it
you may feel ? one pursues. It is, after all, this self which is making the
rules, selecting them, the ground for them, for they do not come with the
package (cf. Things Old and New Ch. 10, Deliverance
from Disorientation Chs.
8, 12,
Spiritual Refreshings 15, 3, Lord of Life Chs. 5, 8).
It is the state of contentment because all your main drives
and needs are met.
What is well about your drives, and how do you manage if
others’ needs conflict with yours, as you see them ?
My drives, being human, are good; and if there is conflict,
may the best man win.
Why is it good to be human ? Hitler had drives, insane
people have drives, and many consider you insane because you do not share their
drives. In fact, you cannot even identify the drives that are human.
People, such might reply, have good or bad drives.
So it is not good to be human, but to be a good human, in
which case it is not the human part but the good part which is your interest,
so that all you are doing, logically, is this: You are identifying good as
good. Well done! What a magnificent identity proposition. All your talk of ‘human’ is merely a smoke
screen, a bleary theory or a nubilous daub.
All of this merely shows the complete uselessness, the weary
song of the intoxicated as they guide themselves by themselves (imported ethics
from nowhere cf. News 19), and by the human race
(ditto), and pretend to have some compass with which to compass their lives.
It is just the same with various cultural religions, which merely
proclaim (whatever it is), acclaim (themselves) and disclaim (all other
religions, or various non-combinations, or combinations or whatever else
fulfils their neo- this or neo- that – as in the case of Christianity which is
not such a case, but is susceptible to reconstruction so that the depleted and
distorted residue and result becomes
such a case, neo-evangelicalism and neo-orthodoxy or other quasi-variety). In
these cases, some idea of the mind, some ideal of the spirit projects its
shadow from the netherlands of hope, or desire, symbolism or sense of
significance, and either fights to get great (excuse the roughness, but the
thing IS rough), or floats to attract (many people seem to like floating, just
as physically, others like surfing, and indeed, some may find the combination
of surfing and floating almost religious cf. Wake Up World!... Epilogue).
Humanism is not a possible logical option, but an exercise
in subjectivity and a tour through a philosophic Arc de Triomphe which reaches not the interior of
Ch. 8, Divine Agenda Ch. 7). However, since the world does not like
God (it likes gods, or invented Allahs – cf. More Marvels … Ch. 4, which do not meet logical specifications or
verifications, and in effect deny the mind in order to satisfy the contortions
of truth to which man is heir when God’s place is left vacant in his heart), as
Romans 1:17ff. makes so clear, and Jesus Christ specifies in no uncertain terms
in John 14:30: what does it then do ? Then it naturally seeks, almost by a
thrust of the frustrated spirit, like someone eating grass when no food is
available, to find some substitute.
Some like to keep out of the arena altogether, and become
irrational humanists; some like to have goddies, like Charles’ reported Teddy,
to cuddle, as if to do SOMETHING for the cause of religion, and they import
these from the East (in religious extravanganzas) or the West (in philosophic
nullities), or make them up, with due respect to a cosmopolitan platter of
tasties and ‘goodies’, or imagine them.
Others refuse to have God or gods, and so make themselves or
the race into these things, by inventing ethics, inventing causes that do not
exist or display themselves, and inventing life, and then living it. They do
not succeed, even if they disclaim their goddishness, when acting as gods, but
without the power or prerequisites of God.
You get it in biology, with survival playing creator, and
chance authorising law (in oblivion of scientific method cf. TMR Ch. 1,SMR pp. 140ff.); you get it in psychology,
with humanism’s crypto-divine powers surging from past to present with a
meaning which needs the authority of religion for support, as Jung began to see
(cf. SMR Ch. 4); in economics at its most
expansive, with presumed passions of man hideously limited to one, and made to
invent history as if the immaterial prioritisation of the material were in some
way relevant to the truth; as in religion, with someone or other having some
visions or other without support, validity or ground (cf. More Marvels Ch. 4, SMR pp. 1032ff., Things Old and New Chs. 9, 10, Epilogue, Appendix), and
then directing the world with a bomb, or rockets, or a scimitar, or torture
screws and so on.
ALL of these things are irrational, without possible validity,
founded on the foundling, man without God, without meaning, seeking to surge
into the artificially created vacuum with pretended and often pretentious
solidity. They are one and all the simple expression of man’s perversion from
God, into religious or irreligious objets d’art (metaphysical branch), which are
proposed as if taste could invent truth, or preference become the matrix of
life. Hence is explained their otherwise inexplicably tenuous, absurdly
irrational, continually invalid premisses, which for men to follow without such
passion, would amount to absurdity.
The rationale is not too difficult: To deny God is absurd;
so finding a substitute, like hunger seeking for grass where no food is, impels
man where neither reason nor truth can come; but where vacuity or cruelty love
to linger.
What then of such magics and myths, one and all of them ?
(cf. Secular Myths…, A
Spiritual Potpourr), the metaphysical misfits (SMR Ch. 3), the slavering substitutes for truth, the
divorcees from reality ? They do but exhibit in biographical form,
v
the SYMPTOMS of artificial
spirituality, or
v
the RESULTS of pretended
unspirituality.
Both are sourced alike; each presents the same face; and
neither has ever nor could ever give man any rest.
Coming from and in the severed frame built by God and for
God, from that human life engendered by God, without God they engender gods, trying
at times even to suppress awareness of the process itself, and at other times,
exalting in prodigies of the irrational, as if mere movement where the idea of
God was, must make it acceptable. It is like lost children searching for their
parents. Now this adult, now that is seized upon with a zeal and with a hope
wholly inexplicable, except for this, that they lack what they need, and being
separated, do not find it. They do not look… in the right place.
What then do we find ? It is this.
Some affirm truth in terms which deny it, being
unsusceptible to the testing which the created minds can achieve, and hence
irrelevant to man, and so, far from adducing all principles and data available
for judicious test and careful result, they launch like some untargeted rocket,
into such an abuse of the term ‘faith’ that it comes to mean a disreputable
junking of logic, evidence, of accreditation by verification; and so being in
denial, it must be denied. You are not, and cannot be aided by USING logical
devices while DENYING their applicability. This is mere self-contradiction, as
always, rendering further contradiction or debate superfluous! It is to forfeit
the match!
On the other hand, some deny the very possibility of truth,
by abstracting man from any absolute, and making mere projections of this or
that component of the personality in lust or hope or desire.
This has the disadvantage that truth is denied in it, and
having denied truth, they cannot assert it (cf. SMR Chs.
3, 10).
This does not deter the determined god-maker, and few seem
so passionately religious as some who worship the thoughts of their own minds,
even when they have implicitly denied any POSSIBILITY of validity to them, in
the process. This is the realm of the surreptitious god.
That men could fall to such irrational baseness is sad; but
when they do, there is no standard but subjectivity, and no basis for this, but
desire. What however is desirable ? Is it imagination unfettered ? This has the
disadvantage that when you indulge in it, facts get in the way. The world gets
in the way too, of course, since others have other unfettered feelings and
reelings, so that there is conflict. Then death gets in the way.
One of the ways in which death gets in the way is in the
cultural religion of Islam. It likes submission, and so tends to enhance the
problem, since when you actually SEEK for others to submit, then of course the
conflicts are going to be greater. Let us by no means pillory one case, for
Romanism and Communism have been exactly the same, inventing against
and without reason, and then insisting on the ground of their being
right that you do what they say, and sending you, if you do not, betimes to
hell, or to Siberia or to the ground amid blood; although it is ‘only’ your
body. Communism more directly has often sought the soul as well; which is
ironic, since it really does not ‘believe’ in the spirit of man, which it uses
in order to formulate its unbelief, and chastises in its victims, because their
spirits do not follow and submit to the delusive hopes of the amazingly
religious, but vacuously empty self-contradictions of Communism.
But let us turn to some of the destructive zeal in the
latest lust, some of Islam’s millions seeking for subjection (not of
themselves, but of others), with the proviso - destruction
if not, and injecting a song of irrational hatred and insidious
religiosity into the moribund passion. This, after all, is likely to have an
enormously unifying effect on Europe, which was warned by Russian President
Putin, in some his earlier exploits in
Chechnya, around which time he visited England and presented his case, that
Islam might threaten EUROPE, just as it was a painful blight in Chechnya. Hence
Europe may be doing some thinking about not sinking, and about aggregation,
congregation. The only thing then is the preacher, and in this we have often
seen the developments! (cf. SMR pp. 911ff.,
923ff., 947ff., Biblical Blessings Ch. 2, Cascade of Truth … Chs. 10, 12).
JITTERBUGGING WITH JIHAD,
Under the heading, “A Quiet Voice Echoes Among Islamic Radicals”, the Washington Post, January 3, 2003) deals
at considerable lengthy with the case of Abubakar Baasyir and his love of
jihad. There does appear some resemblance between the earlier US love of
jitterbugging, that rank but for many attractive throwing of a sense of
glowing, of vitality about the dance floor, so that jiving or hiving, being
like ants or bees, like swallows or like pups, one apparently exhibits or
appeals to a sense of release, of relief, of doing it at last or whatever else
may be involved. There may even be some sense of glory, of achieving something,
of making a statement, as well of a kind of delirious joy.
In some Rugby matches, you can sense at times the same.
There can come a religious sort of atmosphere, one of glory, in which something
not obviously very great, is nevertheless given the accolade due to something
great. There is an ovation of heart, a cheering of soul, a virtual ecstasy of a
sense of attainment: the goal is SCORED, and wit has won (or perhaps brute
strength, but this is not the normal item here).
In war, you can see something similar at times. The Kaiser
in World War I (how great is he), with plumed metallic lid to his larder, with
grandeur of might his equipage, has stepped into the international arena, and
is about to score a goal, hegemony,
being best, being first, bringing to Germany her true greatness, with strength,
in some obscure and doubtless evolutionary manner making – if not mankind – a
RACE or a NATION GREAT. Glory is there.
Or else it is Japan, with its Emperor, not rationally deducible as
divine, but with some kind of divinity, and is not the nation, rising like the
sun, about to impart a new grandeur to the Pacific West (from the US) or East
(from Europe), or at any rate something designable, so that the GLORY is there.
WE will do it; and WE will show them.
As with Hitler, who had another race in mind, there is the
sense of mission, of thrust, of purpose,
and of achievement.
Of reason, there is never any; only the obscurantist
dialects of desire.
Now ? it is JIHAD. To
be sure, it does have to some extent a racial clientele, for the Middle East
where the thing began; it has a thrust for glory, an annunciation of this or
that, has many ARABS and many dark-skinned people, and Indonesia might in some
way be aligned, and the European thing could be contrasted, though it is
difficult since France has not only many like that, but many Moslems. Oh well,
if not race, then what (though there are racial – one does not say racist –
overtones) ? Why of course, a prophet! There can also be a region (like
Jerusalem, and by the way, grab that,
seems to be one additive thrust), and thus Mecca can stand to the world to
proclaim the Middle East, and the Arabs and all that sort of thing; and of
course, Allah, their invention.
Like the other sects, they are not content with their own
invention (cf. Highway to Hell). Like the
rest, in general they manipulate Christ by imagination without reason or
ground, so that they detach the name from the testimony of history and of truth
as demonstrable (cf. SMR, TMR); and USING what they do not have, INVENT
what they cannot show. There is no empirical way and no rational way of
attesting the thing; but the scimitar spoke heavily from the first to Mecca,
and to the world in the earlier days, and it came close to cutting ice. Islam
manipulates both ‘God’ as in the Old Testament, where it does not find the
Messiah, and ‘Christ’ in the New, where it does not touch down on history; and
it muddles both, satisfies neither, but is strong in invention.
One of the things in which it is also strong, is the glorying
in strength. Thus heaven is not too hard for the successful warrior (cf.
More Marvels… Ch. 4), nor is its repose too much
for those who follow the militant campaigns which lead to glory. Glory ? Oh
well, at least they are meant to lead to SUBMISSION to this Allah, without
ground or display, without reason or attestation, just with words, words
contrary as shown in the above reference, to the historical documents to which
indirect and sometimes direct reference is made (cf. SMR pp.1080ff.), in contrast and
contradiction of that to which they make appeal.
There is, however, no contradiction of the desire to RULE.
Like Kaiser, there is to be HEGEMONY, and you had better submit or you will be
made to; and it is in this like the Japanese idea. Empire building with the
religious variant can be attractive to some, and jihad can do it, some think.
Thus the report in the Post advises us in detail of the
attraction which this minor cleric in Indonesia felt for the idea of subduing
all nations where Islam was strong, with Islam. It is like a guest who forms an
attraction to your three-bathroom residence and feels that you could, perhaps,
stay provided the title deeds are transferred to him (or of course, to her, if
you prefer it that way, but the case is not
attractive). Moving from Indonesia where Suharto did not appreciate the
concept as it then was, he went to Malaysia, we are advised, where a more tolerant
law allowed him to advocate what appealed.
By 1999, when he returned to a more receptive Indonesia, this man had
apparently become a world influencing preacher, and his followers, finding
inspiration in his teachings on jihad, had fought in Afghanistan, Bosnia and
the southern Philippines.
Why worry ? It is just that his jihad movement, fostered
under the (quite just, in this regard) heading of ‘Islam’, as shown in More
Marvels Ch. 4, had got the idea of being
destructive where Australians were concerned, in Bali. Now it is made clear
that (allegedly) this was not his idea. He did not think it a productive
procedure, since it could lead, some attested, to repression and that would be
unfortunate.
Repression ? yes of the jihad-loving movement. There is a
time and a place for murder, it seems, so that (as so often) the ‘vision’ can
be implemented, and people ‘liberated’ (the Communists were great on that, and
suppression and obliteration of many human liberties is called ‘liberation’,
rather than indoctrination and spoliation, by many cast in the mould of this
sort of visionary, political zealotry). In this one thing, he may have been
right. There has been a certain distaste apparent in Indonesia for what some of
his followers evidently decided to do, though without his specific blessing for
the choice of time and venue, it may be. It may indeed prove counter-productive
there.
Before this grand schedule of mass murder, so appealing to
some religionists, meetings were held in Malaysia, people coming from many
nations. Interchange (a sort of Islamic Interpol, not however concerned so much
with suppressing crime as expressing it) occurred, and plans were made, visions
exchanged, and GLORY was felt in many, who rushed off to fight jihads here and
there.
It is not new. It is all as old as Cain. I am not satisfied with you and your ways, so
I will scrub you out: That seems to be its song.
Murder, of course, is often quiet, since many do not then
notice it so much. It is possible quietly to work for murder. Quiet commissions
among the nations often quietly work for some war or other; though when the
guns bark, it is less so.
The glory that is purely cultural, as here, is thus a rather expansive thing,
like an octopus, and its suckers can be dish-sized.
THE END OF THE DANCE
Most things have an end. The real glory is in what does not;
and this not because it does not end, but because time is itself merely an
invention of God Almighty, whose words, witness and ways are so clear that to avoid them, it is necessary to follow
the prescription in Hosea 9:7, “the spiritual man is
mad” – as Romans 1:17ff. shows.
It is not a mental insanity, or lack of soundness, but a
spiritual one specifically. It is a distortion, perversion and collapse of
truth in the interests of subjective vision which, replacing the realities for
which man is made, makes not always intentionally, a mockery of truth, and
would slay it willingly. When it has the opportunity, it did just that; but
truth being God Himself, did not stay low, but was resurrected not only in
fact, but within the arithmetic specifications predicted: 3 days. That’s what
it was to be; that therefore is what it had to be; and thus that is what was
looked for, and being found, was applied to faith in this most practical of
religions, scientific of faiths and empirical of beliefs. (Cf. Acts 4:19-20,
John 3:11).
Slay the truth! Yes of course. After all, not to be too
singular in approach, Israel did just that, and not to be unfair, so did
Pilate, who represented ROME! Still, it was done in Israel, and Israel was
formally committed to the only God who gives evidence and ground and secures
validity, from the reason which He has created and which we all use*1.
HE had said what would happen if they SAID one thing and DID
another, in the sense of merely parading the name, but performing other things,
for diverse reasons, and unbelieving, merely disporting the deity, not
worshipping Him. People often misunderstand the term ‘jealous’ here. It is
really along the lines of ‘zealous’ plus the concept of being eminently
concerned with purity and perfection. It has, of course, as is explicit in the
sites such as Ezekiel 16, 20, Ephesians 5, an analogical mode of reference. It
is using marriage as a figure in depicting the zeal of God for realism and
relationship with His people, not fornicatory foibles or wild oats sagas.
You may say that this too is force in some sense. Not
really, however. Certainly God has power and He can and does use it; but power,
as in a car, is proportionate to the purpose; and the purposes of God are not
suppression, but expression, yet not, in the end, expression of what is not, the ‘vanities’ the
‘nothings’, like imaginary deities, or immoral hallucinations, with or without
goddesses attached (because contrary to both design – which IS YOURS ANYWAY –
and Designer); but of what is. Yet what IS ? As has been shown, the Bible is
demonstrably the word of God who is truth (cf. *1
below), and God is love. Further Christ has shown it, in the clime of
prophecies in simple history; though all things, demonstration, verification
and confirmation have their own situation and should be realised as such.
However, today our concern is application and comprehension
of what is happening in the world, so we proceed on this basis.
IF you do not WANT God, where is the force in that ? He does
not use a scimitar. If you DO, where is the sense in pretence ? If YOU WANT A
LIE, do not blame God. Doubtless that is why many are not marrying these days,
especially if they have money, since they want to KEEP THEIR OPTIONS OPEN. They want to be able
to say,
Well now, you are desirable to me, and I quite like you, and
I find pleasure in romance with you; but let us be clear. Tomorrow, next year,
or in 50 years, when we are about to have family, or have one, or it is
growing, I may find another and so may you. Let us enjoy one another, while we
are mutually enjoyable.
Then children come, and the other partner wants another
woman, or man, and perhaps other children, and so goes off; and the one who
remains may have to contribute to their support, even though he or she is not
training, teaching or perhaps even reaching them. So is this humanism, horrible beyond bonds,
making no standards out of visionary standards which change like the sands when
the wind blows on it. There is no faithfulness, no meaning: mere conjugal
hedonism. If you want that, in some countries at least, you can have it; but it
ignores TRUTH. In truth, being designs, and designed by a Designer, we relate
to that One and He is no less vocal than we, no less cogitative, no less
systematic; indeed, our structure of thought being from Him, and being
therefore correlative to the rest of the world which He made, and thus
functional within it, He as source knows infinitely more about it than we, mere
derivatives, do.
You may object to ‘mere derivatives’, but the sense is not
pejorative, merely proportionate! If then you want to ignore truth, and live in
some humanistic, or by extension, god-deriving feisty way, or sad way, or in
whatever other mood your extrapolation of your desire may take, or your
prosthesis of reality finds, or in some satanically infested way in which
undoubtedly supernatural powers infest you, being like you in such a case,
wayward and expansionist: you may. One does not say, ‘you can’, since in all
rebellion there is no security.
But what IS rebellion ? It can be termed such by those who
do not want you to cease to be subservient to their gods or ideals or dreams or
visions, it is true, as notoriously is the case with Communism and now
specifically in China; but this is mere political or cultural propaganda.
Rebellion is against what IS, or otherwise it could be
called ‘restitution’. What IS ? God is. Thus rebellion is against God, and this
is its original and essence. If you want to do this, you may. Where then is the
force ? Make your own, choose your own, impart your own, kill for your own, as
in jihad, and that group of religious imperialists, they are far from being
alone in this, merely taking the current
headlines, though not for the first time in world history (cf. Highway to Hell).
To be sure, as you do such things, or dream such dreams (cf.
Jeremiah 23:23-29), justice will catch up with you; you will be judged
(23:30-31). But what can you expect ? YOU are not the Creator. Since this world
is His, by His rules it is ruled. Do you expect to become God, or with a few thousand
or perchance millions of others, to achieve this eternity, having merely begun,
as a babe, recently ? Is it necessary to be irrational ?
However God does not force to faith; and moreover, faith is
not a force sort of thing. If you do not believe in something, cutting off
parts of your anatomy, a reductive process, does not add faith. Indeed, it
gives more ground for NOT believing in such duress where it does not and cannot
belong. That is one of the reasons why the Islamic suppression and submission
program is farcical for human beings. It is quite literally irrelevant.
Mere rule, mere force, make as many statements as you will
in Koran or elsewhere, where it is APPLIED for this and that in the arena of faith,
is in itself, and by itself an index that the religion is false. It is
make-believe directing force with as much relevance as the use of atomic power in a nerve operation.
It is simply not fitting: it does not apply. It is extraneous, misconceived,
ludicrous in abuse of words, concepts and reality. Jihad indeed is in the Koran
in no small measure thus, as shown in the reference noted, and in this,
repeatedly; and the Koran is both excluded by such considerations, and by the
fact that no logic impels, no grounds arise, no reason is present for its
adoption (cf. SMR pp. 50ff., 62ff., 91, 829ff., 987ff., 1080ff.); and even force when
appealed to, as it is often in this case is, does not work (cf. SMR 831). Why dismiss reason, when
reasoning ? This it is not merely counter-productive, but self-contradictory!
What then ? You do not want to believe, you refuse reason,
you enjoy rebellion: you are not the first. History is your campus, the world
your scene, its ways your scenario. You can choose to make gods, use those of
others, suppress the name ‘god’ and simply erect citadels of thought, or of
nonsense, and follow these, your absolutes though you may call them ‘relative’
on which you build though they be sand, without support or ground, crypto-gods,
without power, glory or even name or acknowledgement. How furious is the
spurious human desire to evacuate God, like that of many English parents in
World War II, desiring their children to GO from the land!
You are free to be bound by rebellion. So are the jihad
specialists who aspire to binding you, in many places where those of Islam’s
gathering, as in the Indonesian case noted above, and al Qaeda, and in those
various exploits contemplated, as in the multi-national pan-Islam meeting in
Teheran in 1991, which had work to do in Israel, though it did not really own
the place, and in the subsequent meeting in Beirut.
There are many WAYS of rebelling, and some are more
murderous than others; but all murder the truth. It is available in Jesus
Christ, who demonstrated it in the word of God and in His life, conjointly, and
history has verified it ever since. It is dismissed ? Then in your life of the
spirit (cf. Christ Jesus: the Wisdom of God and the Power of God Ch. 7, No Thanks for Angst Ch. 8, Deliverance
from Disorientation Ch. 10, It
Bubbles … Ch. 9), you have used force, the
force of your own will, to take over the life which God made, and in which He
does not force Himself. Of course all your systems, and thought, and capacities
are derived from Him, cannot function in full without Him, so that secular
philosophy always founders (cf. SMR Ch. 3); but they are preserved by this amazing
invention of freedom, from mere meaninglessness.
They CAN rebel. It is meaningless in reality AFTER that, but
that is because it is rebellion against truth. The act however of rebellion is
not meaningless; it is a volitional lust and thrust to an unavailable oblivion.
It is a severance which smoulders.
What smoulders comes of course to lose meaning (put
differently it is like chaff blown by the wind – Psalm 1:6); but its
smouldering does not (cf. Isaiah 66:24)!
But the Lord knows the path of His people, His own, His
called, of those who receive Him by faith, as Lord to follow His word, as
Saviour to swallow up death in victory.
No human panegyric can attempt to equal the
praise for God
which is felt and impels the one who has found in liberty
the reality of the love of God, the foundation and meaning of all love, its
source, and its splendour. If God is above our liberties because of sinful
occlusion of sight (John 3),
He is not against it, and fulfils it, in, through and by Himself
(Jeremiah 23:21-23,
31:18ff., Ezekiel 33:11, 30-33, Matthew 23:37, 13:14-16).
LIFE, LIBERTY AND LOVE
Before the End,
And after it, if you are with the Beginning at
the End
Thus
is invented, the liberty which is NECESSARY for love (cf.
Predestination and Freewill,
Beauty
of Holiness Ch. 8); for without it there is
not merely no scope but no meaning. As shown in Little Things Ch. 5,
v
“Orders require action, do not donate truth, for the programmee: allowed
merely to execute. The orderer is the criterion, and even if he were himself,
the truth, his mere orders do not in programming, reveal himself, but his
desire.”
Truth, such as in making the theory, would not even be relevant, so that it is
self-excluded.
Meaning
does not come from being a recipient of orders, but from perception of your
place in such a way, that you are aware of the truth. Otherwise, it is
manufacture, not meaning. A car HAS no meaning in itself; it achieves this only
for the maker with his purpose. Freedom allows research and understanding
(though it does not guarantee it, since it may be misused), and so enables meaning
on the basis on the Maker of Man and Mankind, who being found, provides the
meaning.
Since
man (loc. cit. Little Things) has liberty, he can find meaning; but in the
process, in order to be correct, must find God. Mercifully, this is most open,
not to change as those who want God in some sort of system made by the actual
God, but to coming, to entry. It is not so much a question of finding God, but
of finding a way to avoid Him; which is possible, but only at the expense of
reason, righteousness and reality (cf. SMR Chs.
1,10, TMR Chs. 5,
7).
Liberty gives access
to meaning; but it also allows love. Without it, there is no such thing, for it
is all programmed, uninvited, incited.
You do not HAVE to love; but if you do come to the Lord for
your life, to complete what is installed in you, with the presence of the
Installer, then you MUST in all honesty (to avoid confusion, that divorce of
mouth from manner and life) abide by this. If you do not, there is a new and
even more serious rebellion; but in that case, your heart has never been
changed, so that you merely make, in the end, an irreversible (Hebrews 6, 10)
excursion in the void of avoidance, and become like a child not quite born,
which is certainly unpleasant, but what would you expect when you play with
truth…
However as Hebrews shows no less, the Lord is very gracious,
and once you are His, He is like an anchor, and you are held. The point here
however is this, that you COME not by scimitar or hammer and sickle, or
inquisitorial implements of torture, but by the grace of God, not His violence.
There is then, an end to all of this. It is not for ever.
Man has limits, for as God says (Isaiah
57:15-16),
§
“For thus says the High
and Lofty One
§
“Who inhabits eternity,
whose name is Holy:
o
‘I dwell in the high and holy place,
o
With him who has a contrite and humble spirit,
o
To revive the spirit of the humble,
o
And to revive the heart of the contrite ones.
o
‘For I will not contend forever,
o
Nor will I always be angry;
o
For the spirit would fail before Me,
o
And the souls which I have made.’ ”
WHAT IS THAT END ?
In a word, it is the truth: for it is always there. Judgment
is according to truth (Romans 2). If you are IN the truth, Jesus Christ the
Creator with the Father, and His perfect expression (Heb. 1, Colossians 1:15),
then that is His mercy, and you are kept where it is, in Him. If you refuse and
rebel, then as in Proverbs 1 and 8:34-36, it is sad, but you are invoking the
end. There is a beginning and an end; you had in due time, a beginning, and
life has been yours; but there is an end.
But let us look past the personal for the moment. …
A Washington Post news item, dated
January 3, 2003, advises us of the refusal of the USA to respond to offered
negotiation with North Korea. Why ? There is no danger of military intervention
here, says the President, for we are working in concert with allies to bring
pressure on North Korea. Who are these allies ? They number China, Russia,
Japan and South Korea. How changed the vision! Now the Cold War antagonist,
Russia, and the Hot War enemy, Japan, are joined with China, the developing
‘menace’ as some regard it, and this composition is acting together to prevent
what could afflict Japan, endanger Russia, confront South Korea and embarrass
China. They are not all equally likely to receive ‘punishment’ from this atomic
rod, however; and hence the alliance is of considerable interest. It tends to
suggest a more global understanding.
So does the reported
presence in Russia of a globally active group showing concern for prisoners,
and since Britain has been a major object of former action, proceeding to
investigate, ameliorate and improve prison condition. In the ABC News Radio Report, we had the remarkable
event of a very British voice, with very British moderation, reflecting on the
human needs in prisons. Absence of bars in windows was good, less confining,
disturbing (presumably little windows); but the eating place was hot. Soon we
heard the Prison Governor in Russia, who was expressing pleasure in the heightened
emphasis on humanitarian considerations, so that the prison, far from society
in the old mode, and with multiplied thousands of inmates, could begin to thaw
despite all the cold conditions.
Again British people
pleasantly helping in Russia to gain better and more moderate conditions! How
global we are becoming … More interesting yet again, was this comment from one
of the Russian persons involved: RUSSIA, it was declared, is PART OF EUROPE and
HENCE must be willing to share in the sort of standards obtaining in Europe!
All together seems altogether the
thrust of it all.
Meanwhile with the Bishop Swing Unification of Religions, and the USA’s involvement in its new
threefold religious engagement, Judaism, Islam and Christianity, as indicated
in the famous prayer breakfast after September 11, and subsequent very busy
remarks of an inclusivist character from various government officials (cf. News
121, 122, Cascade
of Truth Ch. 10, Trust God … Ch. 7, Lord of Life Ch.
8 and Ch. 1*2 above), there is increasing
unification from the American side.
Not only do we find the Secretary of State visiting places
like Morocco, but seeking considerable liaison with Europe. After all, since
Churchill talked of the United States of Europe, much has happened, from the
Common Market, to the proliferation of agencies whether in iron and steel, or
atomic contrivances, courts of Justice located in the Hague, or international
control units for what then became the European Union, in Belgium, and with
more and more nations joining, the Biblical Portrait of the times approaching
the return of Christ is rushing into reality: prophecy first, then practice
afterwards, the line of action.
Then the developing ‘vision’ has cultural appeal to many
(cf. SMR pp. 923ff.), and a religious
inclusivism is likewise hoping for fulfilment by this international
combination, which like the developing roundness which may develop on hips
after middle age, could slowly repose by circulatory accretions…
Further, there is … glory, for some, in the very concept of
size, power, importance, clout and significance. Again, there is a kind of
historical romanticism which seizes many more aware of the nice things of
Europe’s past, than of those gross and frequent grabbings for glory to which many
fell prey, who then preyed on the means thereto: Empire building for gain (one
of the motives for many, at least), religious oppression which even the
Communists with their unwieldly and ill-defined religion of mankind and
absolute certainties in an allegedly relativistic world, can do little to
outdo.
However, in
Communism’s favour in the race for the prize of most outrageous, there is the
latest Laogai Report (Vol. 10, No. 3, 2002) from Harry Wu on China,
and the use of prisoners’ body parts, as well as the terms and methods of
excluding organs from those who must die, for this or that reason. These
include ‘grounds’ for the theft of
organs (at the time of death, or by one report, in the case of kidneys, before
it!), such as withstanding the State, that great convulsion of power and
vainglory which, trusting in itself, has as much wisdom as is normally found in
those who do likewise. Further, it is reported in that place, that the trade in
these parts, indicated in appalling detail, is brisk, profitable, helps hospitals,
and within these, not least, Communist Party officials.
Such things must give
one pause before awarding the palm for horror to Romanism’s exploits. On the
other side, however, we must realise that Romanism, for its part, pursued its designs and their power-hungry
horrors in the Inquisition and sundry papally stirred wars, for many centuries, in MANY lands, so that it
still wins, though it has been quite an instructor for many, such as Hitler,
who also was advanced by it (cf. SMR pp. 968-969,
807ff. at *10).
Both are components of that Biblically described ‘Babylon’
and its ‘mystery’ which allows a considerable accretion of parallel exploits in
the past (Revelation 17-18, SMR pp. 946ff.).
This it is which is formed by the artful composition of State and religion, the
former taking the leading role, in a mixture of divine debasement, human
self-exaltation and rampant self-realisation with glory imported from above in
name, and below in fact, where it fades, like any glowing ember abstracted from
its fire (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 2).
With a ‘mystery Babylon’ past, going back to Babel, and a
Romanist face in the present and final deadly face of the thing, it is clearly
portrayed (SMR pp. 946), this religious riot that
distorts righteousness in doctrine and in practice with such ardour and address
(cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088H), There it
sits in Europe without seeming to realise what is coming (Revelation 17:1-6,16,
SMR p. 947), and the new spirit of
experimentation with man which is gripping this adventitious New Age, whether
in clones or drones, in rocketry and supervision from the skies, or in
psychiatry and supervision from the human control division. This queen, but not
of hearts, is to be dethroned from her delicious combinations with royal pride
and power, and the final princes will deal, conveniently and freely, without
her at the reins. The sky is NOT the limit, for these ‘beastly’ (cf. the beast
motif for nations in their religious rioting and grandiose patterns in Daniel
2, 7, and in Revelation 13) bodies aim higher than that, though they are to
fall lower than the earth.
So does glory begin to make its hoardings anew in Europe. It
is rather like a self-propelled gun.
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 ?
Will not the world follow the day when Christ’s literal
death was decided upon (and permitted since it was God’s long announced plan to
have Him as a judicial sacrifice to enable mercy to operate in truth, and not
against it - Romans 3:23ff) ?
Will it not sell the official, the national parts that
remain in order to … survive, or be safe, or secure, or pleasant, or have some
way of keeping a world to some extent intact, which is all but destroyable with
an atomic power now in the hands where bleary theories and the dastardly
dynamics of pseudo-spiritual insurgency can have a force, purely destructive,
of their own!
Pay the piper for
another tune ? It is just that the asking price is mortal. Many will pay; and
be paid out for it. It is ever so: sublimate spirituality, prostitute truth for
a supine peace which knows only survival, put it in whatever grandiose terms
you like, and agreeing to the idea of ceasing to be human, you find inhumanity
on the throne, dispensing evils as now in China yet, in Russia for long, in
various Empires when the price was similar, in aspirant false churches and in
Islamic lust, more bloody but not more passionate that that in many another
sect (cf. Highway to Hell, Things Old and New Appendix).
The truth remains; the immovable faith remains; and soon you
will be seeing them overcome by the blood of the Lamb, by the word of their
testimony and loving not their lives to the death. Indeed, in the last century
you have seen such things in a scale of vast proportions in Russia, in China,
in Sudan, in Indonesia, and elsewhere the brew develops, And what is the valium
for political victory, but surrendering absolute truth, with relative ease, in
order to be relatively sure that absolutely nothing will destroy the human
race. It is like the doctors capitulating to the inmates of an asylum, and
following their bidding, because, you see, they all have guns.
Guns and the gutless
do not make for nice reading; and they both require judgment. It is coming.
First man was coming, as God implemented His creation; then sin was coming as
man expedited his powers of liberty; then salvation was coming as God exhibited
like the sonorous drone of an incoming aircraft, His intentions; then the
Gospel was going, until its gracious work was complete, as Christ ordered it to
be (Matthew 28:18ff.); then the End was coming, and now is like a large vessel
docking, now fussing with this, now operating on that, for quite some time, before
finally still and at its appointed birth.
Thus have we been,
and are liberally warned, just as Christ, in the same analogy, indicated was
the case with the world of Noah’s day (the ark was not built in a day). It did
not however heed, despite its manifest depravity.
All this is so; but it is not what we are really waiting
for, who follow the word of God and who savour the testimony of validity,
logic, reason and that to which they infallibly point: the Bible foretelling
Christ, and Christ authenticating the Bible.
We are waiting for Christ.
No father ever waited with more expectation and inward joy
for his son back from war, then does the alive Christian for his, for her Lord,
nor did any bride with more delicious anticipation, look for the approaching
form of him with whom she had elected to spend the rest of her life (in the
days when faithfulness was realised to be a part of love). This, it is why John
says in Revelation 22:20, in this way:
§
“He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming
quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!”
Certainly, there had to be a whole bevy of international
events, and developmental syndromes of sin in the world, assuredly the Gospel
had to go entirely throughout it, as Christ declared FIRST (Matthew 24); but
then, a couple of thousand years, maybe, some 50 generations, it is not a lot.
When the END comes, it will seem quite short. However, on the other side, there
will be absolutely NO excuse, for the whole gamut of religious and ostensibly
irreligious extravanganzas of unreason and irreligion will have been tried, and
found to founder. The time, it is short, but sufficient.
One may say, But I am
a Christian, and I do not experience such a sense of anticipation as you
indicate. If so, either you are mistaken, and are not a Christian (though
the door is open wide and see Ch. 2 above, SMR pp.
524ff., 582ff.); or else your love is in real
danger of growing cold (cf. Revelation 3:14ff.). If the latter, repent and seek
Him afresh as there shown, in Rev. 3. He is always gracious, and never wearies
of His own children. It is easy to go on semi-automatic pilot, and to allow the
cares and troubles of this world to be like undergrowth, preventing progress.
It may be necessary in some cases, to cut loose and forsake all, this perhaps
for the first time. When you are sitting in heavenly places in Christ
(Ephesians 2:6), it is not something you forget!
In our next chapter, we shall
plan DV to look at I Corinthians 15, in order, as an application in
Apologetics, to see the coherence and meaning of the phases and aspects of the
thing which is in view.
NOTES
See SMR pp. 88ff., 92ff., Chs.
1, 3, 10,
TMR
Chs. 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,10
Tender Times for Timely Truths
Ancient Words, Modern Deeds, Chs.
1, 9, 11,
Earth Spasm… Ch. 1,
Wake Up World!... Chs.
1, 2, 5,
Sparkling Life … Ch. 4, Little
Things Ch. 5,
News 122,
Secular Myths .. Chs. 1,
8,
Calibrating Myths … Ch. 6,
Biblical Blessings
A Spiritual Potpourri Chs.
1-9,
Christ Jesus, the Wisdom and the
Power of God Ch. 8
Barbs, Arrows and Balms 6 -7,
Repent or Perish Chs. 2, 7,
Spiritual Refreshings 13,
News 19).
The following were noted last year, 2002, and are to be
found in Ch. 1 above.
Various steps with religious bent were noted. Thus such were
seen in varied places, such as in
“UN Ambassador James Cunningham on this
topic, {as} in Bush’s notorious Mosque appearance and Prayer Breakfast for many
religions (Red Alert … Chs. 6, 8, Gracious Goodness … Ch. 2), in strict
contravention of II Corinthians 6:14, in his praise for Islam subsequently, as
shown in the US Department of State, International
Information Programs, Dec. 5, 2002, in which he declared ‘we respect the
vibrant faith of Islam, which inspires countless individuals to lead lives of
honesty, integrity, and morality…’
“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.’ ”
For further detail, and contrasts with reality, see Ch. 1 above.
See A Spiritual Potpourri Ch. 15, *1.