Chapter 6

 

THERE IS A WAR ON, and it is not with IRAQ!

 

Yes, the new year is near! SO is the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Are you ready for the New Year ? Better yet, are you ready for His Coming!

 

It will be SUDDEN, UNEXPECTED, GLORIOUS, a cause of DELIGHT for His people, at last delivered,  just as HE was from the tomb; and of weeping for the rest, who refuse to know Him, whose end draws near, without any finish to it!

 

Today, our topic is “There is a war on, and it is not with Iraq!” You see that in Ephesians 6, but in many other ways. Let us look at it.

 

Looking throughout history,  at 25 battles against the Lord and His will, plan and way, or constituted by outrages that required response, we see

 

10 before Christ

5 directly concerning Christ Himself, and

5 in our present era.

 

 

GREETINGS THEN and Blessings in the Lord!

 

v          As to our present era, see it now below, in its historical, biblically outlined perspective: look to the Lord and live; seek to the Lord and grow; love the Lord and know the way of life. Start the year with wisdom, and know that light is sown for the righteous (Psalm 97:11), perceive how blessed is the one to whom the LORD does not impute iniquity (Psalm 32, Romans 3:21ff.), who is covered by the blood of the Lamb (Revelation 12:11), that Prince of peace (Isaiah 9:7) who has propitiated the wrath of God (Romans 3:25) by His redemption covering as with a robe with rejoicing (Isaiah 61:10), who has broken the back of death by removing its call and claim (Hebrews 2:8-15), who through death has destroyed the power of death, being disfigured more than any man (Isaiah 52:13-15), that His people, who come to Him freely (Psalm 110), might be regenerated, restored and walk in the light of the Lord, for in His light, they see light (Psalm 36:9).

 

v          It is these (John 1:12) who have received Him, who have taken His word which is His (John 17:17, 14:21-23), who therefore love Him, who know that this, it is He, God manifest in the flesh (I Timothy 3:16, John 8:58, 14:9), who can declare, and should:

 

v          “You will guide me with Your counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory”

 

v          (Psalm 73:24), and seeing this bridge, their brother who became man FROM glory, to bring them TO it (Hebrews 2), declare,

 

v          “Whom have I in heaven but You ?

v          And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You!”

v          (Psalm 73:24).

 

v          Shall He who made the ear, not listen, the mouth not speak, the mind not know (cf. Psalm 94), the ground not be able to walk, the future not declare His will, and it is well, for the door is not shut, and you do not live among the dead, who read this: therefore enter this Door, Jesus Christ (John 10:9) and do not delay; and being then within, do not fear (John 10:27-28) for nothing depends on you, but all on Him, even for ever, as He expressly declares again (I Thess. 5:9-10).

 

v          Yet depend upon it, the fear of the Lord is clean (Psalm 19), just as the Rock of life, the only one, is sure (Psalm 62). Walk therefore in this light, as children of the light (Galatians 5:16, Ephesians 5:8). Why worry about the unwisdom of the world (I Corinthians 1:20-30) ? merely seek to find those who will come, that more may be borne to the kingdom of God and born into it, and to walk in wisdom with them; for God has not forgotten His people, and as you abide in Him, and He in you, you shall find that power and presence, that practicality and spirituality, that wonder and that grace which being His, is always to be found in Him.

 

v          May God bless you who heed, in the coming year; for the blessing is in Him only, just as the righteousness who counts, is HIS ONLY (Psalm 71:16), for of all works, ONLY HIS are acceptable for admission to His presence (Romans 3:23ff., Ephesians 2:1-10), and adding your own is like adding the cooing of a child, to the work of a maestro. GOD ONLY is your sufficiency if you are His; and this alone is your call, your basis and your adequacy (II Cor. 3:5, 4:2-6, Romans 10:1-13). It is GOD who is the Saviour, and none else (Isaiah 43:10-11), and it is Christ who is the Saviour who in bearing sin (Isaiah 53:4-11), dismissed its claims and dispensed with its judgment; and it is He alone, who as judge and sacrifice, risen from the dead, breaking the bars of death through perfect innocency and sublime deity (Acts 2:23-24, Isaiah 50), confers your place without your aid, just as He made you Himself  (Psalm 100, Isaiah 45:12,18): if you receive it!

 

v          Receiving then so great a salvation (Hebrews 2), rejoice in it, relish Him and reason with Him who is reasonable, but do not chide with unbelief which is treasonable against the King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Revelation 19:16), for mischief is in the division from God, and the full fruit of harmony, of mind, of heart and of spirit, is to be found nowhere else. Heaven has no other door; no other ground; no other way. If God is not enough for you, however, then being your own pilot, contend with Him to your damnation, which is only just, then deserved, you being without excuse, arbitrary in appetite, and groundless in pretence.

 

v          God bless you then in this year, and know that the blessing, it is His. Then remember Ephesians 3:20 and rejoice again, and yet again (Eph. 3:17-18, I Philippians 4:4, I Thess. 5:16).

 

Now let us attend to history, to find our contemporary place within it, as a generation!

 

 

THE MANY EFFORTS OF SATAN TO RUB OUT
        THE ROYAL RULE OF CHRIST, THE PEACE OF GOD
AND THE JOY THAT GOES WITH IT

 

 

1. From the First

 

 

 

A)    ATTACK on MAN’S NATURE.

 

Think of it! There was the war on Eden, ON FREEDOM. Freedom simply to love  and follow  God,  rejoice in His creation and delight in His way ? Not at all, sneers Satan. Listen buddies, you need to know that the Lord looks after number 1, see, he leers, and that all this stuff about the fruit and all that, it is just a ruse, a snarl.  He wants to be top and He knows that if you get that stuff, you’re going to be up there, right up there with Him. Be wise! Look after yourselves!

 

One might have thought that anyone with such base thoughts would not himself be a good one to follow! and that when God said to RULE the beasts (Gen. 1:28), He did not mean to follow nature! But then, sin is never reasonable. It lusts!

 

B)  ATTACK ON HUMAN LIFE.

 

Then there was war on the very character of godly living in peace. Sinners now ? Yes, but this went far further. Now not only was God to be ignored in His requirements, but man would kill one of God’s other fabrications, more indeed, one of His other works in His own image: Cain killed Abel, because he was not able to please God, with his offering; and when God indicated to him that it would be well if he had done well; but if he had not done well, the sin, it lay crouching ready to spring, at the door, this did not please Cain at all (Gen. 4:5ff.).

 

Instead of finding out what God DID want, or DOING it, he killed Abel, so preparing the sort of thing al Qaeda is engaged in, the attempt to rub out what does not join you in your own rebellion against the living God, whose redemption holds life on this earth from obliteration, pending its complete spreading upon the earth (Matthew 24:12, Isaiah 51:16 – see Ch. 3 above, 51:6, Romans 1:16ff., 3:19ff.). The “propitiation” in Romans 3:25 is that the wrath of God should have effect not in the condign judgment on man, but on the Redeemer, so that holiness being vindicated, justice being wrought, mercy might have play.

 

It is this which gave God the victory in this battle; but its cost was infinite (Isaiah 52:13-53:12, Matthew 26). 

 

 

C)  ATTACK ON ALL VIRTUE.

 

Genesis 6 shows that when the time of the great Flood drew near (cf. News 1), man’s thoughts and imagination were perennially evil. He was engulfed with the flow of it, captivated with the show of it, hooked with the pull of it, entranced with the way of it, as if a flower show had everything in the way of irrigation, fertilizer and water, but no flowers. They were all – DE-natured.

 

The universal flood would have wiped man out; for justice has good cause to remove the waste paper basket, residing in the library shelves with its presumption. However God found NOAH who found grace in His sight (Gen. 6:8), and so THROUGH Noah, the history proceeded to that then still coming Saviour, adumbrated in the protevangelion of Genesis 3:15, the God-given entry into man’s history which would bear the evil and give the good the ONLY way that man was now fit to have it: by PURE DONATION (Romans 6:23, 5:15, 3:23ff., Ephesians 2:1-12).

 

God won that battle, through grace enlightening judgment.

 

 

 

D) ATTACK THROUGH MEANINGLESS SEXUAL LUST.

 

     Then there was war on Sodom and Gomorrah, where Abraham’s relative, Lot, was living. Abraham reasoned with God (a lovely practice) and sought help on the topic of anyone in the doomed city who might belong to the Lord (Genesis 18:16-33). Do ALL go ? Then God rescued Lot (but his wife was longing for the ways of Sodom, it seems, and could not get on with the escape!). Abraham saw the smoke, but did not die.

 

     Rescue in urgency was the means, and God in His compassion won that battle against defilement as a strenuously acceptance insistence, corruption as culture, sexual depravity as de rigueur (not unlike the direction of the present in many societies, which has now its own looming answer, with multi-dimensional fires, in the coming judgment, not for time only, but for eternity – cf. Matthew 24:12-14,29ff., I Timothy 1:10, Romans 1, I Corinthians 5:7, 6:9).

 

 

E) ATTACK VIA ENVY, DIVISION BY DECEIT

 

There was war on the line of Jacob, when Joseph by pure jealousy on the part of his brothers, was sold as a slave to Egypt. God won the war, used Joseph to become great in Egypt, and so SAVE his own people by forgiveness and power, in inviting them to Egypt where it was then safe. This account was far more than one of mere deliverance from envy, even than a case of testimony of mercy in the heart of Joseph: it  also kept Israel intact, until the Messiah should come, without whom NO-ONE among our race, could be saved from exclusion from God, intrusion of evil and consignment to judgment.

 

 

F) ASSAULT BY ENSLAVEMENT

 

ATTACK ON THE FUTURE LAW-GIVER MOSES

 

There was war on the people of Israel in Egypt, seemingly by now millions, when they had their boy babes killed, and their bodies set in the sweltering heat, to make bricks in cruel circumstances. God won that war. ONE particular boy babe, Moses by name, was left in a basket in the bulrushes, and God enabled an Egyptian princess, possibly one who later became Queen, to find him. Attracted, she bought him up as an Egyptian cultured prince, and it was this Moses who came in the power and name of Israel’s God, the God who made heaven and earth, to demand an  EXIT visa, which being denied, let to the destruction of much of Egypt’s power … AND Israel’s safe exit.

 

 

G) ATTACK THROUGH MARAUDING FAITHLESSNESS.

 

How hopeless it seemed when Israel simply baulked at the open door to victory, peace, rest and realization of the meaning of God’s promises in their new premises! It was as if they had the old timer’s short memory, and forgot about the great miracles by which God had brought them out of the vast power of Egypt’s malice, to follow Him.

 

Thus, this time there was war from INSIDE Israel, when they refused the faith by which to enter the PROMISED LAND (see Numbers 14), and so had to live in the desert until the next generation grew up, when they went in. Joshua, who was ALWAYS WILLING to go in, then was the leader and they received their land in marvellous ways, just as they left Egypt in wonderful ways. God won that war too.

 

More than this, just as Joseph gave a lesson in pardon, as a type of Christ, so Joshua gave one in leadership, a type of Christ leading His people to their refuge, rest and joy in heaven (cf. Isaiah 54:6).

 

 

H)  BATTLE BY DESTRUCTION OF ISRAEL, the northern segment.

 

Wrought by Assyria (II Kings 16-17), this would have ended the race and the plan of God, had it not been for the fact that Hezekiah in the southern segment of the nation, called JUDAH, through faith and grace from God, matched the power of Assyria with faith, sought the Lord and gained a victory of epochal dimensions, God Himself using His own power to decimate the Assyrian army, which returned empty from its hot-mouthed threats and psychological warfare against Judah. To finish the rebuke, the king himself, Sennacherib, was murdered in his temple by his sons!  Isaiah 36 gives the contempt of faith for Sennacherib’s devices and intimidation, before his overthrow, as also the record of his ruin at the hand of the Lord, honouring mightily the word of the prophet, spoken in His name.

 

v            This of course is a pre-run, a trailer if you will, covering what is to happen

v            when Israel at last is returned from its exile (Deuteronomy 32),

v            though still blind in its unbelief in Christ (Romans 11, Isaiah 42 cf. Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch. 5),

v            and as if this is not enough of sheer grace in terms of God’s unsubduable faithfulness - this time to Abraham (cf. SMR Appendix A, Galloping Events Ch. 4),

v            it is even rescued by divine intervention (as made clear from Moses on – Deut. 32)

v            from its snarling aggressors. 

 

Then, when the nations wrack their brains in finding ways to put Israel once more on the rack (the situation in history has here caught up with prophecy and we see it beginning to develop before our eyes), in their unutterable greed and lust against the true and living God (Zechariah 12), they meet the same opponent as did Assyria! God will act decisively, then, just as He has already done in the preliminaries of 1948, 1967,  1973 and 1991, preserving the newly returned and often menaced Israel, in dazzling and predicted victories (cf. SMR Ch. 9).

 

Indeed, as Zechariah 12:2ff. with 12:10ff. shows, this at its height is to be associated with  a massive return to the Lord within Israel, now returned not only physically,  and geographically, but in large measure spiritually^*1A  precisely as forecast in Ezekiel 37.

 

This is in the realm of the present; but let us return to the past, and the victory over Assyria, which mirrors our day, both in things already come and coming (cf. Isaiah 30:27-33, Micah 5:1-6, Romans 11).

 

This epochal victory over Assyria meant that though Israel to the North was gone, yet Judah continued and the line of David continued; the line of Abraham was not lost; and the Messiah in His time, came through that line.

 

God won that battle using the faith of His people in a time of vast decline, and His own power in response. It also drew attention to the value of the leadership of ONE KING. Then it was the good kin Hezekiah, a type in this of Christ; but in the end, and past all endings, it is Christ the sinless, sovereign Saviour, whose compassion is never divested from truth, whose love is never divested because of shortness of breath, but whose judgments do not swerve, nor do His ways change (Daniel 7, Ephesians 1:10, Revelation 21-22).

 

 

I)  ATTACK THROUGH DEVITALISED, VITAMISED RELIGION;
CONTINUATION EVEN WHEN THE LAND WAS LOST!

 

CAPTURE THEIR LAND

 

Even this was not the limit. Judah too was later exiled in large measure. 

 

Sloppily going through religious motions without the knowledge of God, they joined other ‘faiths’ with the truth, so making it all one stench of incompatible folly, throwing the words of men into the mouth of God, as if some insane dentist gone into reverse gear! (Cf. Hosea 6:4-7, Jeremiah 23). This is paralleled by the Gentiles today, as in ‘W’ below.

 

They spread folly in the land, worshipped idols and fell into virtual unbelief (in varying degrees, over hundreds of years, after David, and to some extent before that), so that the North was lost, and Judah was overcome by Babylon, as Jeremiah predicted (Jeremiah 25). Yet God gave them mercy as He promised beforehand that He would by sending Cyrus, the famous Persian king, to conquer Babylon, which had taken Judah captive and many of its people, to dispatch home as many as wanted to go (the prediction is in Isaiah 44:25-45:5). They rebuilt in marvellous ways (Ezra and Nehemiah tell you how the Lord arranged it), and God won that war.

 

 

J)  ATTACK BY DEFILING THEIR SENSE OF THE SACRED,
EVEN BRINGING IDOLS INTO THE TEMPLE, THAT TEMPLATE OF TRUTH.

 

Later, terrible things happened, when one of the quarters of the Empire of Alexander the Great, in Syria, had a king, Antiochus Epiphanes who brought an idol into the temple, and sought to TRICK the people into following his INCLUSIVIST ways, in which religions and things were all made into some stew, and this was done so subtlety, just as Satan, weak but wily, loves, so snaring many.

 

Paralleled in recent times by ‘U’ below, this shows the repetitious surge of this evil in world history.

 

In the ancient case before us, following this assault on the Temple, wars arose (the famous Maccabaean wars) and a mini-Empire for Judah was gained. Meanwhile, this evil Syrian king died, Israel escaping and resuming control of its religion and temple. Thus God won that war also.

 

 

 

2. In the Messiah’s Day and Way

 

 

K)  ATTACK BY SEEKING SIMPLY TO ELIMINATE THE MESSIAH.

 

Now was the time. If MOSES could be rubbed out, what then of the Law ? If Christ could be rubbed out, what then of salvation! Moses was rescued by amazing novelty when the princess found the abandoned child, as if to show that God is quite willing to use tiny little events, where space and time meet like lapping waves, to accomplish mighty wonders!

 

Let us see how this next and more ambitious step arose: KILL the Messiah.

 

Worse came. Priesthood could be sold for money; power was lusted after; and soon Israel was beaten by Rome. How could they proceed ? a subject people! Many sought deliverance in violence, and died. Then the Messiah, long predicted by God in the Bible, came and died at the date predicted in Daniel 9, and rose in the third day, as also predicted repeatedly. Israel made war on Him, in its religious and state bodies, and murdered Him.  But the resurrection won that war^*1B, and Christianity, based on the Messiah promised from Abraham, not only to the Jews but as a light to the Gentiles also (Isaiah 42:6, 49:6), continued the work of presenting God to the world, in which Israel for the time utterly failed.

 

However, the apostles were Jewish, the Bible and nearly all the New Testament came from Jews, through the inspiration of God’s Holy Spirit, and the church STARTED with thousands of Jews, even though the nation was against it. The Christian Church of Jesus Christ has continued for millennia, and the Gospel, also predicted in Isaiah centuries beforehand, has continued unchanged, penetrating to all the world, as Christ said it would (Matthew 24:12), and Isaiah predicted (Isaiah 42,49-55). God has won that war too.

 

 

L)  KILL THE BABY:  EXPLOIT THE VULNERABILITY.

 

But let us not forget one other war, mentioned in Revelation 12, where you see Satan standing by, ready to murder the baby who, not now Moses but the Son of God, would bring deliverance: not this time by the nation, but by HIS VERY SELF (cf. Isaiah 9:1-7). God moved the baby Christ to Egypt while Herod the King slew many babies near Bethlehem, a horrible child massacre which God also predicted (Jeremiah 31, as we saw earlier). Christ the child was brought back when it was safe, grew to manhood, did His wonderful works and spoke His wonderful words, confirming in power, His salvation; and God won that war, bringing many to health and holiness, faith and joy in Him.

 

 

M)  MUTILATE HIS SANCTITY: MAR THE MESSIAH MORALLY

 

Nor should we omit the TEMPTATION, of Christ (Matthew 4), when Satan sought to show that God Himself, if only He were put in trying circumstances, could be turned from purity and truth, single-minded dutifulness and nobility, from the beauty of holiness. The test was severe, the temptations subtle; but Christ did not fall.  God won that battle.

 

 

N)  KILL THE MESSIAH PREMATURELY, SO THAT HIS SACRIFICE WOULD HAPPEN, BUT IN VAIN!
Use timing!

 

This time, the Messiah journeyed to His home town of Nazareth, announced as the scripture was read, that this day this prediction concerning the Messiah was fulfilled, and then faced the raging frenzy of rejection. They sought to throw Him over a cliff, so that then His whole ministry would be aborted, His testimony shut down before it was well set up, and the predictions of the murder on the Cross (cf. Joyful Jottings 25) would be falsified. It was a magnificently thought out effort; but it was woefully a flop!

 

God has all knowledge, and Christ passing through them was gone. It is marvellous what a peace and grace can do in horrific circumstances. People can be stopped in the midst of rage, disoriented by sensing, savouring wonder or simply gaining the supernatural impact of goodness and grace. In this instance, God turned their eyes from their target, just as when Elisha calling on God, had the army of Syrians temporarily blinded (II Kings 6:8ff.).

 

It had to happen, this acme of all assassinations; but not yet. God is in charge of all timing.

 

God won that battle also.

 

 

O)  OVERTURN THE WORDS OF THE MESSIAH

 

How often this was tried! (cf. Matthew 12, 22, Luke 11)! Vehemently they lay in wait, trying to find fault, to discover error, to overthrow the words of the Son of God, while He was Son of Man! In the end, they simply gave up! (Matthew 22:46). Then of course they tried to kill Him on the ground of truth, that He SAID He was the Messiah. The thought of SHOWING that He was wrong in this claim (it was even at the right date as predicted by Daniel – cf. Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), did not seem to occur to them; but then, crime is not good for clarity of thinking.

 

The other point is this: if you simply CANNOT show a fault in someone, one method remaining is to murder that person – starting with his reputation. This apparently seemed fitting; and it was the natural enough focus WHEN and BECAUSE FAITH was not present, just as it had not been present in the time of Joshua and Caleb, when the people refused to take the promised land when it was offered to them, much earlier! Now it was Christ, the Messiah Himself, whom they refused to take. This for Israel, as now for any, is as costly an action as it is possible to make! History has shown the former; eternity will expose the latter.

 

God won that war. Murder is easy. Resurrection is no problem to the One who made human life in the first place. It is like an architect with unlimited means, simply rebuilding Sydney Harbour Bridge, if it fell! He even was bold enough to STATE that the murder, which He predicted (Psalm 22, Isaiah 49-55), would be followed by bodily resurrection, as in Acts 2:22ff., cf. Joyful Jottings 22-25.

 

The embarrassment at being unable to keep Him in their possession, even having killed Him! This was like Nagasaki, like Hiroshima, to the World War II Japanese Empire.

 

So far we have seen 10 battles before Christ, and 5 upon Him personally.

 

Now we find 5 more till our own time, and 5 within it.

 

 

 

3. From the Messiah to Yesterday

 

 

P)  TARGET THE CHRISTIANS.

 

Then Satan, having failed so often, tried yet once more. Could he intimidate, scare, kill of the CHRISTIANS: and so then, without a Church, where would the Gospel be ? Sure, he failed to get Christ, and when he did murder, he could not keep Him down. Still, hit the Christians!

 

As Peter declared of Christ: 

 

“Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know— Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it. For David says concerning Him:

 

‘I foresaw the Lord always before my face,

For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.

 

“Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad;

Moreover my flesh also will rest in hope.

For You will not leave my soul in Hades,

Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.

You have made known to me the ways of life;

You will make me full of joy in Your presence.”

 

Too bad! says Satan. Lost again! Still, let’s get the church. You see that in Revelation 12:14-17. He sends out a flood to drown the church, a flood of evil power, evil nations, evil people, to kill (John 16:2 shows Christ warning that people will kill Christians, even thinking they are pleasing God as they do it! for HE KNEW!). Satan tried with deceptive teaching, divisions, challenges, he tried with murder in masses, with Rome and its lions and arenas, with mad emperors and sane ones, kill! Kill! Kill! but in the end, Rome in the day of Constantine, gave honour to Christ. God won again.

 

 

Q)  ATTACK THROUGH THE  “I WANT TO BE FIRST”  SYNDROME

 

Then Satan tried to USE the fact of Rome, that great city, to make more trouble. If he could not make it simply suppress the Christians, and if it was in fact starting to think of itself in Christian terms, why not use this very fact. After all, much of the ‘Christianity’ it now began to adopt was superficial!

 

Why not use Rome to distort, disturb and in the end, almost eliminate Christianity!

 

This time, Rome was to become puffed up, and call itself the centre of Christianity, and its bishop or minister, was to become first, just as James and John had seemed to think about this, when they were soundly rebuked by Christ for it (and it appears all the disciples were all discussing the topic – Matthew 21:20ff., 18:1ff.).The pope in his day, has called his words the “voice of eternity” and other proud pseudo-plenipotentiary posturing, and Romanism, or Roman Catholicism began to arise, especially after 1000 A.D. roughly, inventing the ‘Mass’ and the infallible papacy, the immaculate conception of Mary and other non-biblical rubbish ready to be trashed in judgment (Revelation 17-18 cf. SMR pp. 946), even making Mary the Redemptrix, female version of the redeemer! though Christ alone paid (Hebrews 9), “not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Pace once for all, having obtained eternal redemption…” (9:12 cf.  SMR pp. 1032-1088H).

 

Romanism in the Inquisition, which effectually lasted for centuries around 1200-1700, and in its wars when it tried to manipulate kings to serve it, became as bad a scourge as the Roman Empire ever was.

 

Ø       But the Reformation exposed it,

Ø       great nations left it,

Ø       Britain helped spread it through the earth,

Ø       while Italy had a revolution,

Ø       the papacy being shut up to a tiny portion of Rome called the Vatican;

Ø       and God won that war also.

 

 

R)  ATTACK BY FALSE PROPHETS, especially MUHAMMAD

 

Islam with its lamentably simplistic concept of SUBMIT, then came on the scene, as did many false prophets and distortions, which the early Church fought in its early Councils, resulting in such things as the Nicaean Creed, and the Chalcedon Creed.

 

However in the 7^th century, a man using some Jewish non-scriptural traditions, some knowledge of Christianity and much imagination, made up a book which though it at times seemed almost to reflect the Torah of the Jews, yet failed to be consistent either either with itself or with the prophets who went before, whom it contradicted woefully (cf. SMR pp. 1080ff., More Marvels … Ch. 4). Surging into Africa, where the great Augustine had been so prolific a writer, and yes, into central Europe, it went storming its wrath against the Christians, making these either dead, or ‘converts’ or else, subjected peoples, held like second class citizens on sufferance, so that if they sought escape from this humiliation and submergence, they were to gain terrible vengeance!

 

The sheer folly of so using force (cf. SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff., 977-996, 1186Aff.), in this sphere and so acting as if to denature man in the offshoot and outcome of such presumption is not limited to Islam, or for that matter, to its two great partners in historic crime in mass execution in this way, Romanism (cf. SMR pp.  912ff., 949ff., 1032ff.) and Communism (cf. SMR pp. 684, 925ff., 911ff., 927ff, 971ff., 955ff., 649). Nevertheless, these religious or thinly veiled religious explosions, as in the last case, putting man’s ideas, or man’s messiahs^*1c or man’s imaginary clockwork for the universe, complete with good and evil, into the place of the truth and provision of God, have done one outstanding thing. What is that ?

 

It is this: they have greatly fulfilled the predictions of Christ in Matthew 24, just as the sects in this time, in the last century or two, have amplified that fulfilment to the same radical dimensions so liberally revealed in the Bible, for the last time, that before the return of Christ. In this, they give real glory to God; for God, He makes the wrath of man to serve or even praise Him. Here is one of the great divine prerogatives, that just as a cricketer can snick a fast ball to the boundary, so He can use the energy of folly, to achieve glory, blessing for His people, and exposure for His enemies (cf. Psalm 76:10).

 

They thrust their lightning; they press their follies; they expose their pretence with their pretension; they become old, like departed race-horses, idly grazing on trembling legs.

 

All these have failed, and all are growing stale, Russia itself becoming weary^*1 of Communism, the new President, Putin, seemingly keen to foster the Russian Orthodox religion, one of virtual Romanism minus the pope. Islam, sent back at Tours in 732, and thereafter, became a wonderful self-non-fulfilling prophecy of shrinkage, until the present, at which we look shortly. Romanism, even now pondering the strange silence of Pius XII in Nazi days, and long lost in its birth non-control procedures, from much of the world’s favour, just as in its worldly substitutes of papal power for Christ’s spiritual power, is faring no better, priests in this country being in exceedingly short supply.

 

What has not failed is God’s repeated forecasts of JUST SUCH A SITUATION as this with false prophets and prophecies, for of a truth, they infest the earth so that it is difficult to avoid their impact. In His word versus man’s, God has won this battle also.

 

 

S)  ATTACK BY NATIONAL CHURCH CONCEPTS in conjunction with social universalism

 

If however, as we saw in Q above, Britain was one of those who helped the spread of that massive corrective action against the wild excesses in word and deed, of Romanism, yet the devil aptly saw how to use this to make yet another assault. As with Rome, when first it attacked Christianity, and then, this failing, became a centre for a specifically confused spiritual assault on it, so here, Britain helped in the overthrow of the worldly power and domineering violence of Romanism, helping that return to the faith on the part of many which was so vital; but then the flaw appeared.

 

Had not Britain itself a NATIONAL church ? Had it not in part been supported by tithes from many not of the Church ? Was it not the case that the State had large say in the running of the Church ?

 

Very well, make its help a hindrance. It remained only

 

v            to use the decline of the religion of purity and godly passion in Britain,

v            to reduce the attendance in the national church,

v            to make the bishops increasingly worldly in doctrine,

v            to seek to wed this national Church to the World Council of Churches,

v            to have it seek alliance with Romanism (all of which happened cf. A Question of Gifts Section VI):

v            and behold, the very universality of the national church (in the sense of ALL the State being involved by various powers)

v            became its weakness.

 

NATIONAL religion became all but a mockery of religion, and the exposure to ‘Christianity’ in Britain, often in the se ways, became more like an inoculation than a fortification.

 

Other trends in this direction in Europe fared little better, and the loose alliances in the World Council of Churches were made the easier, in Britain’s decline and fall from biblical Christianity, by the very populousness in concept, and increasing unspirituality in kind, of the national power structure. In one sense, it was germane to, in another crying for its international counterpart. If reality is to be lost to a body, then its leaning on others can markedly increase, and its spirituality of the past can be degraded and decried as insularity.

 

What then might be the diabolical counsel concerning Britain ?

 

Harass her as a nation far from holiness, and then let her populace and institutions lead a decline in emptiness, till even Romanism may seem a desirable item! Then, when her power is weak, make NEW institutions, international, irrational, contemptible in kind, secular in trend, and let the living church of the God of creation be exposed and collapsed, like a lung that did not breathe.

 

While at this point, our interest is in the Church, rather than the Empire, the close and even intimate relationship needs attention.

 

Such then appeared the diabolical desire for the dismemberment of the British Empire as a power surge or at least protector from the worst of insurgencies against the faith, and then the disfigurement of Britain herself, till she should wane into Europe, the off-shore Island, and wax international, in the WCC, her song too long and no longer pure, at least to the extent that it had been. The improper mixture of church and State and the laxities of convenience could thus join together to ensure her departure as a valuable national dynamic in the international scene, for Christ.

 

The United States, which for long sipped at German theological glasses, and even made excursions into such absurdities as liberalism and neological spiritual neuroses as Barthianism in its neo-orthodoxy, and debilitations such as neo-evangelicalism in its modern dress (cf. Dawn of Light Ch. 2, The Biblical Workman Ch. 8, *2, Appendix III), proliferating sects and excavating the foundations of centuries in many large bodies, could now see whether her spiritual zest could decline, comfort and continuance (things like ‘national interest’ that selfishness expanded into national waistline, of a billowing character) becoming crucial concepts, and confusion a master product of the indulgence.

 

Nevertheless, all was not quiet in the spiritual street, while some of its structures did indeed fall. Rubble was to be seen around the site of the Presbyterian Church, USA (News 10, Lead us Not into Educational Temptation  Ch. 4) in its deplorable Confession of 1967, which theorised instead of proclaiming the very Gospel, and adhering to the word of God not as an index but the word of God; of the Lutheran body which split abruptly in Missouri; of the Baptists competing in segments of no small hostility where there had been more unity, the Southern Baptists ceasing their hegemony of zeal, and tolerating the ecumenical horrors of the Graham movement (cf. News 118), by retaining the leader in their ministerial ranks.

 

Yet while large numbers of churches permitted membership even in so gospel-deficient and rambling a body as the WCC (cf. SMR p. 743), other bodies and a large percentage of American churches challenged the WCC, formed other organizations, and multiplied Protestants worldwide did not accept the surge of Anglicanism back to Rome, or for that matter, of some of Lutheranism (cf. Stepping out for Christ Ch. 4), but continued as they came, on biblical lines. 

 

What glorified God once more, was this, that the words of Christ,

 

“I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth ?” (Luke 18:8),

 

were being meticulously fulfilled, while equally,

the Church of the living God was continuing magnificently operative,

despite all this betrayal and decline. 

 

In other words, the massive structures which at one time seemed by their wealth, the exalted character of many of their members in the land and their operating ability, to have immense influence, have been eroded not a little, and what is faithful to Christ in the way of churches, is now less likely to appear wealthy, or imposing, or spectacular in social power. For example, this is seen in Australia with the appalling decline of the Presbyterian Church^*2A leading to the loss of most of its members to the Uniting Church and the failure of the residue of the Presbyterian Church to return to clear biblical teaching, but rather always here a little, there a little, conceding this and that. Even more is it seen in the arising of a Primate for the Anglican Church who specifically denies that faith in Christ is needful for entry to heaven!^*2A

 

Other movements of absorbing kind, and various developments in terms of biblical Christianity withdrawing much of what virtue remains, out of their contributors, are considered in News 121, 122, Beauty of Holiness Ch. 4 and Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 8. (cf. *1C below).

 

Ø       It is not the massifs of vulgar wealth and power which constitute the undying church of Christ:

 

Ø       it is the “faith that works by love” (Galatians 5:6),

 

Ø       faith in the Gospel of Christ (Galatians 1),

 

Ø       faith according to His written word (I Peter 1:22-23, 2:2, John 17:17, 14:21-23, I Corinthians 2:9-13),

 

Ø       not vacillating in law and phrase to preserve a structure, but clear in word and deed to express one;

 

Ø       faith in His living supervision and illimitable power (contrary to the decline specified as to come,  in II Timothy 3), which raised Christ bodily from the dead (Romans 10:9, Luke 24), and will complete the task on His body, the living Church on His return in royal glory (I Cor. 15);

 

Ø       faith which being operative in Him, is associated with the washing of regeneration and the sanctification which results in those who are His own:

 

Ø       it is this which is the mark of His people, His church, though its blood, and not its cheque books become its record.

 

This work continues vigorously and courageously, we read*², even in China, with tremendous upsurges of evangelical Protestant faith, and despite ever new methods of seeking to suborn the realities into the vexations of ultra-scriptural substitutes, such as multiplied tongues, debased doctrine, political control and the like. This, rather than the formally authorised and watched church, this is this church, often underground but never silent, suffering no Lord but Christ for its spiritual work, just as did the Scottish Covenanters in their own land: this with all those in every land who do likewise, it is this which continues to shame the world, expose its shams and call its people, while there is time, to repentance.

 

Thus the efforts to invalidate, inebriate and bring in the asthenic debasements of State Churches or other social bastions and generic directives, merely attest what is wanton and expose what is spurious. The church of Jesus Christ continues, and God has long won that battle in blood and by the word of testimony; but not this time, in other people’s blood, rather in the blood given freely by the saints, like so many infusions to the failing world, to stir its heart, or rather, the hearts of those who live in it, are of it, and do not know the difference. It continues as did the faith when the prophets were slain (cf.  Matthew 23:30-36), with that refined purification and love which is its place (John 16:2), even when pollution smiles in false glory, over a disastrous tinsel-false church of tipsy glory, a harridan of years, inviting the lost to share her bankrupt estate.

 

Such was the way of Israel, before its fall (Ezekiel 16, 23); but the faith did not falter, nor its prophets, nor did the word of God, nor its impact, nor did  the coming of the Messiah, nor His power, nor His resurrection, nor did His predicted Gospel, nor yet His way with the world. There is only one march which is always in step, the word of God and what receives it.

 

The more it (the world) changes, the more it (the way of the word of God in it) is the same!

 

Even in its sickness, its prognosis is constantly verified, and the path of spiritual health is invariably attested from the same word which God has given for millennia.

 

 

T)  ATTACK BY REMOVING THE BRITISH EMPIRE PER SE

 

So there was this assault on certain churches.