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JOYFUL JOTTINGS,

NEWS, CONTEMPORARY SURVEYS
CURRENT CHRONICLES, IMPACTS
 

BOOK TWO

July 1999

1. Jottings 15
Cricket, Kosovo, Spirit and Truth
June 18-21, 1999

2. Jottings 16
How about a look at Psalm 139 ?
 

3. Jottings 17
One LORD, two historic paths to one route
(WITH PSALMS 93-100, 117)

4. Jottings 18
Faithfulness with a Face
(with Psalm 72)

5. Jottings 19
Con-unity, Community and Love of the Brethren

6. Jottings 20
Faith in Unity and in Action -
Acronyms and Pictorial Imaginations

7. Jottings 21
Reveille! Awake, for the kingdoms of this world are merely the beginning, and WW II is a foothill!
(with Psalm 2)

8. Jottings 22
Building a Body
(with Psalm 40)

9. Jottings 23
The Dew of Youth from the Womb of the Morning -
(with Psalm 110)

WHAT IS THE BEAUTY OF GOODNESS, WHEN SIN IS EXCLUDED!

10. Jottings 24
IDOL MOMENTS

11. Jottings 25
Interviews with the Psalms
Seeing with the Seer - esp. 16, 22
(with Psalms 16,22, with Psalms 21,41,45,49,68-69,55,109-110)

12. Jottings 26
The Space Race was Over Long Ago!

13. Jottings 27
Growing Up!
(with Ephesians 4:16-17)

14. Encampment with Christ
The Face of Grace and the Place of Perfection
(with Philippians 3:7-13)

EPILOGUE
The Courteous Child and the Plight of Children -
and the Joy of the Angels
 
 

BOOK ONE

May-June 19, 1999.

1. Jottings 1 - Statism and Neo-Evangelicism

2. The Thumb-Nail Sketch - Common Experience Uncommonly Beneficial

3. Jottings 3 - Naturally, Nature did not Invent Itself - What does ?

4. Jottings 4 - Israel and Change  - "The More it Changes, the More it is the Same" ...

5. Jottings 5 - In the Steppes leading to the End of the Nineteen Hundreds

6. Jottings 6 - His Sheer Magnificence, who is over all

7. Jottings 7 - Why I am glad I am not an angel ...

8. Jottings 8 - The Precision found in II Peter: Look around you!

9. Jottings 9 - Riders and Destinations: The Equestrian Performers

10. Jottings 10 - When Overwhelmed, Press Button: 'Ask by Faith!'

11. Jottings 11 - Loyalty: Left-Handed and Right-Handed Varieties ...
VIRTUOUS and VICIOUS CIRCLES

12. Jottings 12 - Godliness and  Virtue

13. Jottings 13 Caning, Character and Killing

14. Jottings 14 Freedom, Force and Faith
 
 

PUBLISHED by WORLD WIDE WEB WITNESS INC.
©

ISBN 09577461 1 3

Book 1, June 19, 1999
Book 2, July 1999
 

PREFACE




Joyful Jottings is joyful because the Lord is such a source of joy, His word so delightful, His presence so appealing, His power so vast and His grace so immovable, that there has to be a crisp sense of the fragrance, the reality and the precision which He provides, as one approaches life.

In this vein, this work is a sharing of thought, action, reflection, the estimate of movements in society and the world, and at the individual level, in heart, spirit and conscience,

as the twentieth century


 


 

It is this, that is, in its trend. On the way, there have been acts of such kindness, courage and moral vigour, as in the passengers in some universal Titanic, that the follies have been for a time, possible to disregard.

Yet they who walk in folly, and their follies, together increase, while their predatory corruptions hunt like viruses on legs. Merely to mention Kosovo, Biafra. Afghanistan, China, Rwanda, Chechnya, Tibet, Siberia, the deceptions of Chernobyl and the conceptions of world-rule on the part of the 3 great international conspiracies directed explicitly to that end,  is to draw from many almost a wincing of breath, a cringing of thought, as if we were ushered into some vast prison, where not men but eagles spent their time. Nevertheless, they who know their God, the living and only God, Father of the Lord Jesus Christ, watch with pity that is not tainted by remorse, and desire for salvation for many, for which no glory appears, but that for God Himself.

Meanwhile, in the world's culture, if it could be credited even with so debased a thing as that, as usual, the only thing that has evolved in the whole world of biology, is the theory of evolution. The term 'evolve' is now used as if by irrational reflex, especially to refer to what engineers develop with intelligence over time, methods which are improved by deep thought as the years pass, so that the very folly of the concept is illustrated by the ineptitude of its use. What is meant here is of course "development by intelligent application, knowledge, refinement and alert investigation, flavoured with analysis, aided by synthesis, and applied with wisdom." THAT is what the engineers are doing.

How on earth such endless misuse of the term could thus be applied by those who want wise results to proceed from mindless nullity, is hard to see; except that this is the way of those who talk in their sleep. While hundreds of high-level academics have bounced the deceit and renounced its follies - as for example illustrated in the Sun-Herald of Melbourne this month, in the article of distinguished researcher, Dr John Ashton, many have not. Dr Ashton speaks both of the ineptitude of the theory, and, despite this,  of the rigour of its academic requirement in a way hard in any way to differentiate from the irresponsible. It was such pressure which apparently led to verbal shuntings - the insertion of prolix or undesired phrases -  to please the powers-that-be, in his doctorate. While such shuntings are eminently not to be desired, the pressure and appetite for them is to be noted! (Cf. SMR pp. 202-203.)

Indeed, so great is this wholly unacademic blight, that Dr W.R. Thompson, eminent F.R.S. scientist, evidently found, in the early stage of his career, that he had to abandon reference he would wish to creation as he began to write, for it would not be published! In his survey of evolutionary zeal, he states:

"This situation where scientific men rally to the defence of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigour, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science,"
( in his Introduction to the  1956, Everyman Edition of Origin of Species).

Abuse of authority is signally common in this cultural quagmire, where so many are pilloried academically, but not with scholarship, by associates of the thrust for philosophic power, which logic cannot accept. This is true, whether or not the full enormity of the thrust here rightly exposed or deplored by these academics, is consciously realised. This is true, whether or not the full enormity of the thrust here rightly exposed or deplored by these academics, is realised; and certainly, though doubtless there are exceptions or ameliorations in the pugnacity and audacity of approach, its inherent logical fallacy does, and must tend towards indefensible attitudes in its proclamation. Its affront is clear enough and frequent enough to beat a tattoo, which in some respects, repetition and mesmerism, it resembles. However, even to mesmerism, there are limits, except in the case of willing subjects.

Again, one creation  group not long ago published the advice that the student should not be conspicuous in exposing the truth in undergraduate days, for safety's sake, to enable better pass and higher usefulness afterwards. Not till the degree was gained was the exposure of reality to occur in academic work on this topic. What then! shall the heart take a holiday ? Will the witness of Christ be subjugated in this trifle that if there were no creation, He is wrong! Will this be done when the whole theory is a witless fantasm which makes mockery of scientific method (cf. SMR pp. 140ff., 251ff., That Magnificent Rock, Ch.1, ASpiritual Potpourri, Chs.1-9). Is THIS, then,  how one does everything, how the pilgrim does

That such a rout of heart, of conscience and if not of courage, then in a vital measure, of faith,  should be suggested, attests the banal effluvium of this philosophy, its unethical force and its propagandising aspiration. However, the human heart not being a docile animal for manipulation but rather a spiritual entity, eminently bruisable by suppressing truth when the testimony of tongue is permissible, and indeed - when one is asked to state an ANSWER to a question - requisite: this weakened response itself speaks volumes of sad cast. Let none take such advice, lest in this species of persecution, the martyrs of the past find slender company now.

Truth is too sacred EVER to be the subject of sale, however temporary, even of cloaking in the dark, for one must "buy the truth and not sell it" (Proverbs 23:23), and "the righteous man walks in his integrity" (Proverbs 20:7) - one does not wait to become a man, till one is "through". Every idle word is relevant to the ear and eye of the judge, to the delight of His heart and the grief which may be inflicted (Matthew 12:36). How much more when, as here, the 'word' is in the central territory of truth!

As to the magical nostrums of organic evolution (for like the 'legion' in the possessed man of Gadara, they are many - LØvtrup declaring that there is a veritable cornucopia of them - SMR p. 203) : Some have indeed awakened from this and similar obfuscations, and to the Lord. Many have not.
 

·       Alas for many, the shock of awakening -

·       which looms near like lightning cavorting in thick dark clouds, as Christ's return continues to come close according to schedule,

·       approaches inexorably. It does so as this world follows its appointed path, point by point in the predicted circuit to the FLAG, which is the end, where results accrue and the rule of reality is made manifest.

Sanctioning war, and itself sanctioned literally by nothing, this philosophy by phrase (for  it is never seen in practice) has stretched itself gloriously like an alcoholic in his dreams, before reality strikes; and many have shared in its strange and exotic torpors. It is as vain as a drunk, and as airy, never deigning to accommodate to fact for its grandiose schemes, nor caring for the association with science properly so-called, which starts with facts and fashions theories and commands the attention of creationist Ph.D's in the field, all but innumerable, scholars who do not dance to this music of stupor. Indeed, from this folly there have been religious and political spin-offs, and economics has joined hands in the dance of death. This, alas, like so much else in this broken century, starts with will and ends with will-o’-the-wisp.

·       While the inebriated lust for power without God, operation without foundation continues, its ever-new, always old faces continue to stare at man witlessly, like the sand-blasted faces of ancient mummies. It is either the love of God (its sole source and original, the denial of whom is the denial of it), or the lordship of man.

·       It may be individual, in which case it is soon surrendered (for neither birth nor death nor health is in the power of the hand of man, far less the universe to which he is vulnerable), and yielded to drugs, or money, or lust, or desire for pleasure or pomp or prestige, or for power over others or over environment or lordliness or invisibility in environmental collusions with nature or any other wild, preposterous or organically grown substitute for the truth.

·       It may be social or political, in which case it can, as threatens now in Australia with the Telecommunications Act of 1999 for the electronic world, simply become a scourge to others; for however wicked is the corruption of youth, against which this Act was rightly directed, the disruption of freedom of speech on a far greater scale, which the Act shamelessly and shoddily allows (see Joyful Jottings 13, 14) is neither good politics nor intellectual precision. The cost may be great and the concept of truth as a convenience ally is heinously large. Man is not made for servitude to man and his philosophies; but this is what he gets when he abandons the Lord, who alone the truth, is left on penalty that the truth no longer governs in the heart.

·       It may be militantly military, in which case corpses and confusion disadorn the earth. It will be more religious than Communism when it hits its peak in the god of forces (see SMR 233, 707ff., 750B, 877-878, 911, 1077), but no less seedy a substitute for what logic demands (see SMR 812ff,. 928ff., Chs.1,10).

·       The kingdoms of this world are to become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ (as they certainly will - Revelation 11:15, Chs.19-20, cf. SMR pp. 623ff.); but it is not so yet. In the interim, every wicked bird caged and cagey (cf. Revelation 18:2), every weird woe will accrue (cf.The Kingdom of Heaven Ch.2), while history, that laboratory of autonomy and crucible of divine instruction, rushes to its present Age terminus in the return of THE LORD. He of course was there all along, while the derailed trains of ideas, concepts and systems, mental and political, rushed confusedly into their perennial abuses, now looked for on an international scale.

In the midst of this profuse confusion, the climate of youth, the collapse of families, the individualisation of morals to the ostensible point there is no good but grab, and no hope but help, and none to help but government, and no government but what is deserved, and no desert but the statistics of power: all this goes on as if to win a race. The righteous and unrighteous acts mount; the dis-faith - wild, irrational  substitute for faith in God - and the folly thrust like twin engines, and the world is askew.

In all this, there is scope to look and learn, to watch and assess, in little things and in great, to provide jottings on the way. The perspective is truth, the desire is deliverance and the frame of reference is the word of God. No other frame has all the aspects covered, predicted and exposed. It is like field-glasses, and as you raise them from your eyes, you see coming fast, what a little time before, was in the distance, beginning to approach. It is moving quickly, this steam-engine on the tracks of time, to bring the world from delusion to reality; and there is not very much more time before Jesus the Christ makes His return (Luke 21, Acts 1), for His redeemed. Then is that abundantly happy return to collect His elect (Matthew 24), and then will be manifest the power of creation and maintenance, that has kept His promises and continued with His people. He has shown it in help, healing and resurrection, and then it will appear in majesty,  finally in His movement as Judge in the assizes to come (Hebrews 12:25-28, Acts 17:31).

Where else in the world can you have a personal interview with the judge before your case comes up (John 5:24-27); and where else is He incorruptible! For the righteous Lord loves righteousness, and in Him is no iniquity at all (Psalm 145:17, Deuteronomy 32:4, Psalm 11:7, 45:7).

It is time to rejoice. The skies are black, but the morning comes. As to that, "I shall be satisfied when I awake, with Thy likeness". As the Psalmist said, "As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness." The face of God is all righteous, and His righteousness is all available as a gift, the deed of transfer being the Cross where Christ died, the just for the unjust, to bring us to God (I Peter 3:18). This is the God of "joy unspeakable and full of glory" (I Peter 1), found in His Christ, from Peter's day to this, in the redeemer, Himself rejoicing to reconcile, delighting to do the will of His Father, having acted

The joy breaks through past the curse, in Christ, in the enduring tenderness, beauty, order, discipline and directedness that moves through the world like a wind, bringing fragrance from above, producing dynamic and blowing in the sails of faith to the other side.

To be without faith in Him, is like being without heart in a race, without legs in a contest of strength, without mind in a mathematics examination, without love in betrothal. To find Him is like finding light for the blind, beauty for the devastated, triumph for the dilapidated, refinement for the confused, power for the weak, friendship for the lonely, and fulness of joy to the confused. It is sharp as a steel blade, sure as commandments backed by infinite power, founded in love, foundering never, beauty for blight and that exquisite compound, JUSTICE with and THROUGH mercy. Surely the angels cannot have it all on their own when it comes to rejoicing!

Now a word on the series before us in this publication:

BOOK I explores many of the facts of our times, applying the word of God like the cross-hairs on a gun sight.

BOOK 2 shares much of the prophetic light of the Psalms, examining holy living in the light of Christ as an expression both of faithful Biblical principles, which do not err in life any more than in truth, and for the Christian, of the resident power and gracious skilful oversight of Him alone given to mankind, as the way, the truth and the life, eternal elixir and governor by grace. It is well that in Him (Ephesians 1:10), eternal Son of God (John 8:58, 17:1-3), Christ the Lord, all things are to be gathered in one, for there is no such one.
 
 

Rev. Dr. Robert E. Donaldson,  June-July, 1999