EARLIER
PUBLICATIONS
Published
August 2004
His Wounds Opened
Eternity
Published, August 2004
THE GODS OF
NATURALISM HAVE NO GO
Published August 2004
THE GLOW OF PREDESTINATIVE POWER
AND THE SHOW OF AUTONOMOUS ANTICS
PHILOSOPHIC PRANCING
AND RENEGADE ROMANCING
This is now the 4th member of the
Predestinative Quaterion of Volumes
Predestination and Foreknowledge,
Liberty and Necessity
Responsibility, Duty and Creativity
Published, July 2004
OUTRAGEOUS OUTAGES, AWESOME INPUTS
AND THE COURAGE OF CHRIST
INSIGHT ON SITE, and OVERSIGHT
from the LORD
New Edition of
Marvels of Predestination and the Ways of Will
2nd Member of
Trilogy in this
field (c. 1000 pages)
Published July 2004 (this volume
c. 619 pages)
Published, July 2004
THREE ANZAS AND ONE ANSWER
EXTRAVAGANZAS, STANZAS, BONANZAS
A HUMBLE HEART
AND THE HOLY GOD
Published, June 2004
IMPORTUNITY, OPPORTUNITY AND PURITY OF HEART
Suffering,
Sanctions and Spiritual Sanctification
Published, May 2004
Christ, the Cumulative and the
Culmination
NEWS IN CONTEMPORARY
CONDITIONS
IN THE LIGHT OF ETERNAL
REALITIES
Published, March 2004
Worn-Out Earth and Coming King
A Call to Spiritual Arms
Published, February 2004
DELUSIVE DRIFT OR DIVINE DYNAMIC
Desire or Desideratum
Published, January 2004
LET
GOD BE GOD!
2 volumes, Published earlier
in
January 1st., 2004
"COMFORT YE, MY PEOPLE!"
and
Hear the Word of God!
Sermons and
Addresses from the Bible, in the Lord
Published November 2003
OVERFLIGHT IN CHRIST
Christian Wings
Christian Things
Published October 2003
HIS TIME IS NEAR
September 2003
Joy Comes in the Morning
Published, late August 2003
THE DEFINING DRAMA
Winding up a Company can have drama
...
What then of a winding up world ?
Seek the Lord!
Published, August 2003
Know the Lord, Know the Bible, Know His Will
Manual for Christian Growth
Manual
for Young and Growing Christians
covering many topics and emphasising
the beauty, reasonableness and harmony
of God's word ...
for the work of a
life-time
Published, July 2003
ISRAEL
BLOWS THE TRUMPET
THAT
YET IT DOES NOT HEAR
News of Earth
in
the Light
of Heaven
Also
Published, July 2003
ALLEGORIES,
APOLOGUES AND ACRONYMS
Imagery with
Verse for Christ the Lord
Published, June 2003
VICTORY
Heritage for Christians
Exile from this World
Published, May 2003
THE CHRISTIAN PILGRIMAGE
FROM GRACE TRIUMPHANT
TO FACE DIVINE
Published, earlier in May 2003
THE HEAVENS ARE TELLING
The
Beautiful Face of Biblical Predestination
VOLUME 3 of
the PREDESTINATION TRILOGY
Published, Easter 2003
OF THE EARTH, EARTHY,
or
CELESTIAL IN CHRIST
Published
March 2003
Marvels of Predestination and The Ways of Will
Published
February 2003
GREAT
EXECRATIONS
GREAT
ENERVATIONS
GREATER GRACE
Published
January 2003
To Know God, the Power of His
Resurrection
And the Fellowship
of His Sufferings
January 2003
Dastardly
Dynamics,
Delirious Daubs,
Wandering Woes,
Bleary Theories
and
Immovable Faith
Published
December 2002
NO
THANKS FOR ANGST
TRUTH’S ALIVE -
RESURRECTED AND WRITTEN
Published
November
2002
Gracious
Goodness and This World in Disorder
Published October 2002
Calibrating
Myths, Machining Dreams and Keeping Faith
Published September 2002
Christ
Jesus: the wisdom and the power of God
August 2002
Earth Spasm, Conscience Chasm:
and Renewal of Life
It's Late! but not too Late ...
Published July 2002
BEAUTY FOR
ASHES
Published June 2002
Secular Myths and
Sacred Truth
Published, May-June 2002!
Trust God, Mate! Forget About 'Fate' ...
(see below for
description)
To go at once to formal list of works, click here.
To see more notices as above, continue on until
you reach the formal list.
Published,
May 2002:
Regal Rays from
Revelation
(see below for
description)
Also Published in May 2002:
Red Heart, Dead
Heart and Pure Heart
April 2002:
Cascade of
Truth, Torrent of Mercy
March 2002
THE IMPREGNABLE
TOWER
Collision with Jesus Christ is calamitous.
Try the door!
February 2002:
Sparkling Life in Jesus Christ
Previous:
Highway of Holiness,
Path of
Peace,
Way of Truth
including
Compilation of the Major Writing on Daniel on this Site
Also
in January 2002:
Deliverance from Disorientation
Putting Things in Perspective
with much on Daniel then, the
world now
Late
last year:
More Marvels from the Majesty and Mind of the
Almighty
Delights from the Bible, Lights on
Darkness and Light in Christian Life
November
26, 2001
RED ALERT, IN A GREY DAY
AND THE
BRIGHT LIGHT COMING
Preceding
in October 2001:
LORD OF LIFE
Earlier in September 2001:
LIGHT OF DAWN
the gentle unfolding of light
untouched, untarnished and pure
In August:
The Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet
Prophecy: A Light in a Dark Place
This World: A Dark Light in a Place
Further
back:
Beauty of Holiness
Glorious Light Amid Uncomprehending
Darkness
June 2001:
Ancient
Words : Modern Deeds
Modern lessons as antique words
livingly fulfil themselves
and instruct our thoughts
One month earlier:
LICENCE FOR LIBERTY
published May 2001
The Parade of man and the Power of God
For the preceding publication, April 2001, find
With Heart, and Soul and Mind and Strength
The Kind Commandment, but how searching!
A little earlier,
Pall of
Smoke and Diamond of Joy,
considers the contrasts of confusion,
and brilliance from God, the same
as ever
Or would you find fascination in ...
LITTLE
THINGS
starting with the little blooms
in the prophetic garden
and chastely savouring their perfumes,
so delicate, then moving to many things, not all so delightful, though the
divine control never lacks ...
even in little things
Then we come to the earlier one published:
Galloping Events, Jan. 2001,
with access to the hooves,
and the holy hold on the
hullabaloo.
It is coming to be almost a rodeo
show, but with rather less exhilaration!
The race in time is ON! It is high time to watch it,
governed and guided by the
incomparable word of God, the Bible.
Seeing today's doings in yesterday's pages
and rebutting misconceptions
about Jews, Hebrews, Israelis and Israel
Also Published January 2001
DIVINE AGENDA
The Faith, the Facts and the
Fiascos of History Unfolding
according
to plan
NOVEMBER 2000
IT BUBBLES, IT
HOWLS, HE CALLS
(much specialisation on the Middle East episodes, developments,
and meaning)
Relatively recently, in terms
of the subject!
Things Old and new
Love
with Mercy has Acted
Multiculturalism and sophistry, God's
critics,
sedition by
sects and other aspects of old novelties in new clothes,
with a
wallowing world approaching examination time!
There is some focus on Australiana.
There is no
need for concern if you belong to God:
what needed
to be done has been done, but you must be with Him.
THE EMPHASIS IS ON OLD THINGS, NEW FORMS, ONE UNALTERED TRUTH.
Still most topical, even hyper-topical:
.WAKE UP
WORLD!
Your CREATOR is COMING ...
It was
published in 2000. Would you care to try it ?
Step on the link. It is still most asssuredly
Christian Apologetics.
Looking
for an overview ?
Connect to
WHAT
IS LIFE ?
(revised
May 2000)
Published May 2000
TENDER TIMES FOR TIMELY TRUTHS
July 2000,
ANSWERS
TO QUESTIONS
Drama, Dramatics and Delight
(including the examination of the topic:
Where
is the promise of His COMING!
THIS IS A CRUCIAL TOPIC.)
For FURTHER DETAIL ON THE ABOVE
ITEMS, and any others,
SEE BELOW in the listings.
2) FORMAL
LIST OF WORKS
I-III)
THE
SHADOW OF A MIGHTY ROCK,
trilogy as noted on home page, now
in 3rd Edition (1997)
Its size is estimated at about
890,000 words.
IV) A published companion book,
1996 - 2nd Edition August 1997
(revised 1998)
THAT
MAGNIFICENT ROCK.
This is a collection of excursions into
features which clarify and give decisive answer to problems some have found, as
at Adelaide University; and shows the testable wonder of Jesus Christ - the way, the
truth and the life, deity definitively incarnate as man, in some detail. In some ways, it
specialises in aspects of The Shadow of a Mighty Rock; but it has a
literary variety and a scope of its own including specialised work on phases of
creation, validity, the constructive power of the gospel, far beyond the
destructive power of the hydrogen bomb, of allegory and of models... both
academic and governmental. In contrast to the Truth, these are demonstrably and
incomparably obtuse and obfuscatory; but yet, they are very much a part of the
contemporary scene of confusion where this is actively preferred to clarity.
In the end, you need Him, to know Him, and
the testimony is inescapable. Equipped with incisive approaches to cultural
assumptions, and allegories for varied fare, That Magnificent Rock shows the way to the majesty of the truth.
It may also currently be found by hyperlink through Swift Witness.
V)
In the charismatic area, a carefully Biblical appraisal of the situation
vis-à-vis the Word God, applying the text of the Bible to the issues at hand.
This is provided in a book, published in
1995:
Revised and Enlarged, 1997 &
January 1998.
A QUESTION OF
GIFTS,
If what the Bible says, goes, what
is the result in this field ? Since obedience is blessed, understanding is
essential. In power and peace, God has His own way.
VI) The fascinating, intriguing and rewarding study of
PREDESTINATION and FREEWILL -
This
also appears in the form of a thesis of that
name, slightly revised and adapted for the Web, on which it was published in
1997. Presented to Melbourne University in 1964, it is now accompanied on the
Web by the Supplement, The Father of Freedom,
also presented in 1964. Both are referred to in The Shadow of a Mighty
Rock, and their presence on the Web therefore simplifies reference.
Physicists sometimes get tangled in
this field (cf. e.g. That Magnificent Rock,Ch.7, SMR pp. 418ff., 422Eff.), partly through inadequate world
views, and reductionist tendencies, and it all needs to be seen in an adequate
conspectus.
This predestination field is a distinctive Christian Apologetics
forte, showing what no other approach to truth can provide here: perfect
adequacy and internal harmony, in dealing with all the facets of related human
life, and history. Relevant inadequacies of autonomy, monism, voluntarism,
humanism, determinism, Arminianism, hidden 'gods' and reductionism are shown,
in passing. All the issues are handled in their full integrity and force:
possible since it is God who speaks in His word. It is God who made us who in
His word provides answer to every phase and facet of logical query, in
unblemished integrity, validity and consistency, the more notable in that the
failure of all else here, is notorious. Indeed, the conspectus shown from the
word of God has elements both necessary and unique for coverage of the elements
and harmony of components.
The superlative force, unmatched rationality
and comprehensiveness as well as the delicacy of the Biblical presentation is
examined in considerable detail: here as ever, the Bible is a priceless gem -
to be expected when it is from God, whose understanding is infinite. At last, no degraded, debilitated, wan and
weary reductionism!
Specific references to this work from SMR are
available currently by hyperlink from the page Index of That Magnificent
Rock.
VII) THE OTHER NEWS,
a book of News voyages and discoveries...
published 1997. The celestial perspective puts terrestrial things in
understandable proportions.
VIII) THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, THE LOVE OF GOD AND THE SPIRIT OF ENVY with OTHER
ESSAYS and NEWS, 1997,
is a collection that looks with the
illumination of God's revelation in the Bible, on the things that matter, and askance at the matters
that merely natter. It has been extended during 1997. The terrain of Biblical
translation, including 32 cases of translation, in Old and New Testament (Ch. 9), is included.
IX)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS -
THE WORD
THAT SPEAKS
a disquisitive analysis and
review,
often using dialogue to
investigate
foci of interest or challenge,
was published in 1997.
X)
BIBLICAL BLESSINGS -
The word of God has the backing
of the God who acts.
Finding Blessings from the Bible
in the process of Looking Diligently within it. The blessings FALL from the
studies of the word of God, like dew from heaven. They are no more sought than
dew is, but freely we search the word, freely they come. Published 1997.
XI)
A SPIRITUAL POT-POURRI,
published January 1998.
At times, you may like a potpourri of this
and that.
We start with
-
THE A and
F-Grade Schools - and Schools are not only for Children! Where is
God's University, and why do so many run from truth as if it were an
atomic bomb, when the latter is precisely the sort of consequence you
could in the end, expect from such running!
This becomes the
first unit in our 11th work -
where 17 more Chapters follow on
three different themes, and may be found through this hyperlink. This has been planned simply as a
collection of writings, some already published, some not, which go well
together on the one hand, and provide a fascinating sweep of scope and breadth
concerning what goes on in the medley of life on this planet, relative to its
source, its origin, its procedures, and of course, its destiny.
XII)
BARBS, ARROWS, BALMS
published May 1998
Alerts,Warnings and Blessings: this
is like a lively spiritual scalpel:
but one probing the mind, the heart and
presenting with care the essential findings from the word of God as it
proceeds. With the severances comes the balm, and with the balm the blessing.
XIII)
REPENT OR PERISH
published July 1998
Looking at things with an eye
to their END,
in things National and Personal,
the State of Emergency and the State of the Case, the Middle East and the Final
Call
XIV)
THE BIBLICAL WORKMAN
published October 1998
...Here is a work following
with zealous care, what God has said in various fields,
because His word is His, and it
is pure (Psalm 12:6),
avoiding traditionalistic
imposition (Mark 7:7)
and innovative flirtation (II
Timothy 4:3) ,
as a study which is fitting for
those who would be Biblical Workmen (II Timothy 2:15).
From time to time additions may be made to
this on-line Library, and we hope you will enjoy ruminating and
contemplating in it, and indeed sharing your thoughts after reading the general
principles found from point 5, on the Home Page. These are found by going to
the hyperlink, "Swift Witness", and within that reference to
"GROUND RULES". If you wish to send to us, you may find it convenient
to use either the Email hyperlink in Swift Witness, or that at No. 13, on the Home Page. You are very
welcome!
XV) SCOOP OF THE UNIVERSE
This conveniently collects in one the News
Items subsequent to THE OTHER NEWS. It was presented in preliminary format in
February 1999, by the Publisher, World Wide Web Witness Inc., and is now published, March 1999. It provides a Christian perspective and a Biblical
base for pondering and assessing news, developments and changes as they are
reported in various news media.
The vast Biblical scoop of universe history,
news in much reported before it happened, is the ultimate in journalism, a
marvel for orientation, a stimulus to understanding, a joy to those who love
the Lord and a challenge to those who do not regard His works.
XVI)
JOYFUL JOTTINGS,
News and Contemporary Reviews
publ. June 19, 1999 (Book 1),
and July 1999 (the whole)
Some of our topics are as grisly as the
world, none dwell needlessly on the terrible, all are devoted to the truth, and
in all there is shown cause for JOY, when things are seen, tasted, known and
experienced in that COGNITIVE place which comes from the Bible, that
UNDERSTANDING which comes from the Lord, according to His word, and that SHEER
DELIGHT which comes from the privilege of partnership, true one of servant to
Lord, but also one of friend to friend, with the Redeemer.
-
With such
provisions available to all, there is ground for joy; and
-
with such
knowledge of His Person in the practical, the actual events of this life,
-
as real as the
crucifixion,
-
as factual as the
resurrection,
-
the sorry scene
of this world is transmuted through the glory of the Lord,
-
into that test,
that rebuke, that judgment, that opportunity,
-
that beauty, that
wonder which compositely it really is.
To be IN the Niagara Falls is
one thing; to watch it is another; and to have an understanding of what is
happening there as well, this is better still. The time to act is now, however,
rather than in that free fall which is so popular as a result, and sometimes
even as a cause! Join with us in this survey, sometimes of little things,
sometimes more broadly, always of what is before us.
XVII) THE INDEX VOLUME
Here in one site you are able to look at
the topics in any of the volumes, as well as seek scriptural references. This
is set out in four sections, two each for the trilogy and the other volumes.
1. For
The
Shadow of a Mighty Rock
2.
For the other volumes
TOPICAL, Main
Trilogy
BIBLICAL,
Main Trilogy
TOPICAL,
The Rest
BIBLICAL,
The Rest
-
to resist to ruin, to battle to the
secure the benefits of bane, with the broth and froth and wrath that
accompanies it,
-
or to receive the benevolence of
God. This aid comes from beyond space, and its carriers constantly
advertise its arrival. Its source has come and been treated with contempt,
though on earth none is His equal, nor can any contend or contest; and
shortly He will return. NOW is the time to receive this aid when you are
advised of it. Later is too late (Matthew 25:1-10, II Cor. 5:19ff.).
THE 243 VOLUME SERIES IS GIVEN THE
NAME
"IN PRAISE OF CHRIST
JESUS" AND IS
DESCRIBED
AS SUCH IN Christian Apologetics Series
The 71st Edition: published, May
2016 to April 2017
is followed by the 152 Bulletins through to 2019.
DO YOU HAVE A BASIC TOPIC IN MIND ?
Try the topical index, or survey
some of the selections below.
XVIII
BENEVOLENCE OR
BROTHY BANE ?
published
September-October 1999
This is largely a news volume,
but it tends to specialise in what is behind the news, and it constantly looks
at the options,
-
to resist to ruin, to battle to the
secure the benefits of bane, with the broth and froth and wrath that
accompanies it,
-
or to receive the benevolence of
God. This aid comes from beyond space, and its carriers constantly
advertise its arrival. Its source has come and been treated with contempt,
though on earth none is His equal, nor can any contend or contest; and
shortly He will return. NOW is the time to receive this aid when you are
advised of it. Later is too late (Matthew 25:1-10, II Cor. 5:19ff.).
XIX
STEPPING OUT FOR CHRIST
Oct. 1999
Out of pollution into the
pure mountain air of truth, respondent in the light of the Lord. What is to be
left behind, what is to be sought, what won, what is commanded ? Purgation, purification,
empowerment and departure from the detritus of this world, its cultural
clamminess and semi-automatic thought controls, to transformation in the
service of the Lord of both this and the next.
XX
WAKE UP WORLD!
YOUR
CREATOR IS COMING...
Oct. -Dec. 1999
This title is rather
self-explanatory, and the details are available at the hyperlink destination,
in the Preface.
It relates
considerably to News, but to its point and perspective in the light of the word
of God; and not to News alone, but rather this is a valley with its own
mountain peaks and rivers, alongside.
Focussing on impending
events, it looks to the CONSUMMATION on the one side, and to the CREATION on
the other, seeing their correlation, and lessons to be drawn from both, as
critiques are given on errors in this area, from scientist and religionist
alike, in terms of logic, and Biblical truth.
XXI
SPIRITUAL
REFRESHINGS
FOR THE DIGITAL MILLENIUM
January, 2000
The wonder of the provisions of God is not
only in their profusion, their adequacy, their power, but in their reliability,
their refreshing, their entire aptitude for mankind, and as to that, it is not
only in their prediction and promise, but in their mode of performance. To know
God is far more important than your ABC, and not to know Him is far more
illiterate in life, than this in mind.
XXII
LEAD US
NOT
INTO
EDUCATIONAL TEMPTATION
January 2000
This DOES lead you to
something near a summit on the way to the antichrist's declaration, showing
himself that he is god (II Thessalonians 2:3-4,8-11). It shows how readily,
with perhaps all but complete ignorance of what is being done, a Religion can
be formed, formulated and applied with no little force, in our own midst... by
the Government. This time the peril has been in Victoria. With the S.A. case,
this forms a strong testimony to the sighting and siting of prophetic words on
what is to be. It all happens... so naturally!
This is a more specialised
work for those interested in children, youth and education - and their destiny
and souls.
XXIII
THE FRANTIC
MILLENIUM AND THE PEACE OF FAITH
March 2000
Here we find the contrasts between the
perfervid tempestuousness and frantic follies of the fast-aging Age, as it
approaches the confrontation with its Maker, both the world and the
inhabitants, on the one hand, and on the other, the peace that surpasses
in grandeur the follies of the earth as the universe surpasses the atom, but
more so: for that is mere dimensional diversity, while this is a difference of
kind. Again, that is a comparison in the measurable, whereas the Creator of
space and time confers in the Lord Jesus Christ a peace which is immeasurable.
As the one works to its frenzied climax, the other continues in its oak-like
simplicity and its ocean-like profundity, its heights of a magnificence which
not only remind of the peaks of the great mountains, but of the power of the
One who conceived them.
XXIV
ACME,
ALPHA and OMEGA - JESUS CHRIST
April 2000
There is so much. There are so many
ideologies of hate, lust and political pride, including the pride of
internationalism, which is human race pride, as intense and thirsty for glory
as ever any of the other have been. Amidst the vanity and emptiness of its
overweening ambitions, there is one whose ambition was to die for sin, whose
glory was to be given it from the One who sent Him, and preceded His lowliness
by eternity. The study of His word, in this world, constantly unveils the
splendour of His conceptions, the moral integrity of His passion and the
capacity of His sovereignty to proceed without pulse or tremor, to the end.
XXV
TENDER
TIMES FOR TIMELY TRUTHS
May 2000
There is a time to ponder, to dig deeply, to be
encouraged, to gain perspective, to remember keenly that the Lord is personal,
dealing with persons, and to heed in receiving His goodness, wisdom and word
tenderly, knowing that even in correction there is love, and in soundness there
lies growth. Topical, devotional and verificatory, it seeks to bring help in
personal and contemporary affairs, from the word of God.
XXVI
ANSWERS
TO QUESTIONS:
Drama, Dramatics and Delight
July 2000
This work may serve some who are wanting
answers to 'slings and arrows' which some cast on the Bible. It also takes up a
challenge of Christ Himself. It is being prepared for publication by World Wide
Web Witness Inc., in whose name it is put forward at this juncture.
XXVII
NEWS, FACTS AND
FORECASTS
News in the area of facts,
facts in the light of forecasts
forecasts in the light of the word of God
These range from music and
meaning, myth - biological and philosophical - and symbol, to the wonderland of
theology, and a recent invasion, and its story.
They move also to many arenas of action
in this realm of news and fact with forecast in view, and these may all be
inspected in detailed summary, chapter by chapter, in
Bulletin 1.
This work was published in September
2000, with ISBN 0 9578816 1 4
XXVIII
THINGS OLD AND
NEW:
Love with Mercy has
Acted
Chapters include - God's Critics,
and Old Heresies in New Clothes are Doubly Rotten: the specialty of
sects which may be compared with Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 8. Also Ch. 3, Angelic Aliens and their
'Therapy' and further topics on the theme, including legally dogmatic
perversity, spiritual abundance and ecclesiastical erratics with the Robin and
the Daffodils.
Published October 2000
ISBN 0 9578816 2 2
XXIX
IT
BUBBLES, IT HOWLS, HE CALLS
The Middle
East is in wrath and ruin
The Midlands of Mankind are in
turmoil
The Mind of God is in writing
for our purposes
The Solution is Salvation in
Christ
the Lord
whose are all lands,
literal and metaphorical,
rational and spiritual,
and whose is all truth.
Alternatives: ZERO
This volume was published in November, 2000
ISBN 0 9578146 6 6
XXX
DIVINE
AGENDA
This volume was published in January 2001
ISBN 0 9578146 9 0
The word of God continues in its orderly,
authoritative
way to cover its extraordinary scenario, towards the consummation of events
XXXI -
Galloping
Events -
The
End of the Race and the Face of the King
This volume was published in January 2001
ISBN 0 9578816 3 0
Here is witnessed the sheer exuberance, the
gallop of predicted events, announced in news, discerned even in attacks,
moving with all the relish of romance, and all the moan of doom as God
predicates in history, what He has predestinated in counsel and predicted in
His word. Much attention is given to Israel, and specific exegesis of this
period of greatness in the annals of the earth.
XXXII
Little
Things -
WHEN GOD IS THE SOURCE,
EVERY LITTLE THING COUNTS
The Texture of Quality and Test for Truth
Published, Feb. 2001
Such is the discernment and infinite
understanding of Christ the Creator with the glory of the Trinity, Himself a
member, for there is no other Creator but God, that seemingly little things can
broadcast the fame of His name, His attention to detail, show the wisdom that
invites, and attest the Lord who alone is Saviour.
ISBN 0 9578816 4 9
XXXIII
Pall
of Smoke and Diamond of Joy
Contrasts, Complementarity
and Beauty
Published, March 2001
ISBN 0 9578816 5 7
XXXIV With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength
The Kind Commandment - but
how Searching!
It is still the command, the
kind command ... to love!
Published April 2001
ISBN 0 9578816 6 5
XXXV LICENCE
FOR LIBERTY
Published May 2001
ISBN 0 9578816 9 X
The Parade of man and the
Power of God
For other ISBN's see The Site in the City.
XXXVI ANCIENT
WORDS : MODERN DEEDS
Published June 2001
ISBN 0-9579003-0-9
XXXVII BEAUTY OF HOLINESS
Glorious Light Amid
Uncomprehending Darkness
Published July 2001
ISBN 0-9579003-2-5
XXXVIII The Pitter-Patter
of Prophetic Feet
Prophecy: A Light in a Dark
Place
This World: A Dark Light in a
Place
Published August 2001
ISBN 0-9579003-3-3
XXXIX
Light
of Dawn
the gentle unfolding of light
untouched, untarnished and pure
ISBN 0-9579003-4-1
XL
Lord of
Life
The Lord is the Light of my Life
unphased, unfazed and unfading,
above time, beyond time, in time
always
ISBN 0-9579003-9-2
XL1
Red Alert, in a Grey Day
with the Bright Light Coming
Published October 26, 2001
ISBN 0-9579003-9-2
This brings more, after Lord
of Life, on recent events, ancient words, dramatic and dire
developments, their spiritual significance and the direction of world history,
among spiritual excavations into meaning, with special reference to Romans 5,
and assessment of excursions into the meaningless as an antidote for past ones:
not to be desired, but being wrought anyway. Such is this world, pointed at
disaster, and hurrying itself along.
XLII
More Marvels from the
Majesty and Mind of the Almighty
More on Malachi and Isaiah 66, on Joel, on the
Errors of Islam and the divinely pre-published predicament and predicted
outcome for Israel
Published November 26, 01
ISBN 0-9580154-0-6
XLIII
Deliverance
from Disorientation
Published January 2002
ISBN 0-95801-2-2
Much on Daniel, which does
not move,
and on the world, which does,
but only under divine
surveillance, to that celestial conclusion
which is most apt, and clear
Published January 2, 2002
ISBN pending
XLIV
Highway
of Holiness, Path of Peace, Way of Truth
Published January 2002
ISBN 0-9580154-3-0
This provides a compilation on
Daniel in its various themes and foci, and an investigation into motivation,
where it matters.
XLV Sparkling Life in Jesus Christ
Published February 2002
ISBN 0-9580154-6-5
This is a volume of sharp clarity, dealing
with issues from the Biblical Canon, to World Politics, from Cloning to the
Millenium, Creation, Man as purposive, and the Clarity of the Bible. Its
message is constantly this, that if you want more than mere effectuality, but
certainly not less, if you want not a dim flicker but sparkling light, it is to
be found in one place only, the word of God, living and written, on display and
without rational competitor, or alternative testable revelation for man. It
deals with man as he is, leaves nothing out, puts nothing in, and exposes him,
vulnerable as he is, to the light which also has "healing in its wings", when it is received. That light is Christ,
immutable, immiscible, unrelinquishable to those who know Him, irresistible to
logic, the rock which crushes what rejects it, and needs it as all men do
(Matthew 21:44), but is a secure ground for those who find in Him the truth
XLVI
The
Impregnable Tower
Published March 2002
ISBN 0-9580154-7-3
In this volume, the words of Micah and
Zechariah concerning the Tower of Strength, of the Flock, are pondered, and
Zechariah, over some 60 pages, is expounded under the thematic note, The
Messiah in Zechariah. Historical phases, current and ancient, are
considered as we progress through the swirls of contemporary events,
fulfilments and fiascos, all in the light of the word of God, which nothing of
these things in the least degree has snuffed, is capable of snuffing, or even
makes to flicker.
Quite the contrary, the more the morals of
man flicker, the less the word of God concedes; but the more man looks to the
Lord, the greater the opportunity. It is not gone. It is now for man or nation,
who looks where mercy and power is to be found, purity and truth, in the word
of God, in the living word of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
XLVII
Cascade of
Truth, Torrent of Mercy
Published April 2002
ISBN
0-9580154-9-X
With much on the Middle East, Current News,
Prophecy and Predestination in a personal sense as well as doctrinal, this
gives you something like an aerial view, your airplane cruising not far above
the tree tops as the end of the Age comes like a magnificent promontory to the
gaze.
XLVIII
Red Heart, Dead
Heart and Pure Heart
Conspicuous confusions, profusions of
prolixity and cordons of righteousness: they do not agree, but all are present.
The world is setting on its business of severance from God at prodigious pace,
but the connection is ineradicable, indefeasible, and the effort is not only
not feasible, but delinquent, abasing to man who is seeking to exalt himself,
and fatal. There is however a far better way, far more clearly delineated, more
conspicous in its attestation, coherent in its affirmation, which alone stands,
and standing acts.
Published April-May 2002
ISBN 0-9580787-1-8
XLIX
Regal Rays from
Revelation
Major Matters in the Book of Revelation,
and on the Impact of Revelation
Published May 2002
ISBN 0-9580787-3-4
In this
volume, the Book of Revelation is given focus, materials on this site being
collected in order of Chapter, to give a series on this prophecy of John. More
material is added, and the work commences with some scrutiny of the Middle East
imbroglio. Various aspects of divine revelation cohere in this conspectus of
considerations of the power, work and will of God, both in history and in
writing.
L
Trust God, Mate!
Forget about 'Fate'...
Published May-June, 2002
ISBN 0-9580787-5-0
This work specialises on the decline from trust to 'fate', that
fortuitous or banal concept which evacuates from the divine realities, and
sadly faces the consequences, unaware that it is in fact a deviation from
responsibility, a departure from God which induces the illusion of 'fate'. Nor
is it entirely without background, when the Lord is mocked by such penury of
logic, and projection of evil into inane philosophic concepts. Like chaff is
the wicked blown (Psalm 1), whilst the Lord KNOWS the way of the righteous; and
who IS righteous, but the one to whom the gift of God in Christ is applied, donating
the truth, covering sin and clothing with a righteousness far from merely
academic: it is brilliant with the dew of truth, happy with the life of God.
L1
Secular Myths and
Sacred Truth
Published June 2002
ISBN 0-9580787-8-5
Here, amid current news,
is the evacuation of secular myths in favour of sacred truth. Naturalism and
other fancies are replaced with reality, the hollowness of humanism with the
holiness of deity, and the landscape changes. It looks and is far more
wholesome not to say beautiful, without the pock marks of adventurous, dazzling
meteorites, which leave holes and dirt. Its past, present and future meaning is
then apparent in that far greater adventure, the history of man in the word and
works of God Himself.
LII
Beauty for Ashes
Published July 2002
ISBN 0-9580787-9-3
By this stage, we are able
to engage in more review, covering in scope many things fashioned earlier, to
the applications desired. We move often with news of developments in the world
that moves like some crooning singer, ever nearer to its audience, but in this
case, its audience of judgment from God. Naturalism in some of its evocative
intransigencies, especially in Britain where it is considered in terms of 'The
New Vikings', child training in Australia, the movements to the international
aggregations of political power, the journalistic depredations on Israel, the
blind spot in the Middle East, yes the double one, the significance of artistic
developments in Russia to the phenomenon of water in the Bible, and its
spiritual implications: all these things are covered.
In all this, the key is the
consequence of sin and the advent of the beauty of the Lord, in stark and
solemn contrast, made available at Calvary, wrought by the Spirit of God to
this moment, and brought into life by abiding in Him, who did not fail to abide
His own mission of redemption, resurrection of His body and demonstration of
His power, that to the simple, the Gospel might appear, and to the truth it
might declare itself - yes Himself, saying THIS IS THE WAY.
LIII
Earth Spasm,
Conscience Chasm: and the Renewal of Life
Published August 2002
ISBN 0-9581449-1-5
This is a varied volume, in
which the clashes of fiction with fact, delusion with faith, reality with
pretence, virtue with vice figure; and it has its historical study, intensively
in I and II Kings with special reference to Elijah and Elisha, their words and
ministries. These are taken in a survey of scope in the mighty works of the
Lord, their significance, their consummation and the perspective of divine
intervention in natural affairs.
The concept of Nature is
examined, and the supernatural is seen in terms of scientific method, in the
actualities of creation, as in the Bible itself.
This is a volume of
oversight and insight emphasis.
LIV
Jesus Christ: the
wisdom and the power of God
Published September 2002
ISBN 09581449-4-X
The power
and the wisdom of God is too much forgotten in the slime-covered chains of
naturalism. Those who break free are at times in danger of forgetting the
simple fact that GOD HAS POWER, that it is available for His mission and
purposes, that it is not another way of seeking pleasure but of securing
performance in His love for His mission, church and word, that men, women and
children may find Him, and in Him that resource, recourse,
resourcefulness, wit and wonder that the waterfall merely suggests, the mountains
intimate in their beautiful massiveness and space recalls in its majesty and
grandeur. He has made these. It is vital to know Him, and hence time in this
volume is given to history, focusing Kings and Chronicles as well as more
recent times, to the testimony of Jesus Christ when on earth, and in the whole
panoply of the divine revelation.
LV
Calibrating
Myths, Machining Dreams and Keeping Faith
Published October 2002,
ISBN
0-9581449-5-8
Man is bent on his own
way; secular, transvestite man, is seeking to clothe himself not with merely
male garments, but those divine, and this Age is awaiting the coming
pseudo-apotheosis. In this, the Satan, that master change-imitator charlatan,
leads a man to conceive of himself as God, with this difference, that he has
POWER over men, to a limited but still spectacular extent (II Thess.2:4ff.).
This is no
mini-explosion of human ingenuity awry, such as gas bombs, radioactive
contamination, modified crops, genetically engineered, flowing about the earth
with the wind, inadequately controlled or understood. No, it is categories
apart from that; for here comes that finale of presumption, the acme of
arrogance, that dim brilliance to which modern man for so long has been tending
in his forsaken and misused systems of psychiatries, sociologies,
histories, biologies, undistinguished events in metaphysics (cf. SMR Chs. 3-4), where theory dictates to fact, and fact
refusing to fit, makes the secular preachers all the more vociferous, as if
their very loudness would abash.
Since, however, they
deploy themselves in many but far from all academic posts, there are many who
heed instead of thinking; and the marvels of nothing making all, the material
inventing the mental, or the spiritual, or these thinks in succession, but
first of all itself, though it shows no such capacities, and if it had them,
could not have used them before it was: this is ‘cool’.
Indeed, this sort of delusion has become almost as simple as breathing to
the artfully deluded and the spiritually concluded. The great mercy is that a
new commencement can come to any of them by finding the Saviour, and many
of them do just that, thanking God for deliverance from such mesmeric
obfuscation; but more do not!
The calibration of the
dreams attending these delusions is one of the major comedies of all time, as
if a bankrupt were spending years of time enquiring about the most
sophisticated ways of storing his millions, when alas, he is broke. The machining
of dreams leaves them small and fluttering little things, piled on the dump
truck of history for reprocessing, in the manner normal in secular history, and
philosophy. The measurement of the unknown is not a practical joke, but one of
the major emphases of geology, for one (cf. TMR Ch. 7, Section E). The measure of
man himself is always being vied for, never agreed upon, and never could be, without
the truth, since God is not duplicable, and His image is from Himself. No
genome is available for Him, who makes, but is not made, who composes the
things, necessarily in His status being eternal, self-sufficient and free (cf.
SMR Ch. 1,TMR Ch. 7, Section
D). As Christ put it, “Before Abraham, I am.”
Considering
some of the major misconceptions of our Age and observing their consequences is
a grievous task of pathology; but since it may awaken some, and encourage
others, to find or to advance in the faith of Christ, it is provided here.
LVI
Published November 2002
ISBN 0-9581449-7-4
Gracious
Goodness and This World in Disorder
Disorder is rampant, the
call for discipline is reckless, riots are a way of life, death squads a form
of existence, as Revelation 6 comes into full force; yet this is only a
resultant. There is a cause of it all, and a compassion available.
It is prescribed, not
negotiated. It is free, not meritorious; but its results are delightful and its
dynamic is divine. Patterns in the muck are noticed, power over the resultants
is discerned, provision continues, and the destinies speak volumes, indeed
these are already written, like the rest of the scenario’s outline, in
the word of God, who makes mockery of guru pretensions and fulfils ONLY His OWN
word. No one else is God; no one else can do it. No one else is you, and no one
else can answer for you: except you become Christ’s. Then He by His spirit
is your governance, as in millennia past, and He by His resurrection is your
way-shower and by His cross, your barrister, Himself the payment; for there is
no death in Him.
Considerable exposition of
biblical passages is to be found in this volume as we see the governance of the
word of God.
LVII
Published December, 2002
ISBN 0-9581449-9-0
No Thanks for Angst!
The Truth is Alive,
Resurrected and Written
Considerable exposition of biblical
passages is to be found in this volume as we see the governance of the word of
God. The whole modern phenomenon of angst, in strong accord with the
astonishingly majestic, extraordinarily direct and wholly reliable predictions
of the book of the Lord. How incisive His ways and how verified His word, which
sits like the spiritual sun in its glory, shining and revealing, in light
dazzling without the softening glory of the Son, leaving nothing to itself,
exposing all things.
In this volume also, there
is opportunity to trace the reply to a questing soul, and to ponder how
elegantly sufficient is the work of God, how clear His word, how alive His
salvation, like riding in a boat on the waves, with the fresh keen salt of
reality and the wonder of the disappearing blue, which yet is there in the
distance, after the droll indifference of this dreamy world.
LVIII
Published Jan 2003
ISBN 0-9750303-2-9
Dastardly Dynamics,
Delirious Daubs, Wandering Woes, Bleary Theories
and Immovable
Faith
This nest of the topical, the current, the newsworthy, the blend of the
ancient and the modern, the scriptural and the contemporary, and the
application of the former in the domain of the latter, keeps you up to date as
the Bible lives on in the history God has prepared, commenting before it comes,
advising after it is here. It includes answers to questions, both provided to
the author, and as old as the days of Paul.
LIX
Published Jan 2003
ISBN 0-9750303-3-7
59th To Know God, the Power of
Christ’s Resurrection and the Fellowship of His Sufferings
In this work, the title delineates the topic. In it, Job is given
substantial treatment - in 3 chapters, as is the unity of the faith over the
ages; Acts is also summoned to attest these things, within its first 12
chapters, whilst Daniel also comes to the bar; and the trilogy of knowing your
God, receiving and using His power for His purposes and the value and victory
of sufferings in His company is focussed constantly.
In this work, the title delineates the topic, always keeping Christ in
focus, without whom is no good thing that lasts, for He who is equal with God
and from eternity, alone can
bring to it in peace. In this
volume, Job is given substantial treatment with special emphasis on suffering -
in 3 chapters, as is the unity of the faith over the ages. The book of Acts is
also summoned to attest these things, within its first 12 chapters, whilst
Daniel too comes to the bar; and the trilogy of knowing your God, receiving and
using His power for His purposes and the value and victory of sufferings in His
company is focussed constantly.
LX
Published Feb 2003
0-9750303-5-3
Great Execrations, Great Enervations, Greater
Grace
Diversity in the current contemporary period, intensity in scriptural
applications, and investigation of the theme make of this a pathway to thought,
challenge to faith to expand and appeal to those who do not yet know their
Creator as the meaning of life, the purpose of destiny and the Lover of His
people, to review their needless omission, lest it become reckless as well.
LXI
Marvels of Predestination and the Ways of
Will
Published March 2003
ISBN 0-9750303-7-X
Second Edition July 2004
(much expanded)
ISBN 0 9752175 7 7
This compilation is rendered from various of the published works on this
topic written earlier, with addition and development where this seems apt,
allowing the reader to visit topic-wise, in different dimensions with
comparative ease.
In yet greater scope, we see the ebullience of these concepts from the
Bible, their integration in themselves and their application to reality so
broad, so efficient, that the source of this revelation is once again attested
in the marvels of coverage, leaving nothing out, embracing everything, but not
with clammy arms: rather with an integrity both personal and unchangeable.
LXII
Of the Earth, Earthy, or
Celestial in Christ
Published March 2003
ISBN
0-9750303-9-6
I Corinthians 15 has some wonderful
contrasts: the first man, Adam, the ultimate man, Christ the Lord. The first
man is of the earth, earthy; the second man is the Lord from heaven.
Now we are finding the funding of nearly everything
imaginable that is earthy, worldly, carnal, rapacious, insolent and demanding;
and hearing nearly everything that is raucous, obtuse and insurgent, from bin
Laden to Communism, from Islamic submission requirements of those subordinated
to these false lords, to the arrant yabber, deemed
funny for some reason, of cartoons which reduce man to a motivated, moulded relic of a meaning no longer to be found.
The celestial is abused, its name
debased whether in the slaughter of people in shopping malls because somebody
called ‘Allah’ allegedly wants it, to the devising of means of
allowing what destroys to become the lord of what builds. And what sort of
destruction would that be ? That is what the Bible has
long called Apollyon, the devil, whose varied functions include accusing the
brethren (normally falsely), contesting righteousness, inducing fear of death,
alienating from God, inducing to love the means of life more than life
(‘Mammon’), tempting and corrupting. He can come dressed in flowing white robes
which do nothing for his heart, but much for those whom he dupes, surrounded
with flowing verbiage, elevating himself or his false prophets to the heavens,
while his ways are earthy.
These two courses, those of the bacteria and those of the
body, those of the creation and those of the desecration, they continue
parallel for a time, until the judgment. In biblical words, these are the wheat
and the tares of Christ’s parable in Matthew13:24ff.,
which grow up together until the harvest, by which time … they are
readily recognised.
In this work, contemporary events, biblical exposition and
in all, application for Christian Apologetics abound.
LXIII
The Heavens are Telling
The Beautiful
Face of Biblical Predestination
Published May, 2003
ISBN 0-9750778-1-3
It is many years (now about 39) since this author first wrote
the Master’s thesis on Predestination and Freewill. In March of
this year, a second Volume was composed, largely of works on this topic,
and applications and developments, since the first work.
Now, a little later in 2003, it seems necessary to present a
third volume, to make a trilogy on predestination and the ways of will in the
whole field of man, liberty, law, licence and responsibility. In this Preface
and in the Introduction to Ch. 7 there is some new material, which may be of
special interest for those familiar from times past, with these uncollected
items. .
In this volume, there is emphasis on the nature of love, and
further exposition on error which has deceived many in the church, for with
excellent features from some, there has yet not seldom been conflict for many.
Instead, as always, of such things, the only solution, and from the point of
view of Christian Apologetics, the DELIGHTFUL solution is to return to the
Bible and see the MINE from which sometimes the mimes have been taken, see
the realities too often ground down from their original setting to banal
substitutes. In this volume, this is done.
It is ONLY THEN that the wonderful exposure of the force of the
divine word on this topic can be appreciated. So far from being some strange
or exotic kind of concept, predestination with its intimate and ultimate
companion, divine foreknowledge (biblically defined) is utterly necessary,
wholly harmonious: and this ALONE has these features in the whole field
of discussion about freedom and power, force and liberty, determinism and
voluntarism. What would one expect ?
that philosophy would open its mouth and
infect the biblical doctrine with some SARS ? Alas, it has nothing to say to
the point, and its morass in this field is one of its historic
vulnerabilities. On the contrary, the Bible presents a definitive mass of
truth which is coherent, and sound, rational and internally consistent,
as well as ample to cover the empirical world.
Not merely so: alone has it the ingredients to make POSSIBLE
such a harmony. We have seen much of this in Volume Two of this predestinative
trilogy, that is, Marvels of Predestination and
the Ways of Will.
However in this volume, there is emphasis on the particular
wonder of the divine love, which is the paradigm, the power and the precept,
the personal reality without which man does not and cannot live. He constantly
WARPS his ‘love’ into nepotism, or family limitations, or political or
personal rampancies or passions of this sort or that, not allied to that
kinship and kindred compassion and relationship which in absence, creates such
a draught as to create a kind of terrestrial pneumonia, with high temperature,
hot breath and pallid face. Such is the affliction of this earth, at war with
God, in its basic premisses and many of its most illustrious premises.
The beautiful face of Biblical predestination
however shows, in its setting in the jewellery of His word, a beaming
loveliness which never fades, never shades, is perennially bright.
LXIV
The
Christian Pilgrimage
From Grace Triumphant to
Face Divine
Published May 2003
ISBN
0-9750778-3-X
Here you see aspects of the Christian
pilgrimage, with special attention to Timothy. Its beginnings precede
time, its end is with Him who made time, and you may come to Him at any time in
this Age of Grace.
You may be defaced, outfaced, or
prefaced in your actions by your way of facing things, your reputation, your
character, speaking before you come. People tend to grow in the expressive
result of their lives, stooped and sullen, sad and contrite, quiet and
reflective, frustrated and patient, or whatever the mark might be.
For the Christian however, there is
the pilgrimage. It is not, emphatically NOT, a matter of visiting some town
famous for this or that, no not even Jerusalem. The cross of Christ was
programmed in heaven, performed on earth, and its contribution of action is
past; only its application continues into the future. It is the One who died
there, whose face beckons, filled with character, essentially in repose, but
lively in light and radiant with beauty, the beauty of holiness (cf. Psalm
110, Daniel 7).
 |
In this pilgrimage, the defaced
residues of the image of God in man are replaced by the new surface and the new
character which it exhibits.
|
|
|
Outfaced is the past, distanced is sin in its regal
clothes and costumes; the face that shines is the One who came and went and
returns.
|
|
|
This lends light to one's eye, firmness to one's countenance, balance
to one's responses, passion to one's drive, delight to one's inner resources.
|
|
|
No, it is not a physical journey, though truly one's body has much to endure in
the pilgrimage; it is a spiritual journey, just as an aeroplane is indeed
physical, but the one who LIVES IN IT, the pilot, gives its endurance meaning
and its character purpose.
|
It is known to God before the Ages began, or the
world commenced, prepared in His grace, and it leads to His face divine
(Revelation 22), where the beauty of holiness is like air, and the individuality
of His saved ones is like perfume from flowers crushed, for there is no sin
left, and the water of life is pure.
LXV
Victory
Heritage of Christians, Exile from this World
Published June, 2003
ISBN
0-9750778-5-6
How
manifold are the victories of the Lord, and they need examination, itemisation
and consideration, appreciation, application.
In
contrast the world has nothing to offer but defeat, more palpable as its own
mismanagement of the creation which it loves to disaver, inexorably
proceeds. The stultifed human pseudo- 'creation' to come is a mess, but the
Creator has a better way. The personal application of victory is examined, and a
substantial allegory completes the volume, outlining the heritage of Christians,
the victory which is nevertheless, that exile from this world.
It appears that the
many allegories, apologues, acronyms, pictures in words, plays in scenes, animal
speakers, dialogues and presentations for the imagination hitherto presented on
this site, might be put together
in one book, allowing comparison and if desired, continual reading in one bloc,
rather than through various labours, to and fro with seekings in this and
that chapter or work. Hence there is now presented this compendium, yes with
some small additions, not entirely insignificant, but still in the very stream
of the originals.
Largely a selection from earlier
works presented on this site, it is however set together with the initial
conspectus provided in the Preface, to provide perspective. Moreover, just
as the groupings are significant, so the progression is deliberate, as item
succeeds item.
LXVII
ISRAEL
BLOWS THE TRUMPET THAT
YET IT DOES NOT HEAR
News
of Earth in the Light of Heaven
July
2003
Here is
history under the Written Word of God, the Bible, and the Living Word, Jesus
Christ
as it Comes to the Light of Common Day, concentrating on contemporary events,
with due historical background, in the fast moving world of today. Its focus,
for this specialised selection, is Israel, blowing the evidential trumpet,
fulfilling the word of God on the one hand, and in so doing, giving testimony
that the return of Christ is near.
The News
Items given, usually without change, are almost entirely as given from
1997-2003, on this site.
LXVIII
Know
the Lord, Know the Bible, Know His Will
Manual for Christian Growth
ISBN 0-9751254 2 7
August 2003
Manual
for Young and Growing Christians
covering many topics and emphasising
the beauty, reasonableness and harmony
of God's word ...
for the work of a
life-time
LXIX
THE DEFINING DRAMA
ISBN
0-9751254 3 5
September
2003
It is time to see
the definition of things that now are, that have been and that are coming. Hence
a variety of topics with this thrust is presented, including news items of real
portent.
Christians are
"looking and hastening for the coming of the day of God" ( II Peter
3:12), as students await their coming holidays, with eager anticipation (Hebrews
9:28), there being no substitute for the ultimate love of their hearts (John
21:5-19, Philippians 1:20-21, 3:20-21, Deuteronomy 6:5); but while they remain,
their hearts glow (Isaiah 64:5, John 15:21-23, I Peter 1:4-8) and they act to
reflect His light and its suffusing beauty,
which the world now needs (Philippians 2:15), desperately, before in this light,
He delivers judgment according to truth
(Romans 2) on that which has wilfully refused it (John 3:19,36, 5:19-23, Acts
17:31).
Flashpoints of our time, collisions
with the word of God, more thought on creation, and on the nature of enquiry and
education for the mind of the seeker, together with reflections on the Robotic 'Snake' all appear in Volume 69. It ends
with consideration of the Irresolvable Mutiny and the Irresistible Truth,
looking into the Middle East. As time moves, definitions sharpen for mankind;
those of the word of God are wholly sharp already. Meet the scalpel!
LXX
JOY COMES IN THE MORNING
ISBN 0
9751254 6 X
October 2003
What is joy, that
elemental joy which comes from association with the Prince of peace, the Creator
of man, the King of eternity, the Crucified Lord of love: how is it marred ?
What is that joy which comes in the morning, when His light shines at His return
? What is its pre-emption without purity, and where lies the place for the heart
of man!
LXXI
HIS TIME IS NEAR
The Awesome Authority, Celestial Love
and Impending Judgment
ISBN 0 9751254 7 8
November 2003
Near is the time
for the return of the Lord Jesus Christ, great are the encompassments of prophecy with precision, to
signify this. How near ? It is like pneumonia, while the breath rasps, the
temperature soars and the breathing pants. It is time to look at the will
? Well yes, since you are in it. Is it the will of the flesh, written by
yourself, or the wisdom of God, to which you have abandoned yourself, as a
sinking soul accepts rescue ? Undignified ? Of course. So is cancer. Realism
repents. History does not: it proceeds, scurries, for the end is near. Near
enough ? Nothing is near enough. Your name sketched in the book of life ? That
is not near enough. It is written or not. Be sure of its being written ?
How ? Were you present at predestination ? Of course not; but God was. His
willingness is the most beautiful thing! Seize salvation like breath in the hole
of Calcutta.
Such is the
atmosphere of this book, which however surveys multiplied scenes in science,
politics, society, international movements and current news, making careful
exposition of many related scriptures in the New and Old Testaments.
LXXII
OVERFLIGHT IN CHRIST
Christian
Wings
Christian
Things
ISBN 09751254 9 4
December 2003
In Christ, in this volume, we make some overflights, scenic
surveys, like the U 2 of old, and to see in Him the ways of peace,
of truth and loveliness, even in the midst of a world committed increasingly to
the ignoring of those ways, the imposition of useless ways, and the assertion of
the human spirit, its words, its culturally imitative religions, its sacrifices
and its sententious summits. Alas for man, made by God for God, he is making an
ass of himself by braying with words not from God, and moving with a heart not
given to God.
What would you expect when you omit all the demonstrated handbook
of the Maker, and make up your own! Yet those words are now as from the first,
available, and nothing avails without them. This is the way of truth, whether
with 'Nature' or the nature of man.
LXXIII
"Comfort Ye, My People!"
After the Night,
the Day,
the Day of the Lord
ISBN 0
9751761-1-0
January 2004
There is an
inimitable comfort in the companionship ON DUTY in the teamwork which the Lord
supplies and as we obey Him, His manifest co-operation and strengthening are not
merely functional, but felicitious! Moreover, there are numerous facets of the
jewel of life in Christ, of His word and of the attestation in history and life
before our eyes, which make COMFORT like light in darkness, a beam of blessing
shining to the perfect day. This is not only propositional, but personal; not
only that but powerful, and not this alone, but practical. It has a beauty which
is in strength, and a delight which is in a duty which alone is absorbing, since
it reaches to the beginning, and does not end.
LXXIV
Hear the Word of
God!
Sermons and
Addresses from the Bible, in the Lord
ISBN 0
9751761-3-7
January 2004
A number
of the sermons in this work have been given while the author was under
persecution, whether in New Zealand or Canada, indeed from the USA. They have
been presented where snow lies, where heat hazes, where joy rings, where battle
rages. One well remembers in one pastorate, which one had to resign because of
the direct failure to follow the scripture on the part of those supervising, and
this without repentance, being told something quite fascinating about the next
sermon. Preach THAT and you are out! seemed to be the general message. It was
preached and that did indeed not long precede the departure. Some of these
sermons have been published as chapters or sections in a book, most of them have
not. Some are outlines, short and ready for overview; others are longer, a few
are more lengthy.
Nothing is more important than the word of God, propositional and personal, in
the Bible, and according to its word, in the heart of man, in terms of the
eternal and death-breaching Jesus Christ, whose return is
LXXV
LET GOD BE GOD!
ISBN 0 9751761 4 5
January 2004
In
field after field, the call here is to realise and recognise, to operate and
act, alike, in the knowledge that there is no other God, that the One who has
shown and declared His identity for millenia as nothing and no one else, needs
to be returned to, received and indeed found, so that a morass of muddle should
become once again, a marvel of hope, a dynamic of destiny and a pellucid pool of
wonder in which loveliness is found, as befits those made in God's image: yet
only when pardoned, so that despite demerit, they might enjoy and relish the
wonder of the reality of the living God through the practical and powerful work
of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, sent from eternity to bring man to eternal life.
LXXVI
Delusive Drift or
Divine Dynamic
Desire or Desideratum
The Infernally Lying or the Eternally
Divine
ISBN 0 9751761 6 1
February 2004
In this volume, we follow the
mixture of delusion and divine dynamic, as the Author of man and history, brings
the final touches to the painting which, once a matter of gore and grace at
Calvary, now becomes a mixture of human ferocities as man unbalanced and far
from his Rock, works out his own damnation, with fear and trembling, with pride
and arrogance, with hope misplaced and dreams that are deadly.
For the social dreamers and
ecclesiastical play-goers, free of the divine truth, the drift, as in drift wood
approaching a whirl pool, increasingly experiences the forces soon not so
dream-like, whilst the deliverance which awaits, must come from above; for the
wood must be swept out of the sea into a safer place. Neither experience nor
association can alter it: it comes or it goes.
LXXVII
ISBN 0 9751761 8 8
Worn-Out World and Coming King
A Call to Spiritual Arms
March 2004
This wayward
world, spouting its now great swelling words of vanity more and more speciously,
in sonorous hollowness to match the emptied souls, is moving inexorably, dynamised with the desperation of despair, towards an end to this stress and
invidious, indeed almost sacred solemnity for the self: the natural, the
divorcee from the divine. It is this, or else it makes its own divinities, and
then seeks to outlaw the God who created, the Saviour who has shown His face
only to have it mashed in madness ...
There is a face to face,
however, and its passion in love has in no way diminished its power in judgment.
Compassion does not annul truth, but makes an avenue for its children that is
safe, spiritual and godly, with no charge for admission and no end to the life
so commmissioned.
LXXVIII
Christ, the Cumulative and the Culmination
NEWS IN CONTEMPORARY CONDITIONS
IN THE LIGHT OF ETERNAL REALITIES
ISBN 0 9752175 1 8
May 2004
It
is a matter of accumulation, the cumulative, culmination, the quintessential
revealed as the end
is no more concealed. It is a question of receiving the
answers in red ink, as after an examination. It is near. It is approaching, and
it is of interest, both for the sake of those who need yet to awake, and those
who being awake, can rejoice, lifting up their hearts since their final bodily
redemption, even the resurrection is near (Luke 21:28).
The constant testimony of the power and precision of God is needed where
blindness is a fashion, deceit is a method, propaganda is a milieu and ignorance
is counted bliss, so long as it is of the word of God, the Gospel and the grace
and peace in divine mercy, where it is to be found, where it is attested, where
God has invested His Son, and performed His ancient works, both for Israel and
for all, that some might be His when the test is concluded, and the accumulation
of debris is removed.
It is time to think both practically and constructively of the end of the
matter, the weighing in of enormously rich variables as they develop to
maturity, within the assured certainties of the divine directions and prescribed
consummation. To this one moves, as a horse to home after a gallop, and His rest
is glorious.
LXXIX
Importunity, Opportunity and
Purity of Heart
Suffering,
Sanctions and Spiritual Sanctification\
June 2004
ISBN 0 9752175 2 6
Work on Job and Daniel mingles with
the topical theme: seeking God with all your heart, the exigencies of sincerity,
the opportunities of grace and the delectable consequences in the presence of
the Almighty by His own personally appointed Way.
LXXX
Three Anzas and One Answer
July 2004
Extravaganzas, Stanzas,
Bonanzas
A Humble Heart and
The Holy God
ISBN 0 9752175 3 4
Man is adept at breaching beauty,
lusting for non-truth, building sand-castles and
watching the tide come in, with a fatal fascination, an intrigued hypnosis, it
would almost seem, to destroy them. One of the latest exemplars is found in
Europe in the clamour on its Constitution, and its consequences; but they
started with Eve. Thrust by the 'must' of necessity, pathologically triumphant
in his fallen heart, he inherits the must of decay, the vitiation wrought by
vainglory. There is, as there has always been, one answer, rather more obvious
than this, that 2 plus 2 equals 4. As man dives for cover at the incoming waves,
it does not seem to occur to him that it is time he built up on higher ground, with the
upper air serene about him.
This is still available, and though
the world follow its woes with passion,
it is well to leave it to its devices, rescuing whom one may, warning all,
awaiting the call of the Christ whose worth is infinite, whose day is eternal,
whose love is practical, whose passion wise.
LXXXI
The Moon Soon
A Novel of the Era
when Time Moves in on Space
Restricted publication,
available only on screen.
Publishers desiring paper
copies may contact us: Email us
July 2004
Bible-based novel
involving personality development, interaction and ideological interchange,
where pathology mounts, drama develops, intrigue unrolls and lunacy earns its
name on the moon, as some of the predicted events unfold in the imaginary
setting provided as an introduction to the actual soon to come.
LXXXII
Outrageous Outages, Awesome Inputs and the Courage of Christ
Insight on Site and Oversight from
the Lord
ISBN 09752175 6 9
The contemporary
scene is filled with absentees, with outages, with outrages, with the
outrageous, with voided insights and intrusive oversights, lacking the light of
truth which transforms thought within to knowledge from above, and rebellion
from reason into the sweetest of harmonies of this instrument of enquiry with
the full scope of revelation from God direct, so that the indirect and the
direct are there to make for man a complete certainty and a glorious unity in
which He rules and overrules, His word the truth.
In this volume, the
awesome insights God offers, the outrageous outages in which man persists, the
oversight from divinity which never swerves and the outline which He follows for
His creation, never servile, but sovereign, never cruel but kind, never
manipulable but inviting: these things concern us.
With this new publication, the predestination trilogy (see next
item below) has now become a quaternion of volumes, a new quota
on predestination, foreknowledge, on liberty and necessity, and in these
environs, on responsibility, duty and creativity. How do you they all cohere ?
Most readily, if and only if (IFF) you follow the biblical premises.
This is because you need a truth which is there, and able to be
conceived within the model you use for understanding life, the universe, time
and eternity, man and his place. Mercifully, this model is provided in the
Bible. It is – as just one of the innumerable verifications of its truth and
source in that Truth who makes truth for man about man possible – also the
desideratum which mind must seek, and the solution at which it respires with
delight, when it is found. It is like water, long envisaged, often conceived,
but never either found or seen as to its composition. The need however is
apparent. Thirst is not without harm, too long deferred in its quest. It can
even lead to poisons, damaging to the system, and destructive of life.
When you find the truth, you can at last receive the payload of
which it is the Father: from a world view which is coherent, rational,
harmonious in its elements, uniquely valid, workable and self-verificatory.
Since without truth, it is useless to talk of exhibitions of it in overview,
we need what is from God without delay. It is not surprising that He has
differentiated Himself from philosophic putations by His word, and that by its
power, validity and regality. There is but one attestation of this. It needs
not to change, since the Creator of time is not subordinate to it, and
surrogates are worthless. It is needed from the first, and to the last. There
is but one attestation of that also. The Bible as proposition, the Christ as
Performer, these in holy alliance are astride history as a colossus over a
harbour.
LXXXIV
THE GODS OF NATURALISM HAVE NO GO
Best tell them, Begone!
August 2004
ISBN 0 9752 175 0 3
A universe into a universe goes once, but a
universe from nothing does not go at all. Dynamising what shrieks its protests,
moreover, at such manhandling, in order to make it achieve what it quite simply
is NEVER seen to do, has NEVER shown itself to possess in power, method or
principle, in equipment or in process, is simply presumption personified.
It is time that its starvation diet, feeding a
stomach that is not there, were made more evident. To such an end, and the glory
of the Creator Himself, this book is directed, with the aid in finding the Lord
Himself whose word rules all to the last nucleated cell.
There is simply no argument that can begin to
stand, all totter:
the talk is all air, not even hot, being cold with the ludicrous downfall of the
human mind into asininity beyond all belief, while 'science' is humiliated by
this philosophic intrusion from arrogant erraticism, so that it is indeed
'science falsely so-called', as one component of the more adequate
definition from Timothy 'knowledge falsely so-called'.
Despite the clamour of some, whoever on earth imagined that science is not
one form of knowledge, so that 'knowledge falsely so-called' would not include
it!
As to 'science', it has from early Greek days been precisely that fatuous
combination of observation (in part) and philosophy (in the main) which it now
is in the establishment, IN THESE METAPHYSICAL AREAS in the
contemporary scene.
This error is of course not the pit of
all scientists, or all Ph.D. recipients in this field, not by any means, since
many realise the folly of OTHER scientists, and by their hundreds hold to
biblical creation, and far more scientists of course, to creation itself. It
is however that false and foolish abuse of scientific method which this philosophic
outrage has perpetrated for some generations now, that constitutes the
contribution of the main matrix of modern 'science' to the entire knowledge
situation of which it forms one cultural segment, so that this and the rest of
culturally domineering human 'knowledge', in delirious combination are giving
just what Paul warned Timothy to avoid, which is 'science falsely so-called' as
part of 'knowledge falsely so-called'.
To be sure, it is not ONLY what we now call the
'science' element that is in view; but equally surely, it is by no means
exclusive of it. The abuse of scientific method, as now defined, is quite as bad
as that of the Greek philosophers of their early history. That sodden
contribution of the 'classic' times of Greece with its atomic theory and the
rest, mixed with doses of philosophy of an arrogant indifference to truth, is
precisely what has now come of age. To ignore or to seek to subvert the
apostolic warning is no service to God! It is alas, however well-intentioned a
work of confusion. It is the TYPE of knowledge of man which is warned against,
WHATEVER its contemporary modes, that fusion of confusion with observation which
inherits the cultural collapse of faith into fiction, with the pomp and ceremony
of ludicrous aspiration towards learning.
There follows
then, and for many reasons but above all for the glory of God and the
testimony of truth, Jesus Christ, a collection of different parts
from among our (currently) 82 volume library on Biblical Christian Apologetics
and matters pertaining to this, which put together, increase the ease both for
comparison and for development of understanding in this area. The writings
concerned, in their published form, have spanned a period of some 11
years.
LXXXV
HIS
WOUNDS OPENED ETERNITY
August 2004
ISBN 0 9756840 0 0
In this volume, this focus on Jesus Christ will be
on what it cost, what it gave and what was the divine plan; and it may from time
to time consider other plans which the planning committee of pagan humanism,
irrational religions and pragmatic desire may propound, so that they who open
the eyes can avoid the pit and find the place of eternity.
For my own part, I intensely love eternity, and
without it, would not much value life at all: it would be like being a seed that
did not germinate (John 12:1ff.). A life ? could you call it that ? It would be
a preliminary without its inheritance. HAVING an inheritance in eternity is far
more precious than anything this phase of life can contribute, and the beauty of
it is this, that it is not by violence and terrorism, of any kind or capacity,
that it is found; but it is by the gift of God that it is made available. As for
our part, those of us who as Christians receive Him and all His words, we
delight to bring this gift to others by that same word, and in the power of His
Spirit which He has given to all His own people (Romans 8:9). It was good of God
to give, it is delightful to pass it on. It is fitting to reflect on the aspects
in the essence of faith, reason for the faith and the wonder of the faith, and
this we seek here in no small measure, to do!
LXXXVI
THE MEANING
OF LIBERTY AND
THE MESSAGE OF REMEDY
Remedy Is - and Victory goes with it
September 2004
ISBN 0 9756840 1 9
Remedy in the domain of man is for
sin
selfishness, squalor, suffering,
seediness, silliness,
seduction, servitude,
slavery, subtlety in subversion,
spawn of violence, vileness and
viciousness,
species of pride, vanity,
degradation, depravity,
socialistic superficiality,
splendiferous without spiritual link to the Author,
communistic contempt of truth,
pragmatically pursuing unscientific squalor,
spiritual self-aggrandisement,
delusion and death,
severity of judgment
certitude of hell
severance
of peace, meaning, mastery,
manhood, womanhood and childhood
from virtue,
of joy that is inherent, of
self-control, certainty,
from the race,
indeed from the entire domain of
mankind.
The problem is human,
The solution is divine;
just as the creation was divine,
and the desecration was human.
Now that desecration is systematic
as is the restitution available in
the remedy.
The remedy is as old as man,
as new as AD, in the year of our
Lord,
as contemporaneous as the presence
of the Spirit of God
in each new child of God.
Man is personal
(cf. It Bubbles... Ch. 9,
Little Things
Ch. 5, Overflight in Christ
1),
and so is the remedy.
Man is made able to reason, the
remedy is demonstrable
and here demonstrated.
Liberty can opt for slavery,
while love appointed the service
that remedy is.
The liberty is human,
the love is divine.
LXXXVII
LOVE IS PURER
THAN THE SNOW-CAPPED CREST,
THE EBULLIENT FOUNTAINS FROM ITS
WATERS:
THE LOVE OF GOD ALONE
September, 2004
ISBN 0 9756840 3 5
The compilation from earlier works
of this author, on the theme of the love of God tends to leave out concentration
on the area of predestination as to focus, since this is so abundantly
covered in The PQ. (see above). Having there seen divine love's explicatory power for man, and its
dominant entry into the resolution of his problems of thought, we now find need
to give some compilation of what has been discovered from the word and the ways
of God, manifest in flesh, living in life: concerning that ultimate and original
of love, the Lord. No book and no man has ever loved like this; for no one is
like the Lord; and what He says, goes, so that those who go with Him, find it
so.
There is now in measure, relayed in
sequence an emphasis on other features of the love of God; for what passes all
bounds, releasing all the bonds of harassment and delivering free to the highway
of holiness, while yet relating intimately to man, is of surpassing importance. It
requires the most assiduous attention, just as it itself summons it. Without
this, man is but a shell, hiding a complexity which is ultimately as sad and unpicturesque as an old car, dumped in a distant yard.
LXXXVIII
WHAT IS THE CHAFF TO THE WHEAT ?
October 2004
ISBN 0 9756840 4 3
A constant contrast of the dire
realities of vacuous virtuelessness, before God, and the grounded life in
Christ, with all the reaches of divinity and sublimity, the diabolical and the
devious seen in their space-station outlines from the perspective of the word of
God, their credentials in accord with their names.
It includes a review of Christian Apologetic
method.
LXXXIX
THE BRIGHT LIGHT AND THE UNCOMPREHENDING DARKNESS ...
WILFULLY WITLESS, WOEFULLY DRIVEN,
IT
MOANS BY THE REALM OF JOY
Published November
2004
ISBN 09756840 6 X
As we watch the world developing its
final 'birth' pangs, as New Age might think, but its actual death signature on
mortality, assigned to the paths written for the godless, it becomes clear on
every side that drastically desired darkness, as in a womb which is long past
its due date, is merely a cradle of death. If the actual rattle is delayed, the
signals are tempestuous, continual and mounting.
The ease with which the bright light
solves all things placed in its beam has its obverse. There is no light found
shining out of human consciousness, a mere reciprocal of the reality of man's
invisible spirit which laughs at law (sometimes in general, hence becoming
lawless, with the due results of its misdeeds), construes as it will and wonders
at its own baselessness while carefully turning its back on its base, like the
wilfully blind, having shut their eyes, marvelling that they cannot see.
This light is equally not human knowledge, always baffled at its place since
without its source it has none, settling for mere manipulation, nor yet human
aspiration, which can be for doom or dictatorship, ease or indifference.
This bright light of which Isaiah
spoke (Isaiah 8:22-9:7, Isaiah 42:6, 49:6), which would dispel the darkness of anguish, it is as he declared,
the Messiah.
He who came on time (cf. Highway of Holiness
Ch. 4), Paul's "due time" in
Galatians 4, an intensely mathematical point in history, who did the trial
course, not to see if He could but to show that He would, it is He who depicted
the scenario to come before He would return in judgment, when having confirmed the Gospel, indeed make it
work by His Cross and resurrection, He is to terminate trials in triumph. It is this which Isaiah had shown, centuries
before, as had others (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms
17), centring
around Him who revealed to man in visible form, the actual presence of God in
incarnation once made for all time, who is as changeless as the tide of human
error.
The difference ? His word works, and
man's does not; His word is love, the world's is itself; His way is wisdom, the
world's is folly. His is an opening in the clouds; the world's ? it is a descent
to the pit.
In this volume, with special
reference to news and developments, but with such references as become fitting,
often from former work to aid brevity, we shall keep a finger on the pulse of
our times, use the stethoscope of scripture to cover the condition of man's
inhalations, exhalations and condition andand moreover see how our times compare
with the predictive cardiograph of our Age (cf. SMR
Ch. 8). It will not be pleasant in all things,
but it holds always something beyond mere pleasure, power and prestige,
performance and manipulative capacity in the instrumentation panel of this
world's construction, which is in much available to man. It will continue
to expose the sheer wonder of the word of God at work in the world, astride it
like a giant Colossus, providing for it like the Great Physician which the Lord
in fact is.
It presents health, wholeness, truth
and mercy, peace and joy, reality and that rest which comes from reality, since
His is the heart that cherishes. If the Lord of glory whom man gashed, according
to the divinely announced plan (Isaiah 50-55, Zechariah 12, Psalm 22 cf.
Joyful Jottings 22-25) does not cherish the
restless godlessness of the renegade, yet He cherishes the call to repent, and
has cherished even to the point of a cursed death, the cost of restoration of
people to Himself, as many as receive Him (John 1:12). Before all time,
which is a
mere invention of the deity, there is He whose constructive mantle is seen over
all His words (cf. The Defining Drama
Ch. 10), and there being no other God (cf.
Ephesians 4:4, Isaiah 44-45), it is He who in the beginning was the Word and was
God. It is He who has come from the eternities of blessedness to bring eternal
life to the otherwise irremediable confines of corruption.
XC
Agony, Ecstasy and the Mastery of the Messiah
Published
December 2004
ISBN 0 9756840 7 8
This world is filled increasingly
with wild sprees, violent, libidinous, alcoholic, of speed, voyeurism,
viciousness, uninspired religious guesswork with blood, of market snatching,
house grabbing, and of grasping profit taking, as if this were the essence of
living or the goal for humanity.
At the same time, and not only in
obverse, it is invaded by anguish, millions visiting psychiatrists who study the
body and the brain, and consider statistics and what is desired, and often with
no knowledge of the human spirit, its origin or powers, but stuck in the muck of
mental reductionism, prescribe drugs, now that the invasive techniques of Freud
and the discursive bewilderment of Jung are no longer economically desirable, or
perhaps even statistically effective (cf. SMR p.
335,
Ch. 4,
Spiritual Refreshings Ch.
9, incl.
End-note 1).
But effective for what ?
For removing anguish ? Scarcely. For extirpating guilt ? Hopeless. It is useless
to be told that you are in the grip of this or that, when many worse placed are
not. It is mere assumption, and the conscience in those where it is not
annulled, does not witness as the truth, to the concept that one really only
does what one has to; for often enough man does precisely what he works out is
to his advantage, in spree, fee or feeling, and then does it deliberately and
deliberatively (cf. Predestination and Freewill
Section I).
In the midst of this bloodshed, of
writhing bodies and ruined lives, of hapless imaginings and ruthless wreckage,
of reductionist cartoons and repulsive behaviour, touted as good and
progressive, there remains what even a debased race can find as the unalterable,
immutable and the beautiful, the beginning and the end for all creation, Jesus
Christ. His lowly state is the very epitome of contrast to the direct or
indirect self-praise of man; His total potency for good is the blessed opposite
of the so much desired power of evil which afflicts the contemporary world; His
precise prophetic position, making Him unmissable and immiscible alike,
resembles His own predictions which arrive like stations on a suburban line,
inexorably, naturally and continually (cf. SMR
Ch.
8).
His salvation as Messiah, the one
anointed to suffer, to die, to cover sin and remove its distressing guilt, to
renew a race of individual believers and construct them into His Church, not by
pieces of bread or illicit masters (Matthew 23:8-10, John 6:61-63), not by wild
surmises using the Bible as a tooth brush to tickle the teeth rather than a
covenant creator to purge the soul, but by grace and divine power, in love and
divine wisdom: this remains. The mastery of his coverage of man's will, spirit
and history, and His own procedures in doing so are in the last chapters,
considered with the delight they evoke as the only rational answer to the nature
of man.
XCI
THE LOVE OF GRACE AND THE GRACE
OF LOVE
Volume 5
in what is now The Predestination Quintet
Published December 2004
ISBN 0 9756840 9
4
In presenting
the fifth volume of the Predestination Quintet (which aptly can still be called
THE PQ), one is constrained by two considerations. Firstly, the volume which
contained what are now chapters 4-8 below, had grown all but unwieldy in size.
Secondly, new material has need of a place, and as the two phases, the old and
the new seem suited partly by contrast, the one outlining the wonder of the
other, as when a moon is seen sailing over dark clouds, this book has sprung
into life.
One of the
stimuli to the earlier chapters came from a lively letter to which they in part
form the reply, and in part are beyond it; so that there is a more personal
element.
The grace of
love is one of the major considerations, so that when one looks to God, one is
not seeing an eviscerated sovereign, any more than a callow controller; but one
of a wisdom which is as beautiful as His love, who knowing all, loses none that
love would reach, and reaching, brings in none whom guile works!
He is the God of
truth, and loves in truth, but is in nothing moved from the truth; and it is
wonderful than in all truth, His mercy is available, so that there is no reason
to surrender to this world, when the Maker of it is ready to receive. If you
say, But I am not sure of my reception, the beauty of it is this, IF you come,
THEN you are WARRANTED the reception of your life, in both senses!
XCII
TRIALS, TESTS and TRIUMPHS in
TEMPTATION
with JOB for FOCUS
December 2004
ISBN 0 9756840 8 6
So much is said so often about the
evils of this world, and then about the alleged hardness of God, and then about unbelief
in Him, or the construction of this or that silly little goddy thing, instead of
Him, that it is time to be sober, rational, realistic and attentive to the
realities that are in fact His, attested, verified, validated and secure (cf.
SMR).
This is not so customary!
In unpleasant fact, these goddy
things, idolatrous inventions in biblical terminology, a very word for idol in
Hebrew signifying vanity, nothings: they may be constructed for
diverse reasons. It may be in order to make
men prosperous, or vanquishing, or to be sensually replete, perhaps gastronomically,
sexually, to secure for them prominence, not of teeth but of tongue, to have
place in the purlieus of prestige, or if not, perhaps to be sensitive with a sort of spiritual pining, as if melancholy were the preferred mode,
perhaps interspersed with a few wild sprees, morally or in bibulous or spiritual intoxication or the like, to
atone. In view of the temper not to say tantrums of our Age, it seems good to
focus on a far different thing, the trials and triumph, by the grace of God
alone, of Job. He is not precisely a hero; but he is certainly an example, and a
very good one, a joy to consider and an education to ponder, as we study his
case in the book of Job.
To this end, it has seemed good to collect some of the writings on Job,
that have previously been published in the 91 volumes so far presented by this
writer on the Web, at webwitness.org.au, and to make a collection in subject
progression, of these, with additions to add depth and scope.
Job himself, in his case, eminently
clear in scripture, is sometimes made into such a 'mystery' that it is a wonder how
the world can continue so long with such misconstructions of a key player in the
example department of the Bible. Certainly it is a profound thing, but scarcely
difficult to understand if you follow the text, which does not appear the most
common procedure.
In this context, the matter of
trials and suffering is given focus. Much of the problem here is a determination
to treat God as if man were His judge, and events were His unchaste desire. To
forget sin is easy, like forgetting smoking when you have lung cancer; but it is
equally useless and fantasising to do so. The world is in the grip of sin to the
point that its very sanity as a system comes into some manner of question; its misuse of
design in the performance and preference of desire is virtually a cult. God is
then harangued, or not believed in - sometimes in a childish spirit as if to
say, 'Very well then, I just won't believe in you, so there!' as if some
statistical fear would operate on the Almighty as rebellion increases.
It is however far otherwise that
truth is. When a world is under curse, there are only two options. One is to
bear it and this is noble in a Roman sort of way, but futile. Another is to have
it waived in your own case; and that is sound and sensible for does the Creator
want you cursed ? It is all and only a question of justice. Impudence deserves
caning but repentance is relevant to its omission. When however justice is
essential, then only mercy can operate; and to do so, God has borne the 'caning'
(literally in fact in something worse by far than the undesirable rattan) for
those who appeal for mercy. You get those who think He bears it anyway, just
because it is apt, appropriate and available to all and is provided on their
behalf (I John 2:1-2); and those who do not like it at all, despite Isaiah 53,
and Galatians 3 with Romans 3 and Hebrews 7-10.
It is always so, those against the
government, in this case, that of the universe, of mankind. It does not alter
anything, unless you overthrow the government, and to overthrow your Creator is
just as silly piece of childish inanity, since you can be de-created in an
instant, for that matter. Liberty however gives you scope, and scope is provided
by love from the Creator, along with mercy and free pardon (Titus 3:3-7), and
for that matter, with eternal life. While there are profound depths back of sin,
there is profound love in God (cf. Colossians 1:19ff.), and in view of this,
there is no slightest danger of any being lost who might be found. Pardon is
free because its securing by Christ was costly. The knowledge of God removes one
from the shape of things where wind blows the chaffing chaff; and if suffering
occur, as it will, then the joy of service becomes the restoration of meaning in
the presence of the God who acts for those who wait for Him.
XCIII
Swift Witness
January 2005
ISBN 0 9757291 1 X
Originally, this
volume was produced, step by step, as various challenges were issued to aspects
of biblical truth, or otherwise found and met. They have been culled from the
work of 8 years.
It now seems good
to have these available as a volume for review by many who may have similar
thoughts, ideas or difficulties, so that the unique beauty, harmony and validity
of the Bible may be savoured, in this case, at times like a war-ship in action,
at times like a vessel passing through narrow straits.
Here is the opportunity to
see wind-tunnel tests, examine, probe, and give one's mind to these
things. Some of these have appeared in such volumes as
THAT MAGNIFICENT ROCK.
Number 12 below is of special interest as it formed a three-pronged
attack on the Bible, and some may wish to see how profoundly vigorous and
stable is the Bible, like a rocky coast, under all attack, there.
As a compilation of
numerous answers to challenges put, or found, these items present an
opportunity for many who may share the concerns or desires for enquiry which
they attest. Their scope is wide, but the answers are on a consistent basis, the
only one which is valid in all points and verified at all attempts to test it,
that of the Bible. It is its amazing scope of providing light for any angle of
interest, in a coherent, consistent fashion which is one of its most total
verifications.
XCIV and XCV
ISBNs for the three
separate volumes:
0 9757291 2 8, 0 9757291 3 6
and 0 9757291 4 4 rather then one.
Published January 2005,
The gods of naturalism have no go!
in a TRILOGY, to replace the former single volume,
which tends ... to grow. These, within the basic title as above,
have their own individual
sub-titles, Namely: I Naturally They Don't Go,
II Necessarily They Don't Go and
III Nothing Doesn't Go!
The original single volume was
No. 84.
XCVI
THE GRATING GRANDEUR AND
AGGRANDISEMENT OF MAN
AND THE MEEKNESS OF THE MAJESTIC
MESSIAH
January 2005
ISBN
09757291 5 2
He is never done. Let him be
bankrupt, like the USSR, and in need, let him have drove of foreign scientists
help his perilously undisciplined stocks of nuclear weapons, and let world
banking lend massive funds; it is still a matter of boasting of having new
inter-continental rockets that will not be matched by the 'enemy' for a long
time! Man is inveterate ... it is not just Putin, disputing the dynamics in the
lost land that glorified man in Communism and abased mankind to the uttermost in
dismal reductionism and defiant devilries, too well documented by one of its own
people, Nobel laureate, Solzhenitsyn (cf. SMR pp.
971-972).
It is Europe. It too is a new emblem
and has a new ensign to show its glory. In muted terms, they refer to their
Christian background, basis or tradition (as on the DW TV documentary here
screened on December 16, 2004), and in loud ones to the question whether Turkey
can be taken cold turkey, or must be garnished a while. To be sure, it is wise
to ensure that the social treatment of man is at least in some discernible way
within the confines of some reasonable legal system, and not the resultant of
religious dynamics which assume what does not stand, and work on what has fallen
and failed these millenia since its foundation (cf. Divine Agenda
Ch. 6, More Marvels
Ch. 4, SMR pp.
829ff.).
Yet to what excellent glory is Turkey seeking entry ?
After all, what has Europe itself
been doing ? Let us forget for the moment its two not so glorious world wars of
the recent past (in such a perspective as this).
What are these traditions ? those of
the Inquisition ? It has failed to affirm so far in its new Constitution all
this glorious christianity, spelt here with a small 'c' because it is a small
and diminutive edition of the real thing which is actually based on the meek but
majestic Messiah, Jesus Christ, not on inquisitions* for
centuries, grabbing riches for Rome and Romanism, and torturing bodies whose
possessors do not believe in illicit magic and dreamed doctrines which are
neither true not biblical (cf. SMR pp.
1032-1088H). There is no glory in
shame.
The ONLY GLORY is in the meek
Majesty of the Messiah who DIED rather than murdered, who AROSE rather than
slithered into ridiculous posturings of 'greatness' reduced constantly to ruin
or the deliquescences of pride overruled and dripping into its dank spiritual
slums. By contrast, what the Messiah claimed, He demonstrated; what He said He
would do, He did, what He asserted, it stood and all the king's horses (such as
those of Herod) and all the king's men (such as those of the High Priest), yes
and all Rome's audacious imperial aura, reduced to folly indeed by Nero as time
passed, could not smash the Holy One, though they tried as much as wit and work
could muster.
XCVII and XCVIII
REASON, REVELATION and the REDEEMER
Irrresistible Reason for Certain Faith
in 2 volumes,
REASON LEADING TO REVELATION
and the REDEEMER
ISBN 0 9757291 7 9
and
REASON LEADING FROM FALSE REVELATION
and to Verification
ISBN
0 9757291 8 7
There are a number
of systematic points of basic kind in the nature of providing a reason for the
Christian faith. It is unique in that nothing else provides demonstration or can
do so, as is shown in these pages. To present these matters both in overview and
in specialised coverage of major issues is the purpose of the current two volume
work, specialising in the first section rather in the positive, to find the way, in the second,
in the negative, to discard what is not.
Naturally, there is
a nexus of impacts, but this is the trend.
The approach in method and the successive and accumulating confirmations is
always as startling to mind, as expected by faith. The living God and
Father of Jesus Christ is not distant, except to sin, near to faith, near to
reason, and all that is in man attests Him.
XCIX
DIZZY
DASHES, HEADY CLASHES
AND THE BRILLIANT HARMONY OF INEVITABLE TRUTH
February 2005
ISBN 0 9757291 9 5
Penetrating Peace
Dizziness
is a state of mind and
consciousness, of perception and appreciation which lacks solidity, soundness,
reliability, so that what ought to be stable, whirs or blurs, and what ought
to be clear is dimmed or whirling and thought without actually ceasing, is
under arrest.
To walk in such a state
renders one vulnerable; but to dash when under such constraints is foolish,
and could well be deadly.
Dizzy dashes are one of the
trade-marks of our times, where passions aroused, with ideologies like dark
glasses obscuring vision for millions, if not billions, and lurching revenge
and monetary, commercial and national hopes and lusts joining in the whirling
throng, there is every opportunity for inane bloodshed, incredible torture,
indescribable indignity and inveterate vice.
Power has grown, and
idolatry with it. The devils are no better than ever they were, but their
devotees now aim at atomic weapons, such as Iran is reputed to be near to
having in her grasp, and North Korea, both absolutist States, where a few
dominate the many, with or without any measure of acceptance.
To help in the disabuse of
many, and the arrival of some to His kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, where the
liberty of the Lord is at work, this volume is written: it is presented in the
interests of that truth which, verified on every side, does not wait for
permission to exist, but manifests itself in the patience of God as His
program comes to its peak, in the return of the Prince of peace. It is well to
be ready (Matthew 24:1-10, 36-51).
C
Little Angel
February 2005
ISBN 0 9757385 1 8
Here is a work of allegory,
showing the adventures of an angel not so sophisticated as some, but with a
heart like a child, but a grown mind, seeking to minister to the heirs of
salvation, and making to the Throne of Heaven, a surprising request.
CI
JOURNEY TO GOD
OR
FANTASY'S FLIGHT
TO THE INFERNAL
The Dynamics of Disintegration and
the Delights of Restoration
March 2005
ISBN 0 9757385 3 4
This is a SEQUEL to LITTLE ANGEL
Volume 101 in the Set
In Praise of Christ Jesus
It is not an excursion into angelology,
nor even merely a visit to their realm, for here the affairs
both of men and of angels, in all their angles, are before us, though we
cannot visit all; and it is with the advantage of a celestial perspective,
which is theirs, and the sublime aid of the entirety of the word of God, the
Bible that we rove and watch.
CII
HISTORY, REVIEW AND OVERVIEW
HELPS, HINDRANCES AND HOLINESS
ISBN 0
9757385 4 2
This
volume is intended to expose some of the stories men invent, present in contrast
the history which makes no parade, but happens, to provide helps from the eternal word
of the everlasting God, to show hindrances in their undressed state, free of
phrases that cover gross over-weight, and to see all of this human speeding to
corruption, in the light of the holiness which God desires and makes
available for man.
It is
like looking at a lake of serene splendour, set in the snows of refreshing
altitudes, and then from this perspective, considering the dust of delusive
dynamisms, below.
CIII
IMPOSSIBLE TO MEN, OPEN TO GOD
April 2005
ISBN 0 9757385 5 0
This volume is intended to
bring the contrast, not between man's past and present achievements, a motley
lot at best, but between man's power and that of God, man's morals and the
principles of deity, man's pride and the divine humility, puny problematics of
creation posing as ultimate, and simple solutions found in the Creator, acting
as He is.
It does not ameliorate man's
position or condition; but it does show the divine way, attested and vindicated,
that of salvation in Jesus Christ, which may be omitted as may breath from the
nostrils, but with more cost. To omit the power, place and presence of God by
attested covenant and promise in one's life, is simply to be partially unmade,
unmanned and hence insalubrious in spirit, derelict in destiny, a potential
unmet.
CIV
ALLEGORIES,
APOLOGUES AND ACRONYMS
Imagery with
Verse for Christ the Lord
May 2005
Reset
with additions, from July 2003,
now in two volumes
ISBN for Vol. 1 0 9750778-7-2
for Vol. 2
0
9757385-6-9
CV
CELESTIAL HARMONY FOR THE
TERRESTRIAL HOST
Omitting the
Evanescent Extremes
and
Taking the Picture from the Book
Ministers Peace to His People, His Body, His Church
May 2005
ISBN 0 9757385-8-5
Hallowed be
Thy name is frequently part of a prayer; hallowed be Thy word is
parallel (cf. Isaiah 8:20), and one way to do this is to avoid evanescent
extremes, pugnacities of flesh and actually be guided by what it says as to what
it means! Names of man's parties in this setting are close to irrelevant, for
the name of God is infinitely above all other, and if man does not like to have
his name used for the words of other men, or his words used with the names of
others, how vastly worse is it to plagiarise or impel one's own thoughts into
those of God! When this is avoided and justice done to the word of God, how
readily do contentions abate, winds of passion dispel; and valuable unity is
ready. I Corinthians 3, Paul's stricture on parties with names, has been ignored
by many as if it were the eleventh commandment to do just the opposite! Treasure
is available when the word of God is given its place.
Ten areas are
examined.
CVI
106th
THE TRUE GOD HAS GO, GIVES GROWTH
AND GLORY
May 2005
ISBN 0 9757 385 9 3
The
true God is known by what He does, and this is but one of the evidences of who
He is. One of the things He does is give growth, a most fascinating reality, and
when considered, an all but overwhelming tour de force and bastion of brilliance
in itself. To this, attention must be paid, so that its reality is realised, and
His action is pondered, as all truth must be for those who do not disdain
wisdom.
Before growth of course, is existence, and since there is no mandate for magic,
existence requires a source, basis and GO to put it there. Laws do not languish
in clouds of vapour, or thought for that matter, but can operate only where a
SYSTEM is ALREADY present, in which they have either cognitive or operational
significance.
Glory too requires a source. There is in man a desire for it, whether in sport,
in architecture, in painting, in politics, in nations and in the multiplicity of
man’s aspirations; and although it is frequently, and perhaps most frequently
associated with vain, futile, destructive and at times all but whimsical and
sick selfishness, there is a positive side, and a healthy one to it.
Such seeking of glory, when healthy and not obsessed with self or its
appointees, can be the very essence of reality that is sought, not the pushing
of some proud wheel-barrow, thrust by an idiot, seeking a goal of evanescence.
When it is to the objectively indicated God of truth, the Lord of the Bible, it
is the greatest topic and task, as well as the most fruitful. It can be the
adornment of the race, in this, that it is residual from the GO that put man
into being, and a seeking for the GOD and not the merely mouthed magic, who is
required for his very existence.
When THAT is the glory sought, so that all other gloriousness is merely
derivative to the glory of that glory-source, then it is well.
CVII
107th
June 2005
ISBN 0
9757881 0 8
BEYOND THE CRYPT: THE DIVINE
SCRIPT AND THE FACE OF GOD
Information, Inflammation,
Conflagration,
Consummation with Comfort, or Inextinguishable Ashes
It is comforting
to know in the face and light of this that there is light for man that NOTHING
can extinguish, alter, mutate or manipulate; for it is not to a Government House
Garden Party but to the grace of the eternal God that each one is invited, and
the actual Invitation is provided for you within, and it is found in the script,
when you accept what is offered. It is not available for gate crashes really,
no, not at all. It is here, in the Redeemer provided, Jesus Christ, and in HIM
ALONE (Acts 4:11-12), that you find rest, reality and eternity in which your
place comes as one of His own. The thing is sure, and past all surmise,
concrete, evidenced and assured. Its perspectives, in the kingdom of heaven, are
the most vital element hidden from the eye of wandering man.
CVIII
WALKING IN THE LIGHT AND KEEPING YOUR EYES OPEN
For Eyes Fast Closed, Truth is Opposed:
More Humble, less Stumble
July 2005
ISBN 0
9757881 2 4
It is not the swinging of some
pendulum, but the truth which is needed, and it is needed NOW.
Sensationalistic Pentecostalism is
just as far astray from actual scripture as is the weak-minded, knobbly-kneed
tepidity of the crass humanism of Liberalism, which has driven many to seek
something, somewhere, that is far better. Churches have depopulated
statistically, through such liberal approaches to the Lord, who is made over by
this method, as really as by Muhammad and the sects; and it is not at all
surprising to find now an increasing indifference to the prohibition on
spiritual fellowship with sects such as Islam or whatever else may have some
prospect of 'success'.
Pentecostalism has been the
recipient of many who have left straying denominations, just as in large
swathes, it also by repeated
exhibition of unscriptural emphasis, and de-emphasis of commands, misleads: in its own way, ignoring to such an extent the very scriptures concerning gifts as did the Liberals other
scriptures concerning Israel and the power of God. False prophets do indeed abound, and whether it be denial of
gifts or sensationalistic focus on them, it is all one: it is ANYTHING but the
loving, gracious, believing, faithful reality from which both these extremes
move as
drift-wood, graying in the sun as they are baked on the river of life, which
drives popular appeal. So they drift, moving
to the sea and the swamps of meaningless humiliation.
In this volume, therefore, our
attention to the bible will be on simply, what it says, where to go, how to go, what is
happening and how to treat it, regard it, from a scriptural viewpoint,
remembering that just as the
'Jerusalem' of yesterday was destroyed for its depravities, so the 'world' of
today parades its pomp and hideous presumption, awaiting a similar end.
KEEP YOUR EYES OPEN! or WATCH AND
PRAY, as Christ indicated in the latter part of Matthew 24, as well as in
speaking to the disciples before the crucifixion. Such is the underlying message
of this volume, which also specialises on Job, exhibiting that what is required
is not mere speculative frenzies, focussed on man as if the water explained the
heavens, but actual reality, duly confirmed and validated, as nothing else is.
This work
also, however, is dealing with the other phase, WALKING IN THE SPIRIT
as in Galatians 5, for keeping your eyes open is but half. If you do not know
what to make of what you see, how are you advantaged, except in some
things; where as in all things you need due care!
If the Spirit of God is not in you,
you are not a Christian, says Paul in Romans 8; and to walk in the Spirit means
NOT to be
a formalistic substitute for a
Christian, or
a sacramentalist
version of the idolatrous (cf. Questions and Answers
Ch. 2), or
indeed ANYTHING which is not
the case required by the Lord.
And that ? It is where Christ is
EVERYTHING to you, first and foremost, His life your love, His word your law,
His royalty your rule, His deity your inspiration, His power your resource, His
wisdom your benison and His grace your basis for reflection as you move with it,
of it and in it (cf. I Corinthians 1:29-30).
CIX
SCIENTIFIC
METHOD,
SATANIC METHOD
AND THE MODEL OF SALVATION
ISBN 09757881 3 2
August 2005
Scientific method needs re-affirmation, clarification and application as the
devices of delusion, with incredible effrontery, seek to add to their captives,
even many in this arena.
CX
DANCERS, PRANCERS, LANCERS AND ANSWERS
LANCERS
and ANSWERS
ISBN 09757881 4 0
August 2005
Psalm 2 gives the theme, modern history gives the dream, the past provides the
depth and the future is frisky, on our doorstep as oblivion takes hold, a bad
combination for prancing.
The
age-old answer does not change; truth does not do that sort of thing.
CXI
ON TRANSLATIONS OF THE BIBLE
WORDS ABOUT
WORDS
Get out of
the Way,
To Let the
God of the Bible
Have His Say!
ISBN 09757881 5 9
September 2005
Translating is a fascinating task,
demanding integrity of thought, spirit and conscience, sensitivity and
non-intrusive perceptiveness. While none is without sin, each who translates
must seek the ultimate in fidelity to the original, and wonderful have been the
works done.
Such matters are dwelt on, as are 53
texts in particular, where the Bible is given scope to express itself in its
glorious liberty, so that the Lord may be honoured as is His due. This work has
been in progress since 1999, and has gradually expanded to about 500 pages.
There is in the Bible, such a cohesive correlation
of the topics, themes, spirit, order, organisation,
penetration of one aspect with another, of meanings, that it is like some
living skyscraper, some organic whole, synchronised in splendour, moulded in
majesty. Thus so far is it from needing 'help', which is very often a name for
cultural invasion from baseless premisses, that when with the utmost care, one
brings out what is there, in the text for one's own language: then there is a
resonance with the rest of the scriptural structure, a clarity which compels, a
virtuous verification like that of sunshine on flowers, bringing out the
perfumes resident.
CXII
October 2005
ISBN 09757881 7 5
DESERTS AND DESSERTS, DELICACIES AND DESICCATIONS
Spiritual News, Biblical Truths
As the name implies, this volume
deals with the heights and depths, with the light and darkness,
with the beautiful and the horrendous, with the godly and the ungodly, and
covers no small amount of the books of Daniel and Revelation in its scope, to
show the power and wonder, the grief and anguish, the grandeur and the majesty:
the glory in God, and the national, international, personal and social disease,
the disaster of sin.
This brings its predicted
fruition, dying vines in the parched desert, for a rebellious race, and abundant
vintage from the children of God in the meadows of His Majesty. Attachment to
the vine brings forth delicacies, and it is not only emotional, devotional and
delighted attachment; it is also a disciplined one, where fidelity flows from
faith, and joy from the presence of the Lord in the heart of the redeemed
sinner, who looks not back, but on to the glorious and ever nearer intimate
reaches of the Highway of Holiness, paved by the Lord from of old, paid for at
Calvary, alight with the sheer splendour of the resurrection - from One who
paid, died and rose, for all who receive this payment in faith - shining on the
way.
CXIII
113th
Published November 2005
ISBN 09757881 8 3
The MAJESTIC MIGHT of the
MERCIFUL MESSIAH: JESUS
In one sense it is as if the Lord had mobilised His resources, not
just to set man free from the wall of Hitler’s Europe, or Stalin’s Iron
Curtain, or prospectively from the horrors of Christian persecution behind the
bamboo curtain, but from the shame and sequestration from blessedness achieved
by sin in co-operation with the devil, a folly worldwide in scope, and
with the prospect of a just judgment. How then shall we escape, asks the
scriptures of God, if we neglect so great a salvation! (Hebrews 2:1-3).
In this volume, therefore, as the time draws yet closer for the
return of Christ as Judge (John 5:19ff.), it is needful for each person to
contemplate, attest and reckon with His justice, His mercy, His Gospel, His
historical control, His victorious provisions, triumphant truth and majestic
oversight, with His wonderful kindness to the human race, when it reaches out
for His creation in mankind.
This, as in Titus 3,
finding Him where He is (Isaiah 55), may thus close in
contract with the Gospel, and then live in and for Him. It is He who is to be
found, who as Lord then lives by His Spirit according to His word, in the
lives of those who so find Him, who has lived on earth to do His amazing work,
and will return, the time being near. There is no other way, God or salvation,
procedure or program, life, witness or way; for all falls but He, and nothing
rises again, but He.
It is not some procedure to avoid hardship; it is one to find
God, and with Him, the beauty of His holiness, the wonder of His new creation
of life within, as He by His Spirit lives in and with His children, the
privilege of serving Him, and the meaning of His manufacture of man, not for
some questionable or querulous purpose, but for the glorious opportunity to
become children of the living God.
CXIV
Published November 2005
ISBN 09757881 9 1
SEEN BY
ANGELS: WORDS FROM THE
WINGS
THE CONVERSATION OF
ANGELS
AND THE ANGLES OF
MEN
It is thought
convenient to have one volume where the conversations of the angels which have
been imagined, may be found together.
Sections 1 and 2 represent entire
volumes which focus words from the wings, as a major feature.
The last two Sections as at
November 2005, 3 and 4, cover, feature and expose what appears to be a
crusade against the God of creation, which is shown uncreative, unproductive and
invalid.
Since the overall result has some
400 pages, it can readily form one volume,
which is number 114 in the set, In Praise of Christ Jesus.
Since He is the Creator
(Colossians 1:14ff.), and the Creator is ONE and GOD (Isaiah 44:24, 45:12,18),
who is triune (Isaiah 48:16), it is clear how He could say,
"I and My Father are one," so inciting the
disbelieving the Jews of His day, that they took up stones because, said they,
you being man make yourself God (John 10:30-33).
In fact, of course, He being God,
had made Himself man, an infinite difference, as in Philippians 2. It is He of
whom it is said, "God was manifested in the flesh,
justified in the Spirit, seen by angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed
on in the world, receive up into glory" (I Timothy 3:16).
Hence, to the point of our
present volume, there is an acute derogation of Jesus Christ in the assault on
the Creator, which thing deserves attention from those who know Him, their
Prince ? yes but also the Prince of Life, to whom death has bowed not only
in His own sacrificial death, but in such deaths as before this, He found it a
fitting testimony to overcome with life. The theme 'resurrection' is available
in
both
indexes,
and merely a part of His activities for those who receive Him.
The overcoming of death,
sickness, sentence on sin, frustration and pollution, poison of the heart and
waywardness of the mind is His gift, and salvation is so glorious that the
impecunious impieties which seek to adjust Him, cardinally in the Cross but in
other ways since, for there is no more life issue than that of your Creator,
become like compulsive overdraft retainers.
CXV
Published November 2005
ISBN 0 9758436 0 5
PROCLAMATION FROM THE WORD OF GOD
Expository Sermons and Sermon Notes
These are largely sermon notes, not of the
skeletal kind, but although formulated in the normal style one might
associate with exposition and application, they are in general two, or
three, sometimes four pages long, giving a background to the sermon
preached. In all, there is something at least of the order of 200 pages of
these.
In this way, one may contact many scriptures in
both Testaments, and without hearing a long exposition, find the nature of
the message and expand it at one's own leisure, once the fundamentals are
established.
Some of the messages have an audio supplement,
which is available on the Web at
http://webwitness.org.au/aduioprovision.html
As the pure word of God is ignored, so it must
be preached; and as many fail to know its very form and impact, so this
provides a speedy way of becoming familiar with many great passages in the
word of God, and many of its great themes, by simple exposition, comparison
with other scriptures, exposure of themes and thrust, and attention to
detail where this is imposing in importance, even for a short summary of the
message.
An earlier volume, Hear the Word of God!
contains a number of full-length sermons and a variety, and this forms a
partner to make a pair of these volumes. Both volumes show the
coherence, consistency, harmony and depth of the biblical teaching, often
exhibiting its prophecies, always fulfilled, never failing, and its
fulfilment in tenor, in spirit, in principle and in practice. Its wisdom
makes other options superfluous, and its verification comes both positively
and negatively, the latter in the plight of the world in arrears in its debt
of obedience to God, in fears in its depth of depravity from God, in tears
in its traumas and a variety of gears for violation, vileness and villainy,
political, personal, social and international. It is not for nothing that
the UK and the US were so great when the Bible had a greater hold on them,
apart from human traditions, even a notable and famous grip compared with
the present; and the absence of salt is making the stew a study in
tastelessness.
The sermons are not arranged in the order of
their preaching, but in the order of the books of the Bible, to enable easy
reference and selection as need arises.
Remember, also, that a large body of material is
available from
this link, where various
scriptural verses are expounded or applied. Moreover, Bible study provision
is made extensively in this site.
CXVI
Published December 2005
ISBN 0 9758436 2 1
THE DESIRE
OF THE NATIONS
AND THE
CRYSTALLINE FIRE OF THE FAITH
The vainglorious desires of man, the
polluted fragments of a broken image, these obtrude like a wen.
They breed with
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ideas which are a vanity,
without ideals, and with
ideals, a dream without vision in
the absence of God, and with
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vision, a mere name without God.
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Indeed,
|
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the
name of God of little value to a man or woman or a child, unless it be
called on;
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and the calling is of small repute unless it be by faith;
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and the faith achieves but little and is empty,
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unless it is in Him whom God sent as receptacle for the lost,
and Redeemer for the sinners.
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Even seeking Him without repentance,
this is absurd and obnoxious, since as He declared, He came to save sinners, not
'righteous' people; and His opinion of such a delusion is well expressed in one
of the most incandescent condemnations of all time, in Matthew 23.
Hence the crystalline fires of the
faith need attention, for they do not burn those who attentively watch them, in
the Lord, as those who watch a furnace through glazed windows; and the Desire of the Nations cannot be too closely watched, who is
the Shepherd whom this race despising, becomes the Judge of those who vomit
their own mercy, in the gastronomic mess of unbelief.
The faith, it must be held;
it must be deployed; and the object of it, the Christ, if not taken, leaves merely a
gap, like an untreated wound, awaiting the onset of this, or possibly that,
infection.
2006
So far, 14 volumes have been
published in 2006
CXVII
Published January 2006
ISBN 0 9758436 3 X
117th
Published January 2006
THE WIT AND WISDOM OF THE WORD OF GOD,
THE BIBLE: TRUE TO TEST
Better awake to the Bible,
than bibulous or blind
WHERE NOW IS MAN ?
In his dominating cultural
conditioning, he becomes as a witless word in a
wandering world, departing from the wit and wisdom of the word of God, wanting
to make all things new in some collision of East and West, Left and Right,
explicit and implicit, conscious and unconscious, some clutter and clatter of
synthetic syncretism, as if weed killer and weed were mixed with malted milk
and roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, together with industrial waste, since it
has to go somewhere: this becomes the new universal fashion, and it justly
finds its way impassable. So the world worries, but it does not act on the
Book of the Lord.
What would one expect ? Is it
enough to take all the examination papers of all students and mix them up,
finding now this way and now that of presenting truth and error, brilliance
and the grotesque doltishness of inanimation, as if mixture were a fixture for
faith, an answer to conundrums and a way in the wilderness, which comes
vainly when you are busy both straying and inventing a false dusk, because you
shirk the light.
Of course men’s hearts are
failing for fear, as Luke 21 predicted, from fear of atomic bombs in militant
Islamic hands, in terrorist hands, of sudden devastation by dirty bombs, and
any of a whole array of misguided power with guided missiles or even shoulder
mounted rockets, of Iranian devastations to give point to the talk of
removing Israel from the map, as they pursue their urge. And what does Islamic
tradition abundantly attest of many nations ? It is brutality to women as in
some of Islam’s common procedures, inveterate desire to rule from a religion
false to verification and a mere dream unsubstantiated in the face of the
Bible, which in ALL things come to pass precisely as shown.
Instead, the new
Fourth World War comes, seeking a place, using a religion self-contradictory,
passing off biblical prophets as forerunners of its own false prophet, and
then contradicting their whole sacrificial system of atonement which they
propounded in the Bible, where grace gives the pardon, and mercy has feet (cf.
More Marvels …
Ch. 4, SMR pp.
1080ff.),
while inventing a false christ centuries after the true one, without even
being consistent in the invention (cf. Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch. 8,
*1
esp., SMR
986, 1088Dff.).
That as one of the tribe of false prophets to come, is just what Christ, His
word the testable truth, proclaimed would come (Matthew 24:24). It is like
spots in chicken-pox. Once you have the disease, they can be predicted; and
here the disease is dismissal of the tried, true and tested word of God (cf.
SMR), and pursuit of a review-modelling religion, founded where fruition
lacks, verification fails and invention is not sustained (cf. SMR pp.
829ff., Divine Agenda
...
Ch. 6).
Like epileptic attacks, man
convulses first into Nazism, then Communism, then New Age convolutions of
abstruse non-verifications and diffuse thought (cf. SMR pp.
867ff.), then Islamic submission to
what is not first submitted to test, then humanism comes to its dark pinnacle,
in ever-new Earth Charters, c/- Russia (cf. It Bubbles... Ch. 11
as marked), the bankrupted relic, then pragmatism
decides to profit from a China which rustles its silk purse to buy souls,
imprisons saints, seeks to supervise Christianity, and having sold the soul in
godless materialism which is not even possible (cf. Repent or Perish
Ch. 7), then seeks to help others invest
their properties in its prosperity, till it should have enough industrial
might and God-forsaking commerce in its vest, to invest Taiwan. Thus appears
the trend of things, and if it were not so, who could be happier than this
author ? But evidence must be faced.
No in the shinty-towns of fallen faith, not in the
slums of scientistic shibboleths, run from the citadels of cultural
oppression, but where truth lies, where it is found, where it meets the facts,
yes and surpasses them, not merely answering all the questions with sustained
and verified answers, but doing so uniquely and with unique validity: this is
where man finds meaning, and ceasing to be witless, gains from the wit and
wisdom of his Maker, the path for his progress and the joy for his spirit. It
is the joy which is founded in truth, not in its loudly declared absence, as
if this could be true, it is this which remains; and it is the Jesus Christ
whose written word, the Bible, has both the content and coverage, and the
predictive power and the retrospective principles which are incapable of
demolition, and remain unassailable to any test, thus completing near 3500
years of such revelation: it is He who remains.
CXVIII
BON VOYAGE!
NOT
around the world
but in
Christ, Guided by God, Led by the Lord
Published Febuary 2006
ISBN 0 9758436 4 8
It
used to be quite the thing! Bon voyage! Bon voyage!
There was the
shop, a masterpiece of comfort and containment, fitted for the high seas,
there was the voyage planned, there the oceanic vastness and there the
opportunity. One was off, off to the maritime wilds and the splendour of
seascapes, the bitings winds, the crested monsters in water and the flying
fish in their day, all part of the way.
Streamers would
bring colour to tears, and their eventual snapping would signalise and be
symbol of the parting. What would await those left, and those who had just
left! History would pulse and ebb, events would muster and men would fluster,
but the path of destiny was awakening, as if from a momentary sleep, and what
was to be would now unfold.
There is however
a better voyage, which has a greater good, and a more exciting way which has
vaster magnitudes, that with God. It is not found in ill-expected oddity, like
the falling of a star, any more than that other voyage of which we have been
considering the details; but like it, is a purposeful expedition, with indeed
a better purpose and a better result. This journey too has its objectives, its
marvels and its life, and it leads where destiny unfolds and reads like a
book.
When that voyage
of life is in Christ, then the sadness is rather now the tears of repentance,
and the streamers which must break, as they do, are those of attachment to
this world and its ways, its cultural fibres and vainglorious adventures in
the adventitious. Not now as the chaff which the wind blows is the VOYAGE
which one undertakes, but as a discerned, directed, dynamic and at core,
delightful thrust, as the Lord puts out His hand to stabilise, secure, send
and accompany one in the midst of what may move from high drama and astounding
confrontations with this world, its evils and its ballyhoo, to the call for
enduring patience in the face of quiet continuation in tasks for the talents
given, and projects for the pulsing heart to complete while it is still day,
while one still can, while the Age still continues and the engines of
predestination still churn towards the assured end.
CXIX
THE CHILD, THE YOUTH AND THE ETERNAL TRUTH
NOT
around the world
but in
Christ, Guided by God, Led by the Lord
Published February 2006
ISBN 0 9758436 5 6
For an introduction to this volume, use the
PREFACE from the above hyperlink.
CXX
THE
SCALING THE HEIGHTS, SCANNING THE DEPTHS, SPANNING THE BREADTH: JESUS CHRIST
HAS THE ANSWER
Whether you soar, or plunge, however broadly you span in
mind or by sight, there is harmony, validity and resource, irrefutable truth
and empirical confirmation in one place only; and however high you aspire to
reach, or in whatever depth, the result is always the same.
The airplane of
discovery makes only one discovery: Jesus Christ is the Truth, the Life and
the Way. Electron microscopes of the mind, find it so, unrestrained searches
of the spirit find it so, the testimony of the eye and the ear, show it so.
The result ? fear God and keep His commandments, yes but far more.
The sacred fear,
the clean fear of God is the beauty of holiness which as in a clean house
makes it savoury and fragrant, but the house is built for love and truth,
peace and labours of love, and the love of God and His truth are wedded,
inseparables, and though often assailed, intentionally or otherwise by
confusion, it is this love which has constrained Him to send His only begotten
Son that WHOSOEVER believes in Him should not perish, for He did not come to
condemn the world but that the world should be saved. GOD IS LOVE!
It is only when
you take the word of God as it is, that you find the elixir of life, the full
flavour of the bread of heaven, the sovereignty and the grace, the mercy and
the breadth of His scope of love, and there is the glorious consistency of His
word in all things, a place of delight for the alienated, of scope for the
harrowed, of adventure for the still, of relish for the abandoned and of truth
for the seeker.
Come and fly!
come and sink to the depths in a bathyscope: it is the same. Jesus Christ has
it all, the word of God shows it, and the ways of this world reflect it; even
though that mundane mirror is shattered, it cannot quite separate itself from
the light, which nevertheless condemns it. This, it is not the offer, it is
the result of its reckless refusal. The glorious fact is that the scope of the
divine offer and grace and love is as broad as mankind (Titus 2-3, Colossians
1), though the foreknown results of grace are as narrow as the way of the
Lord.
Published March 2006
ISBN 0 9758436 7 2
CXXI
The Pride of Life, the Prince of Life and the Destiny of Man
These intertwining topics leave a
vast clarity to man, a challenge, a confrontation, an opportunity, leading to
all that makes man valuable, or to judgment for declining to receive it.
Published April 2006
ISBN 0 9758436 8 0
CXXII
Published April 2006
ISBN 0 9758436 9 9
THE SPIRITUAL SAGACITY OF PREDESTINATION IN LOVE
FOREKNOWLEDGE AND CHRISTIAN FAITH
This is the name for the sixth volume in what is
now the Predestination Hexad,
a set of six volumes in this field. It has grown from being the Predestination
Quintet!
The
HEXAD itself
ON
PREDESTINATION and FOREKNOWLEDGE,
LIBERTY and NECESSITY,
RESPONSIBILITY, DUTY and CREATIVITY
has ISBN
ISBN 0
9775556 0 7
CXXIII
Published May 2006
ISBN
0 9775556 1 5
CHRIST'S INEFFABLE PEACE AND GRACE
AMID THE SMOKING CANDLES,
FLAMING FLARES AND POLLUTED PRODUCTS OF MAN
Man in his own modes invites and
sometimes even invokes blessing or cursing. His actions can appeal to nearly all
the human race, as with Saddam Hussein, or Hitler, or Idi Amin, as being morally
those to be despised, reprobate, ruinous, disjoined from humanity. What then is
the humanity ? What is it that makes its discernments in any slight way, at
least, valid ?
Similarly, the practical provision
of aid to the afflicted often commends itself to the many, especially if through
ignorance they suffer, or through a prize-fighting brutality of the oppressor.
There is a sense of justice and equity which, however repressed or distorted
into a shape convenient to lust or selfishness, still exists.
There can come the smouldering,
smoking evidences of error, as with a smoking candle, the flaming flares of
deserved evils, like darts descending on a spiritually slovenly people, or those
who have swallowed some ideological potassium cyanide without even checking
carefully the description on the bottle, or the site of the manufacturer. How
often, afterwards, with a few millions of souls departed from their twisted
bodies, or tortured corpses, they reflect on their errors!
Man's polluted products, whether in
the appallingly horrible and grossly misnamed 'female circumcision', which
appears an ultimate in masculinistic oppression and heartlessness, almost to the
point of self-serving assault, if not indeed in some ways past it, or in
chopping off hands for stealing, or killing for trifles, in mental mists of
philosophical fog which obscures vision, till the next one replaces it, these
seep in, and sometimes, as if preferring the maritime mode, roar in like giant
breakers for which the surfers are unprepared.
Beyond all this, there is the
alternative mode. Here a man does not rely on himself, or what others like him
relay, on culture or on the current idiocies of thought which will be called so
in a following generation, if one is allowed to come, but seeks his Maker. At
that there are two ways: he may seek in a cultural vein, or a racist-self-realisation
model for a working religion to get you places, or something to bring you
advance without tears, choosing carefully as at an ideological super-market, or
a pleasure tent; or he may seek God where He may be found. Here reason impels,
sin lashes and truth drives. If a man seek the Lord with all his heart, says
Jeremiah (29:13), he will find Him!
He is not far to find (Acts
17:22-31), and
His word has penetrated all cultures, all ideologies, like light into darkness,
being both verified, rationally inevitable and alone valid. All this has been
shown often enough, but here we are seeing the applications among men, with
special emphasis on the profundity of peace with truth, which God provides.
"And
ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all
your heart."
Ch. 7 provides exposure of the
rampant folly of the
da Vinci Code ?
CXXIV
Published June 2006
ISBN
09775556 2 3
WHAT GOD SAYS, GOES:
CREATION IS FINISHED, BUT GOD REMAINS
This is Volume
4
of the
NOGO TETRAD,
THE GODS OF NATURALISM HAVE NO GO
The TETRAD
itself has ISBN 09775556 3 1, as a set.
In this 4th Volume of the Tetrad,
the work as assigned for the set is
as before, in
the Preface.
This last volume deals with matters of history both in the blowing of the soap
bubbles of evolutionism, and in its entanglement with the partial destruction
of the race, overview of developments and reasonings, practicalities and
logical necessities, and is a book of review on the one hand, and application
to society on the other.
CXXV
Published June 2006
ISBN
09775556 5 8
GRATITUDE
FOR HIS GLORIOUS GRACE
The
Signature Divine
Grace is a delightful thing; to be
gracious is an attractive feature; grace with glory is to be found only in
God, from whose heart it flows in brilliance unimpaired, in history unreceding,
obscure to the obfuscationist, apparent to the purged - the lens of their
heart made clear, the delight of His children, the hope of mankind and
limit-free source of freedom, in that its love is to redeem what is lost,
provide for what is fallen, seek out what is sunk and release what is bound.
It is not indiscriminate: nor is
it discriminating in negative gear, but rather in liberality it is like the
winds of time, the radiance of stars, coming not from an icy mass but from a
spiritual fire in which no dross can remain, indestructible in it issuance,
indefatigable in its realm, bringing in many sons and daughters to the family
of God, with entry visas signed in blood, that of the Lord Jesus Christ:
issued in pardon, conferred in love and confined to faith, in Him, whose image
this same Jesus, God as man, exhibited with illimitable fidelity, the
criterion of infinity, the cure for infirmity and the ingenuity for kindly
development, in the paths of duty and the ways of peace.
Gratitude for such a grace is
often forgotten, when contention replaces conviction, aspiration evicts
reception and thankfulness disappears like a distant aeroplane on the merging
horizons of time and space. It is the task of this volume to confirm on many
grounds such gratitude, in the joys of such grace, and to commend the place of
grace for salvation for the lost, join with the faithful in this response to
Him who is divine and show that reason itself is as lost without such a
response, as a tin soldier in a fog, heartless, little, misshapen in mischief,
the dim core of what might have been a star.
Gratitude for the Grace in the Glory of the Lord
In this volume, in fact, there are three
major stresses. The first is gratitude. To be grateful is sometimes hard for the
proud; but in the kingdom of heaven there is no room for these, for blessed are
the poor in spirit, and the fate of the proud, as in Isaiah 2:14ff., is not
attractive.
HE DID IT: are we who are His not
grateful. Is this not to be shown as gratitude is, in fealty and fondness, in
joy and pride IN HIM! Is He not the One to be glorified, praised and forwarded,
so that the salt is savoury and the light is radiant ?
The second aspect is GLORY. God is
glorious, and the foolish efforts to achieve glory when it is not present, or
divine glory when it is His, or to be glorified as man, when he is mere
creation, is so inglorious as to be perhaps the most obvious noxious element in
mankind, making him like a weed, a mere deception, acting like a plant, but
invasive, infestive, meretricious and with a shocking smell. It is well to
concentrate on the glory of God for it is inspiring, apt for His children to
ponder, stirring to the depths and plants deeper depths even as we gaze upon Him
(II Corinthians 3:18).
The third emphasis in this work is
His grace, already given attention above.
It is not something achieved or deserved, not something grasped or
deserved: it just is in His power and in His nature to dispense it, not to the
noble or to the wise, not to the beautiful or to the most-performing artisans of
devoted toil. It is given where it is received. HOW this comes to be has vexed
the minds of many, but it need not. The scripture is perfectly explicit. GRACE
is poured out, is effusive, for God WOULD HAVE ALL to be reconciled in heaven or
on earth by the blood of the Cross and SAYS SO (Colossians 1:19ff.).
To be sure, man CANNOT grab it, by
willing, for he is excluded by sin from perception UNTIL converted (I
Corinthians 2:14). Nor is his will irrelevant, for this is the GROUND of
exclusion in the face of the divine desire NOT to condemn (as in John 3:17).
Indeed, it is the specially denoted REASON for exclusion (John 3:19), even in
contrast to the stated divine desire for the world, on the part of Him who has
given a propitiation even, not for us only who believe, but for the entire world
(I John 2:2).
He does not PAY for all, for that
would make payment ineffective and God a goose, and indeed those for whom
specifically He has been delivered up ALL go to heaven (Romans 8:32). He DOES
however make a payment adequate for all, in sincerity offered to all, so that in
HIS KNOWLEDGE (and indeed foreknowledge, not of our deeds or worth, but of the
reception of His grace in His own discernment, before all time - Ephesians 1:4,
Romans 9): it is given to the recipients only. Equally in His love, it is with
desire, pressed on all (Isaiah 48:16ff., Matthew 23:37, Colossians 1:19ff., I
Timothy 2, Luke 119:42ff., Jeremiah 48:30-33, 51:8-9, Jeremiah 1-14 cf.
Ch. 2).
Thus you CANNOT go to hell without
this being deemed of your will, by Him in HIS KNOWLEDGE (in the scriptural action
and spiritual circuit, as in Romans
8:29ff.): that you REFUSE or the equivalent, to receive Him, even the only Door
to Deity, the Saviour Jesus Christ (John 10:9, 14:6, Isaiah 43:9-10). To
be sure it is He who performs the salvation on His own; but it is not wrought
without respect to the grounds which HE knows, of the wayward preference, seen
past history and time (Ephesians 1:4), psychology and human autonomy, known to
God. Unlimited by sin in His sight, who bases it not at all on any human works,
of will or other, it is no ground of merit, but an avenue of grace.
THIS grace is so pure, so lacking in
limiting factors based on self or selfishness or mere plan or program, is so
elemental, is so rich, is so vast in scope, rich in attainment in Calvary and
all that went to prepare for that, that it is like teeming rain. Someone asks
you, Is it raining ? has the drought broken. You reply: raining ? why it
is teeming, God be praised.
But HOW MUCH are you grateful for
SUCH grace as this ? It is also elemental, as deep as life, as broad as mind, as
high as holiness and as joyful as exuberance. It is like growth in Spring. You
cannot contain it, for it is everywhere.
On such things does this volume
dwell, and in such joy is it presented in the name of Him in whom one dwells,
and who dwells Himself in one's heart (Colossians 1:27, John 14:20).
CXXVI
Published July 2006
ISBN
09775556 6 6
GRATITUDE
FOR HIS GLORIOUS GRACE
There have been vast passions roused to
investigate the heights of the heavens, the depths of the earth and the sea,
the geographical spread of the earth, the meaning of life and the place of
man. Religions have spawned as if some great fish had nothing better to do
than surround the maritime mysteries of the earth, with its variable but
basically kindred ilk.
We have in the preceding 125 volumes
considered the realities of the truth, which is to be found in Christ Jesus,
and the need to avoid slimy much and slithery substitutes for spirituality,
and the glory of God.
In this volume,
our task is to look deeper here, if depth may be found in this or that issue,
and higher in the other place, if heights avail, and thus to show that the
glory of God in these domains and lights is as delightful as ever, soaring
with the heights, surpassing the depths, like a light in the oblivion, a guide
in the obscure and a joy in the vales of misery which sin donates with the
largesse of an emperor, and the perverted joy of a liberal misanthrope.
Here no less
than in any other domain or clime available to man, the Lord in His blessed
liberality provides wonder for those who seek Him, answers to address and
grants to those who ask. His testimony is beyond the heavens, gives to the
depths their very name, and removing the enchantments of dreams, provides the
consistent reality of truth. His word is very strong, and nothing mars it; and
though man marred Him when He came, this was by permission, indeed celestial
edict, a predicted part of the divine passion to redeem man, now fulfilled in
myriads of those to whom from the uttermost heights, this blessing to the very
depths has come.
Nor did it come
without pain, nor did it go without triumph; for the resurrection of Jesus
Christ is merely one of His works, but it is the one which counts above all,
since here is the future history for mankind, as many as receive Him.
In particular,
three chapters deal with aspects of suffering and its revelatory rationale,
the design for this; and another two cover the design for man, in which as
individual or in group, he works as one designate, in rational relationship
with the system of the lower creation, and spiritual access on God's own
terms, with the deity Himself.
CXXVII
Published August 2006
ISBN
09775556 7 4
DOWNFALL FROM DEFAMATION
DEGRADATION
FOR THE HUMAN
RACE through
DEFAMATION of DEITY, and
THE GODLY GRANT OF GLORY IN THE GOSPEL
Delinquency is not limited to adolescents. Adults can be quite good at it.
Nor is it limited to misuse of one's own life, or that of one's fellows. It
can stretch to malignity against God.
Delinquency against the divine is becoming an art form, a propaganda thrust
and an educational tool.
It is leading, slowly, quietly, but with more drama as the thing progresses,
to the systematic downfall of the human race. This is not a lurking,
surreptitious thing, but precisely as in the Bible, an open, a gay, a
swaggering, a swashbuckling antic, with its own devious ways; and that there
are outbreaks of inflammation and high temperatures, both literal and
metaphorical, among mankind, this is merely a routine expression of the
advancing nature of the disease.
It is to be expected, like boils in a system adapted to them at a given time;
where they come may be surprising, but that they come is not. It is the same
with a body infested with cancer: it may come in surprising places when it
colonises, as it were, enjoying metastasis. If however the first line of
abuse, as for example in excessive and careless sun-baking with a fair skin,
is wrought, then the result may be taught. It has ways of its own ? yes, but
not without ground.
When you misuse the fundamentals of life, it may bite back; it may in the
manner of life, writhe and contort, like a carved up embryo, as may occur in
that modern way of life which is abortion for convenience (it may sometimes
actually be required for health reasons, or in rape and so on). The life being
aborted is like the life being abused in one's own case: it may writhe and its
various, magnificent controls being abused, like a steering wheel of a car
caught in a rut, may themselves contribute to downfall. When you are not
killing en embryo but your own like, slowly, there may be resemblances of
note!
The defamation of deity which is one of these abuses not merely severs man
from his source, but twists the truth, on which man's very existence as a
spiritual and rational being depends, so that man is like a contorted embryo
in these circumstances, wondering where next to wince.
In the face of such grandiose plans of wretched wrecking procedures, levelled
ultimately against God but often deploying man's own equipment with a
combination of vanity in the sense of empty folly, and that of proud
self-reliance, on the part of this object, man, neither free to determine
birth nor death (except the latter in that way-out called suicide, the
resignation of life, not its surmounting or joy): there is a case developing.
There is a strident neo-image for man.
Its face is contorted. It readily runs amok, like the ways of Saddam Hussein
in his torture camps, where allegedly people new to upper echelons might be
brought in order to be taught immunity to compassion or revulsion at the
things done to the torture victims, and the quantity of death ensuing. This
procedure now being aggrandised and developed for man ? It is this.
It is defamation of deity by perversion, reversion, aspersion, distortion or
contortion. This in the current volume will be one of the topics; but the
glorious grant of the Gospel will be the way out, the way on, as it in fact
is; and the way all this is to be brought together is a major feature.
Within this volume, these very things above will be rehearsed, DV, and the
matter resolved as it must be, has been by God, and needs to be internally
recognised by
man.
CXXVIII - CXXIX
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S
CHRIST
WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS
Bible or Blight,
Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God
Published September 2006
ISBN
0 9775556 6 6
Two
Volumes: Bible or Blight ISBN 0 9775556 7 4
Christ or Confusion ISBN 0 9775556 8 2
This is a comprehensive compilation
with some additions, exhibiting in substantial detail the fact that the
resolution of philosophic riddles, demonstration of creation and exhibition of
comprehensibility, meaning and scientific integrity rests without loss in the
Biblical depiction, or model. It covers life, youth, design, history,
philosophy, science, meaning, man in an integrity which the world neither finds
elsewhere, nor can duplicate in validity or verification. To reject it is not
'by faith' death, but more: it is to a contemptibility which awaits what awakens
to destitution through will misused, and life aborted not in the womb, but in
the way.
It may seem hard to some that truth
is invariable and life a grant to be washed with grace and restored to the Maker
in faith and gratitude, through His chosen way; but then each path in the brain
is a chosen way, and each bone, each blood vessel. Life is by gift and by grace;
and it is not a horror to be belched at, that the way home is provided, this
also, but a matter for marvel. It is best by far to come home, for this is where
the God of creation and the Lord of salvation is to be found. What logic
requires is what love inspires.
It covers some 2.2 million words or
5200 pages.
CXXX
CHRIST INCOMPARABLE, LORD INDOMITABLE
Published October 2006
ISBN 09775556 9 0
This world has
its flags furled, for its spur and saliency is smitten. It lies broken amidst
its fallen dreams, futile ravings and vile ravishings. Its leaders are flawed,
its fashions cry for lordship and squabble interminably, its prides are like
lions on spree, its follies like children run amok.
Christ Jesus is
unravished, unfallen, smitten but this vicariously, risen and that in the
power of God, declared the Son of God, corporeally unconquerable, spiritually
in peace, triumphant in mission, incorruptible in mind, tender in heart,
willing in spirit, great in understanding. He is incomparable and as Lord He
is indomitable.
Sin seeks to
ravage His people, but He rescues; jealousy seeks to abase His position, but
He stands, the Celestial Trade Towers that cannot be lowered, and His trade is
in the souls of men, of women, of children, and for these HE pays; and His
profit is not gain for coffers, for commerce, to increase Himself, already
infinite beyond time and all creation, indeed as a member of the trinity,
creator of all (Colossians 1:15ff., John 1:3). It is in purchase of what is
smitten, in redeeming what sin has ruined, what life has grieved for; and
bringing it to His own kingdom, where life and love, peace and duty,
responsibility and realism mount like eagles.
His kingdom is
not of this world; but it will at last demonstrate to this fallen world what
righteousness is, not only as now, in redeeming freely what is lost (Romans
3:23ff.), but in showing in the glowing testimony of truth, what life is when
it is founded in God, and the globe is ruled by it; and this before this whole
world, a travesty of truth, though His light be in it, because of sin, is
removed as II Peter 3 tells us, and with its works, burnt up.
CXXXI
JESUS CHRIST, DEFACED,
UNFAZED:
BARRISTER OF BLISS
Published November 2006
ISBN
09802972 1 4
There is about the majesty of God - even when it is tabernacled in flesh, tented in an envelope of protoplasm for
serviceable purposes, yes for salvation for that element of His creation called
mankind, which increasingly becomes less manly and less kind - something which never loses
its atmosphere, depth, brilliance and impact of utter reality.
This, it is scarcely surprising in
view of who He is: the Creator of all. Yet it is always astounding to see it
actually happen before one's eyes, as one reads of His entry into this world and
performances, His attitudes and principles, sagacity and insight, oversight and
power. It is staggering that a man could be so endued; but not so at all, when
one finally grasps the whole point: this IS GOD!
It is not some elevation of human
desire, essentialisation of human thought, concentration of human philosophy,
arrangement of human power: it is wholly other, not in the Barthian sense, as if
it did not belong, far removed as that is from Hebrews 2 with its emphasis on the brotherhood and
the Lord's taking of kinship with those in His image. It is rather in the sense of
utterly devoid of pride, proficient in dominion and efficient in serviceability, integumental in meekness and illimitable in holiness. This, yes: but as a man!
Again, this is the whole point.
Nothing less could bear the brunt of the deaths of millions of sinners, in
justice to truth; and nothing less could bear up to the infinite God the race,
that special people, who are that section of this human race, which is redeemed
(has been, and will be as well).
We are thus to meet EITHER the fancy
dress ball of human invention, convention and comedy dressed in the drab robes
of approaching doom, well deserved and pursued as relentlessly as recklessly, or
God. To meet God, you come where He is available, just as you do to enter a
house, using the door provided. You do not rant and rave as if it were an
offence to your extended sensibilities to have to lower your important or yes,
even imposing self to the designated entry point. You just go there and enter.
CXXXII
THE FACE OF GOD, ILLIMITABLE, UNFUNDED, DEFINITIVE, DECISIVE
Published December 2006
ISBN
09802972 2 2
There is nothing more important than
this, the divine face, the face of Deity, the expression, definitive, decisive,
clear and assured of God Himself.
With men and women, yes and children
too, there is a face, there is a heart, there is a spirit, there is honesty or
dishonesty with it, and knowledge or confusion with that, and there is
articulation or the lack or muddle of it alongside. We have some idea, perhaps
of the face of each, the expression, the meaning, the priorities, the
pre-requisites, the motivation, the purposes, the ethics and the life; but there
are many barriers to certainty, unless God Himself shows the case (as He did,
for example, to Samuel the prophet, concerning the choice of David, the young
lad whom he anointed to become king - I Samuel 16).
The Lord, He asserted, KNOWS THE
HEART. He looks upon it, and sees what lies there. It is not a matter of
appearance at all, but of heart. It is the same in Jeremiah 17:9-10.
Who, Paul pursues our issue, knows
the man except the spirit of the man, at the human level ? Let us realise with
what we are dealing (I Corinthians 2:9ff.). Similarly, who knows the heart of
God as does the Spirit of God. God in His Spirit KNOWS, as man in his spirit is
directly aware. Man in his face expresses (if by that you mean his expressive
medium of which face is the physical counterpart) what he is. God in His word
expresses what He is, and in the face of Christ Jesus, has expressed Himself
definitively. That incarnate, eternal Word of God has thus presented definitively
who God is. His words as Messiah are declarative, His face shows it just as His
Spirit knows it.
In this volume, the ways of man
before God, the ways of His creation are considered in the light of His face,
revealed in His word and displayed in Christ Jesus.
2007
9 volumes have been
published in 2007
CXXXIII
HOW GREAT IS THE GOD WE ADORE
THE WORSHIP OF
JESUS CHRIST AS DEITY
Published February 2007
ISBN
09802972 3 0
The puny, pusillanimous, defective, de facto and not
de jure, the premature, the immature, the merely quaint, the tittivating, the
merely titled, these things may be; but they are not for adoration.
The novelties of imagination have their place, and
great is the joy of creation; but when the innovative is the execrable, and when
the focus is the foolish, then what does man become if not a gash in the cliff
face, a vacuity instead of solidity, a ruin in the making to become a relic
without joy.
Greatness is in the eye and heart of man, and it is
often perverted to his own contemplation, or that of his family, society or mere
ideology. People die for such things, vanity, association, respect. It may be of
those who are themselves unrespectable, but their respect still enthralls.
Are you a GENUINE child-killing terrorist, who
cares nothing for flesh ? Do you QUALIFY, do you have the QUALITY! Can you take
the things needed to reach this social level of acceptance!
Such becomes a type of such human offerings to
folly, misplaced adoration for what is contemptible, mesmeric motivations that
gash into the heart of humanity, and collide with that of the Lord.
Saddam Hussein, we read, used to have close
associates, or those intended for such honour, witness tortures unspeakable and
death, in order to harden them and make them ready. But for what!
So does power and glory tempt man to become a
horror, haunted by folly, of which Hussein was a symbol, for the sake of what ?
Acceptance, with funds, paid perhaps as in one parallel case, for killing Jews,
so much each, like buying deaths at a supermarket. How perverse are the
adoration, the accolades and the abasement before what is base!
It is to God alone that such adoration is due, and
since God has shown in only one verified way, where He is, it is to that way
alone, that God-given wisdom turns. Who as Christ has been foretold, who as He
has given all and had all to give, who but He and the prophets who foretold Him
and the apostles who were His, has commanded history, and it turns at His word:
His predictions in perfection, as was His life!
It is time to awaken to His
perfection and to put to sleep in the psyche, the unruly menagerie of frivols
that falsify truth and contribute emptiness; and to the study of such things we
proceed.
CXXXIV
THE OPEN DOOR, THE CLOSED MIND AND THE CALL OF CHRIST
Published March 2007
ISBN
09802972 4 9
When the only barrier is a closed mind, people are in great case. It is not as
if tanks or artillery, plutonium capsules force-fed or human-bombs making
craters as a sign of a fine religion, near cafés with children in them, were
arrayed against one, when it comes to finding God.
It is the closed mind, more aggressive than a tank trap, more potent than an
infantry division, more useless than an atomic bomb without radioactive content.
When, in addition, there is no closed door on the part of God, so that granted
you do not need to penetrate horrific arms to gain access to it, you even find
it open as you knock, then you marvel at the monstrous good fortune of mankind.
It is however only when you consider that the call of God is given to INVITE to
this door, and to actually come in through it to His kingdom, and when you
realise wisdom and information alike are provided to show the wonders of it and
the naturalness of it, sin being the unnatural intruder, already in possession
of the human shop, that you can ponder with amazed concern the fact that the
carpet is not threadbare at the entrance.
The ready love of God, the ready gun of gurus or mantras of mullahs, the epics
of misconstruction and the love of libel and delight in defamation are all
assorted in this great affair; and it is thus well worth-while to examine and
ponder, consider and become no neutral spectator of the plight of man in the
face of this depraved demission of deliverance. It is necessary to be informed.
In this book, this is our aim, and our hope is continual: that some finding
through these things, the way home, and experiencing the drawing of the Spirit
of God as the truth of Christ is perceived and the grandeur of His mercy, will
not short-circuit the opening of the door, by special electro-magnetic
interference utensils, lest they should be saved.
CXXXV
135th.
GLORY, VAINGLORY AND GOODNESS
Published April 2007
ISBN
09802972 5 7
Glory is one of
the main measures of man. It is not that he is glorious, but sensitive to it,
susceptible to it, may feel sentenced (rightly or not) by it, and can seek it
for himself, his clan, group, city, nation, professional body or political lord
syndrome (or mentor, depending on the case).
It is FELT to be
glory when in fact, however, it may be like soiled linen, wholly diverse in
character from the pure and refreshed type. It has a relationship with it,
certainly, but not a salubrious one. It has a kinship, as does a wreck with the
thrusting vessel of aesthetic appeal, grandeur of outline and dynamic motion,
manoevrability and architectural felicity.
There is a
relationship; but it is alas far from one of identity.
When glory is
misnamed, its work miscarried, its object misnamed, then it readily becomes
vainglory. This may be a product of vanity, either in the sense of vacuousness
or of pride; or it may be merely the current duping routine, by which misled man
finds glory in misleading others, and becomes hostile to the point of mass
murder, with those who resist. We have seen this in Mao, in Hitler, in Stalin,
in Idi Amin, in Saddam Hussein, and in his own way increasing, in Robert Mugabe.
In some cases, they may genuinely feel they are doing good: it is just that
those who do not share their irrational dreams and inconsequential notions, need
to be removed for the plan to succeed: which of course it does not.
That mankind
continually looks for such things, is duped by them, has virtually a sequence to
date, so that you get, like old movies or new, your particular version for
consumption, is one of the major testimonies to the reality of God. Why ? It is
for this reason: to depart from Him is to make yourself so vulnerable to error,
as if you foreswore EVER to say 2 plus 2 equals 4, while setting out in a career
in mathematics, that the inanities of the race, which plague it like chasms in
the midst of a vast highway, with the expected toll, become virtually
predictable. In kind, the Bible supplies the details; and despite this, man in
the midst of the clear and multiple fulfillments of the predictions of the holy
prophets, goes on as if hearing were out of fashion, and sight a menace. It is
as Christ indicated, Ears they have, but do not hear, eyes but do not see.
It is a disease
which Jew-baiters and haters now freely share, as if epidemic were their desire.
In His own day, Christ said this of similarly blinded people, citing from
Isaiah:
“For this people’s heart is become
gross, and heir ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest
at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and
should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal
them.”
For all that,
man is so made and created in such a grand outgoing exhibition of the grace and
love of God, that goodness continually thrusts its head into the very realms of
vainglory, and sanity into the domains held in restraint by insanity,
rationality attacks irrationalism and virtue seeks the flower that vice loves to
dissect.
In this volume,
these three features will be given some emphasis, so that the contours of
society, the retrenchments of realism and the vast and rapid advance to
desolation which this earth is making, may be seen in a keener perspective, one
not only found in the Bible, but seen in its fulfilment, one not only desirable,
but necessary.
CXXXVI
136th.
BAY OF RETRACTABLE ISLANDS
MISSION FOR THE MAINLAND
From
Evanescent Extremes
Back to
the Book of the Lord
Published May 2007
ISBN
09802972 6 5
A far more extensive presentation
than an earlier work,
CELESTIAL HARMONY FOR THE
TERRESTRIAL HOST, this in principle irenic work, points out the marvels of
unity which come when the word of God, the Bible, is given absolute sway in the
realm of needless matters of dissension. It is the more apposite in an Age where
increasingly the existential, or the spiritistic, the spiritual octopus of
hedonism, entertainment, hysterics, psychic collations, ideological feastings,
traditionalistic adaptions and composite adoptions teems, grabs in its submarine
seductions, where the strangling is more than appears.
Sometimes an affliction calls
attention to the central realities of life, and ministers comfort in the end.
The 14 topics and the contrasting mainland itself, concern form the basic outline.
This volume is currently around 280,000 words in extent, being selections,
amplifications, extensions and correlations in its field, from books earlier
published, showing that extremes frequently mar the sober presentation of the
Bible, making for warring parties, as if moving out to islands, from the
mainland. It is better with the Bible to stay on that mainland, or if outside,
to return.
CXXXVII
137th.
DIVINE MANIFESTO, THE BIBLE:
DEITY MANIFEST, JESUS CHRIST THE LORD
Published May 2007
ISBN
09802972 8 1
The Bible is the Divine Manifesto,
antidote to confusion and master for rebellion; the Lord, who as there and in
history shown, is the anti-dote to blind servitude and Maker of liberty, even restoring it to
its place, this time, in a renewed personal environment, one expressly constructed as
a site for the exhibition of truth. Indeed, this same Bible, applicable to man, is verified in all major fields (cf.
Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ).
Many delight to find the truth,
after such a time, and its counterpart, peace, after so much tension and
turmoil.
As David declares in Psalm 139,
"I am fearfully and wonderfully made." This truth
he dwells on.
The powers of corruption are
correlative to those of construction; and meanwhile mini-midget man, a few feet
in protoplasm at the visible level, at the invisible can comprehend and concur,
mischievously run riot, defame, deflate, inflate ideas, people, soar in
spectacular pride and stamp on greatness, or cast down, continue burrowing like
a flea into truth, to infect it; or else, there he is, moving like an airship
majestically, to survey the skies. This is not only wonderful in the scope and
amplitude, the contrast and capacity which man has been given; it is fearful.
It evokes a sense of that presence
required, so far beyond man in his operational powers, to make it felicitous so
to operate in such realms, by providing the logic in the universe and in man,
and making both answerable, each in its own way, to His summons or dismissal.
All this, relating to the reason of God, has not only mutual coherence,
human interpretability, but is penetrable to man until he comes to the utmost
power required to create all this in its integrality and liberty combined.
When he comes to God, he must stop
and listen.
It is then that the fearful part
comes in. What fear is evoked when you realise the wonder of the Maker: for if the
made can achieve for good or ill, so much, how far much more can He!
What responsibility lies in man, for
where much is given, much is required. Plans pre-made, as in Psalm 139
(Bible
Translations
Ch. 2
No. 10) show their force as the embryo
develops, its multitudes of phases inseparable, an awesome agenda of immediately
successive phases with no meaning or pay-load until complete, a deliberate
design, a designated portfolio of man's construction agenda, through myriad
conceptual turning points and assessment works.
Past a multitude of events
constitutive of coherence, it goes, till the child born, it grows,
and the end is pursued, at length appearing at the level of maturity, as just one,
one person: with inherent
potentials correlative with those of the embryonic development, after 20
years or so.
Then is the full-orbed splendour to
be found, either to doom itself into deserved oblivion, or to live in the favour
of its Creator, not striving, but sent on mission, with commission!
So man may
come to comprehend the layers of meaning in the universe, of law and limit, and
the skies of imagination and conceptualisation, the load of verification and
validation, to know even God; and then to find the facilitation of function and
the meaning of all phases stretched out before him. A mind to reason, a Divinely
Prescribed Book to
reveal and a life to live, all come to man: fearful fabricator of a place in
hell, as if craftily copying the ticket to reach there, in the form of a visa,
or in realistic weakness, worshipping his divine Benefactor, who made minds to
find the truth, and truth to confront the minds, even putting it into words, to
inspire the soul, compel the heart and arrest the spirit.
Some however plunge over the cliffs
of fantasy instead, with fearful rigour pursuing the rigor mortis, the paralysis
of such fragile wonder, into its deserved stale-mate, in which overcome, it
abides in the shadows of darkness, self-illumined with a light which is not
there.
To all this the Bible speaks,
clearly, with vast coverage, with principle, precept, promise and exhortation,
with revelation, information concerning the mind and heart of God, for and with which man has
been so made that he can READ IT! To read the mind of God as self-portrayed!
what a vast panorama of spiritual spectacle is stretched out before him, and
lies written.
Man writhes to dispossess it of its truth, and falls, a liar;
or else he struggles to express his delight in this one word which never fails, and
intimates it from a thousand pulpits. Man can be illuminated with a light
sourced in the Divine One, exposing truth as the sun the grass below, as he
studies the word that has smitten and blessed, arranged the fall of
empires and attested things to come, millenia before their arrival*3.
Otherwise, he can smirk, shirk, strive, chide, not abide, and like a car
unserviced, put out his oily smoke of discontent, disfaith or other spiritual
disease.
The Bible, then, in its own domain
of revelation from God, is not only unique in verification and validity (Reason,
Revelation and the Redeemer,
Celestial
Harmony for the Terrestrial Host),
as often shown in detail in this site, but in itself, an ordered, organised,
multi-dimensional, superbly structured, integrative and purposively presented
whole which so speaks. In this, it reminds of the construction of man, of whom
this Bible speaks.
Indeed, the Book of the Lord
abounds in regulatory rules, order, rationality, inter-folding of
principles and concepts, liberty, love and intensively in immensely personal manifestation of will
and knowledge; and all of this is a supra-universe of its own. With man,
however, it is an
intra-universe, but one with allowance for attachment to that supra-universe,
or detachment which has led, in the domain of dire rebellion and self-important strutting, to
so much vapidity, invalidity and vacuity, that a perpetual cloud hangs over
the sulphurous fumings of its exponents. So has it come, as many aspiring for glory, and
missing the point, merely inhabit those clouds, which give solid support for
nothing. Mistaking them for the earth, they merely fall.
As you examine this Bible with
willing mind, however, it positively shouts the obvious, its internal structure giving
multiple echoes, as of voices in a huge and majestic structure; then it
whispers, intimate, now demonstrates, now appeals. Humbug is summarily axed;
weakness is graciously strengthened; confusion is relentlessly unmasked.
CXXXVIII
138th.
GRAND BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVES
There is in the Bible such an array
of majesty, profundity, overview, oversight and magnificence of spectacle, such
as the Canadian Rockies and lakes, or the New Zealand scope and marvel of
wonderland exhibit, that not to dwell on it as such, would seem either a shame
or an omission like that of ignoring the kiss of engagement, or the first day of
a new enterprise.
While many have been the exhibits
already on this site, this volume is given to seeing features, facets and
wonders which claim attention and clamour for it, as it were in their own
intrinsic fascination, brilliant points of light, massive modes of splendour,
which demand awed observation.
In the main, specific texts, by no
means limited to one verse, are taken; and in some cases, groups like alpine
clusters of towering, parallel giants, are made a spectacle of joy as we behold
their intrinsic beauty and wonder, the meaning and the matrix, the message and
the profundity.
Published June 2007
ISBN
09802972 9 X
CXXXIX
139th.
MASSIFS OF
PURE SPLENDOUR
in
the Celestial Alps of Christ Jesus
Published July 2007
ISBN 978-0-9804100-0-6
There are available
for a spiritual trip, massifs the view from which is spectacular, showing the
form and figure of many lesser but glorious mountains, their very loftiness a
sublimity in itself, a close up bringing near to the very face of God.
These take the form
of various declarations from God, set in such an altitudinous glory that in
their context, they present marvels and wonders, which those who know the Lord
can attest, much from their personal experience of His actions, attitudes and
atmosphere, for He is a God of power and His righteousness is like the depths,
His mercies like the heights and His wonder like the streams which leap from the
snow, to convey health to the soul. Much more is from the testimony of truth in
the minds, methods, spiritual, moral and aesthetic panoramas of man, in his
history and the anguish, in the beauty and the peace, which comes now from sin,
now from the Saviour, Jesus Christ. These decisive divine declarations give
interpretive passages to the very heavens of divine majesty, meaning to man and
wisdom for those who fear not man, but lie.
In Chapter 1,
these matters are explained in terms of both their significance and their
relevance to Biblical Christian Apologetics.
CXL
140th.
DEITY AND DESIGN, DESIGNATION AND DESTINY
Published August 2007
ISBN 978-0-9804100-1-3
This work is partly composite and
partly composition, being a work in which many earlier foci are brought
together, listed in sections, with the total theme given sometimes large,
sometimes smaller introduction.
Design is shown to be endemic in man
and the universe, with the pock-marks of curse for sin, by no means incidental,
but fundamental in significance, as with any misused design. Here however, in
the case of the life of man, there is an inter-personal episode and outcome,
which affects not merely the man himself, and the race, but the environment
where his life is lived, and his death continues its condign affront to those
who do not know God.
Confrontation always meets this
affront, which starting with man, ricochets back to him, in terms of his very
design, with conscience and consciousness, guilt and guile, grandeur and
splendour, love and hatred, lust and charity, genius and obtuseness, thrust and
dynamic, invasion and perversion, all having a place so tangled where truth is
avoided, that the self-contradictory concept of a chaotic universe is employed,
or deployed by some, only in its sheer irrationality, to be the very base from which the precise opposite may be
demonstrated.
Pre-occupation with particles, in
this context, is as useful as pre-occupation with one's seat-belt, when driving
through a herd of cattle. It is ultimately the personal which is peremptory for
man, since person he is, equipped with spirit which fires and misfires, seeks
God and seeks autonomy, and flies about like a witless vulture, wondering what
to assault, or a twittering canary, potentially beautiful, but ineffective in
the hot gases of a wounded earth. It needs its place, near to the heart of God.
The demonstration of the sole
validity, certain verification and vital and vitalising force of the Gospel of
the grace of God and the final account from Him of man's fall, fault and
features, his foci of mind, spirit and body, as appearing in the Bible as the
written word of God, that of all writings, the one solely authorised by the Lord for
mankind: this remains in every field and feature throughout the approximate 2.5
million word work.
The designations from the Lord to
man -
relating
to the design of mankind on the one
hand, and
to the spirit of man on the other:
that volatility
which sweeps its sight from high to low,
and shames or stuns with its hopes, blindnesses and awakenings -
whether He makes these
in the authoritative, operative principles of the Bible, or in the applied
events of history,
whether in the sufferings of the martyrs or the aggressions of the persecutors,
seen in the setting
of the constant, passionate divine appeal with the Gospel,
in His knowledge, acumen and assiduity
in the eternal context of His revealed scriptural word and His saving works:
these shape destiny.
So do we find in this work.
True to His revelation, assigned as
His word has required, His is a peace past all understanding; but His principles
are readily understood. These are and remain as He has guaranteed and granted
them in the Bible. He is not of two minds; His word stands and is fulfilled,
more certainly than any merely physical law. Those, they relate to the stage:
but this to the Director.
His word stands, as the word of God
alone can, and alone does. Addition to it, as we see, annuls its simplicity and
magnificent resolving power, but also moves as disastrously towards ruin as does
subtraction: and in this, science is merely an illustration. Meddling with the
facts of His creation or of His word is like taking water from atomic power
plants: there is a melt-down, but the word of God is not changed, only those who
seek to change it (cf. Revelation 22), just as the laws of His creation do
not move, only the minds of those who with a sophisticated blindness, ignore
them.
As to the destiny for each of
mankind, already known to the Lord, it is found out by man; and repulsion from
the divine remedy is as effective a way of mutilating design as may be found
anywhere.
In that mutilation, there is
philosophy of speech, antinomy of thought with specious results, as of one who
insists on having influenza, and cannot see because he will not move to the
remedy. Such in major fields without variation of reality, do we find.
CXLI
141st.
EVIDENCE AND REALITY, THE PRINCE
AND THE PROOF
CONSTANT CHRISTIAN FAITH AND THE
FICKLE FRENZY OF FORCE
Published December 2007
ISBN 978-0-9804100-3-7
Proof ? but of course: read Romans
1, Luke 1. Evidence in the composition of the various logical corollaries leaves
no room for doubt or deviousness. Reality is not an option, nor is Jesus Christ
a possibility, design a shilly-shally situation. It is all as clear as the nose
on your face, or your glasses, when you kiss and clash the latter, or avoid the
former. You can leave it; but it will not leave you at your will. Reality is
like that.
2008
14 volumes have been
published in 2008
CXLII
142nd.
A TIME TO PRAISE GOD
Published January 2008
An Autobiographical Record of Contemporary Life
under the Eternal God 1928-2008
ISBN 978-0-9804100-4-4
Scotch College, Melbourne has an archivist, Dr Jim
Mitchell, who in October asked me to consider writing my life story - space no
object - for the school archives. The idea caught fire, and now the value of
reciting the pilgrimage to and with Jesus Christ over 80 years begins to appear.
Much may be learned from the incredible confrontations, the tatterdemalion
assaults on the truth, and the Lord's deliverances from numerous conflagrations
as now here, now there, the forces of disfaith, disbelief, but not dispassion,
sought to fire their wares.
The Lord is a great fire-fighter, a great deliverer,
and altogether wonderful, and to see His action in meeting the numerous assaults
on the faith and on the person of His servant, however humble, yet called,
brings many contemporary issues to light, and their resolution. It is amply
provided with detailed references, reasonings and biblical expositions for those
who seek these data.
(Incidentally, the use of the plural 'data' in a
singular sense with a singular verb or adjective, this particular writer finds
like extreme obesity, not appealing to the eye; but when it is deliberately
done, it is far worse. 'Datum' is a readily available term if you want only one
of them. The data that matter are spiritual first, then mental, then material,
for the latter seen apart are scarcely material to any good thing. All in its
place is the need of the human race, especially itself, before God. Such
emphasis may be seen in this volume. With this is allied the delight in the
exuberance of life which God provides, and the Lord Jesus Christ, the Saviour,
consummates; and with this, the necessity to conserve, focus and use it without
folly or inhibition from artificial forms of 'correctness'.)
CXLIII
143rd.
MAN, in Retrospect, in Prospect
and in Bold Relief
Published February, 2008
ISBN 978-0-9804100-5-1
In this
volume, the scope and state, status and due aspiration and undue objectives of
man are considered, his past with much promise, for glory, his present with
much promise for ruin, and his future with both restoration and damnation for
its parameters. Chapter one will trace this in more depth, as the completion
of this introduction. Attention to covenant, Israel and Gentiles, now and
then, what was and is to be comes in careful collation, seeking to provide
biblical perspective to the fast running waters of time, in time, for
eternity.
CXLIV
144th.
MESSAGE OF THE WORDS OF
GOD TO MAN IN THE
WORLD
The Saying
to the Straying,
the Bible to the Braying and
the Truth for its Lovers
ISBN 978-0-9804100-6-8
Published March 2008
The fact is that God has been so
munificent in design, so exquisite in declaration, so generous in extrication
and so loving in ultimate extradition, with terms of eternal life and not doom
available freely, that it is a delight and a duty to bring out these things in
context from the beautiful words of coherence, demonstrable truth and
masterful cohesion found in the Bible. Their portent concerning the creation
are mirrored in it as it functions, both in wonder and curse, in maestro
magnificence and in challenge to the chaotic misnomers of increasingly
confused man, lacking the controls he sees, and misusing the liberties he has
been given.
Thus in the volume, parts of the
Bible will be located, visualised, considered, expressed and applied, in order
that the magnificence is paraded, the meaning is instilled and the beauty is
made manifest so that in this world of man, the management of the Master may
come to light. The desing of His word, that is, its intent, and the nature of
design in this world, that is, its contrivance, both are reviewed in
mutuality.
As to the messages, where they
rest on the word of God as planned, it is not because they are elevated above
the rest of the word of God, that these portions are used, but that they may
become like arrows at this time, to bring different aspects of His truth, from
His written word to His smitten world. That He has salvation for it as in John
3:15-19 is as clear as the fact that He has judgment according to truth where
the remedy is eluded. Salvation, like the DNA of life, is long since written,
and repentance is the bridge to the entry, which is, as the Bible has defined
these nearly 3 and one half millenia, in the Messiah, who came on time as
foretold, to act as foretold, not in DNA but in the Declarations of God, this
same Bible (cf. Highway of Holiness
Ch. 4, SMR
Ch. 9).
If man is lost, it is not because
the remedy is not found! When he is found, it is not because he has achieved
it, for the initial creation and that of salvation, when a person becomes a
new creation (II Corinthians 5:17ff.), both are as freely the work of divine
intelligence, desire and decree. It is exquisite that grace is sufficient and
that at the same time that love that seeks did not express itself in Christ,
eternal word of God, on this earth in order to condemn but that the world
might be saved (cf. To Know God ...
Ch. 1). That is what is written, and it applies in earth and in heaven
alike (cf. Colossians 1:19ff.). Detachment from God is like an embryo detached
from the uterus. It is sad and significant and leads to no good thing.
CXLV
145th.
KEYS TO THE
COMFORT OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST
ISBN 978-0-9804100-7-5
Published April 2008
There is scope in the salvation of
Jesus Christ for comfort. The term sometimes so rendered from the Hebrew can
signify strength as well, and in the Greek of the New Testament, what is
translated 'Comforter', literally meaning one called alongside, one who pleads
another's cause before a judge, pleader, counsellor, advocate, helper,
succourer. Such is the case in John 16:7, and the words of Christ proceed to
indicate that He is also to be called "the Spirit of Truth." The fact is that
it is ONLY in the truth that one can take the counsel, courage, strengthening
and wisdom jointly which is the need of man. The truth is He who made man, and
His Spirit is at work in His people.
Anything less or else runs the
risk of being fatuous, foolish, inept, superficial and just plain wrong. In
any system of thought or model as it is often called, which omits the absolute
personal God there IS no truth, for all is at its height, modelled as reaction. What
happens becomes the maximum, and even that is absolved from complicity with
truth, since the latter then does not exist. Left only the ruptured mind of the one who
invents such self-contradictory systems, in order to enunciate them, and then
of course have them at once cancelled in validity.
On the positive side, however,
when the Spirit of Truth comes to those FOR WHOM CHRIST PAID THE PENALTY, the
ransomed, the redeemed, those reconciled to God, then there is a comfort
BECAUSE of that fact. The fact is beautiful as well as practical; it brings
healing as well as holiness, truth as well as peace, for God loves to bring
peace, though not where war is in the heart, since truth is not double-tongued
(cf. Micah 3:5, Revelation 19:19). In the Hebrew, as in Isaiah 40:1, the term
used is seen as having a root relating to a deep breath, and hence often is
used to relate to comfort, relief, like a huge sigh.
Relief is in redemption and
comfort is in Christ, through the Holy Spirit whom He has sent as He foretold,
until He comes to collect His own and receive them into His kingdom. Already
the kingdom of heaven is in our midst, depending on which 'midst': that is,
it is to be found in the background of ambassadors for Christ - which is heaven, God's place -
for which they are sent in Christ Jesus (as in Matthew 28:19ff.). Since He is
in their hearts and loves His people, it is found in their midst also,
operative without deceit, emulation or conceit, but where His rest paired with
redemption, is realised by abiding in Him and His words abiding in those
hearts no less.
CXLVI
146th.
JESUS CHRIST FOR THE PEOPLE,
BUT NOT FOR THIS WORLD
ISBN 978-0-9804100-8-2
Published May 2008
Australian has been greatly blessed, and in
pursuit of its initial biblical principles in its foundation from Britain
(ostensibly a Christian nation), it has in many things done well. Now for some
years it has performed a desperate rearguard, to re-establish pagan follies,
irrational modes and ethical amorality (cf. News 19).
More and more rights are to be given to biblical wrongs. Sodom and Gomorrah
might almost feel shame if they see what this land is promising to become,
including some of the earlier churches, which become instruments of departure.
We remember amidst all this infelicity,
feverish philosophical substitute for truth, passions for merely preferred paths
and deferred morality, that THIS WORLD is NOT something for which Christ told us
to pray.
 |
I PRAY NOT FOR THE WORLD (John 17), was His
dictum.
|
|
|
It is the people in it who are His concern.
|
This world is to be banished (Isaiah 51:6, II
Peter 3, Matthew 24:35), its works burnt up with their evils. It is unfit to
live. It has had a long innings of millenia, and although many times many in it,
even nations have veered or even come to the point of honouring the God of
creation and redemption, yet its contemporary move is to endless war, subtlety,
programmings from corrupt philosophy, often corruptive men, people who like
Mugabe, appear more interested in condemning those who did not please them, than
pleasing with goodness, those whom ostensibly they serve.
False gods flit in and out of the world like
visitors from foreign lands, equipped with prestigious embassies, some with
atomic bombs in the basement.
The world is going. It is not fit to provide
life. People are coming, in millions, convicted, converted and cleansed,
challenged, changed, redeemed, regenerated. The crisis is merely the end of the
examination for this earth; and much is the harvest to be gained (cf. Matthew
2:12, 13:30, 24:31). The Gospel of the grace of God persists like lawn amid the
weeds, in an aridity caused by constant lack of water, as the outpouring of the
Spirit of God is undesired. It is not however without eternal effects, in the
hearts, lives and destiny of many.
In this volume, the distinction of what GOD is
providing, this WORLD is giving and getting and what is for PEOPLE who care for
their Creator and seek His word, face, will and word, is crucial.
CXLVII
147th.
HAPLESS HITCHES AND HOLY HEALINGS,
GODLESS GLITCHES AND DIVINE
DEALINGS
including Spiritual Sprigs and
Biblical Gems
Spiritual Lapses and Restored
Synapses
ISBN 978-0-9804100-9-9
Published June 2008
As one reads Sir Edward Creasy's
work, The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World, the time of
writing being mid nineteenth century, there is a certain perspective which
appears. Since it is not a recent publication, there is a certain help from
distance in time, to seeing the motions of history.
From this book on great battles
of the world, it is apparent that the human race often looks up and is cast
down, tries to smile and lapses into frown, seeks sheen and finds blood, desires
eminence and discovers the grave, scamps grace and saves face, only to be caught
in its spiritual twistings and burned in its devious turnings.
In spiritual things, there is
also a correlative pathology. Many, like Solomon, do wonderful things even in
the name of the Lord, but then lapse, as he did in his old age, into the
weakness already apparent when he was younger, but now clutching him like a
dying man being rescued, as if to kill his rescuer by uncontrolled holds. Again
and again, both in conduct and in doctrine, a person or a church will lapse, and
in the cases of the children of God, the healing being available, will find
solace and health in repentance and spirituality instead of undirected surges of
spirit, and vying in misplaced industry.
The world meanwhile, without the
Saviour, finds in its NECESSARY glitches, as it may conceive, them, mere
evidence of being on the wrong path, and so beyond these, the passions lurch
into wars without just cause, into venom without caution, error without
remission, hatred without intermission and industry without point, which in the
end beckons to judgment without end.
These things are on the one hand,
sicknesses to be healed in the body of the Lord, and on the other, deadly amours
with mortality, on the part of those who disdain or disregard the Saviour and
hence His healing. His dealings with such are like those of a doctor whose
patient does not often come, and when coming, does not often listen, and when
listening, does not often do. The result is world history.
In examining elements of these
themes, and instances, it is hoped that the biblical perspective in detail will
help some to be revived and to look up to the Saviour and to find Him, and
others, who already known Him, to abate divisions without grand, to embrace the
Saviour with renewed fidelity and to adorn the Gospel without those little
glitches which spoil programs so readily. In all things, there is one book, one
Lord, on Spirit, one salvation, one Gospel, one grace, one peace, one love, one
joy; and what is faithful to the book, in spirit and word, is faithful to the
Lord.
TEST all things: it is with this
book of the Lord, that Bible, that you test, and when you try the spirits
and try your ways, to see if there be any iniquity in them, as David sought the
Lord should do with him, you use this His word, to challenge or solace you, and
relying on what He has said, look to Him who said it, and does it! Praise His
name for ever and ever.
With these things, this volume is
also set to itemise various sprigs, spiritual issues or items which may edify,
challenge, comfort or contort, depending on the receptor, and biblical gems,
since these lie like untouched gold nuggets in the Bible, and need to be
discovered or re-discovered or reviewed in awe from time to time, to give
strength to the weary and joy to the godly, yes and warning or truth to the
straying and hope to the helpless.
Meanwhile, the coherence,
cohesion, the brilliant complementarity of all the biblical doctrines is its own
apologetics: it fits like the fabrics and materiel of a house-building kit, and
here, it is that for the household of faith, for its delectation, presentation
and use. As the world whizzes on its predestined path, always imagining great
things for itself, except when it is not too disgusted or exhausted for a while,
even to think, the great day of His Second Coming, His
glory which is to follow (Luke 24:26, Mark
14:62) moves nearer as history zealously is fulfilling the preliminaries
required, like a housewife cleaning each room in the morning.
CXLVIII
148th.
HALLOWED BE THY NAME
ISBN 978-0-9805471-1-5
Published July 2008
Hideous be your templates,
horrendous your ethics, blighted your morals, despicable your conceptions and
cursed your creations!
That would be another approach to
life.
You see this duo repeatedly in the
Bible. Thus in Ezekiel 20, there is a veritable litany of error, of grossness,
even to the point of putting children through fires in the interests of pagan
conceptions of surrounding religions, culture king, calamity the result.
Man has always had a tendency to
embrace the pagan, preferably with some admixture of derring do, as in the child
burning piquancy to the delectations of the religions exposed to divine fury as
seen in Ezekiel. He desire to exclude the supernatural from the natural is
wholly parallel to mother cursing, as if one did not need a womb, or father
defamation, as if no need was necessary.
But to HALLOW the name of God,
rather than seek to blight it, to make light of it, not to sight it, this is
something else.
It is the task of this book to make
that exceedingly clear; for it is not enough to have goddish sorts of thoughts.
With God, His name is to be hallowed.
CXLIX
149th.
ISBN 978-0-9805471-2-2
Published July 2008
GOING WITH GOD
THE CHRISTIAN ABIDING: THE LORD PRESIDING
The Brighter Way for the Declining Day
The holy way in this declining
day - for in the forecast arena in our Age, a day with the Lord is as a
thousand years, and this makes two since Christ (II Peter 3:9): it is much
assaulted. We are told that it is better now, though for murderous
malice and spiteful confusion, for blighting on sight, for murdering in
millions, for overthrowing good things and investing in lust there could have
been few like it. Indeed for the power of man to destroy, it is unparalleled;
and in this as for the desire, it has no equal. This is bringing our time into
complete accord with the precise prediction to the point of Jesus Christ.
It is a spiritual fact of the utmost
significance that when FACTS such as these are mentioned, the tendency to scoff
at verified spiritual realities, so prominent in our day, seems to surge. Facts
in this area as in that of the fraud of organic evolution, seem to be disparaged
almost compulsively (cf. The gods of naturalism
have no go!).
One thing does not change as the
fiery embers of the setting sun make ready to appear, scorching broadly and not
only in the Middle East as foretold, with Israel the victim proposed and the
occasion for the catastrophe to be imposed on her assailants. The pre-occupation
of this world with the place set by God for the nation once chosen to bring both
the Word of God, in Old Testament writing, and the living Word of God, Jesus
Christ, is great. Nor is this surprising; for if God sets a nation in a place,
just try to displace it! And if you fail, just start reflecting on what
you are doing, and what He is doing, and consider before it is too late.
After all, Israel's former
displacements for a time were foretold, as this deliverance is likewise (cf.
It Bubbles ... Ch. 10, Israel
Ch. 1, Red Alert ...
Ch. 10,
Outrageous Outages, Awesome Inputs and
the Courage of Christ Ch. 11).
How the
prophets laboured to warn her of the assault by Assyria, a rod for the
discipline of her faithless ways before God over centuries, and of the exile to
come through Babylon: but she did not listen. However, with the warning came the
hope, and Jeremiah in particular foretold her restoration after a 70 year exile,
just as Isaiah foretold that Cyrus, by name, would be a national instrument in
the restoration of the exiled nation to her land.
The culmination in the execution of
the Christ, the greatest legal fumble of all time, also foretold and in those
terms, in Isaiah 53 and Micah 5:1-3, has led to a longer exile; but this
too is now past, as the further predictions for her armed successes (noted in
Zechariah 12) against wholly disproportionate enemies are now fulfilled (1948,
1966, 1973 with some reference to 1991).
Nor is it a case of a beautiful
nation - though I personally greatly admire its frequent humanitarian actions,
even towards her oppressors, at the medical level, and her restraint as
squabbling nations continually seek her destruction, like dogs fighting for a
bone, with cats squawling at the same time - for Israel has yet to repent, as
predicted in Zechariah 12, and to acknowledge its error, in crucifying Christ,
God as man.
To be sure, this was predicted also
(in Psalm 2, 16, 22, Zechariah 12:10, in Isaiah 53, as a bunch with many other
items, ranging from a millenium to half a millenium before it happened); but the
repentance to come is now at issue, just as the Christ to come was the issue
when the date for His death, predicted by Daniel some half a millenium before
its occurrence, was
coming up (cf. Highway of Holiness
Ch. 4).
It does not lessen the error of Rome plus
Jerusalem in settling upon His death, repaying blight for might shown in
healing, help, grace, compassion, words such as no man ever spoke, as He took
His place within history.
There He has become the chief focus,
and that for millenia; and this is likewise the case in the book most sold
since printing began, in Europe, almost 1500 years later. The Bible and the
Christ, the Lord's Christ, these are the dominant focus of history to the point
that the very dating system of Europe reflected it, at least in intention.
The way of Christ does not change.
The world contests it; the Lord invests it.
The kindness and compassion, the
pity and the power, the capacity to raise from the dead, this is needed as much
now as then, when it was not appreciated by the ruling and contentious, the
envious and the blind authorities in Jerusalem, ruler and ruled, at that time.
Pilate and priest combined in their awe-ful parallel then, to the coming
time now, when the first and the second beast are to unite to seek to
eliminate Christianity from this earth. Already the efforts of the devil to this
effect have come far to fulfilling the predictions along these lines. Hitler
sought to remove the racial evidence, as does not a little of the militant
Islamic movement now, making archeology difficult in the sacred sites; and it is
not really racial at heart, since it is a matter of what GOD CHOSE to do a job,
and what remains, as in Israel the nation, to show the world its failure.
You see this sort of thing, a
hostile world rule against Christ and His will and way, foretold at length
in the book of Revelation. In Ch. 13, and the two evil dread noughts are there
noted, the first and the second beast.
Beast ?
that is
socio-economic, politico-cultural, militant militarist regime, with its rulers
spending the time seeking to annex the world to their cult. The second beast is
a religious specialist, seeking glorify the first. It is just like an expanded
Hitler-Goebbels regime; but this time not national only, for by then that
prototype is international. The devil in Revelation 12 is shown trying to
swallow up and drown out the Christians, having sought first, as seen in the
earlier part of that Chapter, to extinguish Christ at His birth.
There we find him trying to
persecute the Jewish Christians to the death. In that Chapter likewise, we find
he extends His desire to all the followers of Christ; but as always, in the
ultimate result, he is thwarted. It is not surprising that he gets very angry
and, as one with certified and advanced cancer, he knows his end is near
(Revelation 12:12:12). The otherwise almost inconceivable wrath and folly is
therefore not surprising! If there is one thing which tends to be extreme, it is
the wrath shown and extremities imposed by frustrated tyrants, and while their
little day lasts, they can exceed all boundaries, to the limit allowed.
The
Roman Empire tried hard to pursue this job of extinguishing Christians;
but it was thwarted, and fell. The Holy Roman Empire, using Romanism as a
dual-cultural club, tried to extinguish with the Inquisition, the Biblical
Christian testimony (cf. SMR pp.
902 - 931,
911ff.,
1032-1088H);
but it likewise failed. It is
apparent that there are today forces which would like to 'have another go'.
Still there lingers the force of the last fall of the oppressor.
Indeed
so far did it fail that the
British Empire arose from the ashes of the fires of Smithfield in Britain, where
the ashes of saints accumulated (cf. Ancient Words, Modern Deeds
Ch. 14).
This Protestant body ruled much of the world
and became the most powerful grouping for many years, but in two World Wars
exhausted itself, and now is willing to move if you will, through the Chunnel as
a symbolic funnel to be under direction from Brussels, a growing summit for
imposition of authority, in the continent where Hitler failed to make it Berlin.
Thus with the passing of the British
Empire, together with the white-anting of Anglicanism increasingly and that of
many large Protestant Churches (cf. SMR pp.
686-706,
857-876),
the stopper in the slaughter of
millions of Christians is pulled out, and the race is on for the extinction
program by the more modern exemplars of slaughter. This may be found not least
in the Sudan, but are ably supported by all reports for decades, by China in its
own way and the Laden exercise, laden with desire to
re-assert the Islamic
heresy (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4, SMR
pp. 1080ff., Divine Agenda
... Ch. 6, Lord of Life,
Ch. 8, *1).
Accordingly, these movements growingly fulfil both the blood lust theme found recorded in advance of history in the
Book of Revelation (not only in Chs. 13, 17 but in Ch. 6 where death is shown in
guise as an adventurer and almost ruler), and the false prophet multiplication
as a phenomenon on this earth, before Christ returns to rule.
That is the back-drop. In the
foreground however, there is the same Christ, the same Holy Spirit, the same
Bible, the same word, truth, Gospel, program, in a setting now well advanced
from simmer to boil.
In this volume, we seek to
concentrate not least on the way of living in Jesus Christ: and this,
whether when the people of Jesus Christ are proposed for the slaughter mentally,
physically or spiritually, or proceed in peace in the beauty of His holiness.
That, it is in contrast to the ghoulish presence now becoming so popular within
the confines of the vehement among the human race, while Europe rises to meet
its appointed prophetic centrality.
CL
150th.
THE BIBLE:
NOT THE DECLAMATIONS OR
DISTILLATIONS
OF MAN,
BUT THE DOCTRINE OF DEITY
Published July 2008
ISBN 978-0-9805471-4-6
Back to the Bible! has come the
cry for many years. The Bible! comes the carnal response, why ?
It has been one of the chief
purposes of this site to show WHY!
In sum, it is because it is not
dated like other works, by the misconceptions of ruling cultures, or fated by
the feeble-minded estimates of truth or past or future of seductive seers, nor
is it invalidated by models of thought which do not permit truth to exist, or if
to exist, to be known, or if to be known, or if to be known by man, not to be
communicated, or if communicated, not accurately so ... and so on. The litany of
self-destruction for those who seek to tell us WHAT IT IS, is endless, and their
models are futile. Here is found the mourning at the coffin of secular man, with
the pall-bearers for the funeral, the mystique religions of evanescence and
suffusion with the thoughts of man, with or without any tail-ends of truth from
another source. But the Bible is not so. All this it avoids, because it is the
doctrine of God.
It is because like truth, it
describes events, those pulsating with normalcy, to give them perspective, just
as it considers those erratic, with judgment on order or confusion found as its
masterpiece, in their settings. For each, it gives grounds. It applies them. It
gives precise enclosures of what is to be history and not merely grants numerous
details, but the dynamic behind it and the reasons for its application. It makes
personal the seemingly impersonal, wise what is witless and gives interpretation
to the mass, or for some who misunderstand, the morass of events, like an expert
reader of space photographs of things on the earth, pointing out now this and
now that, so that it may be discerned, and being discerned, acted on for good.
It is because like man, it
displays knowledge of hearts, their diseases, spirits and their seductions and
force, but unlike man, does not underestimate the power of man or his puniness
or fail to provide the grounds and reason why, and grounds for, what happens to
him. It is most unlike man in this, that the knowledge of hearts is given not
only by One who presents Himself as Creator, and so ABLE to have this wit and
wisdom, and omniscient and so reliable. He also speaks as One who gives no
congratulation to a perfection which is not here, or to a heart which is in
rebellion, nor on the other hand, no rebuttal to a heart which seeks cleansing,
and for that matter, no rejection to the plea for purification and the means for
it.
It is because it is the charter,
not of human rights, but of godly gifts, of the dimensions of our souls, the
depths of our spirits, and their superficial claims are rejected just as
categorically as their vast aspirations towards their Creator are blessed. It is
because it itemises the spiritual sicknesses which lead to false gods, who did
not make heaven and earth, and rejecting them, appeals to man to find wisdom
where it is, in his Maker and in His Manual, the Bible, which alone has the
verifications to endorse it, and of course, the Saviour to apply it, Jesus
Christ. It alone has the date for His death (Highway of Holiness
Ch. 4)
and the prognosis, both for Israel and Gentile nations, all of which have
been fulfilled to the letter, and in their own diverse ways.
It alone has provided
specifications for salvation, not only in word, but in the person of the
predicted Messiah, not awaited, though it was long awaited before He came, but
come; not equipped with thought alone, but with power in deeds, in raising the
dead, in being raised from the dead, in putting the two together in a short
space of never-overthrown challenge, and always fulfilled words. In it alone is
the testimony of the types of miracle He would perform (cf. Isaiah 29, 35), the
type of death He would suffer, and the salutary and indeed salvation-based
reasons for it (cf. SMR Chs.
8 ,
9,
Repent or Perish
Ch.
2, Christ, the Wisdom of God
...
Ch. 8),
and the grounds for His resurrection with its potent meaning (cf. Going with God Ch. 5,
With Heart and Soul ... Ch. 3), which His
men proceeded at once to apply world-wide (Matthew 28:19-20).
CLI
151st
BEWILDERMENT, BEDAZZLEMENT,
BEDEVILMENT
OR THE BEAUTY OF
CHRIST'S HOLINESS
Published August 2008
ISBN 978-0-9805471-6-0
Blood ? wars seem to arise like evil flowers,
cape-weed which bedizens so many fields in blatant colourful contrast of black
and yellow in Victoria, or sour-grass which in South Australia looks so 'pretty'
in its almost delicate flowerings, as it carpets so much, as if the mere
business of living were a bagatelle, a thing of nothing, its flowers finding
paths and explorations that might daunt the mighty. But it is a weed.
War with the heady throb of blood is likewise a
weed. In this century its talons are cruel, its heart is usually befouled with
the grime of crime, political folly, egotism, false glory, inveterate hatred,
incestuous spiritual relationships with the evils and the Evil one, as it drives
dauntless, like sour grass, sour spirited sallies and gross hearted severances
of peace, arms, legs, hands, futures, hopes, its specialty.
As often enough stated, this is not some 'religious
bash': it is fact. It is time that the sadly tic-like movement to scratch the
itch of conscience by derisively formulated disclaimers of 'doom' by a race
given increasingly to wild frenzies and lifeless replies, should be replaced by
repentance. Is it really imagined that the Creator of man's power to think, to
surmise, to imagine, to investigate, of the fields to which he attends, of life,
of death, as shown in recent volumes of this set, is immune to man's antics ?
Is it really thought that man has it all rolled up,
wrapped up, parcelled and neat, his answer to the obvious and probing question as
God beholds his conduct: WHY! Why are you, this race called mankind, WHY ARE YOU
SO ACTING! Do you imagine, says God, or rather you thought that I was one just
like you! In crime ? in folly ? Hardly does He whose is all grasp for more! Take
care, He says, lest you be destroyed. But the drugged mind is all but past
caring, that of mankind in the mass of its degraded movements, demolishing what
is right, exploiting what is wrong, and singing with it the song of Man, Man,
Man!
Psalm 50 has a caution!
"But to the
wicked God says:
'What
right have you to declare My statutes,
Or take My
covenant in your mouth,
Seeing you
hate instruction
And cast
My words behind you?
'When you
saw a thief, you consented with him,
And have
been a partaker with adulterers.
'You give
your mouth to evil,
And your
tongue frames deceit.
You sit
and speak against your brother;
You
slander your own mother’s son.
'These
things you have done, and I kept silent;
You
thought that I was altogether like you;
But
I will rebuke you,
And set
them in order before your eyes.
'Now
consider this, you who forget God,
Lest I
tear you in pieces,
And
there be none to deliver:
Whoever
offers praise glorifies Me;
And to him
who orders his conduct aright
I will show the salvation of God.. "
Yet so many want to ask God, WHY ? why do you permit
such things ? as if He had not been so gracious and forbearing that it staggers
the soul!
The answer is ever obvious in one's own heart. WE
have power to choose, love has power to dispose itself, friendship has power to
bestow itself, as does hatred and enmity and vying and lust of all kinds, not
least the spiritual for autonomous self-will. WE do choose and the results are
accordingly to be found. It is the divine brake, and not the accelerator, which
amazingly slows down the rate and spate of crashes; but folly mounts, and its
results accrue, first of all like the moraine of glaciers, then like the flooding
of rivers, then like the rising of seas and the violence of storms.
What do you expect ? Endless folly to be given a
grant for eternity! Not likely.
The fact that mercy is so vast and prodigious that
this race is not yet exterminated, though it is seemingly doing its very best to
achieve this by violation of individuals, races, nations, truth, care, concern,
in the interests of having more, dashing into the derring-do extremities that
lash the earth and assail its people and imposing this or that erratic or
despotic will on others, should not be construed to mean that the RESULTS will
simply forget about it. They are so disposable, as if for these too, it were
merely a matter of finding a suitable rubbish bin and tossing them into it.
There is a folly in this earth, not least, new look
politicians, who promise new things, new ways, change away from old things, and
this has appeal to many because old things have been so tarnished in the
travails of compromise and falling standards for so long that a new look seems
charming to them.
But what is this new look ? more people power, less
regard for what is left of standards of purity and truth and distinctiveness for
the absolutes of the God who sent Jesus Christ, whose answers remain what they
always were, NECESSARY for life! That appears its most popular direction.
Religions and a good dose of dialogue, in the
current climate, and for a nation that once might have called itself Christian, this appears nothing more than another name for compromise and despatch somewhere else, of the biblical absolutes of Christ,
leaving the memory dim, the standards misty and the new shores as welcome as
tarry tarmacs, afflicted by the heat. As they settle on them, the vision goes
from the nation, while the option of bottomless depth yaws, or yawns, for it has
had many takers.
The way is falling
since Britain fell, and it has, to be sure, a long way to go; but it is falling
faster as every bulwark against popularist betrayal of divine truth becomes a
commonplace, large organisations still illicitly called churches betraying
Christ by blatant pushes for pre-eminence in themselves, or for autonomy of
morals as if Christ had never been, or arrogance in doctrine, as though a Bible
could be written and displayed with new teaching on any street corner at will.
It is as Paul describes such ventures into such areas, into ventriloquism
for the voice of God or plagiarism or remoulding relative to the Lord, a fitting
work for the devil who loves a different Gospel, another Jesus or another spirit
(II Corinthians 11). That proud spirit can specialise in transforming his appearance into that of a false, or
falsetto angel of God! Following his leading has never been a good idea. It
ruined this earth more than any merely environmental work of man could ever do!
It made it FIT for judgment! (cf. Romans 5:1-14, 8:17ff.).
There is payment to come. Let us leave that side.
There is also the beauty of holiness to find. It is
in Christ now as it always was. It is not found in grabbing, getting and
forgetting what is godly, but by discovery of the truth where it always was and
will be, in Him whose it is, in the God of verifiable, validated revelation in
Jesus Christ, the doctrinal deposit in the Bible. Abandon that, abandon Him,
mould it to your will (in theory - in fact it will never change), use Him for
pleasure, profit, a happiness-machine, an investment opportunity, USE Him for
ANYTHING, rather than finding in Him life as HE gives it, and what follows ? It
is this. You are then merely making HIM a means to your objectives, your life
and your will. He is not so available. Christ did not call us to take up our
crosses and follow Him, in order to suggest it would be easy, or
self-gratifying. Who on earth could find it gratifying or pleasurable or
fulfilling to heave on his shoulder a great, heavy, cruel, rough cross, an
object on which he is to be crucified! (Galatians 2:20, Luke 14:27ff.).
Life is beautiful IN Christ, but ugly outside. It is
not however supine saturation with pleasure but spiritual moulding with truth in
mercy. Mere satiation of desire leaves unanswered the question of WHAT desire
and WHY! To find God is to find love, truth, pity, beauty of holiness, peace and
wonder. It is not for profane hands, which is why so few who name Him, have Him.
FEW there are who enter this narrow way, said Christ (Matthew 7). Many are
called, but few are chosen! He intimated.
Be like athletes competing for a prize, said Paul!
This is not the work of leisurely laziness or pleasurable performances. This
world has history and history has point, purpose and meaning, both exposing the
weaknesses, giving experience of them and their correction, intimations of their
purposes, overcoming of their deviations, exposition of the power of God in the
weakness of man and the scintillations of scenarios unspeakable or spiritual,
the glitter, the bedazzlement of what blights, or the glory of what has
fought and won, and conferred on His own, that victory.
Where is the honest, sincere response to the wonder that God is, with the
wonder-reaching aspirations of spirit which finding life through regeneration
(Titus 2-3), live anew in the active and dynamic presence of the living,
loving God who gave many things ? Let it be in you. To life, where it must
be, in Him, He has given the openings of grace, and to this He invites
(Matthew 11:29ff.); to mind its open door to truth (Ephesians 1, Psalm 119),
and to heart its land of splendour, where sacrifice and conformity to truth
are like brilliant alpine resorts, arduous and inspiring, delightful and
awesome, to be treated with the utmost care (Philippians 2-3).
May God bless you as you put all your valuables in His spiritual basket, and
placing it in His hands, with a will made clean by the blood of Christ, live
entirely for Him. You will not find it easy, but it will test faith! However,
His hands are sure, and the basketware is His (Ephesians 1:11, I Peter 1).
In this volume, which is not large, the intention is to use things small and
large, minor and major, as in a store room. It is hoped you will find what
edifies, trusted many will be blessed and recommended that you SEEK the Lord
with ALL your heart, and finding Him by faith, eject encumbrances and run
well.
The track ? It is called truth. The athletic style ? it is called love.
CLII
152nd
THY WORD IS WONDERFUL
Published September 2008
ISBN 978-0-9805471-7-7
It is often the case that someone
with marred face or limp shows a spirit which not merely disguises the defect,
but almost seems to make it a prominent thing, a desirable feature, so great is
the spirit accompanying it - like a gnarled tree, in some feature of its trunk,
which nevertheless sways magnificently in the soughing beauties of its life, and
shades deeply in its recesses.
Christ is beyond all in this, since
the defect of death was voluntary, the distortion of limbs was resolved on, and
the direness of slow torture was willingly adopted. Moreover, it was not for
display, important as this can be, of the patience of truth and the magnificence
of divine mercy only, as if we should see a moving film. It was for practical
action, in history, and by history, to make eternity available.
In this volume, DV, there is to be
that simple attestation which reality brings without fanfare or flourish, like a
fine rug. It has no profit-seeking rep to signify its wonder, but it is warm. It
is like a smile: it has no announcement of its presence, but it warms; or like a
fire in the grate, it has nothing but diminution, slow loss to show, but it
provides great gain. Such was the Cross of Christ, not a spectacular Olympics to
hide distress, but a spectacular distress to demonstrate reality, and bearing
the shame of man's now inherent and devastating sin, to void the consequences
even to death, by death, vicarious and undeserved, effectual for relief.
The word of God has brought millions
over millenia to this same Christ, as the LIVING WORD of God. It is to this WORD
as to the written word, alike that we now come, the expression of God Himself,
whether in verbal symbol to feed the mind and establish the soul, or in what is
written, to break the rock of pretence.
It is who He has borne all to
provide for all what only some will accept; but His word is wonderful, that
Bible which to jot and tittle as in His own day, when only the Old Testament was
there, would conquer history and come to pass. In the New Testament, bound to
Him by His own power, of whom it IS the testimony, it is no different (cf. I
Peter 1:25, Matthew 4:4, I Corinthians 14:37, 2:9ff., John 14:26). Just as He
cannot be added to, nor yet suffer subtraction (though man sought to suck away
His very life, the ultimate subtraction, it was in 3 days restored as foretold),
neither can the word of His mouth, the thought of His heart, the Gospel of His
grace (Galatians 1), no nor even varied.
In this word, we find that
testimony in itself, as in the oak or the spirited one who overcomes all, and to
witness and enjoy it is in itself, to be taught what is truth, as light teaches
what is reality. It makes no sound; but it shows. So is the Bible, and such must
be our open heartedness towards it, to appreciate what it is, the very word of
God, conveyer of truth, worker of experience, arresting the spirit, deploying
the thoughts, inspiring the heart and teaching the mind. We shall allow
ourselves to be exposed to it and to sup on its strength, feed on its
faithfulness and follow it to its pith, point and path, since this will never
vary, nor will it alter at all; for though heaven and earth WILL pass away, His
word will not do so! (Matthew 24:25). With God, it is like that ... it is
different!
CLIII
153rd
HOLOCAUST OF MORALITY AND THE
COMING OF CHRIST THE KING
published October 2008
ISBN 978-0-9805471-4-8
CLIV
154th
THE SECULAR, THE
SACRED AND THE SUBLIME
published
November 2008
ISBN 978-0-9805471-9-1
An idea of its contents, which are much in
creation-salvation-culmination, is to be found below.
The secularity
of the secular is just the worldliness of this world. The sacredness of what
is sacred is the reflection of the Creator, and the sublimity of the sublime
is the manifestation of His power, presence, personal nature, wisdom,
brilliance, majesty, holiness, compassion and mercy, wonder and grand
creativeness, the anterior to our own passion for it, the ground for it and
for as many as receive Him who made them freely, who paid for their
restoration and redeemed, the culmination of it.
HERE is the real
creativity: GOD who created first man, has created the solution to the sin
which is the necessary aptitude of liberty, and in so doing has sent His
personal expression, His living word, the exact representation of His being,
incarnate as His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to bring the Eternal to the
Present, the Everlasting to the Temporal and the Life Eternal to the
recipients.
It is part of His
creativity and holiness that it is free ... Certain additional emphases are
found on this topic in this volume.
2)
It also deals with education, that eliciting
within creation, and with a broader teaching, even in
Chapter 3
CLV
155th.
MINI-MESSAGES WITH
MAXI-IMPACT
published
December 2008
ISBN 978-0-9806138-0-3
Reviews of some wide-ranging basic
topics of Christianity, with emphasis on pith
and application.
2009
17
volumes have been published in 2009
CLVI
156th.
ISRAEL II
ISRAEL: ITS DAY FROM A LONG WAY
AWAY
published January
2009
Consider Israel - If You Don't,
You May Have to!
ISBN
978-0-9806138-1-0
Compilation of many
earlier presentations on the Bible, Israel, the Church, this world and the next,
with additional material, updating or extending the earlier work on
ISRAEL.
For Israel I,
Israel Blows the Trumpet, and Yet it does not Hear, see 67 above.
CLVII
157th.
THE UNCOMPREHENDING DARKNESS
AND THE SELF-REVEALING LIGHT
The Duty of Holiness
published
February 2009
ISBN
978-0-9806138-2-7
Taking over... It is Satan's
long-standing desire.
The light of truth, however, unlike
the uncomprehending darkness in which it shines (cf. John 1:1ff.), is
self-revealing. Darkness merely scarfs up, hides, occludes vision; but
self-revealing light has something to show. Light is what exposes and what is
truth exposes itself with relentless patience and continuous evidence (cf.
Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ).
Suppression becomes the answer and
oppression the result of the clamouring clangours of the din of darkness, which
would sometimes reduce its call from that of blood in the ground to a flood over
it, 'managing man'. Thus there is a phase of spiritually illiterate violence,
whether by fines or imprisonment (such as occurred to Bunyan and may yet occur
in Australia for those who tell what the Bible declares, Victoria having given a
strong lead), or bombs or invasion, by raids as in Georgia, or by death camps as
by Hitler, it is the way of force that does not favour truth, that answers a
challenge ideological or spiritual, by a shower of power.
Where evidence mounts and will not
be discounted, then petulant or aspiring force is used; where truth declares,
mouths are to be closed. Nothing must betray the powers-that-be in their
inordinate lust to take over from God, declaring a new gospel, that of betrayal
of Christ, even in the case of many, this in HIS NAME! (as II Peter 1
forecast, and the period from 1900 to the present abundantly fulfils as many of
those bodies which were once churches, retain the name, and preach otherwise cf.
News
121,
122).
The self-revealing light is not mere
illumination, however; it has something within it to reveal. God dwells in light
inaccessible, preferring to declare Himself by light, and suffering none to
invade; and when His light shines, then the realities which suffer no darkness
of confusion, or of incomprehension show themselves, the very nature of the
divine Being and His plans, thus attested from antiquity without change, in the
Bible, as it grew to total fulfilment in Jesus Christ. Here the propositional
became the personal, and instead of servants of God preparing His way, He came
in Person (cf.
All This Rot about Not Believing).
Without the God who made him, man
makes gods, whether of nothing, matter, ideas, power, rule, race, spiritual
beings, spiritual powers, a pardoning virgin (cf. SMR pp.
927,
977ff.,
1087ff., Jesus Christ , Defaced ...
Ch. 5, esp.
*2), a mother-earth, a natural force or anything else he happens to think of
(cf.
The gods of naturalism have no go!), whether ransacking the
Bible to violate it in its own name, or being more adventurous, basing himself
on himself, and so neither knowing nor able to know his basis. You will never
find what made the car by worshipping it or its processes of composition.
In this volume then, the assaults of
darkness, force, folly and the results, are on the one side and on the other,
there is the wonder of a light that shines out from its own basis in God,
cluttered by no nonsense, full of illimitable power, which can seem harsh to
those who betray it when patience is finished and the case is done, but is
gentle to those who use it, without seeking to fuse and confuse it with anything
else. The conflict ? it is like having a team of kids opposing a Test side; and
far more, the finite poking out its tongue at the infinite. When mercy is
despised, what is left is reality, which shuns theft of truth and deals with it
as with all estranged scorn: with justice and this ultimately ... means
judgment.
God is most gracious and
patient; but there was a beginning and there is an end to it all. The reaping is
near now (Answers to Questions
Ch. 5)
and the weeping is already in progress. The
Gospel of Jesus Christ was
forecast in increasing detail for millenia (cf.
Joyful Jottings 22-25), its crucial cost has been covered by
on the Cross for more millenia, and the entirety of the divine program is now
coming towards its end. Many have their love grow cold as Christ forecast
(Matthew 24), because it is so tedious-seeming, and others because of multiple
betrayals; but when one's trust and hope is placed in God, then only grace
prevails with ineluctable truth, and forgiveness proceeds with an unyielding
love which in mercy, shows it. If hope springs eternal (in our season), it is
chiefly because the ground for it is still on offer!
Man is on test conditions;
it is well not to follow the mob, nor the delinquents, but the only other focus,
Jesus Christ while there is yet time (cf. Christ the Wisdom and the Power of God
Ch. 8, Repent or Perish
Ch. 2,
The Magnificence of the Messiah). His is no blemish, all evidence,
only validity (cf. Deity and Design ... esp.
Section 8). Indeed, in
Chapter 11, the matter becomes luminous as Habakkuk asks his famous
questions.
Meet Him; He is very pleasant to
know. You will then find His word as a resource insuperable, His promises as a
course indubitable, His presence a recourse inimitable and His mercy a forest of
beauty with the streams of spiritual peace in its midst.
CLVIII
158th.
THE KINGDOMS OF THIS WORLD and
THE KINGDOM OF
CHRIST
published March
2009
ISBN
978-0-9806138-4-1
First of all, consider Him who is
first - and last. There is no competition there for the primacy of position or
the outlasting, enduring end of the matter. He is BOTH. Nor is there any
emulation within Him, for He delights to give His kingdom to His Christ, He who
is the Father, and the Spirit of God is sent by the Son from the Father. Thus
when in Revelation it declares the unutterably musical, majestic, simple, solemn
sentence:
the kingdoms of
this world have become
the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ,
there is no sense of striving
together. That is the way of this world. Rather the One delights to give it and
the other delights to receive it and both, one God, delight to send the Son so
that many might be moved from the kingdoms of this world to His own.
There is nothing meretricious:
for merit is total and pervasive. It does not need to be earned, for it is
there; and its disclosure is not for assessment for it assesses and is wrought
over all. What is, precedes what is done, as a car precedes its mileage; but this
One, He is eternal. The alternative of nothing (which gives nothing, but we are
something) or something inadequate (but by definition that CANNOT do it) leaves
only one opening: what is eternally sufficient from the first for everything to the last. Nor
is He composite, as if synthesised, nor contained, as if Another were over Him,
for that is not God but a subject and what subjects is God.
Nor is He less than personal who
makes persons, gives them that liberty which is the groundwork of responsibility
and that law which is the basis of morality and that fervent function of spirit
which is the underground work for creativity in our race, the results of which
are nobility and disaster, wonder and woe, calamity and consummation, in a
perfervid mess of mangling called the kingdoms of this world.
It is great to envisage their
loss, as Shakespeare phrases it, we dote on their very absence and yearn for
their decease; for it is then that these kingdoms become the kingdom of our Lord
and of His Christ, that Messiah who being sent from eternity, the Word of God
living and lively, who created all things (Colossians 1:15, John 1:3, I John
1:1-4) whose is eternal life and from whom it is obtained, that door for entry,
that Lamb for atonement, that Destroyer of death and deployer of life that
cannot finish, for He gives of His own.
In this volume, our concern is
the movement from the one to the other, the quality of the one compared to the
other, the politics of frustration and the power of reformation, the ending of
an Age and the coming of the King whose kingdom is over all, whose trinitarian
magnificence with His Father and the Spirit leaves an eternal light that nothing
can obfuscate, a glory which nothing can penetrate and a life that nothing can
end for the citizens of that realm (Philippians 3:20-21, Revelation 7, John 11).
CLIX
159th.
Christ the Citadel,
The Hospital, The Acquittal,
The Creator, The Restorative,
The Celestial Regality:
Look! He Comes
published
March 2009
ISBN
978-0-9806138-5-8
Be ready! For some 2000 years, since the arrival of the Messiah, Jesus
Christ, on this globe, He has operated in spiritual hospices, hospitals,
operations, missions, in His people throughout the world. He has continued His
application of redemption (cf. Acts 1:1).
Millions have been acquitted; many wooed, regaining life, made gentle who were
fierce, escaping the curse along with the total citizenry of the kingdom of
heaven. The taut have been taught from within, impacted from the record of His
incarnation and death, from outside, another spirit has been sent within them,
kindness has displaced cruelty, healing injury, fellowship fury. Such has been
the lot in the Lord for a few (cf. Matthew 7:15ff.).
The spuming floods of the spiritually spurious have been from the evil powers,
driven with devious dynamic and power designed to envelop the followers of
Christ, but the Lord has delivered them (cf. Revelation 12:15-16), though many
have added their blood to the flood, faithful and fearless, smitten but not
seduced.
The celestial citadel of Christ Jesus (cf. Psalm 18:1-6) has rendered them in
spirit secure, in life meaningful, in heart directed, in mind founded on the
objective reality of God Himself, translated into a visible life on this earth
in the person of Jesus Christ the Saviour, who faithful through death has led
to the other side (cf. John 14:1ff.); so that we who are His are secure.
Meanwhile, menace has sought to mesmerise this world, to seduce to
compromising policy, as did blind peace-niks in the 1930s, ignoring the due
and just warning of Winston Churchill, till the whole land was near to
repossession by evil and lustful forces from Europe.
Generations earlier, a fascinating example of penetrating and biblical
faith appeared in Archbishop Cranmer, who seeking peace for the Church and the
kingdom, wavered, for a short time accepting the ultimatum which would have
made blatant but popular idolatry acceptable, but then realising his confused
submission, that all must be subordinated to the truth and honour of the
Prince of peace, Jesus Christ, without whose rule no rule is righteous, in him
grace prevailed. He drastically rejected the agreement, turned from it and
entered the band of martyrs in high drama and magnificent testimony.
Denouncing the folly of the nation, in the very speech in which he was
supposed to cringe, at the execution, he burnt first the hand in the fires
prepared for him, as a testimony against compromise and an elegant if
sacrificial signal: NEVER COMPROMISE WITH CHRIST, for any motive whatever.
Thus grace assisted recovery and he with others who did not waver, stood. They
fought, wrought and taught; and for a time, many listened to these and
multitudes of others, murdered by the Romanist conspiracy*1,
which displacing Christ's command of non-violence in religion, used it to the
uttermost (John
18:36).
These were examples of faith in grace, and it is not a litany of the lost
which they enter, but one of those found who found it not acceptable to be
found where faith is not!
A
wall not of concrete but of fire has surrounded these and millions of others,
so that in death, as epitomised from the Bible in Stephen (Acts 7 - a man of
faith and wonderful works through it in the name of the Lord), the presence of
the sublime Sovereign overshadowed all the disastrous and evil devilish
competition with the spuming furies, which this world provided, courtesy of
hell. These who stayed put in their place in the Lord, being kept by the power
of God to salvation consummated in heaven, as given on earth (I Peter 1:1-8),
loving Him who first loved them, have secured their place by grace, through
faith, and their spirits were not quelled.
When GOD keeps your spirit, hell is beaten before it begins; and indeed, as in
Ephesians 1:11, those who by faith have been saved, have received already an
inheritance, which history simply confirms, being predestined to the faith
they have, before this world began (II Timothy 1:9ff.). And that ? It is by
the God who IS love, who would have ALL to be reconciled to Himself by this
self-same blood of Christ (Colossians 1:19ff.).
But this world, it is broken.
All things of the curse continue in this world, by nature now
·
in cursed
condition (cf. Romans 5, 8:17ff.), and
·
impoverished, its
sufferings and vanity a result of divine action,
so that the very surrounds, while keeping much of their original beauty,
become a fit surrounding for those who strive to arrive, and do not receive
the life of God as a gift, redemption as a necessity and the call as a mercy
as water to replace the flames.
Brutalities in nature and in the nature of man continue in their unblessed
measure of correlation, the one sin and the other its consequence, this the
very mirror of sin, though something of this world's created loveliness, love
and solicitude are seen remaining in faithfulness to death in many cases of
parents for offspring and those who love, yes, even in the animal realm.
Nevertheless, much brutality mocks man within created and cursed nature,
though it does not reach to his refinements of devilishness, not being
spiritual in kind. Yet such a condition exposes him to an insight by sight,
and to a rebuttal of sin by display of its nature in the very lower creation,
to which he relates as one given place as a race, now forfeited in pollution,
reduced through rebellion and spoilt by sedition.
These things, therefore, mock the more as man increasingly seeks to ape the
vanities of nature, taking it as a paradigm, as if to look at a car crash, and
to use the crumpled result for a factory specifications for making cars.
Education follows; folly mounts like tsunamis aplenty; and pain flows on as
the waters of life first withdraw from the tribes in revolt on this earth,
unkind to each other, uncontrite before God, and these self-same waters come
crashing down to rebuke avarice, greed, faithless lying, ludicrous inventions
of the mind and dreams of spirit (cf. Jeremiah 23, Ezekiel 14). Man creates
the waves, calls for correction and slanders God as they return mounting,
after their withdrawal, unwilling to repent, unable to remove reality.
Such is the way, as the evil one seeks to rifle the store, and is increasingly
outraged at his impotence, for he can snatch only what is spurious.
Let us then not be bemused as man is confused, a result of unremitting sin and
refusal for its remission (cf. Romans 3:25). Let us instead look up to
reality, see the challenge and be down to earth about it, not living in a
fallacious dream, but walking in the Spirit as students of heaven, so becoming
rather exponents on earth, acting, teaching, preaching as able, dutiful
members of that kingdom of heaven which now is, and then will be consummated,
now is invisible but effective, then will be visible and perfected.
While this world is on its odious way, a partly anaesthetised and ever
increasing horror, stanching its wounds with poisoned philosophy, its sleazy
practices an engine of grief, man meddles with invented, unproven, unverified
religions (cf.
The Kingdoms of this World and the Kingdom of Christ) , dreams of
the heart. So in seduced crowds he acts, instead of eating the free bread of
heaven, as much a gift as was life itself in the first place. Thus does he not
receive the blessedness of new birth, the cordial result of such eating, such
faith in Him, nor in such unbelief is found the creation of the spiritual and
redeemed life, that regenerated life, that second birth which restores what
was lost in the first place (John 6:47ff.,Colossians 3:10).
The world sinks; Christ has risen. Do not therefore bathe in its industrial
waste, dead, morbid and mortal from the factories of sin.
Time is running out (cf. Answers to Questions
Ch. 5); Christ is coming back. It is not a flood this time, a universal
deluge (cf.
News 1), but instead the very Judge in person, who comes to reap and then
to rule (cf. Acts 17:31).
What then ? Make peace through the blood of Christ, that expression of life
given to death to deny judgment to sinners and to elevate life back to God,
and responding to the Gospel, meet with the Resurrected Ruler whose grace has
given so far 2000 years to our Age, a time in which to respond to the Gospel,
in individual hearts, in tribes, races, families, nations, in this world as
one whole! In all this time, some have come; but the tread of the mundane
feet of this earth is resounding with increasingly stultified rebellion,
mighty in envy of the Lord, secure in its sedition, aligned for devilish
dynamic soon to come, at which time it is soon to go, merely exhibiting its
freakish finale before it is manifested with such a clarity that divine light
strikes it down (II Thessalonians 1:6ff.).
Make peace while you may,
with Him who IS
v
our peace
(Ephesians 2:14-19),
v
peace-maker by
proclamation,
v
sacrifice by
crucifixion,
v
the end for sin's
guilt by dynamic over death,
in the power of the resurrection, proclaimed in public,
attested afresh while He performs by His Spirit,
as He has promised for two millenia.
Don't then mix with water to
obtain the dilutions of the devil,
or deal
with his
manifestations of duplicity,
his impudence of spurious serendipity or
his prescriptions of rebellion, on line in many a body called a church,
on show as they dive to hell for new morals,
and abandon the purity of the Maker,
for the insistence on which, in the love for His people, He has died.
Not for some other mortal race in the universe did He die, not for some other
design, not for some other specifications, not for some other people. He died
for this one which He made, and rose for this one, to which He has offered
ablution, and remission. His word carved in this sphere is not lightly
designated for some other world; and His face, though bashed plentifully while
He was here, is simply not available for more post-mortem, post-resurrection
slappings. The sting now is in the simple strength of sin, which, when past
mercy by such devices, is raw like a whipped hide, and awaiting the blow-flies
of corruption for its follies.
Developments of dither, withering, slithering in the midst of spiritual and
logical slide and salubrious sainthood continue, and need to be watched; for
His return is near.
CLX
160th.
GOD'S GIFT OF GRACE IN CHRIST
JESUS
published April
2009
ISBN
978-0-9806138 6-5
There are many graces, places and
faces which mankind makes and provides, in name at least, for his use and
facility. Multi-cultural approaches abound, though in general they seem a
substitute, at least in the Western world, for actual grace and truth which go
together like two inseparable twins.
Consider it. If you show grace, it
is a kindness undeserved, but coming from a willingness to give. That is a major
part of the concept. If people come to your country and you give them
opportunities and aid to which they have no right, this could be called a
species of grace. If on the other hand, as seems in great danger of happening,
grace is the idea, but treachery to truth is the fact, then this is a species
philosophic putsch, a denial of the past principles of one's nation without
ceding that this is the case.
Truth is the necessity before
'grace' becomes another name for capitulation, disgrace and moralless meanders,
leading to national death. It is not for nothing that nations rise and fall; and
there are reasons, grounds for this, to be found in the reality of the God who
made us.
In this volume, number 160, we have
planned
with the help of God, to bring out some of the depths and realities of grace, so
that it may be first of all relished, then applied, then realised for what it is
and is not, and finally seen in the light of the face of Jesus Christ, who was
"full of grace and truth" as seen in John 1:14.
There is much that follows from this; and it is close to the heart of all human
life, both now and forever.
Now this work is finished.
CLX1
161st.
SPIRITUAL FOOD AND SPIRITUAL
DRINK
THERE IS THE REAL MISSING LINK
May 2009
ISBN
978-0-9806138 7-2
Food that revives the spirit and
drink that issues to and from the heart! that is the point here.
Take the words from I
Corinthians 10:
“I do not want you to be unaware,
brothers,
that our ancestors were all under the cloud and all passed through the
sea,
and all of them were baptized into
Moses in the cloud and in the sea.
“All ate the same spiritual food,
and all drank the same spiritual
drink,
for they drank from a spiritual rock that followed
them, and the rock was the Christ.
“Yet God was not pleased with most of
them, for they were struck down in the desert.
These things happened as examples for
us,
so that we might not desire evil things, as they did.
And do not become idolaters, as some
of them did, as it is written,
“The people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to revel.”
Here are a number of interesting aspects. The ROCK which
followed the children of Israel throughout their desert experience was CHRIST.
That accords with Isaiah 45 and Philippians 2, used concurrently; for thus we
find that there is NONE but GOD ALMIGHTY to whom every knee is going to bow,
and it is to CHRIST that every knee is to bow, so that Christ is God Almighty
(as John 1 and 8:58 show), He is God Expressive, the Eternal Word of the
Living God, equal in status, one God.
It is not Peter, who at once suggested that the Cross idea be
dropped (Matthew 16); no, that was no rock, but a stone (cf. SMR p. 99). The
play on his name has been ludicrously parlayed to ignore the difference in petros and petra (transliterated) in the Greek. He is ALSO AN ELDER (I Peter
5), and does not violate Matthew 23:8-10, which forbids the erection of rocks
in this manner, as if to vie with God! There is, as God says, NO OTHER ROCK (He
does not know any – Isaiah 44:8 - do some then seek to know more than God
Almighty! in the false glory of Rome … cf. II Samuel 22:2,3, Psalm 62:1-2).
Alas, Romanism’s plan has, for this reason, been a gutting of the glory,
were it possible, in this mock ascendancy. But this is not our topic here, but
spiritual food and spiritual drink; for sometimes it is necessary as Professor
E.J. Young noted, to show a meaning by indicating both what negates it and
what confirms it, so narrowing the field for comprehension.
Spiritual food and spiritual drink is a name given through Paul for the
divinely bestowed food (manna) and drink (water by command through a rod!)
which sustained the people of the Lord in the desert environment. It was so,
the context in I Corinthians 10 is indicating, by the power and presence of
Christ (pre-incarnate) who is the Rock. The apostle proceeds to move to the
topic of what is called Communion, the partaking of the Lord’s Supper.
In this, incidentally, in the last Supper, Christ did NOT commit suicide, being God incarnate,
nor was it a sacrifice, which came later, nor was there shed blood without
which there is no remission (Hebrews 9:22), nor was there suffering which is
essential to the case (Hebrews 9), nor are these conditions met in the
Romanist mass, which is therefore anti-biblical in its self-definition,
blatantly askew from Hebrews as from reality. Thus, in
format, He was real man like His brethren, but without sin (Romans 8, Hebrews
2); for He had one body, which could not be broken in two without cessation of
its normative functions, in death. That could come only at Calvary, once made,
once in the history of the world, and not often, for otherwise as Hebrews
relates, He would have had to suffer often, but now: ONCE. The bread was
bread, not body. The Lord's Supper has nothing to do with saving sacrificial
action in process. It is statedly to be done in memory of HIM.
In what way then did Christ’s customary use of symbols with
depth of meaning apply here ? The point is simple: when you partake of this
Supper, you enter into an action by faith in which you are receiving
revitalising realisation of His presence in you (Colossians
1:27), His action for you (I
Peter 3:18,
2:22ff.), and His grace through you (cf. (II Corinthians 12).
It is not putting food in your stomach, for it is spiritual food which
counter-designates any such idea (cf. John 6:63, in this precise ideational
context). However, the mere presence of such symbols confers nothing; for
unless there be faith, there is nothing. Hence Paul is used to warn the people
not to play about with symbolism and imagination, but to have saving faith in
the living God.
Just as the baptism that saves (I Peter 3:21) is NOT the washing of the body
(cf. John 13, symbolically), but the witness of a clear conscience through
faith in the resurrected Christ: so the point of the Lord’s Supper is not the
eating of flesh, but the cleansing of the heart through the death of Christ in
which the sin being focussed and forgiven, there is life anew and that,
eternal. The work on the Cross, redemption, ONCE ONLY, leads on to the work of
regeneration in the heart, ONCE ONLY (John 5:24). What did Christ say of this
topic in John 6:63 ? The words that He speaks are spirit and they are life!
What, He asks,
if I go back to My Father in heaven! Where then the physical (cf. Acts
3:19ff.). Wilful abuse of His speech makes for woeful results. But wise use of
it makes for life (cf. SMR pp.
1032-1088H and in particular,
1086ff.).
Thus in this volume we have a wide ambit. Spiritual food and
drink is biblically a phrase capable of use concerning any sustaining work of
the Lord Jesus Christ, our Rock and ONLY ROCK (II Samuel 22:32, Isaiah 44:8); and it is even capable of
referring to Holy Communion; but from the immediate context of I Corinthians
10, it has the broader meaning in focus, which is here in this volume, our
own.
As God is not to be confused with symbols, so
is He not to be shunted into the magical trances of evolutionism, the rabbit
of life out of the hat of nothing (ultimately) and bits of things (in
passing). This too is brought out as the actualities of life and indeed
eternal life are shown afresh.
For the rest, concerning the title of this volume:
increasingly, realists are despairing of ever finding any ‘missing link’
between man and other creations, this having been a choice topic for 150 years
or so, and a dead one, like the bones that do not come. More and more, it is
being acknowledged that the very earliest cases of relics are not diverse in
kind from those of modern man, and as Professor Oxnard indicated, finds in
this field are frequently sensationalised.
Thus, it is hard to find any new ‘find’ which is not set down
as the missing part of the imaginary paradigm. The actual words of the
Professor Oxnard were to the effect that a find is almost routinely turned
into an epochal discovery, and in irony, he indicated the folly of such idle
sensationalism. Indeed, the more it differs, the more it is the same; and the
more dates are toyed with on philosophical assumptions, the more they return
to short notation, On these topics, see for example: News
81 and references therein,
SMR Ch. 2, pp.
234ff., TMR
Chs. 1, 8, and. 7,
of the last, esp.
Section D and
Section E,
The Defining Drama Ch.
3,
Christ, the Cumulative and the Culmination Ch. 9,
Cascade of Truth, Torrent of Mercy Ch.
6.
Where then is the real missing element ? It is not in the
bones; they have been given more than a fair trial. It is in spirit. The
linkage severed in silence, it is not to animals but to God: the one that
matters. It is stricken wilfully, though it is in this case, abundantly
present. the absence of this link is volitional, not objective. It is this which is missing just as surely as the inferior one is not
there, bereft of light, both rational and empirical. Not wanting the spiritual
link, many among mankind seem earnestly to yearn for the lower one, which
after all, has fewer problems for control-minded mankind, whether to receive
or to deceive. With God, there is truth, and truth can indeed hurt; but
without it, man is unmanned. He becomes prey for beast not on four legs, but
two.
For the full
Preface, click on the link 161st. above.
CLX11
162nd.
THE
TRACK OF TRUTH
MEADOWS OF MERCY
AND
PEACE OF PARDON
June 2009
ISBN
978-0-9806138 8-9
Rest, like work is a wonderful
thing. They are partners in truth.
Relished
labour in a chosen field for the glory of God is a summit experience; for to
have God work WITH you is choice indeed, and to work FOR Him is privilege in
pith and not just in passing; but to have rest from labour in the meadows of His
mercy is like the quiet lowing of resting cattle in lush pastures (Isaiah 63:14)
after milking, settling down in the growing shadows and quietness of early
evening, amid the trees that glisten in the gloaming with the moistures that
abound.
There are
the tracks along which the cattle move, and there is the hay provided for
supplement to maw and spirit; and while they need a quick response if they lose
temper or become quarrelsome in the shed as they are milked, yet that is soon
over and a mellowness can return and a peace without ill-will can resume. Cattle
can be troublesome, but they can be very pleasant, and having often been on a
dairy farm, one learns to like cows, and to feel for them.
They are
kept, they are kept kempt, they are matters of concern, and due provision is
made for them. Horses tend to be more bluntly affectionate and dogs yet more so,
perhaps, or at least more readily. With these, a relationship can be brutal,
exploitative, with hatred and snarling, or beautiful, accommodating, a matter of
fellowship and mutual delight. So it is with man and his Creator.
In blind
fulminating or dreamy licence, depending on the case and the day, man can sign
off God as if He were an unpaid employe, in such a massive feat of folly as
leaves astonishment a mere foothill of the psyche! He can deliver Him, in will,
to oblivion or to others. He can crucify Christ afresh, denying His relevance
and acting AS IF in love God had not given a more inevitably insistent
and persistent account of His love than of anything else in all creation; for
all else depends on the undependable, whereas His word depends on its testing
and fulfilment, on its logical necessity*1
as
His own, and its magnitude of scope and perspective, avoiding invalidity as no
other approach to life has ever done, or could do*2.
If man
denies Christ and the love of God, then in that very act He is implicitly
accusing God of having less mercy, less provision, less concern for man than
many a man and woman has or would like to show for mankind: an impossible feat
for those created *3
by Him, as well as anti-evidential. This
proposition, rejecting the love of God in Christ Jesus, as if it were not,
is not merely an illogical enormity, but refusing what cannot be refuted, places
an unwritten slander squarely at the door of God, a spiritual missile, an
implicit charge that would leave Him an inane goof without goodness, inactive
before imperious calamity, whereas He is the wise counsellor who making
freedom, provides in passion for the goodness to flow to man in a channel, as
water is so readily follows, and even adds the massif by its side, which
mercy produced to transfer pardon to any confessed sinner who receives it by
faith in Him, where man abandons abuse of truth, liberty, love and power,
for its pure source.
That
channel is the Cross of Christ, one arm receiving, as it were, the mercy from
heaven vertically, and the other spreading it abroad as He cried, even to His
tormentors, Father, forgive them, they do not know what
they are doing!
Then by
His Spirit, He applies this, that Spirit who does not speak on His own authority
(John 16:13), but glorifies Him who sent Him (John 16:14, 115:26), as Christ
glorified His Father who sent Him (John 17:1-5): for what was created through
the Word of God (John 1:1-3, Colossians 1;15), found salvation provided through
the personal presence of that Eternal Word (John 1:12-14), and its application
by the impelling constraints and creative power of the Spirit of God (cf. Titus
2-3), that blessed link with the sacrificial Saviour, without whose redemption,
none can stand before God (Acts 4:11-12, Romans 5:12ff., Hebrews 9:25ff.).
But stand
? In Christ, His servants may also rest, and rejoice for life in Him is what it
was meant to be, a work of restoration and animation which brings heart to all
His race (Colossians 3:9-10, Ephesians 3:16), that spiritual race found in Him,
on whose hearts are written His ways (Hebrews 8): for whom that Rock Jesus
Christ (I Corinthians 10) bore the sin, and removed it both prospectively and
retrospectively, once and for all, in one day (Zechariah 3:9). The application
(of the salvation) comes with application in His name, the reality with
realism, the truth with repentance and faith in Him who died and bodily rose in
a resurrection, prototype for His own people.
But what of the spirit shown in
Jesus the Christ ? It is one thing to forgive those who
harass and slander you, but another entirely to have your own body used, the
travail of your soul appointed as the MEANS of mercy to those who slay you!
Such is
the mercy and the mind of God. He has exposed it in prophecy, in history and in
the soul of man in millions for millenia. Exposed it surely is, but not imposed;
misused it often is, but its comfort in power and peace, in quietness and
confidence, in productiveness and friendship with God for those who love Him,
who are the called according to His purpose, is inestimable in beauty. In this
way, duty becomes not a chore but a choice, and godliness not an imposition but
an aspiration continual, like that of perpetual dawns always heralding the light
which shines and makes its presence gloriously felt.
We,
mankind, are not so lovely alas; but the potential is there, not to remake
ourselves with weird political, social and psychic devices, but to be redeemed
and restored, re-created by God to become blessed in the patterns pf peace and
not sounding boards for the patter of impudence, impertinence, self-elevation
and an abandonment into wilful ignorance
Anyone
redeemed is what is marred in ugliness set on the road to spiritual beauty,
dissidence restored to understanding and an absentee from the effectual class of
truth made member of Truth's Tutorial (John 14:6).
In this
volume, the purpose is to conceive and consider divergence from the diversity of
error into the singularity of the composition of truth with peace and the mellow fruits of
spiritual Autumn. It covers affairs both personal and national, ancient and
contemporary, the love of freedom and its meaning, the love of God and its
fruit.
CLX111
163rd.
ISRAEL III
Faith, Fishbones, Fiascos and the
Faithfulness of the Lord
A Contemporary
Inspection and Collection
in the
Inextinguishable Light of the Bible
Published June
2009
ISBN 978-0-9806 138 9-6
For Israel I and Israel II, see numbers 67 and
156 above.
Much has been happening in the
Middle East in general, and in Israel in particular in the last few years. While
in January of this year, some of the aspects and developments in Israel, and
concerning it, have been compiled from earlier presentations, to enable a
collection in this one field (ISRAEL II) , others
were not included and much has been written since that time. The unfolding of
the ultimate conflicts for Israel, closely linked to the return of the Lord as
one sees both from Luke 21:24 and Romans 11, from Isaiah 59 and Micah 7, is thus
of an intensified importance.
It is not just that there is no
other nation which has had a history like that of Israel, for the very simple
reason that no other particular nation has ever been so selected by deity for a
commission to enlighten the world with the truth concerning God, has both
wrought magnificently and foully in the process, and has been given its overall
historical results in advance, and had this also, the fact that it would be
foretold, itself foretold (as in Amos 3:7).
It has thus been a messenger to heed
for the word of God from it, and to lament, for its own failures in the way; to
admire for the courage of its faithful prophets, and its use in having the
agents for this incisive product from God, the Old Testament, and to be
desolated at its desolation, as a father might see one of great promise and
commission, doing great things, and then dipping into the dismal and the
lamentable.
As Netanyahu is now back, and Obama
is now in, and their ways are in many regards like those of a flock of geese
passing, and a tower in a city, for they are not close in kind, and as each
tends to epitomise a philosophy; and as moreover, Netanyahu is quite sensitive
to some of the prophetic facts about Israel, and to say no more, Obama seems
relatively impervious in this dimension, with a new world in his eye and a
method which dares to outface principles of the utmost severity: there is a
certain testing. We are growing nearer to the tensions foretold and the outcomes
envisaged. It is not that the USA is likely to invade Israel by force; for that
is far from the intention. It is by charm and a combination of incentives that
it seeks to dislocate, in its current mode, Israel from its biblical heritage
more and more. While this is perhaps not the intention, it is certainly the
direction of the outcome in the plans envisaged, plans mutual for the Madrid
Quartet.
Here, then, we are not speaking of
an enemy, but of what in this world's divisions comes across in reputation as
the greatest earthly, national friend for Israel! Hence the instability tends to
mount, and greedy eyes rove, pondering the dishonour to God, the God of the
Bible, which an overthrow of Israel might constitute. Such a consideration
would appeal to every devil-possessed heart; for on this, God has spoken (cf.
Galloping Events Ch. 4), and foretold some of the final wrath and writhing to
come, with Israel in view.
When man speaks the exact opposite
to what God has said, there is sure to be more than tension and even than
contention; for it draws near to the final outcomes of that vast parade called
history, so incisively depicted in some of the parables of Jesus Christ, and
given perspective through that magnificent intrusion, called the Gospel, where
folly and faith arise like two contestants, and God is the judge. It is well for
mankind that He has already judged sin, for those who receive His pardon, IN
Jesus Christ, the vicarious victim to clear the slates, and already judged no
less, that what rejects this, His Gospel is due for wrath (John
3:15-19,36, Isaiah 49-55); for there is mercy abundant, and there is NO
OTHER MERCY: for God is judge Himself, and what despises His provisions, has no
other.
Much has been written on Israel in
recent events till June 2009, and it seems good at this time therefore to
collect these items, together with some going back to 2007, and present them in
one volume.
CLX1V
164th.
THE
UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF JESUS CHRIST,
AND THE AGGREGATING DEBT OF DISMISSAL
Published July
2009
ISBN 978-0-9806 750 0-9
Published August 2009
ISBN 978-0-9806 750-5-4
Wonder and work, witness and do not
wander. For the preacher: Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel; for the
worker, Work for the Night is Coming in which No Man can Work! (John 9:4, I
Corinthians 9:16).
In the meantime, what is the
attitude of heart, the mind-set in the Christian ? One of the chief elements is
this: WAIT. It is no use doing what one I know did recently, saying, 'I give
up!' That was sad, like a flower saying, I will bloom no more! Patience ? as one
other declared, God must do more. I cannot wait, or some such words.
Waiting simply is not an option.
It is a necessity.
You must wait for the grass to grow
again after drought, for love to form and formulate itself, for truth to be
grasped by the investigating mind. To rip up the grass to see if it is well
established is nothing to the point. Wait for it.
In spiritual things, as a Christian,
the word is WAIT, and in Psalm 27 you see this repeated in with emphasis:
"Wait on the LORD;
be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart.
Wait, I say, on
the LORD!"
In His time, He sanctifies in this,
in that, reveals promontories to be extended, islands to coalesce, personality
trends to be corrected, jutting points to the made smoother, weak inlets to be
fortified with protective shoals, delicate formations to be junked for solid
rock, principles to be formed and formulated in the heart, scriptures to be
understood and applied, obedience to be wrought with self-discipline, and
mistaken ideas to be dumped without decorum.
The Lord is WONDER. All His ways are
righteousness and justice, truth and peace of heart, and all His paths are wise.
As you know Him, Wonderful is His name (cf. Judges 13:18, Isaiah 9:6-7).
Wonderful are His dealings. Just to give the tone of triumph, creation is the
start for man; redemption is the consummation; eternal life is the dynamic and
eternity is the outcome. Wonder is His way, and living with Him may involve
discipline, correction, and it does, cleansing and purging, purification and
courage, loss and sacrifice, endurance and patience, but as you WAIT ON THE
LORD, you see and find wonders this world knows nothing of: for its way
does not merely diverge. It is entirely different. It is too damp to light, and
no flame is in it, but that of destruction and passion, and when this dies down,
a lingering twilight with a cousin, darkness to come.
As you wait, the whole spectrum of
the light of the Lord's dealings becomes clear, as He works with His word in
your heart, your mind, your spirit and in the developments in this world, so
that it becomes like one journeying to the end of the line (one remembers doing
so to Mt Banff, in the January glory, the sun making pink, the mountain tops as
light broke). One remains in His joy, pondering with delighted prayer, the way
He handles it all, human liberty, divine evaluation, the Gospel call, the rebuke
to evil, the exposure of what kicks for record and the annulment of guilt for
those to be saved, breaking up fallow ground and redeeming His people, planting
Israel despite this world's defiance, and then drawing them in large measure
back to Him - yet to come: and SO is HE!
A broad survey of over 50 pages
occurs in the Appendix, with wide Apologetic coverage, and assessment of the
wonder of waiting on many fronts.
RELIGION, RELIGIOSITY AND REALITY IN CHRIST
Published August, 2009
ISBN 978-0-9806 750-6-1
It has appeared to this author that the many
religious perspective operations which have been presented on this site could
well be modelled into a compilation, one of reasonable coverage, assisting those
brain-washed into comparative religion approaches, synthetic insight scenarios
and existential contentions to begin to breathe again.
So often it is assumed that the
speaker, whoever it may be, without rational source, has the objective knowledge to enable a
classification of all things, in the field of religion at the least, or the
evaluation of all things, or to BE the basis, and this is made on the
understanding that in discussing God, or gods, you first assume that there
aren't any of these, that the class, category is null, vacant, or that you
constitute the basis for all understanding, or your experience, gaspings or
gapings. After all, if there were not any god or gods, you would have to be
'it', the centre and masterpiece to be able to dispose of all things by your
knowledge, which would need not only to be absolute, but absolutely
communicable.
There may be palliatives,
analgesics, to the effect that people really thought this and that, or were
driven to it by this and that, feeble rationales for irrationality, or were
deluded; but
underlying is this godlike perspective commonly assumed by those who deny gods,
while taking their place with an ease which would be admirable were it not
ridiculous. You either become god in order to tell us all about what is not
there, or you act as god in order to marshall all things: that is the manner of
the modelling. In either case, it is unbecoming, as well as untrue. We are born
and die. Without God, we know nothing rightly; but then, we are not without God,
and by Him are able to understand all things from Him (Proverbs 8:8, Romans
17ff.).
What however of those who do not
actually claim godhood or its functional powers and merely articulate the view
that it is all comparative, relative to genes, past, present, developments or
any other oddity chosen ? If, however, all were comparative, where is
the basis for evaluation of any ? Assumption ? Presumption ? arrogance of heart ?
seizures of the head ?
If absolute truth were unavailable
on a model of this kind, there being merely reactors, reactions and reagents,
then in what manner is this disposition of things to be known! What is not there
CANNOT be known. Since however, it is readily demonstrable both that it is and
where it is (cf.
SMR,
TMR, and other major sets found in Search*A), we escape -
like a rocket propelled adequately to escape the tenacious gravity of the earth
- from these conundrums. Pursuing logic remorselessly as in these volumes and
their correlatives noted, we find a network of demonstration which moves to a
finale in verification in the Bible, application of its data and confirmation;
and this proceeds, while avoiding the anti-validation of a model antagonistic in the first place,
to what it presumes to gain.
If reason were unreasonable, where
would validity be in any knowledge ? It is however given as a gift, and like
other gifts must be used to the uttermost, since it has been proven to be
inestimable value in much. Declining to use it in any one field is mere
arrogance and intemperance, allied to whimsical caprice or worse (cf. SMR pp.
150ff., 330ff.). It becomes a
scientistic folly justly named
"The Cult of the Forbidden."
Contrary to scientific method, it is merely
an export of an invalid philosophical assumption, simple begging of the
question.
Using reason however as in any field
without fear, and in this in particular, it becomes eloquent by results. Finding
the necessity of God by it*B,
we find the testimony of God through it, like using a geiger counter to test for
radiation. Having found what He has to say, and using reason to show it must
have been said (cf. Psalm 50*C),
we verify by showing it has the calibre, or better the qualities which could in
any case have come from no other source. When we also find that it resolves all
questions of validity and truth in passing, while analysing and extraditing man
as the source of his own pangs, pains and tragedies, declaring the prognosis of
his diagnosed disease, and foretelling what is needed for understanding and
convenience, the resolutions are complete.
Indeed, when further, we find the
basis in the Bible for resolution of all psychic, social and political problems,
and the call to come out of the problem-making kingdom into the kingdom of
heaven, then the practicalities become as grand as the principles. When even
more than this, we are told of the signals for the action of the Great Physician
who is also the Judge, and that this is imminent, joy should know no limits (cf.
I Peter 1).
There is an exception here. When this diagnosis-prognosis and
resolution which applies on all sides is rejected by will, so that as Christ put
it, light has come and darkness is preferred to it (John 3:19), then there is
assuredly no cause for rejoicing. But this ? it is like a man who having a
cancer which can be extirpated by operation, refuses it. If he is sad, that is
his affair; he is merely being wilful. In this case, man is enabled not only to
act as he will, but to will as he will, since in the providence and
foreknowledge of God, he is in line to have a new nature which is aligned to
God, and it is God who knows the truth and He is not dependent on pathological
presumptions, as His love is applied (John 3:16, II Timothy 1:8ff., I Timothy
2:1ff., Colossians 1:19ff.).
With God, there are no limits such
as unbelieving man weaves for himself, entangled like a foolish kitten, and in
the Bible there are resolutions on all sides, and no wonder, since the return to
reality as always, is the path to understanding.
As we survey the scene, then, from a
biblical and logical standpoint (as seen in the above, these are correlatives,
each requiring the other as we proceed in search of God and what are His wants),
we find the lapses, errors, quaint oddities and vicious errors in this or that religion, and using the biblical explanation, find that all fits. In
this, biblical instruction, principles and perspective become a course for
instruction in religions and their ways. This is a particular focus of this
present volume.
A major contribution is on Buddhism;
while a number of analyses and applications cover the chief logical points needed re Islam for this purpose,
as occurs likewise for secularistic or atheistic naturalism, with its oddities of exasperation and
continual innovation, as can happen when sailors try to save any sinking ship,
but failing, add their own squalls to those of the ocean*D.
This is
seen in its nakedness, while the basic character of pseudo-Christian sects is
similarly exhibited; and it is seen that these join with some major religions in a wider
view of sects. Judaism, defined for this purpose as the Old Testament religion without
the New, as inspired from God, but allowing some latitude on the nature of the
commitment to the Old Testament within the definition, is given its own
analysis, and with it Romanism which has some points in common with it.
The standpoint is not a mere
investigation, but one governed by logical analysis and what this leads to in
terms of perspective. The Bible being rationally required, it is used in this
overview. In this way, all fits into place with eminent simplicity, and the oft-roted
myth that religion is a mere contentious error for myths and word-smiths, is not
only rebutted, but miserably dismissed (cf.
Secular Myths and Sacred Truth).
Its exponents are shown to be not only in an unconscionable
logical muddle, but to be met by an imperturbable logical clarity on the basis
that life did not just breeze in, that highest power of mentality and conceptual
mechanics known in the things visible on this earth, that matter did not simply
decide to arise, and space-time did not protrude from nothingness with allowance
made by something as some concession based likewise on nothing (cf.
The gods of naturalism have no go!).
God has spoken into being, our DNA
written codes and the Bible, both most evident and each practically testable,
over the millenia. Nothing approaches in brilliance in the one language, or in
testability and verifiability and validity in the field, the other. With God, it
is not a question of whether or who He is; but of what man does about it.
ASPECTS OF THE GLORY OF THE GOD OF ALL GRACE
found in the
Unsearchable Riches of Christ Jesus
Published September, 2009
ISBN 978-0-9806 750-7-8
It has appeared to this author that
the many religious perspective operations which have been presented on this site
could well be modelled into a compilation, one of reasonable coverage, assisting those
brain-washed into comparative religion approaches, synthetic insight scenarios
and existential contentions to begin to breathe again.
So often it is assumed that the
speaker, whoever it may be, without rational source, has the objective knowledge to enable a
classification of all things, in the field of religion at the least, or the
evaluation of all things, or to BE the basis, and this is made on the
understanding that in discussing God, or gods, you first assume that there
aren't any of these, that the class, category is null, vacant, or that you
constitute the basis for all understanding, or your experience, gaspings or
gapings. After all, if there were not any god or gods, you would have to be
'it', the centre and masterpiece to be able to dispose of all things by your
knowledge, which would need not only to be absolute, but absolutely
communicable.
There may be palliatives,
analgesics, to the effect that people really thought this and that, or were
driven to it by this and that, feeble rationales for irrationality, or were
deluded; but
underlying is this godlike perspective commonly assumed by those who deny gods,
while taking their place with an ease which would be admirable were it not
ridiculous. You either become god in order to tell us all about what is not
there, or you act as god in order to marshall all things: that is the manner of
the modelling. In either case, it is unbecoming, as well as untrue. We are born
and die. Without God, we know nothing rightly; but then, we are not without God,
and by Him are able to understand all things from Him (Proverbs 8:8, Romans
17ff.).
What however of those who do not
actually claim godhood or its functional powers and merely articulate the view
that it is all comparative, relative to genes, past, present, developments or
any other oddity chosen ? If, however, all were comparative, where is
the basis for evaluation of any ? Assumption ? Presumption ? arrogance of heart ?
seizures of the head ?
If absolute truth were unavailable
on a model of this kind, there being merely reactors, reactions and reagents,
then in what manner is this disposition of things to be known! What is not there
CANNOT be known. Since however, it is readily demonstrable both that it is and
where it is (cf.
SMR,
TMR, and other major sets found in Search*A), we escape -
like a rocket propelled adequately to escape the tenacious gravity of the earth
- from these conundrums. Pursuing logic remorselessly as in these volumes and
their correlatives noted, we find a network of demonstration which moves to a
finale in verification in the Bible, application of its data and confirmation;
and this proceeds, while avoiding the anti-validation of a model antagonistic in the first place,
to what it presumes to gain.
If reason were unreasonable, where
would validity be in any knowledge ? It is however given as a gift, and like
other gifts must be used to the uttermost, since it has been proven to be
inestimable value in much. Declining to use it in any one field is mere
arrogance and intemperance, allied to whimsical caprice or worse (cf. SMR pp.
150ff., 330ff.). It becomes a
scientistic folly justly named
"The Cult of the Forbidden."
Contrary to scientific method, it is merely
an export of an invalid philosophical assumption, simple begging of the
question.
Using reason however as in any field
without fear, and in this in particular, it becomes eloquent by results. Finding
the necessity of God by it*B,
we find the testimony of God through it, like using a geiger counter to test for
radiation. Having found what He has to say, and using reason to show it must
have been said (cf. Psalm 50*C),
we verify by showing it has the calibre, or better the qualities which could in
any case have come from no other source. When we also find that it resolves all
questions of validity and truth in passing, while analysing and extraditing man
as the source of his own pangs, pains and tragedies, declaring the prognosis of
his diagnosed disease, and foretelling what is needed for understanding and
convenience, the resolutions are complete.
Indeed, when further, we find the
basis in the Bible for resolution of all psychic, social and political problems,
and the call to come out of the problem-making kingdom into the kingdom of
heaven, then the practicalities become as grand as the principles. When even
more than this, we are told of the signals for the action of the Great Physician
who is also the Judge, and that this is imminent, joy should know no limits (cf.
I Peter 1).
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There are
SEVEN sections:
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BASICS,
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NEGATION
- What Lusts for God, Settles with No Clear View,
|
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IMPLICIT,
INHERENT AND RESIDUAL RELIGION,
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DERIVATIVE RELIGION,
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CONSPIRACIES TO RULE,
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SYNTHETIC
RELIGION and
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REALITY
IN CHRIST.
|
As many Chapters have been
compiled, some with additions, and more work again added, this becomes a matter
of several millions of words. For the notes figuring in the above text, use this
hyperlink.
This is NOT a book about how marvellous this or that person is, has been or is likely to be, except
incidentally perhaps with regard to future generics or passing actions on this
earth. It IS
about ACTUALITIES, chiefly as found in the Bible, about what is and is not
spiritual service, what is the rot for the heart and the life for it, what is savoury and unsavoury, difficult yet worthwhile and where treacherous shoals
lie.
Above all, since service is a result of friendship with Christ on HIS
terms, since after all He is God who became man that man might become a friend
of no less a Being that God Himself, it is about His ways and ours, and the
fruitfulness that results from love, not mere performance, with grace, not mere
trumpeting, efficacy, not mere effort, abiding and obedience, not divergence
from the precision of the word of God, to displace, dispel or to compromise it,
as is the custom of many. Predicted as found, and found as predicted, such
developments are to be taken as might be disease syndrome and the arrival of
late symptoms. How is that ? Treat the patient carefully, with premeditated
procedures and strong doses of truth, liquid refreshment of mercy and an apt
dose of realisation.
We do not face merely something
wrong, but the very devil's song, an animated dirge, and digressive surge.
The foundations in Christ and His word must therefore be acutely pursued,
resolutely applied and by His Spirit, found in their strength.
CLXXII
SERENITY NOT SERENDIPITY
Friendship, Fervent and not Farcical, with Christ
Published October, 2009
ISBN 978-0-9806 750-9-2
Man in the image of God is becoming all but anything through
contortions and distortions:
·
psychic passion mover, religious surrealist, social dictator,
determinist dragooned,
·
liberationist enchained, liberty lover on a controlled cruise,
·
dreamer fiddling with atomic power, distraught dynamic dim in
wit,
·
genius worker estranged and alienating from the source of his own
mind,
·
spiritual loft maker, dismal in performance:
these all figure in the work of the playwrights, not this time of
literary cast, but human kaleidoscope, as man is formed, forged, deformed,
deluded.
It is not so difficult really. Robots under the regality of
shallow minds, this is increasingly a specialty for all the determinist
delusionists*1,
whether their thought is simply private, socially governing or politically
enforced. Serendipitists, alert for wonders without source, pleasure seekers in
philosophic hiding, these too are not a few, and are of diverse kinds.
As man seeks to control the thought, society and even vocabulary
of man (in Australia a ludicrous law was even passed to exclude certain WORDS
from political literature), and others of his human race seek to exclude such
controls, only to implement others, given various salubrious sounding names,
there is need to realise that liberty is not a poetic name for licence, but a
provision for law-abiding living, when the law is the law of God. This, like
laws of the road, gives vast liberty; but its violation removes it altogether,
first in scope, then in kind.
The splendour of the regality of God, the marvel of His
individuality-preserving Spirit, the elixir of His presence, the reality of His
grace, these are quite simply things without which man becomes, sooner or later,
trash. Hell supplies a route end for that desecration. The desecration itself
however is the grief of griefs, that man sails straight at the rocks, while
disdaining those who point out the unwisdom of such folly! More and more,
vessels are being made bigger, to take more billions on board, for the
experience of a death-time, collision with Christ. It is done by seedy
captains, in sleazy spiritual quarters, where intoxication rules, even that of
spirit (cf. Ephesians 4:17-19).
The Rock, Jesus Christ, is the foundation on which to stand, and
by no means the fixture to face in confrontation. Truth is like that, and He is
it. Collision with that merely eviscerates your stupidity, and the worse that
is, the more serious is that operation.
An interesting term with many ramifications is discussed in Ch.
1 to come, and a stimulating article on it is currently found at this URL:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2004/02/01/a_scholars_serendipity/
It is not serendipity but spirituality which is needed; and that
not vague self-made ideas about things spiritual, divorced from God and torn
from His word in strips, and impregnated with erratic philosophy, as is the
custom with mankind, but God's own provisions, pronouncements and good pleasure.
Then it is avast to truth and avaunt to dimness, such as we find in Isaiah 8,
as it moves on into Isaiah 9, dimness of anguish.
This world is whirling into greater darkness BECAUSE it has
greater sin in greater and more universal efforts to ditch Christ, the only
demonstrable basis for truth, and hitch up its soul onto the nearest post,
sitting hapless in the moving ground. It is good to reflect (sometimes as one
dentist of my acquaintance declared) on these things; just as it is well to find
land before building, and rock as a basis. It is wise to reflect early, long and
with fearless fervour, and to find Him who when sought with all the heart, and
mind, and soul, is surely found. He is not distant from any one of us; but
divorce has sour relationships, and not knowing your Maker is a very vulnerable
and even vicious type divorce. It is better, far, to be reconciled (II
Corinthians 5:17ff.).
On these things, see for example Barbs
6 -7, Repent or Perish Chs.
2 and
7 and
Deity and Design, Designation and Destiny.
*1
See Repent or Perish
7 , Christ Incomparable ...
Ch. 2, and Indexes.
2010
In December, 18 volumes have been published this
year.
CLXXIII
SUMS, SUMMITS and IN SUM
Adding Things Up and Getting Things Down
Published January 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-0-6
There comes a time when one must simply look at the facts, see them in contour,
note their construction, watch for their constrictions, abide by their
constraints, and act as the case requires.
There is a time for imagination and the seeking of wisdom, of vision; and there
is a time when one must rest in quest, with what is found.
There is a time to discover, and a time to abide by the discovery.
There is a time to seek God and to know the meaning, in sum, of what He has
made, and a time to abide in the summit from which the perspective which stands
and does not vary, is obtained.
There is a time to seek, and a time to find. There is a time to work and a time
to rest.
There is a time to ascend, and a time to be abased. When one is abased, there is
a time to find the summit from which one has come, and a time to be restored to
it, in one's own proper place, as a subject of the sovereign of life, not
a muddled profusion of confusion, but the very light by which one has looked,
searched and found.
On
the other hand, there is a time when many stop seeking, because they will not
find. Their guilty guile removes from them the summit, and their pride or
pretension removes the abasement necessary before the divine escalator restores.
There is a time to thirst, and a time to have thirst quenched. There is a time
when it is timely to drink of the water which in mercy Jesus Christ, the divine
Saviour gives, and there is a time when it is too late.
Let us then, at THIS time, look at the sums, the totallings, the summits, the
provisions of the Lord, and see things in sum.
CLXXIV
REFLECTIONS
Impoverishment, Empowerment
and Life in the Light of the Lord
Published February 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-2-0
There is a time to reflect. There are many things which may be seen in systems
of thought, understood in perspectives, but which for all that have an
individuality, an integrity, a savour, feel and disposition of their own. In
this volume, one hopes to be able to point to some of these, that we may the
better appreciate some of the aspects of the word of God and His teaching who is
the author of us all.
Of
necessity, on entering the kingdom of God, one loses much; for it is like having
your old house demolished by a flood; and you have to learn to live in the new
one. On the other side, as in the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, rebuilding a
nation, so for the individual new Christian, there is a rebuilding of the centre
and outposts of one's life. The work of the Holy Spirit is vast in such
undertakings, as He illuminates, comforts, strengthens, reinforces, draws,
convicts, convinces and equips. Yet it is the Lord Himself, who through the
Spirit first inspired His words for man (I Peter 1:10ff., II Peter 1:19ff.), who
is the final disposer of one's new household, from whom comes the inheritance
which is made sure (Ephesians 1:11), as one is sealed by the Spirit (Ephesians
1:13-14).
In
this, one is empowered (Ephesians 1:19, 3:14-21) and given some scope for
co-operation (Ephesians 2:19-22). One loses what would not last, and gains what
will; and it is surely like a flood that overwhelms, but no less like a Spring
of building, wrought in ways sublime and majestic, competent and beautiful, so
that one may grow; until the mildew comes, and then this must be dismissed under
heavy pain, if one so slips (I Peter 4:12-19, 1:6-7); and if one is persecuted,
this must be borne with patience; and then there is the bloom and the fruit.
The way of life in the Lord is in one sense like another childhood, when this
time one's father is not to live for some years, but for ever.
The voyage of life is considered, and the
grace, power and propulsion of the Holy Spirit, in three Chapters, and matters
for reflection in the revelation of God in truth and practice are a continual
focus.
CLXXV
Let's Be
Reasonable, for God Is!
Published March 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-3-7
Why not ? After all,
you don't normally, with any appearance of wisdom at least, say, Let's be
Unreasonable, For I am NOT!
Being reasonable is
normally taken to be a good idea; though why it should be thought so on
naturalistic grounds is entirely a mystery. If the universe were unreasonable,
and this were the nature of reality, the last thing you would want, would be to
go against what you and it both are, and be the opposite. It would involve
endless clash, and toying with what is there, by adversative confrontation.
Since you would in that case owe your life to it in some clandestine and odd
way, you would not be well-advised to owe your death to its frown, or whatever
else the non-personal creator of persons and logic might be thought to have in
mind, if it had one.
Let us then be
reasonable. It can only lead to the author of reason, to its dispenser, to its
master and edict maker, to the originator of its impact on earth, stars
and mathematics, on government (in theory) and the capacity to think at all.
Let's talk and walk
straight, and forgetting fanciful fairy-tales, and personal disliking of the
moral equivalent of logic for the mind, and the humbling experience of
acknowledging someone who owns our environment and history, and finding out what
He wants, look at the results of being reasonable. Man CAN be MOST reasonable,
but normally isn't. Subterfuge, preference, self-importance, envy, rashness,
impatience, pride, hostilities, unforgiveness, slander, ease of life, all these
things can take man by the nose, as if it were a bridle. He becomes unbecoming,
whatever he chooses to imagine he is, and certainly does not become in any way,
anything better, even if, given time, like any student in any examination or
just test, he is able to express himself and investigate questions some more.
IF you are to be
reasonable, you will not expect figs from thistles, something from nothing, or
disorder from the necessary source of order, righteousness from wrong reasons
and desires, owisdom from ignorance, to be fit for life in abusing it, ignoring
what it is, or merely seizing it like a prize, and throwing it about as if it
were a lottery gain, just for spending as one wills. You will expect, as
if first going to school or university, to find out what is there and to
investigate this with care. If you do not like it, you have to consider whether
this is the nature of life, or the nature of your life, or of human life
generally, and if so, whether this is its nature, or from its nurture, from its
bill or from its will; and if the latter, what to do about it.
Let's be reasonable.
For nearly 60 years, from science and philosophy to theology and Christ, from
theory to practice, from questing to digesting, from trial to triumph, from the
Bible to all options, before me, I have found there is only one way to be
reasonable, or to find reason at all. It is only fair to note, now that I
am 82, that the result is persistent, consistent and challenging, not in this,
that it is true, but in the fact that living it is worthy of what it is, that it
causes loss, whether of funds or reputation or opportunity, the way of ease, but
that it causes a result with the splendour of truth, the power of God and the
progress of obedience in love. It is good to love, for it lifts, gives leverage
over weakness, point and purpose; but it is better still to love what is
true, love's source, for its own pure and unmixed reasons, so that what it is
and what you are for, are wedded.
CLXXVI
ALPHA and OMEGA:
DISCOUNT THAT
AND YOU'VE GOT A MUDDLE IN THE
MIDDLE
If You Don't Grasp
That,
Muddled, Befuddled,
You'll be Grasped by the Wrong Party
Published April 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-4-4
This is a
little work in intention, designed to bring to an abrupt halt, the continuity
confusion, and to both assign and apply the reality of things: that entities and
constrained systems may be postulated as the first and the last, the beginning
and the end, but only if you abandon logic, and causation, which is implicit by
means of definability, so that properties and procedures are correlative, and
bases are exposed in consequences. In other words, you may try to start with
things, not with the personal, govern your thought by ignoring the point, beg
the questions, assume anything, be all and end all, as it were.
Yet if you
return to rationality, for a moment, perhaps as if on an excursion, a change,
a holiday from assumptions, presumptions and veiled thought, or even thought
ignored, or carefully uncultivated, then you end with the personal, One who is
not only imaginative, but the eternally extant Being, making laws and forms and
all else, One controlled by nothing and creating in the role of Creator; or
again, hunted home again, you return to the ignoring of reason, use an
imagination that ignores the arising of form, law, characterisability and
categorical diversity, mind matter and spirit, as frolics without reason, and
laughs at causality, and its logical requirements, while at the same time using
its techniques to defend the position adopted: a simple self-contradiction.
The outcomes
of such folly in various dimensions is considered, and the unbased income for
such ideas. The outcome from what reason demands and revelation confirms and
exposes indeed, is likewise pondered, realised and released to contrary views,
that the means and ends, and the end of the means may be paralleled. If the one
is unhappy, the other fulfils more than heart could wish, or mind desire.
CLXXVII
FREEDOM, THE NATION, THE INTERNET AND THE NEXT
GENERATION
Published April 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-5-1
It seems useful to have a citation in one place of the things needed for
awareness of the situation facing Australia, chiefly to be sure, concerning the
Internet, but with at least some application to education, population mutation,
induced as well as produced, and destiny.
The issue of freedom, which follows naturally from the last volume, Number 176,
is crucial, as is that of responsibility; for what is happening to families,
youth and freedom, principles and human production, ideas and ideals threatens
to be irreversible, and doubtless the shame of it and the wastage of it, not to
say the horror of its debilitation and degradation is so, unless the Lord
intervene in a revival the like of which this nation has rarely, if ever seen.
For a
broader perspective on what is presented in this volume, see the Updated Prelude
to
Ch. 1..
CLXXVIII
THE
LIGHTS AND PERFECTIONS IN THE LORD
May 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-6-8
In ancient Israel, the temple spoke of Christ, Himself not only
the ultimate priest, symbolised by the High Priest, but the ultimate sacrifice,
so that as priest He offered ... Himself! Moreover it was He of whom the whole
temple stood as temple, provision for worship in His own name.
The High Priest had a special series of garments to wear in his
official capacity, and one of these was called a breastplate. You see Paul using
the terms in a symbolic depiction of the Christian soldier in Ephesians 6.
The lights and perfections, or Urim and Thummim were
attributed symbolically to the breastplate via the ephod or garment which was
worn together with it, with its precious stones on which the names of the tribes
of Israel were inscribed. There were four rows of three precious stones each,
varied, beautiful, in total a treasure of loveliness and a symbol of purity
where light glisters and the whole, in the ephod or garment attached to the
breast-plate, spoke of solicitude with the divine light at work in the very
purity of God, as with love and mercy He beheld His people.
David once used it when seeking wisdom from the Lord when the
force of the nation with a misled king was seeking to destroy him, whom the Lord
had anointed. It was a symbol of God's entire care and availability, not to
circumvent His law, but to fulfil His will within His own word, when disruption
of dishevelment, indeed when anxiety and troubles proved great, and thus it was
part of His attestation of available power and wisdom to cover anything that
life might bring (cf. Ephesians 3:20).
Lights from the light, perfections in the glory of God, these are
the things symbolised, and these are the things which one hopes to attest in
this volume, starting with the sheer wonder of the glory of God in solving so
much so simply, which without His own presence and nature COULD NOT BE SOLVED,
and never has been. It is because God is as He is (I AM THAT I AM), that man is
as he is, and that problems from sin are as they are, and that solutions are as
they are; and this fact continually confirms the reality of God to the sinful,
straying and yet seeking heart of man. Starting where man started, by the
creative act of God, according to the creative further act of His word, the
Bible, NOTHING cannot be resolved concerning the nature of man and his world,
destiny, way and situation, indeed concerning the very creation of God and His
power over it.
When you START with God and then attend to what has happened IN
VIEW of that, and with His word beside you, then you proceed to solution. It is
failure to do this which creates the insoluble seeming problems of man; and with
these, because their solutions are not taken, the woeful tragedies of man are
expanded as if by an atomic bomb, dropping its waste as it goes.
The need is to seek the Lord with all the heart, study His word
with relish, and apply it; and applying it, and following on to know the Lord,
to enjoy and rejoice in it as Psalm 119 in such an exemplary fashion shows us.
This involves seeking concerning its advices, commands and exhortations, to
follow them, in action.
How many are His perfections, and how numerous His lights which
He sheds, like columns or arrows of light in a sunset, from the one source, in
beauty upon man.
Let us then consider some of these divine gifts to us that are to
be found in the Lord, as one looks toward Him in faith, and be thankful and
worship and praise the Maker of man, the provider of salvation, and the Redeemer
who did it, that we MIGHT know God and SO find these wonders in His word and
will, and His divine amplitude of blessings above all we could ask or think
(Ephesians 3).
CLXXIX
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS
Published May 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-7-5
Obadiah refers to this as something
to happen in Israel when once more they will realise the value of what matters
most, when there will be found two things in Israel: HOLINESS and
DELIVERANCE.
As the Old Testament is the bud of
the bloom which is the New, this is an emphasis to be regarded. In Psalm 119,
the writer is given to proclaim his preference for the word and wisdom of the
word of God beyond any assignable prize or treasure. He is filled with longing
for those prescribed judgments, assignments, declaration, testimonies of
the Lord (119:20). In fact, he states this: "my soul
breaks with longing for your judgments for all times." Again, in 119:40,
he records this: "Behold, I long for Your precepts; revive
me in Your righteousness." He desires accordingly and asks for this:
"Establish Your word to Your servant who is devoted to Your fear," and asks the
Lord, "Turn away my eyes from beholding worthless
things." His plea is this: "Revive me according to
Your lovingkindness so that I may keep the testimony of Your mouth."
Human love from one to another
can be laterally absorbing; but this is love for the very foundations of life,
its wisdom, its Maker's thought concerning it, mankind, his history, his
destiny, the reasons for it, the divine desire and the ways of righteousness
before God who alone COULD make it so.
Since He has done so, and with it
appointed the way back to the homestead of holiness from the fields of folly,
including those of stolen pastures, forbidden landscapes and poisonous
minerals, and left in the process not a visiting card, but a Cross in which He
permitted men to assail Him, present in human form, so that their
sins might not be able to do so (cf. Micah 7:19ff.), it is wise and
delightful, a plateau for life to study, ruminate in and
digest His word. It does not alter. The only experiment it makes is this,
that WE study it and FIND its truth beyond anything else in the whole realm of
testable literature in scope and majesty, truth and wisdom, knowledge and
reliability. How will this be done ? by knowing it, for which you must study it.
This book is not just to KNOW MORE
about the Bible, but to examine choice passages in which depth and height and
practical blessing are to be found to an eminent degree, so that ready
assimilation may occur.
This is not to say that it will
all be easy; for it is only after some hard exercises that the mind
sometimes becomes both supple and informed enough to realise what IS precious.
However it wil, DV, have various levels and so may feed many, as the good
Lord enables. Further, it will show - because it is there - the tenderness,
love, grace, pity, power, provisions, predictions, depths and heights that
make of the Bible, the very word of God, such a treasure that the student with
ready heart and apt mind finds this: "Your testimonies are my delight, and my
counsellors."
There
is such sweet accord, and at times, such challenging stimulus that tests
as does a penetrating teacher, the very superficiality so readily coming into
confident composure in the loose heart, there is so majestic a security and such
a consistent confidence that needs no trumpet, for it speaks as one with
authority, and with every part compared, it gives such an outline, as if one
were circumnavigating with Cook, but not a continent but rather the content of
the divine divulgements to man that the not merely are the needs of the heart
overflowed; they are flooded. Moreover, since it is the word of Go, none
other than the Spirit of the living God moves as if explaining, applying,
and the experience then to faith becomes not only an imbuement with beauty, but
a perspective of truth and a pagent of peace. Blessed are those who find
it so!
CLXXX
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS Vol II
Published June 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-8-2
CLXXXI
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS Vol III
Published July 2010
ISBN 978-0-9807675-9-9
CLXXXII
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS Vol IV
Published July 2010
ISBN 978-0-9808498-1-3
CLXXXIII
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS Vol V
Published August 2010
ISBN 978-0-9808498-2-0
CLXXXIV
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS Vol VI
Published September 2010
ISBN 978-0-9808498-3-7
CLXXXV
PREDESTINATION REVIEW
Published in October 2010
ISBN 978-0-9808498-4-4
Voume VII of the
Predestination Heptad
CLXXXVI
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS Vol VII
Published October 2010
ISBN 978-0-9808498-5-1
There have been so
many marvels of insight, truth, wisdom, impact, so many jewels of sparkling
wonder in the Bible that as one shows, in a context of Christian Apologetics,
something of this richness, not only is all of this relevant to the
QUALITY and power, penetration and consistency, constancy and abiding strength
of what has been demonstrated to be the word of God, and hence with place
in terms of verification.
In addition, it
nestles in the mind, brings sweetness to the soul, for all is explained by the
Lord, in the deepest and to the highest, and while many things will be even
clearer when the time comes, now is the epoch for glorifying in what has been
given us in the Word of God, both in the stature of the Sovereign Saviour and in
the quality of His effectual word.
This volume has much
from the Bible, expounded and applied in our special field, both personal and
apologetic, on beauty, creation, the love of God, the nature of its application
in predestination and foreknowledge, the harmony in all things of the word of
God with itself and the profundity of its coverage of all things, resolving
doubts, overcoming difficulties in a unique manner, leaving all pursuit behind.
Further, in reviewing
cardinal aspects of orientation to Christianity, it deals with godly approaches
to politics, and makes some application to the Australian 2010 election, in
their terms.
CLXXXVII
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS
Vol. VIII
Studies in the Bible
Published October 2010
ISBN 979-0-9808498-6-8
Preface to Volume VIII
In the light of the
Lord, the splendour of His countenance, expressed in the definitive and decisive
form of His written word, there are major shafts of glory, minor matters of
illumination (as in times past, some portion of the text might be illuminated
with colours and contrivances of an exquisite and artistic character, markers of
beauty rather than of great immediate impact) and historical expressions that
give a practical orientation to the principles, procedures, purposes and plans
of the Almighty.
These are graciously
made available to man.
Such has been the
slaughter of the saints, the invasion of the Church, the secularisation of the
spiritual in the minds of many, the effrontery of the unfaithful masquerading as
the faithful, rather as in the days of Antiochus Epiphanes in the sometimes
gruesome history of Israel, when valour was called for, that it is necessary to
seek to help those who are arrested or even diverted in their spiritual
development, by assiduous attention to what is written, irrespective of
cultural, social, political and imperial ambitions of many, whether these be
dressed expressly in spiritual terms as in Islam, or not, as in the European
Union and the United Nations. Moreover there are many who love these things, and
to meditate on them.
Accordingly, this
eighth volume of Possess Your Possessions is presented, and in it
some of the sparkling wonders of the word of God one seeks to present, as
if to draw to the attention of another passenger in a car on a journey, the
wonders of the land through which we pass; except in this case, the 'land' is
the word of God, written for all to see over some one and one half millenia, and
now blazoned for all to heed, for two more millenia. Like God, it does not
change; for it is His word. Its impact however needs also to be found in
the milieu of events, and savoured, realised, applied and appreciated.
It is as if in the
journey, a car had come to a sudden halt three inches from the brow of a
precipice, a sea cliff, with some undercutting from the weather, and the
passengers were considering, or some of them, getting out for a stroll while
looking afar across the sea, and delighting in the thought as they step out, if
not with abandon, then at least with joie de vivre.
There are times when
it is better to speak.
CLXXXVIII
THE DIVINE INITIATIVE
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS
Vol. IX
Studies in the Bible
Published November 2010
Job and Jeremiah figure amongst a large panel of
review and exposition
in biblical themes, and Christian Apologetic
quarrying. Since God is back of it,
very much comes forth!
ISBN 979-0-9808498-7-5
CLXXXIX
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS
Vol. X
THE PERSONAL HOPE,
THE PERSONAL FAITH,
THE PERSONAL GOD
NOT
REJUVENATION BUT REGENERATION
NOT
KNOWING IT ALL, BUT KNOWING GOD
Published December 2010
ISBN 979-0-9808498-8-2
When you know a friend, you do not need
to know his habits when a two-year old, his ways with the bottle when a toddler,
nor his genome. Exhaustive knowledge is for God, and our aspirations, hopes,
prudence all would like to know all about whatever it is, for safety and
understanding, clarity and competence. Yet it is neither necessary nor possible
for us in this world.
It WOULD be eminently desirable were it
not that we can KNOW the ONE who DOES have it all. His is able and competent to
make us have a logical basis for trust, which surpasses all other grounds for
all other knowledge, is sure and reliable; and as in all things, not only is
this basis significant, the results of its identification are also. Thus 1od has
shown Himself so zealous about His word, saying that He has magnified it above
all His name (Psalm 138:2), that it becomes a crucial and substantial
confirmation as seen in
SMR,
TMR,
Deity and Design...,
and
LIGHT DWELLS WITH THE LORD'S CHRIST,
WHO ANSWERS RIDDLES,
AND WHERE HE IS, DARKNESS DEPARTS,
Bible or Blight,
Christ or Confusion:
The Comprehensive Resolution of Man's Intractable Problems
is Found Only in the Bible, the Word of God
Thus there is a unique and logically impelling basis
for belief, but it is not in itself compelling, despite its logical constraint, for one reason only: its
acceptance per se has little to do with reason, but with will it has
everything to do. There are none so blind as those who will not see, and whether
it be pride, or fear, or apprehension of inner secrets being revealed to
ANYONE, even to God (who knows them anyway), or other misguided, misconceived or
mischievous drives, conscious or unconscious, there are thresholds to cross. God
is able to conquer all these things, and in eternity before this world was, knew
His characters better than anyone knows those in a novel; but HIS characters are
NOT INVADED.
They are subjectible trials and tests, but their
outcomes are known, not as deeds to come merely, but far beyond those variable
lightnings of action, with His own infinite discernment. HE KNOWS whom He has
called His own and would like it to be for all, but does not intrude. When we
meet history and it hits us, God still knows His own, and infallibly finds them.
Since we are in His image, it is a matter of restoration (Colossians 3:10), and
since we are sinners, of redemption (Hebrews 9:12), and since spiritually we are
without Him, helpless, of free salvation, and since sin blinds, it is by such
application of the Spirit that we are convicted, convinced,
constrained. Yet it is all true, as before sin arrived, and nothing remotely
like manipulation, since it is according to truth. Often in conversion the
reality of the heart is felt as God probes and acting, reveals, and revealing
makes a place for His throne in the lives that are His; and this is not contrary
to the reality, but its historical application.
Hence in becoming a Christian, you do not embark on
a spiritual fitness course (though there is that element in it), for this
is rather what is becoming for one, WHEN he is regenerated and
THEREFORE a Christian at all. You are remade like a write-off, the cost far
greater than that for bringing on a new car, never touched! That, it is love.
Love is like that. God is its source (I John 4:7ff.), and when this love arises,
then this is seen and valued, indeed, to be applied.
Then what was logically adequate to show who God is,
and that the Bible is His only authorised written word to mankind, becomes
empirically attested, and one finds in life, what is attested by reason; and
then one can grow. When you know God, you know enough, and when you walk with
Him, you have company enough. In the end, we who are His shall know as we are
known; in the interim, now, the knowledge is secure and stable based on His
word, attested in life; then, it will be instant and immediate, as
when one sees a station approaching in rather a dim
light, but as one comes nearer, the lights are turned on and it is immediately
apparent and only more come and this, when it is the celestial station, with a
joy divinely ennobled.
CXC
THE RELISH, THE
REASON, THE RESOLUTION
FOUND IN THE WORD OF
GOD, ITS MESSIAH AND ITS MESSAGE
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS
Vol. XI
Studies in the Bible
Published December 2010
ISBN 979-0-9808498-8-2
In this volume, we move further on from
the thematic topic:
THE PERSONAL HOPE,
THE PERSONAL FAITH,
THE PERSONAL GOD
as applicable for Volume X, to that noted in the above title.
Relish, with reason, resolution with revelation, it is all one most glorious set
of possessions made available to mankind, and we plan to publish this abroad, to
arrest the wandering, strengthen the suffering, rejoice the saddened and glorify
the God of all glory. However small the contribution, the results are sought as
one seeks fruit on the tree; and in this case, the fruit can even rejoice.
2011
In June 2011, 9 volumes have been
published this year.
CXCI
CONSIDER CHRIST, DO
NOT DITHER
POSSESS YOUR POSSESSIONS
Vol. XII
Studies in the Bible
Published January 2011
ISBN 978-0-9870886-0-4
Following on from Possess
Your Possessions Volume 11, in this volume XII, the emphasis moves to
the more personal. Thus Ch. 9 of the last volume was
concentrated on resolution of problems and relish to be found in Christ, King of
Truth and Saviour in eternity; and now there is another application
of the material presented there, in the direction of NOT DITHERING. That is
found in Ch. 1 in this work. This leads to a different application so that
a news item just to hand, may be seen in this setting. In this case, it is
not so much individual dither as national that is in view, and the outcome is as
tragic as the doom of a great war, when the soldiers lose heart and the homeland
neglects its famous fires, to keep them burning. Some want no-god, and some wish
no-atheism, and some parade their power and delete deity where they may, and
some are subverted by this audacity, while others speak, and make testimony for
the truth as is necessary in all conscience and reason. The nation wonders what
to do with the Almighty God as in the Pre-amble to the Constitution, but while
many dither, or are deluded, or merely militant, wanting to sever from the
Saviour outstandingly, and make havoc with religion, others do not find wisdom
in such empty surrealism.
It is not only a matter of the past,
but of the present, and especially of the huge contrast between two eras, one
gradually becoming somewhat more faint in its attitude to God, but still
clearly discernible in terms of ITS past; and the present, aggressively
nonchalant, impressively evacuative of commitment, bordering on ruin, with loud
words and dithering deeds as if waiting for the storm, and occasionally shouting
defiance, but more often, conniving in corruption.
There is only one answer: it is to
return not to a multicultural madness,
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as if ashamed of the wonders
wrought by faith in the Lord in this land, in the Lord's Christ Jesus,
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as if inviting friends home and
then trying to find
how they live in order to change home in a fit of depreciatory madness,
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but to a gracious wisdom which finds
what has made the nation so attractive, its laws, its justice and equity
emphasis, its care and its concern, its love of freedom and of personal
responsibility. It is this which Christianity has nurtured, on the very basis of
its non-dictatorial approach to mankind: since indeed the Bible ridicules
force in the region of faith. You cannot make second-hand things without the
first newness, or fruits, to continue without roots; nor can you successfully
imitate good features when the foundations are gone.
While the nation continually is
caressing ANYTHINGNESS, it is really wheeler-dealing its ways into a more
and more direct confrontationalism with Christ, with anything in the field of
education or life which presupposes even liberty! and it is moving in what may
soon become irrevocably as the end of the Age approaches, toward a negative
agnosticism/atheism, IN PRACTICE. That is, whatever the private religion may be,
the move is to make everything public an outcome of disfaith, that
junking of anything concerning the Bible and creation and Jesus Christ, so that
an avid materialism rules in unhappy disharmony with noble aspirations as empty
as a drum, and as noisy.
What then ? By all means consider a
continuation of a thankless irrationality, as we have shown; but at least become
aware that so much improvisation of evil, diminution of past national
acknowledgements (the Preamble to the Constitution is in specific view for
one more 'accommodation' without God, instead providing assumptions about the
importance of recognising not the foundation of the land, but people who lived
there earlier than we did, as if this was a self-produced universe, the main
point).
First things first however is not a
tribal tribute, but a gratitude to deity, such as the Preamble was careful to
attest! If this is removed, then the nation is throwing away that engagement
ring, and showing its gratitude in degradation by shrugging the shoulders and
following the dire directives of unreason, toying with things, ignoring their
necessary foundations.
It is not naturalistic emphasis that
is needed, nor unproductive and destructive obeisance to the gods of this or
that religion or former religion, or quasi-religion, or surreptitious,
irrational religion, but a non-molesting readiness to avoid the transfer of
faith from God to gods, some impersonal and pretentious. Indeed, naturalistic
powers that have the capacities of gods, ideas that are used instead of divine
power and shatter the people, these things attract like the smoking habit, a
misty or smoky substitute for making the most of life and not ignoring its
necessary basis.
Nationally this people is running
down the walls of a precipice, where near the top there is a slight margin
before the drop. It throws away money on absurdities, ill-thought out, it
hastens in fits and starts with theories that ignore basic necessities, like
wisdom, it excuses itself in terms of international agnosticisms, and seeks to
conform to delirious dicta from the UN or elsewhere, so long as a free world
results, where you are at liberty to do whatever you are told, and never to do
whatever you are forbidden (cf. Mystery of Iniquity,
It Bubbles ... He Calls Ch. 11).
Individually, people need to awaken
to their fall, as generation after generation is now molested mentally, as
readily seduced in spirit as the atmosphere polluted with particles. But why ?
It is because of intensive folly, impacted with figments of fiction taught amid
increasing abhorrence of reasoned and scientifically sober method: a thing
that soars like a rocket when it comes to God and His creation of the minds that
do this, and assume their own validity, while removing all grounds for such an
assumption.
While however the nations drown, as
predicted, into that sea of prejudicial horror, it is more and more closely
beginning to merge with the state of affairs which you see in
Revelation 13, where both a political-industrial-financial beast or tyrant
syndrome rules, AND a religious one. This latter one is a concoction and a
command that has the people worship the first beast, the all-commanding State.
It is predicted to be, in effect, as if the worst of the recent follies of
Russia, China and incendiary militant, religious warriors seeking blood, were
conjoined into one inglorious spiritual idiocy (as in Hosea 9:7), a mind-defying
dominance, a multi-race assault, a taint to civilisation, and a suicide
squad for spirituality.
Do not then dither in the face of
these empty innovations, but become decisive; do not wallow in this unwisdom,
but seek the Lord who made the powers of thought, and gave them validity that
man might KNOW the truth and follow it where it is self-attested, and not
founder in endless self-contradictions (cf. Deity and Design ...
8). It is necessary where reason rules and evidence is hallowed, to return
to the Bible and the Christ whom God sent to give personal interview,
intervention, invitation and answer to man, not in a flash moment of
capitulation to new forces as in this land and in many another now, but in
fulfilment with precision of the menu for man. It was this which gave detail
over millenia so that when the Son of God arrived, it would be simple to see
what it was, who He was, what was authentic and what a mere mischief.
Mischievous children need
instruction; but mischievous adults invite calamity. When such things strike a
nation, how often the last thing it thinks of is PROVOCATION to God, who having
provided wonders of wisdom and rapid advance in the land, is now thanklessly
given come-uppance, from downward impulses, and given the finger with
fashionable fiascos, parading as internationally acceptable! By which nations is
such valued direction given and how great is their attestation in their own
lives and ways ? and what is so wonderful about the nations that one can learn
from them how to be a nation, or a person amid the surging morass of broken
morals, homes, principles, aspiration and routine folly!
Christ unchanged and undictatorial,
remains; and dithering about Him, perhaps with cardiac callous from mis-education
and anti-morals now increasingly ruling, is not recommended. Taste and see that
the Lord is good: and you don't do this with the mouth closed.
Some might ask, How can you say to
the world, possess your possessions, when most of it is NOT Christian, so that
Christ or the Bible is NOT a possession, but in your own emphatic notation, a
dispossession ?
In answer to such a thought, three
things might be said.
First of all, one is by NO Means
speaking to Christians only, just as one is by no means omitting them. From time
to time, both those who are and those who are not are reminded of their station,
spiritual status and opportunities.
Secondly, while in essence the point
is true, for this world by no means possesses Christ as Saviour or is disposed
to possess Him as Lord, yet it DOES possess the GOSPEL which is a decided and
decisive gift, open to all, sufficient for all, with entreaty indeed to
all, adapted to all, by which any may become adopted by God as one of His
children, through Christ.
Thirdly, it is well to realise the
difference meanings of 'possess' . You can OWN something and so possess it; have
a key to something and so indirectly have the way to possess it, whether or not
you use it, and so become possessed of what is ready to fulfil all your needs.
Again, you can OWE someone something, and possess the means to pay, whether or
not you actually do so. Through the Gospel, ALL THE WORLD has, with God's direct
entreaty, the means to meet that payment, and so possess a blank debt from the
credit card action of the incarnate Christ.
II Corinthians 5 puts it like this:
"God was, in
Christ, reconciling the world to Himself,
not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of
reconciliation.
"Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ, as though God were pleading through us:
we implore you on Christ's behalf,
be reconciled to God, for He made Him who knew no sin
to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him."
Thus the Saviour, and there is only
one, God (Isaiah 43:10-11) has become a sin-sacrifice offered in integrity and
longing to the whole world (cf. Luke 19:42ff., Colossians 1:19ff.), and whatever
says otherwise, has another sort of a Gospel, a mimicking, intended or not.
Treasures not in gold, works not on
roads, but which have already constructed the way home to God, are all
available. It is challenging, testing, involves direct darts from the devil at
times (Ephesians 6:12, Job 1, II Corinthians 2:11). If you want placidity
and insipidity, then here is not the way; but if you want peace that passes all
understanding, because like blood in the veins, it fits and is fitting and
becomes constitutionally available, then this is apt for what you desire. Life
is not for langour but for vitality of purpose, program, thrust and impact, as
when an electric toy is made to work, and not to sit idle, not possessing the
power of its possessions, because it is switched off. The power is there, the
path is there, the opportunity is there, the call is there, the love of God is
there; and without this Gospel, there is no other possible way in. This is the
WILL of God, the THOUGHT of God, the WAY of God, the TRUTH of God and to the
LIFE of God this is the appointment. THIS is by divine appointment; other ideas
of entry are surface flotsam and jetsam on the waves of life. Presume if you
must, but that 'must' is like must on the surface of liquid, a mere
contamination.
CXCII
REDEMPTION OR
REVOLT
Dilettante or Disciple
Nothing New
under the Sun, or All Things New
Published January 2011
ISBN 979-0-98708896-2-8
Recently, a radio
announcer speaking of floods or rains or some natural disaster, said that it
seemed that Someone up there, had a grudge against us.
Little could be more
monumentally mistaken. It is rather saying that the butterfly shows that the
Lord has no sense of the minute! or that an elephant shows that He is limited to
little works.
In fact, there is
love and compassion, showered upon creation, discipline and directness,
pre-announced for the fruits of seductive autonomy as in Genesis 3, and a
judgment settling on the earth the way the fog does on the open seas, its
fingers probing the nearby valleys, and its hidings making ships like forlorn
sea monsters. In rebelling against His working instructions (manualled in the
Bible), how to use the glorious gift of being created a member of the human
race, man is like a dissident student who, being told that to be found smoking
would require 'six from the lawyer' (as one Headmaster put it), then
complained when showing his pipe freely and openly to a supervising teacher! It
would vex the imagination even to consider how such a vaporous verbal
glitch could be made as to call this a grudge! In fact, this student did
not complain; but the point remains. What, in any case, came to the student
? He was expelled. The Headmaster was determined that the lung abuse would not
mar the school.
A trudge certainly
(though the student concerned left in a taxi), is implied, but justice for man
from the Lord, as announced, so far
from being grudge, even when apparently profound (though the recent Australian
case of massive inundations is not near the flood, which had a long prelude - Genesis 6), is the precise opposite.
This cavalier criticism ignores
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the Creator's
knowledge for the way to treat His creation, man, singly and jointly, duly
imparted in the Bible.
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His action to provide
free redemption and the soaring cost to Him of doing so.
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the goodwill
incorporated in this pinnacle of sacrifice and the continuing provocation in a
world often moving back to the hideous sins of self-will,
even when as in this land, superabundantly blessed
in the time of at least some measure of worship of the living God,
giving glory to His name for His redemption in Christ Jesus; and
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the maintenance of
the offer of free redemption despite all, to each one,
including any who falsely suggest grudge, in the very midst of mercy,
that the race can continue at all amidst such condign disloyalty,
unthankfulness and spiritual inertia.
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While it is
possible to err in attributing any one disaster to one specially chosen
cause, yet some steady aggravation of cause may precipitate a decisive result: as in the destruction of Sennacherib's
army (an immediate cause was the pompous pretension of the monarch, seeking to
compare the living God to the idols of the nations, and to exalt himself as if a
god) as seen in Isaiah 36ff..
God is not offering
wisdom for general living, at the crux, but how to BE ALIVE. It is no mere
phrasing, for the alternative is eternal condemnation (II Thessalonians 1). He
is not suggesting more sanctification but demanding justification, so that the
STATUS of the SOUL may be one that is acceptable to God, since it is only His
OWN righteousness which can be satisfactory, and man's sins know almost no depth
control, the pit being likewise bottomless. This we find in Romans 5:1-21 the
reconditioning required, yes far more, the regeneration wrought on the basis of
faith in the salvation of Jesus Christ, long prepared and on its due date,
granted (cf. Christ the Citadel ...
Ch. 2).
Comparative religions
are comparative revolt; and all are utterly in revolt, since NONE but the
offering of Christ get ANYWHERE with God (Acts 4:11-12), since none other is
appointed (Acts 13:26-46,17:31, John 14:6) and His saving work was done
ONCE (Hebrews 9) and for all! Since He redeems, pays for what is repentant, purified
and purged, rescued and covered in cost for the restitution to the status of a
child of God: therefore it is simple. It is one. It is clear. It is revolt or it
is redemption.
Such is the status of
our race. Such is the fate of the furious, the spurious, the seduced and the
seductive, except they repent. Such is the provision. God is no octopus: He
hands down His one solution for our one problem, taking its heart and core as
one and its cure and consequence as one, and making in one act, in one Person,
for one motivation, that of love, the necessary provision (Hebrews 8-10).
This simplicity moves
like an express train throughout so many so sophisticatedly spectacular
problems, and so many subtly deep ones, so that, to get on board the express,
and relax the contentious cavils and anxious swivels, is delight: view from the
window is both varied and comprehensible. On the other side, away from this
survey, this transformation from treading to triumph: there is only confusion. Whatever the number and
placement of the worms in an apple, the core is the place of depth for it all.
CXCIII
Moving from the
Riddle of Unrealism
to the Reality of Creation
ISBN
978-0-9870886-3-5
In February 2011, an addition was
made to the subset,
The gods of naturalism have no go! making it now a Hexad,
the
NOGO HEXAD.
As a diver, deep in the oceanic blackness,
surrounded by oddities, rejoices when he is lifted from this arena of
dulness to the light, so it is grand to have the grace of God in HIS speech,
both in DNA and in the Bible. These alike are readily readable, but the latter
is at once for all, with open face; and in these two, the works of God are
shown in a magnificent medley of mutual exhibition of the glory of God. The
rationality of the LOGOS transcending all, has such expression in word and deed,
and multiplied in innovative marvels is His wit, that it is sheer joy to
ponder it, its outcomes, just as it is a searing sadness to see what man has
made of it, his incomes tragic indeed, as with all defilement of beauty and
defiance of reason. That this same LOGOS (John 1) sacrificed Himself for man and
gave resolution of sin in bodily resurrection is the real mystery of all time,
and it is not at all mysterious in clarity, only in profundity, that He
should BOTHER to do it!
Whether He be massacred in a mutinous murder of
heart and mind, by religious sophisticates unbinding their lust, at Calvary, or
by others distorting reality in contra-textual assault, as now, the result is
one. Man cannot stand the Word of God, who made him and all that is; and though
some are won to their source and His savour, to the sent Saviour, Jesus
Christ, yet many perish wilfully. Even while the earth trembles anew, in
appalling horrors of cruelty of man to man, and staggeringly restrained divine
judgments, the daring default of man goes to the limit. It is not far away now.
CXCIV
The Vitality, the Perspicuity and
the Wisdom
of the God of Creation and Redemption
ISBN
978-0-9870886-4-2
March 2011
It is no mean feat that those who love to detract
from the deity of our configuration, the God of our creation, the Lord of our
redemption, bypass entirely that one Being whose wisdom is both
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multiple and
profound,
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inexorable and
patient,
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outwitting all the
old contemptibles that infest the flesh of man,
enabling deliverance from all his weaknesses,
when wisdom like lightning purges his soul and anoints his heart.
It is a testimony to the scope of this divine creation that in talking in
the field of their Creator, in masses, they so frequently ignore what they
are talking about, and instead talk about their own thoughts, as if these
and not God were their progenitor, basis and meaning, rather than the
instituted looking glass. It is one so made that it can in validity look
both at itself and its Maker,
when it has a mind so to do, and when like so many of man's own
creations, it is enabled.
Like them, it is potent but has to be handled aright. |
What a prodigy is this so contemptuously and
contemptibly distortive, sportive spirit of man, dismissive or derogatory of
things spiritual while using them every moment of the day, even while impugning
God with arrogance, assailing Him with impudence or seeking to leach Him out by
an artful indifference!
Thus in creation, while the artifices of concept
and command, conjoined so that they may even be exhumed from the DNA and the
material universe alike, so that they might be stated and stipulated even by the
very mind of man, are a profound communicative feat in a double dimension.
Firstly, it is so in the One who spoke us into existence, by using communication
power to execute His will, and left the material part in DNA as testimony and
continuing and programmatic command alike. Yet there is more. Yes, more even
than this stares us in the face.
There is, secondly, the vitality of life,
the practicality of wisdom for man, the intensive reconstruction for his spirit,
called regeneration, the prodigious realism that faces the worst and provides
the best, together with the cost of it, called redemption, and the divine
perspicuity which knows all, sees all and confused at nothing, produces as if
from a divine palette, the whole exuberance of creation. Misled, this bedevils
man, for so profound is the image of God in man, that it allows both the
riotous imagination of people as if gods in their delusion, who are but men, and
scope for the repentance which knocks with faith on the doors of reality,
aspiring only to be numbered amongst the redeemed. Thus you have ambassadors for
Christ, the crux of all content and contentment, in this world before it goes,
and ambassadors for evil, seeking to prolong the mess as masses writhe in their
defiled leadership and incalculable defiance.
Such blessed heights, depths and dimensions
require attention and here we give it.
CXCV
The Lie has a Limited Shelf-Life,
Truth Lasts Forever
Published March 2011
ISBN
978-0-9870886-5-9
Truth might not last if God were
not there to make it do so. But if God were not there, there could be no truth,
for then all would be merely doing what it is good at, until whatever it was
became whatever it was going to be, and no one could get outside of it, to
survey or to understand. Truth does last because from God it gets its only
sustainable name, and the Lie will not last because it is by definition, at the
ultimate, enemy of Truth, and so excluded from that domain.
Ignorance blushes because it is
incompetent, faced with knowledge, unknowledgeable. Truth attains because what
is, is understood so that it might be there, so that it might be true; and with
this wisdom comes susceptibility for action and sound performance. It does not
blush. It is wonderful that where truth lies, power joins and where creation
comes, competence precedes. Otherwise we would not be here, for the incompetent
does not attain; whereas truth does.
Mere pretence if not pretension
is the lisping of this world about itself: it is ONLY because its laws and
forms and formats and language of creation in the DNA, and its language for
continuation in the Bible, come from God, that there is any way for it to go,
any being for it to inhabit, any structure for it to secure, any stricture to
become duty and responsibility. As it goes down, however, as it deteriorates,
and in nothing more than in spirit, man in his nations is becoming a mockery of
the mastery of his internal environment. Just as, in EVERY nucleated cell,
there is set in language readable, cognisable, characterisable, potent,
functional, so in the Bible is set the law of God for man, the means of His
mercy, the method of His salvation, before the day of judgment comes up for
divorce. It is wise to be ready.
In this book the simplicities are
in view, the applications, the sheer wonder of reality in contrast with the
sheer blatancy of horror, which the lie, never satisfied with truth, deplores.
If nature 'abhors a vacuum' has some relevance, much more is this: God abhors
sin. Yet He loves righteousness, even to the point that He is willing to provide
it free.
The Gospel is delicious. It is
life again, eternal. The shelf-life of the lie, like an unplayable lie in golf,
a temporary thing to be dismantled, is limited. Living without limits limits
living. The final limit is judgment, mortality for mortals, instead of eternal
life for the children of God. Tough guys may find it hard to become as children
again, but it is not children in MIND but in MALICE which is the biblical
prescription! (I Corinthians 14:20:
"Brethren, do
not be children in understanding;
however in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature."
Understanding is intended as a
chief motif in this volume, and DV it will help to resolve difficulties and show
the wonder of Him who is both Judge and Creator, Redeemer and Upholder, who
insists that we be steadfast in the faith, just as we are made steadfast in our
design, so magnificently set in commands of thought, conceptually investigable,
practically a marvel, to which is added the far more magnificent feature, far
from the power of any man to make, that SPIRIT which is the maestro placement in
man. This is equipped, no less, with mind able to look, even to God.
LOOK then to Him, and be saved!
for so He commands, no less than His commands are manifest in the very
construction through DNA of our bodies (Isaiah 45:22-23). Let not the body be
mocked by an arrant spirit in the mind! Let us be conformed to truth, which is
broader than the heavens in its AMPLITUDE, and narrower than a crevice in
unfalsifiability; for though our thought is athletic, it does not change its own
basis, or truth; and even our imagination does not alter what is its source,
though it soar to the heavens in pure joy of discovery!
CXCVI
ISBN
978-0-9870886-6-6
The Divine Sublimity of the Ardour
of Christ's Salvation
Published April 2011
This volume is
intended to recapture what is missing, revisit what is disdained, recover to
sight what is subjected to slippery spiritual slander, help awaken to the wonder
of God, His ardour, His loveliness and majesty, so that the disservice of
passivity, indifference, misdirection, arrogance, self-absorption, hypnotic
submission to natural things may be contrasted with the truth.
Man has become
increasingly noxious to his fellows, proud of his achievements, illiterate in
the truth, prodded by pollutants, weary of well-doing, recidivist to reality,
gunning against the Gospel. Nothing new ? There is a new pandemic of these
things. There are the sour cynical, spiritually dyspeptic wrangles and tangles
with the illicit fires, the dramatic nothings which many dare to spew forth
without divine sanction, so that just as it was to be, as in Jeremiah 23:16-20,
so it is; and as it was foretold by Paul (II Timothy 3-4, I Timothy 4, Acts
29), Peter (II Peter 2)and by Christ (Matthew 24:22,24, John 14:30), so the day
draws near to the night in which no man can work, as Christ showed would come
(John 12:35-36, 9:4).
Close comparison of
undivine dreams and divine declaration from the God of creation through His
verified and validated word, the Bible, is made, and review is given from many
angles. The more the work is done, the less there is even in view for meaningful
comparison, as you see the glory of the Lord, sustained, the gory pseudo-glamour
of human confrontation without rationality, lot in its mirage.
Let us then revisit the sublimity of
the ardour of the Lord, focussed in His salvation.
CXCVII
DIAMONDS OF DIVINE DIVULGEMENT IN THE
BIBLE
ISBN
978-0-9870886-7-3
Published May 2011
In any romance,
there are likely to be moments of revelation, understanding, intense empathy,
that rise like the rocky cliffs by the shore, filled with significance. Like
dawn and sunset, they tie together much lustre, together with light.
The Lord loves His
people, and would have all come to reconciliation with Himself. Despite numerous
faulty statements by some theologians over time, this is the case. How does one
know ? It is because it is so written in the Bible, so clearly that no one has
ever provided a rebuttal, in Colossians 1:19ff.. It PLEASED the Father, having
made peace through the blood of the cross, to reconcile ALL THINGS, yes whether
in heaven or on earth, to Himself. It not some secondary reconciliation; it is
not some segment in heaven or on earth, but all of both.
This is the
statement. Who daring to use the name of theologian can dare contravert what God
says about His own heart! Indeed, even if it were possible here, which is
assuredly not the case, there are a large number of similar statements such as I
Timothy 2, Ezekiel 33:11, Luke 19:42ff., and tender appeals which would
scarcely be real if for inscrutable reasons God did not really WANT all to be
reconciled to Himself with an ardour and intensity, using such terms as "AS I
LIVE," as He put it in Ezekiel, and exhibiting such lamentations at what did NOT
occur earlier in Israel, as found in Isaiah 48:16ff., which swells like an ocean
wave that surmounts all resistance: but a godly and a blessed one, constructive
and not destructive.
He is sovereign, but
AS sovereign He is an inimitable lover, and the scope even to the summum bonum
of salvation, is set for one as for all; though the attainment is indeed
limited, and the way is too narrow for many a foot (Matthew 7:15ff.).
HENCE there is
something of which human romance is merely an expression, based on the same
love, however much at certain times it may be distorted by human sin. ONE and
one party alone is the effectual cause, at the ultimate in the foreknowledge of
God and hence in reality, for exclusion from God and that is each person
involved in such negation (John 3:19). THAT is the criterion God gives in
accounting for loss in the presence of such ardent love as He exhibits in John
3:16, a love which came with the scope that the world be saved, and not judged.
With God there is no
distortion, but great restraint, for the purity of love is not the seizure of
force, and those who love learn! Yet the divine love is there, inimitable,
inerodable, indomitable, but unwilling to ruin its own reality by mere
surreptitious grabbing.
The tenderness is
true, not affected, though it be God who loves. Man loves to see such undimmed,
unpolluted love, and what reminds of it. Thus, when a prince seems to be truly
loved by a princess, and to find in her a special feature that braves the
fainting heart, reinforces the glimmers of hope, wanders like a perfume into the
nostrils and grasps the heart as hand does hand in greeting, and loves in
return, then many are truly glad. Why ? It is a joy to see a love that
transforms in action, without the frequent subsidies from sin which mar love
into desire of various alien types, and merely uses romance as an empty form.
There is nothing
empty about the love of God
(cf.
Love is Purer Than the Peak Snow-Crested,
More Vital than its Dashing Streams: The Love of God alone).
It is both articulate
and ardent, realistic and redemptive, since there is NO ONE ever born to our
race, who was excluded from its appraising desire, for lack of it in scope or
intensity; and there is none who has any but his or her own self to blame, for
exclusion from it and its fruits (YOU WERE NOT WILLING, is the refrain, in
whatever format, Proverbs 1, or Matthew 23, or Luke 19, or Isaiah 48:16). In
Isaiah, we find that GOD longed for a different outcome than that obtained.
In Christ, He sighs,
laments, in Isaiah exhibits a heart all but desolated at the rejection which
sets in; but HE WILL NOT accept accolades from empty hearts (Isaiah 1),
manipulative devisers, such as often on this earth show false hearts amongst
our race. IF there is a rejection, known to Him from eternity (Ephesians 1:4),
then in the end, there is an identification of the one in that case with what ?
It is with what is evil, dark and devious, wrong-headed and empty-hearted, so
that the thing becomes hateful; but this is the result, always the result.
The cause from the
start is as God states, and the result as God states it, and one of the results
is predestination which logically follows from what God knew from the first,
before man or space or time as we have it so much as lifted the blankets on
life, and opened an eye to behold what was here! before creation. That is the
sequence in Romans 8:30, and in reality. Predestination merely ties up what is
the case, as foreknown to God. It is a divine insurance, securing of what is
precious, so that the truth being known, is made certain. None of His will ever
be lost, and He KNOWS them (II Timothy 2:19).
Let us consider this
in the light of the title of this volume.
In this love, and
indeed in all the integrity of the Divine Being, there are then moments, times,
statements, revelations which are intense with meaning, evocative with a
fulness which overflows the eyes to the heart, and this to the very spirit of
man, and grips what is receptive with its passion, wonder, admirable grace, in
its divine expression. Since with God this is always linked at length to action,
it is more than a verbal melody, but rather a deep magnificence, word and deed
wedded never to part.
Such items in the
Bible, whether obvious at first or not, which show the divine name to be
hallowed in intensity or depth or with special appeal or illumination, it is
these which are in mind here.
CXCVIII
THE CHRISTIAN PRESCRIPTION
ISBN
978-0-9870886-8-0
Published June 2011
What does Christ
prescribe ? Often a doctor will prescribe a medicine based on diagnosis,
historical development and design underlying in the body, with effort to restore
to normal working mode. So a politician might prescribe for a situation, for a
nation, given its ideas and ideals (or his own!). An engineer might do much the
same, as in measures for flood control, with contingency measures.
God has prescribed
the design of man, and life, and made it such that Dr Denton in his Evolution: A
Theory in Crisis, he states that the life data might be held in their
minaturised form, in a teaspoon. Here is brilliance beyond measure, and life
encapsulated in its physical format with something way beyond genius. At best
man finds what God put there, and does not invent the laws of space and logic,
mathematics and thought, of time and of life; he mere uncovers what logic and
order, organisation and contrivance, wit and wisdom put there. Wit is not
self-made. Like all other things, not eternal and self-sufficient
entirely, it needs to act to exhibit what it is. In us, the action is manifest.
In our plight, the need of more of it is equally manifest, and in the Bible, the
reason for our being here, for our plight and the prescription for its cure are
all told, and that most clearly.
In this volume,
the Christian Prescription as given by God in the Bible is the theme, and
its application is our concern.
CXCIX
The Lord of
Longsuffering,
Prince of Peace,
Christ of Command
ISBN
978-0-9870886-9-7
Published June 2011
In this volume, we see the Christ
who is the Lord of Longsuffering, not merely patient, but filled with a
beautiful compassion as in Isaiah 42, where He does not break the bruised reed,
yet also the Christ of Command, for He does not abdicate
in order to be compassionate, or populate heaven with hell, in order to be
accommodating. What would be the good of that ? for if hell came to
heaven, its dissident ingredients would merely belch in the face of beauty,
contrive in the face of kindness, precisely as you see it in the end of the
millenium in Revelation 19-20, where in the midst of such peace, plenty,
compassion, such a law and presence of God, of Him who died that we might
live, despite our infirmities and complexities and evil calamities, there is a
new revolt. It is as in Isaiah 26:10. "Let grace to
be shown to the wicked, yet he will not learn righteousness; in the land of
uprightness, he will deal unjustly."
If in repentance he finds the
Lord, well; but without this and repentance, regeneration, so it has
become. Patching the perishing tyre does nothing good.
Present in man is the idea of man
the commander, the leader and the witness. It is found for example in Ezekiel
28:9. You see it especially clearly at the academic level in Ch. 2
in the case of Professor Leowontin, and his philosophic
prescriptions to limit science to his religious philosophy. Science in tow ?
This has long, in this area, been the fact for the majority of scientists,
scrubbed and brushed, painted and clothed in the robes of unruly intrusion of
personal ideas into empirical science, till the fraudulent character of
the scientistic substitute for science has become as apparent as
Leowontin attests so solemnly! He put
it well.
Nor is this all. The entirety of
value-oriented, creation-oriented, society-oriented, psychiatry-oriented
is so infected with blind, reality-exclusive fatuity, that its manifest failure
in practice is like the long replaying of an old-time tune, with modern
jazz-time elements added, that failed long ago to attract any
but heady zealots, and has been dead for decades. It just goes on,
regular in its theme, odd in its concepts, incurable in its cacophony.
In this fabrication function of
man in the 21st century, desiring a dream with all the intensity so well known
to Israel as in Jeremiah 23, where they could hardly step over each other in the
blather and lather of false prophets, unreal, incorrect, predicting peace when
war was at hand, filled with their own thoughts when God was at
hand, that the prophet trumpeted this word from the Lord in that day, so
like our own:
"For who has
stood in the counsel of the LORD, and has perceived and heard His word ?
Who has marked His word and heard it ?
"Behold, a
whirlwind of the LORD has gone forth in fury -
a violent whirlwind! It will fall upon the head of the wicked.
The anger of the LORD will not turn back
until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart.
In the latter days you will understand it perfectly."
In these latter days, towards
the end of our epoch (Answers to Questions
Ch. 5), we do indeed consider its perfection, for
the earth is crammed with precisely this, discordant deviationism from
the Lord. It continues ...
" I have not
sent these prophets, but they ran.
"I have not
spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
But if thy had stood in My counsel,
and had caused My people to hear My words,
then they would have turned them from their evil way
and from the evil of their doings."
However, though some turn, as
with Jeremiah in Israel, so with many in this present world, they are told, but
they do not turn; and multitudes are they who in defiance of reason and
revelation alike, trumpet but their own nasalised nihilistic,
unrealistic programs, implacable, irreconcilable, alien to truth, impervious to
the empirical.
It is precisely as foretold in II
Timothy 3-4, Romans 1 at its end for THE end of the Age, when the symptoms of
alienation from God become most malignant.
In this volume, in view of that,
we continually present the view of Christ the Saviour, the Lord of Longsuffering
but the Christ of Command, whose purity does not allow incompetence, or foster
folly, but whose longsuffering does foster the blowing gently on the sparks, in
case any may yet come before it is too late, and the last spiritual rasping of
the dying breath of this misled Age, comes in its absurd pretensions to
meet face to f ace with reality, the most blasting blow of all.
CC
July 2011
ISBN 978-0-9871661-0-4
The Bountiful, The Accountable and the
Surmountable
Chapter One
of this Volume sets out at some length, our topical field.
Suffice here to note that it is
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God who is bountiful,
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man who is accountable and his situation,
including both inner and outer ingredients,
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and his plight which is surmountable.
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Though we are now perfectly accustomed to seeing
what is hard at least to differentiate from dither whether in currency-troubled,
indebted Europe, or in debt-ridden USA or in castigatory wars or recklessly
inhuman actions in the Middle East, and more Eastern lands:
yet this is not all.
Whether in some of those lands, or in Asiatic
eruptions of power angrily pursuing idealists without much evident restraint, or
in Russia, where nationalistic surges and urges seem to leave individual
significance somewhat at a loss, in that land of the oil take-over amid outrage,
the case is becoming increasingly plain.
Man is moving without the admirable in such
situations, as if dragged by forces he neither knows nor can understand, and
this the more so, when he thinks that he does.
In particular, it appears customary, or near it, for
atrocious acts to be performed in Islamic countries in the Middle East, for the
sake of the continuance of their rulers or their rules, often made
extemporaneously by those who seized power illicitly in the first place, or have
abused it as if conscience were out of date, in the second place. Here as in
Iran, liberation as in their earlier revolution, makes the former regal power
seem small compared with the total dictation to people through religious force
and terrorist rumblings and exported ramblings, such as now appear.
Man is trying to manage man with countless false
prophets, false ideologies, founded on nothing and accomplishing worse than
that. It is like an adolescent without roots, but with heavy boots, as a dance
party.
The solution is found in the bountiful provisions of
God,
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not only in making man as a synthetic marvel of
mind, body and spirit,
with staggering powers of thought, self-control and understanding,
subject like most powers to radical abuse,
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but in provision of remedy, redemption, realisation
of what man is made for.
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If like a stray dog, man wants to rove the prairies
for rats, then that is his choice.
If nations want to pillory, plunder, torture or slay
their citizens,
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as has seemed for example rather popular in Syria,
Egypt, Afghanistan, Sudan
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and in the past in Germany, large sections of Europe
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and now in Asia, when the mood stirs, or
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as in China and that not only in its Red Revolution,
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or in Vietnam or Cambodia, sometimes with the
killing a few million
before calming down from the latest illicit and irrational obsession:
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then this is their testimony.
It is all accountable. God does not forget. He MADE
our memory in his DNA directions of His commands, so verified (cf. The Lord of Longsuffering ...
Ch. 1 ).
It is only in His mercy that help is available
(Micah 7:19ff., Isaiah 55, John 3, Psalm 103); but that is like saying that it
is only in 1000,000,000 dollars that help can be found to cover a house
mortgage. It is vastly beyond the need, but even this becomes the site for greed
as endless seeming false prophets, secular or religious, seek to dragoon man
without evidence, wit or reason, even distorting the clear word of God as Christ
predicted (Matthew 24:24), into some new campus of thought, to encompass himself
anew with intrigue or presumption.
The word of God, the Bible, subject of ready
demonstration as such*1,
is the testimony man needs. It has not suddenly arisen, nor is it without the
personal confirmation of Jesus Christ and history since, according to His and
its word. If, like a man wrongly separated from his wife, this is the last thing
many want to hear, this in no way reduces its applicability.
Man is accountable. Jesus confirmed that fact in
John 3:15-19,36 for example. God has rendered account either in the death which
is the due reward of sin (Romans 6:23) or in His Son's death, that of His Eternal
Word sent as man, incarnate as Jesus
Christ. Each way is available. In the one due judgment is applicable; in the other,
dearly bought mercy is free, and it involves regeneration of life itself, back
to the form and norm, under divine care.
Neglecting the unchanging way of God makes the
accountability far greater, just as its provision shows the bountifulness of God
more amply; and again, it is here that the surmountable becomes actual for each
and any involved. It is like cross-hairs, but these are fashioned from wood, at
Calvary. There is nothing else. Nothing else is needed, for here is the way to
the resurrection, the power of God and the peace past all understanding.
Chapter 2 turns to the Singular Stereotype, above all, for all, received by
some, transformational for anyone ON HIS TERMS, while Bible study in Christian
orientation appears in following Chapters for Isaiah 34, Acts 13 and Paul's
orientation lesson, perspectives after Sodom and Gomorrah, followed by such
orientive work in predictive Psalms: 22, the greatest graphic of all time, 37,
40-46 inclusive, 49-50, 72 and 17.
For false perspective by contrast, we turn to Islam
with its new-look, old deception placards for Adelaide, and then at the last, to
evolutionary fables with their antique presentations in modern dress, in a
contrast to reality. Here is found the abundant brilliance of creative logical
fabric in our bodies, of its function in our minds, and its scope on
display in our universe, which all fits into one creation volume, with highly
diverse parts, and warnings from the invasion detection unit, based in the
Bible, alerting us to the cost of folly, made more manifest by the ignored
payment of Christ, free for faith, ultimate in grace. Its cost to Him is the
measure of the account for us, if anyone should will autonomy instead.
CCI
August 2011
ISBN 978-0-9871661-2-8
The Word and
Wisdom of God and the Ways of Man
In this work, it is intended that
various applications of the word of God and of His enshrined wisdom in it be
made amid the manners, modes and ways of man, in order that some might find
their way out of the puzzle resulting from darkness where the light is turned
off, and obscurity where clarity is not commissioned.
It is also sought that some may
find in the Lord, that magnificence which is His, instead of living on the
borders of darkness, staring watchfully at the pit and calling it history, or
necessity or some other name beside that appointed and divinely apportioned,
however pointed may be the results of error. By its very nature, this provides
scope for those reviews which can promote perspective and understanding whether
on a large or a smaller scale.
CCII
September 2011
ISBN 978-0-9871661-3-5
More recent news, including
fascinating changes in both Libya and Turkey for biblical prophecy, make it
sound to
change
the title of the first four News Sections in News 1, News 2,
News 3 and News 4,
from
ISRAEL BLOWS THE TRUMPET BUT YET
IT DOES NOT HEAR!
to what is applicable in parallel:
GOD
BLOWS THE TRUMPET BUT WHO IS LISTENING!
The poignancy in the title for the
four sections of news, is that even though Israel is the one to be delivered,
the one assaulted, victimised, hated (by those often far less impressive as
nations in thought, scholarship, understanding, level of research and
development), and is a major people in the mind of God to extricate and defend,
YET she does not hear. That is, she does not hear, as a nation. It is like
someone, in a way, with a vast estate made available by a will, who is in great
difficulties, but who never collects it. Certainly, this being a basically
spiritual relationship, it can be collected only by faith, but what is that ?
Do not people have mischievous or
well-directed faith in vast numbers ? Is it difficult to conceive believing in
what is in any case demonstrable (cf. SMR,
TMR,
Light Dwells with the
Lord's Christ, Who Answers Riddles and Where He is, Darkness
Departs!). Yet Israel, with the wolves baying about her little cottage on
the sea shore, seeking her capital as more bones, in part or to internationalise
it, she does not hear.
Of course she will (Zechariah 12:10
pursues her case after she is once more re-established in her land, and moving
on to 13:1 shows what is to be when Christ comes into the land by His Spirit
once more, in marvellous power and presence). She will listen. She will heed.
The time is near. In the MEANTIME, how she suffers. This is a portend for those
who molest her, even if with honeyed words. Their time is likewise foretold to
come. Currently, however, many grasp for the opportunity to level their
presumptuous thoughts against both God and man, and HANDLE this Israel.
Now therefore the point is being
made, in this News Section with both Iran and Turkey taking to baying
vociferously, and the Madrid Quartet still putting on their surgical gloves for
the further dismemberment of the tiny residue from the spoils of Palestine,
largely given to Jordan with more offered back by Israel earlier, that it is
hard to find ANYONE listening. To what ?
Where are the nations listening to
the word of God, of truth, of equity ? It is not only individuals alas, but
nations which can grow so voracious in appetite, impetuous in lust (whether for
peace at any price or oil, or prestige or survival or significance, or their
world view or their place in the nations, or their strategic overview), that
justice appears a mere relic, dropping like saliva from the dripping lips (as it
is shown in the late developments sketched before the Messiah comes to rule, in
Isaiah 59:6-20). It may not APPEAR so to those who act as if to
appease the oil rich with another kind of oil, and clamour for acceptance by
Islam, despite its utter assault on Jesus Christ, on the Bible, fllaming without
rational basis (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4, SMR pp.1080 and indexes).
It may SEEM that peace is the real
objective as they assist the molesting but rebuffed Moslem nations which have
repeatedly assaulted the relic of land called Israel, that abortion which is all
that is left of the far larger scope of the League of Nations and British offer
to Israel toward and at the end of the First World War. The case however is not
factually sustainable. Peace is not obtained by helping people to smother a
smaller person, or to manacle a nation beyond all hope of release by any human
means, not only harassing what now belongs to the land, but in many cases,
helping those who seek to reduce it and the people, or even destroy them, as in
the case of Iran now and Nasser earlier, along with such as Hitler. Why revolt
at fact ?
If Israel seeks to defend herself
from further ravishment by invaders, is this warlike then ? If she grows at
times weary of being bombarded, youth and age, yes and children due fodder for
the jaws of the nations, and counter-attacks, is this amazing ? If she then
withdraws and seeks peace, THAT is amazing, and commendable. If some in the
assaults on her have been incommoded, is this surprising ? Were not the Jews in
countries other than Israel when the UN failed to defend Israel in the 1948
genocide attempt, also incommoded! Did they not also have to leave!
Is it to become a new rule that when
Japan seeks to invade, anything she suffers must be remade if she does not win ?
or Germany ? or Russia with Poland, or anyone with a victim ? Is it to pay ?
Is the assassin really the victim,
then, and are those nations making war to be recompensed so that they may make
it again; and are invading nations to be given scope by international treaties,
to thrust more of their people into their erstwhile prey, so that they can vote
a people out of its own land!
Is reason a hostage to lust, and
truth to desire ?
God however has for some thousands
of years foretold this type of thing for Israel, and the coming assault, just as
He correctly foretold the nature of the 1948 war and the division of Jerusalem
as in the line of events leading to Christ's coming to rule, in Zechariah 12. He
foretold what they would do to Christ and what the nations would do to them,
right down to the death date of the Messiah (Christ the Citadel...
Ch. 2), and their dispersion,
and their return.
However, if man wants to try
God, as Pharaoh did, then the case is not unknown. It is for the foolish nations
interfering precisely in the way against which they were warned in Zechariah 12,
that one has pity, as they pit their wits against the Almighty! This is no
figure of speech. It has been fearfully sad for Israel and it will be grievously
sad for them. But man loves to parade his gifts to the moon (or now to Mars),
while abusing them (Psalm 115), and ignoring the word of God. Since we are even
manufactured by it (in the DNA, as written in commands), this is a gravely
misled action, so that those involved are even forsaking not only their own
mercy, but dividing themselves against the word of Him whose word even gives
them and all of us, our being!
Hence it is well to continue giving
eye to developments. It is better to bring it to heart, and best of all to seek
the Lord, whether Jew or not, for in the end, all things will be gathered up not
in Judaism or Islam or any other thing that stops short of the Lord, but in
Jesus Christ the Lord (Ephesians 1:10). Trying to force it all to add up in the
UN or in the Quartet or in the interests of prosperity in oil, or non-violence
from terrorists, partial things positive or negative, it is like trying to force
a fat foot into a narrow shoe.
GOD HAS MADE IT NARROW. The way IS
narrow (Matthew 7:15), and the word of God has specifications. Those who put
their foot in it, in the narrow shoe, whilst it is swollen with the thrust of
pride, merely embarrass themselves, even as they harass Israel or ANY
OTHER FEATURE on which God has spoken, whether it be false religion or pride or
swanky self-assurance of a withering lack of humility and a vacancy where a
humble and a contrite heart should be.
The signals are many, the progress
is great towards that glorious day of the Lord's return, to act after the
conflict with that grace that is Christ's (cf. Psalm 72); and the events pile up
like road signs! (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5).
There is no necessity, but only the shame and the sham of sin, which prevents
the return to the Lord, to His word, witness and ways, in repentance,
reconciliation and faith, to regeneration and adoption as His own children
(Ephesians 1, Acts 2). There are no further options, just as there are none to
acquire a new body before the resurrection. If one insists on ruining what is
given, be it body or directions, then that is like flying into a volcano. You do
not HAVE to do so! It is far better not.
It is not just that this is hot, and
devastating when at last you manage to get there; for your flying machine
is made by the Master craftsman, and it has specifications apt for
it. ONE of these is to keep in touch with both the manufacturer and the
airport, the service manager and the Saviour from disrepair and disruption.
Appointments are readily available (Isaiah 55), and results are as required
(Titus 3:3-7). Mercifully, the cost is in coming, to pride and self-sufficiency,
to sin and lure alike, but the kindness is found continual when relationships
are restored, redemption is paid and the case is covered in the way the Bible
has specified for many generations and several millenia.
It is considered that this
collection of news items, taken in chronological order, may give some
sense of progress in regression, that is the development of misled national,
international, racial or anti-Semitic movements in the past 8 years. These news
items all
have appeared, here and there, scattered in the NEWS listings on
this site. For development, we start at the oldest item and progress to
the latest, a movement in 17 Chapters. This then follows on from the four
sections of News Items in Volume 1.
It moves to the more recent, then,
starting in this Volume, at 2003.
CCIII
October 2011
TTHE GREAT DIVIDE
ISBN 978-0-9871661-4-2
The Great
Dividing Range starts North East of Melbourne and proceeds on to New South
Wales, a vast chain, disclosing from its height, the disjoined spaces on either
side of it.
A "DIVIDE", Webster's
DIctionary tells us, is a ridge separating lower-lying lands.
There is a Great
Spiritual Divide which is high, lofty to the clouds, and which separates, down
to the lowest depths, what is on either side, and the ridge is the Cross of
Jesus Christ, the clouds are the divine intelligence which instituted it in the
formation of the spiritual lines for man, and the depths are jagged beyond the
uttermost this earth has to offer, on the side where the spiritual sun never
reaches, whereas where one may come to the height, there is glory in the
foothills, and a cascade at the summit approach, so that every pilgrim which
reaches it, is washed, and ennobled, indeed, there is a regenerative surge which
changes even to the heart.
Beyond it is mere
decline to dark depths, for the fatuous and the infatuated; but it is in the
approach that the problem lies. If there is sunshine on the way to it, there are
ravines, each provided with its own shute to the lower regions; and ferocious
beasts, which use the sunlight to devour the more readily (Acts 20:29, I Peter
5:9), and there are merchants who seek to help you on your way, though it is to
their own back doors, where they first strip you of funds, and then assault and
dump you in their own private chutes the ready ravine.
But there is a way
and it never misses, straight as the rail which stretches to the sublimity of
distance in the desert, glowing with light. It has stations. There is the
station of Repentance, though there is no train. You have to walk to it, and
find it for yourself; though the light makes it very evident to those who travel
it. Next comes that of faith, which is very hard to find, though its access is
easy, as simple as trust. But no one ever indeed finds it till lifting the eyes
to the top of the Ridge of the Divide, they see the Cross; for most take an
alternative route, which is very well supplied, going downwards, for they
reason, if God supplies it, it has got to be easy.
Many admire the Cross
and deciding that experience is all, leave the way and set about their own lives
as one's who have visited Venice or some such place. They have made the effort
so what more remains ?
Others however find
that in this heart's journey, you have to discern its meaning, and when it comes
into their line of sight, and they are near enough to see it clearly, the ponder
it, amid repentance, directing their trust to the Just One (Acts 3), who once
was crucified upon it, and some find then that faith descends like the lovely
mist of a giant waterfall, and their eyes being cleansed, they see the format of
salvation, the Just for the unjust, to bring us to God, and laying hold by faith
on this same Christ, they find suddenly that the entire mountain which had
seemed so insuperable, flames with a setting sun fire, and the skies become
glorious, and they are moved to faith in this crucified Saviour, appointed
Saviour of all sinners, but especially of those who believe, for in them only
does the result come; for faith conveys things near from those afar, and sin is
moved to Him who died and righteousness from Him, like a vast torrent.
In its turbulence,
the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit (Titus 3), comes
life, and in its transformative assault comes peace, pardon and the principles
of life, the law of the Spirit (Romans 8:2), and then suddenly, the whole
landscape changes, and what had seemed fit only for athletes, becomes in the
light of the cross of Christ, the very way of life, and one finds a service
badge is affixed to one's pilgrim's clothes, so that one may call at any time on
the resurrected Christ Jesus for resolution of problems, power for service and
understanding for heart.
In this volume, THE
GREAT DIVIDE, you will find some relationship to the
Ch. 6
of the volume Dizzy Dashes, Heady Clashes and the Brilliant Harmony of
Inevitable Truth, and much to this world on the one hand, and especially the
incline to the cross of Christ, through which (Galatians 6:14), one becomes
crucified to this world and this world to oneself, and in this acceptance, one
may sit in heavenly places, as birds which can soar, and find the spiritual
perspectives necessary for life with the Lord, and in His service.
As to the other side,
some reach it sooner, evacuating from the sunny incline, while other ply their
spiritual trades of deception, on this side, charging freight for the shutes to
the nether regions, though they have little enough attraction when you arrive.
Indeed, many never
begin the ascent, because they are born as are we all, on the other side, and it
is only when light penetrates, like that through a tunnel, that any even look up
to see a way to the base itself, through a narrow tunnel, which is open only
from one side, so that they so much as see that there is something to be seen,
and a place where reality begins and dreams are exposed.
CCIV
November 2011
CHRIST NOT CULTURE,
THE LORD NOT MAN,
TRUTH NOT MERE INTRACTABILITY
The Way to Glory, Majesty and
Goodness
ISBN 978-0-9871661-5-9
As the end of human passions
masquerading with aplomb, human will endlessly congratulating itself, human
sovereignties constantly glorifying themselves, draws near, it is well to
reflect.
There is much to consider and
cover, as there arise with force, many particular issues which illustrate
the direction, direness and devastation which comes with this stain on human
glory, its love of being by itself, for itself, with additives to taste.
To forget your basis while adding salt and pepper is as inane as eating a steak
that is not there, but not forgetting the condiments.
With this, then, we seek
to warn, to help, to encourage hope and to bring those who seek, to faith in the
living God, leading to the inherent joy of truth amid the recklessness,
fecklessness and heedless gallop off course, into the meaningless distance, of
the human spirit.
In this, we move through issues from
freedom of speech, the dumb priest in Luke, the nature of the Lord on earth and
His deeds, to the imprecatory Psalms on the one hand, and the lessons of
biblical history especially in the two great reforming Kings, Hezekiah and
Josiah. Appendices include the multicultural machination, needing careful
oversight.
CCV
December 2011
The Splendour
of the Biblical Coverage of the
Meaning and Matrix of Man
ISBN 978-0-9871661-6-6
What is the MATRIX of man ? It
is all that most deeply and essentially is his lot, post, position, being, scope
and meaning. What is so splendid about the scope of the splendour of the divine
coverage of these things in the Bible ? It is manifold, and this book has
this as topic; but manifestly at the very outset, it has a vast array of
subjects, surveyed in depth, covered categorically, endued with meaning,
provided with method, and since freedom is one of these - not autonomy - there
is a depth in the coverage.
As to this, it is sublime, but only
because the One who made this freedom did it so very well. It is not the
freedom of gods, who imagine they are total beings at large, and find they are
not; nor is it yet the freedom of serfs, allowed to do what they are told in
return for a dubious protection or a specious provision. It is the freedom of a
being created in the image of the One whose freedom is autonomous, but not in
the bad sense that this term evokes when applied to man's mental mischiefs for
himself. When the One IS the creator and maintainer and sovereign and Lord, then
being autonomous is merely an objective description of who He is.
If it were not for His love, the
freedom would not, for my part at least, amount to much. Some might find
it better; but what is the value of being free to choose, unless choice includes
what is worth having ? And what is the value, even at that, if the word of the
offeror, here deity, is not reliable. A wonderful flight over the Pacific on
promise, is one thing; but if it is neither wonderful nor over the Pacific,
deceit merely makes mockery of offer, and hence of liberty.
Why is love so important ? It
is for these reasons, amid many more. First, if you are not loved, what
are you at ? Do you want to strive with incalculable forces all your life, in
order to show what a fine macho figure you cut, or what a devious entrepreneur
of life, you have become ? What is the good of that ? What good is survival in
itself ? let alone in order to satiate pride! You say, I have got much! So be
it, but of what ? of a life which ends amid pain and weakness, of a respect
which worms consume, of a daring profile which passes with the sweeping of the
dust on the desolate lands of your interment ? and if not literally, then
figuratively. Gladly does one leave that to those who choose such sudden,
intrusive, incursive thrust to cut down the poppies, and sever the flowers.
Besides that, what ARE the flowers, which parade their power, seek their
respectability and pride themselves on the good reason others have for
conferring it, or on their own prowess whether in deceit, pretence or
pretension, obscure cunning or manipulative success ? These are no flowers but
parasites for psychic self-aggrandisement or social accretions!
Loveless, you are merely a parade.
If however you HAVE love, that is, see clearly the need to be willing to
sacrifice yourself for whatever is your duty or responsibility, then it has a
cause and a basis. Everything does, except the false models which deny it,
though at that, their domain is mere imagination.
Love, like loveliness, has a basis.
It is incalculable, ultimate, and seen throughout nature in multitudes of
parental provisions for their young, care, concern and quest. It is found in
many martyrs, and above all in Jesus Christ, whose whole mission of
self-revelation of God, not merely in words, but in deeds practical and perfect,
prompted by this very love, displayed the sovereign's character who has created
us all, and with us, the environment of terms, whether protoplasmic, purposive,
positive or negative, mental, psychic, moral, spiritual, in which we work,
whether to affirm or deny, to distort or discern. Nothing comes from nothing,
and what comes does so for a reason.
Love makes life wonderful. There is
a depth beyond mere living which is its base, a meaning which is its point, a
willingness which is its attestation of the concern of the Creator, on the one
side, as there is likewise a discipline and a disorder which is the attestation
of things awry, whether this be so personally or nationally, or generically for
mankind. Moreover, there is wisdom far surpassing our own which has limits so
obvious when you compare DNA and our best achievements, and limping efforts to
copy some for of the exquisite technical feats with which nature is festooned in
its creation by a power as unseen by us as is for each his or her own mind, and
as immaterial as are our perspectives and deliberations.
Love makes liberty meaningful,
valuable, enticing if not entrancing, deep and challenging, hopeful and
reasonable. Liberty makes the field personal, with a virtually infinite variety
of uses for it. Together these supply a world of vast scope, and it is this
scope which the Bible provides in a measure so powerful, broad and yet acutely
pointed, which makes one part of its splendour. Time and space are its domain,
and the architect behind their architecture, fashioning the fashionable after
making it, and granting the psyche of man its reflective and purposive part amid
the rest, even the power to reason on demand, to relish and evaluate, and to
seek values where they may not be found, as is most usual, or where they are,
which does not change, this being but one of the aspects of the
Creator-Redeemer, who having made time, for Himself, like those who find His
redemption, is everlasting.
Love does not stifle truth, but
rejoices in it; for without truth, horror has no hiatus. Sleeping where waking
is required is as sensible spiritually as it is to do so when watching on a
merchant ship, for danger from torpedoes. Faith is not another name for
inaction, but for what gears action; but it rests in the Lord, and does not seek
to take over because of fear. Yet the fear of the Lord remains clear forever, a
wholesome fear, not terror, for in Him only is there the immovable Rock which
does not falter, the indelible doctrine which does not alter and the unswerving
reliability in which one rests as a bird in its nest; and no wind can shake this
one!
CCVI
February 2012
TEDIOUS TORTURERS, TEPID TRIFLERS OR
THE
TRIUMPH OF TRUTH
ISBN 978-0-9871661-7-3
This volume is broad in coverage of
this theme,
from liberty to creation to resurrection,
to Canberra's strife and Constitutional change.
Truth will surely
triumph. It is not because such is man's inherent goodness that it could not do
anything less in such a harbour of felicity. Far from it; for if there ever were
any discordant diligence to found a lie, establish an illusion, declare a
deceit, trifle with reality, assert by passion what pride invents, in mankind's
history it is diligently represented! it carries examples and proliferations that abound like mice in a mouse
plague.
It is because it
is all made, the world and man. Nothing is no sound foundation for anything and
it is the only honest option to something, always there, always adequate, for
inadequacy by definition can never secure the outcome in view. Eternal deity is
the only reason why truth will surely triumph, and as denial of it is denial of
His actions or speech or both, those guilty of this cannot prevail, being
dependent on Him for Being, on Him who made time and before whom the end is
clear from the beginning.
Further, only
He COULD even know the truth, as the genuine source of cognition and creation,
absolute and not confined to relativistic interactions, and what He declares is
in need of no further validation, though as truth, He invites comparison
and demands testing (Isaiah 41, 43, 48, I Thessalonians 5:21). There is nothing
empirically or logically approaching His level.
As shown in SMR,
logically the self-declaring God of the Bible has no competitors, while the lie,
denial of what He has done, said or knows, would be merely to deny Himself
as the proponent of all things, (as in Barbs ...
6 -7, Sparkling Life ... Ch.
4), or to create an obstruction to that truth which He constitutes. Indeed,
His actions constitute truth and He is not in a limiting environment, since He
is the identified eternal adequacy, absolute and not relative, the spiritual
sufficiency for the matrix and motives of man and creation, so that what He says
and does is unmolestable truth and concordant so that any competitive source of
reality contrary to His word and deed, if from Him, would be self-confrontation
in the Almighty merely showing such a one would NOT BE almighty. If that were
possible for such as He, the divergencies would be mutually devastating - though
really that would be another being than God since any limits deny Him.
Fulfilling the
verifying and validating requirements of reason (REASON, REVELATION and the REDEEMER),
His word stands, and He mocks at invasion and overthrow as in Psalm 2. We
however have a task, to show in this volume something of the tepid trifling,
exposing it, which rises up to deny Him, things which lead on readily enough to
tedious torturing, as truth is twisted into grotesque shapes and cultures into
weird residues, like cups of cold coffee dregs, with discarded straws left in
them.
CCVII
February 2012
THE TIME IS COMING
AND THE OPPORTUNITY IS GOING
ISBN 978-0-9871661-8-0
Time can be extraordinarily kind,
or manifestly impactive. It is not for man to dictate the conditions. It is for
him to respond.
You can never regret not taking
an opportunity that is not there. You may regret indeed not discerning it, or
seeking it out, or being too pre-occupied with things of minimal importance, to
look up and on, and find your place. You may have a career for which you live,
but ignore the career you have beyond this or beyond that series of works which
you perform. You may be pre-occupied with what you do and ignore what you are,
except in the interests of pride or satisfaction.
As in other works, and ways, it
is not entirely in your own hands. You have principles which you may adopt, ways
of accounting, methods of hiring personnel or regarding potential employers.
These give a certain quality to your work, and type to your actions. When
however the question is not how you relate to what you do, but how you relate as
a being before God, where motive, method, mind, the imaginations of your heart
and the character of your spirit ARE the whole topic, then it is unwise to
ignore this.
That would be like being
pre-occupied with tyre-pressure and state, in a car, and ignoring the steering
relative to the environment. The final environment of man is God, just as the
first creation of man is from God and the final destiny is with or without Him,
as friend, Father and Shepherd.
Opportunities are not found in
the Classified section of newspapers. That is for time. What however of eternity
? Here they are found in the word of God, not of man, in the work of God, not of
man, in the wisdom of God, not of man. There is the perpetual opportunity, till
the due date arrives for judgment. As to that, the time is coming; as to
deliverance from blindness and wilful ignorance on that topic, the opportunity
is going.
In this volume, this is the
theme, and its impacts and results, causes and conditions are in view.
CCVIII
March 2012
NOT ONLY IS GOD GREAT BUT GLORIOUST
ISBN 978-0-9871661-9-7
Often you hear of crowds of excited
people shouting that God is great. He is.
Less often do you find on the news
depictions of people shouting, God is not only great, but glorious.
The one is common Islamic talk; the
other is basic Christian doctrine.
God is not only great and powerful
and final, author and judge, but He is far more than that. He has a being
in character so glorious, so kind, compassionate, pardoning and yet just and
true, that not only is He available to be known by man, rather than existing in
some isolate seeming position, He came to man and showed Himself to man in Jesus
Christ. He gave Himself for us, saved those who believe and will do so till
judgment come, and would have ALL come to Him. Such is His glorious wonder that
since nothing is too hard for the Lord, there is no mere assorting of good and
evil, for with God evil has NO place, and there is no fail for a 49% life,
regrettably not quite making the grade, but a pass for each and any who puts
faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ, His incarnate Person, His triumph
physically over death and His power to control all things on this earth. Yet it
is not without freedom, and HENCE, without responsibility.
There is no question of being unsure
what God will do, and just hoping (John 5:11-12). God HAS acted, and works do
not pile up while the disposition is secret anyway, a frustrating
combination. Rather works are an outward expression of an inward faith by which
God's grace, gift of eternal life (Romans 6:23, 5:15), indeed of His OWN
righteousness is made. One can therefore REST in Him in the knowledge of His
eternal redemption (Hebrews 9:12), as one of His sheep, of which HE is the
indefatigable Shepherd (John 10:9,27-28).
In pursuit of this gloriousness of
God, this signature of His own holiness, we see with relish and realism that
Jesus Christ, the final word (Hebrews 1), as the first (John 1), the first and
the last (Isaiah 44:6, Revelation 2:8-9), the Author and finisher of faith, and
rejoice that more could not be given, less would not be sufficient, that He is
the Saviour of all men, especially of those who believe, in whom salvation is
consummate, just as the Saviour consummated it in Himself (Hebrews 10:10-14).
Divorcing inferior or inadequate
positions from the truth of God is important. It is as if someone joined BHP and
asked where he did his work, replied, in a great company. But there are
many great companies. It is unclear. It could involve torture and
sedition, subversion, or brilliance and benevolence. Greatness is nothing
without characterisability. What SORT of greatness did you have in mind ?
Great crusades to crush and to kill, and to rule ? The earth as your universal
throne, all subject to you ? Or is it God as your worship, His love and grace as
your rule, His judgment as the reality to be avoided, helping others to do the
same, His salvation to be freely found, without duress of any kind, but through
information on our part, and the action of God as He will.
Here is life without intemperance,
truth without terror. If there be terror, it is something from which to deliver,
not to impose (II Corinthians 5:9-11). Here lies grace, not diplomatic
deviousness, and here is not a desire to triumph over all, but that sin triumph
over none. Yet if it must be so, and many prefer darkness to the light of the
Lord, they answer to God, not to us. The world is not sought for conflagration
by clever outwitting of others, but for deliverance as a site, for many, freely
sought, where salvation is freely wrought, by the power of God who, knowing all
and each one, misses none. Faith need not fidget, though thousands of Christians
are reported slain each year for their faith; it serves God, not only
great, but glorious. It serves Christ, not only Commander, but Saviour. It moves
with Him, not only the truth, but the power of God and the wisdom of God, the
life beyond life and its author, breacher of death, donor of immortality.
This work is intended differentially
to feature the special features of God, amid many false prophets and dead
on arrival denizens of culture without hope, life without vitality,
self-sufficiency without ground. The deceptiveness of Satan and the
generic position of humanity without Christ mean that those subverted cannot
rationally be held in contempt, but in pity; the contempt is for the errors that
seize them, as biblically shown so often and so strongly. What doctor would not
deplore disease, and be confused with having contempt for the patient because
adverse to, contrary against and seeking to overcome the infection and hence the
disease infiltration!
CCIX
April 2012
ISBN 978-0-9873360-0-2
PROSPECT,
RETROSPECT AND REALITY
The world has been a round a long
time, even to thousands of years, as many criteria attest (cf. TMR
Ch. 7). In
its whorls and whirls of history, it has spawned various civilisations, and now
a multitude of nations. Some of these seem disposed to give a legal
licence to kill with seemingly unwitting flair for blood, some for revenge, some
for aspiration, some for conquest, some for order, some for wealth, some
for inveterate, cold, calculating hegemony, leadership, intimidation of others.
Australia has its own niche, and
some elements of concern are considered in this volume; but far from a
dissertation on this land, it is, rather on a spiritual spread of what is now
inclined to COME, or predicted to come, with much in alliance in these two
fields, as we look as what has ALREADY come, more with the eyes of wonder, so
that retrospect and prospect are paired; but this pair, with all its tones and
undertones, is assessable in reality only when this is available. Mercifully as
shown in SMR and elsewhere, it is, and not only so, the deity who is the
demonstrable source of creation, of which each reader is a part, other than the
Lord Himself, has not only
been willing to speak to the nations made up from DNA at the physical level, in
divinely directed speech (cf. Not only is God Great, but Glorious
... Ch. 5,
Epilogue),
but to do this free from all hiding, having spoken, declared, itemised and
exhibited His ways, nature, requirements for peace, love, majesty,
purpose with man, and remedy for man in ways most manifest, terms manifold and
criteria specific.
This being so, we are enabled, in a
rather specialised manner, to apply in the midst of the retrospection and
prospects, the realities of the case, the word of God, and seeing this
perspective, as from the ultimate of all professors, and beyond that to
infinity, revel in more than the passing parades and interfaces, relationships
and relativities that abound on this earth: in fact, to delight in the
actualities and find both peace and empowerment for wise living from this
source, OUR source, whether we like it or not.
God is like that. He spoke
and it was done (that is why godless evolution is so much argued - it is never
found, nor even is information's categorical creation without
intelligence (cf.
Ch. 5
above). But why is it argued if it is never found, nor its evidence equal to
that for creation, then ? It is because of the retrospect: man
was made by the One with whom he increasingly has little to do. He does not want
reminder. The human mind can be tilted against truth very easily, as
many trial difficulties at law exhibit.
Prospects are normally argued
against, when prejudice with propulsion is involved, so that all
these negative things can in this way, from the word of God, be seen not just in
the foistings of culture, or the hopes of surrealism, of which we are currently
receiving quite a significant dose in Australian politics, from the clayey
aspects of the past and the
far more contravening present as the future surges ashore in the earth. They can be reviewed
also in terms
of what has never been contravened in its truth: the word of God, the Bible.
This is like having an afternoon
sun, near dinner time, shining in sudden strength and lighting up in
yellow and red overtones, the reflective surfaces of the garden or the city. It
is refreshing, invigorating, vitalising and pleasant. It is pleasant
indeed to know the truth, and great to have been told. It is however, always
necessary to read it, digest it, apply it, and with the blessing of the
Almighty, try it out! He has nothing to fear over the tempestuous millenia. He
is beyond time, and invented it with us in it, and surveys it all past its
portals, as one sees a map, a sight from a high air-craft.
Time is a mere page in the book; and knowledge has no barriers with Him.
It is good to do such things as the
world is failing to insulate itself from catastrophe, and its ways are shown
clearly in the Bible, as a compulsion as the Age comes near its crisping up time
in the oven of history. Things can become both exciting and calamitous. It is
well to be prepared, not only for this and that, but in heart and spirit and
mind, as is an athlete for his races, or a solider for his battles. Even the
scouts can tell you that: BE PREPARED. Moreover, don't let events like
shock waves, envelop you; but know the Lord of history, before our Age itself is
past history. God has prepared this good thing also, His word, and this wonder,
His salvation, the incarnate, crucified, bodily resurrected Saviour,
irruption into time, corrector of corruption, author of creation, grant of
eternal life: its reception is far more
important than a good education, career, salary, name or honour.
Dereliction may be desired; but it
is not so good when it ... happens.
CCX
May 2012
AGITATION, COGITATION, ASPIRATION AND
CONCLUSION
ISBN 978-0-9873360-2-6
Agitation is another name for
the phenomenon of "men's hearts failing them for
fear" (Luke 21:26), and the allied processes of frustration,
bitterness, belligerence, bucolic violence, which are now
almost as closely associated with much of this present world as are drunkenness,
drunks, indulgence and a hopelessness towards happenstance, found in the
remnants of drug use, whatever the style of drug in mind. It also
covers the seeking for meaning, the confrontation with evidence, the acid-washed
hearts that are bare in parts only, and tending to be thread-bare,
together with the solemn seeking which is intent on being sincere, through many
perils.
Cogitation is the power to reason,
doing pitched battle with mere prejudice and convenience, seeking
truth without care for the results, if only it be found, and the results of this
as in SMR,
TMR and
Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, for example. Aspiration deals with the genuine
desire, as exemplified in the early section of The Heavenly Man, with
Brother Yun, that will not be satisfied without the word of the God who made us
with His own words, and has exhibited these not only in our very construction,
but testably and reliably in the Bible.
Conclusion deals with the
fact that there is no room for doubt, though plenty for pout; and though the
'natural man', man without God who made him, spouts spirited calls to
deviationism, these do nothing to reduce the finality of the conclusion. This in
turn enables inclusion; or not. It is a magnificent spectacle, God with
ample and to spare, man with resistance seeking freedom from
ANYTHING except what binds him to irrational thought, capacity for
capers, and a remedy-less recklessness which has appeal to very many. As
however in the case of the Titanic, being bound to an imperious mob, or
master, with a hard-driving Captain, does not reduce the poignancy of the
togetherness as this ship goes down.
The Titanic illustrated what the
titans of this Age activate: in the end, it all sinks. You need
not something man makes, as if it were unsinkable: you need the God who
made the oceans - and you. Mercifully, He has made a way of access,
not over the rocks, but to one Rock, refuge, redeemer and deliverer.
It is enough. There is no bifurcation. God knows and says exactly what He means,
whether speaking the DNA or the doctrine, which includes the reality of remedy.
God does not dither: it is one, as He is, Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today, forever.
So vast is the alienation (as
seen in Ephesians 2, 4:17-19, Romans 1:17ff., 5:1-12), that many images
and angles of access to these things help, as in the day of Hosea
(Hosea 12:10); but that to which the help points is just the same
(Galatians 6:14, Hosea 13:14): one God with one resolution, one word for
rejection or ingestion, one truth, one command to all to repent (Luke
13:1-3, Acts 17:30), one crucifixion for sin, one resurrection of the self-same
body (I Corinthians 15), in its new heightened state, so that it would not rot,
as foretold (Psalm 16), one singular sending of the Holy Spirit (Luke 24),
often bringing breezes of revival as forecast in Acts 3:19ff., and sending
prongs of peace to those whom He finds, one Saviour who once paid the cost
for our loss (Hebrews 9-10), one liberty in the God of our creation (II
Corinthians 3:17), through the action of His redemption (Matthew 20:28), one
peace, one joy, manifold in mood, vital in spirit, dispensed to His saved ones,
and irremovable by man! (John 16:22).
Pondering such things in the milieu
of rebellion and turmoil, the cauldron of outreach and deliverance, is a
contribution, for billions are lost, and many have somewhat
different initial needs and appetites. May the Lord bless those who seek, and
help to find Him, those who seek with all their hearts (Jeremiah
29:13).
CCXI
July 2012
THE ORIGINAL AND EVENTUAL
MAGNIFICENCE
ISBN 978-0-9873360-2-2
God is not
going anywhere; He is. His word is not going anywhere, except into total
fulfilment.
His morals are not about to change their address to another suburb of human
aspiration; they are His own. His works do not falter; they continue according
to promise, and each promise is a premiss to the Christian, just
as the laws of physics are to the physicist.
The promises,
however, excel those laws: for these change as did Newton's in being qualified
at certain limits; but there is never any qualification to the laws of God.
They continue more fixed than the stars, certain than the directions of the
magnetic compass, for these though useful, can change somewhat,
but the laws of the Lord do no about face, bear no qualification, have both
their own quality and qualifications.
When He
withdraws the current address of the cosmos, and the current establishment of
the universe as in Matthew 24:35, II Peter 3, Isaiah 51:6, He will not change
(Psalm 102:25-28). What does it say ?
"Of old you laid the
foundation of the earth,
And the heavens are the work of Your hands.
They will perish, but You will endure;
Yes, they will all grow
old like a garment;
Like a cloak You will change them,
And they will be changed.
But You are the
same, And your years will have no end.
The children of Your
servants will continue,
And their descendants will be established before You."
He is subject
to nothing, not in the sense that a thing called nothing rules Him, the
assumed dither of the naturalists, which is so pregnant though it has no
womb, or else it underlies their errant thoughts: but in the reality that
knows no bounds. For Him, there is neither force, nor mass, nor energy, nor
space, nor time, nor lofty thought not abased terrorism nor financial
limitation nor actualities under review by higher authority over Him. There IS
no higher authority. Without His eternal power, energy, capacities and
Being, nothing delimited or contained, qualified or arranged can exist;
before anything you have to have capacity or else nothing will
always be the case.
His is the
magnificence before time, that made time, that planted space, that
arranged laws, that set the limits of variation about kind, which
we now find enmeshed in the innovative splendour of the thousands upon
thousands of DNA commands, set in at least three layers,
interactive, with supervisory capacities automated into the matrix, not as in
a car, so that it can go merely, but so that this one can, to follow the
image, organise new cars, without intervention anew from the factory. He has
made what is in itself a factory, making actions possible, a
functional mind, making thoughts possible, an innovative spirit,
making decisions possible; and within that factory He has set up the
power to procreate more, making of one a potential relative to more of the
same, as if your most recent TVs were products of former ones extending back
for thousands of years.
His is the
magnificent splendour and the inherent majesty (Psalm 145:12), after the
time of this world and creation expires (Matthew 24:35), and His is the
artistry unlimited (Psalm 145:3), with none to demean it forever, so that a
new creation is the term used of those who receive His salvation from sin
(II Cor. 5:17), a new heavens and earth the destination of His planning
(Revelation 20:11, 21:1, II Peter 3:13), and a new heart and mind is the
restitution He has for those whom, though their bodies
continue to age, He has prepared for place as His children.
Even now, it
is so in spirit; then in the vitality of new bodies, with the
power of the resurrection of Christ (Ephesians 1:19, II Corinthians 5:1ff.,
Romans 8:`8-23), and the unlimited authority of a Father
who loves for
His adopted children, One
dependent on
no government,
the only
ultimate and worthy Governor, by grace.
It is
He who is a Father ready for the outcast, the
failed and the befuddled, the furious and the disorderly in dynamic on
their repentance and reception of redemption in Him, by faith, so that
it is WHAT HE HAS DONE and not at all what we do, might do or have done
which is the criterion (Romans 3:23ff., Ephesians 2:1-12, Romans 10). It
is as with any unqualified gift (Romans 6:23, Titus 2 -3), not a thing you
labour to produce, but rather humble yourself to receive. It is GIVEN, not
earned. It comes by grace as does faith itself (Ephesians 2:5-8),
fitting from eternity, seeking out the recipients who take Him, known before
time (Ephesians 1:4). What the is this gift ? If it WERE earned what
perfection could create it as it will be and must be, but that of God,
that the lowering of earth might not infest, infect and cause defection even
in heaven!
But it is not
so: His is the Original and Eventual Magnificence. It does not change.
With this in
mind, it is good to relish and ponder His ways and works,
taking a fresh look at things deemed obvious, needless disquiet,
needling and confused challenges, and to see the grandeur of our
location amid the depravity of its treatment by man. It is good to see
the light that over-shines the darkness, and its eternity (John 1:1-3),
that has entered this shameful world to suffer shame that many might find a
fresh innocence, courtesy of Christ Jesus, and live abundantly in the very
presence of God. His is the divine, energy and indeed almighty power, He
its source into eternity, His, the mind and the perception, the grace
and the loveliness.
Such and
more, beyond all horizons of limits imposed or imposable, is the
manifest, eternal and replete, of the living God. It may not appear so,
any more than antiseptic appears admirable to germs; but look beyond the
floors and the flaws of sin to what is better than any Hospital: namely
the source of vitality and life and redemption and recovery,
seeking in love for mankind, one by one. Look there, unblinkered, against that
day when the agenda of test is over, the schedule of operations is
complete, the fruits of freedom misused are smelt and found
rotten, and the beauty of liberty in love, under the laws and grace of
God may be savoured to the uttermost.
So we
will seek to do.
CCXII
August 2012
AFTERBURNER, AFTERGLOW,
AFTERWARDS
ISBN 978-0-9873360-4-0
There comes a time when one must in
flight use the after-burners, when opportunity or resolve demand no superficial
concentration or means. Again, when the long trial is over, there comes a period
when the glow becomes after-glow, the nectar savoured, the survey charged with
more of the quietness of evening, though the recollections may be even more
dramatic or vivid in some cases, than the originals! There is for
the wedding, the afterwards, for the fixture the breakfast.
In this volume, topics may be
considered in such ways as these, and the first is that of consciousness which,
though given earlier attention, seems in the current milieu, to require more
overall action in development and review; and this is here given. That Chapter
is long, but more comprehensive, with things old and new.
Of what are we conscious ? and
how do we enter into our own consciousness, to what does it point, and
with what may it be adorned, or from what denuded ? Chapters 2 and 3 take
two major fields here, the one in aspiration, inspiration and conviction, the
latter in simplicity of outline and depth of divine challenge,
before life, like a sparrow, flits away from those w ho have not
valued it, and its portent. It is time to reflect.
In this volume, we move to spiritual
growth and inspiration, of which the Christian is conscious, even if purified as
time goes on, picked up when tripped, but inured with truth as a brother, yes as
a master, for Christ IS the truth. We move thus in Philippians and soaring, into
the Psalms with their depth, into the purity of obedience and its
disciplines, and level and depth of evil wrought when the slippery slopes of
spiritual sloth or confusion allow those bearing the name of Christ to
bundle it together with plain rebellion, as if it did not count. Indeed, so vast
is this fallen phenomenon of ill-conducted and calamitous cohesion with what is
plainly at war with the mastery of the Messiah and the commandments of Christ,
that some of the consequences are considered.
Far more enlivening and to be
desired, is the vivid, vital and passionate love of God, of which human
passion is but in much a pale shadow, His love not of but to this
world and His reliability for those who seek Him, and in Christ find Him,
a glory. In Him lies the conservation of the saved and the preservation of
those who have made peace (John 10:9,27-28), in a personal wonder which makes
the pretensions of godless politics, or idolatrous self-sufficient ones,
the more horrid by contrast, as we consider it in the Epilogue.
Rejoice and be thankful, then, for
if for a little while, the world is being grabbed for, by evil forces that
know no bounds to their audacity or cruelty, knowing no god but their own inner
darkness, whether or not it be inhabited by identifiable idols, yet for
ever is the eternal life given by the Lamb of God (John 1:29, 5:24). Thus when
the trials are over, the spiritual Olympics are past, all is tried and
tested, then the Creator and Redeemer, who has shown not only His hand but His
back to the strikers, Jesus Christ, has the issuance of all things (Colossians
1:12-17, 3:11, Revelation 5, Philippians 2:5-11, Ephesians 3:8-21). The tender
are tended, the afflicted are soothed and at rest, the scope of salvation is
revealed and what was seen dimly as in a glass, becomes that very prodigy of
wonder of which the creation is but a foretaste (Romans 8:17ff.).
The after-glow touches us now, at
times, in its refined and soon to be realised significance; and we rejoice
in Him even in this life, as did Simeon (Luke 2:29-32). Then when the time is
up, it will be as in Revelation 7:14ff. in its entry, with 7:11-17,
and those preferring darkness stay just where they are (7:11), and the people of
God who know and love His word, find there the consummations of Revelation
22:1-5. In Him and for Him we pardon all, long for the good of all and on Him we
wait, recipients of pardon, citizens of the kingdom of heaven (Philippians
3:20-21), our very bodies, each one, to
"be
conformed to His glorious body".
this
"according to that
working through which He is able to subdue all things to Himself."
Blessed be God who makes the trials,
is the truth and presents the peace freely, having obtained all (Hebrews 9:12,
10:10-14), done all and in His call, conferred all where His people come to Him
(I Thessalonians 5:9-10), who desires all, saves some and has put His own gift
before the giftless, His own grace before the graceless, His own pardon before
pollution, and His own power to keep even the smoking flax, so that it
flames.
CCXIII
October 2012
PILGRIMS AND STRANGERS
BUT NOT TO GOD
ISBN 978-0-9873360-5-7
Pilgrims search for what is beyond
culture, survival, nationalism, parochialism, sensationalism, experientialism,
and secularism, finding this world is not enough, is an offshoot of something
else, is not self-sufficient but self-deficient, a conglomerate of sores and
wars, beauty and bestiality, nobility and scurrility, superficiality and false
depth soundings in shimmering puddles, characterised as oceans, but unfit even
for the bathing of mice. Such is the sense used here.
They do not find this world their
home, and look for what is. They do not find the wonder self-creating, for it
never creates, not the glory self-making, for it fails to come; and yet it
beckons, and it speaks from the things that are, and yet are deformed,
defaced. Many war to find something, but it is in the end merely their own
power, as in China and in the former USSR, long bankrupt in spirit before
in more material ways.
When a pilgrim finds the answer to
the institution of what is wonderful and the feckless flack which arises to
destroy, ignore, despise or devote it to destruction if possible, by cunning
deceits, often by self-deception as the prelude, the creation and
the desecration, then the purpose of life, the provision of life, the
meaning of life and the intent for life becomes apparent. As in
mathematics, when you SEE the answer, it is all so simple, the complex becomes
clear, the intriguing becomes expounded and the mysterious becomes
apparent. That is because what is necessary has been located, what is essential
has been found past essentialisation, in reality and in truth.
Once you have found the truth, lies
becomes even more ugly, fraud more a fiasco and false gleams of mere pretext and
pretension, the worse in their gluttonous consumption of human lives, like
an aspiring maw, wanting to gobble up, lest you find God.
Pilgrims can be misguided, but
the ultimate target being sought, the finding is keeping.
Both Hebrews 11:13 and I Peter 2:11
tell us we are pilgrims and transients, We look for a city which has
foundations, for a kingdom which has the king of glory, not of the gory,
of splendour, not of subterfuge, of clarity not confusion, of power and inherent
majesty, not force.
He is not far from any one of us. We
are made for and by Him, but the entry is no mere surge of desire, far less ooze
of casual self-comfort. It is by authorised access. Many things are; with God it
is most splendidly so. Why splendid ? It is because we who are born without are
permission, and may cease on this earth in a second, without being prepared by
preceding events, find the source of such a combination of staggering
vulnerability and enormous powers, insights, understandings, capacities, freedom
to exercise will in many things, freedom to pursue understanding yes, and to
gain it, may gain access to the reason why this is so, the reality which having
all things sufficient, is able to make it so, and has so created, and have ready
access.
As for pilgrims, it is nothing
superficial. Nor is it impossible. It is not impossible because our Source knows
us, and knows how to find us. Many do not want to be found; some are found
nevertheless. We are dealing with One who knows how to deal with us. We are
given a free entry into His kingdom, which is nevertheless so searching that
many slither at the gate, some bolt back, others are pierced with arrows, more
overcome with lethargy or dreams of the joys of being excitingly meaningless,
as if the end did not count. The searching part is this: we have to remember
that not only are we pilgrims, but transients, that is those who have no fixed
address in this world, because they have one elsewhere.
This does not mean mere geographical
address, but bondage to a psychic site, a cultural chain, a partisan
participation in what holds to this earth as if it and its world system were
all. We come to pass, we pass to leave a result, we rejoice in the Lord the
Creator-Redeemer, and live now here, now there, in this realm or phase, but
never bound to it because we are bound to our Sender, our Saviour and our Lord.
Eternity is our security, and ambassadorship is our theme: we are here for a
purpose, and this world is not our home. Because our base has meaning, eternity,
omniscience, omnipotence and gives eternal life to those who find Him,
therefore we are the stability of eternity, the security of the glory of God,
expressed in the One who came so that we might go where our pilgrimage has its
consummation.
We seek a better world, a better
city, a better atmosphere, a higher life, a liberty from the merely
temporal so that IN the temporal we may be spiritual, IN the mess we may be
clean, and IN the confusion we, being made clear, may project reflected light,
that others may escape the ascending maelstrom, the listless spiritual horror
that makes world a mockery and a malady, like a combination criminal haunt
and comedy corner, where good and bad, blindness and passion, rollicking and
frolicking, extermination kits and kittens are mixed in inextricable confusion,
the great made low, and the low made mighty, as the storm surges.
The Christian has found security and
strength, meaning and mastery, that of Christ, government of spirit and of life,
understanding and mission, true purpose and fidelity where it belongs, both to
gain it from God and to give it back to Him with joy.
In such a world as this, then we are
pilgrims and strangers, we have here no settled position, and while this world
increasingly becomes intolerant of truth and God and Christ Jesus and the only
logically valid escape route, and personal deliverance road, as it
declines into multiple subversions, till the road is lower than the sea-level
and ready for ultimate immersion, we live in what it lacks, for what it refuses
and by Him whom it confuses with its own ways, rioting in rejection, immune to
correction, except by the ruin of the deceased, the agonies of the oppressed and
the taunting vaunting of the oppressors.
It will be over soon, when the
eternal basis of the temporary, the everlasting reality which made
anything possible and actual for nothing has nothing to provide, the
All-Sufficient basis to the insufficient and the copying stone to the arch of
preparation, appears in glory as He earlier appeared in the
salvation which nothing can either alter or remove, though millions lay slain
over the millenia, because they would not budge from beauty, or move from
duty, or ditch their Maker or retreat from their Redeemer. It is a test. Why
fail it!
While therefore a blind world will
never understand Christ, for shut eyes cannot see (Matthews 13:15, 15:13),
the condition is not irreparable, the closure is not without remedy; in fact
opening the eyes is the most obvious thing that you can do with them. Then
although as far as this disturbed planet is concerned, you are not bound to it,
or founded by or in it, yet the very pilgrimage is an express and purposeful
journey from God, for God, not without salvation and with eternal life flowing
up like a fountain, its source to be met in its time, on His return in regality,
to be seen in splendour, as last time in power and wonder, crucified as the
world sought its own guillotine, and has found it most competently.
Therefore let us be clear: though
this world cannot understand Christians who are indeed born of God, brought up
in His education, not that of this world, covered with His atoning blood, fitted
out for His destiny as His children, and we are as oddments, puzzles or worse,
yet we have to be pilgrims through the bewildered morass, since we do not belong
to it in spirit or in life, pointing rather to its source and purification
plant. Every tree that is not planted by God, Christ has told us, will be pulled
up (Mathew 15:13). What is the good of being planted where your destiny is to be
pulled up ? Better to be planted in a heavenly soil, where heavenly
growth in grace and knowledge of the Maker, becomes a prelude to eternity, not a
clumsy prelude to judgment.
Not known to this world, the
Christian is thus indeed known to God, and from that source, basis and in that
salvation freely provided, to enable a change of state and status,
indeed reconciliation with Him who made us, we proceed filled with meaning, but
empty of attachment to a globe that has an end in fire as long
foretold (Isaiah 51:6, II Peter 3), when the permanency of the Creator makes a
new realm, no more this testing and temporary stage, where the restless writhe
or connive; for here is no rest. Not in restlessness, therefore, but in
realisation and entry to a rest in reality always there, readily available
and graciously provided without force or coercion, we who are volunteers enable
to come by grace, show a far better way and far better rest, vocation because of
truth, like little moons reflecting the glorious light of the sun. OUR sun
arises with "healing in His wings," tender now, triumphant always, the ultimate
and only mercy, shown in the Bible, demonstrated in Christ, attested as His
words are fulfilled. Here is a spiritual real estate which is freely available,
an eternal investment, that carries heart.
As these themes are worked out, we
find many phases and explanations, orientations amid our pilgrimage
orienteering, always supplied with the Bible as basic, the Lord as dynamic and
wisdom and the way for travel, the highway of holiness. It is there; but to find
it, it is necessary to open the eyes, and to have them healed, which for so long
have been sealed.
Christ as the light of the world is
there; eyes as the means of access are there. The results of opening them teem,
and in this volume, Lord willing, we shall follow some of the exposures.
CCXIV
November 2012
THINGS IDLY LOST, DIVINELY FOUND,
RESCUED FROM THE CONTRABAND
ISBN 978-0-9873360-6-4
To be clueless is never to be
desired. Clues abound. They cluster. They insist. They get up and speak, even
shout, concerning the Lord and His Christ, Jesus. Logic acclaims; history
verifies; man writhes and God provides, and the two, far from normally, may
meet, resulting in peace.
The things amiss may be small or
large, and the indications of truth come to some through one obvious channel or
another, as the Spirit of God enables the heart, sometimes sulking
in blindness, sometimes blazing in desire. The phases of our history in which
men dabble, as they look for inspiration or sight or understanding, are many,
some of these fraught with delusions like army divisions, raiding the
countryside of the life of man, some with outstanding occurrences which are
normally in the end, not heeded, so making history.
It is not that man is bad at
mathematics or ungifted in engineering, but in seeing the truth about himself,
he has a sin problem, profound, and potentially fatal. Indeed, it would be so
now if it were not for the mercy of God.
Idly lost is the divine provision,
magnificent in magnitude, splendid in heart, but not abating for the sake
of convenience... Divinely found are many from the maelstrom; and in this field,
where many like lost lambs, bleat helplessly or in pure frustration at their
lostness, and others like rams line up with something to smash into, the
unspeakably OLD word of God continues, present from the first (cf. Barbs ...
17). Itself never wandering
nor distorted to the last, it has the message the same, from the heart of the
same God who made man, who has made himself contraband by cleavage. The content
of this gracious message has grown in grandeur, the scope of this word in detail, but
it has not
altered in theme. It has made wonderful provisions, but with the same
principles. It has dealt with many departures, as of run-away children,
but it has the one recovery, alike, for great and small, and it shows in things
great and small likewise.
Where light is sought, it is readily
found; and God is that light, and Christ the light of this world, without whom,
there are various more or less gross forms of darkness, unimportable as such,
into the kingdom of heaven. It is necessary to look
up to where it is, to enter (Isaiah 45:22-24, John 3), to be saved by grace, and to be guided by it, from God, for God, to God, through
His appointed Saviour, who brings to man the amazing fact that the One who made
us WITH words, has words for our souls too!
But then, He is liberal in grace and
plain goodness: He is like that.
CCXV
January 2013
NOW THE HIGHWAY, THEN THE HEIGHTS
ISBN 978-0-9873360-7-1
This earth has very much to offer;
but it is challenging. With brilliance is stupidity, with love is hate, with
self-control is spurious, furious dare-devil dash, with faithfulness is
repudiating, reckless avoidance, with multiplied abundance, are constraints that
are ruinous, as man smashes man, imaginations make drunkenness almost look
sober, and slaughter look as if much of the earth had been turned into a huge
abattoirs, where animals are replaced by members of our own race.
The Christian understands these
things, their cause and the consequence; for it is all neatly formulated in the
Bible, the inception of what mars man shown, and the reception still available
with our Creator, presented like a portrait gallery, and a power station
combined.
Chief portrait is the Lord Jesus
Christ, God who became man that man might have free restoration to God,
involving not only reconciliation, by clearing of the barrage of sin near the
door, but repentance to consent to the clearance in one's own case, and
regeneration, to re-enable communion with God on a stable and sure basis (cf. II
Corinthians 5:17ff.). As to the power station aspect, that has been done in the
most publicised work of all time, in terms of length of time given to the
announcement, scope of impact, constantly epitomised the coming of the Messiah to crush the seducer to sin, and pay for
the mess resultant, as well as provide for the redemption involved. It has
been applied in the power of the Holy Spirit, to Jew and to Gentile alike. This
announcement started as early as Genesis 3, in what is called the protoevangelium (Genesis 3:15). That is easy to remember because it is culminated in
John 3:16, just one up from 3:15!
The resurrection of Christ is as
important as anything that ever happened, bound in one season and session of
marvel, to His sacrificial crucifixion (Galatians 6:14). In that resurrection
and the One who supplied it, is the power the Christian finds (Ephesians 1:19);
but since we are by no means perfect, we too need, not expulsion, but
discipline, child-training, and it is a wonder the patience the Chief Shepherd
has. It is very delightful to behold, though He is not lax, which is well! yet
He is gentle, which is very well (Isaiah 42:3-4).
As we proceed however, we are
promised, and indeed there is premissed for us, what is called a highway, indeed
The Highway of Holiness (Isaiah 35). The really promising thing
about this is its security. On this there are no fatal smashes. Though the
traveller be a fool, he will not go astray (Isaiah 35:8). In other words, you may have
a season of incompetence, confusion, confrontation and the like; and foolishness
may be all that you feel is left to you, as you take impact after impact (cf. II
Corinthians 1 and 4). But as you travel on this highway, that of reconciliation
with God in Christ, redemption, dependence by faith, reliance with resolve, then
it simply does not matter what the case is. You may be imprisoned, flayed, in
"journeyings
often" like Paul, but you will not go astray. Even if you lose in a battle of
spirit on an occasion, there is the pick-up (Proverbs 24:15, Psalm 18:16, II Cor. 1, II Timothy 4:18, 1:8-12).
There is a highway, so high indeed
that at times you view the most magnificent alpine scenery, in the realm of the
Lord and things spiritual (cf. Ephesians 1:17-18), though at others you
walk through the shadow of death. There is a spiritual observation post
(Ephesians 2:6), and best of all, for the Christian, there is the Captain of
your salvation, bringing many souls to glory (Hebrews 2). In this, you find many
failings, triumphs and contours, many attempts to invade, but total power to
sustain you; for you see both on the highway, and from it, the paths of
this earth, made by man for man as man pleases. It is all beheld however in the
light of His glory (John 8:12, 12:36,45), seen in spiritual perspective, and
from this, if you be a Christian, you are kept by spiritual power..
When this, our present time,
glorious test as it is, with grand triumph available and assured in Christ (John
10:9,27-28, John 5:24), is past, and it is by no means without suffering, both
to attest and to be purified from time to time (as a ship's hull is scraped
clean of cluttering mess that does not belong to it): then what ? Then the next step comes.
It is THE HEIGHTS.
Now we see through a glass dimly
(compared with the absolute definition of sheer light); then face to face. Then
?Then
the designation of design, not for a human body merely, or mind, or spirit, but
for the mode of life due to adoption into the family of God, past test, invested in the secure
establishment of heaven, in the fit body for it (II Corinthians 4:17 - 5:9), this
comes like Spring. This may seem, as Spring does, almost incredible in
Wintry blasts, but then, it is perfectly natural in the season when it comes,
just as immortality and deliverance from corruption is part of the provision of
God.
Yet this is NOT for those who
disavow both Him and it, His method and His Gospel, and glory in their
confusions. If such as these were included, how insulting to their pride, how
gross for their independence, how crushing to their intransigence. No, that
would not do; and it is not done.
Amid this message in this volume, there is
concentration on many an item, including incarnation of deity, and
in developing terms, political intrusion into spiritual life in Australia.
So there is the Highway of Holiness,
and there are the heights. There is the present and there is the outcome to
faith in Him as its object, in His gospel as its commencement and in His word as
His divulgement. There is the challenge, and there is the provision. There is
the present tense, and there the future; and there is no need to be tense about
the future, when in the present tense, the intents of the Lord are found in His
beloved mercy, for in this He delights (Micah 7:18-19). Why not then delight
with Him!
CCXVI
March 2013
THE KING'S COUNSEL
ISBN 978-0-9873360-8-8
Nowadays there are so many
committees and councils and bodies of judicial power to review and untenable
non-truths trotted out as if there were some contest to see how many superficial
nostrums and godless laws could be contrived at once (amid others of a different
kind, to be sure), that it is well to consider the KING'S COUNSEL.
As we see in Psalm 33:9-12, there is
a counsel of the Lord which He maintains, and there is a counsel of the
nations which is brought to nothing. That nothing reminds one of a Chemistry
class at one's old College, in which the teacher who had unusual poise and
diction, would announce the marks achieved by each student, starting with the
least. "Smith, nought!" he might proclaim (whether or not that was the actual name
involved at that time).
In parallel language, God brings the plans of the nations
to NOUGHT, that is the ungodly nations, those who do NOT, repeat NOT, both
receive and act on His word, as at least their underlying and overseeing mandate
or desire. They do not desire it, think that they need it, and indeed come to
despite it, often reversing abruptly, as is the current trend in Australia, from
any such association!
That, in part or in whole, is now all but universal. Two world wars and yes a third, have
changed things. The looming danger of a fourth changes them more.
Manias are now as common as the atom bombs which they threaten
to use. Almost any nation and many millions of persons seem to have some brouhaha religion or nostrum or idea or
ideology, based on self or seduction, dream or pretence, which brings
nothing in foundation and comes to nothing. But these things, idolatries because
replacing God with man's ideas, submissions or worships of whatever, are even
CALLED vanities or nothings, breath, uselessness in the Bible (as in Acts 14:15,
Jeremiah 14:22), and God brings them, He declares in Psalm 33, to
nothing. Despite their initial fizz, they are but air, coming to what they began
to be, just nothing. Futility is their name, and void is their domain.
The way to nothing, as many an
inheritor of a fortune learns, can be long, moving by successive steps from
heights of purchasing power to ... more or less none. The spiritual capital of a
person or nation, if something near to Christian in the first place, but not
quite settled, can fall likewise, till nothing, even an identity crisis, is the
result. Europe has come to such an identity crisis. What IS IT! Is is the result
of Greece and Rome of old ? Well ... not exactly. Could it be as a Cardinal
desired, an adjunct of Rome in some sense ? Well, not really. No agreement was
to be found on any such premiss or notion. What then ? After
all the city of Rome is clearly indicated in Revelation 17ff., and its hegemony
in misleading and unchristian doctrine is noted with intense vehemence (cf.
SMR pp. 946ff.,
1032-1088H). It is quite prophetic
that it now falls and fails to captivate a New Europe ... Europe looking for a
soul.
It is a body looking for a COMMON
DESTINY, we learn from its Constitution being made. Whatever it is, it is to become one,
to be melded or welded or wedded in some sort of style (which is now a major
topic because of problems in not really being one, while trying to have finances
very much of ONE kind). The nature of that one to come is sketched out most clearly in
the Bible in such sites as Revelation 13, 17, with Daniel 2, 7; and it is not a
good one.
What are you doing, John ? one might
have asked in the old days of responsibility and respect.
The reply might be this, "Oh,
nothing..."
That "nothing" might hide a
multitude of sins, or indeed, of virtues.
So is it with developing Europe, yet
to find its new force, as it fumbles into life. Do not mistake: it has as the EU
already done much, but a certain slackness needs and is getting correction.
Joint life is NOT EASY LIFE. That financial lesson is now being imbibed. The results will be
seen.
Amid all this, it is quite vital
to find and contrast, for one indeed as for all, for every and any nation
and every individual, two things. One is the counsel of the Lord, personally presented in Jesus
Christ, and in singular propositions, in the Bible; the other is not this (as
found in moving from the exuberant love of John 3:16-18, to 3:19 and then 3:36)!
The King's Counsel is seen and heard
in Jesus Christ, called among other great names, Counsellor; and in His
book of which Christ declared neither a jot nor so much as a tittle would fail
in fulfilment! Like a knife, this cuts the meat: there are but two slices,
though each contains much. One is truth; the other is not. This is a fundamental
fact, whether you want to call it fundamentalism or not (preferring this or some
other fundamental idea, such as man as matrix, State as sovereign, nothing as
basis, or whatever other nimble notion is put up from the nothing category). The
actual fundamental is God, and what He has to say. There is no use but abuse in
acting as if some men hold this to be fundamental, while others hold that, as if
this is relevant. It is what God, who IS fundamental to our very beings, has to
say which bears in His words, that actuality. Throwing it at man is merely abuse*1.
When the dust settles, the counsel
of the Lord will stand; and HE BRINGS the emptiness of vacuously aspiring human
thought, to nothing. The laboratory of history is very fascinating, and it shows
the task, cost and wonder of divine truth*2.
In this work, there are intended
many contrasts, seen in notion, in motion and in commotion, as the end draws so
near that the hiss of the serpent is becoming now almost discernible as
background noise.
For endnotes, follow
this link.
CCXVII
The Way of Truth and the Way of Errorl
April 2013
ISBN 978-0-9873360-9-5
It is a time to think, to pray,
to consider and to seek deliverance for this nation.
While in Australia, two new
approaches to a mandate for manacles on expression, both for individuals and the Press
have been made, it is time to have some specifically religious response (and
that includes the assessment through reason, which itself points unrelenting to
the revelation in the Bible and in Jesus Christ the Lord). The report that
congratulations on these bold governmental moves to muzzle have come from FIJI
concerning our movement toward a State-run Press, are furnished with no
small irony, in view of Australia's earlier inhibitions about Fiji's alleged approaches to
absolutism in press control
This review as now presented in
this volume, includes rebuttal, analysis and exhibition of the treason not
only to freedom which is involved, but the unconstitutional character of the
endeavour. Our major concern is the Roxon's Discrimination Consolidation Bill
2012, still at Bill stage; but the Press liberty from socially synthesised
morals and inhibition, which makes the norm, if it could ever be found in the
dynamics of life, in effect to become the social god of morals and the censor of
speech, is reeking with blatant humanism and authoritarian contrivance, truth apart.
This private sector intolerance with the significant Press control are in
parallel, successive assaults, and have
similarities not a few. If you want to rule absoiutely, sooner or later, such
things have to be done. God who invented freedom, has better ways, as this
country also has shown when its foundations were better regarded.
Concerning the newspaper
silencer, and result for such legislation, if becoming actual law, Kim
Williams, CEO of News Limited, as reported in The Advertiser, Tuesday
March 19, 2013 indicated that if the 'unconstitutional' laws were passed,
he would appeal to the High Court "immediately."
News Media (Self Regulation)
Bill 2013 has aroused justifiable extreme concern. The ABC News for March 19,
2013, declares this in short form concerning it.
Proposed media reforms
· The appointment of a Public Interest
Media Advocate (PIMA) to oversee self-regulatory bodies such as the Press
Council.
· The PIMA, who will be appointed by the
Minister, will decree whether a media complaints handling body is
"authorised". Only media organisations that are members of an authorised body
are able to maintain their exemptions to privacy laws.
· The PIMA will also
· use a new public interest test to allow
or prevent nationally significant media mergers.
· An extension of the Government's
commercial television licence fee rebate - saving free-to-air television
networks an estimated $134 million this financial year.
· A removal of the 75 per cent audience
reach rule that prevents metropolitan television stations from owning partners
in regional areas.
· An update to the charters governing the
ethics and behaviour of the ABC and SBS to reflect online and digital
activities.
With this emphasis in mind, there
are presented in this volume, as one part of it, a number of facets, aspects,
grounds for criticism, concern, confrontation, that exist before the liberties
so sacrificially gained in this land, are compromised by a virtual social
analysis, or flair or intuition, which becomes an authoritarian proclamation or
application, as the case may be. In this way, we are gifted with the blasting basis for the morals, rules,
inhibitions, exhibition programs, websites of a certain size, speech. In this
way,
Humanistic Idolatry appears as the new look in place of reliance on Almighty God as in the
Pre-amble to the Australian Constitution. The latter was not forced, but gave a
wonderful option, being like a foundation garment; the new
look is in the hands of the law with its penalties and petty pretensions,
without any logical basis, while acting as if knowing it all, to the point of penalty!
As things are moving in the
double assault, the Media Regulation and the Anti-Discrimination drafts, joint
attack forces on liberty, things change absolutely, and this is the more obvious
as efforts are made through government representation, to make it seem quite
ordinary. In other words, if you already accept what is desired by the
Government in this freedom field, to date, then what is in it ? It is then just
more of the same, is it not ? So goes the lurk. In fact it is much more than
just more; but even more of the same would be repugnant in terms of control,
with an already ineffective attempt for some of these elements, unsuccessfully
made earlier.
Reliance on Canberra's new
religious construct for the life and words of man, a new religion, supersedes
all others, which like dogs on leashes, have to conform and be contained as
permitted, as the Constitution is put into recess, and culture becomes King.
This new religion is in manifest conflict with Section 116 of the Australian
Constitution, which excludes such authoritative adventurism on the part of the
Commonwealth.
This is only one of the themes in
this volume, the first part being a collection of presentations in the general
area, with a major on in general terms of perspective and meaning beyond the
mere ripples becoming waves, in the local lake.
With what then are we here
concerned ? It is with whatever concerns the way of truth and the way of error,
as designated in the Bible, from the enforced fable of organic evolution which
lacks anything observable or demonstrable whatever, as something exclusively REQUIRED in
science education, forming a tax on the minds of children, to
the current assault on parents, proceeding now, on society, even on our history,
on our beliefs one and al. Effectively, these if the bills became law, would be regulated and given leave here or there as it should
please the Government, as it tallies vague statistics on public interest, and
makes man become whatever it is they deem him to be tending to become anyway.
What pedantry is this, which
makes psychic guesses, confounds leading edges with basic foundations, has
touch-and-go computations based on underlying principles of the utmost variety,
in the assessors, whether this be recognised or not. On this fulid basis, the
very aim indicates complete self-possession and self-congratulation of the
status quo. What vision is that! even if it could be seen in practice, in terms
of sensitivity, relativity and the schema of the minds of ... one ? perhaps with
some help.
How flimsy is the pride and
pretension in this self-elevation. From such great heights, unfounded, the fall
is both sharp and terrible. Our distance from others, as a nation, is no
longer an adequate defence, if it ever were. You need grounds for defence, way
past plans to have weaponry in a decade or two, which could possibly help to the
point.
But what of this pre-occupation
with culture, with ourselves, based on nothing rational ? (cf. SMR
Chs. 3
- 4). Here is passion in
fashion at its ultimate.
Instead of "follow the fashions"
being a craze of the superficial, it becomes a mandate, rule, law and invasion
from the Government; and instead its referring to clothes, it is to mankind and
what he is permitted to be and to say, since the two are inextricably related.
Our concern thus moves also to
the invasion with the concept of limitless will with mini-constraints in many
modes of conduct, and maxi-restraints where the religion of culture itself is in
question. It leads to disastrous confusion. As evolution's morality becomes a
helpless moral muddle in various synthetic religious abstracts now moving many,
yes the base of the desire for drugs and violence, to which this society
increasingly panders, so contradictions accumulate. Cruel violence which sin has
brought, which is illicitly made a base for all that we are, becomes a major
thrust for life, a give-away instead of God. Meanwhile, bending to every
deception, within the fashion, without careful investigation and consideration
of all phases of such things, there comes the sudden lurch to the opposite. This
proceeds amid opposing ideas, till the contradictions so teem that it begets a
flood, not least of unauthorised immigrants and muddled moral considerations
concerning them, leading to a virtual paralysis in action.
In any building, when you leave
your foundations, you are bound to wobble around. This is what is occurring in
our nation, and if we continue to presume in our radicalism based on precisely
nothing, self-will apotheosis, then the payments due start to grow, as does our
interest Bill in terms of debt payment.
The effects on the individual are
important to assess, as the many movements in such directions reach their
culmination. Rome, as in Gibbon's famed work, The Decline and Fall of the
Roman Empire, is not the only one to invite shame. We would prefer a
better place in history for Australia and its people.
Re-orientation is less difficult
for those who have already - until slanted history courses incite to more
narrowing as in recent times - known something that works whether in reason* or
in heart. SMR and
TMR in particular have shown this,
amidst the forces of declension. History now shows the latter with some recent
supplements!
The coffee of culture may relieve
a little, for a while, while it rules as King - it is just national self-worship
robed in various vestments; but the requirement is new life, as from the dead,
as it has been from the earliest days, and will be till Christ returns,
fulfilling to the end the long list of His predictions, never failing. Unlike
the atheistic and naturalistic theories which never work, He always works; and
unlike their sad testings and results, His are effectual, point by point. It is
time to reflect before this and other nations come to the situation of the
Titanic passengers who were singing, in part, Nearer my God to Thee, as
the ship prepared to sink. As things progress, any sinking to come would not be
likely to have any national parallel, even to that.
CCXVIII
LOGOS UNCREATED, INCORRUPTIBLE,
INESTIMABLE
May 2013
ISBN 978-0-9875948-0-8
In
Ch. 1 of this volume, one major emphasis of this work is to be found.
God is not some startling,
alien mystery,
but the Maker of mysteries for resolution by man, and the giver of knowledge,
for the delight of man, concerning Himself and His works, of which man is just
one. He is the light and it is available to man (Deuteronomy 32, John 8:12,
9:4-5).
In the beginning, there was a
certain fresh delight in seeing, seizing, naming things, and finding exquisite
joy in the apprehension of the massive realities of creation (Genesis 3). As
youth often sours into manhood, some now just waiting if we are to believe
reports and sights, to kill, expand empires, overcome others in vile violences
too odious to dwell on, so this race is now the more souring into a manhood
which so far from being a post-adolescent strength of young adulthood, is more a
pragmatic set of variable purposes, set with whatever it takes to get whatever
is wanted.
It is in short without the LOGOS, to
a catastrophic degree. Smiling at God, while defiling the bodies, minds and
spirits He has given, with inane fairy-tales, naturalistic legends, evacuees
from reason, branded on young minds in desperate efforts to avoid creation,
these deluded and delusive, come like a dust storm (Jeremiah 23, II
Thessalonians 2:4-10). They gather in the polluted skies, worse than those of
Shanghai or now Peking, in spiritual suffocation. Toying with trifles, they have an ultimate
basis in nothing, or question begging, or a combination, as in Ch. 1 and its
references.
They go like a tyre-less car, minus engine, with logic abandoned into myths as predicted (II Timothy 4:4), where his Lord is
concerned Increasingly, as the Judgment Day comes near, man has found a certain camaraderie of contention
(cf. II Timothy 3, Romans 1:21-32), as he blasts his
way into this or that folly, each of increasing magnitude. As he goes, he
assembles mass devastation devices, and remembers to thumb the nose to his
Designer, by ignoring the sexual differences given as plain method of
continuation of the race (cf. I Timothy 1:8-11). With propaganda push and
putsch, he is inventing new designs, without a designer, and contrary to
exquisite reality, as if
through thought alone, they themselves were nevertheless that very one, whose
word made what is, barring sdin, what it is.
So man, in philosophy as in
physiology becomes a creative creator of variables
not visible in the reality which they bear, and starkly contrary to it (cf.
SMR Chs. 3 , 4
and 4 Extension). So they the more with time go on
biblically cursed expeditions, till their designs on the Designer merely become
more discernible in this way, as in war and pride, thrust and toss, they play
the bull in this little yard of creation. You CAN stamp and fume and toss; you
CAN try to intimate, deceive and gain some dream (Jeremiah 23 specialises in
this phase, and on God's assessment of it); but stamping does not create, except
ruin and in the end, a sore foot.
The good things in man, his
creativity when nobly harnessed with care of construction in view, and concern
in responsibility at hand, the love of parent or wife or friend, the reliability
in co-operation, the sacrifice for those being serviced, the desire for truth
and for peace, these have not come from nothing, any more than has the order of
the atom, the DNA or the logic of the human mind. It is by this that it may
investigate meaningfully the rest of creation, which has the same LOGOS back of
it as appears in the construction of man and expressly in his mind, so that the mind of man and the mind
of the Creator, the LOGOS, match fruitfully. On the one hand, this may be done by virtue of
the facilities of its construction enabling it logically to enquire, on the
other by its capacities
for being enquired into, by this self-same logical method; and back of both
hands, there is the body of truth, the non-invented and eternal God, always
there, always adequate, dependent on none, who made, synthesised, activated and
produced it all by the speech which governs, by the word of command, which makes
laws both moral and physical, both chemical and astronomical..
The uncreated Creator expresses
Himself in His eternal Word, and this became man as the best means of
introduction to God, who had long shown His will, way and love in His word and
former deeds, using Israel as a nation to display His mind, way and will (though it fell and so itself
came to the point of inordinate need of that same LOGOS), and the Bible as the
continuing text. The eternal Word becoming man, It is He on whom all responsibility and integrity and love and wisdom and
power depends for man (I Corinthians 1:30). In Him, as source, inestimable in magnificence and depth
is ground for devotion, just as He has been so devoted to the human race (as in
Titus 2-3), that He became for a season, part of it.
It is well for a man to have been a
child. What richness of depth and sensitivity is thus personally conveyed to
maturity, as it deals with children. It is becoming that Christ became flesh,
starting as an infant, for then, not only in mind, but in living in events, He
has BEEN there already. As to suffering, the same, He has felt this already, and
AS man He has felt it, and this amidst depravity, injustice, infamy and
appalling neglect, when He had for man something far better in salvation for the
life, than E=-MC2 could ever be for the mind, distilled from
the logical creation of God as that information is. This gift of life made
available, eternal as God is, though for man this has to start, requires repentance
for its adoption. Since other ways, invented by man with the liberty given to
him, were unsublime and did not match reality (Ecclesiastes 7:29), this is not
only the right way (cf. Ch. 7
below), but it also enables rescue, for drifting spirits,
and the necessary redemption for sinners, with salvation for the lost.
Lost sinners is man's status quo;
redeemed sinners is his opportunity; denial is his option (Acts 7:51, John
3:36).
Man IS lost and that is why he so
looks like it, his inimical crusades and fatuous philosophies (cf. SMR Chs.
3, 5, 10), being a sure testimony. He now increasingly CANNOT handle the various
issues arising, because in terms of the absurd
naturalistic basis, or spiritistic lunging, there is no rest, and that ? It is because there is no
reality reached. Now the sure enormity of having one madman able to kill millions and
ruin much of the earth with casual radioactive contamination merely illustrates
the growing madness which this race more and more follows (cf. Hose 9:7). It finds out more about the works
of God and tries to take them over for itself, but finds to its alarm, that this
presents an impossible situation, through wicked hands, a little able to ruin a lot, indeed most
things, rather easily.
The end of a road tends to look like
that, when you try to travel further, on and on, where in reality there is
no track!
Thus we look at the true source, and
rejoice that despite the wildness of contemporary mankind in so many and in so
much and in so many nations, philosophies and talk fests, there is still the
same LOGOS and He, having both known and spoken of these last times, remains
what He always is, faithful and true, and as such will, at His own time, end the
turmoil in truth and in reality (cf. Revelation 19-20). Certainly this will involve judgment;
but what could you expect! The time provided for a significant measure of trying anything
else and the power for it has been prodigious (cf. II Peter 3:9). God does not proceed by halves.
The same however is true of judgment. The marvel is that it applies also in
salvation. Of this, the time will come to speak.
CCXIX
PROGRESS, REGRESS, EMPHASIS AND PERFECTION
June 2013
ISBN 978-0-9875948-2-2
Progress used, in the 1930s, to be a
catchcry. We, the human race, so very scientific, clever, prospering in a new
understanding, looking forward to a concertina type of new destiny, amazing in
potential, increasingly robust in strength, clever, savvy, learning from past
errors, would promote ourselves into glory. Science would astonish; knowledge
would amend; power would not corrupt. Man would become so civilised that one
would wonder, and the past would be mere shadow as the present prospered and the
future beckoned.
Whether in art, philosophy or
literature, there has been a repining from those dreams, a sourness becomes as
with old milk, very unsavoury to the perceptions, and a misery becomes headline
news, as nation and tribe and group and body and race, and civilisation and
culture and aspirations and computations and computer fraud and invasion, and
ill-will grow into an interminable seeming brew. Indeed, it becomes so
manifestly hostile and infantile, in a sort of compulsive brooding in sibling
aggressiveness among the nations, that lying appears more and more, a mere
preliminary to conflict, and words become but emblems of savvy sophisticated
silencing of criticism, while power or pollution or philosophy or race or nation
is sought to be pre-eminent, exalted, admired or feared.
Progress did not prosper.
Regress has done exceedingly well,
and if it were a share registration, as of a Public Company, named say
Downward Dynamics, it would be high among the best achievers. Debt and
over-spending on the one hand, and belligerent massing of new weapons on the
other, these new waves are being introduced like compulsory vaccination with
some type of AIDS virus.
Emphasis continues on human glory,
even if amid the gory, which is supposedly for many, a necessary cost for
progress, even though it manifestly does not work. Strife begets strife. Force
begets force. Folly begets folly. The midwifery departments in the hospitals of
men, the philosophic hospitals, are full and overflowing. Man is learning
NOTHING, because he is departing from his commencement, ignoring his creation,
desecrating its functions, ignoring its realities, breaking minds, slaying
millions, seeking revenges, striking new notes of pomposity, new depths of the
malapropos, as if the very use of ugliness in dress or feature or cartoon or
literature is the new ideal; as if ideals were to be based in the base, and no
vision were to be allowed, on pain of fine or imprisonment. This already is the
case, for selected ancient visions, in many countries, if death and torture are
not used instead.
Emphasis on survival joins hand with
ignorance of both destiny and its deserts, till the very air, as in Peking,
becomes a sort of souvenir of pollution, a reminder of deeper pollutions, not
only to lung, but to heart and mind as well. It is not alone.
Perfection was a major issue when
Denton wrote his Evolution: A Theory in Crisis. In much, it
appeared to fascinate him. There is a good supply of it in the mathematical,
miniaturised marvels he uncovers in much detail in micro-biology and other
facets of his work. It is even more prominent in the yearning of the heart of
man, for much cynicism is little more than a wail for the failure to find where
it is sought, what is perfect, at the pain of it, the frustration from it and
the sense of censure because it is so often and so needlessly and so obviously
is averted, as if it were a plague (cf. SMR Chs.
3, 4, and
4 Extension).
It remains a desire of the heart,
when not submerged or immersed in self-pity, man-loathing or sin-seduction. It
is to be found instead of cynicism, where it belongs. That like creation,
repentance and reality is the point. It is useless to dream in inconsolable
grief, or vapid imagination. You need vision, vision of truth, the truth back of
vision, in fact the Lord who being Creator has taken love as the motive, man as
the format, salvation as the offer, resurrection as the new ban available on
mortality and its horrors, and has offered grace.
In how much and how often are such
things to be seen! In Christ is to be found the solution to sin, both in its
sovereignty and guilt, deception and its guile, to the desire for goodness and
its beauty, majesty in its reality, humility without hypocrisy. Here is
perfection so that progress can only be towards it, both drawn to it and
appreciating it as coming (Philippians 3:12-21), seeking more and more
conformity to His ways, now before His perfection is paramount before the very
eyes (Revelation 21-22), becoming visible in the heights of salvation in
its complete exhibition in heaven. Even now, regress can measure its gap, in
that it is discernible in distance from Him who made us; and emphasis can seek
brakes, when it compares the plight of mankind with the object from whom it
flees, and emphasis can be where light is available, rather than on the precise
configurations of deeds in the dark.
CCXX
ON BIBLICAL TRANSLATION II
July 2013
ISBN 978-0-9875948-1-5
This is a
partly compiled, often revised, significantly extended, sometimes shortened
edition of the work,
On Translations of the Bible.
As a base, the overall
coverage of Ch. 1 of the first edition is provided, and then selections and
revisions.
While
there are multiplied translations and paraphrases of the Bible or parts of it,
much is trivialising the text handed down in the vast majority of texts (and
there are hundreds), based on unconfirmed hypotheses and tilted twistings of
truth as pre-conceptions, till in the ordinary pastorate, more is lost than
gained in the proliferation.
For reasons shown in the first Chapter, based on the integrity of the power and
authority of the
God of creation, and the results of His promises matched by statistics, the
Authorised and the New King James Versions have a certain inbuilt reliability
because of the text or text type in view, and a basic tendency not to be
venturesome, in creating brilliant renderings that do not show much respect for
the text, a sort of spiritual voyeurism. Real though their faults are, for those
without Hebrew and Greek, they allow more scope for the sober to seek
inspiration WITHIN what is written, without having it pre-chewed by theologians
masquerading as translators. This is always the aim; it is easy enough to
SUPPLEMENT translation by other things; but often fatal to confuse the two.
It is
found that the AV has a very good record for accuracy, the NKJV rather less, but
often it has far more clarity, and that as a rule of thumb, these features may
be taken in order for a swift and nearly always reliable result. However, there
are blemishes which because of the date of the AV or the comparatively less
seeming perception in the NKJV, can occur. This present volume is intended to
cover such cases, as well as those which come because of the invasion of hostile
cultures into the very translations, or equally readily, into the understanding of them.
With
these things in mind, some 61 cases of one variety or the other are listed, with
translations given at the outset, for speed of reference. The 300 or so pages
supplied with these provide reasons for these 61 translations/expositions. In
the Web version, it is hoped the different kinds of hyperlinks made available make the task
easier, and by these to relay not only to the translations provided in each
case, but to relate to the often larger presentations in the First
Edition, or allied expository, explanatory or alerting material.
CCXXI
MESSIAH,
JESUS
CHRIST
AUTHOR AND JUDGE
OF HISTORY,
AGELESS
TERMINATOR OF THIS PRESENT AGE
AND LORD OF GLORY
August 2013
ISBN
978-0-9875948-3-6
There is a beginning to what is
manifestly running down from more available to less available energy, from a
start the fact of which is enshrined in the Law of Conservation of Mass and
Energy (for it is just THERE, on application), as a thing found to be given, and
a continuation in the Second Law of Thermodynamics which shows the run down on
its depreciation. The resource fades; the dynamic loses its base; the panics and
antics grow; the options grow smaller.
It started. It falls: this not
failing to be apparent even in the genome of man, whose physical platform for
being is wasting away. Put there, the functional universe continues; staying
there, it declines. Its source however is in no decline, while its angle of
declination from Him, on the part of man, increases in a way which if physical,
would long since have been deadly. The word from its Resource never alters. It
does not need to; for where man is, there is learning; but where the Creator is,
time is merely an invention for His creation, and all is known (Colossians 2:9,
Isaiah 46:9-10).
Over time, He speaks, has spoken and
His assessment awaits (Romans 8:29-39), while His provision knows no limits but
truth (Colossians 1:19ff.).
There is then a beginning.
There is also an end. When you begin
as a babe and turn into boy or girl active and envisaging, there seems no end;
but it comes. When as juvenile you make decisions, it seems eternal, but it is
temporal; it is the results which are eternal. When as mature, you find your
place and place life in its place in your mind, you seem directive, but without
your source, you are misdirected. When in old age, you rove your way to a
conclusion of your body, you contemplate where you are going, or to take an
option, insist on not contemplating it, like one who knowing full well that
taxes come, evasively sets his whole mind to ignore them. But the results are
not shrunk by your wilfulness. It comes, death to the body and assessment to the
soul, all in its time and in its place.
Reality does not go away; and truth,
it continues sublime, even amid multitudes of alienated minds (Ephesians
4:17-19). The author of history is also its judge. The creator of liberty is
also its assessor. The donor of the power to love is also the giver of salvation
for misuse of life; but His offer does not change. This present Age has
manifestly aged markedly in the last few years, its incompetence so massive that
even a donkey would bray, if it knew. It is so because it is perfectly competent
to ignore its Maker, mock His mercy, depart from His ways, blast His designs, as
if to place a screw-driver in an engagement ring box, and insist that no-one
marvel at such renegacy. Yet it WILL do so.
It has history to teach it, but puts
it out of a job, concentrating increasingly on minor sagas, and the passion of
twisting truth, till it becomes a luxury for many, almost unheard of in the
cover up called culture.
The concept of a Terminator, Omega,
calling the game over, seems foreign to many who are well aware of the
significance of sirens.
As great as is the wonder of the Lord
of glory,
|
|
the Messiah who came on time for
all time
(Galatians 4:4, cf. The Christian Prescription Ch. 2),
and is indeed
|
|
|
to come again, but in a new
capacity, AS JUDGE,
when He has first removed His own Church of actual believers from the earth,
nation and individual alike subject to His rulings and rule: |
He yet does not dictate.
Mercy is not a forced thing, nor love
contrived. Where darkness is loved, its very nature is a fiasco, so that those
who love this, have their fill, nothing gained but loss.
The Author is the Judge; history
lavishes itself in misused liberties; love is truncated in abusive substitutes,
truth is harassed, sincerity becomes to many a fiction, guile gushes like a
burst dam; but the End, the Judge and the Result pad do not evaporate because of
the anguish of fraud, facing light (Revelation 20:11-15). Merely disdaining or
distancing oneself from truth is its rejection.
Rejoice therefore that the Messiah
has come; He is not to be found in varying literary works in the wide open field
of religion, inventions without test or authority but that of force, threat or
policy (cf. Lively Lessons in Spiritual Service
Ch. 6). He is found where test has shown,
prediction has inscribed, and history has long since meekly followed. You may
foul up an engine, but not destroy the factory; the Alpha who having made, also
knows, has shown and terminates not the truth, but the abuse of it.
This volume, number 220 in the set,
In Praise of Jesus Christ, DV, is to look at perspective
amid events, the end in view, the endings in sight, as night thickens and the
smell of new tar is sniffed, like a new highway to hell, making room for more
motorists. In this, the perfume of perfection in Jesus the Christ, the other
way, challenging certainly, but true and proven, shown and lovely, remains. It
seems invidious to the insidious; but its domain is realism, and its way is
regeneration, the only escape for vigorously astray man (Titus 2-3).
John 3 shows concerning one man what
is applicable in essence to all persons outside Jesus Christ. They are embodied
on this earth, awaiting the termination in truth, of what is temporal, and the
institution of the wonder of the End, where tests passed, triumph is attributed
where it belongs, to the Messiah and His own people (John 10:9,27-28). Had the
evil powers known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory (I Cor.
2:7-8); but their wits are shorn by their wilfulness; and by their contrivances
like very dark glasses, they outwit themselves.
Nothing outwits God; but in His
wisdom, He reigns eternal, to create, to uplift, and to judge; to bless and to
curse, loving but living, insusceptible to deceit, keen on the cry of what He
has made, where the audio-line is used, which is Jesus, the Messiah who has
come, and will, when the time is over for the testing phase, make of the end
that lapses, a consummation that elapses active to eternity.
CCXXII
WHY NOT
BELIEVE THE LORD'S CHRIST!
It is
faith or fiddle-sticks.
CREATION
STARTING IN POWER, MOVING IN POLLUTION
Salvation, arising in need,
Spanning the Age
September 2013
ISBN 978-0-9875948-4-6
Australia
is in touring mode. It started with a solid foundation in principles of driving,
outlining some features of the road, in the name of Him who made it and said
why. It went on with bounding triumphs through difficult days, involving much
patriotism, many grounded in fundamentals of the Christian faith, the moorings
to which, in its setting, are implied in the Constitution. Then the
pathological promptings of liberalism (dabbling in doubt and giving naturalistic
fancies some clout) worked their insistent way through the clouded concepts of
many theologians into the midst of betrayed churches, while many evanescent
philosophies strove for success in capturing churches for their abattoirs.
A few have
revisited the biblical faith; many have sought to negate, transform, adjust or
subjugate it to this or that preferred alliance, often merely a voluntary
submission, some combining it with its opposites in barefaced audacity, that
makes blasphemy almost a side-issue, since this is not only renovation but
transformation - imagine it! transforming what transforms, like a beautician
becoming a major surgeon with predictable results.
Now
allegedly Christian sources want to turn decriminalisation of homosexual
behaviour from a starting post to a gallop, to make it equal with any other
sort; and ignoring design components of the most exquisite complexity and
practicality, they appear to behave rather like a son of a rich house, who
thinking all his dad has is his own, takes as a right, the sports car to smash
it up: and yet is bewildered when rebuked, if not by the cost or the injury.
But where
is the rebuke now! Marriage is now sought to be the term for what is in itself,
unable to produce children, not merely because of some defect, but by using
pepper for salt, salt for pepper, or a fork for a spoon. It is not however
demeaning to be specific. Being something of a given character is not
unbearable, unless you either want to be God or to usurp His powers, by which
alone as one of mankind, you stand, the visible design paragon and paradigm indeed, on this whole
earth - if results relate to causes*1, and terms to definitions!
Certainly
Sodom may have been worse than what now beckons Australia in this area; but it may likewise have been better. It is in that
specified territory biblically as you note in Jude 7, the generic being
mentioned in II Peter 2:19 and 10, where despising (divine) authority becomes a
sort of mandate. It is liberty ? yes, but it is unlicensed licence. It is man's
word against God's work, and since God HAS worked it as He decided, so man's
decision to rework it becomes a muddle from legislating members of a race, indeed what may
be a parliamentary majority, who without having the power to produce such beings
as man, reduce the products to the work of their limited knowledge, on a basis
by comparison twiddled, with insecure foundations.
That is
merely typical, where truth becomes servant to pragmatism, equity to desire,
words wait upon statistics, leadership ponders programs, love in many directions
is swapped for lust, increasingly, and this abused power becomes common in
politics as in business, in love of power as in means of oversight, till Isaiah
59 comes to look more and more, as though it were levelled not only at ancient
Israel at one phase, but as a cover for the present! Biblically, lawlessness
where law abounds, is lust (Jude 15-19, II Peter 2:9-16, 3:1-5, James
4:1-8).
Just as
freedom is good, enabling God-given powers to be exercised without
abortion through seizure by aliens, so its misuse is horrid, making an inward
maladjustment the basis of ruin. This does not warrant its removal, for without
it, love is impossible and truth becomes almost meaningless. What bound, in
will, in mind, can even appreciate truth ? Indeed, it is for that reason that
God, who knows the soul of man past the pathology of a sin-run government of the
soul (as in Ephesians 4:17-19 and seen in John Bunyan's Holy War),
having foreknown all, and discerned all things, has made sure of those who
before all sin, even creation, were apparent as His own (Ephesians 1:4, Romans
8:29ff.), where love lives and truth is unsuppressed.
Fiddle-sticks, things lying on top of each other in the game by that name, and
readily dislodged so that the whole structure may easily fall in a shambles of
no attractiveness, a mere desolation of order: that is an apt name
for the current state of the art of making man in the image of ... his own will.
In
fact, as you forsake the God of creation, design, love, truth, faith and
destiny, as in Romans 1:17ff., and substitute paradigms of imagination without power, as is now the
case (and HOW the mighty have fallen in Europe and the USA, and how the littler
body of Australia is poised a little above an abyss of rashly obtained
international, not to say State and personal debt), then it becomes like a yacht
leaving anchor in a stormy sea, with billowing waves way atop its mast, and
chasms of depth laughing at life.
You cannot
mock God and get away with it (cf. Hosea 8:7, Proverbs 26:2). Much of history is simply an illustration of that
fact. IF you like mockery, then in this case it assuredly rebounds, in the
psyche, the wallet, the bondage of heart, the sourness of soul, the dimming of
mind or the isolation of spirit that fits.
In this
volume, then, the ways of righteousness and the will of God, the wisdom of
creation and the point of the word of God as it is written, are prominent. In
this present world, they need to be so, continually. The fact that faith in the
founder, saviour, wisdom, power, personal nature of God, through His
confirmed channel, the incarnate Messiah Jesus Christ, is necessary for any
resolution (there is no other effective, reliable, authorised or realistic
surgeon of the soul) is necessary, is here designedly kept unclouded.
This also
needs to be. Why not ? Assuredly reason insists on it (cf.
SMR,
TMR for example); order demands it, its negation in the world of history,
reads rather like a lab test; love offers it, mercy insists on it. Repentance
toward God, salvation through HIS actions and willingness, the gift of eternal
life by His magnificent advance on ordinary life, even for sinners, this
continues irreparable, detestable to slanted desire, but undeterrable in impact,
like a cancer operation for a dying man.
Wilfulness
hates it. It is a costly program, as little children used to find, to their
benefit. Better one sparing smack*2 than a fairy story of 'human
rights' in which our responsibilities to the God who made us are turned on
their heads, and made void by things lovely to the ear, and horrible to the
heart. Such is found as we look at the rights offered by the
now gone USSR, and often asserted in the most horrible of dictatorships, as if
words could replace deeds.
There
is no right to be wrong. The contrary assertion is merely
self-righteousness, which is like the type of folly in which a firm acting as
its own auditor, to impress the world, might indulge.
Mercy is
the divine mandate, but turn it into rights and it is mere hollow wind,
emanating from desire, impotent for realisation and frequently found to founder
in interpretations, abuses and misuses that meander off into a land of
make-believe, where someone or something makes a fatuous claim for THIS right
(his) over yours (written), to the detriment of the latter, and so you founder
in his foundry, remade by his legalities, a serf, subject to his
precocious whim and distortive desire.
Back to
reality, this is the way. Back to righteousness, to the God who matters, made
matter (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!)
and life and the rules for both, made liberty and its penalties of misuse, is
merciful and knows how to show it, is not corruptible and does not forsake
judgment; has predicted the course of the world with all but innumerable
confirmations through prophecy over millenia, and has it now on a set course to
the Judgment to come, preceded by the return of the Regality, Jesus Christ,
"the Lord's Christ" (Luke 2:26), in
His second role, that of King and Judge (Acts 1:7ff., 17:31), both roles as
predicted, as seen in the last volume (Opus 221).
NOTES
*1
See
Causes, SMR
Ch. 5,
and Ch. 3, Predestination and
Freewill
Section 4.
Causality is implicit in
characterisation, definition, explanation, and without its functioning, argument
is automatically invalid, irrelevant and unbased or self-contradictory.
*2
A remarkably sound article
appeared in The Australian, August 5, 2013, from Adam Shand. The heading:
Parents under pressure over challenge to the right to smack. Such words
as there appeared bring hope that Australia has not yet been totally educated by
the imperium of naturalism, to bring liberty into shame, and folly into a
burning ascendency, till all restraint gone, there are mere embers left in the
social scene.
CCXXIII
DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE AND SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS
October 2013
ISBN 978-0-9875948-6-0
This volume is
entitled - Department of Bible and Spiritual Affairs.
Declarations and Dealings of Deity
from His Word and to the World
Thus a government
Department may attend to sundries, or great things, and it is all in its compass
as defined. So in Bible affairs, those of a particularity called the work of
the Lord in terms of the word of the Lord, its meaning, message, demands,
offers and applications, its teachings and its truth which, though overall and
projecting over all and indeed protecting much, is still so often so rejected by
so many, that it is made almost to appear like a segment: there are matters
arising which need attention.
In this volume, the
content is not so much a project, as a repository for things arising for the
saving action, teaching and blessed work of the Lord, and for His kingdom
biblically defined. And how is it defined ? this is in terms of the Lord Jesus
Christ who is its Head, and only entry, its Lord and not its icon but its
saviour, for whom and by whose work it has come to be freely available to
repentance and the reception of His gift of redemption through His death, and
empowerment through His death-vanquishing life. These matters may vary from
literally world-shattering items, to the smallest of widow's mites.
In the constitution
of this Department, you find words such as those of Romans 10:9, I Corinthians
15:42ff., 57ff., Philippians 2:7-11, Ephesians 1:19-23, 2:1-16, 3:14-21,
Colossians 1:16-19, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2:1-3, 9:12-28, 11:1-3, I Timothy 4:1-6, Acts
4:11-12, 20:25-32, Matthew 28:19-20.
As in any Department,
the topics in view are many and manifold, varying from faith in James, Hebrews
and Paul, to the Westminster Confession in a changing Church, the predictions of
Isaiah 9, the Darwin-Hitler tie-up, a Letter to a Grandchild, and on to
the teaching of Habakkuk and the nature of suffering and a simple approach to
Christian Apologetics.
CCXXIV
DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE AND SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS
Volume 2
November 2013
ISBN 978-0-9875948-7-7
This wide-ranging, large volume includes
substantial overviews in
Israel, Millenium,
Naturalism - Gould, Darwin
in the face of logic, and others,
Creation and the Ultimate Entrepreneur,
Faith,
Education, Spiritual Drugs and
Christian Apologetics
With this, there is a study in Isaiah in its flow
and themes.
As with the first two volumes, the
intention does not vary in this one.
In this volume, the
content is not so much a project, as a repository for things arising for the
saving action, teaching and blessed work of the Lord, and for His kingdom
biblically defined. And how is it defined ? this is in terms of the Lord Jesus
Christ who is its Head, and only entry, its Lord and not its icon but its
saviour, for whom and by whose work His salvation has come to be freely available to
repentance and the reception of His gift of redemption, through His death, and
empowerment through His death-vanquishing life. Attention to these matters may vary from
literally world-shattering items, to the smallest of widow's mites.
In the constitution
of this Department, you find words such as those of Romans 10:9, I Corinthians
15:42ff., 57ff., Philippians 2:7-11, Ephesians 1:19-23, 2:1-16, 3:14-21,
Colossians 1:16-19, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2:1-3, 9:12-28, 11:1-3, I Timothy 4:1-6, Acts
4:11-12, 20:25-32, Matthew 28:19-20.
However, Volume Three
is more than an extension. In common with the other are its episodic and varied
features in its field; but different is this, that the intention is to seek to
cover rather more in shorter form, more like a Digest, so that advantage may be
taken briefly of earlier extended expositions, allowing pith to be
presented more often.
While this is by no
means the exclusive or inclusive feature of this volume (cf. Ch. 2 which is an
extension of an earlier Chapter with a slightly different mode of approach), it
is one which it is hoped will proved both useful and a diversity for the mind.
2014
So
far, in February, 3 volumes have been published this year.
CCXXV
DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE AND SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS
Volume 3
January 2014
ISBN 978-0-9875948-8-4
Declarations and Dealings of Deity
from His Word and to the World
Including various matters of
Spiritual Digest
It has topics such
as why have history ? musicians, symbols, performance and creation,
spiritual epics and epochs and religions of irrationality, with a broad
spectrum. It also deals with the question, Why have history ? As February
begins,
Volume 4 of this present series appears complete, and may soon be published
as Volume 226.
As with the first two volumes, the
intention does not vary in this one.
In this volume, the
content is not so much a project, as a repository for things arising for the
saving action, teaching and blessed work of the Lord, and for His kingdom
biblically defined. And how is it defined ? this is in terms of the Lord Jesus
Christ who is its Head, and only entry, its Lord and not its icon but its
saviour, for whom and by whose work His salvation has come to be freely available to
repentance and the reception of His gift of redemption, through His death, and
empowerment through His death-vanquishing life. Attention to these matters may vary from
literally world-shattering items, to the smallest of widow's mites.
In the constitution
of this Department, you find words such as those of Romans 10:9, I Corinthians
15:42ff., 57ff., Philippians 2:7-11, Ephesians 1:19-23, 2:1-16, 3:14-21,
Colossians 1:16-19, Hebrews 1:1-3, 2:1-3, 9:12-28, 11:1-3, I Timothy 4:1-6, Acts
4:11-12, 20:25-32, Matthew 28:19-20.
However, Volume Three
is more than an extension. In common with the others are its episodic and varied
features in its field; but different is this, that the intention is to seek to
cover rather more in shorter form, more like a Digest, so that advantage may be
taken briefly of earlier extended expositions, allowing pith to be
presented more often.
While this is by no
means the exclusive or inclusive feature of this volume (cf. Ch. 2 which is an
extension of an earlier Chapter with a slightly different mode of approach), it
is one which it is hoped will proved both useful and a diversity for the mind.
CCXXVI
DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE AND SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS
Volume 4
Published Febuary 2014
ISBN 978-0-9875948-9-1
While this is a continuation of the digest-analysis,
exposition-application work of the previous volume, it includes at Ch. 2, a
coverage in unison of many elements of biblical Christian Apologetics, which may
prove a useful condensate. As this world rockets, recoils, spoils, toils and
troubles itself to the maximum, so we need to keep awake to its developments as
the time for the impact of something more beneficial than an asteroid assuredly
comes, that of terminus for igniting follies, not by rain but by reign, that of
the only suitable, sufficient and indeed only God, who came to save and returns
to rule. This volume has three chapters dealing with aspects of information and
its mischievous mishandling, and deals with both predictive prophecy in the
Bible and the spread of irrationality in major religions.
CCXXVII
DIVINE INFORMATION AND HUMAN MISINFORMATION
Published February 2014
The topic
of information is becoming one of the pillars of this Age. However as in the
days of the Tower of Babel, man becoming self-informed and ignorantly deformed,
faces a broken pillar. He has built on the sandy beaches of illusion.
Rejecting
divine information with inept passion, continually, just like those linked to
evil and promiscuity of various kinds before the flood (Genesis 6), he
approaches the end of that information; for as it describes the beginning of
man, so it displays the end for his kind. God has been remarkably kind, in not
frying man in wrath, deleting his bundle to the dust, but having made so much so
well, and having made man personal, God has viewed the cumulative and
culminating sin as not irremediable, but ready for redemption. This moreover was
planned, foretold and then accomplished by His
own paying of a ransom to cover justice, in the Person of His only begotten Son.
In this way, He has provided that debts may be cleared, guilt removed, pardon
granted with peace, while man might be restored to working condition, rest of
heart, and the delights of working with the Lord. Indeed, He commands men
everywhere to repent, pointing out that there is no other name given under
heaven to man, by which he MUST be saved (Acts 4:11-12, 17:30-31). Slighting your Maker and Sovereign may
seem cosy to the corrupt; but it is fatal because in the end, the gift of grace,
ignored, is no more available. The strenuous labours of salvation and its beautiful intent, are then lost.
God, so
very capable, has provided for none to be lost through mere mischance, and so
has foreknown His people, and predestinated them to Himself (Romans 8:30ff.); not as if a tyrant,
but in terms of His desire to save all, through grace (Colossians 1:19ff.), but to dictate to none in
this field.
Being in His image, your preference is known to Him, as before
our type of time, before human sin and
guilt made a difference (Ephesians 1:4, John 3:19, Colossians 1:19ff.), and this
positive fact
provides incentive to seek Him. None is ever lost except by this
preference; and violation of that could indeed for some trusting in themselves, make heaven seem like hell.
The love
of God is not like that. That, it is part of the information. The Gospel is
literally a God-send, and departure is despite His love, not through any defect
in it; and what more is there than to cover the cost, give eternal life freely
and with pardon bring peace, position and a glorious opportunity to work with
the Lord Himself, in fellowship sublime.
In the
Bible, divine information is provided on all sides, analytical,
historical, personal, moral spiritual, in terms of judgment and of destiny.
Quibbling as with so much, man tries to escape this information, like
those who affect never to have heard of a speed limit. But it applies, and
dimly departing from the divine information, the Gospel of grace and the way to
gain understanding, is as ineffective manoeuvre as any other squirming, writhing
or manipulation. God cannot be manipulated, and information cannot be quenched,
as fire may be. It is good to know what information is, divine information in
particular, and of what you are informed.
CCXXVIII
DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE AND SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS
Volume 5
April 2014
This proceeds using biblical perspective,
placing things in the domain of reality,
where problems are solved because of the word
of God and its application.
CCXXIX
DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE AND SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS
Volume 6
June 2014
The sixth book in
this set of volumes on Department of Bible and Spiritual Affairs has one
thing in common with the other four. It is presenting matters of biblical
moment, and these are all spiritual affairs.
.Indeed, it proceeds in the midst of
mutabilities in this world, from the perspective of the immutable, the beautiful
word of God, that Bible which cleanses, instructs, exhorts, imbues and by His
Spirit opens eyes before pits and precipices, with the wonder of His wisdom and
love. .
One Chapter concerns
Australia, and its debate about freedom of speech, with strong words on both
sides, even though without freedom to speak thoughts, ideas, concepts, questings,
reproofs, it is hard to see how a human being can remain in that order, rather
than a cultural drawf, like an astronomical black dwarf, with nothing freely
left to show, as if to yearn to become a black whole, with nothing able to get
out; although some things authorised by some human beings may be permitted to
peep out.
Another item deals
with the latter part of Psalm 22, which may be lost sight of in our intense
empathy with the first part. Yet it is one deserving great attention, as is the
whole matter of answered prayer, on which Psalm 22 gives no small lead and
exemplar!
Now our times move
like a group of horses careering into the straight, and the galloping is
becoming thunderous, it even being reported that some notification went out from
a not clearly demarcated authority, that all Jews in a segment of the Ukraine
were to report for registration! Memories ...
Racism and
superficial and even often unnoticed religion present final values without prior
grounds, and being based only on subjective conviction and loud-mouthed
passion are like savage dogs, wailing to be released, unleashed, so that they
can climb all over their victims. Culture likes to hide the name (religion of
the moment) and so secure liberty to harass, and become instant religion as
the hounds wail.
Amos, Nahum and
Isaiah are given attention in terms of both their unique input and current
application, and matters of Apologetic Impact come as the volume ends.
Man without God is
like an unstable chemical compound, ready to change with just a little action;
and his changes have this last century meant scores of millions of deaths in
ideational wars, aspirant wars, self-defining wars, regional wars, wars of
antipathy, wars where argument is made with guns and torture, where reason is
imprisoned, truth becomes hostage and only at times, does it receive liberty to
expose. To expose what ? to show some of the worst of the lunging hostilities that move the human heart so
readily when leaving the reliabilities of its Maker, when it roams ready for this or
that, as the moment, the philosophy, the desire, the urge, the surge may
demand.
As these things, set
in the predicted successive empires of Daniel, and the debasements shown in
Romans 1, proceed to their destined end, it is good to have liberty before the
night closes (cf. John 9:4). As Christ said, many nations had to rise and fall
(Matthew 24, Luke 21) before His return, following the times of test (Answers
to Questions
Ch. 5); but the time would come, as it does,
when this draws near. Thus now is the time to WORK, for His
servants, following His own declaration in His own day on this earth, "I must work the works of Him who sent Me, for the
night is coming when no man can work."
He did His eternal
work of redemption, and we who are His need to complete, each his or her
own, the works accorded, while it is yet day.
CCXXX
DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE AND SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS
Volume 7
July 2014
The seventh book in this set of
volumes on Department of Bible and Spiritual Affairs continues the tradition of
examining affairs of heart and justice, truth and righteousness, but especially
this in the context of the Bible, the ways and wisdom of which is under constant
investigation and application, with the relish some scientists and historians
have felt for finding great booty, by research. In the case of the Bible,
however, it is already found, and needs to be realised, recognised and applied.
There is therefore much in the
joint movements of predictive scriptures and performing history, where it is
necessary to see the connection and warn, or exhort, or challenge or inform,
while there is time. Indeed, there are many events which might lose their
intense significance to those watching them, without biblical perspective and
review; and these are now surging so fast that it is like wilfully refusing to
have an air-raid shelter, in a blitzkrieg, to fail to attend to the ministry
of the word of God which the Bible provides, direct to the heart. It is to one,
to all this world in upheaval, to the billions of psyches or souls, and the
milling millions of spirits of mankind.
In the hope of the awakening of
some, the reinforcement of many, the edification of all, therefore this
presentation continues, and it is addressed not to any one nation, or person or
group, but in terms of the Great Commission of Jesus Christ (Matthew 28), this
time by electronic missionaries, to all. So do we proceed by the grace of
God. Especially however it is desired to
reach those separated from freedom by tyrannical regimes, whether in democracies
or not, whether in academic slant or bullets' spattering, as to reach those
troubled by doubts, hard put to find help in a hostile environment, those
recovering from assault of mind, body or spirit.
May
the Lord bless all those who seek, that they may find. Jeremiah 29 always
remains relevant, If with all your heart you truly seek Me, you will find Me.
How
beautifully Mendelssohn's Elijah presents this, how movingly! But it is
necessary to BE moved and to enter the open door (John 10:9), with repentance
and faith, not just to wail or rail on the doorstep.
But
let us put it more deeply.
This volume continues the work of
attesting the praise, purpose, program, procedures and power, the invitations and intimations of the Lord Jesus Christ. May
it provide bread for the hungry, meat for the reflective, the Bible's teaching
for any and for all, especially those dimmed by false doctrine, darkened by evil
counsel, afflicted, persecuted, maligned, oppressed, seeking the glory of the
Lord in the face of Christ Jesus, perhaps aborted through the darkening shadow
like that of lung cancer, contorted by self-doubts - which are most useful since
they can lead on to faith in One far better than any merely human self, who yet
aspire to the fire of the living God.
It is He whose words we ponder,
whose works we watch, delighted in His power in this, perhaps the generation
most blessed with biblical fulfilments, precise in kind, cumulative in
consequences that there has ever been, other than that of Christ Himself,
starting with the greater Star than any above, at Bethlehem, the greatest
Sceptre, Lord of Lords, and delicious in embracing fulfilment, both in cradle
and cross, retort and response, power and healing, majesty and glory.
It is He whom indeed we praise,
for other than any competitor on this earth's race, He is worthy of it. It is
such a relief to find One who deserves blessing and honour and glory and praise,
One who taking human flesh as His format for His spiritual function and purpose
of salvation, displayed unimpugnable worth in word and deed, from first to last,
adorning the human race, not as if to give it pride, but to show it the way,
despite its weakness, vulnerability and temptation, hostility and hate, even murder,
by penetrating the darkness, and making His light shine in embracing in Himself
what is good and displacing the sin of those who call upon Him by faith,
resurrecting His very own body, as well as the bodies of others before His own.
For those in Him, death has no
fear; for the one whom it is wise to reverence, has shown the way past even
that, so that as human birth is our entry, immortality is our exit from this
world, until He Himself comes to consummate the program in person, resurrecting
His saints, His people, every one who has received in faith, His salvation,
which without admixture, grants the grace of pardon and a covenanted eternity.
It is best to be prepared, and
who could without becoming contemptible (Daniel 12) forsake such a Lord as this,
or turn from such heavily-gained godliness, available through such a door, with
not even a coin for entrance. The spiritual coin which matters is faith, and the
prime consequence is love, indeed love as Paul says in I Timothy 1, out of a
pure heart, a good conscience and unpretended faith. Right with God, you then
have deliverance from blight and night, and can walk in the light of life, not
the torch of trouble, but the brightness of His coming, Spirit, enablement, the
path as sure as the donkey's on the cliff; but more so than this, for it can
stumble, but Christ never stumbles, never fails, and always keeps (Zephaniah
3:5, John 10:9,27-28). He is the door (John 10:9), and at that door you drop all
the equipment of flesh, trusting in Him who equips with life eternal.
CCXXXI
DEPARTMENT OF BIBLE AND
SPIRITUAL AFFAIRS
Volume 8
September 2014
The eighth book in this set of
volumes on Department of Bible and Spiritual Affairs watches the world whiz by
as the victorious vantage point of the Lord moves not at all; and just as there
are famous human faces carved in rock, in the USA, so this Rock has a face
expressive of truth, changeless in reality, brimming with energy, glorious in
depth of meaning, shut to the slovenly minded, the rebels at heart and the
sophisticates of spirit, but open like the skies on a fair day, the lakes in
their depth, the beauty of Spring in its season and the loveliness of brilliant
waters, pure to the uttermost, for those who find Him. It is the face of the
Lord, of His Christ.
Where His heart is, there is He;
where His truth is, there is He; where is His compassion, His lovingkindness,
His creative glory, His saving power (Isaiah 63:1-14), there is He; and where is
judgment, there in the end, is He, the beginning and the end of all creation, He
the eternity forf those who find in Him what is necessary, even eternal life. Applying His principles in His word, His
directions in His service, His words in their application, His wisdom in its
depth, His gospel in its immovable thrust, His will in its declarative force in
the Bible, this is living. It is like knowing the laws of the universe, and
following them, finding unexpected power lodged in their correct use; except
that this is not following what has been made, but what has been STATED BY GOD
Himself, where no matter summed as mere inference leads to postulates, however
advantageous, but where truth is led out like
the dawning of the morning on a clear day.
In such tasks, it is well to
rejoice, as there never fails any one of His words, and His truth is better than
any discovery, His depth far beyond the centre of the earth. Delightful is His
work; more so is His face, which His people will see, even God, even face to
face. Now let us look, and in His word as it applies, find expression inimitable
leading on to its source in spectacular style when He comes (I Corinthians
11:26).
|
|
Ch.1 unravels the simple
realities concerning the Israel-Hamas war.
It seems normal to ignore these. It is best to look at them.
They are not hugely difficult; the result as with many things,
comes from ignoring the source of them,
the due ground for various positions and then being reasonable.
You do not normally have peace talks with those designated as your deletion
agents.
That is the other thing, with Israel, the idea seems to START with its deletion,
and proceed to various ways of mollifying this. That leads to the final point:
if you leave out God, it is like leaving out numerals in an equation.
|
|
|
Ch. 2. deals with
delightful depths to be found in Isaiah 66, instructive highlights.
|
|
|
Ch. 3 reviews reality
past races, to the race itself, its place and its current thrust.
Towards the end, we find this.
|
What then ?
Hatred for this holiness of God and His written word for the mind of man, and
incarnate word, thus for the Saviour and His ways of peace without works for
salvation itself (Ephesians 2, Romans 3, Titus 3), as for those knowing Him as
Lord, increases in manifestation as foretold for the end of the Age crises
(cf. Daniel 12:1-4), before His return for and with His people.
That, we are
seeing in the most dramatic of forms, internationally and openly, as well as
subtly and slyly in some of the democracies. This is a heavy test of all, not
too much for eternity; and it is more blessed to come through it. As Paul
says, he an example and apostle of the faith, showing the adequacy of the way
of God, "I know whom I have believed and am persuaded
that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him against that day!",
II Timothy 1:12. That is a delightful part of His salvation, that the greater
the test, the greater the power, and that He is committed to keeping His
people, each one. His truth never fails, nor does His word.
|
|
Chs.
4 & 5 deal with the dumped freedom of speech undertaking
by what is now the Government, during the election. THEN it was pointed out
that ROBUST liberty to argue was of vast important,
and SO changes were to be made to laws in place.
Since these mixed racial and truth matters appear in one legal bundle,
objections about the 'race' side were bold; but the 'truth' side which was most
prominent,
went as if truth had never been heard of, so that,
unless an unconscionable and calamitous oversight,
it would seem that slyly and cosily the provisions in the site in question,
against free presentation in argumentation, putting this as subjectivised by
how people feel,
remain.
|
It
is as if to ninny-ise the nation, make of independent thought, a crucifixion
site, of reputation a residue where truth is prepared for condemnation, being
made illegitimate to the point of prosecution. It reminds one of the prelude to
divine action noted in Isaiah 59, the situation there appalling almost beyond
belief; and yet it was there, as in danger of coming here. If this is not
desired, there is still an avenue, as one Senator is to bring in a private
bill, it is reported, to seek some remedy. His word ? like this: if no one
else will, then I will have to do it.
|
|
In
Ch. 6, considering a finding from the
Perimeter Institute for Theoretic Physics in Canada,
exposes the flighty foundations of the Big Bang piece of nature worship,
by suggesting in view of the mathematical failure of that idea, something else.
It is not 'nothing', a contradiction in terms, or what is eternally adequate to
give us what we have got, too crisply logical. Read and see.
Next ? soon a turtle perhaps, with heaps of potential, all direct from ?
Turtle land perhaps.
This is a highly significant finding because of its easy removal of the Big
Bang, which of course was never really there at all.
|
|
|
Ch. 7 deals with the
love of God - an omission gruesomely disdained
by many who flood the earth with blood, and think they are doing God a service
(a type foretold by Christ in John 16:2).
It leads on to misguided ways of distorting the heaviest of contrasts,
as between Islam and Christ, who endorsed retrospectively and prospectively the
Bible.
The latter part is a topic in Ch. 8. Ch. 9 concentrates on actual text, not
pretext,
and looks at divine delight in life, which as foretold in Revelation 6,
is being thrust aside by many, who make of killing, a way of life.
Life as in DNA is HIGHLY PARTICULAR, and so is its Maker.
You do not slouch into His company like a drunk fox, but need to repent and be
redeemed.
|
Remaining Chapters touch on the watchman of Ezekiel, the trend away from God in
Europe and the push of Putin in desolatory distortion both of life and promise,
in the Ukraine, now in danger of being twice raped, once by the USSR and now by
its successor.
Ch. 11 turns to the theme: DNA is structure, not Spirit; Ch. 12 to Isaiah 65, a
great message bank, for God speaks not only in deed but in word. Ch. 13 turns to
the end-time predictions of Daniel while Ch. 14 moves common sense into the
issue of having things at all, as well as having all, a study in gullibility;
and Ch. 15 suggests as an intellectual exercise: TRY MAKING MAN... how would you
need to proceed ?
CCXXXII
Volume 9
The ninth book in this set
of volumes called Department of Bible and Spiritual Affairs
continues the survey work of the ways of the Lord in the world, of the world
towards the Lord, of the prophetic developments, of the spiritual themes back of
them, of the approaches to the end of the Age, of the fluidity of morals, the
bankruptcy of relativity excluding all but itself from actuality by mere
antithetical inconsistency, without base, of biblical wonders and the spiritual
truths there shown. The list of Chapter
contents in Volume 8 will give some indication of the sort of contents,
though not their actual nature, that have been used in one case previously, in
this Web work of testimony not only to the truth of the Bible, the
incomparability and deity of Jesus the Christ, but of the demonstrability of
that truth.
The current volume moves from
creation to the spiritual aspects of politics to the express desires of God and
His revealed ways, from liberty well used to efforts to demean it, to control
nations so that they lose it, and the glorious realities BEHIND the Gospel that
God declares, with His unequivocal reasons and the heavy contrast of His ways in
so doing, with those of marauding man.
CCXXXIII
Volume 10
The tenth book in this set
of volumes called Department of Bible and Spiritual Affairs
concentrates on its topic, matters of biblical focus and attention amid the
striving cultures of this world, like a platform of rock, nestling in a
precipice, sitting on a tower of strength, enabling survey in safety.
It remains alike pondering the
developments of our race as it rushes to its forlorn conclusion, for most, and
its exalted culmination and crescendo for those who follow the lines of
salvation, and inhabit their new and eternal home.
It is well to keep up to date in
some of these things, and to continue to realise their place in the long line of
biblical prophecies and principles, as expected outcomes group like marauding
forces, and deliverances come amid extending mayhem. It is good to be able to
testify of the matters of the Lord in this way, and praise be to Him for the
opportunity!
Its very
varied Chapters, containing the word of God on various issues, and
referring to developments deserving attention, are found by using the hyperlink
above at Volume 10, and checking each one in detail, with some overview.
They are also listed on
What is new
? for February 2015.
CCXXXIV
PITH OF SPIRITUALITY AND GLORY OF THE GOSPEL
February 2015
This is a
congregation of composite character
in one volume to allow quicker reference
and major elements easier selection.
See this volume for the various former and
new items
presented with the presentations listed by topic for easy following of work in
the areas concerned.
CCXXXV
October 2015
Volume 11
This work is the
epitome of review, extension,
appraisal and watchful advance.
CCXXXVI
February
2016
Mercy Outdistances
Judgment
Summary, Applications and Concentrates
of matters of spreading interest.
CCXXXVII
March
2016
The
Great Australian
Political Spasms and Chasms
of the New Religion
(From the Preface).
Since World War II, there has been
in Australia a growing discontent with the status quo. Religion increasingly
has been disparaged, the Christian faith mutilated, and a sort of
obsession with being different has staggeringly taken hold of a victor nation
from the won war... Together
with this collection of currently inflamed topics and approach and analysis of
them, with this marital issue soon for referendum or plebiscite, the allied issue
of pretending with children that they have no particular gender, and such
illusionism, proceeds like rust on crops, spoiling an integral scene with new
advents. It remarkably comes as part of a tax-payer financed ghoulish-seeming physiological
dismemberment, or psychic face-lift; and given to and as an EDUCATIONAL part of the State,
it proceeds like panzers.
It is crucial to this so exquisitely blessed land,
that it thinks, informs itself about the anti-Bible and predicted anti-God type
developments now close to adoption, with the cry of "fair" going out, as if such
treatment of gender and children were not tortuous at best, irrational at least,
putting wish for actuality and endorsement by man against performance by God,
who made it. Many lands have asked for and gained divine discipline, even before
judgment; does this land need not only to ask, but to rampage for it! Alas no,
but past mercies do not equate to the result of present pandemonium, that
is, ignoring of form and function, assault to the minds of children long before
maturity, and doing so with godless bases as part of what is depicted for stated
reasons, as nothing less than a new religion.
CCXXXVIII
May
2016
WORLD AMISS, HEAVEN ABOARD
There are, in Australia, as in
Syria, Iraq, Iran, Turkey and many more lands, signs of significant test, drama,
mutation, conflict and catastrophe. Not all are physical, though physical indeed
may be the results.
In Australia, there is a movement
toward a subjectivity so stringent, a dream so radical, a hope so novel, a
format so changed that it is like flying a kite into someone's face. It is not
just a slap; it is a gesture mixed with a gracelessness so profound, as if to
challenge the laws of gravity and logic at once together, and into the bargain,
the God who made the logic so that scientists could discover its use and results
in a pre-formatted rational world, very deliberately set in place and in motion
by competent authority, normally called GOD..
The current decline and vanity,
as in Ecclesiastes, resembles ever more closely the
dreams that others have had in times past, though the trend here is somewhat individual, and
has been askew in conception, leaving them at the transmission into reality, like
someone who imagined a bog was really a four-lane highway.
Some of the issues affect law, some
are merciless to youth, some use logic to argue against logic in a world of
chance created by chance without a Creator, or room for chance there being no
systems as a gift from nothing from the start, and now this naturalistic fallacy
is disadorned by the fluidity fiasco, turning literallly billions of no-nos in
the genes, into sloppy and slovenly indifference, so pursuing what the
Bible calls "the lie" (II Thessalonians 2:11). Now this
nature-making-itself-before-it-is-there-to-do-it, froth has applications, in
sexuality, education and choice, as if wanting something to be so made it so,
thus completing the nonsensical apotheosis, though less obviously than in the
case of North Korea, for the judgment of whose dictator one can but
tremble.
As to this world, as these various dreams implement
themselves (in theory) and catastrophes evidence themselves (as in such cases,
in various modes and at various times), some already at their crescendos while
millions perish or are tipped out as before so often, it is well to be steadfast
in adhering to and applying the biblical principles which being both realistic
and of God, actually work, their predictive additives always not only true but
accurate. As II Peter 1:19 declares, these prophecies are like a light in a dark
place, giving guidance; they provide perspective; they give the current place in
the overwhelming popular paper trail of man, following ever the latest error, as
if that were the end of the trail, but acting as if the rampant tragedies of
judgment were in some perverse manner, laudatory triumphs.
The world however does not look so,
the trial result being not that of triumph but of tragedy in terms of pain and
almost insufferable suffering;
and biblical analysis is verified by the hour, the day, the month and the year,
as this world askew in endless innovative enthusiasms and forgetfulness of God,
ploughs like a cruise missile to its target, which it had not meant to be
itself.
CCXXXIX
Published July 2016
For detail, see hyperlink.
On
this date,
an addition was made to the subset,
The gods of naturalism have no go! making it now a Heptad -
the Nogo Heptad.
Its title:
Moving back to
Fundamentals away from Fiascos,
and Phasing out Frippery from Optionitis
CCXL
Published August 2016
This volume entails
Secession from Supposition, both in Apologetic Method and other matters,
featuring certainty, directness, sufficiency and unique exhibits.
There follows a series
of three volumes of Bulletins.
CCXLI
Published April 2017
Jesus Christ, Starkly
Superior, Vol. 1
Bulletins Bureau
Sometimes simple
and short,
these tend to summarise and essentialise,
always straightforward,
reminders of reality.
These include national exhortations,
international applications of the word of God,
quick summaries of content in each case, for some time back,
and much more: see link.
CCXLII
Published April 2017
The Bible, Starkly Superior,
Vol. 2
Second of pair of
volumes relating to Bulletins.
Since that time Bulletins have proceeded to 152.
Volume III
below includes Bulletins 79-108.
CCXLIII
Published
January 2018
updated to
2019
The
Creator, Starkly Superior,
Vol. 3
in word,
works, wisdom, wonder, creation, and unique
in salvation, love and loveliness.
PREDESTINATION HEPTAD
HEPTAD ON PREDESTINATION,
FREEDOM, WILL and RESPONSIBILITY
In this field, it should be added that the volume, THE HEAVENS ARE TELLING
(May, 2003) was the third member of what became a trilogy
within what is now the 243
volume set, its topic being predestination, will and liberty.
The earlier two in this internal trilogy were, PREDESTINATION AND FREEWILL
(January, 1997, first written in the main, 1964), and then, published 2003
(March), and THE MARVELS OF PREDESTINATION AND THE WAYS OF WILL. The
4th., THE GLOW OF PREDESTINATION was published August 2004. The fifth, LOVE OF
GRACE AND GRACE OF LOVE, was published in December 2004. The sixth, THE SPIRITUAL SAGACITY OF PREDESTINATION IN LOVE,
FOREKNOWLEDGE AND CHRISTIAN FAITH was published April 2006 and has since been
extended up to 2013,while the seventh,
PREDESTINATION REVIEW,
now incorporates from 2010 to 2020. Its title speaks for itself and in its
review it sometimes pursues some matters further. For an array of Bulletins
taking up in relatively brief form, different aspects of this theme, subject
and area, use this
hyperlink.It is shown that without God there is no
solution to the raging torrents of secularity in this field, and that with the
God of the Bible only is there an actual solution which covers all the
aspects of the matter, and which not only in fact, but by its very nature is
unique. Further, as for what is the diction of God who reveals the principles
in His word, this is not a surprising result. It is written and it works, the
two w's. It is not only unique in KIND, but it unites the diverse
elements of predestination and freewill, or more broadly the titular area of
the heptad title, in one consistent, coherent and cumulative sweep. Praise God
that NOTHING can resist the power of His truth. What would you expect ? He
even made us and our logic. A pass out parade of failures certainly did not!
The
entire 243 volume series
has been published under the title:
"IN PRAISE OF CHRIST JESUS" -
both in multi-media CD-ROM form
(
ISBN 0 9775556 4 X)
and web form (ISBNs for individual volumes)
and is currently in the
71st Edition
For details of this, click here.
FOR
SOME INITIAL
TOPICS,
SEE ...
CREATION
You will find this topic
covered in numerous places:-
1.That Magnificent Rock Ch.1;
as also in Ch. 4 (Allegories 3, 7),
and Ch.5, Validity and
Invalidity,
with News 74, 82, Swiftwitness 4.
2. SMR Chs.2 and 4
including at conclusion of Ch.2,
the Supplement
Cosmologies
and Constancies,
with Ch.1;
Ch.4 - esp. Section3,
Extension
on the Arbitrary, The Irrational and
The Irresponsible
with Extension E
On
Great Burials
& Ch. 10.
See the extensive index for this topic, with many sub-topics, and
under headings: design, creation, language, evolution, dating, semantics,
thought, series, intelligence, rejection syndrome, man.
3. A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, 13,15.
4.The Kingdom of Heaven... Chs. 1, 5,8, 10.
5.
The gods of naturalism have no go! (four volume
set)
6.
Biblical Blessings Ch.13.
It is also penetrated in :-
7. Aspects of the topic - see for example
Beginnings
(e.g. TBW 1, 2,
7, ASP
1-8, SMR 1-2 , ASP 9,
TMR 7, QAA 3 , SMR Ch. 2 Supplement,
pp. S 1-34, esp. S4 ff., ROP
7) and
The Cranial and the
Conceptual (SMR pp. 316D-H)
Mythical Masqueradings of
Mythologies (SMR Ch.6, pp. 251ff.,
315Aff., 309-310, 378-385, and see "Evolution"
in many sub-topics relevant, in
Index, SMR).
8.
Deity and Design, Designation and
Destiny
A composite work.
9.The
gods of naturalism have no go!
A very large survey in systematic form.
CREATIVITY,
is allied closely to it, logically. The two
may be seen in various combinations.
Look for them in such places as those
linked, in :
A. YOUTH
4
B. MEMBER
Contribution 2
C. TRAPPINGS for potpourri -1-9
#i),
ii), iii), iv), v), vi), vii), viii), ix)
D. BEYOND
the Curse
E. NEWS 5
F. CAUSALITY Causes,
SMR Ch.3, Ch.5
MAN
What is he ? The dynamics, controls,
potentials,
past, future, functions, purposes and setting in fact.
A. - Man - in terms of miasmas and
mini-creators: SMR p. 138
B. Man - generally : SMR pp. 141-145
C. Man - constructively and in
construction - A Spiritual Potpourri, Organ
of Sight and Origin of Eyes
D. Man and command delinquency: SMR pp. 197
E. Man with freedom? in divorce from the
divine? The cost of divorce: SMR pp. 265-267
-
F. Man - his reason, his spirit: SMR p. 289
G. Man and the undelightful consequences
of delusion: SMR pp. 442-445 -
H. Man - semi-automated marvel: SMR p. 621
I. Man - cannot objectively or logically
be defined as subjective: SMR p. 935
-
J. Man and life - That Magnificent Rock,
Ch.6
K. Man and freedom - A Spiritual
Potpourri, pp. 205ff.
L. Man - defined amidst life: A
Spiritual Potpourri, Ch. 6
M. Man - in the environment of his
origins: A Spiritual Potpourri, Ch. 9.
N. Seen in pinnacle position briefly -
Biblical Blessings, Ch. 9
O. In terms of the Victory that counts and
mounts -
in fact,
in allegory
See also in Index
of The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, Man, where a multiplicity of the
dimensions and facets are explored.
VARIETY
For more detail in this field, see ACTION KIT.
If you want verse or allegory, you may
wish to try what is put here also for convenience:
ACTION
AND ALLEGORY.
Allegories of interest and stimulus.
See also News 17 for the
LAUGHING
CHILDREN - Allegory (scene 3).
For verse, see THE WONDER AND THE WITCH
;
and
EYES.
See also Literary Variations.
Again, you may be interested in
our:
Barbs, Arrows and
Balms,
a few elements of aphorisms,
sharpeners or spiritual balms.
Easter Alert - Versified
Journey Below and Above.
Finally, for an
OVERVIEWof the WHOLE APOLOGETIC APPROACH ...
click here.
