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CHAPTER FOUR
 

WHY DO YOU SEEK THE LIVING AMONG THE DEAD ?

Spirituality and Submission 

The Measure of Islam and the Co-ordinates of Consummation

THAT was the question of the angel to the concussed disciples, heavy with grief, devout in devotion, coming to the tomb for the body which, being removed by its owner, was not there!*1

Despite the miracles from Moses to Elijah, from Elisha to Hezekiah, the messages, the comforts, the helps, the restoration from Babylon, the experience of immediate and dramatic deliverance and of patient slow deliverance with much wisdom given and many foes overcome despite subtlety, all this, as if forgetting the raisings from paralytic beds, the deliverances from leprosy, the power over demons and death alike, the disciples were distressingly human. They had to be jarred into realisation, and this was such a thrust. "WHY do you seek the living among the dead!"

How often do we tend to forget, to ignore, rather like children, what the Lord has done.

Take Britain (one does it with concern, lest it seem pointing the finger, for it is not done so much in scorn as in love and tender-hearted woe at Britain's new afflictions from slithering off course)! In World War II the deliverances were prodigious. The breaking of a major enemy code, with co-operation from King George VI's pocket, the wonder of Dunkirk, the help from the utter follies of Hitler at Stalingrad, which in some ways almost gave them the war, the outflung madness of pride and ideological mania, the development with all the energy of the love of freedom, with help form European scientists as well as its own, of the atomic bomb and its liberation from slaughterous removal of Japanese from numerous Pacific Islands, the entry into the end of the millenium with power and energy, hope and welcome: these things seem all but forgotten IN PRESENT TERMS.

Let us quote, with but slight addition,  from a recent chapter on this, drawn from Malachi Ch. 2 (colour added):

With such nearer to contemporary cases in view, it is not hard to imagine the divine displeasure with the extraneous, the imperious and the unfaithful, strutting in clothes of authority. Small wonder too that we hear the metaphor, that many were married to the daughter of a foreign god. It appeared as heartless disloyalty, pretence and pretension all in one blighted broth. That then was the situation in the Israel of Malachi's day, in no mean measure.

To them, it was too much to see the sacred place in the heart of God, of the sublime, divine covenant, and all its specifications and revelation. It was one, nevertheless,  whose unbounded cost was such that its requirement  was covered only when it was all consummated in Christ. Assuredly, this covenant, this sacred preliminary to the finale in Christ, was a "holy institution which He loves".

This reminds us of the fearful penalties, due and spiritual, which relate in the Bible to tampering, toying and trifling with the objective truth of the word of God, while still maintaining some sort of semblance of relationship to Him. Whether it is radical liberal neologians, in their intoxication, or inter-religious congratulations, as with PM Blair and President Bush of late,  towards what is objectively an anti-Christian body, whether it is WCC amalgams of religions, or social, psychological or other 'interpretations' of religion, which subordinate it to culture and culture to man, so making God not there, and man divine: it all tends in but one direction, and to be one thing. (See  Lord of Life Chs.  8,  9, and Chs. 8 , 13 of Red Alert ..., SMR pp. 422Qff., Beauty of Holiness Ch. 4,  *2.)

That ? It is this: they are a mockery of the God whose revelation has been given as authoritative, actual and final.

·  "May the LORD cut off from the tents of Jacob

·  The one who does this, watcher and answerer, who yet brings an offering to the LORD of hosts!"

In other words, Israel of old failed, despite the liberality of liberation from Egypt, the munificence of miracle on the way to the glory of the promised land and the tenderness of prophet after prophet, the solicitude and the payments in life and heart as they sought to lead Israel back to the one and only God from whom they strayed, the revealed and operative, the delightful and active God who PERFORMED all things for them (cf. Isaiah 64:5, Psalm 57:2), like a Father, like an eagle that stirs up her young, and teaches them to fly, catching them on her wings as Moses was inspired to put it (Deuteronomy 32:11-12).

HOW DID SHE FAIL ? She married the daughter of a foreign God (Malachi 2:11). She distanced herself from devotion. She became ... erudite in religion, sophisticated in spirituality, giddy in godliness, wandering here and there like some spoilt adolescent in the family car, drunken and dark in the evening's entertainment.

Is this not what PM Blair is close to doing ? and President Bush AT THE NATIONAL LEVEL. We are not looking at the private lives of these people, but at their PUBLIC DECLARATIONS. It is this which is reducing their nations at a spiritually intemperate speed.

It is not that in such actions, they as individuals are so out of line with much and with many in their countries;  but rather this, that their current leads in these things are helping once and for all to dignify, signify and signalise the erratic errors of many in their nations for long in the past.

Thus briefly above we mention some of these influences of the immediate past, subordinating God to gods, religion to culture, worship to wandering, purity to composites: "whether it is WCC amalgams of religions, or social, psychological or other 'interpretations' of religion, which subordinate it to culture and culture to man, so making God not there, and man divine: it all tends in but one direction..."

Such influences and developments have often been studied in the past*2. Currently we merely mention a few of them in seeing the trend and the need to amend, the peril and the pollution.

What then are we seeing ? It is this. Britain and the USA have much in common now with Israel of old at the spiritual level. Inordinately blessed with a sort of exuberance and magnificence of magnitude, they are acting in various ways now, and in particular in leadership at the religious level, with such an abandon that it not only resembles the cited sins of Israel, from the lips of its prophets, whose words rest in the Bible, unmoved, but asks for desolation.

This does not mean that it will of necessity speedily come. It does not mean that because the provocation is extreme, and contradistinct from much of their former national ways, and represents a huge decline, the wave will break with destruction at once. Nor does it mean, for that matter that it will not! It may; it is being invited. That is all. It is far more perilous than would be walking without equipment at high levels in Mount  Everest. You may last. It is possible. It depends. BUT YOU ARE BEING MOST FOOLISH!

Nor does it mean that the World Trade Centre destruction is a direct result of this sort of error, which was mounting for decades before it happened. It is not for man to tell mankind what God is thinking. IT IS HOWEVER to say that the sort of things traced in *2 below, for example, the gender bender crusade (it was nothing less), the irrational religious travesty of making everything relative with absolute knowledge, the sex escapades, the sophisticated spirituality which gets instead of gives, success for a reward, the whole culture of making religion a part of culture, and so subordinate to man, so making an idol of worship: these and many more things were an invitation to disaster.

Such approaches were pressed, hammed up with the politically unrebuked Clinton affair with Lewinsky, and in the reported appointment of a homosexual ambassador in a way and time preventing government intervention. It became wrong to declare right. It was guilty to seek innocence. Nothing mattered too much, it seemed. You could fellowship with Romanism, dignify anti-Christian sects with orthodoxy, move in a total milieu of highly spiritual adultery of spirit, pronounce blessing on perversity and congratulate yourself on your own tolerance and sophistication. Why worry ? Money was there. Employment was  there. Knowledge was there.

God ? So very private, and then so very public in such very notable ways, as convenience arrested truth and degeneration got new and highly religious names.

It is not that Britain and the USA are being prejudicially  segregated to be pilloried in such things. They are, after all, important in this respect for three reasons. First, they were once in great height in the right (far from perfect, but with enormous potential and much relationship to the word of God, comparatively speaking, among the nations). They are conspicuous in their pasts in this way.

Again, they have become more than tolerant: there is an increase towards INTOLERANCE OF TRUTH, and libelling with labels of those who do not vary from what was once deeply ingrained in the national morals.

The most important reason in this coverage, however, for singling out these two nations is this. it is contemporary history. They are at war. Not they alone, but they in the forefront. They are using words in this war, as are their opponents. Some of these words are in the field of religion. That is the third reason. Let us remind ourselves of the thrust of these words in this regard!
 
 

THE MOSLEM LURE:
its cost and its condemnation

The Moslem 'faith' is being stated to be 'good' , its teachings of this kind. People are said to be friends of Moslems. One is not against this religion. This is the thrust. This is the error. This is the sort of governmental thing now being said. This is the folly which in particular, is now our focus, since it is central in the current war.

We have traced these words of leading political figures before (cf. Red Alert, in a Grey Day with the Bright Light Coming Chs.  6 and  10): now we are to look at them as such, not for their news impact, but for their relationship to fact. In doing so, we shall freely consult earlier works, seeking to make a convenient meeting place for many matters.

There been enough attention to the violence to faith aspect of the Moslem religion (cf. Red Alert ... Chs.  6,  7,  16 and associated references therein; and to this add Divine Agenda Ch. 6). This now is merely one of several areas to be conjoined conveniently as we see that the teaching of the Koran is neither rational, nor sound nor to be desired in any way. Like most religions, it has various nice features; yet that is true of a house with a radioactive basement, but an excellent kitchen. Our task is truth, not preference.

Let us look at these in the light of the exhaustive capability of the Bible to stand higher than the head, in any criticism or assault, to see that God has indeed left just one EVIDENTIALLY clear word to man. We have seen this often before; but today the task is more restricted. It is just a compilation of some areas of fatal weakness in the Koran, and majestic strength by contrast in the Bible; of utter destruction for the Koran, but of something far beyond mere satisfaction in the Bible, a capacity to meet need, and then proceed past it, as one finds in a great teacher, well within his/her capabilities. That, it is what is to be expected with God!

Pick what is NOT GOD, whether in the submission to false prophecy as in Islam or in any other venue (cf. Lord of Life Chs.  6,  8, Red Alert ... Ch. 15), and you are at war with a person whose power is that of the ONLY SUPER POWER. The USA and Russia had a status; now the USA has this attributed. Recently, one of the more discerning officials pointed out that yes, they had sophisticated methods of gathering intelligence about plots and pernicious assaults planned by unbalanced people and inveterate enemies and the like, but 'super power' or not, the USA had like other nations, LIMITS.

In other words, it is time for glamour to give way to God. This may not have been entirely the point in the mind of the speaker on that occasion, but it may well have been its basis. GOD IS THE SOLE SUPERPOWER. It is ONLY GOD who has the power to be invincible, the heart to be incorruptible, the grace to be unimpugnable, and the love to be desirably irresistible. At that, He does not force, for that would merely make personality an excrescence, not a feature, a fraud and not a focus. Anyone who merely manipulates has failed to make persons; he has made mere robotics with complexities. As soon as God is irresistible with VIOLENCE relative to faith, at that moment man is not in existence, persons have fled, and creation is a mere malady. (Cf. esp. Divine Agenda Ch. 6 on various cases including the Moslem and European, SMR pp. 50ff., 65ff.)

In that case, at once God is responsible for all evil, and thus becomes evil. This collides with the necessary goodness of God*3.

That makes men who are not so evil better than their maker, which is impossible, since He exclusively is their source. Without His having the power to be good, He could not create it. What He lacked, is not within His grasp. He lacks nothing, however, for if He did, He would be IN a system which had features obstructive to and limiting for Him. That would mean that God + system were a combination, or that He was an immersion within it, a mere anthropomorphic fantasy of the self-elevating mind of man, making gods of his own size!

If that were so, of course, then the maker of 'god' plus system, would be God, as we have seen in our numerous excursions in causation (cf. SMR Chs. 1-3, 10 and see indexes). Since we are talking of God, there is no point in having terminological confusion. That 'god' is just a name without logical relevance to our argumentation, to the giving of a reason for the faith. When however we revert to the one to whom the term is reasonably applicable, such violence would evaporate man. It would be from a being who did not succeed in making persons, persons who could think, damn Him (with damnable consequences in very different direction, thereby invoked, unless mercy brought repentance), lampoon Him, seek to kill Him, to overcome Him, to laugh at truth while affirming truth in the laughter that shies and capers, and such intellectual suicides. God has most manifestly succeeded with intrepidity and glorious success. The abasement in all such and other matters so conspicuous in our race is attestation of that.

One of these abasements is the Moslem false prophet syndrome, which has come exactly as Christ predicted (Matthew 24: 24). Indeed, it is one of a multitude of false prophecies and its leader one of a mass of false prophets, as also predicted in the same place and elsewhere, as we have often seen before this. In fact, in this case, there is a double predictive hit. Not only do we find a false prophet, but a false christ. Not that Muhammad masqueraded as christ, or a christ in one more obvious sense at least, but that he manufactured a christ without the slightest historical evidence or logical ground, contrary to all evidence and attestation (cf. SMR Appendix C), to all reason (SMR Chs. 1-3, 6), and simply installed him in the pantheon or the prophets to which he was partial (concerning which see Surahs 32, 41, 57, for example). He even appears to dither in the process, not surprising, since making God is not a nice occupation, and far beyond the human mind, on the one hand, and possibility on the other. It is mere play, in the maximal derogation of deity vein.

Thus in the Koran, Christ is both told by the being called 'God' that He must die, and in that same collection we are told that He did not do so, really, it all being a trick, someone else having been killed instead by a mistake, or by a device of the 'great plotter', a title which Muhammad reserves most interestingly for God. It is however not God who plots (Psalm 2 c f. Joyful Jottings 21), but those who act vainly but with panache, as if to unseat Him. He often refers to this state of heart and mind that so aspires (Isaiah 14, Ezekiel 28, II Thessalonians 2). It does not work of course. That is only one of the reasons why it is false! (See Surahs 4:157ff., and 3:51ff..)

Thus we have already found errors in this religion.

Surahs with these features, direct or implied, basic to the procedure or active in its pursuit, include 2, 4, 5, 8, 9, 47, 48, and merely SOME of these were considered in some detail in Red Alert, in  Grey Day with the Bright Light Coming Ch. 16. Surah 9 throbs with the whole unwholesome menace of force in this area.

This was the means of establishing the religion: flight and force, so that what was adverse being occupied, it was enslaved. Penalties rich and ripe for breach of contract after force had been used then became a mode of debasement and deployment of religious force.

This is a means of propagating it, in many instances such as Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran and in different measures, elsewhere. It is natural that it should be, since so much of this kind is to be found in the Koran.

Often issues here are confused. The point here is nothing whatever to do with the intentions or practice of this or that person, human, who wants to be called a Moslem, for this or that private reason, but does not want to intimidate or violate anyone else at all, in any circumstances at all. Naturally there may be many such people. This is their privilege. They would not be the only people on this poor and depleted, impoverished and polluted planet who are confused. One would of course wish to take them at their word, if there is no contrary evidence, and hope for the best. The same may be said of Romanism. The mere fact that the inquisitions were what they were, and that the World War II case of Cardinal Stepinac was what it was (condemned war criminal cf. SMR pp. 920, 951ff.), does NOT imply that all who choose for various private reasons to called themselves 'Roman Catholics' (the term is unfortunate, a contradiction in terms, for if Roman, then not catholic, if catholic the not Roman - Christ is the universal, not Rome or Venice or London or Paris), are violent.

Some of these could conceivably be neither violent in their private lives, nor hopeful of violence in their public lives, but wholly averse to violence in religion. The world is confused and the mere facts of history and papal pronouncements (see index Inquisition and SMR pp. 1032ff.) do NOT imply that these people mean what their literature asserts. They may HOPE for change; contrary to reason, but nevertheless, they may believe it has come; they may think nothing is better, and try to reform it and so on. The cast is innumerable; for the human heart without the mandate of the Bible OVER IT, without addition or control, thinks up innumerable schemes, scenarios, however improbable, improper or confused.

No, we do not at all proceed from the propositional basis of a given religion to any assumption about the morals, ethics or proclivities of its adherents, in any rigorous way. On the other hand, we DO rightly hold and must do so, that if they DO choose to adhere to a given religion, Romanist, Moslem, Seventh Day Adventist, Mormon or whatever (and the possibilities are now almost limitless in full accord with Christ's prediction cf. Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength, Tender Times for Timely Truths Chs.  7 and  8), then there are SPIRITUAL consequences. If Christ ALONE is not your ONLY Saviour (Isaiah 43:10-11, Acts 4:11-12), then it is a FACT that you have violated fundamental statement from God. Your reasons are your own; the result is attributable. If you are ashamed of Him and of His words, HE Himself STATES the case against you (Luke 9:23-27).

NO MAN, He states, can serve two masters, and of masters you are allowed just two things. ONE is the number, and CHRIST is the name. That surely is clear! (Matthew 23:8-10, 6:24). Again, 'the word that I have spoken,' says Christ of any man, 'will judge him in the last day.' As to that word: "He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has one who judges him - the word that I have spoken will judge him..."


Again, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away" ( Matthew 24:35).

At once we find that utter division between Islam, submission, and Christ.

The former used force, grew by force, overcame opposition by force on the re-entry to Mecca for instance, and often since, even in whole continents, used force to differentiate between first and second class citizens by treaties providing utter humiliation, with intense and immense penalties if any then sought to escape from this spiritual invasion forced onto their souls (cf. Red Alert ...Chs. 16 and  6).

The latter also has force in its ambit. It however had this contrast. FORCE was used AGAINST CHRIST, and proceeded to His planned murder.

It was planned in two sources. First, it was planned by God so that He could be the redeemer, Christ the penalty bearer as in Isaiah 53, Galatians 3, Hosea 13:14, Psalm 49:7,15. Secondly, it was planned by man as in Psalm 2 and the Gospel (esp. John 11), so that His power could be blotted out, His popularity overcome and mere rule by men could continue. In this way, that scheming of man is immensely similar in Romanism, Islam and the Judaistic error of killing Christ. In each case, another authority (Sanhedrin, pope, Muhammad with or without Immans) is DIRECTING and ENFORCING. In each case, the word of God is abused and trifled with. In each case the soul of man is subjectible, and often in fact subjected, to spiritual tyranny by other men, without the slightest logical or spiritual ground. It becomes mere spiritual oppression, something which, with many others, constitutes the PRISON for the prisoners for whom Christ came to provide deliverance.

Has Christ then failed since billions of mortals at least SAY they belong to such false prophets and christs or both ? Not at all. He died. His disciples - as shown in dear Archbishop Cranmer, in Ridley and Latimer, joys to the heart in their courage and dedication, sensitivity and devotion to Christ - must be willing to do so. If you are willing, where is the prison ? You are either free on earth or in heaven. You do not accept such impositions of the flesh. You, being Christ's, live by, in and for Him; so that if they destroy the body or seek to sacrifice the life, as they often do and have done jointly for millions, then that is their affair. You do not fall into their spiritual direction. You have One who is with you, and with whom you have the choicest of relationships as friend and worshipper, Jesus the Christ. Thus Christ Himself put it (in Matthew 10:22ff.):

"And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake. But he who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in this city, flee to another.

"For assuredly, I say to you, you will not have gone through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

"A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for a disciple that he be like his teacher, and a servant like his master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more will they call those of his household! Therefore do not fear them. For there is nothing covered that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.

"Whatever I tell you in the dark, speak in the light; and what you hear in the ear, preach on the housetops. And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a copper coin? And not one of them falls to the ground apart from your Father’s will. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Do not fear therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."
 

It is not playing, this thing. It is not a matter of force, but NEITHER is it a matter of sham. You are what you are and where you are for good reason. The reason may not however be ethically good! That is an entirely separate question. If you are not in Christ, get there in repentance and faith. If you are, no problem!

These things, in the end, are intensely simple. They are made that way, at the Gospel level, because we men and women and children can be intensely foolish. There is NO lack of clarity; nor in saying so, is there lack of charity. GOD is the criterion of charity, and in all charity, we must implore you, cut the cords and come to Christ as the only avenue which reason or revelation alike, will tolerate.
 

It is NOT so that it MUST be, nor is it so that it is. There is and must be in redemption, but one intermediary between man and God, and this, it is and must be deity Himself, alone adequate for the heart of man (Jeremiah 17:9), immune to its evils, not misled by its pretensions, apart  from its sin (I Timothy 2:1-6, Hebrews 7:25-26). Others may transfer messages, but the Redeemer must have and know the heart. It is He who must bear the sin in the justice of God (Romans 4:25ff., 3:23ff.). The availability of other options is zero, equal to the

Paul puts this as follows in I Timothy 2:

"For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour,
Who would have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

"For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time..."


First, then it is necessary to have a redeemer. We have seen this before in various aspects*4.

One of these is as follows.

There has to be an utter cleansing with a just and absolute cover to allow an eternal and just differentiation among men, without compromise on the one hand, or prejudice to any, on the other. When heaven and hell are in view, as in Christianity and Islam, and Romanism for that matter, then this is the position.

Where God does not judge man, this results in the impossibility that He is inept, for the results accrue, and HE is responsible for the very fact of there being a world at all.

Where He does judge, however, His standards must apply, or likewise, He is inept, creating a world where He is systematically aborted, thwarted or impacted contrary to His standards, principles and eternal preferences (cf. cf. SMR pp. 25ff.). Since He will assuredly judge, and one is to be with or without Him, these being options, and man is suffering without Him only because He is made for Him and hence knows and feels the issues: then the absolute difference is needed. Justice must be met. Truth must be met. Where mercy is shown, it is not infatuation or fad: or else justice goes!

The absolute difference for the absolute eternity, for the absolute reality of being with or without God, is made in one way only. It is made by One who IS absolutely different, and hence can MAKE the absolute difference. IN the field of all religions, there is found only ONE such: Jesus the Christ. NO ONE has ever been able to demonstrate ONE sin in Him, not even when His enemies were sophisticated, articulate, vehement, poised, powerful, numerous and in power (cf. Luke 11:46-54, John 11:47ff.).

If they had been able to do so, His career would instantly have ended. When you claim to be God on earth in human form (John 8:58), then sin, in the setting in view, the Old Testament revelation of God, is so utterly contrary to God that it would be comedy and tragedy combined, for anyone both to be shown a sinner and to make ANY sort of claim to be God!

Christ's claim was so irresistible, however, that in all things His works attested it, none could compare at all, and in nothing did He fail (cf. John 8:46-47 and see *6).

Hence death was prescribed (John 11), and executed.

THIS ONE can if He wishes, since God is free, confer absolute gifts on mankind. For thousands of years the Bible (cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms 17) has shown in increasing detail over  the centuries, the nature of the gift, the method and the events concerning it, including the date of the death of the Messiah, instrumental and indeed necessary for this gift (cf. SMR pp. 886ff.).

Only in Christ, in all religion for ever, has there been or is there such a provision. It has to be entirely by grace, for otherwise, the mere fact of education or better environment, or not being tempted by this or that, or someone's friendly aid could make an enormous difference. There is no differentiation between men that is absolute, but that of knowing and loving God, and being accepted by Him on His OWN terms, which meet HIS OWN standards, and are wholly adept for heaven, allowing JUST perfection to be both achieved and donated past all imperfection.

The gift accordingly is by GRACE only (Romans 5:15, 3:23ff., Galatians 3, 5). It is NOT a matter of injustice, giving eternal and absolute differentiation of the most intensive and intense kind, on account of accidents, incidents or for that matter, plans which make more or less tests, conditions and results likely. It is not handing out results for relative and tilted things, on a final and utter basis. It is a gift in which NO differentiation is relevant for man; but one. That one ? Receiving the gift. In addition, the gift  is personal, vital and dynamic, being Christ by His Spirit. It is legal, to cover the cost of pardon, it is loving, to account for the provision, it is effectual, because Christ the shepherd is alive from the dead. It is so wrought that it depends on God only that it is received, and as to Him He would have all men to be saved.

In utter sovereign majesty, in utter penetrating love, He acts with total mercy and total justice; to this add one further aspect, He does it effectually  (John 6:29,37 cf. Predestination and Freewill, The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4).

Indeed, it is only because there is totally adequate PROVISION for all, and utterly sovereign yearning for all, with wholly effectual remedy for any, that man can escape the clamour of irresponsibility;  and so, in fact being without limit responsible, come or otherwise. Moreover, only when purity is a gift and divine knowledge is the criterion, in terms of a divine love which is not partial but towards all (Colossians 2:19ff., I John 4:7ff., I Timothy 2 cf. The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 4, SMR Appendix B),  is freedom possible: instead of mere manipulation of man, with evil a very essence in a deliberately instituted scenario, not a derivative of the holy wonder of liberty, resident however marred,  itself integral to being a person at all*5.

ONLY Christianity has this to offer; only it has Christ. Colossians 1 in particular thunders out this reality that:

(the plhrwma of Godhead cf. Col. 2:9, 1:15-17, Isaiah 45:18)

He violates nothing; He offers to all: He takes those who are His own (Romans 8:29ff.).

The selection is IN CHRIST (Ephesians 1:4), and NOTHING in man provides a meritorious basis of any kind, or a severance beyond the divine understanding. Christ has all and alone, the necessary purity of merit. Delusions of irresponsibility because of 'fate', events, circumstances are thus in one sweep removed; and conclusions of responsibility freely recognised in our own lives and judgments, are settled on a foundation of fact, not contradiction.

God is no arbitrary tyrant who has made man for fate and fate for man. Evil is the consequence of liberty, liberty of love, and redemption is the unique provision to overcome evil, even at its source. God Himself, in the form of Christ,  took the fatal flaw in man (Hosea 13:14, Philippians 2), for as many as receive Him (John 1:12), "who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,  but of God."

His love is such that He SO loved the WORLD that He GAVE ... WHAT He gave satisfies justice, negates any place in God for evil, gives ground to responsibility, and implements love. Man in NO sense does or can improve upon God, and here is found the God who is superb in all things, majestic without limit, author of liberty and giver both of responsibility and remedy. For all things there is purpose, and nothing is mere throw-away.
 

If God had descended to that level, the mind He created would be superfluous. To discard what you use in all other cases of disposition of life, however, in this case, would merely be foolish. It would mean that you treated it as LESS important than everything else, when by the very doctrines of the creed concerned, it is FAR MORE important.

Christianity not only has the answer in terms of a demonstrable revelation from God (SMR et al.), but Islam lacks any sort of evidence that would count in any other sphere, even remotely. We all know that being willing to fight for something gives you, in some cases at least, some ostensible chance; that being enthusiastic may increase this, but like the case of the young fighter pilot, this does not at all give you life. It may be gone in your first 5 minutes aloft.

You need to be sure, assured. If God is God, then NOTHING lacks in communication capacity, evidential provision, logical precision. In all these things, we have shown over some 41 volumes that there is not merely validity, and complete and utter differentiation of Biblical Christianity from ALL opposition, none other being capable in all facets of logic, evidence and scientific method, but that the further you probe it, the more it responds. It goes far beyond all question of comparison. It has the power to provide more and more in any given field, being multiple in method, marvellous in evidence and continual in making itself available for refutation.

Not only so. It has done this in two main ways. It has done it PERSONALLY in Christ by having Him become man and then LIVE UP to the claim of being God Almighty; and PROPOSITIONALLY in the Bible, by the claim and assertion that this alone is from God in the whole realm of literature, to mankind as such. Its claims, predictions and coverage, back and forwards, is so deep and enormous that the fact that no science, no knowledge, no understanding, no method, no wit, no wisdom can disturb it at all, in these millenia of its presentation to man, is not only what you would expect of the perfect communicator, for quality. It is also what you would expect of God for inimitability. In Isaiah 41, 43, 48 He repeatedly challenges: WHAT ELSE ON EARTH can compare with His precision of prediction, knowledge and understanding. TEST and see! He charges His listeners. The challenge has continued for about 3.5 millenia. It stands.

Such evidential testimony that leaves no possible room for doubt in any comparison is what is needed for the communication of an invisible communicator, with a vital message, to an enormous race. It is given in one case only, Biblical Christianity, founded on the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who Himself insisted on the Bible which in turn had predicted Himself (John 5:39-40). But it is not the case that it is quite so simple. It is more severely testing as well, both personally and practically. God made man and tests him at all points. Unwise is he who does not face the test, use the equipment GOD GAVE HIM and find the result! THAT is precisely the fatal aspect of this error in the Islamic creed, submit. You need to KNOW as well as to submit, so that if you submit, it is to God and not to illusion, preference, cultural force or military might.

This is so, if you are wise, and care for truth and justice, not life on the terms of oppressors with scimitars or aeroplanes aimed at your industrial power... or whatever.

Certainly, this power is not always deployed in the same way; but historically it has been deployed with IMMENSE and international results over continents, in JUST THAT WAY. There is also plenty of justification from its book, for just what has in fact happened, in terms of wallowing in blood, seeking submission on all sides. That is scarcely a confirmation both in its nature and in its failures.

It also provides of course for what has NOT happened, the victories supposedly assured: for Islam has been utterly denuded of power in the Middle East, despite enormous wealth from oil. It has been roundly defeated by the tiniest of nations with the tiniest of forces, not once but repeatedly; and in 1948, on any rational terms, miraculously (cf. SMR Ch. 9). It has languished these 50 years in this, as in Europe where it was smitten not only by the Franks in Tours and Poitiers, in the 8th century, but at the borders, in Constantinople, by Leo the Isaurian in the case of Constantinople in crucial victories, 717 and 718 A.D.. For centuries, it settled after some flourishes of victories as assignable, in defeats and in a mediocrity of power and rule which, while flashing with cruelties called purity at many times, and maimings and the like, was far from 'success'. In the last half century it has been thrashed by Israel, the midget, just as God indicated would occur to its assailants, upon its return (Zech. 12 cf. SMR Ch. 9, Appendix A).

Indeed, so vast is the power and wisdom of the Father who sent His Son into the world, that it is like playing with the forces of assault. Not only was Israel to be mocked and scattered about the world for its sins, following the death of Christ, but it was to be restored after much time. Not only that, it was to be vastly assaulted when restored, and vastly triumphant over those who sought its ruin, being massive in their numbers against the fledgling nation. Not merely that, but the effort would prove a consumption on a grand scale to the aggressors, such as the UN in its decisions since 1947, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Syria. Not only so, but Jerusalem would be divided, as in 1948. Not only that, but the outcome in due course would be an Israel in which very many would return to the Lord whom they crucified, as a nation, so much before. Prediction contains the Muslim and allied menaces, like a child. The Koran makes noises, but the results in power do not happen. One is in control; one is not.

Such is the way of God amidst sinners, multiplied, multiple and of great diversity.

The point is this: that all men are sinners. None is perfect but Christ, and that only because He is God incarnate. Man has fallen. He is so often deluded by this and by that, psychologically, morally, ethically and in justice and in truth. It is ONLY from the mercy of God that he can come back to justice, truth and mercy, love and understanding. Hence various follies had various results, as in the Crusades, where force for religion was used (contrary to the Bible, in fact ) on BOTH sides, imeprialist Romanist and imperialist Muslim! Islam however was far from making the world submit, and as in any force religion, whatever else it may prescribe, this is not very satisfactory.

As far as indomitable force is concerned: To be beaten against all odds, repeatedly, by the Jews, fresh from Hitler's species of gallows in the millions, is scarcely reassuring. It is the end of the myth of the almightiness of Allah, even if the blind had not realised it beforehand.

Christ however loved and lived and died, to plan and date and for a purpose as pre-announced. It is like a surgical operation, pre-planned, pre-announced and here, triumphant in the most insidious, invidious circumstances, millenia after the announcement.

As for Christ, HIS disciples are not only NOT to behead and oppress, and make everyone submit in any contest, and slay this and that group, and take cities by force as was the case when Islam became established, but to be the butt of force. Force is merely and literally a spiritual irrelevance in the battle for the spirits of men. The use of it and failure in that use is the end for the force religions.

In Christ, the way includes

·  the acceptance of oppression,

·  the grace and love in the face of it,

·  the continued patience and joy despite it,

·  the willingness to die NOT in order to make others religious, but in order to be faithful to God, and continue in the love of God even towards enemies, in case any might be touched and changed, and leave the wild and irrelevant vanities of force and put trust in and love for God where it belongs, and must do, in any sincere religious relationship.

This way is not voided by being killed. It is merely illustrated when its people are ready to die in love, and not to force people to submit. The citizens of this kingdom, the kingdom of heaven, are those who submit to God and seek others to do so, knowing that God is a Spirit, and violent control of this earth or any part of it is nothing to do with the change of heart which is essential for people who are base sinners, as has been shown only too clearly by much of Romanism and Islam alike, in their various wars.

Thus testimonially, evidentially, in terms of the fruit and exhibition of what is written, Christianity is perfectly plain and wholly verified, in national dimensions, in private dimensions, in prescriptions and predictions; and Islam is not all verified.

Alas, for it, it is not even verifiable, except where it has failed; for it is not susceptible to it. There is no provision for test. There is no attestation of the source of the alleged revelation. It is contrary to logic, evidence, validity to accept it at all.

Indeed, it is not merely that one must know God to know anything as truth, but this, that one must have grounds for believing which concur with truth, and hence meet every test, and make available a multitude of tests, at every level, so that man as created by God, might find what is false and seek what is true, not as a leaf in a storm, but as one sought by an  effective communicator, who indeed GAVE HIM his sense of validity, logic, scientific method (merely a coded procedure of common sense), evidence and perception.
 

Certainly, when you come to God, you are coming to Him who invented HUMAN reason, which is limited by knowledge, but not in method. His meaning and wishes, power and understanding are obviously far beyond ours; but His ability, for the very same reason, that He IS so knowledgeable and understanding, make short work of any 'difficulty' of communication.

This leads to the simple result that we have to be prepared for the unexpected, but to use the reason He gave us in doing so. Thus, if there is found to be a trinity, so that God operates as three persons, one Being, that is not in the least rationally difficult - THREE in one respect, ONE in another, three as to persons, one as to being; but it may be unexpected.

THAT is precisely where reason requires flexibility. You CANNOT logically expect the creator of your thought to be subject to it, merely indicated by it. You CANNOT rationally realise all that He is by simple method, either, but yet, being careful to be prudent with what HE has provided, you cannot reasonably reject what He makes clear on evidence is His word, His revelation, His nature. This is turn is wholly reasonable but it is, like the coast of America to explorers, what it is found to be. It is wholly credible, but it is discovery which shows what that credibility is, not guesswork or preconceived ideas. In fact, God was not without company and communication before creation, being in Himself a fellowship that is


In fact, as we have seen in SMR and repeatedly on this site, God is in all things revealed to be what reason minimally would expect. It does not violate it. Upon its discovery of His word, it is sated with delight, regaled with evidence, confirmed with consistency, meets with majesty.

But HOW, you may ask, just how is it right for God to use force on Christ, since force is not the way for faith or life or man or religion ?

It was a PLAN for the use of force, not in divine compulsion, but in divine bearing in human form, freely willed by Him who bore it, which applied with Christ. As Psalm 40 expressly states (cf. Joyful Jottings Ch. 22), Christ HIMSELF wanted, yes longed to come and delighted in it, to give Himself as a sacrifice for many, and indeed in scope for any, though in foreknowledge and actuality, for many (Matthew 26:28, Romans 8:32). He is delivered up for His own, offered for all. All are in the embrace of the love which seeks, and many are in the embrace of the love which has found. If YOU are not, then that is entirely, 100%, without any diminution whatever, YOUR responsibility.

If this concerns you, that is simple, come to Christ as HE is, not as He is polluted to be made to appear, in the ecumenical revision programs which, as in Jerusalem of old, are not satisfied with Him as He is. THEY killed Him. The new spiritual authors, they just remake Him, though this will not alter Him, OR His words at the judgment! Romanism and Islam alike remake Him, as do numerous sects and philosophies, as noted by references elsewhere in this Chapter.

Nevertheless, as with anything greater than ourselves, the reality initially for us is new, and it is to be learned and understood from the source Himself. Since the MAKER of man is the source, the capacity to understand lies not merely in the power of God, but in His preceding actions, in making man as He did. This is what even makes possible our thinking about it. That again, is WHY we do so. It is inherent.

However, when we so think, we come to a threshold that is personal to God. It is only when He reveals that we learn what His heart desires, His purposes are. We have seen from His works the minimal matters of the divine; but we learn from His witness, the things, inviolable even between man and man, of the heart. If it is so as between men, far more is it so between man and God. Revelation of this is as essential to man as is wisdom is seeking truth where it is attested.

These things which we learn from the divine revelation include His mode of consisting, as a trinity. We ourselves, in a small way, of course, are a trilogy: mind, matter and spirit. Further, we can address ourselves, as our spirits can survey the scene of our growing character, this way or that developing, amid changing world and so on. There is thus the active power of the human spirit and the actual state of the human nature, and the former can survey and even interrogate the latter. God is expresser, expressed and conveyer: that is simplistic, but not inaccurate. God expresses as the Father, is expressed as the Word or the Son (biologically so expressed when incarnate), and can communicate with many through the Spirit, simultaneously.

This is all entirely in accord with reason, though the revelation naturally transcends, since reason can reach only the threshold of His greatness, and know He is; while HIS declaration by the nature of the case, expresses the realities to which we then come, as before some vast waterfall.

We find that He DOES give liberty to man, though sin enslaves; and that man IS entirely responsible for his errors, so that there is no problem to reason whatever.

Further, man MUST use it, in helping to test the spirits (we find, in I John 4), and mankind is wholly accountable if he does NOT use reason and see the entire certainty of the divine nature and eternal power of God (Romans 1:17ff.). 'Submitting' to something merely claiming, while using force as well in matters of faith, to be from God, borders on  intellectual squalor, and spiritual suicide and the results are accountable as such.

It is most poignant that so many submit where such pressures are undoubtedly applied - and female circumcision is one of these in many practical Islamic instances - to something not only not required, but contrary to God, to reason and to justice. It is of interest that the new Immigration Law being drafted in Germany now in November 2001, is taking account of this very thing!

There are specialisations of many kinds in the creation; but the mutilation of mind or body is not one of them. All things must be used and utilised as creation enables, and truth impels, not in words flung from space resting on no attestation but failure in their import, their identification and their power.
 

Not only the exclusion in both word and deed, of the use of force in faith, but the background basis for its non-use appear. The nature of sacrifice, central in the Old Testament, is totally different from Moslem practice. The outcome of sacrifice is likewise wholly alien. The religions are wholly contrary. The testimony available of prophets, reinforced in the Dead Sea Scrolls, could scarcely be more divergent in freely offered salvation, relative to divine heart in solicitude for salvation, to force and faith and gospel declarations. Contradiction is the order of the day between these two religions; as one is true, the other is truly false. As one is evidentially attested, the other is evidentially divested!

Our emphasis here has; been this: that you must use your mind and examine the evidence which God has put before your eyes. If you ignore this on 'faith', then you despise the faculties God has given you, and how then do you escape the contempt for the Creator which this implies ? Faith is not the same as reason, but reason is a test of faith. When God made man and gives expression, the complete and royal reliability of reason and evidence, relative to that testimony, is only one more of those consummate co-ordinations of facts, which is the way of truth. The way of error is to 'accept' or 'submit' to what is pushed under one's nose, or into one's culture, or what is reinforced with so very many penalties if one 'strays', that one might be tempted to fear man and not God, follow man and not what He has given one as the Creator.

This double error is decisive,
dire and
far worse
than merely perilous.

For convenience, now, relative to the special content of this section, we shall cite here from pp. 1081-2 in SMR, which covers this with allied considerations. For ease of recognition, the difference in type will  be kept.
 

*3 THE WEAVING OF THE WAYS FOR THE ANTICHRIST. See Extension 4, pp. 1072-1074 infra. What however of Muhammad's early - but continuing - input into this antichrist pattern ? a matter of assertion plus force to overcome ... unbelief in some mock-up, dysfunctional substitute for Christ. In the Koran, Surah 48:29, we find (it. added): ''Muhammad is God's apostle. Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers'' - and how far? ''Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them. Know that God is with the righteous'' (Surah 9:123, cf. 2:191); and indeed, (Surah 9:27-31): ''Fight against such of those to whom the Scriptures were given as believe neither in God nor the Last Day ... until they pay tribute out of the hand and are utterly subdued.'' Yes, he decries (in 8:36-41): ''Tell unbelievers ... [to] reflect upon the fate of their forefathers. Make war on them until idolatry cease ...'' Reflect ? Fate ? ... city assault, tribute money, and then servitude - with the provision for death upon its removal. The 'fate' is the alternative to 'faith' is the alternative to force. (Cf. *17 infra.)

And all this force ? with due provision for occasional defeat, yet it is found written (Surah 8:59): ''Let not the unbelievers think that they will ever get away. They have not the power to do so'' ... Indeed, the prayer was to be: ''Lord forgive us ... our excesses; make us firm of foot and give us victory over the unbelievers" ... and the theme, ''If God helps you, none can overcome you'' (Surah 3:148 and 3:160; cf. Surah 48:22 - "If the unbelievers join battle with you, they shall be put to flight"). In fact, since Moslems almost took Europe, they lost at Tours in 732 A.D.; and again when the sprawling Ottoman Empire fell, with World War I; while in the Middle East from 1917 and from 1948 in particular and repeatedly, Moslem military losses have been sustained, spectacular and even proverbial (*18). This is despite enormous numerical advantage (the EXACT opposite of Surah 8:65 - ''If there are twenty steadfast men among you, they shall vanquish two hundred''). There have not been vicissitudes but repetitive overthrows, dominating almost comically the whole period of the Jew's return (as God predicted, Zechariah 12:6 ff. - cf. pp. 779-822, 851-857 supra.)

The force of evidence overthrows indeed the force of mere utterance. Proclaiming himself ''no more than an apostle'' (Surah 3:140-147), such that ''other apostles have come before me'' (Surah 3:183), Muhammad refers to Abraham and others, to the Jewish Torah (law) - Surah 2:135), and the ''earlier scriptures'' of ''Abraham and Moses'' (Surah 87:179), bowing to history by acknowledging, ''the prophets who surrendered themselves judged the Jews ... according to God's Book which had been committed to their keeping and to which they themselves were witnesses'' (Surah 5:44).

Witness! Dismiss evidence and what does 'history' become but the unholy butt of romance? While Muhammad says his book ''confirms the Scriptures which came before it'' (Surah 5:48), in fact the Messiah is as we have shown with dense-packed scriptures (cf. pp. 768-777 et al. supra), the eternal King irreplaceable, unsucceedable, whose word is final and, if rejected, fatal; and one need only cite words such as Isaiah 9:6-7, 42:1-4, 49:6, 53:11-12, 54:5,10, 55:3-11, Deuteronomy 18:15-18, Daniel 7:13-14, Psalm 72. Not merely is there no successor, this is so because the Son (Psalm 2:5-7) is God (Psalm 45, Isaiah 48:16, Micah 5:1-3), as shown earlier in great detail from many scriptures of which only the Jews were in fact - to use Muhammad's term - 'witnesses'. Successors, declares Christ, are false Christs (Matthew 24:24).

To fortify the contradiction: Muhammad wrote material wholly alien to that of the 'apostles' - such on his own admission - who 'went before' him, on the method of salvation, on redemption, on the place of grace and on the work of the Messiah (not really killed, says he - Surah 4:157, despite Daniel 9:25-26, Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Leviticus 16). To aggravate the impossible, Muhammad has the prior 'apostles' sent by ONE GOD! (Surah 3:40 and 3:21). Should one God send prophets opposed to the very core of Muhammad's words ? Why He gave His 'servants the prophets' among the Jews, such wholly, consistently and persistently clangorous contradiction of Muhammad, the prophet does not manage to attest!

The whole superabundantly attested, textually ancient, intense, immense, detailed racial systematics and salvation dynamics of the interlocking Old and New Testaments (cf. pp. 735-836 supra) are airily dismissed for the infinitely divergent dogmas (cf. Surahs 4,5,9,24 and 48) of the anti-verified Koran. To thunder the point home, God, having disciplined the Jews as Chapter 9 has shown His word predicted He would do, has given them the power He also predicted, abolishing the pretences of the Koran to its very face (cf. pp. 814, 830-834, 989 supra). Of a certainty, the Jews had less than no reason to add the scriptures on the Messiah, whom they murdered, but rather honestly retained them in fear. (See also *4 infra.)

The Koran is not merely unverified, but anti-verified and this with a divine mirth as God's predictive word ploughs through the field of history with the majestic insouciance of a tank in an agricultural field (cf. Psalm 2:8-12, Jeremiah 23:29; and Psalm 111:7-8, Isaiah 59:21 and p. 564 supra). See also pp. 1176-1186C infra for treatment of Joshua as an instrument of theocratic MORAL judgment, not contrary to the love or liberty God gives. Christ categorically did not subject physically, do violence at all to remedy unbelief. Truly He upbraided morally, cleansed, lamented (Matthew 23:37, Luke 19:42) and was subjected. Faith and force have divorce.
 

 In the midst of the war season of 1991, how precious the word: PEACE! How precious also it seemed during 1917, 1940 and the Battle of Britain! How desirable to the Jews in 1948, 1967, 1973 and 1991, it seemed: to them after all their sufferings; as to the British in the rigours of two WORLD wars, in which near to one million men died in one battle-place, VERDUN!

Christ is the prince of peace (Isaiah 9:6), and has shown the ONLY way to peace: God not surprisingly, so far from being limited by men's ideas, limits their thoughts by His own; and He knows what are His chosen thoughts. Hear Psalm 2:1-7:

Why do the nations rage, and the people imagine a vain thing ?
The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord,
and against His Anointed, saying, 'Let us break their bonds in pieces, and cast away their cords from us.'
Then He shall speak to them in His wrath, and vex them in His displeasure:

'Yet have I set My King on My Holy Hill of Zion.'

I will declare the decree: the Lord has said to Me, 'You are My Son ... You shall break them with a rod of iron...'

Let us be candid; there is no point in avoiding the issues. Truth cannot stand by, if peace is to triumph. The Jews as a people crucified Christ (using Roman power, a reluctant agent in Pilate). The Moslems invented a new Christ, some 600 years later, and made someone up who did not die for sin, as the predicted Messiah had to do and did, giving Jesus' name to this mask. The Roman Catholic doctrine, using the name of Christ, killed masses of victims2 who did not agree with its worldly pretensions (such as Pope Boniface's claim that popes rule this world's princes), or its masterful direction of a religion of which Jesus Christ said: "Call no man on earth Master, for one is your master3 even Christ" (Matthew 23:8, cf. 1 John 2:27, Luke 6:46).

There you have three of the world's major religions, all relating closely to Christ (whom Muhammad, though changing Him, revered as a prophet): ONE killed Him (at Jerusalem); ONE killed BY 'Him' and still sacrifices (*16) 'Him' (from Rome), and one 'kills' Him by changing Him, and has arrangements including a direction to KILL, in certain circumstances till all opposition to "Allah" ceases, and often met in the unholy call for 'holy wars' (*17).

Now this is killing in the INTERESTS of religion (*18), not for moral rebuke or justice. Disbelief in these transmutations or mock-up's of Jesus Christ, made by managerial man, usurping the place of Christ, plagiarising, stealing His name, and killing in it, false masters, frauds! disbelief in THEIR product ?
THIS ? IT can mean to DIE at the hand of sinful man, frequently confused man! to do so in appointed seasons, by this method and that, as seems good to such religionists. Let us examine only one aspect of all this.

What does the world deserve for this! Christ, the Prince of peace, is USED for killing... What hope is there while men use God's provisions so often to change them, while keeping the name, or 'honouring' it; use them to kill, in a perverse misapplication of the very 'weapons' of peace! And this, it is done by those 'leading', mastering and 'explaining' - CHRIST'S divine prerogatives - by those therefore by definition, usurpers... (Matthew 7:26-29). Christ misused to make war... it is worse then grisly! it is historical.
 

Indeed, Biblically, not merely is war assured because sin defiles truth without which love does not freely work and hatred and hostility, with due misunderstanding in wrathful rage and selfish follies abound, but God in His judgments indicated millenia ago, that He would bring to such passions a mood of its own, and a slaughter of enlarged dimensions, a mockery in multiplied murder and ravagement of man; for when you refuse healing, disease roars the more freely. This is the disease of imparting death in folly, wrath, spite, hatred and vanity. Revelation 6 shows it in various stages of assembly, as the end nears. Now we see it as indicated, in its full black lustre, and red adventurism.

Islam is not alone in its 'contribution' to such things, nor does the Bible fail to indicate multiplied sources of this KIND of malady (Matthew 24:24, John 16:22-4). In the latter verse, Christ TELLS what is to come so that this knowledge will prove to be strength to the righteous, when the events duly happen. It is NOT unexpected. It is NOT a lapse. It is PART of the PREDICTED and PREDICATED PLAN, that is seen reaching ever more horrendous heights in such sites as Revelation 12:11, 13, 17:6. The journey is nearing, then, its end. Like a death, it can have special characteristics. We see them. The banners have been multiple.

Once Rome was the paragon, in its Roman Catholic abuses of power and privilege, honour and glory, arrogating the prerogatives of God for 'God Almighty on Earth', the pope as seen in the New York catechism.  With it has come the Islamic menace of murder as method, sanctified by names such as 'jihad', just as the former used 'inquisition': both smelling of blood and torture, both relying on a god who does not have the grace to exist. The vileness of autonomous violence, however, this does not fail to persist. It moves base, or emphasis, from covert predestination in Communism, to using Christ's name in Romanism, to creating a new 'christ', a false christ,  altogether in Islam, as in many sects, few of which however, are so passionate for wars as Islam has, as a simple matter of fact, been throughout very much of its history.

The results and methods are similar, testable, verified! (Cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 2, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30.)

From SMR p. 1077-1079, we see emphasised in unison, both 8) and 9):

Neither the killing of Christ in the flesh, nor Holy Wars for the glory of ambitious religion, using force where faith is required, nor Inquisitions, even though they may make life temporarily simpler for some incendiarists5... really help! No, religious killing does not help! Nor for that matter does killing in the name of irreligion, as has led to the death of millions in the hand of Communism. Russia was only one that suffered vast internal invasion, their own people like locusts, persecuting them, suppressing Christianity, assaulting those at prayer, behaving in multiplied instances like beasts - and worse: often exulting in it, with a depraved ideological baseness.

The religion of man unmakes man (*19).

What now of this vast Russian religion, making a religion out of irreligion and worshipping what the Bible calls a "god of forces" ? It too now is internationalised, leaving neither liberty nor prosperity in its wake.

All this both validates Christ's prediction of ramifying wars, and verifies His place as Prince of Peace; for as obstruction grows, the results show; and alternative 'methods' fail, with a regularity that is nothing short of systematic. In fact, there is more of apologetic interest: Christ not merely predicted war in abundance, in an increasingly immoral world, He also forecast this:
"YEA, THE TIME COMES WHEN HE WHO KILLS YOU WILL THINK THAT HE DOES GOD SERVICE"
(John 16:2, Matthew 24).

{This is the 'opinion' of the scimitar, and the instruments of the inquisition alike: they are both EXPLICIT, much used and often exhibited. The sickle is not different in this, that the 'god of forces' underlying Communism, which has a covert supernaturalism allied with an inconsistent materialism, loved sacrificial victims, and took them both from its own midst and from the other nations with unruffled ferocity, blood lust abounding as with the others.}

Such indeed was the feeling as martyrs like John Huss were put to death: the death orations (*20) of Rome, as martyrs were spent (*21) like the millions of some modern entrepreneur, could be exercises in double killing. They were lacerating the name as well as the corpse, assaulting the destiny (if it were possible) as well as the day on earth... all but unbelievably, in the name of... Christ! Unbelievably ? Hardly. Both history and prophecy attest such things; and the fact that they have not only happened, but done so widely, is fulsome further verification.

Whilst war may be necessary to defend the afflicted from violence, the concept of simply grabbing what you want to the glory of Allah, or some humanly invented religion or drive or lust or thrust: it is as hideous as it is irrational, as irrational (*) as it is irreligious, and as irreligious as it is provocative to the Prince of Peace, who in peace gave Himself (cf. James 4:1-3). As Paul states it (Romans 3:17), in seeking for men to come to the Prince of Peace, from their rebellions:

The way of peace they have not known.

Thus we come on a flurry of fulfilments and verifications. The world does not find peace without Jesus Christ, its Prince, far less by misusing as it does, His graces or name. In so doing, then, it verifies (*18) not only what He claimed for Himself, but what He said for the future events; and within the abuse, there is specific fulfilment of this area of killing while thinking this is doing service to... God! It has all happened not merely noticeably, but with all the explosive force of vast racial rebellion; and the witness of war expands. The ultimate racism is that of the human race, against God!

Finally, we should summarise the systematic character of the offence which in principle so violates the Bible, the Prince of Peace and the world. It is no accidental occasion of strife which disturbs the world so noticeably that even the blind may soon become... aware.

In motive, men are forever seeking glory where it is not to be found. The glory of the (humanistic) race, of Rome, of Muhammad, of war, of winning, of racial superiority, of Communistic doctrinaire aridities, of the Pope, of Mary, of Aryans, of genes... you name it! This is readily interpreted by the Bible: it is because there IS glory so that it is rational to see it; but they seek it where it is not to be found, through unbounded rebellion which is producing increasingly confounding results! Here is 'Babylon'6 ablaze! (Contrast Isaiah 55:2-6.) And what says Jeremiah 13:16-17!

Give glory to the Lord your God
before He causes darkness, and before your feet stumble on the dark mountains,
and while you are looking for light, He turns it into the shadow of death and makes it dense darkness.
But if you will not hear it, my soul will weep in secret for your pride;
My eyes will weep bitterly and run down with tears...

Four major international systems promote this. The Arab religion, now paraded so that men might perceive the place of force, is one. The Moslem god is not the Christian God. Do you kill the servants of your God as they did, so systematically, nearly taking over Europe in A.D. 732 at the Battle of Tours. This was a matter of the Moslem march, the holy war, the religious fervour, that launched armies and hurled men to glory for the reward of blood, as Muhammad was quick to declare of war in his field, in his own time, and he did this in no vague or uncertain terms (see e.g. pp. 986-989, 91 supra).

Their god is and always has been one of violence, and one for which the use of force to secure religious conversion is in certain cases, in order (Surah IX. 5, and Schaff, as noted). This god is the one Saddam Hussein says he worships; it is in the name of this god that Americans are called devils, doubtless including George Bush when, during the Gulf War, he was fresh from his prayer service, apparently directed to the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now how can the same God have his followers calling Christians devils, as has long appeared the trend ? THEY reject what HE in writing commands! Of course, he is not the same god, but no god at all, except it be as one format for the god of this world, a world which offers its friendship - as James tells us - at the expense of becoming enemies of God, the true God, and not the heretical caricature which the Moslems announce; nor the wafer God of Roman Catholicism, which is no god at all.

The Moslem religion denies that Christ died for the sins of men; the Roman religion denies that eternal salvation is conferred as a gift, entirely through the grace of God, and sets up a schedule of unauthorised priests and actions to intervene between any hope of heaven, and suffering sinners.

The JEWISH religion is separate from the Christian on one basic ground: the nation so acted as to KILL Christ, without accepting Him as the sacrifice for sin for which He came. That is not the ultimate point for this people: it is failure to repent at the national level which still afflicts the nation, in the very midst of divine mercies that are both prodigious and predicted, as we have seen in considerable detail.

The ARAB, the ROMAN and the JEWISH dealings, all international, have Jesus Christ in one way or another changed, rejected, or caricatured. The Russian contribution of a COMMUNISTIC rejection of Christ and most able persecution of His people, makes a fourth - MARXISM. (See p. 862 supra.)

ROME, JERUSALEM, MECCA:

Arab, Jew and Roman all produced an internationalised religion. EACH of these religions is against the Christ of God, declared in the Bible. These religions spread not only where their people were, but through them. Yes, to this add: MOSCOW: Russian, Jewish ... Arab and Roman religious rejections or transformations of Jesus Christ, and this accounts for thousands of millions of the people on this globe! The revolt is systematic; the case is tragic; and so are the results.

But WHY do we need so to cover this case ? It is that men might see verified the word of the ONLY GOD THERE IS, whom reason attests, whom prophecy exhibits, whom history follows, honour His name, accord to Him the honour (Ezekiel 21:26-27, 17:22-24, Revelation 5:9,12-13) which is objectively His due, and come to the only PRINCE OF PEACE that there is; and this, so they might cease their hatred of one another, seemingly an epidemic, and learn to love one another in the God who IS LOVE. Violence in religion is pandemic, but not in religion alone; love for the lost is needed that they might be found... love and not violence. It is neither wise nor Biblical to hate or attack those who are currently misled. It is both Biblical and necessary to show their errors, precisely as does a doctor, though here the physician is Jesus Christ, and the danger is both critical and eternal.
 

In terms of 5 A) above, this leads to an extension. Thus the POWER of the Inquisition, the scimitar and the sickle, symbolising those three world conspiracies of shame that overlook the essential personal aspect of man made in God's image, using force at will, and often at large where it does not and cannot belong: all have failed. Romanism did not because it could not intimidate and excoriate the souls of men into conformity; Islam did not because it could not sentence all who resisted to death or succumbing servitude to the ruling 'faith'; Communism did not because it could not sentence in Siberia or elsewhere, even by tens of millions summarily indeed whether in Russia or China, and in this way or that, control and impose its perished propositions upon the world.

Indeed, all three have failed in prediction. Communism could not even get it right in terms of what was 'ripe' to fall and not, so that its wisdom failed in the simple test of empirical, historical fact, as well as in validity (cf. SMR pp. 925-926, 614, 620ff., That Magnificent Rock Ch. 5).

Like Hitler, it fell in fact as well as in theory.

Romanism stole and grabbed riches from those whom it slew, incredibly in the name of  'christ', having invented a movable christ who could be seized and transported in the form of bread, despite His cry that His words were spirit and life, and that He was returning to heaven (John 6), and the prohibition of the worship any image of the Lord, indeed of any master but He (Exodus 20, Matthew 23:8-10), as it fulfilled John 16:2 with precision. Yet its God Almighty on earth, in the papacy, was anything but almighty, fleeing in ignominy just after the declaration of papal infallibility, in 1870 before mere military force; while its ends justify the means jesuitical philosophy is as far from Christ the TRUTH as the East from the West. Indeed, it is further, since these are comparable, and truth is not at all comparable with deceit.

As to Christ, the King and the criterion: He died BECAUSE neither violence nor deceit were His! (Isaiah 53:9).

The once vaunted military might of Romanism, associated as it was with the Holy Roman Empire and able to command kings to make war, which it did as we have seen in SMR Chs. 9 - 10, is now in tatters. It does not command this earth any more than does Communism. Islam likewise, despite its grab for power in Arabia, Africa and then in Europe, to Constantinople, and the harangues of the false prophet Muhammad, continually promising glory in heaven for the gory violence of flesh on earth as peoples were to be subdued, to submit, to be smitten for this and that, degraded, assaulted if trying to escape and the like as we have seen in the Surahs cited, this other this-worldly system, it also, like the others, making claims of one kind or another of powers beyond, it was rendered small.

Substantially, oil wealth has restored its sway, and that with violence as amazing as that which went before in its insurgent history. Like Rome, it has waded in blood; and in this, does it differ from Communism ? The convergence of force and certain religions, then, in these ways, has been profound.

False prophecies all, they have failed. Their gods are not able to command what the words imply. They harass, they invade, they intrigue; but they do not prevail. As Biblically predicted, they tamper with the earth, but they do not ride over it. As likewise foretold in the word of God, they are part of the proliferation of prophets who are false, words untrue, schema spiritually slipshod, words not from the Lord, not embedded in the testimony of the ages, in the counsel of the Almighty. It is in historical fact as in divinely indited proclamation (itself a further verification - Jeremiah 23:18ff.):
 

"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 violently on 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.

“I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran.
I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied.
But if they 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.

“ 'Am I a God near at hand,' says the Lord,
'And not a God afar off?
Can anyone hide himself in secret places,
So I shall not see him?' says the Lord;
'Do I not fill heaven and earth?' says the Lord.

“ 'I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in My name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’

“ ' How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart, who try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal.

“ 'The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream;
And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully.
What is the chaff to the wheat?' says the Lord.

“ 'Is not My word like a fire?' says the Lord,
And like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?

“ 'Therefore behold, I am against the prophets,' says the Lord, 'who steal My words every one from his neighbor. Behold, I am against the prophets,' says the Lord, 'who use their tongues and say, ‘He says.’ Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,' says the Lord, 'and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies and by their recklessness. Yet I did not send them or command them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all,' says the Lord."


Like all false prophecy, in the end they fail, but on the way, they flail. As this prophecy of Jeremiah shows, quite clearly, that is part of the properly investigable case! Further, it is when the days for the return of Christ (as in Jeremiah 23:5ff.) come near, that this phenomenon of false prophets will reach a kind of consummation. It has done so with sects and squalor of spiritual confusion all but unimaginable: we do indeed consider it "perfectly" in these latter days (as in Answers to Questions Ch. 5). Let us however return to the big three we have considered more freely.

In these cases, the flailing is not with words alone. Yet the result is the same. When the antichrist himself comes, then his pathetic self-adoring humanism will be the copestone, sitting there till the wind blows it over, as we have seen.

This undelicious exercise in human folly awaits the judgment swift, fatal and final, to come (cf. The Other News  5, SMR  845ff., 910-911, 877-878, 684ff., 721ff., 750Bff.). It has had many preliminaries, traced in these references not a little. Amongst these have been many of the warts, if you will, on the face that forms, that of the 'man of sin' (II Thess. 2), the 'prince of this world', the prince to come predicted by Christ (John 14:30): that lusting, thrusting evil being, and his ministers, whose sway and seekings have marred the globe from the first, and take it to the last stand of folly, before it falls to its just oblivion, so clearly marked (cf. Revelation 19:19). Its final face is not desirable, human and profoundly absurd, dealing with profundity like a child in the shallows (II Thess. 2).

Meanwhile, the word of the Lord triumphs in ALL things, and the pretenders perish in their false claims. The whole creation awaits the revelation of the sons of God (Romans 8:19), who now in patience and suffering, then in grace and peace, are the destiny for the race which is composed in the beauty of holiness (cf. Revelation 22:3-5, Daniel 7), for the time when the judgment comes, and Christ returns, the true and due head, the only One who did on earth precisely what His words prescribe*6, sovereign in spirit yet without sin, placarder of peace, found only through Him: not seeking greatness, but foregoing it, that man might live (Philippians 2), and then receiving it again, that life might be shepherded in Him.

But let us return to our consideration of Islam in particular, its seizure of various components and its innovation of a new christ, a new word contrary in heart and depth, in teaching and approach, in this worldly zeal and in violence, to the word of God as in the Old, so in the New Testament, to the testimony of manuscripts, as likewise to human nature and human history. It pronounces words on God's behalf, with no basis beneath, no coverage of man as he is, no testimony of truth in operation, power in performance or prophecy in precision. It lacks a demonstrator, to exhibit its truth, and falls in falsity without aid. It is a religion of absences.

It is one more envelopment work, which with many others does not, cannot and will not succeed. It does however succeed well in this, that it is a scourge to the world, for its folly in not following the faith which is verified, alone valid and inescapable by reason, as just and true.
 

In other words, just as the Bible has been produced over many centuries, with pens moving in different countries, amidst many histories, predicting, proving, rebuking and attesting in fact and function, what is asserted in word and thought; has a synthesis never altering, of plan and purpose, with all the marks of one mind, all knowing, all the time, moving to an end as foretold; so the Koran has bits of Jewish legend, floating oddments of pseudo-Christian elements, in this sense, that neither has standing or status, provable position or acceptance from the sources concerned, archeological attestation or semantic or doctrinal agreement with the carefully preserved documents of the Bible.

In jewelry terms, it is simply fake*7 in its multiplied efforts to invade the Biblical preserve and engraft itself into a past it quite explicitly does not have! It is diamanté, not diamond in terms of evidence, work done in its making, practical and demonstrable involvement in the history of the race. Much of it comes from a 7th. century AD pen, far too late, just as it is utterly contradictory to what is not too late. And what is too late ? ANY remedy for this world which waits so long, is too late. (Cf. SMR pp. 47-63, Repent or Perish Ch. 2.) A total change of method, of revelation, flatly contrary to the whole nature of what went before, without antecedents, testimony or plan, simply dumped into a world, without remedy, without reason, without attestation of evidence, without history, without a basis in things demonstrable, and without a solution that is rational; instead force.

And this ? It is not strictly a remedy at all, but a method of handling this world, with the force it does not favour, and not only in practice, but in essence, cannot answer its swirling greeds, needs, clashes and conquests, immersions and curses. Blessing is needed in the provision of God, that covers the case with splendour, not the race with blood. Power is needed to lift it out, not tell it to try harder, and to slaughter as required.

Judgment will be soon enough. Currently the world is given grace for place in the sight of God, in Christ; then the judgment will overflow. God has said this from the first, and continues to say it to the last. The Saviour was foreshadowed in Eden (the protevangelion of Genesis 3:14-15), and throughout the Old Testament with its revealing denunications of Israel (as in Isaiah 30!), it continues to show His coming in ever-increasing detail.

Not only so, it showed likewise the Gospel to come, the nature of the Messiah, the Christ to come, His date of coming, the rejection by the Jews, His own people, which He would suffer, the movement of this same Gospel (PRECISELY as now preached) to the Gentiles, the restoration of Israel to its land (SMR Ch. 9, Appendix A, and see Israel in Index), the triumphs it would win against vastly superior forces, numerically, the division of Jerusalem into two parts (1948) after the Jews returned to it, and this after they had crucified Christ, and long endured exile.

There is no choice needed. It is simply rebellion or repentance. No other option exists. As to so-called 'options', beware of this, that sin blinds, and iniquity exacts. You need to call on the MERCY of God, in the NAME of Christ. "Also, I tell you, whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven" (Luke 12:8). But whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord (the actual one, not a fraud, fake or diamanté) will be saved (Acts 2:21, Romans 10:9).

Do NOT imagine it will be difficult in this, that GOD SO LOVED*8 THE WORLD (which, after all, He made) that He sent the Christ (John 3:16, 10:9,27-28), for whom He spent so long in preparing it. He WOULD have all to be saved (I Timothy 2), but will not descend to violence as method: HE MADE MAN, and does not unmake him in order to 'get' him. Hence history.
 

So do we find the marvel of the word of God, the Bible, unmatched: like Christ, it has no competition. There is plurality of entrants, but no challenge. Structure, history, confluence, continuity, organic solidarity, robust coherence over time, unity of thematic stresses, uniqueness, pervasive prediction based on principles and truth, these are mere elements of  the majesty and dominion of the word of God, with its undisturbable accuracy of detail, and its scope, unmoved by events, but moving them.


 
 

 

NOTES 

To check any SMR pages, cited for excerpts, in order to utilise any notes, see

smr /bookmap.

*1 Luke 24:5.  Cf. Barbs, Arrows and Balms Appendix 3, Biblical Blessings Ch. 15, Extended Endnote 2, Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch.  11, With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Ch.   3,
The Magnificence of the Messiah, Endnote 1, SMR Ch. 6 and  Index, The Kingdom of Heaven Ch.  9, Section 14, JJ 25, A Spiritual Potpourri Chs.  15, 16, Stepping out for Christ 5, Things Old and New Ch.  2, Excursion 2A; LIGHT of DAWN Ch.   3; Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Chs.  5, 6).
 

*2 See for example, concerning spurious unities:

Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch. 9 - glamour, stammer, hammer  ... flitter and glitter;
Spiritual Refreshings in the Digital Millenium (REF) Ch.   3 (the soporific self, and the unity glide, under the sedation of sin), 11 - twigs and towers;
News, Facts and Forecasts Ch.  8 - sham, shame and co.;NFF 13 - symphony and seditions - two heady heads,  14 - deadly d's;
Repent or Perish Ch.   5 inventions in mind, gender, politics ... (spiritual - political - economic surrealism, and reality, and various modes of escape from efficacious unity, where it belongs), and with this, Chs.  11,  5,  4,  With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength (HEART),
It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls ...(CALL),  Things Old and New Ch.  10 and Epilogue, Red Alert, in a Grey Day with the Bright Light Coming Ch. 10, Appendix, BB  2, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch.   8, Questions and Answers Ch. 6 , NFF Ch.  13 (spiritual), A Question of Gifts VII;
Earth Charter, religious summits and UN - CALL 11, NFF Ch.  13, Things Old and New Epilogue;
REF 13 , HEART 10.

 

*3. Cf.  SMR pp. 25ff., 580ff., Things Old and New Ch.   1 , Barbs, Arrows and Balms Ch.  6, Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch.  11, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch.  16, Repent or Perish Ch.  2. Here, for example in Ch. 1 of Things Old and New, but in this with others of the references too, we see not only the fact that God cannot be evil, but that without Christ's redemption, He could not be otherwise. This is one of the most numerous and gratuitous confirmations in which truth so sweetly specialises.
 

*4

Thus in Red Alert ...Ch. 10 we find this:

The Koran denies the redemption in Christ, His vicarious and substitutionary atonement, His deity and His kingdom that shall not pass away. As such it is a heresy more articulate than most, more direct, in its dismissal of Christ. Like the rest, it gives faint praises, which deny the realities of the Bible categorically. Unlike some, it is highly explicit. Like all heresies, it uses the Bible and abuses it, appeals to the Bible and dismisses it. It is unusual in combining spurious materials both from the Jewish sources (outside their canon) and from those relating to Christianity.

To call it 'good' is by implication to call the Christ of the Bible 'bad', since it mangles its testimony, as did Israel the Christ. Such action is by no means unknown in the Bible and is in fact part of the predicted rebellion against reality (Hebrews 10:20,29-31, Jude, Matthew 24:24, II Corinthians 11).
 

Having removed Christ's death in Surah 4, Muhammad has not truck with redemption! It is works and alms and battles that count and make the way open, and indeed, battle for the cause in itself can be enough (Surah 9). Repeatedly sacrifice for battle is the highest of attestations, the most sure path of glory, contrasted with those 'hypocrites' or whatever, who fail to show up and bring TERRESTRIAL power to play in overcoming enemies.

However without redemption, heaven is too easy, too unclean and too quixotic. If your works are to outweigh your faults, for all men sin: then on what criterion ? Koran-wise: Obviously battle is high up in priority. Alms help. Being ruthless to enemies but kindly to the 'faithful' is great (Surah 48:29). Cutting off heads is important in various situations which are not unlikely to recur (Surah 47:1-9). Being ready so to act that you "do not falter  or sue for peace when you have gained the upper hand" is not reserved for the devil, but for the opponents in PHYSICAL combat! (Surah 37:44ff.). HOW is all this to be estimated, the good and the bad in any given life, for entry into assessment ?

Obviously, there is a cut-off point, after which those whose works are not rated high enough, are voided!

Allah we are told is merciful, but he is also very decisive on certain issues. What of such a combination as this: great loyalty and pride and selfishness with it ? It does happen, you know.

HOW would the cut-off be applied. Answer as provided seems to be this: SUBMIT. It is for Allah to decide such things. Yes, but this does not alter the PRESCRIBED paths to glory! They are works. They include rebukes for many things and commendations, not by any means unconditional, for many things. Thus ETERNAL felicity (though the highly hedonistic sort of pictures given do not appear entirely felicitous) is dependent on this and that, a little here, a lot there ... The balance moves this way or that, and eternity is quantified, or qualified, or estimated.

So sad. You just failed. One well remembers at student who went to an agricultural college. He failed in one course by 1%, or so, from memory, and so
a) lost the opportunity to graduate
b) lost confidence
c) moved into a ridiculous religion that pretended science but showed nothing of its method
d) became oddly aggressive and so on. His whole life moved so much.

Later be began to realise some things.

There was still hope.

In eternity however there is NO HOPE. You are there or not. The criteria of Muhammad are in THIS WORLD, and by WORKS. In all the ways noted, they fail. In all the ways noted, the Biblical works and those of Christ succeed. As the one is notorious, the other is illustrious.

A further site touching these affairs is found in Biblical Blessings Appendix III,
at Distortions. )

Let us further see this disorder in the Koran, in common and keeping with allied and even parallel disorders common to man, citing from the above.
 

Pretending that a hospital is clean, does nothing for the patients, and being called a nice person because you let this pretence go on, is giving nothing but trouble to anyone.

But let us look at our FIVE in ORDER.
 
 

1. COMMUNISM 

SMASH AND GRAB, while talking about historical process

 

 

2. SYNERGISM

PART AUTO-ATTAIN AND SO GAIN - (personal)

 

 

3. ROMANISM

PART AUTO-ATTAIN, AND GRAB (the world) AND GAIN (salvation, all being well) - personal and institutional 

 

 

4. ORGANIC EVOLUTIONISM 

AUTO-CREATE AND GRAB YOUR FATE

 

 

5. MOHAMMEDAN-
ISM 

AUTO-MAKE-WEIGHT 

and ENTER YOUR FATE

 
 

In fact, the place of rest in reality, is not :
 

1. an historic process helped by ruthlessness.

That is not how the universe, the creation came to be
(cf. That Magnificent Rock, Ch.1),

or will become
(cf. SMR pp. 502ff., 590ff.; Ch. 5 in Repent or Perish - STATE OF THE END; Item 23, The Teacher of Righteousness in Barbs, Arrows and Balms),

what it should be, and what God will make it to be.

2. Nor is it a psychological process helped by insight.

3. Nor is it a spiritual process, helped by contributions.

4. Nor is it a biological process, helped by the unknown

god of forces.

5. Nor is it a moral process, helped by devoted desire, whether or not forwarded by holy wars.
 

(Cf. The Kingdom of Heaven... Chapters 2, 3, 8 and Appendix ,That Magnificent Rock, Appendix 1; Barbs, Arrows and Balms The Aviary of Idolatry, Biblical Blessings Appendix IV, SMR Index on Roman Catholicism, Moslem, Evolution, Salvation, Creation, Redemption, and Communism, incl. pp. 520ff., 655-656, 925-926, 831, 468469, 707-708 , 903, 1070-1071,1088G and below, Appendix IV, The Magnificence of the Messiah.)
 

These ways are not what establishes man/woman/child to be accepted by God.

·  You do not enter by hopping over a wall (John 10:1,9);

or bringing in a step-ladder (Amos 9:2, Genesis 11:4), as if you could control the heavens and the earth, and the God who made both, and deviously, with some sort of inspiration, outwit God and land yourself in His presence, like some burglar wanting to see the Queen, and seeing prison instead.

·  You do not enter by ANY step-ladder, be it moral or psychological or religious.

·  Nor do you enter into the place of God, overcoming the protection of the "wall" by breaking it down.


 

"Therefore flight shall perish from the swift,

The strong shall not strengthen his power,

Nor shall the mighty deliver himself,

he shall not stand who handles the bow,

The swift of foot shall not escape,

Nor shall he who rides a horse deliver himself.

The most courageous men of might

Shall flee naked in that day," says the Lord.
 

To put it perhaps yet more crisply:
 

"Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils,

For of what account is he?" (Isaiah 2:22),

and again,

"The lofty looks of man shall be humbled,

The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down.

And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

For the day of the Lord of hosts

Shall come upon everything proud and lofty,

Upon everything lifted up -

And it shall be brought low" - Isaiah 2:12.
 

We read in Isaiah 31:
 

"Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,

And rely on horses,

Who trust in chariots because they are many,

And in horsemen because they are very strong,

But who do not look to the Holy One of Israel,

Nor seek the Lord!

"Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster,

And will not call back His words,

But will arise against the house of evildoers,

And against help of those who work iniquity.
 

"Now the Egyptians are men, and not God;

And their horses are flesh, and not spirit.

When the Lord stretches out His hand,

Both he who helps will fall,

And he who is helped will fall down;

They all will perish together."
 

Thus it is all clear, distinct and decisive. THIS is the Biblical way for man. The other way has not worked, does not work and cannot work; and God Himself works against it, allowing it great rein, though now the reins are tired, and the 'horses' of mankind are becoming stale and tired, or frenzied, and the devil knows, as John declares, that his time is short.
 


 

The Lord, when you know Him as a child of the kingdom IS RESTFUL, and has CREATED THE CONDITIONS FOR OUR REST, in salvation from sin, in guidance in life and in growth in grace. It is right and restful, real and restful, realised and restful. There is no real anxiety, for HE provides all and Himself, the shield and exceedingly great reward, is available as for Abraham, called the friend of God.

 

Strife is no way for spiritual design. God is without strife, being replete with all and needing nothing, as one, without dissonance or discord, for there is nothing to impel into Him what He does not want, or to contest with Him what He does (cf. SMR pp. 580, Repent or Perish Ch. 2). Strife is the subject of sin, and its resolution in peace is the subject of redemption, not mere aspiration, as if mere effort from disease, were to remove disease, or vision itself were remedy for ruin. WORK needs to be done by One able and pure enough to perform it: One only qualifies, and His name is God. One way is provided, only one, and its name is redemption. It provides what man lacks freely, by faith only, through grace alone. This is the way the world disowns, and so being faithless in its forces and courses of unmitigated sin, even calling that godly which is in very conflict with God Himself, it wallows in its crimes and continues in its presumption of attributing to man divine powers, or to God what He has never spoken.

God however has both spoken, verified His word, left all else not merely anti-verified but invalid, and sent His Son... as Redeemer, the only One there is, without sin, the only one with this testimony, according to multitudes of predictions for Him and from Him, the only one so attested, and sent His Holy Spirit to His people, to enable them to live with Him. Meanwhile, He has set signals in advance for His return to judge, just as were given for His time to come as Saviour. The work is multiple in kind, in testimony and in operation, but single in portent, in Prince and salvation. Reason qualifies this alone and altogether. Faith however must take it up.
 

  WHY seek the living however, among the dead ? Seek the living God through Him who came to demonstrate His control of history, His purity of Spirit, His capacity to heal, to raise the dead and being raised Himself, to perform in heaven what He foretold on earth, till He comes. It is well to meet with your God; He has come: if you have not done so, it is time for you to go to Him by the only available avenue. There is no road like it.
 

*5 The very image and likeness of God in man is its basis, whatever may be its paralysis to insurgent autonomy; and God knows what He has made (Cf. Predestination and Freewill Section I, SMR pp. 348ff.).
 
 

*6  See for example:  Repent or Perish Ch. 2, pp. 41ff., The Magnificence of the Messiah, SMR Ch. 6, Barbs, Arrows and BalmsAppendix 1, esp. pp. 279ff., Tender Times for Timely Truths Chs.  7, 8 .
 
 
 

*7

FUNDING FOLLY WITH FRIVOLOUS INVALIDITY
AMID WARS AND BLOOD,
PINING FOR THE PEACE THAT IS MISSED BECAUSE BLITZED
IGNORING THE TRUTH, THE LORD and the LOVE OF GOD

The love which provides peace is met with the hatred which evanesces in ill-considered deeds, bloodthirsty actions, domineering gambits, shrewd selfishness and the like. Hence no peace on earth. The prescription is proscribed by the rulers of this world, by the prince of it; and the penalties are provided accordingly. The figure of it is a research which at enormous cost, including the life of the founder of the research institute, provides healing for an epidemic scourge which seizes the earth (it is called sin). When the precious blessing arrives en scène, the messengers are harassed, the product is ditched, the marvel is suppressed, speech about it is called dangerous as in Afghanistan and many other Moslem countries, where to 'criticise' Muhammad may evoke death, and the gospel of peace is buried in blood; only in the love of God to arise again.

What then is to be done for those who so treat the wonder medicine of immortality, and bring bane or banishment to its messengers ? Blood and war, hollow unhappiness and terror, fear and floods of psychic disorders, whether in the biblically predicted fears and anxieties, where folly wants to invade with its peculiar disorders as at the World Trade Centre, or in the biblically predicted death passions, where death is a tool of trade, as in the aeroplanes which crashed into it, on purpose. These merely illustrate the pandemonium of similar abandonment of life in disaster, imposed on others as the deadly devastations proceed, Israel being a prominent example of such an invasion, which is suffers and has long endured.

Where then is the peace of this world ? It is with the wonder medicine, buried, but re-arising while the world sees how far it can go utterly and literally to fulfil ALL of Revelation 6, with its authorisation of death. It is gauntly amusing, in a sad way, to see this world in such writhings and torments to fulfil the very words of the God who performs, speaks and does (Isaiah 64:4), when it works with such hostility against the Lord, so to suppress its own peace while its morbid ways so enable its destruction.

To all this harassment is added confusion, ever a ready weapon of the devil. Thus such follies as Islam are, in many illustrations nowadays evoking and indeed invoking physical intolerance as in Ambon, Afghanistan and of course for so long, Iran and Iraq, while indirect invasion of the US in another of its manifestations: and these are named with a name. It is drawn from Christian circles and fame, where it refers to an interest in the Bible without political or theological intrusion, centring on the Prince of Peace, goodwill towards all men, love of truth and industry, honesty and integrity, loving your neighbour as yourself and your enemies, doing good to all men, and seeking the way of peace, peaceably, for all. It is the term 'fundamentalist'.

Some seem to resent this interest in Biblical fidelity, in peace and in prosperity within the love of God and His people, with goodwill towards all, such as the Bible in fact prescribes. Hence they invent the term 'fundamentalist' which is used with careless indifference even within Christian circles, to mean now this, now that, so that all who may be Bible believers have visited upon them certain features of this kind or that, in the most invidious of generalisations. This is merely the beginning. This is the work of the last century. Now as progress in regress has turned to the next, the present century, there is the wonderful increase in this invalid misuse of logic, rash generalisation.

Now that term is applied to other people who have a 'book'. Forget that the other book, the Koran is sufficiently filled as we have in detail shown in several chapters, with various incitations to violence even in terms of the matter of faith itself. Ignore the diametrical opposition this involves to the Christian suffering and grace, with love, which is Biblically required. Simply say this: BOOK = BAD = FUNDAMENTALISM, because Islam does bad things and has book. Therefore all other people who have book do bad things and are same. Therefore Christians bad when they have book.

The structural stylisation above is admittedly on the comic side; but then in grief there is often comedy. How could anyone with the slightest attribute of the most minute scholarship, the most tender first apprehension of logic fall for such folly as that! Yet one finds in circles one might have hoped had some approach to sophistication, nothing less than this.

Thus is the verbal burial added to the blood burial of Christianity; for that is not and never has been Christianity which ADDS to GOD's words (Proverbs 30:6), the words of man, as in both Romanism and Islam, each of which seeks to take something of the Bible, or in one case even all of it, and then so bury it in unauthorised, contraries (SMR pp. 1032-1088H) as we have met in these two religions, that it emerges unrecognisable to the point that vile violences become necessary mandates in dealing in the field of faith as such. This inadmissable breach of logical validity is then, merely one more violence, and it is wrought by simplistic but not so simple journalist or politician alike, as the burial of peace proceeds, so that the world might abort its hopes, and inherit in the end that burning up with all its evil works, which is predicted so justly in II Peter 3.

See on this verbal invalidity, this logical abuse of terminology further in The Biblical Workman Appendix 3, Light of Dawn Ch.   2;  Lord of Life Chs.   3,  8,  9. 

See also for references on Islam, and/or the Koran, Beauty for Ashes Ch. 4, *2, Tender Times ...
Ch. 8, Red Alert  ... Ch. 16, with relationship to force in faith on the one hand, and  redemption on the other.
 
 

*8

Some brief overviews may be useful here.
 

As noted in SMR p. 830:

In 1 John 5:10, we find: "He who does not believe God has made Him a liar because he has not believed the testimony that God has given of His Son." According to the Bible, Allah and/or his maker, is a liar. Again, in 1 John 4:1-3, we find that such deniers of the Son are of the spirit of antichrist.

We examine more of this theme later (pp. 986-1032ff.  infra, q.v.), and have touched on it before (pp. 50-71ff. supra). The reasons for rejection of such a religion as the Moslem one include the lack of rational grounds for accepting it; the arbitrary derogatory re-cast of Jesus Christ; the irrational reconstruction involved (see Chapter 6 supra) - in the historically distant and evidentially outrageous plastic surgery on Christ and His works, courtesy of Muhammad; the unverified claims of Muhammad; the way the Bible has predicted just such antichrist elements in advance - such things constituting an evidential base; the irrationality of mere brute force for the purpose of religious change (see Chapter 1 supra on this topic); the failure of brute force in matters where the honour of Allah in the Middle East is allegedly involved, whereas he is statedly almighty; the lack of the necessary remedy in the religion, which is a good works balancing proposition, and the positive logical necessity for the Bible as a divine communication (per se, Chapter 1 supra).

For the present, however, our interest is the citing by Arabs of the will of Allah, versus our reading of the Bible about the will of God. What the Bible said, happened. Neither in predictive exploits nor in power displayed by Allah against what are allegedly his opponents, in wars, have we seen anything remotely resembling almightiness. Might does not establish right; but when predictions are in point, power deficiency does indicate error. The point is apologetic here also in a positive manner, since the failure of the Moslem Allah here makes the more conspicuous the power of God, who makes not merely large things, but small ones happen if He states that He will. Even the site of the action, of the test, was predicted, and that emphatically, as is emphasised in this Chapter (cf. Appendix A).

The extraordinary victories of Israel, the amazingly adverse situations from which it has gained victory, the different ways in which this has happened, the power which has been displayed and the power it was predicted there would be displayed: all these things cumulatively show themselves in stark relief when the performance of the Moslem Allah in this respect is considered. For him, there is little to test; and what there is, does not meet performance requirements on the test site with Israel, a nation God has stipulated as a lesson, both in His discipline of it, and in His deliverance of it, both in precise accord with what He said.

Again, some summary occurs in SMR p 989ff.

Religions of force at the faith level all fall by the same criteria, as already shown.

Muhammad's approach embraced force in critical regards, as we saw in Chapter 1 (pp. 50-57), and shall see (*3). This may be observed with pellucid clarity reaching in the zeal of practical conflict, to the faith level. No protestations can hide the reality of what was said and done, and is. As with the U.S.S.R., much done contradicted idealogy in detail and in lethal practice. Thus in the Koran, Surah 8:36-41, on The Spoils, and 48:13-17 (On Victory), we find (it. added):

Tell the unbelievers that if they mend their ways, their past shall be forgiven ... make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God's religion shall reign supreme ... and: Say to the desert Arabs who stayed behind: ''You shall be called upon to fight a mighty nation, unless they embrace Islam.''

The ground of cessation is ACCEPTANCE, SUBMISSION TO ISLAM. What ceases is fighting; and fighting in war is force, force here concerning faith. Religious conquest allows the force to stop. Then ? ''As for those who led the way ... and those who nobly followed them, God ... has prepared for them gardens ... where they shall dwell for ever'' (Surah 9:100). He speaks (48:1) of a ''victory, so that God may forgive you your past and future sins.''

Not dissimilar talk came, it appears, from Iran's Khomeini, during the fight with Iraq our day. The concept of plastic keys to heaven, reportedly given to youngsters setting out into battle, does not seem at all contrary to this word of Muhammad .

Such glorying and exultance at the very level of spirit and eternity, of faith and of meaning, is a blasphemy so total as to defame God to the ultimate degree. If force made the difference at this level, then God, who has it all, could use it to do so, without allowing men to make such agonies for each other, and fail so often at that, or to drag each other downwards, as they often do. This denial of the very significance of freedom is the denial of the infinite purity of God.

Nor is this all. Idolaters were to be slain, and often were, or reduced to slavery, or...'convert' to the Moslem religion (Schaff, op.cit. p. 171); Jews and Christians were to be thoroughly humbled and made to pay tribute (see p. 91 supra). The code word is 'submission', the very essence of Allah; and people simply have to submit, in blood or life or thought or deed: force rules, and by force this religion swept over much of Central Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, through Turkey and India, some 5 centuries after its first onslaught (cf. Encyclopedia Britannica, 1986, Vol.2, pp. 409-410), with the Shiite variety, attesting interpretive authority over their texts, rather like the Pope in Romanist operations, also prodigious in the misuse of force.

Europe nearly paid dearly for the religion of dominance at the Battle of Tours when in 732 A.D., the armed myriads menaced such freedom as Europe had. Charles Martel however was successful in repulsing them. Leo the Isaurian similarly was able to overthrow their assaults on Constantinople in 717, 718, the more remarkable in that this was nearer to the centre of Islam geographically (H.A.L. Fisher, A History of Europe, p. 143).

Alas what the Saracen, Moslem invaders were then unable to do, before long the pope would be doing in his own way, using deplorable force in substitution for spiritual weapons such as would have suited his profession (II Corinthians 10:4), against Christians. (The Popes had not at that time been brought to that unholy imperialism which tended to match some of Muhammad's excesses, but came to proceed more on an individual, victim by victim basis before the more advanced involvement with the Holy Roman Empire, which would offer grand scales - *1 - of repression.)

So the untenable religions of violence at the faith level create turmoil in a globe which, to be accurate, often asks for just such appalling horrors as scimitar instead of spirit, by its hardened resistance to the claims of Christ. He Himself was far from ignoring this recalcitrance and its consequences, when on earth, or as the Word before His coming. (Cf. Matthew 13:15, 23:36-39, Luke 19:41-44, 17:25-31, Matthew 23-31-36, Amos 4:4-13, Isaiah 24:1-6, Revelation 9:18-21.) The tenderness of His pleadings sought deliverance, He coming not to condemn but to save (John 3:17), and offering Himself, to deliver; yet the grounds of His righteous government and the grounds of His government were intense, and shall be, as we have seen in Chapters 6-9 supra, and may investigate in Appendix B, dealing not least with Matthew 23:37.

Christ's majestic wonder and irrefutable authenticity (which, according to prophecy, required force to assail it, and according to the wisdom of God, blended this force into sacrifice and that into victory for sinners, as predicted also): this leaves at the personal level all comparison not merely wrong, but outrageous. Even His mercy was effective, and even His 'weakness' was triumphant. In fact, in nothing did He fail, all plans proceeding to consummation.

Not only did Christ meet the non-violence criterion (at the level of faith), He gave it precisely that majestic surplus and extraordinary facility of wonder, which we find so consistently as we test the things of the Bible... ''led as a lamb to the slaughter'' (Isaiah 53:7). How far other than this cherishing solicitude were the methods of the religions of violence! How far less are their exhibits in practice, as persons, and as violators of integrity with violence, as well!

Predicted by Christ, such false prophets as Muhammad, indeed such antichrists who would replace Him by force and not reason, by implicit libel on God, by subtlety and not truth, have nothing to predict their own coming as authentic, as He did. They know nothing of the date of their death, as He did, or the predicted nature of their work, as did Christ. In fact, they do not give in God's name, to the minds that God made, any rational ground to believed: while they provide acute evidence for their rejection.

Hence they exhibit merely an irksome irrationality. If God were the speaker of such products, He would have failed signally to identify Himself from within the maze and morass of those who can use the name, as almost any other name! Indeed there appear no even plausible grounds to believe more than such as the plundering prophet Muhammad, behind the Koran. Therefore to accept this as divine, provides only more ground of offence against the God who made evidence and reason: a blasphemy against the necessary greatness of the Sovereign Speaker of the universe, it is a arbitrary substitute for reliable grounds, as well as providing inalienable grounds for rejection in terms of force in the area of "conversion" (cf. pp. 50 ff., and 65 ff.; cf. *22, *27, Chapter 1 supra)... to name but one of those shown.

To forsake the authenticated stature of Christ, declared by Muhammad sinless, for the admittedly sinful and actually unverified and unvalidated words of Muhammad via an angel, is to forsake by an act of will the evidence God has been at pains to provide.

As noted, indeed (*2 on pp. 829-832 supra), there is the negative consideration also, that the allegedly almighty Allah does not manage1 to carry out what devotees organise in the Middle East, under the much-proclaimed massive 'provocation' of the Jews and others, and this despite the unmitigated and passionate favour for the use of force in war, to which Muhammad made commitment for his cause. The Jews' God said He would discipline them; send the Messiah; He foretold the Gospel, said it would reach the Gentiles, and told of the prolonged Jewish rejection of it, all just as we have shown in Chapter 9 supra. He told of the the Jews' return, assisted, from many nations, of their enormously successful wars against disproportionate numbers, the taking of half of Jerusalem and of the Jews being at length back in Jerusalem. It happened.

The Lord God who gives scientific method such scope said it would, and said one reason He was telling it was this: that it could be seen that it would happen. Having false and unreliable prophets receive the death penalty, all as we have seen earlier: He claimed in clearest terms that no other so-called 'god' could or would equal His own prophetic accuracy2. 

Precisely as He said on that last point, it is also the case; and the Moslem 'faith' falls doubly here. First, the allegedly almighty 'god' back of it does not prevail in alleged causes of concern over the vast tracks of time; and secondly, the Jewish God, the God whom they served in the Old Covenant, foretold all the steps of the scenario to the end. The power of God is seen in this revelation; but also in the timing of this revelation; and here the Koran is one again simply not a competitor.

Thus to dump Jesus Christ for the Moslem beliefs, casts aside the revelation strongly attested as proceeding back to the Flood (see Ebla, and 3. infra, Progressing to Nowhere: Home Like No Place) and in line to earlier background, in favour of a parvenu, a religion with a Koran that arises some 600 years after Christ: not 1500 years before, or equipped with attestation consonant with a backward movement to the dawn of history, in the related records. To say no more, Muhammad is 2000 years too late, in showing the NECESSARY DIVINE REMEDY, to meet the case of sin in a world undestroyed, argued in Chapter 1. That tardiness (cf. p. 50 ff. supra) is reminiscent of Muhammad's tendency to take this and that from other religions, and excludes the Moslem 'faith' just as surely as does its lack both of remedy for sin (pp. 44 ff. supra) and of rational attestation or grounds to exhibit the divine author; while its use of violence at the faith level, with its implicitly blasphemous implications is similarly fatal.

Again in 1075 we have overview:

Let us be candid; there is no point in avoiding the issues. Truth cannot stand by, if peace is to triumph. The Jews as a people crucified Christ (using Roman power, a reluctant agent in Pilate). The Moslems invented a new Christ, some 600 years later, and made someone up who did not die for sin, as the predicted Messiah had to do and did, giving Jesus' name to this mask. The Roman Catholic doctrine, using the name of Christ, killed masses of victims2 who did not agree with its worldly pretensions (such as Pope Boniface's claim that popes rule this world's princes), or its masterful direction of a religion of which Jesus Christ said: "Call no man on earth Master, for one is your master3 even Christ" (Matthew 23:8, cf. 1 John 2:27, Luke 6:46).

There you have three of the world's major religions, all relating closely to Christ (whom Muhammad, though changing Him, revered as a prophet): ONE killed Him (at Jerusalem); ONE killed BY 'Him' and still sacrifices (*16) 'Him' (from Rome), and one 'kills' Him by changing Him, and has arrangements including a direction to KILL, in certain circumstances till all opposition to "Allah" ceases, and often met in the unholy call for 'holy wars' (*17).

Now this is killing in the INTERESTS of religion (*18), not for moral rebuke or justice. Disbelief in these transmutations or mock-up's of Jesus Christ, made by managerial man, usurping the place of Christ, plagiarising, stealing His name, and killing in it, false masters, frauds! disbelief in THEIR product ? THIS ? IT can mean to DIE at the hand of sinful man, frequently confused man! to do so in appointed seasons, by this method and that, as seems good to such religionists. Let us examine only one aspect of all this.

What does the world deserve for this! Christ, the Prince of peace, is USED for killing... What hope is there while men use God's provisions so often to change them, while keeping the name, or 'honouring' it; use them to kill, in a perverse misapplication of the very 'weapons' of peace! And this, it is done by those 'leading', mastering and 'explaining' - CHRIST'S divine prerogatives - by those therefore by definition, usurpers... (Matthew 7:26-29). Christ misused to make war... it is worse then grisly! it is historical.