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CHAPTER 3

 A THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY IN THE USA

There is before us, in a place not too far from the one where the interview of Ch. 2 occurred, a seminary noted for its biblical emphasis. Some hundreds of students are listening to a lecture.... The Professor has just been discussing Revelation 17, and has spoken of  the New World Glory and the New World State and its Head, under the term 'Bubylon'. Let us hear him  as he develops his theme.

It is derived partly from 'bub' in the sense that this is a demeaning of mankind, so to seek height, only and always, to find depths that are dim. It also relates to humanity, as developed in concept in contemporary trend, providing the characteristic 'u'.  Naturally, it also reflects the biblical "Babylon" mystery, found in Revelation 17, which as shown in Biblical Blessings Ch. 2, covers all the work of false religion seeking to unify without ground but desire. It is with that, that this vacuous passion parades itself, in despite of the actual unity in the Maker whose power produced the settled products of His mind, so that unity becomes either possible or meaningful.

Such an anti-God mess was famous in actual Babylon, the city which was predicted for destruction and fulfilled its tragic destiny to the letter (Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 50-51). Then this term Babylon could be and was used as a symbol and name in the Bible for the whole leaven, or teaching, or system of thought which moves in this way to shove aside the actual God in favour of the illusionist marvel of man's own making. These are his cultural gods, more often nowadays not given that title, but treated with that kind of respect while man’s modern meretricious mumbling  about godless unity pours on like concrete into the abyss.

Man as master has many gods, his own creation, puppets of his mind, clones of his desires, facets of his function. His Creator is not among them, since control is not the option often desired, no Lord being desired, no reality the option: and if control is to come, the perversion of categories makes man desire to be the one who does it!

These depraved because deprived decadences, such as evolutionism,  naturalism, sci-philosophy, world religious unity movements and the like move inexorably because predictedly to their inglorious and vain end. You will find this explained in some detail in your texts, such as Secular Myths and Sacred Truth, Earth Spasm, Conscience Chasm: and Renewal of Life and Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming, as well as in The Shadow of a Mighty Rock.

Indeed, it is vain in both senses, empty and proud. Man on his two legs standing up as if God, albeit using words other than this, but taking the glory (cf. News 82) is not merely degrading himself to become despicable, contemptible and foolish, but in all these things grows commonplace now, while moving to the appointed end for such things as in Daniel 7,  Revelation 16, 19, II Thessalonians 2.

Hence  comes this  term 'Bubylon', as I have just used it.  This indeed mixes, as one might think,

v     Babylon (in this philosophic or political sense), that false multiplicity of allowed religions as in Babylon the former city, with
 

v     Mystery Babylon of Revelation 17, that thrust to make ONE religion with ONE beast whom all must worship, playing to the deluded, and seeking worship first of the Beast itself, and then of its head! This comes now, rushing into place after two millenia of the Gospel, its work  nearly complete for our Age.

There is a merging of  the two, in 'Bubylon',  a one word exposé on the childishness of using such a teaching. This of course, is merely a mnemonic.

It is as if without there being anything but man, you could make some kind of thing worth worshipping ('State', Image of the Beast, Anthropological Star or whatever), while ignoring the necessary Constructor of man Himself, formulator of his spirit, inventor his mind, designer of his body, compiler of their synthetic and organic unity and integrity of operation and their meaningfulness in speech in terms both of Maker and of other things made.

Bypassing the Systems Institutor, Creator and Codifier, moving in the various realms as their cases require, they so concentrate on their New World that they forget that it came neither from nothing nor from something inadequate, but precisely and logically from a basis which had to be eternal, since nothing produces nothing ever (something with a future is not nothing), and had to be sufficient. Inadequacy by definition is not able.

What then ?  Matter does not create its analyst, nor mind the will to deploy it at will, nor brute force the power to imagine or construct; what has it as always, is the Being who used it, because He had it and desired to do so, the Eternal God. 

It is better to tell the truth  now, than to find it out later. It is always better to know what you are doing, where you are going; and where not. Then remedial action becomes meaningful, as in the New  Year Message for 2004.

The Class dismisses. Within it is a son of the World Unity Force Secretary. He speaks to a friend.

‘I disagree with that old buzzard. The fact is that if man does not make his own way, no one else will do it for him. Look at the Flood, where this God nearly removed the race. Oh sure, obviously He is there, but who wants Him at such times as that ? Look at disease and pain and suffering, little kids killed or half-killed by Islamic 'men' if you can call them that! Why does God allow that ? Who wants Him ?’

His friend, Ralph, a Lieutenant in the Army completing his chaplaincy studies, defends the truth.

‘Look, Harry, you’ve just got yourself into a mood. if you want to be the judge of your Maker, fine, have it out with Him and tell Him where He gets off; but remember, you got on at His will,  at birth, and get off at His will at death, so consider well what you are doing.’

‘Oh I do,’ replied his friend. ‘Suppose I die, then I die a martyr to tyranny.’

‘What then of the Gospel ? You reject that ? If you die, the God who is not lacking in speech, who gave man this incredible seeming power to verbalise and think, is going to reveal to you that you wilfully ignored His revelation in the Bible, in Christ, in the Gospel, which unlike all competition from humanism, philosophic or activistic like yours, stands alone verified and valid, before the bar of reason, in singularity able to give clear and consistent answers to all ultimate things and current results.’

‘I don't think I am ignoring that, but it simply does not seem good enough.’

‘In what way ?’

‘Well, He does not bring it instantly to everyone.’

‘True, nor does everyone to whom He brings it respond by accepting it instantly.’

‘That does not remove the fact that we do not have all power, whereas He does, so that in His PLANNING the thing so that it should happen this way, He is showing no mercy on those who do not hear.’

‘How do you know that ? It states in Colossians 1:19ff., that He WOULD HAVE all men reconciled to Himself. If you can read that and then imagine that just because the Gospel did not at some one time reach someone, that person is damned, you are not interpreting but rejecting this combination of His stated desire and His agreed power.

‘He statedly predestines His people, so that by whatever way none CAN be lost. What more ultimately matters ?’

Ralph pursued his theme warmly and continued. As they conversed, they wandered into the woods nearby, the little rill bubbling as if overjoyed to meet them, Autumn colours were beginning to flirt with the bright bird uniforms, as light anointed each, and interspersed itself with luminous gleams, sparkling on water, enticing and seeming to engage in suffusing ricochets of beauty. It was like a silent orchestra as Ralph spoke.

‘You cannot criticise someone for what He denies, unless you call Him a liar, and what ground do you have for that ? You do not come to someone and say, Oh your theory does not work because you are a liar. You have to SHOW that it does not work, surely.’

That's so, but do you really believe that someone who never hears the Gospel on this earth, can be saved ?’

‘I do not know. There is I Peter 3:18ff., which fits with the Apostles’ creed tightly. Christ preached to the spirits in prison, in a vast sweep of proclamation following His incarnation and death: He descended into hell. That fits with the scope of Colossians 1, and is not a flashback for unknown reasons to the flood or some such idea, interrupting the flow of thought, but a natural progression on the part of Christ, to suffering, to death, to the ‘spirits in prison’. Such a term a phrase is never used simply of sinners, but as in Jude 6, refers those already facing destiny, naked in shame, finished with life on this earth. Christ then, in this passage of Peter, having borne the judgment, reached even to the residual persons facing judgment from last vast epoch of judgment, nothing stopping His absolute coverage of all.’

‘God would like all to be reconciled to Him, said Paul, to Him, yes by Christ, the apostle repeated, WHETHER IN EARTH OR IN HEAVEN. Obviously, the term ‘heaven’ in Colossians 1 is not the abode of perfect blessedness in concept, or there would be no need for reconciliation. It refers to the whole scope of creation in whatever state, as in heaven and earth.

‘Whether then He does it this way or that, is not ultimately to the point of your concern. He misses none, He gains all who are His, and loving, has the power to implement without limit, within the nature of love itself.

‘It has become fashionable with some to limit the love of God, but God IS love and has no limit. Yet love is not love which forces; nor is sin able to accept it, so God brings His own to Himself with wisdom, known before time, part of His triumph. This is the God whom we serve, and not another. How deep are His ways and His thoughts past finding out! ‘It is as well that He tells us. Why then trouble yourself with anti-scriptural postulations as if God lacked the power or the stated desire!’

Both young ministers looked broadly into the shining face of the skies, communing with the Lord, each other and pondering the gravity of grace and the breadth of lovingkindness in the Lord. Ralph however was by non means finished. Soon his words penetrated as if addressing not only Harry, but the very earth and sky.

‘Further,’ Ralph now aroused indeed, proceeded to insist, ‘I DO know that someone who never has the Gospel opportunity will in some way have it, even if this is merely what was worked out in predestination, where God having foreknown His own, predestined them, so that they were chosen in Christ before the world so much as existed (Ephesians 1:4). What is certain is this, that no one will be saved outside the realm of the Gospel, and that no lack of mere opportunity CAN possibly damn anyone, for of course, it is God who knows His own, and as to who will not TAKE an opportunity, it is perspicuous to Him. Technical ‘problems’ never rule God. His will and work is implemented to perfection.

‘Lost for a want of love ? lost for a want of power! it is impossible,
for God works all things after the counsel of His own will, as Ephesians 1:11 tells us. What next ? A frustrated God ? Where does fantasy
finish ? No, rather love seeks, but in its purity, does not violate, and so is wholly fulfilled. Yet in its own integrity, it yearns and so far from denying God, this expresses Him.

‘But Harry! souls not found through omission ? His word is to the contrary, and if you want to haul Him to the bar of your imagination on the basis of contradiction of what He says, who on earth is tried like that! Do you even take Smith’s examination paper, and judge it by what Brown says ? Do you take YOUR model and judge God by that! This is palpable nonsense, Harry, and you should know it.

‘In predestination, there  is no guesswork, for HE knows, in view of HIS DESIRE TO SAVE ALL, who is His and who is not, granted He will not violate anyone made in His own image. Love is love, not force, as Islam so often confusedly thinks, in making some other god with very different ways from the only One attested in evidence and by reason.

‘Ralph, you're on fire today; but I hate the force used in this world so sneakily, so openly, so often, and the way it loves itself.

‘I agree, Harry,  that force is out, for it merely dissociates man from what he is, and makes a fairy tail religion in which love is attributed to what in itself, did not want it. Obviously man in sin can never choose God (Romans 9:16), but God with restraint that does not violate, chooses IN and FOR Christ and according to the Gospel provisions, WHOM He will. NONE is left out for ANY reason, from this divine survey. He has the power, and that here means that what He wants, He does. What He would like is to win all (Colossians 1:19ff.), but what He insists on is not violating ANY! Love is not a subject of violence, any more than food is a subject of ramming it down the throat. If you called it ‘love’ which forced, it would not be success but deceit! God however is the truth.

‘As to violence, that is not what love is, nor is it how it works. Any other 'solution' ignores what He has SAID.’

‘Suppose then, my friend Ralph, that God never misses His man, and eternity is so taken care of; but what of time ? What of the suffering now ? What of the heinous afflictions, perversities, madnesses, cunning manipulations and the like ? What of murder ?’

‘If you want NO FREEDOM, Harry, to be sure you will have no murder, or pain or manipulation. Is this what you are arguing for ?’

‘Of course not, Ralph, since without freedom we are worse off even than in humanism. I just want kid gloves on the divine hands all the time, so that nothing is ever suffered by anyone unless he or she actually does something to deserve it. I am not against justice, just needless suffering. You see, there is so much of it.’

‘Does there being so much blood in the cumulatively conceived veins of all men in some way make blood different  ? In ethical questions, it is not how MUCH, for ANY thing must measure up; it is what quality do we find.’

‘Well, what quality DO you find ?’

‘This, that since all men sin - there is no use starting up using your almost adolescent-seeming message of innocent people who do not sin in word, or thought or heart or plan, or purpose, and who never cease with all diligence to seek the truth and find it and do it, people always afraid to bring any pain to anyone for any reason except in justice ...’

‘All right, but don't make it sound so tough, right ?’

‘It IS tough. There is suffering on a vast scale, and comparative lack of it on a vast scale where it might well occur, but even where the physical suffering is smaller, the mental one may be greater, as witness the many millions of psychiatric patients in the USA!’

‘So what ?’

‘This 'what' ... Since all sin, since none measures up, then the downside like the remote part of the moon has that sort of darkness. What is to be done ? There appear only so many options.

¨      1) God could remove freedom, so that people COULD not do evil to one another. Then you have neither love nor meaning nor point nor people; and in particular, one would not have you. I should regret that, wouldn’t you ? 

¨      2) God could simply remove the earth. Then however you would have some who had been manipulated largely, and  some who performed these crimes, all  ending alike. I do not quite like the justice element in that.

Moreover, it makes Him look as if He did not know what He is doing, which is merely to disbelieve in Him, whereas our conversation is looking at the fact of God and considering what alternatives to the present one there COULD be, as far as can be seen, if you are going to have freedom at all.

¨      3) God could ensure that all whom He would rescue, without violating their liberty and reality as persons in some way, would be rescued. This as I have shown you, is already the case. This option is the maximal, and it is the actual case, biblically clear as crystal.’ 

‘Before you go happily on,’ his baffled friend protested, ‘what about the PAIN NOW! That is the question.’

‘True, but what we are doing is considering what other options there are. PAIN NOW is the necessary consequence of liberty now. If you have people, you have this.’

‘Why didn't God do some more demonstration, like aeronautics, or use bombs to awaken people, then so that everyone would believe in Him and live better ?’

‘We HAVE had bombs, even ones that might have ruined the entire earth and MAY YET DO SO; and people do not listen. We even had a prophecy of the pillar of vapour as one of the marks of the End of the Age of the Gospel freedom amid the nations in their foolish misuse of power, in Acts 2 and this from Joel thousands of years ago; and yet people still do not believe when mushroom clouds, complete with radioactive spore if you like, reek with doom.

‘What is it like ? It is like a man with cancer, steadfastly refusing to believe, though every word the doctor speaks and has spoken for many months, continually is verified in his deteriorating condition.

‘Stubborn disbelief is not dislodged by bombs.

‘Bombs, by dictators or anyone else, do not change hearts. They may induce fear for a while; but look at the ancient Jews, who having seen anything and everything, in the Red Sea Crossing (you know, it is in The Exodus Escape), witnessed the spectacle in the water for millions in the desert, in food in the desert for the same, in divine law and actions innumerable,  yet failed at entry to their quarry. In fact, when they came to the Promised Land, it all seemed different. They did not enter. Fear replaced resolve; they refused rest, aborted challenge after some of the most explicit and comprehensive divine actions of pity, power and provision of all time, sustained and surrounding them.

‘What is more, theirs was a case to be seen in terms of rescue from a life that had been slavery, in Egypt,  servitude, mind you: but now that the opportunity came, they WOULD not GO IN! They did not believe. Remember Hebrews 4:1ff., I Corinthians 10:1ff. ?

‘Mere actions in themselves do not make faith. God had abundantly and even triumphantly done them in that case obviously, and you see the ecstatic Miriam’s dance in Exodus 15 to mark just some of the first things! They were anything but unaware of it. The action they witnessed, and went on witnessing was startling, repeated, divine, amazing, multiple in form, staggering in dimension; yet they did not believe. They did not even ENTER what was there looking at them, the land of their rest, after so  long a time, not even with the glow and power of God in mercy and kindness all about them. In fact, they even went about stoning Moses, and only the intervention of God saved him at that time. You know it in Numbers 14!

‘Power alone ? The British Empire may have been the greatest ever, and it had a Christian Book and Sovereign by Law (but this did not in itself put it in the heart of any particular person or any given number), and despite the most amazing power and hegemony, wonder and liberty for many which increasingly came, that Empire went. Before it went, we even find in THE YOUNG  CHURCHILL, that Churchill himself thought in one of his little dreams, of being a preacher of ORTHODOXY so that people would marvel at his outrageous daring. Daring! to preach orthodoxy ... what does THAT imply!’

‘You mean this, then,’ Harry grimaced, ‘that things were so bad in theology in England in Churchill's YOUNG days, say around the turn of the century, 1900, that he looked upon it like a daring raid ? If he had elected to preach, and to preach what the Bible says in the England of that day, it would have been audacious, courageous, remarkable ?’

‘Certainly, that is the meaning. So speaking nationally, if you will, England had lost heart before it lost power! It became all too clear after some glorious times, that it did not believe, as a nation, but seemed to have allowed a fancy for its own beauty, in many cases, to replace the basis and source of its former eminence. Increasingly it started to disdain the actual cause of it all, surging neglectfully through the opportunities paved so well by those many who had been faithful and sacrificial Christians. They moved through it like a young man spending an inheritance.

‘In word and deed, many choice souls for centuries had been showing, sometimes in the sacrifice  of death through burning, bone breaking, torture,  a life that is filled with a divinely given dignity and meaning, fearless for Christ, fervent for the Gospel, so equipped with a beauty that is not selfish, that is not lordly, that is not ambitious for itself, but for the kingdom of heaven. Yet they had it, and left it.’

‘What more could God then have done ? I will tell you,’ exclaimed Harry. ‘He could have shown more LOVE and taken more PERSONAL action, so that it would be seen that His love was not merely a teaching sort of one, but an acting one, one in which He was personally involved, willing to bear, interested to probe, compassionate where it hurt, able as man to do what He required of man. THAT would have been better.’

‘But that is precisely what the Gospel says HAS happened …’ Ralph retorted.

‘I know,’ Harry responded. ‘It hurts but you’re right. The thing more than what we had been stating, that WOULD indeed have been better than all the wonders done before, is just what HE DID. There is NOTHING MORE to do.  It is right then.’

‘Surely so,’ Ralph retorted. ‘The preaching and teaching of the Gospel, indeed of the word of God is simply showing it, showing how it applies and where He is to be found, who did this. In fact, Harry,  all the suffering of thousands of martyrs with the beauty of holiness and sacrifice that speaks, for Christ, this attests to this very day and that in front of our eyes, the love of God that sends, sends, sends those to bring the Gospel to the world before the end comes, as Christ put it in Matthew 24:14. It applies to those who die for it, and those who live with it, more and more isolated and assaulted on every side, losing income, post, position, prestige, influence.

‘All His own people suffer for Christ, all bear pain of this or that order for Him, none lives for himself, for herself, being crucified with Christ: and if that language seems far-fetched, so is the idea that not living so is Christian’s taking up  his cross and following Christ! What after all is Luke 14:27ff., and Galatians 5:24. Those who are Christ’s , it declares, are crucified with Him. Take it or leave it. And that ? It involves pain. No crucifixion is pain-free.

‘Not in statuesque dignity but as the offscouring of the universe does the proclaimer of Christ find his lot. Just as this too is pain, so it is pain with understanding, with the sweetness of truth, the beauty of duty, and the solace of spirituality. You know what you are doing, choose it, and are glad to be allowed such a privilege. Pain is a symphony; but you need to see the conductor to comprehend.’

At this moment, a cluster of sound seemed to join the gentle sparkling stream by their side, and an avine chorus gave for one enchanted moment, the sense of their actually listening to that orchestra! Ralph momentarily arrested, continued like a piccolo.

‘All must suffer where light is disdained and darkness preferred.  One loves: all His people point to Him. If the rest given freely by God is refused, still here is medicine at its best. It is preventative medicine; but most ignore it, blatant in their pretension, as if past all pangs. Only one payment covers the vicious follies of men, apt for all, working in those who take it; but many are the ministers who show it, and the love of Christ is spread like perfume in the garden, as they go. Crushed they exude, and with suffering they attest. Sin means pain, and love rejoices to meet it.

‘As to the remedy, Christ was sent to procure it; as to proclamation, these are sent to show it. The faith continues, always the same, finished like a house built, available like an open door. You see that in Ephesians 2:19. The spiritual structure has already been built on the foundation of Christ and the apostles. No more deaths of Christ; no more redemptions by Christ, no more sufferings by Christ, no more resurrections of Christ – it’s there in Hebrews 9-10, I Corinthians 15, Romans 3:23ff., Ephesians 2. No more of that, but there is MUCH MORE exhibition of it all. If suffering helps the sound carry, so be it till He comes.’

‘What,’ mused Harry, ‘if God had selected those whom He foreknew to be His, and not bothered to invent the others ? Would that have reduced suffering ?’

‘If you cut off all who do not want the Lord before they come, you would remove the OPPORTUNITY, and the actuality of things. God gives history reins, and reality opportunity to show itself.’

A partridge suddenly jumped up near their feet and with squawkings ill in accord with its beauty, strenuously soared aloft, as if an avine arrow of desire, a feathery telegram to God, dispatched from the young men. More distantly, a young deer suddenly ruptured the peace and was gone, its delicacy and timidity leaving a sense of humility and rest, for all its rush. Getting down to where the trouble lies, thought Harry, and said as much.

‘That is what God has done, Harry, choosing a time and a place to irrupt, and soaring aloft when the work was done, beautiful in holiness, though horrid the path.

‘There is nothing hidden, there is nothing uncertain because freedom waves its wings.

‘God has paid, been personal, exhibited truth in human format, and Himself redeemed as He told us He would do in Hosea 13:14. HE did not shirk the showing, any  more than the going, and as Christ stated, what is of the light comes into it. History moves its trials and tests to all, to principles, philosophies, teachings, religions, personalities, powers and praises, judgments and carnages. All is attested in time and judged for eternity. It is not authority alone; truth SHOWS itself. For all eternity, no voice is unheard, no pretension not exposed. It is not exposed in darkness, but in light. Such is His kingdom. It requires not swollen brain to understand, no perspicacity of flesh. Little children often receive it at the tenderest of years, the call of truth heard where the face of the Father is beheld, their minds untroubled with thoughts about divine incapacity!

‘No, nothing is lost, all is fulfilled, many suffer but none is lost through lack of love: the divine yearning linked to His power, this is the eternal insurance of that. No power can prevent Him from finding His people with the Gospel glory, no, not in heaven or on earth. How delightful is Romans ;8:29ff., for not only do all things work together for good for those who love God who are called according to His purpose, but HE FOREKNEW His own, and proceeded simply through predestination, justification and glorification to have them! And His word, that is the testimony that it is so.’

‘What then should WE be doing ?’ Harry interrupted.

Ralph settled, a look of defiance on his glowing face.

‘This is what!’ he cried. ‘We should be preaching it, teaching it, showing it in our actions, in our churches, in our missions, seeking to glorify God, not ourselves as individuals or as a race. We should expose the evil, pursue the good, enlarge the testimony, seek the lost, enlighten the confused, seek to strengthen the wavering, bring the clarity of heaven to the deluded, and strong in faith, be like rays from the sun shining in the kingdom of heaven. Let light envelop darkness, not vice versa. Leave to God the final imprint of light assigned. Let us be what we are: light emissaries. We are not saving God from failure, but finding souls for faith. God will not fail; it is man who fails. Let us not fail.

‘The darkness can never control God in anything: He even has His own people marked out before creation happened. Imagining He lacks technique is folly. Not one of His will ever be lost, nor is He ever lost for His own way to reach with the Gospel. His love has no boundaries, and never contradicts itself, by becoming force or lurking in the shade. Since the condemnation is preference for light when the Light, defined as Christ incarnate, has come, then the equivalent of that is never lacking in the power and wisdom of God.

‘He has known from the first, and will implement to the last. If the light does not send you, how is it then in you ? Light insists on evidencing things, and God is light. In the end, much that is seemingly hopeless, being judged by ocular vision, will be fraught with beauty, seen in spiritual reality. Appearances are for a time; reality is for ever.’

‘There’s not much beauty in man as man!’ exclaimed Harry, who had seen more than most in the offices of his father’s urbanely selfish, and ostentatiously pretentious works. His face was grim, his manner sibilantly emphatic!

Ralph watched his friend with an almost protective gaze, began more and more to realise the depth of his long sufferings in the halls of hypocrisy and the councils of deceit: this had been the constant environment of his friend’s childhood, if not often by personal participation, then by growing to realise from all reports, and all family conversations, the realities that were not shown to the public.

In his reply, he had therefore spoken as an informed audience! Humanism, he decried as desolate.

‘That rapacious renegade of all truth, humanism, it  is incredibly corrupt, selfish, self-seeking and godless. It seizes men and strangles them in irrational pride, honey on arsenic the preliminary medicine. It believes in nothing but itself, and cannot even control the smallest things about itself, like being born or NOT! or being killed or NOT! Christ on the other hand was willing to die when He did not have do,  even though He had the power to heal the sick and raise the dead, and SHOWED it, by that creating the impasse which only murder could ‘solve! THAT is divine.

‘God insists on showing the evil of the way of darkness in practice, and the good of truth, even at any cost in suffering for the Lord Himself; and in bringing truth to victory, He brings many children to His kingdom.

‘Harry,’ Ralph proceeded, ‘of course there is pain when Christ to remove the guilt suffered agony of heart and spirit. But God’s provision is enough for any, sufficient for all, and none will be missed. Sin hurts. Ransom saves. Patience shows, love did. Light portrays and those of it, will live in it. Unlike variable cricket boards, God Himself unchanging is the selector, and His motive being love that all might be saved, His wisdom perfection, He neither crushes the slight nor receives the blustering, but knows His own, and so saves them infallibly, divinely, graciously, by nothing deterred, with no limits to His power, no loss to His achievement.’

‘Well  my dad, the Secretary has long since left all that, and he is dead set on being the Number One in the universe. He thinks that past him there is nowhere to go. What can I do ?’

‘Tell him.’

‘But he knows, he has been educated.’

‘Give him the Gospel.’

‘He would never even listen to me, only seek to provide philosophic pap for me to drink.’

‘Try him.’

‘All right, but I will hold you personally responsible if you get me into trouble.’

‘Try a cross for size: Christ said that if you are not willing to take up your cross and follow Him, you CANNOT be His disciple.’

‘True, man, so I'll give him a go.’

‘You sound as if you are going for a spin in a sports car.’

‘Well he roars like one (in private)!’

‘Remember to take some salt!’

‘Thanks, Ralph.’

‘Incidentally, Harry, I came across something that may help. I suggest you read this before you go, you know, for perspective.’

‘What is that ?’

‘It is called, The Spirit of Envy and the God of this World. I'll let you have it.’

‘Good, although the sound is less so!’