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CHAPTER 13

NEWS 121

No, you are not seeing double: there ARE TWO (beasts)


and NO! and we ARE talking biology!

The Advertiser , Monday, August 28, 2000, p.10
Foundation, May-June 2000, July -August 1999, May - June 1998.

A matter of convenience...

What ? Size begets power, wealth and impact, in very general terms, it is often thought. So get size. Let the business amalgamate, the international operations go to absolutist lands like China, where the totalitarian overtones are being judiciously suppressed rather than acoustically removed. What does it matter if there is a 'nationalisation' of the naughty (super ?) powers, or mini-acolytes which pour in the billions ? It is, the line sometimes go, in this or that land, WRONG to have these intruders. It was not wrong when the money came, but it may become so when it stays around. Hence such people can be STRIPPED in the interests of the STATE. Simple - grand larceny can result. Who cares ? Size is SO VERY important! So it goes - sometimes, and so is the risk, always.

But we are not here to discuss commerce. Others may do so, and do so in political circles, and so consider international political co-operation as in the European Union (so much more dignified than the Common Market). What we have been seeing in our news items recently, is this, that first in Britain and then in Sweden (Ch. 5, News 113, above), MORALS are being requisitioned in the interests of ... unity internationally. Interesting is it not! That of course was ONE of the objections to this submersion of 'Protestant' Britain in a continent of so extraordinarily strong an historic Romanist temper. After all, Louis XIV was quite systematic in stripping Protestants; the Holy Roman Empire, that often exquisitely misnamed body, persecuted with army after army; Spain had the wind of an Armada idea; Inquisitions were likewise exported to Britain and had a vogue for a while, as we have also recently noted on this site (Ch. 10, News 118, esp. End-note *1).

So now, this voluntary collapse of Britain morally is just one of the reasons why many did not want the Common Market. It would expand, its octopus arms would embrace with a not so subtle, but subtle enough squeezing operation, so that the requirements of co-operation commercially would become the needs of alignment in international affairs at a broader level, even in religious dimensions. It was feared; it has come. It is still coming, and not merely in and through one institution. However, the sails are set, the twenty first century has appeared around the sides of the Bay of Humanistic Endeavour, clearly visible, with its Baying of Sheep Clad Wolves Inlet, which is very deep. But nowadays the speeds can be great, and it should not take too long to penetrate.

In Revelation 13, we see two beasts, or satanically inclined emergences of aggressive, invasive power at a collective level. The first is the social, political, commercial one; the second is specifically SPIRITUAL, with the nature of a 'dragon' and the covering of a lamb - of a religious, even moral, pleasant and agreeable, acceptable and decidedly non-DANGEROUS lamb. The deception is artful, for dragons do not in fact have sheep's clothing. This 'beast' "spoke like a dragon" , thus indicating its essential quality and nature, apart from its covering. It is Satanic (cf. Revelation's definition in Ch. 20:2). Its deceptive covering is acquired for a purpose, and the woolly look, the dress is in order to present a face or focus diverse from reality. The reality is dragon. So you have two beasts: the BEAST apparent, and the BEAST Devious. The former one hs been given authority BY THE DRAGON (and hence devil as above). The latter one SPEAKS like a dragon. They are TWO manifestations of ONE dragon, that arch-liar (John 8:44), that adversary, that accuser of the brethren, the devil.

It is time to look now at the news as we see the unravelling of the nature of this prophecy, and look carefully in the calendar of events now set before us.

Soon it will stand complete. Already it is so near, so staggeringly precise, that it is not just like a fulfilment of prophecy; it is more like computer graphics. We are seeing it HAPPEN with just that vivid intimacy which is the objective of the latest and most expensive sorts of TV picturing, often bringing into your living room, the whole unholiness of the world's drabness, with an alliance of total shamelessness and inordinate desire.
 
 

1. NEWS ?
Assuredly.

The Advertiser has this to tell us:
It is almost buried. In fact, if my wife had not told me of it, it is probable it should have been missed!
 


"MY KINGDOM," said Christ, "is not of this world" (John 18:36).

THIS IS this world. It is seen in its voguish and roguish 'unity', where MANY religions get TOGETHER to help IMPLEMENT the WORLDLY program of this WORLD for its WORLDLY aspirations, and to help it to get there.

The PRINCE of this world comes, the Saviour also said, and he has 'NO PART IN ME' (John 14:30).

Again, He declared, 'NO MAN comes to the Father except by ME'. Further, 'I AM THE WAY, THE LIFE AND THE TRUTH', and yet once more, 'IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE THAT I AM HE, YOU WILL DIE IN YOUR SINS' (see John 14:6, 8:24, 8:21).

What is fascinating about this is the aptitude of selection of the considerable news from Foundation which exposed rather well  some of the earlier developments, of which this year 2000 event now current news, is something of an epitome. In July-August 1999, pp. 45ff., it drew attention to the work of Bishop WIlliam Swing (Episcopalian), which noted data from Ecumenical News International (June 22, 1999), concerning the UNITED RELIGIONS movement which he spearheaded (we are moving from bullets to spears, but the movement is very progressive modishly, though of course retrogressive spiritually - however it is also progressive prophetically, being JUST what the predestination ordered as in Revelation 13).

The Purpose of the Organisation (no we are not becoming Victorian with capitals, for there is sometimes room for whimsy, and pomposity can be exposed by its sonorous exploits in many ways) "is to unite the world's religions for the global good by using peaceful dialogue and conflict resolution," it summarises.
 

WHO said THAT! No one, It is merely an echo. But Christ would have NEEDED to have said something like that in order to FIT IN with this multi-religious relish, which is in fact in such entire contradiction with what He in fact did say, that the concept of coalescing with that, when it is in fact a collision, suggests to the imagination a Cadillac saying to a mini-Minor: 'I say, old thing, we should get together some time, and there is no time like the present.' So they do, at 100 m.p.h., and the result is certainly a certain unity. It is less certain what one should call THAT sort of unity.

Accidents, they say, WILL happen. But here it is a matter of the will, so that it is no accident!

The objectives, as we see clearly in the Foundation article just noted, include this: an end to bomb throwing, murder and killing in many places, where religion enters in. "It's going to be a whole new world very quickly," we find the Bishop himself reported as saying. This has an element of truth, except that the term 'new' is outrageous. It is very old, and this is the core of its age like wrinkles appearing on the face of a former beauty, now aged 100. It IS different ... but more of the same. It will not because it cannot remove violence, because it is vile*1.

Its contemptible sale of Christ for the sake of psychological, political and social peer pressure and God-forsaken aspirations as old as Babel can only lead to suppression. Its absolutisms will simply mirror those, in essence, of the Russell Report of which a study was made, as a very exemplar of 'modern' thought in such fields.  For this, see Lead Us Not into Educational Temptation! and consider its implicit creed in its Ch. 11. There, in that chapter, you will find, a summary of what preceded in careful analysis of that report for government in the State of Victoria in this land. ABSOLUTISM is the essential enemy, there we learn.

 

With ludicrous rhetoric, it is made to appear that it is its tentacles which wound, draw blood, afflict the earth, the proponents interlacing this with the relativistic homilies of organic evolution, and the humanistic surges of all-inclusive reductionism. As to all absolutism, beyond man, we learn, it simply must go. It is verboten, the ultimate renegade to humanistic thought. Therefore, its afflictions tear at the earth, and its vile ravages do not prosper. You have to get into the style of these things, as in all propaganda, to realise to the full the flow of the river of brain wash, its eddies and its rills, its thrills and its rapids.

With ludicrous rhetoric, it is made to appear that It is its tentacles which wound, draw blood, afflict the earth, interlace with the relativistic homilies of organic evolution, and the humanistic surges of all-inclusive reductionism. As to all absolutism, beyond man, we learn, it simply must go. It is verboten, the ultimate renegade to humanistic thought. Therefore, Its afflictions tear at the earth, and its vile ravages do not prosper. You have to get into the style of these things, as in all propaganda, to realise to the full the flow of the river of brain wash, its eddies and its rills, its thrills and its rapids.
 


The Absolute God of Word and Deed is anathema to these forces, as much as Biblical doctrine on justification was ever to Rome (cf. SMR pp. 1045, 525ff.). Truth, and the testing of it is appalling and all but irrelevant, we see in the streams which enter this river system, at length to surge into the sea of oblivion, but not oblivion from God! (Cf. SMR pp. 145ff., 208ff..)

You can see why. IF ANYTHING is true, then the contraries are not. If Christ is the ONLY way, then the others are not the way. If He alone is the door of salvation, then the others are doors to no room and are to be avoided; unless you want to become god, socially or individually, and by some sort of clever force, overcome what is, and make it different, avoiding or extricating His name, and inserting your own, or that of your group. It is often tried.

The Communists had a go, as the saying is, and they had plenty to say. Babel (Genesis 11) started it. Not surprisingly, the name is implicit in that of that Babylon (Revelation 17) which is the death mask of it, in Rome's famous religion (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 2, SMR pp. 946ff., 1057ff.)
 


The Communists ? They were not fond of God; and assuredly we can say this of their presumption, irrationality and persecution (e.g. SMR pp. 614, 448ff., 468ff., 707ff., 925ff., 1076ff., Revelation 6:9-17, 9:20, Jude 15), God was not fond of their system or its outrageous psychiatric cruelties which produced condemnation

The Lord is not fond of the killing of His people or the artifices of deceit which, asserting humanitarian liberties for religion, kill freely His martyrs when they do not bow to the State as god, all-imposing, all-directing, religion-assessing and licensing, ALL for a glory in this world in ITS OWN NAME. In fact however, this is but words. You see in terms of what has endured and will endure, the same, that there is NO OTHER NAME given under heaven to man, by which he may be saved. Even THIS is less than what is written, however, at that.

The actual word of God, which judges in the end, is this: "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men, by which we must be saved" - Acts 4:12. Nor is this all. The preceding verse, specified that One had been rejected who was foundational to life, religion and reality, to truth and peace. The verse before that named Him: "Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified".

The points is that it was not written, "by which he may be saved", but "by which we must be saved". That is, as to the requirement, it included all; and it was not option but necessity. There is no other option; it is God or garbage. The current movement has misplaced one item rather seriously. While they are acting as if to put the true and living God of the Bible, the Christ, Lord of glory, into the garbage, by reconstructing their old Babel type impudences in their own name, the word of God is indicative that it is those who "believe not that I am He" who are destined for that not so simple end, for the fires do not die (Mark 9). The fall of the Moscow transmission tower in its greatness and altitudinous glory is a symbol, a falling in fire.

Truth is not available for verbal winds; it requires power and reality, and insurrections of the flesh as in Communism, and now in the United Nations and in United Religions do not really alter anything, but fulfil what is written first, and then direct baggage to the LOST place, and its unlovely destiny. The world in the meantime has all the look of an unlovely destiny, and these magnificent ideas (cf. SMR pp. 611ff., 620ff., Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 1, Repent or Perish Ch. 5, Barbs, Arrows and Balms 30, Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 8) with all their paraphernalia, impedimenta, clarion calls and associated company:  they are like teflon, lasting a little while, and then a mess which complicates the problem on the pan, which, certainly, IS getting hotter.
 


It is thus quite simply not merely a sell-out, but a rebellion. Hear Micah (for the Jewish nation has given us in many things a trailer, a pre-run for our re-run in the field of rebellion, and the case is therefore educative - you know the idea, ignore history and repeat it! though there are some things that could do without repetition, and if you doubt it, ask the Jews! - cf. Leviticus 26, Deuteronomy 32). But Micah, this is his word from the Lord in 3:5:

"Thus says the LORD concerning the prophets
Who make my people stray,
Who chant "Peace"
While they chew with their teeth.
But who prepare war against Him
Who puts nothing into their mouths.

{...Mouths were empty in context, because their minds were void of inspiration from Him, though they spat out folly and enriched themselves or their iniquitous patrons, from this world all too well - cf. Ezekiel 22:25, Jeremiah 23:14, 5:26-31, Ezekiel 13:3-16.}

Therefore you shall have night without vision,
And you shall have darkness without divination:
The sun shall go down on the prophets,
And the day shall be dark for them.
So the seers shall be ashamed
And the diviners abashed.
Indeed they shall all cover their lips,
For there is no answer from God."

In the New Testament, looking ahead to the end of this current cycle of the Gentiles, this time, we find the same thought (from Revelation 19:19-20):

"And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked designs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image."

In the same line of development, Foundation May-June 1998 noted earlier action.

"The most amazing phenomenon of all, however, is the Roman Catholic Church's active attempt to dispel the last remnants of opposition to her credibility as a bona fide Christian institution by entering into dialogue with those who previously took a strong stand against Roman error. The Evangelical and Catholics Together positional papers were unbelievably deceptive and disarming. Now, the historic contention between Reformation and Catholic beliefs regarding "Justification" has apparently been healed in the declaration that is reprinted in this issue ... The attitudes and beliefs expressed toward Roman Catholicism by non-Catholic churches and groups all over the world are incredible - almost beyond belief! The harlot is ascending. Certainly our Lord's return must be near! One cannot take Bible prophecy ... seriously without unprecedented, present anticipation of momentous events in the offing"  - p. 3.

It goes on to consider the details of the root canal job, in the teeth that bite, to which the word of God referred above. Dead teeth can bite, but need substantial reinforcement... while they ARE dying, believe me, they can HURT. It IS hurtful, and it is best for it to appear!


We looked at these apostate developments, harmonising the flat contradiction of gospel truth in Trent with current unity, even with Lutherans to hand! (cf. Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 4). Small wonder their book organisation thought The Shadow of a Mighty Rock, BECAUSE its approach to Romanism had much in common with that of Luther, COULD not receive much focus with them in their outlet! The horrid defalcation of former and famous righteousness in this liaison with Rome, either express or celebrated, makes such an anomaly as this, now all too clear!

WHY does this imminence of the return of Christ, appear from the embrace of Rome by many of the former denouncers ? HOW does this show any nearness ?

Why does Christ's personal return as in Matthew 24, I Thessalonians 4, seem near in view of the cessation by many of her exposure, the lapse from their former utter  rejection of Rome's level headed aspirations for the Pope as Lord, when there is in fact ONE LORD (Ephesians 4:4) and ONE Master (Matthew 23:8-10) and ALL you are brethren, was the codification of the matter by Jesus Christ (whose name, for some reason, is used in these synthetic, syncretistic performances! perhaps because it is better than those who abuse it!). Cessation ? indeed, it is like leaving loathing of a former boy friend and proposing instead!

Why should such shocking misalliance with Rome, such docility before the obvious teeth under the shawl of lamb's wool, signify that Christ is soon to return ? Is not the harlot to be REMOVED from the beast's back ? Is not her undignified bucking off (or some such disposal mechanism)  to be the commencement signal of much of the end ? (Revelation 17:3,13-15, cf. SMR pp. 946ff., 743-744, 955-956).

The point of course is this. WHEN the harlot, the Babylon death-mask religious power is to be removed from the beast's back (the method may be conjectured, but the fact is clear), there are two considerations that are prominent in the imagery. ONE: she is THERE, she is prominent and ALONE. The other, the removal by a beast on which one sits, is sure to be of a certain ... if not picturesque, spiralling kind, or elliptical proportion, then to express something of the native force which beasts have! Bucking is the norm.

You ARE bucked OFF, BECAUSE you are ON! You have to BE there first. In this case, being on the beast's back is far more than being on the pig's back, in the idiom. It is having a certain singular eminence of acceptance BY the beast, of being highlighted ON the beast, of being in some measure a GUIDING force TO the beast, and having no small power THROUGH the beast. That is what it is. For the bucking to proceed, the imagery indicates the preliminary situation required. THIS being now increasingly obvious, the preparation for the predicted scenario is on line, in focus, en scène, ready for Action, Lights! (or Arcs! but not de triomphe).

Thus


Let us be clear, if painfully so. If Rome were not THERE, then the Bible would be wrong. If she did not ENJOY her eminence, so likewise. If the beast were not in his eminence, then it would be too soon for her to participate in this near ultimate if degrading action. What then do we find ? There is a cocktail to be shaken to integrate the scene with the specifications; there is a building in which there need to be aligned the various predicted elements. As to that cocktail, It is NOW being shaken HEAVILY. As to that building, it is now apparent, like the Taj Mahal. It stands out. One cannot miss it. THAT is the point. HENCE this is a signal, along with the restoration of Jerusalem to Jewish control (Luke 21:44) for the return of Christ.

Now there is more. Now the "UNITED RELIGIONS" (UR) is metamorphosing into the next step of its short life plan. Out from the pupa stage is coming this insect of flight, now drying its wings in the sun, in New York, where it is indeed Summer. Now this WORLD PEACE SUMMIT of August 2000, one of such an imposing and vast congregation of the mighty in religion, is actually and explicitly to "co-ordinate religious and spiritual leadership as an inter-faith ally to the UN". That is its plan, its objective for various purposes. What does this mean in Biblical terms and imagery, so appallingly clear from the days of Daniel (e.g. Chs. 2, 7) and the writing of Revelation some 1900 years ago (as in Revelation Chs. 13,17). It means this. The second beast, dragonesque,  is beginning to do his work more formally, thoroughly. The bowing to the image of the first and apparent dragon, the political-state-social establishment,  is now to be encouraged by the propaganda of the second dragon. The UN is given UR  help. They witness as ... ONE.

Further, there must be a second dragonesque BEAST with such irrepressible vocal resemblance to a dragon, in the offing, chomping and perhaps breathing suitable flames, preferably for the picturesque side of things, or to put it more in the form of the principle involved, being fearsome, powerful and expressive of power, having indeed a certain intimidatory capacity (like some of the rulings of the UN, which Howard to his credit, has conceived from time to time as perhaps too prominent or even dominant in this nation's affairs, and now, this month,  is formally making more distant from Australia, though not without challenge). We noted something of this utterance capacity of the UN in The Other News, Appendix 1. We are now however looking beyond this to something nearer to the source.

THIS ideological formation in virility and power, this dragon-type beast, this expression in Biblical terms, of the work of the devil, it  is now showing its INTER-RELATIONSHIP with the first beast, given its power by the devil,  as an explicit and growing pathological phenomenon. This is the fulfilment of predictive prophecy; ground for warning; and, like watching a yacht race, interesting for the tactics being used. It is salutary to know these things; it is wise to realise them. BE READY! said Christ (Matthew 24:45). THIS, it is like the starter's call, On your marks! Why is it so fashionable to ignore the call ? The race WILL be run. It will soon be over.
 


All this is monumental in proportion, soaring like the Russian tower which collapsed in fire (from a functional point of view, apparently irremediably ruined), and ethically sordid like the jabbing of the arm of the wife of one of the sailors who were lost in the explosions of the Russian U-boat.

This increasingly apparent and broader-based alliance or beast, for its part,  broadcasts to many regional centres on this earth, using for the time much of the paraphernalia of Rome for leadership (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 5, esp. pp. pp. 102ff., SMR pp. 743ff., Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 1), the vague shadowy shelter of the WCC (SMR pp. 743ff.), and as we now see quite expressly, the humanistic arms of the UN (cf. Acme: Alpha and Omega, Jesus Christ Ch. 1, SMR pp. 750Bff.). It is already beginning to transcend in its scope, not only Rome, but Moscow. Its theme is synthesis, and its result is of vast scale.
But let us revert to that jab in the arm of the outraged wife of the lost Russian submarine sailor.

As to that, this too is apposite prophetically, if not ethically or morally. The sort of power which interferes with the mind of someone who is expressing grief and outrage, instead of the meeting of that mind, is precisely the sort of chilling interference with human life which the beast is so good at, fond of, and for which it in fact gets its name. This is comparatively, but not actually, a small incident compared with the long years of astute endeavours to corrupt, corrode and make pliable the minds of many of the martyrs, first specialisation of Rome, then of the Communist bloc, that moral blockage and spiritual outrage.

This perhaps is one of the signs of the heritage left yet in Russia. There is, however, no needle which may be jabbed into the arm of the Tower which Fell, to secure its silence; and moreover, its purpose was to broadcast, not to be silenced. Its silence however is what is being broadcast, and the lesson on this emblem of Soviet, Communist glory is not lost. Yet, as we are seeing, the powers of anti-god assault do not rest. They seek to aggregate, congregate, and why not! now in NEW YORK!

Thus as the dementia of the times comes to its appointed climax, not one nation's communism, or the ersatz variety which uses the name but not the method, in China, but the whole stew of Communism, humanism, atheism, agnosticism, humanism, secularism, organic evolutionism, psychological manipulation, social engineering and the like, together with ecumenical hypnotism (words CANNOT be bent to make yes into no, however many are  employed or deployed for the purpose): these things surge together in the brisk boiling action of our day. Graham has siphoned off many into the Roman burlesque situation, of stilling the exposure of that unbiblical enormity and even forwarding it in many things (News, Facts and Forecasts Ch. 4, pp. 83ff.); Pentecostalism has done much the same for many more, making this, its 'tongues' pre-occupation, a bridge of convenience and an eminence of emotion for the acceptance of something much more substantial than the Pope (cf. A Question of Gifts Ch. VI). THAT once had enormous military power at its disposal and did not hesitate to use it. THIS is preparing for its own scenario. Each in its time. But what of Rome, for it has had quite a day ? What is the point to which we are now coming ?
 

As to Baptist contributions to the stew, the mere reception of Graham by the Southern Baptist union of many millions is sufficient to expose its laxity for such an arch betrayal of reformation truth, drawn from the Bible. Again, in Foundation July-August 1999 we further see that the 1.5 million member union of American Baptist Churches  in June 22-25, 1999, included in their role and roll of speakers, one from the Roman Catholics. Imagine Paul, who did not give place for one hour to the circumcisionists (Galatians 2:5), having one of them address the meeting of Ephesus church for example! Why, far from this, the apostle hied off to Jerusalem to get the exposure of this evil! He in person aided in the transmission of the result to the churches. He would not 'give place' to such an error, as he put it, not for one hour.

And what more of that American Baptist Union to the point of our present concern ? This: After enormous division on the tedious and glaringly anti-Biblical topic of lesbian and homosexual involvement in all aspects of ministry, there was very pointed reference to the inclusion of this body as a founding member of both the World Council of Churches and the National Council of Churches. The secretary of the body had himself served on the central Committee of the WCC! was a member of the executive committee of the National Council of Churches. So it does cosily along, no respecter of denominations, the road to the unity which is spurious, to the roaring of the one who is furious (Revelation 12:9-12).

Nor is this all. Now we learn that the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) has decided to abolish a law which prohibited its members from being simultaneously members of the WCC or NCC! (Foundation, May7-June pp. 3ff.). Thus the allegiance to the Biblical doctrine of separation is no longer required in the NAE,  this once so special, so different and so needful body! What now is the case ? Join and believe in NO separation even from the prodigies of paganism in the WCC (cf. SMR pp. 743-744, 867-888, The Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 7, pp. 135ff.).

Before we used to see large denominations exhibited the decrepitude of declension, departing from the word of God, in word or deed or both; now we are seeing whole bodies do so. The next step is the world: so that as at the first, so near the last, the discipline required to be a Christian will be considerable: yet it has always been considerable, if one "dies daily"... Less will be the help of prestige and power from bodies to which, for whatever reason, the world gives some place. This moves away like Autumn leaves in a brisk breeze. Hostilities in Russia and Communist nations generally, especially in Albania for example, have been severe, invidious, insidious at times, enraged at others. The dragon, one must realise, is to deserve the name. There have been lulls; but it is never a case of a lullaby. Ephesians 6 should remove any such illusion.

All this attests just that preparation and preliminary for NO Biblical standards, gross humanistic paganism, deception and corruption, equivocation and dispersal of doctrine which is needed to usher in the antichrist, who is actually to impress upon himself, and be impressed with the impression, that HE IS GOD (II Thessalonians 2:3-8)! It is interesting that the devil's 'messiah' takes simple form as a MAN, as we find in this epistle. We must then  think of his preliminaries... Obviously there cannot (i.e. must not, for this purpose) be ('allowed' to be) any absolute God, absolutely expressed in an absolutely true way and further, definitively expressed by His only begotten Son, for revelation and redemption coming into this world.

Thus if some one sinner has to be set up like this, and in the fulness of pride and sin declare himself, show himself, invent the character for himself of being god, and to have the scope and power to make this sort of claim in the temple, a certain preparation is needed! ABSOLUTISM would be assaulted; Biblical faith would be deprecated; unity with POWERS THAT BE would be forwarded; unification of man with man and with powers thought of would need to be achieved in some form or format; and then, in the ostensible vacuum, comes ... IT, HE! The man of sin, the masquerader, the mannequin parader, showing off the clothes ... of god. Stalin came close when imaging he would control the laws of Nature; Mao came close with his ruminative ramifications of personal glory; even Augustus had a go in Roman times. This, however, will surpass all. Its folly will be total. Its culmination will be far past Cecil de Mille in splendour. Then, of course, like all lies, it will go. In the interim however, there is panache. The matter therefore needs preparation.

This we are seeing.

It is NECESSARY therefore that all this come to pass, so that the power and the glory, snatched by Rome, but soon to be snatched back by a beast of broader back, can come to a yet more hideous imposture, with renewed power. Predictively, this time it must be something, in a worldly sense, prevailing in the earth (Revelation 13). It will not be limited in territory. Its scope rises to the heavens, and is not satisfied with less than the earth.
How violent the temper of the vile when he cannot have the hearts of the saints.
Small wonder, knowing his impending end, the devil is irascible! (cf. Revelation 12:11-12).

While we are dealing with pathology, let us remind ourselves of the allegory used earlier, and read once again The Wonder of the Witch from an earlier part of this site.
 
 

2. THE WONDER AND THE WITCH

IT IS TIME TO SEEK THE LORD

As the world winds its wicked way
In tortures of blazing heat,
Its heart a devastation,
Its mind robustly robotic,
Its thoughts in consternation
With plastic consolation
Wrought with chemistry
Misnamed therapy -
The gods of bestiality at its heels
The glamour of iridescent morals
About its throat -
Like an aged witch
Pretending to be a fairy -
History develops like a strongman.

With culture's tentacles outstretched
More like the tentacles of an octopus
Than the arms of a child -
Our luxuriating fairy,
Alias wanton witch,
Kisses each tentacle
With glazing eyes,
Feeling nicely surrounded
With a naturalistic inverse
Which - though blown to billions of bits,
Or spewed into abysmal unknowns,
Is here! Hers to know and to exploit.

With prophetic precision
Our witch cavorts, contorts,
Disports herself
Under the unseeing eyes
Of the heaven God made,
Crying coyly - or
Anon plaintively
For company in her sport
Of creating havoc with hearts,
Seducing the young and
Using God's creation of a mind
As a format for being blind.

Anguished nations,
Political amputations,
Genocides so popular,
Atrocities a norm,
Hypocrisy hallowed,
Conscience mellowed,
For a mêlée
Of doomed misunderstandings
Reinforced by greed,
Insane social egotisms,
Personal aggrandisements:
These are as a savoury
For the main course
Which she can only imagine,
Though she has eaten
Fare like it
Before...
The Lord is not mocked
By her witcheries,
Nor does He savour her stew.
Unlocked doors open effortlessly,
Oiled with blood - that of Christ the Lord,
As Lady Culture pursues her angst,
Anon accompanied by her
Counterpart in spiritual
Crime, Lady Spiritual Culture,
Festooned with tradition
Like pearls, red with
The blood of martyrs:
But there she goes,
With shampooed hair
Her way to The End.
As to her:
Babylon is her archetype *1,
History gathered in her tresses,
With one of its faces,
Rome
with her descendants,
her allies,
sympathisers
and her children *2.

Alas for them!

A good book , asks Lady Culture,
This world ?
Surely plenty in it for all -
But this she will not know,
That this is mere wrapping :
The contents of His Book,
The Book that rules
Are finished -
These two millenia,
Now almost completed,
Have watched them,
With largely unseeing eyes.

God has spoken - no more to say,
To this race till The End.
Heedless headiness
Ignores God's voice,
Despises His words,
Which for all that
Fulfil themselves
Untempered,
Unalloyed,
Unallayed,
With the routine assurance
Of a dentist
Investigating your teeth.

Where the decay,
The spiritual decay
Is,
It is:
And the results are what they are.

Rottenness smells
In the form of an opened abscess,
And the word of God
Opens the mouth of man
To inspect it -
That mouth so often
Silent to God,
In multitudes innumerable;
Or addressing its Maker,
Only with expressions
Of blasphemy,
Cultural occlusion,
Indifference, contempt.
With that divine name,
Freely and frequently
It exhibits -
In a quisling's calumny
And patricidal passion -
A preference for idols,
In the heart, the soul,
The mind, the spirit.

Today -
In these idols,
Often made with paper,
Such words are printed,
Their spokespersons
Speak on TV
And frequently
MUST be immoral...
To satisfy implicit lust.
They may seem religious,
They may be blatant,
But they must have lust,
Intemperate...

Uncommandeered,
Free as air to satisfy whatever
It wills :
Making in imagination
But never in reality,
Makers of man in maniacal fiascos
That never grace this globe,
Or create one single fact:
Themselves
'Made by nothing':
Emptiness
And confusion
Their rule.
 

It is God and love
Of His created conditions,
Organised and arranged,
Instructed, counselled, told ...
OR ELSE printed idols,
Perhaps with protoplasm as a
Screen,
With eye shadow
And noble moments
Fecklessly, recklessly, vainly set as if
To atone debauchery of the souls:
That are lost.

These are the ways - there are two!

The Lord of Life
Has used
Only one language
In organising our bodies,
Only one testimony
Of the KINDS He has created,
And only one Book
In directing our eyes
To His word.
He has sent
Only One Son
In setting a standard for sacrifice,
and providing
Only One Sacrifice
To cover the penitent
Who long for mercy,
and find
Only One Eternal Life,
Their desideratum,
Their delight
and His gift.
That is - like God,
Infinite in its purity,
Immeasurable in its love,
Incalculable in its Power:
It is His, and
He gives it as I John 1 tells us.

The bestowal ? *3

It is called the grace of the Gospel.
Its crux, the Cross
Of Calvary is the only
Alternative to a crucified universe:
A hell-hole as instalment
For everlasting contempt.
His name who made.

The sacrifice ?

Jesus Christ.
His requirement?

You - unvarnished,
No eyes shadowed,
The cultural idols dashed -
Repentant and with realism,
Returning to your God,
To His narrow way,
Where your Guide,
Counsellor, kind Friend
Has infinite breadth,
And depth as well,
Conducting you
Who are His
To your destiny: Himself.
His place ?
Higher than the heavens.
Where can you meet ?
The earth, to which He came,
Where He will return,
Where His free Spirit is Sent
As a gift to His people who know Him.

"Be reconciled to God!" -
He calls over the blood
Of His Son's central sacrifice,
The Just for the Unjust,
To bring us to God.

Is your eye opened ?
Can it see ?
He made Him to be sin
Who knew no sin,
That in Him
We might be made
The righteousness of God *4.

If you come,
You're covered.
If you don't,
You never were.
Transactional analysis:
Your sin for His,
His righteousness to be yours
As a pardoning gift;
To which is added
A dynamic, transforming vitality
Of a surgically changed heart *5
In which lives
This same Lord Jesus Christ
By His Spirit *6.

The universe ticks
As if responding to a music,
To its appointed destination:
For us who believe, His irrepressible harmony;
The other way -
the cacophony without conductor,
Fitting
For reckless, radical recalcitrance,
One teeming with just rebuke *7

Is life to be yours?
Or are you,
A culturally captive city,
To abide blind ...
Till your place is amazed ashes;
Your desires
Twisted from your captured spirit,
Even while your city disintegrates:
Your spirit justly awaiting the judgment
Of that God who made you,
And whom you ignored -
Except perhaps for presumptuous
Deals based on nothing
But vanity.
It is victory or vanity,
Delusion or God!

He has left nothing
To chance,
And nothing will
Those gain who
Trust it!

In Him there is confidence
As there was creation.
Without Him,
There will be the desolation
Of deceit *8.

Come! He says, to Me:
I will not cast you out! *9
And let him who is athirst
Come*10.
And whosoever will,
Let him take the water of life
Freely.
 
 
 

Notes:

*1 Revelation 17:1-5; cf. SMR pp. 946ff.. (Go to Next Section at 946.)

*2 Revelation 17:5.

*3 Ephesians 2:8, Romans 5:15, II Corinthians 5:19-21.

*4 II Corinthians 5:17-21.

*5 John 3:1-8, Jeremiah 31:31-34, Hebrews 8:7ff., Ezekiel 11:20, Jeremiah 3:12-16

*6 Romans 8:9-16.

*7 Daniel 12:1-3, Jeremiah 2:19, 5:3, Romans 2:8-9.

*8 Jeremiah 9:6 -"Through deceit they refuse to know Me!";

Hosea 7:16, Psalm 139, II Thessalonians 2:1-12.

*9 John 6:37.

*10 Revelation 22:17.
 
 

IT IS TIME
TO SEEK THE LORD.
WHERE THE LORD IS,
THERE IS SAFETY!



 
 
 

3. THE BEAUTY OF HOLINESS

Are you boarding the Concorde of high fashion, then, in spirit and in direction, in flight ? Let us hear your flight attendant. He seems disposed to converse.

Your Concorde, Sir, Madam, is ready for take-off! What ? You do not wish to fly in this kite ? But consider how advanced it is! You feel this sort of advance is to the grave ? One can quite understand the degree of apprehension, but consider this sir, madam. Your own involvements in the WCC, NCC, UN, tongues bridges to Rome, sentimentalism without security, fashionability without faith, christianity without Christ, doctrine without the Bible, is far more dangerous than the mere explosion of tyres and loss of your life, on this earth. This is far more to come. This is, if you will forgive the vigour of the change of the imagery, merely the tip of the ice-berg. Greater depths of cold lie beneath.

You fear no cold ? Then fire ? you know, such as gutted the great tower of Babel, to the glory of Communism in the Moscow area, which would broadcast regionally the most important news from that era of persecution of the saints in that land, and retention of the Jews for so long! Fire, for our God is a consuming fire that does not IN THE END look lovingly on rubbish, though He has done all to redeem what is to come to Him: fire, this also is relevant.

Extremes are relevant for extremities and it is extreme to flaunt humanism and relativism and combinations and syntheses and syncretisms of ebullient rebellion in the very face of God, in the very light of the crucifixion, in the very name of the One whose bodily resurrection is monumentally greater in constructiveness, than the atomic and hydrogen bombs, including the neutron in its efficiency, even had chance of being, in destruction. They destroy some. THIS can raise ANY. But you have to be there... with Him. You have to come, not to some synthetic christ of the nations, of the Uniting Religions, of the bread-worshipping, pope-obeying, Mary-exalting deformities of truth, but to the Lord's Christ (Luke 2:36).

Why not ? It is time. The time is near.

But you have done so. The FOLLOW HIM. There is an interesting time when even a dog may not realise HOW to follow the master on a leash. A neighbour has had just such an experience. It seems almost impossible to believe that this OBVIOUS THING has to be learned! But it does. When it is done, what glory for the dog! It has a master who cares, a way to go, a series of wonders to behold, a certain meekness to come, a certain boldness to go.

When the Master is God, the mastery is benevolent, beneficient, efficient and does not worship efficiency, for it knows that our frame is weak, understands our dangers, sympathises with our difficulties and values us as persons, not as ideological items (Hebrews 4:14-16). Our creed is Christ, our Bible is HIS insistence, our doctrine is therefore from this, and our lives are His treasure trove, which He regards as a diadem (Isaiah 62:3 cf. Malachi 3:16-17). HIS presence is OUR joy (I Peter 1:7-9). To be treasured by God is the necessary implication of being bought by the redemptive death of His Son, and exposed to the flashing power of His resurrection first in body, and then enabling His people till their own resurrection comes at His return.

It is near.

HIS HOLINESS (one means CHRIST, for He is the One, there is no other, "you are all brethren", and ONE is your Master, EVEN CHRIST - Matthew 23:8-10), His Holiness, the Lord Jesus Christ, I say, is near. His throne is now in the hearts of millions; it will soon be seen in the world of events. It was as a servant He came, and He served in the Great World War 1A or WW Alpha, before our own contributions in the twentieth century. That alpha war, it was the war to end all wars; but

      SO IS PEACE REJECTED.

It is for that reason that for this world, it is not found. It is absent for the humanistic, secularistic, dragonesque speaking globe.

It is the sort of thing you notice, do you not agree ? The lack of peace in endless millions if not myriads in mental disease (seeing a psychiatrist is not far short of being a status symbol for some, it appears), tension, distress, disquietude and surging waves and billows of heart and mind, is a matter for a major series of industries! "Men's hearts failing them for fear" is not only a prediction; it is a reality; and it is a reality founded on the result of rejecting a peace which passing all understanding , is not at all duplicable. Voiding thought in imaginary nirvanas is a form of death; life has a better answer.

Thus peace is a reject. It was thus that the wars and rumours of wars that Christ predicted, the diet of lovelessness and the dire threats of fraud in spiritual things in a progressively intimidated and manipulated world, would come. They had to come. They have come. But have you ?

It is time to be going; and when He comes, we will go who are His. Residues on filter paper can be sticky, and there is only one place for them to go. That ? why, where they belong.

Your flight, sir, Madam is leaving. Do you wish lift-off ? THIS, let me explain, this is a spiritual Concorde, and its ways are concordant with the Christ.
 
 

NOTE

*1
The foolish concept that violence is endemic to religion because sin is endemic to man should be removed.

You might as well have armed guards in every office because man is a sinner.

The RELEVANT question when you are thinking of throwing out the baby with the bath-water, is this: ARE they the same ? Is it necessary ?

Religion like politics and art and commercial armaments capacity is indeed a topic which can be utilised in killing. That does not mean we abandon art, for example.

It is true that some in the field of religion are not performing what the Prince of Peace has commanded - Overcome evil with good; love your enemies, do good to those who deal with you evilly, and such things are Biblical injunctions. There is no command from Christ to kill; but there is plenty of warning about BEING killed (e.g. John 16:1-2). That is the way of false religion. God may JUDGE, but man is to bear.

Now if some WORLD DOMINION specialists such as the Moslem (see Index) and Roman Catholic (see Index) religions exhibit themselves to be in their writings, want to do violence (as in the assault on Europe and on Protestants), then does that make it appropriate to assume that those who DO NOT believe such things, do NOT have such a world philosophy, who wish to follow Christ who said, My kingdom is NOT of this world, should likewise want to hack and kill and maim ? Is this reasonable ? Is this right ? or is it the aimless flocculence of convention tumbling down the test-tube, as if there were not thought, but merely a fall out.

The Swing idea appears to be this: since religions may lead to murder, murder religions, and do it nicely, by combining them (though their opposites are without limit), and exclude Christ by insisting that there are other ways, and loot the Bible by humanising it to the form and format of man's mind, and avoiding God, follow the popular desires of the populace, as expressed by unifying all this stuff into some sort of quietus where nothing jags out, and all is at rest.

This betrayal of Christ, statedly t he ONLY way to God, for as God He is His own way, and there is no ambiguity about God: it has only the confusion of thought to commend it. IF some kill one another in the name of their religions, what in the world, or out of it for that matter, has this to do with people who are being killed for their beliefs, and are to love their enemies and do good to those who do evil! Will you extinguish Australia because some one man murders ? Will you remove Italy because the mafia is in it! This is the same logic; but this is worse which Swing puts. For Italy is indeed of ambivalent character, in this, that you cannot generalise, for some believe this and some believe that. But the Biblical Christian is ALSO CLEAR: THIS he/she believes, and this is the OPPOSITE of what is being sought to remove it. You are thus seeking to, or acting as if to ERADICATE what you need, on your own terms, in order to gain it! Some logic!