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CHAPTER THIRTY SIX

A little flight in the imagination, to speak of things

only imaginable, renegades from reality, in their true colours!

 This is taken from  

Divine Manifesto, the Bible:

Deity Manifest: Jesus Christ the Lord

Chapter 5

THE DELIGHTFUL DECLAMATION:
Light that Exposes,

Mockery that Loves,

Truth that Leads and the Hope for Man

 

HEBREWS 11:3 with Isaiah 44:9-22, Jeremiah 2:13,27

The Word of God is fulfilled not only in detail, but in spirit

         See Sequel in Ch. 9 to follow

One day a nano-fragment^*1 was not feeling very well. It had experienced a slight skittishness, but now it felt a failure. We must always personalise these things, since you have to get the elevation in the end, so you might as well assume it in the beginning, for it makes in this way a better fairy-story; and it is fairer to fairy stories to do it this way, since the evolutionary type of fairies with a straight face, at the end, are a little too much for anyone who values logic at all.

If you must add, as a fad, then let us have it straight, not in some murky subversion of logic and reality, which hides the fiasco in details that do not arrive, and in imaginations that do not derive. Let's start with outright fearlessness in fancy, and speak it loud and clear.

There was, as one was saying, a certain sadness, you could almost say desolatory character to the heart of this nano-fragment. Oh that I might arrive! it said.

It is not so clear, one must interpolate once more (these fairy stories, like their evolutionary prototypes, really have so much to clear away, in the sense of realism, but there you are, it is better to be open about it), WHY it wanted to arrive anywhere! However, maybe retrospectively, with time in some warp or woof from the dog-hearted, it had managed to import this backwards from the nineteenth century, which tended to delight in advance, except in the cases of those who did not advance, while so many others did. Anyway, this nano-fragment, it felt that this was not the thing. It was too small, not competitive enough.

That is another element that one feels, needs attention. If you are going to have fiction, it need not LOOK like it, well not entirely.

The idea of being competitive enough may also by some retroactivity, have glided back from the twentieth century to the nano-time, some time ago, a few millenia, and have become part of retrospective folk-lore. You may not entirely like this concept, but then it is all an  exercise in retrospectivity, for always what is imagined not to be there, has to act as if it were; and as one was saying, it is better to be open about things, especially if you are trying to make them look a little feasible, if only for the sake of your story. Evolutionists seem to prefer stories to history, and it is true that there is a certain potential enchantment in the ridiculous, the more so for children.

Caught, then, this nano-fragment, in its sullen thoughts of not being competitive enough, or enough! plain and simple, it had ideas to expand, thoughts of greatness. So it set about this.

It is a pity we have to interrupt what otherwise could have been quite a nice story, but then this is not a bed-time story for children, so perhaps we might be a little excused, at the least.

HOW it could set about it, not exactly having the functionalities of will, or the interfaces for energy elevation, is not so clear; but then nothing is when you become God-forsaken, so we might as well face it.

It did. That is how our story is going. It sought and sought and fought and fought (it is not quite clear with what, but this seems to be the 21st century idea of getting places, although not with races, for there is a definite and discernible trend for them to rub each other the wrong way, and then to rub each other out, which is really so not very progressive, especially when the children play with atomic and H-bombs, about which as Nagasaki seemed to show, there seems to be a certain finality. But there it is! this what they do; and Iran seems to love the whole idea, perhaps the more so, since it is interested, as its President so kindly made clear to all the children, of obliterating Israel. This is not entirely clear, as to its reasonableness, but then nothing in this story is, so it fits to perfection.

Thus were things for our non-fragment, which was having a difficulty in proceeding not unlike our own, in telling this story, since nothing in or about it was even remotely interested in doing anything to the point, or providing anything helpful to the Great Project. In fact, it found a certain listlessness of spirit, except of course that it did not have one, in contemplating how to energise and motivate and actualise things that did not exist, in the very important game of making them exist.

It tried will. It thought and fought and strove in its non-existent spirit, with the best of the other imaginations which the facile spirit of man loves to create, instead of being created by what had it in the first place, and had always done so, so that man might arrive by the more logical path of creation. That is to say, our nano-fragment fought with non-existent enemies, with non-existent spirit and non-existent will until it at last, through the heat of the conflict, there came a great discovery.

Before however we come to what this Great Discovery was, we must realise that there was a certain problem which even our nano-fragment, in its non-existent spirit and will and mind, felt to be overpowering - or almost overpowering, since after all, we are telling a story which, if not history, had better be good, as the (increasingly) weary might attest by this time or hour.

Realising to the full in its non-mind that it was seeking to go up a hill which had not been elevated, with a mind which had not been invented, to secure a result which had nowhere to come from, it jettisoned the whole idea.

The great discovery was simply this: forget the revolutions. When did they ever create a mind or spirit or glory or understanding, or escaping from this world, understand it with an overall, and over-arching perspective which was TRUTH (you know, so that you could tell it like it is! as they say)! The nano-fragment downed tools and looked glum.

It is a pity to interrupt to often, but what would you ? One likes stories, but there is a limit. Now how could it look glum if it had nothing to look with, nothing to show it through, and nowhere to find the desire to do so.  In any case, it had had enough. It had nowhere to go, and a great sense of desolation coming over it, it handed the whole thing back to the Creator and said, YOU DO IT! - which of course He did.

Our nano-fragment, what a pity! Its whole story becomes a lament. As Jeremiah 2 puts it:

And hewn themselves cisterns - broken cisterns that can hold no water.

That is always the problem with the sullen, the estranged, the alienated, the obtuse because of wilful blindness. They start perhaps in a mood, and then continue with a dark torch. This is a special invention which enables you, when there is perhaps some moonlight at least, to have a special line of darkness in front of you. While you may of course stumble, it may give you some sense of direction, though unfortunately what it is leading to, is by the nature of the case, gloomy in appearance and unknown in character. Anyway, they like it and do it.

Let us however proceed with the word of God in Jeremiah 2.

 That  is always a problem with this sort of thing. You go along, sweating and toiling, hoping and looking, though there is so little to see, admittedly, with this wonderful invention of the Torch of Darkness (looks somehow more attractive with the capitals ?). You come into a difficulty and strive and try, and look important and feel good and believe in yourself, and all the other knick-knacks that frank disbelief in the Creator loves for a fiddle time; and yet there is something missing. You do not get anywhere; and so you just trust in the Torch of Darkness and carry on, and perhaps even congratulate yourself how you DO carry on; and anyway, you get there.

Where precisely ? This is hidden in the "unknown" which naturally is a companion to the torch of darkness, and it sounds somehow prepossessing, more than this: I am going nowhere fast and love the experience though it seems a little boring, for I have to keep inventing names for it, though it is not really there. Too bold, too clear, a little more obfuscation: so this is not said in so many words.

There is no help from God for the godless (cf. Psalm 1). Yet they tend to pray in a way, in a fray ... It is only natural; it is the alienation which is unnatural, and that seems more natural particularly when divorce from deity is the operating situation.

STONE! they cry, you gave birth to me. You see how up with it, the Lord had made Jeremiah in some 2600 years of yore! It is precisely as now; but we could call it a nano-fragment, because it SOUNDS more sophisticated than just having nothing around, and when you cannot be logical, you have to import something. Try fragments, and then make a fragmentary history^*2. A touch of evolution ? to taste, add at will.

There are some difficulties, but we have already been into that.

They are alas all too manifest. There is another number to call. There is another book, where end and beginning and what is in-between appear alike. The number ? it is called the name of the Lord, who is always available with dial tone guaranteed (Psalm 145:17-18). Oh you have to call upon Him in truth, not fairy stories. But He hears. The book ? it is the Bible, which has no intention of being moved; it is not only around to the end, but it tells you what it is to be: like it is.

Now that last clause is, one confesses most freely, a deplorable thing, worthy of revulsion, an ungrammatical excrescence all too typical of a brash, rash generation. However, it is in a way descriptive, so why not sing a song with it! It fits.

The manifesto of God has been around, and it has several great advantages. Everything it says happens; it happens just as it says, and it gives the only logical answer to man, matter and spirit, having them from the first creations of what from the first, and at the first, being always around, simply made them. Without this, nothing doing. With it, you have ourselves.

How do you do ? one takes the hat off and bows. But it is better really, to end where we are, by beginning where we began, and to forget that hymn to pride, evolution, or devilution, which latter term, even if something of an invention, has a good measure to it. It suggests the devil, the worthless antagonist of truth, a dark pseudo-solution from a dark and all too real spirit. This devilution, it concerns something which once had more force but now is merely a component in something else, and has lost its individuality, and then finally, seeks revolution; for, as rebels, his people seek to populate the earth, and perhaps lasso a star, or better planet or moon soon, as this earth is beginning to look more and more like the minds and spirits and hearts of those who, godless in billions, populate it.

So there was once a nano-fragment, and set high above the earth ...

Oh no, we have done that one before. It is time to leave our bed-time stories and face facts.

After all, the manifesto of God is manifestly merciful, and mercifully realistic, and is founded on faith which is focussed in truth, which is shown in reliability, whether in the word of God which foretold Christ's coming and deeds and date, or in the Christ Himself, who did what had to be done in a spirit of vast wonder and magnificent beauty. Orchids ? They ARE far nicer than trash. Is it an offence against multi-culturalism to prefer them ?  vastly ? Is this insulting to someone or other ? who thinks it unkind to the weeds, which need a national trust to protect them, as do sharks which devour on the beaches, and crocodiles which can snatch lives, and become a rather crinkly holy cow! Yet multi-culturalism, if at all worthy of thought rather than its suppression, involves tolerance to other ways, language and procedures; but does not include the subjugation of God to something or other than someone or other would prefer. That is national sell-out, the gods of Mars hill by compulsion, ignorance as mandatory, so that anything must go, and nothing remain.

Strange is what is left to mankind without God, in the 21st century. The Dark Torch is inventive, certainly, but is leaves people stranded, not only in boats, but in the universe, and in their spirits and in lie itself (cf. II Thessalonians 2:11, I John 2:22, Romans 1 and Ch. 3 above, *1). It is better to have the light of life, for light is sown for the righteous (Psalm 97:11), and the light of life is what is needed, to preclude this awful fate, that anyone should walk in darkness (John 9:3-5, 12:35-36) and so stumble, not even knowing at what the confrontation, small or great, actually lies. Darkness is like that. You really need the light of life, to walk in it, securely, meaningfully, and with a wisdom which knows both where it is going and why.

It is as Christ put it in John 11:8-10:

^"Jesus answered,

'Are there not twelve hours in the day?
If anyone walks in the day, he does not stumble,
because he sees the light of this world.
But if one walks in the night, he stumbles, because the light is not in him.' "

The light needs to be IN you. This is much better than a miner's lamp, attached to the forehead; for while that is a wonderful idea, an invention of note for the physical darkness of a mine, it does not help at all in the realm of understanding and wisdom and knowledge and grace, in the meaning of the race, and the direction and motif and motivation, purpose and relationship to the Author of life . The reason for this, is simple. it is not a story of imagination, but an act of creation which makes and provides from adequate logical base, without myth which is the very fabric of naturalism, what man both has and needs. He needs it for he needs definition, reason, reality and the meaning of spirituality, without which he so stumbles and fumbles with hands on H-bombs, or neutron bombs, or cobalt ones, and fights fatally foolish wars to show, or prevent the showing of what is not there. This is not to say for one moment that wars of defence may not be necessary; but alas, greed, ideologies of madness and pride in nothings have a great following. They can kill multiplied millions with a glow in the eye, for a time.

There is no room for uncleanness of spirit, vanities of mind and follies of worship, explicit or implicit. But if man insists on them, then the charge is high; but he often seems to prefer not to know about this, just to pay it anyway, and groan, and may be blame God for inscrutable reasons.

The meaning of spirituality for man is provided in the book of words, the tested, attested, verified and empirically triumphant Bible, for the world of events. What would you expect ? that God would fumble!

You need the Opera Sheet, to understand, for they do not always speak distinctly, those brigands of deception which sin loves to court.

It is better to be wisely informed, than spiritually deformed. It is not only the end, the destiny, it is the walk in the way. The light of life is not an option. It is the necessity of life.

Hebrews 11 declares the account so succinctly with that simplicity which truth, in itself, can so readily provide.

"By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God,
so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible."

The visible has a logically invisible ground in itself, so we look for an ocularly invisible source for the visible. This is the necessary result when one is both rational and empirical and insists on what is supposed to have power, actually showing it, and what is imagined to do things, actually doing them (cf. SMR pp.  140-151). Visibility is not a logical need, but visible results require a logical basis.

The testimony of Hebews 11:3  has in fact been treated before, and we excerpt an item from The Open Door... Ch. 3.
 

Such is Hebrews 11:3.

The word of God, then, to which we must consciously look with our created minds, able to work in the world with rational understanding because the God who made the one made the other, and able to look to God because the One who made our spirits is a Spirit, to which domain we, though derivative, are by creation transported, this clearly speaks. It tells us that the framing of the universe is the reason for its being framed.

From the One ultimately adequately equipped, and eternally there and so never needing to 'arise', from this source comes the entire field of delimited design, designated control, manipulative management and this with the liberties of thought and the aura of imagination. By His word came it all.

Thus came the whole connection and all the agencies and scope for implementation which this world contains, and in man, it is itself built for building. Man is made to make. Its sources are to be found in the resources of that ultimate Builder of the Universe, Instituter of its connections, Fabricator of its composure, the Inventor of the orderly laws and constitution of matter, directive but no mere duplicates, and of all with the artifices of ingenuity and the correlations of integrity; and it is sent from the Deployer of minds and the Source of spirits who has no limits to His scope nor abutment into His fields.

Thus the word of God tells us what reason itself commands; and it speaks with pith and power. It testifies of things past, present and future, it gives edicts concerning nations, principles and powers, it exhibits heights and depths of history and succinctly sums up wonders of human perseverance against evil powers, triumph over apparently impossible conditions and achievements of testimony and courage. This, moreover, it is not to glorify man, who in this is impelled by God, but to shame folly, expose unbelief for the self-bleeding weakening and imposture that it is, by comparison. Such exponents of the divine way and wisdom through faith, it is affirmed are those "of whom the world was not worthy" (Hebrews 11:38). So too does it bring light to the pilgrimage which is man's life on this earth, whether he chooses to recognise this or not,

The word of God thus makes without limit, and the things made are not the magic source of their own realm, but ingredients for the implementation of His thought who, being eternal, needs no cause, but is rather the undelimited source of all causation, declaring, I AM WHAT I AM; without whom there is nothing, nor can any series substitute, since its potential and potencies alike, themselves, require cause (cf. SMR pp. 307ff.); nor can any 'given' thing be imagined without need of cause. Since nothing cannot produce it, the Author or the authorised at any time, only eternity can, and to that, only self-sufficient is the Eternal One, dependent on nothing on whom all depends.

Accordingly,  what organs of sight can see is not derivable from any visible realm, but from the word of God; and what is to be seen is not other in that it stands visible to sight, for eyes may be seen, but rather in this, that it cannot see, which is mere field, but is the scope for such sight. Yet the visibly seen and seeing, these are they correlatives of the vision of the invisible God.

Thus the universe is so framed that the organised arrangements, construction and framework, components and their sub-structures, elements and their logical base, correlations and intimations of beauty and goodness, darkness and evil, choice and corruption,  did not at all depend on the arena  'just there', nor did a system by magic make other systems by afterthought; but it depends on Him who being there, had what it took to give what came. In its liberties, love becomes meaningful and may be found; or hate; and in its imagination, nobility may arise, or chicanery. Man is in the image of God who being good only and ready to give, is unakin to corruption though kindred to creation, being beyond its apex in the absolute dominion of deity. Liberty however is not bound, and in its purvey corruption may come to nestle.

As to God who made liberty, He needing nothing and doing all,  is not bound; and man by contrast, being derivative in liberty, and having chosen sin, is in the bondage of sin, though he might be free.  Faith is the connection to freedom, and love is the path of progress, yes and faithfulness is the changeless nature of the God who speaks, and it is done, who forecasts and it is, who judges and it is done, who provides salvation and it is dowered, empowered and immovable, like Himself (John 10:27ff.). He even invites man to come to Him (Matthew 11:27-30). He even invites sinners to come to Him (Matthew 9:13). Such is His nature that being love, He loves to show mercy, in fact, delights in it, giving being His godly joy, and restoring His godly creativity at work on the human frame amiss (Micah 7:18ff., Ezekiel 33:11).

 

FINALE

While much is repetitive in the material creation, since some systems are automated and programmatic, much is unique, like the moment in which the insane student in Virginia started pulling the triggers, and making the foul thoughts of deterministic nonsense^*3 his own, and blaming his victims for his own compulsion. Or the love of the person of spirit, for the songs of birds in the bush, or the delight in the godly man of science, in the exquisite mathematical and architectural, yes aesthetic felicities in avine creation. Yes, indeed, we may look further: much is unique, as is the looking to the Lord for salvation from sin, the gift of eternal life and the consummation of creation in the new creation (II Corinthians 5:17ff.), when man passes beyond the platform for the human concert, and gets to know the Conductor. This is both a delightful experience and a sobering one, for His knowledge is infinite, His wisdom such as His works show and His patience like Everest. Yet the time comes when time goes.

It is well not to blame programs, for the power to know the programmatic can only be unprogrammatic, and the power to know ANY truth about the ultimate nature of things can only arrive from the invisible, which put laws into the visible, and as logical base, determined the things basic for life, and the spirits to know them. Yet for all that, without the knowledge of the One who made both, there is no ground for knowing either.

When you DO know the One whose wisdom is back of both, and makes of man's wisdom at least a potential for something better than churning in the meaningless, because undiscerned, then of course not only is everything scrutinised, answerable to logic, a relish to reason, but a thrill to the spirit which seeing the Master Spirit of all, recognises His works and finds in His so precious words that counterpart for the spirit, of the DNA for the body. The latter is used to generate new bodies, but the latter new spirits, careened, cared form a part of the culture of truth.

 

NOTES

 *1 Nano-fragments are exceedingly and exquisitely tiny, being a subject of interest to some theoretical speculators, who may invent scenarios for them.

*2

It may be well to have also from The Open Door ... Ch. 3, some more thrust into the burst remnants of illogical thought, showing their case by what remains and rules, the truth of the word of God. Thus we have this (slightly adjusted for our present purpose):

 

Thus it is futile to look for the author of a book within the covers of that book. They are mutually exclusive, the operational and the operated; or to look for the builder in what he has fabricated, unless of course he CHOOSES to inhabit extraneously to the construction itself, the thing made. But in that case, it is not the house at all which is the builder, but merely a convenience for his adventitious appearance at will, neither controlling him nor explaining itself; so that the case is the same. The source is always outside the result, the cause is not coalescible with the effect, and the type of agent which makes is not to be confused with the products of his wit and power, when applied to a given realm which has not his agent powers, intellectual attestation or imaginative exhibits to attest what it is. Confusion on an imaginary basis IS indeed a USE of imagination, but it is an abuse of reason.

The source of a delimited particle is not ultimately to be found in the particle, but in the cause of its particularity, and this in terms of whatever is beyond the system by which ANY such cause CAN have any such effect, which itself is a prodigious non-nothing of schematic brilliance, and rational manifestation to the ultimate point, requiring its source, the construction of its sentences in structural characteristic, the equivalent of command. The phenomenal is such because of what is not itself, but a basis for its ordered composure, myriads of limits and either systematic-sequencing or schematic placement, even to the point of conscious awareness of logic, and application of the same.

Source is not in particles and their appointed properties, but in agent and its adequate proclivities and powers.

Not to the source matériel but to the mind which articulated it, by machination made its  correlates co-functional and raised the entire substructure of systematics to allow such particular cases as man, to relate in spirit to the mind that formed and to the Spirit which fashioned, to the Originator of all system, any system and the whole ordered rationality which enables rational discourse to be relevant, on ANY view or approach: it is to this that logic requires one look. It is to the thought which commanded conceptual existence, as that of conceptualisers like man, to the artificer whose thought construed, whose word commanded into existence that limits might be, and orders received, that one must look.

The evidential attestation of the unseen is continual, culminating in the spirit of man which is unseen in its own movements of hope, cynicism, spiritual scrofula and the like; for none of these have weight, architecture of geometry or units of action, but are more powerful than the devices that can be seen, since from this source comes the DESIRE to use and the PURPOSE for using those very material things. That is the second part of the definition of 'faith' in Hebrews 11. It is the roll-call of reason, the invitation to see what is happening continually, it is the document in the empirical, the case drawn up and presented, the field observation in heart, in mind and in body, and outside the body, in systems multitudinous, interlockings of no ephemeral sophistication and correlations definitionally undivorcible from design^*3.

What has its components subject to reason, investigable by it, correlated in terms of it, sent into systematics, open to cause and effect at levels which no one system can account for in terms of its native abilities, and is integrated into realms of thought, spirit and organic elements in turn correlated into personal units: this is its own attestation. This is not what any one system does, by definition of any one of the systems, based on reason and observation; it is not in the realm of any one system's modus operandi as experimentally testable, but contrary to all tests, as in the aspect of information science which denies the casual mounting of information and affirms its natural loss^*4 .

Myriads of systems in integrated totality and unified correlation for designate ends require myriads of creations. information inputs with their provisions for plasticity within design, to the point that the designating DNA and its allies, permit. Man never ceases to be forced to see that this is in KINDS, and that endless plasticity is as contrary to scientific law as is concrete rigidity. That is just not the way life is, or law works (as explained in The Defining Drama Ch.   10).

The mind that has all nature open to its KIND of enquiry, the spirit which has instruments for moving into vast domains of ordered power by law and conceptual affinities, by logical kind and definitive correlation, these are not aliens in some oddity. They are means within a totality mutually accessible, but not exhaustibly comprehensible, as if the nature of what is made by the superior, in terms designed for the inferior, admits action, enables comprehension but distances presumption. Thus, the child does not exhaustively understand the father, though he is one who is in intimate correlation with him; and their mutual design types are readily seen in the extraordinary felicity of the whole inter-face, father and son.

So here: there is the inability to plumb the depths of our beings, but great facility in determining much about them; and it is only when we move from awareness of the minimal means and the necessary cause of it all to the awareness of that Being in personal enquiry and inter-personal apprehension, that the full evidential attestation becomes clear.

Such a result is vast in significance, and the structures enabling it are equally astounding.

It is performed, in ordinary systematics, in two stages. First, just as DNA orders our construction with conceptual dynamics set in multiple systems of supply and coherence, enabling orders to be INTERPRETED and the FULFILLED (you can order an ice-cream, and a maid can fetch it for you, but you need the kitchen, refrigerator, her willingness and her mind to catch on to the order), so the Bible, the only valid and testably and empirically confirmed book claiming to come from God in the world (cf. Reason, Revelation and the Redeemer and  The gods of naturalism have no go!) issues its word to the human mind, heart and spirit.

Thus it, in turn, commands our consciences and instructs our reason with reality. We are indeed not left without a witness, either to the mind and reason, or to the heart and inspiration, concerning the purposes and to the purity of heart which makes man not a mess but a marvel.

On this, see further the comprehensive style of coverage in .Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, Who Answers Riddles and Where He is, Darkness Departs, and in Celestial Harmony for the Terrestrial Host, Reason, Revelation and the Redeemer, which dwell on verification and validity not least. This is for the unwearying, whose spirit does not rest on cult and culture, but in truth.

 Cars without maps and roads, or maps without vision are like a mockery.

Dispose of them, however, and you mock merely yourself!

This is one of the main forms of contemporary man's mischiefs, and it leads to being lost on a vast scale, while different sort of lostness express themselves: debate and contend, war and murder, curse and inculpate, destroy and delight in ruin, even to the point that one of the most recent examples delights in death as a furthering of its greatness, just as Revelation 6 specifically foretold, as to type. It is one thing not to fear death; it is quite another to delight in it, wallow in it, use it as a tool of exploitation and callow is the heart that so esteems life.

Power was granted, says Revelation of the culminating times of our Age, to the agent who sat on the horse, namely Death, "and hell followed with him." Not only would he kill with hunger and the sword, but "with death." In other words, death is a pre-occupation, a funereal delight, a furtherance of aims and a component of the scene like eating or breathing. It lives by dying, it moves by strangulation, its place is horror. So it was to be, and so it is, some of the Islamic militants almost echoing the sentiment verbally!

All of this appears a form of what the Bible calls SPIRITUAL LUNACY. This is what Hosea 9:7 tells us, and this is a result in the mind of an alienation in spirit which will not face facts, and so invents them; and these being only pseudo-facts, like organic evolution preached with a persistence worthy of most missionaries, become like the heads stored up in the abodes of head-hunters: emblems of arrogance and particles for pride.

These are the prophets of human racial pride, or religious renegacy, parading power and invading truth with unverified error that speaks with blood. It is much as shown in Jeremiah 13, where the prophet called on the king and queen to humble themselves in time: this being not some simply emotional extravaganza, but an exercise in realism as a change! Below we look at 13:13-18.

"Thus says the Lord:

'Behold, I will fill all the inhabitants of this land - even the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets, and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem - with drunkenness! And I will dash them one against another, even the fathers and the sons together,' says the Lord.
'I will not pity nor spare nor have mercy, but will destroy them.’

'Hear and give ear:

Do not be proud,

For the Lord has spoken.

 

^'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,

Because the Lord’s flock has been taken captive.

 

^'Say to the king and to the queen mother,

"Humble yourselves;

Sit down,

       For your rule shall collapse, the crown of your glory.' "

 

Faith then is not in all; but in some. It is not deployed aright in all, but in some. Reason is abused in many, and revelation ignored in multitudes; but faith and things hoped for, this realm is not touched by pathology any more than health at home, by sickness in a far country.

Faith is not limited to this, however, in its definition. It is the assurance based on actual reality of things hoped for, but it is also the evidential attestation of things unseen.  That is what we next find in Hebrews 11.

Faith is attested by evidence of the unseen. The Greek word here indicates verification, attestation, demonstration, the tidily evidential. As it works with assurance like a membranous link to the things hoped for, so it deposits an evidential correlative, in things done, results gained, products wrought. This is not the only way it comes; for this is part of its very nature; but this part is self-reinforcing, for when faith is in operation, duly founded, grounded and wrought, so then it works with results which like clear airways to the lungs, realise the realities, exhibit the profundities.

By faith, the elders, we read here also, obtained a good report. Multiple examples follow in the forthcoming verses of Hebrews 11, functional indexes of the operational reality back of faith, on which it depends, the Lord Himself. So does it accrue when it is exercised in what therefore has actual reality, and hence power and ability to perform promises. Thus as reason requires reality and faith invests itself where reason points and revelation confirms, so results of this dynamic, this faith, appear just as consequences do in other realms, and attest the actualities in view, as in any field.

The difference here is not the absence of reason, but the absence of visibility; not of results, but of the visibility of the cause, of God Himself. To be absent from visibility, however, is far removed from being naked of results!

*3 See Repent or Perish Ch. 7.