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We come now to another sort of pitter-patter. In the Preface, reference was made to the pitter-patter of children’s feet, as those who must learn, whose ardour for adventure in knowledge, achievement of wisdom, whose eagerness for right and ripe reality is sure, though not expressed in these terms. We found ourselves exhorted to be like this, like unspoiled little children, alight with the flame of desire for what is good, to find it, know it. We should seek to find, to investigate, in our own grown up cases, what the Lord is doing, how prophecy is fulfilling itself, how the world is being made, like a contour map in progress, to fit the design delivered millenia ago, in our current Age. To be blind by choice is not pitiable, nor is it wise.

This was not to idealise children. They can fall as others, in all but incredible messes. However, they may also become Christians at an early age, and there is much less of the inability to trust anyone but oneself to be found there. The nascent looking of early eyes for the divine truth is found with less vested interest to avoid it.

However, we now turn to another pitter-patter. It is this time the figure used in a quite different sense. It is the steady, sure work of the Lord, often expressed in little things, things that work together and mount in their testimony, until at last, if it were possible, even the blind could see. Such is the work of prophecy in many cases: not always vast and sudden (though it assuredly can be this), but sometimes coming like rain, drop by drop until all the surface is wet. Surely, you may say, this is a strange imagination ? Yet it is to be found in the word of God, in substance, in Isaiah 55:10-11 (emphasis added):

"For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven,
And do not return there,
But water the earth,
And make it bring forth and bud,
That it may give seed to the sower
And bread to the eater,
So shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth.
It shall not return to Me void,
But it shall accomplish what I please,
And it shall prosper in the matter for which I send it."

On this occasion, we are looking at some of this rain, this dropping now here, now there, of the things that accompany the fulfilment of the word of God, and lead to it, in its time. These are like pluvial feet, with their pitter-patter, soft or loud in their march of descent from above, celestial messengers, addressing the wary, the weary and those asleep.
 
 

There is almost no end to them, these events. It is so like rain: sometimes it is heavier, and the danger is that of being swamped; at other times, it is light, but constantly reminding you that it is coming. It is so with prophecy in the Bible and the coming of Christ. It is almost ironic, if it were not so sad, that so many misled persons, despite the eminent and evident simplicity of the basic facts, look for the FIRST coming of some Messiah, in Israel (one died not so long ago, who was making wholly unbiblical claims, or on whose behalf such were being made by many), or Islam or Buddhism (Matreiya), but it is not so.

The evidence is not with it. It is the Christ who came, did as required (in prophecy):
in terms of power and performance:

• to heal, to raise the dead,
• to be raised from the dead,
• to die in an exposed form of piercing with contempt,
• to be raised in three days;

 
• to bring forth a Gospel as defined in Isaiah centuries before,
• to be Himself rejected and have this Gospel rejected OFFICIALLY in ISRAEL THE NATION, though He came as a Jew, Himself,
• and to be received by vast multitudes in MANY nations, after His resurrection,
• even including kings of the same, all this in His name, and according to that Gospel.

The question, logically, is NOT this: Will a Messiah come ? That is obvious. He came (cf. SMR Ch. 6, Repent or Perish Chs.  2 and  7, Barbs, Arrows and  Balms  Appendix IV).
It is rather: Will He return ? As to that, from the Bible in its historic field, it is rather this, WHEN ? and as to that, it is not permitted to know (Acts 1), but it is COMMANDED to rejoice when as now, the signal flags are flapping wildly in the breeze of significant events (Luke 21:28 cf. SMR Ch. 8).

It is, this matter, to be sure, muddied in the minds of many by the simple fact that a FALSE CLAIMANT is as securely predicted as was the Christ Himself, who came on the date predicted, over two millenia ago. This fraud is to come, and shortly (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5). This will confuse many who have not received the love of the truth (II Thess. 2:10). That is the nature of the case, in spiritual life. If you play with fire, you may get burnt, and in parallel with that, when you burn your conscience (I Timothy 4:1-2), which is the predicted doom of many for "the latter times" as there shown, then you are in the very vale of confusion. This must be balanced with the fact that not only is God love (I John 4:7ff.), but He SO loved that He GAVE, and did not limit it to cold charity (cf. Beauty of Holiness Ch. 2), but He gave the warm and loving heart of Christ, the incarnate and eternal Word of God, formatted as a man, fashioned to receive the penalty for those who would receive Him, and to dispense His power to His people.

He WOULD HAVE all men to be saved, it is written (I Timothy 2:1-6), in the very scope of the canopy of GOD over the entire human race, the context, so that He cried, "HOW OFTEN would I have gathered YOU  ... but you WOULD NOT"  (Matthew 23:37, see SMR Appendix A). Yet salvation is not a tonic to be accepted in haste as one sets about one's chosen work. It is the cleansing and occupancy of God in the life of those who become His intimate friends, and close associates in the performance of His will, wrought through the power of His Spirit in the name of Christ, the Saviour Himself (Luke 2:29ff., Acts 5:31-32).

Salvation ? It is an enactment of God, comparable with the creative power of the origin of the universe, not insignificant because it is in the human heart and not in the spatial grandeur, alas in much so empty as if a parody of the heart of sin (II Corinthians 4:6). Happily the universe for all that is filled with much energy and light, in diversities of form wholly unlike any ludicrously simplistic Big Bang idea of creation by explosion! It has pockets of sudden density and conforms to creation as does the human heart itself (cf. That Magnificent Rock, Ch. 7, sections  E and  F). Yet like the human heart, it runs down; and in the case of the heart, it has run aground. Stuck in spiritual muck, its only hope is reflotation, by power and grace, mercy and goodness. Messing with the mercy is a frequently fatal enterprise.

In other words, if you play with the consuming fire (Hebrews 12:29), you are playing with your life! But if you are remorseful, and indeed repentant, be thankful, and come at once to the ONE who has already come for you! Remember when Christ came to the friends at Bethany ? Martha told Mary: "The Master has come and He is calling for you!" When He calls, come. If He has not called you, then CALL UPON HIS NAME (Acts 2:21,29ff.). He is not slow to listen, who came to save, not to condemn (John 3:17).

You do not want Him ? Why then repine ? It is your will. You regret that you do not want Him, but seem captive to various desires ? Then CALL ON HIS NAME for deliverance from such captivity and present yourself bound, for His deliverance from such bondage. THIS is precisely a ground of His coming (Isaiah 61:1-3, Romans 7). On the last reference, read Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 5. It puts it in a parable, built precisely on what Paul is there saying.

Avoiding the pitfalls of a profusion of confusion, contusion in the mental muscles from bashing your head against the bricks, clashing your spirit against the facts, lusting and longing for what is not, instead of simply receiving what is, which is incomparably better than anything which could be imagined, then: come, and let us relish the rain of little things, the pitter-patter on the roof of the establishments of our hearts.

Acid rain is not pleasant, but it reflects a situation, and to that extent paints a picture, as it defoliates forests ... even in blessedly beautiful Canada.

Here now is a drop.  In that interesting little magazine from Melbourne, Australia, Saltshakers, July 2001, pp. 8-9, we find reference to a book from John Garratt Publishing, and it is one prepared by the Doctrine Panel of the Anglican Church for discussion at their Synod in July.

In it, the issue of Homosexuality and the Anglican Church arises. Although it appears two of the panel have written in Biblical terms concerning it, and with clear cogency, yet 8 are different, as the jargon of today has it. What is to be found is not merely a RESULT in the thinking of some, but a METHOD and a PRIORITY which is what is revealing, or if you like sustained imagery, expressive of defoliation in Christian terms.

One of the published panel indicates that he has been "deeply affected" by personal relationships in this field, and that a niece having declared herself a lesbian, he now has a "change of heart and mind" and possesses a "gut-level sense of what is right in the matter." This, it is affirmed,  has radically altered his view, and he indicates, "I guess I am looking for ways of reading the truth of God in this light."

Now if there is a RADICAL alteration of what you had been reading and thinking in the light of the truth of God, and if this happens because of an experiential event, a matter of a personal relationship with someone whose behaviour must therefore be radically different from what one had been thinking:  then it is clear that a major criterion of 'truth of God' is what one is oneself seeing in a relationship setting.  In other words, it draws on an estimation in a personal sense, concerning someone else. In this way, relationships become as fundamental as the word of God; experience becomes as basic as the pronounced propositions of God, the word of one's heart becomes comparable with the word of the Lord, and the Bible becomes a source for adaptation culturally, personally, psychologically, yes and morally to the matrix of one's own nature.
 

• It is the same as so often: "Measuring themselves by themselves, they are not wise" (I Cor. 10:12): except that in this case, there is a SHARED jointness in the measuring, and the thoughts of one's own heart become able to become a major determinant. However, says the Scripture,

 
• "He who trusts in his own heart, is a fool" - Proverbs 28:26.

A fool, again it says, is interested in uncovering and portraying his own heart: a voyage of self-discovery acclaimed to others (Proverbs 18:2 carries just such a sense).

CAN you biblically bring your thoughts to God's written word and make an amalgam, gain a resultant which is radically different from the case when you seek merely to interpret it as IT IS ? But of course you can: it is common. In Mark 7:7 it is case of having the addition of the word of man to the word of God, woven into a strong tradition. The read-out on this of Christ, who as some realise has something to do with Christianity, like being its base and LORD: it was not pretty.

The denunciation of Jesus Christ has a threefold impact here.

1) "In vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men" - Mark 7:7, taken from Isaiah 29:13. Did this mean that they simply substituted the one for the other ? Not at all, for the second point comes with it, removing any such possibility.

2) "This people honours Me with their lips" - and so there HAS to be, as indeed there obviously was with the Pharisees, MUCH use of the word of God, and they would even try to bring Christ into trouble BY using it! (Matthew 12:2, 19:7).

But this is not all, this synthesis of human and divine. There comes a time when it is perfectly clear that the result is not a modification but a rejection.

3) "For laying aside the commandment of God, you hold the tradition of men..." (Mark 7:8).

Holding traditions of men as at all comparable with the word of God is anathema to God, but His own authority. Private convictions, public traditions, it is all one in this: ADD these to the word of God and the result is void, empty. Like a polluted chemical barred by the medical profession, this verbal pollution is given radical rejection by God. Proverbs 30:6 serenely confirms the multiplied condemnations of the Bible against ignoring His law, or making your own instead, with it, in any way at all, as when, after complete destruction, the northern Israel kingdom, in its scattered remnants following the fury of the Lord, "feared the LORD, yet served other gods" - II Kings 17:32, irreformable, irrepressible, a congestion of flagrancy and ruin.

It is, as Christ put it, "in vain". Like other idols, it constitutes an empty thing, a no go path, a vanity, a light thing, a nothing (cf. Deuteronomy 32:21, and 32:15-17 where the novelties are in gods not revealed in the definitive declaration of God as in Deuteronomy 4, and 12, to which NOTHING is to be added and NOTHING subtracted, as in Rev. 22:18-19; and see Beauty of Holiness Chs. 6  and  7). What would you expect, that the infinite creator who knows all things will mix the potatoes of your thought with the sublime infinitudes of His all-comprehending wisdom! Is the world to go insane in thought before action ? Alas, in spirit the vagrancy forgets all reason, as in conduct it ignores all barriers. But there is a cost for this.

CAN you then mix yours and His in command, declaration and knowledge ? Possible of course, but not profitable; productive of course, but not of peace, for as it is written:

"Oh that you had heeded My commandments!
Then your peace would have been like a river,
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea.
Your descendants also would have been like the sand,
And the offspring of you body like the grains of sand:
His name would not have been cut off
Nor destroyed from before Me."

Interestingly, in view of Chapter 1 above, it ends:

"Go forth from Babylon! ...
Say, 'The LORD has redeemed His servant ..." (from Isaiah 48:18ff.).
 

"Hear, O earth!
Behold, I will certainly bring calamity on this people - The fruit of their thoughts, Because they have not heeded My words
Nor My law, but rejected it.
For what purpose to Me
Comes frankincense ...

"Behold I will lay stumbling blocks before this people,
And the fathers and the sons together shall fall on them.
The neighbour and his friend shall perish."

 Apostrophe ? Yes, to the earth: Listen!
It is an epochal word.

Intention: CALAMITY on a people, in this case, Israel.

Characterisation: The fruit of their thoughts, the result of their imaginations, novelties, works of thought and heart.

Ground of so characterising for the onset of resultant calamity:

1) They have not heeded My words
2) They have not heeded My law
3) They have rejected My law.

Thus again in Jeremiah 8:9:

• "They have rejected the word of the LORD;
• So what wisdom do they have!"

There is action and reaction, equal and opposite. YOU reject this word, and YOU lose wisdom. You have rejected it, and you have lost wisdom.  As you push, so you receive; as the balloon flies off, its neck now free, so it flies in the opposite direction to the out thrust of air. You push off the word, and the word pushes you off, backwards.

It is of course true that when you reject someone's words concerning the basics of life and its conduct, words  incorporating their thoughts and if it is sincere, the thoughts of their hearts, that you are rejecting that person. Thus we find likewise:

"The kings of the earth set themselves,
And the rulers take counsel together,
Against the LORD and against His Messiah, saying,
'Let us break Their bonds in pieces,
And cast away Their cords from us.'

"But He who sits in the heavens will laugh...
'Yet I have set My King
On My holy hill of Zion...' "

The words of man are the subject of divine mockery when they dare to rate themselves in the same realm as the word of God.

The rebellious intention against "the bonds" of law and morality, as in Psalm 2, these concerned not only MAN but GOD, not only the SECOND commandment as Christ presented it from the Old Testament, but the FIRST, likewise presented from the Old Testament. Hence there was a casting aside, in Psalm 2 above, not only of the LORD in heaven but of His Messiah on earth, for they took "counsel together AGAINST THE LORD" (it. added), against HIM, AS they said, "Let us break Their bonds and cast away Their cords from us" - Psalm 2:3.

It is in the insistence ON HIM, that the LORD replies, setting up that very Messiah against whom they rebelled, setting both Him and His words at nought in a sort of double divorce session. What would you expect ? HIS mouth is part of Him! and He declares, "My thoughts are NOT as your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways" (Isaiah 55:8), so that you have option to rebel if a non-Christian, but not autonomy to invent a different situation. It is both Him and His words or nothing of Him at all (John 12:48-50), and on this is judgment.

Accordingly, the counsel against the Lord in Psalm 2, moreover that against the Lord and His Christ, the Sender and the Sent, this expressed itself as breach of His word, His commands precisely as it did in Jeremiah. It goes, He goes. It is His expression in word, adopted in stringency by His personal expression, the Lord Jesus Christ, in the incarnation (Matthew 5:17ff.), whose own words are of such assurance in purity and maintenance, that by these He will judge (John 12:48-50).

Thus, there are TWO direct ways of removing Him from the heart and soul of man's ways as a nation or a church: you can dismiss or seek to change the Christ who came and whose revelation stands fast forever and ever (Psalm 111), not one jot or tittle failing (Matthew 5:17ff.), or you can seek to change, remove, dismiss or mutilate His words, in terms of which it remains conveyed to man, regarding it dismissively, as too onerous or whatever other caprice or fancy of the time or clime may appeal, when the word of God does not!

In so doing, you act as the judge. In so doing, you do not however become the judge. That is the difference. The truth is not altered by on particle by your presumption. The Lord is gracious but rebellion is folly.

It needs to be emphasised that Christ in John 12:48ff. is seen to indicate that the WORDS spoken WILL JUDGE! They are His; and as His, they are HIS implements, expression and standard: if you do not like THEM, then you do not like HIM. If however you love Him, that you DO them, is in truth and principle, the result. Imperfectly, certainly, is the performance of one who is imperfect, the lost of us all (Philippians 3, I John 1:7ff.); but one is to march, to walk in the Lord, with resolve and determination, strength of intention and power from above to assist in this felicity of faithfulness. Indeed, it is His command, and to do His commandments, He declares, this, it is understanding (Psalm 111:10). Further, in John 14:21-23 it is most clear that it works BOTH ways. IF you love Him, you WILL keep His words. He who does NOT love Him, does NOT keep His words.

That is the way it is. He is most merciful but not available for change. His ways do not change (Habakkuk 3:6, Malachi 3:6, Psalm 102:23-28, 119:89,142-144,160). He is most kind, but manipulation of Himself or His word is a vain endeavour and a futile trial.

As to not loving Him, that is the essence of denial, since He IS love (I John 4:7ff.), and hence is the result noted by Paul in I Corinthians 16:22). It is corruption and curse, blindness and rebellion, or else it is conversion and comeliness, love and obedience. Moreover, in this there is great joy and all necessary provision for godly living (John 15:7, II Peter 1:4,  I Peter 1:3-9).

The beginning or the end of the Age, in this, it makes no difference at all. God changes not; His word changes not; His commands continue and His praise is irreformable, unavailable to capture for man. Humanism and its outposts is not, and never will be, the same or remotely able to resemble worship of deity; and deity is the same, everlasting (Psalm 102, Malachi 3:6, James 1:17, Jeremiah 17:5-8).  As to this last word of the Lord, let us see it:

CURSING AND BLESSING, RIGHT AND WRONG,
TRUST AND MISTRUST, MAN AND GOD

5 Thus says the Lord:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
And makes flesh his strength,
Whose heart departs from the Lord.
6  For he shall be like a shrub in the desert,
And shall not see when good comes,
But shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness,
In a salt land which is not inhabited.
7  “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
And whose hope is the Lord.
8  For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters,
Which spreads out its roots by the river,
And will not fear when heat comes;
But its leaf will be green,
And will not be anxious in the year of drought,
Nor will cease from yielding fruit.

9  “The heart is deceitful above all things,
And desperately wicked;
Who can know it?
10  I, the Lord, search the heart,
I test the mind,
Even to give every man according to his ways,
According to the fruit of his doings.

11  “As a partridge that broods but does not hatch,
So is he who gets riches, but not by right;
It will leave him in the midst of his days,
And at his end he will be a fool.”

12  A glorious high throne from the beginning
Is the place of our sanctuary.
13  O Lord, the hope of Israel,
All who forsake You shall be ashamed.

“Those who depart from Me
Shall be written in the earth,
Because they have forsaken the Lord,
The fountain of living waters.”

 

Again hear what He says in Jeremiah 15:15-21 :

O Lord, You know;
Remember me and visit me,
And take vengeance for me on my persecutors.
In Your enduring patience, do not take me away.
Know that for Your sake I have suffered rebuke.
16 Your words were found, and I ate them,
And Your word was to me the joy and rejoicing of my heart;
For I am called by Your name,
O Lord God of hosts.
17 I did not sit in the assembly of the mockers,
Nor did I rejoice;
I sat alone because of Your hand,
For You have filled me with indignation.
18 Why is my pain perpetual
And my wound incurable,
Which refuses to be healed?
Will You surely be to me like an unreliable stream,
As waters that fail?

19 Therefore thus says the Lord:

“If you return,
Then I will bring you back;
You shall stand before Me;
If you take out the precious from the vile,
You shall be as My mouth.
Let them return to you,
But you must not return to them.
20 And I will make you to this people a fortified bronze wall;
And they will fight against you,
But they shall not prevail against you;
For I am with you to save you
And deliver you,” says the Lord.

21 “I will deliver you from the hand of the wicked,
And I will redeem you from the grip of the terrible.”

The Holy Bible, New King James Version, (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, Inc.) 1982.

To change God or His word is not an option. To be changed, this is the necessity, according to His word.
 

What then is the impact of our DROP on the roof of our times, this time from An Anglican Paper ? (with two arguing on Biblical lines, and the other eight are evidently, out of the ten participating, in the negative direction on the commandment level) ?

It is this. Here is a frank indication that the BIBLE DOES NOT ALONE RULE in doctrine, but is an item for consideration. It is in the heart of the Anglican Church, whose Primate as noted earlier, made the epochal statement that it is possible to find God without Christ, so that he is setting himself in direct opposition to Christ (John 14:7, Acts 4:11ff.), and therefore his claims to name need comparison and thought in contrast to those of Christ, a procedure which leaves no room for doubt, no glimmer for contrary hope, no insight for rebellion, no future for the contumely of countermanding the LORD. Indeed, God did not send His only begotten Son to be a distortion as a revelation, but to be made manifest (cf. I John 2:8, I Timothy 3:16, Hebrews 1).

The point accordingly is that this is a vast, generic decline in a major Church; and it is not less significant than ...

But this, it is another drop. Let us listen for it.

Before we do, in case your roof was non-metallic and disguised the sound, listen a little further from this panel paper: there "can be no doubt that gay and lesbian sexual activity receives no clear warrant in Scripture, and appears to attract blanket condemnation." Yet, one of the ten writers concludes: "the blessing of same-sex unions can be seen as a valid development in line with Anglican moral sensibility." This is an anointing with Korah, as in Leviticus

He refers to Acts 15, as if for support. There a temporary law was presented restricting in terms of sensibility and sensitivity, the normal freedom with food, during a transition period for many, which of course is in line with I Corinthians 8:10-11, a matter of restraint beyond what is required by direct command, in terms of consideration for another. This kindness is good. However to use this to demand BREACH of a POSITIVE command, rather than a limit of freedom within commands for a sensitive situation, is to ignore that in this case NOTHING said by God is affected. NOTHING ordered by God is countermanded. Freedom is stressed as a facility GIVEN to man, and in this case, it is to use love in NOT using all of it, that is in question, not to use REBELLION for NOT DOING all of it! (This Acts 15 is dealt with as a special topic in Answers to Questions Ch. 6.)

Further from the Primate in that Church on this topic may be found in Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch. 14, End-note 1; and on the Primate concerning Christ as NOT the only way to God, in Tender Times for Timely Truths Ch. 7. In fact, if we look at all this, it is not a drop but a steady series which comes gently at first, then drumming then deafening...

So does the work of confusion rain in profusion and promiscuity towards the purity and wisdom of Biblical command. This is its prescription for the 'developments' of man, not fearing even to invade the work of God, and still use His name; and this is its depiction of our time, the last time in its latter phases (Answers to Questions Ch. 5). Where is this word to be found ? for of a certainty, the fulfilments of projected decline, false teaching, spiritual fraud and the like are crowding for recognition, like hungry school children at the school tuck-shop at lunch time. Where are the prophetic attestations and predictions of such a decline in world in general, and church in particular, so that its massive organisational bodies clutter the globe with their double talk, while there continues unmoved, the real Christian Church, always the same since the apostles (cf. Ephesians 2:20ff., I Corinthians 3:10ff., Galatians 1, Matthew 28:19-20 - where incidentally, the teaching of WHATSOEVER HE has commanded implies its clarity and continued presence).

Where ? Why look in II Peter 2, II Timothy 3 and 4, I Timothy 4, II Thessalonians 2, Revelation 13 and the second beast, in Matthew 24:24 and indeed all of that chapter, in Jude, indeed in II Peter 3 (cf. Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 74), in Jeremiah 23, with special reference to verse 20, in Revelation 16, in John 14:30, Daniel 7 and Luke 21:12-19 and Revelation 11 (cf. Acme, Alpha and Omega: Jesus Christ Ch. 5) and indeed Mark 13; for indeed "many will come in My name" and it is done in ways innumerable, verbal, personal, emotional, psychological, theological and with all the entrancements and trappings of spiritual magics (as in Revelation 13).

• THIS IS THAT! It is being done before our eyes.

"Now when these things begin to happen, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draws near" - that glorious redemption of the very body, which is part of the divine program for persons, from the God who IS personal, and has made men so (Romans 8:23).

They confirm that we are looking for an inundation from drops, for after all, water does not usually fall as a sheet, but with a multiplicity of ... drops.

• In view of this spiritual deluge, let us notice one more point, and we are past this stage. In the Advertiser, July  25, p. 26, we find that at the 12th General Synod in Sydney, of the Anglican Church, "A majority of delegates rejected a motion by Sydney delegate Philip Gerba to reject homosexual practice. They also rejected his motion for the church to reject the legitimising, blessing or ordination of people in same sex unions."

But as to our SECOND RAIN, this first deluge past, let us listen for the drop. Certainly these things, as Christ put it, are beginning to come to pass; and let us not be so slow that the play is nearly over before it is realised that it has ... BEGUN, last Act.

So to the next drops...
 
 

Now it is overseas.  It is French rain this time. Truly we are going international.

Thus, in this same edition of Salt-Shakers, p. 16, we find the topic of 'anti-cult laws in France'.

What however IS a cult ? Webster defines it initially as "a particular system of religious worship" and adds, "esp. with reference to rites and ceremonies". This could include mass or the Lord's Supper, baptism and the like. It has other meanings, which would involve undue veneration to idols, but this could include soccer stars, with the singing as almost hymnodic, that rises with unblushing veneration in the stadia. However doubtless this is not meant, since it is so ... popular.

Where is France - not geographical, but in terms of spiritual background, a different form of
terrain ? The result of so much Huguenot persecution from Louis XIV on and the vast combination of tyranny of State with that of the 'Church' in such days as those of Richelieu have not gone without effect. St Bartholomew's Day has ever been a romance of horror and an altitude of evil radiation, combining treachery and ruthlessness, spiritual exaltation and moral depth, mass murder and paeans of praise to some imaginary god who would sanction such things, on the part of Romanism. In fact, we read of Concordats,  in the Dictionary of Twentieth Century History 1900-1982, that "the most famous" was "the Napoleonic Concordat of 1801 which has been accepted by successive French regimes, except for a period of intense anti-clericalism (q.v.) from 1905 to 1914."

There, Romanist churches are in high profile. Like Spain and Portugal, yes and in significant measure, Italy, it has enormous residues from those days, and the stringencies which went with them, the persecutions having not merely removed people from this earth, but in droves from these countries, because of hostility, injury and shame, loss of freedom and constant menace. How like the terrors of Communism have been those of Romanism, discriminatory, determined and lacking a humanity of relenting, remorseless and incensed with such a lust for domination, so misled, so tragically misled, while the words of Christ (John 18:36),

• "My kingdom is NOT of this world,"

But what is the new law in France ? In what way does it plan to control religion ? It cuts at zeal, and lunges at expression.

If then France should now wish to imprison those DEEMED to be religious "proselytisers, sects and cults" for up to two years for "mental manipulation" of the public, are they going to at once imprison all priests on the ground of magical masses, involving a contra-scriptural (SMR pp. 1086ff., 1049ff.) manipulation of minds in terms of adorable bread, fully contradictory of Christ (John 6:60ff.), who ridiculed any such concept, indicating that HE would be in heaven! Or they going to be in accord with the concept of concordat, and being discriminatory, practise censorship with teeth ? Is this to be France ? Such a procedure appears to be in view in this new law.

Indeed,  is it likely that they would now imprison people for DARING to approach others with a reason for the faith, and deem THAT BECAUSE it involves thought, it is a manipulation, as if thinking were taboo in religion, as in mystery religions like Rome's, it tends to be!

• Power, we read, is given by this new French law, to the State to dissolve religious groups and impose sentences of up to 5 years and fines of up to 500,000 French franks. Israel was in danger of moving at least in this direction, in the days of Benjamin Netanyahu to whose government's credit however, brakes were applied. May such moderation continue in that much vexed people, until as predicted there is a major return to the law in Israel's midst.

Was not such farce the very spirit of the inquisition in England elsewhere, and was not John Bunyan's Lord Hate-Good, a learned judge of such as Faithful, who found the flames, the very embodiment of such ludicrous assumptions of power on the part of prejudice-inclined humans, whose real aims often are the 'stability' of the State, the protection of a favoured religion, the harassment of what is not desired, the progress towards one world rule, or whatever it might be. Is a person to be allowed to CLAIM this, that he was harassed! when in fact, he simply lost an argument, and felt disagreeable, so seeking redress for his proud psychology; or suddenly, in the course of willing discussion, found himself troubled in conscience, and wanting to inflict pain elsewhere, took the 'culprit' to court !

Has human nature then changed this year! Has history lost all meaning!

Not at all. It is just that the PREDICTED CONSUMMATION of a broader than Rome type of harassment, imprisonment, fine system and eventually death sentencing is assuredly to come. This started as a DROP on the roof. It is already quite loud. Victoria (one should have thought, of all places!) in Australia, has moved in the same direction as discussed several times before
now^*1.

The move is to suppress, judge, determine by law, and so construct a religious tolerance machine which will adjudicate and decide, impose and require what man is to believe. It has often happened when wealth or power wanted it, especially when both did so; and it would be inane to imagine that it will not happen again. That thought, however, it is the very magic of mental manipulation in the heart of the devotees of this one world religion (it pays so well): they imagine it will all be different now^*2.

They did so in Moscow, in Peking, in Cambodia, in Paris in the Revolution; they do it so routinely in every dewy-eyed (including Dewey-eyed) new thing, that one would think the concept of truth would eventually occur; but it does not seem to weigh when dreams are under way. Look now at Hu's thought in our earlier model of this dream! (See Divine Agenda Ch. 7 for Hu's riotously comic but gravely poignant reflections on humanity and his governmental role.)
 
 

* The latest report in The Advertiser (June 12, 1999, World News section)  tells of a Methodist body in Great Britain which NO LONGER REQUIRES BELIEF IN GOD FOR ITS PEOPLE. Saying that church attendance is a great way to find God, it determines that such faith in God is not a pre-requisite, for it may follow. On the face of it, this looks as if  the Social Gospel, that populous substitute of people for God, is here surging into new boldness. Being godly without God is like being clean without dirt removal, glorious without glory, peaceable without peace, lively without strength, dutiful without duty, beautiful in the grip of ugliness. It is like Tito's Yugoslavia, victorious without victory, having just the word; except that in this case, it seems even the word is not required.

Indeed, the report states it this way: "The Methodist Church in Britain declared yesterday that belief in God was now an optional extra for its members." Get them in and then they'll find. However members have votes, are part of the body, illustrate its requirements. Being member of Christ's church diverges here from such a position, as infinity from zero. "WITHOUT FAITH YOU CANNOT PLEASE GOD" (Hebrews 11:6) and that faith is in CHRIST JESUS (I Cor. 3:10-11), other than whom "NO FOUNDATION CAN BE LAID". The foundation is that on which it ALL stands!

There is an almost comical side to this: is there to be a situation of  CHRISTIANS WITHOUT THE KNOWLEDGE OF CHRIST, MEMBERS OF HIS BODY WHO DO NOT EVEN KNOW THEIR HEAD!

This is perhaps the best illustration of II Peter 2 and II Timothy 3, critical indications of the "last days", the time in which the return of the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ the Just and the Judge, is imminent. Is there not here a sight for the blind, the roar for the deaf and an entreaty for all: be what you are, be virtuous, be godly and GO WITH GOD, THE EVERLASTING FATHER OF THE CHRIST WHOSE GOINGS ARE FROM EVERLASTING (Micah 5:1-3),  AND WHOSE COMING IS NEAR.
 

In this case however, such a hope is misplaced. Worship without God is at least as fatal as God without His written word, His living Word, or His will. God as a casualty has already had its day, when Christ was crucified, letting it happen on purpose to fulfil a suitably sagacious divine plan of salvation in which the skills at sin in man were utilised to expose it, and the murder at the hand of man of the only begotten Son of God was employed to make a sacrifice for sin, thus showing a love both wise and patient, outwitting His enemies by using them (I Cor. 2:8), and then seeking pardon for them in the very death they incurred, if they would but come to Him in faith and repentance. That wonderful and unique, efficacious and available offering is made; that work is done. Eternal redemption is accomplished once and for all (Hebrews 9:12,25ff.).

What is now being done by opponents of the Lord is nearer, it would seem, to Hebrews 10: "Of how much sorer punishment do you suppose, will be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace." It proceeds to note that "vengeance is mine, says the LORD."

When you tamper with truth, seemingly using it and drawing intimately near, only to reject what it is, you are in a highly specific case, field and entry to doom. It is prodigiously ill-advised so to act. When you skirt warning and grow immune to over-used antibiotic, then the time comes when none is effective. In spiritual terms, such chronic misuse of mercy can leave your conscience seared as with a hot iron (I Tim. 4:2) and the time can come when your days of mercy are gone.

ONCE you are HIS, you are safe.

WHILE you play with fire, your safety is being expended. Moreover, this searing as the heat of truth is applied to the exposed folly of spiritual depravity, restless and blind resistance to reality, under the caprice of control and the ideology of vanity, it is with an increasingly obvious glare becoming a phenomenon both national and international, an enclosed conflagration of conscience while the rains are ignored in the cooped up offices of desolation.

So it is. So the drops once again turn into a storm, this time a hurricane. The drops do not extinguish the searing heart within the heart of those being lost; for they are in the heavens coming down; and this is in the conscience, stifling within the enclosure of the soul. The  storms abound around, while the destruction of the heart moves sadly oblivious.

What stormy weather we are having! It is just the sort of season predicted in Matthew 24 and II Peter 2, when the world, the bulk of worshippers and the wars of men on men, and on God, reach a climacteric flash, like forked lightning, or a lightning ball that lingers, blue with menace, where it hits the road (an awesome experience indeed!).
 
 

But you want something more modest, more practical in terms of simple events ? Why not ? Variety is an essence of good scientific method, a scope of investigation, a series of drops if you will, scattered and diverse, yet meteorologically assimilable, to pursue the imagery in the very field of the practical!

Yes, bed and breakfast now, how does that sound ? Practical, economic, serviceable, simple and even pleasurable ?

Let this drop then fall on the roof of your impressions and consider it for size and portent, amidst the other weather conditions noted.

It is in this very same edition of Salt Shakers that we find, on p. 16, a reference to Canada. It even occurred in the birth place of both my wife and Son, Prince Edward Island. It is a delightful place where the author preached in 1963 with much interest and many delightful results. One was that young teacher who, after attending a communicant class (composed of those warned NOT to join the church, that is, unless of course they were Christians, so that we had to study to find out who would be in such a position and so able in all conscience to join), made a declaration.

His view: He was not good enough! This, it was sweeter than freshly picked raspberries from the wild brambles, suitably reduced to fragrant wild raspberry jam. When has one heard that elsewhere in such a setting ? One finds people FAR TOO good, and much too fine, and very much too much themselves, and of a higher capacity and so on, whose road to hell is on the higher side of the sloping terrain. But to find one NOT good enough ? Why it sounded decidedly genuine. HOW be a sinner and yet find oneself good enough ? Here there was a sound initial answer. Surely some probing was needed, but it was a very pleasant task.

Are you GOOD ENOUGH TO BE A SINNER ? was one's question to him. Decidedly, he felt he could make that grade. After all, "this is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"  - I Timothy 1:15. How congenial this scripture is! You do not die in to the hands of some sinful priest or other sect sovereign, of some Seventh Day waiting room where Christ is working it all out (who in fact chose His people "before the foundation of the world"^*4as in Ephesians 1:4), or into your own hopes and fears.

You die as you live, into the hands of that God who delights in mercy (Micah 7:18) and insists that He would have all men to be saved, so that His willingness is express and your way is assured, for "He who hears My words and believes on Him who sent Me HAS eternal life, does not come into judgment and has passed from  death to life" - John 5:24 (a state of death to a state of life - Greek sense). Once you are HERE your future is assured as in Romans 5:1-12 and John 5:12.

Good enough to be a sinner is good enough to be saved, for then the weight of sin can be transferred, if you will, to the waiting truck of Christ, in His truth, who is ready to bear it away so that "You will cast all our sins into the depth of the sea" - Micah 7:19.

This then was an excellent start. But more had to come. The young teacher's diagnosis was a self-diagnosis, no doubt helped by the power of God in his heart, but the result was an operation - readiness for it. So the next question was this: Are you bad enough to need a Saviour ? The answer, again in the affirmative led on to the action. Hence the exhortation which followed:

THEN TAKE HIM!

That was the matter. He was willing, He was resolved, the man had been made willing by His grace and evidently took Christ since his heart had been so moved by the power of God to salvation (Romans 1:16) in the Gospel of grace (Romans 5:15) in which not only the subject of Saviour but the method of salvation is all covered by grace: "the gift by grace of the one man, Jesus Christ" leaving no room even for a tadpole to wriggle. Both the THING GIVEN and the MODE OF GIFT were characterisable distinctively as GRACE, undeserved favour. That is the divine dictum, and woe to those who would compromise it (cf. Romans 3:23, Ephesians 2:1-12).

What you get is a gift; what it is in essence is grace; and the way you get it is BY GRACE: and NOT of works, as Paul declares again in Romans 3:28, Ephesians 2:8ff.. Moreover, it is even "not of yourselves". Your contribution is not needed. On the contrary, it is the GIFT of GOD! What is ? Being saved by grace through faith, as in Ephesians 2:8. Indeed, says Paul in Romans 10: "If by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise, grace is no more grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work."

What then ? "Salvation is OF THE LORD," as Jonah exclaimed when the point had been made exceptionally clear to him by the piscine means of a position in the rubbish or refuse compartment of a large fish, possibly a whale shark, suitably large, equipped and able so to act.

The cross was like the whale shark for sin; and the Lord was like the dry land onto which Jonah walked, to continue, this time without rebellion, on the work of the Lord. His salvation was from utter helplessness by complete power of God without addition, to utter deliverance, complete and even picturesque. From this, he went in orderly succession TO utter devotion and utter willingness to serve God. Since God is a Spirit and sloppiness of spirit is not a matter for light regard. One's dress may be casual; but one's heart should be shining with desire to serve the loved One, the crucified, the resurrected, the breacher of death, the leacher of sin, the Lord of life, the Prince of peace. There is simply no other.

Prince Edward Island then is a very special place for our household, for one ministry and two persons' sake, the first as a foreigner at home in the place, and the others as those born to it!

In this superb Summer island resort, then, so many years later (about 38), there has now arisen a bed and breakfast problem. The new bridge, a champion over icy waters, miles long and impressive, long awaited and now consummated, has brought masses of tourists from the mainland. Many came before; now it seems far more. So some have built new cabins for new tourists.

Here the trouble came. Homosexuals, in the matter of a couple were not admitted to the property, or accepted for accommodation, decided to protest their exclusion and the matter was taken to the Human Rights Commission, this the name of one of the 9 UN Commissions which teach morals, manners and the international will, such as it may appear from time to time, from the august nations whose history is their testimony and compose it (cf. The Other News  Appendix 1, with Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch. 3 and Ancient Words : Modern Deeds Ch. 15, Galloping Events Ch. 7).

This could have had hygiene reasons, health fears and various matters involved. It is useless to pretend that what willingly and wilfully ignores INBUILT protections against disease, in the movement from front to back in intercourse, is more liable to infection. It is simply the case. The form of infection is long enduring, dangerously debilitating, hard to bear with successive impacts of reduced resistance on entry of various diseases, so that if any other staying in the property for any reason were to catch it (unlikely of course, but when you are playing with fire, some prefer other forests), there would be possible liability and enormous liability of conscience for the cabin owners.

Let us however leave this side of things. Let us take the directly moral in the directly spiritual setting. This sort of behaviour is forbidden in large letters in I Timothy 1:10 and in Leviticus  20:13. It is found in I Corinthians such that heaven is ousted by it, in the life of those concerned, except they repent. Surely the same is true of any sin  in an unrepentant sinner; but in this case those called Christian, trying to combine such a practice with such a testimony are put on short notice. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE for them to enter the kingdom of heaven (I Corinthians 6:9).

To the point, however, you may feel, this is not really very relevant. If such persons as those excluded from the P.E.I. cabins were allegedly Christian, and determinedly homosexual, then they were wrong in their claims, if this were their practice, and that, it is on the authority of Scripture. Yes, but who said that the cabins in Prince Edward Island, concerned in this matter, were ONLY for Christians ? The point is valid, but it is not exhaustive.

Even, someone might further proceed, if one wished to exclude people who actually CLAIMED to be Christians and yet openly and contentedly did these things, and wanted explicitly to do them on your premises as guests of commerce, where is the Biblical basis for that! The cabins are not per se a church! Are not the categories getting mixed!

Not needfully, comes the rejoinder to that. IF the people were claiming to be Christian, and to act in this way as their position, and indeed making claim that this was sound teaching, then on the basis of Romans 16:17 one would be commanded to AVOID THEM. How is it to avoid them, when you receive them into the heart and nurture of your establishment! But, it might be claimed, you would have to go out of the world to do that (I Cor. 5:10). You would be avoiding all sorts of things, and could not live. This Paul acknowledges in the above verse,  IN THE WORLD; but IF the matter HAD happened to come to Christian terms as noted above, then it would be NOT merely a matter of the world, but of the NAME of Christ and what one has to do when that is in view. in that case, (I Cor. 5:9-11),  with those who do such things, and are called Christians, one is not even permitted to eat!

We do not of course know that this was the position; but it could have been, and if it were, then the people who declined those coming into the cabins would appear fully justified.

Beyond all that, the point is coming when being PERSONS is being forgotten. Increasingly, in the name of forbearance and toleration (and perhaps the profits this might reap), you are in ever so many ways in various places NOT ALLOWED to be a person. You have to be a commercial unit, or a political unit, or a social unit, or a psychological unit, a machine vendor of whatever you wish to vend, so that your own morals, and preference for business are wholly irrelevant. You are an ant with prescribed antics, and proscribed liberties, not a person of morals, meaning and discretion. The state is Lord ... face it! and this is an international mater already, in terms of Human Rights (cf. Acme, Alpha and Omega Ch. 3, Ch. 9, and Ancient Words : Modern Deeds Ch. 15).
 
 

If you run a Christian school the menacing position in the US has more than once arisen, when the intent is to FORCE you to ACCEPT non-Christian teachers, aides and the like, so that you would have those who DID NOT BELIEVE what the school was about, yet required to be employed helping to make it go, if various rights were deemed to force the issue that way. This would like having a Labour Secretary helping as personal aide, the leader of the Liberal Party, or a US Senator helping in the private governmental affairs of Putin, or a Falun Gong person being personal aide, with normal freedom of course, to Jiang Zemin. Would they do it ? Any of them ? What then is this talk about the impersonal product things that used to be called persons, that they MAY NOT be persons, but must evacuate all principles, all priorities and all sense of purity, in order to serve  ... TO SERVE PRECISELY WHAT! That is the point.

They are simply, and increasingly, not to be allowed to serve their own sense of service. It is an IMPOSED SENSE OF SERVICE. Perhaps then all the risks and perils of various diseases of spirit, mind and body (the last named once the prerogative of infectious disease hospitals, to limit the public nuisance in the calamity of one, lest it become the needless calamity of many more), are by nature to be voided! HOW precisely ?

WHO is saying all of this ? Various bodies of various morals are modestly imposing their non-Moses moralities which, often denying morals, affirm their own and insist that their relativities should for magical or even other reasons, become the authoritative gods of the people. This simply means that what is demonstrably the word of God is to be forcibly replaced by a new set of morals, which is not even indicated as the word of God, and is often declared in decisive voidance or at least void concerning the same. WHY ? BY WHOM ?

It is just the lust for power over man by what  is not God. It ends in the antichrist, and his John the Baptist is this time not sprinkling with drops of water (as provided in the picture of Ezekiel 36:21 cf. News 51), but acid rain. Look! You CANNOT decide whom you can serve. WHY ? It is because you are to be dominated by a domineering State as LORD. You see the problem, as with the Investiture contest when the pope really wanted to rule over the Emperor, and vice versa, with many examples of match play, exciting in mode, if deadly in consequence to all of them. The State or a misnamed church or a society or a person or a commercial entity or a social philosophy via its exponents, or a moral perception via its militants, wants to rule you INSTEAD OF GOD. There logical credentials for credence are zero, their competitive claim against Christ the same, zero: nullity would in fact be a compliment in such a case (cf. SMR Ch. 6, SMR 1-3, 10, Repent or Perish Chs.  2 and 7 ). Theirs is not even any singularity at all, far less demonstrable deity was with Christ.

This ? What is it ? That is the spirit of antichrist, around a long while ( I John 2:18). However as the same verse indicates, the antichrist himself is to come. This occurs in its summit, when he seeks to restrain, contain and command all commerce to his will, and demand and command all worship to his own indicated command post, ultimately revealed as 'SIMPLY ME' in II Thess. 2.

This 'me' who is to die, who was born, who knows not God and plays the fool as if he were, this object, this moral midget, this confused commander is to be OBEYED relative to God and HIS MORALS which constitute commands! Obviously, those who are God's will not do this (cf. Revelation 13:12ff.). Already the program rises over the threatened bodies of the people, like flood waters, bent on destruction, and knowing no limit but force, and no thrust but descent.

It is heartening and excellent to see that when the Human Rights Commission examined this Cabin Case, that although those who ran it had to pay $1000 in compensation, in effect for being and acting as persons, they preferred to close down their work rather than submit to the alternative.

Indeed, as we move with inexorable and undeterrable steps of certainty to the economic contribution to the ‘control’ of man, there is the obverse of the case, the courage and constancy of heart of those not intimidated, who have better things in better ways, to do than to be submerged in sin.

While this flaming testimony continues however, the wheels of iniquity turn, and soon we arrive at the place where the buying and selling, business itself, will be by the pleasure of the beast, and the stamp of his mark, the market control, coming as the assassin of conscience to those who submit, or its pall-bearer, depending on the case, precisely as predicted in Revelation 13:16-17. Detail is to be found in SMR pp. 967-968.

Rising unsubdued, heroics of commerce and of life itself are coming as the flood  and folly rises (cf. the prediction of  Rev. 12:11-12^*5). As the events conform increasingly, lurching with daring and drastic will and insidious step, to the pattern and program as shown in the word of God: so the great prophesied procedure for the end, develops. But let us revert to the practical example in the P.E.I. cabin scene in particular.

What then was this delicately contrived 'alternative' to closure, and so the loss of the work for which presumably the cabins were prepared ? It was this: to submit to a 'pro-homosexuality seminar'^*6 and then to allow practising homosexuals to take rooms. Thus they would have to undertake to receive clear-cut anti-Christian propaganda as a course of instruction, and then perform a non-personal implementation of the same, as if the principle of pro-homosexuality  should then  lead to the practice of acceptance.

This combination would be quite fatal. In fact, the philosophy of pro-homosexual being anti-Christian specifically in terms of the written word of God, and here, not only repeatedly so designated, but related to death penalty in the Old Testament, and provided with exclusion of citizenship in the kingdom in the New (I Cor. 5:9-11, 6:9-10, the latter presenting the matter in great detail): there is and must be abhorrence of this crime against God on the part of the Christian. It is radical rebellion, certainly as are many more sins: but it bears the wrath of God in a select company (Romans 1:17-31, I Timothy 1:10!). With other life immured in sexual immorality, it signals as well, voidance of place in the eternal city (Rev. 21:8, with others 'sexually immoral' and those resting in the realm of the abominable, as this sin is deemed to be in Leviticus 20:13). From first to last, the case is the same, and all it gathers, is intensity.

Certainly repentance and the cover of Christ is one thing, and His power to deliver is unbounded (Hebrews 7:25, John 3:27-28); but this is not the current issue.

The voluntary acceptance of such instruction on the part of the proprietors of a business, as a prelude to behaviour conforming with it, accordingly gives an impression of a reversal of operative belief. For a Christian, that would be treachery. An order to allow such entries to cabins would require, even minimally,  a PERSONAL assessment of risks and dangers moral and other, to other occupants, and to their children as well as to one's own. If one is not allowed to be personal, how can one accept any responsibility for anything; and if not, how could one be Christian!

We must stop. The rain is now teeming down so heavily that it is becoming difficult perhaps to hear.

 

NOTES

*1 For reference to these things, see: NEWS 156 (Ancient Words : Modern Deeds Ch.  15), Galloping Events  7, End-Note *2,  and to Victoria and S.A., DIAMOND 10.
 

*2 From a Biblical perspective, what is those terms is the infamous Russell Report, prelude to the new Victorian taboos, is to be seen analysed in Lead Us Not into Educational Temptation.

*3 Salt Shakers, op.cit., p. 9 - "a handful of biblical injunctions". How many TIMES is God to speak before man listens. Is it to be a machine gun sort of vain repetition before man will listen ? Where is reverence when repetition is itself inadequate, and the AMOUNT of it becomes the criterion of willingness to heed!

*4 See Predestination and Freewill and SMR Appendix B concerning His love and sovereignty, neither diminished by the other.

*5

"And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and you who dwell in them! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth and the sea! For the devil has come down to you, having great wrath, because he knows that he has a short time."

*6
A pro-homosexuality PROGRAM of INSTRUCTION ... This savours even further, of thought-control. You are to be brought to AFFIRM what you deny, to LIKE what you detest, to ACCEPT what you reject, to see the MORAL GOODNESS of what is MORAL CORRUPTION, and hence find in the State, in its fallen state, a Lord of shame; for what in this world is arising in glory from its corrupted premises ? Only Christ remains, and there is simply no other name without tarnish, valid in truth, victorious empirically, directive historically, predicted objectively and covering the globe with His word.

The trade-in is (or would be) ignominious, irrational and a rampaging of unrealism, a forced dream, as if not only actual events, in terms of force, but unreality in terms of controlled dreams, were to be the Statist provision for manipulated man!

But such developments must come. So it is written in Revelation, and so it is being found in fact. It never varies. What is says, the word of God, the Bible: this is what history does. This is not any part of an excuse; for the knowledge and the wisdom to secure such a result even when the desires of the heart are contrary to God Himself, and He is seeking for any, each and all, a reversion to His own way, yet without force and in love: this is the mark of the divine. It works, as He "works all things after the counsel of His own will" (Ephesians 1:11).