W W W W  World Wide Web Witness Inc.  Home Page   Contents Page for Volume  What is New

They were, to be sure, only ants.

Ants and their antics may seem small fry, and yet, you know, that is what DOES not happen, even in desert heat. They seem quite competent in the harshest of environments. Their team-work is outstanding, if somewhat un-individualised. It was, I think, a lady French prime minister who referred to one of the races on this planet, in terms of this industrious worker, but she did not seem to remain in that post very long after that.

It was not a dream, but rather like one, for as I was pondering, a scenario arose in my thought. Let me share it with you, for it concerns current developments and biblical prognosis!

There came onto the screen of my mind,  another and far less attractive variety of tiny creature, on entomological exhibit of small worth. These tiny creatures were lice, and there were lots of them. They were occupied in their general activities, associated with the curse on this earth which so many wish to ignore, but which NEVER ignores those who ignore it: that is, these lice were busy biting, nestling in tiny places and being the pest that they were drafted to become, when man fell. (Cf. The Other News Appendix 2, The Biblical Workman Ch. 7 and Biblical Blessings Ch. 7 and 15, Beyond the Curse and The Exodus Escape)

As they worked - for to them it is simply labour - they became impressed with ants: despite the deficiencies of the latter in the more sensitive individual elements of society, and with the conduct of termite defenders (except that the dedicated termite soldiers are very sacrificial, and that is noble in design). It was felt during one lice work break that it would be good to copy some of the strategic interplay of ants among themselves. The lice held a meeting which to the afflicted victim may have seem just a more massive infestation at one point of his irritated flesh, and decided to improve their work relationship ethos and performance.

They in fact formed the United Lice Organisation and then the World Council of Lice. In this way, they were able to forward their aims more magnificently, or perhaps better, considering what they are and do, more impactively. Thus they harried in concert, allied their movements, the one to the other, formed groups of study, traced out reports in the blood of the victims using their flesh as a tablet for the task and before long the world was coming more and more under their dominion. They seemed to be everywhere, into everything: and then, We are only doing our job better, our task, they declared when challenged.

The cats and dogs and other afflicted beings were unimpressed. They had always thought that lice were an affliction, not a master or ruler; but the subtle little creatures felt otherwise on that point.
They indicated that there HAD to be violence as they plagued Ireland and Israel in particular, because the blood of their victims was far more plentiful than was their fare, and it was unjust that the victims should go on healthily while they lacked. The victims in fact were rulers, seeming to the pests to be arrogant and brawny, and the lice themselves, how little they were and how neglected! So they protested. It was a little difficult, since the world is not particularly perceptive when its interests are concerned, very often: since the vast resources of the expansive Islamic world literally surround little Israel, like a David before Goliath. However, when it comes to propaganda, what is a fact here or there!

So it was in Israel.

In Ireland it was not greatly different, except that Great Britain was brought is as the really BIG thing, and this was harder, for the part of Ireland that is not the North with its Belfast, is BIGGER by far than the north. It is even harder to feel the pangs here, as the effort is made for it to swallow the little Northern Ireland body into itself.

So they demanded not only the South of Ireland but the North, and insisted that there would be great violence, including the biting of children if necessary when various meetings declared this fit in their explosive nit gnashings; and proceeded to activate, intimidate, though they were small. In Israel, the same song was brought to light, for they found time in their machinations to induce propaganda productions, the same story was told, chirruped, buzzed or in whatever other way articulated. Should Israel even exist! What impudence!

It was unfitting, they huffed, to have a nation which had not been there for a while, and whatever the nations had agreed on after World War I, if it took World War IV to do it, they were not, let us repeat that, they cried, NOT - this time with more emphasis - going to exist! By this, they referred not to themselves, but to Israel! One has to keep it clear ...

Mind you, they added, IF and we repeat, IF they are to exist, it can be in little bits and they need not think that they can have Jerusalem  for that it is the biggest nibble of all!
 
 

So it proceeds in tiny Israel, itself a mere remnant of the Palestine promised after World War I, and with large Jordan and Iraq and Iran, not to mention Syria, all nicely brought into existence or confirmed in the same, and Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Islamic peoples (and Lebanon to some extent such), and we forbear to pursue the proximity of Egypt (not a little Islamic), Algeria and Morocco, Afghanistan (where Islam is finding it quite wrong for Christians to voice Christ, for some reason or other) and Pakistan in what might be termed the Islam Dress Circle, surrounding little Israel, which in turn must give scope for those who often become armed insurgents in their own midst, called Palestinians. It MUST go. This was their song. But whose song was it ? Why that of the Palestinians...

Now it must be confessed that the little creatures which bite and bit and bit very much indeed, were quite explosive in their little forays, even killing children in the process very quickly too, though not always completely, but this, they said, it was just their job. The pitter-patter of little feet ? is it not this time those of the children, some maimed it may be for life, while others may bite ? Is not the pitter-patter of prophecy regarding such ghoulish deeds, coming constantly like rain, till the earth be inundated, not this time with a physical flood, but with such a flood of iniquity, war and its rumours, peace chomping irreconcilablility, misplaced values and heartless deeds that the love of many will grow cold in the contemplation, as many in the performance of such things, and others again, growing cold, do them! (Matthew 24:12).
 

Is it not all as predicted in violation of the program, upward bound for humanity by its own wonder, and associated  campaigns of those ignorant of God and wilfully of logic, which does not so provide (cf. Stepping Out, and Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming...)! Man Uppity man is man in degradation, defilement, vileness of heart and wickedness of planning. His deeds reek emotionally, spiritually, mentally and physically in the air. So it was to be and so it is  (Matthew 24, Luke 21 cf. SMR Ch. 8).

In masses, duped by his own duplicity, man can neither create himself nor his morality, but merely be the one and do the other; or misapply it, abuse his own nature and afflict those of others. There is no middle way. Morals without God are mere preference, their insertion presumption or idle efforts to gain without source, His power and wisdom. They neither work nor could work, for that on which they are to work, is the creation of God for the attention of God; and disregard, however constructively presumptuous, merely exposes the infelicity and exaggerates the folly.

Whether this issues as here, in physical violence, or spiritual arrogance, it is all symptomatic of one self-aggrandisement of the human race, increasingly the inhuman race, and for so long in so much, the inhumane race. The heart severed from God is the seat of the infection, the dismissal of God revealed in Christ as basis, its exhibition. Violence to God, to His people or to all has this in common, that mankind reels in its blasphemous brightness, that sparkles like some fire-crackers for a moment, and then is dead. Then, how great is that darkness! (Matthew 6:23). It is that of the night which fast now approaches (John 9:4, Luke 23:28-31).

So we have two sets of little feet, those of the injured children, a mute testimony to the spreading horror of deed and emptiness of heart, and those of prophecy, assessing in advance just such a progression, in all its gore and vainglory (cf. Matthew 24:11-4, 6, 24, Revelation 6:4,8,9^*1, II Timothy 3:8^*2). Feet ? once they ran in joy; now they lie stilled to paralysis, or cut off ? Bombs are not selective when exploded in the midst of a pizza balcony, are they!

It is notable in these two salient instances of countries affected by their work, Israel and Ireland,  that two things are at stake. In Ireland, what is at stake is this: that an island, which for various historical reasons houses two countries, of very different views and aims, should become one, of whatever view and aim. Normally this would tend to be regarded as oppression, or even invasion. Many countries have been invaded by these and those parties for centuries, lands such as England and Palestine. Now however there are two countries, and the question is this: is one to invade the other, or insist by blowing up children and the like - better, to pursue our imagery, vigorously or even vehemently nibbling at children in team work that is considerable, that the same result occur ? Is this civilised ? One would not have thought so, and if it is, so much the worse for civilisation. It is uncouth, unkind and inhuman.

There is the religious element. Humans tend to have religions, always did, and nearly all still do. Many are false, and multiplied persons are governed or guided by mere superstition, imagination or hope. Many others are the same in this, that what is their lord, with truth has all but nil accord.

One is other than all, and is founded on a Founder who did not founder, but rose physically from the dead, after performing the same on others, and came as a message bearer of a New Covenant, Himself and in this extraordinary feature, most amazingly, in His own blood.

He did not kill, as seems so popular now as a pastime, but He died. He did it on purpose. He rose on purpose. It was programmed that He should and He did. We have considered Him before, and there is no other option based on fact, verified in history, required by logic and validated in life, which also brings what humans need, not mere organisation, as the lice decided to try, but LOVE! The body is useless when at war with itself, as in the ulcers of body and fragmentations of mind one often finds. The nations are not different at all. (Cf. SMR Chs. 1-3,10, Repent or Perish Ch. 7 and Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium on these various topics.).

Thus in Northern Ireland, there has been a tendency to affirm this religion, though since it is a land and not simply a person, there have of course been many things affirmed and done from time to time which are contrary to it: nevertheless it has a distinct and decided desire for this religion, overall, in a vast  number of its people. If the enveloping motion, the invasion by degrees should occur, and all become one, so that the will of the North, a country in itself, should become overwhelmed as in an invasion of any other kind, then that religious trend at the national level would presumably be lost. Other religions or none would be required at the national level. That would be very helpful to many people, because Ireland being one of the exceedingly few countries which would like that religion to have a certain place in the nation, as in Victoria in the 1850's in Australia, a preferred place, this would remove it from that position.

This in turn would make it easier for the whole world to forbid this and that, or require this and that WITHOUT EXCEPTION, so that the united and uniting bodies could DETERMINE, LEGISLATE AND DICTATE what would be done, and it would be exceedingly hard to find a way to stop them.

Now the irony is clear. IF some of the big three religions which tend to FORCE things on people with arms if necessary, should want Ireland more for itself, it may end by losing it altogether; for as we have seen, Rome is to become the exit student of the Beast. It will evict it from being consolidated with world power. Indeed, the power of this religious centre is extensively predicted to be removed entirely by that double beast Power of Revelation 13 (cf. News, Facts and Forecasts 13). If then she wins, she loses; but the Beast, the constituent kings having just their "one hour as kings with the beast" as Revelation calls it (17:12), HE WILL NOT LOSE during that hour! The harlot city is destroyed in ONE HOUR (18:18:19), the kings have THEN their own ONE HOUR with the beast, and at once on the fall of Babylon, we find the account of the Lord's coming. In the end, it is really very short.

So does strategy lose itself, and so does success become defeat.

Thus full-steam ahead the beast proceeds, Rome dumped, only for a short time, and then his own judgment follows near to her heels. Yes the beast itself with all its little horn (cf. Biblical Blessings Ch. 2) and its loud boasts (as in Daniel 7:8-10,20)), and its elemental nature coming to the fore (Revelation 17:9-10), its ruthlessness and its rule, coming one step nearer to hell itself as the forms of Babylon discarded, it positively seethes with naked spiritual wickedness. It needs no imitation: it is coming without aid. It is going in the same way.

Or again: take Israel (there are many who would like to do just that, but we are speaking for concentration of thought, not occupation by force, that futile folly that has its end written these 2500 years - SMR pp. 505ff., 755ff., Appendix A, Zechariah 12-14, Micah 7:15, Isaiah 59:15-20, Romans 11, Ezekiel 38-39).

If Israel, hypothetically,  should be successfully Islamicised, as the pan-Islam conference in Teheran in 1991 seemed to desire; and if this land taken over, suppressed, and should be made to become a feat of NON-EXPRESSION of Jewishness, so that some other thing  could dominate that land, then here too would be one less nation, not to be sure a Christian one, but a very determined one which likes NOT to receive dictation from the world. It is one which has not been increased in its love of being gobbled up by force of this kind or that,  by the antics of Hitler, who, when he tried to do it alone, failed, as if to make way for the United Lice movements which afflict humanity, and towering above race, are to insert their dictates far more notoriously into the field of religion than Hitler ever did!

In the end, indeed, it will be not at all less forcibly that the impactions are made, and the writhing of the dragon's tail is found threshing and thrashing until the dénouement of Revelation 19:18ff., 20:10). That we have seen in Beauty of Holiness Chs. 4 and  8 and elsewhere often enough, and from enough aspects for our purpose.

Hence, from the point of view of the Beast Apparent, it is a matter for the nonce of quietly waiting for various world bodies to increase in power and persuasion until he can use it all, and by craft, lie and deceit, not without some evil supernatural aid, seek to take over the earth, and that not without some initial success as in Revelation 13, where the Religious Arm is given great prominence and dominance.
 
 

Meanwhile, let us turn back to our United Lice and our World Council of Lice.

They became most upset when the victims acted AS IF they were victims, declaring that this was nothing short of defamatory. THEY, the lice were the victims; and indeed, it was more than enough that any should characterise them as aggressors. Did they not look lean and hungry and did they not actually WANT to bite, and were not their mandibles made for that, and did not food become them, as anyone else, and they were only hopping in for their chop, as their leader somewhat colloquially declared in one meeting, when they were being stirred up to make more children their chomping stations.

No, they were only getting what was their due, and this business of keeping your blood to yourself was selfish and wholly intolerable, and the more it was resisted, the more they would bite, until they got it all the way they wanted it.

The victims met and considered the issue, and found more and better powders, but they were particularly susceptible to having their children eaten up like this, and others like aged persons and non-combatants. The United Lice, however, learning how to expend their members if necessary in the Noble work of intimidation and bloodshed, declared they would never yield, to the last drop of their victims' (we do not follow their approach, they would not, admittedly, use that term) blood.

For a time the United Lice seemed to have the number of their opponents. When it came to battle in which soldiers met and contested things, they were all beaten and this often enough in 1948, 1967, 1973; but when it came to biting individuals without respect to the conditions, as in the Irish case, they were planning a mastery which nothing could overcome.

Of course, they did not take into account the Designer of children, and of naturally of people. Let us then pursue from scripture our narrative to its due end, for known to God is the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10, Acts 15:18). When they had nearly won, He acted. He always does in His time. When He sent His Son to the earth to show a better way than biting, He did it on time (SMR pp. 886ff.). He is always on time. He made time (Romans 8:37-39). His actions were overwhelming (cf. Ezekiel 38-39 and SMR pp. 502ff., 510ff.) People often think that they are not so, because they ignore His word and His works, but when you compare them, Holy Bible and History which is really told in much substance in advance and is in fact overall in its predicted thrust, very much HIS story, then you find that this is so: overwhelmingly so.

Many imagine that because salvation is on OFFER, that there is no power; or that because the Jews, once His exhibit, have suffered, there is nothing in it. However in fact, they suffered as He foretold for the reasons He foretold, their disobedience (Isaiah 30 cites it categorically with categorical results, Leviticus narrates it in phases of discipline) being the predicted focus of the predicted consequences. As for Christ, He suffered likewise, as in detail foretold for the stated and very different reasons, incorporating at their core, this: that He died the just for the unjust to bring us to God, a vicarious sacrifice to satisfy justice that mercy might find its own. (Cf. I Peter 3:18, II Corinthians 5:17-21, Galatians 3:10-13.)

The power and self-discipline involved in doing these things was very  great. It is always hard to discipline one's students and to bring reality to those who wilfully forsake it, and it can tear at the heart (cf. Lamentations of Jeremiah, Jeremiah 9 and Luke 19:42 in different illustrations) to see the summary consequences in spirit, and if need be, in the end, in increasing domains of the life for those concerned. Yet when it comes to the Divine Lover, who is also Lord and Creator, sacrificing His only begotten Son for sinners, that takes a power which this world so lacks that whosoever impenitently disbelieves in it, WILL and MUST perish, unless there be a timely repentance. Such gross, horrible and vile  frenzies of idle fancy, love going their own way; and it is this wilfulness which loves to present propaganda, as if its various united and uniting WORLD bodies made it any less revolting to the heart and deplorable to the mind, than is the case for the individual!
 

• Yet nothing atones for rejection of necessary atonement.

 
• It is what it is and uses the means to hand. When the door is not used, the windows of THIS house are not available: it is a house of order (John 10:1-3).

 
• Virtue forbidden, violence erupts.

With God, then, the power has been seen in Christ in a way which focusses His giving and yielding even to death; but do not mistake. That was power and self-discipline and glory and majesty of a type which this world cannot produce, does not appreciate and in its now fast approaching death throes (the prince of this world has had a good innings - cf. John 14:30, and it is to be terminated rather suddenly - Revelation 19), refuses to honour. The result of forbidden mercy - bidden by God but forbidden by the United Bodies - is certified judgment (Acts 17:31).

There is no other way than that of God, it has power, and its delay in implementing that power in mere overthrow is delayed in love, but not forgotten in plan, any more than the coming of Christ in glorious incarnation and triumphant resurrection after predicted sacrificial death, was forgotten. NOTHING is forgotten, not even the meetings of the United Lice Workers, who hammer their way, and seek to reap with their sickle, scimitar or - believe it or not - their misappropriated emblem of the cross.

That is why, presumably, some misled people imagine that the cross is a terrible thing, because some have had the audacity to grab it and apply it as if a TM of a very different body were available for use, and in the confusion, some might think, nobody will know whose is what, or where anything fits. That too is a kind of take-over, a species of invasion, at the more spiritual level; but it too fails. His church will be prevailed against NOT AT ALL. Oh! it is true that millions die for Christ and their blood makes the full tummies of many rejoice, it seems. More are being persecuted even now, to the death. False charges abound: it is away of life of the evil one.  He is the father of all that sort of thing, said Christ (John 8:44). He loves power and uses what he deems, it takes!

The cross however is indelibly associated with the ONE who died on it, and said, MY KINGDOM IS NOT OF THIS WORLD. IF MY KINGDOM WERE OF THIS WORLD, THEN WOULD MY SERVANTS FIGHT (John 18:36). To fight physically for His kingdom physically, is a mistake, unless it is with spiritual weapons. He died, did not kill! There is the difference; He died in love, did not kill in hate - there is the gulf.

You can stand and fall where you will. HE STANDS there. There are certain rules with Him: love our neighbour as yourself is not the least. If you want ANYTHING to do with Him, this is the way of His life and you need to heed it. Alas, is 'lice' too strong for united violence bodies which dare to maim children as a major feature of their game plan! Jesus refers to ALL who for ANY reason reject Him as the mercy and the way and the life and the truth, in terms, alas, in the end, of garbage.

There is nothing personal in it, in this, that it is the GENERIC. It is HIS GENERIC. The fact is that we are none of us, in ourselves, in His sight, without Christ, better than this, for being without our place, we are out of place, and being in a world which is MEANT for justice and peace and truth and reality and love, under the law and plan of God, to be OUTSIDE this provides one as fit for that end. It is the end product. There are no exceptions. It is Christ or the garbage pit. That is the teaching of the Saviour, and those who object to it are objecting to Him. Those who do not want His words any more can seek to suppress them, and they would not be the first.

They would merely be joining

• the Inquisition,
• the Islamic jihad intolerances and misuses of force in the field of faith,
• and the sickle which seeks to reap not wheat but men, and did in the tens of millions,  by considered reports.

United ? With God ? THAT, it is His method and harmony, and works, and requires love of Him and of one another. United, without God ?^*3 That is Garbage Avenue, the Tip Site, collected not every Tuesday or Wednesday, but at the end of the Age! Does that make it seem any better ?
The end, after all, is only the end of the beginning. We began with God and not with ourselves (Psalm 100), and without God in our lives, ending without Him is a denudation too horrible to contemplate, because, alas, it is deserved. HE is not willing that any should perish. Those who do are not a testimony therefore to His weakness, but to their own guilt in the very face of His love. The world will not hear, and itself will end in the flames of consuming fire (II Peter 3). Make sure that you yourself do not trust in some frustrated unity of CREATURES, alas too like little lice learning the tricks of ants and their esteemed antics of organisation, only by this presumption without God, to end in the contempt which is due, just and everlasting.

But you have no time for this ? Ensure then the Saviour is YOURS and not merely formalised acceptance. He is alive and must be both found and known; and most marvellously, it is not some sophisticated formula which is needed, but the very DUMPING of sophisticated formulae which is needed, your own, or those of your secular, humanistic UNITED LICE WORKERS or whatever. THAT position is ideological and not inherited; it is chosen and not inflicted. If you opt for it, that is the divine assessment, given in advance (cf. John 3:18-19).

We do but relay the word of God, and it WILL be relayed to the end, when judgment requires no further relay, mercy being expended to the uttermost. Only in your heart, do not allow some 'outage' some opportunity to do something else, such as unite with Romanism, or Islam, or ALL RELIGIONS or NO RELIGIONS. If you are Christ's, then look like it, act like it, speak like it; for it is the second beast which speaks like a dragon and looks like a lamb. What wool comes from a beast that looks like a lamb and is not.  It is a fiction and a fraud, worse than nothing. "Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the NAME of the LORD JESUS CHRIST" (Colossians 3:17, bold added).

Thus it does not say this: Go to university and pretend to agree, and when successful, open your mouth. Is that ALL! That, it is dissidence. It is precisely because people delay and do not say and so forth, that the enemy looks lively and attends to his biting and goes on seducing and oppresses his victims.

THIS WORLD is not the end. IN this world we must act in the light of the next (II Corinthians 4:16-18^*4, Hebrews 11:27).

Christ did not delay obedience. Assuredly He did things so that all would be well done, but never did He delay His mandate, His obedience, His wisdom or His testimony. It is He who must be followed. If you have received His salvation and know Him, it is HE who in your heart and mind and soul and strength, will animate your goings, comfort your heart and strengthen your will, for it is God who works in you both to will and to do (Philippians 2).
 
 

Then I spoke with some of the things that bit, and asked them a question.

Why do you not realise that bites bring blood and itching and casue infection, inflammation, disease and detestation of yoru kind, produce counter-strokes and often hatred ?

HOW, remarked two lice, we are hated!

Now, I said, you have learned, and found how to apply something of the team-work of ants, to bite better and blitz your victims more thoroughly; and have become thoroughly detested.

Like the Communists^*5 under Mao, with ever new forms of 'confession' and treachery between each part of society, so that ALL could be controlled and humbled by the Party, just some people who often indulged themselves with personal lives as good as you could expect from those who encouraged treachery in others, and made it a rule of advance: so you TALK of liberty, and impose servitude, talk of justice and produce abominations of injustice on innocent bystanders, because they live where you want to live. Like the Communists, your 'line' is respected only when you are being 'paid' respect, and none could call it good; for if good were anything in this, then its denial would brand it a fraud. What is contradicts itself, what is purported is opposed in practice, and what is held high in justice is brought to ruin in its means.

Could you not then learn now and better lessons for a better way, than this mistaken and misapplied message from ants has taught you ? In the Palestine area, you could then move towards the finding of Isaiah 19, that ALL will be humbled, that GOD ONLY will be glorified, and that although of necessity Israel, promised the land, will have it, it will have it with no proud boast, any more than in name only. Is it not written, "In that day, Israel wil be one of three with Egypt,"  (the latter already humbled following the prophecy of Ezekiel 29:15-16, and not least in 1967 and 1973 - following centuries under various rules - by Israel in the prophesied victories from the Lord, as in Zechariah 12). Yes, in that day, Israel was predicted to be one of three, "a blessing the midst of the land, whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, 'Blessed is Egypt My people and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.' " The prophets were not party men, but a party to the plan of God, and presented it, predicted it and just as surely it has come, and will, to pass.

The partnership in Christ, of all three nations, Egypt, Assyria (now nearer Iraq) and Israel is to come with the LORD. Why fight the LORD ? Cease your animosity, recognise other peoples, ceast trying to infiltrate, desecrate, strike their young indiscriminately and their householders indifferently, as if religion were a device to make you heartless, as if you had ceased to belong to their race ...

They interrupted. We are lice, they said, and this is what lice do!

One has rarely seen such dedication to an ideology, but it is true, a being tends to BECOME what he acts, at least morally! While you are not alone in some of your activities, by any means, and indeed only those of your ilk or tribe or race who DO these things or APPROVE them are affected in this change of form as you are, and many join them from other groups, what you do is what you tend to become - especially in dreams, and alas, afterwards in history!

But you, in this matter of the people in Israel, you  are acting as partners in crime, inducing and producing crime. Some of those whom you afflict and injure, would love peace. Many are not in the fight. When then, if your affair is with men, then BE men!

Then let THEN be men, and cease wounding our young ones.

NOT in such a way as you do, I cried, for what bombs do THEY let off in supermarkets. IF some are stricken when they recklessly come to fight the Israeli soldiers, what do they expect ? To induce the forces of Israeli order while they stay still. Certainly, the young should not be in the fighting line, and to put them their is crime against humanity! Of course Israel should endeavour zealously and even ardently NOT to hurt them EVEN IF they do come into the fighting scene, but at that, they run the risk, like those who walk into traffic on a super-highway, and then blame the cars!

Start then with yourselves, and let God take care of them. You BOTH have a long way to go, even to the Cross of Christ^*6.

But how could we! they exclaimed, recognising the justice of these things in some miraculous way - but then, it is ALWAYS miraculous when the Lord opens the eyes of the blind, of whatever race, and there is no other way but through HIS ophthalmology!

How ! I declared. By HIS power ... Look, you could learn from the ants in this unspeakably horrible team-work of destruction of yours, preparing suiciders who can molest and murder by proxy as they explode with their bombs, teaching them, indoctrinating them, infiltrating them, using agents and knowledge and so forth.  Then it is time to change in another direction also and indeed instead; not to lose team-work, but to adorn it with a spiritual purpose and a godly grace.

Come to ... God! a moving and merciful God who shows it by His ways ?

Certainly. After all, lice, you are only as you live; and the name applies only as it is earned by actions: it is by burrowing into their cities, and causing upset and irritation, and biting ceaselessly and remorselessly, causing disease and in this case, death, slow and lingering, that you produce what lice DO. A murderer is so because he mudrers, not because he is born that way. Seek the LORD who can chagne your nature and your thoughts, accept that other people than you can exist, seek the truth, stop making martyrs of your victims and seek peace in Christ. There is another peace to be found.  It is by HIS blood, and not that of victims which is your deliverance, if you will receive it ... and HIM, for He lives (Rev. 1:81-19, Luke 24:39).

Otherwise, by your own choice, you simply bite with the principle of this world, that sacrifice is to be made of what gets into your way; and it is YOU who will perform it, THEY who will become it, not freely, but by your own imperious will. This is a world whose DOOM is just and just as certain as justice (II Peter 3:10-13).

Then, said the lice, though even as we were speaking they were changing into the most excellent looking people, yes and they were not only human, but a certain light of grace was utterly transforming their faces: then others, should they not do the same ?

Yes, but you start and be an example. Since there MUST be sacrifice for sin, and only Christ is efficient, sufficient and proficient as sacrifice to cover  it, then rest on that.

Change that way ?

And as I prepared to speak, suddenly, before my very eyes, two of them grew iridescent wings of beauty, dazzling in their light, and all their features changed (II Corinthians 3:18).

*1A For completeness in this chapter, the gist of the material given on News Items at this point, will be presented below.
 

Orientation on the Orient (House) in Israel
Below and Beyond

With 15 reported killed in Jerusalem, while at least 20 were slain, in Israel's northern town of Motzkin, in suicide bomb attacks that also injured many on August 9 and 12, the latter on the patio of a restaurant, there have been developments.  It would seem all but predictably, as Secretary General of the UN, Annan has a sour thought for Israel, of all people after such afflictions... for them. It is unwise, quoth he, to occupy Palestinian institutions in Jerusalem, since this could cause greater friction. (Orient House PLO headquarters in Jerusalem, was one occupied by Israel after these events.)

Is this, however, not  like saying that when a bomb lands near the UN building in New York, or Buckingham Palace in England, when some people given transient occupation rights in some buildings are aflame with passionate hate and together with their allies, with fires of destruction, both international and well financed, that really it is excessive to close down the buildings concerned!

Or is it simply assumed that Israel is not in Israel, is not a country, has not like so many other countries, taken what it deems its own, while now proceeding to govern it ? If so, on what grounds is such an assumption made ?

Is it this, that like so many other countries, it has only won wars ? Or on what other grounds ?
that it is bearing with fortitude extraordinary the endless provocations of those who, having been given freely much of what Israel gained, itself diminished far below the Palestine promised after World War I, and that internationally, so that now it should distintegrate even more than it has willingly suffered, to aid peace ? and that it should not try to protect is people, a task as Vice-President Cheney of the US began to note, in its defence ?

Does the UN rule the world ?

God however does this, and His word is clear on Israel, on its discipline, and on those who presume to take over that job for themselves! (see SMR Ch. 9, Beauty of Holiness Ch. 5, Endnote 3,  and It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls ... Ch. 1, Endnote 2).
 

The assumptions underlying the UN words on this topic are too often found to be prodigious in disregard of this remnant from the crucifying grounds of Hitler, in the midst of the vast Islamic lands, and to appear discriminatory and unrealistic, as well as unbiblical and historically inept.
 

As this is the anteroom to judgment as the world rolls regardless of what matters most, on its preoccupied way, it needs attention in the light of what is now occurring. We have dealt with wars in general (SMR Ch. 8) but now in particular, we must ponder the ghoulish gluttony of horror, disregard of life, supping on corpses which in spirit is the order of the day in multiplied countries, while the spirit of it is found in more, and the self-centredness which being irrational for a created world, is a basic ingredient of the disjunction from sound spirituality, flowers like unwanted weeds in the Spring before Summer’s scorching.

The subject is unpleasant, like an ulcer, but does not for that reason require inattention.

Thus in Revelation 6:4, in a summary coverage of some of the pathological developments in the midst of unrepentance in this world (as in Revelation 9:20-21), we find this prediction: "Another horse, fiery red, went out. And it was granted to the one who sat on it to take peace from the earth, and that people should kill one another, and there was given to him a great sword."
This then is the judgmental consignment for the so great peoples who so magnificently control so much and are so wise in their own conceits.

Again in Revelation 6:8, we find: "So I looked, and behold, a pale horse. And the name of him who sat on it was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword, with hunger, with death, and by the beasts of the earth." Killing with death - this poignant phrase indicates that death can be both prodigious and direct for many of the slain, while for others it is more lingering.

Death passion becomes a way of life, and disregard of human life an arrogation of power over what man can not create or even understand, without God, a fact shown continually in his relationship to this world, to his fellows and to the power and principles of God Himself. He even invents gods to complicate the simplicities of disobedience to the One who is there, and kills those who believe in Him as in Communist China, in Russia, in Albania and Africa, Afghanistan as if the very prodigies of misalliance would be a salve for brutalities of spirit, emotion and body so profound that as the scripture says of one king, "hell from beneath is excited about you, to meet you at your coming" (Isaiah 14:9).

These things amid the countless slain from the Inquisition, in Yugoslavia in its Hitler-Rome horrors, by Communism, Islam and nationalistic preoccupations, greed and lust for power, are coming in our generation by hatred, through love grown cold, through spiritistic insolvencies, failure to lead where leading must be, through increased power to perform and decreased power to restrain in human terms, as more and more forsake the foundations and foster their own ruin and that of others, becoming anaesthetised to reality.

These things, they come, then,  as predicted. They reach a crescendo as predicted. Their final expression comes. The world is to go; but first there is a time of vainglory to the very uttermost in the antichrist, whose rule comes neither by chance nor inadvertence, but as a boil which gathers its head, and then judgment fitting.

It is time to return to the rock from which you were hewn (Isaiah 51), and founded on rock (Matthew 7:24-27), to bring forth spiritual fruit to God doing ALL things in the name of the ONLY Redeemer (Col. 3:17, Acts 4:11-12), and not presuming to save yourself in arrogance, ignorance or self-will. Create the world and do it; but not now. Indeed, though you should create it, you yourself are … there and accountable. Rather glory in this, that the Lord is there, filled with wisdom and kindness, mercy and truth, brimming with willingness to receive you, and if you are His, filled with compassion for your plight, able to save to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25, 4:14-15, 10:22).
 

*2
The presentation relative to II  Timothy 3:8, "men of depraved mind and deprived of the truth" is striking. More literally, men of depraved mind and rejected as regards the faith. They do however BECOME deprived of it because, not having received the love of the truth, they become subject to "an active delusion" (II Thess. 2:10-11). Literally, the Greek term is in the mode of coins found false, fraudulent, fabricated amiss, deceptive, unworthy or worthless. They are deprived of worth, since their origin is not what it should be. This assuredly gives the above sense, though more perhaps as exposition than translation. It is necessarily implied.

To our point: It is this sort of thing which is to populate the globe, and as Jannes and Jambres were EGYPTIAN magicians, it is clear that the field is religious and pseudo-religious affirmation and not mere atheism and other junk mail from the realms of irrationality (cf. SMR Chs. 1-3,10).

Those otherwise than these, deprived and in essence depraved, being not moulded to truth: these  have origin ONCE in God, who created them, and TWICE in the Lord who regenerated them, being born not of mouth, but of the power of the Spirit of God that, having in themselves the authenticity which is of God, are to act on that basis as of a birth-right that is more than a birth-rite, for ritual alone can save none, and philosophy is no father of truth, but at best its attestation (John 3, I John 3). The power of God however through the Gospel is adequate for any, sufficient for all, operative in those who receive Him as He is, and His salvation, as it is, not in mere form, but in active function, by faith.

To revert now  to the pitter-patter of prophetic feet, this passage in II Timothy 3 is clearly defining JUST the sort of ferocity and heartlessness, abasement of good, religious modes and moral words which do not pass muster, and which are to become the very feeling and sphere of influence in a most demanding way, like pollutants in the atmosphere, like acid rain, as the curtain time approaches, and the theatre goers prepare to depart. That ? Is it not clear that it is when Christ returns to select the elect, and that these are the believers in Him (Romans 8:29ff., Matthew 24:30ff., I Thess. 4). Of this it is indeed not well to be ignorant!

But hear more of the prognosis for the human condition without Christ, for though it varies, from pride to abasement, and from false morals to the ludicrous endeavour to have none, its progress, or rather regress is being more and more dynamic! Some follow their OWN PLEASING, because it pleases them and seems good to them, some calling good evil, others adjusting it like those who adjust an atomic bomb with complete self-confidence, not allowing for its power. How much more is this a folly when the very power of God is ignored, and His mind not commanding in the matter of HIS standards, which not even being sought out with care from His word, are done as well as could be expected in those who hearts and misaligned by birth in the first place (Romans 5) and by disregard wilfully in the second.

As to 'no morals', so popular, it is not even possible for the insane, since the heart is still conditioned in part by the deposits of its construction, be it warped as it may - though alas, as with a car, with SOME steering, the result is totally depraved relative to the REQUIRED result, since that is a spiritual matter, of the kinship of God, which no man, in himself, continues to be since the fall (Ephesians 4:17ff., 2:1ff. and Romans 1 making these exceptionally clear). Its very fixity may make it only the worse, like a car on fixed steering, determinedly mowing down whatever lamp-post may be in its course, on set purpose.

Moreover, almost uniformly, those with 'no morals' attack 'morals' so showing that they have morality indeed: OTHER PEOPLE'S morals are WRONG, by order of the court of their jurisdiction (whatever that may be held to be)! It is so self-forgetful, but alas as so often, the very acme of selfishness in the superior sense: in, of and for the self, a little unit whose meaning is to affirm itself, without warrant, witness or ground. All it does is contradict itself, its Maker and what is good for its race and its own life in a turmoil and torment of irrationality, unspirituality and godlessness.
In this mode, then, the little children are GLADLY slain, not perhaps for the sake of doing it, but because the STEERING committee has it so, that this it must be; and then they are left ot be tended half-slain! This, with fiery eye and glamorous boast, we are told, MUST BE. If that is not irreconcilable, brutal, what COULD be!

Let us then listen to the sort of morals which will invade the world, now this way, now that, but forming an overall pattern of deterioration as the end comes, and Christ's return has its blessed nearness thus and in all the other criteria affirmed (Luke 21):

"But evil men and impostors will proceed from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived" - II Tim. 3:13 (NASV). Or again: they will move to the position of being "unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God..."

Some here, some there, they contribute to make the tartan of many colours, the pattern of many components, this thread with that, in its horrible integrity of design, the PREDICTED design for the last stages of those who without the design of God in their hearts and His cleansing in their spirits, possess a deformity of heart and spirit and mind, increasing, like those whose arthritis grows.

This is the Biblical teaching; it is not otherwise for the culminating features of this often so proud race; and this is the witness of record now in history, and it is growing until it is not merely terrible, but PRIDES itself on its horrors. It is not merely in one country, but in masses of them, as though they cannot wait for the Lord's return, and so are 'adapting' to their prognosis as hard as they can go. Alas, this is not the way to await His return (Matthew 24:42ff.), nor is this their aim!

The observers of the drama, then, they depart.

But ...Where ? This is the question. It is where your heart is! As Christ said, Where your treasure is, there will be your heart also (Matthew 6:21). If your treasure is in HIM, then to Him you go. And what other treasure is there, that is never tarnished, and is poured out, the rich for the poor, that we who deserve no haven, have heaven through Him (II Cor. 8:9).
 

*3

Proverbs puts it succinctly, twice:

11:21 - "Though they join forces, the wicked will not go unpunished" - or "though hand join hand".

16:11:  "Everyone proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD;
Though they join forces, none will go unpunished" -

"hand to hand" they will not prevail: for "Greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world" (I John 4:4). Indeed, "when the enemy comes in like a flood, the Spirit of the LORD shall lift up a standard against him" - and though he be enraged at his very source (Revelation 12:12), he knows he has only a short time. His minions are not always so well-informed, but ignorance is no stay on truth. Wilful ignorance is no stay on judgment, even amidst mercy. All humanity is like a dream compared with its author, and when it insists on being a bad dream, then it goes to its place.
 

*4
This reads:

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our  outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction , which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

*5

The testimony to the Communist nightmare in China, inter alia,  has been not least from three most interesting writers - Harry Wu, whose work is still current, and whose internment in that land for many years provided him with a parallel work, perhaps in many things, to that of ex-prisoner Solzhenitsyn, in Russia (SMR pp. 971ff., cf. 649, 697, 841ff., 971, 927).  Also noted on this site has been the testimony of Jung Chang. In her Wild Swans p. 309, she notes ''an accepted estimate for the death toll'' for China from the famine of the Great Leap Forward fiasco, as 30,000,000 - pitilessly exacted of a tortured populace.

A third work is notable, Escape from Red China, by ex- Party Official (and at what MORAL cost that post was first obtained) Robert Loh, who  authored the work, together with Humphrey Evans. It appears in a Reader's Digest Edition. It is always of great interest to be able to gain first-hand and preferably near-to-contemporary accounts of important developments, as the word of God exposes in advance what later hastens to fulfil it, even if the devil himself has to figure! If it is demeaning to Him, it is helpful to man, to see if his eyes are still available for the purpose (cf. II Thess. 2:10ff.).

In this work, what is found is intensely personal. It appears to come from one who is fresh with the sense of defeat and moral indiscipline, slack sensibilities and overweening interest in survival, as if continuance were the criterion. As to WHAT continued, it appeared almost to have lost meaning. Here one is featured whose abasement is first of all amazed, then calculating, then crafty, then almost without restraint, a mere read-out in life, of what is gauged to be the Party line. Fact fail; deception becomes living; betrayal is walking.

In fact, however, in such a milieu or any other indeed, the moral meaning of broken promises is IMMORALITY, not none; and the moral meaning of tortuously broken hearts, through twisted means,  is INHUMANITY; for here revealed is not the breaking of bodies alone, but of truth and its mandate,  in "struggle meetings", fake trials, forced confessions, blasé and blatant, with summary and insidious demands on 'conscience' to find guilt to confess, until the whole tangled morass of immorality - itself an attack on morality as such, but from a professedly moral standpoint, a mere contradiction in terms - became such a contradiction in life that many committed suicide rather than co-operate.

That was merely an outward symbol of an inward reality. Death is already the lot of the atheist, and devilry the art of the propagandist who speaking like a lamb, acts like a dragon.

Loh recounts the deception (scientific deception ?) with which first all the former Nationalist employers were asked to note their former association so that the matter could be purged, and to note all they knew (only, in numbers he could not calculate to be killed or given what perhaps was worse, in countless droves and drives, as of the possessed); then struggle meetings occurred as many were defamed, and many added fuel in order to distance themselves in fear, from the freedom from truth which so many sought to instil. Thus lie led to lie, and light was dismissed. Hell finds its ante-room in such things.

NO absolutist regime, in effect, the assumption of absolute status by what is merely a product, can live except by lie, the amount of it only being in question to be filled in by history, and in the end, the great historian is God, also wonderfully, the Judge!

What then ? Is a responder with a spirit to divorce itself from reality, and pretend in industrious illusion to be what it is not, and taking all men into some submersive theory, which removes it from any possibility of truth, to declare notwithstanding, what is true, and then enforce it on its victims, using lies as the technique ? Insanity is not the verdict; it is far worse than that, for this merely touches its edges. It is devilish.  Alas, those, to be pitied indeed, who are caught in this net, what does their life become ? if not meaningless, then it is voided of its meaning and and able to finding mean only as garbage in the end, as it limps in spiritual insalubrity to its end.

That there is a way out for this sort of sin as for any other, for those who seek the Lord and call on His name and His New Covenant in the blood of Jesus Christ, is one of the measures, small in kind but staggering in result, of the mercy of God. What it cost HIM to provide it was not lies but truth; not deviation from  truth, for convenience, but insistence upon it in realism (Isaiah 53:9, Mark 14:61-63). Moreover He did it, not to find release from suffering or loss of face, but to ensure certain torture and mockery, all this a product of sin on the part of the sinless, in atoning in mercy FOR sin. Here were not the false confessions of those willing to serve sin for survival, but a true one, that He was (as He IS) the Son of God. On this account, He duly and truly was subjected to the 'Struggle Meeting' beyond all all such, taking in solemn and sublime purpose,  the guilt of those who had sinned against Him. This ? It was NOT on a submission to meet false and lying pressures, but on a resolution to become the sacrifice for sin, direct, true and loving.
 

• To abandon Him for
• that spiritual dereliction, Communism; or
• Islam in its fearful ranting against those alleged to have spoken a word against Muhammad as truth demands, and grace may require, so that souls might share the salvation of Christ;
• or Nationalism in its self-taught morals of mangling children to obtain land, as fearless in such exploits as Islam and Communism in their own chosen territories of lying mischiefs:
• it is to be preparing, with conscientious care, if blind disregard, for hell.

There such graceless ingratitude can have all its fill. Again, that mercy of God is so enormous that even such as these in these extremities of affliction to mankind - and consider PAUL who terrorised the church before he joined it, for Christ's sake - may find mercy in the One who did what their ideologies forsook: regarded people as people, worthy to be saved. It was He, not they, who was slaughtered.

The price makes the national debt of the USA look like something too contemptible to spit on, by comparison. The price ?  It was the life in Christ, incarnate from heaven from which He came, identifying in love with the needs of the least, to become a sin offering, a ghastly wrecked galleon, the more horrible for the wonder it had been, the smashed physical remnants left by men in their religions and their irreligion, surreptitiously filling it with whatever idol appealed to the heart.

What then of this sacrifice of Christ in comparison with all these moral abysses of men in their systems and such evil systems in man ? That all this virulent butchery was quietly turned into the very holy sacrifice able to cover not only this, but all confessed and repented sin, attests that the wisdom of God  is no less than the love. Our God has a heart. It would seem that many ideologies cultivate its disappearance in all residue for man. HOW do they thunder of their own goodness; but are THEIR MEANS good!
 

The world throbs to many of these hollow drums.

Hatred and vengeance alternate; survival and disdain orchestrate.

The way lies open, like a magnificently constructed super-highway, delightedly ready to spirit one away to higher ground in the mountains of beauty and the places of peace.

It is however being ignored to a vast extent, whether in the nationalising intolerance for Ireland, the internationalising human racism of Communism and the idolatrous choruses of jihad claiming assassins and murders from Islamic Palestinians, as if their clamour could justify their conduct, or their gifts to the young and the unprotected in 'war' to grab, could rate in some way as fit for the Owner of it all.

The vast defilement of human life constantly secured by these aggressive initiatives and inveterate desires to exterminate what has returned to its land as appointed by God from the first, speaks for itself of what is working. It is not of God that the torn limbs and mutilated breasts, the bloody heads and the internal organs of little children lie on the streets for a time, of the cities of Israel.
 

• It is time to seek peace, not from the UN, but from God.

 
• There is no other source, settlement or scenario.

He HAS already borne this. Others who invent their own salvation, which does not save, and is ineffectual though time-consuming, or that for others, which does not save, and is in effect  ludicrous (Jeremiah 2:13, Romans 1:16ff.), lacerating or oppressive, and done in mere delusion, or in works of appalling darkness, for gain or power or self-will. The latter are doubly deranged. Doctors who do not heal themselves, they prescribe for whatever motive, a path to a death worse than temporal, for many. Unwise are those who heed them (cf. Luke 14:27ff., where you see the cross that is company, not a ladder, and that with Christ, together with Luke 11:52, where you see the salvation hinderers, indolent or indoctrinated with pabulum of pretence).

Where the wolves do not devour the unwary and the wayward, the ‘bargains’ do, being poisonous and lethal. The antidote remains effectual, when received as He is and for what He has done, in faith (John 5:24, I Timothy 1:15).