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CHAPTER 5
Profitable Excursions into Revelation 6
4) From NEWS 84
Here we see some of the spiritual side of things. It is easy when one has a body to begin to become preoccupied with its wants and feelings. God, however, who is a Spirit, is not inactive! His DONATION of eternal life is a completed work for those who receive it (John 6:51ff., 10:9,27-28, Romans 3:25, 8:29ff., 5:1-11, I Thessalonians 5:9-10). What is not yet complete is the work of judgment (cf. John 5:23ff.).
In Revelation 6 we see
certain phases of this judicial aspect of human life on this earth. The symbol
of SEALS BEING OPENED is used, as if documents were at length allowed to become
active. It is as if a launch were at last ready. Alas, this launch is no more
beneficial to the unrepentant than was the atomic bomb to the pleasantness of
This is in a chapter ending
with the words, "For the great day of His wrath has come, and who is able
to stand?" It is
followed by a chapter describing in some detail, the destiny
of those who come "out of the great tribulation" (
In all this, it is a very substantial parallel to the words of Christ in Matthew 24 where the phases to the end, and the situation would become so grave that the end would have to be grasped by Himself, the Lord, by His coming, lest none could survive in its flagrant evils and calamities (Matthew 24:22)
3.
Then a BLACK horse appears, amidst vast deficiencies of food: famine
careers in lusty force. This is fulfilled in momentous profusion, and was
already being fulfilled when SMR was being written some years ago (SMR p. 650). Now it mounts.
As we saw, the greenhouse effect is expanding the mosquito boundaries; while the folly of man is increasing their opportunities and reducing his preventive measures in many ways (op.cit. 74, *1).
Then we overhear the saints in heaven asking the Lord HOW LONG, how long it would have to be before all the calamities were over and the rest of the Lord's people could be taken (Revelation 6:11) ? The increasingly deadly situation was not for the moment to end, however, since some more of those whom the Lord knew as His, were yet to finish their course on the earth.
Our present point, having
provided something of the context, is to note just this:
DEATH AND BLOODSHED, AMID THE AMAZING DISPERSION OF PEACE AS IF IT WERE BLOWN AWAY BY A TORNADO, THIS IS THE PREDICTED SITUATION.
This is also the actual situation. The complex of events in which this was to happen, is that in which it happens.
THAT in brief
is the story of the case. In the word of God, what is to happen, whether
it be creation in kinds that do not elevate themselves with magical
potencies into higher conceptions, grander things, but stay within limits, this
is the observation, the attestation of the MODE, the METHOD and the RESULTS; or
whether it be disposition of history, in its kinds and developments, its
details and its procedures:
what is SAID,
is what OCCURS.
On the other hand, in the fairyland realm of imaginitis (inflammation of the imagination) called organic
evolution, or secular philosophy: what is to happen, whether as in Darwin's
nonsense decried on many evolutionary sides for its grandiose dreams and
minimal attainments, or the other wild thoughts that come only to go, or as in
the political version called communism: what is to happen, DOES NOT OCCUR.
What is SAID is not what is SEEN.
THIS TOO IS NOT WITHOUT A CAUSE.
As Solomon declared, The curse causeless shall not come (Proverbs 26:2). The curse came at first, and the aggravations accrue. What then is this situation ? It is what is observable.
rather as the Egyptians glorified cats, or the Romans made a horse into a god in the seat of governmental power -
While spiritual
perversion is rampant, so too is the sexual variety. In
But let us return from the
cause-effect relationships, to the practical issue of BLOOD, of
bloodthirstiness, of painting the earth with the departing forms of man,
bloodying the soil, butchered the corpses, death like a game, like a car
downhill without brakes, and in this case, perhaps also without driver!
"Whom God set forth as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God had passed over the sins that were previously committed: to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness, that He might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.
"Where is boasting then ?" (emphasis
added).
This is the way of the 'god of forces' noted in the references
above (see 707ff.); and it is this not least which is Biblically predicted for
the 'big time' in the pre-judgment acute phases of human history, as there
shown. Indeed we have even had a Prime Minister of our own, making massive
changes in undertakings on the explicit ground that what ? this, that the
circumstances have changed! So honour leaps from the
4th floor and blood is seen below.
In fact, these driving drivels and dynamic rancours
make the Gentile world of today so like that of Israel in the days of Isaiah,
that the likeness is almost comic (cf. Isaiah 1). It is like two twins!
Yet the
comedy is bathed in blood; and the bathing is not in pools, but on earth.
Each was multiply warned; and each multiply declined to listen.
The earth however is the Lord's, and He shows this by making WHAT HE
SAYS, WHAT WE FIND. The organic mysticism produces this: WHAT IT SAYS, WE DO
NOT FIND. It is a little late in the day for party tricks; it is time to return
to the facts, to the faith, to the Lord who made us, and to His word which
directs things the way they are to go, with mercy and judgment. That is the way
it is.
End-Notes
See News
24, Swift Witness
3, Scoop of the Universe 59.
*2
BAB Appendix 3, BB Appendix IV, Ch. 15, Extended Endnote 2
The Magnificence of the Messiah, Endnote 1, SMR Index,
KH 9, Section 14, JJ 25.
5) From Deliverance from Disorientation
Further on:
REVELATION 6
Chapter 11
More Benevolence
Approaching the Beginnings of Justice
for Post Pogrom (?) Israel
News 189
TV News December 16, 2001
The secret double mouse trap
It is a thing most pleasant, and very good to see.
After a period of aching drought, in which the waters of compassion seemed hard to find, Israel is at last receiving a better and more visible trickle of understanding on the violence front.
The US, rather delightfully, and certainly all but amazingly, has refused to back a UN enemy-style attack on Israel. No, there is to be no such account of violence in the Middle Eastern hot spot, says the US, and it will not suffer the one proposed. Why ? The reason makes some sense at last: it is because there is NO MENTION of the violence SUFFERED BY ISRAEL.
After all, hundreds of the suffering, the maimed, the sorrowing are the constant and consistent bequeathal of this unholy warrioring throw-back to Koran-backed violence, called jihad (cf. More Marvels ... Ch. 4, Red Alert.. Ch. 16, Lord of LIfe Ch. 3). The cart-horse of history has indeed brought to the front line, the horrific disregard of human suffering for which the Moslem religion is justly known. This belief system, based on false prophet Muhammad, has often threatened the world. As to the prophet, he was not least a warrior leader whose religion was used to impose violent suppression which, if sometimes allayed with treaties, was ferocious in suppression.
This sort of system roused the Taliban to action, just as it earlier thrust forth the Iranian assault on Iraq which for so very many years immured the harassed population with enough slaughter to carry on, without adding the enormous depredations caused by the reciprocated jihad of this very religious people, wrought by their opponents. Islam could be praised, for those with a mind for it, for the consistent, persistent and insistent slaughter.
However there were other quarrels, marked by
this same religious intensity, a sort of career with a more sinister Dr Death,
bringing religious thrust into inflamed relationships. The Taliban specialised in anti-US fervour.
As noted earlier in News (see News
179), bin Laden felt it most important that the US should neutralised or terrorised or
suppressed, because it is given a sort of anti-holy notation in the religious
perceptions, and would be better gone or goaded or in some way made to be what
it is not, and fast. That appeared to be the Taliban thrust of it, per courtesy
of bin Laden. It is true of course that the US is a major player, and so a
major nuisance for anyone wanting world domination under Islam, as the
terrorist specialist appears to do. It was not particularly savoury
in
It was to be so fast that airliners, made by another nation's ingenuity, could be used to destroy magnificent towers, made by the same other nation's ingenuity, and this was deemed very good. It is a sort of Genesis transformed into Genocide. Further goodies awaited, perhaps from Iraq, deemed to have them, perhaps to be found through a sort of banal wedding ceremony of Moslem powers, some with the intelligence to fight, some with the intelligence to prepare chemicals and even develop them, or suitable bacterial weapons, and some with the money to pay.
With this bizarre division of labour, it appears to be felt by some, that there could yet be a more definitive exhibition of the genius of Muhammad for a martial display, foray and May-day thrust into civilisations or cities, which of old he sometimes felt would be better with him, and his ways, than without. This madness of heart, this illicit logic, this irrational relish for the god who is not there (cf. More Marvels, loc.cit. with its associated references), has helped enormously, in the area of certain Christian matters.
These ? you may ask in amazement.
Oh, it is not at all that these things ARE Christian, but rather the exact
opposite, for killing and maiming is not what Christ did, but what He received.
In love He received it that the deceived and the deluded, the mischievously
invaded in mind and divorced from the true God in spirit, might find Him,
immune from prosecution, since He died for them, and welcomed back to the mercy
of the truth, the love who showed His kindness to all men in Christ.
REVELATION 6 IS NOT SURPRISED
If then it is the exact opposite, in what way does it forward the Christian message ? In this, that in prophetic scriptures of Revelation 6 you find a series of calamitous judgments on the earth, involving the reckless renegacy of the human spirit, a sort of spiritual bacterial infection if you will, so that death becomes a way of life, that is, death to others and sometimes even to human bombs with or without airliners attached. Thus in Revelation 6:4, tracing infections to come, we find that "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 him a great sword." To whom was this given ? Why, to the rider on "the fiery red horse."
This was in fulfilment of certain seals being broken on a volume which contained an account of, or orders for, or both, concerning the ages to come. The equine emissions, the chargers which proceeded were symbols of the dynamics, good or evil, and here most evil, to come to the chameleon inhabitants of the earth, changing colour from citizens of the world God made, to impassioned and pliant tools of the devil in numbers that all but make the mind melt. But this is not all.
In a later phase, another such equine charger comes out with a new evil, judgment and stark rebuke to the God-defiant and self-reliant, or idolatrously inflamed denizens of the earth, which make up so large a proportion, whether they worship nature, human nature or other creation. Here a "pale horse" comes forth, "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." Some of these creatures may be small*1, like bacteria, but the hunger and the death are quite straightforward, for those whose ways forward that sort of thing, in their internecine struggles, so amazingly in the name of their religion very often, and more and more manifestly so, in the case of the Muslim 'faith'. Killing with 'death' is a fascinating semantic challenge. What does it mean ?
Perhaps it suggests the sheer prodigy of mathematics involved in this sort of suicidal mission. It is one now becoming more obviously so, as nice religionists decide to blow up children and youth, for example, in whole or in part, to death or to paraplegia, by making themselves into a species of civilian arms raid, casting their own flesh with the bombs, like a kind of stucco onto unadmiring bystanders of their folly.
Perhaps the intention of the biblical text , 'killing with death' here may be phrased as follows. It is like a swath of death, a tragic travesty of death, a sort of lively acquaintance with death, as if not mere murder but death itself were the weapon, an insane seeming, but spiritually produced degradation in many of mankind, so that death becomes the ultimate, a weapon of desire, a far flung malign fragrance of abominable desolation. Americans, bin Laden indicated, want to live; but his people were willing to die, and to kill with death, their own dying bodies becoming the source of death. Indeed, that literally fulfils it.
These predictions, then, proceed in Ch. 6 of Revelation, till we see a tableau in heaven toward s the end of this chapter. What is occurring there ? What is there the scene while such lethal things proceed on earth, such maddened men, reaping the spiritual pathology which comes from ignoring the source and centre of spiritual well-being, the Creator, and the necessary redemption which is a pre-condition for sinful man, before he can know God (the one who made life, that so many so despise in their misguided preoccupations)!
In heaven, we see some of the results of such things. Here in the vision, are beheld the slaughtered saints, those who have died for Christ, "slain for the word of God and for the testimony which they held" . In the safety of heaven, "under the altar", personally covered, each one by His redemptive blood, His atoning death, they show concern. A white robe is given them, while they await the outcome of all these things.
Concerned at the hideous suffering, they ask - HOW LONG must such things go on ? and are told that they must wait yet a little, for the full number of those of the redeemed have yet to come, the completion of the complement in particular, of those yet to be slain for their faith in Christ.
That of course is being superabundantly fulfilled from the
days of the Roman Inquisition (cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088, Beauty of Holiness
Chs.
4, 8, Ancient Words, Modern Deeds
The records of the Chinese nation are also outstanding, in their rather burlesqued version of Communism, now so immersed in what could almost be called capitalism, so rampant is its misuse of freedom on the one hand in various commercial ... liberties, as likewise abuse of it, in intrusions in the affairs of Christians, imprisoning pastors, suppressing worshippers and the like (cf. Beauty of Holiness Ch. 4, News 37, Barbs, Arrows and Balms18, and Index, China).
Such is the plethora of death in our
globe, that such heavenly visions have unearthly but alas all too worldly fulfilments! It is in the fulfilment,
that the orgies of executions and maimings exhibit to
the letter the seemingly profuse but clearly predicted accounts of nearly two millenia ago, of events leading to the end of our Age, of
mordant things to come, as also summarised in Matthew
24, Luke 21 and such places (cf. Answers to Questions Ch. 5).
It is in this way that the insanitary, deadly
delusions that make death a slight thing in the interests of land, or pride, or
both, or some parallels, continue, and continue as predicted. They rise like
waves; they surge like galloping horses.
SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE OBJECTIVES
In the case of Israel in particular, it proceeds. People are slaughtered and slaughtered like some breach from a band-stand of musicians, maddened, and blowing themselves up amongst the kids. Buses, shopping centres, just the thing! Straight to heaven, they may be told, for such valour against the little ones, or any ones in view, just as the Koran likewise gave such results for the prodigies of adult valour in fighting for the faith, literally!*2
The objective, then ?
It is
· 1) Jerusalem in part as a Palestinian capital city and
· 2) a Palestinian State, like a lion's den in the midst of your home, in the heart of Israel. For this, slaughter is the order of the day, and it is to be of civilians, children, youth, yes in buses, school children a specialty, it would appear at times, targeted.
This amiable ploy, seemingly to induce reaction, repression
of the violators in order to prevent the violence, leading to international
intervention, bargaining of what is left of Israel as a counter-move, and
advance, thus proceeds very much on target. It is just that the target is
unprotected, civil bodies.
The reaction of Israel, understandably not interested in being a sort of pre-hospital ward of persons awaiting delivery to hospital if not to the morgue, without any notice, as they go about their business, becomes a modus operandi, a claim on Israel. HOW could this be so! the astonished and appalled reader might well enquire. How could such obfuscatory follies be followed by any international body! Oh but this is this present world (cf. James 4:4), and as James put it, friendship with the world is enmity with God. It is on fire. Being like it is being unlike God, in the most marked fashion! It is to be an enemy of His.
This world ? It is burning ever more fiercely. The mind of
man is becoming a sink of oil, and the heart of man a furnace which ignites it.
Such is the way of millions.
THE DOUBLE MOUSE TRAP
Vengeance comes from some; self-protection from others. When
So there is a double mouse trap. First line of offence: if the Jews do not like being slaughtered in civilian places, indiscriminately and with passion that makes murder a flag waving morality on the part of religious assassins, calling evil good and good evil, then they may respond with force to empty the sites of assassins, of the same. If they do, then there is the cry to the international bodies, STOP them. Next: MAKE them negotiate - translation, we want more land, make them hand it over. Let us invade with words. Next: SHOW them up. How awful that they defend themselves, for this is offensive. We had better kill more of them too, in the meantime. That is all part of mouse trap ONE, in which various parties participate, ad lib, or by script as the case may or may not be.
In this the little tip of lives of
The next mouse trap is similar. This time however it is the MUSLIM world which is activated. Shameless thing, that these Jews should come into a small section of their historic land, beat us when we ganged up to slaughter them, and then kill some of our people as they protect themselves. More money and more threats, veiled or not, must be activated AT ONCE!
Agatha
Christie's Mouse Trap - that one, a mere play - ran for years. This one
has been running for years too; but it is not a play.
A LITTLE BREEZE
Now however a little breeze has sprung up. The
If the world at times becomes a stage, surely Molière could take this direct into one of his more mordant plays.
But the
NO! this will not do. This motion,
this notion does not do justice to the facts.
Blessed negative, truthful negation, sound obstruction!
Since the
One has been growing most concerned at the United States folly in making common cause in prayer services with Moslem and other non-Christian religionists, and exposed the wholly anti-scriptural character*3, the mockery of the divine, which this incorporated. It must be clearly seen that to MOCK is not to throw stones or give out insults merely. It comes also when what is DECLARED by God to be abhorrent to Him (such as worshipping other gods with Himself, a sort of failure like that of forgetting who your wife is, and bringing home different women by ...mistake! yes adultery is the BIBLICAL figure for such actions), what is an obvious discrimination against the purity of His word and worship, is suffered by those who say they believe in Him. That is a kind of short-circuit of holiness, of truth, a combination like trying to mate a walrus with a finch, except that that cannot be accomplished, while this can.
The absurdity of such a conception however is all too serviceable in considering the absurdity of having the living God confused in jointness of prayer, with what is not even there (the gods that are not, of Deuteronomy 32 cf. *2 on this).
Despite this, and all the past pressures which, for some
years, in marked contrast to its earlier friendliness to
Self-interest, it would seem, is not a mere determinant here. Regard for truth and justice is not extinct, merely longsuffering in its disregard too often.
· since
· the Jewish success story
· is not only one of VICTORY after VICTORY against the multitudinous, multi-national Moslem forces (1948, 1967, 1973 and deliverance again, in 1991),
· armies deployed time and again to destroy the nation,
· the tiny Israeli nation, with its disproportionately small population, in much
· the relics of Hitler and of the pogroms in
· It is ALSO one of PREDICTED triumphs.
It is understandable indeed that this
double dose of Biblical prediction and historical defeat has not left Islam
happy.
Thus the thrust into the city, to kill kids, to maim
civilians may seem to some, to be quite an idea. It appears to have plenty of
Islamic support, judging by the pledges of multinational Moslem forces, meeting
now in Teheran, or in
As this preoccupation with death, souls for land, bodies for sea shore continues, the grim reaper of
Revelation is heavily engaged. There will - biblically it is predicted as noted
previously quite often cf. SMR
Appendix A,
SMR pp. 510ff. - there will be a coming
military consummation of this anti-Jewish thrust. It will be truly massive as
will be the divine repulsion, comparable with that of Pharaoh's forces in
ancient
Now we rejoice that some justice, some truth appears in this
recent and significant improvement in the
As to the Arabs, it is in the highest point pathetic, sad and poignant, that they insist on their Allah and his force, his methods of force, his aggrandisement and his so long sustained territorial interests; it is the sadder in this, that since God Himself has made a promise, the uttermost of horror, grisly and ghastly, will not suffice to evict Israel. The first eviction will come when the large band of newly converted, and many long converted Jews, following the mass repentance towards Jesus, the Christ, in Jerusalem (Zechariah 12:10), that fascinating event predicted half of one millenium before Israel so much as crucified the Saviour, that they might later repent, is abstracted from this earth.
One will be left, for these as for other countries, one will
be taken (Matthew 24:30-31,40-51). Many doubtless, will be in both categories.
Be careful, then, and do not set your sights whether Arab or other, on this
world, or any part of it. Divine perspective is truth, whether of
God will regard the ancient landmark, especially since it is a matter of promise to Abraham. It is His good pleasure to be reliable even when others may not be so! On this simple fact, advance historical notice, from the ancient word, see Galloping Events Chs. 4, 3, SMR Appendix A and Index on Israel and land.
On the other simple fact, that
without faith, with any trust in your own productivity of anything as a basis
or ground of acceptance, you are lost to God, landless forever, see Chapters 5,
1 and 10 above. Seek audience with God
through the Lord Jesus Christ, the brightness of His glory, and claim ONLY what
HE has done, and rest in Him by faith, without other priest but He, without
other Saviour, but He, without other name to rest
upon, but His.
NOTES
*1
Liddell and Scott Greek Lexicon points out that the
Greek term used, qhrion
may be and has been used
of insects, as well as of other forms of life, with the concept of wild, wild
beasts and so on. It is a diminutive of qhr, beast. Thayer
gives it as beast, little beast. In view of this, the prospect of small
creations being involved in the destructions is by no means excluded!
*2 Cf. Koran Surahs 3:148, 160, 4:76, 8:36-41, 9:5, 9:27-31, 9:77-46, 47:3-10, 48:22, Lord of Life Ch. 3, Red Alert ... Ch. 16, More Marvels ... Ch. 4. On not-God, see Beauty of Holiness, Ch. 5, esp. *3
*3
See Red Alert Chs. 6, 5, 8, 13, Lord of Life
Ch. 3, Kingdom of Heaven Ch. 7,
Red Alert ... Ch. 16,