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 Coming developments ? Certainly there is the confrontation between man and God more and more momentously, succinctly, crucially, obviously. It will indeed increase, till those who are the Lord's will quite simply NOT accept the distinguishing criteria of that conglomerate, or created form of worship attested for the Beast, and from the Second Beast, the religion specialist, in Revelation 13. The same is found in essence in II Thess. 2. There will no room for compromise: you do or you do not accept the substitute faith for a country, an individual or a church.

What, however, should be the sort of scope and spiritual posture of a Christian President in a nation with a Constitution at least favourable to, without adopting, Christiantiy ?

To be sure, such a President has to seek, without sacrificing the Lord afresh, to present safety and security for citizens; and indeed, he should seek the privileges the nation presents in liberty, to those who without violence to property or persons in the flesh,  seek to express themselves.

With MANY, I must agree about the Clinton era. We did of course follow quite a lot of the ways of this President of the now afflicted nation, and in particular, the appointment of an international delegate who was homosexual, comes clearly to mind, wrought when the governing body was in recess. Permissiveness was indeed a gross and growing phenomenon, and President Clinton was seen more than once in the biblically defined evils of this kind, succouring them, or deeply involved. That however does nothing to excuse or promote as proper the authoritarian regime, as that  which follows may appear in contrast, if it has its own derailings. If it expresses concern and even command regarding this and that (with some relief to many), and war on evil (terminologically satisfying perhaps), what if nevertheless it is found positively promoting the Islam error, and false prophecy,  which one has indeed been at pains to demonstrate for many years, is irrationalist and intellectually invalid. (See SMR Ch. 1, and index, with More Marvels ... Chs. 4.)

Whether it is for a President or a dustman, the command to ALL CHRISTIANS is to be found intact, without waiver, qualification, modification or special exemption for rulers. It is this: "Now I urge you brethren, note those who cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which you learned and avoid them" (Romans 16:17). It moreover says of idolaters, these do not inherit the kingdom (I Cor. 5:9), whoever they may be, those who worship what is NOT GOD (as in Deuteronomy 32:21). God was wrath with Israel for associations of this kind.

Again He declares: "Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers" - II Cor. 6:14. The author had to leave his US pastorate largely on this, that it is forbidden to have spiritual yokage with unbelievers, and there is little more profoundly a yoking than calling on the name of God together for particular ends, as at a political meeting! You cannot do it with unbelievers. It either means that God is found without Christ (as if He were a liar - John 14:6), or that Christ is not the ONLY WAY. It degrades His deity. It is all blasphemous in implication, but more importantly forbidden. Praying is not avoiding; it is the precise opposite, and in this case, the thing is EXPLICITLY RELIGIOUS!

As to Israel, in old times, the nation provoked the actual God with what ? "what is not God". If a wife does not appreciate a threesome in the bedroom, you can see from the prophecy of Hosea, that God abominates this sort of casual recklessness when the bride is 'the church'! Hosea acted it out for the Lord, and the point was most spectacular, as is readily found by studying that prophecy. It makes clear how real must be that forsaking of all things, if you are to serve God.

But what was the divine response when Israel began to call on what was not God ? God then undertakes, saying, "I will provoke them to jealousy by those who are not a nation." There is a certain ... proportionality. The point is not easily missed! You fool and foul with gods, as if the true God were a mere choice and not a fact; very well, then you will find fooling with you, foolish nations, scarcely worthy of consideration, appalling pagans, fierce and terrible. Will this then teach the ignominy of outrageous disregard of reality, when you are with those comparable with your own nation, made to look merely someone or other!

Now let us turn to the individual.

A Christian may be in business (some say from their covetous culture, WE MUST MAKE PROFIT OUR AIM, as if God could be forgotten in business - with profit is not FOR profit); a 'Christian' may be in medicine (SATISFYING reckless^*1 abortion demand is not the same as following the command on life and death); and he/she may be in government. The difference relative to keeping Christian generic commandments is precise. It is ZERO. All of us can claim exemption. None is given permission in the universal proclamation of the word of God. There is no special pleading.

How many Ministers have claimed exemption when they continue in their denominations, despite the most manifest departure in it, from the Bible, and do so contrary to many scriptures such as the above and Titus 3:10, II John and so on, claiming or feeling that their superannuation package is really not at issue. IT must stand.

In fact, when it does come to government, the duty is if possible, increased; for foul behaviour here on the part of a professing Christian is leading the whole NATION astray at the same time, while explicitly BREAKING THE COMMANDMENT. Commandments to Christians can be, and often are, disregarded for many reasons - often it is one's friends in the church which goes astray for example. This is merely as in Israel of old: it is something ASKING for discipline, and as continued with brassy boldness, the more likely to get  it. I for one do not covet this sort of horror for the USA, but from the time Powell began ordering Israel around, while the manifest folly of the Palestinian and mighty Moslem backed and reinforced claims, to take even more from the Palestine promised to Israel in 1919 internationally, continued. Terror was not really faced for Israel as butt of it; they simply had to go on and do whatever it took to placate the militant, jihad inclining, Allah touting masses with their oil and armaments about them.

This procedure and inclination for them, this pressure from the US as noted at that time, it was not wise.

At that time, in fact in August last year, in our Web site at http://webwitness.org.au, I expressed my acute concern that the US was asking for trouble as it thus acted and spoke so insensitively (certainly that was in the Clinton era - the point is politics, not which type, relative to the Bible in general, and in one case, Israel in particular). What would become of it, who so treated those exposed to such gross invasive terrorism, and what would the White House do if bombs came to its near vicinity from parts of the nation, disaffected for this reason or that ? Would its counsel be as it was then to Israel! Later events do not at in the least suggest it!

With a month or so, we found out. Zechariah 12:3 was not written for nought. Its words came with force just as one had been concerned could be the outcome for the USA.

Nor are the New and Old Testament commandments, whether in the latter, for a theocracy in some cases, for moral universality in others; or in the former, for every single individual Christian adult, all who can read and know and think: nor are these truncated!

Protecting peace for Moslems as far as may be, seeking to prevent prejudice making assumptions about one and all, relative to terrorism etc., this is a proper work for the State which has concern for all. Worshipping with them,however,  is without doubt NOT avoiding them; it is a matter of some intimacy indeed, and of prostituting the religion of the individual for the sake of the State, and that of the State (which is various) for the sake of a particular desire.

As to the individual Christian, it is simply forbidden. Worship is not avoidance. Since when does the American constitution say that not all citizens may have freedom of worship ? I had not heard of it. Presidents are citizens; and citizens of the kingdom of heaven have prior duty. But though the law does not force the President to worship with some group, or to state that the teaching of the Moslems is good, or of their book, which is blasphemy of the most acute kind, wholly untrue, unsupported, the thing as noted above being demonstrably irrational as well as Biblically blasphemous to the highest degree: HE DID IT.

He has thus broken the express command for ANY Christian by his devices, and misled the WHOLE NATION in stating that what is evil in its teaching, is good. For that also the word of God has comment that needs attention. Isaiah 5:20 declares: "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil..."

Israel of old had the same lesson. As so well put, learn from history if you do not wish to be taught by it for your oversight! Thus it had a diplomatic desire to succour its strength by military alliance with an evil regime, that of Egypt. Its motive was wrong: it did not need strength to help the Almighty. It needed purity worship towards Him, as many in World War II, both in the USA and Britain reasonably enough sought when their very existence as nations was in point!

However, in this ancient Israel was straying. Its action was wrong. Diplomatic mutuality with such wickedness is an atrocity. Thus the devastating horror of Muslim treatment of woman is still going fine in Afghanistan, as far as one of their chief Mullahs is concerned, as was seen on a TV interview last night. Reconstruction is being actively pursued along these lines. Co-ordination with that! But to SAY the teaching is good, this is untrue, misleading and seeking, witlessly enough, for the divine correction. The "woe" is not limited in Isaiah, or in this case to Israel. It is a generic, moral proposition.  God does not like this. He warns those who do it. That is all.

Now whatever may be George W. Bush's actual religious convictions, the case is unchanged. However many virtuous or even wise things he does, the folly of exalting the horrible, and praising the specifically anti-christian religion, and worshipping with what wholly rejects Jesus Christ as Lord, remains. You may kill only one person: it is however not for that reason a slight thing. You may blaspheme God only a few times in a few worship services or Mosque visits, by your statements and action, both: but the result to the name of God is not small. When a major power so sells its integrity at the religious level, and its President, to make it even worse, a professing Christian, does such things, contrary on the one hand to explicit command, and on the other, to truth, do you think that God smiles ? He is not in favour of breaking His commandments, compromising His name, or the use of wealth and power to promote utility, not sacredness.
 
 

Now, some may propose that one should really feel things out, and not be proclamatory, and they may cite such a case as Mars Hill. Yet in such a case, is it realised just how great is the mockery inherent in Paul's approach. It is not severe, but it is a tactile sensation for the heart astray! It is true that he made a point of contact between their religious sayings and actions, and his own. They had an "unknown god" among the named ones, and Paul indicated that there was for them indeed such a being, who happened to be not an extra, but the ONLY GOD. This was a clever way of approach to their ear, but was followed immediately by an application so devastating as to be like a Trojan horse.

They were not at all let off lightly; but they were approached where they would hear. Before the apostle had finished speaking, the whole array of named gods was NOTHING, and the only unnamed one, evicted the rest, being given a name that evacuated all others. It had provided a useful spot for Paul to sweep all away, and present Christ as the Lord and Judge of all, by Himself alone. If that is easy on one's beliefs, then one would need a skin perhaps ten miles thick! It is one thing to exhibit folly and expose truth in one speech with acuity; it is WHOLLY diverse and divergent to worship with it, and praise it. ONLY ONE will judge, quoth Paul, He whom I preach (Acts 17:30-31).

Again, someone may seek in extenuation of the combination of religions as in the Presidential prayer meeting noted in Lord of Life Ch. 4, for example. Naaman... But in what is he relevant ? Is he a man of God ? Has his life been transmuted by the power of God, as was David's ? What is written (always the paramount consideration in finding what GOD WANTS) ? It is written that he said this, "Now I know that there is no God in all the earth, except in Israel: now therefore, please take a gift from your servant."

The devils believe just that - at the time Israel alone had the official depositions of deity (James 2:19). The devils too believe there is one God, as well they might, since their power in confrontation is zero, when God acts. This in no sense makes a man a Christian, or even in Old Testament terms, one of the godly. Thus Nebuchadnezzar was exposed to multiple offerings from the divine mind and hand, in the form of the WISDOM and the PHYSICAL POWER of God, as shown in Daniel 2 and 3 and 4. Indeed, he even stated to Daniel these words: "Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, since you could reveal this secret."

Later, as seen in Daniel 3, he declares "Blessed be the God of Shadrach... who sent His angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king's word..." He does not, however add this, that HE for his own part, trusts in the God of Shadrach! He is impressed by Him, as are many who see the works of God's other servants, and yet, with all their praise for their lives and wisdom or whatever, do not actually... come to Him as Lord and Saviour. He is by the evidence, in all things parallel to Naaman. Perhaps he even went further (but then he was king).

In what way ? Anyone who spoke against this God would be most severely dealt with: that was the issue. But faith in Him ?

In what way was this demonstrable lack in the testimony shown later ? In Daniel 4, after losing his reason and being taught more elementary and elemental lessons to his own individual heart, he went even further, declaring these things: "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, all of whose works are truth, and His ways justice. And those who walk in pride He is able to put down."

Thus you see the case, as often exposed in our own time: Monotheism, perhaps even praise and honour, but not faith, and not at all saving faith. All that Nebuchadnezzara said as recorded in Chs. 2 and 3 in no way made him a man of God: not in the slightest. Only after the Ch. 4 incident did the possibility arise. In the meantime, he paralleled Naaman.

Forsaking all you have, to use Christ's words, is far different from merely acknowledging power and glory (Luke 14:27ff.). Many people praise and honour many things, even as the best, without in the least planning to surrender to them, gods or whatever!

What then did Nebuchadnezzar show, even after the things which he disclosed concerning his 'faith', after the last step in Daniel 4 ? There is ONE GOD. He is far above all others who claim the name. He is worthy of praise and honour, and truth is His constant issuance, as is justice. He knows how to expose and deal with pride. This is better than before. It surely has a personal ring; but it is not in itself assured faith IN GOD, or surrender to Him. It is compatible with it, in this case, but does not demonstrate it. Without faith you cannot please God.

To take in particular the first cases, this is acclaim. It is not faith, since we see that the whole life of Nebuchadnezzar was about  to be delivered to the utmost ignominy, his reason to go and his realm to be removed, UNTIL HE SHOULD LEARN ... what ? To start with - praise and honour to God as the only source of truth, and recognition that to err is to be susceptible to arrest, when you omit Him.

To the point then: the statements of Naaman do not in the slightest degree mean that he became at that time a man of God. He was an impressed Nebuchadnezzar if you like,s tage 1 and 2. He was most grateful and not slow to depart. One recalls a brother who, confronted with the irresistible reason for the Christian and Biblical faith, was similarly most careful to 'depart'. He could give praise to its ground and integrity; but not with surrender...

Thus the 'concession' to Naaman is not even relevant to the question of whether a Christian can safely, rightly or wisely ignore what is commanded. A man impressed with the existence of God, and sure there is no other, might nevertheless, not trusting in Him personally, want some concession. Naaman did not want leprosy again. The God of Israel had shown His power; and now He was not going to twist the man's arm for hollow reverence and external practices in the midst of the pagan court. THAT is for the believer. It always was. It always will be. If you trust Him, then the obedience of faith is insuperable by any other consideration (Romans 1:5, Acts 5:32, John 14:21-23, Matthew 7:21-27, 5:17-20), political, financial, social or personal.

It is HE and no other who is the God to whom a person is surrendered, without which fact, he CANNOT be His disciple. THIS is the word God speaks, Christ declares. It is not nearly all, it is not prudentially mostly all: it is ALL. That is what is written. Nothing will ever move it. It stays.

One would be no friend to the US or to you if one did not say these things. It is better to exhort than to be dumb, for dumb dogs do not bark: and how does that help when thieves arise. It is obvious that the US must be destroyed, in terms of the strategy of the Islamic terrorists for the thrust of world domination. It is in the way; they would like to remove it. Hence it is bombed; but there is another outcome. Perhaps, as so often in war, it becomes possible to bend the spirit of the
nation ?

You remember what was the teaching of Balaam ? It meant that Israel, being strong in the Lord, and frankly insuperable FOR THAT REASON, as was clear in terms of its Exodus and succeeding episodes, had to be seduced(Jude 11, II Peter 2:15-16). Hence efforts were made to compromise their relation to God, so that He being offended, their victories could be make at least more problematic.

True, the US is not a Christian nation; it merely has some elements of Christianity. However, the more it combines with the explicit enemies of Christ, those who in effect DENOUNCE Him, and the more often, the more it tilts at the God of its only real defence. The more it does this, the more it simply joins that long litany of nations, from Assyria to Babylon, from Egypt to Tyre, which were 'obviously' safe, but certainly doomed. How the Lord excoriates such nations in Ezekiel 30-35, Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 50-51! How He excoriates Israel for demeaning the Lord by seeking help form such (Isaiah 30-31)!

Every individual and nation and every leader of every nation or business enterprise, can consider. He/she may choose to disobey at will. If however the individual in ANY relationship, compromises Christ, and far worse teaches what is obviously QUITE the contrary of His single exaltation as in Acts 4:12-13, Philippians 2, or denies His deity, then that is rebellion. It may be quenched, departed from quickly. Of course, and then it is indeed well that merciful is the Lord. But if it become case-hardened, then for that individual there is the strongest request for discipline.

IF the individual, as with very many indeed over the ages, the testimony is strong and shown false by compromises which become more and more characteristic, then of course this IS the testimony. The fruit decays. IF the nation goes in such ways, then that is the national profile. It is dealt with in due course, as becomes such profiles. ANYTHING which compromises Christ expressly becomes of course a red alert message: Please bring us low!

US citizens and their president, I and our church, we do not NEED to demean Christ in ANY way. A national leader does not need to do so, when he protects the civil liberties of those who believe this or that; but if he goes further and worships with what detests Christ, and praises what abominates Him (as biblically expressed), expresses this kind of functional spiritual unity with what creates a new christ, then the nation is in severe trouble.

Perhaps it will not listen, once again. So be it. It is a lament.

Some seem confused about the situation with the Billy Graham type of approach. This man in leading many from their falling denominations, and failing churches into his own sort of 'faith' has then taken a multitude with him, loosed from their former bases, into the explicitly forbidden Romanist idolatry, to tolerate it;  just as Bush most unnecessarily in a strictly religious sense, tolerated Islam. Very well, but this is more than a point: it is a plateau. This disobedience is generic as well as particular (Rev. 17-18 cf. SMR pp. 1032ff., in Chapter 10).

It is a wafting off of the disestablishment to Babylon, to the forbidden, to the evil, to the compromising consensus as was the case in Israel of old. Here it is a CHURCH matter, and so much of the US is here ecclesiastically brought into explicit rebellion against the word of God and its commandments (see The Kingdom of Heaven, Ch. 7).

A pastor can do that if he so desire, and his spirit is at liberty so to conspire against the Lord or simply rebel from His word; they can follow if they desire. It is all old hat. It is done by false prophets who take them on this point of contact or that, and then lead them into idolatries unspeakable, or the toleration or acceptance of them, or association with them, a thing God detests. HIS name with that junk ? It is to the most extraordinary degree offensive! (cf. Jeremiah 7, Zephaniah 1:4-6).
 
 

What do we find in these texts ? It is this: They ally worship of the true God with evils.  The atrocity is most severely rebuked. They worship the LORD and ALSO Milcom! The strenuous results speak for themselves.

The ecumenical bug, imperial religion, is strong. It is however merely a subject for coming devastation. You cannot add to the word of God (Proverbs 30:6) or subtract from it (Rev. 22, Deuteronomy 4, 12), and ignoring it is not blessed, for man, woman, child or nation. Popping Christ with the idols is as insufferably contemptible as it is arrestingly a subject for the utmost concern, for many are misled.

Many nations have had comparative health in comparative exaltation of the righteousness of the Lord, freely, or with some government thrust; and have fallen with their declivity in religion. I tremble for America, but not for it alone. It is merely something currently high, not acting wisely in these things. I hope better than I see, but cannot be silent without being irresponsible, and even without due care for the country in which I formerly lived and practised.

These things have to be said, for it is simply part of duty to reply concerning this matter. The decline of the USA in its moral fibre, its educational order and in its huge international debt, of its churches in many but by no means all cases, as the Bible is flirted with as a cult object or a possible source, rather than as the word of God, it is now in a further stage of the utmost gravity: national playing with fire, and the ire of the Almighty in forbidden alliance at the religious level.

Such things are in accord with prophecy, for if a strong nation resisted the coming conglomerate, how would it come!  It is, however, to come. Nothing has hastened it more than September 11, 2001, for fear and hope and strategy and internal security, and ways and means all are cohering towards the construction of a world wide area of various amalgams, which being unstable and mutually contradictory in religion, values and priorities, will be expected to break down into some rationale, irrationalist as all that is foreign to its Maker must and has been shown to be (cf. SMR Chs. 1-3, 10), but forceful.

When there is an absence of God from the affair, and endeavour to settle what really belongs to Him, the mere fact that there IS no solution, will indicate the necessity of force to those who insist on making a broken thing 'go'. This is now coming almost visibly, so fulfilling the words of Him who is invisible, as seen in Revelation 13.

It is like a bugle, blaring without real musical talent, but forceful in its martial promulgation. The entire consistency of scripture in its commands and in examples continues like an ever fashionable exemplar. God needs no lessons. This is the sort of verification one would expect, and its presence is like the sun, present daily, as often as you look!
 
 

Let us however return to Australia. Alas we are no paragon here!

In our own State, there has been an amazing combination of all but equal party representation for Labour and Liberal, and a disaffected Liberal, now Independent, has handed the government to labour, WITH provisos in formal agreement, intended a) to reform parliament and its actions in many ways and b) to insist that Labour adhere to some 'liberal' values, such as freedom of religion and speech.

Amusingly, but rather grimly, Labour had been in danger of following the current diabolical program of insisting, as if it were freedom of religion, on suppressing negative assessment of any religion, since this might upset some religionists. Thus freedom  would come to mean fine or prison for freedom. Such is the way of words with  the benighted. Since freedom of speech was one of the values required, it will be of interest to see to what extent this is debauched, or whether it is even kept! If not, in theory, the Independent one supposes, could simply bring the government down.

We are meanwhile most thankful that the one in charge of the Education ministry appears to be out, since he was Liberal in name, but authoritarian in a momentous matter, in fact. His political power was used to insist that creationism be not taught as an option in science, that religion be discussed only in terms of what is subjective, and that it is in fact just that. That is the essential import of the politically intrusive document - strangely enough, though created by Labour in 1988, fostered by the Liberals.

This monumental evil and devastatingly foolish intrusion (if it were that, how would you know it!), may perhaps now be addressed, and academic matters may once again become discussible in academic ways! We shall see. It could scarcely be worse than it was. Certainly, prayer is answered, for we feel acutely for the poor children taught what is contrary to scientific method so blatantly, and being forced in class to ignore what accords precisely with it (cf. That Magnificent Rock Chs. 1  and  8, Wake Up World ... Chs. 4-6, with Stepping Out for Christ Chs. 2, 7-10. )

Summer here has at last come to its own - it is supposed to be 39 degrees C today and tomorrow, though it does not feel unduly hot at 2.45 p.m. (it would if one were out in the sun, I imagine). One does not seem to need air-conditioning for this. Most of our Summer has been far cooler than usual, with only 3 or so days over 30 degrees C, it seems.

Spiritually, however, the heat however is decidedly ON! The world is not averse to further collisions with the Tower of Truth, even in truculent mode. Why should it be ? After all, in the end as noted in Revelation 19:19, the international 'force' of the day is directly to make war on the Lamb! What mother is not teeming with action when her child is threatened, and here there is simple justice as well. No wonder the "wrath of the Lamb" is revealed in Revelation 6:16. The church has been left long enough to test, but its life will be preserved (Matthew 16). It is not the church of the living God, but the world without Him which is to fail. When asteroids fall, sometimes the point occurs to some of God's enemies, that their aspiring case to govern His universe for Him, but without Him, is lost.

It is - and so are they who promote it. They will still do it. That is the nature of sin. It loves building its own towers, which always crumble has since Babel;  and loves  impacting on the Tower of Truth, Jesus Christ the righteous. He does not, and cannot fall (cf. Matthew 21:44). That, it is all a waste of time, like trying to count without a mind; but the laboratory test and exposure of the hearts of many, and of their cultural, ideological and philosophical, their theological and existential lusts, this is not in vain. Acts 17:26 tells us that God has set for the nations times ... It is high time for individual and for nation to come to the fountain and wash (Zechariah 13:1). It is not for Jews only, though it will be in that time. It is for one, it is for all, that Christ may be all and in all, as it is written: "but Christ is all and in all" - Colossians 3:11.

There is, quite simply, nothing else. Like unreal numbers, they do not really count.
 
 

*1
Abortion is not always wrong, but rarely right.

If someone has intercourse through rape, one should have hoped it obvious that it would be sheer madness to take further the drastic rupture of the realities of love, and enforce its aggression into a permanent monument. You might as well say, If someone is tortured, do not bind the wounds!

If someone is about to die, if having child, then there is an option. A life goes in either case, and in the one, a husband loses his wife, in the other, a child its mother.

If there is an very early stage of pregnancy, before there is formation of limbs, for example, and especially perhaps the central nervous system,  then if health will make it hard for both mother and child to be well, there is a good case. Reproduction is a function; assuredly, it has as its end, a human being, but that end need not be reached, and if it be near the beginning, then the dismissal of grief for both may be worthy of consideration. If it is very early, and before there is any thought of an integral being at all, there is little need to be concerned if it will jeopardise health for both mother and child, to continue.

Of course, one would have to be sure that this estimate of 'health' was based on more than mere possibilities and was a basic issue.

What of the case where it is known that the child would be a moron, for example, if that be possible to know, before it was formed to the CNS stage ? This case is exceptionally difficult. It would appear that this is not a ground for exclusion, when one reads Angel Unawares, where the child was far form unpersonal and had profoundly beneficient effects on the film star parents. It would appear that one has no religious right to remove anything, outside rape,  except what would meaningfully threaten to remove itself, the mother or both.

Abortion for convenience, however,  is of course an abhorrent prostitution of the sacred for the profane. What is this convenience ? Does a person then for convenience cheat at tax, or break the speed limit ?

Certainly, if someone is dying, one could envisage it might be an understood if unwritten thing to use due care and break a speed limit: it must be within limits since it could injiure someone else otherwise, but the case is conceivable. There are times when rules FOR convenience may be broken for necessity - that is, man's rules. Even this, however, should be subject to the utmost scrutiny, since the limits of actual peril may not be properly understood by the person visited with emergency.

Merely however to speed for convenience, to eat for convenience, to live for convenience, and yes, to kill for convenience, it is a pagan proposition, leavingt God out and making the self central in a way which being contrary to reality, is irrational. To say that it is selfish is too little: it is self-ridden. Thus to kill for convenience seems ruthless and gross. If the Golden Rule is applied, then the parent to be would be quite happy to be killed by the child, if it felt it convenient to do it...

That rule is like a Tower in the Truth. It is best seen in the light of the law of God, as to what enlightened, one would seek in the first place. Sick people can want absurd things, such as water from a mirage which has no water. It is only when one is in the Tower of Truth, connected to the Twin Tower of the Love of God, that the will of God is first sought, then seen. The windows in this tower are spectacular both for view and for cleanness. You see a long way, even the land which is very far off, and far more besides.
 

Let us hear Isaiah 33:16-17:

"He will dwell on high;
His place of defense will be the fortress of rocks;
Bread will be given him,
His water will be sure.
Your eyes will see the King in His beauty;
They will see the land that is very far off."