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Chapter 6

PROCEEDING TO THE PRESENT

LIKE TAKING A JOURNEY AND LAND,

AND THEN WATCHING IT FROM THE AIR

Since those days in New Zealand, much has happened, and of this, some salient points are selected.

In turn, these things can now be put in something more like an overview which follows, to help overall perspective, in some ways moving up to the present time.  While some points have been noted above, here we can present matters in a broader scope of perspective, while missing data can to some extent be supplied in the process.

THE PROGRESSION IN THE MINISTRY

THAT ENDS WHERE IT BEGINS, IN JESUS CHRIST

AN OVERVIEW

THE START AND THE UNUSUAL

The beginning of what became quite a spiritual saga with vast powers of concerted opposition, was my conversion to Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, with His word as His own, reliable, His Spirit as sent by Him, as provided and His task as assigned, the work of the Christian Ministry through the Presbyterian channel, my responsibility and His charge and care.

To meet the demands of Westminster Seminary, which was required after the explosive nature of the radical liberalism to be found in Ormond College, Melbourne, the recidivist residue of what had once been a fine seminary, it was necessary to extend my academic qualifications. Choosing Sydney University for this task, not least because of the state of Economics at Melbourne University, I found a new hurdle. After about 6 weeks of the first Term, the University decided that I could not take a course in Educational History (or some such name), which I had been taking and enjoying immensely, because it required a prior educational course. Why it took so long to discover this, is something unknown to this writer!

This created a problem. How could I leave this and start a new course in a new University with much of the First Term gone, including book selection and purchase, orientation and all preliminary indications of emphasis, not to mention the work covered ? This was a matter for the Lord who called me, as were and are all matters beyond human control, absolutely; for where was I to make the academic ends, unknown in good measure, to meet!

In the Lord's beautiful providence, just as the funds for going to the USA when such funds were governmentally rationed were quite miraculously obtained, so was this hurdle overturned. I found a most remarkable Lecturer in the second part of the Economics course, brilliant, dashing and even witty, and liberated from determinism to boot! (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7). Moreover he was kind.

Taking his only copy of the lecture notes so far (including such comments as 'laugh here'), he let me have them over Easter so that I could catch up! Not only so, but much later, he and another most congenial Lecturer met with me about something and we had a fascinating conversation about motivation, a topic important in Economics. It is instructive to note how it went.

One customary and rather quaint concept in much theory in economics is this, that man selfishly contrives to seek profit. If his procedure makes it, well; if not, not well. He seeks satisfaction moreover, even adjudging minute matters for their increment for satisfaction, so much of this versus so much of that,  and so much payment for this, and for that, in a complex, analytical marginal, machination. Thus is he moved. Ludicrous as it is, as almost a parody of the most debased of minds and the most robotised of residues of the human race, it has been in various forms, a sort of hedonistic commercialism, seriously taught. What would Gilbert and Sullivan have made of it, in terms of the very model of a modern hedonistic, profiteering, scientific marvel of modern humanity, who knew everything about what does not matter, to the point that he quite forgot what he was here for, the purpose of his life and its very meaning.

In Gilbert's satire, the modern major-general knows anything about anything, and quite abstrusely too, but his training, in view of his exalted rank, need not include much about war.

Our war is massively to be seen in terms of what is the perspective, the atmosphere, the point, the purpose, the origin, the destiny and the duty, the responsibility of man, and the requirement of the Author of life: how such preludes are faced. It includes in fact as we see in SMR,  what is the ditching of these things that might be done by nullifying the obvious and missing the point. To bypass such issues, does nothing to remove them, and they remain whatever short-cut or short-circuit may be preferred (cf. SMR pp. 349A-372, incl. 357).

To ignore this, without even considering the outcomes, is precisely what prejudice is all about. The things of man's spirit (cf. SMR pp. 348ff., It Bubbles ... Ch. 9, Little Things... Ch. 5, Deliverance from Disorientation ...Ch. 8), determine -

 often with decisions based on priorities, based on principles based on understanding, based on research and realisation, based on the nature of man,
based on the nature of God, based on reason and revelation,
graced with verification, often with choice, taken this way or that:

what man conceives to be the nature of things. These include commercial things. That embraces their actual value, in terms of purpose, and this in relation to the nature of man's soul, mind and life.

It was suggested in the conversation with these Lecturers, who seemed in this case models of courtesy, that even if you had certain moral, spiritual values, then these would be satisfied, and if so, why not marginally, according to the economic theory ? What did it matter what KIND of consideration led to the satisfaction, it was still satisfaction, and hence the theory was not really so much influenced, after all, by the nature of the source which sought satisfaction.

In reply, I noted that if we are to consider things from different perspectives, we need models (whether or not this was the language, this was the point, put this way or that). If we look at Biblical Christianity, which with good reason I took to be right, and operative - and I was PART of the whole of humanity which any theory about its nature MUST consider and cover, if it is to be more than systematised prejudice; and if we then considered this human unit, myself, what followed ? It was this. We had a systematic problem with such an approach. I for my part did not seek my own satisfaction. I was part of the field to be analysed and characterised! You cannot claim to be accurate in generalisation if you ignore things.

No, I do not act like that. This point was made.

Further, neither does the biblically defined Christian. That merely extends the significance of the impact of this contrary breed to any theory; but even one person of sound mind constitutes an exception which ruins a theory attempting to formalise an aspect of human behaviour. I do not cease to be human because I have not been dehumanised as I conceive the theory to have as the nature of its thrust. Moreover, however you conceive it, I stand as an exception; and you can add those among the professing Christians, who are in fact  so.

Do I not then seek the satisfaction of my spiritual preference ? Such was the tenor of the query I then faced.

No, I do not. While it is true that Christ is my spiritual preference, it is no less true that when I become a Christian, my own self as a criterion (that is, I prefer Christ, therefore I take Him - not the biblical mode, incidentally - John 1:12, Romans 9:16) ceases to be in charge, control and the criterion. Good or bad, that self is now subjected voluntarily, willingly and spiritually to another whose satisfaction I seek. I am crucified with Christ (Galatians 2:20), and if not, how am I a biblically defined Christian at all (Galatians 5:24), since those who ARE such,  are in fact so crucified! Moreover, this is my practice, I indicated. Does it satisfy the Lord, and if so, what does it really matter if it satisfies me (as a criterion)! I am not my own, but bought with a price (I Corinthians 6:20).

MY satisfaction as a human being of diverse preferences is NOT even relevant ultimately, to what I desire and hence, being directed by God (Psalm 32, Acts 16), what I need and so as required, buy, and buy not to a margin of desire, but to the extent needed for the purpose, program, propositions of the Almighty and fulfilment of my tasks. It is not an incremental desire but a categorical purpose and requirement, not subjectivised but observable that is in point. As to Him, He is not a man in His eternal form (Philippians 2), but simply became one in format to perform His own task of salvation, to make it freely (Romans 3:23ff.) available to every man (I John 2).

You cannot read out God on a complex computer program, or cash register composition. The Bible puts it like this (from I Corinthians 2:14-16), "But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him ? But we have the mind of Christ." In other words, we are in friendly and serviceable subjugation to Jesus Christ, who being God, has authority over us, commands, directs, guides, counsels, uplifts us, gives us priorities and purposes, commissions and enablements. We are specifically, in addition, told not to seek what to wear and so on (including of course, this on an incremental basis set for personal satisfaction dependent on price and what is lost if money is not spent elsewhere and so on), but rather first the kingdom of God.

No, but this is not all. We are told in this same passage in I Corinthians 2, that the natural man does NOT receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. That is, the man who has not as yet been illuminated, challenged, changed and regenerated by God so that he can act in a knowing and knowledgeable way with Him, is 'natural' and not 'spiritual'. This all is expressing the same theme.

Seeking to maximise, if you want to put it in that rather strange way at a personal level, the satisfaction of Christ, then, granted this use of the form for comparative purposes only with economic theory, you do not by DEFINITION maximise your own, since you are not He! Moreover, HE, being God, has vast domains of eternal and exhaustive wisdom which you do not have. The case, then, is not only different from meeting your own satisfaction, but categorically disparate; and the comparison is that between the finite and the infinite, which does not make for much in way of intimate, arithmetical comparison.

They were gracious enough to seem to conceive this and to see something of its point. It was a fascinating and valuable meeting.

However, in the end, the requirements of Westminster Seminary were met, I flew there, right down to the last resultant, alighting from the bus from the airport, to the gate in the snow, to carrying my two suitcases up the regal-seeming, upward path to the place. Then in three semesters, what was required was done, and in the main, most profitable it was.

Eventually, this led to the graduation in B.A. B.D. and this was almost small compared with the non-academic challenge to follow.

After graduation, academically, I took the Master of Arts with Honours at Melbourne University (1964), and the Diploma of Education with all Honours there also when it was needed (1977), and was awarded the Doctor of Theology Degree, at the instance of the Chairman of the Doctrine Committee of the Presbyterian Church of Victoria, from the Berean Graduate School of Divinity for my 165,000 word thesis in Christian Biblical Apologetics and sundry works. All this may sound routine, but its setting was far from that.

However, inside this exterior there was a vast conflict; and it was not within, but with those purporting to serve Jesus Christ, professors and their allies in the Presbyterian Church of Victoria. So vile was their teaching, so anti-biblical their theme, so enormous was the hideous defilement of the Bible, so irrational its clothing and so depraved its nature that one wondered why the other students did not equally risk their careers and stand for Christ and His word, in the midst of such a quisling operation as this CHURCH ASSAULT on the Bible. It was sometimes venomous, often emotionally highly charged: it sought to subvert, quite explicitly, the Bible as the written criterion of truth, Moreover, as often with such subversive thrusts, it was lofty and self-exalted; but when it was exposed as categorically false, there was a super-charged atmosphere of hostility which led to my excision from the Class.

THE CHALLENGE, THE CONSEQUENCE AND THE VICTORY

In testimony, therefore, the account is longer.

Before Westminster Seminary graduation in 1957, I challenged these liberal Professors in the Ormond College Seminary, Melbourne, in answer to their challenge to students as these academics attacked  the book of Daniel as being subterfuge, and tried to deny the powers of prediction of Jesus Christ. Instead of answer to my exposure of these errors, duly made, I was removed as a candidate for this Ministry in 1954.

After graduation, ecclesiastically, at Westminster Seminary, I found that the confrontation rolled on. Exclusion from the ministry rollicked on at the hand of my liberal opponents, in control of the body back in Australia, the one which decides candidature. This took its time to move to the final test in this world, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia in 1964, but after I had taught for some years and proceeded to the work of my Master's degree, the time came for the meeting with hundreds of Ministers and elders present, in Sydney.

In this, I was backed by a Presbytery in Canada, a land in which I had preached both when at Westminster Theological Seminary and subsequently, and one in Tasmania, where I was teaching in a Church School (including religious studies) as also by  a large congregation in Victoria, giving a threefold cord. We acted against the Theological Education Committee of Victoria, which sought to exclude me from the Ministry following my testimony. The opportunity to fall from it, to cease this exclusion,  was presented and refused, and as is not uncommon, false charges had been added.

 In Sydney in 1964, we won on appeal to this General Assembly of Australia, in a most dramatic exchange when the Lord verified profoundly the promise of Luke 21:15; but that in itself is a separate story! It may be seen from this link, and others like it at this site. The important thing is this: that despite a 'congregation' of ministers and elders, a large proportion of whom would have been mis-educated by liberal teaching, the Lord undertook to uphold His servant, and overturned the false condemnation of 10 years or so standing, and even brought applause at the God-given answer to one of the probing questions of the opposition! Praise God because with Him, NOTHING is impossible!

The contest had a further phase, even after that, but it also led to a victory in the power and goodness of the Lord.

 The aftermath happened in this way. A required essay for licensing, on the virgin birth in Isaiah 7, a topic which was my choice, was rejected; but a copy sent to Professor E. J. Young of Westminster was given Honours. I had taken this precaution of sending an insurance copy to expose any wrong-doing from any Australian assessor, knowing from many year's experience, the volatility and fire of the opposition. On my presenting challenge to the Stated Clerk of that Assembly, the General Assembly of Australia,  on the ludicrous nature of this further persecution, and affirming that this was a grave dishonour to the Church, he agreed, and in fact, went further, and undertook to act.

Thus, he pledged that  if I provided another Essay, New Testament this time, he personally, being able, and under certain conditions, would call a special meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, just to cover the outrage of such a case.

 Thus assured, I agreed to write a further essay, and several copies of this were to be sent to scholars, including F.F. Bruce. The arrangement was that if the international scholars such as he, were happy with the essay, and the examiners in Australia sought to exclude me further, then that special meeting of the GAA would be called! It should be emphasised that not only were the Liberal academics in seminary making an entirely different book of Daniel, on a self-contradictory theory (the ground of my exclusion, when I showed this to be so,  in Class, a reply praise God, never answered!); but we as students were placed  under explicit challenge as to our integrity, if we still believed the book of Daniel.

 The case in fact was even worse than this. In New Testament studies, a new Christ who could not know He would rise from the dead in three days had been presented in Class, and when  as enabled by the Lord,  I exhibited this for what it was, in argumentation the day before my exclusion from Ministry training in the PC of Australia, the stage was set, and the official termination of that training duly arrived!

 F.F. Bruce and Professor John Skilton of Westminster Seminary both being happy with the new essay, no one in Australia tried any more to exclude me and I was licensed in 1965, sent to a Charge and eventually became a Presbyterian Minister when, called as a Visiting Preacher to a suburban Church in New Zealand, I was ordained by South Auckland Presbytery.

 At that time, Professor Geering, Principal of the only NZ Presbyterian seminary, was busy denying, with vast Press coverage, the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. His words appeared simply based on his philosophical predilections, which seemed largely anti-supernaturalist and naturalist in disposition, but the people being ready to become free of Christ and perhaps, being deceived, to have a half-way house if possible, on the rampage towards straight unbelief, got into the business, on rather a large scale, of making a new christ, who would not bother to rise, to inspire, to fire, to teach, to astound, to consummate the resurrections wrought in his life-time, and to seal that of Lazarus, that succinct prelude of power.

It is in a way rather like rotting wood: at first the wood is sound, then ages, then flakes just a little, then gets grooves, then loses strength until underneath the superficial paint, it cracks. The crack may not be noticed for a time; then it snaps. Such in outline seems to have been the motion to apostasy in the Presbyterian Church of New Zealand, and in many others of various religious persuasions, who enjoyed the spectacle of this shocking betrayal and jejune jumble sale.

There are many ways of selling Christ: one of the more popular recent ones is simply to retain the name and alter the reference. But let us proceed with the action in New Zealand in 1966.

I was then called to a pastorate in Blenheim on the South Island, just opposite Wellington where the challenge to this heresy, was presented via Overture by our congregation, to the Assembly of 1966.

 Given 7 minutes flat to speak, as commissioned as an Assembly representative, I duly delivered the Overture. In this event, I showed from the Greek in Acts 2, there was no possible other rendering than that which indicated that Christ’s flesh did not rot, and that any schoolboy understands what it is to rot; and likewise affirmed  that a prime apostle had so affirmed on a central occasion in the very establishment of the Church, and this for a central reason, and that to deny it was not merely to offend our official standards, but the Bible and the foundation of the Church. They refused the correction required by us, of this heresy. We indicated we would so hold to biblical truth, whatever they did.

 When it came to the vote, I alone (it sounds like Elijah’s prayer) made a request to have my DISSENT RECORDED,  from their Resurrection Statement, a fact not presented in the Press, but exhibited in a Christian Paper published in New Zealand, shortly afterwards. This covered of course all uses of it, applications, implications. The thing was horrendous and as my words on the Overture had shown, an interment of the apostolic and power basis of Christianity, biblical truth and the commitment of the Church.

After a few days, I duly presented some 17,000 words of official ground for my dissent from their heretical ‘Resurrection Statement’, which had made the body of Christ irrelevant to the ‘resurrection’. The bodily resurrection was, I indicated, indispensable to the faith, incorrigible and indefeasible: apostasy alone could deny it. This meant that in all matters involving the Resurrection Statement, I condemned these also. The Stated Clerk told me that “the Presbytery will deal with you,” which in due course they did, coming by announcement in the secular Press, to examine my Ministry.

This meant that there was ONE dissident to the total apostasy of the PC of NZ, this my dissent recorded for all time, officially and formally, in all matters covering the use and nature of that statement; and therefore, what finds it convenient to distress this fact, the truth, for whatever devious, delinquent or other purposes, has fallen into the abyss of the powers of deception. It is amazing that so simple a thing should be ignored by so many for so long; but it teaches the shudderingly horrid reality of the distortions of history which some even amongst some of the Reformed in this matter,  appear to have contributed.

If it were proper, one would almost be drawn to congratulate the devil on a positive masterpiece of Press manipulation, human folly, gross carelessness and unwound tongues flapping like fallen flags. However, that fallen fiend need not imagine his lies will prevail. Though the wind seem fair, and hot, yet the vessel of truth will not yield to his heresies or his slanders alike.

But what is it like ? Such things are like arthritis in the body of religion, seeking to invade the body of Christ; but this, it is intact and in no need of a diet of met-worst, that spiritual parallel to metwurst. Our Bishop, Jesus Christ, cannot be suborned or deceived, and judgment will not fail to be according to truth (Romans 2:1ff.).

It is such morbidities, seductions and slurs which by contrast emphasise and underline the beauty of truth, just as it does the reality of that judgment which comes. There have even been reported two Ministers who (though wishing to remain anonymous) were stated to doubt that the speech in the Assembly of 1966 was ever made, even though the Session of St Ninian's authorised the Overture to Assembly and the Minister, oneself, duly acted in that hyper-charged atmosphere to present it, and duly received the threats noted.

When will truth once more be revered, and evil speaking contain itself in much of what is called the Church! One is all too aware of the follies such as Paul was ready to correct in diseased misuse of the tongue, as seen in the end of II Corinthians 12, and of gossip,  in 12:20ff., or even Romans 1:29-30, where we meet at the end of the line of fall syndrome, whisperers slithering into evil speaking. Such things, together with   II Timothy 3:3-5, trace some of the defections of the end of the Age. It is sad but necessary to meet them; for as in a Chemistry experiment on analysis of substances, so here in the history of this Age, if such things were not here, how would the Bible be true. Since however it is, as in the Handbook, so in history it befalls us.

But let us return to reality in NZ and watch the flow of actual events following the Assembly confrontation from St Ninian's via their Minister.

Since the heretical NZ Seminary  Principal had by this time also reportedly indicated that the supernatural was actually an obstacle to 20^th century belief, I told the presbyterial representatives come to examine my Ministry, as the newspaper had duly announced for all to see: that in this respect, even Islam did better than those tolerating such infidelity! That was no compliment to Islam, as they were quite well aware ...

That led to our physical separation, they taking the rest of the elders, the Session, to indoctrinate them, while leaving myself alone. After half an hour, the medical specialist on our Session returned, announcing that he had told them that I had been given 3 minutes, whereas the Session had counter-charge made to it,  over the period of half an hour, and that in equity he could no longer participate. Later he resigned as Session Clerk. In his letter to this effect, he indicated that the number of cars at the congregational meeting with Presbytery, concerning my ministry,  was such that one would have thought it a wedding ... or a crucifixion. 

We as Session appealed to the next Assembly from the action by which Presbytery tried to remove me, and since Assembly then met in two halves over two years, this stood. I warned the people, but we lost a further elder who on understandable grounds, decided he could no longer stay in such a denomination, so losing our majority.

It was then that I transferred (in three days, rather interestingly in view of Christ's famous arising from the dead in the predicted three days) to the RPCES. Such touches are a blessing to the one in the war, for they have just that irony, confirmation of feeling and degree of lustrous humour so often found in the Lord! (cf. Psalm 2). This RPCES at that time was a stout-seeming little body calling itself true-blue Presbyterian, and therefore after preliminary correspondence, I proceeded to the USA, where various mission works were soon to be done. A little later, I was called to a pastorate in Hinsdale, Illinois, at The Church on the County Line.

THE VICTORY IS THE LORD'S - THE SEVENTH DELIVERANCE

A MATTER OF EPHESIANS 5

During the interim, spent in various centres from Denver to Kutztown, Pennsylvania, Cleveland, Ohio to Indianapolis, largely in work for the National Presbyterian Missions, as well as for a short period in Colorado, I met and in due course married a missionary preparing for India. The story is of no small interest.

It was earlier, while at Mission Headquarters, not long after arrival at and reception into this Church in the USA, that I had met Margaret Cameron, missionary designate to India, who had been waiting for some time for the way to clear for her to go there. Later, when I had occasion to return to that same city, in order to preach for some months, we met again.

She was a person in whom my delight in virtue and spiritual grace could find expression, and our personal friendship, which at that stage could as well have been between two people of any gender, included walks in the famed Winterthur Gardens and her often hostessing in the Mission Headquarters, where I would eat and sometimes play the piano.

During the 3 and one half years that Margaret had then been with the Mission,  it had become apparent that India was not willing at that time to receive a white missionary. Thus,  when all this was carefully checked before God (for I had no call to India and we could scarcely be living in two continents as married), and all avenues we could discern had been considered for her to go there in any situation, all being negative,  things seemed to open. It was then that even a tentative proposal could be made, and indeed was made and accepted at her home at one Christmas season.

If there had been any residual avenue for India, it was quite clear, the Lord's work and will coming first, there would and could be no question of our marriage. The Lord however decided otherwise, and by steps we were able in faith to proceed towards it.

When the Mission director was called on the telephone and duly informed of our plans, making no objection, we felt at last free actually to proceed and marry, Lord willing. If one field and door for her work after so long had closed, this opened.

It had thus taken considerable preliminaries to reach this stage, but now it came. In fact, it was on our way to the wedding in Maine, that we received in passing the Post Office, an invitation to proceed to Virginia, on the part of a Church there, seeking a Pastor. To this we proceeded, after a brief honeymoon spent at Bar-Harbour, in a house belonging to Margaret's sister.

That is how this phase ended, with our proceeding to the beauties of Virginia and its quaint-seeming ways. Yet the spiritual side of the marriage had its own genesis.

Events proceeded in this way. On one occasion, we had been conversing about co-workers in a missionary perspective, and Margaret had theoretically been discussing problems which people may have with co-workers on the field. At this,  I had remarked that what one needs in the field is someone whose faith sparks your faith (iron sharpens iron). Margaret then realised that this was what I did for her, when we talked about spiritual things.

She did not disclose this, but at that moment had a sudden realisation. It included a conviction, as she afterwards called it, that I would be her husband at some unknown and future date (even if she had been called and proceeded to India and later come back!). Actually,  this came before any such thought had come to lodge in my mind. Indeed, she was given real peace about this matter; and as she was and is a most prayerful person, this was no small thing. To me, however, it was not at this stage disclosed.

How strange it seems,  that just as I had in general been talking about the complementarity of workers' skills and gifts, and how one may in the best case stir another's faith,  for best overall service, giving a sense of mutuality and more completeness, so in particular there was this personal result.

Earlier when we had met and had been talking over a cup of tea about India, I had asked what sort of call Margaret had. She replied that her call was simply to the mission field since she was single and had no ties. She felt this was a reasonable call, though I felt there should have been a definite call to India, and that in such a case as that, she would be sure to get there. As seen above, her call did become particular, but not then to India.

Indeed, when I left the Mission headquarters to go to the West for some possibilities and work there, we parted as good friends, and I undertook to write. But she knew! In her own most discrete way, she had said nothing of her conviction, nor had the topic arisen between us! Such is the beauty (and duty) of self-control ,and the Lord be praised for it. Indeed such was faith, for she did not need to stir, and the matter was not even broached, despite her conviction. The Lord would act in His own way in this matter. She waited for Him!

In this, as in so much of the Lord's good dealings, the case seemed remarkable.

Now we come to its development on my own side. This is how the Lord for His part in the matter, DID act.

Called quite suddenly (after some months of activities)  to prayer for some hours on this topic of marriage, unexpectedly while in Colorado, thousands of miles away, I became aware of a divine call to seek whether marriage indeed was now at last (I was some 40 years of age),  an open door from the Lord. I seemed suddenly to become as one brought to life on the issue. This challenging constraint to pray on this topic,  coming from His hands, took me quite by surprise; and it was caused to weigh heavily on me. Hour by hour I waited on the Lord, reviewing considerations, and receiving assurances, until it was clear that this was something He would have me pursue, as I sought to implement whatever He had in mind, who being a great Father is full of counsel.

Thus to Margaret I directed a 'phone call. Since it was a party line, and thus we could not speak very freely, I referred in this telephone conversation to the Bible Chapter in view (the first word to her, on such a topic), namely Ephesians 5, which speaks in exalted and precious terms, on marriage. It was in this way that the topic was introduced!

My wife-to-be had just at that time been studying this chapter, and knew at once the topic in view. It was in this way, step by blessed step, that the mind of Christ became apparent, as if leaf after leaf were placed together to make a fine polished table of certainty and stability.

After a Christmas visit to her home, when all could be and was decided, since there had already been due checking on the mission field situation, a fine and devoted old Orthodox Presbyterian Church Minister, well known and loved by my wife as a man of the Lord from much past experience,  married us in Houlton, Maine. In this, various family were attending from Prince Edward Island or elsewhere, the Principal of the old Bible College (New Brunswick Bible Institute) of my wife-to-be, acting as best man. She, he said to me - since my wife to be was one of his former students at the College - is out of the top drawer! Nor can I can doubt it! Virtue and wisdom, grace and goodness seemed to shine in her.

It was later to be found that Margaret's training and missionary talents were to be put to good use, not least as she ministered for years to local aboriginal children in Australia. That however was part of a later chapter in our lives.

It was shortly after the engagement was confirmed and our marriage ceremony completed,  that we proceeded  to 'candidate' as they call it in the USA, that is, to preach and see if we and they would like a pastorate to be formed; and while in Virginia we had a splendid time amid its luxuriance, I preaching nearly every night. At the end of the period of our stay, the matter was was left in abeyance for the time. We later heard when in Chicago of their continued interest, but by then other things had come.

The way this happened was this.

While still in Virginia, we received a call by telephone from Illinois, to see if we would be interested in the pastoring of an interesting sounding church in that State, in Chicago, The Church on the County Line. Thus we visited there, and after some time, being called,  accepted and were soon ensconced in a quite charming little home amid 4 acres of birches,  maples and the like, which shrouded it in a delightfully intimate way. The lady whose home was nearby in the same wooded area, was very kind and asked us if we would care to use her swimming pool. We assuredly loved this whole scene, and before long an amazingly receptive youth group being active, had reason to prepare material for them, present it and find how great was their interest.

Thus it was that  the beginnings of my Biblical Christian Apologetic work came. It was during that Summer that (from memory) that something like its first 50,000 words were written. These were quite a minor part of  what appeared in my subsequent Th.D. thesis. One of the Directors of the Church, himself 74 years of age,  and being sometimes enthusiastic, said he had never heard anything like that.

He was Jewish and an ebullient and even  youthful sort of person in some ways, and at the first we had splendid times with him, though alas secret society work, contrary to scripture, began to interfere with his Church work, and formed a gall, as it were, on the tree. On the good side,  were carefully challenged by the Board to make sure that if they erred from the Bible in any way, I should tell them.

This was to become rather a fateful and assuredly a sad matter later, since the whole issue of obedience to the Bible became at last too strong for them, and in a narrow division, they elected for a course out of line with Bible commands, but intensely in line with some of American culture. As is my duty in any case, and as requested, when the time came, they had to be adv ised of this, and this led to much.

Nevertheless, in the interim, a wonderful opportunity presented itself, and I even had occasion to present a spiritual and biblical lecture of some challenge to an interstate gathering in a neighbouring State, to some effect.

The marriage meanwhile, that had just preceded this pastorate was an exceedingly happy one, and my wife and I had had remarkably similar spiritual backgrounds, even though she had been born on a farm in Prince Edward Island, complete with sleigh for some journeys in the snow, and I in citified Melbourne. The Lord, as always, certainly knew what He was doing when He ordained this marriage; but then again, we sought Him in this, put Him first, and left the whole matter from the first in His hands. Indeed, it was a marriage born of prayer.

From this marriage over the years, came one son and one daughter, the former one of the chief technical agents, indeed the centre in technology for the hundreds of such hours needed to launch this site on the Web, and all that went before at that level. One cannot but be grateful to God for His grace in this, and my daughter has contributed quite a few of the larger drawings and sketches that appear on this same site. But this is to look ahead. Let us return to my appointment as pastor of the Church on the County Line, in Hinsdale, Illinois.

As noted, our youth work in this Church was prospering greatly, and the more I prepared to show the truth of the Bible, the more the young  heeded. However, the difficulty already noted arose. The Board of that independent Church moved from the Bible, critically refusing to cease having public prayer at political meetings open to all faiths and non-faiths. Paul in II Corinthians 6:14ff. makes it eminently clear that darkness does not have FELLOWSHIP with light. What fellowship, he asks, has darkness with light; or unbeliever with believer! It is apostolically FORBIDDEN explicitly, to have this spiritual reciprocity and alliance in such a case.

A weak rejoinder was attempted: prayer was not fellowship! Such distasteful prevarications do not appeal. Indeed,  the concept that prayer is not fellowship is so ludicrous, past all guffaw, when it is in fact at the most intense-level spiritual correlation of co-operatives, co-ordination of believers on a common basis, in the divine name of Jesus. As seen in Romans 8:26-27, Acts 4:11-12, sent from the Lord (John 15:26), the Spirit of the living God is livingly at work in the very Christians concerned, like a coachman for the horses, drawing the coach in  in common together.  

Spiritual horses do not neigh 'Nay!',  but in fellowship together, depict it when in harness, working for the Lord: the particular case here being that of praying, alert to his guidance and mutually stirring directions. Indeed such contention as this, which was attempted in our meeting was merely specious, worse than ludicrous, a contradiction in terms (cf. Acts 4:23-32). As with one heart and mind, "with one accord"  they lived, and they here prayed: and this record of early fundamentals of the faith  is for our edification.

Pray is not a featureless form, but a dynamic function of the body of Christ acting in one, seeking One, properly stirred by the Lord, who searches His people, while the Spirit of God brings the requests to Him (cf. Romans 8:26-27). To think otherwise is not only unscriptural, but is as if one held that one's own body did not have 'fellowship', part with part, under one head! To the contrary, Paul in the most intimate of ways, beings out its mutuality and singularity amidst its differentiation, speaks in Ephesians 4:16 in this way:

"From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by what every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love."

In prayer, the tuned whole is moulded, almost merged, impelled and moved to seek the Lord as His body approaching the head. It is not a BSA, bits stuck together, but a BODY in Christ who so acts in a profundity of spiritual integration, seeking its own Head. Prayer together with unbelievers (not those who have surrendered to the Lord) is thus like a two-headed monster.

In Psalm 94, David puts it this way:

"Shall the throne of iniquity who frames mischief by a law, have fellowship with  Thee ?

In Ephesians 4:17-19 we see that there is no question of spiritual alliance between those who are unbelievers, who do not accept the Lord's salvation, being alienated from His life, and those who begotten again, are members of His spiritual family (I John 3, Titus 3). To avoid this, is in the end, when you consider it biblically, to avoid the very mandate of Christ for His Church, its very nature and His!

Prayer in the Spirit of God is here in Acts to be seen, in exemplary fashion, in a profound attestation as those of "one heart and one mind" (Acts 4:32) sought the Lord. Of these,  this is said of their prayer:  they raised their voices to God  "with one accord and said...". (Acts 4:24). It is in accord with this, that we find in Romans 8, it is the Spirit of God who is operative in the heart in prayer, in the deepest profundities of life. At work in the earth-moving, mountain displacing realms of faith (cf. Luke 17:6ff.), man strives with one mind for the action of the Lord (cf. Ephesians 6:16-20).

Making for more difficulty in dealing with such things, it seemed that many of the leaders being business executives of one sort of another, had a concept of being directors of the Church, and did not have the Pastor as one of them! This is despite the fact that those who "rule well"  who labour in the word are supposedly especially the recipients of "double honour" (I Timothy 5:17), not displacement. While this is not directive either, it is not a spiritual severance from decision making! It is just that here there are two dimensions in the labour, rather than merely than of 'ruling' or organising and seeking to cause the functions to occur in order and with seemliness and equity.

It is elders who are to manage the affairs of the Church in the Lord (Acts 20:17,28, Titus 1:5ff.). The reason, says Paul in Titus, that elders are to be ordained in the cities concerned, is this: that a supervisor must be the possessor of various qualities, including aptitude to teach and power to rebut error. Teaching and preaching being essential and prominent in any Church, it is thus seen that one of these elders, supervisors, could not fail to be the pastor. Some as noted, are better at this than others; but all must supervise, superintend, rule. The elders are the resource for the pastoral function.

Indeed, Paul calls elders shepherds, in that they must in godly manliness protect and shepherd the flock. In Ephesians 4:11ff., he puts pastors in the list of related functions, with first apostles, then prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. Moreover, as Thayer's famed Greek Dictionary points out, the very word for pastor, in the Greek, MEANS 'herdsman, shepherd' and is applied to mean 'the presiding officer, manager, director, of any assembly.' It is hard to make the presiding officer to be excluded, and indeed, the real presiding Officer, Jesus Christ, in His commands was sadly displaced in this affair, one of secularising the Church in politics and doctrine alike.

In Presbyterianism, thank goodness, the Minister is not 'over' them, but one of them, as is the requirement of Matthew 23:8-10, and all must be subject one to another as Peter proclaims. In  leadership however, elders as one body in the Lord, with various gifts, function especially when action is to come in that regard. It is not exclusive, but it is a characterisable specialty.

In all of this, then , the teaching function is obvious, and it is vested as part of the work of an elder, so that the outstanding cases for teaching, are a sub-category of eldership and are such as to adorn a pastor in his management capacity, along with the other elders.

Thus, elders are as such supervisors as you see in Acts 20, where Paul calls all of them just that. The pastor is merely a specialised elder; but the emphatic point for that specialty, is that the crucial ministration of the word of God is upon his shoulders distinctively. In terms of Titus, a pastor not an elder would be a sheep without wool, a type-writer without a keyboard.

As Paul moreover attests in Romans 11:29, you do not casually divorce a man from his call, because he moves from A to B. Indeed, ordination is of God, not of man, and so the call of which it is the formality continues, as I continued, in the RPCES denomination, as a Minister. Strangely, the directors of the Church to which I had come,  earlier had seemed plainly to agree to recognising the eldership function for all of us; but then, when I wrote to the Church people advising in all simplicity of truth of this delightful change, in a pastoral letter, there was a storm brewing. The Directors denied knowledge of such a change, despite my delight at the time when they made it!

There seemed to be some almost political kind of power play, and mere truth did not appear to rule. It seemed to be imagined that some kind of error had occurred in the Pastor telling the people that the eldership was now inclusive of this biblical facet in this Church, by decision of those concerned.

Not only in agreement, then, but in fact biblically, all being elders, pastor and ruling elders, with or without that teaching specialty to that extent, labour as one before the Lord. Confusion of commercial and spiritual identification was one dysfunction in this body; but alas, failure to obey the word of God was the solemn toll that brought separation.

If the word of God does not rule you, what does!

Neither the word of God regarding political prayer,  nor His will for administration regarding elders was, in the end, received, one of the 'directors' even insisting on being at a secret society. What was most sad was the fact that at an admittedly water-shed meeting of the Church, this sympathetic Director was at a secret society meeting instead; and the Church despite months of prayer about to be crowned by a consummation in faith, instead which went its own way. There was a great evangelical opportunity, but on that night, it was betrayed.

Earlier, hearing reason for the truth of the word of God, as presented at a youth meeting, this Director was most enthusiastic, the one who said that he had never heard anything like that; and yet at that meeting, he was absent for another.  indeed he was a lovable person for all that; yet in the end, he did not heed, declaring when the issue of in appropriate political prayer arose, that he would not alter his way of life in any way whatever. Though some were sympathetic to the call to follow the biblical prohibition in this issue, eventually a majority were not.

The matter of eldership was merely a preliminary, one that worked to distance the pastor from full participation, so removing for one thing, the relevant vote! and full standing for extended debate.

Although I wished the whole matter to be put before the congregation after a couple of months, being willing to confirm resignation if they agreed not to conform to the word of God in the basic matter, it was made clear that if I were to re-appear in the Church, I would be forcibly restrained from occupying the pulpit. Indeed, a particular sermon on biblical doctrine had been in view, and I was told that if this were preached, it would be the end! It was of course preached, and this merely added to the confrontation, which was really with the word of God, and that body, myself a mere agent for the Lord in the procedure.

That sermon, in substance,  may be found in SMR pp. 1176-1185. There was no rebuttal, and its content was necessary for edification.

However, not even the character of the conditional resignation was honoured, and so this body, truly tested by the Lord, proceeded where it had to go. Disobedience to the word of God and duress in practice combined to exclude them from further ministry. Sadly, disorder on disorder intervened in what had been a marvellous opportunity with youth.

This was one of the most delightful occasions, for they were most receptive, seemed highly intelligent and were responding excellently. One lad was later to become it seems, the youngest in the history of his University to complete the pre-med requirements for medical training. He had been passing tertiary subjects as an extra, while still at High School! And what an extraordinary medley of works, lights and action that School put on at the end of their year, not only professional in feeling, but exuberant, imaginative and invigorating.

Alas, though there had been spiritual results that would last, this input had then to come to its grievous end. The adults had acted otherwise.

Our policy, for both my wife and myself, is one: the Gospel of the grace and love of God is to be preached according to the Bible, which is also faithfully to be taught; the commandments are not optional, God does not change: His word is immutable as well as beautiful. We are not our own. Thus, whatever it costs, whatever the case, our charge as a body is to be obedient to the word of God, so that one must challenge, exhort and rebuke if necessary, and for me to preach,  one requires to have this liberty to follow the word of God.

To be sure, as one of our Westminster Seminaries of no small fame contended, if he had been asked to preach in a Romanist Church, he would; but he would assuredly not be asked to preach there again! In an ongoing situation, accordingly, it is liberty or severance, for the word of God is bound! (II Timothy 1:9).

Thus some will say YES, there is to be this following of the the biblical teaching, yet word and deed are so readily divorced. Alas, as I have found both in the USA and in New Zealand, and indeed earlier in Australia, the affirmation that this will be honoured, can be as far from the hearts and near  to the lips as Isaiah ever certified of ancient Israel, and Christ of the Israel of His day (Isaiah 27:13, Matthew 13:14-15, 15:8-9).

What then ? As in a business, you cannot remain where crookedness rules, so in a Church, you cannot do so where the word of God is clearly contradicted, and living is on another plane, as in the political capitulation to custom, noted. The matter is crucial when it is not a question of weakness and failing, but one of principle, procedure and settled plan, verified under due scrutiny and test. Again, it is like an aeroplane, if cracks appeared, perhaps through metal fatigue in the tail, it might be another tale if this is not rectified.  When life proceeds In such a plane where the management refuses to remedy such an evil, it is not wise to fly. It involves a complicity with false aerodynamics, just as at the spiritual level, departure from the commands of Christ constitutes, if pursued under due test, rebellion in which one cannot concur, or have complicity.

So the pastorate ended. After my preaching for some time, while visiting the afore-noted OPC Church in Maine, and in Los Angeles, we proceeded to Australia, where a separated Presbyterian Church was instituted. Before one notes the results, there was an exciting departure worthy of record, from Los Angeles, where we had been temporarily ministering.

I had found the lack of Baby Health Centres as they used to be called, in the section of the USA where I was, to be marked. It seemed you had to go on minor health matters for the child to a doctor who could charge, and it became a select situation. It had its good points for us, in this case however. The doctor had advised us NOT to have a smallpox injection for a child so young (a few weeks), and put this in writing. When therefore we arrived at the Los Angeles airport, ready to fly to Australia, there was an invisible barrier. Departing passengers at that time HAD to have such an injection. Careful of our child, and advised thus medically, I COULD not have it done.

This was a beautiful example of Australian-US co-operation. They most graciously telephoned the Sydney airport, and after some delay, secured the attention of a medical officer who declared that no, it was not in the case of such a young child, necessary to have the injection. Hence we were cleared for departure, and the plane which had been waiting on the tarmac for perhaps 15 minutes, as far as I understand it, engines roaring away, then enveloped us as we hurriedly mounted its residual steps! Such things are very heartening.

On arrival, one soon took a school-teaching job while our affairs were sorted out. It was a fascinating situation. There was in a rather industrial area, a secondary school which had been having a problem with a class of 15 year olds (or thereabouts). That teacher had departed and the Class was in some kind of ascendancy, one gathered. However, they seemed to me a pleasant and courteous sort of body, and one could not fail to have rapport as one considered the kinds of jobs they might take (such as working in an explosives factory); and soon I was amazed to find the Principal ask me to take the Easter message (in a secular school!). Later he asked me if the salary were really enough for me. I did not seek its alteration. They were very pleased and so was I, and we praise the Lord for such interventions.

After nearly a  year of school teaching, we were ready to proceed on our missionary task, with the separated, biblical Church. This was pursued during much of the 1970s, until it became necessary to do my Dip. Ed.  to enable my teaching tent-making to continue; and after this, some years were taken with the Th.D. and similar biblical work, including a closely researched 165,000 word thesis, until I was called as Principal of a Christian School in South Australia, and during the eighties, proceeded to take a Headmastership back in Melbourne, and to teach in sundry posts, starting another separated Presbyterian Church, in Adelaide, which has continued from 1988 to the present, 2007.

Meanwhile, the RPCES which one had joined as a Minister in 1967, was swallowed up in this period by the Presbyterian Church in America, in which one's US Ministry remained sited, the whole covering 1967-1998, over 30 years. Thus one found oneself a Minister in the Presbyterian Church in America. It was not the RPCES, which had a distinctive separation according to the Bible, orientation.  It was a large, new body instead.

This was the approach, and though that little denomination was small, it felt rather like a family, where pomposity and formalism were not overwhelmingly present. However, the separation of some 400 churches from the Presbyterian Church in the US, in the South of the USA, had led to this new denomination, one which claimed the past 300 years or so for its life's journey. Long had they been with the doctrinally unsound southern church, and now they moved.

Indeed on arrival in the USA in 1967, I had been approached as a possible pastor to one of these churches in the South, from memory one of some 400 members, this being before the new denomination, the PC in America,  had formed.

On learning, however, that this southern Church had received those from another church, who being freemasons found in it a home, I asked further concerning this matter, and being not assured that this body of freemasons had no control, I could not pursue the opening further. Freemasonry has been rightly condemned as unbiblical by the PC of Australia and the RPCES. In fact, this was re-affirmed by the latter body, not very long after my arrival in the USA.

Indeed, as one pointed out to the medical specialist in the Session where I was pastor, in NZ, how can anyone who is a Christian become a freemason when you are allegedly proceeding out of darkness, or obscuration of light, into masonic light. Is Christ darkness ? Is the light of the world dark ? Is light obscured through greater force, in Him! So fundamental is this fact^*1, that one can support no body which tolerates this heresy, be it an old school or other.

On this topic of freemasonry, an interesting event occurred early in my stay in the USA. I had found it necessary to bring to the attention of the Synod the fact that certain elders in the Home Mission (or National Mission) department had been installed, though they were freemasons. I pointed out that we were thus (as then a separated church) so 'pure' that we could not have spiritual fellowship with those who in larger US Presbyterian Churches  openly attacked the Bible, but here we were, with scope for elders in effect to have masonic idols^*1, in their back-yards.

Admittedly the point made was strong and a trifle pungent; but for a denomination which had itself condemned freemasonry on excellent grounds much earlier, this sort of decline was not just one of ignorance! It was necessary to strike the chord of conscience, and that not with tweezers! At that, the Pastor in whose church this meeting was occurring, pulled out the microphone, so that my speech could not so well be heard. It was an interesting example of disorder and wilfulness, and in fact  that minister was not so far in the future, to depart from his church, not with wife, but with another lady.

It is strange how such things can occur, when for a time some monument to evil or error is permitted, and those who do not want anything unpleasant (like a tumour to be removed before death) act strangely rather than face it. It can be physical, mental or spiritual. Truth does not die, but is active, like a sword; and though it may spare physical life, that of the spirit is open to horror when truth is defiled.

As I left that Synod meeting, an older Minister of some note, who had joined the Church from Canada, sat outside the building, and pretended as I came out a little later, to be a beggar. It was a little play which apparently he elected to present as the members filed out of the building.

Identifying himself as if a freemason, he asked for help, as if to imply that my exposure of freemasonry as an evil meant that I lacked love for freemasons. On the contrary, when you bother to identify a tumour, it may well be that the love of the afflicted patient is the cause of this! Certainly the necessities of holiness left no option, for to fail to expose heresy is to truncate the word of God (cf. Romans 16:17, Ephesians 5:1ff., I Timothy 6:1ff., II Timothy 4:2ff.).

Thus I was given to reply to him, all this being in public,

My retort was this: If you are a freemason, you NEED help!

Such lively interchanges were at least expressive of some heart in things, rather than cold formalism; but alas, things smoothed down later, and as we shall see, harmoniousness rather than holiness became more and more a substitute for the word and the work which godliness and obedience requires. The word of God never has been an option, nor God being God, will it ever be (Isaiah 8:20, Matthew 5:17ff., 4:4ff.).

Thus over time, decline grew; for as to the new Presbyterian Church in America, though as noted, it claims continuation from the long-standing southern Presbyterian Church in USA, that is one which was less sure on separation. In leaving, they had merely departed from an increasingly radical body. Thus things changed and an uncertain sound came trembling on the air, in a few short years.

Accordingly, eventually this body moved to a radical degree itself. This had proceeded step by step, and not least in its fall to a less than biblical position, seemingly in its dominating desire to be well thought of, or even to survive. Many in the PC in America wanted to have broader relationships, and even in the RPCES stage, one Minister even went to a WCC meeting, a fact at which one had to protest to the Synod. It took so long, however, conscientiously to establish all the facts, before lodging the challenge, that by a formality (too much time had passed before the protest reached the relevant body), no action was taken. It was however acknowledged by the Committee concerned that the protest had basis!

Again, in the PC in America itself, relationships with a non-biblical body had been challenged and the church began to move to separate. However,  the party appointed to do the job, simply did not do it. Eventually, an arrangement was made not to proceed to rectify this failure. Things had begun to lapse further. Then the creation doctrine was challenged, and some wanted to keep to a strict biblical position; but others did not, and these prevailed.

At this time, being in Australia, one could not act in the Assembly, and the default in the USA duly occurred. They even proceeded to make a long statement on creation which was exposed in due course, that being on this site for years (Let God be God Ch. 12, the relevant part for this purpose of which is presented in Appendix III  below).

THE VICTORY IS THE LORD'S - THE EIGHTH DELIVERANCE

The absorption of the RPCES into the PC in America had a further result. In the year of my first joining the former in 1967, there was a Synod at which I insisted, were I to remain in that Church, that there be acknowledgement, as in the Bible Presbyterian Church, that the atonement was offered to all, sufficient for all and adapted to all. I made it clear that unless this needed corrective was inserted in our doctrine, I would not continue in the Church. It was, after all, nothing new and it was entirely warranted (cf. references below).

This was accepted, and that fact constituted one more deliverance, for it meant that the transfer to the RPCES was after all, not aborted almost as soon as it happened!

Thus, and duly, a statement on these lines was declared by the 1967 RPCES Synod. Indeed, this was in conformity with much Presbyterian doctrine in history, when it enlivens Westminster Confession by avoiding the errors of Calvin, through emphasis on the Lord's seeking all, He who would have all to repent, in His love; and in particular with the 1903 revision of doctrine in the PC in the USA. 

This was in line with my own emphasis on the love of God as in the PC of Australia Declaratory Statement and in Colossians 1, I Timothy 1, Ezekiel 33:11 and multitudes of other declarations as noted in the relevant references above. This had already, together with insistence on keeping to the word of God in all its ways, led to no small lack of co-operation from some; and my protests at various degrees of failure to be biblical had been received small satisfaction.

Drift can be little at a time; yet in sum it can render a foundation no more the actual base, but make  of it merely a notional accommodation as a reference point.

Such appeared to occur, until separation became necessary. By that time, I had been in the Presbyterian Church in America (or a church stream entering it) for over 30 years. The time however, oddly enough as I reached 70 years of age, for more sacrifice. What had drawn me to it, sound doctrine and a flair for outreach with the word of God, now repulsed me, for the doctrine became unsound, adherence to what was sound episodic in no small matters, and it acted and reacted with more emphasis on staying alive, not failing, aggrandisement as in the union of the vigorous little RPCES with the larger PC in America.
 

Such appeared to occur, until separation became necessary.

 This action was based on three main thrusts. These were:

	1) the novelties in doctrine, authorising what could by no means be deduced from the Bible by good and necessary inference,
	2) failures in the area of  slackness about ecumenism as also to evangelise in the fallen  Australian situation with biblical fidelity, together with
	3) inadequate coverage of the biblical emphasis on the scope of the love of God, following union with the PC in America,

the first point being decisive (I Thessalonians 2:15, 3:6, Romans 16:17, Mark 7:7-13).

This in sum led to our movement to  independence from such unbiblical departure from apostolic doctrine.

Not seldom, over the years,  did one protest to Presbytery about the slide and decline,  in this form or that, into false ecumenism and practice, and movements towards schism, whether in the USA or in Australia. There, alas,  the opportunity to present a vast challenge to the PC of Australia, so far from being pursued (as if in parallel to the initial development of the Free Church in Scotland in Chalmers' day), was dropped, and not only so.  The case was worse. The opposite in near synthesis between the two erring churches, in these two countries, proceeded with apparent relish, each appearing to bolster the daring in biblical departure of the other! Thus does the movement for reform, when in case of need, it is not followed, become a positive force to deform.

It is interesting to see how the change in the PC in America on creation doctrine occurred. One can construe this in the above noted time of Presbytery's repeated inaction. 

Eventually, as the case worsened, a new focus arose in another Presbytery in the PC in America. It had declined to accept a candidate for the Ministry on doctrinal grounds. This went to the Assembly which on the contrary, accepted him.

What had happened ? It was this. While I was in Australia, the PC in America Assembly overturned a Presbytery's decision NOT to accept a candidate deeming Genesis 1 'a poetic account' (a prelude to much more of this kind). With the inaction of Presbytery and the negative reaction of Assembly,  it became necessary simply to depart from what would never respond in substance or act, but merely speak and continue as it was. Patience was no more relevant, as now it was categorically contaminated, as the years had passed and the crux had been exposed in this case.

Therefore,  as neither Presbytery nor Assembly would act, and the case progressed backwards in doctrine, in the end, a simple severance from the denomination became the path of continuance in the biblical purity that is one's duty and joy. Many years of association as a Minister with this American body, changing as it went both in name and approach, thus ended.

Alas and accordingly, instead of reform on both sides of the Pacific, intimate relationships between the two denominations were fostered, each wallowing in its own departures from biblical truth, neither reforming from this, but sailing sadly away from the purity of former days. Indeed the PC of Australia itself moved from its own constitutional emphasis on the scope of the love of God, through Assembly declaration in 1991. This was attached to a closure concerning the Confession, making it with similar moves, rather a confessional than a biblical church (Mark  7:7ff. to the contrary). On this unhappy movement, one might turn to The World Belongs to Him and I am His, and to Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable Epilogue.

Meanwhile, as to the PC in America, as seen above, the failure on ecumenism became failure in other doctrine and application, so that in the early 1980s,  the swallowing up of the RPCES into the PC in America, a church which developed much later than the RPCES, became one of the tragedies of the 21st century. It was so important to have a body which with moderation and care, would nevertheless proceed with integral realism to follow the biblical commands, and to have this,  whatever society or churches in their foretold failures in large numbers, would do. Now this opportunity in the realm of Presbyterianism was lost, and one could only like Micaiah among the 400 or so false prophets, stand firm; and in departing do so by simple severance.

In this way, it became necessary to sever from being a Minister of the PC in America, an association which by that time had extended, with the preliminary time in the RPCES, over a period of more than 30  years of ordained service. It was however by due and proper transfer to another Church of Presbyterian persuasion, that one moved, as a Minister in good and proper standing at that time,  with the PC in America (I have the dated card yet).

The move was to an Australian Church holding to the infallible Bible and to the kind of approach to the Westminster Confession in the Constitution, originally present in the PC of Australia. It is the Australian Presbyterian Bible Church, also having the shorter name,  Australian Bible Church. In so doing, one explicitly and in writing to Presbytery, appealed to the Lord, the faithful judge, and by faith so acted. In this, Matthew 18 is so relevant and blessed. It is not numbers that count, in their vastness, but faith which does so.

All through both Testaments, people have had to act by faith in the face of decline, and been pilloried. But what of this ? Truth matters, the Bible rules and whatever be the slander or slight that responds, spiritual life nevertheless proceeds in, by, for and with Christ according to the Bible, not in some hybrid.

There are times when not to be daring in faith, is daring out of it!

What is NOT of faith does not please God. This therefore was by faith, leaving the PC in America to do what it desired.

The Church to which one moved made, in other words, the substance of the Confession to be received, but added to it, on the love of God, the insistence on a due complementarity concerning its scope, together with the Confession, just as does the Constitution of the PC in Australia, in order that not a Confession but the Bible would rule without intermission, moderation or suppression.  All this was to be eminently clear and insusceptible to subversions. That was the essence of the matter. The Bible alone would always, in its own integrity right, determine all issues.

It was not that the PC of Australia had a bad basis, but that it had shamelessly left it in extremism that was not biblical, not part of  its original basis, and not tolerable. It is in this way that we are continuing the thrust and base of the PC of Australia on biblical lines; and indeed, it is not the past as such, but the Bible as such that rules. There is no need however for anything substantial to change; it is a matter of proceeding on the sound basis originally set up, and using as required, the Bible at all times to resolve all doctrines without addition or constraint outside it.

Thus two churches were moving in parallel, astray in the USA and in Australia, and ONE marvellous opportunity was cleverly but disastrously avoided, to bring a burning bush of truth, in united purging of error and continuance in soundness,  into the twenty first century.

These are not little things, the love of God, the truth of creation and the abridgement of spiritual fellowship to what follows all of the word of the living God. It is just that in this decadent day, it seems different. It is. It was so in the flood. Things were extreme, and a Noah had to appear decidedly strange, in building in this way on that day! There was however, point in it, and his company duly floated.

This bypassing of doctrine in creation on the part of the PC in America (see Appendix III), lapse from the emphasis on the love of God as noted, and its joining with the PC in Australia for practical purposes appeared jointly to become one more case of the imperial majesty of the Church becoming a ground of conflict with the spiritual majesty of the Lord and the SOLE doctrinal rule of His word. Indeed, the latter church even maintained female elders as if to make it ultra clear that the word of God did not rule, except where the Church found it convenient.

The later negative finding concerning this point by the PC in Victoria did nothing to improve the situation, since the matter was not applied; so that convenience continued  to the contrary of truth,  in the practical rule (cf. Assault on Timothy). Thought without action may be nice; ships still sink when nothing is done to repair the damage.

Thus does error coalesce, and so did the original statement from the highest official in the PC of Australia in the 1970s, to two of us elders - that though many in the PC of Australia did not believe in the infallible scripture, yet they would vote for a Calvinistic approach as they could see no practical alternative -  proceed to its conclusion.

It was to become prelude to a sad historical fact. Calvinism had the appeal for stability; it was used, and would in time lead to the Calvinist captivity of the PC of Australia, the constitutional provisions to protect against this being undermined in Assembly in 1991. It is not that Calvin was a bad theologian but that he made one particularly bad mistake which slanted away from the Bible, and made havoc of one important and wonderful biblical truth (cf. Anguish, Ecstasy and the Mastery of the Messiah Chs.    8 and    9, Great Execrations ... Chs.  7 and  9, The Biblical Workman Ch. 8, Christ Incomparable, Lord Indomitable Epilogue).

Despite this, the ecclesiastical procedure with the new slant were more and more implemented. Was it to be Christ or some new Peter, however keen ? You cannot have two masters, and there is only one word which can and must in the Church of Jesus Christ, directly, unremittingly and finally rule (cf. Mark  7:7ff.). It is the word of God Himself, inscripturated. How ironic that the Westminster Confession so energetic and right in declaring that no council was to be held as authoritative since all men err: but the scripture alone, should itself be USED to violate itself! that the Confession of liberty should become a crimping and a cramping co-existing the while with an erroneous ecumenism, as if to fling wildly on the one hand, and repress miserably on the other!

How often did Israel make decisions of convenience, worldly-wise, and suffer! How true it is that if you seek to save your life, you will lose it. Lost in Christ, only then, are you found. Cutting, trimming or adding to the mouth of God is neither good plastic surgery nor sound in principle.

It is not in this that one judges churches, but events; not people but doctrines; and this not by one's word, but by the Bible as one's ordination undertaking REQUIRES that one do; and for one's own part, this is not an option, popular or not. The Lord will have one, as He did by His grace in New Zealand in the resurrection affair, whoever he be and even if at any time there be no more, who will not bow to unbelief and biblical licence, to move from it. He did not lack a man to speak openly and to condemn justly in that apostate Assembly; and in bringing me to this position, which meant I lost my post in the Church, in the end, He did what one is delighted to report and to remember alike.

So do we trust in Him,  however many be the innovations; nor is this a personal fiefdom, but simply a spiritual necessity. It is the simplest and humblest of actions, like eating one's dinner when a child! After all, it is not in some way NECESSARY to insult one's employer, abort the word of one's Saviour or unhallow His name.

Nor is this some mere assertion, of which to be proud, for of Christ only is one duly proud. It is simply a necessity for testimony; and indeed, it is only and altogether through His grace, vitality and presence, than one has been kept faithful in so many of these conflicts.

Nor is it to say that one has done well, for that estimate is for another; but one can say this, that wherever one wonders if one could have done better in these confrontations, testimonies and endeavours to be valiant for the truth, indeed faithful to it, it is NEVER a matter of whether one should have gone so far, but only of this, could not not have done better by doing even more! That is the only question. Poor one may be, and less than this or that, yet that is not to the point: the Lord has unsearchable riches of glory, and to meet His eminence, one must go down as far as necessary, to the very ground of truth, and stay there.

There is only one opportunity to pass in this way, and it is necessary to make the most of it for Christ. It is HE ONLY who is the Saviour, and what defiles His word, defiles the way of salvation for some, as Christ made clear in Luke 11:40-54. The Gospel is the way, and the word defines the Gospel, so any endeavour to bypass Matthew 5:17-20 is merely a confusion. No other Gospel has ANY place (Galatians 1), and no other word has the authority of God (Isaiah 8:20), everything else being merely derivative and conditional on His word, concerning Himself, His will and His ways. Laxity on addition to or subtraction from the Bible is merely redefinition of the speech of God Almighty.

To be sure, nature itself teaches us much; but the definition is left to Him (Romans 1:17ff.). Of ways of orientation, information in deity and salvation, there is one source in writing, and one in Person; for the Bible is the sole definitive declaration of God in written form for man, just as Jesus Christ is the sole Saviour in human form, God Himself in flesh (cf. SMR pp. 532ff,).

 Judging this, that what the Bible says in instruction is to be obeyed, one does not have to condemn a church in order to leave it; but to watch the criteria and to follow them. In seeking fidelity, it is necessary to seek to follow Him, in obedience to His word; and not to lead, in departure from it. Nor does exposure of error does not substitute for faithfulness; for that, if the word of God declares it time to separate, one must do so (cf. Separation 1997). Far is this desire an implicit self-congratulation, for who could not hope to be far better than one is; it is merely an admission that battle orders from the Lord need to be followed, however few or lowly be the followers.

These sad movements from former soundness on the part of two denominations, now large and elevated, was a thing NOT from the Lord of the Bible, since it did not comport with it; but we were forced in integrity to act in  close dependence on Him who speaks; and indeed, He has continued to bless, with His mercy and favour as we serve Him. In fact, He is always faithful, gracious and understanding. Moreover, we seek as servants do well to do, to find out and do His will as He works in us, both to will and to do (Philippians 2), and to follow His word, not lead it. Let God be God, whoever else is whatever else.

One can the more empathise with Elijah, when the vast declivities of his own day and the intense betrayals of many who did not act for the truth as they should, that he only was left. Actually, as he learned, there were some 7000 left (a tiny percentage of the population nevertheless); but he had to ACT even when they did not show. That is the nature of faith, Noah did not seek a social quorum before proceeding to build his ark, nor Elijah a priestly one before confronting the king.

THE VICTORY IS THE LORD'S - THE NINTH DELIVERANCE

During this time, indeed since 1988, and especially since independence in 1998, I have had occasion to write a set of books on Biblical  Christian Apologetics, to which I felt distinctively called, and for which power and help with what has been an amazing degree of grace, has been given by the Lord. He has both constrained and enabled me to put my back into this task. Morning by morning He has, as it were, sat beside me to energise and illuminate, guide and lead. Never has He failed to answer my queries, resolve difficulties or assign answers. This set has hundreds of pages of index, and is now some 50,000 pages in extent, with 141 volumes so far published. It demonstrates in many ways that God is and that the Bible is the sole divinely authorised communication in writing of God to all mankind. It is as http://webwitness.org.au.

We have sought to check the data concerning the missionary outreach which is thus accomplished. Much remains unknown, but the will of the Lord to have this work done has been both arresting and constraining.

We did find in one survey over some weeks, that 76 nations had participated, downloading chapters, and that at the highest rate of reception appeared to be this, that around 300,000 chapters or similar works were downloaded in one year. While this is higher than the norm, which can vary from half that upwards, it is encouraging, and we praise God for His grace in this.

At times, someone will decide to challenge the presentation, and the record concerning some of these is to be found in Swift Witness. One of the more blatant came from a gentleman who had his master's degree but had grown weary, it seems of his doctoral studies. He would, he indicated, take us apart. This interesting intention was encouraged by us, to the extent that we had provided a presentation and expressed its criteria on the Web, and thus if he wanted to demolish it/us in this matter, why not try! He did. After some exchanges, he announced that he was giving up.

After all, we are but servants of the Lord, and the Lord being with us, and His word, it is His power that is available. While evidence and reason expose Him clearly (cf. Romans 1:17ff., Luke 1, Isaiah 41, 43, 48, I Peter 3:15), sin insinuates a suffocating smog, and it is to be understood that this is the nature of the undivine deception which is the plight of unsaved man (cf. Ephesians 4:17-19, John 8:44-47).

You cannot see, as Jesus pointed out, with your eyes shut (Matthew 13:14-15). The testimony however is not for that reason in vain, since it stands and like a tower, soaring into the skies, speaks what the Twin Towers in the USA could not say. On the other hand, wonderful indeed is it when the eyes open, the sight of the Lord is seen (cf. John 6:40) and realisation becomes reality in the new born soul of the Christian, as one alive from the dead (cf. Ephesians 2:1-2).

You cannot see, as Jesus pointed out, with your eyes shut (Matthew 13:14-15). The testimony however is not for that reason in vain, since it stands and like a tower, soaring into the skies, speaks what the Twin Towers in the USA could not say. On the other hand, wonderful indeed is it when the eyes open, the sight of the Lord is seen (cf. John 6:40) and realisation becomes reality in the new born soul of the Christian, as one alive from the dead (cf. Ephesians 2:1-2).

THE FASCINATING FEATURES

OF OUR DESIGN

ARITHMETICALLY and AESTHETICALLY

However we are dealing with design, and noting its pairings, along with the unities.

Thus the pairings in their sublime order, organisation and dextrous detail bespeak what is adequate to such a degree of precision, disdaining the inept as likewise the exotic, but insisting on specification-kind production like an engineer, for whom the devious or deviating is anathema.

It is preserved from childhood, through youth to maturity, this constantly revised and hence, throughout growth and its innumerable changes, continually devised pairing of features, this symmetry of conspectus; and yet it is not some mere duplicating machine concerned with pairs. On the contrary, the heart is but one, as is the liver, and all the digestive system in general. Moreover, the understanding of the acoustic input like that of the illuminative, sound and light alike, is one; and when it is not so, it is the distressing aberration called confusion, to be guarded against through the equipment provided for this purpose, by the active and resolute spirit gifted to man for this and other even more marvellous purposes.

The thoughts of the heart are one, except in mental disease or the precipices which precede it. There is one personality able to make one contour of aim, one monument to motivation, one peace of mind with one God in one way. That is as simply empirical as anything else in the totality. It works like the rest. It happens and can be noted, observed, considered as raw data.

Yet in God Himself, there is the emissary with the plans, the Word who became the Son through incarnation; and just as there is DNA and RNA in the coding structure physically, so spiritually in the supernal realities that caused those we see (as in Hebrews 11:1),  in the Engineer of all Himself, there is the Expressing and the Expressed, the Father and the Son, the Speaker and Spoken, and in this, the reader may find joy in reading of Proverbs 8, that magnificent disquisition from above. Indeed, there is also the Holy Spirit in the triune God; and we ourselves have been 'spoken' into form, in our DNA commands which are speech in coded form, direction in orders, and yet speak, and moreover, we have our spirit with which to comprehend what we apprehend.

Of course, in this Apologetics, we took care first to prove the Almighty's existence (as the Bible's truth, indeed)  before proceeding to the VERIFICATIONS which design and cell, word and speech all demonstrate (cf. SMR Ch. 2). However, if there WERE anything lacking (disease and its designed distress apart) in the original creation, if symmetry were awkward, if minds were muddied in nature, and not by misuse, if in the actual specification and template there were muddles, if distressed bungles at design littered the earth, that would be empirically significant. It is when the opposite, which is logically apposite for verification, is constantly found that scientific method rejoices (cf. SMR pp.140ff., 936ff.), throws parties and engages with diligent joy in conversation with the perceptive party-goers. How much wonder is constantly seen!

Indeed, as expressed in Glory, Vainglory and Goodness Ch. 1, we are surrounded by cloisters of comprehensibility, palaces of profundity, cosmoi of conceptual cohesion in the whole realm of body, mind and spirit in man, giving not only apt meeting of the definition of design, but vast impact in the extent of it. An excerpt, slightly adapted to our present purpose, follows.

On design definition, the case is clear. You need what has integrity, or better integrality, oneness in multiplicity, so that many things minister to one result. You need the power to imagine it, since commands do not imagine themselves; the capacity to codify it if you want to use, as in DNA, programmatic devices, the comprehension to make code articulate with command, and command with the raw material for its implementation; you need a series and sequence so that the correct data come with the correct  matériel and the correct provision of it at the correct time, and the correct concept with which to edit any errors and rectify any oddments. So is it with the embryo, and indeed in much of the following growth, outside the womb.

This of course is precisely what is found in design, to make it so; and nowhere on earth is that of man as an object, surpassed in any visible realm. How is this so ? It is a question of

	complexity for the unity,
	differential divisions of mind, spirit and matter for the components,
	inextricably interwoven for normal function,
	operational sufficiency and efficiency for the command centre or operational agent to secure the results which are to be gained from comprehensive USE of all the equipment and connections and phases of life involved.

Nothing comes near such versatility, power and combination, synthesis of dynamic diversity in KIND, as this. Fulfilling the specifications for the definition of design, it yet surpasses all other visible examples.  To remove this example, this exemplar indeed, man,  from  design, would have to remove the concept; but the concept is based on billions of examples, systematically found and implemented by the designed unit himself, man. It is just that his observable case surpasses all in the various elements that constitute what is defined to be design.

There follow three citations from earlier works, to illustrate the ludicrous results which come when man tries to ignore the data, and invent by magical moments in thought (cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9), what no moments in nature contrive to produce; for you may watch forever, for what lacks what it takes, to take what it has not got. Cars do not produce cars; you need the extra features to imagine and purpose, to contrive and to make them arrive. Man-maker has to have all of this, and for such a thing as man, inventor, creator and imaginer, comprehender and amender, you need as it were the machine tools correlative to that; but it is not machinery: it is imagination and all else that the formation and formulation of command exacts.

Correlative with this again is the obvious fact that INFORMATION does not  arrive, but in information science as seen below, we find that information tends to dissipate, like other design. What is based on the magical imagination of its autonomous arrival, when the law directs that the natural course of information is on the contrary,   its dissipation: this is not only UN-scientific; it is ANTI-scientific, and justly put into the realm of magic, where causes inadequate posited, with no evidence, are imagined to go with the results desired.

This may be pursued at The Wit and Wisdom of the Word of God, the Bible True to Test Ch. 2 . It is set in a yet broader context of the designs in divine dealings both physical and historical, ancient and modern,  in Bon Voyage Ch. 2.

 

Pursuing yet further the integuments, the integralities and the implications of empirical reality, we turn to History, Review and Overview Ch. 5. For our present purpose, this is re-arranged somewhat and extended.

HISTORY, REVIEW AND OVERVIEW Ch. 5

It is all or nothing. It is not only

 irreducible complexity, but

indivisible integrity,

indissoluble co-operation,

inter-and intra-systematic proliferation,

coherence of logic and symbolic notation with
executive receptors, skilled to catch meaning and execute orders, 

continuity of sequence from

connotation, to denotation, to implementation,

in a series of systematics incomprehensible except in totality

(indeed see SMR pp. 332Gff., Stepping Out for Christ Ch. 9, Repent or Perish Ch. 7, in End-notes,    and   for further considerations!).

 

The path of true reductionism, false to science, of course, is always to ignore what you have got, and to explain what is not there. It is however the essence of the challenge to meet the case as it is, in all of its sequential, symbolic, integral and mutually intimate and pervasively singular procedures, whether in code type, implementation, co-ordination or exuberance of methodology; and to do