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CHAPTER FIVE

FUSSING AND FINDING

Not Revelation about Revelation
but
Revelation about God from God
 

THE LORD IS THE ONE IN ALL CENTURIES,
AND MADE CENTURIES, TIME AND SPACE:
IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT HE BE FOUND

It is important to realise continually that the reason why the reason for the faith is certain, its testimony indefeasible, is this, that its basis is  God Himself, to whom it points, directs and impels. It is because He is immutable, immovable, unimpugnable, illustrious and good that the epistemological, logical, metaphysical, physical, moral, aesthetic, linguistic, cosmological, aetiological, methodological - scientific and other, the vitality and the validity have but one resting place, one source and one end. Just as many in Christ's day sought to find refuge not direction in the scriptures, failing to follow them to Him who had given them, along with life, their historical and national, their mankind manual, as He attested as seen in John 5:39-40,  so some may instead seek to find substitute for spirituality in the testimony of reason to righteousness, logic to the Lord.

Reason however does but lead to His word and His word requires ACTION.

In neither case  in itself,  therefore is there rest, not because either fails, for reason can but attest the truth, being established in this way for man in God's image; and it will not suffer such violation, while the word of God manifests its splendour on a daily basis in all dimensions, directing the universe in life as it directed life into it, and made it for it at the first.

No, it is because the testimony of our construction and our functionalities on the one hand, and of His word to us on the other, the one refusing to be alienated except by irrationality, the other except by rejection of rebellious will, are from what He has done. He made us, so that our best efforts fail to justify departure; and He gave His word, which being truth, stands beyond all testimony and banishes all complaint, except that of stark rebellion, aloof and alone like darkness in a universe of light, hiding in some insalubrious corner. The time is near when such privacy will be removed and the light manifest, all will be composed spiritually, each part in its place.

It is now therefore time to seek the Lord, and according to His word, by His Son sent for the purpose, to find Him (Isaiah 55). It is living in the living God which is crucial: there is not other, and He is definitive of Himself both in His written and His living word. There is no other way, God or truth, no other hope, nothing hallowed. It is Jesus Christ or nothing (John 14:6, Galatians 1), the Lord's Christ or woe; and finding Him, like life as a child in the outset, is something which is His gift.

His word is given that He may be found, and His Son has been sent that the cost is covered for all who come (John 3:16). The way is won, the job is done: it needs to be entered, and with the transmutation of life which then occurs (John 3, Titus 3:5ff.), followed faithfully. HE is faithful.
 
 

CONFUSION'S CONTRIBUTION

Recently, one found a young person who has made some sound seeming testimony to Jesus Christ. This and that is said, with apparent orthodoxy, about Him. Forms are followed, ceremonies are attended, His actions are sought in a lively sounding congregation, though one apparently given to the excesses and errors normal in much of Pentecostalism.

This perhaps is worthy of thought. WHY is there this emphasis, which leaves one all but incredulous, on action BEYOND what is required. Surely what IS required is so vital, so crucial and so costly to the eyes of sin, that more need not be added ?

The errors of erratic charismatic strivings (not that charismata are not real, but reeling with them is unwise) have been considered in some depth in A Question of Gifts.

·       The multiple tongue speaking simultaneously,

·       the failure at all times without any exception whatsoever, to have interpreters in a church service for any such phenomenon,

·       the improper stress on what Paul attests is such, that 5 words spoken with the mind are of more value than 10,000 without it in tongues amidst the people,

·       sometimes the blasphemous assault on the Biblical facts which goes yet further and makes tongues the necessary attestation of conversion when in I Cor. 12 Paul makes it clear that NOT ALL members of the Christian team have all gifts, and this is but one, and a small one:

·       such things have been dealt with in the light of the written word of God.


It is not our present intention to repeat this, and many allied matters covered in the reference given, but to regard the case, exhibited by the individual just mentioned, and to consider what sort of confusion is present.Before however we do so, let us return for a moment to a small section of one of the appendices of Biblical Blessings (No. 3), and see things in the light of grace and varied departures from it which alas, mislead many into utter futility.

That some seek pleasure and perish is one thing; but to seek spirituality and perish, this is a double negative well worthy of attention. Let us then develop first a broader perspective, before we return to the case of apparent orthodoxy mixed with multi-revelation promiscuity. HOW COULD someone apparently follow the forms of religion, of Christianity, but still fail to know the definitive character of Christ, the entire exclusion of all who do not rest entirely on Him from the acceptance of God, and the fact that God having spoken, to speak in other modes is wholly worthless, the addition of a piece of work in which is no peace.

Of God, we can attest, we cannot create.

What creates God is idolatry, confusion and a profusion of contempt for Him. Imagine someone creating Winston Churchill.

Oh! you may say, you mean reviewing the facts about him and presenting him living to the
imagination ?

No, I mean making up one and having the puppet speak.

Atrocious folly ?

Of course.

The use of his name for such a project ?

Contemptible, illogical and plagiarism of the worst character ?

Naturally.

How COULD anyone do such a thing ? Agreed. Yet in the field of religion, it is precisely this which many seem ready to seek to accomplish, not in the least realising that this is not merely the height of the absurd, but the grossest of substitutions; for imagination must not work where reality has declared itself, nor substitute its findings for what is found already. It has place, this imagination, but not in creating for history, what history does not find. When it is God who is being 'created', it is merely an activistic definition of idolatry. Idolatry is such that those who practise it CANNOT enter the kingdom of heaven (I Cor. 6:9-10). The price is high for the presumptuous misuse of talent.

When however it becomes a sort of HUMILITY so to create God, then one realises that this is evil of a passionate kind, in its basis and point of origin. To be so humble that one rejects what one statedly accepts, and violates what one professes to be sacred, is a very special kind of double talk. What does it really mean ? To this then we shall look shortly, when we have reviewed the perspective noted, from Appendix III, in Biblical Blessings. An excerpt accordingly follows.
 
 

EXCERPT FROM A SAY OF ITS OWN

Yes, it is the meek who shall inherit the earth (of course, there is to be a new heavens and a new earth, but the earth is going to be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea - the alternative options are indeed more and more obviously even now running out of gas, and into storms almost indescribable). It IS more blessed as the word of God says, to give than to receive. God is like that. He likes His people generous, gracious but unrelenting for the truth. Pretending things are not what they are is of no help to anyone.

Pretending that a hospital is clean, does nothing for the patients, and being called a nice person because you let this pretence go on, is giving nothing but trouble to anyone.

But let us look at our FIVE in ORDER.
 
 

1. COMMUNISM 

SMASH AND GRAB, while talking about historical process

 

 

2. SYNERGISM

PART AUTO-ATTAIN AND SO GAIN - (personal)

 

 

3. ROMANISM 

PART AUTO-ATTAIN, AND GRAB (the world) AND GAIN (salvation, all being well) - personal and institutional 

 

 

4. ORGANIC EVOLUTIONISM 

AUTO-CREATE AND GRAB YOUR FATE

 

 

5. MOHAMMEDANISM 

AUTO-MAKE-WEIGHT 

and ENTER YOUR FATE

 
 

In fact, the place of rest in reality, is not :
 

1. an historic process helped by ruthlessness.

That is not how the universe, the creation came to be
(cf. That Magnificent Rock, Ch.1),

or will become
(cf. SMR pp. 502ff., 590ff.; Ch. 5 in Repent or Perish - STATE OF THE END; Item 23, The Teacher of Righteousness in Barbs, Arrows and Balms),

what it should be, and what God will make it to be.

2. Nor is it a psychological process helped by insight.

3. Nor is it a spiritual process, helped by contributions.

4. Nor is it a biological process, helped by the unknown

god of forces.

5. Nor is it a moral process, helped by devoted desire, whether or not forwarded by holy wars.
 

(Cf. The Kingdom of Heaven...Chapters 2, 3, 8 and Appendix ,That Magnificent Rock, Appendix 1; Barbs, Arrows and Balms, Appendix IV, The Aviary of Idolatry, SMR Index on Roman Catholicism, Moslem, Evolution, Salvation, Creation, Redemption, and Communism, incl. pp. 520ff., 655-656, 925-926, 831, 468469, 707-708 , 903, 1070-1071,1088G and below, Appendix IV, The Magnificence of the Messiah.)
 

These ways are not what establishes man/woman/child to be accepted by God.

·  You do not enter by hopping over a wall (John 10:1,9);

or bringing in a step-ladder (Amos 9:2, Genesis 11:4), as if you could control the heavens and the earth, and the God who made both, and deviously, with some sort of inspiration, outwit God and land yourself in His presence, like some burglar wanting to see the Queen, and seeing prison instead.

·  You do not enter by ANY step-ladder, be it moral or psychological or religious.

·  Nor do you enter into the place of God, overcoming the protection of the "wall" by breaking it down.

    • Amos 2:14 states this:


 

"Therefore flight shall perish from the swift,

The strong shall not strengthen his power,

Nor shall the mighty deliver himself,

he shall not stand who handles the bow,

The swift of foot shall not escape,

Nor shall he who rides a horse deliver himself.

The most courageous men of might

Shall flee naked in that day," says the Lord.
 

To put it perhaps yet more crisply:
 

"Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils,

For of what account is he?" (Isaiah 2:22),

and again,

"The lofty looks of man shall be humbled,

The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down.

And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.

For the day of the Lord of hosts

Shall come upon everything proud and lofty,

Upon everything lifted up -

And it shall be brought low" - Isaiah 2:12.
 

We read in Isaiah 31:
 

"Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,

And rely on horses,

Who trust in chariots because they are many,

And in horsemen because they are very strong,

But who do not look to the Holy One of Israel,

Nor seek the Lord!

"Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster,

And will not call back His words,

But will arise against the house of evildoers,

And against help of those who work iniquity.
 

"Now the Egyptians are men, and not God;

And their horses are flesh, and not spirit.

When the Lord stretches out His hand,

Both he who helps will fall,

And he who is helped will fall down;

They all will perish together."
 

Thus it is all clear, distinct and decisive. THIS is the Biblical way for man. The other way has not worked, does not work and cannot work; and God Himself works against it, allowing it great rein, though now the reins are tired, and the 'horses' of mankind are becoming stale and tired, or frenzied, and the devil knows, as John declares, that his time is short.
 

    • REST is found
    • ONLY IN THE LORD. It is found
    • in HIS POWER,
    • HIS GRACE,
    • HIS ATONEMENT,
    • HIS PRESENCE,
    • HIS GRACIOUSLY ACCORDED LABOUR, and
    • IN HIS SERVICE.


 

The Lord, when you know Him as a child of the kingdom IS RESTFUL, and has CREATED THE CONDITIONS FOR OUR REST, in salvation from sin, in guidance in life and in growth in grace. It is right and restful, real and restful, realised and restful. There is no real anxiety, for HE provides all and Himself, the shield and exceedingly great reward, is available as for Abraham, called the friend of God.

END OF EXCERPT
 
 
 

RETURN TO THE REALITIES OF REST
NOT IN COMPILATIONS BUT IN CHRIST

It is not the word of God which is adulterated, 
but the heart of man

In the above ways, we see multiple examples of wresting from the truth, what it is saying. Sometimes it is done with acknowledgment and war on the word of God; at other times with endeavour to mutate it, to add to it, to replace it partially, not perhaps with the broken weapons of assault, for they have filed in times innumerable, in confusion unutterable. The OTHER METHOD is the endeavour to ASSIMILATE the truth, with error, while patting it heartily on the back, and smoothing its hair for it, as the footballers often seem to do when someone kicks a goal.

In this way, yes, you FIND CHRIST to be acceptable. You ACKNOWLEDGE the Bible to be fine. You attend Christian gatherings, services.

In the case in point, you may even attend highly mobile forms of worship, in which the scriptures are violated manifestly, and yet you do not know it.

What happened ?

Oh, it is so cosy and so inspiring that one does not really happen to be aware of manifest, pagan breach of the word of God. How could this be ?

How can a wife be unfaithful to her husband and yet smile with glamour upon him, and attend his table ? Is it because the dear man (that is the other side of the 'dear lady' of Yes Minister fame) does not really understand. Life is too broad, says the adulteress of distinction, for just one man. The emotions so move one, the lust of life so stirs in the lively heart, that it is simply impossible to find in one the satisfaction for the dynamisms which surge within the seeking breast... and so forth.

Thus she is most faithful, and wholly faithless. She UNDERSTANDS. Truth is no longer a word to the point. The life in its surges knows many clothes. She knows more than one husband. She does not tell her husband, for this dear man, so delightful really in his little ways, and such a dear, is not of the mode of life, the mould which makes one of such versatility of mind, such competence of character, that a chameleon, really, is the better mascot than a dog.

Even chameleons however might have a heart attack on a most complex tartan, or just fail!

Thus next we may hear such epochal disclaimer as this: There is NO OTHER WAY to God but Christ, says the Bible (John 14;6); but, says the chameleon,  there are many ways to God without Him. It likes them all, and … adapts! Contradictory colours are its peculiar fascination. There is even a primate who from reported words, appears to be moving so as to make this very same denial: not by Christ alone! Luke 9:26, John 12:48-50 already have such a case well covered.

But let us return to the case of the person in current focus.

This little excursion, earlier made,  into PHYSICAL ADULTERY, which has nothing directly to do with the case in point, has this advantage: that it does precisely what the Bible repeatedly does in just such a situation. It makes the comparison of the sexual and the spiritual, since the sexual is well-known and not in the least difficult to understand. It is fitting further because, when you strip away the abuse of sexuality that is so common as to be a current plague, it is really a playing with the source of physical human life, in terms of procreation, and hence with life itself.

One function is physical continuity; another is actuality. Sexuality deals with the former, spirituality with the latter. Of course they inter-relate, true sexuality, like all things true, relating to all components  justly, so that there is a spirituality about it. But from the viewpoint of division of labour, mankind both makes a new generation, and proceeds to live in its own!

God condemns both adultery and spiritual promiscuity repeatedly, vehemently, passionately, with appeals, with action as in Hosea, where the prophet MARRIED a prostitute in order to become a living allegory, and a profound rebuke as well as teaching example to the nation. The Lord relates the two as in Ezekiel 23, and of course with the mother of harlots, Babylon, in Revelation 17. The language can bring out the most intense parallel.

Thus, in Ezekiel 23, speaking of the surging desire in Israel to have help from Assyria and perhaps use its idols, or those found in the course of the association with it  (as for example noted in II Kings 16:10ff.), the Lord presents an unalluring parallel, in which lust and folly, giddiness and gullibility, inordinate affection and affectation, fascination and immaturity, passion and pollution figure as in a kind of moral holocaust! Presenting in allegory, two sisters, the one standing for the North, then called Israel, and the other with Jerusalem, the South, called Judah, the prophet is provided with a saga of promiscuity so intense as to verge on the ludicrous; but not for those who have seen passion at its insolent work. It can spoil like radioactivity, make asses of the wise, and drag through the dust the unstable whose lives are not founded on the rock.

Where religion is the parallel, as in this case provided in Ezekiel, we find that this is a sage saga of the significance of faithfulness, the reality of reliability, the essence of folly and the rewards of having two faces, and one husband.

The 'husband' of course in this allegory, is the Lord, and the sisters are political entities, seeking military and other aid from other nations, in particular from that giant of the vehement, that prodigy of cruelty, that wonder of multi-religions, that hussy of hapless idolatry, Assyria of old (whose end is so carefully scripted by the prophet Nahum in words unforgettable, because they are both just in their scope, and divine in their origin).

We follow in this intense parallel between physical and spiritual adultery, in which the former is a picture to bring home to the heart of the most hapless, if it be possible, the enormity of the latter: for it is in the divine mind, here revealed, a crime against truth, conscience and reality, being committed when one has FORMAL relationship to the Lord, and ACTUAL relationship to many 'revelations', in fact idols; for God cannot be crafted. It is indeed a FORM of godliness lacking not only its power but, in actuality,  its propositions; and it is this form without spiritual life which is found in II Timothy 3 to be prominent in  the predicted state of things at the end of our Age, noted to be in the present era (Answers to Questions Ch. 5).

Hence this allegory in Ezekiel, this use of marital infidelity as an expression of spiritual infidelity towards God Himself: it is topical, prophetic and contemporary.

To see it however, let us look back to the end of the nation of Israel, the north, as a practical entity in its own right (rather than a filtration back to the South); for the end of that body, and the end of the Gentile era have so much in common that it would be sheer folly to ignore it wilfully. Our quotation from Ezekiel 23 therefore will be rather long, as this will enable the scope of the comparison of physical and spiritual adultery to appear in its stark original format.

EZEKIEL 23:1-35

1 "The word of the Lord came again to me, saying:

2 “Son of man, there were two women,
The daughters of one mother.
3 They committed harlotry in Egypt,
They committed harlotry in their youth;
Their breasts were there embraced,
Their virgin bosom was there pressed.
 

4 "Their names: Oholah the elder and Oholibah her sister;
They were Mine,
And they bore sons and daughters.
As for their names,
Samaria is Oholah, and Jerusalem is Oholibah.
5 “Oholah played the harlot even though she was Mine;
And she lusted for her lovers, the neighboring Assyrians,
6     Who were clothed in purple,
Captains and rulers,
All of them desirable young men,
Horsemen riding on horses.
 

7 "Thus she committed her harlotry with them,
All of them choice men of Assyria;
And with all for whom she lusted,
With all their idols, she defiled herself.
 

8 "She has never given up her harlotry brought from Egypt,
For in her youth they had lain with her,
Pressed her virgin bosom,
And poured out their immorality upon her.
9 “Therefore I have delivered her
Into the hand of her lovers,
Into the hand of the Assyrians,
For whom she lusted.
10 They uncovered her nakedness,
Took away her sons and daughters,
And slew her with the sword;
She became a byword among women,
For they had executed judgment on her.

11“Now although her sister Oholibah saw this, she became more corrupt in her lust than she, and in her harlotry more corrupt than her sister’s harlotry.

12 “She lusted for the neighboring Assyrians,
Captains and rulers,
Clothed most gorgeously,
Horsemen riding on horses,
All of them desirable young men.
 

13 "Then I saw that she was defiled;
Both took the same way.
14 But she increased her harlotry;
She looked at men portrayed on the wall,
Images of Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion,
15 Girded with belts around their waists,
Flowing turbans on their heads,
All of them looking like captains,
In the manner of the Babylonians of Chaldea,
The land of their nativity.
 

16 "As soon as her eyes saw them,
She lusted for them
And sent messengers to them in Chaldea.
 

17 “Then the Babylonians came to her, into the bed of love,
And they defiled her with their immorality;
So she was defiled by them, and alienated herself from them.
18 She revealed her harlotry and uncovered her nakedness.
Then I alienated Myself from her,
As I had alienated Myself from her sister.
 

19 “Yet she multiplied her harlotry
In calling to remembrance the days of her youth,
When she had played the harlot in the land of Egypt.
20 For she lusted for her paramours,
Whose flesh is like the flesh of donkeys,
And whose issue is like the issue of horses.
21 Thus you called to remembrance the lewdness of your youth,
When the Egyptians pressed your bosom
Because of your youthful breasts.

22“Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord God:

‘Behold, I will stir up your lovers against you,
From whom you have alienated yourself,
And I will bring them against you from every side:
23 The Babylonians,
All the Chaldeans,
Pekod, Shoa, Koa,
All the Assyrians with them,
All of them desirable young men,
Governors and rulers,
Captains and men of renown,
All of them riding on horses.
24 And they shall come against you
With chariots, wagons, and war-horses,
With a horde of people.
They shall array against you
Buckler, shield, and helmet all around.

" 'I will delegate judgment to them,
And they shall judge you according to their judgments.

25 " 'I will set My jealousy against you,
And they shall deal furiously with you;
They shall remove your nose and your ears,
And your remnant shall fall by the sword;
They shall take your sons and your daughters,
And your remnant shall be devoured by fire.
26 They shall also strip you of your clothes
And take away your beautiful jewelry.
 

27 " ‘Thus I will make you cease your lewdness and your harlotry
Brought from the land of Egypt,
So that you will not lift your eyes to them,
Nor remember Egypt anymore.’

28“For thus says the Lord God: ‘Surely I will deliver you into the hand of those you hate, into the hand of those from whom you alienated yourself.  29 ‘They will deal hatefully with you, take away all you have worked for, and leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your harlotry shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your harlotry.

30" ‘I will do these things to you because you have gone as a harlot after the Gentiles, because you have become defiled by their idols. 31‘You have walked in the way of your sister; therefore I will put her cup in your hand.’
 

32“Thus says the Lord God:

‘You shall drink of your sister’s cup,
The deep and wide one;
You shall be laughed to scorn
And held in derision;
It contains much.
33 You will be filled with drunkenness and sorrow,
The cup of horror and desolation,
The cup of your sister Samaria.
34 You shall drink and drain it,
You shall break its shards,
And tear at your own breasts;
For I have spoken,’
Says the Lord God.

35“Therefore thus says the Lord God:

‘Because you have forgotten Me and cast Me behind your back,
Therefore you shall bear the penalty
Of your lewdness and your harlotry.’ ”
 

This ghastly mixture of allegorical romantic passion, coupled with infidelity to the husband and folly in roving imagination, then is the divine depiction of that spiritual lust which, never satisfied with the Saviour, though nominally keeping to His ways, roves in many places, saying:

''Oh but look! How comely is the Buddha in this or that manifestation, and how fine is this Christian tarrying in Babylon the great!'  So, or in such a way, goes the cry: and it speaks of Babylon indeed,  with all its tongues and songs innumerable, speaking oh so orthodoxy in ways forbidden, and having revelations in modes excluded, to the glory of Him who excludes it!

This adherence to mutually exclusives is a characteristic of our times. It is fatal and its orthodoxy is that of rebellion; while its rebellion, seeking the name of orthodoxy, is a double assault. It is in danger of precisely the divine dishonouring of Him who is thereby dishonoured. Him who honours Me, the Lord said, I will honour.

Using the analogy given in the word of God, and taking the parts applicable, it is therefore readily comprehensible that the Lord rebukes Israel with such sharp seeming severity. There are times when a failure to do so is not love, but laxity, not kindness but a cruelty so profound that a failure to speak in time would be the very epitome of it. On the other hand, speaking in a timely fashion, though the severity of the case requires a sharp awakening, is kindness when justice in its time applied, brings destruction to folly and contempt to misalliance.

Let us hear Jeremiah in this field! Remember that even after this, in Jeremiah 17:19ff., another profound call of mercy is given, but it too is not heeded. The Lord knows all He does and makes no mistakes. We come then to look in Jeremiah Ch. 7.
 

8 “Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit.

9“Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, and walk after other gods whom you do not know, 10“and then come and stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, and say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’? 11“Has this house, which is called by My name, become a den of thieves in your eyes? Behold, I, even I, have seen it,” says the Lord.

12“But go now to My place which was in Shiloh, where I set My name at the first, and see what I did to it because of the wickedness of My people Israel. 13“And now, because you have done all these works,” says the Lord, “and I spoke to you, rising up early and speaking, but you did not hear, and I called you, but you did not answer, 14“therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, and to this place which I gave to you and your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. 15“And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren—the whole posterity of Ephraim."

(Italics added.)
 

THE LIGHT OF DAWN, NOT THE PHOSPHORESCENCE OF DYING LUST

The passion for purity, the love of loyalty, the insistence on spirituality that knows GOD not revelations of promiscuous proportions, not 'truth' of endless variations, contradictions and mutual wars, not patronage of God but discipleship of the Lord: these things are understandable with ease when one considers that it is like polluting that vast freshwater resource, Lake Baikal, with radiation, as if resources had no meaning, thrift no need and concern for creation were a feature of the idiot, not the man of reason!

When God is the resource, you CANNOT pollute Him, but you can readily, though in His mercy not too readily, foul up your own approach, and spoil the way to find Him, having your own conscience seared as with a hot iron (I Tim. 4:2). Treading under foot the blood of Christ, you may not mean so to do, but in the passion for possession and procession in numerous gods, revelations and findings (which are but idols when not from the Lord, and the word of God is the test since HE has spoken it, not nature, human or otherwise - Psalm 96:4-5, Hebrews 10:27-29, 6:4ff., Isaiah 8:20, John 12:48-50), this is no small spiritual prodigy. It can make numb the feet and blind the eye which looks as in a trance, and does not see what it is doing!

Hebrews makes clear (6:18-20 cf. Divine Agenda Ch. 9) that the believer has an anchor of the soul which nothing can break. He/she is kept by the power of God, as in I Peter 1, to a salvation and a heaven that is a haven reserved, unfading, pure and inimitable, in the very presence of the living God. Such, the apostle declares, are predestinated, elect and assured. However, those who play with the premises, toy with the promises, taste and spit out, and although surrounded with grace and goodness, treat with disregard the very preciousness with which they are becoming all too accustomed, these stand in the utmost danger of a journey without return to the light.

The dawning light in the soul, of Christ, when welcomed, and the beauty of His peace, when received, the truth of His word, when taken, these things are not for alliances unspeakable, for disloyalties innumerable, for cohesions for other things, as if a wildly spread glue were spewing into the spiritual living room, to catch all dust and rubbish that flies in the open window, and affix it to the premises. The truth of God is the one which speaks, does and endures. It is written in a book (Isaiah 34:16). The word of God is the one which has endured and directs. It is found in the Bible.
 

This is not a mine but the gold (cf. Psalm 119, Matthew 5:17ff., I Peter 1:10-12, II Peter 1:16-21).
It is not a source book, a resource for spiritual tasting sessions, and sharing with other spiritual cultures, as if God were a product of this and that race, in endless confusion, contradiction and smothered visions of sultry uncertainties, affirming here what others deny, idol by vapid idol.

Playing with the attested certainties is a popular game. Like other popular games, very often, it is neither founded on reason nor good for it; neither useful for life nor true to it. Its high cost is consonant with the preciousness of the human soul, not a product of nature but of God, with a destiny not to be found in romances of the imagination, but in the love of God (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, That Magnificent Rock Chs. 1, 5-6, 7-8, Spiritual Refreshings for the Digital Millenium Ch.  13, Wake Up World! Your Creator is Coming... Chs.  5,  and  6).

The cost is severe to Him, who died the just for the unjust to bring us to God (II Peter 3:18). It  is severe in parallel; and this, as one might most reasonably expect, when injustice is done to the name of the Lord, and His mercy is irrationally treated as a negotiable instrument, as if man were the very psychiatrist of God, and could make his own findings of what could be done, case by case, with the Lord, in order to get alone with .... things.

Cost in its ultimate form is one expression of truth; for it is an exhibition of value. What is priceless and necessary, rejected, polluted, trifled or toyed with, has its own reward. What is the state when infinite value is devalued ? It suffers no more, for He has already given His life; it is the soul of man or woman which then suffers, and what was suffered for the souls of men, for all who should come, this is the index of the perils avoided, and when not suffered, of suffering to come. The case is not improved when, now so subversively and subtly, the salvation is avoided in apparent reception!

Subtlety is no substitute for salvation, and manacles placed on the Lord, once and for all, are broken. It is a case of being broken in heart, and rebuilt by the Lord, saviour and alone Lord, who has dealt the only death blow to sin, and is the only Conqueror for the life of man; but not for those who reject or act agreeably as if pollute with pride or creative idolatry, the Prince of life.

As to 'not', it matters not what. You can build castles in the air and call them 'the Lord's', like those in Jeremiah 7 of whom the word of the Lord has been shown above. They do not thereby become so, but remain freaks of disfaith (q.v. SMR), the very ditch of delusion, whose end in disillusion is most grievous, needless and to be deplored. There is NO SAFETY against the Lord, and as to what does not speak according to His word, says Isaiah, "To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, there is no light in them." It is not that they have some; it is not they are vanguards of virtue, leaders of light. No their apportionment is NO LIGHT, another name for darkness.

Of most appealing interest is the translation of Luther and Keil, which with various offerings, runs like this: "They are those to whom no dawn arises," and "they are a people for whom no morning dawns." Keil quotes with approval Luther's other rendering: "they shall never overtake the morning light." DAWN is then EXCLUDED. Morning for such cannot come.

How then could this be beautiful ? The very thing denied, even in its denial, speaks of its soft and illuminating beauty, that of truth, of peace and tenderness, like the sop to Judas.

Moreover, it is beautiful in contrast to consider the word of God for those who, in following Him, walk in the light (Ephesians 5:8, I John 1:7), being children of the light. Thus David in Psalm 17 declares from the Lord:

  • "As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness:
  • I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness."

Equally possible: "satisfied, when I awake with your likeness." Both are true (cf. I John 3, Revelation 22).

There you see quiet assurance of a child of the light, in terms of the light, which having come in its transforming power to the heart (II Cor. 4:6) is in the life which cannot die, for the seed remains inviolable (I John 3:9). Again consider the beauty of Palm 49:

"The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning" (italics added).

Again, says David from the Lord (Psalm 30),

"For His anger is but for a moment,
His favour is  life,
Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning.

"Now in my prosperity I said,
I shall never be moved.
LORD by Your favour You have made my mountain stand strong....
O LORD my God,
I will give thanks to You forever."
 

In Psalm 51 one finds that whatever be the folly, when one seeks in humility of acceptance, in departure from the wrong, in reliance on the Lord, one is pardoned. Is it not plain in Isaiah 55, that the wicked himself, forsaking His way and seeking the Lord in truth faith finds just this,

"Let him return to the LORD,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon."

Christ did not come into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. It is still true (John 3:36), that what does not receive Him as He is "shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him."

Such an attainment is as unnecessary in the love of God as it is vile. To despise such a thing is ever so much better than to be despised, and to depart from it far wiser than to cohere; for the Lord is light, and His pathway is truth, and never is it to be divorced. Truth does not become ill, but it strikes where the heart will not find it. Life is no game, but a place for grace, and there is no face without it. Persons without it become depersonalised, but God does not so change. The change is not quashed because of failure; it must be overcome in the truth.

As to that "Thy word is truth," and again, "I AM the way, the life and the truth, no man comes to the Father except by Me."