FIDELITY AND FELLOWSHIP

We at World Wide Web Witness Inc. are exceedingly grateful to God that it seems He has raised up not one but three creation-specialising, scientifically oriented bodies, in Australia or through Australians.

Creation Research, with its desirable stress that it seems to have had on the doctrine of separation, education and field trips, Answers in Genesis with its strong expository style in its field and entrepreneurial flair, especially in the matter of its exhibitions and teaching methods, and Creation Ministries International, with its often very soberly scientific magazines, with a considerable variety of features as well, some also in a less academic vein: these all, in one way or another, have contributed knowledge at the scientific level and/or provided useful facilities.

This is a useful addition for the people of God in combating the devil's obvious and ostentatious desire to use ballyhoo instead of truth in order to make a mythical masterpiece, evolutionism, as if it were an option alternative to creation, though this philosophy has no resemblance to the rigours of scientific method, and every resemblance to logical farce. This is as foretold (II Timothy 4:3-4, II Peter 3:1-5 cf. SCIENTIFIC METHOD, SATANIC METHOD AND THE MODEL OF SALVATION).

Just as a Prime Minister or President may be able to escape from ridicule at times, when he is propounding various foolish notions from his executive heights, so here, scientists, a good percentage of them at least, have been propounding in this field, wishful hopes without help from the empirical domain, mere artistries of empty thought: this in the name of evolutionism. Some even claim to do it in the name of science!

Like a chanting army, they have been noisily pushing doctrines which are palpably absurd. Thus the mere passing of time is made the equivalent of a creative nursery of life’s brilliance, while in ‘nature’, sub-moronic matter – that is, something without any mind at all – is magically moved to become a genius beyond measure, author of myriads of miles of detailed information, not only imprinted with commands and supplied with executive direction with astounding finesse, but marvellously miniaturised in DNA. Thus the least becomes the most, matter’s a secretary, exhibiting the constraints and code of a mental strength without mentality, while all comes from nothing at once or in steps, cause becomes irrelevant and arrivals are like Peter Pan, flitting in from a paradise of ingenuity, like a breeze blowing from where nothing is.

So here is found sprawling self-contradiction, a very masterpiece of verbal emptiness, where calumny of the Creator comes in sight as a way of anti-empirical life, many dimly or even actively disdaining Him on the one hand, or on the other, wedding Him to the curse which is laid upon sin, as if by this He created! As to the latter, it is nothing but an aggravation of folly, an extrapolation of evil, where sin decides to condemn the Judge for its own whippings (Romans 5:1-17, 8:17ff. cf. Spiritual Food and Spiritual Drink Chs. 1 and 12), while vainly trying to wash its own hands (cf. Beyond the Curse).

It is however necessary for us at Word Wide Web Witness Inc., an arm of the Australian Bible Church - continuing in principle on the original and unharassed 1901 basis of the Presbyterian Church of Australia, with its grand composure of biblical elements, to clarify a point in this area. It is this. Although we use the work of such bodies as the above three creation organisations, this is not to be taken to mean that their various positions or methods are always ones we could endorse.

Quite the contrary is the recent case where a difference between two such Christian bodies reportedly became a matter of secular law despite exceedingly clear words in the Bible, at I Corinthians 6:1ff.. Some years ago, one of us did not take legal action against acutely evil action by a particular body calling itself Christian, in view of this scriptural prohibition, and because of a natural desire not to bring the name of the Lord into any disrepute.

In the above creationist case, however, one secular newspaper took the opportunity to lampoon Christian creationism, marvelling that it took these two Christian creationist bodies so long to settle their differences, several years eventually, it declared, before settling out of court: this, when God took only six days to create the universe. Such was their jibe.

They apparently forgot, or chose to forget that God is infinitely wiser and better than we are. Whoever was responsible must answer to God for supervening His word.

Indeed, this lapse from the Bible’s directions cost dear. This is a source of deepest concern. After all, Solomon did exceedingly well, but in the end took the law into his own hands in no small measure! That King slid too close into certain convenient relations with false religions.

Christ the Citadel Chs. 5 and esp. 6, in
Hapless Hitches ... Ch. 1 as marked - in two places,
Open to Him ... Ch. 3 as marked, and the
Sermon Galatians 4-5 as marked.

No less applies to other sects, such as Romanism (cf. SMR pp. 1032-1088H, The Holocaust or Morality … Ch. 5), where these arise for view. It has become necessary to emphasise this.

It is equally intolerable, as has occurred in literature forwarded by a creationist body, to seek to try to make it appear that the Romanist pope during World War II was not supine or fearful, but actively heroic in saving many lives. Whatever the truth of this matter, with behind the scenes concepts imagined or asserted, one thing is clear. Softness on the follies of Rome, instead of facing the issues it involves, is not wise (cf. I Timothy 4:1-6). For reference, it may be noted that this, together with a parallel issue in the same field, is traced for concern in The Holocaust of Morality and the Coming of Christ the King Ch. 5.

The pope did NOT expose the folly, cruelty and horror of Hitler and his rule, which gained initial power in a way much helped by subtle political action directed from Rome, according to report (SMR pp. 968ff.). This aided at the first, his coming to power, something thus aided ever to mount at all, by this very body. In this way, it was even helped into power at the crucial point, by political intervention, through deliberate Romanist action. Once in, the acme of horror at Hitler's hand was not seen to be condemned by the body that so helped him!

Did the pope pillory Nazism for its anti-Jewish tortures and genocide ? Where is this found, for it is missing.

If it is not so, and if the war-time pope did in fact hold forth with eloquent condemnation and arousal of the world to the situation as fast as he knew of it, it is not known to be so!

In view of these atrocious developments, a severance and a disjunction, a condemnation and an exposure was entirely necessary, and appears ENTIRELY LACKING from the papacy when Hitler's power threatened menacingly. If then, this was so in general, it was more so in the Jewish case. You do not, in the kingdom of heaven, twiddle your theological thumbs; and if you presume to speak for Christ (apart from the sanctions which His word imposes on all, cf. Matthew 23:8-10), then to fail to expose what you helped to impose is a course of moral failure, the more so when in the Romanist Inquisition, not only Christians in their thousands but Jews were harangued, harassed and smitten.

Hitler's action was the coping stone of the arch of persecution in Europe, over the centuries; it by no means began it. The rigorous condemnation of that heartless inhumanity by one who spoke about humanity in the name of Christ at all, and assumed a universal position, was like omitting a report on a cancer tumour, in a health review.

It saves trouble if you do not speak, and perhaps your neck; but if you roundly condemn, then you reject, expose, impugn, raise a human voice against inhuman barbarity, set a tone in the realms of celestial speech, and of course, in this case, differentiate yourself from the tortures that Romanism so freely conferred on Jewish people in the past, setting the record straight, even though nothing can remove what was done, in direct violation of Christ's command (John 18:36, Matthew 26:52ff.).

Universal condemnation was needed to inform human beings of inhumanity on a gross, selective and vile scale, to arouse moral integrity to action in a war against the man who contrived such follies, assist awareness of the point of the conflict and its perils if lost, engender an attitude of pain and grief for Jews that would stir vast energies of heart, just as the fear of the atomic bomb did, leading to new initiatives by Europeans, some of the most expert of which went to America, to help overthrow such horrors.

Truth is not a thing to be ignored, but propounded; and the mind of man is not to be squashed into ignorance, instead of opened to reality, so that the immoral gates might be pounded with fresh energy and initiative, from greater depths of revulsion, and awareness of the importance of time.

It was decisively needed that people should expose with special knowledge when they had it, what would fortify opposition, remove misplaced romanticism even if it exposed those who so spoke, themselves to peril DURING the war, and possible death after it! What had helped to establish Hitler would need speedily to expose the folly, heartlessness and grotesqueries of the madman, intoxicated with power and philosophy, like rum and whiskey in harness.

The pope did not find it necessary in stark courage and total honour for the Lord, to speak openly and persuasively on behalf of those so treated, to expose the treatment and its source, as one valiant for the truth; nor did he exercise the denunciation which might have eroded earlier and more fully some of the panache of Hitler. This might have shown that there were those who at whatever cost, do not cower or plot or consign themselves to secrecy, but with the valour of fidelity and the sweep of spiritual zeal use every way available to testify in truth concerning whatever things demand it for moral integrity.

Thus in comparative silence on this holocaust, there was less danger to pope and to his regime, whoever won the war; and the initial use of Hitler as of so many others in their day (SMR pp. 968ff.), did not become a thing decisively cast off, or treated with due abhorrence with all the moral force available. This left alliance able to continue with EITHER the Allies or Hitler, after the war. In fact, Romanism was quite used to deploying princes and Emperors, as in the long day, the dreary centuries of the Holy Roman Empire, with its cunning contrivances and brazen power, political and religious, in disharmonious but fearful assault on humanity.

Truth needs to be spoken (Isaiah 59:14); and when the enemy comes in like a flood: the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a banner against him (Isaiah 59:19). Deception, delusion, profusion of distortion, propaganda, it all rushes in and reality needs its attestation in whatever climate. Man is not a twiddle patch, but made in the image of God, must be shown the truth, allowed to discern and decide in the light of it, not treated like children by those who manage levers, themselves escaping the vast perils, instead of instituting vast impetus to overcome the now revealed evil. Whatever was done, this was NOT done.

Much the same, only worse, has happened in the field of evolution, where report is now to hand of celebration of the Darwinian anniversary in pontifical places. There can be no excuse for the developing papal endorsement of the type of thing Darwin has envisaged, or for hiding it, as if the pontiff did not claim utter and universal power to teach in God's name, whatever doctrine he has in mind concerning things moral, spiritual and especially biblical. It is stated at papal coronation, that the pope is "the Father of princes and Kings, Ruler of the World, the Vicar of our Saviour, Jesus Christ." In the New York Catechism, he is deemed the "father and teacher of all Christians, " and further, "the infallible ruler, the founder of dogmas, the author and judge of councils; the universal ruler of truth, the arbiter of the world, the supreme judge of heaven and earth ... God himself on earth."

Indeed, in the Bull, Unam Sanctam, the pope claims this, "If, therefore, the earthly power err, it shall be judged by a greater," which is then identified as that claimed by Rome; and he adds the 'spiritual sword' to his hand, at divinely authorised to himself, who being human yet has this authority divine as a person in a line.

Those who would wish it different, even in Rome, as one article featured in the work of one creationist body suffered to appear, do not alter the grand and pompous pretensions of the papacy concerning their power to interpret the Bible or impose their own doctrines, at will, whatever they may deem its source concerning man before God, and God over man. Nor is doctrine ALL that is claimed for him! Power over princes is added! Responsibilities are therefore morally proportionate: or should truth bow, judgment be kept silent, and this divine representative omit judgment when what he has forwarded explodes into horror all but unimaginable!

In the realm of creation and evolutionism, the doctrine of the papacy has declined in decisive steps into these most abominable lairs of cruelty, implying acceptance of evil as if a productive resource, whereas creation was most differently brought to be, and all the types of evil espoused by evolutionary imaginations as productive and creative, are by God consigned to vanity because of sin (Romans 8:17ff.). The curse and subjection to a vanity which is neither its virtue nor method of creation, is no place to find the blessing of the Maker! God did not create by punishment, nor institute by curse, nor did He violate His own nature, which is love, but its exhibition in bringing forth the heavens and the earth. Nothing could be viler in its imputations than this.

In fact, divine discipline as in Romans 8 and 5, and Genesis 3, is not at all the method of creation (cf. Beyond the Curse), either empirically or logically. The theistic evolution papally so progressively embraced is a horror story of defilement of the very name of God, using His curse as if it were His creation (cf. SMR Ch. 10, and in particular, pp. 30ff., 85, 88ff., 121, 126-127, 135-151, 149-159, 179-194, 195-197, S8, S19, 303-311, 316C, 482-498, 615, 999-1000 ).

It is not just morally evil even to consider such a thing; it is factually contrary to investigation (cf. The gods of naturalism have no go!).

From all such things, their methods, means and fellowship, the godly must separate. Lot was nearly swallowed with the lot of them, a near escape being managed (Genesis 19); while the Lord's detestation of toleration of evil spiritual words and ways is all too clear in Jeremiah 23, Deuteronomy 13 and Ezekiel 14. Methods change as the nature of society is theocratic or democratic; but the ATTITUDE OF GOD to false premises, the gods that man acquires apart from the One who made him and told Him His way of doing it, this remains clear at all times.

The Lord abhors involvement with them or their provocateurs, with these mockers and mockeries, these religious pastiches. Stooping to share in any way with those who REPRESENT such evils, violates as if by ravishment, the purity the Lord requires (Romans 16:17 and see below). What names such names as these is self-excluded from fellowship with those who adhere to the words of the Lord, and His words ABOUT what does NOT so adhere!

In the long run, failure to honour these aspects of the word of God, to separate from all such teaching and teachers, and accordingly to honour the very nature of God, will be bound to lead to pathological consequences of an indeterminate but awesome character; and what one says in love, is nevertheless a matter for acute pondering and watchful application!

We who are freely redeemed by Jesus Christ for ever by His own blood and follow His own word of grace, mercy and authority (Ephesians 1:11, John 8:31, 6:46, Acts 5:32) need to be deep in obedience in these challenging days, avoiding all compromise, fellowship and aid to the ideas of anti-scriptural 'Christianity' as it moves on its fateful way (II Peter 2:1ff.). We need longing for carefulness according to the word of God, each helping the other, in meeting every challenge, none taking advantage of specialisation, whether church, the body of Christ as in Romans 12 and Ephesians 2,4, or tributary body. It is important that none depart from generic rules applicable to all, for specialised purposes. NO ONE who is a Christian has ANY authority EVER to change the rules of consorting and fellowship, for ANY purpose.

As all this is now public - law, meetings and the rest - it continues so here. There are biblical limits to the ways in which one may relate to others, in particular to those involved in contra-scriptural 'Christianity', in fact a contradiction in terms, whatever one's calling. It is like a Hospital: however much you may like patients, fellowship with germs on a cordial basis is more than insensitive: it is blindness.

It must be stressed that nothing should be allowed to minimise the biblical prohibitions concerning fellowship and co-ordination of activities in spiritual frame, with what has moved categorically from the word of God, and the biblical testimony of Christ. Love obeys (John 14:21-23) and so far from being a ground for outage from what God declares, it is spur to desire to know His word and to do it (I Corinthians 13:6).

This is perhaps a good time to encourage Christians to become aware of some of the recent movements and of old stabilities in this Adventist sect as in these last phases of Romanism; and to recognise the enduring default from biblical Christianity multiply present within both. While these things do not prevent our using such materials, such as come from any creation body which should fail in this area - indeed we could use material from any source so long as it did not per se involve any form of fellowship or co-operation - it does put a pall over our joy in such matters, and it draws the deepest concern when such prohibitions and injunctions are not followed.

There is not only a need for clarity, but for warning and exhortation as seen when you read in II Timothy 4:1-6, for example, where some specifics of one type in the broad spectrum of such invasions of Christianity in its own name are predicted to occur, just as it is yet more generally revealed in II Peter 2.

Is it then spiritual to be supine about this ? Not at all, and quite to the contrary, scripturally. Love that does not heed the need to warn is like a mother who smiles when her child tells here he has found a new way of safely crossing the road without opening his eyes.

This is by no means all; but it indicates something of the current direction of our concerns. This is not to condemn a creation body, but a type of action; and this not for any joy it gives, but in the fear of God and the knowledge of where such things can lead. Spiritual gifts, in fact, are not self-sufficient, but are connected to graces and the call for obedience in one and in all, under the Head and His rules for all. We are all imperfect; but it is not wise to let peril pass, or through silence to allow others to be misled because something excellent in many ways, appears to be beginning to sway here and there, mainly outside its special field.

According to the measure of the gift, let it be used; and according to the command of the Head, let there be restraint. As in cricket, there are many methods of bowling with an eventual aim, but they should not be off the pitch. That is for some other game!

We therefore cannot allow our own use of technical materials to mislead anyone into any false direction, by giving no warning, when any specialised service body, even if creationist, an excellent thing in itself, takes liberties in bowling.

For us, Christ will always be our special field, and all that pertains to Him, whether in a specialised field or not. This is our policy, and our earnest desire is to follow Him in all things, according to His word, however imperfect, at any point or time, we ourselves may be, in this or that result. For the overall impact of what we are directed to do, and the moulding of ourselves who are commissioned to do it, we trust in Him, to whom our way is committed, seeking to be governed by His word as enabled within it, by His Spirit.

Part of our need here, then, is to prevent misconception from our usage of materials often in themselves, both excellent in their domain and useful.

May the Lord Jesus Christ be glorified and His people blessed. Alas, to carry one's cross is not at all an easy thing, and convenience is far from it. Lively fellowship with the people of the Lord has its challenges, and its purifications, and the fear of God must always, as Peter advises, be kept in mind. Indeed, it is not a craven fear for love casts out that trembling which has no faith; but it is a clean fear as in Psalm 19, and it endures forever, just as the statutes of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart.

Let then our hearts rejoice, for self-discipline is always fit for one who bears a cross, and joy is always active where He is obeyed (cf. Acts 5:32).

	Again, the advertised use by CMI of Seventh Day Adventist premises for meetings, by no means assuredly outside normal church time, creates more than bemusement. It creates grief.
	On that sect, the reader may desire to see -