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Chapter Six

 

  Indomitable Truth, Irrepressible Mercy,

Irrevocable Ruin

and the Number up for Violence
 

Why does man's cyclotron become such a very symbol of the Age of Attainment: it increases the power dramatically, which is available; it decreases with no less drama, the scope for life of many! What is wrong with man that his best efforts become so readily a ruinous blight, whether in World War I or II or III or at the very threshold of number IV ?

Medicine produces health, by agreeable actions based on some knowledge; and drugs for ruin. Science produces power to perform, and scope for satanicity on the grand scale. Learning produces sophistication, but is seized by outrageous sentiments and made a byplay for corruption.

While man talks of robots to serve more and more intimate needs, and to relate more and more closely to the symbolic expressions of the desires of man, man becomes more and more closely like a robot: with various motivations, stimuli and incredibly naive sentiments acting as the sentinels of doom, to awaken him to grasp for more and more of what  helps him less and less, since power minus wisdom is devastation minus deliverance.

It becomes extraordinarily clear that the failure to find 'answers'  in all the 'wisdom' and ways of scientific, philosophic and political man is for one simple reason.

It is that God being the Creator and Redeemer, the maker of mankind and the provider of the solution to freedom's misuse, has provided the resolution, and there being no other God or resolution, error crunches but in vain on its mouthfuls of foolishness, which it propounds as if it were God and not man. It shows nothing but the price of impenitence and the results of the frenzy of human fiasco. Man knows so much; but not himself. He seeks skyward, but fails to relate to the Maker of skies. He talks about gods, but makes them up; he symbolises his thoughts, aims, desires or even behaviour, making gods of shame, not bearing scrutiny, and then wonders why the actual disposition of events is so tough! He tires the harder, and fails the worse. He is like a tireless fox terrier, shaking a rag doll, in hope of extracting food. He is quite simply misled; and of his errors, he stands inordinately proud (cf. Lord of Life Ch. 8).

Included in this ungodly turbulence is that foul and unsavoury abuse of liberty by which some men try to play God to the consciences of others by force, as seen in the Romanist Inquisition, Communism and militant Islam spectacularly over centuries, in a spectacle better never shown.

Man may want apologies from God, but it is repentance from man that God wants. It is useless to try to sever reality from a religion: what it is, it is, and what its book says, it says (as for example shown in More Marvels Ch. 4, for Islam). Islamic, Romanist, New Age or Communist, it is all one. If a man is astray in himself, well; if in some philosophy or religion, well; but there is not water in either  of those wells. Why, asks Jeremiah, in the Lord's name, do you seek water out of cracked cisterns when fresh snow water is available, or in other words, the emptiness of delusive religions or philosophies which solve nothing and are invalid/irrational or both, impersonal or tyrannical, when the God of truth and mercy, love and redemption is available freely! (Jeremiah 2:13,23-28, 18:14)!

The Lord is willing to act towards man as teacher, saviour and Lord, which He IS (Titus 2-3); but mankind on the whole has other ideas. Without repentance from these things, and acceptance of the salvation that God in Christ has freely provided (there is simply no other- Acts 4:11-12, God or salvation), it is man who is in trouble, even implying by his disbelief that God has no redemption in store, but merely watches aloof as evil grinds its foul way, implicating Himself in a vile way, or following magical routines vexatiously, as if become a little child, without much emphasis, even for the child, on reason, far less reality.

It is not just from bombs, such as militant Islam now likes to sport when it is offended or from expansionist modes following Hitler's recent and aborted efforts, such as in former centuries not seldom have been witnessed from such sources in their grisly deportment and distortion: it is not from these alone that man is facing peril. It is from truth itself; and since the Lord is personal, having man man in His own image, it is increasingly becoming a matter of becoming either a submit-to-me sort of pusher, or one pushed into distortion by such force: or else one who in fact surrenders to God on His own terms.

Even in more peaceable times, the basics have not varied. Even when the British Empire ruled, and could despatch force at will, the confrontation with truth was not different.

The world looked more comfortable, but the issues were no more so. Even a measure of outward conformity to God does not matter in truth. You are for Him or against Him (Isaiah 29:13), you receive His word or you do not, you accept the Christ for your pardon and place, or you ignore, deny, or toy with Him. You build on the Rock or on the sand (Matthew 7).

Some toy ... But He is no toy. Unless, He declared (and as truth, it is not surprising!) that either you forsake all and follow Him, or you CANNOT be His disciple (Luke 14); and that if you do not believe in Him, that is ipso facto the condemnation (John 3:16-19,36). There is simply no other light, God or place for pardon. It is not matter of imagination, but fact, testable fact, changeless fact. We cannot, said Peter and John, speak but what we have heard and seen (Acts 4-5). Fact and imagination both have their place; but they should never be confused. Imagination divorced from fact quickly descends into lie. Even ignorance has ... limits!

What then of the proposals of men, as they were spiritually propositioning God ? They do not work, because they are wrong. The  century has more power for man with which to show it. It is doing so eloquently!

These human based programs or principles, be they frankly man-based or vicariously thrust onto some unverified god, they CANNOT, just as they do not work. The Biblical depiction on the contrary, provides the principial and the empirical mix to perfection as in all good science, of which this is the epitome, meeting all criteria of scientific method over time as nothing else does. Human substitutes for God's actual speech, these are presumptuous all,  appealing to vanity, power, force, convenience, miasma and hope, but never to fact; for they do not meet with it, and they can appeal never to logic, for they fail as invalid, one and all

(cf. SMR Ch. 10, pp. 1081ff., 829ff.,  
Dancers, Prancers, Lancers and Answers
Ch.  3, *1A
, Lord of Life Ch   3;
Aviary of Idolatry;  1032-1088H; Delusive Drift ... Ch.   5,
News 44,  69, 97,  98, Tender Times for Timely Truth Ch.    8;
The Grating Grandeur
... Ch.   2; SMR  pp. 925ff.
).

The ONLY truth possible is that which is past all relativity in field of the absolute with the added ingredients of being the domain of the absolute GOD (not principles which merely describe), whose absolute wisdom absolutely knows what is good for slithering man, whose misuse of liberty as of love, is a testimony to the wonder of its creation. As with much that is very wonderful, whether orchids or skies or oceanic vastnesses, you CAN spoil it if it is a creation. The more marvellous, the more horrid the default!

Man is expert at this, and gaining in intrepidity to devastate the whole globe, as if Junior were given the run of the house.

It is understandable but not excusable. Given the position and post of being in the image of God, with powers of obstinate valour, limited but real powers of self-determination and of imagination to make of the former two, an explosive mixture worse than any atomic bomb, man can and does devastate conscience, taunt principles of truth, make up his own mind where he is wholly incompetent, play God with the hearts, minds and lives of others, and experience the judgment of God. He, although very patient in the process, does not for ever omit the answers apt for the simplicity of man's folly, the artlessness of man's pretension to wisdom and the sheer fallacies of his wilfully misused logic, whether in religion, science, society or the individual, be it nation or person.

To all this, obviously, ONLY the Creator and Redeemer COULD have the answer. No one can TELL anyone else how or why to forgive, or rectify, or remedy. It is unbecoming to guess and envision, and a sort of sinister extension of the mirage of autonomy, as if only hell can  separate this vileness from life. The remedy of God for the flat contradiction of His ways is the provision freely given, necessarily available, and usually left alone by its addressee! Time is its servant, and it is running out as Christ indicated would happen, at length (cf. Matthew 24:22).

Remedy ? Actually, God has chosen to provide it and would not have created without it (cf. Isaiah 51:16, 49:2).

All things should be tested, as Paul declares in I Thessalonians 5.  As we have seen over the last 127 volumes of this theological set, more especially one of Biblical Christian Apologetics, when you test the Bible in every department, ONLY victory, ONLY sufficiency, ONLY steadfast and indomitable truth results. Indeed ONLY God could have been the source. Moreover, it is cohesive, coherent, systematically inter-related and prodigious in progression in thematic unity.

Whatever would HOPE to stand, this actually does; it stands with sovereign sufficiency and astringent realism. It has done so for nearly 3 millenia, despite the wildest, most violent assaults and attacks, by pen and sword, over that time.

In relation to this is the forthcoming volume (DV), Light Dwells with the Lord's Christ, and Where He Dwells, Darkness Departs). In due course, the hyperlink should have a referent.

We have seen over the past 127 volumes of this theological set, the testimony and nature of God, of man, of science with various examples such as physics, astronomy, geology,  biology, and that ring-in, psychology, the nature of Apologetics and its method and reasons, of design, of myth, of freedom, of predestination and of duty, of responsibility and of vitality. The coming new volumes, largely a selection of past work, provide a convenient compendium of His resolution of the problems of man, in the various domains. In fact, they are a pair of volumes, published before this one: numbers 128 and 129.  In detail, they review and express this point.

It is important to realise the facts. ONLY GOD could give the truth and actually God has given it, as shown both in principle logically, and in practice empirically.

This covers matter, mind and spirit; and of course man.  It shows the nature, purpose and presentation of God to mankind. Ignored, it leads to precisely what is happening and has been happening since before the Incarnation, during its historic time,  and since it occurred.  The Bible being the verified word of God is indomitable in its utterance; but God Himself is the source and is not merely indomitable, but the only Lord who is both infinite in power and wisdom, and in love. As the Bible depicts, it is love which allows liberty and liberty which beckons to damnation; but God Himself who has intervened, suffering that loss by purity undimmed, and breaking that penalty by suffering vicarious. Indeed, without liberty, you could not have love (Dig ... Ch. 3, Christ Incomparable ... Chs.  2,  3 ).

He has not done it for all, as a gift, or for none. He has done it for those who receive it. It is not a matter of paying for the redemption of the occupants of hell, for that is their domain; nor of limiting the scope to a select and superior few (cf. Great Execrations  ... Greater Grace Chs.   7 and  9).

The principle of exclusion is clearly stated by Jesus Christ: it is this, that He, the light of truth, having come into this world, many prefer darkness. They can have it. HE for His part , would have all redeemed, but then, as so many false religionists do not know, love and force are incapable of co-existence, the latter as the ground or basis for the former . Love is free. Damnation has no cover. Life is paid for; but only to those who receive it. You can achieve rottenness for ever by doing just what some Utilities offer, when they seek a new contract: NOTHING.

However if you desire eternal life from the hand of the only One who has eternity, you need to TAKE IT. Knowing all, He has your name already; but knowledge such as this does not relieve you of responsibility, nor does your sinful heart relieve you of being a target for the love of God. He KNOWS you. However, to my mind, perhaps the most  wonderful point of all, within the love of God, is this. He would LIKE to have you (Colossians 1:19ff.). You are not facing a mean-spirited God, but one who declares that HE IS LOVE. There is nothing that is not love about Him (I John 4:7). As always, there are results for garbage, but so far from having a select choice of the best, the matter is far otherwise for the love of deity (I Corinthians 1:27ff.); for it is not the 'worst' and less attractive but what is intemperate and inveterately irreconcilable, even before the profundity of the knowledge of God, that is despatched.

What is removed by its irresolvable denial from Him, it can only face judgment. Truth never resigns! Lies are barefaced confusion of reality and will. The former always wins. God has made what is to be what it is, and knows what He is doing.

Yet if you seek Him, He is seeking you; and if you draw near  to God, He draws near to you. You will of course never find Him, or anyone else, where He is not! You have to seek Him where He may be found. That is in Jesus Christ, the way, the life and the truth (John 14:6), without whom entry is barred. You yourself do not leave your safe open! but do you also allow those in need who seek its contents to receive them ? There is a liberality about the love of God which is shocklingly wonderful.

It is what it is, as is He who He is. Seeking truth where lie rules is like seeking water  in the desert, where there has been no rain for a millenium.

Comprehensively the word of God defies all that would defile it , by changing it or attacking it; and smiles. God laughs at the efforts to make Him a butt of man's brilliance, or a subject of man's disdain (Psalm 2 tells you about it in some detail, focussing on man's acrid but futile misuse of the Messiah, and doing so a millenium before it happened). God however has wept in Christ for the destruction the madness of man, spiritually, produces, induces and expands (Matthew 23:37ff., Luke 19:42ff.). He has done all.

It is simple; God or blight, Christ or confusion, comprehensive resolution of life's problems for the human  race, or uncomprehending conclusion of life in misery, just, deserved, self-wrought, with just that dissavour of eternal contempt which it deserves. The truth is indomitable, and the Lord showed it so dramatically when following the precise prophetic details of the persecution and crucifixion that were sequel to the most intensive campaign of goodness and kindness in the unique power of God this world has ever seen, He rose as He said He would, and the prophecies said He would, personally from the dead.

The Lord is indomitable, but not domineering. He is decisive but not superficial. He is invincible, but His target is love in truth, beauty in holiness, mercy in peace, indeed the fulfilment of the kingdom of heaven, not of violence and sedition and oppression; and those of us whose target is His fulfilment, for He shall see of the travail of His soul and be satisfied, to find and do the very will of this God, so wonderful, we too will not be ashamed. None can domineer over Him; and His own goodness, it neither varies not fails. Like the stars, it continues, but as to that, even those, He made. He is incomparable in a way which is attackable, but where reality does not bend.

It is He who, the I am who I am, does wonderful things through the faith that flows from His presence to His own, and has done marvels through mercy, and whose peace is beyond all comparison, since it is just, and the product of His reconciling and remedial work on the Cross, where evil met its day, and power moved in love, where mercy was consistent and truth did not fail.

God does not fail. He is indomitable. It is well that it is so; infinitely well.