First, to get the perspective, may one suggest you read the Preface. Otherwise, like a cliff walk in the dark, as the breakers boom and the spray lifts, your walk may be a misadventure. Heights need knowledge, or they can become depths, not jubilant but jagged. Truth is not an option, but a necessity. You need a map where mapping is to be found!
Rail ? You had better be on the right train in that case. The express train does not stop at stations, when once it is well away. This world is well away, careering to its end. Unfortunately for it, the platform is called Destruction, and the alighting point has no light, for the place is Doom. Its light is gloom, its clamour is darkness. It is better not to be on that train.
Ø God, who made the world and everything in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands. Nor is He worshiped with men’s hands, as though He needed anything, since He gives to all life, breath, and all things. And He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their dwellings, so that they should seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us; for in Him we live and move and have our being, as also some of your own poets have said, ‘For we are also His offspring.’
Ø Therefore, since we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, something shaped by art and man’s devising. Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent, because He has appointed a day on which He will judge the world in righteousness by the Man whom He has ordained. He has given assurance of this to all by raising Him from the dead.”
Doom is forever but this world is not forever; it is merely the stage. It is man who is forever, though alas, in grief is an end which is godless, forlorn and lost. Another train should be taken than the train du monde, the train of mere events.
Ø “Beloved, I now write to you this second epistle (in both of which I stir up your pure minds by way of reminder), that you may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us, the apostles of the Lord and Savior, knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, and saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.’
Ø For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.
Ø “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat? Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.
Ø “Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless …”
Before we plunge into our survey of elements of feminism and female debasement, masculinism and lordliness, often inflated tinniness, dubious pledges and puniness, as current events move to their just (in result) but unjust (in procedure) conclusion, let us realise afresh the folly of imagining that the systematic order which is the basis of all our human disorder (giving it scope and to enterprise capacity for creating ruin), does not matter. Let us pity the position that our Author of DNA and mind, thought and originality, comprehension and will, is unconcerned at our use of His equipment, including ourselves, and loves to have His will affronted by contrary devisings that look little to the way they are made, but much to what they will. Revolt against right is always revolting in the end.
HIS WILL is His creation, but man has specialised in desecration. His will FOR His creation is not feebly to audit His defamation, the degradation of His works and the dead dynamics of depraved obsessions; for this in all its forms, is not true. Hence is at war with Him, who like thought and peace, love and courage, is invisible; and not seldom, in sight as in substance, at war likewise that dependent reality called creation, at the same time.
The very air of our twenty first century, reeling on from the twentieth, reeks with the will to kill:
¨ in Afghanistan (they all seem to be or to have been at it, nations, war lords, Islamic enslavers of one kind or another),
¨ in Africa, Thailand and many other countries, with AIDS aided by floating morals, that make murder indirect, but just as sure on the part of many, for millions, and life fouled for countless children in body or support,
¨ and now wherever the religious thugs desire, in order that they might protest at the liberation of East Timor, or Afghanistan from people parading a religion of force and violence.
This last, it has been the intimation of a reported message via the so compliant El Jazeera of Qatar (The Advertiser, Monday Nov. 18, 2002), from bin Laden, annoyed, it would seem, that people dare to want liberty for others, rather than oppression with guns and ethics that make of women a travesty of the dignity of their creation, as happened in Afghanistan and has been so well documented (cf. The Guardian, November 13, 2002, Benevolent Brightness or Brothy Bane 82, p. 206). How many of the woman in the so blighted land, now rejoice to be able to learn in school, and female teachers, to teach! Not a thing for man, but a potential comrade, woman requires love not the pageantry of ‘purity’ that is a slavery in thin disguise. Purity for whom ? for the lust of man, that it be amply sated with multiple ministrations from subjects ? Love requires purity, and purity starts within, for all, and is from above.
Despite the suffering and war, The Guardian report indicates from people interviewed in the land, it is wonderful for women no more to be ludicrously vilified objects of male attention, as if they had little other purpose, so that now they can learn and become qualified. Being a help MEET for man is not to be a subject OWNED, for it is God who owns us all (cf. Dance of Life, Ch. 10, A Spiritual Potpourri). The enslavement to laws of such a limited vision and so tainted a beneficiary, so devastatingly wasteful and unfair, is merely one more example of war: this time of one gender on another. Alas, THE MISERY OF AFGHANISTAN IS NOT LEAST RELIGIOUS.
Al Qaeda is in one aspect, an attempt to export it, not by that country, but by those who used and abused it, as reportedly also neighbouring Pakistan with or without any government knowledge, in order to train up murderous zealots, immersed in cultural hatred, their youthful breasts imbued with fiction and bravado. With religious awe perverted into the path of the engineers of destruction, these appear to have been added to the other international products of odium and woe, who are seeking Israel for their very own, as if Islam did not already have more than enough of the world in the multiplied lands where their people dwell. Thus proceeds this new, now religiouis hammer and sickle body to destroy, often with disregard for other life, as if they wore the very uniform of death: so fulfilling the prediction of Revelation with admirable precision, but morals as far from admiration as might be.
This evil, it is however not the dictatorial dynamic alone, as often in Islam: it is found from Hitler to Mao, from Stalin to Milosovic, from Napoleon to Kaiser, from Genghis Khan to the papacy, from tyrant to tyrant and time to time, like the salt on steak, usually around; but this salt is insult to the human race, and assault on the God who made it.
Man is in effect making war on himself, by attacking his God, who is not available for reconstruction of convenience, but simply IS. Irreversible, irreformable, His will and His word are alike the expression of WHO HE IS: “I am”. Why people go to such pains to worship what is not there (as censured in Deuteronomy 32:15-21), in novelty religions that have neither the verified antiquity nor the verified predictions of the truth, and to rebel against the living God, even daring to use His name very often in the process, is all a part of the mystery of iniquity (cf. The Other News, Appendix I, SMR pp. 1080ff.). Since God is of a goodness which is its very source and original, exhibited in Jesus Christ at the date for centuries appointed (Highway of Holiness Ch. 4), and confirmed for ever afterwards in every mood and mode of history, which His predictive words with those of the prophets have embraced like the clasp of a lover, this rebellion is the more tainted than ever: headstrong and lustful.
In need of nothing from what He has altogether created, deriving nothing from any of it that He needs (for needs indicate incompletion and potential, whereas God is not dowered by anyone), He gives. For what He gives, man is answerable. (Cf. Little Things Ch. 5, Spiritual Refreshings… Ch. 9, News 122, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls … Ch. 9.)
That He both gives and lives are fundamental to the happiness of man. If man chooses to leave out his car (if you will, for simple analogy), without garage, and to imagine that the manufacturer wants it wrecked, so never goes to the service station, so be it! It is slander and it is foolish; but it can be done.
As to God, however, of HIS judgments He gives ample attestation, as for famous example, in the Pharaoh at the Exodus, when warning after warning of the most express, articulate and interpreted character was provided, but in vain. Pharaoh hasted to his own ruin, in a flurry of independence from God, truth and justice which has made his name a laughing stock, the grim-faced tyrant for whom nothing, repeat nothing could be permitted to bring halt. When however, it comes to immovability, there is but One like that, and He IS the truth, though He suffered defamation that we might be delivered through His redeeming death. That He would rise was at once obvious (cf. Acts 2:23-24, cf. SMR Ch. 6), and glorious; God CANNOT be other than victorious when He knows all there is, and made it! He even evenhandedly forecasts the results of contests, and then does them; He even forecasts the contemporary love of denying the flood and the judgment of God, as if obsession had replaced thought in modern man (as shown in II Peter 3:3ff.), laughing at folly, but enduring it on earth as the Saviour, that men might be cleared of it (Romans 2:21-28).
God does not need to impress Himself: creation IS His impress, both the beginning of it and the curse, both the curse and the cure.
If any reader would like some amplification at this phase, as we walk along the cliffs, please turn to Ancient Words, Modern Deeds Chs. 9 and 13, with Little Things Ch. 5 and Calibrating Myths … Chs. 7 and 9 and Beyond the Curse, Ch. 7 of Biblical Blessings and SMR Ch. 1 and pp. 580ff., Repent or Perish Ch. 2). Meanwhile, we must press on to our news. It is multiple in kind, but single in thrust!
It is not of course merely a Moslem matter, this decline. Britain also is in the grip of it, but not in the same dictatorial way.
Thus Charles is on record as thinking of himself as the defender of faiths (hard to do, when some want to obliterate the exponents of others), and what is not falling of itself*1A, is helped by the European Union*1 as seen in some of these references. Now the energetic PM Blair has much to say about things, about Al Qaeda, about dangers, about steps to be taken by BRITONS. There is to be more KNOWLEDGE about other religions; and respect for them. Thus whereas in USA the idea is that that nation should uh! … consider, see if it is really worth it to support Israel to the extent that it does (leaving Europe far behind cf. Earth Spasm … Ch. 5, News 53); England, it seems, needs to review its regard for religions! This arm twisting, or Nelson lock on the neck, it is a part of education as to the truth ? the truth that the body has frailty ? But this, it was known beforehand!
Ø “…we need to create bridges of understanding between religious faiths also. Part of the fanaticism is religious. Part of the solution lies in religion too. … Young people need to be brought up with a clear understanding of other faiths, respect them and cultivate knowledge both of differences and the vast areas of common values and traditions of which so many are ignorant… The point is simply this: if a unified international community is the surest way to defeat these new dangers, we need to construct the broad agenda around which unity can coalesce.”
With all of this, we are perforce reminded of the UN statements, which have already gone to such depths. Let us cite from the Mystery of Iniquity. This refers to the UN’s Convention of Child Rights”
Article 9 - this tells us that... "States Parties shall respect the right of the child not to be separated from his or her parents against their will, except when competent authorities ... determine... that such separation is necessary for the best interests of the child."
Now as to those "best interests", we have from this grand and cheerfully instructive international body, more advice. The child, and of course, it is obvious... shall " be brought up in the spirit of the ideals proclaimed in the Charter of the United Nations, and in particular in the spirit of peace, dignity, tolerance, freedom, equality and solidarity."
Solidarity ? With what ? Why, but of course... with the United Nations, with that one earth which the forces which do not care to introduce God, prefer to have instead. Thus we shall see later, in the Declaration on the Elimination of ... Discrimination Based on Religion..., there is a necessity that the child be reared in "universal brotherhood", within the confines of concepts of world peace, and contrary views are simply "inadmissible".
Running God's earth however in His absence, and His children without Him, on principles where He somehow does not appear, is Biblically by definition, antichristian.
Ø There you see the unambiguous solidarity with the UN, with the inter-faith movement, with the jettisoning of absolute truth, to which England via the Bible has ostensibly been committed for several better than normal centuries, despite the elements of hypocrisy which have crept in, so that the effort is to DEFUSE tensions by CONFUSING realities, and this, by ignoring the basic differences, of the order of infinity, in favour of some similarities, which like clothes worn, do not change the heart. Christ and the Koran are as near as heaven and hell, violence BY and violence AGAINST God, redemption and effort, consistency and tortuous self-contradiction, the verified and the exhaustively ill-attested.
Ø One says, Yes, Christ is He, and there is and can be, no other. The other declares, Christ is merely a member of the greats, and has been superceded in the latest release special from heaven. One says, Accept your sin and its pardon in Christ. The other says, Not a bit of it; get on with getting yourself to heaven. One says, Christ died for sinners; the other is not even sure that He died at all (cf. More Marvels Ch. 4, SMR pp. 1080ff., Highway to Hell, Endnote 1). In essence, in purpose, in salvation, in grace, in force, in the very identity of God, in His ways and in His greatest works, they agree like Labour and Liberal, Light and Darkness, riches and poverty or indeed, validity and invalidity.
Ø To seek respect for the disreputable, to seek honour for what defiles Christ (I Samuel 2:30, John 10:30, 1:1, 5:19ff., 8:58), to do it with world peace WITHOUT Christ as the criterion, is of course first of all unbelief (Isaiah 9:7, Ephesians 1:10). Secondly, it is as has been shown, irrational. Thirdly, like all irrational things, it will not work. Fourthly, God has gone to extreme pains in the only religion which is logically attested, to declare two things. ONE: honour to what is not honourable is dishonourable (Isaiah 5:20, 8:20), and respect for what pollutes is no wisdom; and TWO, that this is what has been done (Genesis 11, Isaiah 14), will be done and will finally be judged in the finale of exposure of the wickedness of man (Revelation 13, 17, 19, II Thess. 2).
Seeking to combine, or to make much of supposed similarities between these two religions is no better than making comparisons between the casings of an atomic bomb and a cabin portmanteau. To be sure there may be marked similarities; but in function, and in reality, in fact and in utility, these are not at all not to the point! You could ask the ship’s crew (if any) after the explosion of the one, their opinion!
This sort of convention of making a convenience of religion is not new. It is as old as Babel, as Judas, as simony. It is a sale, not necessarily for money, but sometimes for survival. It has not come without a cause or a preliminary which makes even possible so to speak to such a nation as England! A Question of Gifts Section VII, News 122, News 121! But it has come.
Just as in the UN, the stage has been reached, already, where the child MUST be brought up in a spirit of total human brotherhood (whereas Christ declared of some that they were of their father, the devil - John 8:44, and John the apostle declared that those who do not receive Christ, the Son of God, live the lie! - I John 2:22, 5:41:1-4), so now in England is this spiritually vicious if socially well-meaning disclaimer being made. What is for world peace and brotherhood, says the UN, is what must be. Now since this body has no record of belief in Christ, it is apparent that IT, the UN is the arbiter, and the world that now is, is the criterion.
What then is the trend of the baneful message ? It is this: If people fight about religion, they must stop. If some Muslims want to kill many Christians, very well, something must be done to stop them. Otherwise where is peace ? So goes this style of reasoning. It is not the matter of truth, but of living a little longer, which seems paramount. It is not the question of fealty to God, but placating man, in whatever condition, however appalling, he may be. It is not healing, but deliverance from the threats of the godless, whose god is an idol and whose ways are not His (Psalm 96).
Therefore these things, these palliative measures, these placations, these insinuations, they must be made; and so it must be. That is the appearance of the message in this case.
MUST IT ? Must then Christ be killed not only in His own body, but in the servitude (if such programs were successfully to be followed) to be brought upon His followers. They must, doubtless, have their children brought up in the UN mould, so that Christianity must be perverted, since although it does not believe in violence in the ‘interests’ of faith, others do not like to have its gospel presented, Christ’s claims proclaimed, God’s word applied: it disturbs them. That they are wrong in their intimidatory threats, their violence and their murderous machinations, this does not appear to matter.
What then is the plan ? It is this: Thus some new international accord must be reached so that, with understanding and goodwill, we realise and others realise that we realise, that it does not really matter so much. What matters then ? It is MAN! This is the purest of the impure, the most chemically exact version of impurity: it is humanism with a touch of glory from somewhere, yet to be determined. It WILL be determined, as the Bible has for so long and so crisply told us (II Thessalonians 2), in the form of the Director in his mad movement to BE God, or rather to SHOW HIMSELF that he IS GOD!
It has to start, if it is to finish. It has long started, and this new Banquet Speech, allied to the UN declarations, is coming nearer to the finish! What was a bulwark for the faith, now grows nearer, as has Bush done for his part (cf. Red Alert Ch. 16), to the finale of confusion.
Apologetically, this is merely a verification of the Bible in that what has to come, is now to be seen coming at a frantic rate, inspired not least by the lust for survival, in which religion is to be viewed as a means to an end. God as a means to an end ? A fascinating thought. It means that man is lord; but alas, so unworthy, so inept, so lacking in the royalty needed, the eternity required, to BE GOD! Playing at being God is no game, and no work of art either! It is a gross and grotesque manipulation, and its artistic merit is as before, what is described so tersely in Isaiah 52:13-15. The concept of remaking God, like that of remaking anyone else’s face, is a rather gory story.
Ø not the writing of the books for man, to seek his survival, but his revival, in absolute reliance on Almighty God, of whom the English have heard, to name but one nation, for thousands of years, and in whose grasp they ostensibly have been glad to place themselves, as a NATION, these hundreds of years.
The truth is alive and written; it is simply not available for reconstruction. That way lies destruction, for in the grace and mercy of God, the path of peace is already revealed, and the cost for it.
To seek thus to impose a new look, in a New Age, and a new stage for man, is merely to revert to the old game of intolerance of the truth. It matters little what is the reason for such a movement as is clearly seen in the UN; it matters infinitely that it occurs. Death may be brought about by many means. It matters little what are the means; it is the result which is the criterion. So here: this and that motive - and there are MANY motives moving man to this result, of which survival is but one in general - is of interest; and when one reasons with those caught in any such net, indeed it needs some concentration on that point. They are dazzled by cut glass, esteeming it above diamonds; but truth cuts without limit, and manufactured pretence is mere searing to the eye.
Thus the real point remains. In the end, in the scenario of man, it is the FACT that faith is replaced, that faith in Christ is coming to be replaced in more and more ways and places, with faith in man and his methods: it is this that counts. You may commit perjury against the truth in court, in many ways; it is the occurrence which matters, which constitutes the crime.
Man proposes; God disposes. God is disposed to bless, and has presented the truth in writing. What then is this… other writing ? but a writhing, and a contortion, and an abortion, a movement to the cliff, and a preparation for the fall. Was not the first Fall of man enough ? Did it not require a cost deadly enough of the Lord ? What now ? For such a fall as this, there is no remedy. It is the removal of remedy, authentic, solely valid*3, empirically verified for millennia which is crucial; and when this is done, by the nature of the case, there is no more remedy!
*1A Cf. A Question of Gifts Section VII, Wake Up World! …Ch. 3, News 13, 53, 73, 113, 121 with Divine Agenda Ch. 3, and 8, Galloping Events Ch. 4. As seen here, the falls while not at all restricted to Europe, are in that location both intense and sophisticated, equipped with a cultural past that has more than any mere Hitler to exhibit, in the direction of thought, and what has been wrought. Biblically, this is intensely important for this predicted coming centre of terrestrial power, though the time appointed for it is short (cf. Revelation 17:12). .
*1 The corrosive force in morals being shown in areas of the EUs operation, is noted in the references of 1A above. It is, in this, greatly aided in decline by the UN (cf. Mystery of Iniquity). They could then conveniently do it together, but to the benefit of neither before Almighty God! Interesting in another phase of this apparent decline in Europe. Not only is the UN requirement forwarding homosexuality in the British Army, in its tentacles, given in the earlier references, one example, but the Dutch reports on the thousands of ‘registered’ homosexual ‘marriages’ is merely a further side of the tide, to which growing euthanasia, with its almost limitless scope for broader and broader ‘interpretation’ of the wishes of undesired aged persons, is merely one more phase. The abnormal, the eccentric, the frankly contra-design misuse of man, and his ponderous aspirations to be his own almighty (lacking however the all might), is in all flight from heaven to hell, and few are the stops between (cf. I Corinthians 6:9ff., I Timothy 1:10).
However it is another aspect for Europe, the coming base for world dominion, as biblically predicted (cf. SMR pp. 886ff., 905ff., 918ff.), that is here to be noted.
In the Manchester Guardian, November 13, 2002, we read that Richard Perle, “a leading Pentagon adviser on Iraq, last night launched an extraordinary tirade against Europe which he accused of losing its moral direction and providing succour to Saddam Hussein.” “I think Europe has lost its moral compass,” he declared. “Many Europeans have become so obsessed by the prospect of violence they have failed to notice who we are dealing with,” are the words cited. “Germany,” he declared, “has subsided into a moral numbing pacifism.” He is concerned that the German Chancellor has declined to be involved with or without the UN, against the Iraqi threat. “I don’t see how anyone, particularly any liberal, can say anything that can be construed as protecting the regime of Saddam Hussein. And yet that’s the position that many on the left have taken,” came his critique.
One can readily understand a Europe which after Napoleon, Hitler and Mussolini, is not bent on war, and a Germany which after 1870, 1914 and 1939, has learned some lessons on the importance or otherwise of the aggressive option. Yet there are times when defence becomes important, and concessions to replace it, merely selfishness. If indeed, this is the Middle East rationale, it has nothing to commend it. Europe has been far from favourable to Israel for some time.
In Perle’s view, dealing with defence, there are some bodies with which one cannot deal; there is a very real axis of evil; atomic bombs are in the works with some for whom aggression is no lost option, some who are not under due restraint, and there are many nations harbouring terrorists: and so all is not well.
Certainly, all is not well; and assuredly there are bodies so ideologically inclined that it is folly to have ‘arrangements’ and co-operative work with them. This is so with Islamic nations, whose Koran speaks words often shown on this site, to be frankly physically militant with their religion, and FOR their religion and its domination (cf. More Marvels Ch.4 and associated references). In that, the USA has erred vastly, and perhaps critically. It is good to see that at least the principle is realised! How savvy are some of the performances which ‘assure success’ yet are doomed to fail, being unprincipled indeed, and failing to consider the Chief Agent, God whose words are not in negotiated treaties, but written these millennia, never varying by one millimetre either in prescription or in fulfillment. To forget Russia and China, with India, might be conceivable, but to forget God is a tragedy in the making. His words are very clear (cf. *1A above).
Europe has also been remarkable in some statements on Israel (News 53) and the trend seems to start with the ‘naturally a PLO State’ sort of assumption, not far from that of Clinton, and indeed now of Bush. On this scene brought to the clouded eye, see Galloping Events Ch. 4. It is enough to omit a character from a play, but when you omit the playwright, this is rather more than a gaffe. It is ALL, after all, from his pen (cf. Ephesians 1:11, Isaiah 44:25ff.). Such omissions can lead not only to futile frustrations but eventual disillusion, often the hotbed in its woes, of more violence from one party or another.
There is no NEED (even if need spelled right) for this ‘respect’ for other religions. What is needed is regard and yes, far more than that, love for one’s neighbour, whether he be religious, or physical, mental or social in his impediment.
One can wish to help, regard the feelings and health of a neighbour and for that very reason, all the more seek to give him or her the opportunity to be freed from whatever the malaise: drugs, drink inebriating the mind, or false religion, intoxicating the spirit.
Since we do not need to be battered with an opportunity, lest this very thing destroy its clarity, but may need various efforts for all that, to help us realise our position when we are wrong, or in physical peril, therefore freedom of expression is quite essential and should be seen as such by all who are not dictatorial in aspiration. This is where Victoria has made such an inhumanly demeaning mistake (cf. Secular Myths and Sacred Truth Ch. 6); and of course where many others have erred similarly, for centuries past.
So far from a lack of love being the necessary conjunction of a concern at a false religion, the latter may increase the obvious need for the former! When a doctor sees a patient near to death from pneumonia, there is no apparent necessity why he or she should seek to harm the patient. The more normal desire in such a case would be to HELP the patient. But help ? It would not be to help the patient have a dip in an ice-filled pool. That would not be helpful, but a craven substitute for concern, mere acquiescence for peace’ sake. It would end in no good for any.
Thus integrity remains a first essential in all social dealings. Only those so decisively lost that they become mere puppets of evil, or of convenience, convention or culture, their own or some other, could consider sacrificing it for such action. Why then is it so simply assumed that religious difference MUST require RESPECT FOR THE RELIGION!
Respect ? For the person, yes, and hence a just concern; and for the liberty of the person, so that their peril does not make us dictators or their apprentices, this too is needed. Christ is a walking marvel in this: the combination of the blunt (if necessary), the delicate (as required in tender circumstances), the caring, the helpful, the unwavering expression of truth, the accompaniment, just as wisdom required for the best result in the creation before his or her Creator.
All endeavour to judge all cases in one cast, when they are often diametrically opposed in this very matter of love, and truth, is bound to failure. It is simply governmental slackness, inexcusable in one or in all. Who should respect error ? None. Who should accept governmental push as if it were god ? None. Who however should seek the good even of those so astray that they blaspheme ? Normally, all, to the extent that the way appears; and the heart should desire it.
If in God’s judgment, the case passes all measure, and the lost embraces lostness to the end, so be it. That is His own affair. For us, we treat it, spiritual disease, very much as the physical is treated. We seek with discretion but clarity, to help, where help we may. We do NOT hate the sick person, but seek that person’s good; we do NOT love the disease, respect it or foster it, speak well of it in any way, for it is an evil suffered. We do not pretend that it is good.
We act in love and in truth. With such things as these, in spiritual perspective, the world would be delivered both from hypocrisy and dictatorial slackness. Without Christ, it is never content for long in such a mode however; for only in Him is love perfected, and only in Him is the heart cleansed. Those blind act to change man by social engineering and political clout; but it simply does not work. Truth is never found by force, or for that matter, political chicanery and presumption.
*3 You cannot tell the truth when you deny by your system of thought, the very possibility of its existence - and, incidentally, and equally, that of your own contention being true likewise. Truth cannot be found by relativistic rumblings in an imaginary universe without it, no, not even to express an opinion about it, which nevertheless those so logically afflicted do with the normal zest of man, for after all, as made in the image of God, for him truth is like mother’s milk. It is just that usually, he does not in this, drink it.
Becoming by arbitrary willfulness, thus, a poor starved changeling, he acts like it; and since this case is entirely pathological, there is no virtue in it, and so man comes to look like what his heart desires, the world his portrait! When however you use reason, only God remains and only the Bible, not angst and its heirs of hyperactive and mindless hope, or denuded soul in disillusion, inclined to careless violence in its metaphysical cups.