UNIVERSAL THEOLOGY

All men have a theology even if it is to declare that He is dead.

GOD IS DEAD!

Having celebrated His death on the streets of Paris in May 1968, at which I was present, it is small wonder that man no longer knows who he is.

The result is mayhem philosophically, socially, politically and economically.

We are encouraged to wake up each morning to choose our identity for the coming day with no holds barred and no condemnation. An apotheosis in which each man becomes the god he longs to be. He tweets furiously to gain adherents to his latest mode of living and takes selfies so as to capture each moment in time.

It is an era of ultimate self-worship while the world goes to the dogs.

Jesus asked His followers 'who am I?' Only when we can answer truly that He is the Son of God will we regain our identity as children of God made in His image.

PUTTING OUT THE LIGHTS

When the 'church' preaches tolerance rather than truth it is in danger of loosing its lampstand.

In the light of Revelation which 'church' are we?

MARANATHA, EVEN SO COME LORD JESUS.

For two thousand years the world has been living in a fog of untruth about God and His chosen people. 'Christianity', and hence the 'church', both devised by man, have been permeated by deception hence the state of chaos which is now reigning.

No wonder God is shaking the nations out of their deadly sleep of complacency. Men are crying out for true leaders whose ears are open to their cries of despair. We need a Messiah who will accomplish the will of God by overturning the political order born of man's greed and corruption.

Then we too will sing the Magnificat like Mary, who shared her joy with Elizabeth, the mother of John the baptizer. He was the one ordained by God to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers in preparation for the good news of salvation through the Lamb of God who came to take away the sin of the world.

It is His coming again to rule in power that we should pray for above all. The closing words of Scripture end on this note of longing. "The Spirit and the Bride say 'Come'."

Is this the cry of your heart too?

THE BLINDING FOG OF THIS AGE

This world is yet under the dominion of the Prince of the power of darkness who blinds and deafens those who are on the broad road to destruction, lest they see and hear the truth of God clearly and escape his clutches.

Our world's greatest need is for men and women with eyes and ears that have been reborn by God's Spirit of Truth. Only such can see with lucidity and speak with clarity, discerning between those who serve God and those who serve themselves.

'Truly, truly, take heed how you hear' sprang repeatedly from the lips of the Son of God and rings down the ages with undiminished clarity.

POLITCAL CORRECTNESS

Political correctness leads to the death of truth and the toleration of absurdity.

AN AUTHENTIC LIFE

The world is in the midst of an identity crisis at every level. No wonder it resembles the stormy sea depicted in Revelation, out of which every strange beast arises to rule over men. The only authentic Being who is eternally the same, is the creator God from whom we, and all else, derive our being.

The only hope of authentic life is to walk with the Spirit of Truth, the gift of our heavenly Father to those who love and trust His Son.

Jesus, the King of the Jews, died to witness to this truth, saying He alone is the Way, the Truth and the Life. We can only know this truth if we are prepared to die with Him to our self-regulated and self-absorbed lives.

The danger is that we are too blind to see the danger we are in if we don't. Man's self-confidence in deciding his own destiny is fatal and he is too blind to see it.

DIGITAL MAN

His destiny is decided at the flick of a switch.

It depends who controls the switch.

GOD'S FISHER MEN

Our smiles and prayers are the net God uses to draw men to Himself. He's the one who will make them His own.

SATAN'S TACTICS

He cannot change the way God views us but he can change the way we see God. He will always seek to come between us and than blame both ourselves and God for the shadow.

He can brutalise us with the past which we cannot change, terrorise us with a future over which we have no control, and dampen our enjoyment of the present. He's as changeable as the weather but God's sun never stops shining.

Because He takes up residence within us it doesn't matter whatever the weather. His smile is always upon us.

We must take great care not to block His smile upon those around us.

NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

Truth does not require eloquence so much as it requires accuracy.

It's the only truth to die for.

OUR STOOPING GOD

When God wants to make Himself known He takes someone and makes him nothing so that He can be everything.

Jesus, our Redeemer King, is the example par excellence.

Philippians 2 vs 5 to 11

THE WORD OF GOD

Never in all of history have there been so many bibles written in so many languages and read by so many people with so little understanding of its message.

LOVE NOT OF THIS WORLD

Love is a lifestyle not a mere feeling. A settled purpose to be devoted to the good of the one who is loved.

It can be described in concrete terms of kindness and patience and is quick to rejoice in the good of others. It is not self-seeking, insisting on its own way. It believes the best and its hopes are fadeless. It is not jealous or envious, neither does it rejoice in unrighteousness but rather when truth prevails. It is not conceited or boastful nor parade itself before others.

It will bring down the wrath of man upon you but in the end you will hear the words, 'Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter into the full enjoyment of My delight in you'.

THE ENEMY'S CAMP

When the 'church' becomes a fortress to keep out the world, it turns into a camp of the enemy.

Like the Dead Sea, the fish inside die.

SIGNIFICANCE

There is nothing more important for man than to know that he matters and that he has a role to play in life.

God meets those needs head on. Being made in His image, He regards fallen man as infinitely precious. He redeems us out of our brokenness and rebellion to be remade in this image and reflect His beauty and being on earth.

What higher calling and destiny can man have?

God revealed to Jeremiah that He knew him even before he was born. Then He revealed His plan and calling for his life. More even than that. God would ensure that all He had spoken to Jeremiah  would  come to pass and he need have no fear.

There is no higher calling than to walk in intimate union with the fullness of the God-head, living out daily the salvation He bestows on us for His pleasure and glory.

Ephesians 1

THE KING OF LOVE

As our Redeemer King, Jesus never judges us on our performance but by the measure to which we want to please Him. While we need to live disciplined lives as His children, it is the joy we have in walking with Him that should motivate us and not the fear of His stick if we do not measure up.

As His child I lived in a ditch of doubt and fear for many, many years and yet never lost the knowledge that He was the God who did all things well, even if I was cast aside. Little did I know that He was preparing a new place of abode for me, a room, even in the presence of my enemies, with new vistas of His loving faithfulness and beauty which will accompany me throughout eternity.

It is this that keeps me at His side, fearing to loose one drop of the cordial of the life He has graciously extended to me.

He is indeed my Shepherd King who bids me rise up and come away with Him. He tells me my face is lovely and my voice is sweet and He desires my place at His side. Who could spurn such a Lover?

THE ORACLES OF GOD

True understanding of the Scriptures must be founded on the faith once delivered to our Hebrew forefathers.

Romans 2 vs 2.
Deuteronomy 4 vv 4 to 10

LIFE OR DEATH ACCORDING TO JOHN.

We have all been bitten by the Serpent of sin and it will kill us but Jesus became sin for us and was lifted up on a pole to die so that we can look on Him and live.

'For God so loved the world that He sent His only conceived Son so that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life'. 

This is eternal life so that we might know You, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

Salvation is living a life of becoming more intimately acquainted with God.

HIS YOKE IS EASY

If we were truly obedient we would be less busy.

If we were more mindful of Him we would be calmer in spirit and have more strength of body and soul.

DAILY WASHING

In the morning we need our brains washed by immersing them in the Word, refreshing them so that we can refresh others in turn.

'The Lord has given me the tongue of a disciple to know how to sustain the weary with a word. He wakens me morning by morning, He awakens my ear to listen as a disciple.' Isaiah 50 vs 4

At day's end I need the refreshing washing of my feet, washing away the grime and weariness of the day, washing away sin and guilt, renewing a right spirit within through His life-giving blood, refreshing me for a quiet sleep. I don't need to understand it, just believe it.

'He will open a fountain to the House of David..... to cleanse them from sin and impurity.'
Zechariah 13 vs 1

RELIGION IN GOD'S IMAGE

Man honours the human institutions of religion more than he honours God. Through them he creates a collective voice of authority and human traditions which become exclusive and ultimately oppressive to spiritual growth.

Religion is spirituality in the image of man which precludes man becoming the image of God. This is why there is a ferocious competition for the seat of ultimate domination. It is Satan's mimicry of God's plan for mankind. He seeks to retain his slaves and take the final seat of power in Jerusalem, in his bid to overthrow God.

He is already defeated but continues to subvert God's purpose and deceive the nations, the more so as his time of captivity draws near. After that he will be released for a moment to unite evil in a final onslaught against the King of Kings.

Before the dawn of time the only begotten Son of God was chosen by our heavenly Father to defeat sin and death and bring His people safely home. They will march out together and, as always, our Redeemer King will slay them with one Word from His mouth.

God's words which spoke life into being, will accomplish His creation of a new world and a new humanity in love with Him forever.

BABYLON

Her lure is that of endless pleasure and self-indulgence.

Her end is to discover that it is merely the lure of a bubble of filthy soapy water.

POLLUTED WORLD

Secularism masquerades as a theory of religious neutrality whereas it is the pursuit of blatant godlessness and self-promotion. It is a creeping deathly fog and a slow rising tide of filth.

God's children live in this suffocating air and drink its poison from dawn till dusk. The filthy waters encroach ever nearer. No wonder mere professors are shrunken and emaciated. Those who willingly imbibe it flourish and grow fat. Those who resist the deadly diet are persecuted and cast aside. We remind society of another reality, a world of truth, righteousness and humility, the stench of their coming death.

The ultimate conflict is between self-promotion and self-sacrifice. As Jesus said those who live to save their lives will loose them and those who loose their lives for the sake of the kingdom of His rule will save them.

Some will rise to unending life in God's presence. Others will rise to an unending life of torment and abandonment. Each day we face the choice where we will spend the rest of our lives.

Hell is the eternal scream.

CORONATIONS

We all hope for a good dying. What we should work for is a good resurrection.

This is the purpose of Revelation, to spur us on to be the inhabitants of the true Jerusalem. A desire to see the King of Kings ruling on earth.

Loving His Word and His people through our words and our deeds is a good place to start. Our coronation depends on it.

COSMIC CHRIST

Christ is indeed the only God of salvation, the cosmic Redeemer King. Having said that we may never drain from that conception of His being, His essential, God-ordained Israeli identity which makes Him essentially human too.

Salvation is of the Jews, as Paul said. It is to them first that the gospel of their Redeemer King must be presented. To neglect to do so is to disobey the commands of God and we can expect no blessing. To obey this command is to ensure life from the dead for our own souls and the life of God's children on earth.

REFLECTIONS ON A LIFE WELL LIVED.

Inherently I am strong, fearless and clear thinking. However those natural dispositions are just as much a potential for great evil as great good. As C S Lewis said, it is our strengths we need to fear more than our weakness. They had to be tempered by the Spirit of God or they would have destroyed me, and perhaps others along with me.

The means He used were those in most women's hearts, if they are honest.Through my inordinate desire to be safe and admired in the arms of an earthly lover and settled into the security of a beautiful home, I exposed myself to evil and was smashed and left for dead. No earthly power could preserve me as it was masterminded in hell, aided and abetted by the anger and jealousy of close family and an apathetic, indifferent Christianity, unable to perceive the forces ranged against me.

Out of this abandonment God was reshaping and restoring me for true spiritual beauty and life, totally drawing on His loving faithfulness to His covenant with my people and to me as one to whom those promises had been made. Scripture reflects the story of my life, both the sin and reconciliation, being lost and then found. The Word which God has implanted in my soul and written into my mind. That's how I know He is true and His Word is true.

It is true at all times and does not depend on my conscious appropriation of that truth. I am living proof of that, a demonstration to the heavenly powers and wicked forces of the immutable, underserved and victorious loving kindness of the Godhead who know no other heart beat than that of mutual love for one another. There is no reason for Him to love me other than that He has chosen to do so.

It is this we are called to reflect to the world, that demonstration of His love which is the rain which makes the implanted seed of His Word grow. This love is unmoved by the miserable condition of those we are called on to love. Our only hope for the salvation of this world. God overcame the evil heart of this world but it is our task to demonstrate this.

We read His promises and start to cling to them and as we look back we can see how they have shaped and kept our lives, revealing His greatness and goodness to the world. Bringing His children safe home is His greatest work and demonstration of His self-giving love and power to those who fill the heavenly realm.

Ephesians, the book that changed my life.

TRUE FAITH

It's no use telling someone God loves them if you don't. True love is always demonstrated. God isn't going to ask us one day 'what do you believe about Me?' He's going to ask 'what did you do for Me?'.

He asks for a demonstration of love as proof of our profession. He asks no less from His Son. Jesus went before His Father with His shed blood as proof of His love, both for His Father and for us. He expects no less from us, not as atonement, but as living proof of our devotion to Him.

His special love is for His chosen people, the descendants of Israel. Do we imitate Him in this?

TREMBLING TIMES

God expects us, His children, to understand His ways through His word and so in His world.

We do well to study both as good workmen, correctly analysing and skilfully teaching and applying His Word of truth to the events of the day.

1Timothy 2 vs 15

Hebrews 5 vs 14

AGEING OR AGELESS?

Childlikeness of spirit will ensure an ageless soul.

ONE DAY REVEALED AS HIS CHILDREN

I lost my life as a slave and gained the life of a queen. We discover that when our Shepherd King calls us to loose our lives for His sake and the sake of the good news of His rule, we gain the life of His Father's children, ruling as prince and princesses of His kingdom, serving the One who, from all eternity, devoted His love to creating a family in the likeness of His much-loved Son and Heir.

This is the love story of all time and made known only to those who devote themselves to His service.

'The secret of the Lord is with those who fear Him, and He will show them His covenant.'

Only the eyes of the second born can see the Kingdom of heaven and understand its language.

John 3.

REBEL TO THE LAST

There is only one sin that will send a man to hell. The refusal to believe that Jesus, God's only Son of Salvation, took that man's sin upon Himself and died for it so that he could be given the right live in heaven as God's child.

John 1 vs 12
I John 3 vs 23,24

HOME MAKER

Jesus assured His disciples He was going ahead to build a home for His bride. Each day we provide Him with the building materials, a pearl here, a ruby there garnered by our works of righteousness. Chief of these is to love Him with all our hearts. He is to be our greatest treasure and desired above all else.

EVICTION

When man threw God out of His home he became a fugitive slave, always on the run from tyranny of one kind or another.

When Jesus, the God of our salvation, submitted willingly to that tyrant, enduring the anger of both God and man, the price of our ransom was paid in full and our freedom ensured.

Ignoring this truth will ensure our final and never-ending torment of mind, body and soul.

SPOILSPORT

God had made an amazing world for man to live in. He then made an amazing man to live in it. There was only one problem. God was in charge and declared the conditions under which man was to function if he was to walk in loving fellowship with Him.

Satan, out of hatred, jealousy and covetousness, came to Eve and told her that God was the problem with the world and was out to spoil their fun. There was only one answer. She had to rebel against Him and chuck Him out of the garden.

God screamed in agony as He came looking for man who had now withdrawn into the bushes, hiding out of shame and fear from His Father.

From that day the reign of terror began. Man can never win so lives in perpetual fear of himself, God and others, destroying creation with every step he takes. Burnt earth policies were born. If I'm not going to have it the enemy won't either.

Satan is the ultimate spoilsport but is now a defeated foe, in principle if not in practice. The reign of terror continues, surging and ebbing as the truth comes and goes on the lips and in the lives of God's restored children.

To the extent that we know Him, we too will share in His joys and agony until Jesus, the only God of salvation, comes to take His rightful place on the throne of David in Jerusalem. Our lives and prayers will hasten that day as others join our ranks, released from the captivity of Satan. He is rendered helpless against this onslaught and roars with rage at every defeat.

The celebrations of praise by the saints of God is the best way to drown out his voice.

TIMELESS GLORY OR HELL ON EARTH

Since God is the One in whom we all live and move and have our being, whether we recognise Him or not, without Him nothing can exist, cohere or adhere together. This being so, some walk in love with Him, others continually at war with Him.

As His children we have His image growing in us and so we walk reflecting ever more conspicuously, His glory.

In so doing, this weight of glory will hasten the coming of His Kingdom on earth by our words, deeds and even our smiles, or it will hasten the descent of others into hell.

No moment of our time and God's is ever wasted. That is why we have to redeem it for Him. In so doing we are preparing our eternal weight of glory, the clothing we will wear at our wedding feast with the Lamb, slain from the foundation of the world.

Each day this feast is drawing nearer. Live in the dawning light of that truth.

Paul encouraged believers with these words in his second letter to the Corinthians found in chapter 4.

ISRAEL'S SPRING

While the rest of the world is decomposing and imploding, Israel is burgeoning with new life. It is in the air and in His people. Surely the signs of the coming of summer that Jesus spoke of when asked about the restoration of the temple and the kingdom to Israel.

He told His followers that the generation that observes these signs will see His coming. It's nearer than we think. They are blessing those who come with the good news of their coming salvation in His name. He is standing at the doors awaiting His marching orders to sally forth in victory.

I've seen Israel's Spring. His word says the walls of the new city will be made of sapphires. I have a ring of eternity from the gates of Jerusalem on my finger to confirm it. The return of God's people to Israel is as sure as the sun and moon in their orbits. It is for this we must work and pray.

As Jesus said 'the fields are white unto harvest and the labourers are few. Pray therefore that the Lord of the harvest send forth His labourers.' I'm going. Are you?

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem and God's blessings will rest upon you.

Jeremiah 31 vs 35,36.t

OUR DESTINY

When man turned from his God-ordained destiny to walk with His heavenly Father and Creator, it ripped the heart of God apart. Satan had won the soul of man.

At the Place of the Skull it was ripped apart again, His beloved Son's life given to pay the ransom to redeem His chosen people from Satan's grip, their true destiny with Himself restored.

We neglect Him at our peril.

GOD'S FAITHFULNESS TO THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL.

Since a child God has cradled me in the promises and comforts of the words spoken to His people, the children of Israel. The good news proclaimed by the appointed witnesses of the life, death, resurrection and ascension of His dearly beloved Son, the King and Messiah of His people, completed the story of redemption.

It is a story of mine and equips me to share it with the lost sheep of the house of Israel wherever they are found.

It's a story as real as the sun which rises over Jerusalem every morning and which prefigures His coming to rule over all creation until His enemies are put under His foot stool and He presents the redeemed world to His Father.

It's all there in the words spoken by the prophets of the old administration of the covenant and foretold by the prophets of the new dispensation, under the direction of the chief Prophet, Priest and King.

SAVING TIME

The best way to save time is to redeem it through God-pleasing mindfulness.

What is this? Bringing a sanctified memory of the past into an acute awareness of the present with all our senses fully awake, and guided by a scripturally defined imagination.

In order to do this we have to discipline ourselves to think in this way. This obliges us to slow down, saving both time and ourselves.

THE GLORY OF PREDESTINATION

Loved into being before time by my heavenly Father, redeemed by the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world, promised to His Son, sealed by the gift of the Holy Spirit and bound for my Father's home.

'Those whom He has foreknown.......' Paul's letter of assurance to God's people in Rome.

The words that changed my life forever in October 1973. You put a ring of eternal love on my finger a few days before my earthly betrothal. Little did I know the measure of the testing of that love for forty years. Mine wavered, His never did. I, too, have been able to say 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do'.

March 2016 I have had a foretaste of that glory and a sight of my future home on Mt Zion, Jerusalem.

Our bridegroom is coming sooner than we think. We hear His footstep at the door. The wise virgins' lamps are filled and trimmed, our task to call home the remnant of His people and restore His kingdom on earth.

The foolish ones sleep on, unwilling to be roused. Taken up with 'selfies', engrossed in themselves, they will rush forth and seek Him in vain when the marriage feast begins. We are warned not to heed their anxious cries for a share in our oil lest we loose our crowns.

GOD'S FACTS

Scripture is not a matter of interpretation. It is a matter of facts.

If we fail to read it as such we cannot reap it's rewards.

FEARING TO OFFEND

When we fear to offend men more than we fear to offend God, the destiny of our souls is in great danger.

The battle for our souls continues unabated until the day we die, and we should expect no let up in Satan's attempts to devour us. God's children are all survivors of the holocaust. We survive because Jesus is our Forerunner in the race of life and, God be thanked, the true and trusted Captain of our salvation.

That is why we fix our eyes on Him. Who wouldn't want to gaze on His face, the most beautiful in all creation.

PERSEVERANCE

It's not our love for God that keeps us faithful, but God's love for us. Like Peter, it shatters our arrogant assumptions to discover this. Our greatest danger is to think we can in any way save ourselves. We are indeed our chief enemy, our flesh will plague us to the end.

'Chosen not for good in me,
Wakened up from wrath to flee,
Hidden in the Saviour’s side,
By the Spirit sanctified,
Teach me, Lord, on earth to show,
By my love, how much I owe.'

Robert Murray McCheyne

ASK, SEEK AND KNOCK

We must seek out God. As His children we need to make time for compassionate conversations with our Father. The most important part is to be quiet enough to listen to what He has to say to us. Only then can we hear Him say we are His beloved children, and respond to Him as our beloved Father.

'Christians' talk too much, both to each other and to God. We teach and preach and pray as if there is no tomorrow. Jesus was never in a hurry, knowing His times were in God's hands. He listened to His dearly loved Father before demonstrating Him to His people and teaching them about Him. His followers must do the same.

How else can we understand how precious we are to Him? If we don't, we spend our time in fruitless anxiety and business to prove to Him how good we are. If we listened more we wouldn't have to.

HOLY HYGIENE

Perhaps the 'washing of regeneration' could be described as bathing our minds in Scripture.

PRAYER

If we spent less time telling the Lord what to do for us and more time listening to what He wants us to do for Him we would please Him better and accomplish far more.

THE FRUITS OF EVOLUTIONISM

You cannot love creation without loving the Creator. The wanton destruction of nature and man reveals the hostility of evolutionism and yet man continues to pursue materialism for dear life. If he can eradicate the unseen Creator God then he is no longer responsible for his deeds and can use the world for his own ends.

No wonder the Creed was repeated every Lord's Day.

GOD'S GREATEST NEED

 It is the nature of love to want to love rather than to be loved. There is unbounded love between the Person's of the Trinity. Even this was not enough for God but needed a whole creation of others, who like Himself, are made to love and receive love.

Throughout Scripture we see an overwhelming yearning of God for His people, His scream of agony in Eden when man, choosing to believe the father of lies, betrayed Him and became his enemy. Perhaps even then the Son, dedicated to redeem man before the foundation of the world, said 'Father forgive them. They know not what they do'.

God turned evil into good and purposed a destiny for man beyond his wildest dreams, so undoing the murderous purposes of Satan. This will ever be so for those He loved before time and destined to be made into the image of  His most dearly loved Son and to share in His inheritance, which is God Himself.

LIGHTS

I'd rather be a candle in the house of the Lord than a chandelier in the palace of pleasure seekers.

EXCAVATIONS IN THE MINES OF GOD'S WORD

Some do exegesis of Scripture to adorn the shelves of libraries.

Others excavate bright jewels to adorn the rings God loves to put on the fingers of those of His children who love to talk together of His goodness.

Malachi 3 vs 15 to17.

TOGETHERNESS

Life is about walking in mindful togetherness with God, the Holy One of Israel. The One who is infinitely tender in all His dealings with His infinitely precious children, redeemed in His Son before the ages of this world and for all time.

Isaiah 43 vs 1 - 7.

PEACE WHEN THE BILLOWS ROLL.

The bark of my soul has already beached on the shores of eternity. The shell of my body will follow in due course.