The Pinch Point

 "You hypocrite! First, remove the plank from your own eye, then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's".

Jesus - Matthew 7:5

Hypocrisy, malice, avarice, pride.

The telling faults that often lead a person to believe they can do as they please with what or whom they please. At least until the ground gives way beneath and they find themselves crashing towards the place where they are deemed to be identified by a single trait - shame.

So that would be that, then. Rock bottom.

Not in our world - there are further dreadful furrows to plough.

We live in a realm where such actual shame often becomes more than a badge of disgrace, as we'd expect, but of boast and even something enviously desired by others who wish they could surely reach such open abandon to serve only their own immersive ambitions, whatever others may think.

Scripture is no blushing prude when it comes to addressing such flagrant disdain welling up from the canker of our present (and all too apparent) natures.

Like Lamech's odious brag that he had outdone the first murderer amongst men (Genesis 4:23-24), we have a plethora of gainsayers who would negate and leave any and all bereft of any devices except those which allow for some cruel amusement, but their callous gall does not end there. They seek to scorn and shame those sent to expose their tyranny - "look", they readily declare - "the true source of all our woes" (pointing to the non-complicit - 1 Kings 18:17). Such is the depth of their degradation.

This brash revelry truly knows no bounds when fused with access to what appears to be unlimited power (Daniel 3:4-6), but the consequences for those beneath such oppression are very real (Exodus 5:7) as are the "policies" employed to warrant such cruelty. Babel, for example, was motivated by a message (propaganda) of security and fame (Genesis 11:4 - to protect from dispersal and to make a name for themselves).

So, we are warned, it will be amidst the community of saints (Acts 20:29 & 30).

The 'condemnation' of some amongst us is that they, like their secular counter-parts, actually prevent what is good, and the consequences of such alterations are total and dreadful (hence, a people so reduced become made fit only for judgement - see Jude 5).

Yes, particular deeds derived from an apathy towards the depths of truth (and its direct ramifications) precede real demise (Jude 7), but far worse is the activity of those who 'dream' they can rise above what the Lord Himself requires and substitute this with the blasphemy of raising what murders truth, whilst keeping themselves as the benefactor and thereby snubbing the vitality of the way the Lord Himself has sealed in His sacrifice as necessary for us. Such 'shepherds' gorge by such means in their preying upon the flock, though what is provided is without the actual firmness of God's sure foundation. The conclusion, however bright the wrapping, is the darkness of the void.

All of this, no doubt, sounds clear enough, but how does this translate into the present?

Perhaps we have no issue renouncing a presumed 'officer' in the church when he states he is far more concerned about whether particular people (already found by a court to be acting unlawfully on another matter) are social distancing than having an affair, but what of the issue of social distancing itself? How would we have responded to Jesus when those deemed 'untouchable' by the 'hygenic' (moral and legal standards of the day) were not only welcomed but actively engaged with as ready for the good news? Where are we with such discarded as those currently who find themselves 'outside of the net' of the approved, indeed mandatory rules of the moment?

Many times authority, however set as well-meaning, has proven to be not only wrong in respect to its prescribed policies, but in the manner it has ill-treated the ones who suffer beneath the force of what is imposed.

Because we have allowed just such an imposition to be placed and continually enforced upon the church in the present, many are suffering now, because those in leadership refuse to see how they have become 'politicised' for the ends of those marred by power and control.

The secular perpetrators of this woe are now beginning to shudder and fall, as voices become present to expose their shameful intents, but still, so many in the church neglect to see or hear and thereby fail to question the manner of apathy and neglect amongst themselves to address what should have been said and done.

Where does this leave us?

Still dependent upon what comes down from the 'powers' that have stifled and silenced us before the very communities we were meant to serve, regardless of cost, we are weak and shipwrecked indeed.

Now we can never be evident in this crisis in sacrifice for truth alongside those in greatest need - the very ones Jesus placed first, from birth to resurrection - those discounted by the ones who considered themselves great.

The enemies that must concern us in this moment are not some caricature of villainy, but the pressing menace of social media oligarchs, venerating the narrative of Atlas Shrugged as they oblate at the altar of Ayn Rand. The deniers of the faith are those who not only call what is evil good, but impose such upon their congregations as expedient, even righteous, whatever the cost to truth.

What we are entirely failing to see is just how discriminatory and prejudicial our "first world" solutions to this crisis actually have become, and how those with money, power and position are now continually becoming or being favoured above those who, for various reasons or because of certain concerns, are deemed 'below' what is significant in respect to status. The shame of buying-in to this 'new' situation has replaced the dignity which should be given to all, because all have been defined as bearing a divinely ordained status of astonishing worth (James 3:9).

Whilst a church, for example, may forgo the use of a 'badge' to gain entry to a service, its members have already subscribed to the same badge in respects to allowing them the "privilege" of entering a particular venue or journeying to a certain holiday destination or, as revealed this week, to allow an exemption to apply if in business to suspend certain health requirements.

Why is this so? Why have believers already bought in to a "two-tier" society that will, as the requirements are further refined, conclude in excluding so many?

If we are to be resolved in our conviction that liberty is sovereignly bestowed from the highest authority (Genesis 1:29-31), then we cannot afford to barter such a precious gift to the variations of political expediency - to do so marries us to a political agenda at the cost of loosing what such powers take from us, and with that, we loose our ability to stand with another in genuine need to be defined by a deeper dignity.

We now inhabit a time where Christian principles are ruled as contrary to ethical social policy defined by Government hearings (the Dr David Mackereth case in 2019) and social division can be required if a hazard is 'scientifically' deemed threatening, enough to warrant such 'caution' for some, not all, and to limit their freedoms. This is why Christianity has always argued for a limiting of power when it comes to how we are governed; that what is genuinely good in public life is allowed to thrive and sustain its members. 2020 removed all of this, and it is clearly the intent to perpetuate our remaining in this 'required' existence of control.

The eternal kingdom is defined by a 'King' who principally reigns as a Lamb slain (Revelation 5:6, 22:1). Raised up in the midst of time and space to convey the inestimable wealth of life bestowed by God, to and for others,  He teaches that such 'emptying' for others should be evident amongst us (Matthew 23:11).

Can we afford to continue to readily affiliate ourselves with 'powers' that deny such truth whilst they continually bind to and encourage participation in a society of shame?

B e y o n d

"Astronomers now recognise what they see through their telescopes comprises only 0.27% of all the contents of the universe. Darkness (as a material) comprises the other 99.73%".

Dr Hugh Ross.

Oh, I know - you're wondering how does that fact relate to your faith. Well, the answer lies in the astonishing book of Job. I'm reading Dr Ross' awe-inspiring book on this right now, which I highly recommend, but if you want to get a taster, have a listen to his introductory lecture on this here.

It's superb.

DIABOLIS

 "And when the thousand years are ended, Satan will be released from his prison and will come out to deceive the nations at the four corners of the earth to gather them for battle".  Revelation 20:7.

"We should not be outwitted by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his devices*".

2 Corinthians 2:11.

Back in the 1970s, the Banner of Truth - a prestigious publisher of reformed literature - printed a work entitled 'Satan Cast Out - A study in Biblical Demonology' by Professor Frederick Leahy. The work had been generated by the observation by missionaries in many parts of the world of an increase in demonic activity and possessions. Around the same period, Psychiatrists and Doctors working in the West also began to notice a growth in patients coming to them with extremely elevated anxiety due to suffering from a phenomena known as night terrors (please note - the link is to a highly disturbing Channel 4 documentary that shows very real examples of this phenomena).

All of this is stated as a prelude to express one very disturbing truth. Since the rise of modernism in the 1700s through the diabolical ideologies that fuelled the French Revolution and, later, the rise of the Nazi and Communist states, we have witnessed the opening of a fresh gateway amongst human cultures of access to what is, clearly, an ascendance of evil (See Dr Francis Schaefer's classic study, The God Who is There).

Modernism has sought to eradicate the Christian narrative from the mainstream culture. The secular approach to value and identity has been driven forward through employing the twin engines of "Science" (actually, Scientism - the belief that a particular approach to life through a form of thinking consumed with materialism will satisfy and prove sufficient entirely without any other points of reference) and Technology, seeking to reduce all that we are and all that truly matters to what we 'know' in the here and now (here's an example of such thinking, giving by leading atheist scientist, Sam Harris). The method of overthrow of the classical understanding of humanity (See C S Lewis' The Discarded Image) has been Education. In previous generations, robust discussion and debate was possible in respects to the themes of presuppositions (see Schaefer), but the 20th century witnessed the dissolution of such approaches in learning as first a modernal and then a post-modernist ideology was embedded and then flourished in the contemporary world. As Nietzsche had predicted, once such ideas held the high ground, the horizon (theology) would be wiped from our view.

The changes that have occurred as a result over the past sixty years, especially to Western culture have been total. Where what we sought to do and why we did this was once based upon the Christian suppositions in respect of love for God and Neighbour, the contemporary value of everything, particularly human life, is now evaluated only in respect to utilitarian considerations. We are fast approaching the point where such considerations may well be removed from ourselves (human decision making) entirely, based instead on a set of "humanistic" values pre-set and fixed as the Algorithms used by Artificial Intelligence systems (and by the way, such A I is already being employed in many of the databases that provide us with everyday technology that we use for everything from food shopping, to health records, to paying our bills - technology is now becoming so commonplace that it connects your home appliances to such data collection systems).

What are the consequences of all of this?

Dr John Lennox, building upon the terrifying vision provided by C S Lewis in 'That Hideous Strength', provided a chilling examination of this brave new world a few years ago.

This all, clearly, has immense bearing upon the present world crisis.

Unlike previous periods where a virus has caused disruption in modern times (especially in the post World War years), we have witnessed a process on this occasion of governance into every realm and aspect of individual life, seeking to conform society on a global level to particular forms of behaviour and wholesale subscription to a singular remedy to the problem. This has all been derived from a singular ideology in respect to the power of science employed in technology, driving and directing what has unfolded as "our" solving of such matters with reference only to our own resources.

The scriptures are so clear in respect to the results of such delusion.

When a 'king' arises who seeks to set his own 'sound' agenda for his subjects and the environment, like Ahab, resourcing the methods and means devised by the priestess Jezebel, then the Lord will plague the peoples and their lands, using judgement as the means to drive them to repentance.

The truth of where our present evil has lead is now beginning to emerge, and it is most disturbing.

When a people make policy to undermine the truth nature of what is essential to both identity and eternity, then judgement must follow.

The days are indeed growing darker, so may the "two witnesses" (the testaments, Old and New) be raised in our streets once more, that Wisdom may speak her health amongst us and bring life to those who are dead.

The need of the hour, is the GOOD NEWS.

Whatever the manner of trouble or distress, this truth is our one true remedy - the "armour" that we are told to wear in this hour (Ephesians 6).

* A worthwhile read on this matter is Warren W Wiersbe's book, The Strategy of Satan. Professor Leahy's study is also highly recommended.

Fire Escape

"When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned". Isaiah 43:2.

"And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them like silver, and test them like gold,  - they will call, and I will answer. I will say of them, 'they are my people', for they will have made me their God". Zechariah 13:9.

If I were to ask you what was the most trying moment of your life, what would you say? Some of us might pick what we might call a 'mid-range' crisis - a trying time in marriage or business, but we're even more likely to select, if applicable, a particular close shave that could have been disastrous. If we've encountered a truly hazardous moment through potential tragedy or seriously precarious health, it stays with us.

If you had been present at the Montana Mann Gulch above the Missouri River around 5pm on a particular day in 1949, you would have most certainly found yourself in such a dire situation*.

A team of young men termed smokejumpers had been working hard all day to quell a serious forest fire, but despite all their best efforts, the blaze now had them retreating. The turning point arrived around 5.30, when the bulk of the men made a choice based on what they'd seen the fire do around ten minutes before. Running uphill with heavy packs, the fire had already reached ahead of them, causing their breath to become filled with choking smoke. It was in this decisive moment that their foreman made a make or break decision, and lit the grass in front of him, igniting his one remaining path. The ignition burned the nearby grass, creating a burned area safe from the surrounding flames. He then called for his team to join him - only two did. The other twelve perished in the smoke and then the flames.

In my last entry, I sought to show that amidst the 'wood and the fire' of the place of sacrifice, what allowed Abraham and Issac to travel through such travail was that "God Himself' would provide a Lamb - a means of deliverance - far better than is given by our hand. God extinguishes the fire of human transgression by bringing down a far more pure fire in the propitiation exacted and approved in the dying of His unique, perfect sacrifice for our transgressions. That offering is the means ignited amidst the inferno of iniquity that is our world that creates our safe space amidst the fury of the age in which we escape the flames which devour forever.

The image of the present, then, is of us remaining in the place where God has set us, amidst the rage around us, and there, allowing something very particular to take place.

The prophets (above) speak of how the Lord refines us as we journey through fire. We cannot escape the work required by the testing of our faith (2 Timothy 3:12), and if we try to do so, then like those mistaken men on that Montana ridge, we will quickly find ourselves chocking and dying by succumbing to fear or sin rather than standing fast in our true freedom.

God's fire burns up what we would naturally cling to as necessary, just as surely as it called Abraham to offer his beloved son. It is only when we receive life back, as it were, from death, that it can become something refined and truly meaningful - that is where we are meant to be.

The events evidenced as a result of the pandemic have left us in disarray. The world is truly ablaze in its actions because of what has occurred, and it is sorely easy for us to run into that blaze with all manner of notions that we believe will assist, but, in truth, will only prove to be fuel for the flames.

The truth is that there are far deeper troubles in the causes of these flames than we often see, and that is where we need to start - thinking that allows (facilitates) sanctity to thrive and dread to cease.

What will carry us through these present trials is not ignoring the deadly seriousness of them, or believing that we can master their fury by some inner pious stamina. Our eyes must be fixed on the one who has passed through all such trial perfectly - who provides us with a place to stand, here and now, and will use such means to enrich and enliven the good He has provided to us.

Dear saints, James writes, count it a joy when faith is so tried and tested, for when proven, such a time will encourage patience, which will then bring about a completion so that you genuinely lack nothing (James 1:2).

The intent here is to bring us into something much more precious than previously known.

The fire which surrounds us is indeed burning away all that cannot stand. The days will be strange and often threatening, but God the Lord calls us to His side - to remain faithful in our words and deeds - that is the need now to quell this fury and folly.

Let us draw near to Him, and find truth and resource in this day of need.

*As quoted in Norman Maclean's 'Young Men and Fire'.

M O R I A H

 "My eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord".

Battle hymn of the republic.

"Go to the land of Moriah".

Genesis 22:2.

Sometimes, indifference is not an option.

After a lifetime of journey, harvesting the discovery of a union with the Creator and Redeemer of life, Abraham and his child of promise find themselves, by divine decree, facing the mountain where all is to be finished (Genesis 22).

In the conventional, nominalistic world, the moment the men are facing equates to an end without resolve - death is before them, and there is no manner of exit beyond the extinguishing of life. If we look at the world through our own eyes - through the brutal weight pressing upon us by exile from Eden - then there is nothing here but despair, nothing but fury that our own depravity should end in such a conclusion, but something more is evidenced in their moment at Moriah.

Abraham "sees" beyond the darkness, beyond the awfulness of the requirement.

He knows, because of an established fellowship with the one who had called him to this act, that there is another sacrifice and because of that (Genesis 22: 8), there is a future, even for his sacrificed son (Hebrews 11:19).

Centuries later, the hope that defined this moment is evidenced in the very same location as the 'Lamb of God' is offered up for the world on a Roman cross.

Abraham's faith finds its true resolve, not in a ram caught in a thicket, which provides an immediate, provisional assistance, but in the offering-up of the life at the hill of the skull, provided by the eternal Father in His beloved Son (Isaiah 53:1-12).

Like the children of Israel, we as church stand between two mountains (Deuteronomy 11:26-32) - the high place of the Law, Sinai, where angels administer the requirements we cannot keep, or Moriah, the threshold where the exact consequences of our evil are disclosed, but where unmerited mercy is abundantly provided.

Which 'revelation' holds us?

Do we bind ourselves to methods and means of analysis and behaviour that make us children of the 'bondwoman' (Galatians 4:21-31), where all we have to offer ourselves and others is the finality, the misery of ruination by a method which leaves us justifiably guilty, or does that horror drive us to the Lord who provides what we cannot - mercy, forgiveness and reconciliation?

Fallen nature has no issue with furnishing a measure of morality (Law, by any other name) - that was our first refuge when found naked (Genesis 3:8), but how inadequate this is found when the true measure, the actual depths of meaning, become revealed and applied (Isaiah 55: 8 & 9).

In reality, both places to where are brought equate to a dreadful discovery of our lack of anything good, hence, death must follow, but at Moriah, God makes the death that heals that of another (Romans 5:6).

We live at a moment where fear, which makes us hide, has produced a retreat into crippling morality. "You Shall Not" has become the single ruling principle, and this, more than anything else, is the very doctrine which lead us into inescapable bondage, that calls for the Lord Himself to be taken 'outside the camp' to be executed, because the one thing we cannot allow is a genuine way to liberty - to life!

When all we seek to offer one another is such 'religion', then we do no more than throw what we value into the fire to produce a 'god' that leaves us enslaved to what is poison.

The people of God have been made free because all that is done to them is outside of their own ability, their morality, their doing. If we truly desire to be children of promise, we must look only to the life and work of another.

The book of Hebrews tells us that like Abraham, we have not come to place of unquenchable fire and unachievable law, but to the throne of grace - the very mercy-seat where the blood avails between the cherubim (Hebrews 12:18-22, 9:12). To avoid evil, then, we must seek to follow this advice -

"The church confesses that it has not proclaimed often and clearly enough the message of the one God who has revealed Himself for all times in Jesus Christ and who suffers no other gods beside Himself. It confesses its timidity, its evasiveness, its dangerous concessions. it has often been untrue to its office of guardianship and to its office of genuine comfort. And it has often denied to the outcast and the despised the comfort that it owes them. 

It has, then, failed to speak the right word in the right way at the right time.

The church confesses that it has taken the Lord's work in vain - standing back while violence and wrong were committed under the cover of its very name.

This is where we must begin".

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Ethics.

Sorrow

 "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!".

Jeremiah 9:1

It was with great sadness that I heard this week about how a letter has been produced by "humanists (atheists) and churches" to encourage everyone to pursue vaccination as soon as possible.

Why is this an issue?

Anyone who has picked-up on the materials I have referred to here in the past few months will know there are very worrying developments taking place not only in relation to the safety of the vaccines themselves, but how organisations like the World Health Organisation are now deliberately preventing the circulation of data in respect to the effectiveness of the proven safe alternative to such measures (Ivermectin), seeking to herd everyone into the 'official' solution being the only answer.

There is a very serious flaw in the manner of thinking which proposes that if we relent to the bully with the big stick, then we'll be left alone to get on with things, because the tyranny that imposes such evil only knows one means of control, and it's a cruelty that will never allow anything but abuse and will produce nothing but fear.

The Prophet Jeremiah spoke of those who "heal my people lightly" (superficially) so that they presumed there would be peace (8:10), but all this allowed was a lack of shame in respect to the 'abomination' (the reason for a severance in their fellowship with God) for which they so needed to be contrite. Repentance and healing could not begin because the lie was so prevalent in their thinking that truth could not begin to take a hold.

That is the position for the majority at present - they have believed the lie, not only in respect to the level of presumed jeopardy brought with the virus, but the far greater lie that has arisen from this in respect to the imperative to 'keep safe' by only behaving, even thinking, in very draconian patterns, which will leave our world woefully dismembered, and perilously divided, probably for decades ahead (For much more on the reality of this, see Laura Dodsworth's recent best-selling book - A State of Fear - how the UK government weaponised fear during the covid 19 epidemic).

The presumption made by the church at large has likewise been entirely foolish - that because those 'in authority' have laid down a set of requirements, it is right we simply follow these, and those who question such are to be viewed as 'evil' in respect to clearly not seeking to do what's best for their communities. The problem is, this is exactly the manner of argument the 'authorities' of the day were levelling against Jeremiah because he was warning of their being in rebellion to God - you cannot murder (abortion in our day) and perpetuate such sin (use the aborted material in research to produce a vaccine) and then expect God to be favourable to you! How on earth did we reach a position where we thought we could just overlook such evils and everything would be fine?

We are spiralling into darkness, and the last thing we need right now is for the church to say is that this is all fine and acceptable - we'll just carry on meeting (in masks and distanced, of course - strictly controlling our numbers) and praying for those in authority to be 'blessed', because that's the 'christian' thing to do.

Do not, says the Lord through the Prophet, 'learn the way of the nations' - don't take their 'wisdom' as your own, God warns, because their's is the way of vanity, the folly of idolatry, of dead ideology (Jeremiah 10). How we need to hear that right now!

Change nourished by truth needs to begin somewhere in our communities. The church failed to speak out concerning the wickedness behind the present policies - will we also fail to raise our voice to aid a means of truthful reconciliation so vital in making possible a way forward for this point?

We have been brought out of bondage by the only cure to the world's ill's - the death and resurrection of Jesus! Isn't that where our confidence must be seen to rest right now in how we respond to this moment?

Jeremiah faced a moment where the presumption and sinfulness of God's people had grown so pervasive that the Lord told Him not to even seek to pray or intercede for them (11:14) - judgement was the only means available to redeem the dreadful situation.

Are we in that place?

Are we so failing right now that the only hope will be the brightness of Christ's return, as the one who comes with a 'sharp sword from His mouth' to bring and execute justice in judgement?

Who will we hear at this moment?

Ourselves?

Those saying all is (or will be) well?

Or will we choose instead to pursue the truth, however difficult, painful and costly that may prove to be?

Jeremiah was judged as unruly and ostracised because of his continuing to stand up and be counted for what had to be faced.

Where will we choose to stand?

Dangerously reassured?

 "When it is evening, you say ' it will be fair tomorrow, for the sky is red". 

Matthew 16:2.

All the signs are promising. That was the popular statement just a week ago. The sun was shining, the promise of getting away for many loomed, and June 21st isn't far away.

What a difference a few days make. Now, the summer doesn't look anywhere near as fair... so what changed?

In terms of brass tax truth, not very much at all. That won't stop the powers that be from continuing their 'no safety without fear' campaign, because (as should be clear by now), they have a 'zero covid' goal to reach, achieved by total vaccination, and nothing else can be 'normal' until that's done - the problem, of course, is that nothing will ever be normal again once it is! The issues being raised about safety alone, in respect to the vaccines, should be enough to really trouble us*, but let's not dwell there right now, but reflect on something, in respect to our faith, a little closer to home - church leadership.

What has happened this past 14 months has seen various responses from ministers and church leaders across the West, but it's pretty clear that a reposes in many places has been so conformist to regulations, that dissent has been negligible at best and its impact has been, with a few exceptions, without any serious register.

One of the churches where things have been different is Reverend Doug Wilson's Presbyterian church in Moscow, Idaho. Doug's blogs have truly been inspirational this past year, and his latest on this thorny topic is a must see.

We're moving into a very different phase of these troubles, where our standing fast is going to become more imperative than ever, so let this message strengthen and encourage you.

*The situation in respect to the vaccines is becoming more troubling as time passes. For an excellent review of the major recent concerns, please take a look at this video.

The Shift

 "Should I not Pity?" Jonah 4:11.

They're a pretty stubborn bunch, you know - people. You can provide them with all manner of astonishing wonders... life, the universe, and everything. You can grant them some real moments of beauty and joy and top it all with the opportunity to actually commune with the one who provides such riches, and you know what happens? They will take it all for granted, and either snub the giver entirely and squander what's available, or, they'll view themselves as moral and righteous enough not to need any more intrusions, because they're fine making their own way thank you very much.

People often make the fatal mistake of thinking that they're just fine living in one of the  two 'modes' outlined above. I'm "moral" enough not to break the social norms, whatever they may be, but I also want to 'live and let live' as and when I can, because that's what matters, right? Group one. I keep myself distanced from those who believe themselves to be OK but are actually deplorable because they're not really moral at all - nothing like me, who would see all of them shunned in a heartbeat if I had my way. Group two.  In other words, the residents of Nineveh and their diametrically opposite, a man named Jonah.

Now you'd never expect these two parties to end up together, but Jonah's story shows that what God wants - all people facing something deeper than their own misplaced desires - has a way of breaking through our stubborn ignorance and drawing us to what we genuinely need.

The needs of group one are pretty obvious. They're so caught up in the pattern to satisfy what's immediate that they are not looking beyond that, so the vital need here is to open a larger world to them - to jolt their world-view in such a manner that they begin to understand that they have to look harder and deeper than before.

It's often the case that people in the group two company look upon those in the group one just like Jonah - believing themselves to be morally superior - but you'll notice something telling as you look at this little book... most of it is actually focused upon the trouble in Jonah, not Nineveh, which speedily repents when it's given the opportunity. God's wrestling with Jonah is still a work in progress at the end of the book.

So, given that the folks of this city needed to change their severely shallow understanding of what was good and then live accordingly, what is the real issue at the heart of this story?

Jonah is clearly someone whose 'morality' meant that he never chose to get entangled with those deemed 'below' (less "righteous" than) him. At the very end of these events, we learn something crucial - Jonah knew enough to understand that the Lord's attitude was entirely different to his own (Jonah 4:2) - that God wanted to rescue people from their folly - and the truth was Jonah wanted nothing to do with that!

There is some good news.

Jonah's experience shows us that God is most certainly greater than our folly. When Jonah finds himself in deep trouble (chapter two), he understands that he can only cry to God for aid, and this clearly motivates him to do what's been asked (chapter three), but there's a far deeper work to be done in respect to this man's mis-placed confidence in his own piety (chapter four).

The final lesson here is clear - God is seeking to sustain what truly counts... our souls being right with him (4:10), and this should crucially point us to the vital and inherent truth concerning His nature - that He is the Lord at work to show men mercy in their time of need (verse 11).

In Jonah's world, there was no place for mercy to a city like Nineveh - they deserved the disaster falling upon them, but there was also no place for God to show care to him (the lesson in the final part of the book), because he was just as needy of God's aid as everyone else, though he clearly still needed to learn this.

We live in a world where we so easily dress ourselves in all manner of misplaced assumptions about our right to be a particular way, be that 'sinful' or 'righteous', but the truth is that without Gods absolute mercy being bestowed upon us, all of us are in a precarious situation where our inherent evil will finish us for good. When we're made aware of this, we can choose to respond in two ways - we can either do as the people of Nineveh here and run to God for aid, or we can become a Jonah, believing our deeds, our standing, covers what's required, and we can therefore judge others beneath us - we can even judge God's mercy as something out of line!

As we find ourselves facing a society becoming more and disjointed by the plague of political correctness and a new (yet all too familiar) morality which divides between those deemed 'good' and the unacceptable, we have to take God's warning here seriously - He is a God who pity's ALL those in trouble, and is indeed a God who is wanting to correct those who believe they are beyond the straying of others.

The truth is only God's love expressed finally at the Cross rescues at all.

Vacant?

 "And a Rock Feels no Pain... and an Island never cries".

Paul Simon.

A certain popular on-line retail company have begun locating 'zen' rooms (upright, coffin-esque boxes) in various busy locations (shopping malls, travel hubs, recreation centres) in the world.

The idea is that you can 'close' out all the rattle and hum around you and 'centre down' to re-gain your calm before heading out again, presumably renewed and 'harmonised', enjoying 'elevated' consciousness. It appears to be a development for the individual of the 'safe' (panic) space zones which appeared a few years ago.

After the last period of months, I wasn't exactly sure that placing anyone in a highly confined space is especially welcome - but there's the "tilt" factor within this development - it wouldn't be happening, especially in this fashion, unless those producing these 'spaces' knew they were on to something - so what's the 'need' here?

The wording on the outside of these new contemplation zones states that it's a place to practice 'mindful' detachment. Apparently, then, this state is something you can obtain with nothing more than this space and your own determination to achieve such nirvana. As the 'room' provides no more  than a location, everything else  must of necessity be resourced from within yourself, bringing to the fore an ability to 'mindfully' uncouple, presumably, from whatever it is that's jolted you into a condition where you needed to enter the box in the first place.

So, clearly, what's needed is that 'search for the hero inside yourself' - that bedrock reminder that the 'greatest love of all' is, well, when "you" rise up and take hold of you in such a fashion that you can not just survive, but do it all, your way.

The lesson of this moment, then, is, get up, face the music, and tough it out, because real people don't cave... they merely press on through to that profound, purposeful 'mindfulness' that assures them that they're a winner.

Is it any wonder that corporate business has decided to cash-in on such a notion? All people need, apparently, to reach a state of genuine equilibrium is to reach in and let the 'mindfulness' come out, and all that takes is a 'box' to practice such a routine (which the business types will happily provide... along with a few 'tasteful' reminders of their goods and services on the way in and out).

It's the epitome of the modernist sanctuary, and Johann Tetzel must be looking on in genuine admiration at such a smooth stroking of the ego... to match 'spirituality' with contemporary greed is a worthy prodigy of his own 'box' trick (the coin in the coffer equates to unlimited indulgence!). Deliverance is just one wilful "tweaking" away.

So, where does that leave us if, in our case, 'reality' burns us out?                               

When we reach inside, what do we do when what we find is just as damaged and disturbing as what's going on around us? In that case, the current moralist hype pummels us with the unrelenting assertion that we're pretty worthless and a deplorable failure... but behind the hype there's a truth 'in' moralism seeks to escape. The evasion of 'mindfulness' is that labouring to drown-out that we're all deranged if we believe that what's in ourselves is enough to be in any way near complete.

Life tells us over and over in countless ways that when we take what's provided into us from outside (nourishment, sunlight, friendship, love), then we thrive, but when we exclude such resources, we die, so why would we think it's any different when it comes to what truly matters the most - genuine meaning?

When the divine become a monad - 'I, myself and me' - we loose everything because we sink into our own dust.

Christianity says God is a trinity of persons - a community of eternal fellowship, and that is what vitally defines the divine image. We reflect this in our being made 'one' and yet diverse - male and female, so we can find splendour in both our community and our distinctiveness (Genesis 1:26,27).

Whatever the full picture of what has come about since last year, one consequence has been abundantly clear - the enormity of severance from others has struck our society with the strength of a devastating disaster, and this has both isolated and implicitly required an individualism to be deemed 'good', whilst community is now often censured as deadly.

The present proposals to open some behaviours may reverse, in measure, the anxiety of our being together, but it's pretty clear that "safety" is now a radically monitored and regimented. Even when the scale of the health, education and economic consequences of the total closure of society begin to hit home, as they will, it will no doubt prove highly controversial to advocate a return to a semblance of what we knew. The disturbing reality is that we're moving towards a regime where isolation (socially) is clearly going to be the 'preferred' official behaviour for a very long time and this 'boxing' of the world is inherently violent against what we were intended to make ours.

'Mindfulness' may sound healthy and appeal to some, but it leaves us alone in the dark, and there's nothing worse than when we reach a point where we believe the darkness to be 'light' - that is a very terrible place (Matthew 6:23), with no exit, and no future.

The remedy required is not a zen box or a zoom app, or even the 'herd' regime of mandatory vaccinations (watch what unfolds) and documentation. It is the healing that flows from genuine compassion that rages against fear - a burning resolve to speak the truth in love, even when the blindness of the moment wishes only to stifle such conviction.

Life steps into the midst of such a fray (Romans 5:6-8), and by doing so, exhausts the fury of ignorance and the evil of wilful, 'moral' neglect. It holds out what is gloriously better and even when derided, cannot be silenced by folly (1 Corinthians 13).

Solitude is never an end in itself - it only nourishes if it allows us to feed something of benefit to one another, because we must gain from what comes from 'beyond the box' to be fully alive (Ephesians 2:4).