Somebody (not us) said "Man learns from history that man learns nothing from history".

Nowadays, nobody learns history. Full stop.

In this chapter, would you believe that you're going learn some history. No, it won't be dull. Yes it will be important. And every fact can be checked up on. Should be, if you have hassles with what we say.

The "early church" was pretty basic. There's a lot of waffle spoken about it that gives the impression that it was like a Brethren Assembly in drag - but the hard facts are very different.

For one thing, away from Israel there was no guaranteed six-day week. So regularly scheduled meetings - even if anyone had wanted them (which is debatable: Jesus hadn't set 'em up) - would have been impossible.

"Communion" or "breaking of bread" was a meal. With grog.

Bible study was confined to the Old Testament - nobody had written the New, then. And away from the synagogues there were precious few O.T. books available. Even a short book like Malachi becomes somewhat pricey if it has to be copied painstakingly by hand by a highly-trained scrivener.

Most of the new converts had a bit of verbal teaching on the life of Jesus. They'd been immersed in water. They'd received the Holy Spirit.

That was all that mattered.

Problems? Immorality and drunkenness. Easily dealt with.

Problems?

Yes. Judaism. Some folk couldn't get used to the idea that Judaism had been fulfilled. That you obeyed the law that was written on your heart - you did as Christ in you desired.

Too vague; too scarey. Let's have safeguards. So people went round chopping foreskins off the happily intact gentiles and, while they were still wondering what'd hit them, told them to get stuck into all the health, dietary and ceremonial laws of Moses for good measure.

Dear old Paul - who was kind of tempted that way himself - had to write curt little letters hither and yon to undo the spiritual (if not the physical) damage that the Judaisers were doing.

Still, believers increased in number. God was their motivation. The power of the Spirit was visible in every believer. The faith spread like wildfire down through North Africa, east to India and westward across Europe. Merchants plying the Roman trade routes rapidly brought the good news to Britain.

Satan, however, resents liberty. Especially the form of liberty that the Kingdom of God brings. He knew that it wouldn't go away. So he decided to attack from outside and from within.

From the outside, in the form of the Roman Empire, in a head-on bid to stamp it out.

From within, in an attempt to turn the faith into a religion.

Ever heard of elders and bishops?

Elders are no big deal. The word just means someone who is older or more mature. It's all pretty relative.

And bishop is what elders do. Okay, that's grammatically shot - but bishop (Gk: 'EPISKOPUS') means 'over-seer'. And a mature person oversees the flock by feeding or shepherding them. That wraps up elder, bishop and pastor in one package - as the Bible does, if you read Acts 20. vv 17 and 28.

Scripture lays down a few guidelines so's we can recognise certain situations, certain people. Rule-of-thumb methods that save an awful lot of arguing. Cut out the more blatant forms of deception.

So in the routine matter of elders-bishops-pastors - God has listed his minimum requirements. These are not options; these people must be...

That's from 1 Tim. 3, 1 - 7.

As we said, these aren't options. They're qualifications for the job.

There's even a little explanation tucked in verse 5, to the effect that if the bloke hasn't had the practical experience of getting it together with his family, he won't have the foggiest notion of how to take care of God's people.

Sounds clear enough? After all - there's no better way to learn about humanity (which includes learning about yourself) than in the twenty-four-hour non-stop soap opera called family life. And if you say it's optional - then all the other character traits must be optional too. Okay?

So - here comes the question.

Why are priests and bishops (and archbishops and cardinals and popes) celibate?

Stop one in the street and ask him.

"To enable them to give undivided attention to their duties," is the stock answer. "Remember, Paul warned that he who is married cares for the things of the world..."

Doesn't that sound spiritual. But the simple fact is that God doesn't want that particular brand of devotion from his elders, bishops and pastors. He wants a successful apprenticeship as husband and father.

It's compulsory.

So - Rome, by insisting on all clergy being celibate, has disqualified them all from fulfilling God's requirements.

The Roman Catholic Church is run entirely by a bunch of inexperienced, unqualified incompetents. No, not by man's standards. By God's.

Sure - some of them are charming people. Sure - some are very sincere. Sure - some of them have picked up no end of useful knowledge in the course of their career.

But they haven't come through God's school.

They have no authority from him.

Therefore any hold that they have over people can only be by psychic power. By magic.

Okay, teaching on bishops and things is clear, even if some people and some versions have worked hard to obscure it.

But it wasn't long after Acts and the Epistles were written that 'overseers' began to think of themselves as wielding a vital bit of authority.

For starters they insisted that immersings and imparting the Holy Spirit, and the love feast could only take place when they were around.

Later - by 100 AD - only they could do these things.

A distinction was beginning to be drawn between clergy and laity. As 'the church' became more structured, so the Roman Empire became more aware of its existence. And the emperors, who liked to be thought of as divine, saw in the believers a threat to their authority.

On and off, persecution continued for a couple of hundred years. Needless to say, the church flourished, and the enemy within - the religious organisers - had a hard time to fossilise the lively youngster.

Satan decided to merge his attacking forces.

Emperor Constantine became a Christian.

Was he really born again or wasn't he? At this distance in time the question is a trifle academic. The fact is that, as a new believer, he should only have been regarded as a babe in Christ, all his heathen background purged, and all his good ideas viewed with caution.

Trouble is, it's not easy to tell a Very Important Person to start from scratch. Especially if you're so relieved that persecution has stopped, and there's a better than even chance of Christianity becoming the state religion.

Satan had nationalised the church. It was official. The clergy had all the clout they wanted. Rome the pagan became Rome the religious.

As the Roman Empire declined, so the power of the Bishops of Rome grew. Until their authority held sway over all other bishops.

The Roman Catholic Church had arrived.

There's a point we have to keep firmly in the front of our little minds when we're talking about the Reformation.

The Reformation wasn't the best thing since sliced bread. Not the Reformation as a package, that is.

The good thing about that time was that the absolute authority of organised religion had been effectively challenged. People were aware that the Bible painted a very different picture of how things should be. And they knew they could go directly to God to discover for themselves what he wanted.

The bad aspect of the Reformation was that little religious organisations began to mushroom. And, although they did their level best to avoid what were regarded then as the excesses of the Catholic church, simply by being religious organisations they were in fact fragments of the original problem.

And because they are based on the Roman structure, they must inevitably return and be re-united.

* * *

Different versions of the Bible have highly vocal supporters.

Maybe you like the Bubblegum Version. Or the Dry 'n' Dusty. Perhaps you started with Enid Blyton and have graduated to something that looks like a cross between a railway timetable and the Auckland phone book.

There are two standards by which a translation of the Bible - particularly the New Testament - should be judged.

Obviously the first is the clarity of the English. If you've ever looked at the Jehovah's Witnesses' New World translation, you'd think it'd been written by a computer. Sterile and mechanical is as complimentary as we can get.

But while the English must flow, it mustn't go off into too many flights of fancy just for an easy read.

The second standard is - what set of Greek manuscripts did it use as it's starting point?

We're going to over-simplify the situation a bit, now. But the fact is that when we started to delve into the manuscript situation, we found hard information was nigh on impossible to come by. One side seemed to claim that the King James Version was totally inerrant and inspired because it was based on a bunch of documents called the "Textus Receptus" (make a note of that - we'll be mentioning it again).

The other side tended to say they used "the best manuscripts". Sometimes "the oldest manuscripts". And sometimes they quoted names of nineteenth-century German professors and referred to "their favourite manuscripts".

Slightly vague. Reminiscent of a party political broadcast.

Let's try and give you facts. We'll also give you our conclusions, but at least you'll know how we got there, and you can do your own research on the subject.

The New Testament was written in Greek. Not in the classical Greek language used by up-market playwrights and philosophers. But in the salty, well-known, colloquial speech of the market.

We don't have any original writings. We have copies of copies of copies. Folk back-along sat up o' nights writing out gospels and letters so that friends in the next town could have 'em for themselves. And they literally wore them to pieces with sheer use. They knew a good thing when they saw it, and read and re-read those parchments until they collapsed in their hands and were only fit to be burned.

Now - one bunch of Bible translators prefer to use the oldest possible manuscripts, particularly two main groups headed up by a couple called the Codex Vaticanus and the Codex Alexandrinus. They argue - and it's a powerful argument - that the older the manuscript, the less likely it is to have suffered untold errors in repeated copying.

These extremely old manuscripts have recently been found in near perfect condition in obscure monastries.

However, the parchments make for rather odd reading.

They play down the Fatherhood of God. They weaken the deity of Christ. They cut out references to the brothers and sisters of Jesus. And the end of Mark - a crucial bit of scripture we'll look at later - is missing altogether.

And those manuscripts are - better?

Not when you think about how the early church functioned.

They weren't into souvenir hunting. Staying alive was a full-time business. And a complete New Testament represented untold effort and/or expense.

As we said earlier - gospels and letters were read and re- read until they fell apart.

So under what circumstances would a very old manuscript have been put to one side and never used?

Answer: if it was unreliable. If the group which copied it had made too many mistakes. Accidentally. Or deliberately.

Interestingly, the bunches of manuscripts headed by Vaticanus and Alexandrinus - despite their great age - show vast differences between each other.

Whereas the "Textus Receptus" on which the King James version is based, is a number of not-so-old manuscripts (copied and re-copied over the centuries), often against the laws of the ruling church. These documents, although coming from widely scattered places, show a remarkable similarity to each other, even though there has been no chance for scribes to get second opinions on the accuracy of what they were copying from.

What we're suggesting is that the documents on which the King James is based are pretty pure. But you'd better watch the others.

No, we're not even hinting that the King James ("Authorised") version is inspired. Or perfect. Yes, it's been a remarkable version and has achieved a lot. But you always have to beware of idolatry.

And - try and get hold of a KJ that still has (after the dedication - which is well worth reading to the bitter end) the 'Preface to the Reader'. It's 'orrid 'eavy going, but it lets you know where the translators admitted that they compromised.

The simple fact is that it never hurts to read the Bible pencil in hand. Making changes where you feel the translators got their wires crossed. Or are a bit obscure. Or where the English language has changed.

Because you might as well go back to having a Bible in Latin if you can't understand what your version is saying. And by today's standards of literacy, maybe it's better that folk start with something readable.

And remember that without direct revelation from God to you, the Bible is essentially useless for the purpose intended by God.

Anyhow - one bit of the Bible that's been under siege is at the end of Mark from verse 9 of chapter 16.

In some versions it has vanished without trace.

In others, there may be a tiny footnote to explain that "the best manuscripts" leave it out.

Still others print it in italics, or indicate in other ways that it's not really kosher.

We've got an inquiring sort of mind. Started to wonder if there was anything tucked into the end of Mark that a phoney religious operating system might want to suppress.

So we spent a cosy evening armed with pencil and paper, a Grimm-Thayer Greek Lexicon, an interlinear Greek-English New Testament (Bagsters is a good 'un: it gives the Textus Receptus. Beware of Nestle's, which doesn't) and endless coffee.

It was a wee bit like looking for mushrooms and finding diamonds.

Mark 16. 9 - 20 is utter dynamite. Pardon the change of metaphor.

Let's take it a bit at a time.

It kicks off with "the first day of 'Sabbaths'" which we've already gone into - and which shows the Catholic Church's arbitrary changing of a God-given day.

Right. Next phrase.

Jesus appeared first to Mary Magdalene.

Now, the Lord was pretty selective about his resurrection appearances. None of the authorities and religious leaders who'd arranged his death were allowed to see him. Thomas had to cool his heels and live with his doubts for long enough.

But Mary Magdalene goes on record as being the first to see Jesus when he arose.

What point are we making? Simply that the Vatican makes Mary, the mother of Jesus, an extremely important person to whom is due great respect. And they claim Peter is the first Pope. Both people are held in high esteem by Rome.

Yet the risen Lord chose deliberately to appear - not to his mother, not to Peter - but to Mary from Magdala. Read Gene Edwards' "Divine Romance" and get an understanding of why it was so. Then realise that the organised church has idolised the wrong people for almost two thousand years.

Little wonder the ending to this gospel is treated as missing by modern versions.

Okay. Look at verses 11, 13 and 14. Mary Magdalene tells the eleven disciples that she's seen the Lord. They don't believe her. Cleopas and his friend tell the eleven disciples that they've seen the Lord. The eleven don't believe them.

Natural?

Of course. That's the point of the story. Those guys were ordinary. So they'd seen Jesus raise the dead? So they'd heard him teach any number of times that, given three days, he'd rise too?

Didn't do 'em any good. They were human. Which means awful.

Which means no church has the right to tack "saint" onto their name or venerate them. God's great saints aren't great saints.

They just have a great God. That's all.

On to verse 16.

"He who believes and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believes not shall be condemned."

It doesn't say he who is baptised and then believes shall be saved. And it doesn't say he who is not baptised shall be condemned.

Point?

Argue all you like that maybe Cornelius's household had whole roomsful of squalling babies and Peter went and dunked the lot of 'em. Argue that perhaps the Phlippin' jailer had several arm-loads of ickle infants, and Paul submerged every last one.

There's not a skerrick of evidence.

And regardless of what anyone imagines the apostles got up to... The command is to believe. Then be baptised.

And condemnation comes when you don't believe. Not if you weren't baptised.

Baptising babies is magic. And can't get any baby into heaven because it's lack of belief that keeps you out. So you have to trust the grace of God for babies.

It's a lot safer than magic.

On to verse 17.

"These signs shall follow the apostles."

Oops. We misquoted. How does it really go?

"These signs shall follow those who believe."

In other words, signs don't die out as soon as an apostle has done his dash. Signs aren't (as the dear, dead old Brethren love to tell us) just to authenticate the gospel when it first gets preached in any country - then finish.

Signs - including some quite wacky ones - are a normal part of a believer's life.

Just one snag, though. Apart from in some rather lunatic- fringe American religions, you don't routinely encounter snakes and poison in church. Matter of fact - there ought to be more demons and sick folk outside, but it's debatable.

The thing is - those are outdoor signs. Intended for real life. Not for religion.

Some scholars have suggested that the reason the end of Mark is missing from a few manuscripts is precisely because it is at the end. It's always the start and finish of a scroll or book that takes most physical punishment. The last page or so could easily have fallen off.

Okay. That's an excellent reason why it might be missing.

It's not a reason for missing it out when doing a translation. Trouble is, although translators often piously claim that they are just doing a job of work, and it's not their place to be theologians - in fact, if something offends their theology, it tends to get a little blurred. And the end of Mark is offensive to church theology. It doesn't teach Sunday, it puts Mary and the apostles in their place, it demolishes infant baptism, it puts miracles in continuing association with ordinary believers.

So it's easier for the ending to get edited out. Dropped out altogether. Or blatantly mis-translated.

This is how - if you'll pardon our re-covering something mentioned in greater detail in "Beyond Small Cords" - the word 'church' came into being.

'Church' is a lie.

The Greek word is 'EKKLESIA'. It means, plain as a pikestaff, 'OUTCALLED'. Sometimes used by non-religious writers to describe citizens summoned for some special civic purpose.

When the Roman church began to flex its muscles, and the New Testament was being translated from Greek to Latin - "EKKLESIA" didn't get translated, just transliterated as "ECCLESIA" to make the letters fit the Roman alphabet. It could have been translated "EVOCATUS" which means "outcalled" in Latin, and carries the same idea. But it wasn't - so the locals were lumbered with a word that was essentially meaningless.

Later, the phrase "KYRIAKUS DOMUS" (meaning "HOUSE OF GOD") was substituted. That's nice, all the time you realise that it's us who make up the house, not a building of brick or stone. But it's likely to be awfully misleading to ordinary folk.

And, of course, it's got nothing to do with "OUTCALLED".

Later still "KYRIAKUS" became modified in different areas to "KIRKEN", "KIRK" and finally "CHURCH".

Which, although clergy sometimes say 'church' is people, still gets used broad-spectrum as 'the denomination' and 'the building'.

What's wrong with 'OUTCALLED'?

Nothing.

Except, maybe, that it's a threat to an operating system that man wants to have control of.

* * *

Horses - traditionally - are supposed to run into burning stables. Rather than away from.

Because that's where their security lies.

Maybe that's true. Maybe not. But it's certainly a fact that battered wives and abused children tend to come back for more, simply because home is home.

There's a strong pull.

A strong tie.

And - religion is stronger still.

Look... Take time off to check on your relationship with God. Get behind the correct words that you "must" say about him - "he's almighty", "he's first in your life", "you can utterly depend on him" - and find out where you're really at.

Don't be embarrassed if things are a little ho-hum between you and him. And that there are areas where you've never gotten round to seeing if you can trust him.

Tell him so. Dad knew already. And was just waiting for you to get to a position of honesty, so's he could start to improve the situation.

Because you've got to get to the point where your religious organisation hasn't the slightest power over you.

You've got to actually believe that your security... spiritual life and growth... salvation... whatever... comes only from your Dad.

Because...

It's not just that Rome is going to make a bid to be top dog.

You must go through your entire religious wardrobe and chuck out everything that's not tailored to Dad's design.

* * *

Look - there's an odd list of sins in Revelation 21 that we've looked at in an earlier book in terms of people who oppress others. But this time, let's look at them in the strict context of the book of Revelation itself.

Rev. 21. 8 says that, to qualify for the second death in the lake of fire, you must be any of these things.

It's an unusual list. Makes no mention of theft or covetousness. So it's not just a re-hash of the ten commandments.

In the context of the book of Revelation, it's a list of religious sins that exclude people from the presence of God. It includes specific sins that cause the harlot to be destroyed by fire.

But that's only half the list. Enough, to be sure, to cause the destruction of the religious system and all her members. What about the rest of the list, though.?

So any image or likeness - or any building or organisation - that is given the worship, or the respect or the expectations that belong to God - is an idol.

A crucifix or a cross is an idol. If you use them, you are an idolator. Ever heard a minister welcome people in "the name of the Baptist Church" or whatever? That's idolatry. Reverent behaviour "in the House of God" is idolatry. The setting up of a denomination can have the highest of motives behind it - plus two thousand years of yielding to the temptation to let it get in the place of God.

Religion causes lying. Sometimes in the sense that things are said which simply aren't true. Sometimes in the sense that things are omitted because they conflict with the official line. Many - perhaps most - of the points we make in this book are known to church authorities. But they aren't spoken about openly, frankly.

That's why there's a sin problem among religious people.

Doesn't follow? Have a look in 1 John 1 v 7.

"If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the Blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin."

The words might glide past because of overfamiliarity. Try them this way...

"If we live up to all the light we have - just as Jesus always did and always does...

...then we have genuine fellowship with others...

...and we don't just get forgiven, but the Blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, actually gets rid of sin in us - like, all of it."

Most Christians are mealy-mouthed and appallingly nice. It's called love. And comes from the father of lies, ole Red-eyes hisself.

Consequently, churches are associations based on compromise and mediocrity. Not on walking in the light. With the result that sin is a major problem and cleansing is in awfully short supply.

Matter of fact - you can expect sarcastic comments about sinless perfectionism if you mention cleansing in some churches.

Look - what involvement does your group have with any denomination? What plans are there for unity with other denominations? Is your denomination a member of the World Council of Churches? Where does the money go that you give "to the Lord" in the collection?

"You two don't understand," people sometimes say to us. "Me - I'm only a member of such-and-such because I like the people there. I can help them, fellowship with them."

* * *

Two points.

We've been around Whangarei for nineteen years. (Seen 'em come, seen 'em go. Old saying.) And the people who were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, struggling against the die- hards in their churches who insisted on things being done the way they've always been done... Are now the stoppers in the bottle themselves. The oldies die off; the youngsters step into their shoes.

To keep the system going.

It's time there was a total, clean break. There aren't enough years left to the end of this century and the start of the third millennium, AD, to tinker around with any more permutations of jolly churches, serious churches, charismatic seventh-day non-smoking bingo-playing scuba-diving churches.

Even in a place the size of Whangarei, we reckon we've seen just about every combination of religious options that go to making a bolt-on, prefabricated instant church. They're all great at the start, while folk are still grinning at each other.

But there's nothing new in a re-hash of meetings and people.

It's just the old magic, dusted down and polished up again and again for those who aren't prepared to do a bit of hard work with God in real life.

* * *

Look - we began this book with a story (a true one) about computers. Even after we got The Brute fairly sussed out, and most times could do all kinds of odd things on it...

We were still hassled by the weird language computer blokes speak. The weird gobbledegook in computer books.

In fact I confess I sneaked into the children's section of a local bookshop and bought a book called "Rusty Robot and His Friends". The assistant, bless her, wrapped it carefully so's nobody would see. But it was in big print, with neat pictures.

And it explained computers to children. So we hoped we could follow it more easily than our manuals. We hoped.

I even grabbed one of those bloomin' computer experts and demanded to know why his sort insisted on being all clever and difficult, to the bewilderment of us sort.

"It's not all showing off," he said, reprovingly. "Oh, sometimes we use fancy language just for the hell of it. But usually it's because nothing else will do. At least, not without a lot of round-the-houses explanation."

F'rinstance - imagine you're a tradesman. You're doing work among a tribe who've never handled tools before - like office workers and suburban housewives. Sorry. Only joking.

And you want one of them to get you a hammer out of your tool kit.

"Hammer, please."

Blank looks. Man wants ha-ma. What is ha-ma?

"Oh. Well - it's a stick. With a bit of iron on the end of it."

Off they go.

Back they come with the hammer. Wondering among themselves why a stick-with-iron needs fancy name.

Later, you want a screwdriver. That, too, is a stick with a bit of iron on the end. This time the end is a bit flattened out.

Another fancy name, they reckon. And bring you back a chisel.

"Stick, like you ask. Bit of iron at end. Flattened out. What's the problem?"

It takes a while to show that your explanations are not only long-winded. They can also be ambiguous. Which is why you use horribly technical terms like ha-ma and scrude-riva and cheese-earl.

Okay - it's the same in the kingdom of God. There's technical language for things that can't be described any other way. And we need to be sure that we're using the right terms in the right way.

So that when we're reading the handbook we can be certain we're on the right track and not slipping back into some religious operating system that sort-of works.

But not quite.

Not properly.

As every handyman knows - you can use a chisel as a screwdriver.

You can use a screwdriver as a chisel.

It's quicker to hammer home screws.

But it's never, ever right, and makes a lousy job.

Now, in the following chapters, we're actually going (at last!) beyond magic. Getting into an area that's totally pure. Free from religious taint and temptation.

Let's make one little point, though. One that might involve a wee bit of a contradiction in words - so stick with us until we clear it up. Otherwise you'll reckon we're worse heretics than we really are.

Ready?

Okay?

No magic. No miracles.

I said stick with us.

Sure, magic is a powerful influence. Controls the behaviour of millions.

Sure, miracles happen. Six-day creation. Virgin birth. Water into wine. Lots more, too.

But never, ever do they happen in the popular sense of say the magic word and - kersplatt - it appears or vanishes. Just like that.

Magic is nothing more that the simple application of perfectly natural laws. Illegally, yes. But in a straightforward, natural way. Satan's realm of psychic or soul power.

Miracles are also totally natural. They may be (and usually are) beyond our understanding by virtue of speed, size and complexity. But there is never anything un-natural about them. They are simply God at work using well- established spiritual laws.

Which are real - despite being spiritual.

And represent the outworking of God in everyday life.

The only supernatural that exists...

Is God.

We may be unfamiliar with archangels, angels, cherubim, seraphim, Satan, demons, etc, etc.

But - technically, now - all these are part of God's creation and are -

Perfectly natural.

Go overseas. Look at the funny way the locals behave. But don't stare and don't laugh.

Not only because it's rude.

It's also awfully dumb to imagine that our way is 'right'. Or even 'better'.

Overseas, what you see happening is nothing more than everyday life. Look - we're watching about thirty youngsters with palm fronds being organised by a man to chase a shoal of fish into one corner of the lagoon. There, they'll be netted.

It's a marvellous sight, and with the shouting and the singing it looks like a film set. Or something organised twice weekly for tourists.

Except that we're the only visitors within cooee. And they haven't even spotted us. It's an unusual sight.

It's also totally normal.

Here in Rarotonga. Away from the crowds.

So - in the pages that follow, we're going to be spelling out some areas that may be unfamiliar to you.

If they are - don't dismiss them as too tricky.

Don't reckon that we must be special and holy. Ask our friends about that, sometime.

What we'll be writing about is intended as normal, minimal, and for today. It's just that it can't work in a religious environment. So it's generally thought of as being in short supply.

In a word:

* * *

Disappointed?

"Oh. Is that it? Thought they'd something big up their sleeve. Turns out to be just the old faith business after all."

Hang on. Don't let your religious magic background swindle you out of your inheritance.

In the past, faith has been confined by church tradition to maybe three areas.

Essentially that's all so much wheel-spinning.

Faith is for everything.

Faith is the total operating system from go to whoa. It takes practice and more practice to drive it. You'll make any number of mistrakes. You'll get into situations that you wouldn't even read about.

And the system won't crash. It's user-friendly.

Back to our computer... With the right software doing odd electronic things at lightning-fast speeds, it'll print address labels, do invoices, work out costs and credit and postage, produce tax accounts in a profit-and-loss form that even we can understand, check spelling, type letters, calculate, remember, adjust. Play untold games. Get rid of an awful lot of drudgery.

Took us a while to get it right. Fact is, the more we learn, the more we realise there still is to learn. But that's not a disappointment. More a challenge.

Okay - back to faith.

What's faith?

We won't answer that. Not right away.

Let's give you a bit of a sales pitch first.

Not how the computer works. But what it can do.

* * *

One mustard-sized grain of faith - and you're into the bulldozing business. Mountains shifted while you wait.

One piece of faith and you can walk on water.

Not bad, huh? Then what's faith?

Faith is your personal knowledge of the mind of God.

Believing it. Accepting it. Living in it.

That's - all.

And (like so many areas where God's involved) it's too easy.

Remember that odd statement in I John 5v14-15? "If you ask anything according to the will of God, you'll get it." Our reaction when we spotted that, was that it's a bit obvious. Of course you get what you ask for if it's what God planned in the first place.

That was us being religious. Trying to reduce the will of God down to a form of fatalism. "It's decreed, so it'll happen."

Maybe. But that's not what the verse is teaching.

Eventually the penny dropped.

We're meant to KNOW the will of God, to have the mind of Christ, to believe that God works in everything to purpose and perform his good pleasure.

And that's why we've got to cut religion right out of our lives.

Because religion gives us a concept of God. A distorted, limited, often unrecognisable concept.

God doesn't want us to have a concept of him. He wants us to know him.

We met this girl who'd had just about as bad an earthly father as it's possible to have. Bad enough for her to want to be controlled by a demon as a means of handling the situation.

Anyhow, God intervened. Dealt with the home situation. And the demon. The kid was transformed. Plus she was slightly bewildered by what'd happened. Asked us to explain.

"God's your Dad now," we told her.

She winced. Lord. King. Sovereign. Almighty. Not Dad, with her background.

"It's not just a word we're using. Get to know him, it'll make all the difference to the way you're reacting."

She had thought we were trying to sell her the concept of God as father. We wanted her to live with someone real.

I mean - I don't have a concept of Eileen. (You might after reading our earlier books. Built like a Japanese wrestler. Push-starts tractors single-handed. Eileen says that's me. She's quite small, really. And sweet.) The fact is, we don't have "concepts" of each other.

We live together. Which is much more fun. God's got to be that real.

Religion makes him sterile, goody-goody. Worse that that - hard, calculating. Rather eager to punish. Which is why there is a lot of unnecessary illness and suffering among believers. They are busy acccepting destructive experiences from Satan, and saying they come from their Dad.

Look - God always - ALWAYS - brings good out of bad. Of course he does, otherwise Satan would be victorious. So if you accept the evil plans that Satan has for your life - God'll arrange it so things work for the best.

But that's the long, painful way round. Your Dad doesn't get any more pleased with you because of it. You mislead yourself and others into thinking it's spiritual to be under it. Frankly, you're implying there were a few gaps in the atonement.

So if you want to live by faith rather than magic, you need to start getting to know God.

That's not a five-minute job, either. Don't get us wrong - it's not a difficult task. But he's not some cardboard cut- out or TV character who you can suss out in thirty minutes flat. His reality is quite breathtaking.

And so is his wholehearted desire to make your life totally fulfilled in every possible area. Sex, recreation, study, sex, friends, work, shopping, sex - you name it.

The fact is that faith isn't an option.

Scripture categorically states whatever isn't of faith is sin. Sneaky one, that. It's an either... or. No middle ground.

Either an attitude springs from faith.

Or it is sinful.

Same action, remember. Different origin.

This is why we said that if you want to live by faith, you'll have to get out of religion. You can't allow others to dictate where and when you "fellowship", what teaching you'll receive, what "worship" you'll do, where your money will go.

Those areas - as much as any others - must be directly under Dad's control. Day-to-day. Not part of a programme devised by some organisation.

* * *

"But can't God bless a church programme?"

We're not talking about blessing. We're talking about living by faith.

It's easy to get sidetracked into something that provides a neat 'n' tidy substitute for faith. If you're a minister - mostly all your opportunities to preach, to evangelise... All your money... The house you live in and the pension you're counting on...

Come from an organisation.

Not from faith.

How can you teach others to expect that God will do a total life-job on them if you're not living that way yourself?

"Oh, I know that God wants me to be in the Such-and-such denomination."

It's possible.

(It's also possible you were merely pressured by the group you were in. It can be the socially acceptable thing to be a minister or mishy among some bunches. And how good were you at recognising Dad's voice then, anyhow?)

But let's be all charitable and assume God wants you to be where you are at present...

For one thing - that's likely to change. Dad's kids are like the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is like the wind. The wind is awfully unpredictable and on-going. Unlike most church folk.

For another thing - God didn't put you there to serve two masters. People have told us (with a straight face - dunno how they do it) that "God respects tradition".

If your god respects tradition - you'd better find out who he is and where he lives. He's certainly neither the Father nor the King written about in the Bible.

The fact is that if you've been put by God into a church or denomination - whether as a minister or member or anything - you're there to do a job of work.

Don't pray for faith. You already have it. God always provides the equipment for anything he wants done.

Use faith. Realise you've got nothing to lose.

What? Your salary? House? Pension? Reputation? Friends?

No problems. If you lose one lot, Dad'll supply genuine, guaranteed replacements. Ones that are intended to stand an awful lot of rough treatment.

Just live up to all the light you have. Don't accept any restrictions, any "we don't do it this way".

And if you're given the hard word to toe the party line or quit - quit. It's better to enter life with your ministerial credentials cut off, than with a full set of testimonials be cast into hell fire.

* * *

Meanwhile - until you get the heave-ho - make yourself useful.

Ask specific questions. Demand complete answers.

(Not bland, evasive answers.)

Find out precisely where your group, church, denomination stands on church unity.

Find out what associations it's in - from the World Council of Churches downwards. Is it a member? An observer?

Do "lay people" have a say? Or are they merely patted on the head, told to come to all the meetings, pay up - and leave decision-making to the hierarchy? Because associations like this can do and say things "on its members' behalf" that members are unaware of. For example, the National Council of Churches in America sent a letter to Pope John Paul II, calling the lack of a unified world church an "intolerable scandal". According to the report in Battle Cry, (Sept/Oct 1987) among those signing the letter on behalf of some 31 denominations are:

And take a long, hard look at yourself in the mirror and ask if there is any religious thing you wouldn't do.

That is - if it were introduced everso gently...

(How do you boil a live frog? Put it in a saucepan of cold water and heat it s-l-o-w-l-y. Too quickly - you scare the beastie and it hops out. Slowly - and it's all happy and relaxed until it's too late, and impossible to move a muscle.)

One world megachurch is scheduled to appear in an awfully short space of time. Let's give it credit for a bit of subtlety, eh.

The bloke who runs it isn't going to appear on TV smoking a joint and saying "Like I'm the Antichrist, man, and me and this tart Babylon really hope you'll groove with our scene". Or whatever.

At the very least, the megachurch will have the resources to employ better advertising agencies than prime ministers and presidents do for their election campaigns.

Agencies who aren't interested in facts. But in images. In creating an illusion of reality. Myths. Out of magic.

That's at the very least.

But the megachurch has the undiluted approval - no, not approval - the direction and power of Satan himself.

So the time to begin being answerable to the King and making a bit of a nuisance of youself...

Is now.

"Oh - but God's bound to raise up somebody if all this happens."

Right.

He just did.

You.

* * *

Sorry about that. But there are no passengers in the kingdom of God.

And there are very few survivors from Sodom.

Now - some folk get all worried about the Antichrist and the thought of persecution.

They just need a bit of a frown from some church member and they shrivel up and get all hurt. Or scared.

Okay - first the good news.

Church history isn't exactly popular at the moment.

(That's not the good news - that's a lead-in to a point we're making.)

Because church history is largely about either the Roman Empire doing its dinger trying to stamp out Christianity. Or about the Roman Catholic church doing the same.

History doesn't have anything good to say about products carrying the Roman label.

Now - the reason we're writing this section is that we've discovered there's quite a division of opinion among Christians. (Stand up whoever said what's new.)

In this case, between historicists and futurists.

To put their particular barrows in a nutshell (eh?) the historicist bunch claim that most of prophecy - like Daniel and Revelation, and especially the scary bits on tribulation and beheadings and stuff - has been fulfilled over a lengthy and bloody (the polite bloody) period of 1260 years.

Futurists see the prophetic stuff, particularly the tribulation, as still to come.

Don't polarise. Don't take sides. Or you'll miss the point.

It is a fact of history - if you can get hold of the right books - that incredible persecution was inflicted on believers by a long succession of Popes. Museums and libraries still display medals and illuminated manuscripts which commemorated their efforts.

And it is a fact of contemporary history that folk who hold to the futurist view, and who are most vocal in teaching and preaching it, tend to overlook the fact that both scripturally and historically, persecution comes from Rome. There's even a suggestion that the futurist teaching came initially from a Jesuit who wished to draw attention away from the RCs' bad track record and point to something scarey up ahead.

Let's combine the two viewpoints. Major prophecies always get fulfilled on several levels, in more than one era.

The tribulation as a wearisome, enervating 1260-year stretch has already taken place, fulfilling scripture in detail. However, there is a brief 1260-day period ahead when the world church will clash with believers. Two points must be remembered about this.

One is that much of the success of past persecutions has been because believers were confused and religious. To the extent that they were untainted by the system (as were many of the very early church) they were able to handle the situation. Spiritually. Not carnally.

Another point. Scripture must (and will) be fulfilled in lands historically associated with prophetic events. The area around the Med, the old Roman Empire, Israel - these are all places where certain events must take place.

There is not the same inevitability about other countries. The further away one is from Europe the more dilute the effect of Satan's final plans.

So believers who are prepared to stand up and be counted in their opposition to the rise of the megachurch will find they help hold back the spread of the evil one in countries like New Zealand. That's good news.

* * *

And now the better news...

You haven't the faintest hope of beating Satan on his terms...

What we mean is this. If that Pentecostal group down the road gets more members than your anti-charismatic fellowship - it's a fairly simple matter to even the score by getting a few special speakers, buying ten-second spots on the local FM station, importing a decent musical group. That sort of thing.

But when Satan and the megachurch buy out all the shares in the religious corporations... You can't set up in opposition.

If you're good, you'll get taken over. If you're third- rate you'll be declared illegal.

So, all you've got... is God. That's all. Which puts you on a spot. Like - how real is God? Can you trust him? Is he going to win?

The answers to those questions may be pretty obvious when everything is nice and quiet, and you're under no presssure to be in or else. It gets a bit tricky when everyone is getting involved in the megachurch and hailing it as the latest and greatest move of God.

Being different takes practice. Faith takes practice.

F'rinstance... It's possible to believe that between you and your Dad, you can enjoy a deal where the money you have... and the needs you have... plus the little (and big) luxuries you'd really like... and the things you get up to... somehow - by faith - come together and work in the neatest, most efficient, craziest way. (We're not teaching the prosperity trip, either. God may want you to have two Rolls- Royces, but that won't apply to the next bloke.)

Okay - in that sort of faith and finance thing - isn't it possible to have doubts? Bet your life it is. But so? We'd rather have doubts in an area where the worst that happens is we buy something totally ridiculous, or run out of tea and bikkies at an awkward time. No big deal - and it's good exercise in living with God.

Better than waiting until it's a matter of life and death. When there's not the slightest room for a mistake.

Faith is substantial. Faith is evidence. But faith is an area which has to be discovered. Recognised. Tried out.

If you don't know its reality - don't knock it. "Sounds a load of mumbo-jumbo. Wishful thinking. Or positive thinking. Not the sort of thing that's real."

All you're saying is that, in that area, you're illiterate.

Sure, you can manage after a fashion. And you may be a real dag at - say - bulldozer driving, getting degrees at university, running a business. But without a working knowledge of faith...

You're illiterate.

Note! We said "working". Working knowledge.

There's tonnes of theory. And theology. Some of which is quite useful. But it's the hands-on, on-job training that counts.

* * *

Look - let's get back to our computer illustration...

According to the experts (whoever they might be), computers are already causing a bigger revolution than the invention of the steam engine. Today's marvels are tomorrow's free-with-a-packet-of-cornflakes. And by the time a TV programme on the silicon wonders up ahead hits your screen - those goodies have been installed in every shop, home, car or whathaveyou and are already out of date.

If you don't have some nodding familiarity with computers - in ten years' time, you'll be illiterate.

That doesn't mean you have to understand all the theory of flip-flop circuits and machine code, any more than a good driver needs to know carburettor settings and tappet clearances.

But there must be a familiarity, a "hit the key and it'll do THIS" certainty. An ability to get into strange surroundings, aware the computer'll be useful - essential, even - in such a situation.

Same with faith. It's not some robotic, automatic, antiseptic package that enables you to watch the world at arms' length and get your jollies in perfect safety. It's an interactive system that involves you in reality, gets dirt on your fingers and a whiff of danger into the atmosphere. It's what the jargon-lovers call lateral thinking. Divergent thinking.

Rather than making do with ordinary outlooks and logic, faith is a look at life from God's point of view.

Every time we've tried something even mildly different, there've always been people going all negative on us. "What d'you want to do that for? What if everyone did that? Always doing your own thing. Isn't this good enough for you." And so on.

Faith is realising that the rules of the game often aren't the ones you were told about. You've been told a set of rules written by big businesses and governments and religions. "Go to the ant, thou sluggard" - that sort of thing.

Jesus said "consider the lilies". Or the birds. Funny, the difference, eh.

Okay, we realise that if you're trying to motivate some kid to get off the dole and do something with her or his life, then the go to the ant bit comes over as the answer to the problem. Maybe.

But even if there are thousands of self-inflicted aimless dole-bludgers roaming the streets - there are hundreds of thousands of locked-into-the-system, working-for-a-pension, holidays-in-Sydney types who are merely good, ordinary people. Marvellous for keeping a consumer-based society going. Great for a boss to depend on.

Damn disappointing as sons and daughters of God.

* * *