BOOKS

                                                                 Books

The Bible is the Book of books! It contains the words of life, everlasting blissful life (John 3:16). It is the operating manual for humans and for whole nations (2 Tim. 3:16-17; Matt. 28:18-20).

My great uncle, died in the Somme mud as nation fought nation in WWI. PTE John Maley, 1st/8th Bn, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, died aged 21, 16^th May 1917. I searched for, and found, his name on the Christie Park Cenotaph in Alexandria, Scotland, our hometown. I can only hope that his name is also written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. For, ‘Anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire’ Revelation 20:15. To be cast into God’s eternal hellfire immediately and directly from the midst of temporal hellfire does not bear thinking about. However, Scripture does say, ‘It is appointed for men to die once, but after this the judgment’ Hebrews 9:27. But there is smidgen of comfort in the old optimistic adage, ‘There are no atheists in foxholes.’

PTE Maley, 18 or 19 years old, far left

As the old 70s hit by Edwin Starr put it, ‘War! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing!’ But where do wars come from? The Book of Books says that war first begins in the human heart: ‘Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war’ James 4:1-2a. Therefore, we should be thankful that the Book is also a recall notice for all to come to God through Jesus immediately, or suffer catastrophic failure and end up on the scrapheap, i.e., Hell (John 3:36).

The epitome of totalitarian censorship was seen in the Satanic flames of the Nazi book burning bonfires on 10^th May 1933. This picture has been burned indelibly into every peace-loving mind. Yet, we see the very same principle in our own day. It comes in many forms. One example is in the way that discussions that do not follow the ideology or political philosophy of the social media supplier are, at best, interrupted with a link to the facilitator’s opinion piece on the issue, or at worst, the opposer is ‘sin-binned’ and even banned from using the site. In other words, free speech is stifled by over-the-top Political Correctness.

The nation of Canada is precariously close to banning the Book of Books as so much ‘hate speech’! For example, Canada’s Supreme Court has banned Christians from practicing law. The freedoms that they fought to protect in both world wars are being lost to those who are still at war with God. The Book of Books contains the Law and the Gospel. The Law (summarized in the Ten Commandments, shows us up as sinners), and the Gospel (summarized in Jesus, the Saviour of sinners) shows us where to flee to for salvation from the coming day of wrath (Rom. 2:1-16).

How do we know that we are at war with God? If we were not at war with God, we would not need to be reconciled to Him. But the Book says, ‘But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.’ Romans 5:8-10. Search the Lamb’s Book of Life to see if your name is written there. How will you know? ‘For whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved’ Romans 10:13.