MINI-DESPATCH. November 4, 2000
From W. B. Howard ...Editor of Despatch Magazine
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Greetings to you!
We are sorry we have been so long between Mini-Despatches.
We have had personal affairs to attend to which have been time consuming;
we have had to renovate, paint and repair our house and offices – sorely overdue jobs!

CAPTAIN AHAB, ISHMAEL AND THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.
Have you read the book-poem “Moby Dick?” It is a classic which presents the dilemma of unsaved mankind! Moby Dick is a book about Captain Ahab’s experience of a quest for a whale, not a book about his quest for a whale. The single voice of another character, Ishmael,  tries to sum up the whole of creation in this one book, written by Melville. Ishmael is the witness, he examines his own thoughts as well as the actions of Captain Ahab as they both experience a fanatical quest, a chase after a white whale.  Ahab’s effort is to reclaim something that mankind knows he has lost. It is a bitter conflict in an unequal contest, which man cannot win. Ishmael is the bystander, looking on, he is the man who readily identifies humanity’s complete powerlessness and  insignificance in the universe. Ahab is a contrast in every way. He seeks the whale to declare man’s supremacy over what races before him through the ocean depths. He sees the whale as “the monomaniac incarnation” of a superior power.

In the poem-book, Moby Dick, the whole of lost humanity is pictured. Either entering the fantastic quest or looking on and commenting.  No matter which way man turns, either to the side of identification with powerlessness and insignificance, or to the side of insane desire to gain supremacy over the superior power which manifests Himself in the universe and nature, he is doomed to failure and ghastly frustration! For mankind has fallen in Sin, and has lost the way. The great quest is really to find God, and then to bow the knee in submission. Only One has made the Way open so that we can complete that fabulous quest – the Man Christ Jesus. No matter how unsaved people enthuse over such books as Moby Dick, and the philosophy behind it, all it reveals is the futility of all that is outside Christ Jesus. Indeed, how revealing such literature is, how a Christian’s heart yearns for the unsaved members of the race of Adam when reading it. See in the Moby Dick story the unbelievable rebellion against and rejection of Almighty God, Who has poured out His heart of love in the gift of His Son to die for us all.

Here is a quote from Moby Dick, as Captain Ahab speaks:

“If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there’s naught beyond. But ‘tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me;
I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I’d strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play therein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who’s over me? Truth hath no confines.”

Now, dear reader, compare the Living Christ Jesus, this Man sent to save us. Compare the future that the Almighty God has planned for those who will accept the Saviour and humble themselves before the Heavenly Father. Not futility and a world which torments because of it’s awesome vacancy, as Ishmael sees it. Not a world which unsaved man must inflict his will upon in order to conquer and dominate nature and the Creator Himself, as Captain Ahab sees it. Redeemed Man’s destiny is to be a derived authority, in subjection to the Almighty Creator. The Dominionists of Christendom will not await God’s appointed time for His Church to take delegated authority, in the Millennial reign of Christ. They want dominion in their timing, in their own way. And so they join the Captain Ahabs of 2000 AD – in pursuit of the white whale. The great cry of mankind becomes their own, they defy a superior Power. They want to see themselves “to enthrone…again in the now egotistical sky; in the now unhaunted hill.” Dominion will be redeemed man’s it is true, but only in God’s timing and under His might :

Author Ray C. Stedman writes the following on Hebrews chapter two:

"The writer insists that when David says 'all things,' he means all things, everything. For he adds, Note in putting everything in subjection to him [Christ Jesus], he left nothing outside his control. Here is man's intended destiny, his authorized dominion. Man was made to be king over all God's universe. Surely this passage includes far more than the earth. It envisions the created universe of God as far as man has ever been able to discover it, in all the illimitable reaches of space and whatever lies beyond that. All this is to be put under man's dominion. It is a vast and tremendous vision.

But man's authority was derived authority. Man himself was to be subject to the God who indwelt him. He was to be the means by which the invisible God became visible to His creatures. He was to be the manifestation of God's own life which dwelt in the royal residence of his human spirit. As long as man was subject to the dominion of God within him, he would be able to exercise dominion over all the universe around. Only when
man accepted dominion could he exercise dominion.

The writer further points out that man was made lower than the angels for a limited time to learn what the exercise of that dominion meant. He was given a limited doImages: this earth, this tiny planet whirling its way through the great galaxy to which we belong, amid all the billions of galaxies of space! And he was also given a limited physical body so that within that limited area man should learn the principles by which his dominion
could be exercised throughout the universe. This limitation is described as being lower than the angels.

But the passage goes on to describe man's present state of futility. As it is we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. There is the whole story of human history in a nutshell. How visibly true this is: we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.
Man attempts to exercise his dominion but he no longer can do so adequately. He has never forgotten the position God gave him, for throughout the history of the race there is a continual restatement of the dreams of man for dominion over the earth and the universe. This is why we cannot keep off the highest mountain. We have to get up there, though we have not lost a thing up there and we know when we get there we will only see what the bear saw: the other side of the mountain. But we have to be there. We have to explore the depths of the sea. We have to get out into space. Why? Because it is there.

Man consistently manifests a remarkable racial memory, a vestigial recollection of what God told him to do. The trouble is that when he tries to accomplish this now he creates a highly explosive and dangerous situation, for his ability to exercise dominion is no longer there. Things get out of balance. This is why we are confronted with an increasingly serious situation in our day when our attempt to control insects by pesticides and other poisons creates an imbalance that threatens serious results. The history of man is one of continually precipitating a crisis by attempting to exercise dominion.

If we go back into recorded history to the earliest writings of men, the most ancient of history, we find that men were wrestling with the same moral problems then that we are wrestling with today. We have made wonderful advances in technology, but have made absolutely zero progress when it comes to moral relation-ships. Somewhere man has lost his relationship with God.

The fall of man is the only adequate explanation of this.Since then the universe is stamped with futility. Everything man does is a dead-end to a successful conclusion. Even in the individual life this is true. How many have realized the dreams and ideals they began with? Who can say, 'l have done all that I wanted to do; I have been all that I wanted to be'?
Paul in Romans puts it, 'The creation was subjected to futility' (Rom. 8:20).

But the writer of Hebrews says, we see Jesus! This is man's one hope. With the eye of faith we see Jesus already crowned and reigning over the universe, the man Jesus fulfilling man's lost destiny." (What More Can God Say? pp. 20-22)

What a fantastic contrast between the two phrases in Hebrews 2:8, 9:
"But now we see not . . ." and   "But we see Jesus...."
Thus, what the first Adam lost in the Garden, the second Adam regained upon Golgotha.

HAVE YOU ACCEPTED CHRIST JESUS AS SAVIOUR?
There is NO future at all outside of Him; no reason or sense, no reality or understanding, no life or future, no dominion or purpose - nothing but the endless passions of Ishmael or Ahab.
Come home to the One Who loves you and gave Himself for you.
In Him alone you can find the meaning of Life.

Editor of `Despatch' Magazine & "Beauty for Ashes" Booklet
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