Matthew 5:4
Blessed are they that mourn!
For they shall be comforted.
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This is the second of the 'beatitudes'.
Jesus can only be talking about a particular type of mourning here, one connected with the "poor in spirit" people He had described in the first beatitude. If He were talking about general mourning- 'any old' mourning- then He would be promising everyone comfort; and there are many- most, in fact- who will be bereft of comfort for all of eternity.
So what kind of mourning do the "poor in spirit" do? They mourn over their spiritual poverty ! And what is it that has bankrupted them? Sin ! To a Christian, then, the only real sorrows are caused by sin.
Let us draw a deduction then. If sin is our only real sorrow, then righteousness should our only real joy; that is, anything connected with righteousness.
Let us draw a lesson, then
Sin has its pleasures. As sin tempts us to follow it (being drawn by our own desires, sin originating in the heart), God is always asking us- and we should be asking ourselves- Are the pleasures of righteousness greater and truer for us than the pleasures of sin?
Sin's pleasures, of course, are ultimately a lie. They end up hurting where they said they'd help.
We can know the answer to which pleasure is greater for us by finding our joy. We take joy in what is pleasurable to us.
That may still leave us a bit hazy, so we may further reason: if our joy is NOT in righteousness, then what must it be in?
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2 Thessalonians 2:1, 2
And, brothers, we entreat you,
by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,
and of our gathering together to Him,
for you not to be quickly shaken in the mind,
nor to be disturbed, neither through a spirit,
nor through speech, nor through letter,
as through us,
as if the Day of Christ has come.
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The Church was put on alert early that she was not to give in to certain suggestions concerning eschatology (the doctrine of last things). We are not to think that the Day of Christ has come- the day identified here as the day of both His coming and of His gathering us to Himself. With those two events, Paul joins a third later in the passage:
2 Thess 2:8 And then the Lawless One will be revealed, whom the Lord shall consume with the breath of His mouth and shall destroy with the brightness of His coming
So at the time when Jesus comes, the time at which He will gather us to Himself, He will also destroy the Antichrist (if we may so identify the "Lawless One" here).
This is the only passage in the New Testament that includes all three eschatological ingredients: Christ's coming, our gathering to Him, and Antichrist's destruction. It is also the only passage that sequences all three events. It ought, therefore, to be the guiding passage for any of those events when we need to fit them together Biblically.
The other indicator Paul gives in this passage as to whether Christ has come is simply whether or not the Antichrist has come:
2 Thess 2:3 Let not anyone deceive you by any means. For that Day shall not come unless there first comes a falling away, and the Man of Sin shall be revealed, the Son of Perdition
Here the Antichrist is called the Man of Sin and the Son of Perdition. Paul's starkly simple reasoning is that Christ cannot come until Antichrist comes. The language is so straightforward, and Paul's point is so clearly made, it is a wonder there is so much division over the subject.
The reason for the division, of course, is that no one is paying attention to this passage, especially not as the guiding passage on the subject.
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Psalm 30:4, 5
Sing praises to Jehovah,
O you saints of His,
and give thanks at the memory of His holiness.
For His anger is only a moment;
in His favor is life.
Weeping may endure for a night,
but joy comes in the morning.
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We are told to give thanks at the remembrance of God's holiness; then we are given a reason to do so:
Psalm 30:5 For His anger is only a moment
The relative shortness of God's anger with His people is given as an evidence of His holiness.
How does God's relatively short anger with His children display His holiness? In that it is a unique part of His character. God's 'holiness' is His 'set-apart-ness'. The fact that His mercy tempers His justice towards us is part of Him that we could only have known by revelation. On our own, we could only have anticipated a God who either couldn't have been angry with His children because of His mercy, or who couldn't have gotten over His anger once His children abused His mercy.
The exhortation is to sing and give thanks when we remember this aspect of His holiness- the shortness of His anger. Most Christians in our day merely presume that God is supposed to manifest unceasing mercy upon mercy toward us. This actually blunts their praise of Him.
The Christian with the greatest praise for God is the one who realizes that God first does have real anger when we stray, but then that He chooses to shorten the length of His anger because of His love.
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Genesis 2:9
And out of the ground Jehovah God
made to spring up every tree
that is pleasant to the sight,
and good for food.
The Tree of Life
was also in the middle of the garden;
also the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
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The fruit from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil had the capacity to be eaten. Therefore, man was created with the capacity to gain the knowledge (that is, the 'self-determination') of good and evil- right and wrong. To gain this self-determination was to cast off God's determination of what was good and what was evil; therefore, it was rebellion. Man was made without rebellion against God, but with the capacity for it.
Rebellion 'suited' man's spirit just as food suits the body; only we might say it fit spiritually like poisoned food fits physically. It can be ingested, but it kills.
However, when Adam died from eating the forbidden fruit, he was still walking around. He still had a self-aware and God-aware spirit.
Man is now in the opposite condition as in the Garden. We had the capacity for self-determination; now we have the capacity for Truth. That is, the Truth is an item that is consumable by man. However, man's rebellious spirit rejects that 'fruit'. He may taste, but he won't swallow- swallow, but he can't hold it down. We did not simply enter a two-way swinging door when we rebelled. Once we got in, we could not simply get back out the same way. Death was a permanent consequence of our decision. So man has a capacity for Truth (understanding it), but an incapacity for receiving it.
Thus the path to the Tree of Life is now guarded. Man chose Death, so Life is not an option. It is both man's spirit and God's honor that withhold the Tree of Life from dead Man. God says, "You are certainly dead, as I pronounced you would be upon your rebellion."
The Tree of Life is the only antidote to the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Only the fruit of the Tree of Life must be brought to us by a man with the right to it.
Jesus is the only man to regain the right to the Tree of Life. He was without our original dead spirit, so He could pursue what we had lost. Having pursued it and gained it, He became a second Adam, who could then transfer His acquisition to His seed, as Adam did to his seed.*
Jesus comes and plants His seed in us individually:
James 1:18 Having purposed, He brought us forth by the Word of truth, for us to be a certain firstfruit of His creatures.
It was God's Word we originally rejected. It is that life-giving Word that graciously returns to rescue us. It is NOT: "I void My former word to overcome your death." It is: "I renew the life-giving aspect of My Word despite your original rejection of it and your choice of death." It is: "I void your death."
Hence, when we talk to unbelieving men, we are talking to those with a capacity for truth. They can understand it. They can understand that it is right. But they reject it at a spiritual level. They hate its defiance of their defiance. We need only do little to press its claims. As long as we are assured and kindly insistent, the Word is loudly announcing the unsuitable nature of the Death residing in the unbelievers' souls.
*Christ is only the 'second' Adam as 'another' Adam; not implying a third, etc.
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Isaiah 40:4
Every valley shall be exalted,
and every mountain and hill shall be made low;
and the knoll shall be a level place,
and the rough places a plain.
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Isaiah prophesied this as part of John the Baptist's message. Christ was coming, and everything out of place was bound to be put right.
Earth is used as a picture of what is wrong in this prophecy. Usually, the creation is not used as a metaphor for evil. The creation itself is not evil. Here, it is used as a symbol for the imbalances within and among men. Mountains and knolls, high places, are used to picture man's self-lifting pride. Valleys, low spots, become pictures of those oppressed by the proud. The proud and the oppressed will be moving in opposite directions. The proud will be reduced, and the oppressed will be lifted up.
Rough, uneven ground is a picture of the jags man has planted all over the domain of justice. Jesus will be an earth-mover and steam roller, knocking down all inequities and bringing the 'landscape' of men's souls back to evenness.
One immediate question we naturally ask is: What is the timetable for all this rectifying work? Well, we know that it was not to be completed on His first visitation. He specifically passed up opportunities to remedy certain injustices:
Luke 12:13, 14 And one from the crowd said to Him, Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me. But He said to him, Man, who appointed Me a judge or a divider over you?
We might say that Jesus gained the right to the earth-moving equipment during His first visitation, but that He has only cranked the equipment up and has it ready to roll for His second visitation, His second coming:
John 3:17 For God did not send His Son into the world that He might judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him.
That is, Jesus did not come to judge the first time around, but He came to earn the right to be absolute judge the second time around:
John 5:22 For the Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son
So until He comes, His social rectification is limited. Man's pride is still given wide latitude. The wicked can still oppress the poor, and will apparently have this freedom until Christ comes again as the judge of the one and deliverer of the other.
But for those whom Christ saves, rectification of all human inequities goes into effect immediately.
We are immediately forbidden to oppress in any of the many and sometimes subtle ways men bully. We are immediately called on to denounce oppression. Our own pride comes under Christ's wrecking ball immediately (sadly, it takes our whole lives to reduce the building a few paltry stories. Or we could take the 'half-full' approach and look at all the debris of our former pride sprawled out across the landscape below, evened out at last).
Are you a recipient of Christ's work? He did not come merely to promise a rectifying work, but to perform it. He judges the Church that the Church not be judged along with the world. He comes to even the landscape in Christian souls.
Is this work running apace in your soul?
1 Cor 11:31, 32 For if we discerned ourselves, we would not be judged. But being judged, we are corrected by the Lord, that we not be condemned with the world.
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2 Timothy 4:2
Preach the Word!
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The correct content of all sermons is here given. Preachers are not to proclaim anything besides the Word.
Preachers who simply make moral points, for instance, may not have substantially different content in their messages than a Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, or Atheist speaker. The burden on the Christian preacher is always to demonstrate from Scriptures that he is giving God's message. There is no other way to "preach the Word." The Scriptures must be the focus of every sermon. All information included in a sermon must be for the purpose of elucidating some Bible text. The audience must have a clear sense of this, or else that church has lost its way:
2 Tim 4:3 For a time will be when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, they will heap up to themselves teachers tickling the ear
Telling the people what they want or expect to hear becomes the order of the day, NOT telling them their sins:
2 Tim 4:2 Preach the Word! Be urgent in season, out of season, convict, warn, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching.
Preaching is to have a primarily negative edge. God is speaking to His people through the preacher, and His first word is always, "You have sinned." This is why the Church has always wandered from the Truth. She doesn't want this message. Neither does the preacher want to preach it, so both preacher and church cooperatively abandon the message and find 'look-alike' but more agreeable material.
Even preachers who focus on a text of Scripture are always in danger of departing from the Word. As they outline the text, they are tempted to make the headings of their outline parallel first, representative of the text second. Once the headings of the outline are merely 'truths' rather than explanations of the text at hand, we are very quickly heading into the territory of "Who even needs a text?" The text actually being used becomes the human heart spoken within the sphere of what sounds right at the time, in the given situation (just the opposite of sticking to the Word "in season, out of season").
Many great 'sermonizers' of the past and present have left themselves open to the charge of subjectivism. They were very good at making and delivering sermons because they were heavy on the 'art', light on the 'science'. From Paul's exhortations to Timothy above, preaching is always a science first and foremost. It is all about content. If the preacher's art conforms to accurate content, well and good: sermonize away.
None of us, preacher or 'preachee', are above the temptation to move from the text. There are many tell-tale signs when we have done so. Once it has happened to a church, though, that church almost never gets back on track. They have tasted spinach and they have tasted pie. Pie is better. Goodbye spinach.
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Psalm 29:3
... the God of glory thunders ...
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The God of glory thunders. That is characteristic of Him.
Perhaps in light of this characteristic we might see that:
1) We don't hear God;
2) We don't recognize His thunderings for what they are; or
3) We deafen ourselves to His thunderings by false pronunciations such as, "He only whispers."
One who fears God and accepts His descriptions of Himself accepts that He thunders. He thunders in weather patterns, all ultimately sent by Him. He also thunders in His very presence:
Rev 4:2 Immediately I was in the Spirit. Behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and One sitting on the throne ...
Rev 4:5 And out of the throne come forth lightnings and thunders and voices ...
Awe in God's presence is the only appropriate response. If the Scriptures bring us before the true God, they are not bringing us before a familiar being. They are introducing us to Someone who, rightly known, will kowtow us completely.
The least we can do if we do not live in the utter awe of God is to seek that true humility and mourn until we have it.
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1 Corinthians 2:13
These things we also speak,
not in words which man's wisdom teaches,
but which the Holy Spirit teaches,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual.
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The key to understanding Scriptures in general lies within Scriptures themselves. The key to understanding any one particular text of Scripture lies in some other text or group of texts. That is what "comparing spiritual things with spiritual" means. Spiritual = Holy Spirit produced. We understand one communication of the Spirit by laying it alongside other Spirit-produced words. Of course, if the Holy Spirit continued to give direct revelation, we could continue to count on new revelation as much as we do on the Bible. But if His only direct, personal teaching today is through His former words, eternal words by the eternal God, then we cannot look outside Scriptures for help in understanding them. The Holy Spirit is helping us understand Scriptures when we consider all the words He spoke (By the way, if the Spirit was still speaking directly, as He did in Scriptures, would He speak to someone ignoring His 'first volume', the Bible, or someone who already proved attentive to Him, saturating himself with Scriptures? The people today claiming that the Spirit gives them divine communication are among the least educated in His former words. So God is now in the business of rewarding laziness?).
So if the God-given way to understand Scriptures is by properly matching them with other Scriptures, we must be suspicious of anyone who speaks as if he had a key OUTSIDE the Bible with which to understand the Bible. Of course, no one is going to say, "Here's an extra-Biblical key," but if we are listening, we can discern when that is what is being offered. It is actually a good idea to ask, "Where does this person's interpretation key come from?" any time we hear a sermon or Biblical teaching. You will be surprised how many times an extra-Biblical key is being used to jam open Scriptures. Most of the time, it is not even treated as a key. It is just a presupposition that we no longer even question.
An example of an extra-Biblical key would be someone who heard about the doctrine of election, then responded, "That cannot be, because God loves everybody." He is using the 'key' of God's universal love to unlock the supposed deceit of election. The key of God's universal love is extra-Biblical in that it is unBiblical.
We should be VERY suspicious of anyone who says or believes, "We are not meant to understand all of Scriptures." That person certainly cannot avoid having an extra-Biblical key to whatever portions of the Bible he thinks he can understand. His 'mandated mystery' stance ultimately undermines confidence in any real Bible understanding of any doctrine.
The danger of holding extra-Biblical keys to Scripture is very great. Those holding them purport to be objective. "Here is the means to unlocking the meaning of Scriptures." In fact, they are being subjective in the worst sort of way.
We must even be careful of historical data or archaeological evidence which supposedly elucidates Biblical episodes. Is that Bible passage really incomprehensible without Josephus' little historical tidbit? Or is there something in the text I just wasn't paying proper attention to until Josephus tapped me on the shoulder? You see, if we need corroborating evidence outside of Scriptures, who knows which archaeological evidence is waiting to be discovered before we can properly understand this or that text?
How about you? Have you been duped by extra-Biblical keys to the Bible? There are so many of them, and so many ways to be guilty of accessing them. The main means of access, though, is laziness. Why compare Scripture with Scripture when I have this marvelous overlay I can just superimpose on the Bible and unravel all its mysteries ... or at least any of them we really need to know.
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Hosea 14:2
Take with you words,
and turn to Jehovah.
Say to Him,
Take away all iniquity,
and receive us graciously,
that we may repay
with the calves of our lips.
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Take words with you when you go to God. Now there's some odd advice.
We've learned in our day that words are at best secondary in our communications to God, and at worst deficient, misleading vehicles. We have forgotten that God uses words.
Actually, we haven't forgotten. We afford God the same set of restrictions. Our teachings indicate that He also is hampered by the limitation of words. If only He could get past words, then He could make us know!
Strange that God would have created or allowed such a frustrating set of circumstances for Himself and us! In reality, it is only us making excuses for not understanding God and then refusing to do the hard work of paying attention to the words He has had written- yes, written down to the dotting of an 'i'.
Matthew 5:18 For truly I say to you, Till the heaven and the earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall in any way pass from the Law until all is fulfilled.
A jot was the smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet. It was the size of an apostrophe. A tittle was only a portion of a letter. It was an overhang on a letter, not much bigger that the dot on an 'i'. Jesus was indicating that Scripture was inspired down to "the dotting of an 'i' and the crossing of a 't'", we would say. That kind of God has an obvious respect for words. But the devil has duped God's people into disrespecting words; and (as usual in following the deceiver's lead) thinking we're being holier than 'the average bear' in doing so.
There is a huge divergence between a relationship with God that depends on words and one which does not. Strange that a faith so reliant on Scriptures for its teachings could ever be so far removed from them- philosophically removed from them; claiming them as divinely inspired, yet insisting that their basic components- words- are inadequate tools.
(Stay tuned for Part 2)
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Hosea 14:2
Take with you words,
and turn to Jehovah.
Say to Him,
Take away all iniquity,
and receive us graciously,
that we may repay
with the calves of our lips.
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Meditation #2 on Hosea 14:2
We are exhorted to bring words before God. Words are vehicles of which He approves. Words will always reveal underlying heart, Jesus told us. Deceitful words will always prove contradictory. Deceitful words will never pass muster in worship, of course. If the words of our prayers are not "calves"- that is, sacrifices- tokens of a heart that is dying to self, our hypocrisy will not escape God nor benefit us.
The only proper words in prayer are words of response. God is not expecting us to come up with amazing and original ideas, words, and phrases in prayer. He is only expecting us to have a rational response to what He has said. We will very quickly use up our existing reservoir of knowledge in prayer. It is best to base our daily prayers on a renewable resource- our daily Bible meditation. Whatever we have learned from our Scripture reading, devotional, sermon, etc. has been God speaking to us. Prayer, then, is only the continuation of a conversation and is us speaking back to God.
Imagine a conversation in which the first conversant said, "I put new carpet in my den last week," and the return conversant said, "Yes, and I have a cousin Frank who just got over the flu." You would rightly surmise that the second speaker had little skill in conversation. He doesn't know how to relate what was spoken to what he will now speak.
The same thing goes for prayer. Imagine God- expending all the energy and thought He did to give us a Word that will outlast His amazing heavens hearing us come before Him in response with, "Here's the list of blessings I'll be needing today, Sir." And we feel we're doing Him a favor! He wants relevance, right? Well, here's my up-to-the-minute, newly-revised, all-inclusive grocery list! I'm hungry for blessings, so start writing this down!
But that's not the kind of relevance God wants. "Relevant" means something that relates. We don't relate to God in conversation if we're not responding to what He said. Oh, surely, in a certain way He's always interested in hearing our needs. We're supposed to unburden our needs daily and as often as necessary. But imagine what a boring conversation it makes when that's all He hears from us! Yikes! Talk about patience on His part! But also disappointment. "That's all I'm good for- dispensing blessings. My words did not reach you. You haven't thought about them."
SO! There's really no such thing as a prayer initiated by me. Any true prayer is a response. He always speaks first. My prayer is always a response.
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Psalm 96:7
Give to Jehovah,
O families of the people;
give to Jehovah glory and strength.
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"Give to Jehovah."
The only real purpose of possessions is to give them back to Jehovah.
The only real purpose of our giving them back to Him (since He obviously is in no need of them in themselves) is to test our character- whether or not we will keep a lesser to neglect a greater.
> (Greater than)
< (Less than)
Those two signs are enough to tell us everything we need to know about ourselves.
Is God truly greater than whatever we have to offer Him (that is, everything we have and are)? The question is not whether we recognize God's greater value. The question is whether we treat Him as greater by giving Him all lesser things (again, that means everything we have and are). Wherever we do not, we are saying that lesser things are actually greater than God.
This is a very humbling and shaming admission, is it not? But this is the natural way we regard and treat things and God.
He can change us so that our basic orientation has the < and > signs pointing the right directions. The question is, do we really want to be changed?
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Psalm 15:2
He who walks uprightly,
and works righteousness,
and speaks the truth in his heart;
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This is the answer to a question. The question was this:
Psalm 15:1 O Jehovah, who shall dwell in Your tabernacle? Who shall live in Your holy mountain?
This Psalm ends up being an eleven-part description of the citizen of Heaven. The verse in the box above gives the first three parts of the answer. The third part of this description is our focus today.
The man who will dwell with God is the one who "speaks the truth in his heart".
Speaking the truth in our hearts is awfully hard. Most people live without basic heart honesty their whole lives. We all have a picture in our hearts of who we are, and we speak in our hearts whatever is necessary to maintain that image. More to the point, there are certain things about ourselves our heart does not want to ponder, and so we tell ourselves things in our hearts to avoid that unpleasant reality.
Most people assume that they are honest in their own hearts. They assure themselves of this by thinking of matters in which they are, in fact, probably fairly straightforward. (That's amazing, isn't it? We actually know enough about right and wrong to know we should be telling the truth at least to ourselves, so we make a case to ourselves that we are doing so!)
The Christian comes into a different realm. He is now being told that he is actually much different than he thought. He now learns this about his heart, for instance:
Jer 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is incurable; who can know it?
So the Christian learns to be suspicious of his own heart. He learns to be apprehensive about the excuses he first makes when he has possible reason to be ashamed. The heart will do anything to shift blame.
A good lifelong goal is to consider all the ways our hearts tend to deceive us and then keep on the watch against them.
Here are just two examples, one manward (concerning our relationship with man), and one Godward.
1) "I am offended by what so-and-so just said. I'd better take care how I react."
This is being honest with ourselves about our anger. Anger doesn't tap us on the shoulder and say, "Here I am, Anger, here to take vengeance upon my foes!" No, anger in us just begins thinking of how to hurt who just hurt me. Our hearts are not honest in admitting anger, because we know that revenge is wrong.
Now for a second type of case.
2) "I am avoiding God right now. I had best 'come clean'."
This is being honest with ourselves about hiding from God. This is an even harder type of honesty that the first, because when we are hiding from God, our conscience is already deflecting His light, thus dwelling in darkness. It takes a brave and mature Christian to 'tell on himself' and admit he is avoiding God.
But this is the very type of Christian the Psalm is describing, isn't it? In fact, this means that only brave and mature Christians will dwell with God. The fearful Christian, the one who clasps his little idols in a dark corner is contradicting his claim to know the God who is light.
This gives us one alarming but useful description of a certain kind of counterfeit Christian. The Christian who is only interested in being forgiven of his idolatry, anger, selfishness, etc., but is not interested in parting with these evil ways, will continually lie in his heart about his shortcomings. (Come to think about it, he really wouldn't want to dwell with God in Zion, would he? After all, this is the God he spent all his time trying to avoid.) He only came to God for some ceremonial cleansing of his sins; maybe some spoken formula acting as a 'catch-all' for his never-ending deceits: "Forgive me of any sins I might have committed this day. Amen." This camouflage he throws over his sins actually makes it impossible that God should ever provide a covering for his sins!
Prov 28:13 He who covers his sins shall not be blessed; but whoever confesses and leaves them shall have mercy.
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Proverbs 28:13
He who covers his sins shall not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them
shall have pity.
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There are two ways to hear and receive God's instructions.
One is to clear ourselves.
The other is to condemn ourselves.
One way works with the ministry of the Holy Spirit and the holy Word, the other works against them both.
Condemning ourselves as a result of God's instruction is appropriate if for no other reason than our automatic tendency to see all our doings as clean:
Prov 16:2 All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but Jehovah weighs the spirits.
We have to condemn ourselves just to counterbalance our automatic tendency to justify ourselves.
Condemning ourselves is also appropriate because it is in agreement with the nature of Scriptures:
2 Tim 3:16 all Scripture is God-breathed, and profitable for teaching, for conviction, for setting aright, for instruction that is in righteousness
The first thing Scripture accomplishes when it 'profits' us is to 'teach' us. Then, with that basic information grasped, the next 'profit' of Scripture is to take the information and 'convict' us- that is, condemn us. Conviction is one of the profits, or benefits, God designed Scriptures for. If we are not experiencing conviction when we read Scriptures, we are not being profited as God defines it. When a sinner reads the Truth, the very first truth he should become aware of is his own sinfulness.
There is a proper place for taking God-produced fruit in our lives as evidence of our conversion and sanctification:
1 John 3:21, 22 Beloved, if our heart does not accuse us, we have confidence toward God. And whatever we ask, we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight.
We simply have to develop a sane estimate of who we are and how advanced in the faith we really are:
Rom 12:3 For I say, through the grace given to me, to every one who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. But set your mind to be right-minded, even as God has dealt to every man the measure of faith.
There is such a thing as estimating ourselves as too low- rather, estimating God's work in us as too low. But it is IMpossible to estimate our sinfulness too low. Consider: we are never exhorted not to think of ourselves more lowly than we ought. That's because:
1) Sin is infinitely low (we can never get to the bottom of it), and;
2) We always tend to over-value ourselves (because of the sin of pride that is stuck in us).
If we don't take in hand to condemn ourselves, we will surely, in our deceit, clear ourselves.
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Psalm 2:2
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the princes plot together,
against Jehovah and against his Anointed
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"Anointed" in this verse is jyvm, 'mashiyach', from which we get the word Messiah.
Earth's leaders are characterized as anti-Christ. Their ways are shaped by their reaction to Him:
Psalm 2:3 Let us break their bands in two and cast away their cords from us.
Their natural reaction to Christ finds His restraints undesirable. They, as all men, acknowledge His presence and claimed authority, but, as all men, they "suppress" this knowledge.
So the destinies of nations and their peoples are shaped. Whereas we see leaders going about their tasks seemingly thoughtless of Christ, in reality, they tailor their policies to the snubbing of Christ and His laws. Any of their laws which seem to agree with God's laws, then, are only matters of coincidence. In their own minds, they seek to do no honor to Christ and His word when they forbid murder, for instance. This is a law which originates with themselves as they see it, or is only validated by their sanction.
A leader's references to deity are thus no different than references to natural law. "If there is some design to the fabric of life, it is there for me to appeal to its logic to make a case for my decrees."
Countries which defy this norm and actually honor the Scriptures and their God, then, are to be seen as rare indeed. America began as a nation seeking to found itself upon Christ. She was greatly blessed, for it is still true:
Psalm 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is Jehovah; the people He has chosen for His inheritance.
There will always be only one Israel geopolitically, but even when she was a theocracy, if her neighbors the Moabites, say, had exchanged their idols for the true God of Israel, they would have been a blessed nation and would have shared in His inheritance, even as the Gentile Church does today.
The tendency of Christian nations to stray, though, is seen in the long-ago-decayed Christian Britain and the presently mostly-decayed Christian America.
It is a question of lordship. God has His king for men. Affection and honor for this King are appropriate:
Psalm 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and you perish from the way, when His wrath is kindled but a little.
Britain denies God to His face today. America is not far behind, one jurisdiction after another falling to godlessness.
Christ does deal with nations even as He does individuals. Look at all the nations throughout history that have perished. Was this just a 'natural' course of events, or did God and His Messiah set those nations on their course of destruction for their defiance of Them?
Psalm 2:4 He who sits in the heavens laughs. The Lord scoffs at them.
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1 Timothy 2:1, 2
First of all, then,
I exhort that supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of thanks
be made for all men,
for kings and all who are in authority
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Despite the seething anger of the nations' leaders against Christ (Ps. 2, previous meditation), we are to pray for those leaders.
It was interesting when a certain godless man was running for President recently and the question began to surface in the Christian community as to whether Christians would pray for this man if he were elected. The subject even reached the newspapers.
Praying for a leader is not a matter of personal preference. Our president is not someone we may strike from our prayer list at our discretion. We are commanded to pray for him. Perhaps we should pray for a godless leader even more than for a good one.
Not only are we commanded to pray for those leading our nations, states, and communities, though- the good and the bad- we are also given the reason we are to pray for them:
1 Timothy 2:1, 2 ... so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence.
In general, it is preferable to have a peaceful atmosphere in which to worship and serve God. If God sovereignly answers no- that we need a bit of shaking up for our faith- then He may answer our request with persecution instead. But we are to seek the peace of our land first and continue to request it even when they are persecuting us.
God is the one who ultimately turns leaders' hearts whichever way He pleases:
Proverbs 21:1 The king's heart is in the hand of Jehovah as the rivers of water; He turns it wherever He will.
One of God's determining factors in how He turns the leaders' hearts would certainly be whether His people were asking for their leaders to have wisdom and righteousness- qualities which alone can secure the freedom of a nation and ban oppression from it.
Do you pray for your nation and for nations in general- for their leaders on all levels? God puts this prayer on our prayer list. Perhaps our nation has fallen as far as it has for lack of these prayers being brought before Him. If so, we have only gotten what we asked for, or didn't ask for, more accurately.
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Psalm 11:2
for lo, the wicked bend their bow;
they make ready their arrow on the string,
so that they may secretly shoot
at the upright in heart.
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When men take concerted aim at you just because you're a Christian, that is not the time to back down. (It is not time to 'bow up' in kind either.)
Psalm 11:1 I have sought refuge in Jehovah; how can you say to my soul, "Flee like a bird to your hill"?
God is testing the wicked during your trial, and is deciding on how to proceed towards them:
Psalm 11:4, 5 Jehovah is in His holy temple; Jehovah's throne is in Heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids examine the children of men. Jehovah tries the righteous; but His soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence
God is testing YOU while He is moving in judgment against THEM.
Behind Psalm 11 is a big question:
Psalm 11:3 When the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?
When it seems that the very pillars of society have buckled and the wicked are having their way, we might be exhorted, as was the psalmist, to take cover. If we look at what is around us, we will probably feel inclined to follow that advice. The only solution to such a dilemma comes by looking beyond what is around us; by bringing into focus the reality above the earth's realm:
Psa 11:4 Jehovah is in His holy temple; Jehovah, His throne is in the heavens; His eyes see ...
God hasn't ceased His careful inspection of all things just because he is giving the wicked a long leash. We all know the saying about giving someone enough rope to hang himself.
America's pillars do not seem to be upholding much of what was once ordered by justice. The Church's pillars do not seem to be upholding much of the Truth. In days like these, the wicked become wild with conceit. They conclude that their coup has succeeded.
The psalmist's final word to settle his heart amidst the chaos was this:
Psalm 11:7 For Jehovah is righteous; He loves righteousness; the upright look upon His face.
Don't lose your focus on what matters. This is a difficult assignment in trying times, but it is the only recourse that will set our hearts right and bring us to the end of the right path.
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Hebrews 10:34
For you both had compassion on me in my chains,
and joyfully accepted the plundering of your possessions, knowing that you have for yourselves
a better possession and an enduring one in the heavens.
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The author to the Hebrews says that his audience had "joyfully accepted the plundering of their possessions" after they had come to know the Lord. This kind of acceptance requires an unusual grace from God.
But consider the even higher demand on us for 'joyfully accepting the plundering of our reputations.'
Psalm 22:7, 8 All who see Me mock Me; they shoot out the lip; they shake the head, saying, He trusted on Jehovah; let Him deliver Him; let Him rescue Him, since He delights in Him!
This is a prophecy of Christ. His reputation was thoroughly trashed among men. The most just man on earth had to bear the most unjust ridicule in history.
But did He bear it joyfully?
Hebrews 12:2 looking to Jesus the Author and Finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right of the throne of God.
Jesus "despised the shame"; that is, he put the shame heaped upon him on a lower level than the accomplishing of His mission. And He had a "joy" He was pressing towards. Part of that joy was just having you and me with Him.
Can we joyfully endure the unjust trashing of our reputations? Is the joy of being with Him at last a sufficient trade-off to make us also "despise the shame"?
There is an actual mystical sort of union between our present sufferings and those Christ endured on earth:
Col 1:24 who now rejoice in my sufferings on your behalf, and I fill up the things lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh, on behalf of His body, which is the church
For those who remember this, there is great comfort in suffering. Our Beloved has actually reserved some of His own suffering of persecution for us who are one with Him- His body, His bride. To have our blameless reputations maligned is to experience a special degree of oneness with the One who was vilified for us.
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John 21:15
Then when they broke fast, Jesus said to Simon Peter,
"Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?"
He said to Him, "Yes, Lord,
You know that I have affection for You."
He said to him, "Feed My lambs."
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"Feed My lambs" is Jesus' instruction for one of the heads of His Church. This instruction Peter then passes down to all pastors of all churches:
1 Peter 5:2 Feed the flock of God among you, taking the oversight, not by compulsion, but willingly; nor for base gain, but readily
What are pastors to feed the flock?
Jer 3:15 And I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.
Now here is a question we must ask both as feeders and those being fed:
Does feeding God's flock mean making them feel full and satisfied ? In other words, is the key measuring stick of the accomplishment of the feeding duty the response of those being fed?
Judging by widespread practice, the answer would be Yes. Pastors' success is measured in terms of audience satisfaction.
But is this a true measure of success? According to another apostle, it is not:
2 Tim 4:3, 4 For a time will be when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, they will heap up to themselves teachers tickling the ear; and they will turn away the ear from the truth and will be turned aside to myths.
These 'patrons' will apparently be well satisfied with their teachers' fare; yet instead of commending the teachers, Paul basically calls them myth-makers!
In the same passage, Paul tells why these men are myth-makers instead of sheep-feeders. In so doing, he is also giving the true measure of success for a pastor- again, not his apparent success:
2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word, be urgent in season, out of season, convict, warn, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching.
Notice the phrase "in season, out of season." This lets us know that when the Word is the only available meal for church-goers, there will come a time when it will be UNSEASONABLE. It just won't feel right. It won't seem to be achieving the desired results. It won't be continuing the good things accomplished earlier. It won't have the harmonious reception that other activities- giving testimonies or doing music, for instance- are having. And so, back to 2 Timothy 4:3, the people will "not endure" it. They will want to feel satisfied rather than continue to demand what God says alone is satisfying- felt or not: the Word of God.
Most sadly, there will be enough references to Scripture in 'myth-ministries' that the people won't even realize that they have been led away from the Truth. If they were looking for a measuring stick of whether Scriptures were being used as a true feeding tool or not, that is also in the same passage:
2 Timothy 4:2 Preach the Word, be urgent in season, out of season, convict, warn, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching.
It is the negative uses of the Word that people grow tired of. In pride, we decide we've had enough browbeating, so we'll find someone who will do more uplifting and less convicting. "Have you heard pastor so-and-so? He knows how to preach without being all negative. He's actually uplifting. We need somebody like that." And so the assembly line begins to crank out grinning 'people managers' who flash a wise and endearing pose in the gathering of saints into the pleasantness of God's pasture.
Is a true ministry all negative? Certainly not. But the first time a pastor considers a rebuke that his congregation needs, but he measures it against his popularity and decides to hold off- he is probably already doomed. And the congregation is doomed.
Jer 23:22 But if they had stood in My counsel and had caused My people to hear My Words, then they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.
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Isaiah 26:3
You will keep in perfect peace
the mind stayed on You,
for he trusts in You.
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Peace of mind should be a high priority on anyone's personal 'wish list'.
Most people, if asked whether they would prefer a contented and settled mind over an agitated one, would readily choose the former. Most people would even admit that their minds are more agitated than they wish. Many would confess that their minds are too restless for their own good.
The problem is that most of us seem to have little control over stress in our spirits. We do things to relax ourselves, but our regular day-to-day activities automatically invite anxiety into our souls again.
For a Christian, peace of mind is not just a pleasant option, it is a command:
Col 3:15 And let the peace of Christ preside in your hearts, to which also ye have been called in one body, and be thankful.
The verse from Isaiah above gives the formula for attaining peace:
Isa 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace the mind stayed on You, for he trusts in You.
To have peace, we must trust God.
The nice thing about this verse, though, is it also tells us how to trust in God:
Isa 26:3 You will keep in perfect peace the mind stayed on You, for he trusts in You.
When our thoughts are fixed upon God- this is the definition of trusting Him, and God will continue to return peace to those thoughts kept on Him.
Hmm, I thought it was going to be something easy. Wouldn't it be just as easy to keep my mind off my troubles? Honestly, no. We're not talking primarily about a matter of will power here. We're primarily talking about hooking up with a source more powerful than the power of our worries. We're saying that worries are not a foreign force invading us; they're the natural, 'subconscious' result of our godlessness. We feel the need as gods to control our circumstances, yet we are constantly reminded of the paucity of our power. We can't relinquish our control, yet we can't control successfully. Worry is the natural result. Furthermore, we distrust whatever design or accident is actually bringing things to pass.
No force within us can remove the worry, even when we wish it gone. It takes a 'greater-than-us' to subdue our worry. This God does by our trust in Him. Our trust in Him declares that there is someone else in control. This effectively moves us away from ourselves. Of course, if no one was really there, there would be no power to actually overcome our ungodliness. Again, we're not talking about 'tricking' ourselves out of our worry. We're saying that God actually steps in and quells a power we are vulnerable to. Our trust in Him, then, is a distrust in ourselves.
Do you want peace of mind? It is very difficult to trust in God, because the natural tendencies of our souls are to avoid God. If we are wise enough to ardently desire peace, we will expend the energy necessary to overcome our avoidance of God.
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John 3:36
The one believing into the Son
has everlasting life;
but the one disobeying the Son
will not see life,
but the wrath of God remains on him.
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One church sign's reader board read, "Seasons change, but God is always with us."
In modern theology, God is a constant. The nature of His constancy is that He is always for us, never against us.
In this arrangement of things, man is both the crux and the variable. Whenever we turn to God, God is there. We determine the activity of God.
Of course, God actually is a constant; only He is not a constant of this variety. God is always there for His people, but not necessarily so for unbelievers. God's real relation to unbelivers is described in John 3:36 above. He is constantly angry with the ungodly. The psalmist says this also:
Psalm 7:11 God is a righteous judge; and God is angry with evildoers every day.
There will be countless wicked folk with whom God will be nothing but angry, from this life into eternity, His many present kindnesses to them notwithstanding.
There is another theological constant which is the basis for God's anger with the wicked. It is the constant of man's rebellion against God. Unless He transforms us, we are not a variable; we are a constant. And we certainly are not a crux; God is the only crux. He does not await our movement. He is always moving and accomplishing His ends, including the judgment of the wicked.
Whoever hired our theological public relations men should be fired. Our PR men, while earning an "A" for sincerity, get an "F" for accuracy; they get an "A" for sentimentality (which was not a requirement in the first place), an "F" for spirituality.
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1 John 3:7
Little children,
let no one lead you astray;
the one practicing righteousness
is righteous,
even as that One is righteous.
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What is righteousness?
When we define righteousness, we must keep in mind that Jesus Christ was righteous. Any other man's righteousness on earth will be mixed with a certain amount of unrighteousness, according to Paul in Romans 7.
What made Jesus righteous? He kept God's Law perfectly- not only the observable details, like "You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless child" (Exodus. 22:22), but also the details quantifiable only by God, like "You shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart." (Deut. 6:5)
Righteousness had to pervade His whole person. He had to do each deed, think each thought for the right reasons. Behind each thought, behind each word, then, had to be the right attitude.
We can hold up no less a standard for ourselves, even knowing that it will ultimately be tinged with the sin lodging in us.
So I must
Do what is right,Do it completely,For the right reason,With the right attitude,and this will be righteousness.
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Proverbs 1:25
but you have ignored all my counsel,
and you did not desire my warning.
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We should expect God to have cast us off. We said No to Him so many times and so many ways. The just pronouncement for our rejection is given in the same context as the above verse:
Proverbs 1:26 I also will laugh in your calamity, I will mock when your dread comes
When we finally arrive in a predicament and need help from 'someone out there', God only owes us a hearty laugh and outright dismissal.
The fact that God doesn't cast His people off IS the gospel.
The gospel is not the gospel, though, if we do not realize that we should've been cast off. "Gospel" means "good news". There is no good news in receiving blessing we should've obtained. Yet the modern picture of God is one in which He would never consider casting us off. He will only abandon us to Hell as a last resort. This is not the God represented in Proverbs 1.
Sad that we can grow 'accustomed' to God's grace such that sweet words of deliverance are reduced to, "Well, that's just how God is. He receives and receives. He rejects no man."
Consider this description:
Psalm 22:24 For He has not despised nor hated the affliction of the afflicted; and He has not hidden his face from him, but when he cried to Him, He heard.
Sweet words? They are if we see that we should have been rejected.
If God is only 'doing His bit' in rescuing us, these words are just predictable stuff. Nothing to excite us.
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Luke 9:57
And it happened
as they were going in the way,
one said to Him,
"Lord, I will follow You
wherever You go."
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What's more important- to get someone to 'make a decision for Christ', or to make sure he knows what a decision for Christ involves?
When we look at our Lord's evangelizing techniques, we can see that the latter was clearly His aim. He consistently put off interested candidates rather than signing them on.
Consider His response in the above case. Now there's a fellow whom a modern evangelist or trained layman would know how to handle! He's to the point where he wants to follow Jesus. Time to 'close the deal' with the 'sinner's prayer', right?
'What would Jesus do'? In this case, we don't have to wonder, Luke tells us:
Luke 9:58 And Jesus said to him, "Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head."
Wait a minute, Jesus! What kind of evangelism is that? One would think you'd be willing to let that fellow go off and be lost just because he wasn't willing to dig a fox hole with You! You could at least have said 'the prayer' with him, made sure he was saved- then you could've given him a serious talk about how important Your optional lordship is!
Yes, even when men applied directly to Jesus for salvation, He was most uncooperative:
Mark 10:17 And when He had gone out into the way, one came running up and kneeled to Him, and asked Him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
We all know the story- how Jesus fumbled away another perfectly good opportunity to add to the kingdom of Heaven. He told the man to go sell all his stuff and give it to the poor first. At least he could've 'led the man to Himself' first! Sanctification issues after salvation ones, right?
Perhaps, after all, it is our generation that is completely misinformed as to the nature of man, the nature of our depravity, the nature of Christ, and the nature of His salvation. Amazing how a whole new gospel can grow up around a few seemingly minor theological errors.
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Mark 11:25
And when you stand praying,
if you have anything against anyone,
forgive it so that also your Father in Heaven
may forgive you your trespasses.
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A wrong concept of forgiveness promotes a guilty conscience, lack of desire to come before God in prayer, and an unrealistic sense of the demands of holiness.
On the one hand, it is quite true that simply forgiving someone who has wronged us is a near impossibility to a human. We have to use arguments in our minds to convince ourselves of the need to forgive. We have to think of how mistake-prone we are and remember that we would want others to be forgiving toward us when we err. Even then, it is very easy for bitterness to seize our souls when we once again replay in our minds the wrong done to us.
On the other hand, we tend to make greater demands of forgiveness than God actually requires. The most common misperceived additions to forgiveness are:
1) That if we do not forget the offense, we have not forgiven it;
2) That we are required to conceive of the offender as though he had done no offense;
3) That we are required to restore the offender;
4) That we are to forgive the offender of any and all sins ever committed- to give him, as it were, a 'blank slate' in our sight.
The fact is- none of these are requirements for forgiveness. In fact, they are all positive hindrances to forgiveness.
The common denominator in all these misconceptions is that they make us more responsible than we are in forgiving another. Furthermore, they make us intrude into God's territory in the matter of forgiveness.
Consider, starting from the top:
1) How can we make ourselves forget anything? That's like saying, "Don't think about a pink elephant." What pops into our heads pops into our heads, and things we try to forget might be even harder to forget. If the remembrance of someone's offensive act makes us angry again, it may be frustrating that we have to deal with it all over, but we haven't lost anything, except perhaps some pride and self-confidence in our supposedly compassionate nature. We have gained, on the other hand, something very important: another opportunity to go back to the cross and remember how much we've been forgiven. That's how I managed to forgive the offense in the first place. Every visit to the cross is a blessed one.
2) Why would we have to lie in our mind and say, "He didn't do anything wrong"? Very likely, he did do something wrong. My forgiving him won't wipe that away. If he doesn't clear it up with God, it will still be a smirch on his character and his record.
3) We cannot restore the offender. If he is in the habit of doing thoughtless or mean things, he is probably way past my restorative powers. If he's going to be restored, God will have to do it. All I can do is not hold this particular offense against him.
4) I certainly cannot forgive an offender of all his sins. Only a tiny portion of his misdeeds are really against me even at the worst. The real offended party when anyone sins is God. Whatever they did against me, they did contrary to His directions.
We can only forgive as far as we have been offended. We can't restore people. We can't make them better or different. We can only release our personal ill-will against them. Even then, we are not denying an offender's cruddiness.
So many people avoid prayer because they can't come before God with a clean conscience in the area of forgiveness! They have placed unrealistic expectations on themselves. They are actually acting in pride, taking on more responsibility than God has assigned.
Where we have difficulty forgiving, it should be simply another confession of weakness, another cry to God for help, another trip back to the cross.
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Romans 7:25
I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then with the mind
I myself serve the Law of God,
but with the flesh the law of sin.
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Paul's quotation above is his answer to a nearly chapter-long struggle to find the culprit in his baffling inability to escape sin. He ends up by virtually dividing himself in half- the new Christian half which does good, and the old sinful half which does only bad.
Paul commends a life-long activity then: keeping our eye on sin. Our sin gives us a peculiar demeanor our whole life long.
It's like having a slimy, slithery, slug-like carnivore handcuffed to us by a chain. Only by a certain twist of the chain can the chain be flexed to keep the beast at a distance. Still, we always feel its pull.
Our strength and cunning to flex the chain comes from Christ's death and resurrection. The chain itself you might say is the killing and reviving power of His death and resurrection. Our experience and confidence in using the chain are nurtured by listening to God (familiarity with Scriptures) and returning speech to His communication (prayer).
The beast goes with us everywhere. It certainly knows us. We only win this day's round by knowing it- always.
Men of great glory and passion, like David and Moses, do not have to be men who therefore lose the trick of the chain at some crucial point. Consider Joseph and Daniel.
Eye to the beast.
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Luke 16:30
And he said, No, father Abraham,
but if one should go to them from the dead,
they would repent.
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The rich man who spoke this in the afterlife paints a very intriguing picture of human nature for us.
He is talking to father Abraham, as we can see. The rich man himself is in "Hades", apparently the equivalent of the Old Testament "Sheol", the place where the dead go. The rich man and Abraham can talk, but Abraham says there is no crossing over one direction or the other. The rich man is in flames and is agonizing for even the tiniest drop of water, but the impassable chasm prevents the transport of anything from one side to the other, Abraham says.
The rich man then shifts the conversation to his five brothers who are back in this life. Since Lazarus, the beggar who had died and now dwelt on Abraham's blessed side of the divide, could not bring him water, perhaps Abraham would allow Lazarus to return to the land of the living to warn his brothers not to join him in that awful place.
How interesting! The rich man's humanity shows through perfectly! While on earth, his humanity had been encrusted thickly with arrogance. He had been a god, proud and unconcerned about those near physical death. The beggar Lazarus had lain at his gates, eaten with sores from disease or malnutrition. The rich man was contented in his 'fortress'.
Now the rich man was facing unending torture, and yet his humanity had returned! Apparently, it had been there all the time, but he had buried it under a ton of pleasures and the excuses for indulging them. Now he wishes that his brothers might be warned away from this spiritual death.
The nature of faith is every bit as intriguing as human nature as revealed in this passage. Abraham had said that the rich man's brothers had Moses and the Prophets to read if they wanted to avoid eternal pain. Our verse quoted above is the rich man's objection that there was something more convincing than the holy writings. A man come back from the dead would surely convince his brothers where the Bible would not.
Most of us would agree with the rich man's reasoning. His brothers had the Scriptures before them day by day and were ignoring them. Certainly the Scriptures were virtually powerless in their lives. A man who had crossed over into the realm of the dead- who could give a first-hand account of the joys and miseries there- now that would arrest their attention!
And to this initial change Abraham would probably not disagree. But he sees further; as far as you and I should see. He sees that the brothers' response to Scriptures was their response to God. God would be of no more real interest to them by sending a personal 'messenger from beyond' than He was with His word-for-word communication to mankind. If they did not love God now, they might be fascinated with Him for a while by an impressive act of power, but their lack of love would eventually settle back in as the dominant theme of their souls.
So men have all they need to believe in God? Yes. In fact, they have all they need even without Scriptures according to Romans 1. So their godlessness will be the same kind of revelation it was to the rich man when he crossed over into the afterlife. There will be no arguments.
If only we could believe the nature of man and the nature of faith as revealed in this passage!
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Proverbs 9:9
Give to a wise one, and he will be still wiser;
teach a just one, and he will increase in learning.
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A wise man will learn from any person or experience, because he knows that it is his task in life to gain wisdom.
A wise man will certainly learn from Scriptures, which are the basis for his wisdom gained anywhere else. Wisdom gained outside of Scriptures is always merely a means of either applying Scriptural concepts or perceiving them more clearly; but the Scriptures themselves are the wisdom. There is not a wisdom beyond Scriptures that even Scriptures themselves are trying to attain to. God has made it clear that the Scriptures are a final word, needing no amendment:
Psalm 119:96 I have seen an end to all perfection; Your Commandment is exceedingly broad.
In Heaven, God will not need to amend any of His words of Scripture. He counts them all clear and sufficient.
This view of things is in stark contrast to the modern view that Scriptures are somehow unclear and/or incomplete.
There are only four possibilities concerning the problems and complexities of life:
1) There is no answer
(meaning there is no God, or there's only a God who watches but does not intervene);
2) There is an answer, but it is not is the Bible, at least not completely
(maybe the answer is in Jesus personally, but the Scriptures are only a partial way to access Him);
[Now we cross the line over into modern evangelical belief]
3) The answer is in the Bible, but God has communicated it in such a way that we cannot understand it all
(or our perceptive abilities cannot climb to the uppermost rungs of Scripture's ladder);
[And finally, we cross the line over into Biblical Christianity]
4) There is a complete and satisfying answer in the Bible
(some of it may be hard to understand, but God means us to study and pray and understand it all).
The prevalent view today, even among most who say they believe the Bible is a complete revelation, is the 'Mandated Mystery' view, view #3- that God has somehow intended that we not understand things completely, not even His communications in Scriptures.
Adherents to this view are either very holy (in their own form of sanctification) or very unholy. They are very holy in that they intrepidly follow a God who only teases them with tidbits of partial information. Or they are very unholy in that they have become spokesmen for a God who only sends spotty memos out of His top floor office, demanding that His underlings nonetheless make real sense of them. They've basically taken over the corporation in the boss's 'isolated genius' dementia.
Are you going along with the coup?
[There would seem to be a large contingent among the Mandated Mystery view who are both holy and unholy at the same time, living, as it were, on two levels- one socially and one conscience-wise. Socially they are holy, faithfully following the God who has given us an unfinished document. Conscience-wise, they feel compelled to defend God's apparent oversight, so they do dip into the Public Relations bag of tricks for the occasional explanation.]
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Proverbs 5:22
The iniquities of the wicked catch him,
and he is retained by the ropes of his sin.
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Sin in general enslaves men.
Particular sins are like particular jailers for sinners as individuals .
Some bonds of iniquity cannot be escaped except by great effort. For an unbeliever, some sins cannot be escaped at all. A believer is virtually as bound as an unbeliever as long as his submits to the iniquity.
There is no sin that cannot be escaped in Christ.
Some sins, however, "do not come out except by prayer and fasting." This was originally spoken by Christ of stubbornly entrenched demons. It certainly applies as much or more to stubbornly ingrained sins. Sins are our right arms, our members, that must be cut off- much harder to part with than a demon. Great concentrated effort and force of will are required.
Any brand of Christianity that does not include the call to this struggle has settled into a compromise with stubborn sins. You don't bother me about mine and I won't bother you about yours.
Mark 9:43 And if your hand offend you, cut it off. For it is profitable for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go away into Hell, into the unquenchable fire
Col 3:5 Then put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil lust, and covetousness, which is idolatry
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Proverbs 18:12
Before shattering, the heart of man is proud,
and before honor is humility.
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Solomon approaches the relationship between pride and calamity as a law. When pride takes up a reigning position in the heart, a tragedy is on the near horizon.
As a law, then, we might venture to say that "according to your pride, so are your tumbles." The "falls" man takes (per the wording in Proverbs 16:18) include real down time: down-on-your-back time from sickness, etc.; depression- a deep dissatisfaction with the way my reign is turning out; and squabbles- because whether or not you get knocked down in the first round, if you've raised someone's hackles, they're going to watch until there's an opportunity to lay you out. Some among fallen mankind are very easy to recognize as such because of all the time they spend on the ground.
The alternative, of course, is to be humble- to dethrone all of pride's efforts to occupy dominant territory in our hearts. A truly humble person is a servant; his doing the will of another confirms his renouncing of the throne for himself.
When we are God's servants, He tells us to demonstrate it by being a servant to others.
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Psalm 29:11
Jehovah will give strength to His people;
Jehovah will bless His people with peace.
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"Jehovah will give strength to His people."
We do not necessarily feel the strength God gives us. Or we do not necessarily feel it in the proportions in which He gives it.
For instance, we may feel very weakened, intimidated, or attracted by a certain temptation- an ungodly mood, anger, worry, or desire. We may recognize part of the problem as the presence of the forces of spiritual darkness. We therefore obey James 4:7 and "stand against the devil." We say, "I recognize your workmanship, devil. I oppose it." In our weakness and confusion, we may say this with very little sensation of power. Yet the delivery comes across as a knockout blow. We feel as though a physical weight had been lifted from us. The tempter is gone. The Lord, indeed, had given strength to us.*
Strength unused, though, is of no avail. To conclude in our doldrums that we have no strength is to deny God's word. We are not only victims of Satan, but envoys of his when we are in this frame of mind.
* Or, in our confusion, we may not feel anything much besides being worn out.
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Psalm 30:7
O Jehovah, in Your favor
You have made my strong mountain to stand;
You hid Your face; I was troubled
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"You hid Your face."
The psalmist had been in fellowship with God. To recognize the disappearance of God's face required that he had been aware of His face before.
Most Christians would not realize whether God had hidden His face or not. We accept His presence as a reality theologically, but we are not in a moment-by-moment fellowship with Him. The only hiding of God's face of which we might take notice would be someone proposing that He didn't exist or the like. We might then affirm His presence, but it would not be because of the enjoyment of the experience of it.
At a very simple level, being in the presence of God is merely facing Him. We should be facing God every time we pray (and we should be praying first thing every day). Unfortunately, not all prayer = a facing of God. Most prayer, unhappily, is a discussion of proposals mainly featuring a 'wish list'. A long prayer time is usually only a long wish list being rehearsed. Doubtless it is good and necessary to lay our requests before God, but a list can be laid before God without any real fellowship being experienced. In fact, most wish list supplicants establish a distance from God by making Him an impersonal, cosmic dispensing machine.
True fellowship with God is a risk. If we truly relate to Him as someone present in our lives, we are risking the discovery that our concept of Him was not very true to life. We are risking disappointment. The psalmist received crushing disappointment in his life when God hid His face from him: even further, when He took him near death.
We will all need correction in the 'who is the true God?' department. We will all have to learn about the gaps in our Scriptural knowledge by our dealings with God. The psalmist actually had the props knocked out from under him when he was experiencing the strongest of fellowships with God ("You have made my strong mountain to stand").
That's the pattern. We'll get comfortable with a certain experience of God, then He'll scramble the board for us. If we have become complacent and presumptuous, as the psalmist apparently had, God may have to knock us down a peg. The godly go through many stages of reestablishing contact with God in this life: truer and better contact as we are corrected and grow.
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