Rebel Souls

For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness. – Psalm 18:28

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. -- Psalm 119:105

For the commandment is a lamp and the teaching a light, and the reproofs of discipline are the way of life -- Proverb 6:23

The spirit of man is the lamp of the LORD, searching all his innermost parts. – Proverbs 20:27

Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin. – Proverbs 21:4

Christians and most other theists believe that man’s moral compass derives its usefulness from alignment with the Divine Nature.  We know what is right and what is wrong because our dark souls have been enlightened by revelation, by the spark of the Spirit who has touched us. 

When we are condemned by the moralizing, atheistic Pharisees of today for our backward, primitive thinking and our superstitious clinging to religion, on what grounds, exactly do they decide that we are wrong and they are right?  If a person says that he only believes what he can see and prove, well, fine.  Prove I am wrong, or, if you prefer, prove you are right.  It can’t be done.  Every proof I’ve ever seen is just a sales pitch, an offer of the scientistic salesman’s vision of a better world.  Marx had nothing to back up his belief system.  He just dressed his little scheme in the clothing of a scientific analysis of history.  Keynesians economists, like climate scientists, create elaborate, mathematical models to justify and promote their very limited representations of reality.   And that’s the problem.  Every political solution, every scientific theory deals not with the universe but with the template.  What we call the universe is not the universe but our “artist’s representation”.  It’s good, in many cases, and mostly quite useful, but it is not the is that is. 

The only possibility of knowing things as they are is revelation.  Most of us most of the time don’t care about quantum mechanics.  I’m generally more interested in getting through the day without turning into the Michael Douglas character in Falling Down.  Revelation gives us truth, and it also, if we are willing to allow it, sheds light upon our motives.  It shows us when we are pursuing an end because it is true and good, and when we have a desire for personal gain or glory tied up in it.  The revelation in God’s moral law, written in stone or upon our hearts, enables us to look out for our neighbor’s good as well as our own. 

If we have and follow this moral law, we have no need for the vast government oversight and regulation that intrudes every moment into our lives, for the ivory-tower academic, centralized control of our money and economy, for alleged scientific solutions to social problems.  But the wicked are illuminated by pride and arrogance of attitude.  They have a commanding knowledge of their map and thus believe they know how to get across the river.  Hey, look, it’s narrow here.  That must be the best place, right?  Disregard the other factors – e.g., depth and velocity – and it will not end well. 

I’m willing to give idiots like Obama and Krugman and Michael Mann the benefit of the doubt.  Al Gore, not so much.  If a person is walking in darkness, I really don’t expect them to understand that their beliefs are simply functions of their own twisted motivations, their need for acceptance and validation, their feelings of inadequacy, their irrational fears, their weaknesses and perversions.  They are sad, sick, petty people driven to grasp for attention and acclamation. 

Yet, because they have a limited understanding, because they lack revelation knowledge, they are convinced they can tell us what we ought to do.  Abortion ought to be safe and legal – so long as one ignores how most women get pregnant and whose life is being ended.  What goes on between “consenting adults” should be private – so long as we ignore the damage done to that most basic unit of a stable society, the family.  Everybody ought to have a right to go to college, to have a nice car, food, clothing, housing, etc. – so long as we ignore who is really paying for it.  We are not allowed to judge people by their behavior and their vile, destructive lifestyles because to do so would be racist or homophobic.    We ought to accept multiculturalism and ignore the violence, lawlessness, and insanity of it. 

These modern Pharisees are wrong because they are blind to the motive that underlies all their schemes and plans and utopian illusions:  they hate Christ and will not have this Man rule over them.

But his citizens hated him and sent a delegation after him, saying, We do not want this man to reign over us. (Luke 19:14) 

Demolition Man

Now there was no blacksmith to be found throughout all the land of Israel, for the Philistines said, “Lest the Hebrews make themselves swords or spears.” — 1 Samuel 13:19

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. — 2 Corinthian 10:4

It can be said that the armed are citizens while the unarmed are mere slaves. Oppressors prefer their victims be unable to offer meaningful resistance. I'm all for "carnal" weapons, but we should not allow the enemy of our souls to disarm us of our far more vital spiritual weapons. Paul gives us a list of the Christian's defensive weaponry — the armor of God, in Ephesians 6. He specifically names only one offensive weapon: the sword of the Spirit, that is, the word of God.

Truth and peace will help us hold our ground. Righteousness will guard our hearts as the reality of salvation protects our minds. Faith will shield us when we are showered by fiery trials. The word enables us divide our enemies asunder, revealing and exposing motives and origins. Prayer is less a weapon and more the battle itself. When we begin to pray, we will often find ourselves under attack. In order to continue and be effective in prayer, we must deploy our armor and weaponry, walk in truth and peace, stay in faith, and constantly wield the word against all attacks.

Paul goes on to say: We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.

Not all our thoughts are our own. They don't all originate with us. I wonder if I've ever had an original thought in my life. Most of what I think is something heard or read somewhere else. As the Preacher said long ago, there's nothing new under the sun. Whether they originate with us or not, our thoughts fit together in our minds. If a new thought does not fit into the structure we have built so far, our tendency is to reject it, cast it onto the pile for potential later use, or whittle on it a bit so that can be added in right now.

We construct thought-buildings all our lives. Some we maintain and keep up, remodeling or even rebuilding as needed. Some we find we must eventually demolish, though we may recycle stones and old solid, seasoned lumber to be used in the newer structures. But other of our structures we seem to forget. They still stand, though neglected and abandoned.

There is a mythical truth to haunted houses, for there are truly haunted structures in the psyche. They are like the prophetic descriptions of Babylon – desolate but not empty. Gibbering and loathsome things may find there a place to hide, a lair from which they may steal to strike in the hour of darkness and tribulation. Our shield of faith is toward the front. We may be vulnerable to an attack from behind.

The best thing is to destroy those strongholds, to deploy the weapons of our warfare in leveling the old, outdated, outmoded thought-buildings that have become fortresses for the enemy. It never ceases to amaze me how powerful is the word of God. It really is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. The days that I ignore it because I am too busy are simply darker than the days that I read so much as a single verse.

I remember watching an old movie about the Crusades. The English king meets some Moslem leader, perhaps Saladin. To demonstrate the strength of his sword, the Englishman cuts an iron bar with a single stroke. The Moslem is impressed but points out that the Christian has not at all shown the sharpness of his blade; he has instead shown the power of his arm. The Moslem takes a bit of silk from the queen and tosses it into the air. It falls on the upturned blade of the Eastern sword and is gently, perfectly divided.

That’s the way the word works. It’s not the strength we have to wield it, but the frightening razor edge of the word itself that destroys the haunts of the demons that would oppress us.