With the Morning

For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime.  Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.  -- Psalms 30:5

Jesus spoke of the mother who forgets the pain of giving birth in the joy of receiving her child.  The writer of Hebrews speaks of, “… looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2). 

If we go back to the book of Nehemiah, we read of those who returned to Jerusalem from their long exile.  When they were instructed in the law, their eyes were opened to how they had fallen short of the Lord’s requirements, and they were grieved.  They began to weep (Nehemiah 8:9-10).

Sorrow isn’t a pleasant, but godly sorrow is healthy.  One of the dangers of continuing certain habits and being continuously exposed to even depictions of wickedness and lawlessness is that we tend to become desensitized.  This is sometimes thought of as “hardening” when, a lot of times, it is more simply ignoring.  The Spirit of God must break the shell of indifference and resignation more often than actual hardened evil.  The result, though, in either case, is that our hearts are grieved by the presence of that which is displeasing to God. 

At some point, however, we must set aside the anguish and the pain and begin to experience the joy of the Lord.  We are forgiven.   To stay too long in sorrow is to risk developing self-pity:    And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Ezra the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people said to all the people, “This day is holy to the Lord your God; do not mourn or weep.” For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Law.  Then he said to them, “Go your way. Eat the fat and drink sweet wine and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”

Whether our grief comes from conviction or from suffering and loss and the daily trials of life, the Lord does not want us to be overwhelmed or overburdened by it.  We may weep through the night for we are, after all, creatures of flesh, and we see not well in the dark.  The dawn arrives to break through our darkness.  Hope can again be seen. 

Though there I times I have trouble believing it, morning always comes. 

Scarcely Saved

Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in that name.  For it is time for judgment to begin at the household of God; and if it begins with us, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God?  And “If the righteous is scarcely saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?”  Therefore let those who suffer according to God's will entrust their souls to a faithful Creator while doing good. – 1 Peter 4:16-19

Massive and unwelcome change seems to trouble the minds of many in these days.  Some are experiencing economic setbacks for the first time in their lives.  Some look to the future with dread.  Meanwhile, for years, Christianity has shied away, or, as we say down home, boogered at the prospect of preaching harshly and condemning transgressions and iniquity.  The preferred messages are about how to have a happy marriage and how to be financially blessed by God.  We may hear a lot about how much God loves us, which is true.  He loves us so much that He put His judgment upon His own Son, making Him who knew no sin to be sin for us. 

While that does demonstrate His love and grace in the most compelling way imaginable, it also reveals the condemnation that lies upon human nature.  Let us not be deceived nor deceive ourselves:  the whole world lies under sentence of death. 

Sometimes innocent people suffer and even die in unjust, unfair ways.  Little children are gunned down by madmen.  Helpless babies are aborted in their mothers’ wombs.  People going about their business are attacked and killed or maimed by animalistic thugs.  Terrorists blow themselves up to bring death to their enemies in the name of their god.  Tornadoes sweep through schools.  Hurricanes drown, flood and destroy. 

Peter wrote his letter probably a little before the persecution of Christians under Nero, around 64 AD.  According to tradition, just a few years later, in 68 AD, Peter died by crucifixion.  Shortly after that, Jerusalem was destroyed.  God’s people, both Jews and Christians, often suffered greatly in those days.  Judgment indeed fell upon the household of God.

Is something like that about to happen again?  Americans are sometimes unaware that it is happening in many places.  Right around here, I don’t think they will be literally crucifying preachers any time soon.  But, yes, there is going to be a purging and cleansing in the Body of Christ.  Judgment is going to fall upon America and Europe.  The innocent will suffer. 

How can God let that happen?  The Lord will permit judgment to fall because we, both as the Church and as nations, have failed repeatedly to respond to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit.  We have ignored and even condoned injustice, violence, ungodliness, and unrighteousness.  Our hearts have become hard and calloused.  In our arrogance, we seek to merely mitigate judgment while clinging to our wicked ways.

Of course, not all of the bad things that happen are a direct result of immorality, hatred, or indifference.  As Peter points out, we may well be attacked, troubled, and mistreated only because we are Christians and do what is right, in which case we should – hard as it may be -- rejoice and be thankful that the Lord has considered us worthy to be persecuted for the sake of Christ.  We may also be “collateral damage” when judgment falls, though it may be that our Father will make a difference between the saints and the secular as He did when the land of Goshen was spared the plagues of Egypt. 

My prayer continues to be that my own heart would be broken, whatever that takes.  I cannot do better on my own.  I cannot sensitize myself or make myself to be repulsed and horrified by transgression – either my own or that of others.  I can get mad about it easily enough, especially if I am the victim.  What I need, though, is a work of God, for Him to create in me a clean heart and a right spirit.  It’s my only hope.

Call to Battle

And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. -- Exodus 2:22

You are warned.  This is different, and I won’t blame you if you think I’ve breathed too many paint fumes over the last two or three weeks.  If it doesn’t speak to you, just ignore it.  Not everyone is called to the same battle.

Though not my favorite Heinlein novel, the phrase does summarize my feelings about life sometimes.  I said recently that I thought the Tabernacle Moses built was a better type than the Temple of Solomon in representing our earthly journey.  No one symbol can ever carry the full message, and we need the temple in the holy city to speak of all that waits when our battles are finished and peace reigns. 

Meanwhile, we may cross into the Promised Land, but there are still battles, enemies to be overcome, and adversaries to be conquered.  The older I get the more alien and hostile the world seems to me.  It surprises me that I have made it this far in such a long, strange trip, to find myself, in an odd way, a point man.  If silver hair gave us wisdom, I would be in pretty good shape.  Back in the freak days, someone would say that there are a lot of rednecks hiding under long hair.  So I see a lot of empty heads sprouting gray thatch, and I wonder about my own store of wisdom. 

It doesn’t matter.  I don’t know what else I might be left here to do if it is not to watch and pray. 

I was reading something yesterday, and it suddenly struck me that the internet is a lot like a college dorm or frat house.   No matter how stupid something is, if two or three people argue for it, it begins to sound more sensible.  The internet is a veritable fever swamp of stupidity.  It’s also filled with good things to learn and be enlightened by, but we all know there is a dark pool in its midst that is sometimes difficult to avoid. 

I think, if you look at how opinions have shifted and civilization has deteriorated over the last fifteen years, a lot of it can be traced to the increasing exposure to sin, sickness, and depravity.  Don’t misunderstand where I’m going with this.  I’m not going to tell anybody to cut off internet service – not that a router filter or the deletion of some bookmarks would necessarily be a bad idea. 

It is a strange land.  Christians, even with the proliferation of Christian sites and resources available, are strangers in it.  We have to understand that we are waging war against an adversary who is real, more intelligent than we are, and truly diabolical.  Jesus didn’t call the devil the father of lies for no reason.  Nothing is easier to do than corrupt a mind through the web of false words and images spun in cyberspace. 

Call it a vision if you want, I could see all this in a moment.  I was convicted, not just about my own dalliances with evil, but about my nonchalance regarding those who become trapped in the web of deception, who are relentlessly sucked down into the bottomless filth.  Sex and perversion are no doubt a major contributor but hardly all the problem.  There is the glorification of the useless, the encouragement of consumption, and the enhancement of envy. 

Again, there is a lot that is positive; we have to recognize the rot.  My heart was broken by what I was shown, and I realized that I needed to pray.  We don’t need to limit freedom.  We need to pray that people will be set free.   Minds and lines don’t need to be closed; they need to be opened to see the truth.  I am praying that the Holy Spirit will convince us of the truth, show us where we have strayed and turn us back to the path of righteousness.  He is the only one who can do it, the only one who has ever been able to do it.  He is God, and He does not change.   

Viper's Den

But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said to them, You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? -- Matthew 3:7

Why do you suppose John was not just thrilled to have more converts – and members of the elite, to boot?  It is something that we do not usually bring up, but it is reflected in the words of Jesus as well:  No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.

The truth is that we can’t get up one day and decide on our own to “be saved”.  It can’t be merely a good idea.  As much as I respect the intellect of Pascal, his probability wager does not provide the basis for a transformed life.  It can, however, be an argument in favor of seeking God.  The religious leaders to whom John spoke had followed the crowds.  Being baptized by this wild prophet John was the popular thing to do.   Then as now, being dipped or sprinkled or submerged does not change one’s heart, rather it is a testimony that one’s heart has changed. 

God first moves toward man, convincing him that he is not right.  The Pharisees and Sadducees did not have this conviction upon them.  They did not see themselves as under judgment or as “sinners in the hands of an angry God”.  Jonathan Edwards was not trying to scare people into salvation.  He was providing the ring in which the Holy Spirit might wrestle with the sinner’s soul. 

Like John the Baptist and Jonathan Edwards, we live in a day when there is far too much intellectual acquiescence and far too little heart conversion when it comes to God.  When you have eighty percent of a nation saying they “believe in God” yet fifty or sixty percent or more of that same nation living as if there is no God, somebody is sorely deceived.  I think it’s probably related to the Lord’s Parable of the Sower.   Hearts have to be made receptive by the plowshares of sorrow for a lot of us, and Jeremiah says, “Break up your fallow ground, and sow not among thorns.”

As long as we will say to ourselves that God will accept us as we are or if we do better or do “good deeds”, we will fail to see ourselves in the hardened, barren state to which we are bound.  We will be cultural and social Christians, sharing a moral point of view, striving to be acceptable and decent people without ever seeing the need to throw ourselves completely upon the grace and mercy of God. 

There is Someone warning us.  His voice is still and small. 

Overwhelmed

The Spirit lifted me up and took me away, and I went in bitterness in the heat of my spirit, the hand of the Lord being strong upon me.   And I came to the exiles at Tel-abib, who were dwelling by the Chebar canal, and I sat where they were dwelling.   And I sat there overwhelmed among them seven days. – Ezekiel 3:14-15

This is the English Standard Version that I usually use.  The NASB has a different understanding of that last sentence.  Instead of Ezekiel saying he was overwhelming or stunned.  It says that he was a source of “consternation” to the exiles as he sat, apparently silent and stunned in their midst. 

Maybe it’s just my nature, but I find the typical feel-good thing that is called by some an encounter with God not to be very impressive.   The prophet did not come away from his calling, commission, and vision capering with joy.   Sure, go ahead and tell me all about the New Testament.  Conviction of sin is not a pleasant experience.  Getting a revelation of the darkness of one’s own soul, let alone all the darkness in the world is unlikely, in itself, to leave one feeling giddy.  Having the burden rolled away, as they used to say, is a great joy, but the sorrow, in some form, comes first. 

Agony of spirit and soul may not precede a decision to follow Christ.  People choose for many reasons to follow the teachings of the Church and her ordinances and to practice Christian disciplines.  We may go many years in a sort of peace and tranquility of spirit. When darkness comes, it may catch us by surprise.  Like Ezekiel, the priest, we may be overwhelmed.  We may become an offense to those who have known us, who cannot understand why we are so tormented over something that should have been settled long ago. 

I am not a very good Christian, but as I look around at what passes for Christianity in this modern era, I can’t help thinking something is horribly wrong.  It doesn’t take much reading to make one aware that this is not simply a phenomenon of the last ten or twenty or fifty years.  Tozer lamented the apostasy and incredible lightness of most alleged Christian pursuits in his day.  Jesus warned of it as far back as the Revelation, addressing the seven churches of Asia Minor.  What a shock to find that people generally prefer to feel good and not think too much on the dark and morbid aspects of life. 

We are saved, as Paul said, by grace through faith.  In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian set out through the gate and on the way because something made him realize his life was awry from God.  That is grace, too.  It is grace that sees us through the “many dangers , toils and snares” of the way we travel.  The road is hard; we are challenged; we grow weary and stumble and sometimes fall.  Christian bore his burden a long time on his way.  Only at the cross was he set free from it, only as he was touched by the agony and the passion of Christ. 

There are those who will tell us that every day is a party, a Holy Ghost party.  Sometimes life is like that.  That’s God’s grace, and we can thank Him for it.  Don’t not be deceived, though.  There may come a time when everything is cold and dark and dead, when all hope is gone, and you feel that you have gone astray, lost touch with God, maybe even been abandoned by Him.  I have had days when it would not have taken much to convince me that I had died and gone to hell.  There is grace in this.  Even if you can no longer believe, even if you are convinced that God has turned His back on you, remember that Jesus asked on the Cross, “Why have You forsaken Me?”  You are there.  The golden morning is only three days on.  Come Sunday.