Dynamic Tension

Come, behold the works of the Lord, how he has brought desolations on the earth. -- Psalm 46:8

The Forty-sixth Psalm is one of my favorites, both reassuring and challenging, and this verse goes along with our theme of the last couple of days.  God really is in control.  He protects and shields His people.  The ever-flowing river of the Spirit brings joy to the City of God, which is the Body of Christ, and to us individually as sanctuaries in whom He abides.  We may be frightened by war and upheaval, disaster and desolation, but these things are in His hand as well.  He can make wars cease in a moment, break the bow and shatter the spear.

As Christians we have to live with a sort of dynamic tension, and, like the Charles Atlas-endorsed variety, it makes us stronger.  The trouble is that we are human and liable to move to an extreme.  We should live in a vigilant peace.  But peace can slough off into complacency and vigilance can metastasize into fear and panic. 

This may sound disturbing or controversial, but it seems reasonable to me.  If the Church fails and falls, if Christianity is driven out and defeated, it ought be forgotten and abandoned because that would mean it is wrong.  If the Cross and the Blood are not of God then as Paul said, we Christians are fools and of all men the most miserable.  We are not defeated when we are persecuted, martyred, or driven underground.  We must often, in the long spiraling course of history, be the oppressed and harassed minority, a bloodied and battered remnant that lies below the surface like the root of a fallen oak, from which will sprout a thicket to once again seed the earth with truth.   

God is running this show, or He is not.  The fate of humanity depended on Christ’s obedience to the Cross and the reality of His death, burial, and resurrection.  It is finished.  I don’t need to live in a Constitutional Republic with a free market economy or in a fag-free Falwellian theocracy for the Church to be triumphant.  I would prefer a libertarian central government and a Christian-based community morality at the local level.  I’ll work toward that where I can, but God is still in control if the three branches of the federal government collude to create Chicago-on-the-Potomac, declare all Christians enemies of the state, institute a fully fascist economy, and ban assault study Bibles -- especially the ones with high-capacity concordances.    

Taken as a whole, this is what Psalm 46 tells me, “Be still, and know that I am God.  I will be exalted among the nations; I will be exalted in the earth!” (v.10)  

God is not going to be defeated by a bunch of self-satisfied human slugs, con men, perverts, and petty crooks.  Nor will He be defeated by a bloody, backward, antichrist religion that can be sustained only through fear and oppression.  The mockers and the doubters, the scoffers and skeptics will pass like fog in heat.  Christ remains, and Christ will remain.   

The nations rage, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts.  The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our fortress. Selah   (Psalm 46:6-7).

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.  Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.  Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.  And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.  To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1 Peter 5:6-11)

Is God in Everything?

One of the greatest obstacles to living unwaveringly this life of entire surrender is the difficulty of seeing God in everything. People say, “I can easily submit to things which come from God; but I cannot submit to man, and most of my trials and crosses come through human instrumentality.” Or they say, “It is all well enough to talk of trusting; but when I commit a matter to God, man is sure to come in and disarrange it all; and while I have no difficulty in trusting God, I do see serious difficulties in the way of trusting men.”

This is no imaginary trouble, but it is of vital importance, and if it cannot be met, does really make the life of faith an impossible and visionary theory. For nearly everything in life comes to us through human instrumentalities, and most of our trials are the result of somebody’s failure, or ignorance, or carelessness, or sin. We know God cannot be the author of these things, and yet unless He is the agent in the matter, how can we say to Him about it, “Thy will be done”?

Besides, what good is there in trusting our affairs to God, if, after all, man is to be allowed to come in and disarrange them; and how is it possible to live by faith, if human agencies, in whom it would be wrong and foolish to trust, are to have a predominant influence in moulding our lives?

Moreover, things in which we can see God’s hand always have a sweetness in them which consoles while it wounds. But the trials inflicted by man are full of bitterness.

What is needed, then, is to see God in everything, and to receive everything directly from His hands, with no intervention of second causes. And it is just to this that we must be brought, before we can know an abiding experience of entire abandonment and perfect trust. Our abandonment must be to God, not to man, and our trust must be in Him, not in any arm of flesh, or we shall fail at the first trial.

The question here confronts us at once, “But is God in everything, and have we any warrant from the Scripture for receiving everything from His hands, without regarding the second causes which may have been instrumental in bringing it about?” I answer to this, unhesitatingly, Yes. To the children of God everything comes directly from their Father’s hand, no matter who or what may have been the apparent agents. There are no “second causes” for them.

...

To my own mind, these [various Scriptures cited] settle forever the question as to the power of second causes in the life of the children of God. They are all under the control of our Father, and nothing can touch us except with His knowledge and by His permission. It may be the sin of man that originates the action, and therefore the thing itself cannot be said to be the will of God but by the time it reaches us, it has become God’s will for us, and must be accepted as directly from His hands. No man or company of men, no power in earth or heaven, can touch that soul which is abiding in Christ, without first passing through Him, and receiving the seal of His permission. If God be for us, it matters not who may be against us; nothing can disturb or harm us, except He shall see that it is best for us, and shall stand aside to let it pass. 

-- Hannah Whitall Smith, from Chapter 8, "Is God in Everything", The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life

Halfway

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. -- Titus 3:3

Apart from the grace of God in Christ, that’s how the world operates.  In fact, that’s how you define the world.  This is not to say there are not nice people who are non-Christians of one form or another, but the system itself is motivated by the corrupted nature.  From war and violence to advertising and consumerism, “passions and pleasures”, revenge and retribution, and arrogance and avarice are the drivers for what we have to deal with in the world. 

I am a tired old man who works too many hours and worries too much about money.  I am too short-tempered and too impatient because it is too easy to forget heaven and eternity when dealing with time and earth day in and day out.  Is there an app for that?  Why, yes, there is:

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.  (Titus 3:4-7)

In the world we are, as Yoda might say, but of the world not we are.  The Israelites had the same struggle when they left Egypt.  Slave mentality is both pervasive and, in some ways, comforting.  It is harder to live in freedom than the average person might think.  People tend to exchange one form of bondage for another.  Free a person from financial worries, and he may become addicted to drink or drugs or debauchery.  It almost seems as though most don’t really want liberty but license, the freedom to pick out a nice set of shackles. 

We talk a lot about illusion versus reality, and I probably ought to talk more about what is versus what ought to be.  “Ought to be” is a trap, a labyrinth built, not to be solved but to imprison us in busyness.   We cannot beat the world at its game because we lose just by trying to play it.  Well, maybe we can play, but we have to play at a different level.

What I do for a living is really, in light of not only eternity but of the realities of life for most people, pretty trivial.  But I take it very seriously.  Getting that paycheck requires me to take it seriously, but I rarely think of that when I’m up all night or working on a weekend.  I think instead of the people who are depending on me.  I can get another job, or I could retire and live a little more lightly – whatever God has for me.  Other people, though, have their futures and their self-worth tied up in “the company” and worldly measures of success.  This is sad, and they will eventually discover the emptiness and pointlessness of such an approach.  It’s not my place to disappoint or disillusion them.  I like most of the people I deal with; some I don’t.  However, I owe all of them the best that I can do. 

That what Paul means in Romans 13:8 when he says, “Owe no man anything, except to love one another ….”  It’s not just a good idea; it’s the law.  God’s law says that I am responsible for my wife, my family, my neighbors, my friends – everybody.  I’m not responsible for their actions or choices, of course, but I am required to love them, no matter who they are.  To the extent that it is up to me, I must seek and support what is in the best interests of those in my sphere.  Thus, it quickly becomes obvious that harming others by violence, theft, betrayal, or deception is not acceptable.  (See Exodus 20 and Deuteronomy 5 for a few prominent examples.)  Verse 7 of Romans 13 says, “Pay to all what is owed them …” – even in worldly terms – effort, time, obedience, taxes, respect, honor, etc.  We are the agents of God’s grace.  Our job is to express the goodness and kindness we have received in Christ to those around us where they are. 

People will take advantage of our love.  We will get shoved aside, ignored, overworked, put upon, run over.  Often it will be those closest to us who treat us the worst because they have never known anything else, or they have forgotten what they did know.  Or they are human.  There are occasions when someone can be helped only by a punch in the face or a swift kick in the butt.  Pay to all what is owed them.  These are very rare occasions.  God will write it on the wall.  Ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of the time, we can figure the idea of a butt-kicking is our own.   

It’s the kingdom against the world.  There’s a town up the road a ways called Halfway.  It’s a good hillbilly name because it’s halfway between two other towns.  The thing is that the folks in Halfway don’t live in either one of those two towns.  While there is no Halfway situated on the road between God and Mammon, even if there were, it still would be Halfway, not God.  I know a lot of people who live in Halfway and visit Mammon on Saturday night then go over and visit God on Sunday morning.  We don’t want to do that, so we have to live the kingdom way, entirely over in the kingdom.  We have to be motivated by love.  We don’t have to like, agree with, enable, or be controlled by other people to want what is best for them rather than simply want our own way. 

We may not be able to say this out loud, but sometimes when I’m dealing with someone who thinks they are making me do something (nothing is more irritating to my people), I will have enough presence of mind to think or whisper, “I’m doing this out of love for Your child, Lord, and out of love and obedience to You.”  Then I grit my teeth, bite my tongue and bow.   

(Update:  Bob asks a very good question: 

But, how is it in that person's best interest for you to bow? If the person is trying to pull a fast one, it is in his best interest for you not to let him get away with it! If you don't stand up to him, he will continue to bring harm to other people.

Earlier in your piece you spoke out against bondage, but at the end you appear to be endorsing bondage.

See my comment below)

Fourfold

Under their wings on their four sides they had human hands. And the four had their faces and their wings thus:  their wings touched one another. Each one of them went straight forward, without turning as they went.  As for the likeness of their faces, each had a human face. The four had the face of a lion on the right side, the four had the face of an ox on the left side, and the four had the face of an eagle.  Such were their faces. And their wings were spread out above.  Each creature had two wings, each of which touched the wing of another, while two covered their bodies.– Ezekiel 1:8-11

However strange and frightening these creatures maybe, they have human hands.  This may be even more frightening to us in some ways, but there is nothing else in the universe like the hand.  Joni Eareckson Tada learned to paint holding a brush between her teeth after she became a quadriplegic, and people can play guitars with their feet, but hands built the paintbrushes and the guitar.  There is no other instrument known to us with the power and potential of the human hand. 

 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If each creature had two wings outstretched which touched the wings of another, the only way I can picture that is if the four creatures formed a sort of square.  Since I started reading this passage last weekend, I have been thinking about four creatures with four faces almost as if there were four creatures composing each creature and how much like a fractal that seems.  I start to wonder about the fractal nature of things behind the local and visible, and if the whole universe would not be easier to understand if we went to Base-4 – 0,1,2,3. It gets spooking and weird and overwhelming pretty fast. 

We see four faces but it is the human face that is outward.  A lion’s face looks to the right, an ox to the left and an eagle behind.  Note that if the four creatures are standing with their wings touching, the eagle is looking inward and toward another eagle. 

As I said before we think of man as a tripartite being, but the body, soul, and spirit combine into a fourth that we might call the whole.  The ox would be the servant, the body, facing left toward the material, placidly alert with eyes set to the sides, potential prey yet powerful, easily frightened and somewhat impulsive.  The lion might be the soul which possesses destructive power of a different kind, not easily tamed, with the potential to be ennobled, but always dangerous.  Spirit might be represented by the eagle, which, as noted above, looks inward rather than outward, moving in another dimension, far-seeing, visionary with a completely different perspective than the earth-bound. 

Man can develop in any of the three directions, but he is meant to be balanced, each aspect tempering the others, each a complement of the whole.  This is a glimpse of the fourfold perfection of God Incarnate in Jesus – fully God, fully man, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.    

Spirit looks toward and relates to spirit, but the eagle and the man are on the same axis, if you want to think about it that way, so, too, with the lion and the ox -- like a cross.  Body and soul form the horizontal axis, while man receives from God via the spirit on the vertical.  It always comes back to the Cross. 

Breaking the Outer Man

I don't have time to continue with Ezekiel this morning, so here is an excerpt from Watchman Nee's The Breaking of the Outer Man and the Release of the Spirit, Chapter 3:

We do not become qualified for God's work simply by learning some doctrines. The basic problem is our very person. Our person is the means by which we carry on our work. It is a matter of whether or not our person has passed through God's dealings. If the right doctrines are committed to a wrong person, what can be ministered to the church? The basic lesson for us is to make ourselves usable vessels. In order to make ourselves usable vessels, our outer man must be broken.

God has been working in us all these years. Although we are not very clear about this work ourselves, nevertheless, God has been carrying on the breaking day by day. We have gone through sufferings and difficulties for years. Time after time God's hand has halted us. We want to go one way, but God does not let us do it. We want to go another way, but God stops us again. If we do not see God's operation through the working together of all these environments, we have to pray, "God! Open my eyes so that I may see Your hand." The eyes of the donkey are often sharper than the eyes of a self-proclaimed prophet. The donkey has seen Jehovah's messenger already, but the self-proclaimed prophet has not seen it yet. The donkey realizes God's halting hand, but the self-proclaimed prophet is still ignorant of it. We have to realize that breaking is God's way with us. For years God has been trying to break our outer man. He has been trying to crush us so that we will not remain intact. Unfortunately, many people think that what they lack is doctrines. They wish they can hear more doctrines, pick up more ideas for preaching, and understand more expositions of the Bible. But this is absolutely the wrong way. God's hand is doing only one thing in us—breaking us. We cannot have our way; we have to take God's way.  We cannot have our thoughts; we have to take God's thoughts. We cannot have our decisions; we have to take God's decisions. God has to break us down completely. The trouble with us is that while God stops us time after time, we blame this and that for the blockage. We are like the prophet who did not see God's hand; instead, we blame our "donkey" for halting.

Everything that comes our way is meaningful and under God's sovereign arrangement. Nothing accidental happens to a Christian. Nothing is outside God's ordering. We have to humble ourselves under God's sovereign arrangements. May the Lord open our eyes to see that God is arranging everything around us; He has a purpose in us. Through everything He is crushing us. When God grants us the grace one day, we will gladly accept all the arrangements He places in our environment. Our spirit will be released, and we will be able to use our spirit.

Now You See Me

... but each had four faces, and each of them had four wings. Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the sole of a calf's foot. And they sparkled like burnished bronze. -- Ezekiel 1:6-7

Though the creatures in Ezekiel's vision, as noted yesterday, have human form, they seem to be more than human.  But then so is man, if we see homo sapiens only as a rather clever and not-so-hairy primate. 

We are not so limited as the other creatures.  We walk on land, like any other mammal, but we can plumb the depths of the sea like a fish.  We fly great distances through the air like birds.  We have crossed the emptiness of space and walked upon another world like gods.  Our mastery of the elements — earth, water, air, fire, in the derived material universe speaks of what we are in that from which our material existence is derived.  Our supremacy may easily become a source of pride, though it should be a sign to us, not only of the spirit that the Lord breathed into us at creation but of His grace and presence with us now. 

While, as Christians, we usually think of ourselves as tripartite beings -- body, soul, spirit -- reflective of the Triune God, the three aspects combine into a whole.  Father, Son, Spirit are One.  Body, soul, spirit are one.  Three faces are complete in the fourth.  We may hit this point again when we think about what the four faces might represent.  Perhaps Ezekiel saw man as he could be, should be, and will be. 

Wings take us into another medium.  We can travel, not with the speed of light, but with the speed of thought.  Our words are heard immediately in heaven.  The effects of our prayers can cross the universe in the twinkling of an eye.  In the Spirit, we are unimpeded by time or space. 

Their legs were straight -- we are meant to be upright creatures, vertical, oriented not in the horizontal direction of matter but toward God who draws us upward to Himself.  The bronze, calf-like hooves of the creatures reminds us of the ability to stand sure-footed upon precarious heights in our walk with the Lord.  Bronze also represents priestly judgment as the bronze altar in the court of the temple.  We are a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9) of the Lord, meant to carry out His decrees and execute His justice.  Paul says that the saints will not only judge the world but angels (1 Corinthians 6:2-3).  

We fail and flail in this world because we have lost sight of who we are.  We are right to be humble, to ask, "O LORD, what is man that you regard him, or the son of man that you think of him?"  We are consigned to these jars of clay for the moment, but an unveiling awaits when we will see Jesus as He is, and we will be transformed.

Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (1 John 3:2)   

The Salvation of Creation

And from the midst of it came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance: they had a human likeness … -- Ezekiel 1:5

Creation moves toward the human form because it is man who is made in the image and likeness of God.  Ezekiel is one of those books that can be read at more than one level and misread, I suspect, quite easily.  Initially, when I was about Ezekiel’s age as he began his ministry, I read the prophet’s words on a very personal level that served to change rather dramatically the trajectory of my life.  Coming back to him now – past the top of the arc, one might say, I am looking less for a direction and more at where I am liable to land.  I am looking for what is real and what is really going on. 

It’s not that hard to get caught up in playing the game of existence and forget what is at stake in our lives.  Ezekiel isn’t describing just a vision of some creature that brought him a message.  The vision is a part of the message.  Man is not the measure of all things, but he is the pinnacle of natural evolution, of material existence, and he is evolving toward Him who is the measure of all things:  … until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,  to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes  (Ephesians 4:13-14).

Creation is not pointless or meaningless.  Nothing that exists is without purpose, and the destiny of all is tied up in man:  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.  For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.  For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now (Romans 8:19-22).  The “now” of which Paul writes is the unveiling of Christ Jesus and the power of the Cross. 

The law of nature has been life at the expense of death and blood, brutality, the law of tooth and claw, predator and prey.  Each species fights for its own life and cares not for the life of any upon which it might feed.   Only man has any sense that there could be another way, and many of us can deal death to the lower creatures without much regret.  We recognize the necessity of it and do our best to make the end swift and painless.  

But it will not always be so.  Someday the lion will eat straw beside the ox and sleep beside the lamb.  As we will see as we go on in Ezekiel’s vision, we are reconciled to God in Christ, and creation will be reconciled up and down the spectrum in us.