Dragging Out the Dragon

In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. -- Isaiah 27:1

When we see “land” or “earth”, particularly in the Old Testament, it usually has something to do with or in some way symbolizes Israel, God’s people, and His system.  The sea is sometimes a symbol for the Gentile nations and the world system.  Revelation 13, for example, speaks of two beasts, one arising from the sea and another rising out of the earth.  

• And I saw a beast rising out of the sea, with ten horns and seven heads, with ten diadems on its horns and blasphemous names on its heads. (Revelation 13:1)
• Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon. (Revelation 13:11)

The life of the sea is mostly out of sight.  It is obscured and occult like the subconscious mind.  Leviathan terrorizes the depths, but this is not always apparent on the surface.  Our lives are often driven by fears and half-forgotten, hidden motives of which we are usually unaware.  We struggle with what appears, unable to understand the twisted thing that underlies it.  Leviathan flees for it is both a dread creature and a creature of dread.  

There is no place to stand upon the sea.  It shifts constantly beneath us.  We do well to stay afloat.  How then can we overcome this monster and free ourselves from this embodiment of all our dark confusion and anxiety?

The Lord delivers us by His sword, His word. 

From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron … And the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet … These two were thrown alive into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. (Revelation 19:15,20)

It is Christ who rescues us from the monsters, no matter whether they come from our subconscious, the secular system, or false religions.  Truth alone can always set us free.

On the Topic of Repentance

Turn to me and be saved, all the ends of the earth!  For I am God, and there is no other. -- Isaiah 45:22

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.  For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. – Matthew 6:19-21

Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men, of like nature with you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to a living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. -- Acts 14:15

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. -- 2 Corinthians 5:17

Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. -- Colossians 3:2

For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God … -- 1 Thessalonians 1:9

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 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 12:1-2

I was looking through R.A. Torrey’s New Topical Reference and ran across the entry for “Repentance – What it is”, which lists in reference the passages above.  We know that metanoia means to change one’s mind.  We just need to think about what that means in our own lives. 

The world has a story, and it is blasting on all channels, all day, every day.  The details and approaches vary, but there is agreement that success in this world is what matters – even if success is defined as having the most fun or taking the most dope.  The world will tell us that we are failures and that we are missing out if we don’t adhere to its standards – which tend to shift around somewhat. 

My purpose and life in Christ are eternal.  I suppose God could have created a class of beings whose suffering and agony brought Him satisfaction.  Instead He created us in whom He delights and whose existence He longs to fill with delight.  All that I need to do to experience that is turn from being fleshly minded to being spiritually minded.  As Torrey’s references demonstrate, that is more prosaic and pragmatic than we might sometimes think. 

Repentance changes how we perceive the call of the world.  It transforms our understanding of what we read, watch, and listen to.  We hear the Lord’s voice and glimpse His presence in art and literature where before we saw only something clever or pleasing to us in some way.  But I must be getting old.  There is just less and less about the answers, the information, the entertainment, and the technology people tout that appeal to me.  I find I am happier away from it, relaxing in the Lord’s presence and allowing myself to be recreated in conformity to Christ. 

Repentance means that we give up chasing shadows and being captivated by the hollow and empty merely because it has a pleasing exterior.  We seek truth and beauty in the true and the living God.

 Copies of Torrey’s Reference are available here.

Stairway To Heaven

Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse, and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury. -- Proverbs 9:7

If we find ourselves wondering occasionally why our country is in such a sad state, the above verse highlights at least one of our problems.  The next verse in Proverbs says that reproof results in hatred in the heart of the scoffer but love in the heart of one who is wise.  It is hardly surprising then that those who seek to follow delusions are angered when reality intrudes.  All of us make mistakes, either through willfulness, arrogance, or ignorance.  Even the wise may succumb to hubris.  The difference is that when a wise person is checked by reality and suffers the consequences of his error, he does not attempt to reject the truth or alter it; rather he alters himself and adapts to it.  He learns and grows and matures. 

The fool and the scoffer are those who believe that truth is nothing more or less than what they believe to be true.  If reality does not conform to the scoffer’s state of mind he disdains and despises it.  A fool’s delusions may be mild or severe, trivial or dangerous to those around him.  Christians tend to think of atheism as a foolish view, yet there are atheists who are wise with regard to some things -- Penn Jillette comes to mind, and many people who consider themselves religious that are quite unwise in areas of their lives. 

It is no mere accident of geography that people in urban areas tend to be more left-leaning and government-oriented than those who live in more rural areas.  The City testifies of the power of the imagination, of man’s unique ability to mold and control his environment.  Every city is a child of Babel, a new Babylon.  Every once in a while the natural world shakes itself and the illusion is shattered for a time by flood or fire, earthquake, hurricane, or tornado.  Still the mirage remains convincing.  We rebuild with dressed stones amid the bricks broken to ruin.  Human technology enables us to do that which my great-grandfather could not have dreamed.  Surely all things can be conquered.

The tricky part of it is that so long as our work is guided by truth what we build has a life to it.  That which deviates too much, which builds not upon reality but against it, dies.  Fools promise foolish things, tickle the ears, and build to destruction.  They kill and devastate that which possessed veracity and authenticity because it is a rebuke to their misconceptions.  After they have choked the life out of it, they point to the remains and deny that it ever lived.  How then, they ask, could we have killed it?

Consensus does not make it so.  Everybody who worked on the Tower of Babel said the same thing, but as it got higher and higher, they agreed less and less.  If the founders are scoffers and fools, why are they surprised to find the slothful and malcontents numbered among them?  Conflict, confusion, and chaos wait patiently at the top of Escher’s steps.  There is no getting past them, and it is a very long, rough tumble back to the bottom.  Utopia’s first name is Babel.

 

Hiding Out

Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you cross the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then you shall select cities to be cities of refuge for you, that the manslayer who kills any person without intent may flee there. - Numbers 35:11-12

From time to time we all need a place to hide from the troubles and trials of life, and, yes, even from our own sins and failures.  We can't really blame the Accuser for accusing; it's his job.  Lewis illustrates this pointedly in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe when Edward's betrayal is recognized as legitimate grounds for the Witch to condemn him and demand his blood.  Revenge is the law.  The avenger of blood is a karmic agent.  Justice can be overridden only by a higher law, that of mercy, which is simply justice satisfied in a deeper, more powerful way.  Airplanes don't fly by negating gravity but by utilizing gravity in conjunction with the laws of aerodynamics.  They are always "falling with style". 

The one thing that someone accused could not do was stand around and debate the avenger of blood.  The avenger is not open to reason, argument or excuses.  It does not matter if was an accident or unintentional.  The only way shed blood can be atoned for is by shed blood.  Guilt, as we think of it, or innocence does not enter into the karmic equation.  Similarly, when I sin, there is no point in attempting to justify, excuse, or rationalize what I said or did.  The only remedy is to escape, and the only refuge is Christ — the very person I have offended and against whom I have sinned.  When we fail, instead of hiding it from the Lord, our only hope is to run to Him.  Waiting around for the avenger to extract his due because I really do deserve it is as wrong as the failure itself.

The cities of refuge were both safe haven and prison.  A person guilty of involuntary manslaughter had an indeterminate sentence.  The congregation heard the case and judged according to the witnesses and the evidence.  And the congregation shall rescue the manslayer from the hand of the avenger of blood, and the congregation shall restore him to his city of refuge to which he had fled, and he shall live in it until the death of the high priest who was anointed with the holy oil (Numbers 35:25).  The slayer could not go home and back to his old life until the current high priest had died. 

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.  For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.  Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14-16).

The Lord, of course, died then rose and lives forever more.  So must we stay in our prison/refuge forever?  Or are we free to go home?  The answer is, Yes. 

For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3:3).

Showdown at God's Gulch

Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people, to his saints; but let them not turn back to folly.  Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.  Steadfast love and faithfulness meet; righteousness and peace kiss each other.  Faithfulness springs up from the ground, and righteousness looks down from the sky. – Psalm 85:8-11

We talked about the kingdom being in our midst yesterday, and this brought to mind the divergence that is part of our existence since the Fall.  Someday this rift will be healed and that which is true will be reunited with that which is mere fact.  Life on earth exists in the sun, and the sun is the center around which the planets revolve, but, as our Unknown Friend says, the center is really Earth, sanctified by the Blood of the Lamb.  The New Jerusalem will be not only the center but the source of all light and life when we are fully restored.  And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. (Revelation 21:23)

Now we see divergence and conflict, but as we move toward the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, we see the gap narrow.  I am reminded, too, of Ezekiel’s vision of the river which flowed from the threshold of the temple, a small stream at first with its breadth and depth multiplied the farther it flowed.  We may feel far from the truth when we are down by the Dead Sea, but the closer we get to where God dwells, the smaller the differences.  We may be divided from our brothers and sisters by what seems to be an impassable barrier.  Yet as both they and we draw closer to God’s throne, to the Source of all grace and mercy, we will find that our differences are really rather small.  Doctrines help us to live down in Death Valley.  They keep us headed the right direction, following the stream back to where it begins.

An old boy who lived back in the country gave me directions to his house.  It was pretty straightforward, turn right at this road, left at that one then he said, “You’ll be going east on such-and-such road, and you’ll come a big gray rock.  Turn around there and come back.  I’m the first house on the right.”  I drove right to it.  Sometimes the best way to get somewhere is to go beyond and then correct. 

Our doctrines diverge because we are trying to make sense of a world that is separated, a little or a lot from reality at various points.  To translate between Celsius and Fahrenheit, you need to know that they converge where water freezes and where it boils. You don’t have to know the five-ninths formula if you know the points of convergence.  Reality and, for want of a better word, maya do have a point of convergence in the Cross.  Death is a fact, but it was overwhelmed by Truth.  Doctrine is a useful means of dealing with the facts of our existence and exposing, occasionally, the points where facts and truth coincide. 

Truth touches us in the Incarnation, in the Cross, in the Resurrection.  We might say we diverge again at the Ascension but only briefly for God comes back to us at Pentecost.  The Holy Spirit invades not at a single point in the One New Man but in a whole new race of men who live according to the truth we are given, who do not deny but understand the limits of material facts. 

Someday this deviation will be fully resolved.  Someday all of creation which now groans over the gap, the riven wound that is the source of our agony will become one again with the ideal and the perfect:  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).   Not what we think He is.  Not what our doctrines say about Him, as wonderful as those insights are, but as He IS. 

The facts have blinded us to the truth, but He will return to make that second point of contact.  Then we will be able to find the formula and all of history from eternity past to eternity future will fit.  Every fact, maimed and warped though it be, will be translated into the beautiful, transcendent truth that lay just over on the other side. 

Middling

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, The kingdom of God is not coming with signs to be observed, nor will they say, Look, here it is! or There! for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.  -- Luke 17:20-21

How critical can a preposition be?  It seems rather important here.  Various translations may tell us that the kingdom is within us or among us.  The most literal seems to be that given in the ESV “in the midst of you,” which remains slightly ambiguous.

If the kingdom is among us, the emphasis would fall on community and our relationships one with another.  Most of our concern would be focused on dealing with all around us in a righteous and loving way.  We would do our best to put the needs of others before our own and follow the Golden Rule:  whatever we others to do for us, we will do the same for them.

If the kingdom, though, is within us, we would before all other things attempt to have Christ indwelling us as individuals in mystical union.  We would try to live right and always do the right thing so as to not grieve the Holy Spirit, for everything would depend upon Him and His presence in our lives. 

Fortunately, we do not need to worry about which reading is correct.  In essence both views are correct.  Some of us are inclined to a mystical approach, others to the expression of love in word and deed.  So long as our motivation is communion with God and citizenship in the kingdom, the end will be the same.  Christ will indwell Martha when she is working and Mary when she is listening.   Jesus did not chide Martha because she was trying to feed everyone and get everything in line but only because she allowed herself to be distracted from Him.  Now the Spirit may fully inhabit our lives and possess our attention and devotion while we go about doing our work and taking care of the needs of others.

It certainly doesn’t hurt to retreat once in a while and be refreshed – just you and the Lord, but He is always in our midst.