Happy Wednesday

I'm away from my computer today, tomorrow and Friday, so I'm just posting some random verses and quotes.  I hope everybody has a good week.

It is better to leave a vessel unfilled, than to attempt to carry it when it is full. If you keep feeling a point that has been sharpened, the point cannot long preserve its sharpness. -- Tao Te King

Who has woe? Who has sorrow?
Who has strife? Who has complaining?
Who has wounds without cause?
Who has redness of eyes?
Those who tarry long over wine;
those who go to try mixed wine.
Do not look at wine when it is red,
when it sparkles in the cup
and goes down smoothly.
In the end it bites like a serpent
and stings like an adder.
Your eyes will see strange things,
and your heart utter perverse things.
You will be like one who lies down in the midst of the sea,
like one who lies on the top of a mast.
“They struck me,” you will say, “but I was not hurt;
they beat me, but I did not feel it.
When shall I awake?
I must have another drink.”
 -- Proverbs 23:29-35

I think I have that t-shirt.

Yama replied: I know well that fire which leads to the realm of heaven.  I shall tell it to thee.  Listen to me.  Know, O Nachiketas, that this is the means of attaining endless worlds and their support.  It is hidden in the heart of all beings. -- from the Upanishads

Tidal Island

So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  They answered him, “We are offspring of Abraham and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, ‘You will become free’?”   Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin.  The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever.  So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. – John 8:31-36

In the R.L. Stevenson novel Kidnapped, the protagonist and narrator is a youth of about 17 or 18 named David Balfour.  He is the rightful heir of an estate called Shaws but is betrayed into captivity by his deceitful uncle.  Imprisoned on a ship headed for the American colonies, David is to be sold into indentured servitude in the Carolinas.  As the result of some weather-related delays, accidents, and the loss of the ship’s first officer and navigator in a fight, the ship is wrecked upon a rock in the Hebrides near the island of Mull, also known as Ross.  David, who cannot swim -- being, as he says “inland bred” from the Scottish lowlands, goes overboard to certain death except for being able to grab a portion of the broken vessel’s yardarm.  With this aid, he reaches shore on a rocky, barren tidal islet called Earraid. 

Earraid is separated from the inhabited parts of Mull by what appears to David to be an impassable strait of the sea.  Being unable to swim and having lost his flotation device, he remains stranded for four days without shelter, fire, or food, apart from raw shell fish.  He can see the roofs of a town and smoke rising from houses, but he is isolated and increasingly hopeless.  He is seen by some men in a boat.  They react to his plight by laughing, which he cannot understand.  Finally, they return with another man who knows some English – these are mostly Gaelic speakers.   They bring the boat close enough that David makes out the word, “Tide.”  His mind is opened, he runs to the strait, and, with the tide out, he crosses with no trouble onto the main island.  He concludes that his lack of understanding and reasoning nearly killed him:  I have seen wicked men and fools, a great many of both; and I believe they both get paid in the end; but the fools first.

Truth is always and everywhere the cure for bondage.  Whether we are fooled by others or fool ourselves, illusions are the chains that bind us and the whips that drive and torment us.  While we live, if we know the secret, we may be free, and, so knowing, we know as well, we live always. 

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”  So we can confidently say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)

All Yours

 Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. -- Matthew 5:3

A.W. Tozer talks about possessing nothing, from Chapter 2 of The Pursuit of God:

Before the Lord God made man upon the earth He first prepared for him by creating a world of useful and pleasant things for his sustenance and delight. In the Genesis account of the creation these are called simply "things." They were made for man's uses, but they were meant always to be external to the man and subservient to him. ...

The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have repudiated every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sense of possessing. These are the "poor in spirit." They have reached an inward state paralleling the outward circumstances of the common beggar in the streets of Jerusalem; that is what the word "poor" as Christ used it actually means. These blessed poor are no longer slaves to the tyranny of things. They have broken the yoke of the oppressor; and this they have done not by fighting but by surrendering. Though free from all sense of possessing, they yet possess all things. "Theirs is the kingdom of heaven. ...

There can be no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is one of the most harmful habits in the life. Because it is so natural it is rarely recognized for the evil that it is; but its outworkings are tragic.

We are often hindered from giving up our treasures to the Lord out of fear for their safety; this is especially true when those treasures are loved relatives and friends. But we need have no such fears. Our Lord came not to destroy but to save. Everything is safe which we commit to Him, and nothing is really safe which is not so committed. ...

Tozer agrees with MOTT, it's all about the three vows of obedience, chastity and poverty. 

So those who were sent went away and found it just as he had told them.  And as they were untying the colt, its owners said to them, “Why are you untying the colt?”  And they said, “The Lord has need of it. "  (Luke 19:32-34)

I always think about the person who owned the donkey.  Only God knows who it was, knows the name, but He knew that if He asked, they would turn over a valuable possession, apparently without hesitation beyond the disciples' answer.  I wonder what happened afterward.  We can be sure that those who willing offered what they had for the Master's use were blessed.  No need to fret.

For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.”  So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.  (1 Corinthians 3:19-23, emphasis added)

Under His Wings

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!  Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” – Luke 13:34-35

I repeat myself a lot, and sometimes I contradict myself.  Truth is not always clear to me.  It’s a struggle, one that has been going on for six decades and yet continues.  If I seem particularly confused the last few days years, it’s nothing new.

On the one hand, I don’t want to accept whatever the devil throws at me.  The Psalms are replete with pleas not to let enemies have the upper hand and be able to gloat over the fallen condition of the righteous.  There’s a large cohort in Christianity that focuses on health, wealth and externally victorious living.  This approach is derived largely from God’s relationship with Israel as depicted in the Old Testament.  If we trust and obey, God will bless, protect, and prosper us in a way that is obvious to everyone.   There’s also New Testament support for divine healing and provision, and I don’t deny that.

What, though, are we to think when something attacks us?  This happens.  We’re minding our own business and disaster strikes.  Christians lose their houses.  They get sick.  Their marriages fall apart.  They are struck by natural disasters.  Their children are killed or disabled in accidents or have health problems. 

Well, Kenneth Copeland will tell you, you just need more faith.  You weren’t “faithing” hard enough.  I like Brother Copeland.  I even plan to go see him when he’s in Branson in a couple of weeks.  But sometimes the way the Word of Faith boys talk, faith sounds a lot like a lot of work.   I get aggravated because I don’t have the time, the energy, the inclination, or the intelligence to “faith” against everything that might come my way, and I really don’t think it is my job to control the weather and the stock market and the real estate market and the national economy and what goes on in Washington or what the Iranians are doing and all that other stuff.  In other words, I’m not God.  There are times when I get to thinking I would like to try God’s job but only for about five minutes.  I doubt I could handle it that long, certainly not any longer. 

I think it is less about rebuking the devil than about resisting the devil.  There’s a big difference.  There’s a place for rebuking the devil.  Suppose you as a Christian have a friend or acquaintance who is pursuing a destructive lifestyle – whether it’s a workaholic or an alcoholic, too ambitious, too lazy, gluttonous, envious, greedy, whatever it may be.  This person may well be under attack by demonic influences.  It may be appropriate to rebuke “the spirit of fear” or something as if one were addressing an entity with a personality.  I leave that up to the leading of the Holy Spirit in a particular situation. 

Resisting the devil is always appropriate because that applies directly to me.  By what I allow myself to think about, to contemplate, to accept, to reject, to say, and to act upon, I either resist the devil or surrender to the devil.  This is a fight.  It’s warfare. 

First, let us consider what Jesus says above as He looks over His beloved city of Jerusalem and mourns for the fate she has chosen.  The Lord wants to protect us.  He wants our permission to protect us.  He needs our permission because He has given a free will. 

Next, hear James 4:6-7, “… God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” 

Third, I think this is where faith mostly applies.  We go deliberately and intentionally to God and surrender ourselves to Him and to His will.  Those of us who are Christians have already accepted the finished work of Christ for the forgiveness of our sins, acknowledging our need for and trust in the atonement.  If we are not in Christ and have not turned ourselves in and asked for the Lord’s forgiveness and protection, there are a lot of second causes.  We are vulnerable to all of the enemy’s attacks.  We are under his law, his regime, and his authority.  If we are in Christ there need not be any second causes. 

Once we surrender our wills to the Lord and accept His offer “to gather us under His wings”, everything that comes to us, comes through Him.  If He does not want it to affect us, it does not.  If we can believe that, if we can trust God to do what He explicitly says He will do, we enter the rest and peace of God. 

So, anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing lately before I go to bed and when I first get up in the morning, just giving myself up to the Lord.  He knows I can’t do it without a lot of help, and I’m asking for that, too.  We’ll see how well I maintain the first time something breaks.  But, if He doesn’t want it to break, it won’t break.  Faith!  Amen?

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.

J'accuse

For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever before me.  I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.  But my foes are vigorous, they are mighty, and many are those who hate me wrongfully.  Those who render me evil for good accuse me because I follow after good. – Psalm 38:17-20

It’s because I’m too cynical, but, when I read something like that, my first thought is, Sure.  People do attack us and accuse us unjustly and unfairly.  I think it happens more in literature, on television, and in the movies than in everyday life.  It happens more in politics than in the real world.  Most people have better things to do and nothing to gain from playing stupid games and coming against those who have done nothing to harm them.

There are exceptions.  These are the psalms of David who was both king and prophet.  He was, as a monarch, most certainly the object of intrigue and hostility.  Before he ascended to the throne he had been hunted and harried by Saul for simply being one chosen by God to rule His people.  In this, Saul is a type of Satan, one who accuses and seeks to destroy the elect. 

I don’t know that this is Devil Week in the Jungle, but it is possible that I often fail to deal with the reality of an adversary.  I have seen too many people blame the devil for too many things.  The good Christian who is five-by-five, lives on steak and cake, and considers walking around the buffet table exercise lambasts the devil for causing his heart problems.  The devil may have encouraged him to have another piece of pie, but the fork was in his own hand. 

Certainly there is a demonic presence behind gluttony, just as there is behind some kinds of fear, behind envy and jealousy, lust and greed, pride, rage, and other sins.  The truth is I don’t need a lot of encouragement to please myself or to do wrong. 

Still, Jesus – and I consider Him the Authority – dealt with the devil and demons, not as mere influences but as entities with intelligence and wills.  As Lewis said (and I frequently quote) in the preface to Screwtape:  There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils.  One is to disbelieve in their existence.  The other is to believe, and to feel and excessive and unhealthy interest in them.  Lewis never met, I don’t suppose, Flip Wilson or any of the “pigs in the parlor” Christians I have known.  I would add a third category for those who find the devil and demons a convenient excuse for their bad situations.

I have to wonder, though, if my reluctance to blame anyone or anything other than myself does not contain just a touch of pride.  I am a practical, cause-and-effect person.  There’s a reason for everything.  “Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see,” was drilled into me in childhood, though I think the hard heads of my Scots ancestors inclined me that way in any case. 

Yet, there are times, especially over the last fifteen years or so, when I have felt I was targeted for opposition by a malevolent personality.  Feelings are more easily moved than reason and less trustworthy, but they are not always, therefore, wrong.   I have encountered evil that all but took a black, hooded form like Tolkien’s Nazgûl, and I have talked to otherwise trustworthy people who claim to have seen and been threatened by such things – long before they were so depicted in the movies. 

There are angels.  When they appear, their first words are usually, “Fear not”, because their stature and presence is, apparently, innately terrifying.  Paul says that Satan himself may appear as an angel of light, a disguise designed to deceive and lead astray the unwary.

When we do get off the path of righteousness, it is an opportunity for the accuser to come in and make matters worse.  We will feel that we ought to deny or excuse or hide.  David, though, had the right idea:  I confess my iniquity; I am sorry for my sin.  Let’s get that out of the way.  Now, about these who are attacking me, Lord, I could use a little help.  They are too much for me. 

There are fallen angels.  There are demons.  Demons are parasitic, and they feed themselves on human fear, anguish, regret and similar emotional energies.  We cultivate the ground and sow seed to raise our tomatoes, corn, and beans.  Demons cultivate the minds of men and sow seeds of fear, hatred, and confusion to raise their favorite dark energies.  If we let them, they will lead us to commit wickedness so they might grow fat on our desperation, shame, and guilt. 

We don’t have to put up with it.