You also will be drunken; you will go into hiding; you will seek a refuge from the enemy. -- Nahum 3:11
When a person rejects God, he or she takes a path of
self-degradation. You can’t turn away
from the Lord without turning away from your true nature. The apostate embraces corruption and decay,
but that doesn’t mean that he immediately starts drinking Mad Dog and living in
a cardboard box. Rejecting God’s truth
can seem “liberating”. The apostate can
do all right for a time, once he is no longer constrained by the rules of
respect and propriety, by conscience and a moral code. He is “free” to take advantage of those who
believe that right and wrong rise from absolutes. He makes his own right, and it is whatever
suits him.
It is a lot like being drunk. Has there ever been a drunk who couldn’t dance? The broken soul no longer perceives the world
as it is, but the way he wants it to be.
He picks his friends and associates on the basis of whether or not they
reinforce the wall of words behind which he hides from the awful truth. Truth is the enemy.
The apostate comes to hate and fear whatever reminds him of
the raw perception lying beyond his tall and carefully buttressed barrier,
outside his closely guarded gates. All
who enter must know the passwords of the day, lest they be pinioned by arrows
of scorn, derision and contempt. The
fugitive’s peace is fragile and easily broken.
Reality is, though,
relentless. Ninevah has it weak
points. The breach will be made, and the
gates will be consumed with the fire of God.
Paraphrasing Matthew Henry: Those
relied upon to defend the walls will come to the end of their wits and their
wittiness. Their own imaginations will
turn against them for they ever lacked courage and wisdom. Panic will seize them and reduce them to
quivering cowards, unable to do anything for themselves.
There is no reason to for the people of God to fear such as
these no matter how much they seem to have gained, how much they claim to have
conquered, or how fearsome their threats against us.
2 comments:
"The apostate comes to hate and fear whatever reminds him of the raw perception lying beyond his tall and carefully buttressed barrier, outside his closely guarded gates. All who enter must know the passwords of the day, lest they be pinioned by arrows of scorn, derision and contempt. The fugitive’s peace is fragile and easily broken."
I keep forgetting my passwords. Funny how those seemingly inpenetrable barriers turn to dust when one embraces the Truth.
That's when I realize I don't need those barriers at all.
They not only keep truth out but imprison our very souls.
Like "Hotel California" -- we can end up being "prisoners of our own device".
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