Unexpected Anticipation

Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down, that the mountains might quake at Your presence — as fire kindles the brushwood, as fire causes water to boil —to make Your name known to Your adversaries, that the nations may tremble at Your presence!

When You did awesome things which we did not expect, You came down, the mountains quaked at Your presence. — Isaiah 64:1-3

"You did awesome things which we did not expect". Isaiah realized that while God was not ripping open the material heavens and invading earth like a super-warrior, He was ripping open the "sky" of Isaiah's conscious mind and pouring Himself into the world through the prophet and his words.

The Incarnation is the ultimate manifestation of God's invasion for the rescue and redemption of humanity. It, too, was an unexpected and awesome thing. Certainly Christ's entrance into the world has made the mountains — often a metaphor for worldly powers — and the nations tremble and quake. The world has been in an upheaval since Christ came to bring — not peace, but a sword and a winnowing, purging fire. And that will continue until the Kingdom is all in all.

I was taught that the 'world' as such would get worse and worse — more sinful, more violent, more anti-God, and specifically more anti-Christ until, at some point, Christ would return in secret to snatch out His people. Subsequent to the removal of the Bride, God's wrath would consume the unrighteous in terror and judgment. Though I have my problems with Dispensational eschatology, there is truth in this view. There can be no doubt that a separation of the righteous and the unrighteous, of the Kingdom people from the worldly is not only necessary, but constantly taking place.

(Whether there will be an actual Rapture as believed by Hal Lindsay, my family, friends, and millions of others, I do not know. In keeping with what Jesus told us in Acts 1:7-8, it is not my problem. I trust Jesus now and do my best to obey Him. As best I can figure, if the Rapture does take place, I'm in a position to go up, same as Hal. Meanwhile, I'm still here.)

The Lord is, even at this moment, coming down and pouring into the world through us. When we as individuals accept this, both worldly powers and satanic principalities are shaken. We cannot expect the various antichrists and the Prince of the Power of the Air and his hierarchy to accept the casting down of their dominions without a fight. We should be prepared.

So if you have been raised with Messiah, seek what is above, where the Messiah is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on what is above, not on what is on the earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God — Colossians 3:1-3

Trouble ahead, trouble behind.
Don't you know that notion just crossed my mind

Fuzz

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. – Ecclesiastes 3:11

In a way it’s reassuring. I don’t know all the answers, can’t know all the answers. Even Jesus deferred: It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority (Acts 1:7).

Time and space are related, tied together in the great equation of existence with light and dark, energy and matter. Time is a function of space. When we say “everything is beautiful in its time”, it is the same as saying everything is as it is supposed to be in this material existence. That which is beautiful is that which is right. The only things that are ugly are those things that have been twisted away from God’s purposes, and sometimes even those are hard for us to judge.

Fortunately, God has given us a plumb line by which we can ascertain true beauty. He has put the absolute rightness of eternity in our hearts, accessible by us should we seek it. Of course we are the descendents of those who ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and, as such, we are prone to follow our own judgment and chose a standard of measure independent of the straightedge of eternity. Even if we are wise enough to not judge by our own standards, the world system disorients us. There is nothing perfectly straight by which we may measure goodness and beauty. We are apt to work like the foolish carpenter who cuts his first rafter, then uses the first as a pattern for his second, the second to cut the third and so on until his first mistake is multiplied tenfold and he’s wonders why his roof is going downhill.

It’s hard enough to build using the measure of the eternal the Lord gives to us. I want to do what is right but the urge to protect myself, to feed my ego, to do things my way are strong and pull me off the mark. It is the beauty of holiness that, as we are seeking God, even our errors become beauty marks. As we see our sins for what they are, they move us closer to the truth. I was working on with an oddball program the other day which inserted an image of the user’s signature into a form letter. When a new person took the position, a new signature image was created and inserted but the location was off. I was working with one of our QA engineers to fix it. I changed the code, and he gave me feedback as to how that changed the printed letter. I kept changing parameters until the new signature aligned perfectly. Each attempt was a “mistake” until the last bullseye.

I have no idea what God is doing “from beginning to end”. I should probably stop pretending that I have any idea what He is doing with me. Paul said we need to be careful as “knowledge puffs up” – or “blows us up real good” as they used to say on the Farm Film Report. Here’s how Eugene Peterson translates part of First Corinthians 8:1-3:

We sometimes tend to think we know all we need to know to answer these kinds of questions—but sometimes our humble hearts can help us more than our proud minds. We never really know enough until we recognize that God alone knows it all.

Even when we are plumb with God, the nights get dark and sometimes cold and lonely. If we would admit it, we are a little scared, perhaps wanting to hide under the covers where it seems the world is smaller and protected and more under our control. Don’t give in to the temptation. If we call on God and trust Him, we will find that He will give us something warm and fuzzy to ease our fears. Embrace it. It is still a mystery – a fuzzy mystery, but that’s Him.

In Search of Martyrdom

He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or periods that the Father has set by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” – Acts 1:7,8

A witness is a martyr, or it might be better to say that our word martyr meant witness. This is just a guess on my part, but I doubt that there is a similar word in the Islamic lexicon. The West has adapted martyr to fit the perversion that is suicide/homicide bombing, but such actions could only in the most inverted sense have anything to do with the word as Jesus used it.

The association between being a martyr and dying came about because of the persecution of the early Church. It was necessary as a part of being a witness for Christ to endure suffering, imprisonment, torture and even death. Frankly I find it offensive, not just to myself, but to God, to call some half-wit who blows himself up in order to kill innocent little children a martyr. He is a murderer. If he is “witnessing” for his god, then his god is a murderous and despicable entity. In fact I would equate such a god with “the god of this world” of whom Jesus warns us.

Let me hasten to add that not all of Islam holds to such a belief any more than all Christians are like Jim Jones. The terrorist thugs of Syria, Palestine, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are likely as much an offense to the decent Muslims – Sufis and others – as they are to me.

Jesus said that the believer will be clothed and infused with a spiritual power, like plugging a light into an electrical outlet. It is this power than enables me to be a martyr – if I might be allowed to reclaim a valuable mot. This goes beyond any kind of formal or traditional “testimony”, beyond preaching or public displays. To be a martyr in the sense Christ intended is to illuminate my own soul and the spiritual environment wherein I live and move and have my being.

To be a martyr is to bring God into contact with the world.

I don’t get extra credit for this. I don’t get special privileges in heaven, or a heavenly maid who looks like Ava Gardner. It does not involve going out and provoking persecutory responses from the heathen. Being a witness does not necessarily mean that I hand out tracts in the promenade or pester passers-by by singing into a bullhorn. I don’t have to annoyingly knock doors on Saturday mornings.

A martyr’s calling is to live. “The one who believes in Me,” Jesus told those at the graveside of Lazarus, “even if he dies, will live.” The zombies and the vampires won’t like him, and may well make his life tough, attempt to kill him, or even think they have killed him. Nevertheless, he lives.

The martyr’s reward is life – real life, the life of God, being eternal or everlasting in quality and nature.

Church is not the place where Christian salesmen gather to learn the latest marketing scripts. It is the place where martyrs gather to celebrate and renew life in communion. To use the image from the Motel Zero link, it is where we mend our broken cords if need be and get plugged back into the power.

This next point seems important to me, but it may be important only to me. I don’t think the martyr needs to concern himself with who might be watching him. Hebrews chapter 11 talks about the many faithful who had gone before: the patriarchs, the judges, and the prophets. The chapter concludes with these words -- “All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.” Then the twelfth chapter begins with this:

Therefore since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every weight and the sin that so easily ensnares us, and run with endurance the race that lies before us …

Sometimes I feel just like that light in Robin’s picture. I am forgotten, stuck to a lost wall and useless. Why should I bother? How is my light going to benefit anyone here?

The martyr’s calling is never to the derived temporal world, but, always, his witness is to the eternal realm of the spirit. It may be reflected in the world, but the reality is always a heavenly one. This journey is of necessity one of separation and isolation to a degree. I think if we could see behind the veil it would be a great and terrible sight. Where we walk in shadows there is a blazing light. Where we stand alone there is a vast host.

When the servant of the man of God got up early and went out, he discovered an army with horses and chariots surrounding the city. So he asked Elisha, “Oh, my master, what are we to do?”

Elisha said, “Don’t be afraid, for those who are with us outnumber those who are with them.”

Then Elisha prayed, “LORD, please open his eyes and let him see.” So the LORD opened the servant’s eyes. He looked and saw the mountain was covered with horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha. -- 2 Kings 6:15-17