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.

Call to Battle

And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land. -- Exodus 2:22

You are warned.  This is different, and I won’t blame you if you think I’ve breathed too many paint fumes over the last two or three weeks.  If it doesn’t speak to you, just ignore it.  Not everyone is called to the same battle.

Though not my favorite Heinlein novel, the phrase does summarize my feelings about life sometimes.  I said recently that I thought the Tabernacle Moses built was a better type than the Temple of Solomon in representing our earthly journey.  No one symbol can ever carry the full message, and we need the temple in the holy city to speak of all that waits when our battles are finished and peace reigns. 

Meanwhile, we may cross into the Promised Land, but there are still battles, enemies to be overcome, and adversaries to be conquered.  The older I get the more alien and hostile the world seems to me.  It surprises me that I have made it this far in such a long, strange trip, to find myself, in an odd way, a point man.  If silver hair gave us wisdom, I would be in pretty good shape.  Back in the freak days, someone would say that there are a lot of rednecks hiding under long hair.  So I see a lot of empty heads sprouting gray thatch, and I wonder about my own store of wisdom. 

It doesn’t matter.  I don’t know what else I might be left here to do if it is not to watch and pray. 

I was reading something yesterday, and it suddenly struck me that the internet is a lot like a college dorm or frat house.   No matter how stupid something is, if two or three people argue for it, it begins to sound more sensible.  The internet is a veritable fever swamp of stupidity.  It’s also filled with good things to learn and be enlightened by, but we all know there is a dark pool in its midst that is sometimes difficult to avoid. 

I think, if you look at how opinions have shifted and civilization has deteriorated over the last fifteen years, a lot of it can be traced to the increasing exposure to sin, sickness, and depravity.  Don’t misunderstand where I’m going with this.  I’m not going to tell anybody to cut off internet service – not that a router filter or the deletion of some bookmarks would necessarily be a bad idea. 

It is a strange land.  Christians, even with the proliferation of Christian sites and resources available, are strangers in it.  We have to understand that we are waging war against an adversary who is real, more intelligent than we are, and truly diabolical.  Jesus didn’t call the devil the father of lies for no reason.  Nothing is easier to do than corrupt a mind through the web of false words and images spun in cyberspace. 

Call it a vision if you want, I could see all this in a moment.  I was convicted, not just about my own dalliances with evil, but about my nonchalance regarding those who become trapped in the web of deception, who are relentlessly sucked down into the bottomless filth.  Sex and perversion are no doubt a major contributor but hardly all the problem.  There is the glorification of the useless, the encouragement of consumption, and the enhancement of envy. 

Again, there is a lot that is positive; we have to recognize the rot.  My heart was broken by what I was shown, and I realized that I needed to pray.  We don’t need to limit freedom.  We need to pray that people will be set free.   Minds and lines don’t need to be closed; they need to be opened to see the truth.  I am praying that the Holy Spirit will convince us of the truth, show us where we have strayed and turn us back to the path of righteousness.  He is the only one who can do it, the only one who has ever been able to do it.  He is God, and He does not change.   

The Great God

It is thus, in a sense, from ourselves that the material universe derives its power to overawe us.  To a mind that did not share our emotions, and lacked our imaginative energies, the argument from size would be sheerly meaningless.  Men look on the starry heavens with reverence; monkeys do not.  The silence of the eternals spaces terrified Pascal, but it was the greatness of Pascal that enabled them to do so.  – C.S. Lewis from Dogma and the Universe

Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness … -- Job 38:19

The universe,  a bubble floating in nothingness – space itself, a matrix nestling atomic furnaces, Jovian near-suns, and rocky balls of debris, who knows what it all means, from where it comes and where it goes.  Mathematics is a corral for wild horses – better yet, for griffins, unicorns, and the occasional dragon.  It makes us feel safer, as if we understand that around which we have thrown an familiar barrier. 

I went to sleep last night listening to Emerson’s essays.  This resulted in a stubborn dream about losing my wife’s Traverse that I had parked in an auditorium in a building with many auditoriums.  I suspected it was moved, while I was asleep on the floor, to make room for a dance recital by some school children.  The most distressing part was trying to get the buttons on the key fob to flash the lights and honk the horn so I could locate the vehicle.  I have that a lot when I go fall asleep wearing my earphones.  Sometimes it’s actually the MP3 player in the dream that I’m so frustrated by.  It won’t stop no matter how hard I press the dream controls.    

I fell out with Emerson when I understood that he denied the deity of Christ.  He didn’t think that through very well and adopted the flawed analysis of Higher Criticism.  I wasn’t much of a believer at the time myself, but it was too much for me.  I made the mistake of purging everything else he had to say because he was wrong about what is, without question, a vital issue.  Thinkers get off track for any number of reasons, including the influence of their age’s time ghost.  The atmosphere of pre-Civil War America was charged with Greek error and the ardent Yankee version of hubris.  Man cannot be the measure of all things, but Emerson was able to see that when a man measured the pyramids what he really measured was himself. 

So it is as we go out into the cosmos.  We find, not the limits of the infinite, rather the asymptote that runs on up until parallax convinces us that the line of our model and reality are one.  Calculus works fine, except at the limits, those infinitesimally tiny moments of discontinuity.  It’s close enough for building bridges and skyscrapers, for going to Mars and flying by Io.  That’s not at all unimpressive. 

The wise see and know that the more we do, the farther we go, the finer we divide, the greater is God.

Updated to add from Father Stephen:

But Christians cannot point to a point of origin as evidence of the Cause, only as evidence of an origin. At that point, we must stand shoulder to shoulder with those who do not believe and simply wonder. For it is in our wonder that we encounter Jesus to whom the Apostles bare witness that He is the Christ, the Son of the Living God.

Be sure and read his post in its entirety.