"My eager expectation and hope is that I shall not be put to shame in any way,

but that with all boldness,

now as always,

Christ will be magnified in my body,

whether by life or by death.

For to me life is Christ, and death is gain,"

Philippians 1:20

 

THE ISSUE: THE HARMONY OF HOLY THINGS
AT THE PERSONAL LEVEL

HOW, or some might ask, how on earth can you reconcile these two desiderata: to be MEEK and with all BOLDNESS to magnify Christ in your body!

Is not this, the querulous might proclaim, an instance of contradiction!

Far from it. It is, quite to the contrary, an illustration of depth. Submarines are BUILT for depth, that is their milieu, and what might seem folly to the superficial vessels, is a way of life for them.

So is it in spiritual things. If you are superficial in understanding, if you do not consciously take God into account, and even more to the point, if God is not taking you to the point because you have missed the point, indeed all the points of the Cross, which are multiple and inflict multiple wounds, then the pressures of personal meekness and vocational boldness as a duet may be too great for your ears.

THE CASES THAT SPEAK - FIRST,

THE ONE OF MOSES

But listen! consider. Moses was a commander of vast authority, but that was only because God called him, and he had been scarcely enthusiastic at the idea.

Nevertheless, the fact is this: a whole nation left an empire in the midst of a confrontation between a Jewish shepherd, who had been helping with animals in Midian, and the Pharaoh of the mightiest nation on earth. To be sure, that shepherd had, earlier in life, transferred himself to Midian because of an unfortunate but potentially lethal incident in Egypt. There,  he had been brought up as a prince. being in effect adopted by an Egyptian princess from the time he was a babe (not in arms, but in the bulrushes, so placed to avoid infanticide as part of a program to reduce Hebrew strength).

However, just as the past millions someone had do not adhere when he has lost them, so past glory! This world is not like that. At the time of his confrontation with Pharaoh, a humble post was that of Moses. Amongst the words of Moses to Pharaoh - to whom he gained access perhaps by something in the past associations, but certainly by virtue of his mission AS HEBREW FOR the Hebrews, that they be delivered from the slave-status to which Egypt had treacherously consigned them - were some of meekness, some of boldness, at least by this world's assessment criteria.

Let us first trace the episode, in order to savour the words. There had been a humble request on the part of Moses, concerning freedom for the Hebrews, and it was PUT in the NAME of the Lord to Pharaoh (Exodus 5). When Pharaoh was unimpressed (saying "WHO is the Lord, that I should obey His voice .."), at the beginning of the multiplied confrontations, Moses with Aaron responded,

"The God of the Hebrews has met with us.
Please, let us go three days' journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God,
lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword."

Here is meekness by any measure. It is controlled, careful and factual.

As time went on, and Pharaoh blustered his way on, in order to keep the combination of cheap labour (slaves don't normally cost too much, no superannuation, gauged pay rates, health care) and a low profile to this now significant-sized population of Hebrews within Egypt, and his own pride intact, he gained from the living God some reminders. Man is man and God is God, and to fail to realise the difference is the path to destroy oneself.

This had not been immediately apparent to Pharaoh, who had a combination of naturalistic religious entities which were alleged to do this and that to the nice nation which liked this style of thing, and did not do so. National national symbols and so valued, they were the sort of thing for Pharaoh, and what they really were, God proceeded to show in the laboratory of history, step by step: vacuous conglomerations of mystic effluvia from the distorted minds of dreaming men! The various plagues saw to that, one after another giving a heft push to the symbols for the gods of Egypt. 

Doubtless, this did not add to the Pharaoh's contentment.

Thus each time Moses asked to go (and he did it many times in succession), two things happened.

You may wonder WHY Pharaoh, being the epitome of arrogance, could lower himself to talk many times to a shepherd from Midian, even if he had once been a prince in Egypt; but there were reasons. There always are, though sometimes known only to God.

Each time Moses asked in this or that way, with this or that entailment, that the people be allowed to go, and Pharaoh (of course) refused, a plague would come. It could be a rottenness in red in the water, or aerial objects of a hail kind that were unkind to cattle, or locusts interested in changing the colour of the fields, lice, frogs oozing like red blood corpuscles, turned green in the venous paths of the land; but they could not be ignored. HENCE, each time they came, Pharaoh, realistic when he heard what might seem to him the hinges of fate moving rustily to allow these plagues, weakened. Yes he would allow their goings ... Israel could go.

But each time the pressure was divinely removed, at request and capitulation by Pharaoh, so that the path could now be clear for Israel, and cleared because whatever the wickedness of man, God does what He says, Pharaoh would revert. NO, you cannot go! It became almost like a dance. There was, however, no bliss in it.

He was kept willing to see Moses by the simple and sample fact that virtual destruction was cumulatively coming to the land, and the options were devastation, humiliation, consternation, or seeing the man, Moses, servant of God,  and trying to get somewhere. So he saw him, repeatedly. The two things that happened were these: Pharaoh backed down and then straightened up. In between, a plague.

At last, the time came for action. God is patient but nobody's fool. Hence the last plague was to be the loss of the eldest son in Egyptian households, and this because Israel was as a son to God, in a sense of being called and sponsored, so that if His adopted son were to be crushed in slavery, then the sons of Egypt, the eldest, could be given a like treatment, death to their liberty, to their bodies, in a way which brought home the essence of slavery. Before this finale, itself a coming episode not this time announced to Pharaoh, for it was the answer to the Pharaoh's ultimatum, Pharaoh had spoken intemperately to Moses. This is what he said:

     "Get away from me! Take heed to yourself and see my face no more!
      For in the day you see my face you shall die!"


Now we come to the reply by Moses. Was it spoken in humble-seeming deftness, lest his life be lost ? or did he try to placate Pharaoh ? Far from it. His reply had nothing less than the decisive and unbending savour of the words of Pharaoh himself.

"You have spoken well. I will never see your face again."

This, in Exodus 10:29, had a number of elements. Firstly, he dared to characterise the speech of this potential agent of death to himself. "You have spoken well." Instead of asking him to let up a bit, to be more patient, or lenient, he ironically endorsed the utterance. He reflected the decisiveness of Pharaoh, the sense of certainty, and this without fear.

Someone might address you and say, I'll smash your head off! Now if you replied, You have spoken well! and proceeded to state that something else would happen, this might suggest, just possibly, a certain lack of meekness on your part, at least in some circumstances.

Secondly, Moses did not hesitate to predict. If now, Pharaoh for example, had immediately had him arrested, and visited him in prison on a daily basis for sheer spite, then on each occasion he could have said, Well now, how is our prophet who declared so boldly that I would never see your face again. Much as it fails to please me, this face of yours, let's face it, I have outfaced you, and am seeing your face as a signal to your nation that their God is powerless!

That was an abstract possibility, if you look at it in the naturalistic but mystical perspective of the Pharaoh. In a world without God (which rather like mathematics without numbers, or engineering without form), this was something to be envisaged.

However, Moses KNEW that this world has a rational base, and that this involves the mind of God, the power of God and the mathematical finesse of the God of truth, who could do what He wanted, and this when He wanted and how He wanted. This had just been repeatedly demonstrated as the Lord spoke WITHIN and acted OUTSIDE, in terms of a moral mission for Moses.

This had been driven into his mind, for he was a realist, and wished at the first, confirmation of the means God would act adequately to support his call (Exodus 3-4). Hence, having been so assured at the outset, and confirmed in the onset,  and knowing God,  in his reply, he spoke in the perspective of truth and rational necessity confirming, of faith and its dower of power; for the divine power and nature, as Paul declares, ARE INDEED OBVIOUS, however much ludicrous irrationality tries to manufacture meaningless words to the contrary.

Therefore,  Moses did not hesitate to speak with a certain boldness. "I WILL NEVER SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN."

Now in this and in these interviews, the Hebrew prophet was acting, as noted earlier, in the NAME of the Lord.

There was no question of his doing things on his own advice; but he was acting on the explicit direction and at the will and indeed command of God; for he had not been altogether happy at the prospect of such a confrontation when first called to it in Midian (Exodus 3:11). Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh! this had been the initial response of Moses.

However, once you are meant and sent on a mission, the important thing is WHO sent you and WHY and what you are SUPPOSED to be doing. That is, if you accept it.

In this case, the God of creation (Genesis 1-3), who made mankind, had a mission for a people whom He had called through contract with Abraham (in fact, the sublime covenant that embraced the coming salvation in the Messiah), as was well-known. It was this people who,  having through Joseph, one of them, formerly brought great wealth and deliverance to Egypt, as to themselves (Genesis 37-41), as the Lord acted for them, had been given rich lands in Egypt as a reward or recognition.

Turned by a later regime into slaves, they were atrociously treated, and indeed, at first when Moses began to make his address to Pharaoh, that monarch had made their slave-tasks worse, in a show of anger and self-will (Exodus 5:4-8). In this, he had exhibited something like a Hitler-streak, to put it in modern terms; and it is not surprising that since this world lies in the wicked one (I John 5), that it tends so to react when confronted with God in ways too obvious to circumvent.

Thus when Moses, having been sent to Pharaoh FROM THE GOD OF CREATION AND TOTAL POWER, but vast imagination, intelligence and wisdom, as well as majesty and kindness, was threatened with death by that same Pharaoh,  if he came back to confront him in the name of the Lord any more, a change occurred. There was a terminus of that part of his the mission. The confrontation was almost over,  at this PHASE.

Here was a confrontation not with Moses by Pharaoh, since Moses was ONLY A SERVANT of God, and made no pretence, and had no pretension otherwise. It was one by Pharaoh with God. Moses therefore only added the word apt for a servant of that God. "I will never see your face again!"

Now action, not confrontation; now deliverance at the operative hand of God, not parley. It was very much like the case of Peter who, having confronted the priests in control, when challenged at his teaching on the resurrection, was put in prison by Herod (Acts 12), so that only God could now act, for 16 soldiers were his guard, and strong gates his enclosure. God did act, there too. Peter not only escaped, but precisely with the power which raised Christ at the resurrection, and for that matter, with the same angelic action, this time not rolling away the stone, but opening closed gates, was led out into liberty!

In each case, death was preferred to any form of capitulation to this world, denial of Christ or even equivocation. In each, much hung on their lives; but God who made it so hang, by His wise foreknowledge, also made the hanging collapse and His servants in these two cases, escape from the pretentious doom prepared by flesh.

THE CASES THAT SPEAK - SECOND,

THE ONE OF DANIEL'S FRIENDS

THERE is the source of the meekness. If you know your place, and it is that of a servant, how are you not meek ? If I serve God on the Web, is this not my place ? and if someone challenges me in terms of the giving of a reason for the faith (I Peter 3:21), is it I whom he challenges, or the One who sent me, defending the faith, exhibiting the truth of the Bible, placarding Christ the only and the necessary Saviour ? And if this is my service, then in whose name am I to reply, but His, whose is the authority! And if my expectation is this, that He is adequate, this is merely factual, for He is.

Our God is able, and He will! This is the chorus song which dwells on the fact that the friends of Daniel, when confronted in THEIR day, and in THEIR service to God, were made aware that EITHER they would worship the king via his golden statue, and by proxy the imperial power,  or die in a furnace as their apparent destiny. Unimpressed by this, they answered magnificently.

The king had told them of their prospects if they did not humble themselves (more accurately, humble their God, since they were asked to give the worship due to Him only, to mere gold and imperial power of a midget king - as compared to God - on this earth). That ? it  was to be burnt up in a furnace (FAR kinder than the Roman Catholic inquisitorial practice of slow burning at stakes, but still, not to be desired by cowards).

"WHO," said the king, "is that god who will deliver you from my hands ?"

It was an interesting question. The young men knew that there was such a God, who was not one of the gods, naturalistic and mystical, invented by man, and that for this very reason, such capacity was well within His powers. Yet on the other hand, who could tell in THIS instance (they were not Moses assigned to confront by any known decree), whether the God of creation would be more honoured by their deaths in brilliant fearlessness for the God of eternal life (Proverbs 12:28, Psalms 16-17), or by their deliverance. Their answer reeked with wisdom.

"If," they replied, "that be the case,
our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace,
and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.

"But if not, let it be known to you, O king,
that we do not serve your gods,
nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up."

Consider what they have said.

First addressed, is the issue of the power of God. Yes, HE HAS THE POWER, He is able! Secondly, it is a power not poetic but practical, and it is applicable in the case of an impending death by furnace fire. Thirdly, deliverance from the king is to come. If however this is not to take the form of a physical intervention (though of course the spiritual deliverance would surely come anyway, for God is not limited to this world, a mere creation of His) and they did have to die for God, so be it. The issue is not their bodies but His name. Whatever therefore the physical outcome, they intimated, there are facts in this case, so let us enunciate them. WE DO NOT SERVE YOUR GODS. How many professors need to make this statement in their universities!

THE PRINCIPLES THAT OPERATE

It is not so many years ago that I was talking to a Baptist Professor in a major university, and asked him if he would stand with me on the issue of creation. On liberty, that issue, he would; on creation, that issue, he would not. It was NOT that he was not a creationist, but that he already had enough flack as one, and did not wish to exacerbate the situation! Hence he did not testify, and the opportunity was lost.

Many lecturers, one gathers from various reports, do NOT INSIST that if it is question of teaching organic evolution, or even not denouncing it or exposing it rationally, they will NOT do it, no, not even if they lose their posts. This very thing happened to me, and thus I could not continue. It was not even an issue, but called for decisiveness, even if it would come only to the point that one would subvert truth by IGNORING the issue. Creation was pertinent to the program as an illustration of the abuse of scientific method,  and MUST be shown. One could not lead students in either obliquity or denial. Truth is not an option.

To the lady in charge of the faculty, one intimated this: that a university was supposedly a place where truth had court, and if not what was it! What had I presented that could in any point be shown false, unacademic, logically unacceptable ? Why is not a subject given its true and full status, instead of being cornered off by prejudice, or limited by desire ? Such was the thrust.

To the challenge, she replied: It is not convenient!  She then continued in convenience, and I in truth; but not in that place of abortive tertiary indoctrination.

It is necessary similarly in churches, for people to be clear, like the friends of Daniel and like Moses and like Jesus the Christ (John 8:31-55), the Messiah who so spoke when He came, compromising nothing and in nothing allowing anything to exalt itself in the presence and against the name of God. He, the Christ Himself,  as God the Word had come in a humble position, but IN THIS POST, spoke with the reverence due to God as the Sender (cf. Isaiah 48:16) and the categorical clarity which confronted time-server and spiritual seducer alike.

Thus if a Church tells its people that they can commune with unbelievers in a course, this being impossible, since the latter are spiritually blind (Ephesians 4:17ff., 2:1-10), and children of wrath, as the Bible declares, then the need is to denounce such a course. If there is to be communion with idolaters (cf. SMR pp. 1088B ff.), fellowship, sharing uninhibitedly things of the faith with them, for example, or provision that their form of religion be not open to criticism, taking Roman Catholic doctrine rather than people as the determinant for the case: then this is simple anti-faith rebellion.  Even allowing this sort of thing to be deemed orthodox or acceptable, is the silence of consent; and the church member who allows, endorses or continues to relate to this is participating in rebellion.

That member should denounce such things, if first arising, or confront, and if not heeded, leave^*1.

The case where the church itself is so teaching is not different, where from pulpit or in seminary,  it is following the same course, is not altered. Fellowship after trial is forbidden. It is God or man, Bible or culture, truth or tradition.

How many are doing this ? It is a trickle in this land, it appears. Convention, tradition, fellowship with one's friends, these things seem just to happen, as it were, to be inveterate, inalienable. The idea that the friends who are not only so, but spiritual companions in Christ as well, might be willing to separate, to stand for the word of God without the non-cross comforts, does not seem to occur to many; but if it does, then it does not seem to take legs and run. Indeed, it is hard to see it, at times, able to walk, being as if stricken and broken.

It is however a "broken and a contrite heart" which God does not despise (Psalm 51:17), and in this way, one is less likely to indulge in comforts forbidden, in denials unintended but implicit, or swallow the weakness of tradition (cf. Mark 7:7ff.), by which the word of God is made of no effect.

At all events, common as such things were then and are now, and the more so now, the friends of Daniel were not so. Death itself was necessary, if testimony of truth demanded it. There was absolutely NO PERSONAL BLUSTER about them. If the case be so ... They were willing to accept the practical challenge as a fact. No mooning about! If then, God did NOT elect to make the path plain and easy, by intervening in a show of His magnificent power (and suffering for truth is not uncommon but rather endemic in Christian life - II Timothy 3:12), then the important fact was this. They were testifiers, confessors of the truth of the word of God, of the prophets of God, unentangled with crippling alliances, uninhibited by gross betrayals, free to speak, willing to act.

These three persons, the friends of Daniel,  were NOT to be counted among those who served other gods. The God of the prophets, in the Book of the Lord, He had the power to deliver. He would deliver. But if this was not in the obvious fashion, then the FACT would remain. Here were those whose deaths, if need be, dramatic in their impact, would attract attention; and to what was this to be a testimony ? It was to this: THESE MEN DID NOT AND WOULD NOT SERVE the other gods. Their task was to serve God; and as servants, serve they would! They would not serve Him with a hidden deviation from integrity, honesty and truth, but with a clear call, like that of a trumpet sounding not retreat, but advance!

THAT, it is faith, and it is wisdom and it is walking in the light, and it is GOING WITH GOD!

What blessedness was theirs who so spoke! How clear was the position from their lips, and how sure was the control of their bodies, left with the Lord.

God had elected to USE these three friends, just as earlier, He had sent and a commissioned Moses into Egypt. Thus whether in the imperial potency of Egypt, or the intimidatory thrust of Babylon, both nations to be humbled in due course, God sent His elect, who served Him, and their deeds and their tongues DID serve Him. It is a day to be expected when such Hebrews as these three, and Moses, will find as companions in another Age, and anew a vast swath of confessors once more, this time in Israel.

By this same word of God (Zechariah 12:10-13:1), we know that when the Spirit of the God of truth is sent out as predicted, into that land, many and indeed a mass of people will suddenly be shown the truth, perceive in their spirits by the Spirit of God, the crucial One. They will see the crucified Christ as the very God of creation in human format, and repenting, receive Him. THEN there will be in that land such a concourse of testimony as before has adorned some of its heroes in various lands.

Meanwhile, among the Gentiles, as we await that day, it is our time. It is not at all the case that meekness lies broken when boldness is spoken, SO LONG AS the boldness is in the NAME of the Lord. This was impactively and obtrusively the case both with Moses and the friends of Daniel. What friends to have! How fortunate was he! How important it is to have friends with hearts, with spirits subject to God, humble before His sovereignty, just before His truth, fearless BECAUSE MEEK! To disobey God, to humble His name, what a work of arrogance is that! To do this just because some mortals want it, how puny is that!

Meekness puts majesty where it belongs, and having put it there, finds it was there all along!

It in this way that Paul can say, as in Philippians 1:19:

"for I know that this will result in deliverance for me through your prayers
and support from the Spirit of Jesus Christ.

"My eager expectation and hope is that I shall not be put to shame in any way,
but that with all boldness, now as always,
Christ will be magnified in my body,
whether by life or by death.

"For to me life is Christ, and death is gain."

 

You notice first, that it is by the support from "the Spirit of Jesus Christ" that he is looking for the results in view. He even cites also (cf. Romans 8:26) their prayers, as he holds the conviction that there is to be a deliverance for him, in his work. For many years he prospered in it exceedingly, and only when it was done, did the time come for his departure (cf. II Timothy 4:17-18).