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CHAPTER 10
FACING FACES, AND FINDING GOD
DWELLING ON DEFACEMENT
HELPS FINDING A NEW FACE
News 306,
The Australian Monday March 22, 2004
SOME OLD FACES ...
Old, crabbed, crinkly, wrinkly, sallow, sagging, formless, unnaturally without character, or flabby, puffy and without tone, such is the facial inheritance for many, with age.
The former tensilities, contours, configurations, softnesses and edges, all go into a falling model, and its features are moving to their end.
The world, like such a face, is losing its tensilities and tone, its form and its beauty, sagging, flabby, puffy and such puffs! Its artless enthusiasms increasingly are those of age; and its wisdom and wit appears on the decline likewise, except for the rat-like variety, intent on survival, good salary while it does so, good jobs while all declines, good elections while major programs are not faced.
Holland, in the area of the ocean at least, is not at all like that. Its resurgence of engineering skill as it constructs massive works of vast ingenuity and marvellous design, to overcome the dual threat of a sinking coastline and a rising ocean level with the Green House Effect, these are all but inspiring. Alas in the matter of sodomy dignified by the term 'marriage' and perversion called union, it is sagging notwithstanding all its constructional energy, and its 'euthanasias' by one report, include a large percentage of 'involuntary' ones, which of course is a nice way of saying 'murder'.
That, you may reply, all depends on the definition of murder. Undoubtedly this is so; but if by murder you mean the removal of human life by another human or a group of them, without consent by the one so deprived, then of course it IS murder. But, you urge, what if the people concerned are too sick to realise their plight ? What indeed ? If they had appointed their doctor as God, this would alter things certainly, but did they ? And if they did, what sort of a god dies!
So with this illustration, we see the dividing line, construction rushes, degeneration surges*1, and the world whirls on to its appointed destiny.
OTHER OLD FACES
Let us however look on some other old faces. You may see them, patient, gentle, alert, wise, knowledgeable, kindly, concerned, gracious, with the shine of sanctity and the carved work of character evident, and if you will, written large on their attractive configuration.
Here you see a lesson well learned, there an aspiration, a nobility, a joy in harmonious clothes, sitting in the presence of the King. These have not grown old as others have grown old.
There is a life which does not disfigure with age, nor is it defiled with length.
Such is not the way of this world. The older it gets, the more its unlearnt lessons grieve the very mobility of its countenance, and it looks with withered eye on its own vexations.
There is a SOURCE to life, and it is not atoms any more than the source of an opera singer's song is the disk on which it is written. Such confusion is naiveté ingrown, and imagination on the throne (cf. SMR pp. 316Dff., Repent or Perish Ch. 7). We KNOW what it is to create, what it is to record creation and the relation between the two. Obtuse obfuscation of the issue by PRETENDING the atoms did it, when they are mere asses, beasts of burden for the enterprise which they carry, accomplishes nothing but the provision of an eminent, and anti-scientific case of reductionism, not making interface from observation, but from simplistic substitutes for cogent thought.
The source of life is not the face any more than it is the brain. Those little tissues, marvels like so many of man's inventions, of intricacy and ingeniousness, but incomparably more so, in all objectivity (cf. SMR pp. 114ff.) are mere contrivances, exquisite in formulae, formulations and functions, together with integrated functionalities as in any other design (cf. SMR pp. 211ff.). They are the INVENTION for CONVEYING elements and aspects of life to man. The actual INVENTOR is the one to be found if you want your spirit renewed, your life revitalised and your sins with it, forgiven: obviously.
WHERE THE FACE IS TO BE FOUND
But where is He to be found ? Is it in an increasingly disabled world*1, intent on satisfaction, feeding, drinking, warring, reproduction, non-reproductive fantasies in conjoining those of like sexuality, like some morbidly intriguing experiment with animals, to find ways of aborting design and yet producing something in addition to AIDS, a frequent byproduct of such abuse ? Not at all, for this is the very nadir of wisdom and the pre-occupation with the malign. Malign indeed is it to so abuse your provisions, and so molest the textures of your creation, so obvious that a child could work it out.
He is to be found where He is! Where else ? Would you expect to find Him hanging on a moonbeam, riding joyously in abstraction and fantasy, on some sunbeam, delighted with the speed! Do you find me in some word in a book ? I think not.
He is to be found in the ORIGINATION OF ORIGINALITY department of Eternal Life. Nor is He some abstract quality, for a quality is conferred, and conferment involves the Conferment, and this the One who confers, and that action with purpose, imagination and understanding, and that Mind, and the initiative Personality, and that intelligence ... Where then is the maker of the equipment to be found ? Where is the modeller of the clay, and the One who made it all ?
He is not in the clay, of that you may be sure, for the modeller is not part of His program. It has to be made first. He is not in the conferred life as such, for the author is not in his book: it is a product of his imagination, and to pretend that we do not really understand authorship is a monstrous imposition. We DO IT all the time, and the relationship of ability to creation is seen every day, sometimes in great things, at times in small, or in the middle, in moderate creations in multitudes. The scheming thought, the crescendo of musical passion to be put on paper alike, they are creations.
In SPIRIT, then, if by that you means personality without formal limitations to matter, is the Maker to be found. But HOW does our spirit (cf. SMR pp. 348ff.) make contact, find communication apt and intelligible with Him ? It is not in the least difficult in principle, since the One who makes spirit, being Spirit, is akin in fellowship function, though of course not in essence, One being Creator, the other created.
The world has not endeared itself to Him, love it though He may and does. It has been a wanton and vexatious child in the extreme; and further, it has fought against Him like the most undisciplined of children against their parents, inconsequential in its follies, but with results all the same, vexation for vexatiousness and disorder for arrancy.
Thus there is need of this ageing world, with wantonry showing expressively in its fallen face, to find its Maker, and that fast. Its age is exhibit one of its coming judgment, like death, but wrought with intelligence and adapted to reality for a spirit. It is not so difficult. Many exquisitely intricate features are well beyond the mind of the amateur, but not of the professional. What is beyond even that, may yet work as found in practice. There is a switch, if you will; there is a way, a program, an avenue, a door, put it how you will, to finding God.
You however are personal; so you do not just turn the switch, but rather TURN YOUR FACE. You must learn to face God! You do this by REPENTING first of what has aged your face, and seeking not lotion, but love in return, mercy in practice, anointing with a spiritual oil to change the spiritual mess; for the heart is deep and only God can heal it (Jeremiah 17:9-10). God here tells us that HE searches the heart and tests the mind!
You say, perhaps, But I am not worthy of God! and fear that He might listen to me. True, and an excellent beginning. It is when a man walks into Buckingham Palace, having escaped the guard, and sits on the Queen's bed to talk to her, that we know he is a lost wanderer, without much sense of how to find help.
You say, But how do I know He would listen to me ?
You don't and cannot, in your own self, any more than a grandmother of 100 years is likely to know the methods of electronics, and even less, since you are dealing with the infinite Being whose is the creation of all. However, there is always the Hand Book. God in this (cf. SMR Ch. 1), has made uniquely clear what to do. You find it in Acts 2-3, in John 6, 10, in Luke 13 (cf. SMR pp. 524ff.). You TURN and in REPENTANCE of sin against HIM, you look in faith to His holiness, and accept His power, His creation, His grace, His might, His kindness, His kingship, His kingdom, His way and His life, which being spiritual is not at all the same as mere existence for a person on this earth.
It is a life that is CONNECTED to Him by covenant, contract, agreement, authority (cf. John 1:12). It is one that is ACCOMPANIED by His Spirit, which lives in you from this time (cf. Romans 8:16, Colossians 1:27, John 14-16). It is one which is founded on quite another foundation, as to power and work, that than of this world and all the universe which so picturesquely and with such noble majesty, surrounds it.
You turn to the ACTION of God (like the visit of a tradesman for your sick washing machine), which has made the option available of having YOURSELF (not your machine this time) FIXED, and made functional for what it is SUPPOSED to do. Since this is personal, it is not mere work, but a spiritual birth which is in view, a return to God which is blessedly accompanied in THIS birth with acceptance as a CHILD of His (Ephesians 1:5). You RECEIVE the effects of this action, namely His death as a payment for your deserts, rather like Carton in Dickens' Tale of Two Cities, dying for the husband-to-be of the one he adored, and taking the guillotine that the other might be happy with the lady he himself would have loved to wed. Since she did not want him, he wanted her to be happy, and so died in place of the one who would in fact become her husband. It is then that those immortal words of DIckens appear, to the effect that he now goes to a better rest than he has ever known!
This brings out not only the SUBSTITUTION of a life for a life, when Christ, the eternal Word of God took human form to expunge sin in Himself for everyone who believes; but the love which is back of it. IF you so act, then love will be shed abroad, implanted, shed like a torrent, rush in like a water-fall, to your heart. All Niagara may seem to have found its place there. God loves you and has acted for you, reconstructed you, adopted you, holds you in His power and leads you by His Spirit (cf. Acts 13, James 1). What joy is this, that the face having faced the music, finds it an appassionato of such dimensions!
The Lord's passion is His coming, His concept of coming, His being sent (as in Isaiah 48:16), His willingness to come (as in Psalm 40), His wisdom in working salvation, deliverance, regeneration, providing for the adoption of children who being merely created, yet can thus become by re-creation and restoration, ready for His own company. In such a passion is the heart of man found; and without it, it is lost.
This world ages; its face is falling; cynicism and ignoble deeds abound like a plague of frogs. Baseless hatreds flourish like weeds, violence is the alternative to using the head and having a heart; viciousness is of great value, and is constantly held up on the TV stations, as Palestinians or Chechnyans or Sudanese or Chinese or Cypriots or Yugoslavs or Afghans or Syrians or Lebanese or Jews are made ready for slaughter, or slaughter. Insane seeming land grabs go on with the apparent sanction of the UN, as if eyes were forgotten when it was created.
The world sags, but its coming King is not reticent. He came to be slaughtered Himself; and He comes to stop the slaughter, but not only this, to provide judgment. When He comes much that is arrogant and presumptuous, after two millenia, will find its come-uppance, and what had seen itself as invulnerable will find that the spirit of man before the Spirit of God, had good reason for its fears. What rejects such a passion as that of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, such love as that of God, what does it find ? Its absence; and than this, nothing could be more terrible.
It is good to welcome the Coming King, and those who LOOK FOR HIM (Hebrews 9:28, I John 1:1-3), will find Him in His own good time, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders; for in the end, there is no other who does this! (Psalm 72). While we so wait, this PURIFIES the heart, for it brings it back to reality as a mirror, and in this mirror, you may yet by faith, see something of His face (cf. I Corinthians 13:11ff). It is however when HE DOES COME, that face to face we who have believed in Him, who are His own, will see the acme of spiritual beauty and the wonder of life to the uttermost.
NOTE
In The Australian, Monday March 22, 2004, the Australian Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson declares this.
“As we look around us, we are constantly faced by higher levels of family breakdown, constant social violence, the prevalence of moral and social relativism and a general collapse in civility. Social breakdown, in a general sense, is what we face.
“Progressiveness has changed the view of what is both acceptable and possible within society. And relativism has undermined social and moral absolutes. What has emerged within society is an absence of social responsibility, relativism with truth and morals and an increasing focus on pleasing “me”.”
These are some of the smaller horrors, though both vicious and vitiating enough. Religion is continually being demeaned both in documents and in befouled ‘churches’ which have long since left their moorings. (Cf. TMR Ch. 8, Lead Us Not into Temptation Ch. 4, News 121, 122, for example.)
As to the "self" of which Anderson speaks, lest us consider this from Deliverance from Disorientation Ch. 10: