Chapter 8
ROARING WAVES
Do far less Damage than
ROARING KNAVES
TV News
The account
with graphic pictures of some of the most immense roaring monster of the deep
surging to land with whipped fury, shows the awesome dynamic of water, and
evokes to the imagination, the fury of the world flood.
This
however is never to recur (Genesis
The world
has had presented the divine power, intelligence, wit, wisdom (cf. Proverbs 8
and its exposition in Barbs, Arrows and Balms 27), and God has
made man able to think spuriously, furiously, dubiously, contortedly or even
validly when he is not hiding, just as Adam was (Genesis 3:9-10), because he is
naked, either physically or mentally or logically or psychologically or
socially or spiritually, and in any case the last (cf. Repent or Perish Ch. 7, Christ Jesus: the Wisdom of God and the
Power of God, Ch. 7). Libraries of thought and
implementation techniques do not actually contrive to write themselves or to
give an account of what is not there, in what is produced, give the nullities
as long as you will. Man is made (cf. A Spiritual Potpourri Chs. 1-9, TMR Chs. 1, 7, 8, Wake
Up World! … Chs.
4-7).
That scene,
scenario and platform is now growing old. Man’s sin is growing old, like stale
cake (particularly unpleasant!). He is
growing desiccated in spirit, culturally filled with barnacles, lacking colour the more he paints himself, for the pallour of the undercoat is the more accentuated by the
false accretions.
It is time,
time: writers must soon put down their pens or hands from the keyboard, and
await the passing up of their examination papers, for assessment. Things are
happening in the world, precisely as predicted. The truly beautiful thing is this, that the least of the performers, the most lacking in
power, may be among the first in the hour of report. How can this thing be ? From him to whom much is given, from him much shall be
required, said Christ (Luke
To be sure,
you may say, we do not expect one of IQ 70 to excel in this line of affairs at
least (depending on just WHAT the IQ is predetermined to find, or by muddle
allowed to determine, to measure) one of 220.
However you
may still ask, How can one of the least find a happy site among the very first ? Surely there would be a categorical inability even to
achieve anything comparable at all ?
However,
achievement, while good as far as it goes, is WITH what is given. You do not
INVENT your talents. Certainly you may develop them, but what you are given is
not by any means the same, whatever the development. You may develop your VW to
a surprising extent, but it is not a Boeing 747, when all is done.
The reason
why many who are first shall be last, and the last first, as a basic thrust, is
this, that THIS contest is not about performance at
all, in the sense of product. It is about what you ARE. IF you are a good tree,
assuredly you will produce good fruit, but the birds may spoil the fruit for
some eating (it may still be very pleasant to see and encouraging to find), and tempests (like imprisonment for religious
reasons in
What you
ARE, however, is what is given, when it comes to the place of grace, and God is
gracious, loving to be both just and merciful, and to accentuate excellence by
His kindness (cf. Titus 2-3). Factitious fruit, meretricious productions can
dazzle the ignorant, or even deceive the just; but it does NOTHING to God. MANY
will cry out about their fruits and results to God (Matthew 7:21ff.),
apparently (since the case is there a final one) assuredly that this really is
the case, that they have done ‘well’. However He will profess: I NEVER KNEW
YOU!
There has
to be a kinship of spirit for you to have a father, when the relationship IS
spiritual. Hence you need to be born again, not some flummery of mere emotion,
or aisle parade as if this were the assurance; but a vast engulfment by God in
which the depths of your sins being realised, and the
wonders of His grace, you leave the one and find the other; and even that is by
His grace, NOT because His love is limited, but because love does not force,
and knows what even man in his sin may become too blind to see. It is GOD who
saves.
ONCE the kinship occurs, by new birth which is not a phrase
or an equivalent to DOING this or that, but a fact, if you will, of spiritual
physiology (the oxymoron may sharpen the wit), THEN, in a humility not a
disguise for inverted or even perverted pride (NOW I shall make money in heaven! Or make fame, or name … the cry
of the spiritual hedonist), and in works wrought in you by God Himself, you
live and are; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do
(Philippians 2:13 cf. 3:20-21 for its end), you function in fidelity, ABIDING
in Him from whom the fruit comes (cf. Questions and Answers 6).
But this is
not occurring in multitudes in myriad confusions, in mazes of dazes, in
detachments of crazes; indeed, there are even some who seem to imagine that a
welter of speaking in gabble is some sort of sign, signal or certitude that you
are a Christian, even WHEN the said tongues occur in a simultaneity from many
which is EXPRESSLY FORBIDDEN! (I Corinthians 14:19, 22ff.,
26-28 cf. A Question of Gifts and see further).
There is
nothing magical about it, no show in the flesh, not even a ‘spiritual’ show. It is a matter of
truth, relying on the mercy of God, glorying in the Cross of Christ (though
there are some so pedantically anti-phraseological
that they CONDEMN that of which Paul says this,
“God forbid that I should glory but in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…”
(Galatians 6:14).
Neither
exhibitions of physical nor mental drama make the point. You either trust in
Christ only, altogether and without aid from what is not God, in His word
without confusion or contribution, in His mercy without merit of your own in
any degree, shape, form or by any formula, in His substitutionary
atonement, offered to all, received by you through faith: you either believe in
your heart that God has in physical actuality raised Him who came from heaven
from the dead, and that He has been welcomed back to heaven until He come: or
you do not (Romans 10:9, I Corinthians 15, Luke 24, John 20). If you plausibly
‘believe’ it, you either make a verbal or phraseological
utterance to this effect, or practically believe it; and if you believe it in
some sense, it is either because you TRUST HIM who came, who died, who rose, or
because you want something out of it, like church acceptance, personal good
feeling, or a contribution to your hope reserve and profess to your own
confusion, as if God could be duped by ulterior aims festooning themselves out
as faith.
It is
SIMPLE and all the wit and wile of man makes it seem complex, by resistance to
reality.
Thus the
tired old world is almost becoming dyspeptic as it had to do (Luke
Did you SEE those waves in the
By early report, the place in view, the island rather
inaccessible to aid, it seemed, not least because of an economic problem in the
This
reminds us of what we have several times had occasion to note (SMR pp. 240,
675, 680, 714-715; intro xxxii; The
Pitter-Patter of Prophetic Feet … Ch. 6 ), that one of the signals of the end (ONLY
relevant when in the fabric of the other signals, but as in the reference
above, this is shown to be the case), it is oceanic:
Ø “the
sea and the waves roaring” … (Luke
Ø One will note that this is in the
verse one BEFORE the two to which reference is made above.
It moves, this threat, far from the endangered Pacific
Islands – (and here, we know one ex-Filipino whose own island has been
subjected to remarkable incursions from the oceans, houses ruined, dangers and
perils blooming like evil flowers in the island ‘paradise’), a topic pressed
again and a gain in environmental world meetings with pressure on the US in
particular, to be kinder in its emissions so that others may retain the very
ground, uncovered with water, under their feet!
It moves even to
There is a major move of waters, and with the Greenhouse
Effect traced by so long by so many with such accumulating results, both
academically and physically! (cf. SMR pp. 680, 711), there is coming something which
is dramatic indeed.
What is part of that drama ? It is
this: that while the FLOOD is GUARANTEED not to be repeated, yet the turbulent
seas RAGING (in a thumb-nail sketch of the days in view) MUST be of vast
significance and wholly incapable of being missed, to figure in such a verbally
precise scenario, as that of Christ, relative to His impending return! It is
so, now. We do not know when, and we DO know it will come as a surprise (I Thess. 5); but we are INSTRUCTED concerning awareness of
the period of history, and this tallies now as shown in Answers to Questions Ch. 5, SMR Ch. 8. This
is simply a fact. We are advised to be prepared.
TWO things
are now needed.
v
First,
repent of sin and find the Saviour without delay or
prevarication; remember that operations put off or put down, are not executed.
v
Secondly,
when you have done this, and so have become a trophy of grace for which CHRIST
has the prize (let God be God, at last), LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS. It is PRIZED BY
Him since it is won by Him (Philippians 2, Isaiah 53:10-11) in that cascade of
benevolence, that surge of power, that wonder of patience, that caress of
kindness that brought Him here, and took Him from us, while the Gospel invites
us freely to receive Him, till He come.
v
Not
for you the fear, the apprehension, the vague angst, the tightening of
arteries, the constriction of heart, the sense of impending judgment, the worry
about the future, the concern about the unforeseeable.
There is
not so much unforeseeable when you KNOW that the world is coming to judgment,
that the Christ has all along been arduous, even passionate in seeking the lost
and has long since DONE ALL, that His words are coming to pass like the
hundreds of cars of a long freight train, parading past you as you wait patiently
at the level crossing, counting the carriages to marvel at the size of it all,
that God is love, that His mercy is forever on those who fear Him, that the
fear of the Lord is clean, and that mere craven fear is cast out by love.
He has TOLD us, and DONE what was required in the most
public of fashions. His execution is long noted in history and was long
foretold before history could clamp down on it, and seize it in its gory maw (Joyful
Jottings 22-25). Yours, the due impact of justice, is long covered if you are His, since He knew
you, in that case, before time began (Ephesians 1:4) and in understanding, it
is He the Lamb “who was slain before the foundation of
the world”, a perfect and sufficient cover (Galatians 3), though of course
the enaction of this priceless reality was crucial to
integrity and the display of what always God had in mind, yes and to the
balance of accounts between justice and mercy. What is real is not sated by
sops, but by actuality.
There is
such a comfort in the KNOWLEDGE that God cares, that He has done His uttermost
without violating the integrity of what He has made, that it all depends on Him
(Romans 8:29ff.), and that … quite frankly, HE is DEPENDABLE (Philippians 1:6,
I Thessalonians 5:9-10,24).
On the
other hand, there is great ground for dismay if, not merely a sinner before God
Almighty, but one recalcitrant before all appeal, hard beyond all approach,
resistant from every placation of your position, armed against all
amelioration, roaring in recklessness and boasting your own judgment before
that of God, your own virtue, sufficiency or desire above the merit of the
Lord, you approach the roaring of reality itself, without remission, without
hope and without ground. You see, it is there and then that your finale is to
be seen, not in recognition of your place, and placement by divine recognition,
but in a dastardly disregard of the provision of God Himself, to make you
whole. This, inveterate, does not mean that you are worse, for who has any claim
but in mercy; but it does mean that you are not by circumstance, not by
education, not by culture, not by omission, but by preference (John 3:19),
consigned to a darkness which is your most apt and certain environment, the
very reflection of your heart.
However, even here there is one comfort: for since it all
depends on God and God is love, your own end is not from some clench of
psychological teeth; it is in the hands of Him who knows you better than you
know yourself, and whose mercy stops at nothing, but the destruction of
integrity in the forcing of truth into the bier of brigandage, as if to
conscript and not to receive in grace, with grace what is His own. In this
final theft, a person extracts his own soul for his own purpose, like brigand
stooping even to steal himself. If damage is done to his or her own person, is
it any the less for that!