IMPORTUNITY AND STRENGTH:KNOWING GOD

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CHAPTER 5

IMPORTUNITY AND STRENGTH

OPPORTUNITY AND THE DIVINE INVENTORY

First let us investigate the biblical teaching on the inventory of the soldier in the war that is godly,
spiritual and pure. Then we shall come to the comfort and courage to be found, with strength,
in the work of the Lord where war is never far off,
in the spiritual thrust and labour of the Christian,
but where love is the motivation,
truth is the sword and wisdom is the enablement:
the very counsel of God, who is most liberal.

Then we shall consider the place of importunity in these divinely accorded opportunities,
and the place of purity in the midst.

FAITH IN CHRIST

IS AT PEACE WITH GOD

BUT AT WAR

WITH THE DRAFTS AND DRAUGHTS OF THIS WORLD

Introduction

Take Ephesians 6. You are to put on the armour of God. Peace within, there is assuredly, but there is little on the outside in this present world, which has a leader or 'prince' who has NOTHING in Christ, as He Himself declared would be the case (John 14:30). For that matter, we are fighting, says Paul, not against mere 'flesh and blood', so many missiles, so many robotic devices trained on your country by man, and so forth, but

	“against principalities,
	against powers,
	against the rulers of the darkness of this age,
	against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places."

Contrast

By contrast, to take the heavenly spirit, imagine a world where the ways of Ephesians 6:1-9 were in operation. Earth could scarcely contain the blessedness and peace that would result. But it is not done. Greed and grasping of spirit, mind and heart intervene for sick man, to make his planet in the Intensive Spiritual Care Department, where it is the more perilous, since even there, he disdains co-operation!

No, the world is not like this either between nations or parts of them. Couples freely divorce, often provoking their children, or seek rather to be enjoying themselves, so bringing their children down, not up! Employes often seek to gain wealth in silly suits, while employers often seem to regard them as ingredients in the balance sheet, preferably profitably, to be dealt with in these terms, with 'whatever it takes'. To be sure, you need profits in business, just as you need hay if a horse; but this says nothing of HOW you get it! or whether it is the first motivation! For a rat, it might be... but then, are men to be rats ?

To the contrary, consider Job 29:14ff.. Even there, Job was perhaps too aware of his 'superiority' and learned that ALL of one's life is a gift of grace, and no cause whatever for self-congratulation.

Self-esteem, that gutter word of modern child psychology, is another form of empty pride, selfishness in the heart, and gracelessness in the spirit. It provokes, and it does not help. It is trust in God that is needed. That is realistic, and not a matter of manipulation of psychological impressions, as useful as a sand castle, and perhaps less so, since the castle can be at least a place for happy imagination.

In this world, it is not so, nor does it do even as Job did, though we ourselves should seek to contribute as we may: not to save it, for it is lost, but to seek sinners to be disjoined from it, and that they might enter into that blessed and holy kingdom of heaven. Le Tourneau, the famed earth moving equipment genius, gave a lead of the first order in this, as an employer, his factory being much desired by workers and his care remarkable. He would place huge funds into new projects because they seemed worthy, and often they were, and none wanted!

The Wonderful War

that has Only Good in It

– Eph. 6:11-18

It is in fact a war of light and darkness, but the darkness has only a created head, while the light is God's own. In it, you must find the relevant ARMOUR (not sentimental amour!) , and first of all use -

THE SHIELD of FAITH. As you use it, you must recall that it is not a languid and far less a listless holding of the shield. You must be "STRONG IN THE LORD AND IN THE POWER OF HIS MIGHT!"

Indeed, you must put on the WHOLE ARMOUR of God! This allows you to STAND under fire, even in the critical situations, and then having rebuffed, repulsed the assaults of Satan, to continue on STANDING.

This apostolically provided list in Ephesians 6 then proceeds to other equipment.

There is THE BREAST PLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. HIS righteousness, Christ's, is your strength (II Cor. 5:17-21). IT has no dints, and leaves no parts vulnerable, unlike the gear of poor Goliath. Moreover, you should oil it with the deeds of a loyal and loving heart.

Then comes the TRUTH with which you gird your waist. In battle, you need support, and the truth is this. No lie, either in moral matters or in spiritual, in financial or social, in personal or other is to be yours. Truth is your friend, and it is the LORD (John 14:6), Himself, who needs no derogation in battle. Stand for His word, for His way, for His witness and disdain all that is dark, smothering in less than accuracy and reality. Live in it, speak in it, look like it, have your face shine with it, your spirit bathed in it. As Christ put it (John 14:21ff.), if you love Him you will keep His words: He and His Father will take up residence in you.

FEET need to be well presented. It is not high heels, or armour plated boots that are needed so much as the GOSPEL of PEACE. How would you make war with a gospel of peace in your hand ?

It is not WITH it as a weapon to hurt, but with it as a solace to cure, that you fight! You defend it when it is attacked, use it likewise, just as a doctor is not keen for you to break the needle of his syringe, and likewise is keen to insert it! (Jude).

This Gospel CARRIES YOU on, not your desires for old age security, or wealth past fear, or o be impressive or even accepted, or whatever other thing may seek to become your god. Of gods, have but One, the One who is there, and follow Him alone IN PRACTICE. You are drafted, if a Christian, into His army for His beneficent 'war', so avoid being drafted in anything for any contrary or merely superfluous war; and avoid the draughts of poison which would dull your mind to arrest your insight and spoil your work for Christ.

Two more pieces of gear come. The SHIELD OF FAITH. This lets you parry without hurt, the fiery darts, the swift and devious efforts of the devil to trouble and confuse you. God is and is to be followed, and is with you as you with Him, so FEAR NOTHING, and continue fearless in faith. Live it, and you find power to do it. What is prescribes, you then find arrives.

The HELMET OF SALVATION protects your head. You KNOW whom you “have believed and are assured that He is able to keep what you have “committed to Him against that day” of judgment (II Timothy 1:12). Then PRAY with all kinds of prayer for all saints, urgent, careful, watchful, alert (Eph. 6:18). Pray for the preaching of the Gospel with boldness (6:19) by your Pastor and all God’s called for this office, just as they were to pray for the apostle. Expect and seek the consequences of this word of God. Do not be deceived by appearances, for even Paul was an “ambassador in bonds”!

Seek to be equipped yourself, from the Lord, and continue without cease, till He comes or you are called to be with Him as in Philippians 1:20-21, surely one of the greatest short accounts of living for Christ! You do it ? Do it then fully! May God bless you as you proceed, in the fullness of His might.

THE SHIELD of FAITH. As you use it, you must recall that it is not a languid and far less a listless holding of the shield. You must be "STRONG IN THE LORD AND IN THE POWER OF HIS MIGHT!"

This then proceeds to other equipment. There is THE BREAST PLATE OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. HIS righteousness, Christ's, is your strength (II Cor. 5:17-21). IT has no dints, and leaves no parts vulnerable, unlike the gear of poor Goliath. Moreover, you should oil it with the deeds of a loyal and loving heart.

Then comes the TRUTH with which you gird your waist. In battle, you need support, and the truth is this. No lie, either in moral matters or in spiritual, in financial or social, in personal or other is to be yours. Truth is your friend, and it is the LORD (John 14:6), Himself, who needs no derogation in battle. Stand for His word, for His way, for His witness and disdain all that is dark, smothering in less than accuracy and reality. Live in it, speak in it, look like it, have your face shine with it, your spirit bathed in it. As Christ put it, if you love Him you will keep His words: He and His Father will take up residence in you.

FEET need to be well presented. It is not high heels, or armour plated boots that are needed so much as the GOSPEL of PEACE. How would you make war with a gospel of peace ? It is not WITH it as a weapon to hurt, but with it as a solace to cure, that you fight! You defend it when it is attacked, use it likewise, just as a doctor is not keen for you to break the needle of his syringe, and likewise is keen to insert it!

This Gospel CARRIES YOU on, not your desires for old age security, or wealth past fear, or whatever other thing is your god. Of gods, have but One, the One who is there, and follow Him alone IN PRACTICE.

The HELMET OF SALVATION protects your head. You KNOW whom you have believed and are assured that He is able to keep what you have committed to Him against that day of judgment (II Timothy 1:12).

Then PRAY with all kinds of prayer for all saints, urgent, careful, watchful, alert.

ISAIAH 40 THAT JEWEL IN THE CROWN OF PROPHECY

Not Lullaby but Life is on Offer

1. BACKGROUND

It had been coming for a long time, and as early as in Isaiah 13-14, the very concept of the RETURN from the exile in Babylon that would rebuke a grossly sinning Israel, was on record. Babylon would be consumed (as it was), but Israel, victim of its passionate imperial vigour, the Lord would return to its land.

Time passed, and even Hezekiah, as traced in Isaiah 38-39, following his miraculous cure from disease in spectacular circumstances (Isaiah 38:7ff.), was so foolish as to respond to the idolatrous nation's ambassadors, Babylonian visitors and spies presumably, who came to congratulate him on his new health. He showed them the temple, treasures, all, as if they were his royal parallels from another land, in precise analogy to the present pre-occupation of some former churches, now organisations of a religious chatter, with the 'Babylon' of our Age, the World Council of Churches and allied debased phenomena where the word of God is mentioned, but is not honoured. Such fellowship is FORBIDDEN (cf. Romans 16:17, Ephesians 4-5, I Timothy 6, II John).

Hezekiah, a good king in a bad way in that matter, would be spared seeing the desolations Babylon would bring upon his nation, but the attackers would come. Manasseh who followed him on the throne soon engaged in wickedness so awful, including children in the idolatrous fires, that the destiny of the nation was irrevocable; and just as it would slam into the wall of woe, there arose to the prophetic vision of Isaiah this amazingly beautiful, stunningly comforting cry of Isaiah 40:1ff.. Already before the eye of the prophet, from the Lord, is the comfort prominent to the sight that sees beyond time, for those who would fall into the gulf of retribution, soon to come. So does God know your own way long before tragedy strikes, if strike it must, and your way on and out; so look only to Him. This indeed is no small part of the message to follow in Isaiah 40.

Soon, in Isaiah 41, you see the very instrument God would send in such comfort for Israel AFTER its exile, and that was Cyrus, ruler of the Medes and Persians (cf. Isaiah 44-45), who was named hundreds of years in advance, and whose law allowing the return of Israel to its land has been found in the form of the so-called Cyrus Cylinder. In Isaiah 42 however you find the Supreme Comforter, the Messiah, and that He is not only for Jew, but for Gentile (Isaiah 42:6, as in 49:6), and there the discomfort of His salvation, for HIM, is seen in Isaiah 50-53, though triumph is the end of the salvation, and joy unspeakable for His people (Isaiah 54). It cost, this salvation that is ours.

"For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but My kindness shall not depart from you, nor shall My covenant of peace be removed, says the LORD, who has mercy on you."

2. COMFORT TO ALL WHOSE SIN IS COVERED - Isaiah 40:1-12

As such themes proceed, yet in Isaiah 40 we see that the WORD of God which never fails is traced in its splendour, that on which this future depends, contrasted to seasons which pass, for its season is for ever (Isaiah 40:6-8).

The Song of Comfort is in full voice in vv. 1-3, COMFORT MY PEOPLE! for their iniquity is pardoned, and already seen is the Escort for the Messiah, crying in the wilderness, Make ready the paths of the Lord! fulfilled in John the Baptist. This word of comfort applies in no way less to all Christians, whose exile has been from the Lord Himself, until they were found (cf. Ephesians 2:12).

3. THE CREATION, COUNSEL AND CONTROL OF GOD are illimitable, impregnable - Isaiah 40:12-26

The divine procedure in creation is now given light like a shaft on His work (cf. Proverbs 8), and the fact that God gets COUNSEL FROM NO ONE is stressed: it is for this reason you can get ALL you need from HIM (cf. James 1). Though He may use others to aid you: yet your faith must take it from Him, from beginning to end (I John 2:27). Without parallel or type, God is alone, Himself, invulnerable to evil, overcoming in power the worst of men's devices. Nations are like dust in the balance. Therefore ignore fear and rest on and in Him alone, in His Messiah, who is our gift and His glory who sends Him (Isaiah 48:16, Philippians 2, Hebrews 1:1-3).

4. THE STRENGTH OF GOD IS AVAILABLE TO ARDENT SEEKERS -
Isaiah 40:27-31

As you rest IN the Lord, so there is strength FROM the Lord. This strength is the believer's birthright in Him. The consequences are staggering, so that one need never stagger! Tenderness, triumph and faithfulness mingle in this radiant and realistic gift of strength, so that you may, if you wait on Him, rise up with wings as eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint. It is not lullaby but life which is on offer.

Your way is not hidden; YOU must hide in Him (Ephesians 1:6, Hebrews 6:18-20, Isaiah 2:17ff. with 32:1-4!), not only in spirit, but in all things; just as He will make all things manifest. Indeed, as Paul declares in I Cor. 3, his judgment is not from men, yes not even from his own self, but it is God who in His day will show His own arbitrage.

Sin is sin in any language though it be defined in that of the Lord alone; but then so is presumption in casually or complacently, proudly or brashly assessing it: JUDGE NOT in order that you should not be judged, thunders the word of God. SIN NOT it equally requires; but if you should sin, then there is a barrister and a sacrifice, and both are One (I John 1:7-2:2).

Sin however as a way of life, a choice of countenance or a pathway of pilgrimage, this is as out as is a player banned from his sport, and more so, for this is no sport! I John 3:7 and 9 make it clear that there is a WAY of righteousness to be practised, and a WAY of sin not to be practised. Emphatically it proclaims that the two are mutually exclusive, and belong to mutually exclusive kingdoms, that of God and the debasement of Satan.

Error on the way is one thing; the wrong way is another. Take golf: do you follow the rules, the passions, the desires, the flair, do you dwell on it, consider each shot, keep your clubs in order, ponder winds, spins ? If a keen and genuine golfer, not a player who merely plays with the game, then yes is the answer. It is no less so with life itself, but more so; for if part of it has such service, what is due to all; and if for content, there is such passion, what is there for one's King!

It is HE is your reliance, and your rock. It is HE who gives you the wings, their muscles and the air currents if you will, that suit the movement aloft.

"Why do you say, O Jacob,

And speak, O Israel:

'My way is hidden from the Lord,

And my just claim is passed over by my God'?

"Have you not known?

Have you not heard?

The everlasting God, the Lord,

The Creator of the ends of the earth,

Neither faints nor is weary.

His understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the weak,

And to those who have no might He increases strength.

^"Even the youths shall faint and be weary,

And the young men shall utterly fall,

But those who wait on the Lord

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint."

How true is this testimony, and how it is found true as with importunity you take the opportunity to WAIT on the Lord. The heart is purified as you draw near to God, and the life is vitalised as HE draws near to you (cf. James 4:8). Cleanse your hands! he urges.

Then be strong with a strength not of mere self-reliance, for as Proverbs declares, he who trusts in himself is a fool (Proverbs 28:26); nor of visionary imagination, or hoped for address: but that which comes from your Author and Creator, your Redeemer and Friend, His will inscribed in word, incarnate in Jesus Christ, and enabled by the power of His Spirit (cf. Acts 4) who acts in Christ's name. This combination opens any safe, and is safety itself. It may lead to crucifixion, but then, if you are already crucified with Christ and die daily (Gal. 5:24, I Cor 15:31), this is not so rarefied. The seed which dies is the one which lives; and how abundantly does its result, the plurality of vital shoots, reach for the skies when Spring comes! (John 12:24ff.).

In short, strength for the service of God, for the protection of spirit and the conclusion of your mission, this is without limit. If you want more, it is for yourself alone, and the one who worships God is never alone; for He neither leaves you nor forsakes you (Hebrews 13). If you want less, what is this towards your Master, whom to love with all your heart and soul and mind and strength is the first part of living! If He is not your Master, then how can you wait on Him whom you fail! When however the heart meets with its Maker, the spirit with its Saviour and the life with its Lord, then there is an abundance which is indeed like a spring of water spouting upward. Indeed, you take wings into the empyrean of the very presence and beauty of the Lord (cf. Psalm 27:4ff.).

What you are given is not rationed, but adequate, not murky but pure, not aristocratic but spiritual, not clutter but competence and above all, not the conduit of chance but the conclusion of the very wisdom of God (Psalm 1, Ephesians 1:11).

Wings for this, they are in good repair! Thus do you fly in the presence of God, who being personal, for His children is personally present. From the beginning of the Bible to its ending, this message peals out like a paean of peace, a song of plenty and an inspiration of power. Power ? it is of no value, except to do His will. Doing His will is the very essence of freedom, since children of such a Father, who actually MADE them, have the uttermost there is, understanding and might, peace and beauty, acceptance and guidance, joy and delight in Him above all not only in stature, status and eternity, but in purity, tenderness, loveliness and holiness.

Made BY such a One, we find in Him a destiny not accidental or contrived, but a thing past all sating, in authentic splendour and illimitable nobility.

III

What in all of this have we discovered in importunity ?

SO far, mainly it is this, that here is OPPORTUNITY for it. There is grace for it. There is wonder in it, when it is directed wholeheartedly towards God.

Now let us explore that further in the practical task of living, the current world of effort and action, and see together the works individually perceived in Ephesians 6 and Isaiah 40.

God PROVIDES the armorial inventory for the life of faith in the midst of an evil world. Bill Gates is keen to tell us that life is not always fair and that you have to get on with it. This is partly true. It would appear to be the word of someone who does not know God, the God of all truth, written, the God who in Christ was smitten, and whose justice is overwhelmingly merciful where it is to be taken from His own side, who bore it that we might be free (I Peter 2:22ff.).

This word about unfairness, then, it is not so much wrong as inadequate. This world is worse than unfair: it is fatally flawed in the presence of God; and the preciousness of man's life within it, the ultimate source of lament for the fallen into the frustrations and foilings of folly, is a matter of affection, tenderness, companionship, a sense of beauty, even if often baulked, in others, magnificence in the realm of nature, the creation of the Most Wise God, in His own wonder. This produces grief as it is found sadly intermingling with a tangling of destiny and a plethora of sin. This is rendered even more acute when it is realised that it is wholly unnecessary, since the divine liberality is available without price and without payment (Isaiah 55:1-6).

Not only does unfairness come to the zealous, unjust gain to the subtle and harvest to those who do not sow, but they rob the crops of those who do, and kill them often enough. Worse yet, is the spiritual parallel to this, where some attack churches and seek to remove them just as in Pilgrim's Progress, from the narrow path to some sumptuous, and often liberally financially endowed, substitute.

But you may ask, HOW is this a case of being seduced into something spiritually awry but liberally financially endowed ? Have you not noticed or seen, then ? The endowment is from those who are grabbed into this gyration, and impelled into these imbroglios. THEY PAY, themselves. It is not they who are enriched, spiritually or financially. This is as in II Peter 2's prediction, that some would make merchandise of you, in the last times, the end period for this Gospel Age. Indeed, it would become a popular pursuit; and so it is.

MERCHANDISE OF YOU, is the word of Peter, and it is true of very much indeed of today in false so-called churches, pseudo-Christian deceptions, and other religious extravanganzas, trying to make some sort of heaven or haven on earth, or to lead you into something they made up, without word from God, warrant from evidence, or Christ from heaven: they made it for themselves, whether by direct delusion or delusive profiteering! This, it is as in the days of Jeremiah, seen in Ch. 23, and of Ezekiel as in Ch. 14; and it is as foreseen by Peter and Jude.

Propelling you into THAT sort of 'felicity' whether by fragments of your own exploded flesh, joining (perhaps literally ?) hand with that of your victims, they fire you into far worse than space: rather it is into fate, judgment richly deserved. You cannot suspend morality, with impunity, or snap your imaginative fingers in the face of the Almighty and imagine that He will approve your romancings, any more than you could in a University Physics examination, as if the Lecturer would approve YOUR imagined world. Stern tests are needed.

With all the evil, there is the power of God to propel you, to impel you, to dispel confusion and to enable a comfort richer than any relative could provide, and that, it is rich already! This is seen in our Isaiah 40 study; just as in Ephesians 6, you find duties and responsibilities in faith and prayer, overcoming evil with the power of God and securing strongholds with dynamic enablement, as you follow the will of God. It is well that God is love, for love never forces itself on people! It is wonderful how well this matches personality, since it is moulded in and for freedom, its operative medium being love, and its power being in truth. When it chooses otherwise, the thing simply doesn't work. The oppression, depression, compression of life becomes a burden that no ass would tolerate.

IMPORTUNITY is the word in Ephesians 6, praying ALWAYS with ALL supplication for ALL saints, and it is likewise that in Isaiah 40, where those who WAIT upon the Lord rise as eagles. Here there is scope and air, beauty and holiness, sacredness that does not sour, since truth is its very air, and its freshness and fragrance is attested with every breath.

But how do you wait ? WAIT on the Lord ? How is it that one does this, then!

It is as in a personal correspondence between loving relatives. You first have to KNOW the person, who it is, whose it is, where it is, and how it goes. You grow UP in the presence of such relatives, and you SHARE with them, operate in their sight and they in yours, sharing the same spiritual faith and having the same goals in mind. This is the preliminary.

Let us consider further this personal analogy, just since God is personal (cf. SMR Chs. 1, 3, 10, Little Things Ch. 5, It Bubbles, It Howls, He Calls Ch. 9). How then do you wait upon Him who is eternal, infinite in power, limitless in wisdom but as our Creator, wise in understanding ?

For this, you must thus SEEK TO KNOW God intimately, you must share His purposes, seek His kingdom, rely on His word and seek His will. You must cultivate the knowledge of God more than any crop, and fertilise the site with prayer. You need to trust Him and so operate, and in operations, like those of comrades of the RAF in the World War II, grow accustomed to His voice; and the circumstances are infinitely superior to those, though suffering there may and will be! (cf. II Timothy 3:12). How COULD you be crucified with Christ (Galatians 5:24) without suffering!

Your will is subject to His, for here there is not mere equal, but God and King. Yet His will is most kindly to you, for He who laid down His life for you has no lack of concern! As you act in this faith, so you grow in experience of it and of Him, and then as you spend time in discourse with Him, learning and seeking, finding from His word His promises and pleading them before Him for your life's work in His sight, and for His fulfilment of His own commission to you, you find the power is great and the going is smoothed, however much you suffer. Things happen, the car goes, the cargo moves.

Then in your own spirit, there is a special MIGHT which He grants (Ephesians 3:16, Isaiah 40:26), and this enables you to do what you could not do in yourself: and this not in some word of circumspect palaver, but in simple fact. Again, there is a beauty in space, spiritual space, into which you can now soar (Ephesians 2:6), so that the perspective on things is so complete, harmonious and all inclusive in its ability to show you reason and reasonableness in their proper clothes and place, that you in a sense 'sit' as Paul puts it.

Indeed, you sit safe in the harness of Him who is humble in heart, and gracious, meek and ready to aid you in His will (cf. Psalm 145:17ff.). Did not David know it ? As His, you grow to know it also. Does it take long ? It is not so much long as IMPORTUNATE that is the specification. They who seek of HIM with all their hearts, find IN HIM!

Arising you soar more, for eagles DO soar, and find in His mercy and His person, a liveliness which is the very source of life, and a youthfulness restored which while it does not restore your sinews to their pristine vigour, yet does restore your spirit to its roving strength and your heart to its sense of purity and delight. Where the water is pure, there is no stomach upset. Taste therefore and SEE that the LORD is good.

From the point of view of biblical Christian Apologetics, this is one of the more surpassing tests. As it is written in a book, attested in a Person who fulfilled its requirements and followed its specifications, the Lord Jesus Christ, so when one is in and for Him, it happens in the life.