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CHAPTER FIVE
FUSSING AND FINDING
Not Revelation about Revelation
but
Revelation about God from God
THE LORD IS THE ONE
IN ALL CENTURIES,
AND MADE CENTURIES, TIME AND SPACE:
IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT HE BE FOUND
It is important to realise continually that the reason why the reason for the faith is certain, its testimony indefeasible, is this, that its basis is God Himself, to whom it points, directs and impels. It is because He is immutable, immovable, unimpugnable, illustrious and good that the epistemological, logical, metaphysical, physical, moral, aesthetic, linguistic, cosmological, aetiological, methodological - scientific and other, the vitality and the validity have but one resting place, one source and one end. Just as many in Christ's day sought to find refuge not direction in the scriptures, failing to follow them to Him who had given them, along with life, their historical and national, their mankind manual, as He attested as seen in John 5:39-40, so some may instead seek to find substitute for spirituality in the testimony of reason to righteousness, logic to the Lord.
Reason however does but lead to His word and His word requires ACTION.
In neither case in itself, therefore is there rest, not because either fails, for reason can but attest the truth, being established in this way for man in God's image; and it will not suffer such violation, while the word of God manifests its splendour on a daily basis in all dimensions, directing the universe in life as it directed life into it, and made it for it at the first.
No, it is because the testimony of our construction and our functionalities on the one hand, and of His word to us on the other, the one refusing to be alienated except by irrationality, the other except by rejection of rebellious will, are from what He has done. He made us, so that our best efforts fail to justify departure; and He gave His word, which being truth, stands beyond all testimony and banishes all complaint, except that of stark rebellion, aloof and alone like darkness in a universe of light, hiding in some insalubrious corner. The time is near when such privacy will be removed and the light manifest, all will be composed spiritually, each part in its place.
It is now therefore time to seek the Lord, and according to His word, by His Son sent for the purpose, to find Him (Isaiah 55). It is living in the living God which is crucial: there is not other, and He is definitive of Himself both in His written and His living word. There is no other way, God or truth, no other hope, nothing hallowed. It is Jesus Christ or nothing (John 14:6, Galatians 1), the Lord's Christ or woe; and finding Him, like life as a child in the outset, is something which is His gift.
His
word is given that He may be found, and His Son has been sent that the cost is
covered for all who come (John
CONFUSION'S
CONTRIBUTION
Recently, one found a young person who has made some sound seeming testimony to Jesus Christ. This and that is said, with apparent orthodoxy, about Him. Forms are followed, ceremonies are attended, His actions are sought in a lively sounding congregation, though one apparently given to the excesses and errors normal in much of Pentecostalism.
This perhaps is worthy of thought. WHY is there this emphasis, which leaves one all but incredulous, on action BEYOND what is required. Surely what IS required is so vital, so crucial and so costly to the eyes of sin, that more need not be added ?
The errors of erratic charismatic strivings (not that charismata are not real, but reeling with them is unwise) have been considered in some depth in A Question of Gifts.
· The multiple tongue speaking simultaneously,
· the failure at all times without any exception whatsoever, to have interpreters in a church service for any such phenomenon,
· the improper stress on what Paul attests is such, that 5 words spoken with the mind are of more value than 10,000 without it in tongues amidst the people,
· sometimes the blasphemous assault on the Biblical facts which goes yet further and makes tongues the necessary attestation of conversion when in I Cor. 12 Paul makes it clear that NOT ALL members of the Christian team have all gifts, and this is but one, and a small one:
· such things have been dealt with in the light of the written word of God.
It is not our present
intention to repeat this, and many allied matters covered in the reference
given, but to regard the case, exhibited by the individual just mentioned, and
to consider what sort of confusion is present.Before
however we do so, let us return for a moment to a small section of one of the
appendices of Biblical Blessings (No. 3), and see things in the
light of grace and varied departures from it which alas, mislead many into
utter futility.
That some seek pleasure and perish is one thing; but to seek spirituality and perish, this is a double negative well worthy of attention. Let us then develop first a broader perspective, before we return to the case of apparent orthodoxy mixed with multi-revelation promiscuity. HOW COULD someone apparently follow the forms of religion, of Christianity, but still fail to know the definitive character of Christ, the entire exclusion of all who do not rest entirely on Him from the acceptance of God, and the fact that God having spoken, to speak in other modes is wholly worthless, the addition of a piece of work in which is no peace.
Of God, we can attest, we cannot create.
What creates God is idolatry, confusion and a profusion of contempt for Him. Imagine someone creating Winston Churchill.
Oh! you
may say, you mean reviewing the facts about him and presenting him living to
the
imagination ?
No, I mean making up one and having the puppet speak.
Atrocious folly ?
Of course.
The use of his name for such a project ?
Contemptible, illogical and plagiarism of the worst character ?
Naturally.
How COULD anyone do such a thing ? Agreed. Yet in the field of religion, it is precisely this which many seem ready to seek to accomplish, not in the least realising that this is not merely the height of the absurd, but the grossest of substitutions; for imagination must not work where reality has declared itself, nor substitute its findings for what is found already. It has place, this imagination, but not in creating for history, what history does not find. When it is God who is being 'created', it is merely an activistic definition of idolatry. Idolatry is such that those who practise it CANNOT enter the kingdom of heaven (I Cor. 6:9-10). The price is high for the presumptuous misuse of talent.
When
however it becomes a sort of HUMILITY so to create God, then one realises that this is evil of a passionate kind, in its
basis and point of origin. To be so humble that one rejects what one statedly accepts, and violates what one professes to be
sacred, is a very special kind of double talk. What does it really mean ? To this then we shall look shortly, when we have
reviewed the perspective noted, from Appendix III, in Biblical Blessings.
An excerpt accordingly follows.
EXCERPT FROM A SAY OF ITS OWN
Yes, it is the meek who shall inherit the earth (of course, there is to be a new heavens and a new earth, but the earth is going to be filled with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea - the alternative options are indeed more and more obviously even now running out of gas, and into storms almost indescribable). It IS more blessed as the word of God says, to give than to receive. God is like that. He likes His people generous, gracious but unrelenting for the truth. Pretending things are not what they are is of no help to anyone.
Pretending that a hospital is clean, does nothing for the patients, and being called a nice person because you let this pretence go on, is giving nothing but trouble to anyone.
But let us look at our FIVE in ORDER.
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In fact, the place of rest in reality, is not :
1. an historic process helped by ruthlessness.
That is not how the universe, the creation came to be
(cf. That Magnificent Rock, Ch.1),or will become
(cf. SMR pp. 502ff., 590ff.; Ch. 5 in Repent or Perish - STATE OF THE END; Item 23, The Teacher of Righteousness in Barbs, Arrows and Balms),what it should be, and what God will make it to be.
2. Nor is it a psychological process helped by insight.
3. Nor is it a spiritual process, helped by contributions.
4. Nor is it a biological process, helped by the unknown
god of forces.
5. Nor is it a moral process, helped by devoted desire, whether or not forwarded by holy wars.
(Cf. The Kingdom of Heaven...Chapters 2, 3, 8 and Appendix ,That Magnificent Rock, Appendix 1; Barbs, Arrows and Balms, Appendix IV, The Aviary of Idolatry, SMR Index on Roman Catholicism, Moslem, Evolution, Salvation, Creation, Redemption, and Communism, incl. pp. 520ff., 655-656, 925-926, 831, 468469, 707-708 , 903, 1070-1071,1088G and below, Appendix IV, The Magnificence of the Messiah.)
These ways are not what establishes man/woman/child to be accepted by God.
· You do not enter by hopping over a wall (John 10:1,9);
or bringing in a step-ladder (Amos 9:2, Genesis 11:4), as if you could control the heavens and the earth, and the God who made both, and deviously, with some sort of inspiration, outwit God and land yourself in His presence, like some burglar wanting to see the Queen, and seeing prison instead.
· You do not enter by ANY step-ladder, be it moral or psychological or religious.
· Nor do you enter into the place of God, overcoming the protection of the "wall" by breaking it down.
"Therefore flight shall perish from the swift,
The strong shall not strengthen his power,
Nor shall the mighty deliver himself,
he shall not stand who handles the bow,
The swift of foot shall not escape,
Nor shall he who rides a horse deliver himself.
The most courageous men of might
Shall flee naked in that day," says the Lord.
To put it perhaps yet more crisply:
"Cease from man, whose breath is in his nostrils,
For of what account is he?" (Isaiah 2:22),
and again,
"The lofty looks of man shall be humbled,
The haughtiness of men shall be bowed down.
And the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day.
For the day of the Lord of hosts
Shall come upon everything proud and lofty,
Upon everything lifted up -
And it shall be brought low" - Isaiah
We
read in Isaiah 31:
"Woe to those who go down to
And rely on horses,
Who trust in chariots because they are many,
And in horsemen because they are very strong,
But who do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
Nor seek the Lord!
"Yet He also is wise and will bring disaster,
And will not call back His words,
But will arise against the house of evildoers,
And against help of those who work iniquity.
"Now the Egyptians are men, and not God;
And their horses are flesh, and not spirit.
When the Lord stretches out His hand,
Both he who helps will fall,
And he who is helped will fall down;
They all will perish together."
Thus
it is all clear, distinct and decisive. THIS is the Biblical way for man. The
other way has not worked, does not work and cannot work; and God Himself works
against it, allowing it great rein, though now the reins are tired, and the
'horses' of mankind are becoming stale and tired, or frenzied, and the devil
knows, as John declares, that his time is short.
The Lord, when you know Him as a child of the kingdom IS RESTFUL, and has CREATED THE CONDITIONS FOR OUR REST, in salvation from sin, in guidance in life and in growth in grace. It is right and restful, real and restful, realised and restful. There is no real anxiety, for HE provides all and Himself, the shield and exceedingly great reward, is available as for Abraham, called the friend of God.
END OF EXCERPT
RETURN TO THE
REALITIES OF REST
NOT IN
COMPILATIONS BUT IN CHRIST
It is not the word
of God which is adulterated,
but the heart of man
In the above ways, we see multiple examples of wresting from the truth, what it is saying. Sometimes it is done with acknowledgment and war on the word of God; at other times with endeavour to mutate it, to add to it, to replace it partially, not perhaps with the broken weapons of assault, for they have filed in times innumerable, in confusion unutterable. The OTHER METHOD is the endeavour to ASSIMILATE the truth, with error, while patting it heartily on the back, and smoothing its hair for it, as the footballers often seem to do when someone kicks a goal.
In this way, yes, you FIND CHRIST to be acceptable. You ACKNOWLEDGE the Bible to be fine. You attend Christian gatherings, services.
In the case in point, you may even attend highly mobile forms of worship, in which the scriptures are violated manifestly, and yet you do not know it.
What happened ?
Oh, it is so cosy and so inspiring that one does not really happen to be aware of manifest, pagan breach of the word of God. How could this be ?
How can a wife be unfaithful to her husband and yet smile with glamour upon him, and attend his table ? Is it because the dear man (that is the other side of the 'dear lady' of Yes Minister fame) does not really understand. Life is too broad, says the adulteress of distinction, for just one man. The emotions so move one, the lust of life so stirs in the lively heart, that it is simply impossible to find in one the satisfaction for the dynamisms which surge within the seeking breast... and so forth.
Thus she is most faithful, and wholly faithless. She UNDERSTANDS. Truth is no longer a word to the point. The life in its surges knows many clothes. She knows more than one husband. She does not tell her husband, for this dear man, so delightful really in his little ways, and such a dear, is not of the mode of life, the mould which makes one of such versatility of mind, such competence of character, that a chameleon, really, is the better mascot than a dog.
Even chameleons however might have a heart attack on a most complex tartan, or just fail!
Thus next we may hear such epochal disclaimer as this: There is NO OTHER WAY to God but Christ, says the Bible (John 14;6); but, says the chameleon, there are many ways to God without Him. It likes them all, and … adapts! Contradictory colours are its peculiar fascination. There is even a primate who from reported words, appears to be moving so as to make this very same denial: not by Christ alone! Luke 9:26, John 12:48-50 already have such a case well covered.
But let us return to the case of the person in current focus.
This little excursion, earlier made, into PHYSICAL ADULTERY, which has nothing directly to do with the case in point, has this advantage: that it does precisely what the Bible repeatedly does in just such a situation. It makes the comparison of the sexual and the spiritual, since the sexual is well-known and not in the least difficult to understand. It is fitting further because, when you strip away the abuse of sexuality that is so common as to be a current plague, it is really a playing with the source of physical human life, in terms of procreation, and hence with life itself.
One function is physical continuity; another is actuality. Sexuality deals with the former, spirituality with the latter. Of course they inter-relate, true sexuality, like all things true, relating to all components justly, so that there is a spirituality about it. But from the viewpoint of division of labour, mankind both makes a new generation, and proceeds to live in its own!
God
condemns both adultery and spiritual promiscuity repeatedly, vehemently,
passionately, with appeals, with action as in Hosea, where the prophet MARRIED
a prostitute in order to become a living allegory, and a profound rebuke as
well as teaching example to the nation. The Lord relates the two as in Ezekiel 23, and of course with the mother of harlots,
Thus, in Ezekiel 23, speaking of the surging desire in Israel to have help from Assyria and perhaps use its idols, or those found in the course of the association with it (as for example noted in II Kings 16:10ff.), the Lord presents an unalluring parallel, in which lust and folly, giddiness and gullibility, inordinate affection and affectation, fascination and immaturity, passion and pollution figure as in a kind of moral holocaust! Presenting in allegory, two sisters, the one standing for the North, then called Israel, and the other with Jerusalem, the South, called Judah, the prophet is provided with a saga of promiscuity so intense as to verge on the ludicrous; but not for those who have seen passion at its insolent work. It can spoil like radioactivity, make asses of the wise, and drag through the dust the unstable whose lives are not founded on the rock.
Where religion is the parallel, as in this case provided in Ezekiel, we find that this is a sage saga of the significance of faithfulness, the reality of reliability, the essence of folly and the rewards of having two faces, and one husband.
The 'husband' of course in this allegory, is the Lord, and the sisters are political entities, seeking military and other aid from other nations, in particular from that giant of the vehement, that prodigy of cruelty, that wonder of multi-religions, that hussy of hapless idolatry, Assyria of old (whose end is so carefully scripted by the prophet Nahum in words unforgettable, because they are both just in their scope, and divine in their origin).
We follow in this intense parallel between physical and spiritual adultery, in which the former is a picture to bring home to the heart of the most hapless, if it be possible, the enormity of the latter: for it is in the divine mind, here revealed, a crime against truth, conscience and reality, being committed when one has FORMAL relationship to the Lord, and ACTUAL relationship to many 'revelations', in fact idols; for God cannot be crafted. It is indeed a FORM of godliness lacking not only its power but, in actuality, its propositions; and it is this form without spiritual life which is found in II Timothy 3 to be prominent in the predicted state of things at the end of our Age, noted to be in the present era (Answers to Questions Ch. 5).
Hence this allegory in Ezekiel, this use of marital infidelity as an expression of spiritual infidelity towards God Himself: it is topical, prophetic and contemporary.
To see it however, let us look back to the end of the nation of Israel, the north, as a practical entity in its own right (rather than a filtration back to the South); for the end of that body, and the end of the Gentile era have so much in common that it would be sheer folly to ignore it wilfully. Our quotation from Ezekiel 23 therefore will be rather long, as this will enable the scope of the comparison of physical and spiritual adultery to appear in its stark original format.
EZEKIEL 23:1-35
1 "The word of the Lord came again to me, saying:
2 “Son of man, there were two women,
The daughters of one
mother.
3 They committed
harlotry in
They committed
harlotry in their youth;
Their breasts were there
embraced,
Their virgin
bosom was there pressed.
4 "Their names: Oholah the elder
and Oholibah her sister;
They were Mine,
And they bore
sons and daughters.
As for their
names,
5 “Oholah played the harlot even though she was Mine;
And she lusted
for her lovers, the neighboring Assyrians,
6
Who were clothed in purple,
Captains and
rulers,
All of them
desirable young men,
Horsemen riding
on horses.
7 "Thus she committed her harlotry with them,
All of them
choice men of Assyria;
And with all for
whom she lusted,
With all their
idols, she defiled herself.
8 "She has never given up her harlotry brought from Egypt,
For in her youth
they had lain with her,
Pressed her
virgin bosom,
And poured out
their immorality upon her.
9 “Therefore I
have delivered her
Into the hand of her
lovers,
Into the hand of
the Assyrians,
For whom she
lusted.
10 They
uncovered her nakedness,
Took away her sons and
daughters,
And slew her
with the sword;
She became a
byword among women,
For they had
executed judgment on her.
11“Now although her sister Oholibah saw this, she became more corrupt in her lust than she, and in her harlotry more corrupt than her sister’s harlotry.
12 “She lusted for the neighboring Assyrians,
Captains and
rulers,
Clothed most gorgeously,
Horsemen riding
on horses,
All of them
desirable young men.
13 "Then I saw that she was defiled;
Both took the same way.
14 But she
increased her harlotry;
She looked at men
portrayed on the wall,
Images of Chaldeans portrayed in vermilion,
15 Girded with
belts around their waists,
Flowing turbans
on their heads,
All of them
looking like captains,
In the manner of
the Babylonians of Chaldea,
The land of
their nativity.
16 "As soon as her eyes saw them,
She lusted for
them
And sent messengers to
them in
17 “Then the Babylonians came to her, into the bed of love,
And they defiled her with
their immorality;
So she was
defiled by them, and alienated herself from them.
18 She revealed
her harlotry and uncovered her nakedness.
Then I alienated
Myself from her,
As I had
alienated Myself from her sister.
19 “Yet she multiplied her harlotry
In calling to
remembrance the days of her youth,
When she had
played the harlot in the
20 For she
lusted for her paramours,
Whose flesh is like the
flesh of donkeys,
And whose issue
is like the issue of horses.
21 Thus you
called to remembrance the lewdness of your youth,
When the
Egyptians pressed your bosom
Because of your
youthful breasts.
22“Therefore, Oholibah, thus says the Lord God:
‘Behold, I will stir up your lovers against you,
From whom you
have alienated yourself,
And I will bring
them against you from every side:
23 The
Babylonians,
All the Chaldeans,
Pekod, Shoa,
Koa,
All the
Assyrians with them,
All of them
desirable young men,
Governors and
rulers,
Captains and men
of renown,
All of them
riding on horses.
24 And they
shall come against you
With chariots, wagons, and
war-horses,
With a horde of
people.
They shall array
against you
Buckler, shield,
and helmet all around.
" 'I will delegate judgment to them,
And they shall
judge you according to their judgments.
25 " 'I will set My jealousy
against you,
And they shall
deal furiously with you;
They shall
remove your nose and your ears,
And your remnant
shall fall by the sword;
They shall take
your sons and your daughters,
And your remnant
shall be devoured by fire.
26 They shall
also strip you of your clothes
And take away your
beautiful jewelry.
27 " ‘Thus I will make you cease
your lewdness and your harlotry
Brought from the
land of
So that you will
not lift your eyes to them,
Nor remember
28“For thus says the Lord God: ‘Surely I will deliver you into the hand of those you hate, into the hand of those from whom you alienated yourself. 29 ‘They will deal hatefully with you, take away all you have worked for, and leave you naked and bare. The nakedness of your harlotry shall be uncovered, both your lewdness and your harlotry.
30" ‘I will do these things to you because you have gone as
a harlot after the Gentiles, because you have become defiled by their idols.
31‘You have walked in the way of your sister; therefore I will put her cup in
your hand.’
32“Thus says the Lord God:
‘You shall drink of your sister’s cup,
The deep and wide one;
You shall be laughed
to scorn
And held in
derision;
It contains
much.
33 You will be
filled with drunkenness and sorrow,
The cup of horror and
desolation,
The cup of your
sister
34 You shall
drink and drain it,
You shall break
its shards,
And tear at your
own breasts;
For I have
spoken,’
Says the Lord
God.
35“Therefore thus says the Lord God:
‘Because you have forgotten Me and cast
Me behind your back,
Therefore you
shall bear the penalty
Of your lewdness
and your harlotry.’ ”
This ghastly mixture of allegorical romantic passion, coupled with infidelity to the husband and folly in roving imagination, then is the divine depiction of that spiritual lust which, never satisfied with the Saviour, though nominally keeping to His ways, roves in many places, saying:
''Oh but
look! How comely is the Buddha in this or that manifestation, and how fine is
this Christian tarrying in
This adherence to mutually exclusives is a characteristic of our times. It is fatal and its orthodoxy is that of rebellion; while its rebellion, seeking the name of orthodoxy, is a double assault. It is in danger of precisely the divine dishonouring of Him who is thereby dishonoured. Him who honours Me, the Lord said, I will honour.
Using the analogy given in
the word of God, and taking the parts applicable, it is therefore readily
comprehensible that the Lord rebukes
Let us hear Jeremiah in
this field! Remember that even after this, in Jeremiah 17:19ff.,
another profound call of mercy is given, but it too is not heeded. The Lord
knows all He does and makes no mistakes. We come then to look in Jeremiah Ch.
7.