W
W W W World Wide Web
Witness Inc. Home Page
Contents
Page for Volume What is New
CHAPTER 2
ESCAPE
from a wild
bull is not
COWARDICE
but WISE CONTINUANCE!
There are of course those who are macho. They like to show that though they did not choose their talents, their birth date or place, parents or education in most of its areas, nevertheless fate bows to them, mood rules them and manhood becomes their laurel clad brows.
To me, this is so much nonsense. To KNOW what you want helps, certainly; to KNOW who you are who wants it helps far more (what force do you represent, with what values and priorities, and WHY! cf. Predestination and Freewill). There is no sin in being rational, provided you know what you are being rational about.
That is the point. If you do not know God (cf. Spiritual RefreshingsCh. 16), then nothing is known, only surmised as it hits the unknown because unspecified equipment. Mechanisms are not calibrations, and calibrations do not assert the meaning of their units. Freedom is not knowledge, and liberty is in any case knowledge, if you know you have it. If you assert yourself, what is this which you assert ? One is drawn to the French (at first site rather ridiculous) phrasing here: What is it that it is that you assert ?
It does have a certain flavour, does it not! Yourself ? You might as well assert that the square of x is 2y when neither x nor y has the felicity of a definition.
No, escape is not wrong in itself. When you know God, you realise there is after all a purpose, and when you do not, then you have no capacity to assert any of it, and in making assertions concerning truth, as distinct from empirical occurrences, you merely contradict yourself (cf. SMR Ch. 3). Why is it not wrong ? Ah! but this is not the assertion. It is not wrong IN ITSELF.
If you escape from a direction of God, as Jonah did for a little while, that is wrong. God is the definition of truth, His word. It is a lie therefore in action, as distinct from proposition! You merely foul your design, purpose and the beauty of your construction, like a flower that insists on blowing precisely under the feet of a bellowing bull as it advances elsewhere. You cannot fight with God with impunity.
You may not want God; this does not at all alter the above fact. You may not want God for the worst of reasons (you matter more than He does, you know more than He, or other transparent irrationalities - for how could the one whom He made in totality, be of more wisdom than the One who imparted the capacity to know it, and how could the incorruptible be of less wisdom than the processive construction on its way to the grace, its spirit to judgment!). You may not want Him for some twisty pasty of philosophy - because you feel that it is wrong in principle, for example, to be subjected to anyone or anything in anything; which is quite ridiculous, since then you could not breathe, being subjected to the necessitous clamour of your lungs, or think, unless you chose to do so, whereas you sometimes do; and you do not jump out of your skin in protest!
If however, and this is our thrust today, you DO know God, then there is AT TIMES a propriety in ESCAPE.
You could escape from a temptation which you find is dangerously imperilling to your wisdom - Samson might have used some more of this escape when Delilah was pressing her efforts to use his lust for her nationalistic efforts to destroy him! We would not have thought him unwise in such a step! It would after all, have saved him years of fruitless humiliation and torrid mockery! It WAS unwise to deny the whole nature of his calling, which gave him his special strength!
All Christians - our basic topic today, but so with this application to others a fortiori - do well to escape temptation, when it is not a denial of DUTY to God to do so. Why walk on a slippery pier if you do not have to, on a dark and misty night!
It is not only the POSSIBILITY, however, that escape from needless risk is wise in general for the Christian (who KNOWS what is needed, because he/she knows God - see definition in John 17:3), but that escape is delightful when it is IN the call of duty and FOR the glory and work of the Lord whom you serve.
Let n ow examine some of
the words of Psalmist David, from the Lord, on the use of the
DAVID AND THE
In Psalm 61:2, David cries to God in this way: "Lead me to the rock that is higher than I." Symbolically, this means that you are covered from pate to foot, by something more massive and without limitations which leave things out! Again, doubtless in context, it further means to some defender or defence which is comprehensive.
David does not stop here
however. He gives reason for his seeking of such a rock. This is what he
ascribes:
"For You have been a shelter for me,
A strong tower
from the enemy.
I will abide in
Your tabernacle forever.
I will trust in
the shelter of your wings."
David did not say to 'a
rock which is higher than I,' but to THE ROCK which is higher than I. As
A little later in Psalm 62:6
he repeats the thought, but gaining in realisation, he rather puts it, this
time, "I
shall not be moved." To this he adds:
"In God is my salvation and my glory;
The rock of my strength,
And my refuge, is in God."
Let us now revert to Psalm 61:4. In v. 3 we learned that God had been habitually a shelter to David, so that it was not only the height, but the capaciousness which was so comforting, strengthening and such an aid to victory over foes which sought to gobble him up, destroy his kingdom, or defame his person.
He goes further. In Psalm
61:3-4 we find that he has faith that not only in episodes of the more
dramatic, pressing, precipitate character, but forever he will abide in the tabernacle
of God. Here we come to a word used often in Exodus to refer to the sacred,
symbolical and ordained meeting place for God, where those called went to
commune and seek Him. It at last became the temple, when they came to
Thus this tent or tabernacle reference verbally and historically inclines the reader not only to the fact of God's higher than you are power to protect, refuge, but His covenantal power to position you, clear you, disencumber you of sin, enlarge you with vision and lead you, reflecting those salient events in Exodus and Numbers, for the children of Israel: the light in form, descending on the tabernacle as they camped, and leading on as they departed (cf. Exodus 13:21ff., 40:34-38, Numbers 16:42).
Indeed, in Psalm 27 we find that David would "dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to inquire in His temple. For in time of trouble, He shall hide me in His pavilion, in the secret place of His tabernacle, He shall hide me: He shall set me high upon a rock." (Cf. Psalm 18, 144.)
Further, in Isaiah 4:6 with 32:1-4, we find as discussed in its place (see With Heart and Soul, Mind and Strength Chs. 4ff.), that God as man IS that tabernacle, and in the incarnation, what was symbolised here, is exhibited there!
Did David then welch on or
commit breach of his agreement with God ? did he flee from fighting, or was his
name that of a mouse ? As far from it as you might almost wish (there was one
single and signal instance of folly, but he was taught much about that in his
future living, though he was pardoned for it)! David was a virtual exemplar of
valour.
THE STRENGTH FOR THE PURPOSES OF GOD
OF HIS
What then is this refuge, this fleeing to a rock, this escape to strength,of which he so strongly speaks ?
It is nothing less than being recharged as a battery, panel-beaten as a car, pardoned as a sinner, given vision as a spirit, depth in mind, practical instruction as a going concern, sensitisation as a spiritual being, iron cladding for combat (Ephesians 6, II Samuel 23:6-7*1) warning about the way or direction about the method, imbuing or energising with the word of God flaming in beauty, rich in wisdom and indeed, with the God of His word, giving you the enabling you need for His work.
That ? It is ESCAPE FROM FOLLY, from SUPERFICIALITY, from DUPING (by your own sin or anyone else's), from WITLESSNESS, from DECEPTION, from IMPOSSIBLE ODDS in the ALMIGHTY DIRECTION OF THE DIVINE WISDOM!
Have all the macho you want, the deviousness, the diplomatic deceit, the flattery, the winding and sinuous paths of sin: but for me, there is nothing in mere self-assertion. What is the self worth apart from its manufacturer ? Less than nothing! Less ? Yes, for there is the cartage energy and effort and the sustaining of the destination for it, when the discarded and ruined soul must go to its place. But really nothing ? Not literally, merely functionally. It is worth something, like a Jaguar in its prime; but when crashed, it may be worse than a write-off. To restore would exceed its value.
When it is a car, sometimes
they may say, It is too bad. You will have to have a new one. In that
case, the rubbish is an additional cost! With the soul, though the environs and
meaning is far different, in this it can be similar. There is a time when a soul
has gone so far that the conscience is seared as with a hot iron, as Paul tells
Timothy, when the person may have trodden under foot the blood of Christ,
and there remains, as Hebrews declares, no more sacrifice for sin. The thirsty
soul, however, drinks (John
Instead, He took the garbage on His own face, on the cross, so that with the justice He so loves He might remove it from those who claim His own feat, regarding His hands and feet, nailed, symptomatic of the annulment for wandering hands and feet. Nailed sin is taken up; pardon is handed down. It is one of the first works in the ROCK that is higher than I, in the place of REFUGE (cf. Hebrews 6:17, I Peter 2:22-25).
Thus in no way is it
lacking in courage, in constancy or character to flee in escape to the rock
which is higher than I. It is the conquest of weakness, the pardon of sin,
it is the regeneration
in the beginning and the revival to the end, it is the consultation for service
and the fashioning
for function. Do you fear to flee to the bathroom after a long, sweaty, muddy
hike ? Is this weakness ? or is it mere realisation that in dirt and sweat and
uncleanness, without restoration and refreshing, you are merely a case of
self-inflicted wound. In the case in point, as a good symbol of the spiritual
fact, you would also of course inflict yourself on others near you, say at the
table. It is mere miserable self-adulation, to refuse the Rock. It betokens a
lack of awareness both of what you are and are not; and it is a deficiency disease
to which it leads.
Take it if you will; or be deficient in your zeal so to come; but it is merely a withering, a weakness and a swagger.
Let the word of God now speak direct from Hebrews 6:13-20, where the case of Abraham is cited, and the security in the spiritual source of our very beings is shown dramatically:
"And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.
"For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying,
'Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.'
"And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise. For men indeed swear by the greater, and an oath for confirmation is for them an end of all dispute. Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath, that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us.
"This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil, where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus, having become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek."
This last reference to
Melchizedek is simply a use of the fact that Abraham once offered tithes to God
through this man as a priest, in the earlier times, and as there is no
reference to Melchizedek's lineage, so he in turn serves as type of Christ, who
did not need Levitical priesthood; for He superseded this, and it is in Him
forever that God's priestly work for man lies finished (Hebrews 9:12,
10:10,14). Thus He, the Christ, is declared to be a priest "after the order
of " Melchizedek.
His priesthood is also statedly "for ever" (Hebrews 6:20), as in Ephesians 3:10, Revelation 5:12-14, 21:22, 22:3-5, Acts 4:11-12, Philippians 2:9-12, Colossians 1:15-22, John 5:19-23, Micah 5:1-3, Exodus 20, Isaiah 43-5, Luke 2:11. It is not only an eternal commission, but from an eternal basis, with eternity inherent the authority's basis, satisfaction of sin its exhibition, resurrection its confirmation and spiritual fitness and adequacy its light and thrust (Hebrews 2).
If
you would like more on that topic, see Biblical BlessingsCh. 9, SMR pp. 532ff..
NOTE
*1 II Samuel 23:6-7 reads: "But the sons of Belial shall be
all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands: But
the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron and the staff of a
spear; and they shall be utterly burned with fire in the same place."