No Excuses: The Joy of Man's Desiring

"Behold, the Lord...shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at His presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it." Isaiah 19:1

The idea of the lost being "without excuse" before God seems painfully unfair until God actually comes. At the sudden and uninvoked presence of Jehovah, there is no sense of surprise, just the cold sting of recognition (mixed with a good bit of shock). "The heart of Egypt shall melt." A melting heart is a heart that understands that it has run afoul; it knows it has been in the wrong. All the stony obstinacy that once served as a sure and comforting barrier against the solemn cry of the truth are turned as fluid as liquid at the presence of Truth Himself. Even the stony idols tremble with recognition, for "the devils also believe, and tremble." (James 2:19b)

St. Augustine was right when he said that God is the human heart's one and true desire. God is what we are all truly looking for. He speaks to that desire through everything: from the glory that is sung through the declarative words of creation, to the joys and sorrows of life that stir and shake our souls--God's siren call overshadows all.

We must get out of our heads that we do not know what we want. The law is written in our hearts (Romans 2:14, 15), and therefore we know and desire what is good (Romans 7:22). God spends our entire lives letting us know that He is the highest good, the form of the Good itself. If we reject Him, it is because we loved the darkness rather than the light (John 3:19). When He steps into time and space again, and the whole earth is full of His glory, there will be no question in any one's mind that this is the one that they truly wanted, though they rejected Him in the end; and every knee will have to bow in heaven, earth, and hell, declaring that Jesus Christ is Lord, and singing as one, "Jesu, joy of man's desiring!" Amen.

The Silence of God

"For the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place...[But] before the harvest, when the bud is perfect...He shall both cut off the sprigs with pruninghooks, and take away and cut down the branches." Isaiah 18:4, 5

A great enemy is threatening Israel, and God apparently has decided to sit on the sidelines. "I will take my rest." The doom draws near, and God seems to have checked out for lunch. Then, right before the "harvest," right before Israel is made a bounty to its enemies, God steps in quite literally when all hope is lost.

Nothing is quite so spirit shaking like the thought that the deist are right. Nothing troubles faith more than the thunderous ring of God's silence. Tribulations do not nearly rock us so bad as the horrid thought that God has forgotten us. In Shusaku Endo's book Silence, a poor Catholic priest is confronted with the ominous horror of the silence of God. Little did he, or we, realize that God's silence is never an issue of His memory; it is always an issue of His timing. Just as neither His thoughts nor ways are known to us, so neither are the plan of those thoughts nor the timing of those ways. They are His mysteries and our discoveries.

The "Me" generation may as well be called the "Now" generation. If it cannot be microwaved in less than a minute, then we want no part of it. God is never in a hurry, yet we are always in a hurry: this work must be done now, this ministry must grow now, this soul must be saved now. Nothing affects true Christian trust and patience than this infectious consumerism that demands quantity over quality, a rate of return over a relationship with God; and it is an infection most rampant in the Church.

Are we truly working with God, or just getting in His way? Nothing makes us jump the gun like God's silence. We must learn the faithful art of trusting patience, for even when God is silent, He still is moving. The Love that moves heaven and earth is never still, though it may be silent.

"All other ground is sinking sand..."

"Because thou hast forgotten the God of thy salvation...therefore shalt thou plant pleasant plants...in the day shalt thou make thy plants to grow...but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and desperate sorrow." Isaiah 17:10, 11

It is the easiest thing for the enemy to lead us to forget who it is that brought us to where we are. We trust God through the drought and through the hail, but as soon as all is clear, we suddenly say, "I'll take it from here." Then we go to do the work set before us using "strange slips" (Isaiah 17:10), i.e., foreign seeds, supplies other than the strength and sufficiency of God and His grace. We go through the work in the "arm of the flesh" and the plants come up, but the harvest turns into "a heap," i.e., a confused mess, and all the fruits are lost and fit only for burning.

To fully trust God, to cling to Him alone in all circumstances (high, low, and in between), is the hardest thing precisely because it is the most child-like thing: an utter unwavering confidence in no one or thing but your Father. There is a time to be an adult (see I Corinthians 14:20), but we often become too grown-up, i.e., we act like grown ups at the times we are supposed to be children. "Except ye...become as little children," unless you lose all confidence and trust in yourself, "ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven," there is no place for you in the presence of God (Matthew 18:3). There is no place in God's presence for isolated individuals. The presence of God means your person being swept up into communion with the perfect communion of the Trinity. Individualistic notions and attitudes cannot survive such a unity.

Everywhere we go in the Bible, we find that everything done without God behind it has been and always will be a monumental waste of time. "Cursed be the man that trusteth in man," all their works shall turn to dust. (Jeremiah 17:5-8)

Myths, Idols, and the Source of Meaning

"At that day shall a man look to his Maker, and his eyes shall have respect to the Holy One of Israel. And he shall not look to the altars, the works of his hands, neither shall respect that which his fingers have made, either the groves, or the images." Isaiah 17:7, 8

Before we begin, we must take a moment to not confuse idols with myths. A myth is (in a simple sense) man's commentary on what is there, a story that attempts to understand what is behind the sum and scale of the universe. In other words, it points to a meaning that we are separated from and must find. Conversely, an idol states that the meaning is found in itself. In this sense, an idol is a perversion of a myth: a myth points to what an idol claims to be. Though it is true that idols (and altars and groves and images) can and do come from myths, that says something about mankind, not myths. Satan will always tempt man to find meaning anywhere but in God. When that happens, all the gods and idols that myths have inspired have, in effect, divorced themselves from the meaning of the myth by making themselves to be the meaning. The counterfeit claims to be the original, which is a fallacy, and staking your confidence in the counterfeit is a higher fallacy.

When God unleashes His judgment, when His presence of pure Reality shines forth across the shadowlands, men will have nothing left to turn to but Him (and if they choose the nothingness, they are the worse for it). All that is temporal, fleeting and vain will fade away, and only He Who is eternal, constant, and perfect will remain. In getting the dead out, God brings us back to where we see that the only solid ground is Him.

"He shall not look to the altars, the work of his hands..." All the mighty gods and idols, all that you held as the highest and staked your confidence in, will suddenly become quite useless and empty because their position and power was of your own making. A creation is not higher than its creator, and if you are empty, then that which you create to give you meaning will be just as empty.

"[When God removes all, then] shall a man look to his Maker..." We have two makers in these verses: one is God and the other is man. The man realizes that all his idols found their meaning only in him: if he is empty, then they are empty. Therefore, his meaning can only be found in his Maker, Who is the Sum and Source of all things. It is He that the man turns to, when all his self-made security blankets turned out to be just as much vanity as he.

The Tears of God

"Therefore I will bewail with the weeping of Jazer the vine of Sibmah: I will water thee with my tears, O Hesbon, and Elealeh: for the shouting for thy summer fruits and for thy harvest is fallen." Isaiah 16:9

The people who throw self-righteous fits about Old Testament accounts of genocide and judgment have a very childish view of both God and the world. God is not vindictive; He is no sadist. Destruction and misery are not pleasures for Him (see Ezekiel 33:11). Likewise, the world is not "just fine, thank you" and needs God to leave it alone. This world has been spoiled by Sin, and is continually further corrupted by those beings whom Sin has devoured whole and become their only pleasure. Destruction is not God's pleasure; redemption is (Luke 15:4-10). Destruction, however, is the only way to deal with and remove that which is corrupted and refuses to be made whole, for destruction is the only end for Sin (Romans 6:23a).
Too many people look at the Old Testament and see only the wrath of God. Very few see the tears of God, how it pains Him to see His good world spoiled, and how it pains Him to have to cut the deadness out so as to help that which is corrupted become whole and keep that which is pure undefiled.
In addition, we must never forget that the greatest destruction unleashed on Sin fell on God Himself in the person of Jesus Christ. No matter what God dishes out, let us not say that He never took His own medicine.

"...with many Crowns..."

"And in mercy shall the throne be established: and He shall sit upon it in truth in the tabernacle of David, judging, and seeking justice, and hastening righteousness." Isaiah 16:5

It was commonly understood by the Hebrews that Messiah would be a king. What was interesting is that apparently He was a priest too. "The throne [shall be] in the tabernacle." For centuries, the office of priest and king were two separate things. Now it appears that they will be made one in the Messiah (see also Zechariah 6:13).
There is a reason why the Messiah was compared to Melchizedek. The mysterious blesser of Abraham was both king and priest (see Genesis 14:18). The connection to the Messiah was easily made (again, see Zechariah 6:13 & Isaiah 16:5, in addition to Psalm 110:4).
Christ, Who was and is the Messiah, is also connected with Melchizedek (see Hebrews 7), and therefore He is connected with the image of the priest-king. The king served as head and authority. The priest served as advocate and atoner. In Christ, they are one: our head is also our atoner. He not only leads us to victory, but also makes us fit to receive that victory. Upon His head lies both the crown of the priest and the king.

"Crown Him with many Crowns!
The Lamb upon His Throne!
Who serves both as our Head and Lord,
And for us does Atone!"
-Hymn of old (addition by Jon Vowell)

Imago Dei, or Horrid Caricature?

"My heart shall cry out for Moab..." Isaiah 15:5a

"Love your enemies..." Matthew 5:44

It is the dogma of the Church that a Christian is to be made one with God, and that this process on earth will produce (as Chambers put it) not good human characteristics, but God-likeness. Everything the Father is, we are through Christ; and through Christ, what God works in, we can work out in practical experience (see Philippians 2:12, 13 & 4:13).

Here is one (of many) aspects of our Father that is hard for many Christians to swallow: "As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his ways and live." (Ezekiel 33:11) God's justice is not built on damnation, but repentance. In Christ (Who made repentance an open doorway for all), God dealt with sin; His justice is satisfied. "Why will ye die?" (Ezekiel 33:11b) Good question. The path of repentance leads us to God, which means that all other paths (regardless of how noble or logical) lead to death.

"We wrestle not against flesh and blood..." (Ephesians 6:12a) We've heard this a million times, but we always lose the power of something we hear a million times: people are not our enemy. If they do wickedly to the end, they shall have their reward; however, if we are the children of our Father, let us pray they never reach that reward, and let us weep for those who do.

It is a shame the image that many Christian have and still do produce to the world. Prudes and prigs, reacting (instead of responding) to the cultural revolutions of the past, go turtle-like defensive and make pleasure and desire out to be sin, making all Christians to look like sticks-in-the-mud. The snobs and holier-than-thous, consumed with their own cleanness, make Christians all look arrogant, like they are the ones needing to be knocked off their pedestals by "real" people grounded in "reality."

Here we have another addition to the horrid caricature: zealous members, so drunken on the defense of dogma (and not necessarily on the dogma itself), lash out in harsh words and actions against all who do not adhere to the dogma (or, more often, their version of all dogma). Subsequently, all Christians look like unreasonable crazies, who have lots of passion but no heart to keep it in check or mind to guide it.

The image we are to conform to is the imago dei, not this horrid caricature produced from bad evangelism and slip-shod theology. I will say it again: people are NOT our enemy. It is not your family, friends, boss, co-workers, strangers, customers, or even your foes that are your enemies in the truest sense. Our real enemy knows that the greatest thing he can do against us is remain hidden, so that we focus on others, on what is seen, instead of having and keeping our eyes open to the true source of evil. If we are being trasformed by the imago dei, then let us cry out for the wicked, but wrestle with the Wicked (i.e., the spirit and workings of Satan).

What image transforms us? Too many counterfeits pass for the original.

A Tale of Two Cities

"What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of His people shall trust in it." Isaiah 14:32

Another kingdom is destroyed, another city of man made low, and when that city's messengers inquire on why, they discover that they had been assaulting the city of God, which can never be moved, which all foes breaks against like waves against the rocks.
St. Augustine wrote The City of God after the panic that ensued from the collapse of the Roman Empire. His point was this: there are two cities in the world--the city of man and the city of God. The city of man will come and go, it would rise and fall, changing as often as the wind. The city of God, however, is eternal, and unchangeable, and it is the only city that matter.
Abraham was said to have been looking "for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God." (Hebrews 11:10) God's kingdom, His ruling authority that is and that is to come, is an unalterable fact. Like His will, you either bend to it, or be broken by it. If you choose the city of man, you will be disappointed again and again and again as your hopes are crushed as often as the city is. Only in the city of God, in His will, is their hope and refuge. To cling to anything else is to be left behind as life and future pass you by, and you are left to the nothingness.

"Only two choices on the shelf..."

"The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying, [...] as I have purposed, so shall it stand...This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth...For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it?" Isaiah 14:24-27

After all the effort I make to stress the mysterious communion of freewill and sovereignty, how we do not lose our freewill in God's sovereignty, let us not make the opposite mistake, i.e., lose God's sovereignty in our freewill. They both exist, and both affect the course of our lives.

It has been asserted before on this blog that God's sovereignty and man's freewill work hand in hand because when God created the world, His omnipotence allowed Him to know how all things would come to pass, so that then He could plan His purpose through the events that followed (see Romans 8:29; first He knew, then He planned). Your decisions still decide your destiny, because God did not make the choices for you: He works within the choices you have made and will make. You are not free from your responsibility as a moral agent.

However, this "working within" of God, though it does not make our choices for us, it is unalterable, unannulable, and unchangeable. This is something we must not forget. When it comes to the will of God (whether it be His permissive will or His actual order), there are only two choices: bend to it, or be broken by it. To go with God's will is life; to go against it is your choice to make, but it will mean death. God's sovereignty means that we are free to choose, but that we only have two choices: life or death. From the trees in the garden of Eden, to Old Testament times (Deuteronomy 30:19), and to the time of Christ (John 3:16-19), it has always been the same two choices, and always will be.

The Broom of Destruction

"...and I will sweep it with the [broom] of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts." Isaiah 14:23

What happens when God comes to clean house? You can be sure that everything with a spot, stain, corruption, or corrosion will be purged immediately. We can correctly assume that Babylon was corrupt to the core, for God's "cleaning" left it with nothing (Isaiah 14:22). All that is not of God is scrubbed away at His presence, and you can bet that it will be a thorough cleaning.
All that is not of God cannot stand His presence. This is true of works (see I Corinthians 3:13-15) and judgment. God does not simply reject a work because He does not like it or is not in the right mood, but because it did not have any of Him in it. No matter how noble or good it may seem, if it was not done for Him by Him through your person, then it is all filthy rags. Everything that is not of God will not survive His presence. His presence is always as a great cleaning that taketh away the sin of the world.
Look at it this way: material things can only survive through a fire when they have more substance to them. Air and gases are consumed immediately. Wood has more substance and is burned less quickly. Stone is full of substance, and is only consumed if the fire gets hotter. The hotter the fire, the more substance of a thing is required to survive the heat. Likewise, God is the source of all things, and the perfection of all things. The only thing that can survive the presence of perfection is perfection. Therefore, the only way anything can survive the presence of God is if they have God as a part of them, i.e., their bodies have become the temple for His presence.
Likewise, in judgment, people do not go to hell because God was having a bad day, or did not like so-and-so very much. They go because they have not God within them, and therefore cannot abide in His presence. When once they cross the threshold of this life and discover that God's presence is everywhere, then they have only two choices: stay in the presence of God and be consumed, or be put somewhere where God is not. The latter is what hell is, and if we can assume that God's justice works hand in hand with His love (which it does), we can also assume that all the horrors of hell pale in comparison to the utter consummation of a lost soul at the presence of God's cleaning. Those who believe that the annihilation of the soul is a mercy have a very naive view of the soul.