Sovereignty and Wine (or, God as MC)

"For exaltation cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south; God is the judge. He pulleth down one and setteth up another; for in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, whose wine is red and fully mixed, and He poureth it out, and the wicked of the earth shall drain and drink the dregs thereof." Ps. 75: 6-8

"See now that I, even I, am He, and there is no god with me. I kill and make alive. I wound, and I heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." Deut. 32:39

"Shall we receive good at the hand of God and shall we not receive evil?" Job 2:10

The image mentioned in this psalm is a master of a feast doling out the wine to His guests, with everyone receiving from His hand alone. The wicked receive justly delivered wrath and calamity ("the dregs") while the rest receive their own circumstances from God, whether they be good or evil, the point being that it all flows from God and no one else.
Now, the dance of sovereignty and freewill is a complicated spectacle, and those who too quickly and flippantly disregard one over the other cheat themselves out of the full beauty and wonder of that spectacle. If we require that the truth be simple, we had better find another universe. As it is, the truth is mysterious, not only in that it is hidden but also in that, when it is uncovered, it is a spectacle, and a spectacular one at that. Christianity has long affirmed this: life through death, strength through weakness, glory through desolation, God made flesh, etc. Reality is an endless procession of apparent opposites standing side by side and working in collusion; thus, a "dance" is a proper analogy. Until we begin to think of truth in these terms, we will always be confused and at each other's throats.
For the purposes of this entry, we shall assert sovereignty. Of course, we must assert the reality and importance of man's freewill (as it relates to his value and dignity as an image of God-bearer), as well as the reality and importance of the consequences of their freewill actions; but we must also assert (without fear or pause) the absolute control of God over every instance and incident of our lives. If God's absolute control were not true, then He would not be God.
We must not, however, deceive ourselves on this issue like the world does. Sovereignty does not mean mere control. It means control towards an end, an end that is good (Rom. 8:28). Too many people talk of God's sovereignty in terms of a mere control or manipulation devoid of purpose of plan. It is no wonder then that they get so angry; God's "mysterious ways" come across as arbitrary and pointless. Such a view is tragic precisely because it is unbiblical. The scriptures assert that God's ways are headed to a certain and purposeful end. To put it in other ways: God doles out the wine as He pleases because He is making the greatest feast ever known. He uses what colors He pleases because He is making the greatest painting ever known. He writes notes where He pleases because He is making the greatest symphony ever known. He chisels where He pleases because He is making the greatest sculpture ever known. He plays where He pleases because He is making the greatest game ever known. He moves where He pleases because He is making the greatest dance ever known. He directs where He pleases because He is making the greatest production ever known. He woos as He pleases because He is undertaking the greatest romance ever known. He cuts where He pleases because He is undertaking the greatest operation ever known. He fights how He pleases because He is fighting the greatest war ever known. He reveals as He pleases because He is teaching the greatest lesson ever known. He hides as He pleases because He is preparing the greatest surprise ever known. Anyway you put it, our God's sovereignty is no mere tyranny; it is activity, the production of certain events in order to acquire a certain result, a result whose value far out-weighs and out-shines the whole of the events that made it possible. That is not just the fact of sovereignty, but also the hope of sovereignty, the reason why we rejoice to know that God is in control.

-Jon Vowell

"We are on the wrong side of the tapestry. The things that happen here do not seem to mean anything; they mean something somewhere else." -G.K. Chesterton

Your Choice (and Not Your Choice)

"...I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, 'My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure....'" Isaiah 46:9b, 10

The will of God is set in stone, a foundational reality laid down before the foundations of the world. Contrary to what you may have heard, there is a plan, an over-arching scheme to all things, and nothing has or can prevent it: not a war in Heaven, not a Fall, not tribulations, not death or life, not angels or demons, not kings or kingdoms, nor the limitations of the physical world. It is an abiding reality that serves as a comfort to those who are with God (Romans 8:28), and a terror to those who are against Him (Isaiah 47:12-14).
"I have set before you life and death...therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live." (Deuteronomy 30:19) The great mystery of this whole thing is that God's immutable will is never forced upon us. We have the choice to reject it and go astray. Our rejecting it does not inhibit it or hinder it; it will merely roll right over you, and you will be crushed underneath it, if you choose so. We have no choice in whether or not God's will is fulfilled; it shall be fulfilled. The only choice we have is whether we are with Him or against Him when it is fulfilled.

"Destined for either fire or fire.
May Your presence be the only burning
That I know..."
-Jon Vowell

Christian Nihilism, and Some Wrestlings

"Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the Lord, the first and the last; I am He...
"Thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend...I have chosen thee..." Isaiah 41:4, 8-9

Before I begin, I would like to apologize to my brothers and sisters who hold Calvinistic views of predestination (or anything else). I am not trying to be biting are mean, but merely state what I believe on the subject. I in no way seek to dishonor John Calvin or what he has done in Protestantism specifically and Christianity as a whole. I do not in any way wish to cause any alienation between my fellow Christians and I. I just want you to know where I stand and take it as you will.
The place Calvinism (generally speaking) gives to God's sovereignty, though quite pious, is actually quite despairing in the end. We are no longer awed or enraptured; we are terrified and confounded. We feel immutable destiny closing in around us, and freedom is lost in a darkened swirl of faceless tyranny,. Our lives mean nothing anymore: eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die as God says so. There is no motive or point to action or initiative anymore; we are mere puppets on a string, and even our defiance of the puppetry is merely more puppetry. Life means nothing now; we may as well be machines to be programmed, animals to be controlled, but not persons to be known. Do not be surprised if this all sounds like Nietchize. Calvinism and Calvinistic ideas on God's sovereignty end, at the end of the day, in Christian Nihilism.
The fact is that Calvinistic and Hyper-Calvinistic ideas about predestination and election are, in reality, too simple. Instead of trying to cover all the facts in regards to understanding the relationship between God's sovereignty and man's freewill, they take an easy road: "What is the relationship between sovereignty and freewill? Why, there is no relationship between the two! There is merely sovereignty, and that's it! Freewill is an illusion (Nietchize anyone?)! That should solve all the debates." Such "pick-and-choose" logic hardy solves any debate, but instead creates new ones (ex: What purpose is Christ? Is John 3:16 a lie? What about Ezekiel 33:11?) and gives atheist enough firepower to level the whole of Christendom (the absence of freewill means that God is a egocentric sadist as He mercilessly and arbitrarily destroys and exalts, damns and saves His creation, as He wills, for no other reason than for more glory to Himself). My friends, the relationship, the dance (if you will) between sovereignty and freewill needs to be wrestled with, not dismissed. What follows is my own personal (and incomplete) wrestlings with two choices of God: of Israel, and of the Church. Take them for what they are, as you will.
Why did God choose Israel? In truth, no one knows why God picked them (i.e., those specific people) other than He wanted to. Why does an author make one character the hero and another the villain, one more vital to the plot and another not? Because: he is trying to tell a story. The same is true with God. He is trying to tell us a story, and that story is not about His glory, per se, i.e., God's story is not Him saying, "Look at Me!" His story is about redemption, i.e., God's story is Him saying, "Look at Me, and be saved." There is a difference between a story's end and its content. The end is His glory; the content is redemption. Jesus was God's glory (as I John says), but Him coming to earth was not about God's glory; He was about redemption (which is to and for God's glory). The same is true with Israel. Why did God choose them? We do not know. Why did God choose anybody at all? To serve as His witnesses (Isaiah 43:7-10; 44:1-2, 8), to testify of His truth, to be a light to the nations, to let all know that there is only one God and in Him alone is salvation (Isaiah 43:11). God does not choose us because of us, but because He has a story to tell (see Daniel 2:27-30).
Why did God chose us for salvation? For the same reason He chose Israel: He has a story to tell. He did not, however, predestine us as the elect. He predestined Christ as the Elect, and all who are of Him are the elect, are "accepted in the beloved," the beloved who is Christ (Romans 8:29; Galatians 3: 16, 26-29; Ephesians 1:3-14). Christ is the Elect, and neither is there salvation in any other whereby men might be saved. In order to be elect, you must choose to be of the Elect; in order to be "accepted," you must choose to be "in the beloved." Thus is the paradox, thus is the dance of sovereignty and free will. God chose Christ; we cannot change that immutable fact. We can either get with it or not, as we choose. The will of God is unchanging, His sovereignty immutable; but our attendance in it is not required. We can be swept up in it or run over by it, as we will.

"To You or to nothing,
We have the choice.
Condemned to be free,
We have no right not to choose..."
-Jon Vowell

The Inescapable Choice

"O Lord, by [your works] men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit: so wilt thou recover me, and make me to live." Isaiah 38:16

It is true that our destinies are in our own hands, but there are only two destinies to pick from: into the will of God, or out of it. We may end up in endless possible places: as a missionary, a millionaire, a lower or upper middle class citizen, a happy person with a good life, a horrendous monster, and so on, endless possibilities layered with endless variables, as far as the imagination can stretch and as deep as it can dig. For all the possibilities, however, they all have as their basis one of two choices: with God's will, or without it. Either your life is a living amalgamation of surrenders to the will of God, or you have consistently rejected it and consequently have been consistently left behind by it. Those are the only two ways to go. They both branch out into endless possible paths, but all those endless paths began at one of those two choices, and they take you one step closer to either Heaven or Hell.
Humanity cannot escape that choice, and that is most surely aggravating. I think most people want neither to accept nor reject God's will, but simply for God to leave them alone. Unfortunately, that wishes is granted in Hell, for Hell is God leaving you alone for all eternity. "By Him men live, and in Him is the life of my spirit." Outside of God, there is no life, love, joy, peace, hope, or anything that is "good and green" in this world. As Lewis put it, "God cannot give man happiness outside of Himself," not because He is cruel or selfish, but because "these is no such thing." Life is found in Him alone. No matter what our excuses, any middle ground we invent, even the most logical and noble, leads away to Hell if it does not have God in its equation. We choose either God or not-God, and not-God is Hell. We can choose to reject Him in the end, but we cannot escape the consequence of our choice.

"Life and Light of men,
All other ground is sinking sand..."
-Jon Vowell

The Wave

"Hast thou, [O Assyrians,] not heard long ago, how I, [the Lord,] have done it [see vs. 24, 25]; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou should be, to lay waste defensed cities into ruinous heaps...Therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way that thou came." Isaiah 37:26, 29

C.S. Lewis once said that there is an inherit contradiction in trying to argue with God--He is the source of our reason by which we argue. We can no more argue against Him than a "river can rise above its source." The Assyrians learned the same truth: they could not raise arms against God, for it was God who had given them the strength to raise arms in the first place. They were attempting to cut the branch that they were sitting on. Interestingly, from this incident we learn that even if you are not God's people/children, without Him you are still nothing.
God's omnipotence and sovereignty should not terrify and vex us. They should be, in the end, a source of encouragement and strength. Though we should seek to clear up all the confusions about the relationship between God's power and control and our freewill choices, we need to ultimately seek to stress and embrace the deeper truth: nothing happens that is outside God's control or command. No enemy of ours can frustrate or stop Him; no obstacle can trip or snare Him; and our own imperfections and flaws do not stall Him for a second. God's will is a massive, building wave, rolling ever onward and upward. You can either know they joy of being swept up into and riding it, or feel the oblivion of rejecting and being run over by it. Such joy is real joy, and oblivion real oblivion; and the choice is yours.

You Who controls all things,
May Your wondrous Will
Sweep me away
And take me into You...
-Jon Vowell

Order and Salvation

"The earth also is defiled under the inhabitants thereof; because they have transgressed the laws, changed the ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore hath the curse devoured the earth, and they that dwell therein are desolate..." Isaiah 24:5, 6

There is an order to the universe. That order is God's will. He communicates that will to us through His laws, ordinances, and covenants. They are boundaries and limitations set on the universe that keep the order that is His will. His order is boundaries, but not a prison, for outside the lines of His will is only Chaos and Night, and to be lost in them is the worst kind of slavery.
God's order is defined by hierarchy: animals submitted to humans, children to parents, servants to masters, wives to husbands, the Church to Christ, all men to God. Each submission differs in kind and not degree, but they are all still the submission of one to another. It is this hierarchical structure that makes up God's will, and it is the only way to keep peace and harmony in the universe.
Now, Sin is the breaking of that structure, the defiance of that order, the turning from God's will to self will. As Lewis put it, "It is the nature of evil to spread. Limitations and boundaries belong to the good." The pain and damage of Sin is caused because Sin breaks out of the structure, it steps out of God's will and into the void where God is not, and where He is not there is only negation and death, i.e., Hell. Sin brings the presence of Hell into a person.
When Adam sinned, the whole of humanity was separated from that structure, and hence from God's will, and hence from God Himself. This separation has altered our fundamental disposition: where once we were alive, now we are dead, and dead men are incapable of any action; therefore, we are unable to return to that order. Also, where once we naturally embraced life (which is the essence of God's will), now we naturally embrace death (see Romans 7:18-23). Therefore, we can no longer keep within that structure even if we somehow could get back to it as dead men. This whole mess is what Christ came to fix: to bring us back to the fellowship of God's will (for it is fellowship with Him), and give us the fundamental disposition (i.e., His own) that will keep us within it.
God's will can never be broken. It is never a question of breaking it, but whether or not you get with it, and Christ makes it possible for fallen man to get with it again. You can stay outside it if you like, but know that there is only outer darkness beyond the will of God, a place of weeping and gnashing of teeth.
God's will is not some box that the universe is crammed into. God designed the universe to only work within the order of His will. It is the way it ought to be, the way it's supposed to work. There is no other way it can work. Outside of His will is not freedom, but slavery: slavery to chaos and insanity, to darkness and death, for there is nothing else out there.
The structure of God's will is the only way anything in the universe finds fulfillment, for it is not the mere keeping of creeds and rules. The will of God is kept because God is within you, and God is only within you when you commune with Him, so therefore the will of God is kept and fullness found only in communion with God: finding your place in the Trinity's great dance, your soul completely in tune with the movements of Love Himself. That is where peace and harmony are found, and they are found no where else. This is what Christ wants to do for you: bring your soul back into communion with God, to place it back in the structure of His will, to put you back in the place where you belong and where you find fulfillment.
It is a truism (I believe) that inconsistency breeds pain: inconsistent eating habits, weather patterns, or the workings of a day or week can all bring varying levels of pain to body and soul. Now, God's will is a structure, hence order, hence consistency (not monotony; God's structure is orderly as He is orderly, but it is also endless various as He is endless various: every sunset varies from another, but they all stay within the laws that they abide by). To step out of God's will is to step outside the consistency that is of God, which means the inconsistency that is opposite of God's will is the worse kind of inconsistency ("corrupto optimi pessima"), and therefore it brings the worse kind of pain, i.e., the pain of the chaotic soul. The Word (the very essence of structure and order) came to bring us back to that consistency, to bring our chaotic souls back to the harmonious order of God's will. That is salvation, that is the peace of our lives. Oh, to be fully swept up into the wonders of His order! How infinite are its pleasures, for His pleasures are infinite! Amen.

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.

"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.

God-in-a-Box III: Sovereignty and Freewill

"When the Lord hath performed His whole work upon mount Zion...I will punish the fruit of the stout heart...of Assyria...For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom...Shall the ax boast itself against Him that heweth therewith?" Isaiah 10:12-15

What we see here is the incredible dance of sovereignty an freewill. God's sovereignty is found in that Assyria's role as Israel's punisher was all part of God's "whole work." Assyria was as an ax or saw in God's hands. On the flip side, Assyria's freewill is found in its pride, a pride that was their own choice. This is a classic example of the old saying, "God chooses what you go through, but you choose how you go through it."

Sovereignty and freewill are not at odds with each other: they go hand in hand. Anyone who says otherwise has either too small a view of God or too big a view of man. God's sovereignty is not that He planned everything, but that He planned everything through our choices.

"For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate..." (Romans 8:29a). To "foreknow" means to "know beforehand." To "predestinate" means (in a nutshell) to "plan beforehand." Foreknow is the cause to which predestinate is the effect: God can plan before hand because He knew beforehand. In other words, when God set down to create the universe, He could see in His mind (before the universe was created) the whole scope of the universe, from its beginning to its end and all that was in between. He knew beforehand what would happen, and therefore He could plan His work within that knowledge.

Look at it this way: some view God's sovereignty like He was an author or an architect, i.e., the reason He knows how it will be is because He planned it that way. The truth is more complicated. God's sovereignty is more like God was planning to set up a line of dominoes, but before He set them up He imagined them in His mind. If He set this one line that way, it would do "A". If He set it the other way, it would do "B". He knew that if He set it a certain way that it would go a certain way. Therefore, God set up the universe so that our freewill choices (and their consequences) would and will still bring about His will in the end.

If you knew how the dominoes would fall, given any specific situation or variable, then you could set up the dominoes so they could fall in such a way so as to exactly go the way you want it to go without manipulating the dominoes while they fall and allowing them to fall as they will. It is the same way with God: He planned it such-and-such a way because He knew it would be such-and-such a way.

God's sovereignty does not negate man's freewill. Likewise, man's freewill does not negate God's sovereignty. They work hand in hand, united in a singular dance. To separate them in order to understand their workings is an error. "He who breaks something to see how it works has left the path of wisdom," said Tolkien. To divorce sovereignty and freewill from each other's arms is to lose much of the depth and riches of the wisdom of God.

Life and Death III

"For wickedness burneth as the fire; it shall devour the briers and thorns..." Isaiah 9:18a

Earlier in Isaiah, we found the whole of Israel covered in briers and thorns (Isaiah 7:23, 24). Now we see wickedness consuming them all, i.e., consuming the whole land, until the people "shall mount up like the lifting up of smoke."
There are two things that are consuming fires in the Bible: evil (Isaiah 9:18) and God (Hebrew 12:29). This is the essential nature of both good and evil, life and death, God and not-God. When you yield to one, you are releasing its consuming fires from you, whether it be the consummation of God unto holiness of the consummation of evil unto death.
"To whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are..." (Romans 6:16). Which consummative nature do you bind yourself to? Some of us may believe that our actions create some kind of ripple that may have some consequences to consider. Most never think about actions and consequences. Who amongst us truly believes that our choices and actions will either release the full force of the presence of God, or release death with hell right behind him?
Your decisions decide your destiny. What destiny do you choose for yourself today: "of sin unto death," or "of obedience unto righteousness?" (Romans 6:16) Choose wisely what you let consume you.

More on Matters of Life and Death

"Woe unto their soul! For they have rewarded evil unto themselves!" Isaiah 3:9b

The cyclical nature of the universe is inescapable. It is set up in the order of reaping and sowing (Galatians 6:7). It is evident in the life of Israel:

"Say ye to the righteous, that it shall be well with him: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings." (vs. 10)
"Woe unto the wicked! It shall be ill with him: for the reward of his hands shall be given him." (vs. 11)

In both cases, their rewards are a result of "their doings" and "[their] hands." Their decisions are sentences that they pass on themselves. "But I thought blessings and judgments came from God!" That is true. However, God's movements are never arbitrary. They are always a response to something. "If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword..." (vs. 19, 20). God's nature is goodness: He will reward good things to the righteous. God's nature is righteous as well: He will reward evil upon the wicked.
We need to take seriously the fact that our decisions decide our destines. Our choices are not mere results of our reasoning faculties at a point in time; they are the first in a chain of events that will lead to a logical consequence (see Deuteronomy 30:19, 20 & Proverbs 8:35, 36). Individualism is so rampant today that we truly believe that we are not only islands from other people but also from the order of the universe as well. This should not be, because it makes us take our decisions lightly, something we should never do. We have to get back to believing that we are part of the great design of the universe, that though we appear to the naked eye to be puny specks in it all, our decisions are like thrown stones into a pond: no matter how small they are, it is in the nature of the pond to ripple; and no matter how "puny" we seem, it is in the nature of the universe (on all levels: physically and spiritually) to "ripple" in response to what we do.
Do we actually believe that our decisions extend beyond ourselves? That they may have cosmic consequences? Of course not. If we did, we would not make the foolish decisions that we make everyday. May God help us to remember: if we choose God over self or anything else, the Spirit of God is released in and through us, releasing His life to creation, to which all of creation sings. However, if we choose anything (even good and noble things) over God, it is sin, and it releases death in and through us, to which the whole of creation is darkened. Our choices are not independent statements of individuality; they make us conduits of either life or death.
God is NOT a cosmic killjoy. He does not prudishly smash you when you have fun, or pat you on the back when you act like a dull goody two shoes (whatever that means). God's word is not just telling us about morality, but about the nature of the universe. Morality is the icing on the cake; there is something even more important then that, i.e., the fact that our moral/immoral decisions and choices send ripples of either life or death throughout the whole of creation, to ourselves (affect our relationship to our self), to others (affecting those relationships), and most seriously, all the way to the throne of God (affecting the most important relationship of all: our relationship to Him).
It is the power of the Spirit of God in us that helps us choose life. Death comes easy to us (see Romans 7:18-8:4). If only we truly believed our decisions and choices were matters of life and death.

A Simple Matter of Life and Death

"Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord..."
"...for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." Isaiah 18a, 20b

In chapter one of Isaiah, God specifically says two things in verses 16-20: (1) if you repent (vs. 16, 17), and come back to Him, "though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool," (vs. 18); and (2) if you walk according to AND stay in His will, "ye shall eat the good of the land: but if ye refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword..." (vs. 19, 20). In short (why didn't I just do the short from the beginning? Because I DIDN'T), God says two things: choose Me, and get life; refuse and go against Me, and get death. Life and Death: these are the two fundamental issues behind our decisions. It has been like that for a long time (i.e., Eden and the two trees; also, see Deuteronomy 30:19).
I believe it was Todd Agnew who said, "You have two choices in life: to worship, or to sin." It was Bob Jones Sr., I believe (someone correct me if I am wrong), who said, "Only two choices on the shelf: pleasing God or pleasing self." Dorothy Sayers would say that it is a choice between God and "not-God," for there is nothing else to choose from. C.S. Lewis said that God is the only thing we can run on; all else makes us "conk" and slide into ruin. And God Himself put it this way: "Whoso findeth me findeth life...all they that hate me love death." (Proverbs 8:35a, 36b).
Allow me to ask: do we live like THAT? In other words (don't miss it), do we live seriously in the light of the fundamental issues of our choices, i.e., Life and Death? Do we believe that our choices are indeed matters of life and death? ANY choice, whether it be choice of college, or career, or mate, or even breakfast (I believe Chesterton expanded it to even mealtimes)? Honestly, now: we do not take our choices and decisions seriously.
As I have mentioned in other notes, over quoted verses lose their power in the telling; we desensitize ourselves to the Spirit's punch. Ask yourself: do you REALLY take Proverbs 3:5, 6 seriously? Do you REALLY believe (in day to day, monotonous living, not just Sunday "mounts of transfiguration") that you should, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding," and that you should, "in all thy ways acknowledge Him," because, "He shall direct thy paths"?
If we are honest with ourselves (and by "we" I include myself), we do NOT take our choices/decisions seriously. In church we say, "AMEN!" On the frontlines of everyday, rarely exciting, mostly hum-drum life, however, we act as though our choices/decisions (i.e., what and how we say, think, and/or act in a giving situation or moment) are mere issues of our own will with consequences extending only into the natural realm. We perceive the consequences of our choices/decisions to be at "arm's length." We do not believe that Life and Death is at stake, with consequence extending to the natural, supernatural, and Uncreated realms. Our choices/decisions affect our relationships to people, angels and demons, and God.
Look at proverbs 3:5,6, and I mean LOOK at it. It starts off with two commands; not suggestions, but COMMANDS, both in the Imperative: "Trust in the Lord," and "lean not." These are things God says you MUST do. Now, notice the use of the word "all". How much of your heart (i.e., your soul, your person) is supposed to trust God? ALL. There is no exclusion, no room for even a hint of trust placed elsewhere. God is the way, truth, and life, and any trust not placed in Him (no matter how logical, or noble) will end in confusion, lies, and (ta da!) death. Check out the other use of "all". Here is why Chesterton would extend Life and Death to breakfast: in how many ways are we to acknowledge Him? In ALL. Again, there is no exclusion, no way left unto ourselves.
And what exactly will God do in return for all of this trusting and acknowledging? "He shall direct thy paths." The word "shall" is important. In Elizabethan English (which the KJV was written in) the words "shall" and "will" implied two very different ideas. If someone said, "I will do this," they were saying that they had a choice in the matter and have chosen to go "this" way. However, if someone said, "I shall do this," they were saying that they have NO choice; their very nature AND the way things are in the world (and universe) makes it impossible for them to choose otherwise than "this" way.
God said that He "shall" direct your paths, i.e., if you refuse to trust in your own wits, but FULLY trust Him with your whole person, and acknowledge Him in ALL of your choices/decisions, then He (because of who He is and the way He has made things) has NO CHOICE but to direct you. He SHALL do it; there is no other way it could be.
Oh the depths of the patience of God! A mere mortal would have been frustrated out of their wits long ago. God does not say that trusting Him means we will suddenly know WHERE we are going: Abraham, the "father of the faithful," followed God, "not knowing whither he went" (Hebrews 11:8b). What God does say is that trusting Him will leave you with the irrepressible confidence that he IS leading you. But, alas, we would much rather whine and groan about how "hard" life is, and all the while God is standing there telling us to simply take this issue of trusting Him SERIOUSLY and not treat it as a mere Sunday maxim.
But that, of course, is my point. We are not perfect (duh); we WILL be, but not now. By the sacrifice of Christ, our spirit has been perfected by being put back in communion with God, our soul is being perfected day by day, and our bodies will be perfected at the resurrection. As Switchfoot put it, we are "an already, but not yet, resurrected, fallen" people. It takes the strength of Christ in us to yield to the Spirit of God so that we can even begin to acknowledge Him in ANY way. God is not asking (and certainly neither am I) for us to perfect or paranoid. However, I do believe, wholeheartedly, that God wants us to take this Christian business seriously, which means taking our choices/decisions seriously, and taking seriously what He says in Proverbs, and Deuteronomy, and Isaiah, and elsewhere.
Start believing (and by "believing," I mean to take seriously in your life) that if you (by Christ's strength alone) yield to God and acknowledge His will in your ways, that He shall direct you, and you will "eat the good of the land;" and if you "refuse and rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword."
As Oswald Chambers put it, "The great need...is to believe things." God wants us to take seriously the beliefs that we take for granted.