Dare we deny what unsettling may come to us in the revelation of our own weakness? Our necessity(s)? All the need of correcting and disabusing of prior assumptions and presumptions that lead and/or have led to consequences found unsavory to us?
We may even find this as need be (and only God knows the very need of need be) that the more we boast of the power of Christ or of His loveliness, goodness, mercy and even His reality as such; that He is as these things are…not fable, not myth, not contrivance, but of all matters truest of substance and in all consistency of such, pure throughout; there may come a consequent revelation to us. That we, of ourselves, are none of these things.
We may see our own venality, spitefulness, all love of self that builds great monuments of self pity to the few things we have suffered or endured, and from there thunder down to others that they do not know as you or I know! We may even be shocked to discover where the man of sin sits. And how he sits, how he seems so certain in his seating as to be utterly enthroned and not subject to any dethroning.
And the despair and despairing that may ensue, that may even lead to the most caustic cynicism and deepest skepticism may have a taste to us with which we are not unfamiliar. Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!
It may not be (no, it surely isn’t!) a pleasant place of residence where our soul is raked and wracked upon every turn a man might make and all seems utter torment of every man’s doings. If a man speaks it is only lies, if a man is silent, it is only to cover the truth that he is a liar. And if, or when (God knows) this comes home to roost in us we may even come to rue the day and the Maker of days.
How close we may hew to the abyss, we do not know. And it is not (to us) as though we ever set out to come here, be here, or know here any of things now most seemingly plain to us. To us it never seems a place of advantage sought, nor really of any disadvantage sought…just real. And to us perhaps, despair becomes too real. We may even taste that deepest cynicism that comes of believing “I only sought after a good thing, and now look where I am!” “Even the best of pursuits ends in all misery!” Perhaps not even stopping short of “Who or what would do this…is doing this…to me?”
What (or who) is culprit in this? “Why” is this?
God forbid I try and fill in blanks beyond me. And no less, God help me if the above is blank to you, holding nothing of truth in experience or that I be found as one urging to it, or of its necessity of experience. But if you know of it, or something like it, know you are not alone. And God forbid I recommend myself as fit company.
But if you are able, hear what an apostle has written:
If, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found to be sinners, is Christ therefore the minister of sin? God forbid! For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.
One cannot overstress that “If”. This is all and only for that occasion of finding “If” if it be found. There is so much hope in the power of God to keep from that abyss in the apostle’s utterance of God forbid! God forbid we come to rest upon, settle into, find only place of any reality to us that “since this is all consequent to my seeking to be justified by Christ that has led me to know the utter despair that is in all falling short (sin)…that it is Christ Himself who has ministered such sin to me”.
I am in little doubt of how many voices could be raised to condemn such folly, but for the man who has either seen or been there in any measure, he knows too well that no multitude of voices (for all men there are made shown him as liars) can raise him from it. Only one can. Only one can rescue from any thing He forbids. The man here may learn he surely cannot, of himself.
O! yes, he may rummage through all sorts and manner of things “I am a christian, this cannot be” or “I have been through such and such in the Lord, or of such time in the Lord, or endured whatever for the Lord’s sake, this simply cannot be”…and all these things turn to ash in his mind and hand. They mean nothing here, hold no hope nor ability to raise or bring about ascension from this pit. His mirey-ness is too overwhelming, his proclivity for invention made too plain, his inclination to deliver himself by fabrications…also made too clear and plain and of no avail.
He sees some or all of his own cleverness and craftiness (ability to fashion, or invent) that has allowed him some standing among men, or some exercise of it to stop their cutting mouths. But this only adds now to his bonds, how a thing once so easily resorted to for escape or comfort is now a very thing condemning him. As are all and any other reliances that were to him of sometime advantage. They are revealed as such dung with which he has wrapped himself. And now hold only all condemning stink of pride. Who can rescue? Can any? Will…any…come into this place for him? Even if just to be with him to reduce this terror of isolation…let alone raise him from it? It would be so much more than enough…to just know he is not alone. But who could or would dare, or even care to come into such a place…for any?
So it is.
Who does not know, or has not known either of themselves or others of a one who has drawn back citing their hypocrisy if continuing? The words are not unusually of this sort “I found out that to me I was just believing in fables and untruth foisted upon me, and since not really believing, to continue would make me hypocrite”. Yes, it is framed in such manner that hypocrisy is being eschewed, the more noble way of truth and honesty being taken. And from there come the many justifications, reasonings, citings of discrepancies and so called errors or paradoxes of scripture and/or practice to a general conclusion of it as all too nonsensical to be of any sense, reason, and/or benefit to any and is therefore rejected.
But only God knows what any man believes.
Yet the apostle understood a thing about this journey. How easily false conclusions are reached, wrong equations set up. Where one may say it is “this thing” causing me to be hypocrite, God may preserve another through such in His mercy with encouragements. No, it is not the faith nor Christ Himself that brings about the hypocrisy or is minister of it…but rather that it is being shown as what it is and for what it is (even where it is!) …and even quite clearly, by Christ’s purging. And here it takes an intervention for any to stand, an intervening which, if not provided (even in and by such word as “God forbid!”) the man knows by this saying in form
Unless the LORD of hosts Had left to us a very small remnant, We would have become like Sodom, We would have been made like Gomorrah.
He too, would not have stood. The Lord’s strengthening so that something might remain is all and only working.
Had the Lord not preserved…had the Lord not prevented, had the Lord not given strength to all otherwise shown in collapse there, none could persevere. No, we are not in that way different than any other…but if so, then only so, and made only so, by the grace of God.
Where is boasting, then?
And whether any is beyond such recall…even in or by staunchest proclaimed resistance…only God knows. And will make known.
Yet Paul said he would not rebuild, or rather, if he did of what he once tore down…then surely he is transgressor and one found in it. And it could behoove us to investigate what of all (and how of all) Paul had torn down what was his to tear down, and even refrain from rebuilding.
What had Paul come to as bedrock and sole hope alone so that even if (as was even said in other place) that even if he himself be shown as unapproved he would not and could not deny?
Yes…Paul had very narrow vision…that opened to great vistas of visions and revelations, even made willing to count himself as lost “to it” if need be, that these matters of truth be not impugned.
How shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation, and Author of it?
Inseparable. Would we know what “being one” is?
God help us.
And God forbid dissuasion.
israelx7wordpresscom 