Concluding as it did (Pt1) with a claimed liberty to address what is “just like him”, that is, the man who knows he has lied to himself in, and by, his own mind, I continue. Finding no prohibition, nor even shame in admission at how very often I lie, and am found lying to myself, even exposed as lying and lying to myself; would otherwise entail denying the Lord’s knowing by any denial, and also deny His grace and truth by allowing shame an upper hand in any attempt to conceal what is both so plain, and plainly paid for by the Lord’s death. And I understand now, better than I imagine I ever have…”Who then would want to listen to a liar?”
As surely as I could not convince myself, I can convince no other how far better it is to admit to one’s self that estate, and seemingly risk appearing as a liar, than to either deny the Lord in His knowing, or deny the Lord in His grace. We may often say “Let God be true and every man a liar” without any understanding at all, even often thinking as we may repeat it, it is now only applying to some other man, or some other men. We often think by repeating what is true, we are being ourselves, in all things, true. And, no doubt, it surely is a thin veil of comfort to think so, in this lying to ourselves that is being made too plain. And surely, if we do learn we have and do (even often) lie to ourselves, what is left but to lie to one another?
Is it not made…too plain? When Jesus spoke of the man who had gathered much to a building of barns for it and then spoke to his soul, is it not plain Jesus both hears and knows all inner conversations of man? Do you think not? Or that it was only that particular man, that other man of which He spoke?
And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
Now, as a liar, I will concede to other liars how easily this is made to appear as it is not. It is, to a liar, most easily grasped (and more comfortingly appraised) as meaning, “This is Jesus telling us, or at least a someone somewhere, ‘to not be like that‘ ” But who isn’t already like that? Who doesn’t think that way? “I’ve been going full bore, I’ve been spending myself, I have had the pedal to the metal (after whatever fashion), and now I will conserve…I will take my foot off the gas (to preserve it)…and coast now for as long, or as long a time, as I have provided myself”
If you have never been caught, or do not recognize, or worse, refuse to recognize the ease with which self indulgence is indulged, even in calculations and justifications, I have nothing to say. And I understand the weak refutation “Are you saying there is no rest, no ease to be had or found?” God forbid! For, it is only found of God, and in God through Christ. The man who labors for himself, who attributes fruit as coming from his own labors…does not yet even recognize, if there be any (fruit), it was also and only God who supplied all power…to labor. But while the man adjudges and proceeds from “the labors are my own, and the fruit is therefore also” he cannot but think thus, be caught thus, and exposed, thus.
But yes, it is no mystery of the how and why, even a disciple might think merely “This is Jesus telling us how we ought not to be”. But, when we find out we already are…
It is no less plain that to some this is appraised as more a mistake, a failure in, and by, not knowing, by which the man proceeds to speak to himself…he’s not lying to himself…he’s just mistaken. Oh, yes, indeed it is, indeed he is…mistaken, for the not knowing of how things are. And by that he speaks a myth to himself, a myth received and promulgated of all practice among men and of which men cannot escape…but by intervention. And more the point of the parable, is that intervention. How easily, in all our appraisals is that not considered? God speaks to the man!
Oh, yes, we can leave it at “this is a parable about a foolish man”…somewhere. A man Jesus is warning us to not be like. “After all,” we think from the comfort of our armchair as we study “God calls him a fool”. That him, there, in the story, “Yes, God, I agree, that man is a fool…because…” Because he didn’t even know he didn’t know. “Just how mistaken that man is, huh, Lord?!” Yes, some leave it there. Being glad it was of some other Jesus spoke. For we have now “taken the lesson”.
O foolish man who lies to himself! But what of God? God speaks/spoke to that man who is like that. Yes, he calls him a fool, yes, there is a sting to that, no doubt. But nevertheless…does God speak to him? Jesus says He does. Do you doubt? Or do you leave the story, may even like to leave the story/parable (are you now lying to yourself?) with the man, none the wiser, dying that night…and even justly…as a fool?
I would have to wonder about you as I must often wonder then about me, have you ever had an intervention? Ever…not had one? It’s plain this man had reproval, rebuke, rebuff, and right to his own face as a fool, by the Knower of all things. Do you think, believe…even barely consider God’s confrontation, so plain and frank…with stern rebuke…is made to none effect? If so, would a man, even any man in Christ…even a liar if shown so, not be right to hold some fear for you? About you? Or do you believe as that any man mentioned, who may even be of Christ, that God’s power to awaken a fool, is greater than fool’s love of slumber in the lies he tells himself?
Is Jesus speaking a parable of some man, somewhere? Or, is God waking us up to whom that man is? The man needing to be shaken from the comfort of the lies he tells himself…even that this parable is about…someone else?
The sting. Yes the sting. Might a man awaken at a sting? He may with eyes yet closed brush away some troublesome fly buzzing around his nose, or seeking to land upon his lips, barely rousing. But a sting? Will he sleep through that, to die a fool, as he rolls snoring toward the precipice? God knows, doesn’t He? Is it kind or unkind of God to sting? To even have Him say “you fool!” and know it is you and/or I unmistakably being addressed. Have any found the kindness in it? I know a fool who has. Might stings even and therefore…come to be treasured?
“Who are you, Lord?”
“Jesus whom thou persecutest”
Do you dare imagine, do you dare believe, if you are a man and have known anything about being man, even a man proceeding from what he thinks he knows…that there was in that moment, maybe even and only for the tiniest fraction of that moment, not some most profound and immediate knowing/sensing/experiencing in the man…of an “Uh-oh!”
Or, was it all and only, in Saul’s most heightened moment of inner conversation “Oh, cool, Jesus has something to say to me”?
I don’t think that Uh-oh ever left that man. I know it didn’t. He treasured it as he treasured grace, that Uh-oh moment, for he knew in himself grace is meaningless to a man apart from a most profound experience of the Uh-oh that shakes and wakes him. He was sure of it. It doesn’t make grace meaningless, God forbid! Anymore than I can make it mean more than it already does to any. Only God is both able to sting, and so heal that sting as it may be gloried in.
Now I know I cannot deliver that sting, having had no power to awaken myself, if indeed I am. Part of that sting is a man learning, and continuing to learn…that as much as he might like, as much as he might feel compelling, as much as he might even find a burning desire…even as these things grow deeper and farther in himself to desire as he had never understood it…once…he is, in all of himself, and of himself…of no ability.
One might think it odd, wouldn’t one? Wouldn’t growing mean one is getting better at stuff? I mean at least some ability to plainly show all ease in it. But then, Jesus as fully grown would have left testimony of a man declaring as he walked up Golgotha’s hill, “Cake walk, cake walk everybody, just a cake walk for me, see you in three days. I been bearing the cross all the days I have been with you, it’s cool (you guys kill me, you really do! ha ha!)…see how good at it I am now!”
Some may think that joy precludes tears and snot and cries and blood (O! the blood) and sweat…and even some sensing of an uh-oh…Eloi Eloi lama sabacthani. No it is only joy that makes any to bear it. Even to a man most probably soiling himself, and publicly, and quite without ability to restrain.
But a man like me? At best, a liar, believing in that intervention for such.
God knows.
You know. The only one whose joy gives us strength.
That One.
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