Epilogue - The Object Supreme
When I was a Child ...
Today, I still have a termendous, hugh caboose behind the back door. That I know. But I am also being confirmed in my stablity in Christ.
II Th 2:16-17
16 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God, even our Father, which hath loved us, and hath given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace,
17 Comfort your hearts, and stablish you in every good word and work.
(KJV)
It was by God’s allowance that I discovered concrete prayer and was led into this stablility that has come into my life. The communication is now two way, and “He leadeth me.” (Psalm 23).
But what is it He has led me to?
When I was that young teenage boy in the Baptist church back then, every now and then I would hear one Christian say to another, “That brother really loves the Lord.” And I would cringe in my inward soul.
To escape hell, I went forward. To get peace from the omnipresent media news of death, destruction, violence, cruelty, hate, crime, madness, viciousness, meaness, meaninglessness, ugliness, and injustice, I went forward. To have some guidance into the terrifying and incompetent adulthood I was about to enter into, I went forward.
To love Christ, I went not forward.
To love a Lord? What was that? To me, in the deepest recess of my teenage soul, it seemed more like toadying to a totalitarian, booklicking a boss, placating a principal. I feared God. I respected God. I loved His justice on the rare occasions I saw it visited on the wicked. But to love Him? That seemed like flattery on a cosmic scale. Loving God was something I thought people did who tended to overdo things. Guilding the lily, as it were. I could not imagine God wanting me to love Him. I mean, God was God, and would always be God. That was His job, and He would not be one iota affected by my loving Him.
I recall an old story about one of the cruel autocratic German kaisers of two centuries back. The story is that there was a really mean kaiser, who liked to travel the streets incognito. One time a German peasant recognized him on the street and then tried to get away from him. But the monster caught the peasant and yelled at him, “Why do you run away?” The peasant was so terrified that honesty tumbled from his lips: “Your majesty, I was afraid of you.” And there upon the autocrat’s anger was kindled as he began to beat the peasant with his cain and yell “Fear me? Fear me? You dumkopf swine! I vant you to love me!” Whack! Whack! Whack!
That was the viscerial feeling. It felt inappropriate to love the Lord. Let alone say it out loud. And being a teenage boy didn’t help. Guys don’t say they love another guy, even if the guy in question is God incarnate.
In a lot of the hymns I was forced to sing, there was a lot of invented emotion I was forced to come up with:
I love to sing its worth;
It sounds like music in my ear,
The sweetest Name on earth.
O how I love Jesus,
O how I love Jesus,
O how I love Jesus,
Because He first loved me!
It tells me of a Savior’s love,
Who died to set me free;
It tells me of His precious blood,
The sinner’s perfect plea.
O HOW I LOVE JESUS, Frederick Whitfield, 1855
And there was also a lot of “gun to the head” kind of love that seemed to want to wring out of me more than I could possbly give:
All for Jesus, all for Jesus!
All my being’s ransomed powers:
All my thoughts and words and doings,
All my days and all my hours.
Refrain:
All for Jesus! All for Jesus!
All my days and all my hours;
All for Jesus! All for Jesus!
All my days and all my hours.
Let my hands perform His bidding,
Let my feet run in His ways;
Let my eyes see Jesus only,
Let my lips speak forth His praise.
ALL FOR JESUS, Mary D. James, 1871
And quite frankly the Old Testament revelation of this God appeared to show some unlovely things about Him:
A streak of nastiness a mile wide.
Exod 20:4-5
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;
(KJV)
A low tolerance for being sassed.
Lev 24:10-16
10 And the son of an Israelitish woman, whose father was an Egyptian, went out among the children of Israel: and this son of the Israelitish woman and a man of Israel strove together in the camp;
11 And the Israelitish woman's son blasphemed the name of the LORD, and cursed. And they brought him unto Moses: (and his mother's name was Shelomith, the daughter of Dibri, of the tribe of Dan:)
12 And they put him in ward, that the mind of the LORD might be shewed them.
13 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
14 Bring forth him that hath cursed without the camp; and let all that heard him lay their hands upon his head, and let all the congregation stone him.
15 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his sin.
16 And he that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him: as well the stranger, as he that is born in the land, when he blasphemeth the name of the LORD, shall be put to death.
(KJV)
An intolerance for “Romeo and Juliet” stories.
Num 25:1-11
1 And Israel abode in Shittim, and the people began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab.
2 And they called the people unto the sacrifices of their gods: and the people did eat, and bowed down to their gods.
3 And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.
4 And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel.
5 And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor.
6 And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;
8 And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.
9 And those that died in the plague were twenty and four thousand.
10 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
11 Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, hath turned my wrath away from the children of Israel, while he was zealous for my sake among them, that I consumed not the children of Israel in my jealousy.
(KJV)
The mass murder of children and even infants.
Deut 2:32-34
32 Then Sihon came out against us, he and all his people, to fight at Jahaz.
33 And the LORD our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people.
34 And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain:
(KJV)
Ps 137:8-9
8 O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed; happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
9 Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones.
(KJV)
These are unlovely things about this God had I committed myself to in the person of His Son. And yet He commanded me to love Hm “with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.” (Deut 6:5), along with my neighbor as myself. (Lev. 19:18).
The most I could say was that I liked God, but not that I loved Him. And as it happened, that was also true of my neighbors in regard to myself. Having grown up hard of hearing in a school system not characterized by Leviticus 19:14 ( “Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor put a stumblingblock before the blind, but shalt fear thy God: I am the LORD”), I had grown up with not much of a liking for people either, even if I could sympathize with them from time to time and wish them well. What I had for myself at that time was the golden idol of the self. That I could love unreservedly, even if it was a base and debasing idol to love.
... Then I Became a Man (of God)
God had His work cut out for Him. And this he proceded to do.
I had come to Him with a profession of John 3:16 on my lips. He was to take me and destroy everything I thought I understood about Him, and then pound some Jame 1:17 belief into me as well as some more John 3:16 belief. It was rough work.
My destruction was by the way of Job, with liberal helpings of Ecclesiasties along the way. Daily did those books of the Bible resonant with me. The toils of theodicy were liberally mixed together with the futility of life “under the sun.” This became my daily spiritual food.
Job 3:1-7
1 After this opened Job his mouth, and cursed his day.
2 And Job spake, and said,
3 Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night in which it was said, There is a man child conceived.
4 Let that day be darkness; let not God regard it from above, neither let the light shine upon it.
5 Let darkness and the shadow of death stain it; let a cloud dwell upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it.
6 As for that night, let darkness seize upon it; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.
7 Lo, let that night be solitary, let no joyful voice come therein.
(KJV)
Eccl 1:2-11
2 Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.
3 What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
4 One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
5 The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose.
6 The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits.
7 All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.
8 All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing.
9 The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
10 Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old time, which was before us.
11 There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after.
(KJV)
A pitiless, pitiless grinding and regrinding to dust, to atoms, of all I could love or put my hope in that was on earth.
Ps 90:3-4
3 Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
(KJV)
But always, always with the question of Abraham’s great faith:
“That be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked: and that the righteous should be as the wicked, that be far from thee: Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:25, KJV)
Unto Perfection?
Then one day an extraordinary thing happened to me while I was doing something as ordinary as buying groceries in a grocery store. Between walking from the side of one aisle to other, the following verse fragment popped into my mind:
“... God is love...” (1 John 4:16)
But that was not the extraordinary thing. Verses of scripture often pop into the heads of people who read Bible with any great regularity. This even happens with secular books.
The extraordinary thing was what happened next: I had an unbidden mental image come into my mind.
Since I was a scientific person , the image that came into my head was this:
I saw our solar system in space. I saw the mighty sun in the center, and all the planets going around it, in majestic procession. And then I saw that the heat energy of the sun was radiating, spherically radiating, ever and ever on all of the planets, ceaselessly and without fail, with more generosity than the wealthiest man in all history. Just radiating and radiating on them, on and on. And then I remembered a stray fact from astronomy to the affect that for all the heat energy the sun releases every second, only the tinest faction of it ever reaches the planets, and lesser still of it ever reaches the surface of a planet because its planetary magnetic field or its atmosphere absorb it.
Then suddenly this unbidden image and its odd factoid changed in my mind into something of like a spiritual allegory that explained what “God is love” really means. It showed me that God’s love is so infinite that it is infinitely unrequited. God’s love radiates ever and ever on every atom of the universe He has made, but very little of it is ever returned and requited by the objects He so shines it upon.
And my breath was taken away. Here was the consentration and perfection of the most ultimate love there could ever be, radiating itself eternally and infinitely -- and all for just the meagerest returns of love from its creatures. My heart was caught, and tears started in my eyes. Right in the middle of the grocery store.
Now fortunately I am, most of the time, a fairly cross-grained, hard case of a man, so I did not make a scene, even through scene had been made in me. I harumphed, wiped my eyes quickly and got back about my business.
But I knew I had been visited. An with a particular visitation. But what was the nature of this visitation? Had anybody else had something like this happen to them?
Later on I was to find out that, oh yes, somebody had:
"In this vision he showed me a little thing, the size of a hazelnut, and it was round as a ball. I looked at it with the eye of my understanding and thought "What may this be?" And it was generally answered thus: "It is all that is made." I marvelled how it might last, for it seemed it might suddenly have sunk into nothing because of its littleness. And I was answered in my
understanding: "It lasts and ever shall, because God loves it."
-- Lady Julian of Norwich (1324 - c1416)
Now, do realize that by adducing Lady Julian of Norwich here, I am not thereby ratifying everything she wrote, for she wrote for her time and her place. But what I am pointing out is that I had a similiar internal experience of a truth that is found in the Bible that was presented to me by way of an unbidden mental representation.
Julian called her representation a “vision,” because that was what they were commonly called in her time. I am calling mine an “unbidden mental representation” because I realize that the truth being illustrated by it, as written in the Word of God, has the rightful prior claim to anyone’s attention. My “unbidden mental represention,” while communicating things to me that cold print and my own mental framework could not, still remains a communication to me and not to anyone else.
This was, as I was finally able to figure out after along time, mysticism. It was an internal communication of the Spirit of God to my own tiny spirit.
Mysticism is not a thinking of what God thinks, it is a feeling of what God feels. It is to feel the overwhelming unrequiteness of His great love, and to love Him for it. That, and nothing else, it what mysticism is supposed to be for. It is not for trying to know what mysteries God may know without feeling anything towards Him. It is not for having estatic experiences, or experiencing paranormal phenomena. And it is most certainly not for making a big whoop-de-do over yourself.
Mysticsim is for feeling what God feels, so you can love Him for it and fullfill His commandment to love Him with all your heart, all your soul, and all your might, no matter how feeble your prompted obedience to that commandment is. In the end, it is the difference between having read “God is love” thousands and thousands of times, and having experienced that one moment that reveals to you what it really means and weeping over it.
This is why I have insisted throughout this book that Christianity is a bicycle with two wheels: The Bible, and the experience of the Holy Spirit of God. The external written Word of God, and the internal voice of the Living Word of God.
If we have only the dry reading of the written word, we will read that God is love thousands of time but never will the Lord find an answer to it in our own hearts. If we await only the voice with within, we may fail to recognize whose voice it is and fall prey to the one that is not from God. The Word and the Spirit. They go together, or they do not go.
This is what the writer of the book of Hebrews calls going unto “completion” - which is mistranslated as “perfection.”
Heb 6:1-2
1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God,
2 Of the doctrine of baptisms, and of laying on of hands, and of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.
(KJV)
The word “perfection” is in fact teleiotes, which according to Strong’s Greek Dictionary means “a completer, i.e. consummater.” What is it this writer says should be consumated? Well, the key doctrines of the Christian faith - what the writer calls “the foundation”:
1.) repentance from dead works,
2.) faith toward God,
3.) the doctrine of baptisms (the one into Christ and the one into water)
4.) laying on of hands
5.) resurrection of the dead
6.) eternal judgment.
The writer is complaining to the people he is addressing his letter to that it seems like they have to be taught these things again, that their foundation has to be laid again, when they should already have gone on to consumate these teachings and be standing on them as a foundation.
That is an interesting statement to make, because if you look at that list of doctrines: 1.) repentance from dead works, 2.) faith toward God, 3.) the doctrine of baptisms, 4.) laying on of hands, 5.) resurrection of the dead, and 6.) eternal judgment, you will quicky realize that they are what ninety-nine percent of all Christian books, sermons, videos, conferences, TV shows, radio shows, and tape casscette series are about. The writer to the Hebrews says that these things are foundational, and should only have been laid down only once, for each believer. This should tell us one reason why most church services are so boring. They are repetitions and recapitulations of all this basic information which should be every Christian's foundational understanding of the faith.
So if these doctrines are merely the foundation, what sits upon them? What does this foundation support? After giving out the famous “roll call of faith” (Hebrews 11) the writer of Hebrews goes on to tell his readers:
Heb 12:1-2
1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses [ the roll call of faith that he just gave ], let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2 Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God...
(KJV)
What sits upon that foundation is the looking unto Jesus. And how it is that we look unto a man whom a lot of other people say is dead and buried? By faith to be sure - as the previous chapter 11 of Hebrews was so intent on demonstrating. But how is that faith practically expressed day by day? It is expressed concretely in concrete prayer. One prays unto the Father, in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God. And one receives answers of one sort or another that daily proves that He is there, and that He answers prayer. This is the practical, concrete meaning of looking unto Jesus, and having faith in Christ.
The whole point about knowing all the foundational doctrines of Christianity is not knowing about all the foundational doctrines of Christianity. The whole point about knowing all the foundational doctrines of Christianity is so that you, yourself, can pray concretely to the Heavenly Father, in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, by means of the Holy Spirit of God indwelling you. The whole point of the Bible is, first to make you aware of this relationship, and then secondly to help you sustain it and grow in it while you are still down here below, while Christ is still up there in heaven at His Father’s right hand. That is essentially what true Christianity is about.
And this is all geared towards helping you run the race.
Tour de Heaven
So where did my bicycle take me? It took me on an accelerating path to finding more things to love God for, and give Him His due worship. And part of that acceleration was when God allowed me to notice that there was such as thing as concrete prayer as opposed to airy-fairy prayer.
The book of Leviticus has been called one of the most boring books in the Bible. It is basically the operating procedures manual for the tabernacle (tent) worship of the children of Israel’s He-Who-Is. It is about setting up the Tabernacle when the new camp was reached, conducting the sacrifices and other spirituals matters, and then taking it down for the move to the next camp. It is a book what was dictated by God to Moses, and Aaron the High Priest.
Lev 6:8-13
8 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
9 Command Aaron and his sons, saying, This is the law of the burnt offering: It is the burnt offering, because of the burning upon the altar all night unto the morning, and the fire of the altar shall be burning in it.
10 And the priest shall put on his linen garment, and his linen breeches shall he put upon his flesh, and take up the ashes which the fire hath consumed with the burnt offering on the altar, and he shall put them beside the altar.
11 And he shall put off his garments, and put on other garments, and carry forth the ashes without the camp unto a clean place.
12 And the fire upon the altar shall be burning in it; it shall not be put out: and the priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and lay the burnt offering in order upon it; and he shall burn thereon the fat of the peace offerings.
13 The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out.
(KJV)
Most Christians rarely read the book of Leviticus. Those that do, try to move through it as fast as possible. If an assembly has a through-the-Bible-in-a-year plan of public reading meetings, Leviticus is usually when the meetings will start to thin out. I can say this because I used to be one of the rare-readers, fast-movers, and non-attendees.
But my bicycle has now brought me to the place where Levitcus actually thrills me. And what is it that thrills me? That fact that the actual spoken words of the LORD are recorded on most of the pages. Only the gospels quote God this extensively. It thrills me to see God’s recorded words on a page of print.
The other reason it thrills me is that, for most of the book, the LORD commands something, and then Moses and the children of Israel scramble to do what is commanded. His will is done on earth as it is in heaven. That thrills me much. And the thrill tells me just how much God has done to bring my spirit to its rightful place before Him in worship.
Numbers is another famously boring book of the Bible. It is famous for having long interminable lists of things in it. Things that are numbered. But there was one time I was reading Numbers chapter 7, and came to an interminable list of the donations the twelve tribes of the children of Israel made unto the LORD for the dedication of His altar.
It finally came to a close at
Num 7:84-86
84 This was the dedication of the altar, in the day when it was anointed, by the princes of Israel: twelve chargers of silver, twelve silver bowls, twelve spoons of gold:
85 Each charger of silver weighing an hundred and thirty shekels, each bowl seventy: all the silver vessels weighed two thousand and four hundred shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary:
86 The golden spoons were twelve, full of incense, weighing ten shekels apiece, after the shekel of the sanctuary: all the gold of the spoons was an hundred and twenty shekels.
(KJV)
And then I received an unbidden mental image of the twelve tribes majestically passing by Moses to lay these beautiful things on the ground before him. And I was moved to tears for the LORD at this honor that was done Him. I was beginning to enter into “All for Jesus, all for Jesus” territory.
Once the bicycle has taken you this far, other things start to happen. You start see something that David son of Jesse saw:
Ps 18:24-27
25 With the merciful thou wilt shew thyself merciful; with an upright man thou wilt shew thyself upright;
26 With the pure thou wilt shew thyself pure; and with the froward thou wilt shew thyself froward.
27 For thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks.
(KJV)
To be “froward” is to be crooked and perverse. If there appears to be nastiness and hatefulness in God, it is because there is nastiness and hatefulness in the human being (or the society) who approaches God. After a while of going on with God, you begin to see things from His perspective and take His aside against those who are froward to Him. You begin to see the pride of place God’s “lamborghini-hood” has over human “Yugo-ishness.”
Perry Mason Spiritualis
The stoning of the kid Egyptian? Almighty God worked a mighty deliverance for the children of Israel from the hands of Pharaoh and his army, and then revealed his sacred personal Name to them -- and the only thing this punk Egyptian kid can think of to do with this sacred Name is use it in profanity? “Hey Joshua! Anymore of them there stones left?”
Did Phinehas, the son of Eleazar put a premature end to an Israelish “Romeo and Juliet” story? No, that’s not what really happened. The children of Israel had been wandering in the wilderness for a generation and lost their immunity to venereal and other kinds of diseases. The Midianites had simply sent their tarts over to do a little germ warfare, and there was this one profane person of an Israelite who cared more about exercising his gonads than he did about his people and his God. “Hey Phinehas! Done with that javelin yet?”
Did the LORD order the killing of children and even infants? Of Israel’s enemies, yes, He did. But even this horrible thing has its mitigating circumstances.
1.) The taboo that infants should absolutely not ever be killed for any reason did not start to enter the Western world’s consciousness until a generation or so after the Jewish Diaspora resulting from the conquest of Ancient Israel by the Assyrians and Babylonians. In much of the world before then, since time immemorial, unwanted babies (usually the “extra” girls or the deformed) where literally throw away. Thrown into rivers, or left outside to be eaten alive by wild animals.
The Diaspora itself was due to one of the controversies the LORD God had with his people over the subject of infanticide:
Lev 18:21
21 And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD.
(KJV)
This prohibition was ignored:
Jer 32:32-40
32 Because of all the evil of the children of Israel and of the children of Judah, which they have done to provoke me to anger, they, their kings, their princes, their priests, and their prophets, and the men of Judah, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.
33 And they have turned unto me the back, and not the face: though I taught them, rising up early and teaching them, yet they have not hearkened to receive instruction.
34 But they set their abominations in the house, which is called by my name, to defile it.
35 And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination, to cause Judah to sin.
36 And now therefore thus saith the LORD, the God of Israel, concerning this city, whereof ye say, It shall be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon by the sword, and by the famine, and by the pestilence;
37 Behold, I will gather them out of all countries, whither I have driven them in mine anger, and in my fury, and in great wrath; and I will bring them again unto this place, and I will cause them to dwell safely:
38 And they shall be my people, and I will be their God:
39 And I will give them one heart, and one way, that they may fear me for ever, for the good of them, and of their children after them:
40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hearts, that they shall not depart from me.
(KJV)
In the dispersion, a lot of lessons seemed to have been learned. And that apparently was good for the Western world, as the book of Act makes plain. “For Moses of old time hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the synagogues every sabbath day.” Which preaching would presumably would include the LORD’s opinion of Molech.
But the ball really didn’t get started until Christianity started taking hold in the cities of the Roman Empire. Prohibitions against infanticide were considered a Jewish custom. One took it up when one converted to Judaism.
The Christians, on the other hand, were nosy parkers who butted into other people’s business by rescuing abandoned babies. Their ethic for this came from Christ’s own lips,
Matt 18:2-5
2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them,
3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.
4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
5 And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.
(KJV)
Matt 18:10-14
10 Take heed that ye despise not one of these little ones; for I say unto you, That in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father which is in heaven.
11 For the Son of man is come to save that which was lost.
12 How think ye? if a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?
13 And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray.
14 Even so it is not the will of your Father which is in heaven, that one of these little ones should perish.
(KJV)
This ethic was part of what got the Christians thrown to the lions from time to time. The pagan world thought the survival of an unwanted child brought bad luck. And such a survival could play havoc with settling estates at probate time
The coming of Islam also helped to suppress the practice of infanticide both in the West and the East.
As for much of the non-Islamic Eastern world, things pretty much went on as they had until a generation or two ago. After Billy Graham graduated from Florida Bible Institute, he was on his way to becoming a happy-faced evangelist to “Mom’s Apple Pie" America. But then he met his future wife, Ruth Bell, who had grown up in a Chinese city as a child of missionaries. She was the one who clued Billy into just what was at stake as far as the evangelism thing was concerned. Ruth had spent her childhood walking over a bridge over a river that always seemed to have dead baby girls floating by in it.
So what we finally see from all this is that the modern judgmental-isms over the LORD God of Israel’s commandments to Moses concerning enemy children are in fact based on the ethic that LORD gave to Israel in the first place. Both Islam and Christianity are inheritors of that ethic. If Israel had lost the battle with those nations and had their own children killed instead, there never would have been an ethic against killing children in the first place (or least waiting until they got born before killing them, anyway. It seems Molech is very impatient these days. )
I will add one more thing to this last point. The children could not have all been adopted. There were only so many infants and dependents a primitive family could take on back then without having its working hands being taken away from raising food and starvation resulting. So in going into an extermination war, the children of Israel where left with the logic of Lt. Calley. To have left the children alive after their parents were dead would have been to leave them open to being eaten alive by animals during the night. But as we have just seen above, this was not even something an Israelite of the time would even have thought of worrying about. It was their LORD God who did.
2.) The LORD’s order to the children of Israel to wipe out whole nations was restricted to just the nations the children of Israel were told to replace. And there was a set timing for this, as the LORD told Arabraham:
Gen 15:12-16
12 And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him.
13 And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
14 And also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
15 And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
16 But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
(KJV)
In Abraham’s day, the bad guys - the Amorites - were not that bad yet.( in fact the patriarchs had been shamed by the ethical standards of some of them). By Moses time, however, they were rotten to the core. They had take up Molech and other abominations.
Any nation that takes it upon itself to do horrendous evil before the face of Almighty God should expect to one day meet with defeat and destruction by its enemies as a judgment by Almighty God. This is true whether we are talking about Sihon’s people, or the Aztec Empire, or the Third Reich.
[ The Politically Correct crowd harps a lot about Cortez too. Yes, he was a miserable killer. But then after you read Gary Jenning’s Aztec you go “Hey, Cortez! Need some more bullets?” ].
3.) As we have seen before, Christ’s teaching seems to indicate that children who have died before “knowing good from evil” are put in “return to sender” status. And we have this testimony of the Most High to Jonah the prophet:
Jonah 4:10-11
10 Then said the LORD, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night, and perished in a night:
11 And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
(KJV)
And we also have Christ’s word on the resurrection of the dead in general.
Matt 22:23-30
23 The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him,
24 Saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother.
25 Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother:
26 Likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh.
27 And last of all the woman died also.
28 Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.
29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
(KJV)
As it appears to me, what this seems to say is that sex and age are both related to being in time. That would be logical. Time is a place of sequential duration that requires reproduction by sex, and aging in order for consciousness to continue. But once you leave time and enter eternity, sex and age no longer define who you are. I believe this verse disproves conclusively the old hard shell Scottish Calvinist Presbyterian idea of infant damnation. (Horrible doctrine! And one I believe led to the advent of Universalism.)
No, once a person enters eternity, they have no particular age and are non-sexual beings. They are spirits who have bodies instead of bodies who have spirits.
So rest assured, the LORD God may be a God of judgment, but He is not a God of destruction for destruction’s sake. That role He leaves for Satan.
In the Beauties of Holiness
As the Tour de Heaven continues, you will come to see that God is a beautiful Being. You begin to pick up on the love affair that went on between Moses and the LORD.
Exod 33:8-23
8 And it came to pass, when Moses went out unto the tabernacle, that all the people rose up, and stood every man at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he was gone into the tabernacle.
9 And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses.
10 And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door.
11 And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle.
12 Moses said to the LORD, "You have been telling me, 'Lead these people,' but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. You have said, 'I know you by name and you have found favor with me.'
13 If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so I may know you and continue to find favor with you. Remember that this nation is your people."
14 The LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."
15 Then Moses said to him, "If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.
16 How will anyone know that you are pleased with me and with your people unless you go with us? What else will distinguish me and your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?"
17 And the LORD said to Moses, "I will do the very thing you have asked, because I am pleased with you and I know you by name."
18 Then Moses said, "Now show me your glory."
19 And the LORD said, "I will cause all my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the LORD, in your presence. I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.
20 But," he said, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live."
21 Then the LORD said, "There is a place near me where you may stand on a rock.
22 When my glory passes by, I will put you in a cleft in the rock and cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
23 Then I will remove my hand and you will see my back; but my face must not be seen."
(NIV)
Exod 34:5-10
5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD.
6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness,
7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."
8 Moses bowed to the ground at once and worshiped.
9 "O Lord, if I have found favor in your eyes," he said, "then let the Lord go with us. Although this is a stiff-necked people, forgive our wickedness and our sin, and take us as your inheritance."
10 Then the LORD said: "I am making a covenant with you. Before all your people I will do wonders never before done in any nation in all the world. The people you live among will see how awesome is the work that I, the LORD, will do for you.
(NIV)
This too was something David son of Jesse saw.
Ps 27:4
4 One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may 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.
(KJV)
And it was felt by those who met the incarnate Son in the flesh.
Luke 4:16-22
16 And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read.
17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias [ Isaiah ]. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
20 And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.
22 And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, Is not this Joseph's son?
(KJV)
John 1:35-39
35 Again the next day after John [ the Baptizer ] stood, and two of his disciples;
36 And looking upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God!
37 And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed Jesus.
38 Then Jesus turned, and saw them following, and saith unto them, What seek ye? They said unto him, Rabbi, (which is to say, being interpreted, Master,) where dwellest thou?
39 He saith unto them, Come and see. They came and saw where he dwelt, and abode with him that day: for it was about the tenth hour.
(KJV)
And to three disciples, it was seen.
Matt 17:1-8
1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart,
2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light.
3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.
4 Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias.
5 While he yet spake, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them: and behold a voice out of the cloud, which said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.
6 And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their face, and were sore afraid.
7 And Jesus came and touched them, and said, Arise, and be not afraid.
8 And when they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no man, save Jesus only.
(KJV)
With Moses this relationship became a worshipful familiarity after awhile.
Num 10:34-36
34 And the cloud of the LORD was upon them by day, when they went out of the camp.
35 And it came to pass, when the ark set forward, that Moses said, Rise up, LORD, and let thine enemies be scattered; and let them that hate thee flee before thee.
36 And when it rested, he said, Return, O LORD, unto the many thousands of Israel.
(KJV)
And the LORD became to Moses like the most innocent person in the world who needed to be shielded from the presence of wickedness. During the rebellion of the sons of Kor,
Num 16:15
15 ... Moses was very wroth, and said unto the LORD, Respect not thou their offering: I have not taken one ass from them, neither have I hurt one of them.
(KJV)
The apostle Peter also felt this, but it was against himself that he felt it.
Luke 5:1-9
1 And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear the word of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
2 And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.
3 And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.
4 Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
5 And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net.
6 And when they had this done, they inclosed a great multitude of fishes: and their net brake.
7 And they beckoned unto their partners, which were in the other ship, that they should come and help them. And they came, and filled both the ships, so that they began to sink.
8 When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.
9 For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken:
(KJV)
For all the anger and wrath that the froward bring out of the LORD because of their froward hearts, those who have come to know Him as He would be known have found in Him a quiet and humble spirit.
Matt 11:28-30
28 Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
(KJV)
It was for this reason that the LORD picked Moses to be Israel’s mediator.
“Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth.” (Num 12:3).
But never forget that meekness does not mean weakness. Meekness is merely the disciplined restraint of strength.
HEY!
Hum? Oh. “Thy neighbor as thyself?” Yes, we mustn’t forget that either. I would agree, and more than you might think. But the polar opposite error to an isolated, hermetic mysticism is the kind of fleshly extroverted activism that leaves God out altogether because one is acting on one’s own thoughts and motives, which might be unconsciously suspect.
John 12:4-5
4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,
5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
(KJV)
Luke 10:41-42
41 And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:
42 But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her.
(KJV)
Sometimes a self-righteous care for the poor is not so much a care for the poor as unconscious attempt to see that the alabaster box is not broken for Christ. Remember that the fallen Light Bearer will be just as happy to have no light shed on God as he will be to have an evil light shed on God.
There is also a very great danger in trying to love your neighbor without first having the love of God in your heart. The whole sorry escapade of genocidal communism has essentially been the folly of atheists trying to force other atheists to act like the early Christians. A fatal folly indeed, because some of the early Christians did not behave like early Christians:
Gal 5:14-15
14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
15 But if ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another.
(KJV)
No, if we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, the love of God must be its foundational basis, and not vice versa.
Think about it. Can you really save people by “forcing them to be free”? Do people really respond to that? And won’t you become imprisoned as their jailer if they won’t be “free.”
If anything, my years on the planet have taught me that Wordsworth had the right of it when he spoke of “the weight of too much liberty.” People are already so free that they have come free of the ground of their own being and do not realize that they are upheld by He who is the “upholding all things by the word of his power.” (Heb 1:3) They have eternity in their hearts and know that they are meant for some great thing but cannot find it, so they slay themselves and others in the frenzied search for it.
The food and drink and raiment must be there to be sure (Janes 2:15), but these are transient things. Unless we are animals, they are not what we live for. What we live for, in the end, is to have some signifigance, and to have that eternity in the heart filled.
John 4:9-15
9 Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.
10 Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.
11 The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?
12 Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?
13 Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:
14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
(KJV)
We love our neighbors best when we love them in the love of God, and not in our own feeble love. We serve them best when we offer them, not just material substance, but spiritual substance as well. They need to have the eternity in their hearts filled, and to look into the apple of the eye of He who always knows the number of the hairs on their heads.
"O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress;
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.
"O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbor
With all your crooked heart."
As I Walked Out One Evening,W. H. Auden (1907-1973)
The Marriage Supper of the Lamb
“ ... for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ.” (2 Cor 11:2, KJV)
Eph 5:25-27
25 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church [ the assembly of Christians connected to Christ by the indwelling of Holy Spirit of God ], and gave himself for it;
26 That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27 That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.
(KJV)
Rev 19:7-9
7 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife hath made herself ready.
8 And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.
9 And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
(KJV)
The engraved invitation is here:
John 3:16
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
(KJV)
If you need that statement broken down further for your understanding, see Twenty-Seven Metaphors to a Grasp of Happiness.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. So be it!
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