Post date: May 04, 2014 10:34:46 PM
“How long, oh, Lord?” Has your soul never blasted forth that question? If it never has, then I put it to you that either you do not know God, or you are a damned liar! Either way, God is not your friend, your buddy, your brother, your copilot, your confidant, your ally, or even a distant relative, but is your judge, jury and executioner.
If you are receiving no opposition from the world, then you are no enemy of the world; if you are no enemy of the world, then you are an enemy of God.
For many years I was an enemy of God, and from Him I received no peace. I had even convinced myself that no such thing as a god even existed.
Why such bitterness? Why such foolishness? Why such hardness of heart? Why such pride? Why such enmity? Why such fiercely held pain? Why such hatred?
I can tell you this: it was not God who hated me.
He was ever patient, ever kind, ever waiting.
Patience is a difficult concept. Indeed, for the member of such an instant gratification culture as ours, it is an impossible concept, being totally foreign and alien to what they are.
Why go to the trouble of making something slowly when the world promises it to you prefab-nuked with no risk at all of a prior investment of any kind?
Do you not know the life expectancy of such a promise? Have you never pondered the reasons behind the gargantuan divorce rate in modern western society? Have you never wondered why perversion is being called—and enforced—as though it were normal? Have you never thought to ask why those with the wisdom of age are being encouraged to end their lives?
Has it never occurred to you to ask why, in this “modern” society people—not trash, not hand-me-downs, but people—are so callously tossed to the curb these days, when parents deliberately make their own children homeless by kicking them out not caring that they have no place to go? Do you even care? Or do you perhaps even agree with these horridly filthy monstrosities?
Let me give you some reasons why there are monsters lurking under your bed.
To paraphrase and enlarge a famous quote, “αγαπη has not been tried and found wanting, but has been found difficult and indeed the very antithesis of instant gratification and therefore left untried.”
Is it really any wonder that, in a society so easily held in thrall to the Hollywood distortion of lust-is-love, “We have not loved Thee as we ought” should be such a bewildering, befuddling and bamboozling concept to the general masses?
When, even in a church and speaking to the leader of that church, single mothers proudly say that they have another baby on the way, there is a problem in the culture.
When sin is viewed as so totally and completely acceptable that people are proud enough of its besetting presence in their lives to freely announce it, there is a problem in the culture.
When the wanton murder of the defenseless and innocent is seen as a right worthy of defending at all cost, there is a problem in the culture.
When perversion is confident enough of its position in society to use the court systems in an effort to force the faithful to sin against God, there is a problem in the culture.
When women are allowed, and even expected, to treat the εκκλησια as their own personal beauty pageant, there is a problem in the culture of the Church.
When church leaders protest against their authorities in order to gain access for perversion to the pulpits of the land, there is a problem in the culture of the Church.
When outright rebellious sin is championed, celebrated, tolerated, ignored, covered up, or defended from the pulpits of the land, there is a problem in the culture of the Church.
What is the problem? Christ is not there, because no one is gathering in His name.
There are monsters lurking under your bed, America, and they are gaining confidence and threatening to crawl in with you and do what they will because God is not there to protect you because you have left His side.
He is waiting, patiently waiting, for the prodigal child to return. He waits with longing and patience, perhaps even with confidence, of that child’s return. Why? There is no other love like the Love of God.
I have lived it. I have known it, and I share it now, with you.
Many of you already know that I spent 20 years as an avowed and practicing atheist, so when I write as I have done above, I am not writing from the position of paragon. Not even close. Indeed, I live Isaiah 6. It keeps me in the proper context of the provision of God’s grace to me.
When God, though, gives a prophet a message, that prophet is beholden to God and not to men.
Now, I will write to you of patience.
Job endured because God endured with him. Job did not endure under his own strength because he had no strength left. God endured with him. Indeed, you could argue that God endured for him. Certainly, near the end of that book, God endured him: “Who is this that darkens counsel by words lacking knowledge? Gird up your loins to run like a man! I will demand of you and you shall answer!”
To this Job had the proper response, “I abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes!”
One of the primary lessons in patience is to learn to hold your tongue and resist voicing accusations where there is no real, solid, knowledge. Many times, you think you know, when in reality, you only have the barest glimpse. Untold are the times when people have spouted angry, impassioned accusations against me regarding circumstances of which I had no knowledge. When you do something like that, no matter the confidence you hold in your statements, your sin has just increased in the eyes of the Righteous One, who is Jesus Christ our Lord. As it is written, “If you were blind you would have no sin, but since you claim you can see, your guilt remains.”
God is everlastingly patient with those whom He claims as His own. He has to be, for in and of themselves, they are no different than the filth and stench of the world.
I have lived it. I have known it, and I share it now, with you.
Scripture commands us to make a joyful noise to the Lord. When all of the above is true, therefore, from where does that joy come?
Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. Set by whom? Being set before Him, it was not set by Him. Nor, in your life, is it set by you.
Patience, like joy, is a gift from God, built upon the foundation of the trials of your life. Patience is neither yours to give nor to have, but is a gift from God garnered from the trials He has set before you.
Years ago, an elder of mine, who loved me dearly cautioned me to stop praying for patience, because he knew how patience is obtained. Did he not want me to receive what I longed for? No. He meant well. He simply could not bear the thought of me being led through yet more tribulations than what he had already seen me endure. It was for the joy set before Him that Christ endured the cross.
“Behold the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, having neither storehouse nor barn, but God feeds them.” How? Does He lay it before them on a platter? No. They must go through things in order to get it, but it is there for them to get. Just as Christ had to go through the trial of the cross to get the joy lain before Him, so you must go through trials in order to get the patience lain before you.
I have shown you consequences, and I have shown you application. If you would receive from Christ, you must walk with Christ, and not with the world, for the world stands in opposition to Christ. You cannot walk with both.
Surely you know that it is not possible to, at one and the same time, walk both to the left and to the right. You are one. Therefore you must choose one course and not vacillate between two choices.
If you would have victory, you must defeat trials; if you would defeat trials, you must try; if you would try, you must move.
You cannot remain in one spot and expect not to suffer. If you do not walk with Christ, then, like the monsters lurking under your bed, the world will be upon you and will have you and will do what it will with you, and God will not be there to protect you because you will have left His side.
I pray that you will not allow this to happen, but that you will choose to walk with Christ; that you will strive to keep up, walking under His providence and protection, keeping His Word as your shield, and that, through your trials, He will provide for you all of His strength and endurance, so that you may know patient endurance.