Cross

… the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. [1 Cor. 1:25]

I started listening to the the Epistle to the Romans on CD the other day while out walking. Normally I listen to music, but I had the overbearing sense I needed to listen to Romans in my re-interest in the Law and the Prophets. I listened over and over and it was as if the Lord amplified all the words. Quite often, too, the Lord will seem to highlight words that I should consider very strongly.

I began to consider how the Lord is neither as strict nor as loose as people make Him to be. Funny, but the Law was never meant to be legalistic. It is the story of God woven into the life of a people. Yet how many try to keep that law through their uncleanness [will post more on this later]. How ironic.

Some of the videos I’d watched that day referenced Messianic Jews and all the issues surrounding that idea in Israel. How interesting that the Messianics don’t consider themselves “Christians”. I thought of all the arguments, pro and con about Yeshua haMashiach. I think the whole world, Gentiles and Jews both, are “off” about Him. There’s a simple answer in the Cross that seems to escape everyone.

For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. [1 Cor. 1:18]

I fell asleep thinking about that. But before I did, I stuck the Romans CD in the clock radio/CD player next to my bed (another thing I never do). Part of the CD includes the last of Acts and the beginning of 1 Corinthians. Somehow during the night, it got stuck on a loop on 1 Corinthians 1. It played over and over and over. A particular verse got stuck in my dreams and I didn’t know it was from the player until waking.

1Cr 1:25 …the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

That “foolishness” is the power of the Cross mentioned in 1 Corinthians 18. When I woke up, I realized the player was on a loop and kept listening and listening, as if waiting for some magic to happen. Finally, I had to drag myself to work.

The other day I told a friend that I was trying to rid myself of the Greek mindset through which we view scriptures. I wondered later: What would be a better mindset? If it hadn’t been “Greek”, it would have been something else… What about the Jewish mindset? Maybe that was better? After all, God presented Himself to the Jews. But no! Here came God through a Jew later and they did not recognize the hour of their visitation! [Luke 19:44] Clearly, it doesn’t matter what our mindset is. Outside of our apprehension of the Cross, it’s wrong.

Jesus asked Peter [Matt. 16:18], “Who do men say that I am?” Peter told him, “Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus responded, “Flesh and blood has not shown you this, but my father which is in heaven…and upon this rock…”

Twice I have sensed a word of knowledge in a couple of weeks, and one of them came about while discussing these verses a couple of weeks ago. Some think the rock is the Pope (Peter) and some think it’s the confession. It’s not the Pope and it’s not the confession. It’s the “revelation”. The confession is an evidence. An unbeliever can confess from now till the cows come home and it means nothing. But revelation… God can build a lot on revelation. Revelation gets past the human mindset.

At work I opened my email and a friend had sent an article from a site that I read irregularly. I don’t actually like some of his extremism on the site, but the author hit the nail on the head today with an explanation of three mindsets mentioned in scripture and how they affect us today. I think this particular article explains a lot of what I have been describing. His article quotes the same verse from 1 Corinthians 1, as well.

It cannot be an accident that my CD player got stuck on that very chapter and that the man’s article dealt with the very things I’ve been thinking about. This happens to me a lot when the Lord is getting my attention about something. I knew something was up before this happened… Since posting the previous article, I suddenly experienced another sudden surge of weeping/ecstatic joy accompanied by an impending “celebratory” sense. As I read through Romans some things became more clear to me. It will take some more sorting to get them all out here. I am so excited about … I don’t know what…

I’d like to share a sermon by Paris Reidhead, “Ten Shekels and a Shirt“, that I didn’t quite understand the first time I saw it posted somewhere. Perhaps it was the terms in which it was addressed by the poster that threw me. I had almost the impression that if we don’t all do some amazing thing like sell ourselves into lifetime slavery as some of the early Moravians did, we have not truly given ourselves over to the Lord.

Now you can imagine what thoughts were turning over in my mind at the trajectory of what would happen if every Christian believer in the world went on a works-based frenzy and did this. I wondered what would happen to families and children if we all threw ourselves simultaneously into some machinery that crushed out our lives and that of our posterity? What would happen to the whole world, in fact? Thankfully, God is more practical than this. He doesn’t send us willy-nilly to the ovens.

But I think the real point to the sermon is why do we do anything that we do? Is it for God or for ourselves that we do it? Reidhead tears the mask off of humanism in our works, even the works of the missionary on the field, evangelism, charities and other good works. I thought to post this after finding the Cross missing from the words of many well-intentioned people who are leading others straight out of the faith and hindering those who would enter. If it’s true that wolves don’t stick around too long when the emphasis is on the Cross in our lives, the blood of Jesus and the like, then — by George — let’s talk about these things all the time!

The Cross has much more application to our lives than sitting around in a doorway of hope. It’s about the path beyond, too. If I muse a bit much on meditation for some tastes, then let me add that meditation is listening to God and learning His ways. It’s what you do when you ponder your Path. It has no lasting benefit except for those who know the Cross! How can you know His ways if you don’t know His Cross? How can you obey Him in anything else if you won’t obey His Cross?

Sometimes I think of the Path of God as a river with people camped to the right and to the left of it. On one side of the river are those trying to save the lost through the preaching of repentance and remission of sins. On the other side are the folks who want to show the entire world the love of God through many channels, keeping in mind that it is the love of God that leads us to repentance. Both have access to the same river and are able to have communion with one another, though they may look a bit cross-eyed across the river sometimes at one another.

Then there are the fringes camped so far out there that they have cut themselves off from the stream. There is no life in their words and they water no one. The one group preaches such a stringent hell-fire and damnation message that it seems no one can be saved. For these legalists, salvation is about pulling your butt out of the fire. On the opposite side are teachers against the necessity of the work of the Cross in a personal way. They declare that the Cross is no longer important in a practical way for whatever reason they dream up — there are many variations on this thinking. Salvation for them is about making humanity happy.

Somewhere in the middle is the “now, but not yet” bunch who believe the kingdom of God is in us but does not yet have full expression in the earth. (I would be in this group.) And I tend to favor floating in the river, which is why I catch it from both camps on either side. It’s also why I favor a contemplative experience of God but won’t join causes like “Make Poverty History” and things like that. In the first instance, you have nothing to contemplate if you don’t have the Cross. In the second, you can’t make poverty history unless you can change the hearts of evil humanity — how are you going to do that without a Cross?

So while two camps eye each other suspiciously across the river, they both dip into the same stream of life. They will see eye-to-eye on a few things, namely the Cross, the Blood of Christ, repentance, and knowing God as indispensable. The fringes cannot give a cup of water to the thirsty — they have none to give, having placed themselves too far from the Source. Both of them are humanistic, the goal being to save humanity for its own sake and happiness, inasmuch as they can discern what it needs to be saved from.

I choose to make the river the priority, in case you ever wondered at the lack of moral causes and organizations showcased on this site. I choose my battles carefully, shaking hands on both sides of the river with those who do feel called to tackle some issues in this world. Though there must be scant benefit to these things, I prefer the option of doing all to the glory of God. I believe that Reidhead summed it up in the middle of his sermon: “Didn’t God intend to make man happy? Yes. But as a by-product, and not a prime-product.”

A growing trend in the churches of the Western World deeply troubles me. Call it apostasy, call it “doctrines of demons”, call it humanism and it is all one and the same boiling cauldron of lawlessness. The worldly church loves with an unholy love stripped of all righteousness and justice and calls it “the love of God”. They teach their fellows that there is no difference between the repentant and the [willful] sinner, that all may participate in the celebratory victory of Jesus Christ.

To that, I raise the question: How can you enter resurrection if you’ve never passed through death? How can you have forgiveness if you’ve never had repentance? For if you don’t have those things first, you have no right to drink of the cup of Christ. “But, but, but…..,” protest the rising voices. “You are unloving.” But I reflect on this:

Jhn 13:35 By this shall all [men] know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

“One to another” in the context here does not refer to everyone in the world, but to disciples. And my objection is that these love everyone except the Lord’s disciples. Nor can they love the disciples unless they first subvert them into lovers of the world. In fact, they persecute the disciples, wearing them down if possible to bring them into submission to their humanistic gospel.

There is a naive idea that we ought to fellowship with any and all believers, even if they bring uncleanness into the equation. This is spiritual harlotry. The spirit is seductive and will suck the unaware into academic circular discussions and spiritual filth that will militate against their own souls. How can light have fellowship with darkness, righteousness with unrighteousness? Some, bless their hearts, want to dialogue with these firebrands, in hopes of bringing them back.

And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all [men], apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth; [2 Tim 2:24-25]

If, on the other hand, we are dealing with those who think themselves to be mature teachers and will not regard sound doctrine, we have advice from the first century church:

…but if the teacher himself turn and teach another doctrine with a view to subvert you, hearken not to him; [The Didache, 11:2]

Timothy continues in this vein:

…in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves … Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts, Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. [2 Tim 3:1-7]

We are there. I have seen it with my own eyes. I have tasted and handled. I believe we are living in the days of a ripened humanism.

…humanism is a philosophical statement that declares the end of all being is the happiness of man. The reason for existence is man’s happiness. Now according to humanism, salvation is simply a matter of getting all the happiness you can out of life. [Paris Reidhead, "Ten Shekels and a Shirt", sermon]

Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth [John16:13]. Not one person I have ever heard argue for the humanistic gospel has testified of being apprehended by God, brought to his knees in repentance, and radically transformed from a state of death and sin into a state of life. They read books, gather speakers and teachers; they swim in suppositions about things that may or may not be and declare them as fact. They posture and they strut, but not one ever speaks of the ongoing reality of the Cross or the power of the blood of Jesus in his own soul! Nor do they open the way that others may access the Door of the Kingdom.

I’m afraid that it’s become so subtle that it goes everywhere. What is it? In essence it’s this! That this philosophical postulate that the end of all being is the happiness of man, has been sort of covered over with evangelical terms and Biblical doctrine until God reigns in heaven for the happiness of man, Jesus Christ was incarnate for the happiness of man, all the angels exist in the…, Everything is for the happiness of man! AND I SUBMIT TO YOU THAT THIS IS UNCHRISTIAN !!! Isn’t man happy? Didn’t God intend to make man happy? Yes. But as a by-product and not a prime-product! [Reidhead]

The humanistic gospel is the most self-righteous and self-serving gospel I have ever heard. It is the gospel of “niceness” rather than love and salvation. Its adherents compass land and sea to make one proselyte and then make him twice the child of hell as themselves [Mat. 23:15]. The worst humanists are the ones who call themselves believers. Flee this pollution!