The
Violent Take the Kingdom by Force
2
of 2
Elijah,
John the Baptist, Today
The Coming of Elijah is foretold in
Malachi: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the
prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful
day of the Lord.” Malachi 4:5. Jesus said that
“If ye will receive it, this is Elias, which was
for to come.” Matthew 11:13, 14.
“John the Baptist went forth in
the spirit and power of Elijah, to prepare the way of
the Lord, and to turn the people to the wisdom of the
just. He was a representative of those living in
these last days, to whom God has entrusted sacred
truths to present before the people, to prepare the
way for the second appearing of
Christ.” CD 70.
Wisdom,
Justified of Her Children
“Wisdom is justified
of her children.” Matthew 11:19.
Indictment
of the Generation That Mocked John and Jesus
After mightily supporting the life and
work of John, the reincarnation, as it were, of the
mighty prophet Elijah, and describing how much
greater the member of the kingdom is even than he
(and greatness means the extent to which the soul is
surrendered to the Holy Spirit), after describing how
the kingdom is taken by the violent, Jesus turns to
an indictment of the generation that mocked John,
describing the utter shallowness, vanity, and
worthlessness of a professed people of God who do not
live in submission to the King of kings:
“But whereunto shall I liken this
generation? It is like unto children sitting in the
markets, and calling unto their fellows.
“And saying, we have piped unto
you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto
you, and ye have not lamented.” Matthew 11:16,
17.
A Generation Utterly Irrelevant With
Reference to God Declared John to Be Devil-Possessed
It was a generation that was utterly
irrelevant, utterly beside the point, utterly out of
the question, with reference to God. Their lives had
no meaning because they were divorced from God. They
had considered themselves very religious, but in
actual truth, there was no pertinent connection to
God, or submission to God. The servant of the Lord
declares that Isaiah 59 is the prophetic description
of their spiritual condition as well as the spiritual
condition of our time:
“I was pointed to Isaiah 58;
59: 1-15; Jeremiah 14: 10-12, as a description of the
present state of our nation. The people of this
nation have forsaken and forgotten God. They have
chosen other Gods and followed their corrupt ways
until God has turned from them. The
inhabitants of the earth have trampled upon the law
of God and broken His everlasting covenant.” IT
355, 356.
Nietzsche’s
Philosophy
This testimony was written in 1863
during the time of the Civil War. Today, since the
1960s especially, the spiritualistic philosophies of
Nietzsche rule the street in America. Nietzsche
declared that “God is dead” for all the
practical purposes for a generation that lives as if
there is no God, a generation that lives without
reference to God, a generation in which, under
Nietzsche’s philosophy, believes that we are
beyond good and evil, in a time where every man sets
up his own value system of what is right and wrong.
Nietzsche, Freud and Jung made self into a religion.
Today’s religious world is enmeshed in
self-esteem, in self-glorification and the worship of
self, and hardly a soul is left who knows what
crucifixion of self is, what self-abhorrence is, what
self-denial and self-renunciation is. However, the
great apostle Paul declared, “I am crucified
with Christ.” Galatians 2:20.
The
Kind of Love That Flows From Heaven and the Cross
“God’s wonderful purposes of
grace, the mystery of redeeming love, is the theme
into which “angels desire to look,” and it
will be the study throughout endless ages. Both the
redeemed and the unfallen beings will find in cross
of Christ their science and their song. It will
be seen that the glory shining in the face of
Jesus the glory of self-sacrificing love. In the
light from Calvary it will be seen that law of
self-renouncing love is the law of life for earth and
heaven; that the love which “seeketh not
her own” has its source in the heart of
God.” DA 19, 20.
Unleashing
Every Variety of Fanaticism and Apostasy
This religion of self has utterly
fragmented humanity in the Lord, unleashing in the
religious world all manner of deviant fanaticism and
apostasies, as people seek to somehow find spiritual
security while at the same time operating off the
base of the spiritualistic premises of
Nietzsche’s philosophy of the supremacy of self.
In the area of religion as well as the secular world,
psychology has largely replaced spirituality, with
people exploring self with gestalt therapy instead of
finding God with a heart that renounces self.
The generation of Jesus’ day
brought forth fruit only to themselves, they related
only to themselves. God was not really their God.
They sought honor from one another, and sought to
sway the emotions of each other. Though they
considered themselves the chosen people, the chosen
of God, in God’s eyes they were foolish,
irrelevant, insipid-like foolish children in the
market place. The man who was great in the eyes of
God, the man filled with the Holy Ghost, to the
wicked, foolish generation was deemed to be devil
possessed:
“For John came neither eating nor
drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.”
Matthew 11:18. John’s life in the wilderness,
spent seeking God, his abstemious rejection of the
mind and soul-benumbing luxuries and comforts of
life, made his a mockery to that evil generation, who
said of the man filled with the Holy Spirit from the
womb of his mother, “He hath a
devil.”
That
Generation Evaluated God in Human Flesh as a Glutton
and Winebibber
And what was the generation’s
evaluation of God in human flesh, of the infinite
Christ, the messiah whom the whole nation professed
to be seeking for 1,500 years? Jesus declares what
they said of Him, “The Son of man came eating
and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous,
and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and
sinners.” Matthew 11:19.
Perceptive
Faculties Shaped by Satan
Satan himself shaped their perceptive
faculties. They accepted Satan’s view of the
truly spiritual ones filled with the Holy Ghost. They
rejected John as demon possessed. They rejected Jesus
as a glutton, a winebibber, a friend of publicans and
sinners. Do not seek the approval of men; seek the
approval of God only. If it had been your good
experience to receive the Holy Spirit, those who seek
the honor of men, though they be the professed people
of God, will always find something about you to
discount you.
Wisdom
is Justified of Her Children
Jesus then declares, “But wisdom
is justified of her children.” Matthew 11:19.
Those who are wise in God’s eyes
will understand both John and Jesus. However, a
generation out of touch with God because they sought
honor from men and not from the one true God only,
were utterly devoid of wisdom. And Christ is made
unto us by God, Wisdom, Paul declared under
Inspiration in 1 Corinthians 1:30.
Here is stark contrast is how God
views greatness in human life with how a carnally
secure religious society views human life. God sees
greatness as the degree to which a man empties
himself and partakes fully and unreservedly of the
Holy Spirit. Self-satisfied man sees the titillation
of the senses and emotions as the evidence of social
acceptability.
Dynamic
Drama
The
Dynamic Drama of a Life of Submission to the Infinite
One
God designed that every moment be
filled with awe before him, that life be lived in the
dynamic drama of moment-by-moment submission to the
great and dreadful God of heaven. God designed that
every moment of our lives be filled with intense
meaning-meaning that comes from worshiping the Holy
One of Israel, the Infinite One, terrible in
righteousness, Who is filled with character and soul.
Undimmed
Perception of His Glory
God designed that our soul’s
union with the great God of mishpat, the One
Whose name be Jealous, be never broken.
Through the soul, the person is connected by faith
with God. In all relationships and experiences He is
to come first and be central, loved with all the
heart, soul, mind, strength, and intensity-with every
ounce of our being. His glory, justice, His holiness,
His mishpat, His truth, His righteousness, His
love, His faithfulness, His providence, His courage,
His valour, His mighty deeds, are to occupy and
direct the human soul continually. All diminution of
our perception of His greatness is absolutely
forbidden. That is the purpose of the first four
commandments. There is to be no degradation of our
soul perception of God’s greatness, or we are
instantly degraded and devastated. The awe involved
in worship of the living Creator-Redeemer God
transforms the character, soul, heart, and
personality of man.
The
Soul
There once was a time when matters of
the soul preoccupied Christianity. Such a time
was the time of nonconformity in Britain, especially
the times of such men as William Penn and John
Bunyan.
Bunyan’s works, recommended by
the Lord in the writings of the Lord’s servant
are focused on the matters of the soul.
Building
Godlike Character for Eternity
When matters of the soul and the
building of character for eternity preoccupy
God’s people, then great progress is made in
godliness and godlikeness. Then the entire
Bible comes alive with meaning, the eye is taken off
a man and is focused on God and that which matters
for eternity. Then all of one’s personal life
becomes filled with meaning. At the center of the
soul and character stands the God of character and
soul.
Matters of the Soul are Primary
In times of apostasy, such as the time
in which we live, we must be careful that the matters
of the soul are primary. The soul must be nourished
with the Bread of Life, the Water of Life. The souls
must be guided by the Light of life; by Him Who is
the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In times of
apostasy, people were prone to lose their spiritual
nerve by looking at the circumstances around them,
and fall off the narrow mountain path that leads to
heaven, losing their spiritual life in spiritual
death at the bottom of the cliff.
Examples
For Us
The entire bible comes into play here.
The Bile is the book of liberty, hated by Rome, hated
by Satan, because it teaches man to be in submission
to heaven, in submission to the King of kings, Who is
the great lover of liberty. The Old Testament is
loaded with experiences of people who found
themselves in appalling situations. Paul declared
that “Now all these things happened unto them
for ensamples: and they are written for our
admonition, upon whom the ends of the world
are come.” 1 Corinthians 10:11.
Paul writes, “And what shall I
more say? For the time would fail me to tell of
Gedeon, and of Barak, and of Samson, and of Jephthah:
of David also, and Samuel, and of the prophets:
“Who through faith subdued
kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises,
stopped the mouths of lions,
“Quenched the violence
of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of
weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight,
turned to fight the armies of aliens…”
Hebrews 11: 32-34.
These
experiences of these men are written, not that we
might read or wonder, or have good subject matter for
sermons. They are written for our admonition, so
that the revelation of God’s character revealed
in their actions, produced by faith, might become our
character, resulting in great victories for our soul,
for the souls of those we love, and for God’s
people in our time.
