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.
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