Darkness and Light (07/31/22)

We have here a passage rich in symbolic imagery, and those present to us a sharp contrast.  The primary contrast with which we are presented is that between light and darkness, along with their companion figures of day and night.  These are images utilized throughout the text of Scripture.  As the Dictionary of Biblical Imagery observes, both are part of the tapestry from the very first moments, when we are presented with a world sunk under darkness until God creates light.  And right away, we find that the light is the superior power, as the light rolls back the darkness wherever it is found.  This is an important aspect of the matter for us to bear firmly in mind.

So, then, if darkness is symbolic, what does it symbolize?  Well, much of its symbolic force can be understood directly from its physical aspect.  Its impact may be lessened somewhat by the realities of modern life, but still, when we are plunged into sudden darkness, we are blinded.  Go out on a moonless night on an unlit road, and it’s easy enough to feel that impact still.  Perhaps there is yet enough light to see one’s way through familiar areas, but relocate to a field or into the woods, and movement becomes quite challenging.  As to sense of direction, it’s gone.

I recall a thing we used to do in our teens, where we would take to the storm drains in town, and make our blind way across the city.  This is utter darkness.  Once you have cleared visual connection to the entrance to that long tube, there is nothing.  You can find your way readily enough, for there’s only one choice of direction, really, and the walls are always in reach of one’s fingers.  Nor are there any great obstacles to be concerned with, other than getting one’s feet wet.  But what becomes interesting is the lies your mind tells you as you proceed.  Though you can’t see a thing, yet your senses are busily trying to fill in the blanks, and one common sensation experienced was that the ceiling of this tube was forever getting lower, or that perhaps there was a slight downward slope to the thing.  Now, given that any slope was almost certainly in the opposite direction, and we traveling gradually upward, neither of these impression were accurate.  But in that darkness, there’s nothing to inform you of the truth.

And that brings us directly to the spiritual implications of darkness.  Darkness blinds us as thoroughly in spiritual matters as it did in that tube.  But unlike the storm drain, here there is no clearly delineated path, no wall to touch so as to guide one’s way, for we have become blind to the guiding influence of God’s truth.  Our attention is turned to 1John 2:11 in that regard, where John writes, that the one who hates his brother is in darkness and walking in darkness.  He continues, informing us that this one doesn’t know where he is going because darkness blinds his eyes.  Well, there it is.

Let’s pause there.  There is direct application of this for ourselves, of course, a bit of a self-check.  If we find ourselves in a place of hating our brother, we need to recognize the larger problem.  We are becoming blind, not to mundane matters of relationship, but to serious matters of spiritual reality, of God’s truth.  Now, let me tell you what happens here.  We find ways to convince ourselves that what we are feeling, what we may be expressing, is not in fact hatred.  It’s just frustration, or maybe personality conflict, something, at any rate, short of that hatred which would declare our blindness.  But how does this differ from what the Pharisees had done with the Mosaic law?  We find Jesus, from some of His earliest preaching, bringing correction to this attempt at self-justification.  You’ve managed not to murder somebody?  Wonderful.  That’s very good.  But have you been angry with your brother?  Have you called him a fool?  You’re just as guilty, so far as heaven’s court is concerned, and there can be no appeal to their judgment (Mt 5:21-22).  This is but another step on that same sinful course.  But the one who will not turn from his wicked ways and repent doesn’t see where this is leading, because darkness has blinded his spiritual eyes.

Now, I said there is a dual aspect to this.  This same realization, I should think, ought to inform our thinking when we encounter the sinner.  It may hold particularly true for those occasions when we must confront a brother, a fellow believer, who has become entangled in sinful practices and doesn’t seem inclined to break free.  His situation is just this:  Darkness has blinded his eyes.  He can’t see what he’s doing.  In such a case, the love of Christ must surely compel us to find the means to serve as that wall by which he can find his way clear.  That wall doesn’t berate.  It doesn’t put hands on hips and declaim, “J’acusse!”  No.  Our calling in such a case is to express that same love and mercy which Christ has shown to us.  That may require a degree of sternness, what we would call tough love, but if it has not the compassionate, benevolent concern of Christ in it, then it is not of God.

Take it to the case of the unbeliever, and here indeed is cause for compassion toward the lost.  To be sure, there are plenty out there with significant animosity towards Christian faith.  We see it constantly.  It’s not the idea of religion that offends, so much as the specific claims of Christianity.  Many arguments have been offered for why this is so.  It is pointed out, for example, that a Muslim is less likely to take such insults in stride and maintain his peace.  But that does little to explain why Christianity should be rejected, and all sorts of other belief systems accepted.  Buddhism, for example, finds wide welcome where Christian faith is denounced as something evil.  And even where most organized systems of religion may find themselves unwelcome, we find the lost yielding to the appeal of other spiritualities, to pagan and primitive ideas like rocks having power, the ‘universe’ speaking and guiding, and other such ideas.  The reality is that most everybody recognizes that there must be some spiritual reality out there.  They just don’t like the shape of the True reality.  No, that’s not even the correct assessment.  It’s here in John’s point, in the image of darkness.  Darkness has blinded their eyes.  They cannot walk in God’s truth because they cannot see God’s truth.  Even when the Bible is opened before them, and its most basic and straightforward realities proclaimed, they can’t see it.  Boil it down to the relatively universal concepts of the second table of the law of Moses, and still they can’t accept that Biblical truth has anything to say to them.

What I am saying, then, is that those lost ones around us, even in their heated animosity toward Christian faith, are blinded.  Darkness has blinded their eyes, and in so doing, has blinded their minds.  They cannot accept God’s truth, because that truth has not in fact penetrated their darkness.

Okay, well let’s notice of few more things about this.  First and foremost, as Paul in particular reminds us pretty regularly, we used to be in that very same condition.  Paul was personally in that condition in a most physically real sense.  Encountering the Light of heaven on the road to Damascus, he was physically blinded for a season.  Why was this?  Well, for many reasons, one suspects, not least, to rid him of his arrogance somewhat.  Such blindness, especially come so suddenly, leaves one entirely dependent.  There was no question of him finding his way into town unassisted.  There was no question, at that juncture, of him doing much of anything unassisted.  Even mundane matters of eating, or of personal hygiene, would require help.  This was, after all, something utterly new to him.  He hadn’t had long years to develop means of coping, other senses sharpening to take up the slack.

But more, it was a physical representation of his spiritual reality.  Paul, for all your certainty about Law and religion, you are utterly blinded to the Truth.  How else do you come to be seeking to murder these Christians, these whom God Himself has taken as His own?  Indeed, even without that, how do you justify this hatred, this blood lust that is upon you?  Are you indeed keeping the faith of Israel pure?  Really?  No, I tell you, you are not.  You are blind, a blind fool.  But Light is come.  You shall be blind no more.  Truth shall enlighten your mind, and you shall be a most valuable servant of Mine.  Let them take you to town.  It will be told you what you must do (Ac 9:6).

So, here’s the thing.  I’ve noted it already, but as we consider the issue of the darkness which blinds the unbeliever, let us remain extremely clear on this point.  Darkness and light are not equal forces.  That kind of thinking takes us down the road of ancient lies like Manicheism, or Zoroastrianism, perhaps with the ideas of Yin and Yang, where two equal but opposite forces are ever in conflict in and around us.  But that is not the true case.  That is the darkness seeking to inflate its reputation.  No, light reigns.  The Light of Christ, when it comes, penetrates the darkness as surely as does a flashlight with fresh batteries, as surely as those bold spotlights with which we guide folks to some exciting event or other.  Light always penetrates darkness.  But it is God’s decision whether the Light of His truth will penetrate the darkness of this individual or that.

It was God’s decision that led to His Light penetrating my darkness.  I was in that place I have described above, willing to explore spiritual realities, but unwilling to accept the spiritual reality that God is Who He says He Is.  I was okay with others believing what they liked, and I was okay with taking ideas from here and there and, if not fully incorporating them, at least playing with them, seeing what they might have to offer.  The answer was not much – nothing, really.  But God.  God came all unbidden, spoke to my thoughts, entered my mind.  It was an invasion, I suppose, but of a most beneficent sort.  It was Light dispelling my darkness.  It was Truth pushing away the veil of ignorance that had kept me from acknowledging my Creator and Savior.  It was, in short, salvation come to me.

You see, it is from darkness that Christ delivers us.  The prophets provide us with the image.  We were a people in darkness, sitting in that darkness, not even aware enough of our situation to seek escape from it.  Matthew brings this message up in regard to Jesus moving into the regions of Galilee when He learned of John’s imprisonment, Galilee being, by most Jews, perceived as a land in darkness, being, as it was, Galilee of the Gentiles.  But Matthew tells us that Jesus locating into that region came in fulfillment of prophecy, and in particular, the prophecies of Isaiah (Mt 4:16).  “The people who walk in darkness will see a great light.  Those who live in a dark land, the light will shine upon them” (Isa 9:2).  One can hear, as well, the message of Isaiah 60 in this.  “Your light has come!  The glory of the LORD has risen upon you.  Darkness will cover the earth, and deep darkness the peoples.  But the LORD will rise upon you, and His glory will appear upon you.  Nations will come to your light.  Kings will be drawn to the brightness of your rising” (Isa 60:1-3).  This is no nationalistic hymn.  This is the kingdom of God, the kingdom of Light, breaking through.

Jesus came on a divine rescue mission.  My thanks to the DBI for that description.  He has transferred us out of the power of darkness into His own kingdom.  Now, again, let us be clear.  He did not purchase our freedom by paying the devil for ownership of us.  Far be it from Him to do so!  No, what He paid was our debt to His own court.   It was in the courts of heaven that our sentence of darkness had been imposed, or more properly, the penalty of darkness that came as the due of our sins.  The order here gets a bit tricky.  But that eternal debt we owe is not to our dark overlord who held us in his power.  It is to the One Who set him in power over us in the first place, not as promoting or inflicting evil, but as the just punishment of our own wicked ways.  “Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored” (Ro 1:24).  God effectively said, at least for the duration, ‘your will be done.’

But where His light shines, when He determines to roll back the darkness, we find our wills released from bondage to sin.  Oh, we still sin, and that all too frequently, but there has come awareness.  There has come an urge to be better, to honor this One Who has purchased us out of darkness, and called us into His marvelous light.  And with that calling has come a duty; the duty to minister this same light to those around us who yet remain in darkness, that they, too, might see His light, might come to knowledge – real knowledge, saving knowledge – of His most glorious Truth (1Pe 2:9).

Light and darkness are not equals.  Light rules, and this light of Christ rules as a benevolent King, for He is a benevolent King for those He calls His own.  He sees to it that we are not left deprived of Light.  We who have come to know His light of Truth recognize the terror of being deprived of it.  We have seen where it leads.  We have witnessed in ourselves what the darkness renders us capable of doing, and it is now, rightly, a great horror to us that it was ever so, or that it ever could be.  But there is something to recognize here.  Knowing the terror that comes of being deprived of the light of Truth, how terrible a thing it is when we hide that light away in our own turn, refuse the comfort of Christ and His Lordship to those who yet sit in darkness around us.

Now, again I must emphasize that God is fully in charge of His Light.  If He would have it to shine into this life or that, then indeed it will, whether we do our part or not.  God is not in any way dependent upon our good services.  Neither are our efforts sufficient to cause His light to shine into a life which He has not chosen to redeem.  “I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” remains His name and His distinct, unalterable prerogative.  But His ultimate control does not relieve us of our moral responsibility.  He may succeed in spite of our moral failure, and we may even be redeemed in spite of our moral failure.  May be?  If in truth we are His sons and daughters, there is no maybe about it.  We shall be.  But I dare say, even so, we shall know remorse for having failed in our purpose, in His purpose.  We shall rue the travesty of our timid refusal to witness of His Light.

Well, one way in which we give witness to the Light of Christ is by living as sons of Light, as Paul writes here.  If in fact we have been awakened to the goodness, the blessing of God’s truth, which includes the most marvelous reality that He Himself abides in us – Truth abides in us! – then this is going to show.  It’s going to show even if we are inclined to hide it somewhat.  It will show in a holy life.  Peter speaks of us as a peculiar people, as the KJV presents it – what other translations offer as a chosen people.  There is a degree of peculiarity about the believer.  Our lives follow a different course, a different trajectory.  At least they should.  We are a people who, when wronged, incline to turn the other cheek.  This, as I observed previously, is at least partial explanation for why it is unbelievers are more willing to level their calumnies against the Christian than against proponents of certain other religions.  It’s so much safer to revile one who will forgive rather than retaliate.

But we bear this emblem of a holy life, which is the symbol of God’s favor upon us.  We think differently.  We treat people differently.  Our concerns and our focus are different.  This holds true in greater or lesser degree, depending on the circumstance and our stage of maturity, but it holds.  There is a reason some of us grow a bit tense when faith seeks to merge with patriotism.  Much as I may love my country, it is not God’s kingdom.  Neither is it permanent.  No government is.  Only the Kingdom of Christ fits eternity.  The empires of man rise and fall, and we who walk in the light of God’s truth must surely recognize what He Himself declares most plainly:  That He determines both the rise and the fall.  Whatever we think of those who are presently in place as our government, the truth remains that their position comes by God’s choice, and its duration shall be determined by God’s choice.  There, in itself, is good reason to pray for our leaders, for nobody wishes to be ruled by fools.

So, let me leave off this topic with one final observation.  We are the light.  As His representatives, as sons of His light, we are left in this world as the light.  We have a purpose.  That purpose is to shine in the world.  This has twofold impact.  The first is that, as we have been observing, light rolls back the darkness, and in so doing, exposes that which sought to hide in that darkness.  Sin loves the cover of darkness, because it keeps sin from being observed and recognized.  When light penetrates that covering darkness, though, sin lies exposed.  Denial is no longer possible.  All pretense is swept away, and the stark reality left exposed and plain to see.  What is perhaps worst for that sinner, at least from his perspective, is that the sinfulness of his sin is plain for him to see.  He must confront it, and he has no desire to do so.  So, his reaction to this exposure may not be particularly good.

But we also serve as lighthouses in the darkness of this present order.  We understand what lighthouses are designed to do.  In the darkness, there are dangers unseen.  There are rocky shoals fit to rip the keel out of your ship, leaving you to drown in the storm-tossed seas.  The lighthouse, shedding forth a light to penetrate the darkness, may not be able to inform you of the specific nature of the danger, but it can at least tell you the whereabouts.  You are approaching land, and it is not a pleasant harbor.  Danger lies before you.  Of course, the navigator who knows the particulars of each lighthouse, the specific patterns and colors of their light, and what they signify, will also be able to use their beacons to steer his way into safe harbor.  That, perhaps, gets more to the Christian metaphor in this instance.  Our mission is not to steer folks away from their potential approach to Christ, but to guide them in, aiding them in avoiding the rocky shoals of sin which might otherwise make shipwreck of their lives.  We guide them to rescue.  That is our purpose in life.  That is why Jesus does not simply take us home to Himself immediately upon our salvation.

We have a job to do, and may it be that when Christ returns, on whatever day that may be, He finds us pursuing our jobs with all due diligence.  May it be that we come to the end of days having indeed helped many to find the shelter of His love, having fulfilled our purposes, and having done those good deeds which He prepared beforehand that we might do them.  May we have boldly shown forth this light which He has shone into our hearts, that all might see and might have opportunity to know this King of Light.

Situational Awareness (08/01/22)

As I shift into this new topic, I actually need to continue briefly with the last topic of light and darkness.  As I noted yesterday, these come with their companion representations in day and night, and these two have their own particular symbolic sense to add to our understanding of the full message of this passage.  The One New Man translation offers the following observations as footnote to verse 5.  “Day speaks of light, while dawn alludes to redemption. Night alludes to exile, separation from God’s presence.”  This is the spiritual reality set before us, the stark contrast between being redeemed and drawn into God’s presence, or being exiled to an existence entirely separate from God’s presence.  This is the second death of which Scripture speaks, the eternal condition of being exiled to the lake of fire, always aware of God but never enjoying His presence.

Some, in their darkened ignorance, would probably account that a desirable state, welcome news.  But that’s only because that same darkened ignorance keeps them deluded as to the reality of such an end; an end without end.  It may seem desirable to the one intent on pursuing his own sinful course, but when the full reality of sin’s deadly result comes upon them, at which point it shall sadly be too late to repent and change course, they shall learn to their dismay just what their willful rebellion against God’s righteous reign has purchased for them.

But you, Paul reminds his readers (including ourselves), are sons of light, sons of day.  Here, too, is symbolic language.  Obviously, this is not some sort of physical birth that he alludes to, nor even, in any direct way, to spiritual rebirth.  Rather, it points us to the happy result of rebirth in the Spirit.  We are sons!  Now, the specific choice is made to utilize the term huios, rather than teknon here, and that is because teknon only gets us to the basic function of birth, being a child of such lineage.  But huios goes further.  Huios speaks of close connection, identifiable connection with that of which one is said to be a son.  If God is our Father, then our being His sons indicates a depth of shared character.  It ties pretty directly to our role as His image bearers.  We don’t just claim to be Christians, we act in godly fashion, speak after the ways of our Father’s speaking, do those things that He would do.  We take up, if you will, the family trade, which in this case, is that of a shepherd, saving lost sheep.

There is, then, this sense of close identification, whether we speak of physical parentage, of God as our Father, or as some other person or thing with which we can be readily identified by our close connection or resemblance.  The student of a particular teacher is spoken of as being a son of that teacher, particularly, I should think, in such cases as concern the rabbinical tradition of teaching.  Think of the disciples, who quite literally came to depend on the direction and provision of their Teacher.  They left behind family and trade to go where He said to go, do as He taught them to do, to learn from Him not merely a philosophy but a full-formed habit of life.  And He, in His turn, observed that He said and did only what He saw His Father say and do (Jn 8:38).  He, too, was a Son of His Father, His Teacher.

But, then, too, there is the sort of usage we have here, of close association with some thing, rather than some individual person.  You are sons of light, of day.  Now, we have observed that light and day have their characteristics, and that darkness and the nighttime have theirs as well.  The latter are characterized by slumber, which must include a certain lack of awareness or attention, for who can be attentive when they sleep.  But worse, it has those associate activities, those things one would not generally contemplate pursuing in broad daylight, when one might be seen.  Now, some are more deterred by daylight than others from satisfying their worst desires, but even then, there is generally the recognition that one must seek to be unidentified if not unseen as they go about such things.  Even with the sad lawlessness that has overwhelmed many of our cities at the present day, given lax enforcement of any sort of law, yet the criminal does not simply waltz in face exposed, but remains under cover, darkening his features against recognition.

Night time, as Paul observes, is also the time when drunks pursue their drunkenness, at least those who remain semi-functional in the day to day.  There is some remaining recognition that wandering about drunk in the daytime is shameful, and embarrassment to the self.  And so, the drunk waits for evening, even if it be only five o-clock.  He seeks the cover of darkness to give license to his excess.  And the thief, of course, utilizes darkness as his accomplice, keeping hidden in its folds so as to complete his surprise of his intended victim.  House break-ins do not, as a rule, happen by day when the owner is at home.  They happen either in his absence, when none could see, or at night when there is the double advantage of being unseen and of catching the owner at his least attentive.

There is a reason, you know, why battles tended to occur in the early hours of the dawn.  It was now light enough to see, yes, but there was also the deepest drowsiness upon the defenders.  Those who had been on guard all night would be at their least effective, perhaps even overcome by sleep in false confidence that the night had passed uneventfully.  The bulk of the populace would almost certainly be fast asleep, likewise falsely confident in the diligence of those same watchmen.  Now was the time for maximum surprise and minimal defense.

But you, dear ones, are sons of light, sons of day!  You are closely connected to the Light, to the bright Morning Star.  You both identify with Him and are identifiably His.  How so?  Well, here in the image of light we have a most beautiful reason.  You, as sons, are those in whom wisdom and purity shine forth.  Perhaps I need to temper that, and say this is how you ought to be.  But it is also who you are, if in fact you are sons of the Light.  He has poured forth His wisdom into you.  He has sent His Holy Spirit to abide in you, Himself being entirely pure and holy, as He is entirely God, and therefore as perfect in holiness as is the Father, as is the Son.  This is what is in you!  And if this is what is in you, how can it but shine forth?  Where the seed of the Spirit has been implanted, there is a certainty to the fruit of the Spirit growing.  This goes beyond vacuous claims and empty professions containing nothing of reality.  This is, pure and simple, the working of the Spirit in you, sent forth to you at the request of the Son, by the command of the Father, and like the Father in His purposing and command, there is really no option for failure.  His word does not return to Him void, without accomplishing all His purpose, and dear son of light and day, His purpose includes both your salvation and your sanctification.

And so, we are positioned as light in this world.  If indeed we belong to the Lord, purchased and redeemed by His blood, His light is in us.  And if His light is in us, it cannot be contained.  However much we may foolishly seek to hide it under a bushel, it won’t stay hid.  Darkness cannot contain the Light.  We remain culpable, certainly, for our failure to shine as we ought, and will answer for it when comes the final day, but we yet remain sons of light, we yet show forth the character, however partially, however poorly, of Him Who has made us His own.

So, we have this encouragement to remember ourselves.  You are not in darkness, that this last day should overtake you like a thief.  Following the NLT, if indirectly, when the day of the Lord comes like a thief, you won’t be surprised.  I mean, you’ve been told, haven’t you?  Now, picking up a thread from the last study, this is not to say you will be given prior notice.  “He comes tomorrow.”  No.  I’m sorry, but it is far too clearly stated that we won’t know the hour or the day for us to suppose some exception clause for those still hanging on in the 21st century.  Will we honestly put forth that we are better informed than the Apostles who sat with Jesus for years, who were caught up to the third heaven to receive instruction from Him directly?  It would be the height of arrogance, and very near to assurance of downfall to do so.  It simply ignores the clear and distinct message in preference of our desire to know what’s coming next.  But we do know.  We ought not to be surprised when it comes, for we have always known it was coming.

And thus, we must understand that both this overtaking, and the image of the thief speak to the suddenness, the unexpected timing, of that event.  The first, the overtaking, has about it that same seizing, catching hold of to take possession of, that was addressed to the question of resurrection.  There, the term was harpagnsometha, but here, the term is katalabe.  So, there is no immediate linguistic connection to the two thoughts, but the ideas that the two words convey are similar.  Harpazo, the root of the first term, has some emphasis on the forcefulness, the taking by force.  The last term has more the idea of the suddenness, as well as the obtaining, grasping hold of, as does a competitor the prize of winning.  We may see both in the way our Savior has laid hold of us for salvation.  There was a certain violence in the act, of necessity, as we must needs be wrested away from our slavery to sin, a slavery which we must note was quite voluntary, and from which we had not the sense to recognize our need of rescue.  There is also the suddenness of that final rescue.  The suddenness, the unexpectedness of the last day does not depart from us because we have been faithful in remaining alert and sober.  It will still be just as sudden.  The watchman on the wall, if he has indeed remained alert and aware through the night, will find that dawn attack no less sudden.  But he will yet be prepared for it in spite of the suddenness.

Now, the image of the thief also has that of sudden, unexpected action in view.  The thief does not make an appointment.  He does not announce his intentions before setting about that which he would do.  Neither will the Lord.  But that does not require that we be taken unawares, taken by surprise.  Goodspeed actually offers a bit of a shift of perspective in translating this verse, and suggests that the goal is that ‘that Day should [not] surprise you like thieves’.  Thieves, certainly, are taken by surprise when lights suddenly turn on mid-robbery.  Whether that would be a wise move on the part of the defender is a different question.  And, for modern application, whether there is a defender physically present is an open question.  Could just be some remote sensor switching on the lights and starting the cameras rolling while a call goes out to the police station.  But surprise!  Your cover is blown.  You can be identified, and we have now incontrovertible evidence that it was you.

But the primary aspect remains that of surprise, whether by the thief or as being a thief.  One can sort of see where Goodspeed concludes that the image should shift as it does for his translation, given what follows.  It’s all about that hidden activity of the night, and our contrast to it.  Night is the time for sleep and drunkenness, but we are to be alert and sober.  Now, clearly, that doesn’t require that we never sleep again.  That would soon leave us incapable of being alert.  But the issue is the contrast.  And more, the issue is one of situational awareness.

I touched on this yesterday.  We dwell in a darkened land.  If that was not evident to you in years past, it surely is now.  The rapid-onset decay of our society is advanced to such degree that the disease can’t be missed.  The cancer of sin is evident in its malignancy.  And though we seek to be lighthouses, little islands of light in this dark mess, yet we cannot fully escape the impact of that dark landscape.  For one, we were ourselves once denizens of the dark, and its pull, its enticements are not entirely lost on us.  The old man may be dead, but he still stirs up a stink in us, and we can too readily slip into feeding that corpse rather than the new life into which we have been reborn.

Here is our great concern, and it must remain a great concern:  While I will firmly maintain that full and final failure and falling from grace are an impossibility for those in whom the Spirit has taken up residence, yet it is all too possible that we fill find we have yielded to sin, and become indifferent to salvation.  “Oh, never me!”, we say.  But, like Peter, we vastly overestimate our abilities and character.  Yes, often you.  Often me.  You have doubt of it?  How much of yesterday’s sermon do you retain?  How much did you retain even ten minutes later?  If you have read a devotional this morning, what had it to say?  If you read Scripture last night, apart from perhaps chapter and verse numbers, what can you tell me about its content?  Am I the only one to suffer this malady?  I sincerely doubt it.  But it troubles me greatly that I do.  For it shows a certain indifference.  Much of our day to day demonstrates an indifference to the realities of our saved state as sons of the Light.  And that is because we have lost our situational awareness.  We have not paid sufficient heed to the state of war in which we exist.

Hear the stark warning of our Savior.  “Remember what you have received!  Remember what you have heard!  Keep that word close, and repent.  If you will not wake up, I will come like a thief.  And you won’t know just when” (Rev 3:3).  Now, again, that is not to say that if you’ve kept your nose clean, you’ll get advance notice.  That’s not the point.  The point is that we grow lax.  We grow complacent.  And where we are complacent, sin slips in.  Our awareness lessens, and sin progresses.  We get sleepy and let our guard down.  Who has not experienced how much more readily we slip into sinful character when we are tired and exhausted?  Our guard is down, and sin rises up.  It’s that early dawn attack, the enemy knowing we are at our lowest ebb.  And, picking up a necessary theme from yesterday’s sermon, we can’t blame the enemy for our weakness.  No, we are our own worst enemies.  Our sins are ever willful acts, for the temptations of the soul cannot have impact except they touch upon desires of the soul.  We simply will not fall for pursuing that which we don’t want in the first place.  The old man’s thoughts are still too much with us, and if we do not remain sober and alert, we will find ourselves having taken his advice, rather than heeding the warnings of the Spirit.

So, we must defend ourselves against that urge to return to our old ways as sons of darkness.  That’s not us anymore.  We are a new creation, completely, utterly new, as pastor reminded us.  It’s more than remodeling.  It’s more than restoration.  It’s rebuilding from the ground up.  And so, we are able to lay hold of that power which God has so graciously imparted to us, we lay hold of Christ in us.  We heed the voice of conscience, the voice of the Spirit calling to mind all that our Jesus said and did, turning our attention to the great, the inestimable price paid for our rescue from the very things we contemplate going after once more.  Don’t do it!  Recognize the encroaching darkness, and shine your light.  Exercise self-control.  Yes, it’s the hardest thing for us to do, for we do not particularly wish to be controlled, not even by ourselves.  Oh, we’d be pleased enough to discover autonomy was both possible and acceptable, and in many ways, we like to act as if we were above the law, whether of man or God.  But we are not, and it is not.  We need self-control.

We need to remember, and remember always, that we are indeed at war in this present darkness.  We do not battle against flesh and blood, no.  We must remain mindful that however vehement and hateful the opposition of those who fight us, it is the product of minds darkened, blinded to what they are actually doing.  Stephan, to his eternal renown, recognized this even as those who hated the Light stoned him to death.  A true son of his Teacher, he cried out, “Lord, don’t hold this sin against them!” (Ac 7:60).  He, after all, knew where he was going, could see his reward ahead.  But still, that depth of forgiveness in the midst of a most painful death is something special, something rare.  It is something to which we ought all to strive, that should our own end come with like violence, we can respond with like forgiveness.  We are, after all, sons of light.

As sons of light, we must not permit the temptations of past life to overwhelm us.  We must not allow the attitudes and mores of society around us to inform our own views.  That doesn’t require a knee-jerk rejection of anything and everything heard outside of a church context.  But it does require that whatever we hear and see, we assess by the measure of Scripture.  And that, I must stress, applies whether we consider sources outside the church, or within.  We are, after all, in a battle that rages on.  It rages on within, and our defenses must be strong on that front.  It rages on without, and we must be alert to the surrounding dangers, the dark influences that come, seeking to soften us up.  But we must also recognize that this battle includes those sent as spies by our enemy, coming in the guise of fellow believers, of messengers of light, but their message remains one of darkness, and they seek to achieve by stealth and trickery what cannot be achieved by frontal assault.

So, we have this clarion call to be ready and stout in our defense.  And that will be our topic in the next part of this study.  For now, remember!  Yield not to sin.  Yield not to those temptations of past pleasures now seen for what they were.  Yield not to the alluring voices from the darkness around you.  They only call you to certain death.  Stand fast, and remain alert and aware.  Remember who you are and Who you serve.  And in that memory, stand, and as needed, stand some more.

And if I may, Father, thank You for these welcome signs that indeed, I did manage to retain something beyond sermon’s end.  You know I needed it and I am grateful that You have provided it.  I would pray, as well, that You help me to establish a more regular prayer life to adjoin this regular study.  That, too, is needful, and that, too, I feel certain You will provide.  Find me ready and willing to put to use that which You provide.  Amen.  So be it.

A Military Action (08/02/22-08/03/22)

This discussion of light and darkness, and those things which are characteristic of our actions by day or by night have brought Paul to a second set of images, those of military armor.  We have need, as I have discussed in yesterday’s contribution, of recognizing that we are at war here in this life, at war with the spiritual powers of darkness which  so grip the world around us.  We know this darkness well, for we were pulled out of it ourselves.  Some of us may have little memory of that time when we were not functionally of the Lord.  Some few of us may even account ourselves as having been saved from early childhood, and there is certainly a degree of truth in that, for we who are redeemed have been slated for salvation from before the beginning, so certainly all our brief lives on earth.  But we have not always walked in that reality.  Most, I would argue all of us, have known some period of life when our lives were exemplars of open rebellion against God and God’s law.

In greater or lesser degree, that old man of darkness still travels with us, in us.  He is defeated by the cross, as is Satan his old master.  But like Satan, he still thrashes about, seeking to regain his former influence in us.  The darkness calls to us, and we are fools to deny it.  Wisdom insists we recognize this reality, for as we serve in the army of God, we serve as surrounded by the forces of our former darkness, and they call out to us, knowing our past companionship, knowing those things which used to entice, and suspecting, with good reason, that such enticements might just reach us behind our defenses and draw us back.

But now, there are countering thoughts, aren’t there?  Light has come to us.  And as that light increases, supplying us with clear understanding of God and of self, it must occur to us that having come into this light, continuing in our former deeds of darkness must now be a no go.  And yet, we feel the tug, and sometimes we even succumb to that tug, supposing that just a brief visit to those things that used to so captivate our attention will do no harm.  We are wrong.  The appropriate response is that which Paul supplies to us in his letter to Rome.  Consider yourself as functionally dead to sin, now that you are alive to Christ (Ro 6:11-15).  We can’t let sin reign in us any longer.  We can’t go on obeying old lusts, presenting our bodies to these opportunities for sin as if we were instruments of unrighteousness.  No!  Present yourselves to God as instruments of righteousness, for you are now alive from the dead (dead being what you were in those former days).  Sin is not your master any more, that you must needs obey it.  You aren’t under the law for punishment, that you must succumb again, but you are under grace.  So, shall we make that grace excuse to sin?  Don’t even think about it!  In a nutshell:  Defend yourself!

Remember the words of the Psalmist.  “Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Where could I flee from Your presence?  If I go to heaven, You are there.  If I go to the grave, You are there.  However far I might travel, even to the farthest reaches of the seas, still Your hand leads me, and Your right hand will lay hold of me.  If I suppose that darkness will overwhelm me and hide me, even that darkness, however deep, is not dark to You.  The night is as bright as the day, for light and darkness are alike to You” (Ps 139:7-12).  Darkness cannot overwhelm the light, for light always penetrates the darkness, rendering it the same as light, so far as visibility is concerned.  And yet, we go about thinking our private moments as hidden from God as they are from our companions.  How can we?  We know this is not so.  And yet, the old man whispers in our inward ear that this is different.  We can have a taste.  We can enjoy the experience.  No harm can come of it.  He won’t know.  Perhaps His back is turned, or He is busy elsewhere at this hour.  However it is those whispers come, if our guard is down, we listen, and having listened, we stupidly agree.

Look, I remember the struggles I had when for long years I sought to free myself from the habit of smoking.  Whether it’s a sin or not is a moot point.  As a model of sin’s impact, it serves.  I could go long stretches refusing to have a smoke, and think I had it licked this time.  Perhaps I had gone on the patch for a season, and rather than tapering off as they advised, simply stopped buying and applying them.  Perhaps I decided I had it under control now.  But there would come a day when some nostalgia for the taste would arise.  Oh, just one.  I’ll buy a pack, have one, and throw away the rest so they won’t be a temptation.  But soon, it would be two.  And before too long, there would be no throwing away the pack at all until it was empty.  Sin, or this analogy of it, had crept back in.  And whether or not it was sin in itself, it was certainly encouraging certain sinful habits of behavior in me, as I sought to keep those who knew me most from knowing this part.  Secrecy.  Hiding away out of sight.  These are not the habits of those in the light.  These are the ways of those in darkness.  I thank God that through His power at work in me when once I humbled myself before my brothers and had their prayers added to my own, those days do appear to be truly behind me.  And sufficient wisdom has come, that I have no interest in revisiting the taste or the feeling, even for a moment.  I know too well where that leads.

But there are other sins, aren’t there?  There are other traits of our former darkness which are not so dead in us.  They may be dormant, and near enough death if we refuse them any fuel, but we are again fools if we suppose them gone.  We are at war, and every time we give in to our former darkness, we lose a skirmish, we weaken a defensive post at which we should have been alert and on guard.  And God knows.  We are forgiven, assuredly, as we bring these failures before Him in confession, and seek His forgiveness and His aid in truly repenting and going a different course henceforth.  But there are consequences, aren’t there?  There will be an accounting, won’t there?  God is not unjust, even in His choice to save.  He is not unjust, even when considering the actions of His own.  Angels did not escape the just punishment of their fall from glory.  Neither shall we.  We shall, to be sure, have the invaluable boon of Christ our Savior having died for our sins, put paid to our debt to the court.  I am not wholly convinced, however, that this means we shall not hear the record of our lives read out.  This does not mean we shall have no experience of the terrible shame and sorrow that must come of having our every sin exposed for all to hear.

Now, I must bring in the fact that Scripture’s treatment of that day considers the nature of such things in the civil courts of the day.  The debt having been paid, the record of that debt, and presumably the reason for that debt, were not merely marked has paid.  They were blotted out of the record, thoroughly erased, such that under no circumstance, could that record be brought forth against us at some future date.  In the civil record, I think the fundamental reason was that this ensured none would be unjustly punished a second time for a debt already expunged.  But there is that clear, spiritual conception that there can be no recalling those records at some future date.  The Accuser will not be able to make reference to them in his accusations, for the record no longer exists.

But God knows.  He may forget them, as we phrase it, describing His refusal ever to make mention of it again.  And that is in the nature of forgiveness, ought to be in the nature of our own forgiveness.  If it is truly forgiven, it shall not come up again.  We will not be using it to demonstrate some continuing trend of offense in the one who has upset us.  Oh, you always do this.  Look, there was this time, and this time, and this time.  I have the whole catalog memorized.  No!  Forgiveness, if it is truly forgiveness, wipes the record clean.  Yet God cannot truly forget, nor can His perfect justice truly ignore.  There must be an accounting, and in Christ there has been.  Will we hear charges brought on that day?  I suspect even if we do not, we will have clear conception of what those charges would have been, and we shall know the incredible rush of relief as we hear our Counselor declare against each incident, “debt paid,” and the Judge’s response of, “you are free to go.”

However that day works out for us,  in the present, we are at war.  We are encamped deep in enemy territory, surrounded by forces of darkness, by slaves of darkness.  What are we to do?  We are to be alert.  We are to keep guard posted on our perimeter.  How so?  Well, short form:  Be sober.  Don’t get sloppy.  Don’t be negligent about your spiritual health.  Don’t let the siren song of sin lure you into complacency.  And for that to be our situation, there is this necessary preparation to which Paul turns our attention.   You have armor, heavenly tools of defense.  But they won’t do you any good hanging on the wall in the armory, or stowed away in your trunk.  Put them on!

Recognize what mills about beyond the walls of your camp.  Sinful temptations march around you.  They may be old habits come for a visit.  They may be new novelties that seek to get our attention off the habits and necessities of godly living.  Whatever their form, they need defending against if we would see the dawn victorious.  So, we have this armor, this helmet presented to us.  It is not, here, quite in the familiar form.  We are accustomed to associate the armor with righteousness, following the original imagery of Isaiah 59:17.  God puts on His breastplate of righteousness.  Here, that breastplate is presented as composed of faith and love.  Yet, it is the same armor, isn’t it?  Faith and love are the God-given power for righteous living.  We have faith in God, that He is for us and not against us, that He is powerful to save, that He rides to battle with us, and He is our Victorious King.  He cannot lose, being Almighty God.  Ergo, neither can we lose.  And the love He has poured forth in us, for us, is likewise assurance that He, having paid so high a price for us, would hardly let us go now.  Further, our love for Him in Whom we have found firm anchor for our faith energizes us, powers our alertness as we continue to stand watch upon our wall.  Come what may, we know we are well protected in our Strong Tower – in God’s hands, where none can snatch us away.  And love compels us to seek that we may stand our watch well.

The breastplate, as the ISBE observes, serves primarily to protect the heart.  To be sure, there are other tender organs to consider in our chest cavities, organs without which our lives would likewise be cut short.  But it is the heart that ever and always has primary consideration in matters of the spirit.  Our heart is the seat of feelings, and thus, of decisions, so far as the imagery of Scripture is concerned.  We may more associate those with mind in our more current conceptions, but we still understand that the heart is involved.  And the heart, being the more emotional aspect, has great need of protecting.  It’s soft.  It feels the hurts of sin and shame.  It is more likely to give way.  And so, God supplies us with these strong defenses of faith in Him, and love both for Him and for our brothers. 

For we are family, are we not?  When military folks speak of a band of brothers, it addresses that sense of comradery that develops amongst those who have faced trial and danger together.  They have come to a well-founded trust in one another, knowing that each man has his companions’ backs, and they have his.  It’s like the knights of old fighting back-to-back so as to present an armed front in every direction, leaving no weakness exposed.  A band of brothers looks after more than self-interest.  It looks after the interests of the band.  A family, God’s family in particular, has greater cause for that same degree of mutual care.  For, we truly are family, sons of one Father, bound for glory, and assured of an eternity spent in life together.  We should have each other’s backs.  We should care.  We should be seeing to the preparedness of our brother as well as our own.  We see to our own, at least in part, because it is our loving duty to our brother.  We see to his from that same love, and also in recognition that his preparedness is as much to do with our defense as is our own preparedness.  We find Paul encouraging this mutual care as he writes to the neighboring church in Philippi.  “Be of the same mind.  Maintain the same love, united in spirit, and intent on one purpose.  Do nothing from selfishness or vain conceit.  No!  With humility of mind, let each of you consider others as more important than yourselves” (Php 2:2-3).

Put on your armor!  Your brothers are depending on you.  Put on your armor!  Your sisters take refuge behind you.  You have need of your armor.  They are your defense against the enemy, and they are of God’s own design and provision.  They are, then, powerful defense.  And what armor is it that He has provided?  It is faith, love, and hope.  Isn’t that something?  They aren’t things we think of as defensive materials, but there it is.  And note well:  Faith, hope, and love; these three abide even to the day of His return (1Co 13:13).  They are established in Him, expression of Him.

Go back to Isaiah 59:17, from which this imagery is drawn.  God put on righteousness like a breastplate, a helmet of salvation on His head.  He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and wrapped Himself with zeal as a mantle.  None of this is offensive weaponry, and yet it is mighty.  And it is His.  The DBI makes this point rather forcefully.  What we have received in this armor is God’s own armor, or at the very least, armor from God’s own armory.  This is what we are called to put on as we face conflict, and that covers both the conflict of day to day living in this outpost, and also the final assault of the Evil One, in all its desperate severity.

What have we got, then?  We have a breastplate, a unit of armor to protect the heart.  Faith and love protect the heart, and provide sound defense against those fiery darts of the enemy, when he seeks to make accusation against us and thus erode our confident expectation of mercy.  When clothed in this armor God has provided from His own store, they render our ‘whole conduct unassailable to any accusation’, as the ISBE points out for us.  We are secure in this armor which protects us from the world of darkness around us as we build our community, our family in the secure hands of our Lord.

Then, we have the helmet to protect our minds, our thought life.  That helmet is the hope of salvation, and it is not the wishful, wouldn’t it be nice, sort of hope we might have in regard to some upcoming pleasure.  It is a sure hope, a hope firmly in place as a certainty.  This hope is specific.  It pertains to our salvation.  We are assured of it.  Yes, there is much debate about this point amongst Christians of good conscience, but I cannot see how a salvation held as tenuous is hope at all.  A salvation that will only apply if I have kept the Law in perfection is no salvation.  A salvation that depends on my absolute compliance henceforth, even with the Spirit indwelling, remains no salvation, for if it depends on me in the slightest, it remains fallible.  It remains worse than fallible.  It remains assured only of failure.  But the great good news of God is that it doesn’t depend on me in any way, shape or form.  It is the work of Christ in me.  It is the outworking of Father’s choice, Father’s purposed decision, and it cannot fail.

This is our helmet.  This is our defense when thoughts run rampant, as they will.  This is our defense when we face doubts because of our own infidelity in matters of faith.  Those doubts come.  And when they come, if we have not the helmet of this hope of salvation, they may well overwhelm us, drive us from our strong tower in despair.  But they shouldn’t.  God Himself has supplied this helmet, as He supplied the breastplate.  Your heart has been protected against those feelings that seek to tear us away from Him.  Now, here is the helmet to give equal protection to your thought-life.  For if the head suffer blows, the body is done.

One last aspect of this I would consider.  This armor, given us by God, is given for His glory.  The outfitting of an army must surely reflect on the one who commands and supplies that army.  It is not showcase finery, perhaps, for such equipment must first and foremost be functional.  Artistry will have to take a back seat to that necessity.  But in God’s case, it is indeed glorious.  Faith, love, assured hope:  These are things of beauty as well as of power, and they cloth us in such fashion that even in the heat of conflict, we reflect His glory.  These are the very things that do so.  Faith and love guarding our hearts have also their outward aspect, for in faith, love takes action towards those around us, both those of our family, for whom we stand guard, and also those against whom we must stand.  We stand not in anger – not at them.  We stand with the offer of that same salvation in which we hope.  We offer that they, too, might be joined with us rather than lost in opposition to us.  It is no truce we offer, but rescue.  You, too, could know this same salvation.  You, too, could have this faith, this love.  You, too, could come out of that darkness, and into His marvelous light.

For all that we encounter this military imagery, and this is hardly an isolated instance of that imagery, we must bear firmly in mind that our enemy is not the poor benighted souls who reside around us.  It is not even the staunch believers on some opposing religion.  Our enemy consists in those powers of darkness which have imposed the ignorance of sin upon these poor folks.  They know not because they ask not.  They ask not because they see not.  The see not because these same dark powers have put blinders upon them, blinkered their thinking such that it cannot even contemplate the light, let alone comprehend it.  Oh, they can read the words.  But they can’t glean the Truth from them.  It is given them in parables, lest they hear with understanding, and repent so as to be saved, so as to take up this helmet of hope with which we have been equipped.

It is thus, I think, that we find here no mention of any offensive weaponry.  We’re not here to seek and destroy.  We are emissaries of the heavenly King.  We will not cede territory to the enemy, but neither do we seek any man’s demise.  Thus, we stand.  We stand in diligent alertness to the wiles of our foe.  We stand in glorious pronouncement of the majesty of our King.  We stand in dire warning of His power, of His assured victory.  And we stand as offering that same hope which is within us to any who would receive it from Him.  We stand thus, mindful that the outcome, every outcome, is in His hands, and we can but be faithful to those things given us to do, those things prepared in advance in order that we might in fact do them.

Father, I know not why you would entrust such things to the likes of me, but You have done so, and You have done so in wisdom, whether I can perceive that wisdom or not.  I thank You for the assurance to be found in these armaments You have supplied.  I thank You for the opportunity to bring glory to Your name.  And I beg forgiveness for the far too many times I have done anything but.  Where I have been negligent, Lord, and I have no delusions in that regard; I have been, do Thou stir my conscience.  Do Thou recall to my mind the need for this armor of Yours.  Indeed, keep me mindful of those dark forces that seek to destroy me, that I might, as Your word so constantly encourages, be alert, be sober, be standing watch in the place where You have set me.  Purge from me the critical spirit, but lead me not into false comfort.  Grant me the wisdom to assess all that would claim to be true by the fulness of Truth that is in You.  Let me not be deceived, nor let me deceive myself.  And Lord, I beg of You, guard me from my own foolish conceits.  Purge me with hyssop, as David wrote, that I might in truth be clean.  Above all, thank You for this assurance of salvation, this hope You have set within me.  Let it indeed shine forth in love, and let the faith I have in You be evident in all my words and actions.  It is not so yet, not in my experience.  But in You, it shall be.  Holy is Your name, Lord, and I would that I were holy as You are holy.  By Your work in me, I know I shall be, but how I long for that reality to come sooner rather than later.  And if I don’t at times, well, Father, there, too, I would ask that You work and transform my thinking to reflect Your own.  Amen.

Cause for Confidence (08/03/22)

Well, let’s see if this study wraps up today.  We have considered our armor.  We have considered our situation.  Let us, then, consider our condition.  We are, by God’s gracious work in us, a new man.  This new man is known by those very characteristics which are supplied as our armor:  Faith, hope, and love.  Paul will make much of that point in writing later to the Corinthian church.  They had fallen into thinking displays of wondrous powers, or of ecstatic expression were the marks of God’s favor upon them.  Paul says, no!  Those are nice, and all, but it is faith, hope, and love which abide.  It is the way we express our faith, hope, and love in seeking to edify our brothers, in seeking to help them build straight and true alongside us, which demonstrate the very real presence of God within.

These are the things given us by our loving Father.  These are the equipage of our gracious Lord.  These are the true means of divine power by which to stand.  Recall that marvelous theme from 2Peter.  His divine power has granted us everything needful to life and godliness, through true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence (2Pe 1:3).  And as we have been seeing, He has clothed us in armor which reflects His own glory and excellence.  For by these, returning to Peter, He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, in order that by them we might become partakers of His divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust (2Pe 1:4).  Therein is your motivation for diligence.  Therein is your assurance.

God provides, but we must take up our defenses, these most glorious, shining defenses of breastplate and shield.  We are God’s army, the local advertisement of His glorious reign.  We are called to stand, and stand we do, an army, terrible with banners, to take the image Solomon supplies (SS 6:10).  The image there is an image of beauty, of awesomeness, of glorious brightness.  It is a sight to see.  Now, I suppose, if you’re the opposing force, it is unlikely to be a welcome sight, but if they are your defenders?  Oh, yes.  The splendor of that army, brightly reflecting the sun on breastplate and shield, boldly proclaiming the Lord’s presence by their banners, is indeed a most beautiful, a most welcome sight.

We are, then, set upon the defenses both as comfort to our fellow believers, as well as to those lost sheep yet to be restored to the fold, and as a sight to awe the opposition.  We stand not in our own strength, but in the power of God, finding ourselves, by the indwelling Christ, powerful to the tearing down of strongholds.  I don’t know about you, but for myself, this is not something I could claim to have as my general feeling about things.  But it is truth.  We are in Christ, and He in us, and because of this, the very power of God works in and through us.  It is not ours to command.  I’m sorry.  I cannot accept that God is so foolish as to allow such a thing.  But we are His to command, to position and to utilize according to His good and perfect will.

As such, as we go about this tearing down of strongholds, the first which must come down are those strongholds within.  You know the ones; those places we have attempted to reserve for ourselves.  You can have all of me, Lord, except this.  No.  That won’t do.  God will have all of me.  God wills to have all of me.  And as God wills, so it shall be.  As God wills, so it is far and away better that it should be.  Please God, then, I shall indeed take up this armor, this helmet which He has supplied.  Please God, I shall stand alert and confident in the strength He provides.  Please God, I shall know victory over my own foolishness, my own reserves of sinfulness, and also against those dark influences which would seek to return me to former ways.

Faith, hope, and love, this armor which God has supplied us, are such beautiful things.  They are the perfect means of giving glory to His name.  There will come a time when we shift to our wedding clothes, but that time is not yet.  Those, too, will give glory to His name, but here, now, it is the shining armor of faith, hope, and love, truly held and truly expressed.  These we have in abundance, because they have come to us from the abundance of the Lord.  And really, what more could we desire? 

We have confidence.  We have confident knowledge, as Peter expressed it, exact, complete, and sufficient knowledge, of His purpose and of our salvation which flows from His purpose.  We have confident expectation that indeed, this salvation shall be ours in full, that it is already ours, and indeed, has been ours from before the dawn of time.  So sure is it that nothing, no power on earth, no power in the heavens, no power within, can take it from us (Ro 8:38-39).  Nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Nothing.  This future salvation, wherein we reside as redeemed from all earthly ills, and fit out to enjoy Christ in the consummated, eternal kingdom of God, is our blessed assurance.  Our confidence in it is the shining helmet upon our heads, upon our thoughts.  This confidence boldly proclaims, I am my Beloved’s and He is mine.  And in reply, we hear once more, “I have called you by name.  You are Mine.”

Let, then, every doubt be sent fleeing away.  He Who has called you is perfectly able to see to it that You come to Him every bit whole, every bit purified.  Indeed, just as nothing is impossible to Him, neither is failure possible to Him.  His Word ever achieves all that He has spoken.  And He has spoken.  “You are Mine.”

Amen, Lord!  So be it indeed!  I am Yours.  Behold, from before the dawn, You called me.  You have given me name.  You have given me life and breath.  What shall I say in response, but, Yes, Lord, as You will, so let it be.