[Image: Complementary Couple, 2013 JA Van Devender}
Genesis 1:4
And God saw the light, that it was good;
Sometimes it works, but it took a lot to get there.
When Adam heard the words of God's curse on him, I imagine he must have been a complete mess of emotions. The shame of his sin, the disappointment that registered in his own psyche with regard to himself, the recognition that he had failed his loving, Creator Father, the horror of God's pronouncements .... all of those things must have swirled around in him and caused bitter tears to flow.
At the root of it all though was the absolute, undeniable fact - no matter how hard he wanted to run from it - that it was all his fault. He had tried to shift the blame to his wife... but he knew and God knew that it was his own failure in leadership, in loving his wife, in honoring God's word, that was the worst sin of all. And now, not only he, but all the world and all the generations that would come from him would have to deal with the consequences.
"By the sweat of your brow you shall eat your bread..." Everything man was to undertake from that time forth would be attended by sweat, toil, frustrations, and opposition. Each task, from henceforth, would require a margin of effort much greater than what it produced. The created order which prior to sin had willingly submitted to man's supervision and improvement, now was in a state of resistance, some of it passive and some of it active.
For man to do anything "good" he was going to have to work harder and ultimately wear himself out. His days were numbered and he would return to the dust from which he was formed. "Life will be hard.... and then you will die."
The net effect of the curse can often lead to great discouragement. Christians know why things are "hard." They know why the bolts on the engine block rust over and you wind up having to replace them before you can swap out a transmission. It's one more frustrating thing you have to deal with. It's the curse. Christian cooks know why the bread mix in the breadmaker sometimes doesn't rise properly and the guests at dinner will have to make do with a distinctly less tasty store bought replacement. These things happen... regularly... no matter what we are doing and no matter how well we try to anticipate and prepare. Yet, they continue to frustrate us and discouragement, cynicism and even despair can work its way into our soul.
But Christians, of all the world's peoples, should recognize that God doesn't leave us to cynical despair in our efforts. All men bear the remnants of the image of God and Christians have been reborn into a sanctified image-bearing role. As image bearers we are heirs of the original mandate in Genesis 1 given to mankind as a whole. That means we are called to serve and to do, to embark upon great works and small ones. That means that through faith we can expect to see the fruits of our labor.
God is a "working" God. His work of "creation" is done but His on going work of providence and rule are in full swing. And there is a great deal of encouragement for us in that verse "And God saw the light, and it was good" (and others like it). God delighted in the works of His hands. He saw the craftsmanship and perfection of His work and was pleased. The things He did were, I'm sure, the subjects of glorious praise from the angels who metaphorically surrounded His throne. He was delighted... in what He had done... and that was "good" also.
Christians bearing the image of God are not to believe the lie that Satan continuously whispers in our ears. We are not to believe that nothing we do will ever amount to anything worth while. We are not to accept the idea that frustrations, resistance, weariness, excessive labor, etc. etc. are insurmountable, joy-stripping, value negating factors that will always leave us dissatisfied and disappointed in anything we undertake to do.
Yes we remain finite and error prone. Yes, it often takes so much to do so little. But God is faithful. For those who persevere in doing good (Romans 2:7) will discover, to their great joy, that God's indwelling Holy Spirt works in and through them such that eternal value, lasting good is brought forth. Across the board, physical or spiritual, man was designed for "good works" and also, especially, to delight in them.
It is sometimes said that great artists can never enjoy their finished works. Even though the world proclaims it a masterpiece, yet when the artist looks at it he sees the defects that only he knows are there. He remembers the things he had to do to "cover up" patches that didn't turn out right and how the precise effect he had originally envisioned was not attained. He looks at his works and sees the defects. The Lord looks at his work and pronounces it beautiful, because He sees it as it will be eternally... when the Christian artist's work follows him into paradise and none of the defects will remain.
The heart that desires to "do good" in & for God's Kingdom will be rewarded. With his own eyes he will see the way God has delighted in what he undertook to do and what he actually accomplished. But it is not only a future joy. For those who labor, though still encumbered by sin and the frustration that results from it, God does give us moments when we can say... "Look, .... this is good." And our delight is merged into the Lord's delight as He allows us to participate in His pleasure.
Don't give up... it will be worth whatever it takes for God does not fail to reward those who serve Him.
The Pathway To Dr. Kermit Gosnell.....
Isaiah 5:20 (NKJV)
20 Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; ...
If you haven't asked the question yet, you should have. "How in the world did we ever get to this point?"
If one surveys the Scriptures in Genesis 4-6 what we find is a sobering indictment of the human race, the depths of depravity that it will exhibit and the perversity of its own self-justification. Gen. 6:11-12 pretty much sums it up.
11 The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence. 12 So God looked upon the earth, and indeed it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth. Notice that the hallmark of depravity is arbitrary, cold-hearted violence. The mental image is of callous individuals who cannot be awakened to empathy. Think of concentration camp guards who can spend all day walking the halls where emaciated living corpses cringe in squalor and then go to his own barracks and eat a hearty supper without a second thought. Such a lack of essential humanity is the essence of depravity... when the beast of the jungle reigns where a warm heart ought to dwell.
Dr. Kermit Gosnell has presented no defense to the charges against him. For a jury to find him "not guilty", they will have to just depend on their own prejudices and the slender thread of reasoning given by the defense attorney in his closing arguments. The defense strategy is to establish a seed of doubt about whether the undisputed evidence surpasses the "beyond reasonable doubt" threshold and then to build on that doubt with suspicions of racist conspiracy and political manipulaton by those crazy fundamentalists who oppose abortion entirely.
How that jury rules will tell us more about them and us than about Gosnell.
Still we have to ask: How could such monstrous practices go on for so long? How could people be kept quiet? How could medical malpractice procedures not ever be instituted?
Medical professionals in the state of Maryland are increasingly fleeing the state. Why? The threat of litigation, the cost of insurance to cover litigation, and intrusive regulation is at the opposite end of the spectrum. The legitimate practice of healing is becoming increasingly difficult under the combined forces of courts which are prone to giving large, punitive awards to patients who, quite often, are unreasonable in their charges. That is "over there" while "over here" we have those who are in a truly pathetic circumstance (women, often with all kinds of social, mental and life style issues) are being subject to brutal, unregulated surgery without any kind of alternative counsel offered. The end result is to make money off killing babies. The procedure's success is measured in terms of a mutilated baby... not the health and well being of the mother. That is how far down this path we have come.
What put us on this path? It is easy to simply isolate it to the pro-choice movement, but it is far more than that. What put us on this path was the essential moral state in which pro-choice arguments could take root. Abortion practices and pro-choice arguments are the poison fruit that is born from the evil tree. They are not the tree itself.
What put us on this path is an essential rejection of the very idea of binding moral truth that is applicable to everyone. It is the rebellion against the idea of the idea of "Law" as a transcendent rather than untilitarian concept. If "law" is utilitarian then it is justified on the basis of a preponderence of good effects which will offset the presence of a few defects. It is argued that Dr. Gosnell is an aberration... that his practices do not undermine the pro-choice, abortion on demand arguments... that the "good" that has come about far outweighs the impact of relatively rare perversions.
Horse feathers.
Christians must never accept such a premise. Doing so is to give up the entire argument. The only basis by which one can seek change, if the presupposition is accepted, is to embark upon a calculus which will show a preponderance of evil effects rather than otherwise. The argument is already lost at that point.
Christians should, with absolute vehemance and zeal, loudly call for "justice" and do so with this argument: "whoever sheds man's blood, by man his blood should be shed." It is a tragedy for any human being's life to be unjustly taken. How much more hideous is the injustice when viable babies are inhumanly slaughtered by a person who has taken an oath to "do no intentional harm."
The primary reason why we find ourselves so far down this rocky, perilous path our society has walked, is because we no longer believe in true justice... and the reason why we don't believe in true justice is that the essential fear of the one, true God is no longer a factor in the wider population to any noticeable degree.
Noah was a preacher of righteousness to a people who had reached that same state. "Every man did what was right in his own eyes." No one deemed themselves accountable to anyone but themselves. They did not respect the idea of law because they had no fear of God.
Kermit Gosnell, and his ilk, are in the ascendent... they are not aberrations in an essentially good culture... they are the future toward which we are headed.
Christians, if we don't start preaching righteousness (ala Noah) then no one else will... no one else can. It is past time to be zealous and loud and bold. Being lukewarm is nauseating to God... and if there is any fear of God remaining in His church then She will take on her prophetic role with a passion.
God will not help us if we don't, no matter how hard we pray!
Posted by Gadfly on April 30, 2013 at 11:28 AM in Commentary, Culture, Movies, etc., Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Reblog (0) | | | |
| Save to del.icio.us