[doinghiswill]

On Denying Reality: A Formula for Madness

From the perspective of faith, that is, seeing things as God sees them, the denial of Christ, [His Advent, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension] nay, the unwillingness to grant Him even scant attention, has got to be the greatest anomaly of all times. That “He came to His own and His own received Him not”—and continues not to receive Him—remains a staggering conundrum, the paradox of history, a colossal collapse and inversion of reality itself!

That this sin [ultimate insult against God] has become marginalized, institutionalized, trivialized, accepted matter-of-factly by even the church itself, has got to disfigure, distort, and implode every consideration, every relationship, and every perception of what is right. To attempt to live as individuals, families, and communities while in this condition, has got to eventuate in internal and moral disjuncture, spiritual and psychological dissonance-the contradiction of all categories unto mayhem, madness, convulsions and death.

That it has not happened except in the visible cracks and crevices of time and history, has got to be a statement of the immeasurable mercy and benevolence of the slighted but kind God. That the whole world shares with us Jews this essential rejection and yet continues to function, compounds the more the enormity of this abounding grace! Nevertheless, the massive contradiction of reality itself, must, like a volcanic sub-stratum, continuously boil, seethe and ooze through the fissures of life while the rumbling tectonic plates beneath, disconnected and disjointed, ominously slip and slide. Will it not combine to erupt and swallow unawares the mindless sensual hedonists of our time as it did at Pompeii in a terrifying, paralyzing, sudden moment of truth? Such a moment must come; it cannot be forever repressed, to catch us, like them, at the very height of our God-denial!

The Watchmen of God need to sound the trumpet in Zion sound the alarm to the unwary and unsuspecting. For the Day of the Lord, of the requiting of all wrongs, the judgment of all stupendous sin and arrogance is at hand! But whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, repentantly rectifying the long-standing omission, shall be saved out of it—for there at the very point where the demands of God’s glory were most manifest, there our hostility was most violent. Be assured, that:

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, [for] the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up (2 Peter 3:9-11).

Consider also that the dismissal of Jesus means also the dismissal of His saints and followers who for two millennia, and even now, suffer excruciating trials, loss and martyrdom in upholding His name. Consider the death of Stephen, the apostle James in Jerusalem, Paul executed, Peter crucified upside down at Rome, Thomas slain in India, not to speak of the millions sawn asunder, pursued, hunted and driven, exiled and orphaned, tortured and burned at the stake, made homeless in open winter fields without cover pleading vainly for the infants, elderly and the sick, whose sufferings are forever chronicled in heaven, of whom the world was not worthy—and say, mistaken, in error, a vapor counting for nothing?

What of the prodigious labors of the scholars who have probed the deeps of the Christ-centered faith in all generations? What of Jerome, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Baron, Saphir, Karl Barth, Spurgeon, or a George Peters fighting blindness in compiling his three volume TheTheocratic Kingdom with its four thousand references and multi-lingual sources? These are the giants of biblical scholarship, Hebraists and commentators in the original languages. Are these misspent labors? A “sound and fury signifying nothing”? Predicated upon a ‘deceiver, sorcerer, liar, and a misfit’?

Pity the giants of Judaism who have contributed to this conspiracy of silence, or worse, of defamation. Consider the revered sages, Maimonides, Akiva, Rashi, standing before the Judge, beholding His wounds in that day. Who can assess the grief, the unspeakable anguish of soul, the overwhelming contrition, too late to be offered?

[christkid777]

So, does the poet reveal himself to Israel?

[doinghiswill]

Originally Posted by christkid777

So, does the poet reveal himself to Israel?

What think ye?

Originally Posted by doinghiswill

On Denying Reality: A Formula for Madness

From the perspective of faith, that is, seeing things as God sees them, the denial of Christ, [His Advent, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension] nay, the unwillingness to grant Him even scant attention, has got to be the greatest anomaly of all times. That “He came to His own and His own received Him not”—and continues not to receive Him—remains a staggering conundrum, the paradox of history, a colossal collapse and inversion of reality itself!

That this sin [ultimate insult against God] has become marginalized, institutionalized, trivialized, accepted matter-of-factly by even the church itself, has got to disfigure, distort, and implode every consideration, every relationship, and every perception of what is right. To attempt to live as individuals, families, and communities while in this condition, has got to eventuate in internal and moral disjuncture, spiritual and psychological dissonance-the contradiction of all categories unto mayhem, madness, convulsions and death.

That it has not happened except in the visible cracks and crevices of time and history, has got to be a statement of the immeasurable mercy and benevolence of the slighted but kind God. That the whole world shares with us Jews this essential rejection and yet continues to function, compounds the more the enormity of this abounding grace! Nevertheless, the massive contradiction of reality itself, must, like a volcanic sub-stratum, continuously boil, seethe and ooze through the fissures of life while the rumbling tectonic plates beneath, disconnected and disjointed, ominously slip and slide. Will it not combine to erupt and swallow unawares the mindless sensual hedonists of our time as it did at Pompeii in a terrifying, paralyzing, sudden moment of truth? Such a moment must come; it cannot be forever repressed, to catch us, like them, at the very height of our God-denial!

The Watchmen of God need to sound the trumpet in Zion sound the alarm to the unwary and unsuspecting. For the Day of the Lord, of the requiting of all wrongs, the judgment of all stupendous sin and arrogance is at hand! But whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, repentantly rectifying the long-standing omission, shall be saved out of it—for there at the very point where the demands of God’s glory were most manifest, there our hostility was most violent. Be assured, that:

The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is long-suffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, [for] the Day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up (2 Peter 3:9-11).

Consider also that the dismissal of Jesus means also the dismissal of His saints and followers who for two millennia, and even now, suffer excruciating trials, loss and martyrdom in upholding His name. Consider the death of Stephen, the apostle James in Jerusalem, Paul executed, Peter crucified upside down at Rome, Thomas slain in India, not to speak of the millions sawn asunder, pursued, hunted and driven, exiled and orphaned, tortured and burned at the stake, made homeless in open winter fields without cover pleading vainly for the infants, elderly and the sick, whose sufferings are forever chronicled in heaven, of whom the world was not worthy—and say, mistaken, in error, a vapor counting for nothing?

What of the prodigious labors of the scholars who have probed the deeps of the Christ-centered faith in all generations? What of Jerome, St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Luther, Baron, Saphir, Karl Barth, Spurgeon, or a George Peters fighting blindness in compiling his three volume TheTheocratic Kingdom with its four thousand references and multi-lingual sources? These are the giants of biblical scholarship, Hebraists and commentators in the original languages. Are these misspent labors? A “sound and fury signifying nothing”? Predicated upon a ‘deceiver, sorcerer, liar, and a misfit’?

Pity the giants of Judaism who have contributed to this conspiracy of silence, or worse, of defamation. Consider the revered sages, Maimonides, Akiva, Rashi, standing before the Judge, beholding His wounds in that day. Who can assess the grief, the unspeakable anguish of soul, the overwhelming contrition, too late to be offered?

Excellent post, my friend. What amazes me is that this "madness" is being repeated a second time, with the church. We have our own new brand of pharisees, and our own religious system, and if Jesus came in cognito today, I am convinced the exact same rejections Jesus suffered at the hands of Israel, he would suffer as well at the hands of the church.

Why? How would this even be possible with what we know? It is simple. Like Israel, we have labored under the old covenant of human effort to please God and refused to take advantage of God's new covenant promises to slay our old nature that allows us the privelidge of putting on our "new man", created in righteusness and true holiness. The flesh cannot receive the things of the spirit. The flesh will not bow the knee to the Lordship of Christ. The flesh must die. And we must let it, by faith alone.

[christkid777]

I think DHW that you have a gift. Like all gifts it gets better with practice and time.

Nice thread Doinghiswill!