Spotted by Bojidar Marinov at Manoah’s Wife blog, and well worth sharing:

“It may very well be that the Communists, who are so anti-Christ, are closer to Him than those who see Him as a sentimentalist and vague moral reformer. The Communists have at least decided that if He wins, they lose; the others are afraid to consider Him either as winning or losing, because they are not prepared to meet the moral demands which this victory would make on their souls.

If He is what He claimed to be, a Savior, a Redeemer, then we have a virile Christ and a leader worth following in these terrible times; One Who will step into the breach of death, crushing sin, gloom and despair; a leader to Whom we can make totalitarian sacrifice without losing, but gaining freedom, and Whom we can love even unto death. We need a Christ today Who will make cords and drive the buyers and sellers from our new temples; Who will blast the unfruitful fig-trees; Who will talk of crosses and sacrifices and Whose voice will be like the voice of the raging sea. But He will not allow us to pick and choose among His words, discarding the hard ones, and accepting the ones that please our fancy. We need a Christ Who will restore moral indignation, Who will make us hate evil with a passionate intensity, and love goodness to a point where we can drink death like water.”

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
“Life of Christ” 1958

Another gem from Tim Nichols:

Consider Daniel 9, the prayer of the just man Daniel. Go ahead and read it; I’ll wait.

Did you notice that Daniel identifies fully with his people? “We have not obeyed the voice of the Lord our God, to walk in His laws,” he says — although Daniel himself did, in fact, keep them.  “We have not made our prayer before the Lord our God” — although Daniel did so daily, even at risk of his life.  “Neither have we heeded your servants the prophets,” he says — although he himself was a close student of the prophets, especially Jeremiah.

How can Daniel say these things?  He can say them because “we” is a real category to God.  If the corporate body of which you are a part is mired in sin, you cannot simply say, “But I had nothing to do with that.”  No one knew this better than Daniel and the other righteous exiles.

Habakkuk’s Judah was wicked and required harsh judgment, and that was Daniel’s native land; the men of Judah in Habakkuk’s day were Daniel’s people. God promised judgment, and Habakkuk passes on that promise. However, there were also just men living in Judah, just men who would suffer with the unjust when the judgment came. Habakkuk also passes on God’s promise to them: “The just shall live by faith.”  Daniel suffered this judgment, as did his three friends. They were ripped from their homes as young men, dragged into captivity, and destined to die in exile.  Yet they lived through peril after peril by their faith, as God had promised.

We are Christians. We are required to think of corporate and individual, and the relationship between the two, the way God thinks of them. As in Daniel’s case, Scripture shows us time after time that being part of a sinning corporate entity has consequences that a righteous individual cannot dodge, and the righteous thing to do is own the sins of one’s own people.  Simply saying “But I didn’t participate” – even if it’s true – doesn’t mean that “we” didn’t do it.  You can’t extract yourself so easily, which is to say that your people are yourpeople.

What really brought this home to me was several years of pastoral leadership. It’s one thing to be part of a group; even that is tougher to get out of than we think. But it’s another thing altogether to be responsible for that group’s spiritual well-being as the one who gives account for their souls. You can’t just leave because it turns out the sheep really need a shepherd — what are you there for, anyway?

*   *   *   *   *

Some commands can only be kept corporately.  If there’s a particular way to observe the Lord’s Table, for example, you can only keep it with other people – because the Lord’s Table is something we do together. A group can either keep those commands, or it can disobey them.

If you find yourself part of a group that is disobeying a corporate command, obeying the command individually is often not an option, and even if you can, you remain part of a group that is breaking it.  Like Daniel. What ought you to do?

Like Daniel, you should walk with God.  Like Daniel, you should fulfill God’s will in those things that are up to you. And like Daniel, you should pray, “We have sinned” without any riders, or addenda, or excuses.  These people are your people; their sins are your sins, and you can’t separate yourself from those sins simply by disapproving. You may, like Daniel, find yourself suffering the corporate lack of blessing – or even punishment – as a result of corporate disobedience. But like Daniel, you can trust God to watch out for you through the trial.

Maybe, if God is kind to your people, you’ll be given a chance to call them to repentance.  Maybe not.  Sometimes it’s not your job; God will raise up someone else. There were many in Israel who walked with God in the days of Jeremiah, but only one was called to, well, be Jeremiah. Other times, the season for repentance is past, and God is moving in a different fashion, as He was when He called Isaiah. Many times, there is nothing you can do but hunker down and wait, trusting in the faithfulness of God.

Regarding such times, I once heard an experienced pastor advise praying in this way: “Lord this is sin. It is wrong. Please bless it; the only alternatives available right now are far worse.”

Amen.

As we follow the incomprehensible aftermath of the Haiti earthquake, we are tempted to ask, “Why them?”

That’s the wrong question. The right question is, “Why wasn’t it me?”

“I tell you, No: but, except you repent, you shall all likewise perish.” Luke 13:5

With all the fuss between hyperpreterism and preterism, is it possible both positions are basically right?

Hyperpreterists realise that the apostles were expecting an immiment resurrection, and the partials have to treat verses inconsistently – applying some to AD70 and some to the end of history. But then the hypers have to squish the millennium into AD70 like a fairground mirror. They believe all prophecy has been fulfilled. Not good.

I have another thought to add. It is based on what I call the Dominion pattern which is laced throughout the Bible like DNA. Part of this heptamerous pattern involves God exalting an Adam (or Joseph, Moses, Elijah, Mordecai and Christ) and giving him a scroll or the power of interpreting. Basically, God gives Adam a mission to fulfill.

In the case of Adam, like Moses on Sinai he was given the law. One law. And then he was tested. I believe, looking at later patterns, that God came down to the garden seven days later, on the Day of the Lord, to assess Adam’s work. (Noah waited in the ark for seven days before the deluge came; Samuel came to Saul after seven days; God tested Ezekiel as watchman for seven days, and many more.)

Jesus was given a scroll, a mission. As a faithful Adam, he stepped in between the serpent and Eve. Then He passed the mission on to us. This is why he said,

“If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.” (John 12:47-48)

That is why the prophets saw OPEN SCROLLS. It was the mission (Covenant), the words of God opened at ‘ascension’ that would come to judge the ‘Adam’ on his respective Day of the Lord. Then the scroll would be rolled up.

Jesus opened the New Covenant scroll (the seven-sealed one) before He rolled up the Old Covenant one (seen as a firmament-covering or ‘sky’) forty years later (Rev. 5:9; 6:14).

With hyperpreterism, I guess Jesus opened the scroll then rolled the same one up again 40 years later! Which means hyperprets unwittingly think we are not currently under a Covenant. Covenants have a beginning and a reckoning. Hyperpreterism breaks with a pattern that runs throughout Scripture – and indeed, every week. There is always a Day of the Lord. Jesus will come to inspect you this Sunday as you renew Covenant with Him, and at the end of history.

3REZ