AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH

AUSTRALIAN BIBLE CHURCH – November 9, 2008

A CONTINUATION OF THE ORIGINAL THRUST AND BASE OF THE
PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF AUSTRALIA , ON CHANGELESS BIBLICAL LINES

THE BEGINNING, THE END AND THE WALK IN THE MIDDLE

Psalm 111:10,
I Timothy 1:5,
Galatians 5:6, 22-24, Philippians 1:20,28, 2:3

THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM

Psalm 111:10

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom" is a well known incitement to thought and mandate for understanding. Nevertheless, people nowadays are so busy inventing their own commandments

(be good to people, what goes around comes around, don't dictate to others but do what you think, don't condemn anything or anyone unless it is torture, cruelty or death, agree with anything or anyone so long as life goes on smoothly and so on)

that the "very ideah" that GOD could have objectively true, design-relevant, desire-confirmed orders is about as near to popular thought as is this, that you don't believe in YOURSELF for power and propulsion, but in the revealed and righteous God.

However, the Maker, Creator, Designer, Saviour and only one for man (God is not a committee, even if socialism loves to direct committees with sophistry and gain a 'popular' result) has other things to say. If your car is the invention of sophisticated knowledge, engineering savvy, mathematical thought, computing research, trials and tests, considerations and refinements of thought and vision, and THIS NEEDS MANUFACTURER'S INSTRUCTIONS, how much more does the body and the mind and spirit of man, when its Creator speaks to its needs!

You might be arrogant enough to ignore your manufacturer's specifications if you were an eminent engineer, or you might be assured enough if you have devised the car yourself; but when it comes to life it is simply an objective fact that no man has devised it, and what it has is more than the most refined intelligence of man, his millions and his best thinkers can sort out. Far from swiftly making something as novel and profound as life, they cannot even fully understand how it is done, except in superlatives concerning its measured methods, concerted organisation and microscopic miniaturisation in cellular, organic and cerebral structure.

All that is being found is this: that if there is anything minute in engineering marvels, this is smaller, if there is anything sophisticated in brilliance of operational complexity and contrivance, this is better, if anything demanding of practical thought for solutions, this is more so, and if any solutions in reams and masses to a related assortment of prodigious problems, then the compound and complex life of man, this is still more amazing in its sheer brilliance.

It is used for engineering, to copy. It works as one, but is made of a multitude of exquisite co-operation. Knowledge is galloping, and recent books by such as Dr Robert Humphreys, Dr John Hartnett in astronomy and Dr John Sarfati in engineering and bio-chemistry ("Design"), in the realm of living creatures, incorporate much detail of new experiments and findings, such that problems outside life that often beset man are seen as solved within it, and difficulties almost past imagination, are seen solved in not just one way, but a multitude of inventive ways in living forms from bacteria to man. It is all done by COMMAND and it is all WRITTEN in a type of code: not a variety but one is the singular nature of the general case.

What then speaks but one language ? Chance is a name for what is not ordered (just the system to which it relates in order to be discussed); but language is ONLY order to format to conform to symbolic meaning. It is meaningless without implicit symbol-meaning apparatus. This is how our bodies are built from babes! Order is used for giving orders and the speaker is God, the addressee man. This comes in two ways: in the CONSTRUCTION of man from the initial zygote, the little seed from man and woman, and in the INSTRUCTION from the Bible, which verifies itself in all things just as the system for man's body does. Both deal greatly with command.

You COULD put a knife into the developing embryo - and in fact this is just what happens in millions of abortion cases - they call it a curette. That changes things, and is not the best care. However, if you let the orders flow, in the vast percentage of the cases, a wonderful thing called a child results, though of course as the thousands of years pass since creation, we learn that we are getting mutations to damage new generations of babies, and that these mount in such a way that left to itself, the race would ultimately have to die. Such is the domain of NOT keeping the commandments over millenia, where judgments both from the Lord and from the laws of our physique mount up. It is marvellous how this amazing series of commands to make a man’s body from the zygote, has lasted. What a design!

You CAN put a knife to the word of God, a theological curette, and cut out this or that command, or add, but the FEAR of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the verse continues in this way: "a good understanding have they who keep His commandments" . To be sure, literally, it is "DO". To fear the Lord is where one begins wisdom, and to DO is the mark of a good understanding. DO what ? Why obviously what the Lord who is to be feared wants, desires, commands, orders, seeks, instructs, that to which He exhorts, of which He speaks positively. James is keen on this (Ch. 2): what is the good of so-called faith! Faith that believes does. It is not the emblem of perfection; but it IS the hand that holds the hand of power, and the power of God prevails.

HOW wise is a given person ? This is a matter for divine knowledge, but there is one aspect which is given for man to see for himself. If you do NOT fear God (reverence, trustfully hope in, rely on and practically take to heart and life all that God is and requires and provides), and so DO His commands, but instead avoid, despise or are contrary in heart, mind and spirit to them: then what ? Then you have not even begun to be wise. You are not yet in the Beginner's Class, not yet in Prep. This is where the heavy irony lies: many who are so bold and self-assured as to TELL us what we need to obey and what not, what is good enough to do and what is mere cant, culture or nonsense: these so-called leaders may imagine themselves teachers of babes, trying to help the old-fashioned ‘idiots’ who imagine that God both is and speaks and being personal, has a will expressed in words. They make up gods, seek to become them or wrap arms around composite old ones... They would want one to believe that God is far less efficient in having/expressing thoughts than they are.

Yet it is precisely these, who act like the scribes in Jesus' day (Matthew 21, Luke 11) who THINK they are (relative to others) MOST wise, who lag like nags with broken legs. They have yet even to start their schooling in wisdom; for they are ignoramuses par excellence, unschooled and unskilled in wisdom to this point: they have not begun in it at all!

THE END OF THE COMMANDMENT

I TIMOTHY 1:5

This is the beginning, but what of the end ? First of all note that Paul's topic in the above verse is the COMMANDMENT. That is, taking it as one THING, all that God commands, what is the OBJECTIVE of it ? The Greek word used by the apostle here is telos. This, as in Luke 1:33 can mean 'end' or termination or completion. It can also mean purpose, aim, completion in that sense. In English our word 'end' can likewise mean purpose or completion, termination.

In this case, it is obvious from the context that Paul is not telling us what terminates the word of God but what fulfils it. What is its point, its thrust, its office in life ? What is it FOR ? This is his question. That ? It has three major purposes, he goes on to indicate. It is love, first of all. It is not however undifferentiated 'love' which for some means passion, for others predilection, for others again, a pleasurable fulfilment which one likes to dwell on and so forth. No this love as in I Corinthians 13 likewise, is defined and refined, both. It is love out of a pure heart.

What is more wonderful than a pure heart, the necessary source for true love: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matthew 5). Here God has no use for ulterior motives or of self-deception, but rather values willing and even delighted submission to Regal Reality as one's control, as for the actual knowledge of the God of truth and power, in Christ risen from the dead because indestructible (Acts 2:23). THIS love which is the end of the commandment is of THAT kind, and comes in that milieu.

This does not mean that you wait until you are perfect (in the resurrection as in Hebrews 12) before showing this sort of love. Does it not state that if we confess our sins to the Saviour whom we receive and in whom thus we operate by faith, that He is faithful and just both to forgive and to CLEANSE from ALL unrighteousness (I John 1)! ALWAYS act by faith in these ways, not trusting to your performance but to your Lord; and if, O woe, you do fall into some sin, then repent of it with speed and have it processed into purification at ONCE! Do not linger any longer in it.

Thus love from a pure heart, from a good conscience and unfeigned faith: this is the stated END of the COMMANDMENT. A good conscience ? Have you made any submissions to sin, have you confounded your heart by having some kind of accord, some entente cordiale with some iniquity, wrong-headed feeling or attitude to someone, to some commandment ? Have you ceased to seek good for someone and do you merely make use of that person, or even hate ? It is for you rather to hope, and to hate the evil, but leave to God the just One for the ultimate personal sanctions. To be sure if someone rejects Christ, he or she is judged already (John 3:15ff.); but this is a simple scriptural fact, not a judgment of man.

Keep your conscience clear, and make no bargains with sin; by FAITH UNFEIGNED, operative and actual, and working: not kept in the garage in case you ever need it, to moulder among the cobwebs in the dust. Instead, MEET every challenge and overcome by the grace of God, never ceasing from keeping your house, your spiritual house in order, by the power and peaceable mercies of God. Be SATISFIED with nothing that dissatisfies HIM!

That is the PURPOSE of the commandment. It has a reason, a point. It is simple, now in the New Testament, in Christ; but it is clear and it is written in propositions and is no matter of opinion. WHY do you call ME Lord, Lord! Christ rebuked, and NOT do the things that I say!

IN THE MIDST - Philippians 1:20,28, 2:3, Galatians 5:22-24

That is the beginning and the end of wisdom working through the word of God to the heart and the mind of man. What however of the intervening WALK in the way, of what lies in the midst of it all! Various ingredients pulse and attest themselves in the word of God.

A) The BOLD Faith - Ph. 1:20,28

"My earnest expectation and my hope" ... This is something that Paul holds dear. What is it then ? It is that IN NOTHING he should be ashamed. He who trusts in the Lord will not be ashamed (Isaiah 49:23, 8:20, 64:5). Instead of being ashamed, then, what is Paul's chosen course ? It is this: "that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life or by death." Being silent when challenged, by circumstances or enemies of the faith, being low-lying like low-level life, this is NOT the way. Speak out, be open, consider Peter and John in Acts 3-5, and all the martyrs who did not escape – why ? it was because they were faithful. Don’t seek success, but to be faithful. Do not even consider wise and prudent self-first survival techniques. The point ? what best magnifies Christ in your body with ALL BOLDNESS. For Him, take courage, instead of hiding in sin's entourage.

You can deny Christ by not speaking when you should, or HOW you should! or again, by continuing to speak with others, or even being with them, when you should not (cf. Romans 16:17, Jude, I Corinthians 5-6, Ephesians 5, Numbers 16, Jeremiah 15:17, Psalm 1:1). IN so challenging, clearly and boldly, you must be IN NOTHING TERRIFIED by your adversaries, for it is by your confident faith that you help them to realise that their perdition, lostness and judgment is real. If you REALLY believe in the Lord, why fear the puny pugnacities and protestations of man! Speak from the heart, one imbued with boldness because of the truth, Christ in you (Colossians 1:27), whose word is truth.

B) The LOWLY Mind - Philippians 2:3

That is the matter of faith in the face of adversaries; but what of your normal mode of living ? You must be ready to defend the Gospel, to decry evil, to help the afflicted; but what of the normal pulse of the WALK in Christ ? There is this: Seek to resemble Christ in spirit. Never allow strife to rule you in spiritual sulks or squalor, through silly things for your own petty self, rather turning the other cheek. Never seek your greatness, control, mastery and anything wonderful for yourself, for Christ is enough (cf. Psalm 73:25, Phil. 1:21). To Him is all due.

Never be emulous, seeking self-first, or self most recognised. Seek not your own things but those of others: your own DUTY DO; but your own greatness, bury. Let THIS mind be in you that was in Christ when, in His case, equal with God, He yet humbled Himself to BECOME (down) a man, and to be obedient (down further) to death, the death of the Cross (down furthest). It was not success through Christianity in wealth and manner of life: it was success through obedience in DOING what GOD DESIRED. You must be like this, not seeking your own ambition, except it be given of Him, and then it is DUTY, for, by, in, with and through HIM. Walking with God is beauty, truth and holiness.

C) The ULTRA-LEGAL Walk and the UNDERLYING Heartbeat Galatians 5:22-24

Further, there are some things against which there is no law. That is interesting is it not ? In these ways, you CANNOT go wrong! What then are these glorious and so acceptable paths in the midst of Christian living ? Paul tells us.

They are

	love (further defined in the preceding verses),
	joy (irrepressible because of Who He is and WHERE He is! - I Peter 1:1-5),
	peace (Oh SUCH a peace past all understanding when you are with God, Christ is in you - Colossians 1:27 - and you study to do His will in all things - Colossians 1:10), being
	long-suffering (not 'agro' by disposition, forcing yourself, will, ways),
	gentleness - not pressurising from your own mere psyche - and being filled with
	GOODNESS, that glorious impact from the very heart of the liberal and loving God! –
	faith ( as shown in Stephen in Acts 7, a lovely testimony so 'successful' that he was stoned, a martyr in beauty of holiness indeed),
	meekness in your own being, and
	self-control OVER your own personality.

That is the family against which THERE IS NO LAW!

What friends to have in your depths of heart, these!

Indeed, though 'flesh' - that actively subversive, spiritually horrid, self-centred and ultimately devil-activated thrust of lust of mind, spirit and body – assert itself, yet it is CRUCIFIED with Christ, and ITS FRUITS can drip and die with Him!

Such is the way, the walk with the Lord, the BEGINNING of WISDOM, to keep His word and do His will. Such is the END of the Commandment in unfeigned faith, a clear conscience and a pure heart, all out of love. Such is the WALK in the Spirit, which invites all (Revelation 22:17), and dissatisfies never. Though the flesh rise like a volcano, the devil spew, yet the work of the living Christ, who died and rose that He might be Lord over all, this diverts the lava and love prevails:
the Christian looking in responding love to Him, to obey (John 14:21-23).