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CHAPTER SEVEN

CONFUSION, THE KING:

- THIS TIME NOT IN UNDERSTANDING OF THE BIBLE

BUT OF LIFE:

CHRIST THE CONQUEROR

PROVERBS 30:4-14

in Preparation, Sequence, Survey and Conclusion

A PREPARATION ON PONDERING

Not only is there confusion about the place in history of basic units, such as Israel and the Gentiles, despite the profound clarity of even repetitive scriptural attestations, but in this world, there is this same province of confusion, as though it were some very desirable State to which one should seek entry, on the very point and purpose of life.

Schopenhauer stressed will amid the mechanists, whose own wills had desired to delete it with its responsibilities and duties; and others at last stressed purpose. But in neither case was there that chastely accurate account needed. Purpose, to be sure, is THERE: we all use it, and a 'purposeless life' is naturally regarded with a heavily discounting eye. But WHAT purpose may justly replace purposelessness ? what is its just aim, wise star, sound luminary, adequate instructor ? Revenge, might, militancy, pugnacity (form of self-expression, or rule over other selves), delight, respectability, fringe dwelling, individuality as a religion and so on: the purposes are many and often mixed.

You can follow an instinctive seeming purpose, an intuitive thrust, yen or dream, a reactionary thrust because of being offended, prevented or nullified at some earlier time in life, a chastened will in a drive for stability, an incandescent seeming dream, an ideal or an idea. You can do this for some reasons, no conscious reasons or ostensibly at least, only for reasons. If the last, or indeed a hybrid, then as far as reason is concerned, you may reason on the basis that reason rules, and whatever is contrary to it is out automatically; but base that reason on your own empirical cast of thought as to what IS reasonable. You may again, use logical severely, quite a good idea, since we ACT on it in many circumstances, once we know the basis of the thing in view, understanding its mode of working and are able to APPLY reason to it. But then, this all depends on a sound understanding of what it is, whether it be the share market, slum marketing or slavery, things abominable or appalling, savoury or visionary according to the case.

Purpose needs to be pure, and for that it needs to be purified. What will do this, to preserve it from simply serving foolish notions, self-regarding desires or accounting plans, to maximise this or that thought or desire of the moment ?

Purpose comes as a pseudonym for desire, or else as a polished shaft well founded in every aspect of truth, or in other words, in self-deception or in knowledge; and even that knowledge, is fully open to be a warped, twisted and possibly tormented version of reality, where certain items are self-preserving for a given desire-set, or else favoured by reality.

Hence, though purpose is a great thing, as is thought, imagination and liberty of mind to rove over many things, yet without truth it readily becomes a special and sometimes specious form of projection of the self, whatever that is or has come to be, and for whatever reason. Obviously, there is no rest for purpose outside truth, for it is an active form, formula or format for a formulation, the CEO for the Board of internal review ... From there, it can have as many causes and bases as the wind, and in the end, become pointless, or a pointed dagger at the presumptuous heart.

In God only is purpose purified, because only in Him is reality certain, HIS purpose in our creation to be known, HIS design specifications to be beyond question, and His potency ready to prevail as source of justice and wisdom and truth (without whom there would not be any such things, or indeed anyone to have them, since a consciously working logical unit is not a function of matter, however much it may obey it, and logically needs its source as does all).

We have the liberty to mock these things, or marvel. Purpose can readily result from the base, as leaves from a tree. But where is He to be found, as Job started to question: and his answer is that wisdom is to be found in God, and God finds those who seek Him. Time is like a book before Him, His book. Indeed, He knew the characters and Chapters before our bustling times ever even began. Ephesians 1:4 like Jeremiah 1:5 and I Peter 2:8, dwell on this. As Proverbs 30 goes on to tell us, you learn the nature of God's provisions from His word, and in this you have security for avoidance of lies and deception (including of course, self-deception).

As Jeremiah 17:9-10 tells us, the human heart is deceitful above all things (like a car involved in a smash and with steering both distorted and unstable), and as Jeremiah 9:23-24 confirms, it is unwise for the wise to trust in his own wisdom, or to glory in it - since without God it is a matter without basis or foundation, flirting with fancy. If you WANT to find something glorious, source of your best and adversary of your worst, then it is in God you should be glory, source both of all things good and all things cursed, but with a redemptive outlet. This is for those who do not trust in their varying and uncalibrated selves, as if they were gods, but in God who made them

Let us then see with this as a background for understanding, the word of God in the cited verses of Proverbs 30.

SEQUENCE

	1. Verse  4, asks us to identify God, show His name to match His power. That He is there is clear by the constructions and constrictions; but that is only a beginning. Find the exactitudes of His nature, the relationship to His plans and the prologue even to His purposes ?
	2. Verse 5 The answer is His word; and that is pure to infinity, as is His shielding to those who trust in Him. There is NO LICENCE to add to that Word, however, to what He says. It is a deposit unconditional, irrevocable, untouchable, for action not distortion.
	3. Verse 6. For my part, says the Psalmist, I want neither riches nor poverty, for in my desire to be with, serve and relish my God, I am seeking to minimise and indeed avoid the temptation to pride on the one hand and to thieve on the other.
	4. Verses 7-9. In my current life, essential to me, and my desire while I yet live here, are two things. I want truth so falsehood and lies I desire to depart from the realm of my soul altogether. I also want to LIVE in the truth. Again, let me not be governed by economics, whether rich or poor, or enter into its maw. The Psalmist is not looking at means but at ends, though means selection is a following topic.
	5. Verse 10. A word of wisdom now in terms of human relations: Be kind, have a sense of kindred, and so do not speak wrongly or with evil intent, harshly or ultra-critically of a servant to his master. Since it is his life's work, it is important to him, and anything at all false or foolish in this sphere may indeed lead to a curse upon you, under provocation.  Avoid anything at all like that.
	6. Verse 11-14 In terms of human relations, turn to human attitudes. Culture stock can be a horrendous thing, and you can get a cluster of what is contemptible ruling in the young of a given generation, phase or grouping. They can become haughty, despisers of parents (rather along the lines of II Timothy 3's forecast for the end of the Age), immune to morals and so pure in their own eyes, while in fact  both haughty and naughty: yes more, they are in fact part of the great unwashen, neither purged in heart nor purified in spirit, so that their self-image is as fraudulent as their conduct is horrid. Lofty is their posture, and nothing is too much for their presumption. Yet they do not hesitate to afflict those whom they may, even the poor, or move to things virtually savage in the passionate pursuit of things of unjust lust, or else the puny dribbles of heartless sagging, as those seeking to survive, and not revive.

SURVEY

In application, note one common point at once.

One particular format for the group mentioned in verses 11-14, as above, is those bent as a purpose in life, on following the prescription: SURVIVE as the FITTEST.

First note that the term 'fittest' here is both elastic and evasive. In a culture that is literary, you may do best in that genre, in one which is militant, brutality and brashness may advantage, in a humbled society, realism and simplicity of life may give help. in EVERY case, deceit and deviousness may bring down what is of great value to many, and institute dictatorship to the most devastating and anti-human ideas, stamping out what is best for man for a time. It does not work. Moreover, even the Harvard Professor, Stephen Jay Gould, biological specialist, is on record in his Wonderful Life (e.g. pp.  227, 233, 239), as seeing very often no real design advantage as he follows what he takes to be lines of development, nor ways indeed FOR such proposed development!  Construction has to be fulfilled to be useful, and of course, as  Professor Sanford of Cornell has shown in research, any possible advantage is lost overwhelmingly by the disadvantages of downgrading by attrition over time, of the elements of the overall matrix, as in the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Not only is the term 'fittest' meaningless in any sort of precision or point,  but it is useless as a means of upgrade. The products of thought are not its proponents, except they be thinkers, as with man. Naturally and actually, the level of attrition means the genome declines over time. Life is superseded by death, without God, and it wears out instead of becoming a continually miraculous founder of what shows neither evidence nor power to progress in logic, background, understanding or the systematics involved, all intertwined and mutually co-operative or even conversant.

Thus here as used, the term 'fittest' is indeed both elusive and evasive. Moreover, it is not this survival, of whatever it may be, which produces the arrival of the fittest, but the entire theory with this phrase, is a tiresome pose which brings in no fresh creation in type. To have such a thing as a purpose, which some find attractive,  is useless, immoral and propagandising hype; and it also has another woe. Thus, not only is it worse than irrelevant, as the worst assaults the best, the most inhuman the most human, but the most godless assaults the most godly with nauseating regularity. It lacks the genesis for the 'competitors' to have the commanded goods for their genome; but not the failure rate over time! This is not only an empty barrel, but one with a rotten bottom.

Survive indeed! WHAT survives in many instances is a rat which was a man, an unprincipled renegade, defeated idealist, pragmatist for whom pollution is proportional and lying is as the case requires, an inveterate recidivist and a ruin of what humanity can both be and do. The life died long before the body.

Commonly, it is God is in the way of arrogant power hungry survival-directed egotism or power lust. Hence His ways are made the site for assault also, either by subtle propaganda in press and schools (as now), or by forced educational  distortion (as now), or by prohibition (as now applying even to small things like having Christmas carols or Christmas scenes in various schools).
 

CONCLUSION

Thus the least of good for the good of man becomes instated by an undivine right of surviving, and men often applaud the harrowing unholiness of what expresses, fulfils and haughtily survives, as in a regime, while later abhorring it; but it may continue for a time as man learns it is not the survival of the fittest which is needed, or useful, or progressive, whatever that my ambiguously mean,  but the endurance of the best. And what is good ? the best always implies it.

It is the Creator who made the systems and their logical constraints by which they work in astronomy, physiology and genetics, as in reason in the mind of man, complete with apparatus for its assessment! and it is by Him that the way to endure, even for ever, is to be found. Falsity, fraud, force and cunning are indeed preposterous menaces to man, and lust replacing wisdom, he is left derelict increasingly, in his own blood, amid those who seek to intimidate with growing power, till as foretold, the world becomes unrulable and unworthy. Thus it is a mercy that Christ returns (Matthew 24:22,29),  not only as a buoy to the love of spiritual beauty, who need His salvation, but as a judgment on immorality, ungodliness and the treacherous and heartless ways of those who, sinning both in desire and in principle, pollute the spiritual atmosphere with what is a virtual radioactive blight, not of matter, but of man.

With the Psalmist, let us seek with all our hearts to be kept from falsehood and lies, and knowing Him who made us and all the law-girt ways of life, honour HIS word and not that of insecure man, seeking security in his own nostrums, inane surges gone with the fashions, and arrogant self-will. Nor is that all: there is a harmony which the sharing of divine morals, wisdom, desire and wonder produces. This is available, since Christ who IS the Son of the Almighty (answering the question of Proverbs 30:4), given to this world but rejected in the main by it,  has come down to earth to arrange for transfer IN TRUTH to heaven, for those for whom He is haven. He has prepared the path of pardon in Himself, and purified personal power in life, for those who love God and seek His face in truth. Peter speaks of the nature of this revival in and for the redeemed in I Peter 1:5-8.

As the flower surpasses the weed, the pure the polluted, the wise the woeful, the skylark the crow, so His way surpasses the endless procession of useless substitutes: for with God and HIS WORD. For His work of salvation attested in it, there is neither alternative nor substitute, in genome or in genius, in engendering or in mutilation, in philosophical pollutants or any of the pathways of pride.