Religious Baggage
Over the past many months, the Lord has graciously led us to find writings from many different sources, all exposing the absolute requirement of the death of self. At each step along the way, we have seen and heard things that bore witness in our spirits as being true. We have prayed and asked God to crucify our flesh and transform us into the image and likeness of His first begotten Son. We imagined ourselves to be almost there if you will. After all, being willing is half the battle, is it not?
Many of us that were brought up in the Church have a lot of religious baggage we are dragging around… that we are unconscious of, and this is what the Lord is bringing to light in us. Our feelings are easily hurt. We have long been assured that we are in the way, and have the truth, while those who see things differently are in error. We may be old in years but we still are little children inside. We rejoice when we receive something that we already see in-part, and readily accept it as confirmation. But when it comes to something new, something that seems to contradict what we think we ‘know’…. we often become very critical and judgmental. We 'imagine' that we are being spirit-led, failing to recognize that it is our own self-righteousness we are defending. We sometimes 'imagine' that God needs to be defended, and take on the role of crusader. When in fact, HE IS our defense and shield. He does not need our help, or input. As our eyes are opened to how far-spread the 'apostasy' in the Church is, we feel the need to lift our voice and expose it, without comprehending that it is hidden only to the eyes of those within it (the apostate condition)... the world's vision is much clearer in this regard. Hypocrisy is obvious to everyone but the hypocrite.
We can only do this because we see ourselves as having already arrived, and not as we really are. I was very convicted by the words of Isaac Penington. Nothing belongs to us, all things are God's. It is sometimes very hard for us to differentiate between the things that the Lord leads us to say or do, and the things that are the response of our own understanding (accumulated knowledge); what seems right in our own eyes. At each forward step, our flesh cries out, 'yeah, I've arrived'... because with each forward step, it knows that it must die a little more, and is trying to give us the false assurance that we are already dead to it. When we are used in a measure to teach or write, we sometimes begin to see ourselves as being that… a teacher, writer, and lose sight of the fact that we are called to be a servant... to all, not just to the people who see the same way we do or agree with us. When we are given light in some area, we think 'now I see clearly.' We may see more than we did a week or month or year ago, but we still only see in-part, and need to keep pressing in. We will never 'know it all' as our flesh would have us believe. In our carnal way of thinking… if we study and work hard enough, we will eventually arrive and be able to take our ease. There are no limitations in God, while there are great limitations in our minds ability to comprehend spiritual realities. We cannot help but think in terms of the natural way of things. We limit the operations of the Spirit in our lives, when we try to set guidelines as to how the Spirit can operate and in what areas. And we do this every time we look to our own judgment and understanding. This is a sobering thing… to truly consider the ramifications of our presumptions.
“And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it, when ye turn to the right hand, and when ye turn to the left” Isaiah 30:21.
We would like to assure ourselves that we are indeed hearing the voice and walking in the way. However, our words and our actions reveal that we still have more dying to do. Quoting from ‘The Destruction of Passion’… This is a warning to every SAINT; to keep only the path the LORD desired for them and not to compare themselves with others. If others will be allowed to be rich and popular etc. and we are getting more and more obscure and poor, the temptation is either to fret or simply drop the Cross to enter a dominion of self. Paul wrote: “For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves by themselves are not wise." (2Corinthians10v12). [end quote]
We are unwise when we compare ourselves with others, period. Making comparisons, passing judgments is the how the world operates. Apart from God’s Spirit, it is all that we have to fall back on. It is also the way we are most familiar with.
Four hundred years ago, Isaac Penington expounded on the ‘Principles Coming Out of Apostasy’… here is a sobering excerpt from page 15:
Thus I have in plainness of heart, and plainness of speech, set the truth and the error before you, and lent my hand toward the removing of some blocks which lay in your way, in love and pity to your souls. Now if any, in the reading of this, feel a secret touch upon their hearts, startling them, and giving some testimony to the truth, though very small, and through a thick, dark covering, there is that to which I speak; there is the witness within the veil; and there is the testimony rising up, which leads to life, if given heed to. Keep to this, and this will prick and wound, judge and condemn the contrary nature, though ever so strong. When it does prick and wound, keep the wound fresh and open, as you love your life, until you meet with the true healer. For the false prophet will rise up in you, and fill you with reasonings, and perhaps multitudes of promises and comforts from scripture, skinning over the wound, and crying Peace, peace, when there is no peace. And when you have thus gotten over the trouble, then the false prophet, which brought you this peace, will stir you up against the witness, exalting the wisdom and reasonings of the flesh, and making merry with you over the witness, which witnessed against you and him, and over the trouble that came thereby; and this will bring you to that hardness of heart which is for destruction. When you have slain the witness in yourself, and exalted your fleshly reason and understanding over it, then the false prophet that seduced you will kindle a zeal in you against the witness in others; and you will prove a persecutor of the life, under the name of deceit, error, heresy, and blasphemy; at which point you yourself are fallen into the deceit, into the error from the life, and into the blasphemy against it, and are in Cain's nature, and would willingly be handling of Cain's weapons to destroy it. Therefore take heed of the fleshly wisdom; take heed of your own understanding; take heed of your reasoning or disputing; for these are the weapons by which the witness is slain. That wisdom must be destroyed, and that understanding brought to nothing, and you become a child, and learn as a child, if ever you know the things of God.
And from ‘Babylon The Great’:
But truly, if you are ever to see the dragon, the beast, antichrist, the whore, the false prophet, you must look at home, and read within yourself; and there having found the thing, and seen it in the true light, you will be able to see it certainly without also. Now do not go about to distinguish these things in the idea of the understanding; but come to feel the life within, to unite with the life, and the eye will open which can see into the nature of things, and will behold all in its season; for that eye which is so eager to see, shall never see these things; but that eye alone which waits in stillness and quietness on the pleasure and goodwill of the Opener. [end quote]
The work in us and in others – is the LORD’s work. We can take no glory in it, nor can we help it along. To truly see with spiritual vision, is to abhor one’s self and to be utterly humbled, even mortified at our own presumption and pride. How easily we allow ourselves to get sidetracked on all things external. The way of religion is to dress up the outside of the cup, to abstain according to our perceptions, and call it ‘being in the will of God.’ The way of the flesh is to find the niche in which we ‘feel’ the most righteous.
“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” Isaiah 64:6.
How is our religious baggage comparable to idolatry?
[quote: Idolatry is the worshipping of God without his spirit, (that is the plain, naked truth of the thing). To invent things from the carnal mind, or to imitate things, which others, who had the spirit, did in the spirit, by the command of the spirit, for you to imitate and practice these without the spirit, is idolatry. An invented church, an invented ministry, an invented worship; an imitated church, an imitated ministry, an imitated worship, without the life, without the spirit, all these are the work of men's hands, and are idols, and all that is performed within is idolatry. Rev 9:20. This is a religion without life, a worship without life, a fabric for idolatry; and the whole course of worship and service in it, is idolatry. For the living God, the Lord God of endless life and power, is alone worshipped by his spirit, and in the truth of that life which he begets in the heart; and all other worship, though ever so seemingly spiritual, is idolatrous. Ah! believers, believers! If you knew how many idol prayers and services you have loaded the Lord with, and how you have been whoring from him, while you have seemed to be drawing near to him, you would hang down your heads and mourn! for whatever you have done in the worship of God, without the leading and presence of his spirit, it has been idolatry. For the worship of God, under the gospel, "is in the spirit and in the truth," and required of them who are in the spirit and in the truth, and not of others. John 4:23. For them alone the Lord seeketh to worship; and the Lord will admit of none to his worship, but such as he seeks. And if any else will thrust themselves into his worship, it is not accepted; nor do they worship the true God, but they "worship they know not what;" and their whole state and course here is a state and course of idolatry. End quote].
“The light of the body is the eye: therefore when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is full of light; but when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness” Luke 11:34.
We cannot do one thing that is acceptable to God from our own strength, wisdom or understanding. But we can willingly lay down all that we think we know at the Master’s feet, and allow HIM by HIS SPIRIT, to renew our minds. (Psa 51:10 Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me).
Much has been made in recent years by end-times orators concerning Malachi 4:5 “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD.”
Were Elijah himself to physically come to us, what more need be said than what is already written?
“And Elijah came unto all the people, and said, How long halt ye between two opinions? if the LORD be God, follow him: but if Baal, then follow him. And the people answered him not a word” 1 Kings 18:21.
May we join the Psalmist, confident that God will… “Examine me, O LORD, and prove me; try my reins and my heart”. The separating of the sheep from the goats, is the separating of those who talk the talk… from those who actually walk the walk.
Will we cling to our Religion… or will we partake of Christ’s life?
This is the choice before us in this hour.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Some Directions to the Panting Soul
SOME DIRECTIONS TO THE PANTING SOUL
by Isaac Penington
1661
To the soul which has long been traveling in the Letter, but has not yet been acquainted with the Power, nor hardly so much as entered into the Ministration of the endless Life, (which is the Ministration of the Gospel), that it may feel the spring, and come to drink there of the living waters.
"COME unto me, all you that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart, and you shall find rest unto your souls; for my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." Mat 11:28-30.
Some sweet meditations sprang in my heart concerning this portion of scripture; with breathings of spirit for, and rollings of bowels towards, those "that labor and are heavy laden," which I find drawings to communicate.
Thursday, September 16, 2010
From: The Church of the Firstborn - T. Austin Sparks
You must warn each other every day, while it is still “today,” so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. (Hebrews 3:13).
We talk about our motives, and we say, Our motive was right! We talk about our conscientiousness, we talk about our intentions; but you and I do not know what lies behind what we call our good motives. There is a deceitfulness about this human heart that defies our greatest attempt at tracking it down, and we shall never do it... Here is where the church has become such a confused thing, and such a tragedy; for the prevailing idea is that if you give yourself over to God He will take you up and use you: "Bring over your humanity and consecrate it to the Lord! Consecrate your old man to the Lord, and go out and serve the Lord, with a consecrated old man!" it is utterly contrary to the teaching of God’s Word. The result is that in the work of God all the world over you have people serving the Lord in the energy of the flesh, in the reasoning of the flesh, in the emotions of the flesh. Meet them, counter them, frustrate them, and you meet something evil; you meet with a fight, a division, a schism, a scattering, and wholesale resignations.
Do you see what a havoc the enemy can make in that which is called the church, because people with best intentions, purest motives have come to serve the Lord with all their own intelligence, their own strength, and their own emotion? They have not seen that God has closed the door to the old creation, and that God’s attitude is this: "The only thing that can satisfy Me, that can serve Me is My Son, and if you are going to come into My service, He has to be the energy of everything, the Life of everything, the Wisdom of everything!" He has to be the governing, ruling reality in everything. It is not to be a matter of your impulses, but of His urgings and leadings by the Holy Spirit; not your sitting down to reason out what it would be good to do for the Lord, what ought to be done, what needs to be done, but what He shows you, nothing more... You and I must not bring over our old creation and give it to God, expecting God to use it. God begins with birth. The church of the firstborn is something quite new, and it comes out of a death. That death is the death of an old creation, and the resurrection is of something that is not the resuscitation of an old creation, but the resurrection of something wholly of God.
We talk about our motives, and we say, Our motive was right! We talk about our conscientiousness, we talk about our intentions; but you and I do not know what lies behind what we call our good motives. There is a deceitfulness about this human heart that defies our greatest attempt at tracking it down, and we shall never do it... Here is where the church has become such a confused thing, and such a tragedy; for the prevailing idea is that if you give yourself over to God He will take you up and use you: "Bring over your humanity and consecrate it to the Lord! Consecrate your old man to the Lord, and go out and serve the Lord, with a consecrated old man!" it is utterly contrary to the teaching of God’s Word. The result is that in the work of God all the world over you have people serving the Lord in the energy of the flesh, in the reasoning of the flesh, in the emotions of the flesh. Meet them, counter them, frustrate them, and you meet something evil; you meet with a fight, a division, a schism, a scattering, and wholesale resignations.
Do you see what a havoc the enemy can make in that which is called the church, because people with best intentions, purest motives have come to serve the Lord with all their own intelligence, their own strength, and their own emotion? They have not seen that God has closed the door to the old creation, and that God’s attitude is this: "The only thing that can satisfy Me, that can serve Me is My Son, and if you are going to come into My service, He has to be the energy of everything, the Life of everything, the Wisdom of everything!" He has to be the governing, ruling reality in everything. It is not to be a matter of your impulses, but of His urgings and leadings by the Holy Spirit; not your sitting down to reason out what it would be good to do for the Lord, what ought to be done, what needs to be done, but what He shows you, nothing more... You and I must not bring over our old creation and give it to God, expecting God to use it. God begins with birth. The church of the firstborn is something quite new, and it comes out of a death. That death is the death of an old creation, and the resurrection is of something that is not the resuscitation of an old creation, but the resurrection of something wholly of God.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The Sins Of Babylon by Isaac Penington
A sobering voice from the past...
THE SINS OF BABYLON by Isaac Penington
Although, in the foregoing description, some of the sins of Babylon have been touched at; yet I find my spirit further drawn forth, (in a way of service to the Lord and his people), to take a further view, both of them, and some of her other sins. THE sins of Babylon, by the spirit of life, (which has righteously measured and knows them), are referred to these two heads, fornication and abomination. She allures the spirit of the creature into a strange bed, and there it acts filthily and abominably with this strange spirit. Now of these there are two sorts; first, some more open and manifest; secondly, some more hidden and secret and hard, (yes, utterly impossible), to be discerned without the shining forth of the pure light of life.
All sorts of men are estranged from the life; under the whole heaven is the Lord God forgotten, and his holy and pure law and way of life; and filthiness and abomination are committed everywhere. Now all this filth, (even the common filth of the earth), springs out of Babylon, has its rise from her womb. Were it not for her, the sound of life would be heard even among the heathen, and they would not be such strangers to him that made them; nor would they act so contrary to those leadings and teachings of the spirit of God, (who is the God of the whole earth), which the darkest parts are not without. It is she which withdraws their minds from the pure glimmerings that rise up in them, setting up another god in their eyes, and heathenish, drunken ways of fear, worship, and devotion: and under this she makes them filthy and polluted, unclean in their minds and in their bodies, brutish in their knowledge and in their practices; "for she is the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth." Rev 17:5. Look what of pride, of vanity, of cruelty, of envy, of wrath, of lust, of covetousness, of idolatry, of blasphemy, etc., is to be found anywhere among men upon the earth, she is the mother of it all. All the common filth and stench of the earth springs out of this womb, this secret womb, this hidden womb. For though, in this her open and visible appearance, she is manifest to the eyes of many; yet to those children of hers who are thus conceived, brought forth, and bred up by her, she is a mystery of iniquity, and they perceive her not so much as here, and so cannot escape this her openly polluted bed.
Secondly, the whore has more secret fornications and abominations. Where she can pass thus, she needs not to paint either herself or her ware; but where need requires, she has her paint, she has her delicacies for the curious eye. Rev. 18:3. She has her cinnamon, odors, ointments, and frankincense for the nice scent; she has her fine flour and wheat, etc., for the fine palate; and gold, precious stones, pearl, and vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, for the more stately worshipper; as well as of brass and iron for the more common. Rev. 18:12-13. She can paint both herself and her wares, so as to make them taking to the eye of all flesh. She can so mingle her cup, so that it will please every palate but what is truly living; and cast such a distortion upon her abominations, that no eye that is focused without can suspect; but she takes up every young man that is hunting without, and does not know the spring of life in himself. So that all the deceits in religion, all the several forms and ways of knowledge and worship, all the ordinances, duties, and devotions which the spirits of most men take pleasure in, are of her. And here is her pride and glory, in subjecting these, in ruling over these, in blinding the eyes of these, and opposing the true life and power by these. She does not value whole territories of the other so much as the congregation of these. For mark:
The great masterpiece of the whore was to paint herself like the Lamb's wife, and so to withdraw people from the true church, and set up a false church; which, by reason of its paint and likeness to what once was the true, should pass up and down the world, and be taken for the true; and here lies her beauty, her glory, her majesty, her life, her heart, even in the deceivableness of this appearance. Therefore her great art and endeavors are to keep her possession and dominion here. She often renews and changes her paint, nearer and nearer to the image and former likeness of truth, that she might make it pass instead of the truth, and so keep what is indeed the truth down still under reproach, contempt, and persecution, as she has done these many ages. Therefore she has all sorts of her paint by her, her varieties of sorcery, of witchery, of enchantments, by which her cup is full, and with which her wine is made strong, to make the inhabitants of the earth drunk thereby; that being thus besotted, being not themselves, but their spiritual senses bound up, (as the wine does very effectually, wherever her cup is drunk), she might lead them up and down from one thing to another, from one chamber to another, from one bed to another, from one practice and way of worship to another, and still keep them from the true, living thing that their souls seek.
Reading the scriptures concerning the power of life the saints formerly enjoyed, the living ministry and ordinances, their sweet walking and fellowship in the light, the presence of the spirit in their worship, and in their whole course of life, their sincere love in the spirit, and tender bearing with one another's weaknesses, doubts and differences; all these experiences of the saints only generate a panting to be able to experience them. For these ideals are not meant to decay and die and be lost, so that the power of the Spirit, and the revelations thereof should cease, (as the whorish spirit, which has gone out from the life, pleads); but instead these ideals were meant to grow and increase, and the last times to abound most of all with the power and glory of truth. To be satisfied reading about tasting and savoring things is to be satisfied with dead forms and ways; such persons must be wholly bewitched, and altogether deprived of their senses, being made dead drunk with the whore's mingled wine in this dark night of apostasy? Yes, believers are drunk, they have deeply drunk of the cup, and are sorely overtaken, and their hearts overcharged with strong liquor; which makes them even mad to draw others into their beds of fornication, and to stand up themselves in great rage, and call also to the magistrates for the defense of them. Yes, like the clamorous woman, they make a great noise about ordinances, duties, ministry, church, etc., ("I have decked and perfumed my bed," said the lewd woman, the subtle hearted woman, Prov 7:16-17.), but do not soberly consider which are painted ones, and which are the truth. We have run on headily after these things too long; it is now time to stand still a while, and wait for the purging out of the wine with which all our brains have been overturned, that we may come into soberness, and into a fit temper to be led by the spirit of life out of the bed of fornications, and out of the ways, worships, ordinances, and duties of fornication, into the bed of the undefiled spirit. Now he who worships God correctly, must feel life within, and that life raised and strengthened by him who begets it; and this will savor death; and, faithfully following its guide, will come out of the land of death; even that land in which all the false worshippers inhabit, and in which all these false ways and worships, duties, ordinances, ministries, etc., are set up and flourish.
Now these secret sins of Babylon are the same with the more open and obvious; the great difference is their secrecy, their not appearing like sins, their paint, their color, by which they are swallowed down for holy and good. As for instance:
There is fornication, (or adultery from the life), in the finest, in the purest way of worship man can invent or imitate; but the fornication does not so plainly appear here, but they who have drunk of the cup take these things for the ways and appointments of God. Those that set up the whore's church, do not call it so, nor perhaps think it to be so; those that set up the whore's ministry, or ordinances, do not give those who name, but call them the ministry and ordinances of Christ: yet this is as truly, as really fornication from the life, as the most obvious ways of heathenish worship. Oh mark it! mark it!
If you have read the Scriptures, and thrust yourself into any practices you there find mentioned, without the raising up of a living thing in you, and without your following by the guidance of it, you have done this by the whore's advice; and in this you are committing fornication, and erring from the life. For the true worship lies in the spirit and in the truth, and it is the new birth that God seeks to worship him; but the spirit of man thrusting itself into these things, the Lord abhors and rejects. And this spirit can never be cleansed in this way, and fitted to enter into Christ's bed; but only gets a paint from scripture, and enters into the painted bed and bosom of the harlot, where it remains unrenewed, unchanged, unmortified, in the midst of all its great talk and profession of these things. And thus the Scripture, the holy Scriptures of truth, (which were given forth from the pure spirit of life), the whorish spirit makes use of to estrange from the life. For what persons, who have fornicated from the life, do not make use of the Scriptures to maintain their whoredoms by, and to bewitch others into their whoredoms with? Every sort cries up their own way and worship to be the way and worship according to the Scriptures; and if any are gathered out of these witcheries into the power of God, then the bewitched say that such are bewitched.
Then as for all the abominations of the earth, all the filth that defiles the heart, it is to be found on the skirts of the whore, even in her most refined dress; for her religion, her worship, her profession, her practices, do not reach to the purifying of the conscience, but only to paint over the old sepulcher, where rottenness lodges within. The sore was never thoroughly searched; the heart was never thoroughly circumcised or baptized; the old man was never put off, or the new man put on; the blood of purifying, (which truly washes away the sin), was never felt in its virtue and power. They only have a perception and talk that they are cleansed in Christ, from a notion they have stolen out of the Scriptures; but not from the true reality experienced in life and power in their consciences. And so the evil nature still remains, the evil heart of unbelief is still to be found in them, and they lack the life, they lack the power, they lack the spirit, they lack the love, they lack the humility, they lack the meekness, they lack the patience, they lack the innocence and simplicity of the lamb and dove. And when the Lord comes to provoke them to jealousy by the shining of his light, and by the appearance of his power in some whom they despise, then the pride, the passion, the envy, the heart burnings, the hard speeches, the false surmisings, with the rest of the enmity which still abides with them, stirs and rises against the life and power, and their hypocrisy is made manifest. Yes, some of the strictest among them can scoff and jeer at the appearance of life; so strong is the evil and unmortified nature in them, and so conceited are they in their ways and practices, because of their cover, under which all this iniquity, for the most part, lies hidden from their eyes. But, for all that, it is there; the Lord's candle will search it out, and your own eye shall see it, and find in yourself bloody Cain, scoffing Ishmael, profane Esau, the uncircumcised Jew; who is angry that his brother's sacrifice is accepted, and his not; who disdains and derides the true seed of life, the living heir; who hunts abroad for food pleasing to that nature which is to be famished; who crucifies the Lord of glory because of his meanness, and because he appears not in that way of devotion and holiness in which they expect him. Neither will he ever appear so; but to overturn all what you have set up, and to set up what you disdain. This is the Lord's work, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Now there are several sins which the spirit of the Lord has charged Babylon with, and which he will reckon with her for, and with all that partake with her within; some of which I may mention, as:
1.) Her deep fornications from the life, under a pretence of honoring and worshipping of it. (Do not be offended that I begin with it again, seeing it is also mentioned among other particular sins of hers. Rev 18:3-9.) She speaks fair words; she calls to have the worship of God set up, a godly ministry, and the ordinances of God in a nation; but the thing is not so in the sight of God, but in all this she seeks the advancement of her own whoredoms. And this was, and this is, the very way of antichrist's rising; he gets into the form, he cries up the form; and by the form that he cries up, he eats out the power. If antichrist should speak directly against the power, (without first creeping into, and setting up a form, and crying up that), he would soon be detected; but, under a form and profession of truth, he hides himself and covers his spirit of enmity and persecution with it; and here he can secretly and safely smite the innocent and fight against that very spirit, life, and power, which he himself, in his form, makes a profession of being subject to. This is the wolf in the sheep's clothing, which, by this fair appearance of the sheep's wool on his back, covers his ravenous nature from the eyes of the beholders.
Now there are three ways of fornication, one of which this spirit is always guilty of, sometimes of them all.
a.) By inventing things which the Lord never commanded, or adding to what the Lord did command. The mind of man is very busy, and full of inventions; and where the heart is touched with devotion and zeal towards God, the inventing part exceedingly exercises itself this way, either in imagining and forming somewhat which it thinks may be acceptable to God, or in adding to those things that it finds commanded. In this way of fornication the popish church abounds, being filled with ceremonies of their own inventing, and of additions to such things as are found mentioned in the Scriptures. The common Protestants also have been too guilty here.
b.) By imitating of those things which were commanded to others. When a man finds in scripture the things which some others did, or which they were commanded to do; and so he is venturing upon them before he feels the leading of that spirit by which they were led thereunto. Now in this he errs from the life; he goes without his guide; he does what was a good thing in others, (who were led by the spirit thereto), but in him it is fornication. This man is a thief and an intruder; he steals into the outward knowledge and practice, without the inward life and power. He intrudes into that into which others were fairly led; not coming in by the right door, for which entrance he should have waited, and not have run on headily of himself. This way of fornication the strictest among the Protestants have generally been ensnared in, who have run on further and further to search out the purest way of worship, the nearest pattern to the primitive times, and so have applied themselves diligently thereto, not knowing for what they were to wait on to be their guide to give them the entrance. Here now, thinking they are right, they have contracted a lofty spirit, (and held forth their conceptions of the way as the only way), and so have lost the meekness and simplicity, which were fresh and lively in some of them before; which sets them a great way back, and makes the entrance into the kingdom very hard to them. If that simplicity and tenderness were fresh in them, the Lord would show great regard to that, easily pardoning this their error, and, in mercy to them, visiting that evil spirit with his judgments, which stood near them, and was the cause of their error. But they have grown high, they have grown wise, they have become confident, they know the way already, and can maintain it by undeniable arguments, (as they think), to be the way; so the Lord, with his teachings, is at a great distance from them; that lying very low in them, which the Lord alone will teach.
c.) By continuing in practices, to which they were once led by the spirit, without the immediate presence and life of the spirit. For the whole worship, the whole religion of the gospel, consists in following the spirit, in having the spirit do all in us, and for us. Therefore whatever a man does for himself is out of the life, it is in the fornication. If a man prays at anytime without the spirit, that prayer is fornication, and is not either acceptable to God, or profitable to himself; but grieves the spirit, hurts the life, and wounds the soul. Now they have especially fallen into this way of fornication, who had been acquainted with the true leadings and openings of the spirit, and have afterwards run to them for refreshment, and so by degrees forgotten the spirit that originally opened them. And by this means was that life, which was precious and very savory in the ranters, (before they were seduced by the spirit of deceit into that way of ranting), overturned. And thus they also, (who deeply saw into the mystery of whoredoms, and into the more inward ways of fornication above others), even they were also deceived with the whore's cup, and drank afresh of that wine of fornication which the whore very cunningly had new mingled for them; and they have also become a reproach to the inhabitants of Zion, who find a living habitation in that spirit of life from which they turned.
Now if there is a true eye opened in any in the reading of this, how easily and manifestly will he see whoredom, fornication, adultery, generally in men's religious practices, in their churches, in their ministries, in their ordinances, in their prayers, in their whole course! Oh how, think you, does the eye of the jealous God behold these things! but your eyes, who are held captive here, cannot see it. The God of the world, with his mists, has darkened you; the great whore, with her sorceries, has enchanted you; and you are her slaves, you are drunk with her cup; and how can you judge soberly either of your own estate towards God, or concerning your practices in religion?
THE SINS OF BABYLON by Isaac Penington
Although, in the foregoing description, some of the sins of Babylon have been touched at; yet I find my spirit further drawn forth, (in a way of service to the Lord and his people), to take a further view, both of them, and some of her other sins. THE sins of Babylon, by the spirit of life, (which has righteously measured and knows them), are referred to these two heads, fornication and abomination. She allures the spirit of the creature into a strange bed, and there it acts filthily and abominably with this strange spirit. Now of these there are two sorts; first, some more open and manifest; secondly, some more hidden and secret and hard, (yes, utterly impossible), to be discerned without the shining forth of the pure light of life.
All sorts of men are estranged from the life; under the whole heaven is the Lord God forgotten, and his holy and pure law and way of life; and filthiness and abomination are committed everywhere. Now all this filth, (even the common filth of the earth), springs out of Babylon, has its rise from her womb. Were it not for her, the sound of life would be heard even among the heathen, and they would not be such strangers to him that made them; nor would they act so contrary to those leadings and teachings of the spirit of God, (who is the God of the whole earth), which the darkest parts are not without. It is she which withdraws their minds from the pure glimmerings that rise up in them, setting up another god in their eyes, and heathenish, drunken ways of fear, worship, and devotion: and under this she makes them filthy and polluted, unclean in their minds and in their bodies, brutish in their knowledge and in their practices; "for she is the mother of harlots, and abominations of the earth." Rev 17:5. Look what of pride, of vanity, of cruelty, of envy, of wrath, of lust, of covetousness, of idolatry, of blasphemy, etc., is to be found anywhere among men upon the earth, she is the mother of it all. All the common filth and stench of the earth springs out of this womb, this secret womb, this hidden womb. For though, in this her open and visible appearance, she is manifest to the eyes of many; yet to those children of hers who are thus conceived, brought forth, and bred up by her, she is a mystery of iniquity, and they perceive her not so much as here, and so cannot escape this her openly polluted bed.
Secondly, the whore has more secret fornications and abominations. Where she can pass thus, she needs not to paint either herself or her ware; but where need requires, she has her paint, she has her delicacies for the curious eye. Rev. 18:3. She has her cinnamon, odors, ointments, and frankincense for the nice scent; she has her fine flour and wheat, etc., for the fine palate; and gold, precious stones, pearl, and vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious wood, for the more stately worshipper; as well as of brass and iron for the more common. Rev. 18:12-13. She can paint both herself and her wares, so as to make them taking to the eye of all flesh. She can so mingle her cup, so that it will please every palate but what is truly living; and cast such a distortion upon her abominations, that no eye that is focused without can suspect; but she takes up every young man that is hunting without, and does not know the spring of life in himself. So that all the deceits in religion, all the several forms and ways of knowledge and worship, all the ordinances, duties, and devotions which the spirits of most men take pleasure in, are of her. And here is her pride and glory, in subjecting these, in ruling over these, in blinding the eyes of these, and opposing the true life and power by these. She does not value whole territories of the other so much as the congregation of these. For mark:
The great masterpiece of the whore was to paint herself like the Lamb's wife, and so to withdraw people from the true church, and set up a false church; which, by reason of its paint and likeness to what once was the true, should pass up and down the world, and be taken for the true; and here lies her beauty, her glory, her majesty, her life, her heart, even in the deceivableness of this appearance. Therefore her great art and endeavors are to keep her possession and dominion here. She often renews and changes her paint, nearer and nearer to the image and former likeness of truth, that she might make it pass instead of the truth, and so keep what is indeed the truth down still under reproach, contempt, and persecution, as she has done these many ages. Therefore she has all sorts of her paint by her, her varieties of sorcery, of witchery, of enchantments, by which her cup is full, and with which her wine is made strong, to make the inhabitants of the earth drunk thereby; that being thus besotted, being not themselves, but their spiritual senses bound up, (as the wine does very effectually, wherever her cup is drunk), she might lead them up and down from one thing to another, from one chamber to another, from one bed to another, from one practice and way of worship to another, and still keep them from the true, living thing that their souls seek.
Reading the scriptures concerning the power of life the saints formerly enjoyed, the living ministry and ordinances, their sweet walking and fellowship in the light, the presence of the spirit in their worship, and in their whole course of life, their sincere love in the spirit, and tender bearing with one another's weaknesses, doubts and differences; all these experiences of the saints only generate a panting to be able to experience them. For these ideals are not meant to decay and die and be lost, so that the power of the Spirit, and the revelations thereof should cease, (as the whorish spirit, which has gone out from the life, pleads); but instead these ideals were meant to grow and increase, and the last times to abound most of all with the power and glory of truth. To be satisfied reading about tasting and savoring things is to be satisfied with dead forms and ways; such persons must be wholly bewitched, and altogether deprived of their senses, being made dead drunk with the whore's mingled wine in this dark night of apostasy? Yes, believers are drunk, they have deeply drunk of the cup, and are sorely overtaken, and their hearts overcharged with strong liquor; which makes them even mad to draw others into their beds of fornication, and to stand up themselves in great rage, and call also to the magistrates for the defense of them. Yes, like the clamorous woman, they make a great noise about ordinances, duties, ministry, church, etc., ("I have decked and perfumed my bed," said the lewd woman, the subtle hearted woman, Prov 7:16-17.), but do not soberly consider which are painted ones, and which are the truth. We have run on headily after these things too long; it is now time to stand still a while, and wait for the purging out of the wine with which all our brains have been overturned, that we may come into soberness, and into a fit temper to be led by the spirit of life out of the bed of fornications, and out of the ways, worships, ordinances, and duties of fornication, into the bed of the undefiled spirit. Now he who worships God correctly, must feel life within, and that life raised and strengthened by him who begets it; and this will savor death; and, faithfully following its guide, will come out of the land of death; even that land in which all the false worshippers inhabit, and in which all these false ways and worships, duties, ordinances, ministries, etc., are set up and flourish.
Now these secret sins of Babylon are the same with the more open and obvious; the great difference is their secrecy, their not appearing like sins, their paint, their color, by which they are swallowed down for holy and good. As for instance:
There is fornication, (or adultery from the life), in the finest, in the purest way of worship man can invent or imitate; but the fornication does not so plainly appear here, but they who have drunk of the cup take these things for the ways and appointments of God. Those that set up the whore's church, do not call it so, nor perhaps think it to be so; those that set up the whore's ministry, or ordinances, do not give those who name, but call them the ministry and ordinances of Christ: yet this is as truly, as really fornication from the life, as the most obvious ways of heathenish worship. Oh mark it! mark it!
If you have read the Scriptures, and thrust yourself into any practices you there find mentioned, without the raising up of a living thing in you, and without your following by the guidance of it, you have done this by the whore's advice; and in this you are committing fornication, and erring from the life. For the true worship lies in the spirit and in the truth, and it is the new birth that God seeks to worship him; but the spirit of man thrusting itself into these things, the Lord abhors and rejects. And this spirit can never be cleansed in this way, and fitted to enter into Christ's bed; but only gets a paint from scripture, and enters into the painted bed and bosom of the harlot, where it remains unrenewed, unchanged, unmortified, in the midst of all its great talk and profession of these things. And thus the Scripture, the holy Scriptures of truth, (which were given forth from the pure spirit of life), the whorish spirit makes use of to estrange from the life. For what persons, who have fornicated from the life, do not make use of the Scriptures to maintain their whoredoms by, and to bewitch others into their whoredoms with? Every sort cries up their own way and worship to be the way and worship according to the Scriptures; and if any are gathered out of these witcheries into the power of God, then the bewitched say that such are bewitched.
Then as for all the abominations of the earth, all the filth that defiles the heart, it is to be found on the skirts of the whore, even in her most refined dress; for her religion, her worship, her profession, her practices, do not reach to the purifying of the conscience, but only to paint over the old sepulcher, where rottenness lodges within. The sore was never thoroughly searched; the heart was never thoroughly circumcised or baptized; the old man was never put off, or the new man put on; the blood of purifying, (which truly washes away the sin), was never felt in its virtue and power. They only have a perception and talk that they are cleansed in Christ, from a notion they have stolen out of the Scriptures; but not from the true reality experienced in life and power in their consciences. And so the evil nature still remains, the evil heart of unbelief is still to be found in them, and they lack the life, they lack the power, they lack the spirit, they lack the love, they lack the humility, they lack the meekness, they lack the patience, they lack the innocence and simplicity of the lamb and dove. And when the Lord comes to provoke them to jealousy by the shining of his light, and by the appearance of his power in some whom they despise, then the pride, the passion, the envy, the heart burnings, the hard speeches, the false surmisings, with the rest of the enmity which still abides with them, stirs and rises against the life and power, and their hypocrisy is made manifest. Yes, some of the strictest among them can scoff and jeer at the appearance of life; so strong is the evil and unmortified nature in them, and so conceited are they in their ways and practices, because of their cover, under which all this iniquity, for the most part, lies hidden from their eyes. But, for all that, it is there; the Lord's candle will search it out, and your own eye shall see it, and find in yourself bloody Cain, scoffing Ishmael, profane Esau, the uncircumcised Jew; who is angry that his brother's sacrifice is accepted, and his not; who disdains and derides the true seed of life, the living heir; who hunts abroad for food pleasing to that nature which is to be famished; who crucifies the Lord of glory because of his meanness, and because he appears not in that way of devotion and holiness in which they expect him. Neither will he ever appear so; but to overturn all what you have set up, and to set up what you disdain. This is the Lord's work, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
Now there are several sins which the spirit of the Lord has charged Babylon with, and which he will reckon with her for, and with all that partake with her within; some of which I may mention, as:
1.) Her deep fornications from the life, under a pretence of honoring and worshipping of it. (Do not be offended that I begin with it again, seeing it is also mentioned among other particular sins of hers. Rev 18:3-9.) She speaks fair words; she calls to have the worship of God set up, a godly ministry, and the ordinances of God in a nation; but the thing is not so in the sight of God, but in all this she seeks the advancement of her own whoredoms. And this was, and this is, the very way of antichrist's rising; he gets into the form, he cries up the form; and by the form that he cries up, he eats out the power. If antichrist should speak directly against the power, (without first creeping into, and setting up a form, and crying up that), he would soon be detected; but, under a form and profession of truth, he hides himself and covers his spirit of enmity and persecution with it; and here he can secretly and safely smite the innocent and fight against that very spirit, life, and power, which he himself, in his form, makes a profession of being subject to. This is the wolf in the sheep's clothing, which, by this fair appearance of the sheep's wool on his back, covers his ravenous nature from the eyes of the beholders.
Now there are three ways of fornication, one of which this spirit is always guilty of, sometimes of them all.
a.) By inventing things which the Lord never commanded, or adding to what the Lord did command. The mind of man is very busy, and full of inventions; and where the heart is touched with devotion and zeal towards God, the inventing part exceedingly exercises itself this way, either in imagining and forming somewhat which it thinks may be acceptable to God, or in adding to those things that it finds commanded. In this way of fornication the popish church abounds, being filled with ceremonies of their own inventing, and of additions to such things as are found mentioned in the Scriptures. The common Protestants also have been too guilty here.
b.) By imitating of those things which were commanded to others. When a man finds in scripture the things which some others did, or which they were commanded to do; and so he is venturing upon them before he feels the leading of that spirit by which they were led thereunto. Now in this he errs from the life; he goes without his guide; he does what was a good thing in others, (who were led by the spirit thereto), but in him it is fornication. This man is a thief and an intruder; he steals into the outward knowledge and practice, without the inward life and power. He intrudes into that into which others were fairly led; not coming in by the right door, for which entrance he should have waited, and not have run on headily of himself. This way of fornication the strictest among the Protestants have generally been ensnared in, who have run on further and further to search out the purest way of worship, the nearest pattern to the primitive times, and so have applied themselves diligently thereto, not knowing for what they were to wait on to be their guide to give them the entrance. Here now, thinking they are right, they have contracted a lofty spirit, (and held forth their conceptions of the way as the only way), and so have lost the meekness and simplicity, which were fresh and lively in some of them before; which sets them a great way back, and makes the entrance into the kingdom very hard to them. If that simplicity and tenderness were fresh in them, the Lord would show great regard to that, easily pardoning this their error, and, in mercy to them, visiting that evil spirit with his judgments, which stood near them, and was the cause of their error. But they have grown high, they have grown wise, they have become confident, they know the way already, and can maintain it by undeniable arguments, (as they think), to be the way; so the Lord, with his teachings, is at a great distance from them; that lying very low in them, which the Lord alone will teach.
c.) By continuing in practices, to which they were once led by the spirit, without the immediate presence and life of the spirit. For the whole worship, the whole religion of the gospel, consists in following the spirit, in having the spirit do all in us, and for us. Therefore whatever a man does for himself is out of the life, it is in the fornication. If a man prays at anytime without the spirit, that prayer is fornication, and is not either acceptable to God, or profitable to himself; but grieves the spirit, hurts the life, and wounds the soul. Now they have especially fallen into this way of fornication, who had been acquainted with the true leadings and openings of the spirit, and have afterwards run to them for refreshment, and so by degrees forgotten the spirit that originally opened them. And by this means was that life, which was precious and very savory in the ranters, (before they were seduced by the spirit of deceit into that way of ranting), overturned. And thus they also, (who deeply saw into the mystery of whoredoms, and into the more inward ways of fornication above others), even they were also deceived with the whore's cup, and drank afresh of that wine of fornication which the whore very cunningly had new mingled for them; and they have also become a reproach to the inhabitants of Zion, who find a living habitation in that spirit of life from which they turned.
Now if there is a true eye opened in any in the reading of this, how easily and manifestly will he see whoredom, fornication, adultery, generally in men's religious practices, in their churches, in their ministries, in their ordinances, in their prayers, in their whole course! Oh how, think you, does the eye of the jealous God behold these things! but your eyes, who are held captive here, cannot see it. The God of the world, with his mists, has darkened you; the great whore, with her sorceries, has enchanted you; and you are her slaves, you are drunk with her cup; and how can you judge soberly either of your own estate towards God, or concerning your practices in religion?
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
To God's Will Completely Given
TO GOD’S WILL COMPLETELY GIVEN
To God's will completely given,
Lies the Child so trustfully.
Resting in the Father's purpose,
Helpless though He seems to be.
Your whole being dedicated
God's good pleasure to fulfill,
So the splendor of His purpose
Shines through Your surrendered will.
Little Child, so humbly trustful,
"All is well," to us You say:
"For all comes from God the Father,
Wisely He directs my way.
Teach me Jesus, to be trustful
In my Father's will to rest,
As He guides, corrects and trains me
With me deals as He sees best.
Little Jesus, You have shown me
That God's will is wise and kind.
In His heart I will find refuge,
For Your Father now is mine.
Author unknown
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Psalm 131 - Paraphrased
PSALM 131 – MANASSEH, FORGETTING THE PAST
O, Jehovah God, I am not proud of what is in my heart. You have shown me how I tried to exalt myself over others by using your word. I have not behaved myself very nobly. What I thought was my service to You caused me to promote myself over those to whom You had sent me. I tried to do what only You can do. I tried to heal, deliver, and bring others into Your Kingdom. I didn’t realize at the time, that You, Lord, are the miracle worker, not I.
O, Lord, you have made it clear to me that only You are to be exalted. I confess that I tried to take what belonged to You. I have seen myself, and repented in dust and ashes. I have stopped trying to save others, and have sat down in quietness to wait on You to direct me to my own salvation. Though it pained me, I see that it is Your goodness that tore the idols of my own ministry out of my hands. I feel like a weaned child. I miss the excitement and joy of sharing Your Word with others, but I know I must stay away from it until You reveal Your true way of salvation.
Let those who desire to have power with God, Israel, His chosen people, wait patiently for God’s personal instructions for their deliverance. If you will quiet yourself, and quit complaining, God will show you the secrets of His work in you right now.
Friday, September 3, 2010
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