01.27.09
Total Warfare
“To be a Christian is to be in constant, total war. We have no say in the matter, and no one is exempt from serving. This war is not just some sideline feature of the Christian life. It IS the Christian life. Every step toward seeing ‘every knee bow’ before the Lord of glory is an act of war, whether in faithfulness or hatred. Until that point, the war is ruthless and relentless. The horrific enemy onslaught never ceases.
This war is not only constant but total, unconfined, and overwhelming. It is not limited to the daily fight against our own sin but encompasses everything within and without. It is not limited to our own or any one time but rages in every corner of history. It is not limited to our own flesh-and-blood world and history but is driven by dark clashes in heavenly places.
And as this battle moves us all along, killing and maiming, crushing and roaring, much of contemporary Christianity fights with bumper stickers and self-esteem seminars. As the enemy smiles and schemes to ravage our children [in state schools, etc.] decapitate our churches, we try to play down our differences with our attackers and use their institutions as models for our own. As they mock Christ to his face, we learn to relax, take a joke, and create a more entertaining worship atmosphere. The only thing worse than being cut to death in the middle of war is having it happen without realizing it.” (Classical Education and the Homeschool, by various authors.)
Is it not true that all of us need to gain more of this kind of a view of our Christian life?
01.06.09
Tears Overcome
The following is by the Puritan Robert Dingley and may be found on pp.57-59 of his book Divine Opticks: Or a Treatise of the Eye, Discovering the Vices and Virtues Thereof as Also How That Organ May Be Tuned, Chiefly Grounded on Psalm 119:37.
“A true penitent wishes that his head were a fountain, and his eyes spouts or rivers of tears, that he might weep that day and night for his sins. The eyes of David gushed out with tears for the sins of others, and he ‘watered his couch with his tears’ for personal failings (Ps 6:6). Peter wept bitterly for denying Christ three times. Mary Magdalene, that had abused her eyes by lascivious glances, her hair by wanton curls, and her lips by unchaste kisses, did upon repentance otherwise employ them. For see washed the feet of Christ with her tears, kissed them with her lips, and wiped them with the hairs of her head. So then, the eye that has looked wantonly must weep penitently. Tears do rebaptize us. The rarest music is heard upon the water, and our prayers to make best melody over a flood of tears. ‘Prayers entreat, and tears overcome,’ says Jerome. ‘I have heard thy prayers, and seen thy tears,’ said God to Hezekiah (2 Kgs. 20:5). Then our prayers to pierce the clouds, when they are pointed with tears. He that can weep for worldly losses, and not spiritual failings, has in him nothing but nature. Augustine says that he did wonderfully weep in reading the fourth book of Virgil, when Dido was killed; ‘Oh,’ says he, ‘what a wretched soul had I, that could weep for her misery and not for my own!’ ‘Tears,’ says Bernard, ‘are the wine of angels, who rejoice over a sinner’s compunction.’ The hammer of the law may break an icy heart, but the sunshine of the gospel dissolves it into tears. You know Peter was melted by a love-glance of Christ… ‘After a wet seed-time follows often a glorious harvest, and after a shower of tears, the sunshine of tears, the sunshine of joy,’ says Chrysostom. Through tears are not meritorious, yet they may be evident of our interest of Christ… The sense of unkindness offered to Christ sets a broach the sorrow of his heart at his eye. Revenge is one fruit of repentance, and the true penitent observing the past failings of his eye studies a holy revenge upon himself; and those eyes that have been the inlets of vanity shall be the outlets of sorrow.”
It must be remembered, though, that one who sheds tears easily in general will cry more for sin than one who is naturally dry eyed.
G.M.
