Tent Cord Plucked Up

Tent Cord Plucked Up

February 28, 2005

“Is not their tent cord plucked up within them…” Job 4:21

The thing that I notice often in my own life and in Christianity is the lack of understanding and grappling of the great truth concerning the sovereignty of God. The sovereignty of God simply states that all things, whatever they may be, are under divine control and appointment. Christians great and small would do well to understand this attribute as it would adversely affect their entire lives.

I notice many young military men and woman in our Armed Forces who hate their jobs. They complain and do all that they can to find a way out and to break commitment. I would like to speak concerning our generations failure to commit to anything, but that is another quiet time. Yet, when I hear these grievances this flashes through my mind:

“Who is God to you?”

Is God not sustaining the universe by His powerful Word? Does God not uphold our bodies daily, allowing blood to flow to billions of cells, continuing our daily needs, and allowing us to wake up every morning by His power? God does not simply wind-up the watch of the universe and simply let it run down as if He has no control any longer. God is the “Unmoved Mover” of all events. God is the planner of every episode, situation, and circumstance. There are no maverick molecules or atoms running loose without sovereignty letting them run freely through the creation. There are no run-away trains that Christ has not allowed to run-away. Who do you think God is? Is He biting His nails and reacting to mankind? No! He is the cause of the effect and the 1st Cause of the universe and is not distant. He is transcendent and deeply involved with every aspect of His creation, both you and I and all our happenings. Therefore, wherever we may be, it is for our good. When we attempt to change our commitments, we are saying in effect, “God, I can run the show better than you, I can, I should, I will, I want, I desire, I feel,…all above what you want. You run my life like poop! And I need to change it, not seeing or contemplating what God may be doing, what sin He is trying to boil to the surface from the darkened side of your heart.

Yet within our heart we feel as if our tent-cords have been plucked up within. The tent cord was used to hold down the tent, to provide shelter from the sand and the wind and the elements of nature. Yet, in our thinking, we forget and/or are unaware of God’s dealings and actions in the entire realm of our lives. We get angry at coworkers and we curse. We loose our cool because or tents cords have been plucked up within. We loose our stability, our shelter, and our tempers. We are baggy-tent Christians because we have not yet understood the sovereignty of God. We have grounded our knowledge of God in sandy secular grounds of catchphrases like the “Big Man upstairs,” and unrealistic expression like “He’s got my back.” God doesn’t simply have our backs, He has all things and all things are His. He is not the “Big Man Upstairs” as if we should use His name lightly. He is the Sovereign LORD of the universe!

Maybe we all need to pound firmly into our minds the tent-stake of God’s sovereignty. We will all face hardship. Our understanding that God is working all things for good, for those that love Him, by His sovereign purposes, is critical to resting our anxieties and everyday troubles. It is vital to our worship of God as well as we worship Him not only in spirit but in the truth that He is sovereign.

O’ sovereign Lord, let me not have dis’cord’ in my heart to everyday problems. The whirlwinds of life blast against my tent in attempt to pluck up my stability and witness as I sojourn in this world for You. Impress Your sovereignty into the way I view my circumstances thru the saturation of Your Word. Ground my security and shelter in Christ. Take the nails of Christ, who sovereignly went to the cross for me, and hammer them into my tent cord so to rest assure during trial and testing that all things are given to me by your hand. I will exclaim and say as Job, “Shall I receive good from God, and shall we not receive evil?” All experiences are ours in Christ to become like Him as God sovereignly directs. Whether the world, or life, or death, or the present, or the future---all are ours. (Job 2:10, 1 Corinthians 3:22).

Blessings everyone.

De-Robed & De-Throned

Jonah 3:6
"The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes."

Jonah preached judgment to Nineveh. He walked through the streets of that great city yelling,

"Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"

Notice the simplicity of the message. I see no fancy words, no beautiful imagery, no story, and no love being preached. This is a simple and straighforward message of justice to come.
Notice the Intensity. Jonah spoke openly, boldly, and without fear. This massive city of well over 120,000 people, had a single stranger sound a call throughout the city. This plain message echoed throughout the city and it quickly reached the kings ears within one day’s time.
Notice the response. Upon hearing such news the king responded by moving from his honored position and shedding his glorious garb and a citywide repentance was inaugurated. This is the effect of God’s Word.
When the Word of the Lord is preached clearly and accurately and authoritatively, repentance will follow. The minister of the word, like Jonah, is only meant to open the cage to the lion den and let the power loose. When the straightforward Gospel is preached, with no additives or preservatives, the mightiest man in the city will be stripped of his robe of pride. The simple message trumpeted lifts a woman from her glorious standing in the community, his royal heritage, and her lofty throne in the workcenter, and seats them all in a lowly ash heap.

Notice the Savior. We must not look over the sweetest part of this text. I have a king who arose from His lofty throne in heaven. He removed His robe of righteousness and has placed it upon me. He has covered Himself in the sackcloth of my affliction, my suffering, and my torment due for my sins. He came down from His heavenly throne and took a throne of ashes for me. I was clothed with rags and all my righteous deeds resembled my filthy works. I was seated in the dust that the cursed vipers traverse through. He has made me holy because of His holiness. I wear the King’s robe and I am seated in a Kingly position because of Christ and His kindness to me.

OUT, INTO THE NIGHT

1 Samuel 28:3-25
Thousands and thousands of Philistine soldiers prepare for battle. They march out to Shunem (v.4) to begin the intimidation process, and the attempt to destroy Saul and all of Israel. Saul begins to feel the terror for he is only man, and a man now without the Spirit of the Living God.(v.16) Saul knows full well that the Lord has left him. He no longer gives Saul counsel nor speaks to him in dreams. (v.6) His fault: he failed to humble his heart before God.

Saul finally seeks out a spiritist who is able to bring the supposed "Samuel" back from the dead. Whether this is Samuel or the Devil, God uses this spirit as a mouthpiece for a prophetic statement against Saul. Saul soon finds out he and his sons are soon to die. (13-19) This adds to Saul’s dismay. He is to loose the Kingship, Israel will be defeated and given to the hands of the Philistines, and he and his sons are soon to die. After hearing this depressing, heartbreaking, and fearful news, Saul in his exhausted state, eats a meal prepared by the spiritist and he regains his energy. He and his men proceed out into the night. –"Then they arose and went away that night." (v.25) What a dark ending to the reign of Saul. He and his men go out into the night! This is true spiritual darkness and lostness. Saul’s life was once filled with the enormous presence of God and is now only a voided vacuum, a dark hole needing to be filled.

How many of us Christians energize our physical bodies and then head out into the night without spiritual strength? Do we eat dishes prepared by forces of darkness and journey off thinking we have spiritual nourishment? How many of us turn into Saul on a daily basis and fail to humble ourselves before God and then proceed out into the night? I pity the Saul "Christian". How often do we fear the Philistines and march out looking for answers apart from His WORD? How capable am I Lord to become so callused to your ways? If you request that I be Your means to deal out wrath against Amalek, I will. (v.18) If you demand I heed your voice according to your commands, I will. (v.18) But I cannot will unless You will me to. Will me not to proceed out into the night, like Saul, on the nourishment prepared by Satan. I know You will not tear the kingdom from my hands as you did with Saul. You are able to make me stand whether I leave in the night (God forbid!) on my own strength, or in the daytime, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But my heart wants to choose the latter!! Because the former makes me terrified, as Saul must have been, as he left out into the night to his apparent doom.

Strange Ground

Exodus 3:5 (ESV)
Then he said, "Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground."

Why such respect and reverence for the ground? Because this floor had been treaded upon the bronze feet of the Savior, the Lord God. Whatever God touches is instantly purified and purged of evil. Moses touched the hallowed ground with his bare creaturely feet that he was born with. God wants us to come to him as we are, without anything between Him and us, but with all things God has made, namely Christ in us. He wants direct contact with us. God wants us to touch the holy and experience His holiness. And we can see God as holy through His Word.

I have been on strange ground since I was born of God. Since my new birth, it is hard to find a Christian brother or sister who shares a similar passion for God’s truth. God shows me things that are too sweet to hold in and I need others of a like-mind to express. God reveals to Me His plans, His purposes, His will, His character, His promises, and His character. It is all very sweet to my soul. I am in contact with the Creator but I desire to share this fire that is locked up in my bones. I am not claiming to have a special knowledge, but sometimes it seems that truth is revealed to me from on high. I walk on ground that has been covered for years by a watery and dangerous gospel, which is no gospel at all. But now the watery teachings of "contemporary" services have parted and like Moses (Exodus 14:29), and I walk on strange ground. This is the ground which kings have fallen upon, which Goliath had toppled upon with a sharp stone sunk within his forehead (1 Samuel 17:49). This is the ground on which the false Philistine idol Dagon fell upon (2 Samuel 12:16). This is the ground on which great drops of blood fell from the inflicted wounds of my Savior (Luke 22:44). This ground shows me the revelation of God Himself and His patient dealings with men like me. Despite all that this ground is, it is something that it shouldn’t be, defiled.

Scripture is not the sole determiner of truth anymore, it is experience, or it is a subjectivity that says, "my truth is what is good for me," or simply that there is no truth. This is post-modernism at its best. And it has creeped into the church and into Christian thought. We are afraid to speak of doctrine and theology. We are not allowed to get upon the spiritual mat with a believer and wrestle with truth until someone says, "uncle." We are afraid to divide or be unloving. But I strongly state that there is unity only in truth. We circle the wagons around the centrality of Christ in the Scriptures and we unify under the same doctrines. Experience is so spastic and so inconsistent that we cannot lock arms on the winds of experience. There is unity only in the truth. And Jesus is…the truth…(John 14:6).

I have met a select few who wish to throw their sandals aside and walk on the holiness of God’s Word and who wish to speak openly about doctrines of God and theology. We are harvesters. We should then plow this holy ground with bare-footed feet allowing the richness of the Word to squeeze between our brothers and sisters in Christ and in doing so, we will have contact with our God and with the body of Christ.

Let us not leave the doctrines of the Word to dry upon the ground like Gideon’s fleece (Judges 6:37). We must diligently seek God on this ground all night, like David, if we have to, as if our only son was dying (2 Samuel 12:16). The serpent is sliding across the surface and we must throw our rods down and swallow up the false teachings of the Deceiver (Exodus 4:3). If we neglect the sound teachings of Scripture and of the Christ filled men who have gone before us, we will be casts into a terrifying wilderness with scorpions and a thirsty ground like the Israelites who wandered, looking for that flinty Rock to draw water from (Deuteronomy 8:15). Let us revere God’s Word and teach sound doctrine and be taught. Let us sit down on the ground and receive the 7 loaves and fish to feed the soul. Let us all take the mustard seed and plant it into the ground to spring upward a glorious Christ-like life well grounded in the doctrines of Christ Jesus.