FIRST CAUSE

"...and ye shall know that I have not done without cause all that I have done in it (Jerusalem), saith the LORD GOD" (Ezekiel 14.23). "For it is God working in you both to desire and to work according to His gracious will" (Philippians 2.13, my translation).

Recently I received a catalog through the mail listing sundry philosophical and theological books, among which was one titled, "Is God Dead?", with a subtitle reading "From the Great Philosophers to the Computer Age" -- or something similar. There are many concepts and mind-clogging ideologies running loose in these last days and even our quasi-Christian church produces a widely diversified range of confused thinking -- from "God is Dead" to a socially Bowdlerized "acceptable Gospel" using religious dogma as stage-dressing.

To counter this, some seek to turn mankind back to the Bible, or the doctrine and traditions of the church, and I read somewhere that an evangelist (whose job it is to bring GOOD news) suggested that his listeners start a rumor that God is still alive.

To me, such a suggestion, even if meant to be facetious, is as bad as the shameful statement that God is dead.

Those who entertain for even a moment the fantasy that God is dead, or that a rumor or gossip might make Him live in people's hearts, know Him NOT: -- and they have NOT His life in them. Lest I be thought a self-righteous "judge" -- let me say that I don't think those people are lost, condemned, in danger of hell-fire, abandoned, spawn of Satan or anything else except in great need of Him and His life. Surely the best witness of a "LIVING GOD" is actual, experiential partaking of His life so that one's state of being is a "gospel" manifestation of that life.

Some messengers will explain that the reason people find it difficult to remain enthusiastic about God and the good tidings, and keep Jesus foremost in their lives, is because they only live in a sort of "afterglow" of Christ's resurrection. Most pastors and messengers of the gospel don't wonder at the "falling away" or "cooling off" of those whose experience with Christ stopped immediately after their rebirth. Such after-the-honeymoon lethargy is readily accepted by most of churchdom, for they have only a faint awareness of what they have been taught, and it's all PAST glory and future high living.

This is not the message I bring, for the life and victory manifest in the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ shines with more brilliance and burns with greater heat today than ever and it is realized and LIVED by those who are becoming ONE IN HIM. I declare a present-tense reality, a truth proclaimed long ago: "He that hath the Son hath life" (1 John 5.12).

Rejoicing in what happened almost two thousand years ago need not become an "afterglow", but rather the beginning of a wonderful progressive unfolding of HIS LIFE which becomes personally experienced by those who yield to His mercy and follow on to know Him in His fullness. These are finding that God is involved intimately in every particular of daily life, and that He truly inhabits their "now".

According to Acts 17.28 "...in Him we live, and move, and have our being". Apart from that theological fact, for all practical purposes of experiencing a personal relationship with Christ, I will admit that for many, their God is dead. "They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of their ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts" (Ephesians 4.18, NIV).

There are many who have received a certain measure of His life -- just enough to know that He IS alive -- but for them He's a very small, inconsequential God. They relegate Him to miracle-working days long past, or to a time in the distant future -- "over yonder in the sweet bye-and-bye". Many seem to conceive of God being in an everlasting struggle with Satan, see-sawing back and forth in victory and defeat, God winning one battle, and Satan winning the next, on and on, winning some, losing some, but never completely victorious. And in the end God takes a few to heaven, while the rest remain captives in sin, eternally bound in a prison of unspeakable torment. These poor "eternally lost" will co-exist with the saved in God's universe as a constant vivid and vile reminder that He failed! He brought forth, out of Himself, a creation, gave them a stronger will than His own, and Satan (another of His creations) gained control of that will and bent it to his evil way -- so they're absolutely and eternally lost to God -- and evil has forever overcome good.

I've no time whatever for such a ridiculous presumption! It is an absurd burlesque of the nature and power of our God. I emphatically insist that God is SOVEREIGN, always in perfect control of circumstances, and working out all things according to the counsel of His own will -- working to our good and His glory.

We need Him to be LORD of our "now".

I've forgotten who wrote the following but I'm sure he won't mind if I cite what I recall of its substance:

"We habitually stand in our own "now" and look back by faith to see the past filled with God. We look forward and see Him inhabiting our future. But our "now" is uninhabited except for ourselves. In this way we avow our acceptance of a pro-tem atheism which leaves us alone in the universe, while, for a time, God is NOT. We talk about Him loudly and lengthily, but we secretly think of Him as being absent. We inhabit a kind of dead-space between the God who is and the God who will be".

Let us yield to our God so that He may work His will in us and bring us to a consciousness of a present-tense INDWELLING OF HIS LIFE. We need much more than a complacent "afterglow theology" of a Jesus who was, and we need more than a far-off hope for a someday-in-over-yonder-land LORD in the millennium.

We need to KNOW! We need the revelation IN US of the Godly quickening which births in us the divine knowledge that "All Things Are Of God" -- RIGHT NOW. The Holy Spirit is uncompromising in firmly stating this truth, using Paul as His angel:

Romans 11.36: "For from him and through him and to him are ALL things..."

1 Corinthians 8.6: "...there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one LORD, Jesus Christ, through whom ALL things came and through whom we live".

1 Corinthians 11.12: "...but EVERYTHING comes from God".

2 Corinthians 5.18: "All is from God..."

Ephesians 1.11: "In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out EVERYTHING in conformity with the purpose of his will".

Hebrews 2.10: "In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom EVERYTHING exists...".

Paul didn't handle the truth recklessly! The Spirit of God worked in the Apostle and has left us this record of Paul's firm and settled persuasion, arrived at through a processing that lasted many years and contained both the severity of suffering and the glory of pure revelation.

The prophets of the Old Testament also held this positive aspect of God's sovereignty. God says in Isaiah 46.10 "...My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure"; and again in Isaiah 14.24,27 (NIV): "The LORD Almighty has sworn, Surely, as I have planned, so will it be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand! For the LORD Almighty has purposed, and who can thwart Him? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?"

How many times have we read or listened to sermons about the truth of Hebrews 12.2 which clearly and unequivocally states that Jesus is "the AUTHOR and finisher of our faith"? Various translations give emphasis to different shades of meaning for the English word "author": "cause", "leader", "pioneer", "forerunner", "end", and "princely-leader" are just a few. There is a much deeper meaning than all of these, true as they might be. The Greek word is "arkegon" and implies a combination of the meaning of leader with that of the source from whence a thing originates and/or proceeds. Kenneth Wuest translates "The originator", and the Amplified Bible includes the explanation that HE GIVES THE FIRST INCENTIVE for faith.

Isn't that marvelous?! When we consider these thoughts together we find that Jesus is not only the source of our life and salvation, but also the very ONE who initiates every phase of its working in our behalf.

SALVATION BEGINS ON THE PART OF THE SAVIOUR!! -- not on the part of the one needing to be saved.

Sermonizing savants and gospel-mongers of this foggy age sincerely beg and cajole the unchurched, "Come to Jesus" -- but the Bride says to Christ in Song of Solomon 1.4, "DRAW ME, WE WILL RUN AFTER THEE".

He must first draw, or how shall we run after Him?

The case is even more extreme and grave in the instance of mankind's condition. Redemption isn't just a rescue action on God's part, throwing a life-line to dying creation. It's much, much more than that, because natural man isn't dying -- HE'S DEAD! -- dead to the spiritual realm of Our Lord and not the least aware of his deceased state until the Father awakens him.

Look around you at the idiot-culture man has been allowed to produce! Do the people who daily worship the cyclopean god, TV, at the altar of passive entertainment, benumbing their minds and souls, KNOW they need life? How could they? The pundits of the prime-time cess-pit have convinced them that "life" is a "standard of living" -- something to "rise to", "to cherish" and a materialistic and sensual status to strive for. How can they know they're dead?

Romans 8.6: "To be carnally minded is death", "For the mind of the flesh is death", "...to set the mind on the flesh brings death", "The interests of the flesh mean death". No matter which way it's said -- unspiritual man is dead -- dead in trespasses and sins. And HE DOESN'T KNOW IT!!

How, then, can there be any initial action on unspiritual man's part? If a man were drowning, but not yet dead, a life-line could be thrown to him and he could be expected to co-operate a little and be pulled to safety, even though most of the effort would be on the part of the one hauling in the line. But if that man were dead, he couldn't respond to any rescue effort at all.

Not until life is imparted to man can he take any responsible action leading to salvation. The Lord "was made a quickening (LIFE-GIVING) Spirit", (1 Corinthians 15.45), and when He chooses to impart His life, men begin to live and grow through the processing God ordains. Thus they increase to the predestined spiritual stature of the Son of God.

" I am Yahweh, and there is none else, except me there is no God, I gird thee, and thou hast not known Me. So that they know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside Me, I am Yahweh, and there is none else, forming light, and preparing darkness, making peace, and preparing evil, I am Yahweh, doing ALL these things." (Isaiah 45.5-7, Young's Literal Translation, emphasis mine).

Effects are caused -- a fact that is self-evident -- and, of course, the "cause" is first in sequence.

GOD IS THE FIRST AND ONLY CAUSE. THERE IS NO SECOND.

I have heard many explanations of those verses cited above, and read many more. They have all been of little value to the man who believes God is truly the creator of ALL things. Don't think for a moment that I think God is evil just because He says He created evil. He created "good", and is "evil" perverted "good"? "Yes", some of our pulpit pantologists will triumphantly say, "God didn't really create evil -- man did!" And I say, "Who created man? Who is the 'causer'? Who (to use a term popular with the socio-christo reprobate church) is the 'prime mover'?"

"The light shineth in the darkness and the darkness comprehendeth it not" (John 1.5).

Take away the light and darkness appears. When peace is reversed it becomes lack of peace -- evil! They seem to be two ends of the same stick.

Thank God all things ultimately will return to their beginning. Good and calamity will be seen as a part of God's plan; all things will be corrected and all things will be seen to have worked together for good and to the glory of God.

It seems to me that much of Christendom's activity has been that of trying to repeat past cycles of church history -- "give me that old-time religion", "back to the gospels", and other such anachronistic gabble. The church looks back into history and thinks it sees how God worked and moved, and then declares an hour, a day, or a year of prayer or similar ritual so He'll do it again. It is comforting to know that God is the initiator and director of all history -- and that He has a perfect plan for its process and culmination which NO MAN can change.

I don't mean that He will not do "new things" -- at least "new" in that they've not been done before and are very strange to this apostate age. "Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing" (Isaiah 43.18,19).

The members of Christ's Body have sensed that God is beginning to do something -- a new thing -- that never entered the heart or mind of man -- and He has admonished that Body to remember not the former things. It is tempting to the leaders and followers of the present muddled and misnamed church to try to repeat the old "formulas for success". Some have foot-washings, some gather in upper rooms and try to "pray down" tongues of fire, some fast, and some even go so far as to ask the Father to restore the temple and the sacrifice in the dead city of Jerusalem. Such know not the power of God -- nor His temple, nor His sacrifice, nor His city.

No, we are not to recall and cherish the old or "former things" lest we long to repeat them and fall into the trap of spiritual unreality that holds so much of creation. We must look for the springing forth of a completely and absolutely NEW THING.

And what is this NEW THING? If man's mind could determine what God's next move is going to be, its self-evident that that move wouldn't be triggered by God. HE WILL ORIGINATE THE ACTION.

"No man can come to Me, except the Father which hath sent Me draw him; and I will raise him up at the last day. But there are some of you that believe not. Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto Me, except it were given unto him of My Father" (John 6.44,64-65).

"OF HIS OWN WILL begot He us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures" (James 1.8).

I praise God for His work in us. I happily profess that it is not our choosing, but HIS; that He began the action in us and that it is only by HIS grace and power that we shall overcome and be brought to full growth in Him. And I praise Him because I know that He has taken the first step to the salvation of ALL men -- and what He has begun, He will bring to fruition in Christ Jesus.

Read this promise in Isaiah 65.25: "And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear". This has long been a source of encouragement to many. It's marvelous to know that regardless of what need may arise, even before we are aware of that need, He begins to answer a plea yet to be uttered! It's plain that God caused the whole process of our peace and redemption.

Our struggle with negative and sordid forces was clearly understood by Paul. By the Holy Spirit he wrote in Ephesians 6.12, (Williams' Translation): "...our contest is not with human foes alone, but with the rulers, authorities and cosmic powers of this dark world; that is, with the spirit-forces of evil challenging us in the heavenly contest". The same spirit that revealed that, reminds us that we are "more than conquerors" (Romans 8.37) and thus we maintain our God-consciousness.

According to 2 Corinthians 12.7, the Apostle Paul was disciplined by what he called a messenger from Satan. In Wuest's translation we read: "And with respect to the superabundance of the revelations, in order that I may not be exalted overmuch, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to the end that he might constantly maltreat me lest I be exalted overmuch". (Note that the thorn in the flesh was GIVEN.)

More has been scribbled, blathered and driveled about the nature of this "thorn in the flesh" than has been about the number of angels that may stand on the head of a pin. Whether it was actually a physical ailment such as ophthalmia, an attack on the psyche, or a worrisome libido, isn't pertinent. The points at issue in Paul's life were the origin of and the reason for the buffeter.

Paul knew it was GOD Who provided the thorn and he knew why. When he had settled the question with God as to whether or not it should be removed, he went on to rejoice in God's grace, grace more than sufficient for the need. He kept his eyes on the LORD, not on the thorn. As far as he was concerned, God was the FIRST CAUSE of all that happened in his life, and he disdained to entangle himself with fighting against vain and vapid "second causes". He didn't waste his time blaming first one thing and then another for this condition or that; which attitude leads one to be negative in consciousness. Paul was positive of victory in Jesus Christ -- a victory many sing and shout about but belie by their daily walk.

Read 2 Corinthians 12.9, where God said to Paul, "...MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU, for My power is made perfect (brought to completion, fulfilled) in weakness". (NIV, parenthesis and emphasis mine).

"MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT FOR YOU" -- these are words to keep close to the heart and in the very most conscious part of the mind, always. Nurture them in the daily walk and come to fully realize that the gift of God's grace is enough, more than enough, to overcome any attack on mind, or spirit, or body.

Let's consider the example of Joseph, the son of Jacob. His own brothers cast him out of the family and sold him as a slave. No one is aware of all the trials and testing he may have endured, but enough is recorded to know that he was imprisoned. It would be easy for a man so treated to blame his brothers or Mrs. Potiphar, and fight against them, bewailing their actions as the cause for all his distress.

But -- when the time of processing was completed, Joseph became ruler of Egypt.

In due time Joseph's brothers were brought before him begging for food -- and when they learned his identity they were exceedingly fearful of the vengeance he might wreak upon them. But Joseph quieted them and assured them of their safety and well-being. He said, "...I am your brother, Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, BECAUSE IT WAS TO SAVE LIVES THAT GOD SENT ME AHEAD OF YOU...TO SAVE YOUR LIVES. SO THEN, IT WAS NOT YOU WHO SENT ME HERE, BUT GOD". (Genesis 45.4-5,7-8,NIV).

God caused Jacob's sons to sell their brother Joseph. God caused him to be imprisoned. God had him released from prison and made a ruler of Egypt. GOD PURPOSED ALL THIS TO WORK SALVATION FOR JOSEPH'S FAMILY and to bring the house of Israel into Egypt. It was GOD, the FIRST CAUSE, working His plan of universal deliverance.

We are prone to look at present disturbing circumstances and place the blame upon those involved: brother-betrayers who may have caused us to be cast out of the assembly; unsaved loved ones or acquaintances who stirred up trouble; immature believers who misunderstood God's call upon our lives and are convinced we've "gone off the deep end". It's easy to fall prey to carnality and lay the "blame" (cause) at the feet of others, but the spiritual man looks past all the exterior evidence and sees that GOD is behind it all, bringing circumstances to bear on him to work out His will. He is our living God, the First and the Last and everything in between the first and last. All of our life is in His hand; He directs our steps even though sometimes such direction requires His sovereign operation in the interplay of good and evil.

A natural question raised by some of the immature is: "How can good come out of evil?" These questioners see the seemingly constant warfare between the opposite forces and are persuaded that Satan or Lucifer or the Devil or some wicked being commands the evil forces, while God leads the good -- and it's a toss-up as to who's winning the fight at any given moment.

But -- BOTH GOOD AND EVIL ARE IN THE HAND OF GOD; HE MAKES THE RULES, HE CONTROLS THE INTERPLAY, AND USES ALL TO FULFILL HIS DIVINE PLAN.

"The Lord hath made all things for Himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil" (Proverbs 16.4).

There is another good illustration written in the life of Samson, a young man dedicated to God before his birth; a Nazarite, wholly separated unto the LORD and set apart to His service. In his young manhood he set his heart on a young woman in the city of Timnath, one of the daughters of the Philistines, and requested that his parents get her for him to be his wife.

A Nazarite, a slave of God, wanted to marry a daughter of the pagan, vile, and uncircumcised Philistines!!

Samson's parents must have been cut to their very hearts at this astonishing, almost unimaginable request -- but Samson insisted that he must have the woman and the scripture says, "His parents did not know that this was from the LORD, who was seeking an occasion to confront the Philistines..." (Judges 14.4, NIV).

The proposed union of their son with a heathen woman undoubtedly caused a lot of bitterness and distress of mind in Samson's parents, and it may be that they looked for things in Samson's life that could have caused such a "falling from grace" -- a backslidden condition perhaps; or maybe the influence of bad companions; perchance a religious ritual improperly performed. Scripture doesn't record what the outward circumstances were; it just says: THIS WAS FROM THE LORD. HE was the real cause of it, and in the end it all turned into good. God used Samson to discipline the Philistines just as He uses other of His creatures to discipline His world in this day.

Here's another good illustration: When Israel had become a nation and then been divided after Solomon's death, the people asked Rehoboam to "ease the yoke" they bore. Rehoboam rejected the counsel of the elders and followed the advice of his young companions. He said, in part, "My father made your yoke heavy. I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions! So the king did not listen to the people, FOR THIS TURN OF EVENTS WAS FROM GOD..." (2 Chronicles 10.14-15). The ten northern tribes rejected Rehoboam and made Jeroboam their king, and when Rehoboam gathered his army and was about to force the people back under his control, God said to the army, "...Go home, every one of you, FOR THIS IS MY DOING..." (2 Chronicles 11.4, NIV).

Things surely looked bad for Israel; first a division of the tribes and strife among them; then both the northern and southern kingdoms delivered into captivity. Many would think the end of all Israel had come about -- but it was God fulfilling His purpose: "God hath not cast away His people which He fore knew. -- Blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the nations be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved: -- For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all". (Romans 11.2,25-26,32).

If we look for secondary causes -- sin, idolatry, et cetera, that brought the judgement of God upon Israel, we find those causes true in a very limited sense only -- because behind it all we see the outworking of the purpose of the Most High, Our Sovereign LORD.

"I revealed myself to those who did not ask for me; I was found by those who did not seek me. To a nation that did not call on my name I said, 'Here am I, here am I". (Isaiah 65.1,NIV).

Jesus said that no man can come to Him except he be drawn by the Father, and He just as surely declared, "It is written in the Prophets: 'They will all be taught by God...'" (John 6.45,NIV). That which God is working now in the hearts of His firstfruits company He shall work in the hearts of every man, woman, and child who has been, is, or will be. All in due time -- HIS time, for all shall be taught by God. "For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order". (1 Corinthians 15.22-23).

Yes, -- I know there are many whose eyes are blinded and hearts hardened, who self-righteously object to our Lord's most glorious plan of salvation. These feel they are called to be a part of the present order, but they don't want God to do for others what He's done for them. These poor self-sufficient stone-hearted and mystified mystagogues rarely realize that their very failings and short-falls are being used by the Father to discipline them according to His Omnipotent will.

I ask, not for the first time, WHO INITIATED THE WORK OF SALVATION IN OUR HEARTS?

CHRIST DID!! We couldn't do one thing about our salvation before we began to be drawn, personally, to Him. How can a dead man begin to save himself? No creature in God's universe can begin any action toward salvation before the Spirit of the living God draws him.

Yet He has purposed that all shall be taught by God.

All your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be your children's peace. (Isaiah 54.13, NIV). No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, Know the LORD, because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more. (Jeremiah 31.34, NIV).

Programs, "How To" books, audio and video tapes by the millions are just a minuscule portion of what man has produced in order to teach man all about God and His kingdom. The traditions, creeds, "steps to perfection", the doltish dogma and doctrines that man tries to teach his fellow man cause more misunderstanding and misery than good. We look toward that great day when God does all the teaching, for it is written:

And it will come to pass in the last days

That the mountain of the house of the LORD

Will be established as the chief of the mountains.

It will be raised above the hills,

And the people will stream to it.

And many nations will come and say,

"Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD

And to the house of the God of Jacob,

That He may teach us about His ways

And that we may walk in His paths".

For from Zion will go forth the law,

Even the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.

(Micah 4.1-2, NASB).

Creation has long trod the path of degeneration and destruction, bound in vanity, but there SHALL BE A RETURN UNTO THE LORD. God, in His omnipotence, has purposed regeneration, and a time when His light and truth shall shine out of man in a degree of power and purity absolutely undreamed of -- a baptism of the LIVING SPIRIT OF OUR GOD -- that cannot even be entertained by the finite and degraded mind of man; an immersion in God that will draw and bind all mankind to Him. His IS the cause; He is the cause, and He initiates all actions, past, present and future.

The nonovercomer, I'll-fly-away mind that imbues and subdues most of the stagnant church of today fails to see that God is still working with His creation -- not in repetitious cycles, but as pointed out, He has new things prepared for this day and days to come.

He will not tarry. The first act is His and contains the revelation of how His Body is to respond to that act. It is His inworking in us to will and to do His good pleasure.

When we shall yield to His call and obey His commands, then with joy we shall begin to reach out hands that truly deliver others as the Body of Jesus Christ in the earth must.

"Him we preach and proclaim, warning and admonishing everyone and instructing everyone in all wisdom, (in comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God), that we may present every person mature -- full-grown, fully initiated, complete and perfect -- in Christ, the Anointed One. For this I labor striving with all the super-human energy which HE so mightily enkindles and works within me" (Colossians 1.28-29, Amplified Bible).

Keep yourselves from idols.