Katz, Holiness or Blessing

Holiness or Blessing Art KatzIf we have any jealousy for the Church to bear the name of the Holy One of Israel, we ought to be critiquing the signs and wonders phenomena rather than mindlessly nodding in assent and indiscriminately giving ourselves over to it in the name of blessing. One can pay too high a price for blessing, and if that price is the denigration of God and His name, it is too high a price. There is nothing more to be coveted, or more to be cherished, more to be preserved, and more to be watched over, than the sense and knowledge of God as He in fact is, and not as we may have thought Him to be. If we lose that, then what do we have? What are we? What is our witness? Everything in the world, even in the religious world, conspires against the knowledge of God. Even our own enthusiasm and desire for successful meetings might, ironically, oppose and be the greatest detriment to the knowledge of God. It is the strangest paradox implicit in the faith. Karl Barth, the Swiss theologian, made the pointed statement that nothing more reveals our pathetic humanity than our seeking to serve God, or to celebrate and worship God out of that humanity.

2. There is always a danger of making God commonplace, of fashioning Him in our own image, and we may not even be aware of what we are doing. We need to be reminded, or perhaps we have never known, that God is other than what we ourselves are. God’s lament to us through the prophet Isaiah is that we thought God was such a one as we, and that the knowledge of Him is taught by the precept of men. It was not a compliment from God, but more of an insult: “You have fallen so low in the knowledge of Me, that the knowledge of Me is taught by the precept of men (paraphrased).” Once you have resorted to precept, it is no longer God you are declaring; it is principles you are teaching about God, and not God Himself.

3. We are encouraged to contend for the faith that was once and for all given to the saints. Faith is not a set of doctrines or a means by which we get something from God. True faith is the apprehension of God as He is, the fear and awe of Him and the sense of God that tempers everything. If this knowledge is not to be found in the Church, for what then shall we hope in the world? It is little wonder that the ‘signs and miracles’ phenomena find such ready acceptance. We are a ready-made audience looking for novelty, needing a lift or an experience. Our Christian life is hardly more than a succession of predictable Sunday services, and unhappily, that for which we are so readily grasp after is not what we really need, but in fact, will probably move us further away from obtaining the things that we really need, rather than closer.

4. Are these not the Last Days of which we have been warned in regard to deception, and are we not exhorted to test all spirits? Are we to ignore the prevalence of ear-splitting ‘worship,’ high-powered offerings, calculated theatrics, carnival bawdiness, the chilling shrieks and cries that punctuate the proceedings, the conspicuous absence of the preached word (except perhaps in a token way), the relentless, spirit-dulling testimonies often spoken in a stupor unbecoming to the dignity of God, given even by ministers of the word of God? Has God changed from being the God who insisted that His priests mount a ramp to the altar rather than ascend by steps lest any flesh be revealed?And you shall not go up by steps to My altar, that your nakedness may not be exposed on it (Ex. 20:26).It was a peculiar requirement, but in lifting the leg to go from one step to another, there was a slight possibility of revealing one’s flesh, and the ramp was the more secure provision that no flesh would be revealed in God’s presence. He is the same God who had Aaron to wear the golden head plate continually on his forehead (Ex. 28:36), the very place we now so readily make available for hands to touch us so that we can be ‘slain in the Spirit.’ And you shall speak to the sons of Israel, saying, “This shall be a holy anointing oil to Me throughout your generations. It shall not be poured on anyone’s body, nor shall you make any like it, in the same proportions; it is holy, and it shall be holy to you. Whoever shall mix any like it, or whoever puts any of it upon a layman, shall be cut off from his people (Ex. 30:31-33).”

5. Clearly, the warning is not to counterfeit the anointing oil, or fabricate something like it. How many of us would consider the use of amplifiers to psyche people up by creating an ‘atmosphere for the Spirit’ as being fabricating the anointing oil? God will anoint what He appoints, not what we establish for our own satisfaction and enjoyment, or for the assurance of a good service. Let us not make any other like it. In his book, The Latent Power of the Soul, written in the 1920’s, Watchman Nee warns about soulish power, and the deception that can be brought about through the use of musical instruments, and that was before the advent of amplifiers.Our ache is that ‘Holiness to the Lord’ be inscribed afresh on the foreheads of priestly men and women who will stand for Him in this age of sleaze and vulgarity that is even now seeping into the House of God. It is the cry of Isaiah:Depart, depart, go out from there, touch nothing unclean; go out of the midst of her, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the Lord (Is. 52:11).And, Therefore having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (2 Cor.7:1).

6. Any revival or awakening in God’s people must be accompanied by an appreciation for the holiness of God. It is debatable whether the Church today has ever known the holiness I am referring to, but certainly we have a great repository in scripture in the books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, Leviticus and Numbers. I look for a Last Days’ people, a remnant people of God, who have that same press upon their spirits as the plate that pressed against the forehead of Aaron, ‘Holiness to the Lord;’ a people who are conscious always of what they say and what they do as being before a holy Judge. Such a jealous regard for the holiness of God has been lost to us. Do we really know what the holiness of God means? This revelation is a provision from God, and if it is deeply inscribed upon our hearts, it will be a safeguard against the cheap and flimsy age in which we live.

7. We need to be reminded that the Holy Spirit means the Spirit of holiness, and before we think that we can obtain the advantage of the Spirit of God as being the Spirit of power or any other benefit that accrues to us through the Spirit, we need to be aware that in its first ministration, the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of righteousness and holiness, and then, when received on that basis, He will become to us as power and the other forms that are needful in this life. How shall Jews, who are so caught up in the spirit of the world and are its principal movers, be saved out of their own massive deception if there is not a Church who can show them the holiness of their own God?

Worship - Priestliness8. The tragedy of the Charismatic Movement with all of its emphasis on praise is that they have made it a technique for their benefit to improve the atmosphere of their services, to provide a kind of appropriate setting for whatever will happen next; they have made it to be for us, rather than for Him. True worship is not a technique to warm our atmosphere or to put the people in the mood to hear from the speaker. Do we have enough of a fear of God that we will not allow ourselves to be cajoled by musical chords or any kind of soulish device used to get us into ‘the mood’? It is an unholy manipulation that works against the highest purpose of God. Only a priest will wince over these things, and those who want only to be religiously entertained will not so much as blink an eye.

9. At the heart of priestliness is waiting upon Him for the time that pleases Him. If we want to be the revelation of His radiance, then we are going to have to reconsider what we are doing when we launch off into worship and choruses or any other kind of simulation of ‘waiting upon God.’ Unless there is a sense of priestliness, worship will become a mere mechanic, a technique, a device and a manipulation. It is not an entering into the holy place at all. If we degenerate into becoming some kind of charismatic fellowship that celebrates praise, believing that we have some kind of revelation, but have made of it only technique and manipulation, then our end will be disastrous. I cannot think of anything more tragic than that worship should become mere rhetoric and words, a vocabulary that is appropriate to us, but a vocabulary that has no real life or meaning.

10. The two sons of Aaron died for bringing in strange fire. They were priests, descendants of Aaron and called of God, but they acted out of some desire to manipulate or evoke the glory of God that was not their right. They saw something that was evoked by the obedience of Aaron and Moses, and they thought somehow they could do the same. But they came at the wrong time, in the wrong way, and instead of evoking a fire that was a glory, they evoked a fire that slew them. Strange fire! It had the form, but was not the actual thing, and instead of bringing life, it brought death.

11. We must not think that this is some archaic episode out of the past that has no profound relevance for us. Even Aaron could not enter the holiest place at his own choosing. This is a word for us. Having just witnessed the instant death of his sons, who does he presume to think he is, that he can enter into the holiest place of all at his own whim and at his own convenience and at his own choosing? What is the practical application for us? Do we think that we can enter at our whim and will into the place of holy worship (worship which is a sweet smelling savor unto God) just because we have gotten the band going and the instruments playing and the choruses ringing? This is not the true incense or the hot coals from which a cloud will issue forth in which the Lord will appear. It will be a thud, and not a glory. If we continue in that way, we will get phony prophecies, phony exhortations, things calculated to work up a certain kind of response. We will go from being unspiritual, to being soulish, to being psychic, until in the end, it becomes outright deception.

Eunuchs for Christ12. Jesus spoke at one time about eunuchs. A eunuch is a man who has had the axe ‘laid to the root.’ Jesus said that there are some eunuchs who are born eunuchs, who are biological freaks, who will never have the physical enabling for the gratification that is given to all men; there are some eunuchs that are made eunuchs by men, and there are some eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. Only a eunuch can be implicitly trusted because there is no way that he is going to usurp anything from the Kingdom over which he has charge. He is not going to appropriate anything for himself, because the axe has been laid to the root. Like the Lord before Him, a eunuch has been “cut off out of the land of the living (Isaiah 53:8b),” and God offers us the same opportunity. It is the Cross of Christ Jesus, laid to the root of life, that we might be cut off out of the land of the living.

13. A eunuch for Christ’s sake, or a dead man, is the only person who will be safe at the end of the age, an age abounding with iniquity, full of filth and lust, powerful seductions, subtlety and sensuality. The axe has been laid to the root of his life; he has recognized the horrible propensities of his flesh, and has seen that self-conscious discipleship is not the answer. He has seen that singing the choruses is not the answer. There is only one answer; it is the Cross of Christ Jesus, not the plastic counterfeit, but the blood of the Cross, the place of suffering and shame where God bids us to come.

14. The Cross is the power of God for salvation for those who will join Him in that place, who have voluntarily made themselves eunuchs for Christ’s sake, who have welcomed the axe laid to the root. We need to see this truth, and come to it and cleave to it until the end of the age. Having made that decision, we invite the daily death. It is a daily reiteration of this mystery in ways that are uniquely appropriate to our life, our call and our walk.

15. The life of Christ will never manifest itself in our lives other than out of that one necessary condition, namely, death. The whole re-enactment, the whole drama, and the whole principle is future and eschatological, but also for the present. The whole genius of it is before us daily, and in fact, if that Cross is not operative daily, if we are not willing to suffer its deaths, for example, when our flesh rises up, if we find a way to skirt around it, then we make ourselves, to that degree, candidates for deception. The issue of being saved from deception is the issue of the Cross and our willingness to be ruthless with ourselves, and to bear the suffering of it when God makes the issue clear. If we run from something, if we are escapist, if we rationalize and justify our conduct and find a way to explain it that gratifies us and saves us from the awareness of sin as sin, then we are to that degree, candidates for deception. That is why the love of the truth is cited in scripture as being one of the main means by which we are saved from deception, not a love for something technically correct, but rather truth as God understands it.

16. The most acute expression of that truth is Christ and Him crucified. The church or individual who moves away from the Cross, and has allowed the Cross to be a mere ceremonial object or an architectural decoration, but is not living a cruciform life and is not willing for the suffering of the Cross, but instead wants the blessing, makes himself a candidate for deception. That deception will likely come from very God Himself, who will give lying delusions to those who have rejected the love of the truth. Mere tolerance for the truth, or even respect for the truth, is not enough. Only a love for the truth keeps us from deception because truth is painful, especially the truth about ourselves, but we have got to be ruthless in this regard and apply the Cross, and bring to the death that thing that God brings to us and allows us to see.END

7. Arbitrary rule is cruel. God’s order is set up for the defence of the poor and needy. God’s rule favours the weak and crushed. God brings gentle order. Where there is no vision, people perish. Where there is no gentle order, the weak are misled and they will thereby perish. Where there is no room for the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of prophecy, the people is unruly - people inside the church and people not related to any church do all react the same way. The quiet life of prayer is quietening the unrest, the prophetic stillness of the inner way is speaking silence to turmoil and strife. An ordered prayer life becomes prophetic, paving the way for heavenly order - not only asking for order, but by its own practiced order producing order.Give to the king Thy law, Thy ability to rule and to judge. Give to the ruler an ability to discern, to have a clear vision of what is right, of what brings dignity to the people under his hand.END