Author: Tim Hayes

I’ve spent the last few days in Warsaw, Poland. The more I visit this land the more I admire the Polish people: industrious, innovative, upright, hard-working, law abiding and tolerant — promoting religious freedom and the rule of law since the 15th century, and harboring the world’s largest and most significant Jewish community for centuries. As WWII began, about 3 million Jews, one-fifth of all the world’s Jews, resided in Poland.

During WWII, the Nazis forced Polish Jews into dense city ghettos under unspeakable conditions, before deporting them for “resettlement.” The largest of these ghettos was in Warsaw, where about 400,000 Jews were packed into 1.25 sq mi. When the Jews found out that “resettlement” was to a death camp, they decided to die fighting. As they tried to defend themselves, the Nazis attacked and torched the ghetto, burning many men, women and children alive. It was a horrendous time.

In all, the Nazis exterminated 3 million Polish Jews; the Warsaw Ghetto Monument reminds us of their suffering. As I beheld it, just after touring the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, built on the very site of the Warsaw Ghetto, and seeing the graphic depictions of all this horror, I was trying to imagine what it would have been like to live through it. I just can’t; I don’t pretend to even begin to understand it.

But according to scripture, even more difficult times are yet to come: “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved.” (Mt 24:12-13) What will that be like? What does it mean to endure to the end in a time like this?

I’m thinking that it’s only by God’s grace that any soul survives wartime atrocity with a clean conscience; enduring doesn’t secure salvation — salvation secures enduring. (Jud 1:24) When push comes to shove, most will save their own skin and let the world go to hell, but God’s regenerating, sanctifying (Tit 3:5) work produces holiness in His elect regardless of the times. (Ro 6:22) We’ll be loving Him and others from the heart because He lives in us, willing and doing according to His good pleasure. (Php 2:13) This isn’t presumption (Ps 19:13), it’s hope, grounded in the nature and promises of God.

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God tells us to avoid all uncleanness as a manner of life. (Ep 5:3) Abiding in uncleanness is a work of our old man, the flesh (Ga 5:19-21), so we’re to put it to death. (Col 3:5-6) He calls us to holiness (1Th 4:7) in our entire being: spirit, soul and body. (1Th 5:23)

God’s definition of holiness exists only in Torah, Mosaic Law, where He defines what’s unclean, what defiles us, and how to purify ourselves and separate ourselves unto Him. (Le 11:44)

Becoming unclean is simply part of living in this world; even doing God’s will can make us unclean. (Le 12:2) The focus is on how we respond to our uncleanness. Do we pursue abominable things (Le 11:10), heedless of our filth (Pr 30:12), enjoying uncleanness (2Pe 2:10) and neglecting the purification process God has prescribed? (Is 1:16) Or do we obey Him and continually pursue fellowship with Him, cleansing ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God? (2Co 7:1)

We can try to spiritualize this away to mean whatever we like, but if our new man delights in God’s Law (Ro 7:22) we’ll look for ways to obey Him as well as we can. In ignoring God’s prescription for physical cleansing, why would we pretend to be aligned with His design for spiritual purity? Those who aren’t acknowledging all their filth, cleaning themselves up wholistically, purifying themselves and separating themselves to God as a manner of life, have no part in God’s kingdom. (Ep 5:5)

YHWH gave us laws on personal hygiene to keep us healthy, free of disease and infection, to teach us how to respect ourselves and others, and to give us insight into spiritual warfare. He calls us to live in purity, both in the flesh and in the spirit (1Co 6:20), pursuing holiness and faithfully cleansing ourselves of defilement and contamination because we belong to Him. (1Pe 1:14-16)

The physical dimension of uncleanness is tangible, and God’s prescription for it was written long before the sciences confirmed it’s value. Walking out physical holiness helps us understand the spiritual, to see how it works and ensure that we’re being cleansed of our sin (1Jn 1:7); both dimensions are essential in our walk with God.

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Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are blessed, for they shall be filled. (Mt 5:6)

Shall indicates inevitability, certainty. Longing for holiness precedes holiness; it’s God transforming us, preparing us to see Him. (He 12:14)

Oh! To be entirely free of pride, self-righteousness, conceit, disdain, deceit, malice, posturing, lust, fear, compromise, uncleanness, anxiety, worry!

Oh! To be pure! Rejoicing in God, clothed with humility, loving Jesus Christ and His Word, to the paling of all worldly interest! To love my neighbor as myself, honoring all, in deed and in truth!

Oh! to feel the ache, the sorrow, the dismay at the remnants of the old man, this body of death lurking within. To be giving him no place, no quarter, no sympathy, sheltering no lie (Ps 119:29), harboring no falsehood. (Ps 119:104)

To cry out with my whole heart for this, to be heard, and to be healed! (Ps 119:145)

To be playing with the trinkets of this world, pursuing, continually occupied with, consumed in the temporal, is to be God’s enemy. (Php 3:18-19)

Longing for righteousness. Relentless craving, undying pursuit, unwilling to take No for an answer. I must have holiness, perfection, knowledge and understanding.

When I cry after knowledge, lift up my voice for understanding, seeking her out as my treasure, my delight, then shall I understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. (Pr 2:3-5) He will pour water on my thirsty soul, and floods upon the dry ground. (Is 44:3)

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Resentment: bitter indignation at having been treated unfairly, a feeling of indignant displeasure or persistent ill will at something regarded as a wrong, insult, or injury.

Do I feel resentment toward God for allowing bad things to happen to me? He could have stopped it, arranged for life to work out differently, to be free of pain and trouble. Do I hold this against Him? Does it impact my love for Him, my ability to trust Him?

My afflictions have a purpose: “Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept thy word.” (Ps 119:67) The harm I’ve felt, and the troubles I’ve endured have been good for me: “It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn thy statutes.” (Ps 119:67) Confessing, “I know, O LORD, that thy judgments are right, and that thou in faithfulness hast afflicted me,” (Ps 119:75) is to agree that God is sovereign, just, good and faithful.

My alternative is to believe that I know better than God, that my perspective is better than His, that He’s shortsighted, selfish, unjust. I cannot rejoice in the Lord from here. It’s the old man.

How can I know what I would have been like without pain? What do I base my presumption on? My tendency towards pride and selfishness requires God to break me. (He 12:6-28) Which of the fathers of our faith lived lives of ease and pleasure? I have nothing.

In suffering the enemy tempts us to bitterness and resentment, so we should be careful in watching over each other, praying for each other lest anyone fail of God’s grace (He 12:15), reminding each other to prayerfully and joyfully confess: “Thou hast dealt well with thy servant, O LORD, according unto thy word.” (Ps 119: 65) 

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The enemy is at war with the saints (Re 13:7); we’re in a continuous spiritual battle. (Ep 6:11-12) The basic dynamic in this war isn’t what I was taught, and it’s quite simple: wrong beliefs give the enemy spiritual ground (2Ti 2:25-26), believing the truth takes it back. (Jn 8:32)

The enemy’d have us believe there’s a LOT more to it than this, but he’s the father of lies (Jn 8:44), so why listen to him?

Think of spiritual ground as territory in our minds and hearts defined by our beliefs. The enemy has jurisdiction wherever we’re holding a lie (Ep 4:27); it gives him access to influence our thought patterns, motives, emotions and will to bring us into bondage, alienate us from God, and destroy us. This ground is called a carnal mind (Ro 8:7-8), the flesh (Ga 5:17), and our old man. (Ep 4:22)

Repentance is replacing lies with truth (2Ti 2:25); it recaptures spiritual ground and sets us free. (2Ti 2:26)

Getting hold of this changes everything. Wrong beliefs produce wrong attitudes, motives, and actions which alienate us from God and create spiritual, mental, emotional and physical bondage in our lives. (Ja 1:13-16) Truth then becomes infinitely precious: we buy the truth and sell it not (Pr 23:23); we seek it out, obey it and never let it go; it’s the key to freedom. (Ep 6:14)

In warring against us, the enemy is relentless in presenting lies to us in various forms: wrong teaching, emotional impulse, physical and emotional trauma, all with the purpose of gaining more ground, more control in our lives to destroy us. (Jn 10:10) This is how he works in the children of disobedience, who accept his suggestions as their own and act on them. (Ep 2:2) It’s how we all started out. (Ep 2:3)

To maintain the ground he already has, the enemy protects it with strongholds, irrational emotional ties to deception, moving us to feel comfort, pleasure, safety and security in our lies (Pr 9:17), and to feel deeply threatened by any challenge to them. (Ge 19:9) He does this because he has no other defense; lies cannot be upheld with a divine moral standard or with truth, only by other lies and our emotional attachments to these lies. They’re easy to spot: intense and intrinsically irrational, rooted in and springing from an innate hatred of God and His Law. (Ps 2:1-3)

No challenge to a belief threatens our well being: when an idea makes us feel defensive or fearful we have a stronghold guarded by the enemy. To love the truth, to be earnestly seeking it out wherever we can find it, and constantly shining the light of God’s moral standard, Torah (1Jn 3:4), on all of our beliefs and attitudes so that we might be fully aligned with Him throughout our entire being (1Jn 3:3), is to expose and disable all our enemy strongholds. (2Co 10:3-5)

Then, taking the sword of the Spirit, as God gives us understanding, repentance and faith, we may freely and relentlessly expose enemy ground and take it back (2Th 2:13), gaining progressively more and more freedom in our spiritual lives. (Ps 119:45)

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We’re to abide in Christ, so that when He shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before Him at His coming. (1Jn 2:28)

How we imagine we’ll feel at His appearing isn’t the point, it’s how we’ll actually feel: shame or confidence. If we’re following a false Jesus (2Co 11:4), our anticipation of our response is as much in error.

So, what do we have now that’s the most like Jesus Christ? I’d say Torah, God’s commandments, is the best we have; they’re His testimonies about Himself, revealing His mind and heart, His way, His Truth, His life. We measure any likeness of Jesus Christ by its standard. (1Jn 3:4)

A king’s heart is revealed in His laws. Imagine Mosaic Law returning in the clouds, the Torah alive, deified: this, on moral and character grounds, is indistinguishable from the heart of Jesus Christ.

If we don’t know God’s Law, we don’t know Him; if we don’t delight in His law (Ro 7:22), we don’t love Him and we’ll be cursed when He comes. (1Co 16:22) Only those who obey Him are born of Him. (1Jn 2:29)

How we respond to our God’s Law is, I think, how we’ll respond to Him. Are we treasuring it (Ps 119:111), hiding it in our hearts like He told us to (De 6:6), and meditating on it all the time? (Jos 1:8) This is what abiding in Him looks like; it’s how He walked. (1Jn 2:6)

All the tribes of the earth will mourn when Jesus Christ returns (Mt 24:30); they can’t submit to His law. (Ro 8:7) His saints will rejoice in Him, just as they rejoice in His law. (Ps 119:127) To abide in Him, that we not be ashamed before Him at His coming, is our heart being sound in His statutes. (Ps 119:80)

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If I found a treasure chest filled with gold, I’d be excited! It would put a smile on my face and a spring in my step! I’d be delighted!

Delight: a high degree of gratification or pleasure, a strong feeling of happiness.

Paul says the part of us that’s united with and inclined towards God delights in God’s Law, Torah (Ro 7:22) and keeps His commands (1Jn 2:4); the part of us that doesn’t, our old man, our carnal mind (Ro 8:7), is at war with God. (Ro 7:23)

In this war, God is delivering His children from bondage, from their inclination to neglect and despise Torah. (Ro 7:24-25) Where are we in this deliverance process? Is it happening in us?

Saints love God’s Law more than heaps of gold and silver (Ps 119:72), and we’re always thinking about it (Ps 119:97) because God’s putting His laws into our minds and writing them onto our hearts. (He 8:10) God reveals Himself through His law (Ps 119:18), and He’s Who we’re after.

If we aren’t too far along on this journey yet, maybe not yet started, still cleaving to dust, it’s never too late. We can seek God out and ask Him to create a clean heart within us (Ps 51:10), and incline it unto His testimonies. (Ps 119:36)

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