Uncensored truth - Chambers, Oswald
He twilight that i desired hath been turned into trembling unto me. Isaiah 21:4 (rv )
The bible never deals with the domains our human minds delight to deal with. The bible deals with heaven and hell, good and bad, god and the devil, right and wrong, salvation and damnation; we like to deal with the things in between. The bible pays no attention to our susceptibilities. The twilight that i desired . . . In the bible there is no twilight, but intense light and intense darkness.
1. The desired neutrality
He that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad (Matthew 12:30). Neutrality in religion is always cowardicei don’t want to take sides. God turns the cowardice of a desired neutrality into terror: the twilight that i desired hath been turned into trembling unto me. Our lord makes everything depend upon a mans relationship to himself, not upon a mans goodness or badness. Twilight is a desirable time not too strong a light and not too dark a dark; details are not too clearly manifested, ugly lines are not visible, everything looks wonderful. We like to get into the sentimental domain of twilight spiritually.
Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous (1 john 3:7). The apostle john wont allow twilight in a child of god. There is no such thing as being neutral, we are
Either children of god or of the devil; we either love or we hate; the twilight is torn away ruthlessly. We are secretly unrighteous before god, not before men, we do not wish our secret sins dragged into the light of gods countenance; we object to the intense light of dawn, and desire twilight. When gods searching comes it is that kind of unrighteousness that is revealed, and we cannot say a word. We realise we have ignored god and have indulged in unrighteousness before him.
2. The sudden conviction of nemesis
He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning (1 john 3:8).
Nemesis means retributive justice, something it is impossible to escape. We recoil when we realise the inevitable things in life, and it is the things we call inevitable that make us disbelieve in god. We are not conscious anarchists against god, we worship him to a certain point, but immediately the spirit of god begins to point out something in us that is wrong, we are offended (cf. Matthew 11:6; john 6:66). As long as Jesus Christ will remain the meek and mild and gentle Jesus i will listen to him, but immediately he sets his face against my particular sin, my un-righteousness, my self-indulgence, i am going to have no more of him; then the nemesis comes, and i realise that i am siding with the forces which are against Jesus Christ. Immediately god touches me or mine, i realise that i have the disposition of the devil in spite of all my religion and morality. There is a disposition in us that does not belong to human nature but to the devil, the spirit of unloving, unrighteous hatred. Develop your deepest instinct and you will find it to be god; Jesus says, for from within, out of the heart of men, proceed . . . If we live in the twilight we say, those things are not in my heart. The right attitude to the truth is, lord, thou knowest; otherwise we shall find to our cost that what jesus said about the human heart is true. We are all possible saints or possible devils. Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother (1 john 3:12). The spirit of Cain is jealousy, spite and envy. There is no hatred on earth like the hatred of a middling good man for the good man. The first civilisation was founded by a murderer. There is something worse than war, and that is the average run of commercial business life in piping times of peace; it does not destroy a mans body, but it almost damns his soul, it makes a cultured detester of the one who competes against him.
3. The secret condition of the divine nature
In this the children of god are manifest, and the children of the devil (1 john 3:10). Loving kindness is the purest, rarest evidence of the indwelling of the spirit of god no more neutrality, no more dread of the nemesis, just the divine nature, beautiful, pleas- ant beneficence, all summed up in the word love. When the love of god is shed abroad in our hearts it means that we identify ourselves with gods inter- est in other people, and god is interested in some strange people! Are we prepared to waive all our predilections and identify ourselves entirely with gods interests in other people? Is the divine nature getting its way in us? Our actual conduct among men has to be moulded by the conduct of our heavenly father. When we think of the grudge we owe someone, let the spirit of god bring back to our memory how we have treated god, and then begin to be his children. He is kind toward the unthankful and evil (luke 6:35 rv ). That is the actual practical climax of the teaching of the sermon on the mount. Never testify with your lips what your life does not back up.