Oh, say, can you see?

Monday, December 6th, 2021

by Ken Pullen

ACP — A Crooked Path

Perfection.

All of us desire it, have attempted to imagine it. Want to see it and know it. Really, we do. Only the most imbecilic among us only the most lost among us might deny this but even they want perfection really if they could be, would be finally honest. If a sports fan just ask them, or think yourself, about their, or your favorite team for starters and go from there.

Perfection existed. Once. For a short time.

Corruption.

The destruction of perfection brought about by rebellion. Introducing death! Come in, death! Wasn’t that a great thing to introduce to God’s perfect creation? All brought on by man, by woman. By us. Not by God. Contrary to the misinformation.

And all despair, fear, anxiety, want, suffering, oh and let’s not forget pain. Or weeds. All brought on by man, by woman. Not God.

Arrived when we the descendants of Adam destroyed the perfection God had created for us, mankind. In His image. For His companionship.

We messed it all up. Yes, we, as we are the offspring of Adam. And Eve. Lest we forget the woman involved. Both genders rebel against God. In collusion. Blatantly. Did, have done, will. It’s all about the will, isn’t it?

It could not be more clear. It could not be easier to understand. Don’t say it’s impossible to believe because most of what most people believe is impossible as well as a lie. The Big Bang? Darwin’s theory that long beyond a hundred plus years is further from proving than ever? That what passes for music these days is actually music? That the politician you like will make it all better and live up to their word? What I’m about to write here is not impossible nor a lie. It is the truest reality there is to know.

You can certainly choose to believe the following, or not. I do ask though that rather than immediate dismissal you give what I’m about to write the same consideration you give most things you believe in. And you don’t need to tell me why you believe in them, but revisit with yourself, take the time to tell yourself why you believe what you do and don’t believe what you don’t believe. Take the time, to be honest about this.

God created the heavens and the earth. This is the beginning of earth and life on earth. The beginning of human life on earth. All things created by God. In perfection. Imagine if you can what perfection might look like; be like. None of us can because we’ve never been close to perfection. In anything on this earth. Ever. Not true perfection.

But true perfection in everything existed once. In EVERYTHING.

And then man and woman in their imagining they knew better than God, who created them and all they had and knew, messed everything up. I mean they really messed everything up. To the point of bringing death to earth, to themselves and all their offspring. Because they could not listen and obey one thing. One commandment. They just had to rebel already imagining themselves knowing more than God they allowed themselves to be seduced and breaking the one thing God told them that was forbidden.

As willful disobedient children…“Don’t touch that!”…and the innate nature drives the child running towards the forbidden. Disobedience, rebellion is built in. No one is good. Not even a child. No, not one. Not according to me. Look this up in the Bible; Psalm 14:3, Psalm 53, and Romans 3:10.

Thus bringing sin into the world. Bringing death into the world. Bringing so much more misery, trials, and suffering into the world. God didn’t do that. We did. Our ancestors brought all this upon us. And we carry on the tradition. The tradition of rebellion, sin, and thus death. Making what was once perfect spoiled, corrupted, perverse. Eroding. Rotting.

God created perfection. In all things.

The Garden of Eden.

Joni Mitchell wrote a song about the music festival of 1969 in upstate New York that became known as Woodstock. And in that song, she wrote about, “getting back to the garden.”

The world knows.

The world and people really know. Even though that awareness is suppressed, called many other things, looked about in every place other than where it exists and ought to be examined. The awareness denied, pressed down into the darkness, and hid away in the hope it never makes a big appearance and lingers in the heart and mind. If I don’t think about it it can’t really exist, right?

People know.

What God created was perfection.

The first man, Adam, and his wife, Eve, destroyed perfection. They brought everything that followed upon themselves and we’re still living their disobedient natures, their rebellion this very moment as you are reading this.

God is love.

Oh, not lust, or superficial feelings, not a “feeling” like most people equate love. God is love. Love beyond our ability to execute to the same degree. The love written of and told us in the Bible is not like the “feelings” love of cards, movies, songs, and passing as defined by men and women. This love is a vaster, deeper truer love. An eternal love. The love from God. Which goes far beyond anything we could muster within ourselves. Yet we poop-poop God’s love, we mock it, we ignore it, if we don’t ignore it we then attempt to mold it and shape it into our definitions, cut and paste it into our vision and limited thinking rather than bow to God and allow Him to reveal what we can take in of this love of His in our limited manner now, to be revealed fully later on…

Tragically love, God, God’s love, and what is contained in the Word of God is greatly misunderstood and given over to a personal interpretation that does not hold up under scrutiny when studying the Bible, the inerrant word of God.

Any Bible interpretation, any personal interpretation, and personal interpretation is permitted, is required. It’s the keystone that led to Luther’s revelation and the Reformation and the burgeoning of Protestanism after all [see Knowing Scripture: Sproul, R. C., Packer, J. I.] must remain consistent and true to the Scriptures themselves. Not according to an individual’s desire to make of what is found in the Word of God fit their feelings, beliefs which are in direct opposition not what is found contained in the Bible, which has become the norm, and the way, and tragically predominates today. Ahh, all the false teachers and their unsound doctrines flocked to like insects to a bug zapper! As they refuse to turn to the Word of God and the life, the abundance, the gifts, and mercies it affords [see American Gospel – Christ Alone 2018 – Christ Crucified 2019].

God’s love is to such a depth and degree He came to earth in the knowledge of what He would end up having to do in order to bring about restoration. To bring about salvation to a people who were the walking dead. Deserving only death and condemnation and wrath. Not because I say so. The Bible does. And not because God is perceived in human terms, in 20th or 21st-century terms and definitions.

God’s love is of such breadth, depth, vastness, and greatness He gave His Son, a part of Him, a part of the Triune Godhead to come to earth. To be born fully man and also fully God. To live among us. Know what temptation is like. To remain blemishless. Spotless. Blameless. Sinless. To then be beaten beyond recognizing as a human being. To be spat upon. Mocked. Put forward in an illegal trial. Injustice for the Most Just in all Creation! To be nailed to a tree, the greatest of mortifications and degradations. Not to mention the pain — oh, yes, physical pain certainly, but the GREATER pain was His having to be absent of the Father, to for however long it was required to be separated from Himself in essence, from God DUE TO TAKING OUR SIN UPON HIMSELF. It’s called Sacrifice. It’s called a love beyond any of us, any that have ever lived, live now, or are yet born would endure or put themselves through, or their only son through.

Now, THAT’S love. Not found on a greeting card or a movie. Or anything any human can partake of themselves. Without the knowledge of God.

How dare we reduce God to our level! To our limited understanding and definitions.

But we know enough, don’t we? We understand enough, don’t we?

No one really has an excuse, do they?

We also know since the earliest times of any sort of recorded history men and women have sought eternal life, creating a Utopia on earth. When I was in high school, not long after Ben Franklin had pulled his kite in from the storm and capitalized on electricity, I was privileged to have history books that held more in their pages than how effeminate a particular president was, or attempting to rewrite history to fit an agenda. We learned, those of my similar age, of explorers that were financed by world governments, monarchies that traveled the world seeking not only gold, spices, textiles, plants, and such resources — but the key to eternal life. A fountain of youth. Where might there be a Shangri-La? A Utopia to then spread what they had or knew to all the world or that government that had financed their voyage.

Death. While the effort to ignore this inevitability brought about solely by man and woman’s sin prevails and many people act as if they can wage war against time, advancing years and the inevitable ending of the animated fleshly realm an individual inhabits for a season on this corrupted earth — death will not be denied or removed.

For the wages of, the wage paid out for our sin is — DEATH. [This, too, not according to me. Find this in the Holy Bible from the Word of God, not any man].

People know. People know, don’t they? [See Romans 1 ESV or Romans 1 KJV. ] Even when otherwise occupied or stating they don’t believe in the God of the Bible. Many retreat into the corner painted by worldly philosophy and worldly knowledge. But standing there in their corner they know. Oh, they know.

Yet the fear of death is the greatest fear within almost all men and women.

Oh, I was writing about God’s love and how it is vastly different than how most people think of or define love, wasn’t I?

This cannot be stated often enough — God’s love IS so great that He gave part of Himself, His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Ultimate Sacrifice to blot out the sin of any and every person who comes to believe in His Son, Jesus, and to forgive them.

Oh, and before we go any further? How about we’re finally honest about ourselves? Let’s stop with this “but I’m a good person” refrain and put that forward as your defense for not needing the God of the Bible, not doing anything about securing eternal life for yourself. For not becoming a new person, renewed and made new that will live forever. Yes, live forever within the New Earth, the New World to come.

I put this out to the unbelieving finding themselves here, but also to many professed believers I see and hear who ought to be much more mature in the faith, have acquired far greater spiritual wisdom along the way than they appear to have. Not that I am so far along, but I do have ears to hear and the words I hear matter. All words mean something. And often I wonder how such words, fueled by a thought within, can find their way out the mouths of such longtime professed believers. How much time are those professing to be disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ, the true children of God rather than the children of disobedience actually spending in fervent, daily STUDY and MEDITATION within the Word of God? I wonder…for what I hear coming from the mouths of many who have been in the faith much longer than I, though about the same or longer in physical years speak as if they are more of and in the world than in and of God. Rather than in and of the Word of God having spiritual wisdom being more directed and led by worldly wisdom. Desiring to not offend. To “be nice” rather than being bold in the faith and desiring to express the true love of God. Let us not get confused and put the rotted cesspool of 20th and 21st century thought on Jesus. Jesus was not concerned with “being nice” and not offending. Jesus was and is, gentle, kind, longsuffering, forgiving, peaceable, and every wondrous trait imaginable in the Word of God. But He was not primarily concerned with “being nice.” Let’s get over this “but I have to be nice and have people like me, I don’t want to upset or offend anyone.”

What does the Word say? The truth will cause offense. Families will be torn asunder due to the faith in Jesus. The world rails against this truth. It will always bring offense. Because the innate nature of every person is to resist, to rebel, to run from the truth, to turn from God, to turn from the Lord Jesus Christ, to turn from and deny the Holy Spirit, to turn from, only select certain parts if any at all from the Word of God, or to totally bash and mock the Scriptures.

We don’t ever want to enter into or begin an argument. Those go nowhere.

But let’s stop worrying about “being nice” and not offending someone with the truth, the love of eternal life through Jesus Christ!

I digress. Let’s get to the point finally.

When Jesus comes again, His second and final appearance to earth — and God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit remove the heavens and earth that have been known, what we know, and They create a new heaven and a new earth. Where all those who saw, heard, and answered the calling of God to His Son shall reside and live FOREVER. For eternity.

In a newly created perfect world. As God intended. All along.

And this is possible through belief, faith in, and obedience to the Second Adam that makes this possible. The Lord Jesus Christ.

Oh, say, can you see how clear this all is? Has been? Will be?

God created all that is known. In perfection. Including man and woman in the beginning. And this earth at that time, before man’s rebellion and sin was PERFECT. Perfect perfection! Beyond our comprehension.

Our forefather, the first Adam destroyed perfection.

God did not give up though and throw in the towel and remove everything. Wipe the board clean and do nothing. Do away with man, with His creation. He kept His creation going. By His will, His Word. Daily. Every nanosecond of every day and night. By His will, He holds all things together. For a reason.

God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit knew all this BEFORE the foundations of this world were set. Before there were the heavens we know, the earth we know. THEY KNEW. They knew that man would allow themselves to be seduced by the Evil One and attempt to put ourselves [yes, ourselves rather than themselves as we are the kin of Adam and Eve] on the same level as God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

The first Adam failed and destroyed perfection. Eternal life. God’s original plan to see if man could handle perfection.

Man could not. God knew that but He gave us an opportunity to obey, to have this perfection and eternal life as originally set forth, if we could handle it. We proved we could not. Our natures are such we are prone to sin. Prone to disobedience. Prone the listening to evil over listening to God.

No one is good, no not one. No one is good. Stop pretending, stop lying to yourself if you for an instant imagine yourself or anyone else — anyone else as being “good.”

By what standards are you judging this? Yours? Humanities? Present philosophies and beliefs established by men and women?

Or by God’s standards of what constitutes “good?” Oh, and for those or any of this it all can be found in a handy book called the Holy Bible,or if you prefer; OFFICIAL KING JAMES BIBLE ONLINE: AUTHORIZED KING JAMES VERSION (KJV) or the English Standard Version.

No excuses.

Learn the never-ending always interesting never dull or boring true story of world history, the how and why of EVERYTHING that is.

Learn past, present, and future history which no other book can present. What book do you know that can tell of present and future history? That is and will unfold? Truly?

Learn how the first Adam failed but that was not the ending. That was only the beginning. Due to God’s love and mercy. And His grace.

Which brought the Second Adam the Perfect Adam — the Lord Jesus Christ — to be the propitiation [satisfying God] for our sin and to offer a way out of the second death, out of despair, fear, separation from God, that leads to hell and that leads to eternal life. As originally planned.

Jesus Christ leads us to perfection. To the NEW WORLD to come. One in which there will be hills, valleys, mountains, trees, animals, eternal life. All in perfection. No need of Greenpeace, or protesting, or fighting fossil fuels or foolishly imagining electric vehicles will save the earth, or banishing plastic straws will save the earth — OR THAT ANYTHING ANY MAN OR WOMAN OR CHILD MIGHT DO, COULD DO COULD EVER SAVE THE EARTH.

God is in control.

God is at work. Always. God’s plan is at work.

Evil and sin will be forever defeated. Christ has already defeated sin for those who believe. And obey. And walk according to the Word of God.

It’s all very clear, plain and simple, really.

Don’t take my word for it. Go to the Holy Bible. Do more than read it. Do more than approaching it with trepidation and disbelief. It isn’t merely a storybook, although it contains more stories in it than most of the grandest libraries on earth filled with books written by mere men who were not led by the Spirit of God. The Bible is the only book of total truth written on earth. Ever. While it has become the most reviled and lied about book on earth as well. The most misunderstood and misquoted [because those quoting it rarely if ever have opened up a Bible to read what is actually written within]. Said to be mythological. This is said by those who have read all the Greek mythologies, which they still know and quote to this day, those who are so highly educated [in the estimation of themselves and the world]. As well as the massively ignorant. And the bulk of those on earth are massively ignorant. Let’s be honest, shall we? Why mince words? Remember, it isn’t about “being nice,” it’s about speaking the truth. Boldly and plainly. Tell someone refusing the truth of God, of Jesus, of the Holy Spirit, of the Scriptures that they are among the walking dead. Go ahead. Do it. It’s the absolute truth. There are few truer truths and any of those are only contained within the Bible, as is this one. Say this to anyone that refuses to believe and to the world’s thinking, and to many professing to be Christian that isn’t “being nice,” or what should be said. But in truth? That is the most loving, helpful, and nicest thing you could say to anyone stumbling about in the lies and darkness of this fallen world!

There once was a perfect earth, a perfect world. Beyond our comprehension. That which so many appear to want now but are going about it in all the wrong ways.

There will be perfection again. Because God the Creator promised. Because God the Creator of this present world that man corrupted and has destroyed by our willful sin destroyed that perfection which God made for us out of His great love.

There will be perfection again. A New World for those who have come to believe upon the Son of God, and also to OBEY the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ. ETERNAL LIFE in this PERFECT WORLD.

Forever.

Stop fighting. Stop going down deadends. Stop repeating the willfulness leading to nothingness but death and no hope. No real hope. No real change.

A true lasting change can and will occur WITHIN. It can happen. It will happen. By the power of the Spirit of God.

To those who not only believe, faithfully but to those who obey. And through this real change within come to finally see. To finally know. To finally truly live. To finally be headed towards eternal life and that perfect world.