I am incensed every day! One can be angry and yet conceal his feelings as well as constrain his actions. But when one is incensed (which comes from a word meaning 'to set on fire'), it is just like incense: everybody in the room is impacted by the aroma. Incensed describes that state of mind in which being angry is an inadequate remedy, and judgment (not emotion) calls for action.
Jesus was incensed ~ on more than one occasion. I'm willing to say that he is incensed, at this very moment.
In preparing to write this essay, I went searching for images suitable to convey the idea of "toxic culture." As I viewed such images, I began to think about how American society devolved so quickly to become a toxic culture. I wondered to myself: How is it even possible that wickedness is not only tolerated but widely and openly celebrated in America? How, indeed, is that possible?
The answer to my own question provokes me every day. I despise a culture that seeks to emasculate men by denigrating masculinity as being "toxic;" whereas, it is the lying culture that is toxic. That thought led me hastily onto a side path where stood in my mind an image of the Biblical hero Shammah. (I'm not going to tell you. Look him up.) I could see him standing there with his hand cleaving to his sword; his own garments drenched in the blood of scores of his slain enemies; as God the Holy Ghost forever memorialized the courage and manliness of Shammah in the eternal Record of God's Word. Shammah is meant in Scripture to serve as a role model for godly men (and women), in every generation.
Shammah was incensed. His heroism helped to establish and preserve the Kingdom of God. His example is still serving to establish and preserve the Kingdom of God ~ wheresoever Shammah's story is known, believed, and emulated.
Ah, but is it known? How then can it be believed, much less emulated?
Then, let us talk a little about Jesus ~ whose story is only somewhat better known than Shammah's.
Jesus, as I said before, was incensed. The most famous example of which, is, the time when Jesus ~ first, took the time to make a whip and, afterwards, used it literally to drive a number of grown men out of the Temple. But I don't want to get lost in storytelling.... Though I cannot, indeed I dare not, lose sight of the Bible's clearshining light....
I thought about what it means . . . that Jesus's walking on the water, together with innumerable demonstrations of his divine power ~ including his own resurrection; I thought about what it means that all of that followed after the Old Testament record which recounts the superlative exploits of men such as Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Elijah, and many others. It is not the case that Jesus first appeared on the scene and, afterward, all of those Old Testament heroes dared to follow Jesus's example. Was Jesus, then, following the example of those men who went before him? Or was it that Jesus was merely continuing in the same path as did his famous predecessors?
I reckon that neither of those scenarios explains the deeper meaning of Jesus's example. Rather, I believe that God intended to reveal to mankind, through Jesus, a new level ~ that is to say, the perfection ~ of godliness, and the divine power that accompanies that. Every former demonstration of godly faith and conduct, and the resultant power of that, was a forerunner pointing to the One who was then yet to come in the fullness of God.
And in that fullness, Jesus fearlessly spoke out against corruption that was rampant in his day. He boldly denounced the hypocrisy and corruption of Israel's religious and political leaders. He labored fervently to teach the great masses of people who came out to hear and see this man, Jesus ~ whom they had never heard anyone speak like him before (John 7:46). Jesus's demonstrations of power were preeminently meant to identify his personage: he is the Savior of the world. MORE THAN THAT: being thus identified and confirmed as God's Messiah, Jesus's miracles were meant to give full weight to the truth and authority of his message. The Message, as well as the Man whose Message it is: is the focal point of all of God's work amongst men. And Christ's disciples are to emulate him.
That same Spirit (the Son of God) in fact was the One who both called, and led, and empowered such men as Moses, Joshua, Gideon, David, Elijah, etc. It was the "Spirit of Christ which was in them" (1 Peter 1:11) that enabled them to do exploits in his Name. That same Spirit is in every born-again Christian, yet today.
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Which brings me around again to address the question posed in the title of this essay, namely: "What, really, would Jesus do?" That is, what would Jesus do if he were bodily present in America, today? Better still is the question:
What would Jesus do ~ if Christian men were so fully surrendered to Jesus Christ that he could, indeed, live through them as he desires to do?
I often think about what ideas and thought processes must have motivated men like Phinehas, for example. No doubt, it required an extraordinary degree of conviction and courage for him to do what he did. Or consider Paul. Yes, let's do consider him. "God shall smite thee, thou whited wall!" Paul angrily denounced his persecutor who dared to lay a hand on Paul. And there was the time when Paul ~ having been stoned and then dragged out of the city and left for dead on the side of the road, after a while stood up, brushed himself off and promptly returned again into that same city. Paul, who evidently relished the prospect of going to Rome: the epicenter of worldly power and corruption in the then known world. Which would be akin to preaching Christ (that is to say, the sin-hating, devil-destroying, exalted, reigning, holy Christ; not the baby-in-a-manger-wink-at-sin-everybody's-going-to-heaven Christ), on the Capitol steps in Washington, D.C....
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Only incensed Christians are going to have the "honor" (as the Bible calls that) of "execut[ing] the judgment written," (Ps. 149) during the Tribulation. Which means, too, that only incensed Christians are going to have part in the Rapture. For, how were it any kind of "honor" to be given to "execute the judgment written," unless one were incensed enough actually to be honored by doing so ~ and perfectly willing to do it? What is "it"? Destroying the wicked, and binding EVERY foul spirit in the pit of hell! I tell you, only those who are now - now- incensed are going to be given such honor by God.
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