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“Let their way be dark and slippery: and let the angel of the LORD persecute them” – Psalm 35:6
“God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie” – 2 Thessalonians 2:11 |
This chapter is an exploration of the frowardness of God: the deep mysteries of the Lord’s righteous anger when it is in the form of God-sent delusions coming upon men, to the end that men would be prepared for the day of their destruction.
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Psalm 18:25-26 “
With the merciful Thou wilt shew Thyself merciful; with an upright man Thou wilt shew Thyself upright; With the pure Thou wilt shew Thyself pure; and with the froward Thou wilt shew Thyself froward.” 2 Samuel 22:26-27 “With the merciful Thou wilt shew Thyself merciful, and with the upright man Thou wilt shew Thyself upright. With the pure Thou wilt shew Thyself pure; and with the froward Thou wilt shew Thyself unsavoury.” |
The “frowardness” of God is a term coined in Psalm 18:26, the first verse transcribed above. Do you remember this verse? In case you have forgotten, dear reader, let me refresh your memory and briefly rehearse what we have covered in preparation for the study of this holy and terrible attribute in God.
Since the chapter titled, “The Righteous Judgment of God,” we have looked at how God does “laugh” and “mock” at condemned sinners (Ps. 1:24-29, 37:13). We have seen how this is linked to what is said to be the frowardness of God. Froward means – “perverse, ungovernable, and not willing to yield or comply with what is required” (Webster’s 1828). We also noted how God does lead forth sinners into iniquity (Ps. 125:5), being led, if you will, by the hand of a deception. Deception is experienced by those men who are worthy of it. God, Who is most holy, reveals Himself in frowardness to the faithless. This can be perplexing, because we know that God cannot actually be froward or perverse, but He can show Himself this way to someone because He is veiled behind the darkness of a deception…a deception, mind you, that has been earned by the exceeding sinfulness of wicked men. Think of it! Men are habitations of deception by nature, and every piece of furniture therein is enchanted by the devil. God has the right to give men up into sin and deception, to leave them alone, and they, being sinners, are left alone in the violence of themselves. Sin is a murderer! It rises in the bodily members of fleshly men like the adrenaline of rage, mounting up for soul suicide. God promises – “be sure your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23) – but, lo, even the mystery of iniquity is mapped out in God’s predestination! The dark night of deception is daytime to God. Deceptions lead lost men – like persons they speak to them – and sinners lift up their eyes so as to look for God, and lo, they see distortions, blasphemies, and lying visions which are damning delusions. Who are the prisoners of this lawless and awful experience? It is the scorner that “seeketh wisdom and findeth it not” (Prov. 14:6), and thus we understand that, if God can hide wisdom from a man, then He can hide Himself – even behind a veil of deception, darkening and imprisoning men into further iniquity. “Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isa. 45:15), and if the Savior is hidden, so is salvation. Furthermore, we can understand, this deception is one that reacheth to the very spiritual capacities which enable a man to understand anything at all. They become prisoners in a prison they know nothing about. A man cannot know if or when he is deceived – that is the nature of deception. A man is deceived when he thinks that he is not deceived. Deception is an unconscious prison house where all men feel free, and they all go about as their nature leads them in a parade of rioting in the “The Carnival of Carnality". These men cannot “understand judgment” (Prov. 28:5). “The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit” (Prov. 14:8).
Leading into further attributes and surrounding factors which pertain to biblical scenarios of deception, God says that He, at such a time, does hide His face (Deut. 32:20). His face is the shining of saving Light, and outside of it there is no light. At such a time of deception, it is then that the friendly and saving relationship one did have with God has turned, so that God is turning from men, becoming to them the opposite image of the saving promise – break for break (Ezek. 16:59, 17:18-19). Hiding His face is one way to express it: showing the feeling of hopelessness, darkness, and absence in this woeful experience, but another way God describes this experience of wrath is that He casts men away from His Presence. Do you remember the word “castaway”? God has and will cast men away (Rom. 11:15) from Himself, but note this carefully – this causes their “fall” from salvation (Rom. 11:11-12). God’s own sovereign decree darkens the eyes of their understanding into “blindness” (Rom. 11:7), or in other words, God gives them a “spirit of slumber” (Rom. 11:8). So it is written: “eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear” (Rom. 11:8). Jeremiah sought to wrestle against this wrath in a castaway generation, but intercession was impossible (Jer. 15:1), the Covenant was broken (Jer. 14:21), and the entire generation, as it were, held the hand of a deception, were in the bliss of ignorance, the happiness of oblivion, and they were led right into the slaughter. This deception is stupidity and brutishness; it is animal-like unconsciousness! Like “an ox goeth to the slaughter” or “as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life” (Prov. 7:22-23)! Did you know that men can become such fools? Are you one of them? If you are, you may never come to know it. An ox standeth in the slaughter line, and suddenly, he’s dead! Of this Jeremiah cried – “Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! Surely Thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul” (Jer. 4:10)! At another time than this, even Jeremiah had been carried away in deception. He was temporarily caught in it and then recovered, and at the time, Jeremiah lamented to his God that, to him, God seemed to be a deceiver (Jer. 15:18, 20:7), and thus we can see that even Jeremiah, along with all God’s choice prophets, did temporarily experience the unsavory experience of condemning wrath when God shows Himself as a liar. All this is to prepare the way for a further examination of the experiences of deception – through the frowardness of God – in the various ways deceptions reveal Him, or, the various ways He shows Himself to men in unsavory images. If Christians can temporarily or permanently fall under this experience of deception, shouldn’t we need know about it, if haply we may guard against its surprise upon our souls? Lest we end up in the darkness fast asleep, given over to the decree of God, called “the spirit of slumber” (Rom. 11:8), half-awake and hardly hearing the salvific call – “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14) – and, lo…we are unable to wake up! It is imperative that we understand this deception, especially how, at sundry times, the saints did experience and recover from it. We need to learn what merited a deception to come upon them, and how, afterward, they were enabled to recover from it. Also, we must learn from the course of those saints who fell into a deception without recovery from the fall, who ultimately, were damned with the world. Finally, we must understand deceptions, generally speaking, as they pertain to sinners who serve as examples to learn from. In general, we must know the course of the damned as it pertains to deception. My reader, let our study of this course begin with Eli.
Since the chapter titled, “The Righteous Judgment of God,” we have looked at how God does “laugh” and “mock” at condemned sinners (Ps. 1:24-29, 37:13). We have seen how this is linked to what is said to be the frowardness of God. Froward means – “perverse, ungovernable, and not willing to yield or comply with what is required” (Webster’s 1828). We also noted how God does lead forth sinners into iniquity (Ps. 125:5), being led, if you will, by the hand of a deception. Deception is experienced by those men who are worthy of it. God, Who is most holy, reveals Himself in frowardness to the faithless. This can be perplexing, because we know that God cannot actually be froward or perverse, but He can show Himself this way to someone because He is veiled behind the darkness of a deception…a deception, mind you, that has been earned by the exceeding sinfulness of wicked men. Think of it! Men are habitations of deception by nature, and every piece of furniture therein is enchanted by the devil. God has the right to give men up into sin and deception, to leave them alone, and they, being sinners, are left alone in the violence of themselves. Sin is a murderer! It rises in the bodily members of fleshly men like the adrenaline of rage, mounting up for soul suicide. God promises – “be sure your sin will find you out” (Num. 32:23) – but, lo, even the mystery of iniquity is mapped out in God’s predestination! The dark night of deception is daytime to God. Deceptions lead lost men – like persons they speak to them – and sinners lift up their eyes so as to look for God, and lo, they see distortions, blasphemies, and lying visions which are damning delusions. Who are the prisoners of this lawless and awful experience? It is the scorner that “seeketh wisdom and findeth it not” (Prov. 14:6), and thus we understand that, if God can hide wisdom from a man, then He can hide Himself – even behind a veil of deception, darkening and imprisoning men into further iniquity. “Verily Thou art a God that hidest Thyself, O God of Israel, the Savior” (Isa. 45:15), and if the Savior is hidden, so is salvation. Furthermore, we can understand, this deception is one that reacheth to the very spiritual capacities which enable a man to understand anything at all. They become prisoners in a prison they know nothing about. A man cannot know if or when he is deceived – that is the nature of deception. A man is deceived when he thinks that he is not deceived. Deception is an unconscious prison house where all men feel free, and they all go about as their nature leads them in a parade of rioting in the “The Carnival of Carnality". These men cannot “understand judgment” (Prov. 28:5). “The wisdom of the prudent is to understand his way: but the folly of fools is deceit” (Prov. 14:8).
Leading into further attributes and surrounding factors which pertain to biblical scenarios of deception, God says that He, at such a time, does hide His face (Deut. 32:20). His face is the shining of saving Light, and outside of it there is no light. At such a time of deception, it is then that the friendly and saving relationship one did have with God has turned, so that God is turning from men, becoming to them the opposite image of the saving promise – break for break (Ezek. 16:59, 17:18-19). Hiding His face is one way to express it: showing the feeling of hopelessness, darkness, and absence in this woeful experience, but another way God describes this experience of wrath is that He casts men away from His Presence. Do you remember the word “castaway”? God has and will cast men away (Rom. 11:15) from Himself, but note this carefully – this causes their “fall” from salvation (Rom. 11:11-12). God’s own sovereign decree darkens the eyes of their understanding into “blindness” (Rom. 11:7), or in other words, God gives them a “spirit of slumber” (Rom. 11:8). So it is written: “eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear” (Rom. 11:8). Jeremiah sought to wrestle against this wrath in a castaway generation, but intercession was impossible (Jer. 15:1), the Covenant was broken (Jer. 14:21), and the entire generation, as it were, held the hand of a deception, were in the bliss of ignorance, the happiness of oblivion, and they were led right into the slaughter. This deception is stupidity and brutishness; it is animal-like unconsciousness! Like “an ox goeth to the slaughter” or “as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not that it is for his life” (Prov. 7:22-23)! Did you know that men can become such fools? Are you one of them? If you are, you may never come to know it. An ox standeth in the slaughter line, and suddenly, he’s dead! Of this Jeremiah cried – “Then said I, Ah, Lord GOD! Surely Thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul” (Jer. 4:10)! At another time than this, even Jeremiah had been carried away in deception. He was temporarily caught in it and then recovered, and at the time, Jeremiah lamented to his God that, to him, God seemed to be a deceiver (Jer. 15:18, 20:7), and thus we can see that even Jeremiah, along with all God’s choice prophets, did temporarily experience the unsavory experience of condemning wrath when God shows Himself as a liar. All this is to prepare the way for a further examination of the experiences of deception – through the frowardness of God – in the various ways deceptions reveal Him, or, the various ways He shows Himself to men in unsavory images. If Christians can temporarily or permanently fall under this experience of deception, shouldn’t we need know about it, if haply we may guard against its surprise upon our souls? Lest we end up in the darkness fast asleep, given over to the decree of God, called “the spirit of slumber” (Rom. 11:8), half-awake and hardly hearing the salvific call – “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14) – and, lo…we are unable to wake up! It is imperative that we understand this deception, especially how, at sundry times, the saints did experience and recover from it. We need to learn what merited a deception to come upon them, and how, afterward, they were enabled to recover from it. Also, we must learn from the course of those saints who fell into a deception without recovery from the fall, who ultimately, were damned with the world. Finally, we must understand deceptions, generally speaking, as they pertain to sinners who serve as examples to learn from. In general, we must know the course of the damned as it pertains to deception. My reader, let our study of this course begin with Eli.
