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GOD IS A STRANGER Strangeness in the world is a synonymous doctrine to holiness… |
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“By faith, Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing wither he went. By faith he sojourned in a land of promise, as in a strange country, dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise: For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose Builder and Maker is God… These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. For they that say such tings declare plainly that they seek a country. And truly, if they had been mindful of that country from whence they came out, they might have had opportunity to have returned. But now they desire a better country, that is, an heavenly: Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for He hath prepared for them a city.” (Heb. 11:8-11, 13-16)
“Dearly beloved, I beseech you, as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul.” (1 Peter 2:11) – “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32) while “looking for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). – “be watchful” (Rev. 3:1-3) – “denying ungodliness and worldly lusts…godly in this present world; Looking for” (Titus. 2:11-14) – “…all holy conversation and godliness…looking for and hasting” (2 Peter 3:11-12) – “watch and be sober” (1 Thess. 5:6) – “having a desire to depart” (Php. 1:23) – Groaning, earnestly desiring, and burdened “that mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Cor. 5:1-4). “And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.” (Lk. 21:28) |
A Perfect Stranger
Perfect Strangeness ----------------------------------------------------------------- God is a Stranger; and he that dwelleth in strangeness dwelleth in God, and God in him. “walk before Me and be thou perfect” (Gen. 17:1-2). Abraham is the fulfillment of perfection by strangeness. “Thou shalt be perfect with the LORD thy God” (Deut. 18:13). Those that followed in Abraham’s ways were also perfect with God in the strangeness of their calling, therefore, after Abraham’s strangeness, there came the commandment for Israelite strangeness in the conquest of Canaan. The Israelites had to keep holy strangeness from the native Canaanites among whom they were going to dwell. “A perfect heart” and “a perfect way” is described in Psalm 101:1-8. David, arisen after Joshua’s land-conquering generation, still exemplifies the doctrine of strangeness in perfection with God, here now in the paradigm of the established Kingdom in David’s rule. “perfecting holiness” (2 Cor. 7:1). Holiness is strangeness and it must be perfected, thus also the OT showed the necessity of perfection in the land our House of God. THE LAND - “For the upright shall dwell in the land, and the perfect shall remain in it” (Prov. 2:21). THE HOUSE OF GOD - “Holiness becometh thine house, O LORD, for ever” (Ps. 93:5), and, “so the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, and strengthened it” (2 Chron. 24:13). |
GOD IS A STRANGER – He is an enemy and alien to this world, and when we walk in Him we will be “as He is”. God is otherworldly because He is not of this world. Why? It is written, “The whole world lieth in wickedness” (1 John 5:19). Contradicting this world are those twice-born Christians who were born of another world. Therefore they are not “of the world" (1 John 2:16, 4:5). They are free from the “pollutions of the world” (2 Peter 2:20), and this is because they are “of God” (1 John 5:19), or, “of the Father” (1 John 2:16). To be a stranger is to be born from another origin than that of this world’s natives who are countrymen of carnality. They are natural men, born “of blood”, and they need to be born into a family of lineage that is “of God” (1 John 1:13), thus it is written that we are hated, otherworldly strangers, suffering in this world but ruling in “the world to come” (Mark. 10:30, Lk. 18:30, Heb. 2:5, 6:5). To be a stranger is to be a man in a foreign land, far away from what is called home. A traveler is not a treasurer. They are far away from what they call “treasure” (Matt. 6:21). All their time here on earth is but “sojourning” (1 Pet. 1:17) – “this world is not my home, I’m just a-passing through, my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue” (“This World is Not My Home”, Jim Reeves).
If you are rejected by this world, then you are worthy to be received by God (2 Thess. 1:4-5). If you can be “heard” by this world, and you “hear” them, then you cannot “hear” God or His people, comparatively as if you and they speak a different language or a foreign tongue, and everything is rendered strange. If you are ashamed of God, then He will be ashamed of you, but if you confess, live in, and preach God, then this world will be ashamed of you. Christians “desire a better country” than this world and do therefore confess the Lord, “wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God” (Matt. 10:32-40, Heb. 11:16). To be “godly in this present world” (Titus 2:11-14) is to be anti-god against “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) – “as lights in the world” (Php 2:15) against the “rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12).
For this reason, if we walk in the flesh by denying the gospel call (Gal. 5:24-25, 6:14), then we become friends with the world, and also, enemies and adulterers to God (James 4:4). We must not be friends with the devil, who is “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), who also is called the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). If we make friends with him, then the devil’s spirit will work in us. Then, we are not “obedient children” of 1 Peter 1:14, but rather, we are the “disobedient children” of Ephesians 2:2. If we are friends with God, we are enemies of the devil, and if the devil’s spirit rules in this world, therefore is the world full of the chaos of carnality, while we, the anarchists against the devil’s tyranny, are those holy ones who are not “taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). As for the devil’s sinful world, love it not, or else it is adultery to God (Jas. 4:4)! A stranger does therefore know no man, as chaste “virgins” (2 Cor. 11:2-4, Rev. 14:4), for we are preserved for heaven’s Bridegroom. All those that indulge in carnality rather than spirituality will die (Rom. 8:13). Strangers are those that do not –this is our “strangeness” (1 Pet. 4:1-4) – that we “abstain from fleshly lusts”, because “God is Spirit” (John 4:24) and not flesh! “No flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. 1:29). “We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Php. 3:3), the “true worshippers” of God (John 5:23).
New creatures (2 Cor. 5:21) walk in the “new man” (Col. 3:10), which is “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4) in Jesus’ living Person and “name” (Col. 3:17), therefore all such persons are strangers in a world of fallen men. New men belong to a new world, the “new Jerusalem” (Rev. 21:2), the “new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1), where dwelleth Him Who said, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). God is “holy, holy, holy” (Rev. 4:8), His Spirit is a “Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 4:8), and those that walk in Him are “holy” (Heb. 12:48), therefore they are not strangers, but citizens and friends of “the holy city” (Rev. 21:2), for none other “may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev. 22:14). “There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth” (Rev. 21:27). God is a Holy Spirit, The Stranger of this unholy world, and so are all those that live and move in Him. Therefore the world does “think it strange that” we “run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil” (1 Peter 4:4), but this is no surprise! We should “think it not strange” (1 Peter 4:12) that they are offended at our strangeness. Christian, the world is “where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is” (Rev. 2:13), but you are “made” to “sit together” with Christ (Eph. 2:6) “far above all principality and power” (Eph. 1:21), therefore you must walk according to another King’s Reigning Rule – “that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21). If we “walk as men” (1 Cor. 3:3), then we do walk in sin, but if we “walk in Him” (Col. 2:6), then we will walk contrary to every earthly rule (Php. 3:16-21). Therefore a Christian has “a desire to depart” rather than stay on earth (Php. 1:23), because, to look to God is to look away from this world, and again, to look for the world to come “wherein dwelleth righteousness” is to look away from this world wherein dwelleth sin (2 Peter 3:13).
God is a stranger, so that the world knows Him not (1 John 3:1). If you are saved, it is because you have come to know Him Who the world does not know (1 John 2:4), and how many will come before the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom and boldly declare, “open up the doors of entrance for me”, and why? The Kingdom of God is what they sang about, stood praying unto heretofore, and then at last, they arise to claim their eternal crown that is their own, and, lo, alas! He that sitteth upon the Throne of Grace, He that unctionizes every man unto a bold approach into heaven’s holy ground, even He saith unto them – “I know you not” – “and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and He shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence are” (Lk. 13:25).
If you are rejected by this world, then you are worthy to be received by God (2 Thess. 1:4-5). If you can be “heard” by this world, and you “hear” them, then you cannot “hear” God or His people, comparatively as if you and they speak a different language or a foreign tongue, and everything is rendered strange. If you are ashamed of God, then He will be ashamed of you, but if you confess, live in, and preach God, then this world will be ashamed of you. Christians “desire a better country” than this world and do therefore confess the Lord, “wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God” (Matt. 10:32-40, Heb. 11:16). To be “godly in this present world” (Titus 2:11-14) is to be anti-god against “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4) – “as lights in the world” (Php 2:15) against the “rulers of the darkness of this world” (Eph. 6:12).
For this reason, if we walk in the flesh by denying the gospel call (Gal. 5:24-25, 6:14), then we become friends with the world, and also, enemies and adulterers to God (James 4:4). We must not be friends with the devil, who is “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), who also is called the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph. 2:2). If we make friends with him, then the devil’s spirit will work in us. Then, we are not “obedient children” of 1 Peter 1:14, but rather, we are the “disobedient children” of Ephesians 2:2. If we are friends with God, we are enemies of the devil, and if the devil’s spirit rules in this world, therefore is the world full of the chaos of carnality, while we, the anarchists against the devil’s tyranny, are those holy ones who are not “taken captive by him at his will” (2 Tim. 2:26). As for the devil’s sinful world, love it not, or else it is adultery to God (Jas. 4:4)! A stranger does therefore know no man, as chaste “virgins” (2 Cor. 11:2-4, Rev. 14:4), for we are preserved for heaven’s Bridegroom. All those that indulge in carnality rather than spirituality will die (Rom. 8:13). Strangers are those that do not –this is our “strangeness” (1 Pet. 4:1-4) – that we “abstain from fleshly lusts”, because “God is Spirit” (John 4:24) and not flesh! “No flesh should glory in His presence” (1 Cor. 1:29). “We are the circumcision which worship God in the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh” (Php. 3:3), the “true worshippers” of God (John 5:23).
New creatures (2 Cor. 5:21) walk in the “new man” (Col. 3:10), which is “newness of life” (Rom. 6:4) in Jesus’ living Person and “name” (Col. 3:17), therefore all such persons are strangers in a world of fallen men. New men belong to a new world, the “new Jerusalem” (Rev. 21:2), the “new heaven and a new earth” (Rev. 21:1), where dwelleth Him Who said, “Behold, I make all things new” (Rev. 21:5). God is “holy, holy, holy” (Rev. 4:8), His Spirit is a “Holy Spirit” (1 Thess. 4:8), and those that walk in Him are “holy” (Heb. 12:48), therefore they are not strangers, but citizens and friends of “the holy city” (Rev. 21:2), for none other “may enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev. 22:14). “There shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth” (Rev. 21:27). God is a Holy Spirit, The Stranger of this unholy world, and so are all those that live and move in Him. Therefore the world does “think it strange that” we “run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil” (1 Peter 4:4), but this is no surprise! We should “think it not strange” (1 Peter 4:12) that they are offended at our strangeness. Christian, the world is “where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is” (Rev. 2:13), but you are “made” to “sit together” with Christ (Eph. 2:6) “far above all principality and power” (Eph. 1:21), therefore you must walk according to another King’s Reigning Rule – “that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 5:21). If we “walk as men” (1 Cor. 3:3), then we do walk in sin, but if we “walk in Him” (Col. 2:6), then we will walk contrary to every earthly rule (Php. 3:16-21). Therefore a Christian has “a desire to depart” rather than stay on earth (Php. 1:23), because, to look to God is to look away from this world, and again, to look for the world to come “wherein dwelleth righteousness” is to look away from this world wherein dwelleth sin (2 Peter 3:13).
God is a stranger, so that the world knows Him not (1 John 3:1). If you are saved, it is because you have come to know Him Who the world does not know (1 John 2:4), and how many will come before the gates of God’s eternal Kingdom and boldly declare, “open up the doors of entrance for me”, and why? The Kingdom of God is what they sang about, stood praying unto heretofore, and then at last, they arise to claim their eternal crown that is their own, and, lo, alas! He that sitteth upon the Throne of Grace, He that unctionizes every man unto a bold approach into heaven’s holy ground, even He saith unto them – “I know you not” – “and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, Lord, open unto us; and He shall answer and say unto you, I know you not whence are” (Lk. 13:25).