Psalms 116:7 Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.
There is no rest for the Christian but at the feet of Jesus; when we live near Him, and exercise our faith upon Him, we are at rest. Conscience is silent or commends us. The law has nothing to say against us. Walking close to the Lord, the world has but little influence over us; and Satan is powerless to do us harm. But if we wander away, we become weak and lose courage; and darkness, perplexity, and trouble fill our minds. But we may return, for Jesus is still inviting us; we must return or we cannot enjoy peace; let us therefore return unto our rest this morning. –Daily Remembrancer November 30 Morning
In 1974 I left off further education, deciding not to continue to do a PhD then but rather to follow God. See From a saved Christian to disciple of Christ–my testimony Part II.
I remember the feeling at the time of utter exhilaration of finding the Lord’s path, to follow and serve Him; to go out into the world with essentially nothing but Christ.
Now jumping 20 years to the 1990s; for several years I considered returning to university to do a PhD. I was thinking then to use that for God’s glory and to influence others with God’s Truth. In late 1996 I decided to return to do a PhD. Through a strange set of circumstances, on a Christmas holiday trip to Perth, Western Australia, after living for more than a decade in Sydney, it seemed that a way had opened up at the same university I had left 23 years prior. But God’s ways are so different from our ways.
Now I see that that was like returning to the old life that once I had forsaken to follow the Lord.
Luke 14:33 So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.
It was my pride, spiritual pride. I was puffed up seeking extra knowledge and I felt this strongly, so much so I wrote in a personal note to myself in 2012:
…that has just about killed me. Such spiritual deception! (Ecclesiastes 12:12) I now again stand firm on His Word.
By getting back into God’s Word, which I found in the Geneva and the King James Bibles, I found strength to return to my first love. That is not worldly knowledge but the Lord Jesus Christ. I found the spiritual strength I had lacked in the Word of God – and I found that in those Bibles, not in the other weak so-called modern translations, which supposedly came from learned men reading the “original” Greek and Hebrew texts (when the manuscripts no longer exist).
I confess I had lost the power of my Lord when I compromised His wonderful Word in so many areas of my life. His Word in the KJV Bible had kept me inspired and witnessing daily for Him for over 20 years but I had compromised with the churches who are Laodicean (Revelations 3:14-19)—so lukewarm. They need to open their doors and let Jesus in (Revelations 3:20).
I find it very hard to believe a regenerate Christian, who has read Genesis 1-3, can believe in Darwinian evolution, big bang or any other cosmic evolutionary nonsense. At a minimum a saved person will be tormented within, else he does not have the Holy Spirit. The reason: God’s Word says so (Isaiah 8:20).
It is a sin of pride to lift up man’s knowledge to even believe one is casting some new light on God’s Word. I only feel shame that I went down that path.
1Corinthians 1:26 For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:
I was seeking new knowledge, like seeking a high on some drug. But it is sin, it is dead works. I know nothing – only God be true and His Word. Let me reiterate, I believe, it is not by man’s authority, but by God’s authority from His Word that we have any truth.
Jesus chose me; He saved me. “… and without shedding of blood is no remission.” (Hebrews 9:22) Christ ‘borned’ me again forever. Without this testimony I stand for nothing, I will not withhold this. Everything good in me is Christ. I am nothing. If I say or think I had anything to do with it I am a liar and those words or thoughts are nothing but dung.
Only the Bible can interpret the Bible. And those puffed up ‘holy’ men in the bible colleges and cemeteries who refer to the so-called “original” Hebrew and Greek are committing the biggest sin of all. A sincere heart before God (Micah 6:8) and a fist full of scriptures will do more to understand them, with guidance from the Holy Spirit, than all the bible college professors put together. Oh, they love to rely on the authority of man.
Psalms 84:10 I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.
The ‘dwelling in the tents of wickedness,’ is what I was doing in my vain attempt in going back into the university system. For me science equals man’s knowledge and that has been the big temptation from the Devil.
But God did not like it and He sent me on a wild goose chase. The more I leaned the more I realized I did not know. It was pride and arrogance to believe I could find a true model of the creation of the universe. Or that even more so, that God would have revealed it to reprobate sinners. Here I refer to Moshe Carmeli’s cosmology, which I had put hopes in. In 2012 I wrote in my notes:
His fifth dimension does not make sense – never did. The mathematics works in some areas but fundamentally the concept of velocity of expansion of space as another dimension does not make sense.
I don’t even know if the universe is expanding or ever did. It seems that it is outside of man’s science to even know this. To read into the Scriptures “expansion of the cosmos” is pride and arrogance of the first degree.
I once wrote an article on the meaning, as I understood it, of the scriptures on cosmological expansion. One so-called bible scholar retorted in an email that, with his 40 years of scholarship, he could easily judge that that article would never see the light of day in a real journal. But all believers are sinners with minds subject to sin. Only by revelation can we know truth apart from what is already written.
And to think that it means that a person needs to go and get a PhD in order to tell a group of “Christians” to reject the big bang (and evolution) is ludicrous because it is setting up that person as an authority, apart from the Lord.
Psalms 14:3 They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Only Christ has those answers, and He gave them in His written Word. I was deceived by devilish thinking that I could add to what He has written. (Revelations 22:18)
Genesis 3:1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made…
Maybe that is why Sir Isaac Newton spent decades studying God’s Word and only a few years in science – man’s religion. He spent 27 years at Trinity College (Cambridge, England) but was inspired to study more and write more on the Scriptures than he ever did on science.
O Jesus Lord, to Thee we come. Receive Thy wandering sheep, restore unto us the joy of Thy salvation, and let us find rest at Thy cross. O, to rest on Thy faithful word, with Thy faithful people! To rest from slavish fear, worldly care, and distressing anxiety; to rest in Thy boundless love, satisfied with the dispensations of Thy special providence. Return, return, my soul from all your wanderings, and find your rest in Jesus, your faithful Friend and Saviour. Sweet assurance: “He will receive us graciously.” O Jesus, be my rest, and the strength of my soul this day! –Daily Remembrancer November 30 Morning
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