Evening And Morning: 4
By George H. Warnock
"The wind goeth toward the south, and turneth about unto the north; it whirleth about continually, and the wind returneth again according to his circuits." The same old wind going through its various circuits! Yes, but not really so. It blows in one direction as the north wind. Then it completes the cycle, becomes the south wind, and blows back from whence it started. God's order is first darkness, then light. First chaos, then order. First barrenness, then fruitfulness. First weakness, then power. First death, then life. Never have we heard so much about positive living as we have in the past decade or two, and never has there been so much frustration amongst God's people. We have come to believe, somehow. that anything that speaks of coldness, or barrenness, or fruitlessness is from the Devil and must be strenuously resisted. We are encouraged to reach forth and grasp the glory, and the power, and the victory. and the fruit of the Spirit. The fact is we are negative by nature, and victory is not ours by blindly refusing to acknowledge our own futility, and vainly attempting to arouse some secret potential of our character within. This might have its place in the realm of this world system, but not in the realm of God. God is consistently seeking to bring us to the place where we recognize the utter nothingness and futility of our whole being and way of life by nature, For it is in the full recognition of all that we are in the realm of weakness and failure that we may reach out and grasp hold of the Divine promises. It is only when Jacob is smitten in the place of strength, "in the hollow of his thigh" that he finally submits to defeat, and clings to the angel of God, And it is only in his defeat, and in clinging to the angel after his defeat, that his name is changed from one of weakness to one of POWER WITH GOD.
The North Wind
The north wind will certainly strip us--leaving a veritable picture of frustration and defeat in its wake. What a sorry sight it is to behold the barren fruit trees in the orchard, like so much firewood, with the turning of the seasons and the blowing of the north wind. But we are not too alarmed about it in the realm of Nature--even though we do not like it. Nor should we be too alarmed about it in the realm of the New Creation. We accept the seasons, as periods of Divine provision, and we embrace each winter season as a PROMISE. Each winter is a promise of springtime and life. I mean it is a promise from God's Word. For He hath said, "While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease" (Gen. 8:22).
Therefore the songwriter says, "Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out" (Song 4:16). Notice the order once again: first the north wind, and then the south. First the cold, then the heat. First the snow, then the warm rains of spring. "He giveth snow like wool; he scattereth the hoarfrost like ashes. He casteth forth his ice like morsels: who can stand before his cold?" (Psa. 147:16, 17). It is the blowing of the north wind, But it is still the Word of God. The north wind bringing the snow and ice was because of "his commandment upon the earth." But it was not intended to destroy, but to prepare... to prepare for the day of spring when the south wind would blow and melt the snow and the ice and the frost, and cause the waters to flow in the River of God.
Truth And History
When will the Church of Christ realize that the restoration of Truth is not merely the repetition of history? Truth is certainly related to history, because it is related to mankind. But Truth is eternal in nature. It springs from eternity, proceeds to do a work in time, and culminates back in eternity. As creatures destined for eternity, and possessors of eternal life, we must feed upon the eternal principles of Truth, and not merely upon certain historical facts which are recorded in the Scriptures. It is not enough to see how truth was manifest in the days of Moses, or of Aaron, or of David, or even in the early Church. We certainly receive the Truth as it related to them, but we must follow the Spirit of Truth as He would continue to unfold the glory of Christ in His relation to us today, and our relation to Him in eternity. Therefore, as we look into the inspired records of history, and feed upon the Truth that we discover there, we have no thought in mind of attempting to restore some historical structure of the Kingdom of God as we have known it in the past. Rather we desire that the Lord should bring into being in our own lives, and in the Body of Christ, that structure of the Kingdom which pertains to us here and now, according to our place in the circle of His eternal purpose. Therefore, bearing in mind that we are living in the ends of the ages, we are persuaded that any realm of Christian experience that falls short of the Divine ultimate in our lives or in the Body of Christ, though perhaps having had its place as a temporary expedient, must eventually and very shortly give way to the Divine ultimate. This divine ultimate we must state here and now to be nothing less than full conformity to the image of His Son, where He abides in us in all His fulness, and His Love is PERFECTED in us.
