Sharing the happiness of God, part 5; Cosmic #1; John 15:11Title: Sharing the happiness of God, part 5; John 15:11.
Room #19: The arrogance of emotion. This is the irrationality of emotion dominating the thinking in an arrogant person.
This is illustrated by the tongues movement in which arrogance divorces itself from the reality of Bible doctrine and emotion dominates the soul.
Emotional arrogance not only eliminates rational thinking but results in total preoccupation with self related to emotion. This becomes the basis for involvement in such things as drug abuse, hedonism, spirituality by ecstatic (tongues, drinking poison, handling snakes, second anointing, feeling spiritual, etc.)
Knowledge of doctrine is the environment for thinking, not emotion. Emotion should only be a responder to thinking the truth in certain situations.
If emotion finally controls your soul you no longer have the ability to think either rationally or even irrationally. Emotional arrogance converts reality into illusion and hallucination; therefore it fantasizes and always collapses under pressure. People who fantasize cannot take pressure.
Room #20: The arrogance of pseudo generosity. This finds a person giving or being generous because of his preoccupation with himself; his desire for attention, approbation, to ingratiate himself with others, or to buy happiness or friendship.
The principle of genuine generosity is found in 2 Corinthians 9:7.
2 Cor 9:7 Let each one do just as he has purposed in his heart; not grudgingly or under compulsion; for God loves a cheerful giver.
The function of genuine generosity is found in 2 Corinthians 9:11 which says you will be enriched in all things because of your generosity of mind.
2 Cor 9:11 you will be enriched in everything for all liberality, which through us is producing thanksgiving to God.
Generosity, therefore, is in the soul, not in the overt function.
Generosity is a mental attitude rather than a function in giving. But arrogance ignores the soul and distorts generosity into a system which satisfies preoccupation with self.
Room #21: The arrogance of Christian service where there is loss of momentum in the spiritual life from rejection of doctrine, but not from rejection of Christian production.
You cannot bear fruit unless you abide in the vine. Abiding in Christ by remaining in the sphere of love, your very own PPOG, must be established before any legitimate Christian service can be rendered.
The daily function of metabolizing doctrine is designed for your own personal momentum. Learning doctrine is momentum, not “doing things for God.”
Legitimate Christian service often becomes distraction to one’s momentum because eventually there is a conflict between learning doctrine and service, and when service wins out you move into Room #21 where you fail to take care of your own vineyard while you attempt to execute your spiritual life through works and service. You will quickly burn out and become miserable.
It’s a terrible and painful thing to lose momentum. When Christian service becomes a distraction to the perception of doctrine then loss of momentum not only destroys your spiritual life but the quality of Christian production as well.
The perpetuation of Christian service either inside or outside the local church, when not accompanied by the perpetuation of learning doctrine, results in the arrogance of Christian service.
Arrogance emphasizes production and service to the exclusion of doctrinal inculcation.
Arrogance, therefore, destroys the true priorities in the Christian life. There is a place, and there should be a place, for anyone to serve the Lord who has momentum. But service without momentum from daily metabolization of doctrine is the disaster of becoming involved in cosmic one.
Room #22: The arrogance of discouragement. This is preoccupation with self under the circumstances of pressure and testing.
If you easily become discouraged under pressure then you keep decorating this room.
Adversity and unexplained disaster in the life often tempts the believer into a state of self-pity or preoccupation with self known as discouragement. The death of a loved one, the loss of wealth, of fame, unfair treatment, unjust criticism, being misunderstood or maligned, can lead very easily to the arrogance of discouragement which is an intensification of self-pity. This was Elijah’s problem in 1 Kings 19:10; it was Peter’s problem in Matthew 26:58.
1 Kings 19:1Now Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword.
1 Kings 19:2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, "So may the gods do to me and even more, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by tomorrow about this time."
1 Kings 19:3 And he was afraid and arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there.
1 Kings 19:4 But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness, and came and sat down under a juniper tree; and he requested for himself that he might die, and said, "It is enough; now, O Lord, take my life, for I am not better than my fathers."
1 Kings 19:5 And he lay down and slept under a juniper tree; and behold, there was an angel touching him, and he said to him, "Arise, eat."
1 Kings 19:6 Then he looked and behold, there was at his head a bread cake baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. So he ate and drank and lay down again.
1 Kings 19:7 And the angel of the Lord came again a second time and touched him and said, "Arise, eat, because the journey is too great for you."
1 Kings 19:8 So he arose and ate and drank, and went in the strength of that food forty days and forty nights to Horeb, the mountain of God.
1 Kings 19:9 Then he came there to a cave, and lodged there; and behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
1 Kings 19:10 And he said, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, torn down Thine altars and killed Thy prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away."
1 Kings 19:11 So He said, "Go forth, and stand on the mountain before the Lord." And behold, the Lord was passing by! And a great and strong wind was rending the mountains and breaking in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
1 Kings 19:12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of a gentle blowing.
1 Kings 19:13 And it came about when Elijah heard it, that he wrapped his face in his mantle, and went out and stood in the entrance of the cave. And behold, a voice came to him and said, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
1 Kings 19:14 Then he said, "I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of hosts; for the sons of Israel have forsaken Thy covenant, torn down Thine altars and killed Thy prophets with the sword. And I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away."
1 Kings 19:15 And the Lord said to him, "Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus, and when you have arrived, you shall anoint Hazael king over Aram;
1 Kings 19:16 and Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint king over Israel; and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint as prophet in your place.
1 Kings 19:17 And it shall come about, the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael, Jehu shall put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu, Elisha shall put to death.
1 Kings 19:18 Yet I will leave 7,000 in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal and every mouth that has not kissed him."
Matt 26:75 And he went out and wept bitterly.
This is the room of pressure without doctrinal momentum.
Room #23: The arrogance of lust. When legitimate desire is linked with arrogance the result is lust. Lust is a word which is taken from the Gothic ‘lustis,’ an abstract noun for inordinate desire.
We have learned that nothing is evil in and of itself. It is how we perceive a thing that makes it evil. A stone is not evil, but if I use it to murder a man or engrave it and bow down to it as a god then it is evil.
No legitimate desire is evil. The desire for sexual gratification, to be liked or loved, to eat chocolate, to laugh or to make others laugh, to socialize, etc. are not evil until they become inordinate at which point they become unrestrained lust.
Inordinate means unrestrained, unregulated, hence used with desire it converts normal desire into lust.
And just as humility is normal and arrogance is abnormal so desire is normal and lust is abnormal. Lust is an arrogant preoccupation with one’s self in the field of desire.
Room #24: Pseudo intellectual arrogance. This is the arrogance of superimposing human IQ over spiritual IQ. Arrogance accepts the human viewpoint of life and rejects the divine viewpoint.
Without the truth of Bible doctrine as the absolute of life intellectualism is meaningless and becomes even very harmful. Pseudo intellectual arrogance either glorifies human speculation to the exclusion of Bible doctrine or it seeks to reconcile Bible doctrine with false concepts of academic speculation.
Eccl 2:15 Then I said to myself, "As is the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely wise?" So I said to myself, "This too is vanity."
Eccl 2:16 For there is no lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die!
Eccl 2:17 So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.
Eccl 2:18 Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me.
Solomon is out of fellowship. Divine good production is not left behind but taken with you and it will be the source of reward at the evaluation before Christ.
Eccl 2:19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity.
Eccl 2:20 Therefore I completely despaired of all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under the sun.
Eccl 2:21 When there is a man who has labored with wisdom, knowledge and skill, then he gives his legacy to one who has not labored with them. This too is vanity and a great evil.
Eccl 2:22 For what does a man get in all his labor and in his striving with which he labors under the sun?
Eccl 2:23 Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is vanity.
Eccl 12:12 But beyond this, my son, be warned: the writing of many books is endless, and excessive devotion to books is wearying to the body.
Room #25: Pseudo love arrogance. This is the attempt of anyone to duplicate the principle or function of personal love with the foundation of virtue love while residing in the cosmic system.
Pseudo love arrogance is an act where a person knows some of the characteristics of divine love and attempts to mimic them while hiding his lack of momentum and bankrupt virtue. He does this in the hope that he will find the happiness of relationship and true love. True love, God’s love cannot be faked and it cannot be duplicated by any human means. If you want the happiness of love then you have to walk in the light.
The actor and the mimicker will always be found out eventually. No one should get married until they are as certain as they can be that their mate is not involved in this.
Song 6:13 "Come back, come back, O Shulammite; Come back, come back, that we may gaze at you!"
Room #26: The function of suicide. This is the ultimate arrogance, a total preoccupation with self. A permanent locked-in self-centeredness motivates one to take one’s life. It is the ultimate in disorientation to life. |