PRACTICAL PERSPICACITY

I Was Just Thinking About - - - 

There are all kinds of cliches and adages that are familiar to most of us. One pertains to whether or not we see the cup as being half empty versus visualizing it as being half full. We live in a day when many people whose thinking is more influenced by what is reported in the daily news than that which is recorded in The Good News, the Holy Scriptures. News Headlines are designed to do two primary things: (a) Capture the attention of a person, and (b) Convey a point of view of the media source. If one chooses to live by the Headlines of men, he will be easily dismayed by the events being reported. Any practical perspicacity is either neglected or short-circuited in ones thinking. Valid perspicacity means: “keenness of mental perception and understanding; discernment; penetration.” Some of the synonyms are: shrewdness and insight.

In an entry by This Day in PCA History records an insight from J. Gresham Machen in the Alps, 1935. In Words to Live By, Machen wrote:  “God will, in His own good time, bring forward great men again to do His will, great men who will resist the tyranny of experts and lead humanity out again into the realms of light and freedom, great men, above all, who will be messengers of His grace. There is, far above any earthly mountain peak of vision, a God high and lifted up who, though He is infinitely exalted, yet cares for His children among men."

However, in the interval there will be times similar to those indicated in II Kings 17:7-11 (NASB), “Now this came about because the sons of Israel had sinned against the Lord their God, who had brought them up from the land of Egypt from under the hand of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and they had feared other gods and walked in the customs of the nations whom the Lord had driven out before the sons of Israel, and in the customs of the kings of Israel which they had introduced. The sons of Israel did things secretly which were not right against the Lord their God. Moreover, they built for themselves high places in all their towns, from watchtower to fortified city…and they did evil things provoking the Lord.” In the Biblical History of Israel, periodically there were times of captivity that would have to be endured by those known as God’s people. A few of the major captivities they experienced were Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Roman. In and through all of them, the Sovereign God was in complete control and had made provision for the redemption and deliverance of His people.

Where are we in this day and time? Are we in the last days? Have we entered into the “birth pangs” referenced by Jesus Christ in Matthew 24? In terms of practical perspicacity, are we on the threshold of II Thessalonians 2:7-12 (NASB)? The passage relates the following: “For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work; only he who now restrains will do so until he is taken out of the way. Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming; that is, the one whose coming is in accord with the activity of Satan, with all power and signs and false wonders, and with all the deception of wickedness for those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth so as to be saved. For this reason God will send upon them a deluding influence so that they will believe what is false, in order that they all may be judged who did not believe the truth, but took pleasure in wickedness.” The Sovereign God is not detached from His Creation or the events of our day. Regardless of the degree of desperateness that may ensue in our lifetime, be encouraged by the words of II Thessalonians 2:16-17 (NASB), “Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word.” Consider these things with me!