Voice of the Kingfisher speaks out …from a different perspective
by Elinor Montgomery
August 25, 2012
It is to our shame as a people today, and to our ultimate destruction, that we ignore the first psalm of the Bible. By refusing to remain a nation, which stands on the truth of God, we become transformed into a nation of fools who will perish.
It tells us that blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. As a nation, we have elected ungodly leaders and then moan and groan about the choices we make. God gave us free will at creation to make such choices. He gave us the opportunity to choose our government and, in freedom, elect our leaders by exercising our vote.
In the Garden of Eden, man allowed God to be slandered; in Jerusalem, Israel allowed Jesus to be slandered; in America, we are allowing God and His Word, the Bible, to be slandered. Instead, we have been commanded to have a prayer life, study the Word of God, and give to Him our time and resources in service. This raises the issue about two very different groups of people – the godly and the ungodly.
Jesus clearly outlines the difference: “He who is not with Me is against Me (Matthew 12:30).” He who is with Him will confess His name to be Savior as the Son of God, which is the mark of His true church. It is not about His being just a nice man; He is our source of life. And so, we have the first group, the godly ones. They have a prayer life, they study the Word of God, and they serve the Lord in their daily lives.
Then, there is the second group of the ungodly; they stand in the path of sinners, they sit in the seat of the scornful, and they take no delight in the Law of the Lord. When we, as Americans, slander, we are not separated from the permissiveness of society, but rather accept and join it. We call adultery, partnering, a murdered child of God, an aborted fetus, a pathological liar, a charming scoundrel, and thieves, the money market financiers.
Does the counsel of the ungodly not smile upon the pursuit of happiness? It tells us that being morally good, regardless of whether or not God is in our lives, is our goal for having a fine reputation with man. Yet, this comes against everything Jesus teaches. He tells us that, as godly believers, we will be persecuted in the same way He was and they will see nothing in us worth listening to – “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you (John 15:18).” “If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you (John 15:20).”
Americans chase after the gambling casinos, the card tables, the sports arenas and their latest obsession, being that of web pornography. They are the scornful liberals who hate and damn the concept of Jesus as a Savior and cannot bear a “Bible thumper”. Perhaps, if the scorner were to thump the Bible a bit, himself, he would find his future written there in the name of Haman. This man thought God would ignore the scaffolding he built for Mordecai, the Jew, only to see God thunder from out of His throne room in fury and place Haman and his sons on the scaffolding, instead. Perhaps the scorners should not forget the fate of Jezebel, as well, who murdered the prophets of God, only to have God allow her corpse to be fed to the dogs. The wicked scorners do not escape His vengeful eye.
There are four major symbols in the Bible, which take us back to the Garden of creation. They are of such importance that they were declared from the beginning, just as they were declared in Psalm one. They are: the tree, the rivers of the water, the fruit in its season, and the leaf that shall not wither. These are the symbols for the blessed man of God who prospers in whatever he does and is restored to eternal life by way of the tree of life, the leaves of which will never wither.
Man is equated to a tree, which is planted by the rivers. The rivers are synonymous with the vine, or the spirit, which is in the blood – either that of life or that of death. It flows as life from the tree of life – from Jesus, or as death flows from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil – from Satan. As the water flows from above like a river, so flows the Spirit of life; as it flows through the empire-nation builders from beneath, so flows the spirit of death.
From the blessed tree of man where the branches receive their life from the Vine of the Spirit, Jesus, there will be nothing but light. The tree whose vine comes from beneath will be in utter and complete darkness. Do not think the eyes of the Lord are not roaming to and fro over the earth to find the special trees, which have branches into which He can pour His Spirit, making them the fruit-bearers of a union made in heaven between the Vine and the branch! There is no shame in this tree with the leaves that never wither, for the leaves are for the healing of the nations. These are as apostolic trees of a church married to Jesus, against which the gates of hell will not prevail, and before which all nations shall bow.
In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2).
And so, the leaf is planted on the flag of Canada, a nation on either side of a great river. In America’s failure, will a great light not be seen over this people who now are walking in darkness? Will a light not shine over those who dwell in the shadow of death, just as it shone over Israel some 2000 years ago (see Isaiah 9:2)? Is it not judgment time in America, as it is within the entire gentile world? The godly shall not fall in the judgment, for they have stood on the truth of God and in His grace. They shall shine forth their light like the stars of heaven.
But His story is coming to its conclusion, with that other group, the ungodly, having become like the chaff, which the wind drives away. They shall not stand on their foundations of religious idolatry and survive the judgment, for there are no sinners in the congregation of the righteous, not even one morally good person if he does not have the truth of God in him. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish (Psalm 1:6). The persecuted shall receive their just rewards, while, at the same time, the yawning mouth of hell shall open wide to claim its own – those who stand in the path of sinners and sit in the seat of the scornful.
Oh that America would read Psalm one and understand her precarious position at this time, as she stands on the brink of the cliff, perched at the very gates of hell, which are opening wide to claim her! Read the Psalm and eat it, for it will make the stomach bitter, though it will be as sweet as honey in the mouth (see Revelation 10:9).