Let Nature Take Its Course - Homer Kizer Ministries

June 20, 2005 ©Homer Kizer
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Commentary — From the Margins

“Let Nature Take Its Course”

From a friend in the Copper Center area, I received the following e-mail message, along with four photos of the moose calf. The story is of interest itself, but it also reflects the current stage of greater Christianity:

I wrote this story for the local paper. They picked photo No. 20 to go with the story. Thought you might be interested in the story and pictures. We called the Alaska Dept of Fish and Game. They told us to let nature take its course. Vic

DESERTION OR FOUL PLAY

By Vic Bruss

We received a call about noon...come over, if you want some pictures. We hastily gathered up some camera gear and a few other things, and drove the seven miles to Craig and Cathy Michael's place on the Old Edgerton. They had a little moose calf in their yard and the mother wasn't around.

This little guy was about a month old. He was in good condition and looked healthy, he but wasn't very happy. His mother evidently left him by the burn-barrel and told him to stay. He was, there, by the barrel, most of the afternoon. Some times he ventured into the woods a short way, then always came back. Some times he scampered down the trail toward the swamp, bleating, calling for his mama; starring in the direction she evidently left. Then he would, slowly make his way back to the burn-barrel. Hour after hour he waited...and called, but to no avail. His mama never came back. He was gone in the evening, but the next morning he was back. What could have happened to her?

Only two possibilities are obvious: She was a poor mother and just walked away from her little calf, or she may have crossed paths with a grizzly. I can't believe she just walked away. She took very good care of the little guy for three or four weeks...why would she just desert him now? As far as bears; there have been two in their yard recently. I suspect foul play. Story and photo by permission of Vic Bruss.

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Let Nature take its course—what will happen to the calf if nature takes its course? The calf is still nursing, still needing its mother’s milk.

Spiritual birth differs from human birth, or from the birth of a moose calf. It is of another dimension, and it occurs prior to receipt of a glorified or imperishable body. The timelessness of the heavenly realm doesn’t permit the type of change seen in the physical maturation of, say, a moose calf. A son of God is born-from-above into the perishable body of a human being through receipt of the Breath of God [Pneuma ’Agion]. This son, which is neither male nor female, now matures through the ingestion of the milk of the Word, and the exercise of righteousness. The son will initially be as spiritually awkward as this moose calf was when first born, but with practice, this son will become spiritually as this calf moose is physically. Cute, certainly. A tough little guy, apparently. Obedient, hopefully. But still a baby, needing milk and its mother’s instruction and protection.

Let nature take its course—the calf won’t make it on its own; it’s too young. And without its mother, it won’t learn the skills necessary to survive bears and winter storms. It will only live as a photograph, arrested in time when it was still strong.

How many newly born or infant disciples are there, each calling for their mother who has left them standing beside a burning barrel named Grace? Left them to die the second death. Abandonment or foul play? I suspect foul play. I suspect the lawlessness of early converts, poorly discipled or not discipled at all, placed the Church on the same spiritual path that physically circumcised Israel took to national captivity. And as the Lord delivered the circumcised nation into the hand of the physical king of Babylon, God gave the Church over to the spiritual king of Babylon that through the destruction of the flesh, the spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord (1 Cor 5:5).

Within Christianity, a false teaching exists that would have disciples believing the same lie that the serpent told to the first Eve: ‘“You will not surely die’” (Gen 3:4). The last Eve, created from a wound in the side of the last Adam (1 Cor 15:45 & John 19:34), succumbed to the blandishments of the old serpent, Satan the Adversary, and believed his lie that with spiritual birth comes everlasting life that cannot be lost, that disciples will not surely die. And that would be true in the timeless heavenly realm, where the existence of life and the absence of life cannot coexist in one body. The moment lasts and doesn’t become another moment. So in the heavenly realm what has life has everlasting life, for the moment is, itself, everlasting.

But disciples are not in the timeless heavenly realm, nor are the rebelling angels who have been imprisoned in outer darkness, nor will Satan be when he is cast to earth. Every living entity imprisoned in time will die—has no choice about eventually dying—for one moment becomes another. The presence of life at this moment can become the absence of the life in the next moment…the moose calf will die. If not by now, then this winter, or ten winters from now, or perhaps twenty winters from now. Eventually, the calf will return to the elements out of which it was conceived. Its breath will again become part of the arctic winds that chill the living and imprison the dead, until spring thaws resume the decaying process by which this glorious death chamber devours its inhabitants.

Let nature take its course—human beings are powerless to stop nature from taking its course, except within themselves if they have been born anew. Then, the old creature that each disciple was is crucified; i.e., nailed to Death where it will slowly weaken and suffocate. A new creature born of Spirit that is a son of God will dwell in the same tabernacle or tent of flesh into which the crucified old creature was born of the water of the womb. This new creature is an actual child of God, again, cute in the same way that all infants are. This child, though, will mature into spiritual adolescence, when it isn’t so cute but rather, is seen or judged by its obedience…if a moose calf can stay where its mother instructs it, why can’t disciples?

Jesus said, ‘“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets’” (Matt 5:17); so why does the vast majority of disciples believe as a major tenet of faith that Jesus abolished the Law? Why have disciples wandered away from the Law, or rather, fled from the Law? What is it that these disciples do not understand about the Laws of God being written on hearts and minds instead of on tablets of stone? What was outside the physically circumcised Israelite, beginning with his clipped foreskin on the eighth day, was with birth- from-above placed inside the spiritual Israelite.

A disciple born of Spirit has a circumcised heart and mind (Deu 10:16 & 30:6; Jer 31:33; Ezek 11:19 & 36:26-27; 2 Cor 3:3; Heb 8:10 & 10:16). A disciple is a spiritual Israelite, and is every bit as much under the laws of God written on the hearts and placed into the minds of disciples as a physically circumcised Israelite was under the old written code. The born anew creature isn’t the flesh, but a spiritual son of God dwelling to maturity in the tabernacle of flesh of the old man. This son of God dwells in the thoughts of the mind and in the desires of the heart. It isn’t, as one denomination teaches, a little angel received with physical birth. It isn’t, as many denominations teach, an immortal soul inherited from the first Adam through the physical breath of life. It is a new life that is not of this world. This is what Nicodemus didn’t understand; this is what the teachers of Israel today do not understand. And teachers unable to understand a physical analogy of spiritual birth are truly incapable of understanding spiritual things (John 3:10-12).

Nature has taken its course—the Church rebelled against God so long ago that tares are thought to be wheat, thereby assuring a future great rebellion (2 Thess 2:3) after disciples are liberated from bondage to sin. The firstborn son of the last Eve will, like that calf moose, bawl for its mother, then wander a ways away, then farther away, until it, too, is devoured by a lion or a bear or a four-winged leopard and by Death itself.

The law of God when written on a tablet of stone read, Thou shall not do murder. This law ruled the flesh, that is the hand, of the physically circumcised Israelite. The thoughts of this Israelite were the thoughts of the natural mind. The old written Law cleansed the outside of an earthenware cup. The cup itself remained full of defilement, abominations, bones of dead men. But under the second covenant mediated by Christ Jesus, the Law is written on the heart and placed into the mind—same Law. But when written on the heart, anger against a brother equates to murder by one’s hand. Lust by the mind equates to adultery committed by the body. Sabbath commandment now pertains to what the mind thinks and what the heart desires on the seventh day. The hand and body of the physically circumcised Israelite rested from work on the seventh day. The mind and heart of the spiritually circumcised Israelite also rests from his (or her) physical labor on the seventh day, but more so, the mind and heart are to pursue those things that are of the heavenly realm. Because the heavenly realm is timeless, God the Father works at those things that disciples are to do when they enter into His rest. They are to do good.

Rebellion against the Father can be nothing more than trying to enter His rest on the following day. For this reason, the nation that left Egyptian bondage died in the wilderness (Num 14:11, 35, 40-41; Ps 95:10-11; Heb 3:19 & 4:6). Their unbelief became rebellion. Likewise, the unbelief of the Church has become rebellion, in that the greater Church attempts to enter God’s rest on the following day. And when liberated from bondage to sin, the firstborn son of the last Eve will commit blasphemy against the Holy Spirit by returning to his lawlessness when he again attempts to enter God’s rest on the following day. The firstborn son of the last Eve will not stay beside the burning barrel, but will climb inside, thinking that he pleases God when the only one pleased is the spiritual king of Babylon, the prince of the power of the air, the prince of nature.

Let nature take it course—No! don’t let nature take its course, for if nature has its way, every firstborn son of the last Eve will die the second death. This firstborn son will murder his righteous brother, and will take upon himself the mark of Death. His righteous brother takes the sacraments at Passover and keeps the commandments of God.

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