the Four Loves: The Lion of Judah

Power.  Acclaim.  Influence.  Fame.  Privilege.  Freedom.

Pride.

Aye, there’s the rub.  For in my mind, Pride is the unforgivable sin.  

‘Now hold on there Baba Luey!’ you say, ‘I’m pretty sure the only unforgivable sin is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!’  And i’d say you are right and this is a rabbit trail except that it illustrates our point beautifully.  

The incident you are referring to is in Matthew 12 and Jesus has just driven out a demon, “And all the crowds were amazed and began saying, “Perhaps this one is the Son of David!” But the Pharisees, when they heard it, said, “This man does not expel demons except by Beelzebul the ruler of demons!””  The Holy Spirit has just testified with a display of power and a sign and a wonder that Jesus is the Son of David and that the Son of David is more than we imagined he was.  For the work of the Spirit is the glorifying of God the Father through the testimony and glorifying of Jesus the Son, “Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” (Rev 19)  The Pharisees see their power and influence challenged and they spread a counter gospel.  They preach what they hear their father preaching.  In their pride and their lust for power, they blaspheme against the Holy Spirit’s testimony.  

Satan thought himself a lion and so challenged God for control of the pride of heaven.  Archangel Mike tossed him on his tookus and he fell to earth and took control of the pride of earth, killing the cubs of his predecessor.  “Woe to the earth and to the sea,

    because the devil has come down to you,

having great anger,

    because he knows that he has little time!” (Rev 12)

Satan’s pride and lust for power are absolute in him.  There can be no forgiveness because, and this is key, because you rightly testify that Jesus’ blood and finished work and unfailing love can forgive ANY sin…

EXCEPT… the sin that never asks for forgiveness even in the face of God Himself.  

And there it is.  Pride won’t come to Jesus.  Pride won’t admit any god but itself.  

But God!  “So those who heard this said, “And who can be saved?” But he said, “What is impossible with men is possible with God.” (Luke 18)  Jesus can set the slaves and the prisoners free!  Yahweh humbles the proud!  Ask Nebuchadnezzar.  Ask Paul.  Jesus is Lord of…Lords!  Jesus is King of …Kings!  He is the Lion over all other lions and He is imminent!  

“The sun and the moon grow dark,

    and the stars have withheld their splendor.

And Yahweh roars from Zion;

    from Jerusalem he utters his voice,

and the heavens and the earth shake.”  (Joel 3)

The Day is coming and when it does…

“They will go after Yahweh;

        he roars like a lion.

When he roars,

    his children will come trembling

        from the sea.

They will tremble like birds from Egypt,

    and like doves from the land of Assyria;

and I will let them return to their homes—

    a declaration of Yahweh.” (Hosea 11)

“And one of the elders said to me, “Do not weep! Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.

And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders a Lamb standing as though slaughtered…” (Rev 5)

the Four Needs: Power

Undisturbed in the wild, i have it on pretty good authority over at National Geographic that the biggest threat to lions is other lions.  In his pride, a male lion is king…until another male comes along.  Should this new contender defeat the original, the first thing the new king does is kill the cubs of the old male.  The pride is now his.  The offspring will be too.  In my mind, and keep in yours that all of this is just my own thoughts, but i see Power as male.  Power is a maned Lion.  Even a woman who worships at the paws of Power subverts her femininity the deeper she goes.  

In his pride, Lucifer thought himself the equal of God.  Pride gave way to lust for power and he became deluded enough to vie for the throne.  Thrown down,  (not directly by God but by his servant Michael.  God has no challenger.) yet allowed to keep some semblance of authority, Satan set about killing the children of the King, the true Lion.  Being a serpent instead of a lion, he uses lies, incidentally, the same lies he himself believes.  “Has God really said…?  If you are the Son of God…?  God doesn’t love you.  God cannot be trusted.  For God knows that on the day you both eat from it, then your eyes will be opened and you both shall be like gods, knowing good and evil.”  He infected us with his own pride, for pride is subject to none.  The bait was swallowed, the fruit was eaten, the die was cast and we live with the lust for power, for godhood, roaring in our ears.  We died and became children of the Liar, sons of destruction, sons of disobedience.  We cannot bow to you, for we are gods.  We are lions.  We are kings!

A king loves comfort but he will sacrifice it for his honor, he will take to the warpath to prove his greatness.  A lion must have control but he’s perfectly happy to have servants do the work.  A god does not need your approval, he is god!  What he wants, needs (though he would never admit to so base a weakness), Deserves! is your fealty, your submission, your fear.

Your worship.  

As i found out for myself, He is not always easy to see.  For all his pride, the Lion does much of his work under cover of darkness.  Resting during the day when your eyes are upon him.  He may boast or he may prefer others boast about him.  He may need to be the center of attention or just prefer the center of attention to perform for him and by his leave.  He may lead the group; and the group may need to either be large or of high quality or he may be a hermit ruling a kingdom of one where he is unquestioned.  He may think of himself as a warrior, an apostle, a poet, a leader, a messiah, even a humble servant, almost anything, but he is above it all.  Above the petty needs and worries of the unwashed masses.  He may appear to listen intently as you pour your heart out to him but he is looking for his opportunity to pounce and pummel you with his logic, his vision, his opinion, his interests or his humorous anecdote which, let’s face it, is so much funnier than yours.   Even his needs and his problems are more important than yours, more urgent than others'.

Underneath it all is the power of shame and honor.  Love me or hate me but you must not ignore me.  And don’t you dare disrespect me!  More easily identified by what he fears: insignificance, shame, disgrace, embarrassment, losing face, being disdained, ignored, irrelevant.  When slighted, he cannot let it go.  He fantasizes imprecatory psalms.  If He prays, he prays as Samson.  If he pleads, it is something along the lines of, “O God, just don’t waste my time and talents.  Do not let me live an insignificant life!”

He can also be spotted by his reaction to these things, his governing emotion: Rage. He can forgive but only on his terms, only when it makes him more regal.  Anger seethes beneath his haughty expression, his manners, his ingratiating, his bullying, his opinions which must be presented as absolute truths, his casual advice which he expects to be followed, his service which must be praised, his deeds which must be held in awe.  Wrath, completely justified in his own eyes, for remember, he is king, he is the lion, he is a god, self-determined, self-righteous, lies in waiting for anyone who challenges his intelligence, his strength, his abilities, his talents, for any of these things may be the vessels of his pride.  His wisdom, his business savvy, his athleticism, his learning, his sexual prowess, his theology, the lion will spend his youth looking for the thing that makes him great, the thing he can do which others seem to struggle with and he will take it into his heart as proof that he is worthy of honor, worthy of esteem, worthy to be worshiped.  

““You were a perfect model of an example,

    full of wisdom and perfect of beauty.

You were in Eden, the garden of God,

    and every precious stone was your adornment:

carnelian, topaz and moonstone,

    turquoise, onyx and jasper,

sapphire, malachite and emerald.

    And gold was the craftsmanship of your settings

and your mountings in you;

    on the day when you were created they were prepared.

You were an anointed guardian cherub,

    and I placed you on God’s holy mountain;

you walked in the midst of stones of fire.

    You were blameless in your ways

from the day when you were created,

    until wickedness was found in you.

In the abundance of your trading,

    they filled the midst of you with violence, and you sinned;

and I cast you as a profane thing from the mountain of God,

    and I expelled you, the guardian cherub,

    from the midst of the stones of fire.

Your heart was proud because of your beauty;

    you ruined your wisdom because of your splendor.” (Ezek 28)

The Four Needs

i think in metaphors.  i try and understand things by associating them with other things which i may or may not think i understand.  Sometimes i do this in the first degree, with willful intent.  Other times it’s involuntary idea slaughter.  The comparison, metaphor or similarity just pops into the ol’ oblong pumpkin unbidden, uninvited and with all the grace of Kramer barging through Jerry’s door.  (Some of you will now need to go and look up reruns of Seinfeld.  Nothing like derailing half your audience in the first paragraph.  Without reasonable concern, we damn the torpedoes and pour on more steam!)  (Some of you will now need to go look up Admiral David Farragut.)

So it was no surprise to me when studying what some people wiser than me have determined are the four underlying idols of our hearts that my mind was off into Ezekiel and Revelations and picturing the idols as demonic manifestations; twisted, bent copies of the cherubs of God.  It was a compelling image in my head.  A satanic pretender throne surrounded by the four faces of idolatry: Comfort, Control, Approval and Power.  The four Needs.  (Did you know our word ‘need’ comes from the German ‘Not’ which implies danger or emergency?  How appropos to our topic at hand.  Learning is fun and educational!)

The four cherubs are described as the Ox or Calf, the Man, the Eagle and the Lion (Ezek 1 and 10, Rev 4) Zeke saw them as four similar beings with four faces each.  Johnny saw them as four separate creatures.  Could be the difference in eye witness accounts of witnesses who are in the process of having their minds jellied by the Holiness of what they are witnessing but i tend to think God does this stuff on purpose.  He is separate parts.  He is one whole inseparable.  He is paradox.  Which is a fancy word for, He-don’t-fit-in-your-box cuz He made you and the box you came in.

The cherub’s likenesses are said to be symbolic and have been interpreted many ways and also assigned to the four gospels.  Matthew the man, emphasizing the humanity and incarnation of Jesus.  Mark the lion, emphasizing Christ the Lord over all powers and authorities.  Luke the Ox, strength, servanthood and sacrifice.  And drawing up the four, John with his high minded, spiritual Savior-Logos, the eagle.  (Full disclosure here, cuz we’re friends and i like ya, look hard enough and you can find different assignations and symbology.  Why?  Cuz God didn’t say in His Word, 

“Okay, Matt, you get man; John, you have to have the eagle cuz you’re so flighty, Luke, you get the cow and Mark gets lion.”  And Luke spake unto him, “Aw man!  Why does Mark get lion, i wanted lion!”  And God answered him, “Mark wrote his first so he gets first pick.  Deal with it.”  

This part is church tradition.  So hold it loosely.)

So in my mind, these idols become the four Needs, fallen angels with counter gospels, lies they tell us which are all variations on the same theme their boss, the serpent, gave Eve in the garden: "God doesn’t love you.  You need to be your own god."  Is it useful to think in such terms?  i don’t know.  If it keeps the conversation going; if it helps us look at our own sin and confess more intelligently; if it makes it easier to picture for us visual thinkers (nothing like having a self-possessed cow sitting on your lap to give you a mental image of temptation); if it helps somebody remember, "Finally, become strong in the Lord and in the might of his strength. Put on the full armor of God, so that you may be able to stand against the stratagems of the devil, because our struggle is not against blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places."  Then good.  If it doesn’t, then leave it alone.  i don’t assume every thought that pops into my head is good for edifying and feeding the Body but enough of them have been that i would rather err on the side of sharing than bottling.  Most days.  So without anymore ado, cuz we’ve had enough ado, i give you the four Needs….

starting tomorrow.  This post is long enough.