LEVIATHAN OCTOBER 22, 2018

Transcription

1 LEVIATHAN OCTOBER 22, 2018 I have a very interesting show for you today I believe. It s going to be a little bit difficult because the content is very literary. It is metaphorical as we ll see and so it may be difficult but there s also a whole lot of scripture here. So, we re going to stop for a moment on an idea or a theme in Job that actually reoccurs in several places throughout scriptures and it s valuable, I believe, to actually take a look at this and so, I m going to stop for a moment or back up, I should say, and move into Job chapter 3 where Job curses the day he was born. He says something very interesting in verse 8, he says Let those curse it who curse the day, who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan. So, it seems here, and also in chapter 41 of Job, we see this presentation of Leviathan and it means literally; mourning. It s from the root meaning; to twine together. Often, it s translated in the scriptures as indebtedness, especially financial indebtedness. So, Leviathan then is some sort of twined animal, a serpent actually. It s mentioned in Isaiah 27:1 which says, In that day the Lord with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea. So, you see this highly metaphorical literary device in this serpent, a great serpent actually. It had a whole lot of superstition attached to it actually, in the Old Testament especially in that day and time. But it s usually thought of to be some sort of extralarge crocodile or some sort of sea monster according to the definition. Figuratively sometimes it shows up as the constellation of the dragon and it s also used symbolically for governments, which we re going to look at in a moment, but as the seat of apostasy and idolatry, okay? So, you can already I think probably start seeing where we re headed. But in that section in Job chapter 3:1-9, Leviathan is said to have this ability to produce eclipses, and as I said, it s largely superstitious but supposedly by twining his tail around the sun and the moon. So, sometimes he s called a serpent, sometimes he s called a dragon, but either way it s said that he has these powers of forces of the primeval chaos. It s all very poetic, very highly poetic and symbolic and that s part of what s going to make this possibly a little more difficult than other concepts we ve talked about throughout Job. But in Job 41 specifically and that s kind of we re going to kind of land, we re going to use that as our text, and then go back and forth to different places. Leviathan is different than an ordinary crocodile or an ordinary creature okay? Because it s a sea monster that cannot be captured, at least not by man, as Job says. Jehovah though or God, he is sort of unaffected by the terror which the writer of Job ascribes to Leviathan and throughout the context of the book of Job we can see that God alone possesses the power to conquer it and we ll look at it specifically verse by verse, but in the moment. For right now throughout chapter 41 of Job what we see is that any hope of overcoming Leviathan is completely false in verse 9. You re overwhelmed even at the sight of Leviathan in verse 9. You don t dare stir him up verse 9. The mighty even are afraid of Leviathan in verse 25. They are beside themselves with fear verse 25, The sword cannot conquer Leviathan, verse 26. There s no weapon that can conquer him and I d liked to just take a moment and read it. I don t actually think I can do the whole chapter because it s quite a few verses and I don t want to necessarily do that but some of it says, Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook? God says to Job. Or press down his tongue with a cord? Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? Will he make many supplications to you? Will he speak to you soft words? Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? Will you play with him as with a bird or will 1 P a g e

2 you put him on a leash for your maidens? Will traders, bargain over him, will they divide him up among the merchants? Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? So, you get the idea then that this thing is way bigger than any weapon could in anyway defeat him. I mean even with a harpoon, right? If you could kill a whale with harpoon but you can t kill Leviathan, you know it s large. I love the these next versus because you get this hint of fear. Lay hands on him and think of the battle you will not do it again. Behold the hope of a man is disappointed, he is laid low even at the sight of him. No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me, who has given to me that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. I love that verse. Who has given anything to me that I should repay him? Then he says in 12, I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, or his mighty strength or his frame. Who can strip off his outer garment? Who can penetrate his double coat of mail? So, you get this idea of scales, okay? The scales are very tightly matched. Who can penetrate this double coat of mail? Who can open the doors of his face? Round about his teeth is terror. His back is made of rows of shields, shut up closely as with a seal. So, you can see the scale idea there again. One is so near to another that no air can come between them, they are joined to one another. They clasp each other and cannot be separated. His sneezings flash forth light and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. So, you get this dragon idea, a fire-breathing dragon. Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth. In his neck abides strength, and Terror dances before him. The folds of his flesh cleave together, firmly cast upon him and immovable. His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the nether millstone. When he raises himself up the mighty are afraid; at the crashing they are beside themselves. Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail; nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin. He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. The arrow cannot make him flee; for him slingstones are turned to stubble. Clubs are counted as stubble, he laughs at the rattle of javelins. His under parts are like sharp potsherds. So, he s got spikiness underneath his belly. He spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire. He makes the deep boil like a pot, he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. Behind him he leaves a shining wake, one would think the deep to be hoary. Upon earth there is not his like, a creature without fear. And this is important too, right here, this is the last verse, I did actually read the whole thing, I didn t intend to but the last first is verse 34. He beholds everything that is high, he is king over all the sons of pride. So, you can see then that although it s very poetic, and symbolic, that this Leviathan creature is not a typical creature. It is supernatural, first of all, but also the size of it, it seems to be overwhelming. The armor that it has, and the way it breathes this fire and all of these literary devices, this metaphor is something greater than any sort of creature and so it did have sort of a superstition attached to it and of course the church fathers understand the Leviathan to be Satan himself, that great dragon and serpent, ok? And we ll look at that in a moment, but I want to just kind of stick here, because we re going to come back to it. He beholds everything that is high. He is King over all the sons of pride. So, it s not just a creature there s something far larger at play here in the symbolism. And in other places we see this sea monster crop up several times and we ll look those in a moment, but I want to just say that in Revelation 12:1-9, that passage where the serpent goes after the woman and her child, which the church understands to be both Judaism and Mary. Mary is the literal woman who gave birth to the child who would rule over the nations. So, obviously that is Mary herself but also symbolically she is a symbol, she actually personifies the Jewish faith or Judaism itself. But you see there that the 2 P a g e

3 dragon, his tail swept down a third of the stars of Heaven it says in 12:4 in Revelation and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child that he might devour her child when she brought it forth. And she brought forth a male child one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. So, we see this idea again and as I said throughout chapter 12 Revelation the church fathers understand that dragon to be the serpent or the great dragon Satan himself. We re talking about Leviathan which is kind of a scary concept possibly, but it s neat that God gives us this awareness of what we re going to see this Leviathan is about, especially in these times of upheaval in our own church. So, we looked at Leviathan as this twined animal and how that term is usually, or not usually but often, translated in the scriptures as financial indebtedness. So, there s a sense in which financial indebtedness is a bondage to Leviathan, that s the point there and we saw that specifically in Isaiah 27:1 where it s this Leviathan thing is supposed to be like some sort of crocodile or large sea monster according to the actual definition and then we saw, in Job 3, that the superstition surrounding this symbol, or this metaphor, was related to constellations and signs in the heavens, okay? And then in Psalm 74:13-17 it says of God himself, You did divide the sea by your might, you broke the heads of the dragons on the waters. You did crush the heads of Leviathan, you gave him as food for the creatures of the wilderness. Now what s interesting about this psalm in our explanation of this concept of Leviathan is that this psalm is a plea for help in a time of national humiliation. So, if you read the whole psalm what you see is that they had been taken into bondage and their Temple has been sacked. There is fire and there s no profit among them and the plea is how long is the fair going to mock us? How long are you going to allow the enemy to revile us and your own name? Why do you hold back your hand, right? So, there s a plea for God s intervention in a time of national humiliation and that s what a lot of, well prophets were about; Jeremiah, Isaiah. So, when we see all of these things sort of converge, what we discover is that Leviathan is a metaphor for something greater than an animal, that is the influence of Satan somehow, okay? And we re not at what that actually means yet, but we can see through all of these passages that they sort of are beginning to converge somewhat. And as I said this show is going to be really heavy on scripture because it s sort of scattered all around and to get a good picture of what this Leviathan is and what Job, or the author of Job, is trying to tell us through those two chapters that mention Leviathan. We really have to kind of dig around in there and find out how the Bible uses this term and we have seen several ways, but they all sort of, they re coming down to one theme, okay? So, in Ezekiel 29:3 God says to Ezekiel Speak and say thus says the Lord God, Behold I am against you Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lies in the midst of his streams, that says my Nile is my own, I made it. I will put hooks in your jaws and make the fish of your streams stick to your scales. The whole chapter is sort of this proclamation of God s judgment against Egypt. Now remember that Egypt was a civilization, or government, that held God s people in slavery and bondage and God not only defended his people from Egypt, he rescued them completely. So, he defeated Egypt is the point of that whole chapter. But again, this is a time of national humiliation, right? The whole Egyptian bondage thing and so God is saying here, he's talking about this dragon, and he calls Pharaoh the dragon, okay? So, Pharaoh was somehow under the influence of Satan, of this Leviathan, this dragon. So, he s equated, Pharaoh of Egypt is equated with this dragon, this evil, we ll say, okay? Also, in Ezekiel chapter 32:2 we hear this; Son of man raise a lamentation over Pharaoh king of Egypt and say to him you consider yourself a lion among the nations, but you are like a dragon in the sea. You burst forth in your rivers, trouble the waters with your feet and foul the rivers. And then so it goes on to 3 P a g e

4 say again how God is going to conquer Leviathan, or the dragon. He s going to throw his net over you do with the host of many people and haul you up in the dragnet and cast you out on the ground. So, all of this sort of judgement symbolism is used to pull pharaoh and Leviathan, or the dragon all into one metaphor, okay? Again, in Jeremiah chapter 51 verse 34 we see: Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me, he has crushed me, he has made me an empty vessel. He has swallowed me like a monster, he has filled his belly with my delicacies, he has rinsed me out. So, again we see this monster, this sea monster, equated with Babylon and specifically the leader of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar, and again Babylon took God s people, the Jews, into slavery and sacked the temple. So here again is a national and religious calamity that has befallen the people that is somehow said to have been orchestrated by Leviathan who is using the leaders of these governments to punish really God's people for their idolatry. And so, you see again, remember we have to go back to this concept of the author of Job, who is writing to God s people in a moment of national and religious calamity. Now remember that God s people, they were a nation and a religion so, all of that for them was sort of gathered up together as one thing. For us, we are a nation under God supposedly, but our government and our religious institutions are separate, they are not the same thing, we are not a theocracy. They were but we aren t, but what is interesting is that the things that are happening in our church, are happening in specific countries a right now the emphasis is really on America, the church in America, and how this calamity has befallen us. And so, the author of Job is trying to comfort the good in the midst of their suffering on behalf of the rest. So, there is a way in which those who are good suffer on behalf of the whole in order to draw it out of the calamity that it has found itself in. I hope that made sense. And we ll see in a moment and when we get to the end. I ll tie it all together if that doesn t make sense. But my point right now is that throughout the scriptures over and over this sea monster, this Leviathan is equated with powers, political powers, governments and government leaders who are being used by the greater Leviathan, that serpent, Satan himself, to enslave his people and to punish, to enslave and punish at the same time, which gathers up the good with the evil. So, you know there were good Jews in the times of each of these captivities; Egyptian, Babylonian, Assyrian all of those captivities happened according to the prophets in punishment for the idolatry and apostasy that they practiced. And you know that there were good Jews that got sucked into that along, with the bad. And so, they suffered really, on behalf of the health of the whole, we ll call it an institution, but the whole of the people of God, okay? So the river, rivers in these contexts, when you see this monster over the sea, and this comes up a whole lot in the apocalyptic literature of the Book of Revelation and we saw that in chapter 12, when it talked about the dragon and the woman, but also in chapter 20 where the devil and Satan are specifically, well in all of these places the church fathers understand that this serpent is the Devil and Satan himself. So, it says in Revelation 20:1, I saw an angel coming down from heaven holding in his hand the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain and he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years. This is, I believe, Michael the Archangel who does this. He seized the dragon, the ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan and bound him for a thousand years and threw him into the pit and shut it and sealed it over him, that he should deceive the nations no more until the thousand years were ended and after that he must be loosed for a while. Then verse 7 When the thousand years are ended Satan will be loosed from his prison and come out to deceive the nations which are at the four corners of the earth, their number is 4 P a g e

5 like the sand of the sea. Over and over actually, throughout the book of Revelation it talks about the monster that comes out of the sea and rules over the sea. So, the point is the sea is symbolic, in the scripture, of masses of people. So, when we talk about these governments, for them as I said it was a theocracy, for us it would mean more of a probably governmental but also probably institutionally in the church too. So, there is a sense in which, oh I have to be really careful because I m not saying that the institution of the church is controlled by Satan, I m not saying that. So, I m actually going to have to unpack that because it s a big concept. So we were talking about how the sea is symbolic in this context - when it s talking about a monster in the sea or a monster that comes out of the sea or the dragon that lives in the sea or the Leviathan that rules over the sea - all of those are metaphors for sort of the same idea which is; the seas are masses of people and I know that sounds a little bit scary but I want to, I want us, to remember that Satan is said to be the spirit of disobedience, we see in Ephesians 2, the power of darkness or the controller of all evil, that s in Colossians 1:13, he s the god of this world though, and the ruler of this world, Saint Paul says and so does St John, the gospel writer. So, 2 nd Corinthians 4:4, Paul call Satan the God of this world which means he controls the world s philosophy okay? And the ruler of this world then means that he rules and the world systems in John chapter 12:31, we also saw that in Revelation 12:9. He s also called the prince of the power of the air and so as we saw in Job 1 where he roams the earth. Satan roams the earth back and forth, to and fro, he controls the earth some of the versions said. So, the point is that because he was thrown to the earth, we saw that passage in Revelation, where the dragon took a third of the stars with him and that s a picture again of the fallen angels. Jesus himself told us that I believe it s in Matthew 24 when he talks about the end times and what's going to happen, and he says, I saw Satan fall like lightning and so as I mentioned last week in explaining the comment that Gigi made on that show. So, it s a timing thing; Satan was in heaven with God and was presented with God s plan which included us, human beings, and how God himself would eventually become a human being and that the angels would not only serve human beings but eventually worship a human being in Christ. Christ would rule over all of the human beings and every knee will bow except, Satan said, his. So, the moment his will turn away from God and he revealed, then he fell from heaven. He fell from heaven to the earth, which actually is thought to be his original domain anyway, we saw in the first show where possibly Satan, before he was called Satan, he was Lucifer, which is son of light and we believe that he was probably, his role was to test our faith, humanity's faith in order to grow us and virtue because remember we re not angels so, we don t know everything that we know all at one time as they do. We are limited by a human body and a human brain. So, we have to receive information line by line, precept by precept, the Bible says, because we can t take it in all at one time. And because of that; we are very limited and so we grow in stages. So, we think, that Lucifer s original gift and role was to test humanity in order that we could grow. But when he fell, he kept the role, the Bible says in Romans chapter 11, that the gift and calling of God are irrevocable. So, once God gives us gifts, he does not take them away from us and so what happened then, the gifts that Lucifer was given were turned against us rather than for us. So, now he tries to make us sin so, instead of a test, it is a temptation and there is a big difference in those two things. A test, or a trial; a suffering and is meant to grow us and teach us. Whereas, Satan wants to use it to make us curse God, we saw in Job one, and to sin by cursing, remember means to actually amputate ourselves from God, it s meant to separate us. In the hands of Satan suffering is meant to separate us from God. And in this context and we re talking about large institutions, government s, systems, the church, then Satan is trying to use the suffering 5 P a g e

6 that we are experiencing to separate us from God, to make us curse the church, to make us curse God himself and to separate us from the church because Christ is his church, his body, and that s why I want to go back to the very last thing I said in that last segment. I am not saying that Satan controls institutional church but what I am saying is that Satan can control certain people in positions of authority in the church, just like you did Pharaoh, just like you did Nebuchadnezzar, just like he did in each of those systems, those large world systems and financial institutions, we saw in the indebtedness, right? Satan can influence people, not only masses of people, but also the leaders of the people. So, we see then that evil s influence permeates into the world s philosophies and governments and that s why you should never buy in to what mainstream media or academia or any of those things try to tell you is important in life. Because that is completely upside down. The world tells us we should pursue riches, we should pursue fame, we should pursue control, and domination and be rulers over masses of people, right? So, governments, politicians, and listen I m not saying that every single politician is influenced by Satan, I m not. But I am saying that God s ways are far different than the world s ways. The world wants us to focus on the temporal stuff, the things that are right here. The world does not want us to be thinking about what s going to be happening later, when we re dead. It doesn t want to think about death at all. So, it covers up death in pretty makeup and embalming and it wants death to be pretty, but death is not pretty. Wow, that segues almost naturally with the next thing I want to look at. So, we see that philosophies, world philosophies and governments and especially financial entities then, seek to control and always control is a sign of the demonic. Satan wants to control everything. He wants to possess things. In fact, demons do that, they possess things. Remember when Jesus when he was casting out the demon from the man and they said, well, we don t want to just leave, can we go into the pigs? and he says, Yes, you can go into the pigs., and this is a legion, right? So, they go into the pigs, and the pigs jump off the cliff, and all the pigs are lost, and all the people tried to kill Jesus because their livelihood has been destroyed, their economy we could say, has been destroyed by the casting out of the demons that were in a man and into these pigs, alright? I ll leave you to draw those conclusions but it s important then to investigate the nuances of this name Leviathan. It s used somewhat interchangeably we ve already seen with dragon, serpent, sea monster and even well oh, okay? That is really, really important at this point because what we see then, it just occurred to me, it like jumped into my head, like I went, Oh my gosh, that s what the whole story of Jonah was about. And Jesus tried to tell us that because he said that you won t get a sign, any other sign than the sign of Jonah. Where Jonah was swallowed up and the whale. The big monster fish, right? He was swallowed up but then spit out again in 3 days. And so, Jesus is saying that he will be like that, that he will be swallowed up by the whale and yet be regurgitated in 3 days. And so, we see then the whale itself is death. So, now we have come against the major symbolism behind this Leviathan because ultimately although it is a controlling, dominating, scary sort of thing; ultimately the metaphor is death. And we know that death is swallowed up in the victory of Christ! And that is what makes that story that he told (Jesus), when he equates himself with Jonah what he s saying is the final enemy is death! That's what we're all terrified of, we're terrified of it for our children, we re terrified of it for ourselves, we re terrified of losing the people we love, and we do lose them. We lose them, and it is the greatest grief ever, to lose the ones you love, and depending on how we lose them, it can be even worse. But the point is, see, see this suffering?! We suffer under the bondage of death because we know it will take us all and it takes 6 P a g e

7 those we love, sooner than we want it to. And so, there s a sense in which we are controlled by that fear of death and what Jesus is saying here in that story of Jonah and the whale is; Look, I ve got victory over death. And so now no longer will it be something that dominates you and is the end and is something to fear. I m a little overwhelmed by this because I just got it today, I was like, oh my gosh Lord, this is amazing! What he s saying is, I have conquered even death. Your suffering has been conquered. I have redeemed it. I am the Redeemer, the Vindicator. You re suffering, you may not understand it now. You may be suffering on behalf of the whole church. You might be suffering on behalf of your family. You may be, through your suffering, it s going to purify both you and people around you. It s going to help purify the church if you offer it up. There s value in it. That s what he s saying but not only that, this is the big thing; I have conquered it. I have conquered suffering. I have conquered death. There is no longer anything to fear. And so, we can give it back to him. This is what I think that makes the Bible, as literature, so amazing and inspired, is that the writer of Job intended to comfort the nation and the religious theocracy of his people in a moment of national calamity and in so doing, he does that for each of us, even now, but we re also seeing all kinds of theological things about suffering, and about evil, and how evil interacts with God, and with us, and it teaches us things about how to bear under suffering. I mean it s amazing! It s amazing how all of these things can be said through the symbolism of this literature that are just, I mean inspired, I mean there s nothing really, to me, better than the scriptures, as far as literature goes, because it is living and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. I mean what an amazing thing! So ok, I want to go back to this really quickly because only I've only got one segment left and I want to look at it. In Isaiah 30:7, we saw that Egypt is also called Rahab. In case I didn t read it, I m going to read that. This is sort of another lamentation against, or a pronunciation against Egypt. But it says that, Egypt s health is worthless and empty. Therefore, I have called her Rahab, who sits still. And then later on in that chapter it goes on to talk about rebellion, a rebellious people and he s talking about his own people. But Rahab actually means a serpent and literally it means boastful, or proud, and remember we read in Job that Leviathan is over all who are proud, or haughty. In other places, well in Job 2, we see that Rahab is broken and slain. Actually, in psalm 89:9-10 that s specified clearly, so I m going to read that. You're going to see these repeating metaphors over and over. So, in verse 9, Thou dost rule the raging of the sea, when its waves rise, you stillest them. You did crush Rahab like a carcass. You did scatter the enemies with your mighty arm. So, it s talking about God there, but it specifies Rahab and we know then that Rahab is the serpent and he, or Leviathan, is over all that are boastful and proud. Rahab is wounded. Rahab is cut apart, especially in Isaiah 51:9, Awake, awake put on strength O arm of the Lord. Awake as in days of old, the generations of long ago. Was it not you that cut Rahab in pieces and pierced the dragon? Was it not you that dried up the seas, the waters of the deep? So, you see all of this symbolism is so rich, I mean that s why I was worried about the difficulty about the whole lesson here. But we see then that the seas are masses of people and in this context, it is also sort of, a symbol of death, the death of the masses, all of us will eventually die. But Rahab means proud and it comes from the root; to act stormily or to behave tempestuously. So that is why Leviathan is presented to us in Job 41:34 as overall who are proud. Haydock says, this is actually about Sodom which is in another place is said to be controlled by Satan, but not in the way that you re thinking. I wish I had time to go over that, but I don t, but he says that the justice of God generally punishes pride by abandoning the body to shameful and humiliating abominations. Pride makes them rebel against authority and once they are 7 P a g e

8 free of this yolk every other restraint is laughed at. So, what we see there then is that idea of pride again, to act stormily or to behave tempestuously and that s really, really important for me, as a person with a father wound that comes out in rage and this tempestuous behavior, and its rebellion, it really was rooted in rebellion, which was also rooted in pain. Do you see how all these things go together? Suffering and death, anger and rebellion, this control of the masses through philosophies and governments, that sort of draws the good and the evil to suffer alongside one another, one for punishment and the other for purification? So, we can see then that evil, as the God and ruler of this world, is the one that influences earthly governments and institutions and current intellectual philosophies. Those big academia and government and financial, all of those sorts of things are really controlled by this philosophy of evil which is about control. It is about forcing, it is about making people do things, you know? So, when government over reaches, they always want to force us to do things and so you see what I m saying there. Ultimately though in spiritual terms it would be the things that control us, sin especially which Egypt, Babylonia and Assyria are all symbols of sin and so are their leaders throughout, we just saw that Pharaoh, Nebuchadnezzar So, sin and suffering and death are the spiritual ways that Leviathan controls us, and he or it, is so big and mighty and scary that no one but God can defeat it, and God has defeated it. So also, we want to look at pride in our own lives, in our spiritual lives. When have I behaved tempestuously or acted stormily? Is this a pattern in my life? And where do I see these patterns in the church, or among the hierarchy, or in other places? Humility is the sign of God s spirit. And now I d love to read God s meditation out of The Magnificat for Tuesday the 4 th. This just blew me completely away. This was on the feast of Saint Francis. Whoever pretends to reform the Church with the same means used to reform temporal society, not only will he fail in his undertaking, but he will infallibly end by finding himself outside the church. I say that he finds himself outside the church before anyone has gone to the trouble of excluding him from her. I say that it is he himself who excludes himself from her by a kind of tragic fatalism because the person who tries to reform from the outside in, is under the influence of Leviathan thinking that they can control and force things to be how they should be. Now listen, this applies to us ourselves, when we try to reform a relationship or a circumstance in the church or out of it, in our families or at work, or whatever. When we try to do it that way, we are under the influence of Leviathan because we re trying to go from the outside in. Instead we have to go from the inside out. And here s the rest of the meditation. The only way of reforming the Church is to suffer for her. The only way of reforming the visible church is to suffer for the invisible Church. The only way of reforming the vices of the church is to lavish on her the example of one s own most heroic virtues. That s why we re being called to deeper humility, deeper spirituality, eliminating sin from our lives, going to confession, those sorts of things. It is quite possible, he says, that St Francis of Assisi was not any less thrown into revolt than Luther, by the debauchery and simony of prelates. So here we are, right? And Luther behaved stormily, he tried to reform it from the outside in, rather than the inside out. Had he started with himself and seen that self-knowledge; his own rebellion, maybe the splitting of the church into 25,000 denominations and more might never have happened, had he done it the way Saint Francis of Assisi did. The meditation goes on to say, We can even be sure that his suffering on this account was fiercer because his nature was very different from that of the monk of Wittenberg. But Francis did not challenge iniquity, he was not tempted to confront it, instead he threw himself into poverty, immersing himself in it as deeply as possible along with his followers. So, then we should lean into the suffering, we should lean into the difficulty of being associated with a sinful church, right? We lean into 8 P a g e

9 it. He found in poverty the very source and wellspring of all absolution and all purity. Instead of attempting to snatch from the church all her ill-gotten goods, he overwhelmed her with invisible treasures and under the hand of this beggar the heaps of gold and lust began blossoming like an April hedge. Ah, yes! I m well aware that in these matters, comparisons aren't worth much especially when seasoned with a little humor, but would you still allow me to say however, in order to be better understood by some readers, that what the church needs is not critics, but artists. When poetry is in full crisis, the important thing is not to point the finger at bad poets, but one s self to write beautiful poems thus unstopping the sacred springs. That is what Leviathan is meant to call us to. First of all, Leviathan is the ruling force in the world, and it attempts to a rule even God s people through the fear of sin and death and slavery to sin and suffering, the fear of suffering and death. In those ways Leviathan hopes to paralyze us and control us. Instead of acting stormily and behaving tempestuously in rebelling against these sins we see in the church, we recommit ourselves to a deeper faith, to a stronger and more pure purity. We lean into the suffering and we offer it back to God and the Blessed Mother so that they can redeem it, and they can purify the church from the inside out. That is the lesson of Leviathan in Job. Is that not incredible? Dear one, we re going to wrap this thing up next week. We re going to talk about what we need to do practically, besides this, when we experience deep, deep suffering. I'll see you then. This is Sonja Corbitt, in the name of the Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen 9 P a g e