History is one of the greatest voices against the contemporary powers of our time. History teaches us from where we have come, revealing either digression toward failure or progression toward success. It is imperative that we know “from whence cometh man?” Such a question must also include from “whence cometh the earth and the universe?” Maybe more importantly, we should ask, “from whence cometh the evil of man, his wickedness, and his proclivity to destroy the good and promote the bad?” This inquiry leads invariably to other questions: “Was man ever good? If he was, what brought about his innate desires and obsessiveness to evil?” “Has man devolved?” “Is man’s progression to evil to be called evolution?” “Is man’s innate pull to evil a part of an animalistic nature that still controls his evolution?”
The Fall of Man
Contemporary man—with all of his evils, violence, immorality, stupidity, and pride—wants us to believe that man’s beginning was nebulous, unintelligible, mud-mired, slimy, and animalistic. He declares that after millions of years we have arisen out of this mud unto a perfection of intelligence, law, order, design, and beauty. This utopian idealism is vanity because he does not see his depravity, his sin pollution which has destroyed everything that he has pursued and birthed in his view of greatness.
The Bible, the infallible Word of God, reveals a different beginning to man, fully contradictory to an evolutionary presupposition. We were created in the image and likeness of God. We were created in true righteousness and holiness. We were created in an environment of an earth of perfection and order. We were created by a holy, infinite God, to walk with Him, to love Him, to serve Him, and to live forever with Him.
This holy God created man twofold: (1) He made man’s physical body and nature out of adamah, the moist red ground; this was to be his being. (2) Then God breathed into man and he became a living soul. Elihu declared to Job in 32:8, “But there is a spirit in man: and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding.” Job 33:4 declares, “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.” Solomon, the sage of Jerusalem, declared that our times are placed in life by God Himself. And in Ecclesiastes 3:11 he revealed, “He [God] hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.” God “set the world [Heb. olam, ‘eternity’] in their heart.” Truly man is a creature like no other creature God has ever made.
When Adam fell into sin, something happened to his body, his soul, and his personality. Adam, in his disobedience to God created an inward principle that aggressively and profoundly pervaded every aspect of man. The body God made for man was given to decay and ultimate dissolution because of the intentional fall and disobedience of man; meanwhile, his soul would separate from the body bringing forth death. This sin nature or sin principle (though distinct from the human nature) became an interwoven nature with man’s human nature. From the fall brought about by a married man and woman, all of humanity is conceived with a human body and nature as well as with the corruption and pollution of the sin nature. The sin nature is with man from the very beginning of his personal conception and throughout his ongoing existence. His human nature which also came from the ground is now contaminated, soiled, and given to selfishness.
What the Fallen Man Becomes
When a child is born into the world, his ground-being eventually will become miry mud: “He brought me … out of the miry clay” (Psalm 40:2). This Hebrew word for miry refers to dregs or even feces. Since his fall, man has become the worst of clay, the product not only of inherited sin but also of his own self-waste. What a horrible sight of man this is! Once the corruption of Adam’s sin begins working in an individual, every day this corruption deepens turning the polluted soil into miry soil. Even when man finally comes to God, often the sin principle has worked its way through every compartment of life, making the depraved soil more and more miry. The longer he is away from God, the worse the soil becomes. He becomes more and more the dregs, the worthless parts of life, the waste of living.
The self of life began with the natural life God created for us. As our natural life unfolded, a multitude of influences came upon us—the company we kept, the things we did with life, the sins we committed, the habits of sin, the careless heart for the things of God, the spiritual apathy in which we grew up in a family, the places we went, the actions we performed, and the thoughts we meditated upon consistently—all these collectively deepened sin and darkness in our lives beyond what we were in the God-appointed conception of life.
Even growing up in a Christian home where we may have had moments of thoughts toward God, our life was given more to other things such as the dreams and hopes for self without God. We soon learned to crowd God out of our desires. Every day we created out of our personal soil, dregs, and waste a conception of self which became ultimately our god. The longer we lived in self, the more miry the life became. This deepening mire affected our thinking and cultivated immaturity about living life. It affected our marriage, our view of family, our living with self as well with others. Time allowed a deepening of this mire.
Although an individual may have gained money, a home, a car, and possessions around himself, his life before God may have no purpose or reality. His inward life may be a sorry mess; his heart increasingly covered the self-created waste. The concern here is not so much the sins that he has committed, for God can deliver him in a moment from its guilt. More importantly now is what those sins produced in self and all that the individual became in order to sin those sins. It is the side effects of those sins from the decisions he made in life that were not right, that were not based upon God and the promotion of grace.
The spirit and mood one has when growing up and the proclivities one stubbornly presses in life when corrected, all contribute to this wasteland of mire! Oh, this mire is the true me; it is what I have made myself to be.
Yes, dear reader, we become that spirit, that mood! We may control a sweet and nice exterior manner, but in a crisis where this mire explodes, all see our true self. We become the waste of our personal living, and this mire affects everything we do.
The Mire of Self
Man’s original ground (adamah) has become his mire (yaven). In the new birth, God must place us in a position where He can help us with self. He must first place me into a position of reconciliation or justification. This is a standing relationship with Him that is the beginning of a life with God. Then for the rest of my life God deals with this mire, these dregs, this feces waste, this product of myself that I have become.
The cry of David in Psalm 69:14 declares, “Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink.” We may think that there is no further need of God’s grace from His Son once we are saved from our sins. Nevertheless, we must be saved also from what sin and self have made us. The prophet in Isaiah 57:20, 21 gave the commentary, “But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.” This troubled watery mire should not be a continuing commentary of the Christian’s life.
In 2 Peter 2:22 the apostle described the powers of one turning away from everything God had worked in the life: “But it is happened unto them according to the true proverb, The dog is turned to his own vomit again; and the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire.” How sad it is when one, who has been delivered from the pollutions of this world through the “knowledge” (Gr., epignosko, the full, experiential knowledge) of a transformed, delivered life, returns to wallowing in his old mire.
Oh, dear reader, the Christian heart must long for a life, a heart, and a self, that is the product of grace and not a product of living for self. This is one of the precious purposes of the work of sanctification and the sanctified life. It is not about my standing before God in heaven; it is about the imperative need of the atonement within to deal with what I have become in my daily living.
Prophecy reveals that the End Time will be given to this power of the mire. Note Daniel 2:41, 43:
And whereas thou sawest the feet and toes, part of potters’ clay, and part of iron, the kingdom shall be divided; but there shall be in it of the strength of the iron, forasmuch as thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay…. And whereas thou sawest iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves with the seed of men: but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron is not mixed with clay.
Man today projects himself in authoritative iron, declaring himself to be God and through the philosophy of evolution taking the place of God. However, mixed with the dregs of humanity, debauchery, and immorality, man has become the product of himself. The hour in which we live has become so critical, dark, and hopeless, that God must send His Son back to save man from total destruction. Mire is the commentary of End-time humanity, and we tend to live with it and by it.
In Psalm 40:1, 2 we observe the prayer, the hope of David (who had mire as part of his life). Waiting patiently for the Lord, he cried out for God to change what is in him. He wanted the Lord to bring deliverance from what he had become. And we read on, “I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.” Yes, he waited with hope for the Lord to do His work. “He brought me up.” He caused me to ascend out of a horrible pit—tumult—a swirling pit of confusion with many voices telling me what to do and how to live.
At the bottom of this pit was the slime, dregs, and waste of self and humanity. So many things encumbered David, and each one of them could have destroyed him. “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay.” Once he was delivered, the Lord “set my feet upon a rock.” Oh, the solidarity of life! This immutable rock is the antithesis to slimy mud that sucks man’s feet down. The transforming power of God brings the firmness of steps. This is what sanctification is to do for the Christian, unfolding what a life is to be through Christ and His Word! This is what we read in the unfolding of Psalm 40.
The End-Time Miry Clay
As we have mentioned, according to Daniel 2:41 and 43, the End-time miry clay will consummate in what the Hebrew renders as hardened mire or brittle clay. This brittle condition is the final frontier of the mire of humanity. Today, we are witnessing the hardening, crusting clay in both global-governing politics and End-time public Christianity.
The church speaks of power with God, and the mega church declares itself rich, increased with goods, and having need of nothing. But both the institutional church and the public Christianity of the End Time are filled with the dregs of what the global apostasy of Christianity has produced: wretchedness, spiritual poverty, blindness, and spiritual nakedness. The Christ has left the church; there is nothing remaining but the dregs and waste of humanity within. We must remember that when Christ came to earth, He came into a sterile, spiritually dead humanity. Just as the Mosaic Tabernacle was set up in the sterile, lifeless wilderness, so Christ took on flesh. There was nothing of worth in flesh; sin had absolutely destroyed the human flesh. Christ’s first coming is what brought hope for humanity.
Blessed is the day when we become tired of going our way, living in our manner and by the power of self. It is time that we pray for God to deliver us from the mire of the flesh and our proneness to sink back into it. We may think that there is no further need of God’s grace from His Son once we are saved from our sins. However, after our conversion we must be saved from what both sin and self have made us. In Psalm 69:2 David declares, “I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing …” The Christian will come to abhor what he has become in the power of not only sin but also self.
While our sins may have been bad and many, both secret and open, there are also the side effects of these sins—thoughts and habits mounting up collectively. All this debris left behind has become a part of my life; this is where the problem now lies. The moodiness of self, sensitivity of self, the anger of being corrected, and the touchiness of the human spirit are all a part of this miry debris. These many other side effects have a way of settling to the bottom of my being. I am the product of my growing up, my reaction to my past, the deep moods never corrected that became set and congealed in my ways. This debris also includes powers that came into my life that were never corrected, such as the root of bitterness, hatred, and self-centeredness.
When we grow older, these things set like concrete in us making change and healing very difficult. Unless a stroke of power from the Word of God opens the eyes and the cry comes for God to change us, even our Christian life will have the mixture of all this mire. Isaiah 53:3 reveals that “He [the coming Messiah] is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Why does hatred and rejection come to the heart looking upon the Saviour on the cross? Because He reminds us of ourselves! Instead, great compassion should come upon such a person. Why do we hate the Man on the cross? Because we see a judgment of ourselves by God!
In Isaiah 53:4, 5 we have often viewed the quartet of words griefs, sorrows, transgressions, and iniquities. The griefs are the side effects of our sins; they are what our sins did to us and others. The sorrows represent the pains, the depression, the dark thoughts, despair, fear, torment, and pains to others that our sins produced. The transgressions represent the acts of each sin, rebellion, our transgression against God. And the iniquities represent the root of the principle of sin: “knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him.” Yes, Christ died not only for our sins and the sin principle but also for all the side effects that our sins produced against ourselves and others.
Isaiah 53:6 brings us to the atoning work of Christ as He deals with the self and what it became. We are simpletons, foolish creatures, exceedingly apt to struggle and lose ourselves, as we have gone astray from God. What did we do?! “We have turned every one to his own way.” Amidst all that we did over the seasons of life dedicated to sin, we created our own unique way of life. It was our way.
Once again, this is one of the precious purposes of the working of sanctification. Sanctification is the imperative need of the atonement “within” to deal with what I have become. Psalm 40:1–4 is the whole view of the atonement of Christ for us. This is what we want for our life. We pray, cry, call upon God, waiting patiently for the Lord in hope for a change! “Change this in me, O Lord; do this! I have become this!”
Psalm 40 and Its Unfolding
In Psalm 40:1 waiting is that hope for the Word of God to do its work. David continues, “He brought me up also out of an horrible pit.” An ascent is made that leads to the setting of our feet upon a rock, the solidarity of life, the antithesis to slimy mud that sucks man’s feet down. Upon this rock is now the firmness of the Christian’s steps.
We are warned in verse 4 to trust only the Lord, not respecting the proud nor turning aside to lies forged by others to me, or even my own self trying to convince myself contrary to God’s Word. Oh, the pride of me! This is what pulled me into my mess!
In verse 5 the Christian must ever be living in the holy contemplation of the wonderful works which God has done and His thoughts toward him. Yea, in the light of all that the Lord has done, my words will ever be inadequate to express the infinite bounty of His works toward me!
The Psalmist continues his ascent higher and higher in what is needed for ongoing deliverance. He brings us into verse 6, “Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.” Obedience to God is greater than offerings and sacrifices. The prophet Samuel strongly told King Saul that “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22). Oh, to keep us out of the mire, we must ever be living in obedience to God’s precious Word.
Part of the work of sanctification is symbolically and in shadow and type the boring of a hole through the ear of a slave/servant as presented in Exodus 21:6. It was the sign of a love slave—one who had his ear crucified to absolute obedience to the master’s voice, the one whom the servant had come to love. We read of this truth in Isaiah 50:5, “The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back.”
The Psalmist continues in Psalm 40:7, “Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume [roll] of the book it is written of me [or it is prescribed for me].” What is that which is written? “I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is in my heart” (verse 8). (We will observe this of Christ Himself in Hebrews 10:6–9.) Part of the proof of the Psalmist’s delight in that law is found in verses 9 and 10. David then declares that he must see his need before God. Others may see it, but do I see my need before God?
Psalm 40 concludes with verses 13–17: we must always remember that the Lord is thinking upon us for our needs, and His desire is toward us for the self of our humanity, what and who I am.
Conclusion
What truth is needed for our life’s clay to be protected from becoming miry? The Bible reveals different truths for different needs. But there may be concepts of truth that affect us and become destructive to us.
We conclude with seven concepts of truth, though a few may become enemies to our heart and living. There is (1) soil truth, (2) seed truth, (3) sterile truth, (4) static (stale) truth, (5) spiritual truth, (6) perfecting truth, and (7) consummate truth. We must find the specific truth in God’s Word that is needed for our clay and beware of any truth that would be detrimental.
The first truth for our soil is found in Matthew 13:4, 5, 7, 8. There is the need of truth to prepare my soil. My soil is made up of my heart, my thoughts, my will, my conscience. Soil truth will be needed to change my soil. The sower is Christ; the seed is the true Gospel.
Though I need my life prepared for the seed, I will need seed truth; this truth is found in Mark 4:15, 16, 18, 20. It is truth that is in its beginning, a beginning truth. First Peter 1:23 speaks of this seed truth, this beginning truth: “Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever.” First John 3:9 reveals a seed truth: “Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” Jeremiah 2:21 reveals another seed truth: “Yet I had planted thee a noble vine, wholly a right seed: how then art thou turned into the degenerate plant of a strange vine unto me?”
But we must be careful about sterile truth. Matthew 23:23 reveals this kind of truth:
Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
This reveals that we can have truth which is part of the knowledge of God’s Word, but we do not have its power. This truth could also be a truth that is not the crucial need for a specific moment in life. We could hold this truth without fruit. Unfruitful truth given in the absence of a needed truth for that hour will fall upon the ears as sterile truth.
Another warning is static (stale) truth. Paul reveals this truth in Hebrews 5:11–14. Here Paul speaks of a heart that has grown content with only the truth it knows and does not go on in truth.
A fifth context of truth is spiritual truth. We read in John 6:63, “It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” In 1 Corinthians 2:14, 15 the apostle reveals this spiritual truth: “But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things [of God], yet he himself is judged of no man [of no natural man].” Spiritual truth is part of the spiritual life, feeding and producing life.
Perfecting truth is presented in Philippians 3:12–15; it is truth that perfects:
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many as be perfect, be thus minded: and if in any thing ye be otherwise minded, God shall reveal even this unto you.
Finally, there is consummate truth. First Corinthians 13:9–12 unfolds this truth:
For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
This is also seen in Revelation 4:6, “And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.” Consummate truth will only be known in heaven.
The unfolding of truth must continue in my life; it must ever be working. The fundamental parts of truth are found at the beginning of life. The deeper we go in Christ and His truth, the more we will find Him dealing with the smaller areas of our life, areas that we tended not to address in the earlier part of our Christian faith. We must be warned of the possibility as found in 2 Timothy 3:8, “Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith.” To resist the truth is to set the heart and one’s self against the truth.
Finally, Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4:4, “And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.” Oh, dear reader, when the heart turns from the truth, the clay of life will turn into mire and the mire eventually into brittle clay, hard and callous to God and His Word. If you turn away from the truth, the turning will place you in a position that can cause the heart never to return to truth or to come in contact with it again.
This is our generation. Our generation has become brittle clay because it has rejected God and the truth of His Word.