Today was a good reading day. Two books, besides my Bible were on my docket, a novel, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy and What Jesus Demands from the World, by John Piper. Below are two passages, one from each that I think illumine one another. The first one is from Tolstoy. It comes from part two, chapter 11, p.160. Without ever describing the lurid details, Tolstoy makes it clear that Vronsky, who has pursued Anna, a married woman for over a year, has, between the chapters but off the text of the book, consummated his seduction. Chapter 11 begins with these words:
“That which for Vronsky had been almost a whole year the one absorbing desire of his life, replacing all his old desires; that which for Anna had been an impossible, terrible, and even for that reason a more entrancing dream of bliss, the desire had been fulfilled. He stood before her, pale, his lover jaw quivering, and besought her to be calm, not knowing how or why.
“Anna! Anna!” he said with choking voice,
“Anna, for pity’s sake! . . .”
But the louder he spoke, the lower she dropped her once proud and gay, now shame-stricken head, and she bowed down and sank from the sofa where she was sitting, down on the floor, at his feet; she would have fallen on the carpet if he had not held her.
“My God! Forgive me!” she said, sobbing, pressing his hands to her bosom.
She felt so sinful, so guilty, that nothing was left her but to humiliate herself and beg forgiveness; and as now there was no one in her life but him, to him she addressed her prayer for forgiveness. Looking at him, she had a physical sense of her humiliation, and she could say nothing more. He felt what a murder must feel, when he sees the body he has robbed of life. That body, robbed by him of life, was their love, the first stage of their love. There was something awful and revolting in the memory of what had been bought at this fearful price of shame.
Indeed!
From a previous read, I see the marginal note written a couple years ago:
“Yes, she and he have made idols of one another, and as all idols do, his idol and hers will disappoint, inevitably. They have sowed the seed of their own destruction.”
To this I want to couple a passage from chapter 3 “Come to Me” from John Piper’s What Jesus Demands from the World. The chapter is centered in 5 texts that top the page: Matthew 11:28, John 7:37; John 6:35; John 5:40 and John 11:43-44. Then this:
When a person is born anew and experiences repentance, his attitude about Jesus changes. Jesus himself becomes the central focus and supreme value of life. Before the new birth happens and repentance occurs, a hundred other thing seem more important and more attractive: health, family, job, friends, sports, music, food, sex, hobbies, retirement. But when God gives the radical change of new birth and repentance, Jesus himself becomes our supreme treasure.
One page later:
“The gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life” (Matt. 7:14). The reason it is hard is not because jesus is a hard taskmaster. It’s hard because the world is a hard place to enjoy Jesus above all. Our suicidal tendency to enjoy other things more must be crushed (Matt. 5:29-30).
One more brief quote from page 46;
“The demand that we come to him is therefore like the demand of a father to his child in a buring window, ‘Jump to me!'”
The idols of our hearts are deadly to everything good in our lives.
Remember, Ezekiel 14 (NASB95): Take a look at The Message version as well.
1 Then some elders of Israel came to me and sat down before me. 2 And the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 3 “Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? 4 Therefore speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, “Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, 5 in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols.”’
ChosenRebel's Blog 