Can it be that we have so much ossified the word of God and contained it in a single Book, that we no longer can hear the voice of The Holy Spirit from any other quarter. 'Listening' was key to understanding the parables of Jesus and His ultimate warning and encouragement message to the Jewish 'Church'. Have we also become dull of hearing and slow to understand? When confronted with this famous poem do we 'listen', read, mark learn and inwardly digest, or do we simply dismiss as irrelevant what we do not make the effort to understand? Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand; Surely the Second Coming is at hand. The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert A shape with lion body and the head of a man, A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun, Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds. The darkness drops again; but now I know That twenty centuries of stony sleep Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle, And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born? Are we actually 'sleep walking' through this prophesy buffeted by Trump, Brexit and Alt Right/Far left 'passionate intensity' etc?
What concerns me, is the Church (across denminations) become the Pharisees? They put so much stock in their extra-Biblical writings and traditions. Jesus warned: “So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?” 6 He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “ ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. 7 They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’ 8You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.” 9 And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observeyour own traditions! 10 For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’and, ‘Anyone who curses their father or mother is to be put to death.’ 11But you say that if anyone declares that what might have been used to help their father or mother is Corban (that is, devoted to God)” 12 then you no longer let them do anything for their father or mother. 13 Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that.” (Mark 7:5-13). I do believe we must test all spirits (1 John 4:1-3), weigh all prophecies (1 Corinthians 14:29), and all experiances must conform to Scripture (not contradict it), for it is weitten: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2 Timothy 3:16), “For everything that was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope,” (Romans 15:4), “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said,” (1 Corinthians 15:4-4), and “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture comes from one's own interpretation. For no such prophecy was ever brought about through human initiative, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” (2 Peter 1:20-21). For the Pharissees did not hold to Scripture, had they done so, they would have believed in Jesus, but instead they held to Talmudic Traditions and killed the prophets (Matthew 23:31) A good balance is what St. Paul said, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all; hold on to what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:20-21). The trick is to be open to the moving of the Spirit, but not be decieved by false spirits from a “pure and simple devotion fo Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:2).