Emotionally Reasoned

“Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman: That they may keep thee from the strange woman, from the stranger which flattereth with her words.” (Pr 7:4-5 AV)

It is interesting the emotional tie Solomon associates with wisdom and understanding.  When we think of these two, we think primarily of information.  How can someone have an emotional tie to facts?  The use of ‘sister’ and ‘kinswoman’ is a reference to close and personal relationships.  John Gill writes, “Intimately acquainted, greatly beloved, and highly delighted in”.  Joseph Benson pens, “Say to her, Thou art my sister, my spouse, my beloved: let her have the command of thy heart, and the conduct of thy life.”  Each suggests Solomon’s encouragement to his son is to have personal feelings regarding wisdom and understanding beyond mere knowledge.  Dad suggests to his son to have a passion and allegiance to wisdom and understanding to the same degree he would his own sister, mother, aunt, and even his wife.  But that begs the question.  How can someone be personally vested in facts?  How can one have personal feelings about wisdom that leads to the right choices?  How can someone be personally attached to the right path, the right course of life, and the right living?  Isn’t wisdom like taking your medicine?  It is a pill you swallow for no other reason than it is prescribed and it will treat some underlying condition if it is not taken.  How can one go from simple discipline to zealous adherence?  What changes?

What changes is noticing the effect it has when followed versus the consequences if it is not.  My doctor put me on three medications several years back.  One for my thyroid.  It is not working as well as it should.  Another for my blood pressure.  It was slightly elevated but more so for a hereditary brain issue that requires I pay close attention to my blood pressure.  Then I am on a statin to fight high cholesterol.  Not that my bad cholesterol is seriously high.  It isn’t.  But my good cholesterol is excessively low because of genetics.  When I was put on all those, I notices a remarkable difference in my sleep quality and brain function.  I slept like a rock.  Still do.  Before the medication, the littlest things would wake me up and I would be up for the remainder of the night.  To say I was perpetually tired would be an understatement.  If you talked to me, you could tell I hadn’t slept for a while.  The thyroid medicine helped tremendously to stabilize my mood and the cholesterol medicine greatly improved my brain function.  I have them on a daily schedule along with vitamins B12 and B6 to help with dry skin from hypothyroidism and appetite control.  They are just pills.  That is all they are.  They are little round things made up of talcum powder and chemicals.  They are inanimate.  They cannot talk to me or carry on a relationship.  But because of my need for them and the benefits they bestow, I definitely have a personal feeling about them.

The reason we have little emotion for wisdom and understanding is we do not take stock of how much they benefit us.  Above, Solomon instructs his son to have greater personal feelings for wisdom and understanding than he would a strange woman.  That is, comprehending the benefits of living by wisdom and comparing that with the pleasure he might have indulging in sin.  Which has greater pleasure?  Which had greater benefits?  This also suggests the only way we will find the benefits of wisdom and understanding is to try them out.  Not once or twice.  Rather, as long as it takes to find the benefit.  The first time we turn down the flesh, it might be agonizing.  Doing it repeatedly will reveal that discipline has its own rewards.  We give up too soon.  We don’t see an immediate upside to wisdom.  We see an instantaneous pleasure from foolishness.  Solomon is right.  We should have a personal tie to wisdom and understanding.  We should be attached to it emotionally.  The only way to do that is to put them into practice and allow them to have their perfect work.

Stay Clean

“In thy filthiness is lewdness: because I have purged thee, and thou wast not purged, thou shalt not be purged from thy filthiness any more, till I have caused my fury to rest upon thee.” (Eze 24:13 AV)

I know this is not exactly encouraging, but it is necessary.  Judah had sought the LORD many times and many times God removed the iniquity which plagued the nation.  This is the history of Israel.  This is the history of mankind.  And this is also the pattern of the New Testament saint.  God purges, yet we go right back to that from which He purged us.  He purges again.  We return.  He purges again.  We repeat the folly.  There will come a time when the LORD says enough is enough.  If we are bent on iniquity and nothing He does changes it, His hand of grace is removed and we suffer the consequences of repeated sin.  There will come a time that no matter how much we may wish to be free from iniquity, because of our habitual pursuit of it, it will enslave us.  The only recourse is the fury of God.  That is the only thing that will cleanse us from this stubborn unrighteousness.  The Psalmist uses the term hot displeasure.  Fury means passionate anger.  We don’t like to think of God that way.  But He is.  He can get really upset at us if we continuously yield to iniquity even after He purged us from it.

My wife and I raised three sons.  Boys love to learn.  They love to discover.  They tinker and play in the hope of learning something mechanical.  It doesn’t matter what happens while they work.  A huge mess could be the result.  This doesn’t stop them.  They will poke and prod, pull and toss, bang and throw.  All in for the endeavor to see how something reacts.  This is all good and well except when you are trying to keep them cleaned up for church.  Mom would bathe them all the night before.  She would slick down their hair and dress them in their Sunday best.  The only instruction was, for about thirty minutes while Mom got ready, there were to play nicely and not get into any messes.  RIGHT.  These are boys you are talking about.  Playdo has a way of finding itself everywhere.  That breakfast cereal you left out is not staying in the box.  Crawling around the floor will gather dust and dog hair everywhere on that child.  You may have cleaned him up, but his nature wants to do just the opposite.

If we are going to seek the LORD for stubborn sin, then when He purges, we need to stay purged.  There may be a failure here and there.  That is to be expected.  But to continue our stubborn iniquity as a habit of life will accomplish only one thing.  God will get rather angry with us.  I for one am glad that He does.  I need this truth.  I need to know that even though God is merciful and gracious, He can still get rather upset with me.  If He didn’t, I wouldn’t think He loved me.  Years ago, we were enthralled by the Brady Bunch.  Mr. Brady never lost his temper, never struck a child, or never yelled.  We all wanted a father like him.  Yet, to have someone who never lost his patience would be a nightmare.  Just as much as I desire God’s elation and joy when I do right, I also desire His anger when I stubbornly disobey.  The extremes of His emotions reveal the level of His love.  So, I thank God for His fury.  I deserve it.  I am glad He is not a passive God who lets everything slide.  Praise the LORD He shows emotion when I repeatedly turn my back on Him.  Praise God!  Our answer is to stay purged.  Don’t return to the vomit.  If we do not like God being angry with us, then we need to stop what we are doing. JUST STOP!

What's Our Motive?

“And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.” (Eze 20:44 AV)

The underlined phrase occurs four times in Ezekiel chapter twenty.  The first time regards the Exodus.  The second time regards the wilderness wandering and conquering of Canaan.  The third time it is used, the LORD is speaking of the dispersion into Gentile lands.  Here is the fourth time this phrase is used and the LORD is speaking of the restoration of Israel at the commencement of the Millennial reign of Christ.  Regardless of the circumstances, whether correction or restoration, the LORD does it all for His name’s sake.  This began a time of meditation wherein I had to ask myself how much of what I desire God to do is for my sake or His.   Do I desire freedom from sin so that He might be glorified, or do I want it to make me feel better?  Do I desire a miracle for my wife’s health because I am anxious otherwise?  Or, do I desire the LORD to work so He might have all the glory?  This truth made me ponder just how much of my prayer life is inward-centered rather than upward-centered.  How much of what we ask for is for our or others’ benefit as opposed to God’s alone?

There is a more important truth to consider here.  Note especially with what the LORD is working.  The LORD is working directly with a nation.  He is leading, forming, and using a nation.  The same can be applied to an individual.  When God works, He also works on and with individuals.  This begs another question.  How much do we seek God’s hand to have His way in all circumstances and how does that affect our prayer life?  When we make a prayer list, do we ponder the effect any given answer to those prayers would have on the name of God?  An obvious miracle may not have the same effect on the name of the LORD as an outcome for which we are not praying.

Motive was my main concern this morning.  My prayer list is long.  There are several missionaries whom we support who are facing difficulties on the field.  Some are even struggling to stay on the field.  I know for what to pray, but what is the motive?  Our list of cancer fighters is a large one.  For such a small congregation, the affected rate is above thirty percent.  Throw in relatives of attendees or acquaintances, and we have a significant list of those battling this horrible disease.  For what do we pray, specifically, and why?  At any one time, there are several facing a real battle with sin.  Some have lost much.  We know what we want to see.  We want to see full deliverance and restoration.  Not just of their relationship with the LORD, but the situation of life as well.  But why?  Do we ask the LORD for deliverance from sin because guilt and shame are too heavy to bear?  Do we seek deliverance because the consequences are too great to assume?  Perhaps motive should be a consideration.  If we seek transformation into Christlikeness; which every sincere child of God does; what is the motive?  You see, the motive must be for the glory of God, first.  For His name’s sake.  That the God of the universe might be glorified in all that we do, are, and will become.  What a cleansing way in which to pray to the Father.  For His name’s sake, work on the child of God!

Make Up The Gap

“Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD.” (Eze 13:5 AV)

When I read this, I thought it would make a great sermon.  It still may.  But the Spirit does not do things randomly and for no immediate purpose.  Judah was going into captivity.  This was prophesied.  They didn’t have to.  They had every opportunity to repent and receive God’s grace.  They rejected every overture from the Father.  They turned their back on His mercy.  Even though the end was a foregone conclusion, they were still expected to protect areas of weakness.  The gap had to be filled.  The hedge had to be maintained.  This reminds me of a self-destructive personality.  This type of person is failing, and he or she almost dares God to complete the process and make a dust pile of them.  They deliberately leave areas of their lives open for attack that need not be.  They lay themselves open for complete destruction and are at peace with it.  They see some sort of pleasure in complete failure.  It appears as though they are humble, but in reality, it is a form of pride.  They know what God wants of them and are unwilling to give it to the LORD.  When they fail, there is a warped sense of satisfaction because deep down inside, they have no sense of worth.  They see themselves as disposable and unlovable.  Not even God can love them.  So they embark on behavior that they believe fulfills this prophecy.  Even God will hate them in the end.

What is interesting is the solution to this problem.  It is a simple one.  God will not give these individuals what they wanted.  Israel went into captivity.  They suffered great hardship.  But the LORD never destroyed them.  Their suicidal mission was a failure.  The nation survived and thrived.  They learned God loved them despite what they did and what they were.  God did not allow a decree from an anti-Semite to destroy them in the book of Esther.  Daniel tells us of all the nations that have come and will come against Israel.  They will all fail.  Messiah will come and the nation will rise to the favored status promised to their founder, Abraham.  In the meantime, they need to fill in the gap and make up the hedges.  There is something that can be salvaged.  There is some good that can be saved.  There were elements of their nation that did not have to be lost.  The king of Judah was told not to run.  If he ran, the Chaldeans would burn the temple and city.  Had he submitted to Nebby and gone into captivity, the original temple would not have been lost.  There is always something redeemable no matter how far we have fallen.

It pains my heart to see someone who has given up.  The funny thing is, even if they have given up, God has not.  He is in the reconciliation business even if we don’t think it possible.  He is in the reclamation business, even if we think we are unsalvageable.  God works these things often with men.  Even the prodigal son and much of what he lost was restored.  This reminds me of the words to the church at Sardis, “Be watchful, and strengthen the things which remain, that are ready to die: for I have not found thy works perfect before God.” (Re 3:2 AV)  God will build you back up whether you like it or not.  You may be self-destructive, but God is not.  He will not destroy His child.  He will allow You to go through some rather hard times and deep waters, but you will come out the other side.  How many gaps and hedges you build in the meantime will determine the condition in which you are restored.  Fight the inclination to destroy yourself.  As the LORD implored Judah just in the next chapter – LIVE.

Trusting Is Hard To Do

“Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” (Pr 3:5-6 AV)

This is such a well-known passage that it often is neglected for meditation.  It is referenced quite a bit.  There are songs and choruses written about it.  Yet, it goes underutilized in the sense we do not stop, think hard about it, evaluate our own level of faith, and make necessary changes.  This is what we are doing thins morning.  There are several questions we can ask.  Do I trust the LORD with all my heart and what does it look like to trust the LORD with only a portion of my heart?  What understanding do I lean on, and am I aware it does not compare to the understanding of God?  How often do I go about any given day and make choices without considering God in all of it?  These three questions would take a book to explore.  Let me hone in on just one.  Do we acknowledge God in all our ways?  What does that mean?  The word for ‘acknowledge’ means, “observe, recognize; to designate”.  This puts the phrase in a better light.  In all our ways we are to observe, recognize, and designate God’s presence, opinion, and sovereignty.  The requires the saint to be God-conscious every waking moment of the day for the day is made up of innumerable choices one after another.  In our text, Solomon suggests the primary reason we are not God-conscious is that we do not trust Him.  Lack of faith is at the root.

Faith is a funny thing.  Most associate faith with a feeling.  To have faith, some assume, means to feel confident.  To have faith, some believe,  means to be absent of all fear.  Faith is not a feeling.  Faith is an action.  Faith is a belief so strong, that one is compelled to act upon that belief even amid obscurity.  Faith is a choice.  Faith doesn’t have all the answers.  Faith accepts what it is told because the source is credible and has never been wrong before.  Faith sees the promise or statement and judges the author of it as perfectly trustworthy, even if one’s own opinion might be contrary.  Solomon is trying to teach his children there are times when God’s ways will not make sense and even though we doubt the trustworthiness of the truth, the author of that truth can be trusted.

Last night, we had a missionary speak on the faith of Abraham.  It impacted me quite a bit.  In particular, he advised that we not hold up saints who have gone through difficult times as an exception to a rule which we cannot see ourselves as surviving.  His point was, when we do this, we are undervaluing God’s role in all of it.  God can and does meet us where and when we need Him most.  There is nothing we will ever face that He cannot see us through it.  Trusting was a choice on Abraham’s part.  It wasn’t a feeling of confidence.  Although he had that.  It wasn’t a lack of fear.  Although he knew God would raise Isaac back from the dead if need be.  Faith was not the emotion attached to his choice.  Faith was raising the knife to slay his son.  Faith was a choice to act on the faithfulness of God and leave the consequences with Him.  That is what it means to exercise faith.  It is a choice.  It is a choice to trust the LORD more than anything else.  If we do that, then peace and confidence follow.

Known for What He is and Not Just Who He is

“The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with desolation, and the hands of the people of the land shall be troubled: I will do unto them after their way, and according to their deserts will I judge them; and they shall know that I am the LORD.” (Eze 7:27 AV)

This statement was made to the king of Judah.  The last four chapters were a review of all that Judah had allowed, especially in the temple, and the consequent judgment pronounced against them.  The cause for this judgment was that God might honor Himself.  If He does not exercise justice on a disobedient Judah, then His name means nothing.  The exercise of self-vindication is not limited to subjects such as sin or unfaithfulness.  God vindicates Himself in many ways.  He does not act solely in justice and wrath.  God does not limit His hand in matters of righteousness only.  He is a God of mercy as well.  He is a God that sustains all things, knows all things, and controls all things.  He has a plan for man and each individual soul that makes up mankind.  He acts for many reasons.  He loves and therefore desires to work in the lives of those whom He created.  Our passage above gives a great reason why God acts.  He acts that He might be known for who and what He is.  We wish to think about this and not limit it to the immediate context of the statement.

Many years ago, I spent a few months trying to develop and unique monogram that included all three of my initials.  I did this for the sake of initializing documents like applications and such.  But there was another reason I did this.  For years, I dabbled in art.  First, it was old school.  Then it went modern and technical.  One work I created was watch faces for a smartwatch.  That was back in the infant days of such a hobby.  When inserting my monogram, I tried to do this as discretely as possible.  I wanted it to be there, but also unobtrusive.  I didn’t want my monogram to be the center of the piece.  I didn’t want it to be the first thing people noticed.  Looking at the monogram, if you didn’t know my name or initials, it might be hard to figure out just what the design was supposed to be.  It almost looked like an ampersand.  It actually looked like a cross between an ampersand and a boat anchor.  The point was, I wanted those who saw the design to notice the creator without being the center of what I did.

When it comes to the hand of God, He demands He be the center.  There is nothing unobtrusive about it.  A thunderstorm is kind of hard to miss.  An earthquake is not all that subtle.  A sunrise is noticed by everyone.  A miracle cannot be ignored.  The beginning of life and the end thereof are not silent events.  It is hard to miss the hand of God.  If one misses it, he does so because he chooses to.  God works oftentimes in the affairs of men.  He does so to be known.  He does so that those upon whom the hand of God comes, will recognize it, be humbled, and be moved to gratitude, resulting in more obedience and faith.  God wants to be known.  Not just personally.  But HE wants to be known for who and what He is.  Not just that He is.  We miss it all the time.  We are so temporally minded that the hand of God passes right before us and we hardly even take notice.  This is why He works.  To acknowledge God for who and what He is is the only correct response.

Compassion With The Callous

“Then I came to them of the captivity at Telabib, that dwelt by the river of Chebar, and I sat where they sat, and remained there astonished among them seven days.” (Eze 3:15 AV)

This is quite a remarkable gesture considering what the LORD told the prophet regarding his ministry.  To be astonished here means to be stunned.  The LORD sent Ezekiel to a congregation that would not listen to him.  He would not have one convert.  Not one.  The entire nation would reject his warning.  They would do worse than that.  They would throw his colleague, Jeremiah, into a prison of mud and slim.  They would bring him to the brink of starvation.  All the while, Ezekiel is in Babylon by the river Chebar preaching for their repentance.  Amid captivity wherein things could not possibly get any worse, they still turn a deaf ear.  Yet, he sits with them for seven days, empathizing with their condition even though there is nothing they will do to help themselves.  This is compassion.  This prophet loved God more than he did himself and whatever it was the LORD wanted him to do, he did it.  This includes keeping compassionate company with those who wanted nothing to do with him or what he said.

I appreciate what doctors do.  There aren’t a whole lot of patients that take the time to recognize the effort they take to make our lives a little bit better.  They practice a craft that will end in defeat.  No one lives on earth forever.  They practice their craft so that we might have a quality of life we wouldn’t have otherwise.  Most of the suggestions they share fall on deaf ears.  The patient’s priorities for quality of life are often different than the doctor’s recommendations.  He or she is working toward the longevity of life and we want a fullness of life.  We don’t care how long we live as long as we can eat that double-stack cheeseburger with cheese curds and a milkshake.  Carbs are the best!  Who wants to sacrifice a big cone of custard for a few extra hours on this planet?  They mean well, but our priorities are different.  Yet each day, they come into the office, put on their white lab coat, review charts, and begin to see one patient after another who will want nothing more than a script to ease some self-inflicted pain.  They do all this without judging or condemnation.  They are there to help even if we don’t want the help.  At least the help that is best for us.

This is our job as an ambassador for the LORD Jesus Christ.  We are sent to a lost and dying world of whom most want nothing to do with us.  It is even worse than that.  They hate us and persecute us.  The compassion does not stop with the lost.  Sometimes they are easier to love than the obstinate saint.  The fellow believer who seems to want nothing to do with holiness, sanctification, or brotherly love is often the one we tend to avoid.  But the LORD has called us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ no matter their reaction toward us.  What Ezekiel did is more than exemplary.  It is downright admirable.  For him to sit for seven days with people who hated him, would never listen to him, and wanted him gone is a level of compassion that is hard to grasp.  I can see how cleansing that would be.  All pretense is gone.  You know you are not getting any mileage out of it.  Yet, you sit, anyway.  They will never understand the gesture.  You will never be appreciated for it.  They will never thank you for it nor see why you did it.  But you did it for the LORD and them.  A pure and perfect motive.  May we learn to sit with our enemy and love them despite their reaction to our compassion!