Spiritual Incorrigibility – The Whole Heart Faints (Isaiah 1:5)

Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.

     Isaiah has now laid out for us a pretty plain picture of incorrigibility.  Israel has brought themselves to a place where they are unable to change, unable to extract themselves from the predicament they are in, at least humanly speaking!  They will revolt more and more, the spiritual head of nation is desperately sick so that they cannot think rightly.  They are at the place where, as we will see, they are just one big mass of welts and bruises from the beatings (metaphorically speaking) God has given in chastisement.  Now He will say that their spiritual heart is failing them.

     “The whole heart” - The heart is here put for the whole region of the chest or stomach. As with the above we ought to refer this to the physical part of man, but understand it as a metaphor the center of the “being” of the nation. The word is actually used in at least 19 distinguishable fashions in the Bible, believe it or not! It can, of course, refer to the heart, mind, soul, spirit, self, i.e., the source of the life of the inner person in various aspects, with a focus on feelings, thoughts, volition, and other areas of inner life (Dt 2:30). Abstractly, then, it can refer to the middle, center, midst of a person or place or thing, formally, heart, i.e., a position among or in the middle, relatively to other points of space (John 2:3).

     It can speak of the ability of one to be deceived, formally, to steal the heart, i.e., to cause one to hold a wrong opinion or belief (Ge 31:26+). One can have a rebellious, or formally, uncircumcised heart, i.e., pertaining to rising up in open defiance to authority (Lev 26:41+).

     It can also refer to conscience, i.e., the psychological faculty to distinguish right and wrong (Ge 20:5). It can speak of the chest, formally, heart, i.e., the thorax cavity of a creature (Na 2:7). The Bible speaks often of being discouraged or losing heart, i.e., have a feeling or attitude of loss of hope and so of being in emotional distress (Dt 1:28; 20:8+). There are also times when the Scripture sues the term “heart” to speak of “you”, formally, of your heart, a reflexive reference to receptor, as a figurative extension of the heart as the inner self (Dt 7:17). It can use the term to speak of integrity, sincerity, of straightness of heart, i.e., honesty as a moral quality (Dt 9:5).

     The “faints” speaks of the heart being enticed, of something seducing the heart, i.e., lure or coax one into sin (Dt 11:16+). Similarly, one can be hardhearted, or strong of heart, i.e., pertaining to being unresponsive or stubborn (Dt 15:7). It is possible to be proud, to consider oneself better, to lift high the heart, to have an improper haughtiness and arrogance, or to ascribing high status to oneself falsely (Dt 17:20). One can think in one’s heart, i.e., process information (Dt 29:19).

     The Bible teaches us that it is possible to be fainthearted, i.e., be afraid or distressed (Dt 20:3). Conversely, we can be good of heart, i.e., a joyful, happy feeling or attitude (Dt 28:47+). A person can be downhearted, or bad of heart, i.e., be in a feeling or attitude of depression or discouragement (1Sa 1:8). Two or more people can be united, be of one heart, i.e., be in an association with another (1Ch 12:17+). Lastly, the heart can be encouraged, one can speak to the heart, i.e., cause another to be consoled or courageous.^[1]

     Here we would suggest that it is referring to the center of the nation, the essence of what makes Israel what Israel truly is. That intangible center that “is” the nation. It is that which is “faint”.

     Again, the expression is emphatic. A common noun is associated with phrase here that means all the thing, every part, every part, the totality, it’s completeness with nothing left out. It can refer to every and any kind of the thing. It was used, for instance to refer to the offerings at the alter that were to be burned and nothing left of them (Ex. 29:18f). God used this term when he gave Adam dominion over all of the creatures of the creation (Gen. 1:26).

     So as when the head is violently pained, there is also sickness at the heart, and as these are indications of entire or total prostration of the frame so the expression here denotes the perfect desolation which had come over the nation. Isaiah is here saying that that facility which normally would rise to the occasion and do justice to God and to His leading has failed and has fainted – and cannot and will not do what is needful.

    “Is Faint” or “Faints” – the word refers to that which pertains to being afflicted with sorrow or other emotional injury. It can refer to internal sickness, cramps. It is used to speak metaphorically a heart of affliction, i.e., to have internal cramping and sickness.^[2] We should note that the word is a noun and not a verb. It is referring to a state, not to an action. Literally, “the whole head is sick and the heart faint”.

     Using much the same analogy, in Jer. 8:18 Jeremiah says: ‘When I would comfort myself in my sorrow, my heart is faint within me;’ (see also Lam. 1:22). When the body is suffering; when severe punishment is inflicted, the effect is to produce languor and faintness at the seat of life. This is the idea here. Their punishment had been so severe for their sins, that the “heart” was languid and feeble - still keeping up the figure drawn from the human body. Not only was their no motivation and movement for obedience, but there was no prospect that any would arise either. Thus, he pictures a sickness of soul as the real cause of Judah’s impending political collapse.^[3]

     This is the cause of all of the problems, in the cases of all men everywhere, in all times. Men’s souls are sick with sin and that sin drives them to reject and rebel against the Lord God of heaven. Modern man is no different than ancient Israel. They rebel against God at every turn. God seeks to turn them to godliness, calling them again and again in His mercy. He weeps over them in His love for them as He watches them spurn Him in their hardness and rebellion. But note that, in the case of the Israelites, this was not so much because of the affliction, but in spite of it!

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^[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 4222, #19). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

^[2] Ibid, DBLH 1868, #2.

^[3] KJV Bible Commentary. 1997, c1994 (1301). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

Spiritual Incorrigibility – The Whole Head Is Sick (Isaiah 1:5)

Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.

     The whole head - The prophet proceeds to specify more definitely what he had just said respecting their being stricken. He designates each of the members of the body - thus comparing the Jewish people to the human body when under severe punishment. He speaks of three parts of the body in turn, the head, the heart, and then he uses a euphemism to speak of the body as an entire unit.

     The word head in the Scriptures is often used to denote the princes, leaders, or chiefs of the nation. But the expression here is used as a figure taken from the human body, and refers solely to the punishment of the people, not to their sins. It means that all had been smitten - all was filled with the effects of punishment - as the human body is when the head and all the members are diseased. We imply this precisely because it is used in conjunction with the other two metaphors, the heart and the entire body, together taken to refer, not to the leadership as we might normal infer, but to the entire nation.

     Is sick - What might be implied here is that they somehow do not have the capacity to understand the true value and meaning of the chastening that god is heaping upon them – and thus they are incapable of responding properly. We might think of this as a head injury or a disease of the brain that prevents the normal thinking processes. Is so smitten - so punished, that it has become sick and painful.

     The Hebrew is a word for sickness, or pain. It is used in four contexts in the Old Testament. First it can refer to an illness or sickness as Deut. 7:15 where it refers to the “sicknesses” and “diseases” God sent upon Egypt in judgment when freeing Israel from bondage:

15 And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you.

     In Deuteronomy 28:59, 61, in enjoining Israel to obedience to the Law, God warns them that “sicknesses” will follow disobedience:

59 then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses. 60 Moreover He will bring back on you all the diseases of Egypt, of which you were afraid, and they shall cling to you. 61 Also every sickness and every plague, which is not written in this Book of the Law, will the Lord bring upon you until you are destroyed.

     In 1Ki 17:17 we see Elijah revive the Widow’s son after a “sickness” kills him:

     Now it happened after these things that the son of the woman who owned the house became sick. And his sickness was so serious that there was no breath left in him.

     The term[1] is likewise used in 2Ki 8:8, 9; 13:14; 2Ch 16:12; 21:15,18, 19; Ps 41:4[EB 3]; Isa 38:9; Hos 5:13 and a number of other places.

     A second use of the term is to refer to a wound or injury, namely that which is the result of a blow or hit, (not necessarily an intentionally one). In 2 Kings 1:2 Ahaziah falls through a lattice and receives an injury:

Now Ahaziah fell through the lattice of his upper room in Samaria, and was injured; so he sent messengers and said to them, “Go, inquire of Baal-Zebub, the god of Ekron, whether I shall recover from this injury.”

     In Jer 6:7 speaking also of the wickedness of Israel, Jeremiah complains of Israel:

As a fountain wells up with water,
So she wells up with her wickedness.
Violence and plundering are heard in her.
Before Me continually are grief and wounds.

     In Jeremiah 10:19, again Judah, speaking of the chastening of God, says:

Woe is me for my hurt!
My wound is severe.
But I say, “Truly this is an infirmity,
And I must bear it.”

     And so the word can refer to a wound received as a blow, either accidentally, as in Ahaziah, or intentionally, a Israel received in chastening from God.

     Thirdly, it can refer to affliction or trouble. In Ecclesiastes 5:16 (verse 17 in the English Bible due to number differences) we read:

All his days he also eats in darkness,
And he has much sorrow and sickness and anger.

     “Sorrow” is our word in this case, sickness being a different Hebrew word. Isa 53:3, 4 uses the term and says:

3     He is despised and rejected by men,
A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.
And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him;
He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
4     Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.

     Fourthly, it can be used to refer to grievous evil, especially and formally, to the evil of affliction as in Ecclesiastes 6:2:

2 A man to whom God has given riches and wealth and honor, so that he lacks nothing for himself of all he desires; yet God does not give him power to eat of it, but a foreigner consumes it. This is vanity, and it is an evil affliction.

     Solomon is speaking of this “evil affliction” is a formal sense, in a general sense, not speaking of the specifics in which each man applies that evil to his daily life.

     We would have to understand this word in the second sense in this verse. This sickness is not organic, it is not disease. It is the result of the blows of chastening. God has and will speak of the bruising and the gaping wounds that have been untended and are festering and are foul with “putrefying sores”. Israel has done nothing to help themselves, namely, they have not heeded the call of God to submit to the counsel of the Prophets of God and repent of their sin!

     The expression is intensive, and denotes that the head was entirely and completely sick or dysfunctional. There is no sense in which Israel can think or reason her way out of this matter. And really, from a broader perspective, this is not a matter that can be “thought” out of. God must rescue them from their plight. That is precisely Isaiah’s message and it is a message that he is building towards throughout his book!

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[1] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 2716, #4). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

Spiritual Incorrigibility – Should Ye Be Stricken – Ye Will Revolt (Isaiah 1:5)

Why should you be stricken again?
You will revolt more and more.
The whole head is sick,
And the whole heart faints.

     Should ye be stricken – this word means smitten, or punished. It refers to the manner in which they had been punished, which he specifies in Isa. 1:7-8 and which we will discuss more full there. Jerome says, that the sense is,

‘…there is no medicine which I can administer to your wounds. All your members are full of wounds; and there is no part of your body which has not been smitten before. The more you are afflicted, the more will your impiety and iniquity increase.’

     It is applied to the infliction of punishment on an individual; or to the judgments of God by the plague, pestilence, or sickness. It is frequently used of God “smiting enemy troops with some horrific pestilence in a battle situation. For instance, in Gen. 19:2: ‘And they smote the men that were at the door with blindness.’; in Num. 14:12: ‘And I will smite them with the pestilence.’; in Exo. 7:25: ‘After that the Lord had smitten the river,’ that is, had changed it into blood; and compare that to Isa. 1:20; Zech. 10:2). Here it refers to the judgments inflicted on the nation as the punishment of their crimes.

     We must note that this refers to a large number of these “chastenings”, hence a large number of crimes. This is not referring to single beating for a single crime. God is not viewing Israel’s disobedience as a single problem here. It is true that the underlying cause of the disobedience may be their rebellion, but the crimes for which he has chastened them are several and are not viewed as a singled crime. This is an important matter that we must understand. Israel is in this condition because God has given her repeated; many, many, many, yes, many opportunities to obey Him and Israel, nationally, had failed on every occasion and had fallen under His chastening hand. Though Isaiah is looking “down the corridors of time”, so to speak, and seeing Israel as a unit as far as her history goes and seeing Israel as if she were a single life, it is important to note that this is not the case.

     Isaiah is giving a summary case against Israel in preparation for his presentation of the prophecies of the coming Messiah, the rescuer, the solution of the seemingly insoluble problem that Israel has run up against all of the centuries time and again that has resulted in her being chastened over and over and ending up in the condition that she stands in at the time of Isaiah’s prophecy, punished nearly to the point of destruction!

     Isaiah will make the case that this coming Messiah will do what Israel has been unable and, more properly, unwilling to do over the centuries. He will give them a willing and pliable heart before God that will submit willingly before the Lord and obey His command to finally and fully leave their idols and their disobedience and follow after Him with their whole hearts! But first, Isaiah must first fully paint the full picture of their depravity; for that is the real problem at hand and that is the true problem that the Lord Jesus, the Messiah will come to solve.

     Ye will revolt – The Hebrew here is actually a series of three words: The verb To Add, Still, and the noun Apostasy or Revolt. The sense then of the phrase is that they will add defection, or revolt to the crimes they have already committed. The effect of calamity, and punishment, will be only to increase rebellion. This is the opposite of the intended what was the expected result of chastening and it demonstrates just what the true state of the heart of the average Israelite truly was.

     The idea here is that this is response to God’s chastening hand. Rather than heed what God is saying to them by means of that chastening, they revolt and head in precisely the opposite direction. God intended for the chastening to reveal to them His displeasure, and thus, their sin and moral and spiritual lack. Rather it had the effect of stimulating more rebellion and more desire to fly in God’s face. God’s question to them, in that light then, is why should He chasten them at all then? The result would simply be more sin instead of the repentance and obedience that He desired.

     Remember that we are not just speaking of the leadership here, we are speaking of the nation as a whole by this point and so this applied to all men, not just to the leaders. Where the heart is right with God, the tendency of affliction is to humble it, and lead it more and more to God. Where it is evil, the tendency is to make the sinner more obstinate and rebellious. This effect of punishment is seen everywhere. Sinners revolt more and more. They become sullen, and malignant, and fretful; they plunge into vice to seek temporary relief, and thus they become more and more alienated from God. We see this all over our world today. Men withdraw and dive into their small pleasures and pull away from the Lord rather allow the hand of God to guide them toward righteousness holiness.

     “Still” carries and almost incredulous sense to it. After all that God has done to them. After all of the chastening, looking at the matter as whole, as it were, and as Isaiah has drawn the image for them, the “still” will refuse to repent and “still” will refuse to submit, choosing rather to continue in their own sinful wickedness rather than to submit to their God. Truly in this he stands as the polar opposite of Moses who, we are told,

… 25 choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, 26 esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward.[1] (Hebrews 11:24-25)

     The nation that followed in his footsteps chose the passing pleasures of sin for a season, and chose to embrace the reproach of Christ!

     What Isaiah calls “revolt” here is one of the OT terms for apostasy. It can be simply defined as a state of hostility by being obstinate and stubborn to direction or commands by a superior, either active or passive resistance.[2] It is a noun form that can also be translated “crime”. The root meaning of the word is “to cease” or “to depart” and it is used that way, for instance in 1 Samuel 16:14 where the Spirit of the Lord is said to “depart” from Saul:

14 But the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a distressing spirit from the Lord troubled him.[3]

     The Adjectival form can mean “sullen” and is used in 1 Kings 21:5:

5 But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said to him, “Why is your spirit so sullen that you eat no food?”[4]

     The noun is used 8 times, 4 of them here in Isaiah, and twice in Jeremiah. The other two occurrences are in Deuteronomy. The occurrences in Deuteronomy speak of a false prophet seeking to turn Israel’s heart away from the Lord and of his punishment (Dt. 13:6) and of the crime of bearing false witness. (Dt. 19:16). In Jeremiah, (Jer. 28:16; 29:32) both occurrences speak of false prophets who teach rebellion against the Lord. In addition to this passage In Isaiah 1:5, the remaining 3 passages in Isaiah all use the words to speak of “hindering” (14:6), “deeply revolting” (31:6); and “departing” from God.

     But this form of the word is not the more important form of the word. The primary meaning of the root is “to turn aside.” It appears to be a distinctively Northwest Semitic word, being attested particularly in Hebrew and Phoenician. Intransitive in the basic stem, it is accordingly frequently found with many prepositions, yielding such ideas as “turn aside from/into,” and “withdraw from.”

     The verbal root occurs 191 times. In many cases it is a simple verb of motion, as in the act of turning aside. It is used, for instance by Moses of his great sighting of the burning bush in Exodusus 3:3-4:

3 Then Moses said, “I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush does not burn.” 4 So when the Lord saw that he turned aside to look, God called to him from the midst of the bush and said, “Moses, Moses!”[5]

     Likewise it is used Jael as he went to meet Sisera in Judges 4:18:

18 And Jael went out to meet Sisera, and said to him, “Turn aside, my lord, turn aside to me; do not fear.” And when he had turned aside with her into the tent, she covered him with a blanket. [6]

     Boaz used the term in inviting a close relative to come aside and sit with him in Ruth 4:1:

Now Boaz went up to the gate and sat down there; and behold, the close relative of whom Boaz had spoken came by. So Boaz said, “Come aside, friend, sit down here.” So he came aside and sat down.[7]

     In addition to turning aside, it can be translated “departing”, as in Numbers 12:10. When Aaron and Miriam rebelled against Moses’ authority, as a part of the judgment of God, when the glory of God “departed” from the Tabernacle, Miriam became leprous:

10 And when the cloud departed from above the tabernacle, suddenly Miriam became leprous, as white as snow. Then Aaron turned toward Miriam, and there she was, a leper.[8]

     The idea of departing could also involve spiritual issues. Thus, Samson “knew not that the Lord had departed from him” (Jud 16:20). “The Lord departed from Saul” ( I Sam 16:14; 28:16). Tragically, it was said repeatedly of Israel and its leaders that they did not depart “from the sins of Jeroboam” (II Kgs 10:31; 13:2, 6, 11; 14:24; 15:9, 18, 24, 28; 17:22; cf. 3:3). God complained against Jerusalem that the heart of his people had departed from him (Ezk 6:9). Unfortunately, those who had “departed not from following the Lord” (II Kgs 18:6) were all too few.

     The root is often used of Israel’s apostasy. In many cases it is translated “turn aside/away” Ex 32:8 uses it to speak of Israel “turning aside” out of the way God had commanded them to walk in the wilderness:

8 They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ ”[9]

     See also Deut 9:12; 11:16 for other examples of this type of usage.

     Conversely, “not to turn aside” was a way of affirming a man’s steadfastness before the Lord. In I Kgs 22:43 Jehoshaphat is said to have “not turned aside” from the ways of the Lord or from the ways of his father Asa:

43 And he walked in all the ways of his father Asa. He did not turn aside from them, doing what was right in the eyes of the Lord. Nevertheless the high places were not taken away, for the people offered sacrifices and burned incense on the high places.[10]

     Such a course of following strictly the will of God is frequently depicted by wedding the root to the familiar “right hand-left hand motif”. Thus, it was said of Josiah that he “did not turn aside to the right hand, nor to the left” (II Kgs 22:2; cf. Deut 2:27; 5:32 [H 29]; Josh 1:7).

     In the Hiphil stem, the meaning “remove” is most common. Asa removes Maacah for her continued idolatry (II Chr 15:16). Hezekiah removes the places and cult objects of idolatry (II Kgs 18:4; II Chr 30:14). God’s people are urged to remove or “put away” those things that will do spiritual harm to them: strange gods (Gen 35:2), all evil (Isa 1:16), wine (I Sam 1:14), false ways (Ps 119:29), and false worship (Amos 5:21–23).

     The root is also found frequently in the wisdom literature, being used of the most basic spiritual issues. Job (15:30) is reminded that the wicked will ultimately perish at God’s command. Godly wisdom and the fear of the Lord, however, turn one aside from the snares of death (Prov 13:14; 14:27). This is to be learned thoroughly in one’s youth so that it will become a pattern throughout life (Prov 22:6).

     Rather than turning aside from God’s commands and will for the life, the wise course of action is ever to “fear the Lord and turn away from evil” (Prov 3:7, cf. 16:6, 17; Job 28:28; Ps 34:14 [H 15]; 37:27).[11]

     And so this is a rich and full word, full of meaning for us. Israel had continual turned aside, they had turned aside again and again, and God, true to His covenant promises, had chastened them over and over, to the point where they looked as if they had been battered almost beyond bearing. The truth is that the chastening that God had done to them would really bear no real fruit for them. They would not respond and would, in fact only be driven to more revolt because of it. And so God asks,

“Why chasten you more? Why should you be stricken again?”

     One of the purposes for the Book of Isaiah is to present the truth the redemption comes by means of the sovereign hand of God, not by means of human agency. We see here already. Israel is not redeemed, they do not respond because of their intelligent interpretation of the chastening they receive at the hand of God. They will, one day, be redeemed nationally because God will sovereignly move to bring life to them and will bring those “dry bones” back to life! (Ezekiel 37:1-14).

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[1] The New King James Version. 1982 (Heb 11:24-26). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.

[2] Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains : Hebrew (Old Testament) (electronic ed.) (DBLH 6240, #1). Oak Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.

[3] Op Cit, 1 Sa 16:14.

[4] Ibid, 1 Ki 21:5.

[5] Ibid, Ex 3:3-4.

[6] Ibid, Jdg 4:18.

[7] Ibid, Ru 4:1.

[8] Ibid, Nu 12:10.

[9] Ibid, Ex 32:8.

[10] Ibid, 1 Ki 22:43.

[11] Harris, R. L., Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., & Waltke, B. K. (1999, c1980). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed.) (621). Chicago: Moody Press.

Spiritual Incorrigibility – The Effects of their Sin

5 Why should you be stricken again? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, And the whole heart faints. 6 From the sole of the foot even to the head, There is no soundness in it, But wounds and bruises and putrefying sores; They have not been closed or bound up, Or soothed with ointment. 7 Your country is desolate, Your cities are burned with fire; Strangers devour your land in your presence; And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers.

     The experience of Israel is a paradox to us, it is a mystery. It is thus because we think of it in modern terms, in New Testament terms instead of understanding it in Old Testament terms. In order to understand it we must understand it in Old Covenant terms, in terms of Israel as a nation and in terms of God dealing with Israel nationally. It is true that God dealt with men individually in the Old Testament and we have record of that in the Bible. God dealt with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He dealt with David and with Solomon. We could go on and on. But the record of the Old Testament is more importantly the record of God dealing with a nation, not that of God dealing with an individual and we must, if we are to understand God’s pronouncements rightly, understand it so. If we fail to see this we will misinterpret many of the things that God says. Much of what God says in the prophetic portions of the Scripture He is saying to Israel nationally, not to individuals. This is one such passage. If we apply this passage to a single person, as some Bible scholars have attempted to do, we will go badly awry in our doctrine.

     We want to follow up by emphasizing that there is surely application of Old Testament Scripture to individual life. We would be far amiss if we denied that the Law and the rest of the Old Testament had much to say to individual believers in the New Testament age. It surely does. But insofar as interpretation goes we must take care to be sure that we understand each passage as God intended it to be understood, as He gave it through its original author. Application to modern life is one thing but interpretation is quite another altogether!

     This is what we see in Isaiah. He is speaking to and about the nation as a whole. His rebuke is not for any single individual (unless, of course that individual is clearly singled out) but is aimed at the entire nation as a unit. It is all of Israel with which God is angry. It is the entire nation which He takes to task and it is the entire nation to which Isaiah speaks.

     Once again, however, this is not to say that we cannot take individual application from his words, only that we must take close care that we do so with the clear understanding the words are spoke to a group, a national entity and not an individual and with the sure knowledge that that will have an impact on how we both understand and apply what we read.

The Effects of their Sin (Isaiah 1:5)

     Why … - The prophet now, by an abrupt change in the discourse, calls their attention to the effects of their sins, namely that there is a cumulative effect that we would call incorrigibility. Instead of saying that they had been smitten, or of saying that they had been punished for their sins, he assumes both, and asks why it should be repeated. The Latin Vulgate reads this: ‘on what part - shall I smite you anymore?’ This expresses well the sense of the Hebrew – “upon what”; and the meaning is, ‘what part of the body can be found on which blows have not been inflicted? On every part there are traces of the stripes which have been inflicted for your sins.’ The idea is taken from a body that is all covered over with weals or marks of blows, and the idea is, that the whole frame is one continued bruise, and there remains no sound part to be stricken. God has chastened Israel to an unprecedented extent and yet they have not learned their lesson!

     Isaiah’s image, that of a hopeless sick body, mirrors a fact of O.T. covenant life. God had promised to keep an obedient people “free from every disease” (Deut. 7:12, 14–15).[1]

“Then it shall come to pass, because you listen to these judgments, and keep and do them, that the Lord your God will keep with you the covenant and the mercy which He swore to your fathers.

14 You shall be blessed above all peoples; there shall not be a male or female barren among you or among your livestock. 15 And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you.

     Disobedience made His people vulnerable to “severe and lingering illness” (Deut. 28:59).[2]

59 then the Lord will bring upon you and your descendants extraordinary plagues—great and prolonged plagues—and serious and prolonged sicknesses.

     What we see here then is another example of the bearing out of the promises made to Israel in the Law. Blessing for obedience and cursing for disobedience. Their covenant relationship with God was (and still is for it has never been revoked) a two-edged sword. So it is, by the way, with the believer in the New Testament era. God has entered into a Father-Son relationship with us and will not abandon that relationship with us – in other words, He will pursue us and discipline us, chastening us and calling us back to himself! Praise Him for His faithfulness!

     The particular chastisement to which the prophet refers is specified in Isa. 1:7-9. In Isa. 1:5-6, he refers to the calamities of the nation, under the image of a person wounded and chastised for crimes. Such a figure of speech is not uncommon in more modern classic writers. Again, the picture is one of God having chastened again and again to the point of Israel being one large bruise and sore. God has gone to such an extent to seek to restore them to faithfulness to Him that He has practically killed her! He has practically destroyed her. Except, Isaiah says in verse 9, God has deliberately left a small remnant, Israel would have gone the way of Sodom and Gomorrah – they would have been completely destroyed!

     The “why” here is rhetorical – no answer is expected. The following verse supply the answer. By the way, Israel will continue to be stricken – she has been chastened more and more ever since – God has not stopped and will not until the time of the end when He will miraculously convert all who alive! Romans 11:25-27:

25 For I do not desire, brethren, that you should be ignorant of this mystery, lest you should be wise in your own opinion, that blindness in part has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in. 26And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written:

“The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
And He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob;
27 For this is My covenant with them,
When I take away their sins.”

     There will come a day, at the time of the end, when all of Israel left alive, will see the truth of the Gospel and will, by the power of the Spirit of God, believe the truth of that Gospel and be saved, gloriously saved to the great glory of a patient and faithful God.

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[1] Richards, L. O. (1991; Published in electronic form by Logos Research Systems, 1996). The Bible Readers Companion (electronic ed.) (412). Wheaton: Victor Books.

[2] Ibid.

Condemnation #7 - They are gone away Backward

We’ve seen six condemnations of God’s people expressed in no uncertain, even brutal terms thus far. 

• Israel is a sinful Nation
• A Nation Laden with Iniquity
• A Seed of Evildoers
• Children of Evildoers
• They have forsaken the Lord, and 
• They have provoked the Holy One of Israel

Combined with two verses prior, this makes the first three verse of Isaiah virtually cruel by human standards.  But we need to take the book as as a whole and remember from what God is seeking to spare Israel.  Perspective is a wonderful thing, in history and in personal life as well. 

The sum of all what Israel had done was no minor sin.  they had, ultimately, turned their backs on their Lord.

‘They have turned their backs upon him.’ The word rendered “they are gone away,” means properly, to become estranged or to be a stranger; to be alienated. Job uses the word in Job. 19:13:

“He has removed my brothers far from me, And my acquaintances are completely estranged from me.

It refers, in the Bible, especially that declining from God, or that alienation, which takes place when people commit sin; (Ps. 78:21-31, esp. v30.)

21Therefore the Lord heard this and was furious;
So a fire was kindled against Jacob,
And anger also came up against Israel,
22Because they did not believe in God,
And did not trust in His salvation.
23Yet He had commanded the clouds above,
And opened the doors of heaven,
24Had rained down manna on them to eat,
And given them of the bread of heaven.
25Men ate angels’ food;
He sent them food to the full.
26He caused an east wind to blow in the heavens;
And by His power He brought in the south wind.
27He also rained meat on them like the dust,
Feathered fowl like the sand of the seas;
28And He let them fall in the midst of their camp,
All around their dwellings.
29So they ate and were well filled,
For He gave them their own desire.
30They were not deprived of their craving;
But while their food was still in their mouths,
31The wrath of God came against them,
And slew the stoutest of them,
And struck down the choice men of Israel.

David makes reference to Israel’s fall in the wilderness after leaving Egypt and uses this idea. Note especially verse 30. When Israel turned their backs on God in the wilderness, God’s wrath came against them and they became as strangers to Him. We tend to think of “abandonment” as a negative idea, but this underscores the truth that it is not negative in every context. God abandoned Israel in the Wilderness, at least He “abandoned” the generation that sinned, leaving them to die there, and raised up another generation to the into the Promised Land. Thus He remained Holy and still fulfilled His promises.

Just as a side note, the word back is emphasized in the text. They “turned away back”. Turned away” is one word and “back” is another. It is as if the writer wanted us to know that Israel deliberately chose the direction of their turning and, in fact, we know that to be true! After the congregation left Egypt, they consistently complained about how “nice” it had been there and how terrible conditions were in the desert. Exodus 17:3:

And the people thirsted there for water, and the people complained against Moses, and said, “Why is it you have brought us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?”

They frequently besieged Moses with petitions to take them back to Egypt! Numbers 14:3-4:

Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt.”

It was the frequent desire of unregenerate Israel In the wilderness to return Israel. They did not merely turn away from their God, they turned back to Egypt. That is really quite fascinating since their reception back in Egypt would have been, no doubt, quite harsh. Given all of the plagues, the death of the born of Egypt, and the death of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea. Given the collapse of the Egyptian economy and all of the resulting hardship on the Egyptian people (Egypt is not heard from again on the world scene for some numerous decades). Given the evident animosity with which the Israelite people were treated in the final years of their captivity and all of the stuff, gold and silver, articles of clothing and other things they took with them when they left their Egyptian masters (Exodus 11:2, 12:35). Given the fact that there was not a single first born left alive in Egypt and that in the eyes of the people of Egypt this was the “fault” of the Israelites, There could not be anything but animosity and hatred waiting for them back in Egypt.

Add to that the fact that we’re talking about going back to the place where they just spent 400 years in hard bondage! Slavery! They weren’t just second-class citizens or denied their rights. They were the worst kind of slaves. It was to this kind of experience, and worse, given the above, they desired to return. This, because they had a skewed remembrance of their experience there. The hardship in the desert plagued them and they remembered the few fleshly pleasures; leeks, cucumbers, fish and garlic, they had freely in Egypt (Numbers 11:5) and forgot the harsh pain and agony of slavery that made them cry out for deliverance made God “hear their groaning and remember His covenant” with them (Exodus 2:24).

The pleasures of the flesh always overpower the realities of history if we are not careful to remember rightly. We’ll “reimagine” as the modern term is and redraw history to suit our modern needs. We see this occur with alarming regularity in our own day. Men do not like what history tells them, they do not care for what their current situation is and so they “reimagine” what history and the Bible mean to suit what they want it to mean and are more comfortable with it meaning. Then everyone is happier!

Sadly, this does not get the job done as far as God is concerned. It is turning away and turning back to our ungodliness and the only solution is to repent and to do as God has commanded. This Isaiah’s counsel to Israel and it is God’s counsel to us.

Condemnation # 6 - They have provoked to anger The Holy One of Israel

Having listed for us five different provocations thus far in Isaiah chapter 1:

• Israel is a sinful Nation
• A Nation Laden with Iniquity
• A Seed of Evildoers
• Children of Evildoers, and
• They have forsaken the Lord

Isaiah now moves on to a sixth in his seven indictments of the nation here in Chapter 1 verse 4.  It is indeed a busy verse.

They have despised the Holy One;’ (compare Prov. 1:30; 5:12; 15:5). The Vulgate says: ‘They have blasphemed.’ The Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament says: ‘You have provoked him to anger.’ The meaning is, that they had so despised him, as to excite his indignation.

The verb, at its root means to despise, reject, or spurn, i.e., to feel contempt or strong dislike for an object, to rejecting as having little or no value either or both by words and actions.[1] Now, in human relationships this is bad enough.

God; called the Holy One of Israel because he was revealed to them as their God, or they were taught to regard him as the sacred object of their worship. This title is Isaiah’s “Special title for God, found 25 times in this book (1:4; 5:19,24; 10:20; 12:6; 17:7; 29:19; 30:11,12,15; 31:1; 37:23; 41:14,16,20; 43:3,14; 45:11; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5; 55:5; 60:9,14), but only 6 times in the rest of the OT (2 Kin. 19:22; Pss. 71:22; 78:41; 89:18; Jer. 50:29; 51:5).[2] Of all of the Old Testament books, we might consider that Isaiah emphasizes the holiness of God. In many of the places in which he uses the phrase, it stands in contrast with the stark sinfulness and deliberate disobedience of the nation of Israel. We would do well to note this as we move through the book. There are also various other forms of this phrase, such as “Holy One of Jacob” (29:23) and others all that also emphasize God’s holiness as well as other shades of his relationship to His people.

It is interesting that in the midst of even such a stiff and harsh rebuke as this God is still the “Holy One of Israel”. “Israel” of course, being the covenant name for the Jewish people. Having just called them practically every insulting name in the book God yet refers to Himself by what is perhaps the most reassuring name for Himself there is. He is the One Who has set Himself apart for them. It emphasizes not only His absolute sacredness and separateness from sin, holiness in the sense of sinlessness, but also holiness in the sense of consecration. He is the One Who is consecrated to Israel.

Though Israel is given over to all of this horror of sinful indulgence and has provoked their God to anger; He is still Holy One of Israel…He is still their God. Indeed, that is the story of a goodly portion of the rest of Isaiah, that God will send a Messiah who come and redeem them, in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ!

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[1] Ibid, 5540.

[2] MacArthur, J. J. (1997, c1997). The MacArthur Study Bible (electronic ed.) (Is 1:4). Nashville: Word Pub.

The Humble Shall Hear Of It – Psalm 34:2b (Part 2)

The Testimony of Boasting in the Lord

Notice that David immediately turns his attention away from himself and to how his experience and what he has learned can do in benefit of other servants of God and how it bring glory to God. The redeemed are never content to sit in isolation and simply just “be” right with the Lord (whatever that would mean if such sitting still and being right were even possible). His concern is that “the humble” hear of his experience and they “be glad”.

The “humble”, it seems certain, are God’s people.

It is a plural noun and refers primarily to a person suffering some kind of disability or distress.[1] In theological contexts in the Scripture, that is most often the context of sinfulness and redemption. It was used of Moses in Numbers 12:3. David Himself used the word twice in the context of redeemed sinners in Psalm 25:9. He uses it in a similar context in Psalm 37:11; Psalm 147:6; & in Psalm 149:4. Solomon used in the same context in Proverbs 3:34. (We must certainly admit, though, that the word is not always used in the clear context of believers. Zephaniah 3:3 is not so clear a reference for instance.)

Self-satisfaction in being rescued was not David’s point. He was not just happy and basking in the after-glow of what God had done. Oh no! David wanted testimony to others and ministry to the family of God’s people (though that is surely NT language) to be the great profit of his experience. And more, as we see from what follows, he wanted God’s glory to be the profit – he want them to grow and benefit themselves and then to join him in magnify the God who had delivered him!!

The goals of the lives of the Redeemed is not self-centered! We are not here to experience life! We are told by sign after sign and therapist after therapist that what we need is “love ourselves” and just let go and experience life! But that is not what God has put us here for. We are here for the benefit of the Body of Christ and, ultimately, for the glory of Lord Who created us! David understood that and his heart raced to fulfill those goals.

Matthew Henry, in his wonderful, devotional commentary[2], gave three things for which we “must agree with David” at this point in Psalm 34:

• In great and high thoughts of God, which we should express in magnifying him and exalting his name, v. 3. We cannot make God greater or higher than he is; but if we adore him as infinitely great, and higher than the highest, he is pleased to reckon this magnifying and exalting him.
• He would have us to join with him in kind and good thoughts of God (v. 8): O taste and see that the Lord is good! The goodness of God includes both the beauty and amiableness of his being and the bounty and beneficence of his providence and grace; and accordingly,
• He would have us join with him in a resolution to seek God and serve him, and continue in his fear (v. 9): O fear the Lord! you his saints. When we taste and see that he is good we must not forget that he is great and greatly to be feared; nay, even his goodness is the proper object of a filial reverence and awe. They shall fear the Lord and his goodness,

I think that is the kind of thing David would have applauded! That his experience turn our thought to the character and works of God. That if the focus of the rest of the marvelous Psalm. His works are insignificant, nothing unless they drive the attention of the reader to the Person and Character of the One true and Living God. That ought to be what you and I live for as well!

One Last Consideration – The Necessity of Humility

There is one last matter for our consideration here. That last phrase, “The humble shall hear of it and be glad” points out the need for humility in order to receive the message Gospel. Micah 6:8 says:

He has shown you, O man, what is good;
And what does the Lord require of you
But to do justly,
To love mercy,
And to walk humbly with your God?

God requires that, in order to walk before Him, men walk “humbly”. We can define humility as being marked by meekness or modesty in behavior, attitude, or spirit; not arrogant or prideful. Theologically that basic definition would stand up pretty well if we added the idea of rejecting dependence on human devices or ability for any part of salvation or sanctification or to commend you to God’s favor.

One cannot even enter into a relationship with God without some degree of humility. That humility is demonstrated in a willingness to repent of sin and hear the truth of the Word of God. This is why unredeemed people cast the Scripture aside and consider it foolish. Their pride will not allow them see its truth. They will not humble themselves before God and bow before his authority.

It is small wonder then that they spend their lives with little to be glad about and little encouragement. They have cut themselves off from the One Being in the entire universe Who could, in all situations, without fail bring them cheer and hope!

In the end, this is horribly foolish, but of course, that is from the point of view of the redeemed! From the point of view of the unredeemed they are simply doing what David did, serving their own best interest, a completely natural thing to do. But also completely self-destructive.

David would argue that there is no more “self-serving” thing than to give ones-self over to the service of their Creator. It is counterintuitive to the unredeemed, but once one is redeemed and that fog of sin is lifted and clear sight is restored, thinking is possible for the first time ever. Then things make sense and one can see how what once seemed to be ridiculous is not so foolish after all.

That being the case, it becomes easy for the “humble to hear” of the works of God and “be glad”. Who wouldn’t be?

________________________________________

[1] Harris, R. L., Harris, R. L., Archer, G. L., & Waltke, B. K. (1999, c1980). Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed.) (683). Chicago: Moody Press.

[2] Henry, M. (1996, c1991). Matthew Henry's commentary on the whole Bible : Complete and unabridged in one volume (Ps 34:11). Peabody: Hendrickson.

The Humble Shall Hear Of It - Psalm 34:2b

My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

The heart of David is one of the great example in the Bible of one who, though making terrible mistakes, sinful mistakes to be sure, still maintained a heart for the Lord that drove him to see the need for repentance and holiness. Often David would fall down and do very foolish, wicked things. But then God would show him how stupid his behavior was and he would repent and turn around and head back in the right direction.

The beauty of this and the example for us is that he was completely transparent in all this. There is no trying to hid anything from the Lord or from us. Once he realizes his sin, it comes out in the open, he repents and his heart breaks and forsakes it.

This Psalm is given over just such an incident, occurring in Gath when he fled from Saul in 1 Samuel 21:

10 Then David arose and fled that day from before Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath. 11 And the servants of Achish said to him, “Is this not David the king of the land? Did they not sing of him to one another in dances, saying:

     ‘Saul has slain his thousands,
     And David his ten thousands’?”

12 Now David took these words to heart, and was very much afraid of Achish the king of Gath. 13 So he changed his behavior before them, pretended madness in their hands, scratched on the doors of the gate, and let his saliva fall down on his beard. 14 Then Achish said to his servants, “Look, you see the man is insane. Why have you brought him to me? 15 Have I need of madmen, that you have brought this fellow to play the madman in my presence? Shall this fellow come into my house?” (1 Sam. 21:10-15)

David, afraid of Saul, flees to Gath, becomes afraid of Achish (Abimelech) and so feigns madness. This great man of war crawls around, and acts like a crazy person lest Achish kill him (as Saul would have, or so he feared). All of this because he had lost his perspective on who God was and thus had lost faith in God’s Person and willingness to protect him.

He flees to the Cave at Adullam (1 Samuel 22) and there gathers men to himself and his fame grows as well as his faith is restored and he writes this Psalm.

Praise In the Midst of Helplessness

One of the themes of this Psalm is that praise, even in the midst of helplessness. David saw himself as helpless to defend himself against Saul. Saul was God’s anointed King over Israel and thus he was untouchable. He was in a place where David could not strike against him. In fact, David had no desire to strike against him for that very reason. He understood that God had established Saul as Kind and that was fine with David.

But David knew that Saul sought his life and the two things, Saul unreasonableness and his absolute power made his situation untenable. What he forgot what that God was also in the mix and that He was a power stronger that Saul. For some brief period of time, David saw with earthly eyes and saw no way out but to run, and so he fled to Gath.

We do that as well. We do not allow for God to enter a situation and alter the mix from “the hills”. In Psalm 121:1 David says:

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.

He is, of course, using the physical hills around about as a figure for the heavens and our Lord. The “Lifting of the eyes” likewise is a figure for prayer and together they make a remarkable wonderful picture of prayer and dependence on God for help and intercession in our affairs.

I am certain that the affair in 1 Samuel 21 was not the only lesson that taught David this truth, but it surely was one schoolroom where he learned it! The sooner we learn that we are helpless and need the help of God to accomplish what He has sent us to do, the better off we will be!

No Other Name That Saves

The Cross can Be defined as the use of an upright stake as an instrument of torture and execution attained particular significance as the culmination of Christ’s persecution and thus as a symbol of his atonement for mankind. We are told that Crucifixion was first attested among the Persians (cf. Herodotus Hist. i.128.2; iii.132.2,159.1), perhaps derived from the Assyrian practice of impalement. It was later employed by the Greeks, especially Alexander the Great, and by the Carthaginians, from whom the Romans adapted the practice as a punishment for slaves and non-citizens, and occasionally for citizens guilty of treason.

Although in the Old Testament the corpses of blasphemers or idolaters punished by stoning might be hanged “on a tree” as further humiliation (Deut. 21:23), history assures us that actual crucifixion was not introduced in Palestine until Hellenistic times. The Seleucid Antiochus IV Epiphanes crucified those Jews who would not accept hellenization (Josephus Ant. xii.240–41; cf. 1 Macc. 1:44–50), and the Hasmonean Alexander Jannaeus thus executed eight hundred Pharisean rebels of the town of Bethome (Josephus BJ i.4.6; Ant. xiii.14.2–3). It was, we’re told, the crucifixion of some 3,600 Jews which precipitated the Jewish revolt (A.D. 66; BJ ii.14.9). Many Jews and Christians were martyred in this fashion until the practice was abolished by Constantine ca. 337 in deference to Christian belief concerning Christ’s death.

Originally merely a stake on which the victim was tied or impaled, by Roman times the cross featured a horizontal beam, placed either at the top of the vertical shaft (in the form of the Greek letter tau; St. Anthony’s cross) or slightly below the top (the traditional Latin cross). The later “Greek” cross comprised vertical and horizontal bars of equal length; the X-shaped St. Andrew’s cross also was employed later in Roman times.

Judging from first-century A.D. remains from a tomb near Jerusalem, it appears that the victim’s feet were pierced with a single nail which was then driven into a small olivewood board (to keep the feet together) but not into the upright shaft itself. The forearms were nailed to the horizontal bar. A small horizontal board was affixed to the cross at buttocks height to help support the body and prevent collapse, thereby prolonging the suffering. One might agonize on the cross for several days before dying, apparently of suffocation as the body sagged and caused constriction of the diaphragm making hard to breathe. Thirst was intense and the weight of the body produced inexorable pain; victims were tormented by high fever and convulsions which racked their entire body. Occasionally the executioners prompted death by breaking the victim’s bones.

As further humiliation for the victim and as a deterrent to potential offenders, the person condemned to crucifixion was first flogged, then ordered to carry the horizontal crossbeam to the place of execution, where it was hoisted onto the vertical pole. Accordingly, the Scriptures tell us that Jesus carried his own crossbeam (John 19:17), though he was later relieved of that burden, being unable to continue, by Simon of Cyrene (Matt. 27:32, Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26).

The indignity of the crucifixion, for both the means of punishment (cf. Gal. 3:13) and the crimes with which it was associated, was considered contemptuous and utter “folly” (1 Cor. 1:17–18) especially to entered into deliberately, contrasting intensely with the significance of Christ’s death as atonement for all mankind (e.g., Eph. 2:16; Col. 2:14). The suffering of the cross is cited to symbolize the self-denial which Jesus’ followers must accept — their willingness to renounce their own needs and desires (Matt. 10:38 par. Mark 8:34; Luke 9:23), even one’s “old self” (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20).[1]

Jesus said:

38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it. (Matthew 10:38-39)

The cross thus becomes the pattern, the type if you will of the life that the believer must lead in service for Christ. This is not an optional matter for Christ said:

And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. (Luke 14:27)

The “does not…” and “cannot…” paradigm is both quite severe and quite definite. It leaves little room for interpretation. If we do not take up that cross, we cannot call ourselves Christ’s disciples. Lest we think that this was the only place that Jesus said this kind thing, we ought to disabuse ourselves of that opinion:

Then Jesus said to His disciples,

“If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. (Matthew 16:24)

And there is this extend, familiar passage in Mark 8:34-38 as well:

34 When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, “Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. 35 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. 36 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? 37 Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? 38 For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.” (cp. Luke 9:23-26)

Do you remember the words of Jesus to the rich young ruler in Mark 10:19-21?

21 Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.” 22 But he was sad at this word, and went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

The young man was sad because he was unwilling to make the sacrifice necessary, he was not willing to “take up his cross” and to follow after Christ.

This was a central theme of the ministry of the Apostles and especially of Paul. He told the Corinthians right off the bat in 1 Corinthians 1:17:

17 For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. 18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

Note his warning if they did not heed what he said and embrace the truth of the Cross of Christ by grace through faith. It made Christ’s death of no effect! That message is foolishness to those who are perishing. It is NOT just the message of Christ on His cross that is foolishness – it is the message of believers taking up their cross! If we refuse that message – we make Christ’s cross of no effect!

Paul told the Galatians in Galatians 5:11:

11 And I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why do I still suffer persecution? Then the offense of the cross has ceased.

This is only an extension of what he told the Corinthians. If we do not take up the cross, the kind of grace and the message the Jesus preached, we cease to preach the message of God. The reverse of that is true as well. If we are not “offending” the unredeemed by our message in the fashion that Jesus offended, then we are not preaching His, or Paul’s message.

All of this was so true and so significant, and the temptation to address of things and be seduced into other topics was so beguiling that Paul was careful not to fall prey to it:

But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Galatians 6:14)

Paul made it a point and a priority to see to it that nothing, NOTHING diverted his attention from the things of God. He understood that God has many enemies in the world. Not just Satan, but many among men. This is a startling revelation to many people. But not to Paul. He knew and he kept it at the front of his mind every day. He said in Philippians 3:18:

For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ:

They are the enemies of God and thus they are the enemies of the cross. Note, however, the middle phrase in that statement, for it echoes the heart of God. “… and now tell you with weeping…”. Oh the horror of that statement even for the believer! Does God take any joy in that there are enemies of His and that they oppose the Gospel – of course not! Men are what men are. They are unredeemed, unrepentant, and irreconcilable to God. They have no desire to be what God wants them to be. They are born enemies to God, haters of righteousness and with not only desire to submit to God, but with a burning desire not only to rebel, but with every desire to overthrown Him! They echo Satan’s cry against God in Isaiah 7:13-14:

For you have said in your heart: ‘I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; I will also sit on the mount of the congregation On the farthest sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High.’

It is this cross that we are called to preach and to bear good witness to. It is this message that we are commanded to carry to all men everywhere. And it is this Gospel and this Gospel alone that save men’s souls.

Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

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[1] Myers, A. C. (1987). This entire section is taken from The Eerdmans Bible dictionary. Rev., augm. translation of: Bijbelse encyclopedie. Rev. ed. 1975. (246). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans.

Confession - Take Hold of the God-Given Encouragement You Have to Confess Sin

Matthew Henry, this morning in my "Praying the Way the Bible Prays", offering said:

I must take hold of the great encouragement God has given me to humble myself before him with sorrow and shame, and to confess my sins.

It is important that we not just make the list of sins that we have committed but that we grasp his forgiveness in our prayers!

I think that this, perhaps is more important than listing them. I don't really think that God is interested in a laundry list, of our sins He is aware, painfully so. He has known them from eternity past. They are the reason for which He sent His only Son, Jesus my Lord to suffer and die. Those stripes were the stripes numbered for each and every one of my sins, counted severally and known intimately by my God. No, I don't think He need to be have the list enumerated particularly before Him for His benefit.

Now it could be, and very often is, that I need to confess particulars for my own benefit. I need to be sure that I am recognizing that all of what I am doing is horrid and awful before God. But I ought not fall down into the very sacramental idea of enumerating my sins before God so that they are "covered" simply because I have confessed them.

After all, the announcing of them is not what covers them anyway. Nowhere in the Bible when men of God fell on there faces and confessed their sins do them going into the gory details. Rather we see them dwelling on the offense that their sin was before God and lamenting the fall itself, the offense that the sin was to a holy and pure God.

I think that our idea of listing our sins and running through the "forgive me for…" routine is really a left over from old Roman Catholic days. That is the routine in confessional. The specific confession specific sins and the assignment of specific acts of penance to "atone" for them. That skewed idea of atonement and erroneous idea of how sin is paid for carried over into Protestantism after the Reformation to some degree. It is not Biblical and never has been. The idea that we must go to the church for forgiveness and must enumerate our sins was God's intention. Further, the idea that I must list all of my sins or I don't get forgiven undercuts the very idea what Christ came to do in the first place. It puts sanctification at the very least on a works basis and that is unacceptable.

We are saved by Grace alone through Faith alone because of Christ alone. There is nothing more than that involved in the mix. When we confess our sins, we must remember that! Matthew Henry put it well when he gave us these examples of how we ought to confess our sin:

If you, O LORD, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you there is forgiveness, that you may be feared; Psalm 130:3-4 with you there is steadfast love; yes, with my God there is plentiful redemption, and he will redeem Israel from all his iniquities. Psalm 130:7-8(ESV)

Your sacrifices, O God, are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise; Psalm 51:17(ESV) indeed, though you are the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy; Isaiah 57:15(ESV) though heaven is your throne and the earth your footstool, yet this is the one to whom you will look, he who is poor and humble, broken and contrite in spirit, and trembles at your word, Isaiah 66:1-2(ESV) to revive the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite. Isaiah 57:15(ESV)

You have graciously assured me that those who conceal their transgressions will not prosper, yet those who confess and forsake them will obtain mercy. Proverbs 28:13(ESV) And when a poor penitent said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD," you forgave the iniquity of his sin; therefore, let everyone who is godly, in like manner, offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found. Psalm 32:5-6(ESV)

I know that if I say I have no sin, I deceive myself, and the truth is not in me; but you have said that if I confess my sins, you are faithful and just to forgive me my sins and to cleanse me from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8-9(ESV)

With the attention on God and not on us, on the work of Christ and it its finished character and magnificent nature, that kind of prayer brings great glory to God and gladness to the heart!

My Soul Shall Makes It's Boast In The Lord!

2     My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
     The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

To speak of deeds, abilities, or characteristics in a manner showing pride or self-satisfaction. In the Bible the word also has a more positive connotation (“to glory in”).[1]

In the OT, “boasting” is often used to describe the basic attitude of the ungodly, who depend on their own resources rather than on God (Ps. 52:1; 94:3–4). The enemies of Israel boasted of their victories and claimed the glory for themselves (Deut. 32:27; Ps. 10:3; 35:26; 73:9; Is 3:9). They boasted of their riches (Ps 49:6) and wisdom (Is 19:11). According to the Lord, the rich and wise are to

“…boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on the earth” (Jer. 9:24,).

Jesus depicted a proud Pharisee boasting to God in prayer (Luke 18:10–14). Most of the NT usages of the word occur in the apostle Paul’s letters. The negative aspect of vaunting one’s own accomplishments is contrasted with the positive counterpart of glorying in what the Lord has done (Rom 3:27–28; 2 Cor. 10:17; Gal 6:14).

Self-righteousness and bragging are to be avoided (Rom 1:30; 2:17, 23; Eph 2:9; 2 Tm 3:2). Paul associated boasting with the attitude of those Jews who developed a feeling of self-confidence because of having kept the law. There are, in fact, a number of clear reasons associated with boasting that are to be avoided in the Bible:[2]

• Man’s limited knowledge (Prov. 27:1, 2)
• Uncertain issues (1 Kin. 20:11)
• Evil incurred thereby (Luke 12:19–21; James 3:5)
• Salvation by grace (Eph. 2:9)
• God’s sovereignty (Rom. 11:17–21)

There are also quite a number of clear examples of the kinds of boasting that God despises and we are to avoid: [3]

• Goliath (1 Sam. 17:44)
• Ben-Hadad (1 Kin. 20:10)
• Rabshakeh (2 Kin. 18:27, 34)
• Satan (Is. 14:12–15; Ezek. 28:12–19)

For Paul, the only legitimate boasting was to boast (rejoice) in the Lord (Rom 5:11). In Romans 5:3, the rabbinic view of glorying in one’s sufferings is contrasted with Paul’s view that his present sufferings pointed to God’s power and toward Paul’s hope for the future.

Paul’s boasting was not based upon comparisons with others, in contrast to the boasting of his opponents. Because Christ worked through him (2 Cor. 3:2–6) and God commended him (10:18), he could give glory to God. Paul preferred to boast of his own weakness, and of the Lord’s power and strength (12:5, 9).

On occasion, the apostle did boast concerning a particular group of Christians (7:4, 14; 8:24; 9:2–3), but with the implication that he was expressing confidence in them, not bragging about his own successes. Concerning himself, Paul boasted reluctantly and only as a means of defense against an unsupportive element in the Corinthian church. He said that those who should have commended him had instead compelled him to engage in “foolish” boasting (2 Cor 12:11).

Boasting in the Lord

But there is the matter of "Boasting in the Lord" as David puts it here. That surely is not a sinful action and is not objectionable to God, and, in fact is pleasing and honorable to Him! The Scripture presents such "boasting as a four-fold responsibility for believers before their Lord: [4]

First, it is a Continual duty. Here in Psalm 34:3 David himself tells us this truth. Remember from our last lesson that this is in the "Jussive", which expresses and indirect command, that is a command to a second or third person. The point is that this is not an option, it is a necessary function of any believer's life. That duty has two components, that it be present and that it be continual or ongoing.

It is to be Always in the Lord. 2 Corinthians 10:13–18 says:

13 We, however, will not boast beyond measure, but within the limits of the sphere which God appointed us—a sphere which especially includes you. 14 For we are not overextending ourselves (as though our authority did not extend to you), for it was to you that we came with the gospel of Christ; 15 not boasting of things beyond measure, that is, in other men’s labors, but having hope, that as your faith is increased, we shall be greatly enlarged by you in our sphere, 16 to preach the gospel in the regions beyond you, and not to boast in another man’s sphere of accomplishment.

17 But “he who glories, let him glory in the Lord.” 18 For not he who commends himself is approved, but whom the Lord commends.

Our boasting is not be in the labors of men, but what God has accomplished for us. Self promotion is not what gets us there - but being approved of God!

It is Necessary to refute the wayward. In 2 Corinthians 11:5–33 Paul speaks of the matter of false apostles. The Corinthians were being seduced by the credentials of men and impressed by false apostles who had come and were leading them astray. Paul writes and does a little "boasting to give them some perspective:

16 I say again, let no one think me a fool. If otherwise, at least receive me as a fool, that I also may boast a little. 17 What I speak, I speak not according to the Lord, but as it were, foolishly, in this confidence of boasting. 18 Seeing that many boast according to the flesh, I also will boast.

He goes on and lists all of his human qualification, secular AND spiritual, which dwarfed anything that the false prophets had to offer. Of course, his conclusion is that none of that matters. His human qualifications were irrelevant when it came to making hum the servant of God that God wanted him to be. He sums up his case in vv. 30-33:

30 If I must boast, I will boast in the things which concern my infirmity. 31 The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who is blessed forever, knows that I am not lying. 32 In Damascus the governor, under Aretas the king, was guarding the city of the Damascenes with a garrison, desiring to arrest me; 33 but I was let down in a basket through a window in the wall, and escaped from his hands.

There could not be a more sound refutation! Our boasting, when we do it must be in what God has done for us and nothing more!

It is to be spiritual rather than natural. In those very famous verses in Philippians 3:3–14 Paul tells us that his qualifications to serve the Lord are spiritual and not physical. He sums it up in the middle of the section:

7 But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. 8 Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, 11 if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

With all of the physical qualifications he had, including circumcision, one would think he was well suited to count him himself on solid ground. But he came to see that that was not what made ground with God solid. None of those things enter in to our "boasting" arena. The sooner we, as David and Paul, learn that lesson, the sooner we will be, as they - able to make our boast in the Lord!

______________________________

[1] Elwell, W. A., & Comfort, P. W. (2001). Tyndale Bible dictionary. Tyndale reference library (229). Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House Publishers. (This entire section is taken from this resource)

[2] Thomas Nelson Publishers. (1995). Nelson's quick reference topical Bible index. Nelson's Quick reference (107). Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[3] Ibid]

[4] Ibid, (108).

My Soul Shall Makes It's Boast In The Lord!

2     My soul shall make its boast in the Lord;
     The humble shall hear of it and be glad.

What should be the object of our testimony? So often when testimony time comes in church we hear testimony concern what God has done for us and the focus of that testimony is all about what God has done for me. Inadvertently, perhaps, the center of the testimony ends up being the believer and his experience of God rather than God himself. I'm not sure that this is what should be happening. This is not the way David gave testimony, nor is it the way others in the Bible gave theirs. Jeremiah, for instance, in Jeremiah 9:23-24 said:

23 Thus says the Lord:
     “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom,
     Let not the mighty man glory in his might,
     Nor let the rich man glory in his riches;
24     But let him who glories glory in this,
     That he understands and knows Me,
     That I am the Lord, exercising lovingkindness, 
     judgment, and righteousness in the earth.
     For in these I delight,” says the Lord.

Our glorying, even innocently, ought not be in ourselves or in any other thing that is about us, it ought to center in and about our Lord and abut Who He is. David knew this and practiced it!

Now, at the time this Psalm was written, he was in a where he should not have been and he knew that he was in trouble. Remember that this Psalm was written when he was feigning madness down in enemy territory before Abimelech (Achish - see 1 Samuel 21) in Gath to escape Saul. The Psalm is an acrostic Psalm (like Psalm 25) in which each verse starts with different letter of the Hebrew alphabet (with the exception that there does not seem to one for the letter "waw" , it seems to have been dropped or lost, after verse 5).

God had delivered him from danger and even from his own foolishness. David's focus in these entire first 10 verses is to call on the congregation to praise the Lord for delivering him and for His goodness to His people.[1] He does this by asking the people to focus, not on the effect of the deliverance, but on the character of the God Who did the delivering.

This is an important difference, especially in our day and age! So much of Christianity is only about God in token. When say "praise the Lord and then move on to "Me, Me, Me!" We are a function of our consumer age. Our "praise to God more about how He has satisfied us well and how He has made us full and well pleased than it is about Who He is and what His attributes are. This is truly pitiful.

Note the verbs: bless, boast, magnify, exalt just in first three verses. The name “Lord” (YAHWEH) is used sixteen times in the psalm.[2] All this points to David's focus on the person of God and not so much on his own experience. He is more concerned with the God who delivered him than he is with that he got delivered.

Now, don't get me wrong, this is not to say that he wasn't grateful, overjoyed that he had been delivered! I am certain that he was. But that was vastly overshadowed by the fact that all that was to his benefit was done by the God of universe! Somewhere in his experience down there in Philistia David realized this and that contrast changed his perspective and whereas he was once filled with fear, he became filled with the kind of courage only God can give someone. Not bald, human bravado; but true confidence in that God will provide and care and see to his well-being.

This is what David is testifying to - the realization anew that he serves the kind of God, the character and Person of a God that has made that kind of transformation in his life. He had lost that perspective. That fall in his mind and heart is allowed him to flee to Gath and feign madness. It was what allowed him to indulge in all of that nonsense and foolishness in the first place. But now, Oh! But now God, Yahweh - the One true and Living God has revealed Himself anew and afresh and has shown Himself to David!

Is it any wonder that this kind of praise is forced from his lips? Would it not be forced from yours and mine?

_______________________________________

[1] Ryrie, C. C. (1995). Ryrie study Bible: New American Standard Bible, 1995 update. Includes indexes. (Expanded ed.) (859). Chicago: Moody Press.

[2] Wiersbe, W. W. (2004). Be worshipful (1st ed.) (131). Colorado Springs, Colo.: Cook Communications Ministries.

What I Want My Praise To Be

1     I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. (Psalm 34:1a)

O Lord, the challenge of praise at all times! Not so much that I don't know that you don't deserve it but that I don't feel like it. Some would argue that it is only human that there are times when I don't feel like offering you praise, when my voice is not ready to lift itself high in worship and extol the virtues of the one who has done all to bring me all that I have. From a human standpoint, I can certainly see the logic there.

But from a godly standpoint, from the point of view of a redeemed person, I cannot see that logic. David did not see it. The redeemed ought to bless the Lord at all times is him opinion! The praise of God ought always be in their mouths. The ones whom God has brought to eternal life ought to live to worship and offer thanksgiving and praise to their God.

Now, I don't think that he means this as any kind of servitude. I don't believe that David intended or had in mind the kind of praise that we think of when we think of monks in a monastery, offering blank and empty, mechanical servitude born of a sense of trying to please God of some desire to please Him legally somehow, desperately hoping that we can balance the books by our effort. No, that is surely not David's intention.

Nor is he speaking of any kind of obligatory service that would follow after salvation that is "tacked onto" our relationship God as a means to keep it right and vibrant. David is not saying that there is some means by which we "must" keep things going or they die if we are not careful.

Likewise, David is not saying that we are somehow purchase the good pleasure of God with our praise. He is not saying that, as we praise him, we are somehow "buying" His favor and thus He is disposed to do good things for us. Sadly, many in Church history have this, but that is a fairy tale. That good favor was purchased by Christ alone. You and I cannot BE good enough to satisfy God, which is why Christ had to come in the first place.

No, David is simply saying that this continual praise is simply the response of the redeemed heart! The heart for whom God done such a magnificent thing will wish to praise Him and will wish to praise Him continually - as much it can and often as it can!

The verb in the phrase is "cohortive" in Hebrew, meaning that it expresses very strong intention, hence the "I Will Bless" in English. It means to bless another or speak words invoking Divine favor always with the intention that there will be a favorable circumstance resulting in the future. Most often the verb is used, of course, in regard to people. David here uses in regard to God Himself. There is nothing wrong with that, for there is no other human language to express the thought he intends.

"Praise" is adoration, thanksgiving, i.e., positive words about the excellence of another. Often these words are in the context of being sung in the Scripture. We see this often in the Bible, as they are here! They are often word of reputation, words that cause a person's reputation to be enhanced, that characterize Him in some fashion, that give that person glory or praise, words of renown. Again that fits this context well.

"All" is a catch all construct that that refers to the totality of a thing. It refers to the totality of thing, the entirety, its completeness. "Times" is actually singular in Hebrew. The word refers to time in the most general sense possible. The season, the idea most general sense of time one can imagine. David is saying that he will praise the Lord "Always" . His intention is to avoid any make the statement without any reference to time at all, just a blanket commitment to praise the Lord!

It that not wonderful! How marvelous a commitment to the praise of God that to make for any believer! I will praise the Lord - always! No consideration circumstance; no consideration what may occur, what I might feel like, nothing! I will praise the Lord regardless! O Lord - that is what I want my praise for you to be like!

Note also that this praise is also done with his mouth - it is oral, note just in the meditations of his heart it is for all to hear! It is public praise! Not to make too much of this, more than is intended, but it one thing to be full of thanksgiving and praise in our hearts, but it is another all together to be full of praise vocally, publicly, in front of the world, before people! David's intent is that God's reputation be enhanced, we saw that from the word he used for "bless". He desires that God's reputation before all men be lifted up and they think more of Him as a result. That cannot happen if he is "oral" with his praise. And so David spoke his praise - he shouted his praise form every housetop!

Nor can it happen if we are not open and out loud with our praise as well. It well and good to be all full praise in our hearts, and I sure that God approves of that - but that is not where our duty ends and that is not what the example of the Scripture is. Our pattern is that of the person of David - I will praise the Lord at all times - His praise shall continually be in my mouth!

1 Chronicles 16:34-36 – God Is Sooo Good!

     Lord, the joy and, face it, pleasure I get from being able to preach the Gospel to others, no matter the smallness of the group, such a joy to me.  It is a pleasure at both ends - at the study end and at the preaching end.  In the aspect of what you have called me to do, Lord you give me such joy and such great, great pleasure that I can't begin to offer any response but to say a simple thanks and offer a heart of gratitude.  I can only do as David did - I can deliver thanksgiving to you:

 

34     Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!

     For His mercy endures forever.

35     And say, “Save us, O God of our salvation;

     Gather us together, and deliver us from the Gentiles,

     To give thanks to Your holy name,

     To triumph in Your praise.”

36     Blessed be the Lord God of Israel

     From everlasting to everlasting!

 

     Indeed Lord, you are Good - you have been more than good to me, beyond good.  Salvation from sin is good, it is good beyond all hope.  To be rescued from the just desserts of my own foolish sin and rebellion and brought into rightness with you is far beyond good, but as with David, good is all we have to describe it - You are good! 

     But you went beyond good, you did not stop with only (my, "only?") saving us eternally.  You give us good gifts while we remain here.  You enable us to live lives of purpose and meaning.  You use us to do You will.  You allow us to be a part of accomplishing Your plan.  You give us Your Spirit to do many things, one of which is to help us understand Your Word.  Then You allow us - ME - to be a part of proclaiming your Word. 

     How can I express the joy I feel, the privilege, the thanksgiving at not being left outside of that great work?  O Lord - the honor of handling Your Word and holding and handling it…  The privilege of studying and seeking its meaning.  The great task of preparing and presenting it to your people and to any of the unredeemed whom you bring to the congregation each week is overwhelming!  Lord I am simply filled with a sense of, well, I run out of words, and that is no small thing!  It is no wonder David's Psalms are filled with small words!  There are no others!

     How can we say thanks to You Lord, how can we adequately worship and praise?  The unredeemed look at the scenes from Revelation and elsewhere and the see the believers on their faces and they accuse you of being a egotist and of other ridiculous things.  What they don't realize is that one of the reasons men fall down before You is because there is no other reaction possible.  There are no words, the is nothing we can do to give to You that which you deserve, and so we do what we can do, we fall on our faces and we bow and we exalt You.  There is nothing left for us but that.

     Human eloquence can go a long way, but it falls short.  Human demonstrations can show great things and human worship can be profound, our music and our other shows of worship can be wonderful.  But it all falls short.  Your holiness is so far above what can even imagine that anything that we put forth falls woefully short.  Even the Angels in heaven cannot come close to your real glory, the unreserved glory of the Holy One on the Throne…

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. 2 Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one cried to another and said:

     “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;

     The whole earth is full of His glory!”

4 And the posts of the door were shaken by the voice of him who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke.

     Isaiah, in Isaiah 6, was taken, via vision up into heaven and sees the very throne of God.  There He sees God on His throne and he sees the Seraphim and even these Seraphim, designed to be in the presence of God, have 6 wings, only two to fly with - one set cover their feet with lest the touch holy ground, one set to cover their eyes with lest they see the holy person of God with!  Even Holy Angels cannot compass the holiness of God!  Before Isaiah can deal with the matter, just because of his presence there, the room had to filled with smoke and he had to cleansed with a coal from the alter lest his sin consume him!

     We have not the language.  This doesn't mean we shouldn't try -  but in the end - thankfulness is best expressed by saying thanks to God and by the means by which God said we ought to show thanksgiving - obedience to His Word!  Jesus said in John 14:15: “If you love Me, keep My commandments".   Likewise in John 14:21 He said:

He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

     Obedience, submission is the best way we have to show thanksgiving - it far outstrips eloquence! 

     Lord, I am grateful, so very grateful for the great privilege of preaching your Word!  You have been so good to me - far better than I deserve!  You are good to me and You mercy will indeed endure forever!