Kicking the Hornet's Nest

 

Monday, June 8, 2020

Psalm 29:1-11

Honor the Lord, you heavenly beings; honor the Lord for his glory and strength.  Honor the Lord for the glory of his name.  Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness.  The voice of the Lord echoes above the sea.  The God of glory thunders.  The Lord thunders over the mighty sea.  The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is majestic.  The voice of the Lord splits the mighty cedars; the Lord shatters the cedars of Lebanon.  He makes Lebanon’s mountains skip like a calf; he makes Mount Hermon leap like a young wild ox.  The voice of the Lord strikes with bolts of lightning.  The voice of the Lord makes the barren wilderness quake; the Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.  The voice of the Lord twists mighty oaks and strips the forests bare.  In his Temple everyone shouts, “Glory!”  The Lord rules over the floodwaters.  The Lord reigns as king forever.  The Lord gives his people strength.  The Lord blesses them with peace.

The last thing in the world I would ever do is intentionally kick a hornet’s nest.  The key word is intentionally.  I did that once with yellow jackets nesting in a dead, hollow branch of an oak tree.  I was a teenager, helping my Dad in the yard.  The dead limb was huge and hanging over where my brother parked his car.  The little black and yellow dive demons objected to my sawing off the limb that contained their living quarters.  They were VERY unhappy; I spent 2 days in the hospital.

The whole point here is that you do not poke what can poke back much harder than you can take.  If you read David’s psalm objectively, the characterizations of God’s power are bigger than any poke you can handle.  Consider:

·       God’s glory thunders over the sea (which is pretty thunderous itself)

·       God’s answers split the gigantic cedars like twigs

·       God’s power makes the mountains shudder and jump like young oxen

In short, who would want to mess with a God like that?

Yet, it is common in our day to see the cavalier arrogance many people have about God.  That kind of thinking survives only so long as God’s patience.  If you have ever watched a petulant child get angry at his parent, you get this idea.  The child isn’t getting what he wants, so he threatens to run away, or tries to hit the parent.  The parent responds with a smile, or a shrug, or a calm rebuke.  The child ramps up his onslaught, louder, angrier, promising the parent will be sorry.  He’s pushing the envelope, and doesn’t understand that with which he’s trifling.  His parent’s patience is about to result in something akin to what I experienced in that oak tree…more than you ever bargained-for. 

This is a picture of God, our Creator, and the petulance of humans who refuse to even acknowledge the Sovereign of the universe.  God’s patience is incredible (more so than mine).  But God’s patience is not limitless.  He allows us much freedom to find our way, but, we are ultimately responsible to come to Him on bended knee:

Therefore, God elevated him to the place of highest honor and gave him the name above all other names, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue declare that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.  Philippians 2:9-11

Let’s Pray Together:

Father, your Word is clear; our responsibility is to choose to love you with all our hearts, minds, soul, and strength.  And when we do that, our hearts find peace.  Help us today to choose well.

For You Today

You can probably recall much of the same experience I had as a child; I knew if Mom or Dad used all 3 of my names, calling out Russell Jay Brownworth…the patience zone had appeared in the rearview mirror!  The hammer was about to fall!  God also has a place like that.  Best not to kick that hornet’s nest!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road today.  Have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

Title Image:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©

For other posts on Psalm 29 see The Voice of the Lord and Joy and Judgment

Good and Evil; the War

[i]

Wednesday, February 1, 2017

The wicked draw their swords and string their bows to kill the poor and the oppressed, to slaughter those who do right.  But their swords will stab their own hearts, and their bows will be broken.  It is better to be godly and have little than to be evil and rich.  For the strength of the wicked will be shattered, but the Lord takes care of the godly.   Psalm 37:14-17^(NLT)

The laws and commands of God are immutable.  When He created the universe this was so, and it is always so.  And of those laws and commands we can also see the inevitable war between polar opposites.  Up and down, east and west, hot and cold are relationships which vie for supremacy.  And if ever there was a war between polar opposites it is the one raging between good and evil.

When we read the story of Noah we find the corrupted character of humankind steeped in evil, pushing our Creator’s forbearance to the limit:

Now God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence.  God observed all this corruption in the world, for everyone on earth was corrupt.  So God said to Noah, “I have decided to destroy all living creatures, for they have filled the earth with violence.  Yes, I will wipe them all out along with the earth!    Genesis 6:11-13^(NLT)

Genesis also tells us that, of all the residents of earth, only Noah desired in his heart to live a life pleasing to God, and it was that one man’s heart’s desire which touched the heart of God to preserve humans along with the earth.  The flood was God’s kindness, and our rescue as a species!

The facts were clear – humankind had brought evil and wickedness to daily living in such great predominance that the worst of human character became the norm.  And when that happens, life is barely more than surviving the next day, an exercize of futility against a certain destruction.  Whatever else can be said, life lived in the darkness of evil invites the judgment of darkness collapsing upon its own foundation.  

Listen to the words of Jesus describing the demise of people who live a life of evil choices:

For you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged.  Matthew 7:2^(NLT) 

When you look around today at the anger and violence which cover the earth, one cannot help but remember that God’s patience does indeed have a limit, and He has told us what it will look like when that envelope has been pushed to breaking:

When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noah’s day.  Luke 17:26^(NLT)

For You Today

Every day is an opportunity to choose:  will today find you stumbling around in the world’s preferred darkness, or will it be living like Noah, lighting a candle of righteousness and peace?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

---

[i]Title imajge: Demetrio Garcia Aguilar (See page for author), via Wikimedia Commons

When God Laughs

[i]

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.  Don’t worry about evil people who prosper or fret about their wicked schemes.  Stop being angry!  Turn from your rage!  Do not lose your temper—it only leads to harm.  For the wicked will be destroyed, but those who trust in the Lord will possess the land.  Soon the wicked will disappear.  Though you look for them, they will be gone.  The lowly will possess the land and will live in peace and prosperity.  The wicked plot against the godly; they snarl at them in defiance.  But the Lord just laughs, for he sees their day of judgment coming.  Psalm 37:7-13^(NLT)

I know you’ve thought this:  How in the world can he get away with that?   We want to know:  How can God NOT clobber someone with a sharp tongue like hers?  It just seems so unfair and weird that somebody who continually does bad stuff never seems to get what he’s got coming.  And to boot, she seems to be succeeding far above what good people have in their lives; I just don’t get it!

Whenever I find myslef indulging in that kind of thinking I ask myself a more important question:  How come God doesn’t light up my kindling with all the wrong stuff I’ve done?

Well, we could stand here and have a deeply theological debate about alll that for, well, perhaps a millennium or two, and never come up with an answer that will satisfy more than a few people – those who are more likely to agree with us anyway. 

But the simplest answers I’ve ever been able to sleep with are:

#1.  God is patient

The Psalmist said God just laughs at the wicked and all their plots, because He sees their end and there will not be anything that slips past the judgment bar.  If God can relax in the face of evildoers, well…I should also.

#2.  I’m not (and never will be) in charge…God is!

The Psalmist also wrote that our job is as we have in verse 7: 

Be still in the presence of the Lord, and wait patiently for him to act.  Psalm 37:7^(NLT)

God has always reserved for Himself the right to vengeance or mercy; frankly, it’s none of our business.  Do you recall how after the resurrection, when Jesus was talking to the disciples on the seashore at the men’s breakfast, the Lord told Peter about some hard things the big fisherman would have to endure.  Peter looked over his shoulder at John and then asked Jesus:  What about him? 

Jesus replied:  Keep your eye on the ball, Peter; John is my business, not yours!

Frankly…I don’t need more instruction than that.  If I’ve got more questions, I think they can wait til Heaven.

For You Today

A good practice is to keep our eyes on what we are doing, and leave supervising evildoers to God.  He’s well-equipped to handle it; we’re not!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road…have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO

NOTES

---

[i]Title image: By Southbanksteve from London, UK, via Wikimedia Commons