WORD STUDY THE CHOICEST רחק WINE

Transcription

1 WORD STUDY THE CHOICEST רחק WINE Isaiah 29:13, Wherefore the Lord said, Forasmuch as this people draw near [me] with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me I once taught drama in a high school and I would always tell my acting students that a really true actor is one who is telling the truth about themselves by sharing a part of themselves that people don t see. If they played the hero they would reach into themselves and bring out that part of themselves that was heroic. If they were the victim they would have to draw upon the some deep hurt and heartbreak in their lives and bring it to the surface so that their tears would be real tears. If they were playing the villain, they would have to reach into their souls and bring out that dark area that lies deep within, they would have to admit to themselves that it is there and reflect it on the character they would be portraying. I told my students that actors who play the villains are often the sweetest people you will meet because they admitted to themselves that they had this dark area of

2 their soul and by bringing it out in their acting, they were able to see how ugly it was and were able to truly repent. To be a good actor you have to know yourself, but if you do not know yourself, know who your are, people will not believe you, they will think you are a phony. Christians tend to make the worst actors which may be why Christian movies in the past had some of the worst acting. Christians can act great when they are playing the hero s but when they are called upon to express their vulnerabilities, their acting suddenly appears wooden and stiff. The great myth about acting is that a good actor is one who is able to really pretend and create a great lie by becoming the character they portray. Actually, the great actors are the ones who really believe they are the characters they portray, they are being totally honest. It is the poor actors who are the dishonest ones, never admitting to their vulnerabilities. In fact Isaiah 29:13 should be every would-be actor s warning. Note where God says, Forasmuch as this people draw near with their mouth. Therein lies root of poor acting, the actor is attempting to act with his mouth. The words he speaks are words coming from his mouth and not his heart. I hear it all the time in churches and on Christian TV, words coming from the mouth trying to express a drawing near. That word drawing near is an old Canaanite word negash which means to wield power. As it moved into the Hebrew language it took on the meaning of sexual intercourse. The idea of power taking on the form of heighten emotional expression. In a true intimacy there is a tremendous release and sharing of emotions between two individuals. God is saying that you are trying to create this exchange of high emotion with your mouth and not your heart. We see it on Christian TV and in churches with preachers and worship leaders who desperately try to express

3 their intimacy with God but somehow we are not buying it, we are seeing a phony. Their voice may sound sincere, the expression on their face may be just right but like the poor actor, you just can t shake the feeling that the old boy is a phony. You want to believe it is real, you want to believe that character on stage is who he is claiming to be but somehow you just can t wrap yourself around it. But when one acts from his heart, preaches from his heart, sings from his heart, you sit back, comfortable, drawing into the worship or the message that suddenly becomes real and alive. Just as someone acting the part of Abraham Lincoln, draws upon his own nobility and his vulnerabilities like that of Lincoln and suddenly you believe he is Abraham Lincoln, he is once again alive. There is very interesting word used in this verse for removed their hearts far from me. Actually the word removed is not in the text, it is just the word rachaq which comes from a Semitic root for a choice wine. A choice wine took on the idea of removing far away or abandonment in the Hebrew language because choice wine was something that the average person rarely, if ever tasted. There is a beautiful poetic play on words here. God is saying that the people who try to be intimate with Him with their mouths and honor him with their lips can never taste him, taste the choicest wine with their hearts. God can only be tasted with one s heart, not one s mouth or lips. I remember during tryouts for a play I was putting on when I was a high school teacher. I had a student tryout for a part that really fit him well, but his acting was horrendous. However, I knew he had just broke up with his girlfriend that he had dated for over a year and she hooked up with another guy. I asked this student if he would be willing to share his

4 hurt and heartbreak with the audience. I did not mean to tell them, Hey, I just broke up with my girl and I feel crappy. But to be willing to think of all that hurt and heartbreak and reflect it into the character he was pretending to be on stage. He agreed and suddenly his acting became almost like that of a professional and everyone was moved by his performance. The problem with that preacher or worship leader that appears insincere is not that they do not really have Jesus in their heart. It is just that they do not take the time, like an actor, to really know and understand the depths of their own hearts. As shown in the study yesterday, the heart is vulnerable and weak. They are afraid to admit this and to examine their hearts and as a result they try to express their love for God with their mouth and lips rather than with their heart. They want to appear vulnerable while at the same time victorious and heroic. They do not want anyone to see their heart, that little boy in them that is still fearful, anxious and hurting. They are afraid to bring that darkness out because they and others will see how ugly it is so the shut up their hearts and speak or sing only from their mouth and lips. But you see if Jesus is truly in your heart then when that ugliness comes out Jesus is coming out right with it and showing the world how He deals with it and then it is Jesus and not the preacher or singer that gets the glory. As discussed yesterday, we cannot know the depths of our hearts, yet Jesus does and far too often that preacher or worship leader is afraid that if he lets Jesus show off his heart, He may just show off those dark areas of his heart that he doesn t want anyone to know about.

5 The bottom line is that everyone who seeks to testify, preach or lead in worship must become an actor, be willing to let Jesus emerge from their hearts and show off whatever He wishes to show off. That takes courage and if you do not have enough courage you have no business giving a testimony no matter how powerful that testimony, no business preaching no matter how great a preacher you are and no business leading in worship no matter how gifted you are musically. The first rule of any artist is being willing to express and expose your heart and let others see your vulnerabilities. But then if you do not, how will they see Jesus do His finest work. Only then will you be able to taste the choicest wine, rachaq. HEBREW WORD STUDY ACCEPTABLE TO GOD Psalms 19:14: Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable to thee O Lord my strength and my redeemer.

6 I may be wrong but looking at this verse grammatically, I do not see this in a cohortative (request) form. The verse starts simply: The words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart will be acceptable to thee David is not asking that his words or meditations be acceptable, he is stating a fact, that they are acceptable. The word acceptable in the Hebrew is rasah which is an understanding and acceptance. His words and mediations are understood by God. During the Civil War a Union brigade had captured some Confederate soldiers from the Deep South. The General Chamberlain was very interested in what motivated these soldiers to fight. They came from an area that had neither plantations nor slavery. They were simple men from the hills of Alabama who had little dealing with politics. General Chamberlain needed to know what motivated these men to take up arms to fight and die so he could better understand how to deal with them. He ordered his aid to interrogate the men and find out what they knew and to learn what their reason was for fighting. After interrogating the prisoners the aid returned and reported to the General Chamberlain. Have you found out why these men are fighting? asked General Chamberlain. Yes, sir, said the aid, They are fighting for their rats, Sir. Come again? asked the General. Sir, the men say they are fighting for their rats. The General decided to interrogate the prisoners himself and find out just why rats were so important to these men and why they felt the Union Army was a threat to their rats. I mean if it were rats they wanted the North had plenty of their own that they would gladly let them have. When he approached the men he addressed them by saying:

7 Men, I am General Chamberlain and I want you to tell me just why you are fighting in this war. A spokesman for the Confederate prisoners stood up and said in a deep Southern drawl: Gen al sur, we all har are fitin fo our riats. General Chamberlain was a professor of ancient languages in civilian life and so he instinctively listened very closely to the words and instantly understood what the man was saying. He was saying was that they were fighting for their rights. I am very easily frustrated when I am misunderstood. I am particularly frustrated with customer service from the phone company or my bank, particularly with all their sweet, flowery words about how important my call is to them and then they just don t listen close enough to understand what my concern is. Sometimes I wonder if anyone in this world cares enough to really understand my simple words or the concerns of my heart. David, as a king, must have really felt this way. He was surrounded by people who acted like they cared but totally misunderstood the things he would say or read into his words things that were not on his heart. These words of David that he wanted to be acceptable to God were not profound words. David uses the Hebrew word amar for words and not davar. In other words, he was not referring just to the carefully chosen words of his heart, but to all that he would say or speak. He was speaking about his normal every day conversation. These were words that meant a lot to him, but were easily misunderstood by others. Then David asked that the meditations of his heart be acceptable to God. To me when I hear the word meditation I am thinking of deep contemplation of the serious matters in life. Actually the word used in the Hebrew is hegevon which

8 is more like a musings or pondering. Let the musings or ponderings of my heart be acceptable to you O Lord. Even the seemingly irrelevant ponderings of our own heart that most of God s people could care less about and don t really understand, are still important to God and He will listen close enough to understand the deep longings of your heart. Yes, God was even aware of his ponderings when that cute little number in that stylish toga served him his afternoon wine. David wanted to make sure such ponderings as these were acceptable before God. Do you often feel that no one understands you? Do you often long for just one person to listen to you close enough and really understand your every word and musings or ponderings of your heart? Think about it. God cares, He cares enough that he will listen carefully to every word we say and every musing of our hearts. If it is important to us, it is important to Him. Like that General Chamberlain, God will understand the difference between rats and rights even if His aids here on earth don t make the effort to understand and totally take you out of context or read into your words things you never intended. But there is a down side to this as well, even our words and ponderings that are not acceptable and that we give into will be heard and understood by God. I mean we can t fool God and say, But Lord I was just telling that person in love that their singing annoys the daylights out of me. God is only going to respond, In love? Yeah, sure, I ll bet. Remember, also, the word acceptable means not only understand, but acceptance as well. If God it taking the time to listen closely to our words and the musings or ponderings of our hearts, we should at least make sure that what we are saying and thinking in our hearts is not offensive to God.

9 Tolstoy towards the end of his life after having started a vast moment of pacifism and socialism sat back wondered how people could have taken him so seriously when all he was doing was just pondering some ideas, he was not sure himself if the ideas were viable. If we really understood just how closely and serious God takes our every thought and pondering, perhaps we will remind ourselves like David reminded himself, that he wants to make sure that every word and pondering of his heart are accepted to God. WORD STUDY MOUTH Psalms 141:3: Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth, keep the door of my lips. Be sure it s true when you say I love you. It s sin to tell a lie. Millions of hearts have been broken, Just because these words were spoken, I love you, Yes I do, I love you. If you break my heart, I ll die, So be sure it s true, when you say I love you It s a sin to tell a lie. -Billy Mayhew- Upon close examination of the context of this verse, David is asking God to watch over his words or what he speaks when he prays. Yet, God does not hear the words of our mouth, but the cry of our heart. I may pray with my lips: God give me a candy apple red Mercedes Benz, but my heart may be saying: Don t you do it either, given him a broken down Ford Focus so

10 he can learn to trust in you. God hears and answer every prayer, the only reason we don t realize the answer is that we are expecting the answer from the request of our mouths and not of our hearts. So why is David asking God to guard his words if it doesn t matter what he says, only what is in his heart? The Jewish sages explain this verse by saying that when David asked that God set a watch over his mouth and keep the door of his lips he is asking God to hear the cry of his heart, and that he speak only what his heart says. His lips will speak the desire of his soul, but his heart will speak the desire of God. He wants his soul s desires to be God s desires. If his soul and heart are not united, it will break God s heart just as it would for a would be lover to tell a woman he loves her when in his heart he does not. It is interesting that the word for mouth is just a one letter word Pei and the word for door is a one letter word Daleth. Those two letters together form the word redemption. The numerical value of Pei Daleth is 84, which is the same numerical value as the word forblood, escape and knowing as in intimate knowing. Romans 10:9-10 tells us that it is with the heart that we believe and are justified and it is with our mouths that we confess and are saved. The Aramaic word for mouth is pum spelled Pei, Final Mem which is speaking the hidden knowledge of your heart. David understood that that the mouth plays an important role in a relationship. Samson is the perfect example of one who came to that painful realization. Four times Samson spoke to Delilah with his lips. The fifth time he spoke to her with his heart. After being deceived four times, you would think Delilah would really question the fifth time, yet she was so certain he told the truth the fifth time that she collected her reward before offering proof that he had spoken the truth. How could she and the Philistines be so certain? Because the fifth time, the Bible says, he spoke his heart. Samson longed to be intimate with Delilah but Delilah made it known that they could not be intimate if he did not speak his heart to her. When Samson spoke his heart to Delilah, a barrier broke down between the two of them and they were able enter into an intimacy. The KJV translates this word

11 for this intimacy as Delilah afflicting him some affliction. But once he spoke his heart to Delilah, that broke down the wall that kept them from being intimate. David realized the importance of speaking his heart to God. You can pray many words, but it is really your heart that God is listening to. Just as when Samson spoke his heart to Delilah he open the doorway (Daleth) to their intimacy, so too when we speak the words of our heart to God, it is those words that become the doorway to entering the heart of God and entering into an intimacy with God. But if we speak words of love to God because we want something from Him, or we want an answer to prayer and it does not come from love born in our hearts and there is no willingness to act upon that love nor to make the commitment that such love demands, then we will break God s heart just as a would be lover would break the heart of his spouse if he says he loves her just to get something he wants from her. I believe this is what David was saying in Psalms 141:3: God don t let me say something intimate to you unless it is first in my heart. David was seeking to protect the heart of God. How does that love enter one s heart? Jeanette Oaks titled one of her novels Love Comes Softly. That is really the best way to describe how we fall in love with God. Love for God comes from a daily walking and talking with Him, from getting to know (yadah sharing intimate knowledge) of our hearts with Him. Eventually, love comes softly and before you know it your mouth (Pei) is really speaking the words of your heart to God. But if you do not spend the time with Him, you do not spend the time in His word, and you just go about your business and give an occasional hoody do! to God you can expect to break his heart if you say with your mouth I love you. For as the old song writer says: It s A Sin to Tell A Lie. When you have not allowed your heart the time it needs to bond with God s heart you cannot say to Him: I love you. It is best that you pray like David, Guard my words, don t let me speak any more words of intimacy than what is in my heart. If it is not there, I will spend the time alone with you until my heart truly bonds with your heart and then my mouth (Pei) and heart will be united when I say: I love you.

12 WORD STUDY TAKING YOUR VICTUALS Joshua 9:14: And the men took of their victuals, and asked not counsel at the mouth of God. If you read Joshua 9 you will see a story that takes one whole chapter in the Book of Joshua which has only 24 chapters to tell this story of Gibeon. Now there must be something important in this chapter. Take a look at what this story is telling us. The people of Israel battled against Jericho and God caused the walls of Jericho to fall and no one survived, women, children, dogs, parakeets, the destruction was total, yet Israel suffered not one casualty. They then move onto Ai and again total destruction, after a slight problem of not consulting God and ending up with an initial defeat. The people of Gibeon were watching all of this on the sidelines and they are thinking: Hoo, boy, these people have themselves one powerful God and were next, we have to do something. And something they did. They got some of their representatives and dressed them up in old worn and tattered clothes, they gave them dry and moldy bread for provisions and made it appear as if they have traveled from a faraway country to meet with Joshua when in fact they were just around the corner. They told Joshua and the leaders of Israel that they were from a country so far away that they were of no concern to Israel and asked that they swear an oath not to destroy them in the process of their destruction. Joshua and the leaders took the

13 bait and made a treaty with the people of Gibeon and sure enough, three days later found out that they were neighbors and on God s hit list. Many pastors live in fear that someone in their congregation may approach them and say: Pastor I have a question about Joshua 9. It is hard enough to explain the charam principle (complete, total, absolute destruction) to someone. But now we have a group of people who are frighten and desperate for their lives and the lives of their family that they concoct a lie to get a treaty with Joshua and when it is found that the treaty was based upon a fraudulent act, they are still bound by the treaty. In fact we learn that many years later God sends a plague on Israel because King Saul violated that treaty and vow to God and David had to appease the Gibeonites by turning over seven sons of Saul to be hanged. Then, of course, you need to consider that God does not seem to show any mercy to these fearful and desperate people. Of course the usual answers, which I don t dispute, are that these people had not repented, turned to God and embraced the Hebrew religion. Rahab and her family did this and they were spared. The Gibeonites still retained their own pagan religion and way of life which proved to be a snare to Israel years later and resulted in Israel turning to paganism. There are, of course, many other answers, but I am more interested in verse 9:14. In 9:14, we learn the men took their victuals. The word took is lakach with is in a simple Qal form. This is followed by the word rendered as victuals which in the Hebrew is the word anash which is a word for a widow, someone that is helpless and this is followed by the word sod which is not even

14 translated in the KJV. Sod has the idea of something hidden, kept secret. You see the use of the word lakach in a Qal form indicates that they did not closely examine the evidence. The use of anash suggests a sense of arrogance. They felt they were dealing at a point of strength and they looked upon these people as helpless people that they could take advantage of. Then the use of the word sod suggests some hidden agenda or motive. The leaders of Israel had a taste of power and here were a group of people pleading for mercy. They did not make a treaty with them out of mercy. They saw an opportunity to be wealthy plantation owners using Gibeonites slaves to do their work while they sat on their porch drinking lemonade. Why kill these people if they can be put to better use, like making themselves prosperous. The next verse is curious, but in this context it is not. They did not seek the counsel of God. You think they would have learned their lesson, especially just coming off a disaster like Ai because they had not consulted God. I believe they did not consult God because this turn of events made sense to them and it just seemed so Godly, to show mercy. Why not show mercy, these people are not in the territory they were to conqueror and then, who knows, they could later have these people at their mercy to do their bidding. Perhaps I am reading too much into this, but I believe the words used here clearly indicate that there was a sense of arrogance and the smelling of opportunity, not mercy. That is an important lesson. If God ever grants us to be in a position of power and influence it is very easy to slip into arrogance and opportunity without even realizing it. We begin to think,

15 Oh yeah, God has really blessed and here is an opportunity that is so of God, a chance to show mercy, God is all for mercy is He not? Yes, and of course it will help to line our pockets, but after all, we are in God s business, we deserve something. It looks so good and so right that we fail to consult God. Or, is it even possible that it looks so good and so right we may fail to consult God for fear He may say: No, it is not right. So often when God puts someone into a position of power and influence, it becomes very hard to be a pure Robin Hood. You know, rob from the rich and give to the poor. Only if Robin Hood lived in our society today it would: Rob from the rich, give to the poor and hold back 90% for overhead and expenses. Perhaps the lesson from Joshua 9 is to warn us that pride, arrogance and opportunity can come in through the back door of the best intentions.