Observing Lying Vanities, Forsaking the Mercy of God.
Pastor Daniel J. Little
Adfontes.djl@gmail.com
The Landmark Church
126 Court St. Binghamton,
NY 13901
Here is the point I want make this morning; Idolatry is embracing any word or will over God’s. Even when we embrace our own word and will over God’s we become practicing idolaters by putting our selves in the place God said was only for Him. Result? In the words prayed by Jonah from the belly of the fish, we end up abandoning our source of mercy.
SCRIPTURE READING
Joshua 6:1-11
Now Jericho was shut up inside and outside because of the people of Israel. None went out, and none came in. 2 And the Lord said to Joshua, "See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. 3 You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once. Thus shall you do for six days. 4 Seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark. On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. 5 And when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, then all the people shall shout with a great shout [one voice], and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people shall go up, everyone straight before him." 6 So Joshua the son of Nun called the priests and said to them, "Take up the ark of the covenant and let seven priests bear seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark of the Lord." 7 And he said to the people, "Go forward. March around the city and let the armed men pass on before the ark of the Lord."
8 And just as Joshua had commanded the people, the seven priests bearing the seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the Lord went forward, blowing the trumpets, with the ark of the covenant of the Lord following them. 9 The armed men were walking before the priests who were blowing the trumpets, and the rear guard was walking after the ark, while the trumpets blew continually. 10 But Joshua commanded the people, "You shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither shall any word go out of your mouth, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout." 11 So he caused the ark of the Lord to circle the city, going about it once. And they came into the camp and spent the night in the camp. ESV
The rest of this story is that Joshua and the priests and the armies of Israel ALL did what God told them to do, and the impregnable walls of Jericho fell flat and the city was utterly destroyed.
But why the command in verse 10 to maintain complete silence? We could say “Because God said so,” but I think there was a very practical reason.
I think that once this very unorthodox plan was made known to everyone God wanted His word to be the last word spoken until the moment of obedience. He wanted obedience and faith to build up like electrons in a capacitor—building up to the moment they heard the command to “SHOUT”, and then see it all released in a surge of power that would literally knock the walls of Jericho flat.
(Capacitors are those little electronic gismos that store up a charge of electricity that is released in one sudden burst of power. In high school the guys in auto-mechanics class thought it was fun to touch the business end of a fully charged capacitor to some unsuspecting person and watch them jump from the sudden jolt of power.)
But let me offer another very practical reason for this order to silence. Here it is: God wanted them to DO THE WORD (do the plan) rather than talk it to death.
He wanted them to DO THE WORD not study it until they understood how the plan might possibly work.
He wanted them to BELIEVE and DO HIS WORD rather than reasoning among themselves to where they finally figured out why God’s Word would NOT WORK and abandon it.
I told you about a certain portion of Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish. Here it is…
Jonah 2:8 They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Jonah is praying from first hand experience. He had walked away from the Word of the Lord and followed his own empty reasoning (lying vanity), and in doing so walked away from God—thus forsaking his own [source of] mercy.
He had chosen his own will and word over God’s and now he was experiencing God’s redemptive judgment in the belly of a fish while God adjusted his thinking.
What happens when we place the vanishing vapor of our own exhaled words and thoughts over the Word of the one true God? I will tell you what happens. We become idolaters. Our better plan leads us away from the source of our mercy, i.e., God himself.
We just don’t understand that the power and glory of God’s character is tied up in His Word.
Oswald Chambers said that one of the greatest difficulties in prayer is a “…lack of intimacy with God’s character as revealed in His word.”
From this lack of intimacy with the character of God comes this false notion about the value of our own will and word. In other words we believe our own doubts and opinions over God and His Word.
Here is what I find, that the trials of life are sometimes so hot as to evaporate the contents of our faith bucket. I must constantly replenish and renew my faith by going to God’s Word.
Sometimes I think we forget how God feels about His own Word.
Listen to what the Psalmist says; Ps. 138:2: “For You have magnified Your word above all Your name.”
In other words, the honor and force and power of Your Word is above (greater than), all the great things we know about You—Your Name.)
We know that Jesus saw the written Word of God as a weapon of great power; that He overcame strong satanic temptations by to demonic power Matthew 4:4 "It is written, "’Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’" “
Paul, writing to the Ephesians warned them that they were going to need strap on (so to speak) every piece of armor that God provides, in one place calling God’s Word the sword of the spirit (Ephesias 6:17)
Through the prophets God says;
Isaiah 55:11 …my word …shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Jeremiah 1:12 “….I am watching over my word to perform it.”
Jeremiah 23:29 Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?
Go back to Jonah’s prayer and this term lying vanities.
Lying vanities have to do with the empty whisperings that come to those who worship idols. In fact the term vanities (emptiness) is used to mean an idol, —empty because God is not behind these whispered suggestions, empty because only demons and human flesh lie behind these words. They are toxic to faith and produce death. Such words go all the way back to Eden where the serpent said to Eve “Hath God said…?”
So then, LYING VANITIES are the whisperings that come from the worship of idols.
What idol was Jonah worshipping?
The answer is, “The idol of his own will and his own prejudices against Nineveh and the Assyrian people. He didn’t want to see God spare these people. There were fierce and brutal conquerors, and they were Israel’s arch enemy. Jonah simply did not like these people and decided against God’s Word and gave heed the empty words of his own prejudices.
When we embrace the empty whisperings that come from our own limited knowledge, our own power to reason, our own fears or prejudices we are forsaking the wisdom of God in order to DO something else. We take another course hoping for better result.
But do we get a better result?
The answer is NO! We become observers of lying vanities and we turn our back on our own mercy.
What the Holy Spirit was sharing with me all this week was that God commanded silence because in this first crucial battle in the Promised Land God didn’t want the Israeli soldiers to talk and grumble among themselves about the this plan. He didn’t want them to talk themselves out of simply DOING the Word of the Lord.
So God says; “Just be quiet. Let faith build. Let my Word be the last Word until the moment comes to put the exclamation point on this particular seven day test of obedience, and then SHOUT and see the unleashing of my mercy toward you, shout and see the glory of God that comes from simply DOING MY WORD.
Quiet believing is better than constant complaining, manipulating and doubting – “Mary pondered all these things in her heart.”
What is God’s Word telling us right now? I will tell you what I am hearing and see if you agree. He is saying to us “Exodus 14:13 "Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. (Only believe and you will see the glory of God.”)
He is saying take my Word and here is what you will do… “Matthew 17:20 “…you will say to this mountain , ’Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you."
(He has given us His Word. We are to speak His Word into the unseen powers that work to uproot the overthrow the life-giving, life-sustaining Word of God in our life.
From the His teaching in Matthew 6 (what we commonly call The Lord’s Payer), Jesus is instructing us to:
• Pray to see the highest purposes of God and His glory established here on earth as it is in heaven..
• He instructs us to pray for our daily bread.
• He instructs us to forgive so that we may be forgiven.
IN OTHER WORDS, the very door we open to release people from our judgment (to forgive them) is the very door through which God flows His forgiveness to us. Shut that door up from releasing forgiveness to others and you shut it up to receiving the mercy and forgiveness that God has for you.
• He instructs us to pray to be delivered from evil.
• He instructs us to long to confess that His IS (not will be but IS), the power and the glory forever. Amen.
Let me ask you something. Have you reduced the Word of the Lord to theology and topics for discussion rather than a Word that tells you WHAT TO DO?
Do you remember the passage where Jesus washed the feet of the disciples as an example of how to live as lowly foot-washing servants to each other? And after 3 years of modeling the servant life before them, and immediately after this real-time demonstration of how life was to be lived what did He say’ John 13:17 If you know these things, BLESSED ARE YOU IF YOU DO THEM.
God expects His family, His house to be a house of prayerful, foot-washing servants. That is how this way of life in Christ is to be lived, not by preferences or mood swings, or any such thing. We live by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
If we will actually do that—actually live by God Word, then not only will we NOT be turning our back on God’s desire to show us mercy, we will be embracing the glory and the salvation of God. Let us be done with every form of idolatry
So here’s the particular application for these remarks;
How about you come out tonight for supper and an hour of corporate prayer. We will use the Word of God to pray the Will of God. We will seek the highest purposes of God for our own lives, for our families, for our church community, for the greater “church” of this region.
We will speak the very Word of God to some mountains, forgive others, and pray to see the glory of God’s will done here in our lives, our church, and the community.
I believe it was Paul E. Billheimer best know as the author of Destined For the Throne who once said something along this line… SATAN DOES NOT CARE HOW MANY PEOPLE READ AND TALK ABOUT CORPORATE PRAYER IF ONLY HE CAN KEEP THEM FROM ACTUALLY PARTICPATING IN IT.
So come out and lets actually pray and in so doing prepare the way for the glory of God, and while we are at it give the devil a very bad (I mean really bad) headache. In fact let’s so release our hearts in prayer that the very atmosphere becomes charged with faith and expectation that our congregation becomes the very kind of place where devils simply do not want to be.
