Are You Thumbing Your Nose At God?
As I was out seeking the Lord for Bible Study, He gave me an obscure passage in Ezekiel. Ezekiel 8:17
He said to me, “Have you seen this, son of man? Is it a trivial matter for the people of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? Must they also fill the land with violence and continually arouse my anger? Look at them putting the branch to their nose!
Immediately, the Lord brought to mind how over 30+ years ago, when I attended a Church where I knew no one, and I was praying, and the Lord spoke very concise and clear to me. He said, “get rid of your arrogance”. I lifted up my head and looked around as to see who was talking to me, but I knew it was the Lord. That’s all He said to me, “get rid of your arrogance”. I wasn’t exactly sure what “arrogance” meant. So, for the rest of the week, I continued to think on, “get rid of your arrogance”, what does that mean? At the time I was young, a new born babe in Christ, I was still committing some of the same sins I had committing before I got saved. The difference in my life was Jesus. I now prayed every day, calling sin, sin, and asking for forgiveness; whereas, before I accepted the Lord as my Savior, I never called the things I did sin nor did I pray and ask for forgiveness. So, I knew in myself the Lord had changed things in me.
However, I began praying about my pride, asking the Lord to strip me of my pride, and boy did the Lord strip me down, where I was sitting in the creek one day just balling my eyes out crying and crying out to the Lord. He had purged me of much; and after that, I knew I was a new creation in Christ Jesus Amen! However, because I really didn’t get the whole arrogance thing, I didn’t pray asking Him to strip me of my arrogance! So, I remained arrogant. Truth is, I didn’t want to get the arrogance. After all, I always self-confident, self-motivated, and believe myself to be sufficient. I never thought I was better than anyone else or above anyone else, just self-inspired, self-driven. Just occupied with the things of self! Not selfish, anyone who knows me, knows I’m not selfish, but I am self in tuned, self-aware!
Now, the definition of arrogance is self-importance! Stay with me now, where going somewhere!
Fast forward – 30+ years. I was running a successful legal clinic – making money – but feeling the life being choked out of me. My prayers wouldn’t raise no higher than the ceiling. I was no longer reading my Bible on a regular basis. I began praying asking the Lord, to help me draw closer to Him. So, one Wednesday morning, a Pastor friend of mine asked me to come to his Wednesday Bible Study. After Bible study, we all gather in a circle and held hands and each person began to pray going around the horn. Now, before my turn came to pray, the Lord spoke clearly and concisely to me, and said, “you ask me to stripe you of your arrogance and pride”. This time I knew what the Lord meant. So, my only prayer was, “Lord, I ask that you would strip me of my arrogance and pride. In Jesus name Amen!” I knew, I had invited the Lord to break me down. Over the next few days, I started asking the Lord, to me gentle when breaking me down and to strengthen me while enduring the trials. But, let me tell you. THE LORD BROKE ME DOWN AND STRIPED ME OF ARROGANCE. I underwent some real trials and tribulations, and only had the Lord to rely upon. That’s another testimony for another time, but trust me. Most of you would not want to undergo what the Lord put me through and I’m still going through it.
See, arrogance is reliance on “self”, concerned about “self”, see only “self”, dependent on “self”, think on “self” even to calling yourself by His name. Many of you think, “I’m not arrogant, I depend on the Lord”. Let me just say this, so did I!
But, many of us, even in our worship of the Lord, are doing it in the form of “self”. How many of us, rationalize, justify, excuse, have a reason for, brush off, think nonchalantly or down right ignore many of the things the Lord pricks us about, tells us in His Word, in exchange for what we think or feel about something? How, many of us don’t call sin, sin? When I gossip, I call it just wanting to finding out or share. When I covet, I call it just wanting better. When I worry, I call it just looking at the facts, When I lust, I just ignore it as if it didn’t happen or justify it through some other means. When I feel vengeful, wrongfully angered, spiteful, I rationalize it blaming another. When I lie, I say I didn’t mean it or it didn’t hurt anyone. When I mistreat someone or I’m selfish, jealous, I justify my actions with some reason, and a host of other ways of being that are contrary to God’s Word. I ignore, justify, excuse, have a reason, brush it off, think nonchalantly or ignore my thoughts, ways and actions only to tell myself, how I’m walking with the Lord.
Some of us even go to depths within ourselves creating whole scenarios for why I do what I do, rather than looking in the mirror and seeing what manner of man or woman I am, and beg for the Lord’s forgiveness, healing and deliverance. Instead, we thumb our nose at God, ignoring His Word is sharper than any two-edge sword dividing asunder bone from marrow, soul from spirit, it is a discerner of the intents and motives of the heart”!
The term or phrase, “putting the branch to their nose” is the colloquial term or idiom used back then, as “thumbing your nose”, metaphorically is used today, a sign of disrespect; 2) to show contempt for someone or something. To dismiss someone or something, that shows that you don’t care what someone thinks or says.
The Lord tells the prophet Ezekiel, “have you seen this son of man?” Is it a trivial matter for the people of Judah to do the detestable things they are doing here? The Lord is saying, look at them, but the branch to their nose or thumbing their nose at me. We know the Lord is speaking of sin, yes! But is it just the sin or is it the arrogance to which they commit the sin?
The Lord is talking to the ARROGANCE of the people! The Thumbing our nose at Him, disregarding the truth of God, based on self, self-will, self-thought, self-reasoning, self-revelation, self. Yes, yes, I know, many of us are saying, “not me!” I don’t disregard the things of God or hold the things of God with contempt…I believe in the Lord; I love the Lord”. Here’s the thing, so did they! And so did Saul, who believed he was serving the Lord before He met Jesus on Damascus road.
Paul testifies that the things he did, he did with zeal for the Lord. Upholding the Law and the Prophets, Hebrew amongst Hebrews. Paul says, Phil 3:6 “as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.” Yet, Jesus appeared to Saul and said, “why do you kick against the pricks?”
You have to understand the meaning of what Jesus said to Saul. A prick or goad was a stick with a pointed piece of iron on its tip used to prod the oxen when plowing. The farmer would prick the animal to steer it in the right direction. Sometimes the animal would rebel by kicking out at the prick, and this would result in the prick being driven even further into its flesh. In essence, the more an ox rebelled, the more it suffered. Thus, Jesus’ words to Saul on the road to Damascus: “It is hard for you to kick against the pricks.” The reference means to go against conscience, God pricks the conscience, an inner expression you often try to get away from. So, the Lord had been pricking Saul’s conscience for some time. We know this by His saying, “it’s hard to kick against the pricks, plural”. Meaning, I’ve been pricking your conscience for some time now, and you’ve been ignoring it, rationalizing against my pricks of your conscience.
If you never thought about it, think about it now. To us it may appear that Saul’s conversion was a sudden encounter with Christ. However, based on what the Lord said to Saul about kicking against the pricks, it tells us, He had been working on Saul for some time, prodding and goading him. But, as Paul testified to his own arrogance, he didn’t listen to the Lord, but relied on self, self-motivation, self-confidence, self-intuition, self-reliance, self-education, self-awareness, self, before his encounter with Jesus on Damascus road. Paul testifies in Phil. 3:4-6
Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: 5 Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; 6 Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.
Self-inspired was Saul. Self-motivated was Saul. Self-sufficient was Saul. After all, by birth a Jew, by citizenship a Roman, by education a Greek, “as to the righteousness which is in the Law, found blameless”. He called himself a Hebrew amongst Hebrews. He sat at the top of the spiritual ladder in Jerusalem, and now Jesus of Nazareth was comparing him to a rebellious Ox! After all, Saul believed he was doing it for the Lord! Yet, in an encounter with the Lord Jesus, he found out that he was arrogant in self, and not at all serving the Lord.
When Jesus rebuked Saul, who would soon become the apostle Paul, He was telling the arrogant and proud Pharisee that he was only resisting the truths of God.
Here’s one of Saul’s greatest testimonies. He changed his name from Saul Sa???? Saulos; meaning “desired”, to Paul, which means “small or little”. I always wondered why he changed his name. Now I know. He went from Saul the desired one (in himself) to recognizing his own self-sufficiency was dependent on the Lord, and was small compared to the things of God. Hallelujah!
Saul was no longer self-induced, but became Paul, who was God inspired, God lead, God taught, God sufficient… Why do you think Paul goes on in Phil 3:7-9 to testify:
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8 What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9 and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.
For many of us, God’s Word is like a cafeteria, we pick and choose what we want to accept, and ignore what is distasteful to us. We arrogantly thumb our nose to it. We ignore being pricked. We call it something else. We pretend that we don’t know what it means or don’t understand it. The Lord told me 30+ years ago, to get rid of my arrogance. I acted like I didn’t know what it meant, but I didn’t pray about. I didn’t seek, search or sought to know or find out what He was talking about, I just simply ignored it. Thumbed my nose at God and kept it pushing! Come on now! Am I the only one? We all do it in some area of our lives! We fill the Lord pricking our conscience and we thumb our nose at it, pretending, rationalizing, disregarding, justifying or just flat out ignoring it.
King David, a man after God’s own heart, was sinful, and at times arrogant before the Lord, at times thumbed his nose at what God said, but when he looked at himself before a Holy God, he said Ps. 73:21-22:
“When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you”
So, if your real with yourself, you will realize, as David did, Paul did, before a Holy and Righteous God, you are but a small brutish and ignorant beast, as it says in Ecc. 3:18 “I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals”.
The more we examine our own hearts, the more we shall discover are ways are contrary to God’s ways, and the sinfulness of ourselves. And, if you believe God is true and Everyman a liar, and you truly look in the mirror and search yourself, the more you will humble yourself before a Holy and Righteous God, and seek His Grace and healing.
So, take some time and identify the pricks or goads you have kicked against by ignoring, rationalizing, justifying, or just plain making excuses and stop thumbing your nose at God.
