THE SCARECROW AND THE PELICAN – VERY APT
PART 1 - A SCARECROW IN A CUCUMBER FIELD
{{Jeremiah 10:1-5 Hear the word which the LORD speaks to you, O house of Israel. Jer 10:2 Thus says the LORD, “Do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be terrified by the signs of the heavens although the nations are terrified by them, Jer 10:3 The customs of the peoples are delusion because it is wood cut from the forest, the work of the hands of a craftsman with a cutting tool. Jer 10:4 They decorate it with silver and with gold. They fasten it with nails and with hammers so that it will not totter. Jer 10:5 They are like A SCARECROW IN A CUCUMBER FIELD, and they cannot speak. They must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them, for they can do no harm, nor can they do any good.”}}
This passage deals with the worship of worthless idols. Sometimes we shake our heads and wonder at the stupidity of some people. It is as if their heads have gone missing in another mind zone. If you cut out of a tin plate, an image of some “alien looking creature” and placed it on a construction of rocks, and then bowed down to it and began praying to it and bringing offerings to it, I would think you had gone troppo. Yet these “earth worshippers” are not much removed from that. There are some in Australia who nearly worship the flying fox (a diseased fruit bat). The point is, and this is the crucial point, when a man’s mind is outside the control of God, he is capable of the most extreme insanity.
You may think it is incredible that people can make something with their hands and then claim that that object actually made, and controls them. We have been looking at idolatry in the Tuesday night bible study. It still happens in the world today, just as dark as the ancient times. The great disaster with idolatry is that the works of men’s hands can go one step further to the worship of Satan as in the religion of the Australia aborigine. In that case the dark forces of Satan so binds their minds and spirits.
VERSE 2
This speech is addressed to Judah, and the people are told not to learn the way of the nations in the first half of the verse. For Israel throughout its history, that meant the adoption of their idols and value systems. As well as that, the nation of Judah was frightened by cosmic happenings and read into these evil portends and spiritism, something that drove them to idolatry. It is God instructing His called nation, but the Church can equally be addressed, and the church has failed because it has adopted the value system of the world when it made itself Laodocia.
God’s people are to be a separated people, a holy people. We are not holy people when we adopt the music of the world that is often about illicit sex and drugs and the occult. Don’t tell me I don’t know because I hear a bit of it on the Rage program on TV (Australia), broadcast most night on the National tax-funded Government ABC. We can not go along with the world’s way of doing business which is cheating and lying to others, or misleading others deliberately. Too many Christians have learned the way of the nations.
The world’s ways are so strong among Christian young people, and these are dark days and we must faithfully show them what are God’s ways so they don’t follow the standard of the world. Woe betide people in pulpits who do not set out God’s ways and God’s holy standard.
The second half of verse 2 is so modern. Israel was told not to be terrified by celestial signs or disturbances. Why is that? It is because God is in complete control of the heavens. We should all know the account of Jonah with reference to the sailors who saw the calamity of the sea and its resting in peace and who ended up worshipping God. “Even the wind and the waves obey Him.” There are signs today in this world, and disturbing events. Do not be alarmed at ISIS or the Taliban or the evil man Putin or Xi. Do not worry about all these alarmist predictions of massive failures through carbon dioxide, or the Great Barrier Reef dying, or many others that the sensationalist media are trying to ram down people’s throats today. Christians are not of this world and should not be distressed by such events. The Lord was asleep in the boat when all the elements around Him were raging. GOD IS IN CONTROL.
It is interesting when they put on the graves of those who have departed, “RIP”, but they have got it all wrong. The world might think the departed rest in peace but many don’t rest in peace, but that’s not a subject for today. However the Christian must rest in peace while living in this world of turmoil. Resting in peace applied to God’s followers in this world.
How is that done? Well in the turmoil I have had, I found that only one thing kept me sane. It was the great promises of the bible and becoming immersed in the word of God. I can say when you do that, the things that are eating away at you, don’t seem that important any more, or you have an extra resource to stand strong. Two other factors are also beneficial and from God. One is prayer as we would know, and the other one is the strength of trusting Christian friends who stand with you against the foe. We should meditate seriously on verse 2 – do not learn the way of the nations, and do not be terrified. The way of the world is delusion, and being terrified comes through lack of faith and commitment.
VERSE 5
We must look at this verse which is part of our message title. When it is said that IDOLS ARE LIKE A SCARECROW IN A CUCUMBER FIELD, it is using a striking simile. Just picture it. There is this construction poking up in a field of cucumber vines looking all forlorn and all alone; maybe with old discarded clothes hanging from it and an old hat it has slanting on a “head”. Apart from possibly scaring birds for a short time, it does no good and does no harm. It is neutral for it can not see or speak or understand, just like the dumb idols constructed by the pagan nations. It sits there all alone with thousands of cucumbers for company. The Hebrew can be understood as a pillar set up, just like the sacred pillars of the idol worshippers.
The expression means the idols are as useless as a scarecrow in a cucumber field. There is an application however - Christians can feel like a scarecrow in a field, all exposed and isolated and almost meaningless, all alone and being hit by the weather of oppression and, the storms, the blazing sun, and seemingly defenceless against the world. Yes, Christians can be rejected and persecuted and mistreated. However, unlike the idols of the nations, Christians are not held together by nails and hammers, but by the Holy Spirit, the power of God.
Jeremiah continues with the exposure of the inventions of people’s delusion. {{Jeremiah 10:6-10 “There is none like You, O LORD. You are great, and Your name is great in might. Jer 10:7 Who would not fear You, O King of the nations? Indeed it is Your due, for among all the wise men of the nations, and in all their kingdoms, there is none like You, Jer 10:8 but they are altogether stupid and foolish in their discipline of delusion - their idol is wood. Jer 10:9 Beaten silver is brought from Tarshish, and gold from Uphaz, the work of a craftsman and of the hands of a goldsmith. Violet and purple are their clothing. They are all the work of skilled men, Jer 10:10 but the LORD is the true God. He is the living God and the everlasting King. At His wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure His indignation.”}}
Man builds and worships the inventions and delusions of his own mind, attributing to them sanity and reason. It is vanity. All is vanity and foolishness. Idols are made of pop stars and celebrities. It is so false and empty. Some have made the environment an idol. Climate change is THE religion of the nations now. It is propped up with falsehoods and alarmism and no one questions the stupidity of man’s delusion. Why did God give us the resources of coal, gas and uranium? Certainly not for man to turn around and declare it evil. Others have made wealth and fame and career and family, their idols. And, dare I say it, some even make idols of their own intellect (or what they perceive their intellect to be) or status or success or money. All of it will perish. What is done for Christ will last. All the rest will perish.
In this passage 6-10, the correct focus comes on the Lord in verse 6 and 10. In verse 6 there is the reminder that no one is like our God. There is one God and one Mediator. God is great and His name is great. There is greatness in power in His name as well. In verse 10, the Lord, Yahweh is the true God. He is living and everlasting/eternal. He is the Judge of the nations. Verse 7 teaches that awesome reverence for the Lord is His right, and we know that none of this earth can even come close in wisdom.
This is the God who cares for us. He is our true God, our fount of wisdom, our Comfort in all trouble, our Refuge and Strength.
PART 2 – THE PELICAN IN THE WILDERNESS
We shall read a number of verses from Psalm 102, which, as the title says, comes from the afflicted and those in trying circumstances. When you read this psalm you encounter misery, for David was in a difficult place. As you read this think of the application in some verses to the Lord, especially on the cross.
Psalm 102. A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is faint, and pours out his complaint before the LORD.
Psalm 102:1-13 “Hear my prayer, O LORD and let my cry for help come to You. Psalm 102:2 Do not hide Your face from me in the day of my distress. Incline Your ear to me. In the day when I call answer me quickly, Psalm 102:3 for my days have been consumed in smoke and my bones have been scorched like a hearth. Psalm 102:4 My heart has been smitten like grass and has withered away. Indeed, I forget to eat my bread. Psalm 102:5 Because of the loudness of my groaning My bones cling to my flesh. Psalm 102:6 I RESEMBLE A PELICAN OF THE WILDERNESS. I have become like an owl of the waste places. Psalm 102:7 I lie awake and I have become like a lonely bird on a housetop.
Psalm 102:8 My enemies have reproached me all day long. Those who deride me have used my name as a curse. Psalm 102:9 I have eaten ashes like bread and mingled my drink with weeping Psalm 102:10 because of Your indignation and Your wrath for You have lifted me up and cast me away. Psalm 102:11 My days are like a lengthened shadow and I wither away like grass, Psalm 102:12 but You, O LORD, abide forever, and Your name to all generations. Psalm 102:13 You will arise and have compassion on Zion for it is time to be gracious to her for the appointed time has come.
FAINTING
This is a very interesting psalm and we must note the heading at the beginning of the psalm, for it is the complaint of one of God’s afflicted saints. Affliction causes weariness, which is rendered as fainting in the heading. It is what Jonah experienced when he was afflicted by the Lord – {{Jonah 2:5-7. “Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me. Weeds were wrapped around my head. I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, but You brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God. While I was fainting away, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to You, into Your holy temple.”}} This is Jonah’s personal experience especially in the raging sea. His near death experience is described and there is one significant “but” in this passage. Did you notice that?
Verse 7 is touching. It is also relevant to us. Trouble and fear make us faint but turn us to the Lord in prayer. Trouble drives the true Christian to the Lord, while trouble confuses and distresses the weak and worldly Christian. His life was fainting away. Note the following that deal with FAINTING –
(1). {{Psalm 61:1-4 “Hear my cry, O God. Give heed to my prayer. Psa 61:2 From the end of the earth I call to You when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. Psa 61:3 You have been a refuge for me, a tower of strength against the enemy. Psa 61:4 Let me dwell in Your tent forever. Let me take refuge in the shelter of Your wings. Selah.”}} There are some powerful words here - refuge, tower, shelter. A faint heart means an instant call to the Lord. Prayer leads to God the Rock.
(2). Psalm 77:1-10 is another great Psalm but I will quote just two verses – {{Psalm 77:3 “When I remember God, then I am disturbed. When I sigh, then my spirit grows faint. Selah. Psalm 77:6 I will remember my song in the night. I will meditate with my heart and my spirit ponders.”}} Distress should stir songs in the night and heart meditation. The heart and mind is stayed on the Lord.
(3). Psalm 102 v 1-11 and 18-28. Note the Psalm title which is above in our Pelican passage, and we don’t have time to consider each aspect in these verses. The following verses show where we might stand in the scheme of things when adversity causes us to faint. God is unchangeable but we change. The changeable must rest fully in the unchangeable. {{Psalm 102:24 I say, “O my God, do not take me away in the midst of my days. Your years are throughout all generations. Psa 102:25 Of old, You founded the earth and the heavens are the work of Your hands. Psa 102:26 Even they will perish, but You endure and all of them will wear out like a garment. Like clothing You will change them, and they will be changed Psa 102:27 but You are the same and Your years will not come to an end. Psa 102:28 The children of Your servants will continue and their descendants will be established before You.”}}
(4). Psalm 107 v 1-16. Again, this is a lovely psalm and I will read some of it –
{{Psalm 107:1-7 Oh give thanks to the LORD for He is good, for His loving-kindness is everlasting. Psa 107:2 Let the redeemed of the LORD say so whom He has redeemed from the hand of the adversary, Psa 107:3 and gathered from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. Psa 107:4 They wandered in the wilderness in a desert region. They did not find a way to an inhabited city. Psa 107:5 They were hungry and thirsty. THEIR SOUL FAINTED WITHIN THEM. Psa 107:6 Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble and He delivered them out of their distresses. Psa 107:7 He led them also by a straight way to go to an inhabited city.”}}
Verse 1 is a concluding statement because of what follows in the succeeding verses. The key is verse 6, which is the deliverance verse because of the problems in verse 5. Hunger, thirst, fainting soul – the Lord knows and He delivered those who called to Him in need, not in want, but in need.
This Psalm could well be a Messianic Psalm because it can describe the experience of the Lord on Calvary. (Read through yourselves at some time). Verse 6 is the simile – “I RESEMBLE A PELICAN OF THE WILDERNESS” - the psalmist is like a pelican in the wilderness. What does that mean? The expression is meant to describe the psalmist’s pitiable complaint, taken from a true picture of the bird as it sits in apparently melancholy mood with its bill resting on its breast. David could find no more expressive type of solitude and melancholy by which to illustrate his own sad state. The bird is in the midst of desolation, uttering weird and mournful cries, and becomes a striking image of loneliness and distress. That is how David’s inner being was affected. The Lord looked for comforters and there were none.
That same verse 6 mentions an owl of the waste places. Alfred Barnes mentions about the owl – [[“I am like an owl of the desert “- The owl is a well-known bird which dwells in solitudes and old ruins, and which becomes, alike by its seeking such places of abode, by its appearance, and by its doleful cry, the very emblem of desolation.]]
This little section ends with David confirming that the Lord abides forever. That being so, then He cares for us in time, even though we go through patches where we don’t sense that, and are depressed, isolated and forlorn like a pelican sitting with its bill on its breast. Then to close the passage, we are reminded that God is gracious to all His own. When we are feeling spaced out, wasting away, and body and soul melting away, behold, the Lord is faithful! In spiritual depression, and when we are out of sorts, look to the eternal God, to our gracious and loving Saviour.
ronaldf@aapt.net.au
