The BLINDNESS In MISINTERPRETING GOD’s WAY--I
—Habakkuk 1:5[part-1--:5a](:5-11)
Attention:
Airport Mistletoe:
It was the beginning of December. The business trip had gone reasonably well, & the businessman was ready to return home. Due to the season, the airport had been decorated in red & green, twinkly lights, & loudspeakers blaring annoying elevator renditions of cherished Christmas carols.
Being someone who took Christmas very seriously, & being slightly tired, the man was not in a particularly good mood.
He had to stop at the airline’s luggage weigh-in & drop-off area, before his flight. Once at the desk, he noticed, that hanging directly above the luggage drop-off, was a piece of plastic fake mistletoe. Not even a good semblance of mistletoe, but a very cheap plastic rendition with a dab of white paint on some of the parts that were supposed to be berries, & green paint on most of the flatter parts that were supposed to be leaves. It could be taken for mistletoe only in a very Picasso sort of way.
With a considerable degree of irritation the businessman said to the lady behind the desk, “Even if I were not married, I would not want to kiss you under such a ghastly mockery of mistletoe.”
She then said to the man, “Please look more closely at WHERE the mistletoe is located.”
She then paused, waiting for the businessman to catch on to the message in the mistletoe’s strategic placement.
He finally answered her saying, “Ok, I see that it's above the luggage scale, which is the place you'd have to step forward for a kiss.”
She answered adamantly, “Sir, I don’t kiss the customers, I don’t let them kiss me! That’s NOT why the mistletoe is there”!
And there was another long pause.
Then the traveling businessman finally spoke up & said,
“Ok, I give up. Why is the mistletoe there?”
Sir, “It’s there so you can kiss your luggage goodbye”!
*The businessman badly misinterpreted the intent of the mistletoe!
*Likewise, those who misinterpret God’s way, can easily be blind-sided by His ways, lose heart, & never grasp His love & compassion!
Need:
Lives fall apart.
Girlfriends & boyfriends break up.
Husbands & wives divorce.
Children die in their youth.
Loved ones become addicts & turn on their closest family members.
Dreams become unattainable & quashed.
Careers are stolen by others & lost to greed.
Health gravitates into infirmity.
*Some people misinterpret all those heartaches of life, & blame God.
*But others of us, expend a great deal of energy trying to wrap our heads around the constancy of temptation & the utter atrocity of sin.
*****************
We live in an time & place where it seems the majority of people have fallen victim to “calling evil good, & good evil”(Isa. 5:20-21), regardless of whether they openly admit it or not!
Whereas in God’s word, just such an attitude is denounced as sin by having “woe” declared upon it!
Isa. 5:20-21—“Woe to those who call evil good, & good evil; Who put darkness for light, & light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, & sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight!”
Those who are so blinded, regularly misinterpret God’s way.
They can easily become disenchanted with God, with the Church at large, & with the local church....!Dangerous Territory!
People who misinterpret God’s way, succumb to the false belief that everything that doesn’t ‘go their way’ is either, not from God at all, OR that God is mad at them for no apparent reason. They have the audacity to think God is impulsive!
They succumb to the false belief that their life here on earth, should be lived at ease, & in the freedom that ‘THEY personally’ ‘expect.
Previously in Habakkuk, we addressed the prophet’s frustration with his social setting by looking at...
The DISCONCERTING DILEMMA Of DIVINE INACTION
—Habakkuk 1:1-4
And there we found 4 ‘fabrications’ that CAN be forged by God’s people, when we wrongly interpret Divine ‘inaction’ in our world. And when it is wrongly interpreted, that leaves us with an Unsettling...
1. ‘INATTENTION’ To PERSONAL PLIGHT(:2a)
2. ‘REFUSAL’ TO SAVE(:2b)
3. ‘CONTENTION’ In The LAND(:3)
4. ‘ABSENCE’ Of JUSTICE(:4)
TODAY we’ll examine the fact that...
YHWH God answered the frustrations experienced by His prophet Habakkuk, when he misinterpreted God’s way.
And so,
Spiritual blindness results from misinterpreting God’s way.
And we’ll expose some facets of that blindness, by answering the question...
?What blindness results from misinterpreting God’s way?
In answer to that we will examine,
3 areas of blindness resulting from misinterpreting God’s way.
1—Misinterpreting God’s way, blinds you to...
A SUFFOCATING INSULATION(1:5)
Explanation:(1:5)Self-justification/‘Outside my wheelhouse’/Outside my experience
:5—“Look among the nations & watch--Be utterly astounded! For I will work a work in your days Which you would not believe, though it were told you.”
The entirety of this verse is recalled by the apostle Paul in Acts 13:41.
Acts 13:38-41—“Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man is preached to you the forgiveness of sins; & by Him everyone who believes is justified from all things from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses. Beware therefore, lest what has been spoken in the prophets come upon you: “Behold, you despisers, Marvel & perish! For I work a work in your days, A work which you will by no means believe, Though one were to declare it to you.’”
•There, Paul applies our passage from Hab. 1:5, as a proof of the prophetic fore-telling, that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ of God(Acts 13:38-41). And that all those & only those who place faith in Christ Jesus alone(“believers”), would be justifiably forgiven of their sins before God! No one can ever be justified, to stand before Almighty, Holy God, except thru faith in Christ Jesus!
•Paul brings that truth to bear upon those in the synagogue at Pisidian Antioch(in distinction from Syrian Antioch). The congregants of that synagogue are told by Paul, to “beware” lest the ‘promise’ of the Habakkuk passage come upon them.
*!Paul thereby employs our Habakkuk verse 1:5, as a call to repentance for sinners!
:5a—“Look among the nations & watch--Be utterly astounded!...”
•Per Acts 13:41a:
“Behold”(“Look”)--Pay attention!
“You despisers”/“Scoffers”(“among the nations”)--Those “among the nations” would be those Gentiles who have no regard for God, in deference to their own gods, even though they are minor in comparison.
“Marvel/Wonder”(“& watch”)--Their “watching” is intense, due to witnessing something that is completely out of their expectation!
“--And perish”(Be utterly astounded!”)--Paul’s use of “perish” in Acts 13:41 doubles-down on the meaning of “Be utterly astounded” as something that is insurmountable for those who are confronted with God’s truth!
The Jews were SO sold on being YHWH God’s chosen people, that most would have considered it a violation of God’s love & favor toward them, if He were to bring hardship upon their ‘favored’ nation(Rom. 10:20--11:15).
Rom. 10:20-11:15—“But Isaiah is very bold & says: “I was found by those who did not seek Me; I was made manifest to those who did not ask for Me.”[Isa. 65:1] But to Israel he says: “All day long I have stretched out My hands To a disobedient & contrary people.”[Isa. 65:2] I say then, has God cast away His people? Certainly not! For I[Paul] also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew. Or do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel, saying, “LORD, they have killed Your prophets & torn down Your altars, & I alone am left, & they seek my life”?[1Kgs. 19:10, 14] But what does the divine response say to him? “I have reserved for Myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”[1Kgs. 19:18] Even so then, at this present time there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then it is no longer of works; otherwise grace is no longer grace. But if it is of works, it is no longer grace; otherwise work is no longer work.....
Rom. 11:7-15—Just as it is written: “God has given them a spirit of stupor, Eyes that they should not see And ears that they should not hear, To this very day.”[Deut. 29:4; Isa. 29:10] And David says: “Let their table become a snare & a trap, A stumbling block & a recompense to them. Let their eyes be darkened, so that they do not see, & bow down their back always.”[Ps. 69:22-23] I say then, have they stumbled that they should fall? Certainly not! But through their fall, to provoke them to jealousy, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Now if their fall is riches for the world, & their failure riches for the Gentiles, how much more their fullness! For I speak to you Gentiles; inasmuch as I am an apostle to the Gentiles, I magnify my ministry, if by any means I may provoke to jealousy those who are my flesh & save some of them. For if their being cast away is the reconciling of the world, what will their acceptance be but life from the dead?"
Most citizens of Israel(Judah) would have bought into the idea that their nation was ‘inviolable’(couldn’t fail) because of God’s having established them(Jer. 7:1-10).
Truly God had not physically come against Judah, although He had constantly warned them thru His prophets.....
Jer. 7:1-10—“The word that came to Jeremiah from the LORD, saying, “Stand in the gate of the LORD’S house, & proclaim there this word, & say, ‘Hear the word of the LORD, all you of Judah who enter in at these gates to worship the LORD!’” Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Amend your ways & your doings, & I will cause you to dwell in this place. “Do not trust in these lying words, saying, ‘The temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD are these.’ “For if you thoroughly amend your ways & your doings, if you thoroughly execute judgment between a man & his neighbor, if you do not oppress the stranger, the fatherless, & the widow, & do not shed innocent blood in this place, or walk after other gods to your hurt, then I will cause you to dwell in this place, in the land that I gave to your fathers forever & ever. Behold, you trust in lying words that cannot profit. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, burn incense to Baal, & walk after other gods whom you do not know, & then come & stand before Me in this house which is called by My name, & say, ‘We are delivered to do all these abominations’?”
So, trusting in Israel’s ‘inviolability’ was & is a foolish doctrine...It is a gross misinterpretation & misrepresentation of God’s plan & desire!
Such faulty reasoning denies at least four things...
1)It denies the downfall of the northern kingdom of Israel, as they had already gone into exile under the pagan Assyrians(722BC)(120+ years prior).
2)It also denies the God-ordained personal & national human moral responsibility that is inherent in the maintenance of God’s covenant.
3)It also denies the ‘blessings’ & ‘cursings’ described in Deut. 27:10-26, & spelled out specifically in Deut. 28:1-14(‘blessings’)-&-Deut. 28:15-67(‘curses’); (cf.-Deut. 11:8, 13-32).
4)It denies that the prophets were specifically sent from YHWH God for the sake of His people.(cf-Jer. 7:13, 25)
Jer. 7:13-15—“And now, because you have done all these works,” says the LORD, “& I spoke to you, rising up early & speaking, but you did not hear, & I called you, but you did not answer, therefore I will do to the house which is called by My name, in which you trust, & to this place which I gave to you & your fathers, as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of My sight, as I have cast out all your brethren--the whole posterity of Ephraim.”
Jer. 7:25—“Since the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt until this day, I have even sent to you all My servants the prophets, daily rising up early & sending them.”
So the Jews were to be keen observers of what was happening in the current affairs of the pagan “nations” surrounding them. The Jews were instructed to “watch” & see what was happening in the affairs of men by the allowance of God.
In that allowance, God was already in the process of bringing calamity upon the middle-eastern world. And that calamity would include Israel(Judah).
Due to the Jew’s smug attitude in their relationship with YHWH, the Jews would “be utterly astounded” by what God would bring about.
CONCLUSION:
Visualization:
Remember the Airport mistletoe—
“It’s there so you can kiss your luggage goodbye”!
Likewise, those who misinterpret God’s way, can easily be blind-sided by His ways, lose heart, & never grasp His love & compassion!
Action:
Misinterpreting God’s way, blinds you to...
1. A SUFFOCATING INSULATION(:5)[part-1--:5a]
Pnt#1 only of Hab. 1:5[part-1--:5a](:5-11) presented 03/23/2025am to:
Salem Baptist Church
1618 Salem Rd.
Bennettsville, SC 29512
