The BLINDNESS In MISINTERPRETING GOD’s WAY--II
—Habakkuk 1:5[part-2--:5b](:5-11)
Attention:
Real Value!—from SermonCentral.com, Jun 18, 2007
A true story set somewhere in the ‘cold white northland’ above Chicago, Illinois, someone recalled...
“Several years ago I used to heat our house with wood. Every fall I would go out & cut wood with my friends Roger & Bob. I never liked cutting wood because it was a lot of back breaking work but I liked the price. It was free except for the labor, so we would take a Saturday here & there in the fall to cut wood & pile it up for the winter.
In addition to cutting wood I used to get the wood scraps from a store called ‘The Wooden Bird.’ They make beautiful hand carved bird decoys & animal replicas out of wood. Every decoy costs in the hundreds of dollars per duck, & they are really nice decorative pieces to put on the mantle.
Their shop used to be right here in town so every couple of weeks I would stop in & pick up their leftover wood scraps to burn in my wood burner. Right before Thanksgiving I stopped in to pick up a load of scraps. I walked in the front door & told them I was there to pick up the wood. An employee I didn’t recognize, wheeled out two bins like usual to the loading doors & helped me roll the bins full of wood, onto the bed of the truck. Usually the wood they gave me was obviously just random scraps, but this time they looked like decoys. I asked the new guy if he was sure that he was giving me the right wood, because they looked to me, to be unpainted decoys. I noticed that they had a few cracks in them, so I figured they were throwing them away because of the cracks. The man assured me that I had the right stuff.”
“I took my load of wood & promised that I would bring his bins back as soon as I got the chance. He told me there was no hurry & I could even bring them back after Thanksgiving. And then we parted with smiles & waves. So I went home & unloaded the decoys in a big pile in the basement. The wood burner was low so I grabbed a handful of decoys & threw them in the furnace. That dry wood burned nice & hot, so I threw in a few more to ward off the cold.
Then I went back to work. After work I went home & reloaded the furnace with decoys, & had just enough time to bring back the bins before they closed for the long weekend.
When I pulled up in my truck, two men ran out of the building & demanded that I bring back the decoys! I asked “Why?” And with urgency in his voice, he told me that I had taken their entire inventory of Christmas decoys worth tens of thousands of dollars by mistake! He related that he had urgently called the police, & was desperately trying to find my vehicle, & that he had been driving around for the past three hours in a complete panic, because I had taken their Christmas inventory.
I pointed at the overzealous new guy who gave them to me, & he just gave me the ‘deer in the headlights’ look, & walked back into the building. Then the manager said “Do you still have them?, because they are incredibly valuable”! Each decoy had taken them over a week to make, & they needed to get them back. Rather stunned I told them that I had burned a few of them but would bring the rest back. Then I went home & carefully loaded a few hundred decoys back into the bins & brought them back to ‘The Wooden Bird.’
The man heating his house with wood, was convinced/assured that the decoys he had received were trash, so that he could use them as he desired.....*However, he misinterpreted what was truly valuable, to be nothing but scrap!
So it is with, those who misinterpret God’s way! Such people will be blindsided by God’s way!
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 & our easy lack of resistance in yielding to 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 illogical & impulsive!
They succumb to the false belief that their life here on earth, should be lived at ease, & in the freedom that ‘THEY personally’ entertain & ‘expect.’
Last week we looked at the first part of 1:5.
TODAY we’ll examine the remainder of that verse, & the fact that...
YHWH God answered the frustrations experienced by His prophet Habakkuk, when he misinterpreted God’s way.
And so we find that,
Spiritual blindness results from misinterpreting God’s way.
We’re exposing some facets of that blindness, by answering the question...
?What blindness results from misinterpreting God’s way?
And in answer to that, we will examine,
3 areas of blindness resulting from misinterpreting God’s way.
:5b—“For I will work a work in your days Which you would not believe, though it were told you.”
YHWH promised to “work a work” in Habakkuk’s own time & beyond, that he “would not believe”, even if someone were to “tell” him of it.
•That “work” would be the invasion of Judah & destruction of Jerusalem, by the pagan nation of Babylon, AKA—the Chaldeans(Hab. 1:6ff.).
*An attack upon the Judean capital of Jerusalem by Assyria, had been narrowly avoided nearly 75yrs. earlier than Habbakuk’s day.
•But that ‘avoidance’ of invasion was only due to the humble intercessions of a faithful king, Hezekiah[715BC-687/6BC], along with the prophet, Isaiah(2Kgs. 18-20; 2Chron. 29-32).
•At that time, the king of Assyria, Sennacherib, had sent his emissaries to Jerusalem(~701(-)BC) to taunt King Hezekiah of Judah. Those emissaries handed letters to King Hezekiah that arrogantly & boastfully denounced YHWH God, & bragged on Assyria’s unending string of military victories. They challenged the Judean citizens within the walls of Jerusalem, to not heed their king, who trusted YHWH God.
To make a long story short, YHWH God miraculously routed the Assyrians by killing 185,000 in the Assyrian military camp(2Kgs. 19:35) in one night. That was an action that sent the Assyrian king, back home to Nineveh, where he was subsequently killed by his own sons, while worshiping his false god, Nisroch(2Kgs. 19:36-37).
*Now, let’s continue to look further at Paul’s rendition of this particular verse, in Acts 13:38-41. Paul declares openly before the synagogue congregants...
Acts 13:38-41—““Therefore let it be known to you, brethren, that through this Man[Jesus] 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.[Cf.-Gal. 3:9-14] “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.’””
So the apostle Paul continues to apply the prior warning of unrepentance in Habakkuk’s day(~627-598BC), to the unrepentance of those who refuse Christ, in Paul’s day(40-60AD)!
•“Habakkuk’s prophecy was once again fulfilled among the Jews” in Jesus’ day, “as they rejected the words of salvation.”—J. B. Polhill in NAC.
And just as with the Jews in Jesus’ day, so the majority of Jews in Habakkuk’s day “would not believe” the “work” of righteousness that God would bring upon them, even “though it were told” them.
*The more ritualistic & flesh-driven your religion, the more susceptible you will be, to being taken aback at God’s “work” within & without the walls of your self-ordained & self-built bubble/‘conclave.’
Argumentation:
When anyone misinterprets ‘God’s way’, & chooses to exchange it for their own ‘way’, then God will readily bring their world down around them!
*But He does that, in order to bring that person to repentance!
Jer. 3:6-11—“The LORD said also to me in the days of Josiah the king: “Have you seen what backsliding Israel has done? She has gone up on every high mountain & under every green tree, & there played the harlot. And I said, after she had done all these things, ‘Return to Me.’ But she did not return. And her treacherous sister Judah saw it. Then I saw that for all the causes for which backsliding Israel had committed adultery, I had put her away & given her a certificate of divorce; yet her treacherous sister Judah did not fear, but went & played the harlot also. So it came to pass, through her casual harlotry, that she defiled the land & committed adultery with stones & trees. “And yet for all this her treacherous sister Judah has not turned to Me with her whole heart, but in pretense,” says the LORD. Then the LORD said to me, “Backsliding Israel has shown herself more righteous than treacherous Judah.”
Isa. 29:13-14—“Therefore the LORD said: “Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths And honor Me with their lips, But have removed their hearts far from Me, And their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men, Therefore, behold, I will again do a marvelous work Among this people, A marvelous work & a wonder; For the wisdom of their wise men shall perish, And the understanding of their prudent men shall be hidden.””
Deut 29:14-19—“I make this covenant & this oath, not with you alone, but with him who stands here with us today before the LORD our God, as well as with him who is not here with us today (for you know that we dwelt in the land of Egypt & that we came through the nations which you passed by, & you saw their abominations & their idols which were among them--wood & stone & silver & gold); so that there may not be among you man or woman or family or tribe, whose heart turns away today from the LORD our God, to go & serve the gods of these nations, & that there may not be among you a root bearing bitterness or wormwood[cf.-Heb. 12:15]; “& so it may not happen, when he hears the words of this curse, that he blesses himself in his heart, saying, ‘I shall have peace, even though I follow the dictates of my heart’--as though the drunkard could be included with the sober.”
•Heb. 12:14-15—“Pursue peace with all people, & holiness, without which no one will see the Lord: looking carefully lest anyone fall short of the grace of God; lest any root of bitterness springing up cause trouble, & by this many become defiled;”
Mat. 16:1-4—“Then the Pharisees & Sadducees came, & testing Him asked that He[Jesus] would show them a sign from heaven. He answered & said to them, “When it is evening you say, ‘It will be fair weather, for the sky is red’; “& in the morning, ‘It will be foul weather today, for the sky is red & threatening.’ Hypocrites! You know how to discern the face of the sky, but you cannot discern the signs of the times. A wicked & adulterous generation seeks after a sign, & no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah.” And He left them & departed.”
Mat. 13:18-23—““Therefore hear the parable of the sower: “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, & does not understand it, then the wicked one comes & snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word & immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, & the cares of this world & the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, & he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word & understands it, who indeed bears fruit & produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”” 3 ‘suffocating insulators’(above) from God’s way.
Romans 8:18-19—“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us. For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God.”
Illustration:
Before I was saved, before my wife & I married, & before children, I got certified for Sport SCUBA diving thru PADI. I loved SCUBA diving. And I loved it mainly because I had always been interested in the intricacies of nature. For me, diving vastly expanded the realm of the natural world, that I was already fascinated by.
SCUBA stands for—‘Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus.’ It’s generally the best way you or I can personally & tangibly interact with the underwater world, because God did not make people naturally capable of breathing underwater. And even with SCUBA gear, a person’s time & depth underwater is severely limited.
When any person SCUBA-dives, it is very easy for them to completely ‘immerse’ themselves mentally in the underwater world. It is so completely foreign to common experience, that the diver can easily remain in a state of amazement & awe, so that they may become INSULATED from the reality that they do not belong underwater! And so, a sport-diver must train themselves to be constantly aware of the time spent underwater, the depth of the water, & the volume of breathable air available in the tank.
The SCUBA diver is not merely in a foreign environment!...The diver is always in a hostile & deadly environment! Without the protections afforded by the SCUBA gear, the diver will drown OR SUFFOCATE. If the diver is not ‘on top of that situation’, they may not live to see another dive! A SUFFOCATING INSULATION
In a similar way, even God’s people, when they misinterpret God’s way, can so ‘insulate’ themselves from the realities of God’s truth, that their relationship with God will actually be ‘suffocated’ or separated from any true God-ordained & life-giving power.’
By misinterpreting God’s way—We are like a SCUBA diver who would foolishly allow him/herself to be so mesmerized by the ‘foreign’ environment of the world, that they ‘drown’ in it!
Application:
?Are YOU Blinded to the SUFFOCATING INSULATION caused by misinterpreting God’s way?
?Do YOU have an unwarranted frustration with God’s way?..... OR...Are you accepting of it & satisfied with it?
Misinterpreting God’s way, can produce a ‘Suffocating Insulating Effect’ that engulfs, encloses, & envelops our lives, so much so that we become separated from God & God’s will!
That misinterpretation separates us from the reality of God’s presence, & so, it separates us from the perfect love that stirred God’s heart to save mankind thru Christ Jesus.
CONCLUSION:
Visualization:
Remember the valuable decoys that were given away & received as nothing more than firewood!
So it is with, those who misinterpret God’s way! They will be so blind-sided by His ways, that by their own words & life, they unknowingly & naturally become ‘abusive’ toward His character & power.
Action:
Misinterpreting God’s way, blinds you to...
1. A SUFFOCATING INSULATION(:5)[part-2--:5b]
1. A SUFFOCATING INSULATION(:5)[part-1--:5a]
Pnt#1[part-2--:5b] only of Hab. 1:5(:5-11) presented 03/30/2025am to:
Salem Baptist Church
1618 Salem Rd.
Bennettsville, SC 29512
