MEASURE UPON MEASURE – GUILT AND SHAME – THE RESTORATION OF GOD - Part 1
(A). MEASURE UPON MEASURE - INTRODUCTION
An incident occurred in Brisbane some years ago which reached the National news. An elderly lady who required the assistance of a walking stick to get around, was driven to a required destination by a taxi driver. When the journey was completed, there developed a dispute about the amount of the fare. The taxi driver became infuriated and left the woman there, but not before he had purposely broken her walking stick. There was an immediate outcry about the incident and the next day numerous other taxi drivers banded together and purchased a new walking stick, which they presented to her. There was one important fact though that should not be overlooked - the new stick was costlier and more beautiful than the one she had previously owned.
The think in the United States they call a walking stick, a cane. Some places refer to it as a walking aid. I have two walking sticks that used to belong to my grandfather from the 1940s and 1950s. In those years there was no such thing as knee and hip replacements so the only help was a walking stick. I have two knee replacements and walk mostly fine but if that technology was not available then I would be using a walking stick today, and in a lot of pain.
We will embark here on a study that I hope proves profitable. There are several of these delights in God’s word and this one from a Genesis 3 passage is very rewarding as it unveils another progression in our bibles to its completion.
The remarkable fact about God’s word is the way all scriptures are interlocked. Because of that, the bible proves itself. We have seen that in the study of the Branch – the 4 Old Testament references; the link to the 4 Gospels and the connection also to the 4 faces of the cherubim from Ezekiel chapter 1. That can be found here - https://sermoncentral.com/sermons/the-restoration-of-israel-jeremiah-part-9-chapter-33-15-the-remarkable-study-of-the-branch-in-scripture-ron-ferguson-sermon-on-restoration-288162
Now we come to the introduction of the woes of sin through Adam and the restoration won by the Lord Jesus Christ. We are going to look at 6 consequences and see how each one has played out.
CONFIRMING PSALM 69 AS A MESSIANIC PSALM
The psalms are majestic and they encompass every experience of our pilgrim walk. When we are happy there are numbers of psalms with which we can identify. Likewise when we are rejoicing or are depressed, or have sinned, or are undergoing trial, discouraged, or feel forsaken - to enumerate only a few, we can discover those psalms which deal with the exact matter, and so that section of the word of God thereby becomes our joy and comfort or our instruction.
Certain Psalms contain an additional feature in that they relate to the Lord Jesus Christ. These psalms are called Messianic Psalms and there are about twenty of them. The experiences of the psalmist are contained within that particular psalm but aspects of those experiences or thoughts he has written, transcend his time and encompass experiences not fully his own. They project prophetically to the Lord in His person or work. Psalm 22 is probably the best known of this select group of psalms. That psalm begins with the deep cries of Jesus from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”
One other magnificent Messianic Psalm is 69. In it we read the opening prayers where David felt he had no standing and was swallowed up in a flood, where he was weary with crying to the Lord for help. Those too were the Lord’s experiences on the cross, only in deeper measure. Verse 7 speaks of bearing reproach, and we know the Lord bore ours.
Verse 8 is a very interesting one. {{“I have become estranged from my brothers, and an alien to my mother’s sons.”}} “An alien to my own mother’s sons,” is possibly a more correct rendering. We read in the New Testament where the Lord was not believed by his own brothers, and in this sense they rejected him. The incident recorded in the beginning of the seventh chapter of John’s gospel would inform us of his own brothers’ disbelief. Actually this psalm is THE ONLY PLACE in the entire word where we can conclude that Mary bore other children, apart from the Lord, and that exposes the falsehood of the Roman Church which claims Mary was a perpetual virgin.
Yes, I know the New Testament speaks of “Your mother and Your brothers” (Matthew 12:47) but that is argued about and the Catholic Church does it claiming the brothers are the sons of Joseph. The verse from Psalm 69:8 is the one that destroys the perpetual virginity error of Mary.
Verse 9 of that Psalm finds its fulfillment in John 2:17 and additionally speaks about the reproach falling on the Lord. {{“For zeal for Your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproached You have fallen on me.”}} From verses 13 to 19 are deep prayers and we can assume that these possibly formed the actual silent prayers that were uttered from the cross by the Lord to His Father during the first part of His sufferings on Calvary. Much of His suffering was bathed in prayer and these psalms, 22 and 69 in particular, reveal the distress behind those prayers and framed the utterances of that distress.
Consider the depth which lay behind verses 20 and 21. {{“REPROACH HAS BROKEN MY HEART, and I am so sick, and I looked for sympathy but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They also GAVE ME GALL for My food, and for My thirst THEY GAVE ME VINEGAR to drink.”}} (Psalm 69:20-21).
We know verse 21 well from its fulfillment in the New Testament but have we ever considered the broken heart and forsaken condition of Jesus as He suffered alone on the cross? Read verse 20 again and meditate on Him who hung as man’s substitute between heaven and earth and try to probe that purpose of His to atone for our sins.
It is very easy to establish Psalm 69 as a Messianic psalm. Having toured quickly through it, I want to concentrate on verse 4 in particular. This is its rendering - {{“Those who hate Me without a cause are more than the hairs of My head. Those who would destroy Me are powerful. WHAT I DID NOT STEAL, I THEN HAD TO RESTORE.”}} Psalm 69:4
The last part of the verse from the NASB is, {{“What I did not steal, I then had to restore.”}} The NIV translates it as, “I am forced to restore what I did not steal.” But I like best the way it is put in the AV, “Then I restored that which I took not away.”
It is that expression which is so full of meaning and importance to us, and it deserves our detailed attention. At face value the Lord is saying that He restored the item or items He did not steal, or did not take away. We may well question, “What items is He talking about? How did He restore it or them? When did He do that? Are we affected in any way?”
I want you to recall the illustration of the walking stick we opened the study with. In that illustration we have an insight into the expression, “Then I restored that which I took not away.” The taxi drivers restored what they had not destroyed or taken away. We shall now see in what way that expression applies to Christ and how the features of His restoration are so marvellous for us. That becomes the core of this study.
When Adam and Eve were created by God to enjoy the unbroken fellowship with their Creator, there were the most perfect of conditions. There was unflawed communication with God in the garden as God’s personal presence was known to them. The relationship that existed then was one of shameless, and complete innocence. There was an indescribable openness, an innocence of perfection.
It was sin which entered and destroyed that union between God and man, and a lot more besides. The woman, being deceived, fell into sin and her husband was led along also. The rich word of God was not dwelling in its fullness in Eve as she added her interpretation to God’s word - “AND NEITHER SHALL YOU TOUCH IT.” (Genesis 3:2-3). God had said no such thing about touching. {{Genesis 2:16-17 and the LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely, but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil YOU SHALL NOT EAT, for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.”}}
Anyway, the sad fact was that the perfection of God’s creation was ruptured and man became a lonely soul knowing good and evil as the devil had promised, but not knowing how to do the good or how to avoid the evil. That became the sad fact of human history, and all born on this planet have followed in the footsteps of their fore parents. In a sense it was paradise lost.
We shall now look at what man lost and what he became; then we’ll examine how the Saviour dealt with that. We shall consider the present condition, what the Lord won for us, and the grace wherein we now stand. “Then I restored that which I took not away.” What man has become, is because of SIN, but what the Lord has restored is because of GRACE.
It could be stated in this fashion: SERENITY RUINED - what was perfect peace in the garden, collapsed. SIN’S RESULTS - various consequences flowed from Adam and Eve’s sinful act. Lastly, THE SAVIOUR’S ROAD - meeting the consequences face on was the Saviour’s work. Not only were the consequences dealt with specifically, but also He has added much more in blessing. “MEASURE UPON MEASURE” is a title we could give this whole study.
[B]. CHAPTER ONE - THE FIRST CONSEQUENCE – GUILT WITH SHAME
In Genesis 3:7 we discover the first consequence of sin. It is guilt. {{“Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.”}}
Sin had produced an accusing conscience. Through the fall Adam gained a conscience, which in a blurred fashion now deciphered good and evil, but because it accused him, then it produced GUILT in man. Guilt had now passed into the human race. Man’s wicked heart was now revealed for what it was. What sad fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
We are told by medical science that guilt is the basis for many of the medical problems associated with the mind and the body. It is the basis behind many psychosomatic disorders affecting numbers of people, but too many psychologists and psychiatrists won’t recognise that the cause is a consequence of sin, or if they do, then they won’t accept the proper cure which is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
“Turned to drink,” is a comment we hear, and some resort to that because of their incapacity to address the issue. Human beings do not want to address the problem of guilt in their lives. Guilt comes from failure and from direct actions. It is the cancer that eats away at the soul causing a man and woman to step into other areas such as anger, drugs including alcohol, or isolation from society.
I knew of a case (they were Christians) where the mother had placed a baby in a bassinet on the driveway at the back of a car and the husband backed over the baby. It was absolutely tragic and no one’s fault, but the guilt would not go away. David’s guilt would not go away after he raped Bathsheba and had her husband killed. That was a deliberate action; the bassinet was not. Both those resulted in guilt and David had to face it for 9 months, then later God sent to him, Nathan the prophet. The remedy for guilt lies directly in the presence of God, not man’s inventions, self-help, pills, psychologists, and support groups. Some of those may help in the short term, but as we will see with Adam and Eve the solution must lie with God alone.
Ayn Rand wrote [[“For centuries, the mystics of spirit had existed by running a protection racket - by making life on earth unbearable, then charging you for consolation and relief, by forbidding all the virtues that make existence possible, THEN RIDING ON THE SHOULDERS OF YOUR GUILT, by declaring production and joy to be sins, then collecting blackmail from the sinners.”]]. That might be a humanistic approach but there is a certain truth there. The Roman Catholic Church of the Middle Ages bulldozed penance (money grabbing) as a way to ease the guilt of the people. However repentance and faith in Christ was never proclaimed so the guilt never really went away.
It took only one disobedient step into sin to give Adam and Eve a huge guilt complex. They stood in the spotlight of the searching holiness of God but they could not stay there. They had to flee God’s presence because guilty consciences make cowards of people. Conscience does not bring us to God. It makes us cowards. Adam and his wife could only hide from God. In rebellion they hide, now at the motivation of guilty consciences. If only a conscience that is aware of sin and guilt would make Christians of us, the world would be overtaken by Christians. But no. It causes further departure. Accumulated sinful acts have caused a guilt reservoir which gnaws away at a person especially in the quietness of reflective moods.
Many of us know the word “hypocrite” derived from the Greek, a word that applied to an actor on the stage. The actor would play parts sometimes depicted by a face held up on a board before the actor’s real face. When brought into our language it means a false face; a person not portraying him/herself in the real light. There is a pretense such as one who is always jovial, but within who is so miserable. That is what guilt is doing. It is lurking away, hiding like a coward so it can’t be exposed.
It is a tragic situation and a condemning consequence of sin. Guilt spawns further sin. In a fit of rage a man murders another and shortly after that he has the terrible pangs of guilt because Satan will torture that person with guilt as much as he can. The man then goes to lengths to hide the body. Guilt is compounded by concealment, which in turn will further augment the guilt. It is a vicious cycle mankind gains through sin.
GUILT PRODUCES SHAME
There is another aspect closely related to guilt and which is the outflow of it. That aspect is SHAME. Guilt leads to shame. Thus in one devastating horror through sin, both guilt and shame were generated within our two progenitors. Adam and Eve had no ability to cope. What the serpent said was reality. They would know good and evil, but they’d know good without the ability to do good, and they’d know evil with inability to avoid evil. Thus, for 6 000 years this sad fact has continued.
They tried to cope with guilt by hiding. They tried to cope with shame by their own attempt at a covering. What a terrible covering it was! It was man’s best attempt; something that would crumble and deteriorate, fig leaves attached one to the other, but it was the effort of the natural man. It could only be but temporary and unsatisfying, like every effort which man makes at covering the shame of his sin; cosmetically acceptable only for a limited period until his covering crumbles and the reality of sin breaks forth again.
So it is with every effort to cover the shame of sin. Adam and his wife conspired to cover their shame and hide from their guilt. Those and similar efforts on the part of sinful man have continued to the present time and are no more successful than the pitiful efforts of our first parents.
There in the garden they were exposed for what they had become. They stood before God naked and in shame. The very last thing that man wants is to be exposed before God for what he is, and yet it is at this point where we must all begin. It is only then we will see the shame of our nakedness for what it is, and stripped of all excuses, look to God alone for help. “Nothing in my hand I bring; Simply to Thy cross I cling.”
So pathetic was their first attempt at covering their guilt and shame that the Lord God had to intervene to provide a more enduring and substantial covering for them. In Genesis 3:21 we are informed that the Lord provided garments of skin for their benefit, a marked contrast to their withering, crumbling efforts. There is a much deeper meaning in this provision of God’s, but we shall not expound it here now. Suffice to say that God intervened in their helplessness to provide a more enduring covering to meet their shame, but their guilt was still theirs.
For millennia the human race has lived with its shame, but for most of that time humans have been very clever at hiding or covering that shame. Such is our society today that even the grossest of sinful acts are paraded openly on the public stage without any evident display of shame. So callous and hardened has the human heart become that shame has fled.
The gay Mardi Gras held each year in Sydney (the world’s biggest) with its lurid exhibitionism, and its blatant mockery of Christianity, is a brazen portrayal of obscenity and anti-God sentiment, yet not only the participants, but also the spectators, can accept this gross filthiness without any sense of shame. How decadent our society is becoming. This display of brazen moral defiance has become the largest of its type in the world and in 1997 was watched by numbers in excess of 500 000 who lined the streets in fine approval. Now more than 28 years later numbers have not declined but a worldwide audience can now view this wickedness.
We continue in the next Part.
