The Blindness In Misinterpreting God’s Way-1

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.”