God Over All
You have made the land quake, You have split it open; heal its breaches, for it totters. Psalm 60:2 NASB
Heal its breaches – Sticking with the military context of verse 1, the ESV translates repah as “repair.” The walls have fallen. Lord, repair them. But the word is primarily about healing and is applied to physical health in nearly all of its occurrences. It is the same verb found in Isaiah 53:5 (“with his stripes we are healed”). “In many of the occurrences, it is God who causes healing or afflicts with disease or catastrophes which cannot be healed but by divine intervention.”[1] White’s comment is intriguing. Perhaps it corrects the idea that some evil power causes illness, or that health is found in combating evil forces. Repah suggests that it is YHVH who brings disease or health.
David applies this personal concept to the entire nation; even to the land itself. If YHVH is sovereign over all, then He is the one who can heal, whether it is a person, a nation or the earth. In fact, YHVH is the only One who can heal. We like to think that our efforts to repair have the power to heal, but that is mythological humanism. Sovereignty means “God over all,” not God over everything that we can’t do ourselves. Real experience should have convinced us that no human being is truly in charge of even his or her own body much less the nation or the environment. Of course, we are more than capable of abusing any of these, but we are quite perplexed about what to do to heal them. It seems that the solutions to our problems cannot be found within the human framework. History is replete with examples of human intervention intended to heal but resulting in even more chaos and difficulties. David knows better than to try to work this out himself. God makes good and God makes evil and it is to God that we must turn if we are to find our way out of the box.
What David pleads for is national healing. We might apply the same supplication today. Do you think that issues in our land can be solved by more legislation, more directives, more money, more education or more negotiations? Can we fix the “global warming” issue with a new protocol or another tax? Will teenage pregnancy be fixed with more education? Will the destruction of the earth’s resources be corrected by legislation? Frankly, the real issues we face are beyond human capacity to heal. God alone is the only answer. And since most men believe God is an expendable idea, it is unlikely they will make an appeal like David did for his people. Men turn to God only after the walls have been breached, and while we are close, we still seem to think that some sort of amazing new technology or some charismatic leader will appear and save us from our own self-annihilation. The world is the greatest insane asylum ever imagined. Billons of people deluding themselves that they can find the answers. Oh, that we had a new David, the man who knew that answers were never to be found in the halls of an earthly kingdom.
Topical Index: repah, heal, repair, Psalm 60:2
[1] White, W. (1999). 2196 רָפָא. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (857). Chicago: Moody Press.
Unlikely there will be a “new David ” in this life. Fortunately for us, the original is never more than a few pages away.
The real “new David” [Messiah Ben David] may be but a “season” away. We need to be continually vigilant, soon to welcome the King/Priest of Righteousness.
He took our beating. He became our curse. He is the Balm of Gilead. He has bruised us, and He will heal us. He has also been bruised by us, and that healing occurs when, and only when, we repent and return to obedience; to subjection to Him. His Kingdom is not patterned after our earthly ones; it is NOT determined by His conquests: rather, it is determined by OUR allegiance. So, tell me: who exactly holds the keys to that healing? Who exactly is responsible? Can’t tell? That’s how you know you are in the right place to receive it.
Healing, like all righteousness, is a joint affair. Those who are believing that it is all up to Him, and all they have to do is to implore and ‘have faith’, are going to be waiting until the cows come home of their own accord. Conversely, those who believe it is ‘up to them’ are going to leaping around their altars, screaming and falling on the floor, and beating themselves up, and drowning in oil and holy water, too, and tilting at windmills – I do mean, ordering evil around like they are the personal lieutenants of hell. What you believe is going to determine what you do or don’t do. But if I cannot tell who is supposed to ‘take the initiative’; who is supposed to place the order and deliver the goods; then, and only then, will the idea be able to occur that perhaps we had better call a board meeting and discuss the matter.
The curses – and dis-ease is a curse – occur at all the places where there has been a breach of trust. If we understand that: if we understand that the curses are like zero – they are placeholders; they are like clamps that force the wound open until the Surgeon can finish the repair – then we can change how we react to them. If I believe (the determinant of all action) that it is all up to Him (because, of course, He is ultimately responsible), then my action will be to, a: blame Him, like some pagan deity, and, b: invoke Him – also like some pagan deity. It is all up to Him. He, willy-nilly, caused the problem, so He has to fix it. If I believe that it is all up to me (because, of course, I have been given “all power” and “greater works than (His)” are what I have been given(!) to do), then I am going to assume that all the initiative – and action, too – is going to be on my part. I have been left to be a lesser god, with some of Daddy’s money in my bank account to spend however I please. Both beliefs (which we bring TO the Text, and, thus, determine HOW we read it) originate, ultimately, in paganism, which assumes that there is no breach of trust between heaven and earth because, of course, there was never any expectation of cooperation in the first place. Power is what it is all about, and power is a despotic idea: there can be only one hand at a time that wields it. No trust is necessary, because no relationship is needed! Is this not some species of attempting to shut a barn door after the cows escaped into the corn already? Both positions are made up from a perspective, an assumption, of us ‘on our own’: of us AFTER fracture. This is rationalization of Self at its finest, I think.
Healing is a joint affair, but until we learn what the right QUESTIONS are to go asking about it, the answer can never occur. Questions are a derivative of our belief systems, but what we believe is a derivative of what we have experienced. I can sit there and pretend that I have ONLY the beliefs I want to have, but most of them I do not even recognize because they are being driven, like my appetite, on what my digestive tract is ordering up from below. If I want to have a different appetite for a different type of food, I have to have eaten that food enough to build the bacterial populations that digest it. Then my stomach is going to be wanting the better food: I am going to be hungry for that food. I am not going to be able to believe the Bread from heaven will actually feed me unless and until I experience that feeding enough to change what I am hungry for. This is where faith comes in. I have to believe the promises; I have to hang onto them by His faith (which is a gift, so I am supposed to ask for it: think of it as asking for a probiotic to take with that Bread!), until experience catches up, and faith becomes easier.
The question of HOW to go about restoring trust in all the dimensions that the breach of it has occurred will not ever even come up unless and until I become willing to go find the promises and stand on them, for the promises teach me what the problem is. The promises are, almost without exception, conditional: that is, they have ‘if’ clauses built into them. If clauses assume a reciprocal relationship: IF you do this, THEN I will do that. This is covenant language. This is relationship language. “IF you obey, then I will heal”. The wound is going to stay open until the breach has been repaired. Trust is a function of relationship. When we respond to grace in repentance, trust is restored, and He is able to become that curse for us. This is no one-sided affair: this is a swap! We are holding the curses if and until we become willing to trade them back in for (drum roll, please): obedience! Both parties have to show up at the same time to do it, though. Sounds like a relationship to me!
The Supremacy of the Son
The LORD lives! ; and blessed be my Rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.(Psalm 18.46)
There is One who was crucified. One who was pierced with a spear, pronounced dead then sealed behind a guarded stone,within the confines of a borrowed tomb. One who was then raised to life on the third day (just as He said).
This is the One who hold the keys. ~ All power and all authority has been given unto Him ~ The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
…For to which of the angels did He ever say, “YOU ARE MY SON, TODAY I HAVE BEGOTTEN YOU”? And again, “I WILL BE A FATHER TO HIM AND HE SHALL BE A SON TO ME”? And when He again brings the firstborn into the world, He says, “AND LET ALL THE ANGELS OF GOD WORSHIP HIM.”
Worthy of worship?
~ In a loud voice they were saying: “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!” ~
(Revelation 5.12)
Who are these people? They-r-us!!
Then I saw in the right hand of Him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice,
“Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?”
And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, “Weep no more;
behold, the Lion (formerly the Lamb!) of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that He can open the scroll and its seven seals.”
And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And He went and took the scroll from the right hand of Him who was seated on the throne. And when He had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. And they sang a new song, saying,
“Worthy are You to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation,
and You have made them a kingdom and priests to our God,
and they shall reign on the earth.”
Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice,
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain,
to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might
and honor and glory and blessing!”
~ for the same LORD over all is rich unto all that call upon Him. For *whosoever* shall call upon the Name of the LORD shall be saved. ~
~ *whosoever will* may come.. ~
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Gae-n0Pb7Q
Skip, etal. I am not one to build up an ego of anyone; but neither have I been one to not bless and encourage a person; this article is one of the most concise, plainly written so that anyone could understand it, even if someone else had to read it to them slowly and perhaps even three times. It nails so many areas down to the exact point, knocking down the evils of this world without being mean spirited, and causing any serious searching person to move on with that GREAT SEARCH.
Since I have been with you almost since the beginning of this on line teaching, I do know some of the years of trauma that you have faced with great heartbreaks, and as a real person in a real world that will always be part of the search. But the scripture teaches we are to Faint Not,( & if we do, we get up and move on) and this is one of the lessons that came forth from your pen, not that it happened instantly, but through all of those years before I had ever heard of Skip Moen, and then these years where you become visible on the web site. I am delighted with the total quality of this post and all it covers! Keep the humility, quieter Spirit, the loveliness it shows. L.B.
Ah, the problem of evil. So many books and words have been written about this, seemingly unsolvable problem. For if God makes good and God makes evil, as David suggests, what’s humanity to do with this conundrum? Should we view evil as a problem or as an opportunity? If God makes evil, I’m sensing it’s more of an opportunity. An opportunity to “velcro” our self to God.
In a rather amazing NON-THEOLOGICAL book, The Geography of Thought, Richard Nisbett documents the measurable difference between Western and Eastern views of the world. Logic is one of those differences. The West embraces the law of non-contradiction while the East takes a strikingly different approach. I will write a lot more about this in the future, but for now it is important to recognize the Hebrew is NOT WESTERN and therefore contradiction, not just paradox, is possible. But we in the West have a terrible time with this and so we can’t imagine what Isaiah might be saying.
Did you mean to say “the West embraces the law of non-contradiction”? Or is the law of contraction something we need to understand differently? My understanding of CONTRACTION doesn’t work in this context and I’m a bit confused.
Suzanne , I think you are right, but may be Skip can explain contraction also…. the secret to bigger families.may be?..lol
Yes, I corrected it. Thanks. One of the automatic additions when you don’t spell things correctly.
For me “evil” conjures up a wrong image. I prefer to understand it as “good” and “bad”. Humans were not supposed to experience bad but because Adam partook of the fruit of the “tree” of the knowledge of “good” and “bad”, YHWH now has to instruct us how to deal with “bad”. To this effect He would usually offer HaSatan the opportunity to indulge. But YHWH will always restrict the Adversary.
Why does YHWH allow killing? … Because, for His children, there is no death!
Healing and salvation. Are they two sides of the same coin?
Of late, I have discovered much of both during my recently begun daily habit of walking with a purpose. My purpose is actually for both healing and salvation. I have witnessed personally a healing and salvation from my participation in the “greatest insane asylum ever imagined,” as pointed out by Skip.
I am grateful to be able to go on Skip’s upcoming last (first-timers) Isreal trip the first part of October. I have heard from some that have attended that I should expect to walk a great deal. In preparation of that I have, over the last couple of weeks, progressed to being able to comfortably walk at least five miles per day at a healthy pace. I intend to gradually increase that distance over a reasonable time frame in efforts to be in shape for the twelve day trip (that includes two days of airline flight travel.) I don’t want the physical challenge of walking and keeping my breath to distract from learning about and absorbing all that I can that my feet will allow me while in the land of Israel.
My specific purpose in walking beyond becoming stronger physically has taken on aspects of healing and salvation. Initially, I used my walking time for listening to audio of Skip, Bob, others and to music of my liking. All that had value but it became distracting to me. I was multitasking instead of doing a simple task effectively. I began to put away my earphones/iPhone and audio recipes for improvement and took up just walking and looking and living in the moment.
I began seeing the sky, feeling the sky, tasting the sky, hearing the sky.
I began seeing the trees, feeling the trees, tasting the trees, hearing the trees.
And so on.
It was difficult at first and strange but now is an effortless (mostly) and delightful collection of moments that pass with each step of living in YHVH’s creation in each successive moment. Living in the moment. A moment that changes with each step and each breath. As I move the distance of a step everything changes. It doesn’t become the past as I don’t think there is a past, simply a memory of a previous moment. I wasn’t walking in to the future but simply in to the next available YHVH-given moment. A moment for me to take and allow it to mold itself by my will to conform to YHVH’s instruction. Moments that sometimes yielded a walk of solitude and other times offered a moment or two to talk with someone fishing on the lake or walking along side or simply sitting in a lawn chair admiring the glistening water. An opportunity to spread good cheer, friendliness, or simply moments of companionship of conversation. One time there was even an opportunity to help a mother lift her awkward baby stroller in to her SUV. Hi. Can I help. Good to meet you. Goodbye. Have a good day. Shalom.
In learning, as I have been walking, to live in the moment (not the “past” or “future”) I have walked in to what has clearly been both healing and salvation. Today is the day of salvation. This very moment is the opportunity to take hold of YHVH’s instructions for life, breath him in, walk it out and know the certain result of it. Life. Healing. Salvation.
Each moment that is given to me affords me an opportunity to step in to his life or not. I can step out of that moment and dwell in a past memory or and anxious future moment, the choice is mine. I am learning, finally, to see that salvation and healing and life are offered in each moment that is tendered in my direction from sovereign YHVH.
Here is a moment, Michael. What are you going to do with it? And here is another and another. Today, in this moment, choose my life, my healing, my salvation. It’s simple, it’s pure, it’s clean and clear. These moments of all the potential of my life for you. Choose life, Michael, my son. Come and follow me. There is so much I want to share and experience with YOU.
I don’t know how theologically sound it is, but I am certain of the reality of it. (Contradiction and paradox?)
There was no technology involve. No one telling me how or what or when to do something. A simple walk in a park. Or was it a garden? And there was definitely a nice breeze as well. 🙂
Same goes with ” God never changes” but then He changes His mind and emotions all the time.
And also ” its either a curse or a blessing”. But what if the curse given by God becomes your blessing?
The Western black and white boxes turned into a theology of walking in the light or darkness. So you are either in the light or in darkness. But sometimes you have to walk in darkness to be the light.
This is why one Jew can have 2 contradicting opinions about the same idea.
Are some of the “Healing Ministries” in the the same boxes? For example they proclaim that If I repent of bitterness, i will be cured of cancer.
Job was inflicted by God using the satan. Job never repented of anything except of the fact that God is sovereign.
God inflicts blameless or not, righteous or not and God heals righteous or not, blameless or not.
Deut 32:39 ” see now that I, yes is He;
and there is no God beside me
I put to death and I make alive
I wound and I heal;..
Yosef’s brothers understood this concept. After finding out that the money was restored in their bags, Gen 42:28 “At that, their hearts sank; they turned trembled, to one another and said, ” what is this that God has done to us?”
I like your points, Luzette, they are all great! Yes, it all ultimately at least crosses His desk and gets His signature, for sure. I did want to point out, though, that even though He does it all, we still have a part, which is choosing what He does, or does not do, in some respects. We still can change the equation. Our obedience still turns the ship around, and our repentance can still stay the hand of the destroying angel. The curses are not there without purpose, and when that purpose has accomplished its work, the curses are lifted. He does not needlessly afflict the children of men. We are not helpless puppets on a string, either. which is to say, the curses are there because of our choices, and the blessings are likewise there because of our choices, else what point would there be to have choice?
My mama died of cancer, and she was a bitter woman. She was suffering from psychosis, and could not reach that bitterness until the very end, when she got beyond the fear and remembered who she was, and Who He is. She walked into His arms at the end. She died free of bitterness, but at that point, she had already done all the hard work of dying, and she was not afraid of death. I like something Pieter said about death, and that is that the saints do not fear it, for it is just sleep. She was tired by that time of living, as it had been so very hard for her. But, the bitterness, which is angry unto death (the progression of anger that is retained more than a day goes like this: unforgiveness, resentment, retaliation, anger, hatred, violence, murder), convinced her that she wanted to die. Cancer was the way she was agreeing with that self murder (death). She was finding it impossible to forgive herself. Driven to her death, she finally found a place beyond the psychosis where she could forgive herself, and accept the love of God once again. Halleluah!
The parable of the unforgiving servant in Matthew 18;23-35 makes it very clear that the tormentors are unleashed by unforgiveness, and that is something we cannot blame the Throne for. Making it all His fault means there is nothing I did to cause it, and nothing I can do about it, either. Not true on both counts! Bitterness defiles, and it is a sin unto death. Put it this way: James tells us to confess and put away sin to be healed. If I wake up tomorrow and find I have cancer, I can either start hustling to find all the roots of unforgiveness in my life, or I can just sit there and say God did it. I personally know people who have walked away from their cancer when they forgave their trespassers. I also do not personally know anybody who walked away from cancer who did not. This does not mean that every person who has cancer is bitter! Now, I think that WOULD be putting reality in a box, like you said! That is where I am with obedience, which is what I consider this subject. Unforgiveness is disobedience of the highest order, and it can pull the whole roof down over our heads, and not in the next lifetime, either!
Other than this tiny little point, which I am sure you probably did not mean quite in this context, I agree with what you wrote. The ‘healing ministries’ are all over the place, for sure, and some of them are just plain witchcraft; trying to order both the Throne and evil around (and quite odiously, too), but healing is undubitably tied to obedience, with or without a ‘ministry’ to service the deal.