I’ve Had Enough
The sons of Israel said to the Lord, “We have sinned, do to us whatever seems good to You; only please deliver us this day.” So they put away the foreign gods from among them and served the Lord; and He could bear the misery of Israel no longer. Judges 10:15-16 NASB
Bear the misery – Do you think God’s had enough with us? Corporately and individually? That’s really the message of the book of Judges. God sees the idolatry of the people. He sends punishments. They repent. He forgives. They return to idolatry. And around we go again. Over hundreds of years, the spin cycle just gets faster and faster until they are returning to idolatry even before the last rescuer, a “judge,” has departed. Finally God has had enough. “He could bear the misery of Israel no longer” isn’t just a statement about God sympathizing with Israel’s plight. It’s a statement about God’s disgust with Israel’s unfaithfulness. God’s response is basically this: “Okay, now you’re on your own. Good luck with that!”
Yeshua gives us a parable like this. Remember the owner of the vineyard who sends his servants to collect what is due him? Remember what they do? Remember what happens when the owner sends his son? Now, do you remember what the owner (an allegorical figure for God) does to those occupying his vineyard?
The Hebrew terms here are qāṣar and ʿāmāl. Literally, “was grieved of the toil.” Barry Webb translates the idiom as “exasperated.” Irritated, annoyed, enraged, provoked, irked, vexed, incensed, infuriated—divine anger, not sympathy. Too many times around the circle. Too many repetitions of the same behavior. In God’s book, it’s one thousand times bitten, finally shy.
I wonder if we aren’t in the same place. How many calls for national repentance have we heard in the last fifty years? How many promises have we made to follow Him with all our hearts? How many signs of divine forbearance have we had? How many times have we simply carried on as if none of it really mattered after we recovered? How long will the Church continue down its path of self-proclaimed divine favor, ignoring the basics of God’s instruction? How long will Messianic groups simply repeat the penchant for divisive doctrine, Hebrew rituals sprinkled on top of Christian philosophy?
Actually, I’m exasperated. I’m sure you are too. Certainly God must be.
Then I remember that I have made innumerable promises—not kept. I have wandered the path of Christian Messianism. I have considered myself right most of the time. I have ignored the call to devotion. Before I can be righteously exasperated with others, I must first be annoyed to an extreme degree with myself.
Topical Index: bear the misery, qāṣari, ʿāmāl, exasperate, Judges 10:15-16
Me too…… 🙁
Aren’t we sharing the sins of Sodom: “Pride, fulness of bread and careless ease” (Eze. 16;49)? Shouldn’t we then be looking for the same consequences? People don’t change unless they hurt enough. I think it must be because we are now stuck in the shackles of experience, with pain and pleasure as our only teachers. The church of Laodicea described in Revelation has the same problem, and we see YHVH expressing the same response: projectile vomiting of this poison.
Righteousness (rightly relating) is simply connection, but we only have connection (love) by means of the great Connector. This is why we cannot establish an independent base for relationship (much less the perks of relationship, which is all true pleasure), for love must come from Him through us. Pain, however, seems to be what we must have before we are motivated beyond our incessant search for and worship of the forms of pleasure, to seek the only way to actually have that pleasure, which is through peace (the experience of full function) with heaven, ourselves and others.
We think we have peace when we aren’t experiencing pain, and we think we can vanquish pain with pleasure, but we also think that pleasure can be found without that essential connection, or that connection can be achieved without meeting the conditions heaven has set for that connection. However, the best the world can come up with in its search for peace is the avoidance of reality, like Skip says, through the attempt to alter our experience of the state of reality – literally the avoidance of the present – by means of addictions. The result of this convoluted thinking produces people who think they are happy when they are just experiencing an altered state.
We have covered our misery with our avoidance of the reality of it, leaving only our great Lover to experience our pain. At some point, Love demands connection, but if we have chosen the pain of separation, then Love is going to eventually get tired of hurting that pain by Himself. By some unfathomable mystery, God has made Himself able to be affected by our choices, but when God gets tired of experiencing the results of our choices without us, He is going to share those consequences with us, for Love cannot stand to be alone in reality. At some point, He is going to jerk our altered states out from under us and put us where He is – experiencing the results of our own choices in real time and space along with Him whether we want to or not. That can be a very rude wake up call!
This truly cause me to think, Ponder if you will. Does this fall into the line of… Grieving the spirit of God. We are told not to do this or else…. How many times? The other side of the coin. How many times will he forgive. The Lord is faithful and just. Now there’s THAT word, just. Is this the time for justice to prevail?
Justice is in God’s hands we are not judges, or are we?
Good question, and one I have been pondering a lot lately. I think the YHVH judges the world THROUGH us by means of His presence in us (the world sees us and experiences conviction).
Romans 12:19 says only He has the right to vengeance, which is the administration of that justice – we don’t get to decide who gets that vengeance or not.
However, law and order are our responsibility to society. I think we need Skip to delineate for us where the line is! Help!
So our approach should be no right or wrong. Just my view versus yours and both can and will change once our life experience changes. While we ware still comfortable, who will change. When we become uncomfortable the first excuse because God wants it to happen or even the devil is testing me. When maybe the best reflection is what have I contributed towards creating this reality as God blesses me with my choices but protects me by His.
Well, I was driving FEMA agents around Sonoma County (S.C.) as it burned by tens of thousands of acres yesterday. Was that the judgment of God? I have watched a Chief of Cal. Fire, Mayors, Supervisors, Officials, Hardened fire fighters tear up as they share the loss and tragedy they have seen. Was that due to God’s disgust at their Idols?. I have seen bureaucrats get mired in paper work but not eating in order to get the important reports done so decisions can be made made and make that critical report to Washington. I have seen bone tire firefighters get up the next morning and head back into the hills after weeks of doing that agin, and agin, and agin. Have these ignored the call to devotion to God?. “This oh man is what God requires of you, that you do justly, love mercy and walk humbly with your God” the Prophet tells us. G.K Chesterton say’s ” We have looked for questions in the darkest corners and on the wildest peaks. We have found all the questions that can be found. It is time we gave up looking for questions and began looking for answers” . Is it not the Socratic method to question, perhaps its simply time to obey? . It’s 4:30 am and I need to get ready to head back into the fire of judgment. It’s a glorious thing actually I have a post on that on worksofwords.live Gold is purified in the crucible of the fire of the judgment of God. It takes the heat to process out the dross. God’s judgment is here, its been here all along. Its not coming any sooner or later. We are just learning little by little to pay attention and submit to it. That’s my opinion for whatever that is worth…
God bless you Mark. Our youngest daughter lives just outside Fairfield south of I-80. We are praying, praying, praying that God will have mercy and send rain to California. Be safe!
Romans 5:20, “Where sin abounds, grace abounds much MORE”…. otherwise, God would be just like any earthly father. I think we’ll eventually get to the point where we can “bear our own misery” no more and are tired of “walking around the same mountain”.
Skip, can you provide into a little more or maybe a lot more explanation about your comment of Messianic groups just combining Hebrew rituals with Christian philosophy? Having left the “Church” and become involved in a Messianic congregation, I still feel at times that there is something I am missing or not understanding. If you can be a little more specific or go a little more in-depth regarding this that would be most helpful. Or, if not now, maybe can you address this more specifically in a future Today’s word or point me in the direction of someone who you know has spoken directly to this. Thanks for all you do.
Yes, but let me have some time to do so. I am speaking at a conference in Tacoma this weekend. Then maybe a TW or something on the matter. Thanks for asking.
Two edge sword moment for me. Nothing I could say would add to it. It’s good to say selah. Thanks Skip
Sure, Skip, you, I, and all of us of faith can be rightfully annoyed
with ourselves. Even though we know we’re forgiven, we don’t find
it easy to continually “walk in the light as he is in the light.”
Yet, that IS the Way we’ve been called to. So what gives?
The way I understand it, being in the light is being in Him, not ourselves.
THAT requires an identity transformation of the first degree. Yeshua showed
us how when He was baptized. This identity transfer takes place for us when
our plunge underwater signifies our willful identification with His death and our rising
up from the water signifies our identification with His resurrection and our “new” life.
And we know from experience this “new” life of being a “living sacrifice” is not easy.
We need help . . . and we get it! “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you
into all truth.” But to get this guidance, we need to BE in the light where the Spirit walks.
Tough assignment. Where’s our identification? Yeshua cautioned: “Light as come into the world, but men
loved darkness instead of light.” Like everything else in life, this requires a choice. And so, I choose light . . .
as I, too, “Now choose life.” Deut 30:19
Something that sticks with me about Yshua’s baptism. I wonder why it is that He immediately after the baptism of water he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Was it to find the edges of himself in this 40 day fast & remove any last vestages of ownership of the edges to become Echad.
I understand Yeshua was already obedient to the Torah by faith but is this how We who did not have God as our ben Father actually are to be bar Fathered?
Is this the example for us to actually be able to follow into such an intense victory? Searing defeat on the enemy without a backward step ever? Perhaps the days are even darker now than then.
We know it is directly after the baptism, (that John didn’t think necessary) that Satan in person came to tempt Y’shua… Yeshua who had given up the right to have anomalous edges of distance in comprehension of the Father’s will in its immediacy.
The anomalous edges are Not God’s desire for us most certainly.
How easily we let go of the reality of the new identity because we are all in the process of letting go to grasp. I think our truths are trade offs between moments & places of victory sort of likened to revolving door overcoming. Sometimes we are in the house and sometimes find ourselves out.
Are we ALL just lazy saints? Or is this a great oppression that is meant to happen toward the end when we have less strength & why grace is increased as scripture says?
Do we truly need this disgust of ourselves in light of this denial of how to walk. Yes!… to graspe fervently again the desire of purity to motivate us to cry out?
Yes! …. because it is the last testimony of us desiring truth and we never want to lose that. To make truth just a passing thought in the menagerie that walks past our minds idly is death. If we lose that disgust we don’t hate sin any more and have sided with the enemy willingly!
Be blessed and struggle if you must but keep battling for He in no-wise will despise a repentant heart. I say.
Empathy precedes power. Neurologist have been exploring how we go from emotional empathy to cognitive empathy. From the ability to experience into the learned place of being able to help. Interesting after yesterdays post is the fact that they see a correlation between power and empathy which is just the reverse of biblical identity. They see that as the desire for power increases, empathy or the capacity to empathize decreases. The corollary is that as empathy is learned the capacity to respond increases.
I have no doubt we will all experience our own agonies; facing our submissions, but just as we learned the fellowship and communion in suffering we passed through our own sufferings and learned to not lean on our own understandings. I think here too we will pass through those of our own lives and grow in deeper relationship within the shared relationship of empowering emotions. We are having our feelings and understanding trained by reason of use and given we live in an emotional theology growing in relationship, responsibility and covenant.
How many calls for national repentance have we heard in the last fifty years? I weary of this whole idea that the “American Church”–(almost?) as if there are no other ‘churches’ on this earth–represents America as a nation. America is NOT a theocracy. America is not the ‘replacement’ for the Nation Israel.
Now, I do think 2 Chron 7:14 has an application–a narrow one–but that application is for any united gathering of believers in Messiah/Christ. It’s not applicable to ANY nation nowadays–at least at this current moment.
Hmmm. I find this rather curious. I thought most here would agree with this comment. The best I can figure, it’s the last sentence which is causing consternation. Let me clarify. YHWH is still favoring Israel. I think just a cursory look at its recent history bears this out. God is not done with Israel (but read Romans 9-11, esp. 11:25-26). My point is that the current Nation Israel is largely secular and, in that sense, not theocratic.
Well, it would seem as though we are a fickle crowd. 🙂
Paradigm Permutation? What if YHWH had had enough of His people to the point that He would change the way He communicated, such that His communication would become more appealing—and perhaps, more comprehendible—to the Gentiles over against the Hebrews? Could this account, at least in part, for the reason the Tanakh is in Hebrew, while the NT is in Greek? Haven’t we been living in “the time of the Gentiles” (Luke 21:24; Rev 11:2; Rom 9-11)?
Craig: In my opinion God did exactly that. Check out Deuteronomy 18:18. He said he would send a prophet like unto Moses. He would put His words in that prophet’s mouth. I think the revelation of God’s character and plan through Yeshua was announced way back then, if not earlier. I don’t think He is changing the plan to make it “more appealing” or “more comprehensible” . I think the history of the Christian church took an unfortunate turn when they tossed out the Hebrew view and replaced it by a whole bevy of Greek philosophers. Regarding the language of New Testament is there not still considerable debate about the originals? The Eastern churches maintain the New Testament Scriptures were written in Aramaic. Some say at least Matthew was written in Hebrew. It must be hard to come to a definitive conclusion about this when we only have pieces of copies. Help me understand this process.
I offer this as questions to ponder, not as if I have the answers.
The way I understand Jewish messianic expectations is that “a prophet unto Moses” would be akin to one who would deliver them from their Roman oppressors, i.e., a political messiah. Thus, this is one of the reasons Yeshua didn’t fit the bill for hoi Ioudaioi.
Something to consider: We agree that God was speaking anthropomorphically in the creation account. YHWH didn’t literally ‘speak’ to bring forth creation. This is clearly metaphorical language. What if John 1:1-3 and Col 1:15-20 are the “Greek” version, the more literal version, of these same events? What if this is why, by Divine design, the NT is written in Greek.
Regarding your position about Aramaic originals for NT, at least in Matthew, there’s some ambiguity in the text that seems to support that Matthew was written “in a Hebrew style” rather than being written in Aramaic as opposed to Greek. That’s not to mention that we have no actual extant manuscript evidence to support this position.
The following is taken from David Alan Black’s book Why Four Gospel’s?: The Historical Originals of the Gospels (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2001), p 50, in a footnote, which illustrates this:
The absence of the Greek article usually indicates a characteristic or nature of a thing, rather than something concrete.
Here’s a portion of the context of Eusebius’ Ecclesiastical History in which he quotes Papias:
So the origin of the misunderstanding was Origen!
I am going off topic (again!) but wanted to comment on the “prophet like unto Moses”. Yeshua told the Jews point blank that they were wrong to suppose that Messiah was going to rescue them from the Romans, which was how they apparently were interpreting the prophecy about the Messiah. Yep, the original audience was accused of reading their paradigm into Scripture (imagine that!).
But if we bring a fresh eye to the subject, we could see other things, perhaps, that they were missing. One of those things I think I see is that, like Moses, Yeshua had direct concourse with God at His baptism, and other recorded instances. He also had access with Elijah, who was translated, and with Moses, who was raised, on the Mount of Transfiguration, as well as with angels, too – all in front of witnesses – as well as other times in private, for sure. He had a unique relationship with heaven, just as Moses had.
Another thing I see (and we could go on) is that Moses, according to Jude (Yeshua’s half brother), like Yeshua, was raised from the dead – Moses, in fact, as far as we have been told, was the first person raised into immortality (as contrasted with Lazarus and others, who were merely returned to this mortal life) with Messiah being the second. He is called the “Firstborn from the dead”, however, as being the head of all the resurrected (“first” does not always refer to time).
I think ALL of the New Testament writers wrote in Hebrew context. I was surprised years ago to learn that so many (great majority) of Early Church Fathers in fact were Greek philosophers. Please correct me if this wrong. I noticed in reading Kelly how they often speak affectionately about Plato in particular. Philo of Alexandria worked hard to marry Greek philosophy with Judaic ideas. I think the problem for so many has been to assume that the Greek manuscripts meant Greek sanctioned ideas. I would also add that the search for a “political messiah” was not just embraced by the opponents of Jesus. After the resurrection and 40 days of mentorship “discussing the Kingdom of God” with the risen Lord they ask Jesus if he will now restore the kingdom to Israel. Every commentary I have read on this basically says “They don’t get it”. Even my 95 year old mother-in-law exclaimed that when we read the Acts passage in a Bible study. Maybe they DID get it! Maybe they understood very well the thrice repeated angelic testimony in Daniel of the kingdom being given to the saints. Jesus does NOT say “Oy Vey.. have you been listening?” Rather he says “not for you to know the times appointed by my Father”. I believe Yeshua will in fact set up a physical kingdom (of Yahweh) on earth and rule the nations from Jerusalem, just like they expected but were off in the timing. If that means he has to deliver them from their Roman oppressors (or Russians, American, Arabs, even Jewish synics..) BRING IT ON! Note that I did not include Canada in the list. We just want everybody to “get along”.
Well said HSB. This reads so relevant to today’s dogmas. Preachers and teachers must be political correct or else they are false. Humankind have still not changed. Skip and Laurita may have it right we need to promote Hebrew thinking not Greek philosophy…