Gardening (Rewind)
“For your guilt teaches your mouth, and you choose the language of the crafty.” Job 15:5 NASB
Crafty– “Naked I came into the world” is another way to say that when I arrived I didn’t have a hidden agenda. That’s what we learn from the phonetically similar Hebrew word ʿārôm in Genesis 2:25. Adam and Havvah were ʿārummin (“naked”) and not ashamed. Why weren’t they ashamed? Nakedness is almost always associated with shamefulness in the Bible. They were not ashamed because they had nothing to hide. But not so the serpent. In the very next verse we encounter the word used here by Eliphaz, ʿārûm. Here it means cunning, crafty, understood in the LXX as “ready to do anything.” Sometimes it is positive (as in “prudent”) but often it is negative. The Genesis passage sets the tone for our understanding of this word. Eliphaz helps us see how it applies to us.
Guilt teaches us the manipulative use of words. Without confession and repentance we learn to be masters of deflection, rationalization and excuse. The degree to which we justify our disobedience is limited only by the tools of rhetoric. We use words to hide from ourselves. Perhaps Adam’s fig leaves were nothing more than the utterances of defense.
Notice Eliphaz observes that such eloquence is a choice. It is a display of controlled linguistic contortion. Words ultimately belong to God. They are intended to reveal His purposes, His character and His truth. But like most loans to humanity, they can be twisted for other purposes. The yetzer ha’ra is not mute even if he only whispers. Perhaps we would draw closer to the Father more quickly if we paid attention to our favorite pretexts. Would you be willing to write them down?
No human being is born with a native tongue. It must be learned by association, context and practice. We might say the same for ʿārûm. Associate yourself with excuses, find a context for justification and self-approval, practice rationalization, explanation and apology and you learn the language of the serpent. Now you can hide behind a wall of words and do as you please. Whoever has the dictionary of deceit rules.
Eliphaz teaches us the escape path from this linguistic labyrinth. Remove the guilt and speak the truth. Removing the guilt is what God does when we speak the truth and that starts when we speak the truth about ourselves to Him. “Father, I am full of excuses. I am choking on my own justifications. My ears are filled with the sounds of the serpent. I wear a belt of pride to cover my shame. I have learned to lie—to You and to myself. You, Lord, are the only One who speaks truth. Let me come into Your presence once again so that I may be taught Your words. Help me, Father, to teach my mouth Your praises, to learn of You and repeat what You have declared. I need a new language if I am to be delivered from the one I taught myself.”
Topical Index: ʿārûm,ʿārôm, naked, crafty, guilt, excuse, Job 15:5
“Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my redeemer.” – Psalm 19.14
The Torah of YHVH is perfect, restoring the soul… Psalm 19.8a
Amain
We are told that Adam and Eve before the Fall were “taught” directly by God but I don’t think that quite captures what exactly God and humans were actually doing together. David prays “take not Thy Holy Spirit from me” and Yeshua declares that He did nothing “of Myself”. It is quite clear that we are supposed to be inhabited in our personal temples by the Spirit of God. But also in the Bible we see that we can be motivated by spiritual influences not of God, too. The Bible calls these unholy motivators “spirits” of “bitterness” “fear”, etc. I think we were made to be gorgeous cars that run on spiritual alignment – agreement with – another Spirit. I think this is what it means when our wills choose the will of God, but I also think it is a very dangerous fallacy to suppose that we are merely supposed to get a letter in our spiritual mail that tells us what the will of God is, and then proceed to do it OURSELVES. No, we are not a source of our own motivation any more than we can digest our own food.
We talk a lot about self motivation, and the years that I was convinced that it was my own ‘works’ (um, motivation!) that I was supposed to ‘do’, I did nothing but wear out my vital forces and eat my own tail until I had nothing left. I tried and tried and tried to love all the ways that I had been taught (with words) to love, and it was a disaster! I dug to the very bottom of the barrel of my ‘own’ motivation and it was dry all the way down. I was totally shocked!
I think love is a lot more like electricity – or even an “infection” (C.S. Lewis) – than it is a graduate course. Love is a motivation: a spiritual motivation that we cannot manufacture or conjure because it is actually a life force. When we are not motivated by love – partnered with, or, in builder’s terms, “sistered” with – love, I think we still have to be motivated by a force of some sort to be able to act on choices. When the Bible talks about being “married” to YHVH or being “adulterers” with other gods I think it is talking about what we are putting in our spiritual tanks: what motivates us: literally what we are FEARING, or are devoted to. These are all descriptions of spiritual alignment: not mental alignment. Fear is not a mental assent, for fear is literally driven by what we believe is holding our very lives in its hand.
I think that when we give in to spiritual motivators not of God we are agreeing to allow pride or lust or deceit or self righteousness, etc. to determine the fate of our lives – we are literally trusting those motivations to determine our choices for us. Choices are no good if you don’t have a way to implement them. In fact, I believe that we cannot even make a choice if we have not already pulled up to a spiritual gas pump and chosen a brand of fuel. When I am motivated by unholy (lying) spiritual forces – when I am believing whatever lies I am being told to let them in to my temple – then I am going to make choices that align with the CHARACTER of that force. As a designed image, that is how we are made, after all, but unholy images can be manifested (acted on), too. At that point, because these lying spirits are “teaching” us to lie to ourselves, too, we really, like Yeshua pointed out, “know not what spirit (motivation) you are of”.
I think I can see that when Adam and Eve agreed with (were “taught” by) the character of the snake, they took on that character themselves, and at that instant, they no longer were themselves, for our true identity resides only in alignment with the Spirit of God: with His character of love pouring through us unimpeded. Hiding in the bushes? I think when we are already manifesting a character that we were not created to be, we are already hidden from ourselves. “Hiding” is the new action because we have already filled our tanks at the pump of self annihilation.
We could also look at some of the translations say, now the serpent was more crafty than any other Beast. Which might mean out of the ordinary can be expected. Also deception falls into play. I think of Judas, and when Satan entered him. We know that Satan in Hebrew is ha. Satan. The adversary, meaning to do the opposite. What a description.. someone recently told me that we can look at this two ways. 2 equal opposing forces, fighting each other, or 1 opposing Force, about to be crushed by the foot of the other Force. Everything is in God’s control. Everything happens for a reason. Even if it is to teach us, a father disciplines those who he loves, those without discipline go astray to their own devices. We have studied before about the. Evil desires, in The Godly desires. Mini sermons about this one. But The Godly desires should always rule over the evil desires that tempt us. Have a good and godly day.
In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. – 1 John 4:9
Excellent word Laurita- Thank you for making a distinction between our personal temples being “ inhabited” by the Holy Spirit but that we can be “ motivated “ by “ unholy motivators not of God”. My will chooses.
There is so much teaching about believers being “ delivered” of all kinds of demons/ spirits of fear and bitterness and lust and the list goes on and on.
What makes a whole lot more sense to me is that we choose or will to resist
those “ outside motivators” rather than pay someone else to deliver me of those.
Maddie, I have noticed it is pretty hard to get anything out that has an open invitation to the real estate. You can not want fear all day long – and others can hop around the altar with you and yell and “cast out” and maybe even cut themselves too -but if you are continuing to choose to fall for the lies that installed that fear, it ain’t going anywhere.
Brother Skip, thank you for writing this! The LORD used this to encourage me through a difficult time where telling the truth costs me much. Thank you for your faithfulness to the Body of Christ by continuing to encourage us all. Your love for YHWH and us continues to make an eternal difference, and I am wholeheartedly grateful. May the LORD continue to richly bless you and your ministry.
WOW!
We must recognize, and turn from the “principal of self exemption,” that so many of us practice. We excuse behaviors in ourselves yet we judge others for those same behaviors. Self deception is a powerful thing.
This post is spot on for recent lessons learned, realizations and dare I say the word enlightenment….
I had a dream; before me stood a large square black wall. I felt God behind it loving me through it, yet unseen because of the obstruction of this object. Meditating on it I realized it was not a wall but a monument. A monument to my offenses, un-realized expectations, all the hard rocks or stones along the road I picked up and focused my mind and attention on. I cut them, polished them, turning them over again and again in my hand and then put them in a structure. One I would walk around looking at, considering describing to others creating with them ” a context for justification and self-approval, practice rationalization, explanation”. This consideration turned into a sort of poem found here…https://worksofwords.live/2019/05/22/monument-building/
Love you brother Skip and friends about this table that brings enlightenment into to our dark places….
BTW we can all simply walk away from the monuments we build, they are not us and they are not God, just structures we build in our mind and with our words. We can turn away from them!
Another point. The rock star clinical psychologist of the day Jordan Peterson said to a room full of Auzies a few months back..” If the world is constituted by truth, then it is faith to speak the truth, trusting that no matter what the outcome it will be good, and the best possible outcome.” Loving Jorden these day’s now considered. “the most influential intellectual of western civilization of the moment” And that is very good for western civilization. At least in my mind.