And the Winner Is
O give us help against the adversary, for deliverance by man is in vain. Psalm 60:11 NASB
Is in vain – The salvation of men by men. That is the program of human history. And the result is always the same. shaw’. Emptiness. Vanity. Falsehood. To no avail. By the way, it is the same word used in the third commandment which is not simply about swearing but rather about attaching the name of YHVH to a statement that is not credible, truthful or humanly controlled. It is to associate the name of the Lord with statements He would not endorse. “The evidence points to the fact that taking the Lord’s name (i.e. his reputation) ‘in vain’ will surely cover profanity, as that term is understood today, or swearing falsely in the Lord’s name. But it will also include using the Lord’s name lightly, unthinkingly, or by rote. Perhaps this is captured by the LXX’s translation of laššāwʾ as epi mataiō ‘thoughtlessly.’”[1]
So what does David mean by telling us that the deliverance of men is shaw’? Certainly he cannot mean that men don’t appear to deliver. History is full of heroes who saved. From Greek legends to modern day politics, every civilization has its rescuers. But David isn’t looking at the temporary picture, even if that temporary picture is a thousand years long. David means that only YHVH truly delivers because the real bondage of men is not to dictators or adversaries or economics or ignorance. The real bondage is the heart battle of the yetzer ha’ra, the inner fight against submission to the Creator. “Yes,” it all belongs to Him, and “yes,” no plan of His can be thwarted, but the gap between concept and completion is the heart of the matter, and it is always a matter of the heart. In the end, God wins. It’s all the middle pieces that give us so much trouble.
Because we are likely to view life in its short term (human versus cosmological history, for example), we are tempted to look for a deliverer now. Quite often that’s what we need—now. But like all of life, deliverance from human sources follows the pattern of attempted human solutions to bigger-than-human problems. We rally to the cry, achieve some kind of victory and fall back into the plight of living, repeating the same behaviors of our long ago ancestors. As Qohelet noted, there’s really nothing new under heaven. To break the mold, we must have deliverance from outside. For David, this means external help. If the Lord does not go with us, then we do not go. We can’t travel toward the purposes of God without God. It is a travesty to hear one bishop from an African country remark upon his visit to the churches of the United States, “I had no idea you could do so much without God.” Noble causes do not bring deliverance. Crusades (contemporary and ancient) do not save. Programs and promises are profitless. Unless the Lord builds the house, it is shaw’. And unless we are working with the same blueprint as the Master, our efforts are shaw’ as well.
Topical Index: shaw’, vanity, emptiness, Psalm 60:11
[1] Hamilton, V. P. (1999). 2338 שׁוא. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament .
Every point made here, Skip, is superb! Thank you! This topic is going to beg the question: Saved from what back to what?
To want to be saved I have to admit I am lost, doomed and stuck. That I am out of moves on my board, and I have chosen my choices away. (Almost! I still have one get out of jail card left, and that one card is to yelp for help!) What in the world is wrong with me? That is to ask the question “what did Yeshua come to restore?” My real problem is not all the disasters of the planet and my soul, my real problem is that the fallout of those disasters spells DEATH to me. What is death? What is life? What is killing me? What is consuming all my power over reality; that stewardship that I was created for in that Garden? The problems are not what is killing us; the problems, like the diseases of deficiency that are running rampant today, are just symptoms; just effects, if you will, of a disaster that has already occurred, and that disaster is the fracture of relationship in three dimensions. I am dying; I am powerless; I am lacking all the fullness of God in my life because I am fractured from Him, myself and others, and from reality itself. This fracture is literally killing me; sucking all my power over reality; claiming all my choices, and leaving me wounded, robbed and dying in my ditch. Someone turn the Light switch back on!
I know we equate death with the expiration of breath and the dissolution of body into dust, but we started dying the minute we were conceived, and it is by grace that any of us walk this planet. Death is by degrees, and it is by grace that we are not instantly consumed, when we have departed just a little from the Way. That grace includes all the curses on the planet. I am sick thanks to grace; my family struggles with contention and fracture because of grace; it is grace that determines the course of natural and manmade disaster alike, and it is grace that allows pain to exist in our lives, and psychopaths to walk around, and misery to run rampant. Why do we ‘need’ all this chaos? What are we here for? What is the meaning of my existence, not to mention the disaster with which my existence is filled? Why is YHVH causing all this mess, if indeed He is in control? See, the problem lies with the questions. What if we asked them differently?
We need saving from ourselves. I am my problem, for I was handed the keys to reality, and on MY way I lost them. I was the one who listened to the lies and fractured my connections with God, self and others and reality, too, in my search for love without a Lover. I was the one who drew the Death card every time. (But God!) Every time I do not have power, choice, in all possible directions, I am standing at death’s door, for I need connection in all those directions to live. It is grace that holds me, literally in a vacuum; that forces the wound to stay open, thus giving me a chance to choose again. What does that chance look like? Well, it LOOKS like disaster! YHVH instituted the curses. They might have another administrator, but He delegated the tormentors. Why? Because, like Pharoah, we become hardened to sin every time we choose to sin. Every time I choose death, life becomes harder for me to choose. The curses weigh my choices down, and limit them, and cause me pain, for I literally need a reason to choose differently next time, that comes from beyond me. Those reasons ARE that disaster, for it is disaster that convinces me that sin is not for me; that fracture is something I do not want.
We have been tasked with only one assignment, after the Fall, and that is to learn who and what our enemy is, so as to not agree with him next time. Death must appear in its true, hideous and pain full form, and not as an angel of light, so that I am not ever fooled again. “Affliction shall not rise up a second time” (Nahum 1:9). If it is never to rise again, then eternity is only going to be safe if everybody in it can recognize it for what it is, and thus never choose it again. I have to, with David, learn to hate my enemy with perfect hatred. As Skip says, “time to throw up”. (Excuse me, y’all, it is looking pretty awful out there! Where’s the nearest bush?)
Spent the day yesterday in extremes. Found out there was a grandchild lost in miscarriage, attended a wedding with a second son, had my 80 year old father and my son’s and their wives and children surrounding my heart and home for the rest of the day.
Heartache for what might have come, thankfulness for what was at hand and concerns for the future. Real life and a lot of conversation of the ways of the world and the safety of our lives. Without Yaweh none of it worth living or possessing. Without Him I have no, none or any other desire to go.
As this season of the feasts of Yaweh draw near my heart is heavy with repentance and with my own desires for peace and happiness for those near and dear, and yet trembling with fear of what may come if my ways are addressed.
Oh Yaweh have mercy on us and draw us into your ways such as never before.
I like to do puzzles. Somehow they help with life. Not totally sure how, but they seem to. Maybe it is the sense of accomplishment when the puzzle comes together and ALL the pieces are there. Sitting back on looking at the whole complete puzzle is satisfying as I glance over all the pieces thinking when I properly placed them. Then I start to notice all the intricacies of the completed picture, not just the clues of each piece that lends to mating them with adjacent pieces. The puzzle continues to offer satisfaction after completion, after the struggle to make all the proper joining.
This puzzle of life we walk in every day hasn’t been quite as simple for me though.
With puzzles I usually, like most I think, start connecting all the border pieces. That certainly gives me a framework to work in respect to the other pieces. And, of course, I always have the final picture on the box. That usually helps give perspective.
Since beginning with Skip and others, I have had to undo much of my life puzzle progression. And I’ve also had to reexamine the border pieces again. You know those puzzle pieces that seem to fit until you get more of the adjacent pieces connected that clearly shows you that it didn’t, in fact, belong in that spot. The puzzle makers these days, apparently, are making inner pieces with outer borders. Hmmm. Reevaluation.
But then again I am learning to look at truth differently as well. I saw, somewhere, how a cylindrical geometric shape, properly sized, can cast a shadow in the shape of a circle AND a square depending on the position of the light to cast one of the two shadows. Which shadow shape represents the single object? Both! Interesting.
No, that isn’t an argument for the trinity.
My deliverance these days is taking on so many different forms than those I had previously been seeking and chasing. Today is the day of salvation. I’m going to focus on that for the moment and let tomorrow take care of itself. I think I’ve come across an inner piece (peace?) that has an outer border. Where shall I place it?
Well said Michael C. Laurita and of course Skip. Today a reflection of my Saviour’s face to see within the likes of their.