The Day of Fools
“It will come about at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps,
and I will punish the men who are stagnant in spirit, who say in their hearts, ‘The Lord will not do good or evil!’” Zephaniah 1:12 NASB
Stagnant in spirit – It is a serious, and sometimes fatal, mistake to pretend God doesn’t care. Zephaniah warned the people of such foolishness. His warning needs to be heard today. God will inspect. He will search the cities of men. And when He finds those who are “stagnant in spirit,” punishment will soon follow. The single-sided coin of God’s love is seductive mythology. Every coin has two sides and the opposite side of love is judgment. Righteousness flows with justice. There is no time to be complacent.
The Hebrew phrase haqqopeim ‘al-shimrehem is an idiomatic expression. It is literally about the congealed dregs of old wine, the “gunk” at the bottom of the bottle. How does this describe men? YHVH tells us. These are men who have determined that the Lord does neither good nor evil. In other words, God simply doesn’t care about the world of men. We can do what we wish. He is busy with other things. These are men who have consumed life and are left with nothing but the sediment, the scum, the grounds. Just like wine, they are used up. They have reached the point where their god reflects who they are—uncaring, callous, useless.
But that doesn’t provide any excuse. The true God, YHVH of Israel, will come looking. And when he finds men who have turned away from life, who have projected their own heartlessness onto His world, He will punish. That verb, paqad, is very scary. It encompasses reckoning, overseeing and punishing. It is the verb in the infamously translated verse, Exodus 34:7. Just in case you thought that these men of the dregs are the spiritually bankrupt examples of complete immoral behavior, Heschel reminds us of their true state:
“Inwardness is ignored. The spirit has become a myth. Man treats himself as if he were created in the likeness of a machine rather than in the likeness of God. The body is his god, and its needs are his prophets. Having lost the awareness of his sacred image, he became dead to the meaning: to live in a way which is compatible with his image.”[1]
Such men even go to church. But they live in a desacralized world, a world where YHVH is absent from their thoughts and actions. They worship on the required day and play the “man as machine” game the rest of the week. God is no more real than the IRS, a distant threat that can be circumvented with clever accounting.
The day of fools is fast approaching. A reckoning is near. The grounds will be discarded. The dregs will be turned to powder. Life at the bottom of the bottle will end—horribly.
Topical Index: stagnant in spirit, dregs, judgment, paqad, Zephaniah 1:12
[1] Abraham Heschel, “Religion in a Free Society” in The Insecurity of Freedom, p. 14.
A few days ago, Robert Lafoy shared a quote by R. Sacks that said “Reality has an ethical structure. If used for evil ends, the powers of nature will turn against man, so that what he does will be done to him in turn.”
I laughed when I read it because of something that my son has always been trying to point out to me about corn ethanol. Now. everybody knows that we are the current breadbasket of the world. The majority of the soybeans that feed China, the grain that ships out to the rest of the world, it all floats down that Mississippi. In fact, if the river did not exist, we could not move that much food. I think everybody is also aware of the current need of the world for calories.
Well, we produce enough calories to feed the world, but for many years, a large percentage of those calories has gone to raise meat, which about 80% of the world cannot afford. It takes an relatively enormous pile of calories to make a pound of meat, but I digress, because the authors of greed were apparently still not satisfied. They began to devise a way to enslave the rest of the world’s production of that food to a the tollgate of patented and engineered seeds that not only were designed to introduce genetics into the food supply that were not geared for optimum nutrition, but were also designed to only be able to grow on artificial fertilizers, thus enslaving the farmers to the seed and fertilizer that was being produced by these entities of greed. But that was still not apparently enough.
It was when massive amounts of corn began to be turned into nonfood in the conversion to ethanol that I seriously began to question the ethics of the policy makers. Why are we burning food while the widows and orphans are starving? How can we feed the world with what has been given to us then?
Well, my son, who assiduously studies weather patterns and the movement of water, began to notice something. He began to point out every year that the majority of the natural disasters seemed to be concentrated on the corn growing areas, thus requiring the activation of crop insurance, and the like. Every year there were floods and droughts alike on the corn. Some years were really bad. Finally, the ethanol push has begun to slack off. And the corn areas have begun to prosper again. Coincidence?
That’s just amazing…..those that have eyes to see 🙂
It would be extremely interesting to see what he said about the NE Texas area. We are drowning in water for the 2nd time this year. Lakes are at 100% and the Red River is raging again. Lake Wright Patman has NEVER been at 100%. It is now.
Well, I confess, I posted this question less than a week ago.
Its not that I think that God does not care, I know He does, but I recently had this feeling ( and question) of God’s abandonment or neglect of the us(earth) for the past 1900 years.
Adam had the presence of God, the forefathers heard His voice, even though they trembled and it was years apart. There were thousands of prophets. But its like the real “fall” only started just before John and Yeshua and may be after the destruction of the Temple.
And how can God expect of us( mostly non-Hebraic gentiles), after the down-spiral( and up-spiral of the church) of 1900 to get back on track doing and living Torah? Where are Nehemiah and Hosea?
And where are the tallits or cloaks of the Israelites that we are suppose to be grabbing and where are the Israeli Priests who are suppose to help us in this proses ans draw us closer to the their God?
They’re coming.
BTW, YHWH bless you and keep you……
“And how can God expect of us( mostly non-Hebraic gentiles), after the down-spiral( and up-spiral of the church) of 1900 to get back on track doing and living Torah?”
Just a thought – YHWH makes provision for EVERY eventuality. The church-age is studded with men and women of God, no different than Abraham among the pagan nations. Each generation, I think, has the grace for its times and has its prophet, with the voice of the Holy One. It seems to me when we look at all of history’s down-spiral, we may become overwhelmed, but we are only expected to respond relative to our generation and our times, and for that Yah makes provision. This is uniquely through His Son. He is the Life-giver and our ever-present Intercessor. We have the cloud of witnesses to encourage us and also brothers and sisters (like Skip, Laurita and ‘you’) in our little cyber community, and others (not in this community), who help us to find our way. Its a journey… ‘If Yah expects anything of us’, it is only because He has made the way, but we must search for it and trust Him…. He does not lead us into futility. Torah-awareness may not have been present 100 years ago, but it is now. So lets grasp whatever Yah is revealing AND providing, while not being forgetful that ‘walking’ with the Son is taken for-granted if we are serving Yah. The Son became flesh not only to redeem us but also to put His Spirit in us and to walk Torah with us. It is the walking of Torah that we are learning, but this is only possible if we already know (have intimacy with) the Son. A greater than Adam…, is with us. The Apostles knew it and we MUST too…
And BTW, apart from Yeshua, the ‘Israelites priests’ are very present – Skip and many others are introducing us to them, and they may not look or sound ‘christian’ like Cahn… Yah is faithful.
“Love may forgive all infirmities and love still in spite of them: but Love cannot cease to will their removal.” – CS Lewis. My stepson now lays claim to being an atheist. He gave his life to the Lord at the age of five but now believes after “much research”, that God is not real, never was and never will be. It’s all ancient Middle Eastern tribal superstition. My stepson is probably more of an agnostic, as he leaves wiggle room for a god that may exist (though certainly not as described in scripture). A god who may have started things, but in no way is involved in day to day life. “Just look around” he says, think about the Holocaust, the Crusades, Dante’s Hell and the list goes on and on. ” A god of love” he chides, “would never allow any of this”. “And don’t give me that, God’s ways are not your ways stuff”, anticipating standard church world talk as a rebuttal. So he sits at home, angry at a god he says doesn’t exist, angry with the “government”, angry with the court system. Angry. Angry every day. He says I am deceived in believing in the God of the bible. It’s not logical and it’s ignorant. And so he lives everyday in his present reality, which is hell, missing the life God intends for him. He accepts a stagnant life, a morass, a life of self fulfilling events that seem to him a endless parade of negativity and “see, I told you so’s.” I tell him you must leave the shore and jump into the river. You will experience God. You will experience his love and you will experience his rebuke. This is a God who wants to love you without impediment, so He will scrub you and adjust your course and re-purpose your spirit to make you more lovable, and synced with His good creation. And I remind him of a quote from Wittenstein, that “nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.” And so I turn the “deception” back toward him and wait his response. And I pray every day that he will jump in and get wet. And I remind him that he won’t shrink and shrivel, but will, through the breath of life, grow and grow and grow.
“When nothing else could help; love lifted me.” “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so….”
There is nothing like a sweet love…..this I learned through my travels. I didn’t know what it meant in terms of relationships; until one day a revelation…”The Love of YHVH, Abba, the Creator, the Comforter, the Peace Maker, the Healer…
Grumpy old men, bitter old women, broken and battered spirits of the young; some become harden; so with that said, we must look up; go to the inner light and learn: “have a little talk with our Maker, the Provider, the Son, Saviour…and learn to play the hand (of cards-do not mean to offend anyone) delt us. Hard to do, but keep working at it.
“Peace, Love, Respect for everyone”