Had my weekly young women's Bible study last night. Talked about walking in the light from Romans 13. In John 1, the apostle says that Jesus came to "tabernacle" in us. It is a significant word because it refers to the tabernacle that was set up in the wilderness in which God dwelt among His people as a ball of light in the holy of holies. Now His presence is dwelling in our bodies, the temples of God. So He has made our hearts His holy of holies and our lives lights. So, Paul says in Romans, we should live as children of the light, not children of the dark. Live so that at any time the flashlight of man and God can shine on us and we won't be ashamed. Roaches and rodents who feed off things in the dark are scattered when the lights come on. Our lives should shine out to dispel the darkness instead of leaving the droppings of sin around after we have done what we do in the dark.
But, as David points out in verses 3-4, some have "turned aside."
They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good. Not even one. Have they no knowledge, all the evil doers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the name of the Lord?
I was interested in the meaning of turn aside. The Hebrew word is suwr. To turn away, to desert, to quit, to keep far away from, or to stop. You have been going one way and decide to suwr. In this case, you have been enticed to follow other gods as you turn away from following after Yahweh. You have turned off the light and gone back into the darkness. How is that possible?
Remember in Ezekiel when the Lord showed him the hole in the wall and the horrible things the elders were doing in the dark? God explained that was the reason He had left the tabernacle. He was no longer in the building with them. It is, to me, like when you snuff out a candle. Darkness overcomes the light. What the ones overcome by the darkness again seem to lack is "knowledge." Of what? Yada is the word. Acknowledge. Be aware of. Comprehend. Consider. Discern. To know relationally. In other words, these people cannot empathize. They don't "get it." Others are simply prey for them. Using religion, these evil doers disguise themselves as "children of light" in order to "eat up" the children of God.
At first blush, I would say I don't know anyone like that. They would seem so obvious. I know some people covered in pain who have, as Christians, done some pretty rough things. Have been one of those myself. But a person who rationally decides to masquerade in order to devour. Whew! That is really evil. But then I know of wives whose husbands have intentionally lied to cover up their dalliances and in so doing have made their wives feel like they are crazy for suspecting some wrongdoing. Men in the church who have abused children pretending to be a good Christian. Women who kill each other with words so vicious they might as well have used a knife. "Chaff among the wheat," they destroy from the inside like a cancer undetected until it has devoured its host.
The apostle Peter speaks about them in 2 Peter 2:
These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error...For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge (epignosis - the act of coming to full knowledge of something) of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse than the first....What the true proverb says happened to them: "The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire."
Eh-hem. That is cringe-worthy. We get all cleaned up and walk the walk for a while then are enticed by some passion that enslaves us to go back to the "dark side." It is hard to watch....and do. Tricked by our own selfishness or by what looks to be a greater enlightenment, we leave our fresh-washed state, having barely escaped the claws of our former addictions and attachments, only to be led back to the pig pen again. Of course that state is worse than the first, because we now know what it is like to be clean. And, we know how much face down time that took. The energy for pursuing that kind of "brightness" is diminished by shame and the fog of the new slavery. Once a shining star, filled with the tabernacling Christ, we are creeping in the darkness pooping sin and thinking no one sees the mess.
We could do something, though. We could call upon the name of the Lord. David's question: Don't they know they could call upon the name of the Lord? They have quit Him. But they could call out His name from their new sty and He would answer. Oh, the hubris that keeps us from the safety of refuge beneath His wings. And the willfulness that defies His mercies with lives we think better lived our way.
Light should dispel the darkness and expose the works of the "night." Light should not be engulfed in the shadows again. If it is our passions that draw us back to the hell we used to occupy, then we are far short of understanding the gift of the tabernacle our hearts have become. If something on this earth can captivate our souls' imaginations to such a degree that we would throw away Christ, then the gift of grace for which He died is taken with us to the pit we jump into and besmirched, misused and defiled. We have become eaten up with our own rebellion and taken the temple of God with us into misery.
Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!
If I say "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light about me be night,"
Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as day,
For darkness is as light to You.
Search me, Oh God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
See if there is any wicked way in me.
And lead me in the everlasting way.
Psalm 139.
But, as David points out in verses 3-4, some have "turned aside."
They have all turned aside. Together they have become corrupt. There is no one who does good. Not even one. Have they no knowledge, all the evil doers who eat up my people as they eat bread and do not call upon the name of the Lord?
I was interested in the meaning of turn aside. The Hebrew word is suwr. To turn away, to desert, to quit, to keep far away from, or to stop. You have been going one way and decide to suwr. In this case, you have been enticed to follow other gods as you turn away from following after Yahweh. You have turned off the light and gone back into the darkness. How is that possible?
Remember in Ezekiel when the Lord showed him the hole in the wall and the horrible things the elders were doing in the dark? God explained that was the reason He had left the tabernacle. He was no longer in the building with them. It is, to me, like when you snuff out a candle. Darkness overcomes the light. What the ones overcome by the darkness again seem to lack is "knowledge." Of what? Yada is the word. Acknowledge. Be aware of. Comprehend. Consider. Discern. To know relationally. In other words, these people cannot empathize. They don't "get it." Others are simply prey for them. Using religion, these evil doers disguise themselves as "children of light" in order to "eat up" the children of God.
At first blush, I would say I don't know anyone like that. They would seem so obvious. I know some people covered in pain who have, as Christians, done some pretty rough things. Have been one of those myself. But a person who rationally decides to masquerade in order to devour. Whew! That is really evil. But then I know of wives whose husbands have intentionally lied to cover up their dalliances and in so doing have made their wives feel like they are crazy for suspecting some wrongdoing. Men in the church who have abused children pretending to be a good Christian. Women who kill each other with words so vicious they might as well have used a knife. "Chaff among the wheat," they destroy from the inside like a cancer undetected until it has devoured its host.
The apostle Peter speaks about them in 2 Peter 2:
These are waterless springs and mists driven by a storm. For them the gloom of utter darkness has been reserved. For, speaking loud boasts of folly, they entice by sensual passions of the flesh those who are barely escaping from those who live in error...For if after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge (epignosis - the act of coming to full knowledge of something) of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse than the first....What the true proverb says happened to them: "The dog returns to its own vomit, and the sow, after washing herself, returns to wallow in the mire."
Eh-hem. That is cringe-worthy. We get all cleaned up and walk the walk for a while then are enticed by some passion that enslaves us to go back to the "dark side." It is hard to watch....and do. Tricked by our own selfishness or by what looks to be a greater enlightenment, we leave our fresh-washed state, having barely escaped the claws of our former addictions and attachments, only to be led back to the pig pen again. Of course that state is worse than the first, because we now know what it is like to be clean. And, we know how much face down time that took. The energy for pursuing that kind of "brightness" is diminished by shame and the fog of the new slavery. Once a shining star, filled with the tabernacling Christ, we are creeping in the darkness pooping sin and thinking no one sees the mess.
We could do something, though. We could call upon the name of the Lord. David's question: Don't they know they could call upon the name of the Lord? They have quit Him. But they could call out His name from their new sty and He would answer. Oh, the hubris that keeps us from the safety of refuge beneath His wings. And the willfulness that defies His mercies with lives we think better lived our way.
Light should dispel the darkness and expose the works of the "night." Light should not be engulfed in the shadows again. If it is our passions that draw us back to the hell we used to occupy, then we are far short of understanding the gift of the tabernacle our hearts have become. If something on this earth can captivate our souls' imaginations to such a degree that we would throw away Christ, then the gift of grace for which He died is taken with us to the pit we jump into and besmirched, misused and defiled. We have become eaten up with our own rebellion and taken the temple of God with us into misery.
Where shall I go from Your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there!
If I make my bed in Sheol, You are there!
If I say "Surely the darkness will cover me, and the light about me be night,"
Even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as day,
For darkness is as light to You.
Search me, Oh God, and know my heart!
Try me and know my thoughts!
See if there is any wicked way in me.
And lead me in the everlasting way.
Psalm 139.
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