Proverbs 1:7,9:10: The Fear of The LORD

Presented to the Nipawin Corps 17 May 2009
and Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 27 May 2012
by Captain Michael Ramsay

Click HERE: http://sheepspeaks.blogspot.ca/2009/05/proverbs-17-910-yirah-fear-of-lord.html

Leviticus 25:23b: This Land is My Land.

Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 20 May 2012.

By Captain Michael Ramsay

Has anyone read Leviticus recently? Rebecca, Sarah-Grace and I have been reading Leviticus together as part of our evening Bible time. Parts of it remind me of a traditional fairy tale. Leviticus, in content, is like a Grimm’s fairytale in that it can be a little bit bloody: It speaks in great detail, among other things, about the sacrifices that people are to offer and the different animals that are killed for those sacrifices. Sometimes the priests will even put the sacrificed animal’s blood on their own ears or toes and sometimes a live bird is dipped in the blood of a sacrificed bird and then let go (Leviticus 8:23-24, 14:6, 14-28, 51-52). Leviticus, in content, in some ways is like a Grimm’s fairytale.

Leviticus, in style, is some ways is like a contemporary children’s book: it can be quite repetitive. Almost every chapter of the 27 chapters in this book begin with the phrase “The Lord said to Moses, (Chapters 6, 8, 14, 16, 17, 21, 22, 25; cf. Leviticus 1:1)” or “The Lord said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites…’ (Chapters 4, 12, 15, 18, 19, 20)” or for a change sometimes it says, “The Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron” (Chapters 11, 13, 15; cf. also Leviticus 18:1; 19:1; 20:1; 21:1, 16; 22:1, 17, 26; 23:1, 9, 23, 26, 33, 24:1, 13; 25:1; 27:1)

One evening Sarah-Grace, Rebecca and I were discussing how, in Leviticus, everyone was supposed to take one day off work a week to worship the Lord – the Sabbath day – except for the Levites, the priests and their families (Leviticus 16:31-32; 19:3,30; 23:3-38): they still had to work on the Sabbath and they didn’t get Monday off in lieu of Saturday as their own personal Sabbath. My girls weren’t so fond of clerical families not getting an extra day of rest; so one night just after Bible time and just before bed time, they presented me with this ‘ancient scroll’ they found, here in Swift Current, written in blue pen ink on lined foolscap paper; this is what it said:

“Then Moses was told to tell Aaron this: “If a female relative of the priest works it is very, very bad!!!!! If the girl is twenty or below [and sins by working] she must watch the priest shave two doves and then sell them. If no one buys them the priest must pay his wife the amount the doves were worth and then cage them and keep them. The girl who sinned by working must set free the doves from captivity after 17 days. Twenty-one and up must shave the birds themselves but the priest must do the selling and just as before if no one buys them the priest must keep them and pay his wife. Then after only seven days the women who worked must set free the shaved birds. After [this] the priest must quit his job and he will be out away from his people. His family may come with him if they choose but they don’t have to. The only way a woman can work is if it’s for learning but if the work is cleaning up or housework, this process must not be done.

To this I replied that we are not priests; we are Salvation Army Officers and as such we believe in the priesthood of all believers, so they still get the privilege of working – especially cleaning up and housework. It was a nice attempt though.

Leviticus is part of the Pentateuch. It tells us the many laws and rituals that the ancient Israelites needed to follow. The Pentateuch teaches us about the Law, Sabbaths, tithing... Tithing has come up a bit this week in various conversations so I have a little quiz for us today generally relating to tithing (answers below):[1]

1)      What is a tithe?

2)      Who can tell me where in the New Testament it tells us to give God 10% of our money?

3)      How much of our income belongs to the Lord?

Pertaining to questions 1&2: Tithing is spoken about a few times in the Pentateuch (Leviticus 27:30-32. Numbers 18:21-28, Deuteronomy 12:6- 17, Deuteronomy 14:22-28, Deuteronomy 26:1,12). But outside of the Pentateuch, accepting 2 Chronicles 31, tithing is only mentioned in the prophets (2 Chronicles 31:5-12, Nehemiah 10:37-38, 12:44, 13:5-12, Amos 4:4, Malachi 3:8, 3:10.). Tithing is an ancient Israelite custom. It is neither a New Testament custom nor an early Christian tradition: God doesn’t just want a tithe; everything is His, God wants more than just 10%; He wants 100%. (Matthew 19:20-21, Mark 10:21-24, Luke 18:22, Acts 2:42-47, cf. Romans 14:1-23, Hebrews 4:1-13).[2] I was going to speak more directly on tithing this week but in the end I thought we would address Question 3 from our test today and look at an Old Testament passage that reflects the eternal principles of financial management instead. Ancient Israelites were herdsmen and farmers. Their primary source of income was the land.[3] Today, we are looking at Leviticus 25:23b where the God, foreshadowing Jesus’ New Testament teachings, says,  “the land is Mine and you are but aliens [strangers] and My tenants.”

Leviticus 25: “there are three subdivisions to this section: the sabbatical year, the Jubilee, and the laws of indebtedness. The basis of the land laws God gave to Israel is God’s statement that ‘the land is Mine’”(v.23).[4] How many people here either farm or have farmed or grew up on the farm or had parents who grew up on the farm? Try and relate this passage that we are looking at today to your experiences and knowledge.

Verses 1-7 record God’s command to farmers that for six years they are to farm: planting and reaping and also gathering fruit off their trees. In the seventh year they are not allowed to plant anything in their fields and they aren’t allowed to prune a single tree. You aren’t allowed to reap anything for profit.[5] In year seven the combines aren’t going all day and night. Even if they had combines, they wouldn’t be going at all. The only harvesting that you are allowed to do is to get enough food for yourself, your employees, your animals, and the poor people in town (cf. Exodus 23:11). Nothing else. Now you also have to remember that – as a backdrop to this commandment – throughout the history of ancient Israel, most of the time the people were on the verge of starvation. There were no supermarkets. E.I. wasn’t as difficult to get as it is becoming in Canada today because there was no E.I. and on top of this, every seventh year there was nothing that was to go to market at all. No farmer was allowed to sell anything. The only food that was to be grown was for subsistence.[6]

Why would God do this?  Especially given that historically speaking, Israel was always on the verge of starvation; as Israel was always on the verge of starvation, why in every seventh year would God forbid them from selling, harvesting, or even planting any food?[7]  One reason is to remind us that God says -Leviticus 25:23b- “the land is Mine and you are but aliens [strangers] and My tenants.” The Land is not ours, it belongs to God and God wants us to trust Him to provide for us.[8]

Today, sometimes I think we need this kind of reminder. Today, I think that sometimes we get so caught up in our affluent North American lifestyle that we forget that our wealth, our income, our food, our homes, the land and everything in it is not ours. It is God’s. Has anyone here ever rented any land or rented any land out? This is what God is doing with ancient Israel in Palestine. It’s His land. He is simply renting it out to Israel just like He rented it out to the previous tenants, the Amorites (Genesis 15:12-16). Part of the rent that Israel owes God is to let God’s land rest every seventh year and for Israel to just eat what they can glean. The Israelites are simply His tenants and when they don’t take care of God’s land the way He asks them to take care of His land; when they don’t pay this rent, the scriptures tells us -Leviticus 26:33-35- that God will evict Israel from the land and the prophet Jeremiah confirms that indeed He did evict them, just like He evicted their predecessors (Genesis 15:12-16). 2 Chronicles 36:20-21 records: “He carried into exile to Babylon the remnant…The land enjoyed its Sabbath rests; all the time of its desolation it rested, … in fulfilment of the word of the LORD spoken by Jeremiah”

God, as His rent, wants Israel to trust Him. He wants us to trust Him. Everything in creation belongs to God. In Leviticus 25:25-55, it records that the Israelites are to trust God and that they are not to sell God’s land because it is not theirs to sell. It records that they are not to sell each other into slavery because even they do not belong to themselves; they belong to the Lord. If people do wind up selling themselves or their land, in the fiftieth year the people and the land is to return. The land is to return to the family that God personally chose through sacred lot to manage His land for Him (Number 26:55, 33:54, 34:13, 36:2; Joshua 18, 19:2). In that regard, any sale of property was to be more like a term rental agreement. For an ancient Israelite to sell his property would be like if you were a tenant farmer and/or renting a house in town and then when the owner was out of the province, you decided to try to sell his house. You can’t do that.

Now we remember what we were saying about Verses 1-7 and the Sabbatical year. There is even more to this and in Leviticus 25:23b the Lord reminds us that “the land is Mine and you are but aliens [strangers] and My tenants.” Verses 8-22 remind us that you are not to plant or harvest anything in the 7^th year and that you are to trust God to provide for you but one is also not allowed to plant or harvest anything in the 14^th, 21^st, 28^th, 35^th, 42^nd, or 49^th year, … and it also records that in every 50^th year you are not supposed to plant or harvest anything because it is the year of Jubilee.[9] God says this is our rent to Him. We are just tenants and if we don’t trust Him enough to pay the rent, He’ll kick us off the land and give it to someone else. In verse 20-22 is recorded

 “You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in.”

This is the key to it. They need to trust God. We need to trust God. Leviticus 25:23b: the Lord says, “the land is Mine and you are but aliens [strangers] and My tenants.” Everything belongs to God. We are not paying Him out of our abundance; He is providing for us out of His abundance. Do you see the difference?

I saw a comic once. I think it was a Family Circus comic. A child was looking at a bill in the restaurant and asked, “Daddy, why do you give the waiter 15% but you only give God 10%?”

Do we ever do that treat God as if He is our waiter – just tipping Him the 10% minimum that we think we can get away with, or even less in some cases, instead of recognizing Him as our God. God is not our waiter, hoping that we will give Him a 10% tip from our money. God is our landlord demanding His rent and more than that He is our employer expecting us to do our job that we have already been paid to do and more than that He is our father who loves us and as such everything we think we own –like the ancient Israelites and their land – is really His. We are really just managing all that we have and all that we are for God and if we do not do our job as manager, He might just relieve us of our duties like He did with Israel, leading them off to captivity in Babylon (Cf. Luke 19:11-26; Matthew 25:14-30; cf. also TSA doc. 9).

Everything in this world belongs to God. Look outside: that land is not ours; that land belongs to God; we are just looking after it. Look at this building; it is not ours; it belongs to God; we are just looking after it. Think of your job; it is not yours; it belongs to God; you should be doing it as if you are doing it for Him (Colossians 3:23). Think of your home; it is not yours; it belongs to God; you are just looking after it, managing it for him. Think of even your beautiful wife or your intelligent husband: your marriages also do not belong just to you, they belong to God; you are just looking after them. Everything in this world belongs to God. We are just managers, we are just stewards of it. Leviticus 25:23b: God says, “the land is Mine and you are but aliens [strangers] and My tenants.” Everything belongs to God. This is why in the Old Testament people were asked to let the land lie fallow every 7^th and 50^th year and this is why they were asked to not work on every 7^th day. This is why we are asked to love God and to love our neighbours as ourselves (Luke 10:27, cf. Leviticus 19:18, Deuteronomy 6:5, Matthew 5:43). Because, as God reminds us “the land is Mine and you are but aliens [strangers] and My tenants.”

Everything belongs to God. Reading from Luke 18:18-23:

A certain ruler asked him, “Good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“Why do you call me good?” Jesus answered. “No one is good—except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not commit adultery, do not murder, do not steal, do not give false testimony, honour your father and mother.’”

 “All these I have kept since I was a boy,” he said.

When Jesus heard this, he said to him, “You still lack one thing. Sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”

When he heard this, he became very sad, because he was a man of great wealth.

God says, “the land is Mine and you are but aliens [strangers] and My tenants.” Don’t just tip God a ten percent gratuity for the life He provides you like it is some meal at a restaurant that you paid for. He paid the price, not you. Give God 100% control of your money; Give God 100% control of your time and give God 100% control of your talents. He deserves nothing less.

Luke 12:22-34:

Then Jesus said to his disciples: “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food, and the body more than clothes. Consider the ravens: They do not sow or reap, they have no storeroom or barn; yet God feeds them. And how much more valuable you are than birds!  Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?  Since you cannot do this very little thing, why do you worry about the rest?

 “Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these.  If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, you of little faith!  And do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink; do not worry about it. For the pagan world runs after all such things, and your Father knows that you need them But seek his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well.

“Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor. Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In summary, the land is God’s and we are but aliens [strangers] and His tenants; so let us not get tricked into merely tipping God. Don’t only give Him 10% of your finances; don’t only give Him 10% of your time; don’t only give Him 10% of your talents; don’t only give Him 10% of your life. Give God 100% of your life. He wants it all.

Let us pray.

www.sheepspeak.com

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[1] 1) The first 10% of your income, see Leviticus 27:30-32. Numbers 18:21-28, Deuteronomy 12:6- 17, Deuteronomy 14:22-28, Deuteronomy 26:1,12, 2 Chronicles 31:5-12, Nehemiah 10:37-38, 12:44, 13:5-12, Amos 4:4, Malachi 3:8, 3:10; 2) It doesn’t 3) All of it, see Matthew 19:20-21, Mark 10:21-24, Luke 18:22, Acts 2:42-47.

[2] Cf. Captain Michael Ramsay, “How much of my income belongs to God?” Nipawin Journal. (May, 2009). Available online: http://renewnetwork.blogspot.ca/2009_05_01_archive.html#1627607693776242163

[3] F. Ross Kinsler, “Leviticus 25.” Interpretation 53, no. 4 (October 1, 1999): 395-399. ATLASerials, Religion Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed May 18, 2012). P. 396

[4] R. Laird Harris, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Leviticus/Exposition of Leviticus/IX. Laws of Land Use (25:1-55), Book Version: 4.0.2

[5] R. Laird Harris, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Leviticus/Exposition of Leviticus/IX. Laws of Land Use (25:1-55)/A. The Sabbatical Year (25:1-7), Book Version: 4.0.2

[6] Cf. R. K. Harrison, Leviticus: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1980 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 3), S. 226

[7] Cf. F Ross Kinsler, “Leviticus 25.” Interpretation 53, no. 4 (October 1, 1999): 395-399. ATLASerials, Religion Collection, EBSCOhost (accessed May 18, 2012). P. 396.

[8] Cf. Michael Ramsay, Leviticus 25 1-23 in the Context of the Holiness Code: The Land Shall Observe a Sabbath, presented to William and Catherine Booth College (Fall 2006). Available on-line: http://www.sheepspeak.com./OT_Michael_Ramsay.htm#Leviticus 25 1-23

[9] Cf. John E. Hartley, “Leviticus,” in Word Bible Commentary, Volume 4, eds. David A. Hubbard and Glenn W. Barker. (Dallas Texas: Word Books, 1992), 422

Jonah 1:1-3: Everything Is Under Control

Presented to Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 06 May 2012 and Alberni Valley Ministries, 22 October 2023. By Captain (Major) Michael Ramsay.

This is the original to view the later abridged version, click here: https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2023/10/jonah-1-everything-is-under-control.html

I must admit that I am a fan of Leo Tolstoy, both his epic novels like War and Peace (probably my all-time favourite book) and Anna Karenina but also some of his religious writings like Confession. I have some quotes to share today from Tolstoy:

q       Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

q       All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

q       It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.

q       Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority shares in it.

q       If you want to be happy, be [happy].

Here are a couple more quotes by Tolstoy and others as well:

q       Tolstoy: To get rid of an enemy one must love him.

q       Shakespeare: An overflow of good converts to bad.

q       Tolstoy: Shakespeare is repulsive and tedious

q       Tolstoy: God is the same everywhere.

q       Nietzsche: God is dead

q       Tolstoy: Nietzsche [is] stupid and abnormal

q       History: God is alive; Nietzsche is dead.

Of the aforementioned quotes the one that most fits with one of the major themes of Jonah is Tolstoy’s, “To get rid of an enemy one must love him.” Next week we will look more directly at the theme of God’s grace in the book of Jonah. This week we are going to look at God’s sovereignty as portrayed especially in the first 2 chapters of Jonah.[1] We cannot thwart God (cf. TSA docs 6&7). Jonah 1:1-3:

The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.

Picture this: God has told His prophet Jonah to go and do something. God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh but Jonah – to get away – runs to the sea and gets on a boat. Nineveh is landlocked. That is like if, when we were living in Vancouver, God calls Susan the girls and I to Saskatchewan and we jump on a ferryboat to Japan. This isn’t just saying were not going to go. This is running in the opposite direction. If we look at the map here, we will notice that Jonah runs to the sea and hops on a ship to get as far away from Nineveh as he possibly can, to the opposite end of the Mediterranean Sea.[2]

God is good though. He still has everything under control. Jonah isn’t more powerful than God. He can’t thwart God’s salvation (cf. TSA doc. 6). Verses 4-7:

Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” Then the sailors said to each other, “Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity.” They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah.

Jonah hops on the boat and he falls asleep. He may even have passed out.[3] I’m from an island in the Pacific, Vancouver Island; has anyone here ever been out on the open ocean? Even if you don’t get caught in a storm, it can be really something. You know those little anti-seasickness patches that people put behind their ears? You may have noticed them: sometimes people put them on when they are flying on an aero plane so that they don’t get sick. They didn’t have those back then in the 8^th Century BCE. And in all likelihood Jonah had never been on a sea-going vessel before.[4] And the seas are so bad now in our text that even the experienced crew is afraid. They are scared for their lives. They are scared to death. They are tossing everything overboard that they don’t absolutely need. Jonah isn’t. Jonah is sleeping. Jonah is beneath deck. Jonah isn’t helping at all and this is an ‘all hands on deck’ situation. Everyone is working and everyone is praying – most of these people would probably be praying to the Phoenician gods but if any of the crew is from elsewhere they would be calling on their gods too.[5] You’ve heard the expression, ‘no one is an atheist in a foxhole’ – this may not be true but this is certainly one of those 'foxhole' type situations. Everyone is praying. Everyone is working, everyone except Jonah. The Captain himself comes and finds Jonah and says, “How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish.” Presumably Jonah does do this but maybe he doesn’t. Either way God is good. He still has everything under control. Jonah isn’t more powerful than God. He can’t thwart God’s salvation here.

The people pray to their gods and roll the holy dice; they cast the sacred lots to try to figure out why all of this is happening: whose fault is it? And guess who the lot names? The lot names Jonah. You don’t think that is a coincidence do you? The sailors don’t; Jonah doesn’t. God reveals to everyone present who and what the problem is. God is good. He still has everything under control. Jonah isn’t more powerful than God. He can’t thwart God’s salvation. The pagans on this boat, however, who do not yet know the LORD, are no less afraid. Verse 8-11:

So they asked him, “Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?”

   He answered, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”

   This terrified them and they asked, “What have you done?” (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.) The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?”

These people are worried. These people may even be a little bit angry. God has revealed to them through the lot and Jonah has confirmed to them through a confession, that he is to blame because Jonah is blatantly defying God. Jonah has told them that he is intentionally doing the opposite of what God has told him to do. Even though Jonah knows God, even though Jonah has served God, even though Jonah has worked for LORD as a prophet of God, God gives him this assignment and Jonah says in effect, “No, I quit!” Can you imagine?

Can you imagine if you are a non-unionized worker and your boss, your employer gives you an important task to do and you just say, “No thanks I think I’ll take my holidays instead”? Can you imagine if you are a courier and your boss gives you this package and says, “You need to get this package to Regina in 3 hours or everyone will die”? Can you imagine then if instead of driving to Regina you hop on the next Greyhound bus to Medicine Hat (in the opposite direction). This is in essence what Jonah is doing.

God is good though. He still has everything under control. Jonah isn’t more powerful than God. He can’t thwart God’s salvation but this is in essence what Jonah is attempting here. He doesn’t want any part of pointing the Ninevites to salvation. The boat -and all of the people on it- it is being tossed around in the storm and people are franticly praying and working to keep it afloat. They are terrified. They ask of Jonah, “What have you done?” The sea is getting rougher and rougher. They ask him, “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?” They are terrified but God is good though. He still has everything under control. Jonah isn’t more powerful than God. He can’t thwart God’s salvation, neither for the sailors nor for the Ninevites. Though that doesn’t necessarily stop the sailors from worrying, nor does it necessarily stop Jonah from trying to quit his job, from trying to shirk his responsibilities, from trying to avoid at all costs his God-given mission. Verses 12-15a:

“Pick me up and throw me into the sea,” he replied, “and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.  

   Then they cried to the LORD, “O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man’s life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased.”  Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard…

Now there are a couple of things worth remembering here. What is the task, the job that God has given Jonah to do? He has told Jonah to go to Nineveh. What does Jonah do in response? He so much doesn’t want to do this job that he runs in the opposite direction. Now, imagine this scene that we are looking at here. Everyone with Jonah asks him, “Since you are responsible for this calamity by not obeying God, what can we do?”

“Kill me” is basically Jonah’s answer when he tells them to throw him overboard. Jonah, if he is anything like most Israelites of his day and age, Jonah can’t swim. Israel is not a seafaring country.  Again, I grew up on Vancouver Island. I am a kayaker and I am a certified SCUBA diver. Susan was a certified lifeguard and I don’t imagine that either of us could and I know that neither of us would want to have to try to swim for safety through a storm of this magnitude and Jonah, in all probability, can’t even swim. The strangers on the boat are asking what they should do to appease his God and Jonah says, “You should kill me.” Now, God is good though. He still has everything under control. Jonah isn’t more powerful than God. He can’t thwart God’s salvation.

This doesn’t stop Jonah’s request for the sailors to throw him overboard though. Jonah knows very well that God generally discourages human sacrifice (which is basicallly what this would be).[6] At some points in the Bible it even says that God hates human sacrifice (Leviticus 18:21, 20:1-5; Deuteronomy 12:31; 2 Kings 23:10; Jeremiah 7:31-32, 19:5-6; Ezekiel 16:20-21, 20:31). Jonah would know this. Jonah, who has been born and raised as a child of God; Jonah, who knows the Lord; Jonah, who knows the scriptures; Jonah, even in the midst of this terrible storm with all these other people’s lives on the line; Jonah, I submit, is still here intentionally defying the living God![7] God has told Jonah to go to Nineveh and Jonah hates this commission so much, Jonah hates the idea that God would use him to save the Ninevites so much that Jonah would rather die than do what God has told him to do. Can you imagine? Now, God is good though. He still has everything under control. Jonah isn’t more powerful than God. He can’t thwart God’s salvation but can you imagine?

This past weekend, many of you know that when we were in Winnipeg for Susan’s convocation, Heather, our baby, had a full seizure. It wasn’t just a little one. She was sleeping in my arms in a pew with Rebecca and Sarah-Grace beside us near the back of the church. All of a sudden she starts shaking for about a minute or more. Her eyes roll back in her head. I grab her and head to the door of the church where I know the ushers will be and I tell my older daughters to come with me. They come with me but not too close; they are scared. I ask one person specifically to get a nurse or a doctor from the congregation; I ask another person specifically –twice- to call us an ambulance. I even hand her my phone. She refuses. She refuses to call for help. I have never seen anything quite like this before. My baby is turning blue and she doesn’t call for help. She even hands me my phone back. Now, I imagine that she panicked; however, at the same time as she is not calling the ambulance someone else is trying to comfort me by telling me not to worry but I am looking down at my baby daughter turning pale; I am looking down at my baby daughter turning blue; I am looking down at my baby daughter gasping for air; I am looking down at my baby daughter unconscious and in those very few seconds it seems like I can’t get this person to even call an ambulance to help her. I can’t tell you the reflexive emotions that were aroused in me as someone –even though I am sure it was just that they were panicking – refused to help someone else in serious need. Now, God is good though. He still has everything under control but picture what I am feeling in that moment.

This must be a similar feeling to what God, the sailors, or even we reading this story centuries later, could have towards Jonah. Here is a man who has been told to help save not only one small child but to bring this news of salvation to a great city of many small children, their brothers, their sisters, their mothers, their fathers, their grandparents, their neighbours; and instead of calling the divine ambulance, Jonah hands the phone back to God, and says, “I’m not going to make the call.” Not only that. Jonah, by asking the sailors to throw him overboard, Jonah says, “I would rather die than to help you save those people, God.” Can you imagine? God’s children in the ancient pagan city of Nineveh are about to die and He asks Jonah to point them to salvation and Jonah says, “I would rather die than help You save them, God.” Now, God is good. He still has everything under control. Jonah isn’t more powerful than God. He can’t thwart God’s salvation.

And in our situation from the other weekend, again I don’t attribute any malice to the person who refused to call the ambulance for us. She was incapable of helping; she panicked: she was useless. The point is that God saved Heather regardless of that girl’s inaction. God provided someone else to call an ambulance; God provided someone with some sort of medical training to be with us; God provided someone to pray with me and for Heather; God provided Dusty and Laurie Sauder to look after our older daughters, Rebecca and Sarah-Grace, while we were in the hospital with our baby; God provided Dr. Burke to make special arrangements even for Susan’s graduation. God provided so many great and caring people in that building and that congregation – including that person who panicked, I am sure – God provided so many great and caring people who prayed for Susan, the girls, and I, and who prayed for Heather’s salvation in the here and now.

As God provided for Heather, so God provided also for the pagan sailors on that ship in that storm on that day in our text and, as we will see next week, God also provided for those many small children in the great big city of Nineveh as well. Verses 15-17:

Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him. But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.

God saved the sailors. The raging sea grew calm and they were saved and there is more than that to this here as well. You will notice that it says that these men, the sailors, greatly feared the LORD. The word LORD is written all in capital letters. Whenever you see LORD written like this in English, in Hebrew it is YHWH; the tetragrammaton; YHWH; it is God’s Devine name. These sailors aren’t praising the same false gods at the end of this adventure that they were at the beginning. They are now praising YHWH, the one true God: the God of heaven and the God of earth. They are saved and they are praising the LORD. God saved the sailors.

God also saved Jonah but God did not save Jonah from doing the work that Jonah is supposed to do. Jonah still has to deliver God’s message of salvation to the children of Nineveh. You could even say that when He sent the giant fish, God didn’t let Jonah of the hook. The fish, unlike Jonah, swallowed his responsibilities hook, line, and sinker.

In Chapter 2 then - we won’t read all again now - Jonah prays to God for salvation. Jonah, like the sailors now, Jonah knows that salvation is from the LORD. He prays for salvation and salvation he gets. Jonah 2:10-3:3a records this:

And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

   Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh.

God did not give up on Nineveh. God did not give up on the sailors. God did not give up on Jonah and God will not give up on us. As bad as everything can get in our lives: when the storms kick up, when everyone around us seems to be panicking, when it looks like all those who are around us are going to perish, when we are caught in the midst of trouble, God is good. He still has everything under control. We aren’t more powerful than God. We can’t thwart God’s provided salvation.  Even after maybe we have disobeyed or even defied God like Jonah did in today’s story - as long as we still have breath in our body there is still time for us to repent, there is still time for us to turn, there is still time for us to dial that phone of Salvation which Christ provided between the cross and the empty tomb (cf. TSA docs 6&7). As long as we have breath in our body, even if thus far we have turned and run the opposite direction from God, as long as we have breath in our body, we can still repent, we can still return to Him and we can still be a part of His salvation both now and forever more.

Let us pray.

http://www.sheepspeak.com/

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[1] R.B.Y. Scott, "The Sign of Jonah: An Interpretation," Interpretation: a Journal of Bible and Theology Vol. 19 no. 1, ed. Balmer H. Kelly (Union Theological Seminary: Virginia, January 1965): 16. Identifies three thematic movements in Jonah of which God’s sovereignty is the first.

[2] Donald J. Wiseman, T. Desmond Alexander, and Bruce K Waltke: Obadiah, Jonah and Micah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1988 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 26), S. 65

[3] H. L. Ellison, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM: Jonah/Exposition of Jonah/I. The Disobedient Prophet (1:1-2:10)/B. The Storm (1:4-6), Book Version: 4.0.2

[4]  H. L. Ellison, Pradis The Expositor's Bible Commentary, CD-ROM: Jonah/Exposition of Jonah/I. The Disobedient Prophet (1:1-2:10)/C. Jonah's Responsibility (1:7-10), Book Version: 4.0.2

[5] H. L. Ellison, Pradis The Expositor's Bible Commentary, CD-ROM: Jonah/Exposition of Jonah/I. The Disobedient Prophet (1:1-2:10)/ B. The Storm (1:4-6), Book Version: 4.0.2

[6] R.B.Y. Scott, "The Sign of Jonah: An Interpretation," Interpretation: a Journal of Bible and Theology, Vol. 19 no. 1, ed. Balmer H. Kelly (Union Theological Seminary: Virginia, January 1965): 16.

[7] cf. Donald J. Wiseman, T. Desmond Alexander, and Bruce K Waltke: Obadiah, Jonah and Micah: An Introduction and Commentary. Downers Grove, IL : InterVarsity Press, 1988 (Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries 26), S.

Proverbs 1:7, 9:10: Yir’ah, The Fear of the LORD.

Presented to the Nipawin Corps 17 May 2009
the Swift Current Corps of The Salvation Army, 27 May 2012

and The Salvation Army Alberni Valley Ministries, 15 May 2022
by Captain Michael Ramsay

This is the original version. To view the 2022 version, please click here:  https://sheepspeaks.blogspot.com/2022/05/proverbs-17-910-yirah-fear-of-lord.html
 
 This week – for those of us who have been reading through the Bible together as a community – we started on the book of Proverbs. As I was considering these readings, I ran across a number of more or less contemporary proverbs about optimists and pessimists:

– In the long run the pessimist may be proved right, but the optimist has a better time on the trip. ~Daniel L. Reardon

– Pessimist: One who, when he has the choice of two evils, chooses both. ~Oscar Wilde

– Both optimists and pessimists contribute to our society. The optimist invents the airplane and the pessimist the parachute. ~Gil Stern

– An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves. ~Bill Vaughan

– Always borrow money from a pessimist, he doesn't expect to be paid back. ~Author Unknown[1]

My favourite: This is more of a definition than a proverb actually but both Susan and Rebecca read this quote to me in the past couple of weeks so I thought that I would share this from Lemony Snicket:

– An Optimist is a word which here refers to a person…who thinks hopeful and pleasant thoughts about nearly everything. If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right-handed or left-handed," but most of us would say something more along the lines of "Aaaaah! My arm! My arm!" ~Lemony Snicket[2]

A proverb is a wise saying with instructions for living an effective life. The book of Proverbs – along with Job, Psalms, and some apocryphal books (Wisdom, Sirach) – are classified as wisdom literature. Wisdom literature offers insights for living while pondering the difficulties of life. Proverbs are characterized by short, memorable statements that reflect the world as we know it, as well as the relationship between God and people.[3]

It is significant that proverbs use the divine of God (YHWH), the tetragrammaton, or other such names (ie. Elohim) which specify the LORD, the maker of the heavens and earth.[4] The writer of these proverbs and the writers of all the wisdom literature have no doubt that indeed, as Doctrine 2 of TSA affirms, ‘there is only one God, who is infinitely perfect, the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of all things, and who is the only proper object of religious worship.’[5] And the compiler, the teacher of proverbs often contrasts the wisdom of following God to the folly of following our own will or of following generally bad counsel that does not display reverence for our Lord.

Proverbs do not pretend to represent a systematic theology; a proverb rather ‘imagines the moral life as presenting two ways, each with an intrinsic dynamism.’[6] There is no separation of Church and State. No matter what we tell ourselves, in reality there is no separation between the sacred and the secular realm.[7] Proverbs champions the truth, with many different examples, that people have very real choices in life but they all boil down to this: either we follow God and live or we can follow ourselves or anyone else for that matter and die (Cf. also Deut. 30:11-20, Judges 21:25, Ps 56:13, Prov 11:19, 13:14, 14:27, 18:21, Jer 21:8, John 5:24, Rom 2:1-16, 6:13, 1 John 3:14).[8]

The theme of Proverbs can be summed up in Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10 (Cf. Job 28:28, Ps 111:10, Eccl 12:13).[9] Proverbs 1:7: ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and discipline.’

Before we can be wise (Prov 9:10), before we can have any real knowledge (Prov 1:7) about the way the world works we need to fear the Lord.[10] The beginning of any understanding in this world is a fear of God. Well what does that mean? What does it mean to have the fear of the LORD’?

Does it mean to panic? Does it mean to be timid? No. It is different. To be timid is to cower. To be timid is like…have you ever seen an abused animal who has been terrorized? She pulls back as soon as you reach out your arm. Like the battered spouse, the timid person is walking on eggshells at all times. This concept shows up in scriptures in the book of Timothy, where Paul tells us that this timidity (Greek: deilia) is not from God. Timidity is not the beginning of wisdom. [11]

The timid person is like the person in the parable of the talents that the servants were given. Remember that parable that Jesus tells (Matt. 25, cf. Luke 19)? The king gives three people talents (money). The third one is so afraid (Greek: phobeo) that he does not even invest his talents. He is paralyzed with fear. This timidity creates what the Apostle Paul calls in Romans 8:15, ‘a spirit of bondage’, like a phobia. In Romans 8:15 (like Matt 25:35), the Greek word Paul uses is actually ‘phobos’ – from which we derive the word ‘phobia’, and this as we know refers to an irrational fear.[12] This kind of irrational fear is not the beginning of wisdom. It is not from God: phobia. A spirit of timidity (deilia) Paul tells us in 2 Timothy 1:7, God has not given us; He instead gives us power and love and a sound mind. Sometimes even we Christians forget this.

Many –but not all- Christians believe in the so-called ‘rapture’. (The word is not mentioned in the Bible at all actually.) The idea behind the rapture is that at some point in time, God will snatch up either those He loves (the more popular belief) or those He hates (a less popular belief) and leave the rest behind. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins have a popular book series entitled, ‘Left Behind’[13] that I believe follows the fictional lives of characters who were indeed left behind. Now there may be merit to the idea of the rapture and I am certainly not arguing against it here[14] but I have heard of people and denominations that concentrate so much on the rapture that they actually paralyze people with fear, creating phobias and timidity.

We had a professor at College (William and Catherine Booth College) who was raised in that phobia-producing kind of church environment and he tells us that one night (I think when he was a young adult) he heard a car horn or a train whistle and he woke up in absolute terror. He was so frightened that that sound was the trumpet of the Lord and that he had missed the rapture: he wasn’t chosen. He was left behind. He was terrified that he might have been left behind.

Last week I met a friend when I was walking to church. He told me a similar story. He was raised in a similar type of phobia-producing environment. He told me that as a child often he would wake up in the middle of the night and walk or run to his parents’ room, dread-filled, terrified that maybe they were raptured and he was left behind. Phobias, timidity and this panic: these are not representative of the fear of the Lord that Proverbs is talking about. This is a terror that people, often well-meaning people (sometimes unintentionally) put into the minds of innocent souls.

That being said, the word for fear here in Proverbs 1:7 and 9:10 is not totally absent of the concept of a terror of sorts. The Hebrew word is yir'ah – Allen P. Ross tells us that, “The term yir'ah can describe dread (Deut 1:29), being terrified (Jonah 1:10), standing in awe (1 Kings 3:28), or having reverence (Lev 19:3). With the Lord as the object, yir'ah captures both aspects of shrinking back in fear and of drawing close in awe. It is not a trembling dread that paralyzes action, but neither is it a polite reverence (Plaut, p. 32).”[15]

Strong’s dictionary and concordance both define yir'ah as this ‘fear’ or ‘moral reverence’ acknowledging that yir'ah encompasses more than that – it can refer to a sense of moral dread or even of an exceeding moral fearfulness.[16] What does this mean? What is the difference between this reverent, moral fearfulness that leads to knowledge or wisdom and the fearful, panic-stricken, timid phobia that leads to cowering?

We are all familiar with the word ‘deference’, right? Deference means respect. People often have a certain amount of deference (respect) for our uniforms. I have had many people alter their language and try not to swear in my presence because of my uniform that represents my office as a representative of God. Even non-believers tend to offer this token of deference to The Salvation Army uniform.

In many other countries or in private or still in some public schools here, students generally have a certain amount of deference for their teachers. They respect their authority. They seem to be a little less likely to speak out than children in most North American public school systems. I remember once when I was working at an international private school, there was this joke among the staff. It went like this: ‘How do you get a visiting private school student to be quiet?’ The answer: ‘You ask them to be quiet… please.’ This is respect.

I have witnessed deference firsthand in courtrooms too. You would be surprised at how quickly a person removes his hat or turns off her cell phone with just one sideways glance from that judge. I have seen people talking big outside the courtroom and then a moment later I have seen them inside bowing quickly to the authority and power of the courts. I have seen even your most law-abiding citizens who are not in the court on charges but simply there to assist someone else – I have seen people who know the judge quite well – when they are addressed by the judge, immediately defer to her position. This deference is not entirely without fear. Our courtrooms are probably one of the best parallels to the emotions that accompany yir'ah in contemporary western society.

I have a personal example of that same idea too. I have mentioned from this pulpit before that I regularly attend an AA group here in town. The Lord has ministered greatly to me through that. Now like most participants in an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, I have a past that involves alcohol and not just a little alcohol.

I remember my late teens. I was at a party at a friend’s apartment and I was drinking quite a bit. It was late. Most of the people had gone home but a few of us remained. Things went bad. (This is actually a long story but I will give you the Coles Notes version.) A friend and her boyfriend started fighting and when I say fighting, I don’t mean that they were just yelling at each other. She was hitting him quite hard and repeatedly and then he struck her with a violent punch. He gave her a black eye. Other than them, I was the only one there who wasn’t passed out. I pushed him out on the tenth storey balcony with me and I locked the door behind us so that she would be separated from him. I did not want to be in the middle of this. Well, I thought that I had locked the sliding balcony door but next thing I know she comes through the door and attacks him and in the ensuing scuffle, I am knocked off the tenth floor balcony. Literally, I am dangling by my fingertips. I am just hanging there as they are fighting, trying to kill each other. Now I am a believer. I have been a Christian since I was a child. But I have had way too much to drink and I am dangling from this balcony. I remember. I pray. I pray ‘God, please don’t let me meet you like this’ – what I mean is ‘God, please don’t let me die in this state;’ ‘God, please don’t let my last act at this time on earth be something so unglorifying to you.’ He answered my prayer obviously and saved my life as I climbed back onto the balcony and into the apartment with my friends and I sobered up and He used even me in that time and place to minister to my friends and I still pray for them whenever I recall this event.

In that moment when I am dangling over the edge of the balcony and coming before the LORD in prayer, I have the fear of the Lord. I have a moral, dreadful fear of the LORD. I am not afraid that He is going to punish me because I was bad. I am not afraid that I am going to go to hell. (I am after all in a real relationship with the Lord.) I do have that moral dreadful fear of the LORD though that I – in this moment, in this state – am letting my saviour down. I am not living up to my heavenly potential. I am not holy as I could have been holy. I am in the process of falling short. When the Lord saves me, He lets me hold onto not only the memory of these events but also the real memory of the moral, dreadful fear of the Lord. From that experience, I am able to learn so much. I no longer find myself drinking too much and dangling from balconies nor am I committing other such errors. I have grown in knowledge and wisdom from the fear of the LORD. This experience of the fear of the Lord has been with me before and since in my life but this moment is probably my most intense. It is one example of the fear of the Lord that I may always remember.

When we love someone we don’t want to fail him or her. When we serve someone we don’t want to let him or her down. When we love and serve someone we want to do everything we can for them because we love them. It is this fear of the Lord that keeps us holy. It is this fear of the Lord that causes us to follow the rest of the wisdom put forth in the book of Proverbs and the other wisdom books in the Bible. It is this love, this respect, this fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom for only when we have this real love for the Lord, this real intense desire to serve Him, it is only from this real love for and deference to the loving and the only real God, that we can possibly be wise enough to serve Him. If we want to be wise it must begin here. It must begin with an intense love for the Lord. Deference and, Prov 9:10: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, …”

What is wisdom then? What is this knowledge that is contrasted with a lack of wisdom? What is it? It is this. It is how to survive in this world. It is an understanding of how the world works. The Bible and Proverbs are not books of do’s and don’ts randomly generated to organise a society or to earn our way into heaven. The ‘Scriptures… were given by inspiration of God, and…they only constitute the Divine rule of Christian faith and practice.’[17] The Scriptures explain to us the mystery of how and why the world works. The more we read them the more we know about God, just like the more time we spend with God, praying and reading His Word, the more we know Him.

As we read through Proverbs, we will notice that indeed each proverb is a brief glimpse into the reality that is our life. These are words to live by as is the whole canon of Scripture but we can only understand that when we really do love the LORD with all our heart, mind, body, and soul, when we love our neighbour as ourselves (Lk. 10:17; cf. Dt. 6:5, 11:13, 30:16, 30:20) and when we honestly do have a healthy deference, yir'ah, a fear of the LORD, because the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom.

Amen.

http://www.sheepspeak.com/

 

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[1] The Quote Garden! Quotations about Optimism and Pessimism: http://www.quotegarden.com/optimism.html Cited 03 May 2009.
[2] Lemony Snicket, A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Miserable Mill. (New York, NY: Scholastic, 2000), 26-27.
[3] Cf. DA Hubbard, ‘Wisdom Literature’, NDB, p. 1334
[4] Richard J. Clifford, NIB V: Proverbs-Sirach, ‘Introduction to Wisdom Literature’ (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1997), p. 9.
[5] Doctrine 2 of The Salvation Army.
[6] Richard J. Clifford, NIB V: Proverbs-Sirach, ‘Introduction to Wisdom Literature’ (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1997), p.12.
[7] Raymond C. Van Leeuwen, NIB V: Proverbs-Sirach, ‘The Book of Proverbs’, (Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1997), p.34.
[8] Cf. also. Michael Ramsay, ‘Paul and the Human Condition as reflected in Romans 1:18-32 and 2:1-16’. Presented to William and Catherine Booth College (Winter 2007). Available on-line: http://www.sheepspeak.com/NT_Michael_Ramsay.htm#Paul%20and%20the%20Human%20Condition
[9] Derek Kidner. An Introduction to Wisdom Literature: The Wisdom of Proverbs, Job & Ecclesiastes, (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1985), p. 17.
[10]Warren E. Berkley, Expository Files 4.9 (September 1997), available on-line: http://www.bible.ca/ef/expository-proverbs-1-7.htm: You must carefully consider the context in order to assign the proper meaning to the word. It is one of those words that is context sensitive. So, the "fear" we are concerned with in Prov. 1:7 is not identical to the "fear" of Rom. 8:15 or 2 Tim. 1:7.
[11] Cf. The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. ‘1167: deilia’ (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1995), p.20.
[12] Cf. The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. ‘5401: phobos’ (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1995), p.96.
[13] Tim F. Lahaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, Left Behind (Cambridge, UK: Tyndale House Publishing, 1996).
[14] But I will argue against it here: Michael Ramsay, The Sheepspeak Commentary. Farewell to the Rapture! March 19, 2009. Available on-line: http://renewnetwork.blogspot.com/2009_03_01_archive.html#1407993155574202234 Cf. also N.T. Wright, Farewell to the Rapture! Bible Review, August 2001. Available on-line at: http://www.ntwrightpage.com/Wright_BR_Farewell_Rapture.htm
[15] Allen P. Ross, The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Pradis CD-ROM:Proverbs/Exposition of Proverbs/I. Introduction to the Book of Proverbs (1:1-7)/C. Motto: The Fear of the Lord (1:7), Book Version: 4.0.2
[16] Yirah, in The New Strong’s Complete Dictionary of Bible Words. (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1966), p. 395. Cf. also Cf. The New Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible. ‘5374: yir’ah’ (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishing, 1995), p.59.
[17] Doctrine 1 of The Salvation Army