SPECIAL PRÉCIS ON YAH’S PROMISE OF PROTECTION: HAVING GOD’S COURAGE TO TAKE OUR STAND IN THE EVIL DAY

SCRIPTURE. “For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘He sent Me after glory, to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye. For surely I will shake My hand against them, and they shall become spoil for their servants. Then you will know that the Lord of hosts has sent Me.’” – ZECHARIAH 2:8-9, NKJV

KEY TERM: “I WILL SHAKE!” ‘Nuph’ [מֵנִ֤יף]: “A primitive root with many applications. In this context: ‘To quiver, vibrate up and down; to rock to and fro; to shake or sift, or make rain fall upon (in retribution).’” NOTE: “‘Outside cultic contexts,נוּף depicts the dramatic brandishing of a hand, staff, or banner’ – ‘Wave your hand for them to enter the gates of the nobles’ (Isaiah 13:2). ‘He will shake his fist at the mount of Daughter Zion’ (Isaiah 10:32). ‘The Egyptians will tremble before the uplifted hand that the LORD of Hosts raises against them’ (Isaiah 19:16). ‘The same verb, once expressing priestly blessing, now portrays Divine Judgment or Military Threat—underscoring that the God who receives worship also rules the nations [and tribes]!’”

QUOTATION. “‘God’s Wrath, properly, is an aspect of his Love:’ It is because God loves human beings with a steady, unquenchable passion that He hated Apartheid, that He hates torture and cluster bombs, that He loathes slavery, that His Wrath is relentless against the rich who oppress the poor. If God was not wrathful against these and so many other distortions of our human vocation, He is not loving. And it is His Love, determining to deal with that nasty, insidious, vicious, soul-destroying Evil, that causes Him to send his only, special Son.” ― N.T. WRIGHT,  Lent for Everyone: Mark Year B, 2012; edited

COMMENTARY. “‘Believers are precious to God (Psalm 116:15); they are His very own children (Psalm 103:13). Treating any believer unkindly is the same as treating God that way.’ As Jesus told His disciples, when we are helping others we are helping Him; when we neglect or abuse them, we are neglecting or abusing Him (Matthew 25:34-46).

‘BE CAREFUL how you treat fellow believers because that is how you are actually treating Jesus!’” – RONALD A. BEERS, General Editor, Life Application Study Bible, 2022, p. 2017; edited

DK’S TAKE. I have written before of my disrespect for an American Christianity that presumes to ‘Be Polite’ at all costs on all occasions to all people, regardless of their character or their actions. If that were true, Jesus Christ many times violated His own Gospel!

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’

Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt. Serpents, broodof vipers! How can you escape the condemnation of hell? Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.

Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”

Do I have anyone’s attention here, anyone at all? Pastors?

SHATTERING SHILBBOLETHS. Now according to what I have been taught for decades in Church, I would ‘normally’ just pray that God forgives and blesses the Oppressor, and ask that He would make all things right, gently, gently, gently, of course.

However, I now take a different view of the Scriptures, especially when a Chistian Leader or presumed Follower of Christ is attacking Jesus, or His Gospel, or attacking my family, a loved one, or even a stranger under assault.

Case in Point. At a favorite Chick-fil-A restaurant a couple of years ago, I noticed a young man verbally brow-beating a young Christian manager for some reason. As I watched and listened, I then said a prayer that went something like this:

“Lord, this is terrible! Please send someone to help that young lady out, stat!” After a silence of a few seconds with the aggressive beat-down still going on, I sensed that Voice that is not a voice say:

“How about you take care of it, son.”

It made of course instant sense, so I rose to approach the young man, got very close to his face and blurted out in my Big Boy Voice: “You’re done!” He was visibly surprised and somewhat stunned, sputtered some incomprehensible words, then walked out while giving me an unmistakable nonverbal signal that he didn’t appreciate me very much.

IMPRECATION. Expressions and Prayers of Self-Defense or Defense of God’s Truth or for a Victim of an Oppressor is completely in order for those in danger, beloved. Including on behalf of those under the seditious sway of the many False Teachers in our midst in these Days of Antichrist.

We can no longer approach this Last Days Spiritual Battle with kid gloves and soft sermons. No, I tell you! We must ‘Fight as Jesus fought’ when faced with Satan in the Wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11).

Or as PAUL clearly instructed us:

“Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, TO STAND!” – EPHESIANS 6:10-13, NKJV

CODA. You feeling me, boys and girls? Because if you aren’t, you’ll end up as shredded wheat on the bottom of today’s many Battlefields. ‘Standing up to Bullies and Liars is among the things True Christians ought to be about.’

Otherwise, we end up Bowing Low to the many Enemies of Christ that we find even inside the deepest recesses of God’s own Sanctuaries, beloved.

JESUS NEVER DID! Nor should we.