SLACK
“The Lord is not slack
concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward,
not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to
repentance.” II Peter 3:9
In one of the “Back to the Future” films, the
headmaster uses the word, “slacker” to describe a pupil that is slow or not
performing well. This is the meaning of
this Bible word! However, the word is used in this verse is a very different
way. The pupil in “Back to the Future”
was slow! He was under-performing due to
his lack of intelligence. God, on the
other hand, is not slack – not slow or lacking in intelligence – not
under-performing – especially when it comes to his promises.
He is not slack, as men think of
slackness. He is tarrying on
purpose. That is the difference. God is allowing time for men to see their
need and come to repentance. Sometimes
it seems that we pray and pray for a loved one and nothing is happening
Godwardly in their lives. But God is
always at work. We might not see it
ourselves, but we can trust that His will is that none perish, so He is always
working toward the goal of drawing men and women to Himself.
Sometimes we might be tempted to believe that
God has forgotten where we are, that all of the prophecies we read in His Word
are but stories – fables of old that have been long abandoned. But that is not true either. Not one jot or tittle of God’s Word will fail
– all will be accomplished, but in His time, under His control, and He will not
tarry when that time has come.
Maybe the truth of the matter is that we are
the slackers! We are the ones who are
slow and under-performing. We are the
doubters, the scoffers, the ones who lose focus and forget that God is longsuffering.
Slackers need to repent……
STUCK
“I have stuck unto thy
testimonies:
O Lord, put me not to
shame.” Psalm 119:31
Stick-to-it-ness
is a real virtue. It demands that you
adhere consistently to a manner of life, an attitude, outlook, or task until
completed, or, maybe a belief or hope in someone or something. God’s Word promises blessing to those who
stick by his Word. (Joshua 1:8, Rev.
1:3, Luke 11:28) The blessings come to
those who not only believe God is right, but also are striving to live lives
according to God’s direction in His Word.
Only
two other times in God’s Word does this word, “stuck”, appear. In I Samuel 26:7 Saul’s spear was stuck in
the ground as he slept, and in Acts 27:41 a boat became stuck on the shore and
was unmoveable.
We
need to plunge ourselves into God’s precepts and stay there. Like the spear for safekeeping, or, as the
boat run aground being unmoveable. It matches up with I Cor. 15:58 “Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye
steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as
ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord.”
The
Psalmist said, “…put me not to shame.” Don’t let me down, Lord; I’ve put all my eggs
in your basket. I trust you to honour
your Word. Throughout the Bible that faithfulness of God’s Word is
declared. In the Gospels, three times it
is written, “Heaven and earth shall pass
away, but my words shall not pass away.”
Matthew 24:35, Mark 13:31, Luke 21:33
God
won’t let us down. He will keep his Word. Our job is to get “stuck” into it and leave
the rest to Him. How are you doing?
STINK
“For
my wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.” Psalm 38:5
The
38th Psalm is a cry from the heart of a man face to face with the
reality of his sinfulness. His emotions
are causing physical reactions; in the third verse he experiences restlessness,
in the fourth he is heavy, in the sixth mourning, in verse eight there is
weakness and turmoil of heart and in verse nine he is groaning. Verse ten reveals heart palpitations and
verse seventeen sorrows, while verse one indicates that he knows he is in a
place of judgment. He cries out, “Lord, rebuke me not in thy wrath: neither
chasten me in thy hot displeasure.”
The reality of sin and the assuredness of chastisement bring about an
attitude of repentance.
He
sees his sin and it stinks. Through his foolishness he has placed himself in a
position of dread and he is repentant.
Kay Arthur wrote, “Sin is independence from God; …when that true poverty
of spirit comes, then righteous mourning will rise up like a wall on its
foundation.” Repentance is a scarce
commodity today. People seem to have
become accustom to the smell of sin.
The
word, “stink”, here in Psalm 38 is the Hebrew word “Ba’ash” which means to be
morally offensive, to smell bad, to be abhorred. So the Psalmist comes before God to seek
forgiveness with a broken heart and in full repentance. He knows the odor of his life choices is not
a sweet smelling savour! Verse eighteen states, “For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.”
Repentance
is absolutely necessary for salvation.
Man must come to the knowledge of the stench of his own sinfulness and
place himself upon the mercy of God.
Repentance is also necessary for the saint. We are not above acting out our own
foolishness and sin. Yet, we are admonished
to keep our lives clean and fragrant through confession and repentance of daily
sins. (I John 1:9)
No
Christian should be a “stinker”. How
about you? Any stinky things in your
life you need to repent of?
SINK
“Deliver me out of the
mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out
of the deep waters.” Psalm 69:14
“Let
me not sink”. Sometimes life gets so
overpowering that we feel we surely cannot face another day with the same
pressures and hazards. Or, we recognize
the challenges before us and see ourselves as inadequate for the task and we
worry that the task will consume us.
Whatever the source of the pressure we feel compelled to cry out for
help “Let me not sink”.
Crying
out is a great thing. Recognizing our
weaknesses or inadequacies is not necessarily detrimental. This is the point from which we can reach out
to the One who can help us, deliver us, and raise us up once again.
The
Psalmist did a lot of crying out, and said that each time, the Lord delivered
him. Psalm 34:6 “This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him out of all
his troubles.” Psalm 120:1 “In my
distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me.”
At
other times we feel the influence and oppression of the sinful world in which
we live trying to pull us under. This is
the mire to which the Psalmist alluded in the 69th Psalm saying it
was filthy, full of hate and running deep.
Like
Pilgrim in the quagmire or Pool of Despond, we too, need to seek to be lifted
out of the filth of the world unto greater sanctification and holiness of
life. We need our garments cleansed by
repentance and separation.
Cry
out! The Lord will not let you sink!
STRIKE
“Be not thou one of them
that strike hands, or of them that are sureties for debts.” Proverbs 22:26
To
strike hands is equivalent to being responsible to another for someone else’s
debt. It is to stake the goods God has
given you stewardship for as another’s security. If your friend defaults, you must pay up.
Matthew
Henry comments on this verse, stating, that to do this is like cheating the
person in need. Instead of simply
helping him by your own generous gift, you “gamble” with your goods. This places your own prosperity in jeopardy
and does not really relieve your neighbour of his debt. He is now also bound to you as well, and if
it all goes pear-shaped, the friendship will be damaged.
We
have all experienced the calamity of the banking industry in recent times. Bad debt and poor decisions were the basic
cause. Men simply were not dealing with
good practices. They were gambling
against the economy and predictions of prosperity. But, it was false and collapsed.
Our
lives will similarly collapse if we practice poor financial management. God warns us again co-signing loans in this
verse. It would be better to give our
neighbour a free gift helping him out of debt than to be bound to this sort of
risk. When we understand and accept that
all we have belongs to the Lord and we are only stewards, then surely we would
not want to risk our Lord’s goods!
Have
we heard God’s wisdom? Or do we continue
to gamble? Are we good stewards, or do
we think that all we have has come from our own strength?
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