Day 11/14 – Foolish Persuasion

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Thoughts from the Diary of a Desperate Man by Walter A Henrichsen (“Walt”)
Foolish Persuasion
Day Three Hundred Eighteen

”Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their sons and of their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan: and the land was polluted with blood.” Psalm 106:37-38:

The Old Testament writers tell us that Israel, during times of deep stress, offered their own children in sacrifice to pagan gods. You may wonder how a civilized people could do such things. When people are convinced that their perception of the way things ought to be is correct, and what they want is important, they tend to do anything within their power to accomplish it. Failure to get their own way in substantive issues produces intense stress, causing them to do what rational people consider foolish, if not insane. People who do not believe that God is in control and has their best interest at heart, do irrational things.

You see this applied to the history of Israel. When they couldn’t persuade God to do what they wanted, they forsook God for pagan gods. When they couldn’t get their pagan gods to do their bidding, they offered their children in sacrifice, hoping that the intensity of their desire would persuade the gods to relent.

The solution, of course, is surrender to the God of Providence. You will never get life to conform to your expectations, no matter how hard you try. God controls the affairs of life, and the intensity of your desires will not persuade Him to relinquish that control. If you do not believe that what He wants for your life is better than what you want for your life, you probably will sacrifice your family, not in a fire, but in a desperate attempt to have your way.

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Lamentations 3-5 Hebrews 10:19-39 (New King James Version)

Lamentations 3-5
The Prophet’s Anguish and Hope
3
I am the man who has seen affliction by the rod of His wrath.
2
He has led me and made me walk
In darkness and not in light.
3
Surely He has turned His hand against me
Time and time again throughout the day.
4
He has aged my flesh and my skin,
And broken my bones.
5
He has besieged me
And surrounded me with bitterness and [a]woe.
6
He has set me in dark places
Like the dead of long ago.
7
He has hedged me in so that I cannot get out;
He has made my chain heavy.
8
Even when I cry and shout,
He shuts out my prayer.
9
He has blocked my ways with hewn stone;
He has made my paths crooked.
10
He has been to me a bear lying in wait,
Like a lion in [b]ambush.
11
He has turned aside my ways and torn me in pieces;
He has made me desolate.
12
He has bent His bow
And set me up as a target for the arrow.
13
He has caused the [c]arrows of His quiver
To pierce my [d]loins.
14
I have become the ridicule of all my people—
Their taunting song all the day.
15
He has filled me with bitterness,
He has made me drink wormwood.
16
He has also broken my teeth with gravel,
And [e]covered me with ashes.
17
You have moved my soul far from peace;
I have forgotten [f]prosperity.
18
And I said, “My strength and my hope
Have perished from the Lord.”
19
Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the [g]gall.
20
My soul still remembers
And [h]sinks within me.
21
This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.
22
Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
23
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”
25
The Lord is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.
26
It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the Lord.
27
It is good for a man to bear
The yoke in his youth.
28
Let him sit alone and keep silent,
Because God has laid it on him;
29
Let him put his mouth in the dust—
There may yet be hope.
30
Let him give his cheek to the one who strikes him,
And be full of reproach.
31
For the Lord will not cast off forever.
32
Though He causes grief,
Yet He will show compassion
According to the multitude of His mercies.
33
For He does not afflict [i]willingly,
Nor grieve the children of men.
34
To crush under one’s feet
All the prisoners of the earth,
35
To turn aside the justice due a man
Before the face of the Most High,
36
Or subvert a man in his cause—
The Lord does not approve.
37
Who is he who speaks and it comes to pass,
When the Lord has not commanded it?
38
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
That woe and well-being proceed?
39
Why should a living man [j]complain,
A man for the punishment of his sins?
40
Let us search out and examine our ways,
And turn back to the Lord;
41
Let us lift our hearts and hands
To God in heaven.
42
We have transgressed and rebelled;
You have not pardoned.
43
You have covered Yourself with anger
And pursued us;
You have slain and not pitied.
44
You have covered Yourself with a cloud,
That prayer should not pass through.
45
You have made us an offscouring and refuse
In the midst of the peoples.
46
All our enemies
Have opened their mouths against us.
47
Fear and a snare have come upon us,
Desolation and destruction.
48
My eyes overflow with rivers of water
For the destruction of the daughter of my people.
49
My eyes flow and do not cease,
Without interruption,
50
Till the Lord from heaven
Looks down and sees.
51
My eyes bring suffering to my soul
Because of all the daughters of my city.
52
My enemies without cause
Hunted me down like a bird.
53
They [k]silenced my life in the pit
And threw [l]stones at me.
54
The waters flowed over my head;
I said, “I am cut off!”
55
I called on Your name, O Lord,
From the lowest pit.
56
You have heard my voice:
“Do not hide Your ear
From my sighing, from my cry for help.”
57
You drew near on the day I called on You,
And said, “Do not fear!”
58
O Lord, You have pleaded the case for my soul;
You have redeemed my life.
59
O Lord, You have seen [m]how I am wronged;
Judge my case.
60
You have seen all their vengeance,
All their schemes against me.
61
You have heard their reproach, O Lord,
All their schemes against me,
62
The lips of my enemies
And their whispering against me all the day.
63
Look at their sitting down and their rising up;
I am their taunting song.
64
Repay them, O Lord,
According to the work of their hands.
65
Give them [n]a veiled heart;
Your curse be upon them!
66
In Your anger,
Pursue and destroy them
From under the heavens of the Lord.
The Degradation of Zion
4
How the gold has become dim!
How changed the fine gold!
The stones of the sanctuary are [o]scattered
At the head of every street.
2
The precious sons of Zion,
[p]Valuable as fine gold,
How they are [q]regarded as clay pots,
The work of the hands of the potter!
3
Even the jackals present their breasts
To nurse their young;
But the daughter of my people is cruel,
Like ostriches in the wilderness.
4
The tongue of the infant clings
To the roof of its mouth for thirst;
The young children ask for bread,
But no one breaks it for them.
5
Those who ate delicacies
Are desolate in the streets;
Those who were brought up in scarlet
Embrace ash heaps.
6
The punishment of the iniquity of the daughter of my people
Is greater than the punishment of the sin of Sodom,
Which was overthrown in a moment,
With no hand to help her!
7
Her [r]Nazirites were [s]brighter than snow
And whiter than milk;
They were more ruddy in body than rubies,
Like sapphire in their [t]appearance.
8
Now their appearance is blacker than soot;
They go unrecognized in the streets;
Their skin clings to their bones,
It has become as dry as wood.
9
Those slain by the sword are better off
Than those who die of hunger;
For these pine away,
Stricken for lack of the fruits of the field.
10
The hands of the compassionate women
Have [u]cooked their own children;
They became food for them
In the destruction of the daughter of my people.
11
The Lord has fulfilled His fury,
He has poured out His fierce anger.
He kindled a fire in Zion,
And it has devoured its foundations.
12
The kings of the earth,
And all inhabitants of the world,
Would not have believed
That the adversary and the enemy
Could enter the gates of Jerusalem—
13
Because of the sins of her prophets
And the iniquities of her priests,
Who shed in her midst
The blood of the just.
14
They wandered blind in the streets;
They have defiled themselves with blood,
So that no one would touch their garments.
15
They cried out to them,
“Go away, unclean!
Go away, go away,
Do not touch us!”
When they fled and wandered,
Those among the nations said,
“They shall no longer dwell here.”
16
The [v]face of the Lord scattered them;
He no longer regards them.
The people do not respect the priests
Nor show favor to the elders.
17
Still our eyes failed us,
Watching vainly for our help;
In our watching we watched
For a nation that could not save us.
18
They [w]tracked our steps
So that we could not walk in our streets.
Our end was near;
Our days were over,
For our end had come.
19
Our pursuers were swifter
Than the eagles of the heavens.
They pursued us on the mountains
And lay in wait for us in the wilderness.
20
The breath of our nostrils, the anointed of the Lord,
Was caught in their pits,
Of whom we said, “Under his shadow
We shall live among the nations.”
21
Rejoice and be glad, O daughter of Edom,
You who dwell in the land of Uz!
The cup shall also pass over to you
And you shall become drunk and make yourself naked.
22
The punishment of your iniquity [x]is accomplished,
O daughter of Zion;
He will no longer send you into captivity.
He will punish your iniquity,
O daughter of Edom;
He will uncover your sins!
Prayer for Restoration
5
Remember, O Lord, what has come upon us;
Look, and behold our reproach!
2
Our inheritance has been turned over to aliens,
And our houses to foreigners.
3
We have become orphans and waifs,
Our mothers are like widows.
4
We pay for the water we drink,
And our wood comes at a price.
5
They pursue at our [y]heels;
We labor and have no rest.
6
We have given our hand to the Egyptians
And the Assyrians, to be satisfied with bread.
7
Our fathers sinned and are no more,
But we bear their iniquities.
8
Servants rule over us;
There is none to deliver us from their hand.
9
We get our bread at the risk of our lives,
Because of the sword in the wilderness.
10
Our skin is hot as an oven,
Because of the fever of famine.
11
They ravished the women in Zion,
The maidens in the cities of Judah.
12
Princes were hung up by their hands,
And elders were not respected.
13
Young men ground at the millstones;
Boys staggered under loads of wood.
14
The elders have ceased gathering at the gate,
And the young men from their music.
15
The joy of our heart has ceased;
Our dance has turned into mourning.
16
The crown has fallen from our head.
Woe to us, for we have sinned!
17
Because of this our heart is faint;
Because of these things our eyes grow dim;
18
Because of Mount Zion which is desolate,
With foxes walking about on it.
19
You, O Lord, remain forever;
Your throne from generation to generation.
20
Why do You forget us forever,
And forsake us for so long a time?
21
Turn us back to You, O Lord, and we will be [z]restored;
Renew our days as of old,
22
Unless You have utterly rejected us,
And are very angry with us!
Footnotes:
• Lamentations 3:5 hardship or weariness
• Lamentations 3:10 Lit. secret places
• Lamentations 3:13 Lit. sons of
• Lamentations 3:13 Lit. kidneys
• Lamentations 3:16 Lit. bent me down in
• Lamentations 3:17 Lit. good
• Lamentations 3:19 bitterness
• Lamentations 3:20 Lit. bowed down
• Lamentations 3:33 Lit. from His heart
• Lamentations 3:39 Or murmur
• Lamentations 3:53 LXX put to death
• Lamentations 3:53 Lit. a stone on
• Lamentations 3:59 Lit. my wrong
• Lamentations 3:65 A Jewish tradition sorrow of
• Lamentations 4:1 Lit. poured out
• Lamentations 4:2 Lit. Weighed against
• Lamentations 4:2 reckoned
• Lamentations 4:7 Or nobles
• Lamentations 4:7 Or purer
• Lamentations 4:7 Lit. polishing
• Lamentations 4:10 boiled
• Lamentations 4:16 Tg. anger
• Lamentations 4:18 Lit. hunted
• Lamentations 4:22 has been completed
• Lamentations 5:5 Lit. necks
• Lamentations 5:21 returned

Hebrews 10:19-39
Hold Fast Your Confession
19 Therefore, brethren, having boldness[a] to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, 25 not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching.
The Just Live by Faith
26 For if we sin willfully after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins, 27 but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and fiery indignation which will devour the adversaries. 28 Anyone who has rejected Moses’ law dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29 Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace? 30 For we know Him who said, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” [b]says the Lord. And again, “The Lord will judge His people.” 31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.
32 But recall the former days in which, after you were [c]illuminated, you endured a great struggle with sufferings: 33 partly while you were made a spectacle both by reproaches and tribulations, and partly while you became companions of those who were so treated; 34 for you had compassion on [d]me in my chains, and joyfully accepted the plundering of your [e]goods, knowing that you have a better and an enduring possession for yourselves [f]in heaven. 35 Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. 36 For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise:
37 “For yet a little while,
And He[g] who is coming will come and will not [h]tarry.
38 Now the[i] just shall live by faith;
But if anyone draws back,
My soul has no pleasure in him.”
39 But we are not of those who draw back to [j]perdition, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.
Footnotes:
• Hebrews 10:19 confidence
• Hebrews 10:30 NU omits says the Lord
• Hebrews 10:32 enlightened
• Hebrews 10:34 NU the prisoners instead of me in my chains
• Hebrews 10:34 possessions
• Hebrews 10:34 NU omits in heaven
• Hebrews 10:37 Or that which
• Hebrews 10:37 delay
• Hebrews 10:38 NU My just one
• Hebrews 10:39 destruction