Word of Encouragement (12/20/2022)
“The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he. 5 They have dealt corruptly with him; they are no longer his children because they are blemished; they are a crooked and twisted generation. 6 Do you thus repay the LORD, you foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you? (Deut. 32:4-6)
What was so wicked about Israel’s rebellion against the LORD? It was ultimately her ingratitude: “Do you thus repay the LORD, you foolish and senseless people?” The LORD showed His grace to her by creating her, making and establishing her as a nation in covenant with the Most High. But she repaid His goodness to her with wickedness and evil like a dog that bites the hand that feeds it. God expressed it this way in Isaiah: “Children have I reared and brought up, but they have rebelled against me. The ox knows its owner, and the donkey its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand” (Isa. 1:2-3).
God called them “foolish.” The Hebrew word (nabal) can mean “worthless” or “good-for-nothing.” This word is used in Ps. 14:1: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God.’” Abigail’s husband, who refused to show gratitude to David, who protected him and his shepherds, was named Nabal. Though he was rich, he was described as “harsh and badly behaved” (1 Sam. 25:3), “this worthless fellow [belial], Nabal, for as his name is, so is he. Nabal is his name, and folly [nebalah] is with him” (1 Sam. 25:25).
To be foolish is different from being ignorant. One can be brilliant and knowledgeable and still be foolish. Foolishness is not an intellectual quality (or the lack thereof); it has to do with a lack of wisdom, a deficiency in good sense or judgment. That is why God described Israel as “senseless” as well, which literally means “not wise.”
Why was it so foolish and senseless for Israel to rebel against the LORD? Because she was in denial of how utterly helpless and dependent she was on Him for all things. She thought and acted as if the world were governed by the law of the “normal,” not by the sovereign LORD: just because things had been going in a certain way didn’t mean that they would continue to do so. Did they think that, just because they did not see God at work, God was not at work? Did they not know that it was God, who held all things together (Col. 1:17) and, should He let go of His hands, the whole universe would fall apart right away? Did they not know that God was the One, who created them, made and establish them as a people of God? Just as we don’t know how much dependent we are on electricity until there is a blackout, the Israelites did not know how utterly they were dependent on God. How foolish and unwise! In their rebellion against the LORD, they were like a branch trying to cut itself off the Tree of life so it can be “free”!
How could such ungrateful sinners be saved? Only by God’s radical grace through the sacrificial love of Jesus Christ. What did Christ do for those, who repaid God’s good with evil? Paul declares, “one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:7-8). Christ repaid our evil with His good, thus canceling our evil and all the punishment we deserve. Let us be wise in acknowledging our utter dependence on His grace and living in gratitude and humility!