SCRIP-BITS

Proverbs 22:24    Proud and haughty scorner is his name, who dealeth in proud wrath.
 
Yes my Friends, that’s the name Sol bestows on us when we act in arrogant pride; ‘proud and haughty scorner.’ Those three words, three attributes, all bear negative connotations, and don’t speak well of us if we’re so described. And as we said yesterday, be sure of one thing; wherever there’s pride, haughtiness or scorn, there are going to be falls, and some serious ones too, because the Lord abhors the prideful, arrogant sinner. Why? He magnifies himself without cause, treats others with scorn and disrespect, feeling that they are not worthy of his time and/or efforts, and most foolishly, often considers God of no account. And we, as a society have committed that abhorrent sin of magnifying ourselves and belittling God, our Creator, Guide and Caretaker. ‘The pride of thine heart hath deceived thee, thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, whose habitation is high; that saith in his heart, who shall bring me down to the ground?’ (Obad.3) The Lord God Jehovah is who shall bring us down my people! Listen to this passage from Job, where another of his friends, Zophar, talks about the wicked. ‘Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed on earth, That the triumph of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment? Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds; Yet he shall perish forever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he? He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night…This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.’ (Job 20:4 -8,29) Yes my Friends, that’s the lot of the wicked. And I’m sure we all know someone who’s suffered that fate. It’s bad enough individually, but when we build… Sorry, build is the wrong word, cause it sorta signifies a sound structure. Let’s see…concoct might be more apt. Hn,hn,hn! Ah, the memories of living a full life eh! (Tell you a story about apt, sometime later) But when we concoct a society on a prideful, godless foundation, it’s going to fall apart sooner rather than later. I keep remembering the Jamaican brethren who taught me History in second form in High School in Tobago: He’d put his feet, clad in oxford brogues, up on the small desk at the front of the class, stroke his scraggly, salt and pepper beard and proudly, but solemnly intone; ‘What is History? History is a record of the past. And why do we lean History? So that we can understand the present.’ Sadly though my people, it seems we have not learnt from History, we don’t really analyze our History, since we keep making the same mistakes over and over, and one of our most popular clichés is ‘History repeats itself.’ But why should that be, if we’re supposed to learn from it eh? And one of the biggest, often forgotten or overlooked mistakes is abandoning God in prosperous times. Why is that such a hard lesson to learn eh? It’s only been played out a million times over the eons. Yet every nation that comes along and gets powerful, conveniently forgets where its power originated. And this seems to be true of all nations, whether Christian or heathen; like the Romans. Greeks and Egyptians, to name a few big ones. It just seems to be an inherent characteristic of man; that when he’s weak and lowly, he seeks help from some other being he considers more powerful, but having climbed to lofty heights, he conveniently forgets who helped to lift him up. That happens in our individual lives too. Then he starts believing that he’s a power in his own right, some kind of petty god. But my people, there is nothing worse than forgetting who brought us to the dance; a little thing called gratitude. And in this case, and every case for that matter, it’s the Lord God Jehovah; the kind, ever-loving God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for He’s the One and Only True God! He was, is, and always will be in control of His Creation; our Universe and all therein. And the sooner we get that into our heads, hearts and souls, the better off we’ll be. Why? Because the climb to the top is long and arduous, requiring lots of faith and hope, so that when we get to the top, we’ll hopefully appreciate it and keep doing the same things, since that’s the only way to remain at the top. We think though, that when we get to the top it’s time to relax, rest on our laurels, eat of the fat of the land, live on easy street. But that’s not the way God planned it. It takes time and effort to get to the top and remain there, but the fall is swift and merciless. Our society didn’t prosper overnight, but it sure seems it crumbled that way. And now that we’ve experienced first hand, the fall from grace, do we all sing hallelujah? Of course not! But Friends, if we’d been obedient to God, giving Him more thanks and praise, singing more hallelujahs, we would not be in our current predicament. It’s no use crying over spilt milk though. We have to get ourselves back to God, repent of our misdoings, ask His mercy and forgiveness, take back up the plough and look straight ahead, so that we can plough straight furrows. And please, don’t let those stupid weapons of the enemy; pride, arrogance, scorn and haughtiness, keep us from doing it. Let’s learn one thing from the rebellious Israelites; that whenever they erred and felt the Lord’s wrath, they were never too proud to run back to Him who created them; the One who LOVES us unconditionally, the One who will never leave or forsake us, once we stay under the protection of His all encompassing wings. That’s the answer my Friends; to remain under the protective umbrella of Almighty God. It’s only under that caring, comforting canopy, with the Lord as our sure and strong foundation, can we ever hope to live successfully, prosperously, in peace and in LOVE. I pray that we’ll all learn our History lesson and turn sincerely to the Lord again, welcome Him with open arms, back into our society and individual lives again. Much LOVE!…a fool…one who refuses to do…what he knows is right…