September 2003

HINDS’ FEET IN HIGH PLACES

Part 10

“He makes my feet like hinds’ feet,
and sets me on my high places!”

(2 Sa 22:34)

     In our last episode we saw in the “Song of Moses” what abundant blessings God heaped upon Jacob after first taking him to the “high places” of the earth. Yet despite such lavish bounty, we saw that “Jeshurun (an epithet for Israel lit. meaning: upright) grew thick by gorging itself then he forsook the God Who made him, and despised the Rock of his Salvation!” In addition to this, “They moved God to jealousy with strange gods, and moved Him to anger with abominations.
      They offered sacrifices to devils instead of God, they sacrificed to strange gods they didn’t know and to new gods their fathers never knew. They grew unmindful of the Rock that begat them and forgot the God that formed them!”
     Such apostasy had to be dealt with swiftly and severely for God’s love is too great to leave His children in such a grim state! He said, “I will hide My face from them and see what *their end will be (if I were to let them continue on this self-destructive course), for they have become a very perverse generation; they are children in whom is no faith...thus I will move them to jealousy...and move them to anger...because a fire has kindled in My anger that will burn even to the lowest hell, that shall consume the earth with its increase, and set on fire the foundations of mountains. I shall heap evils on them (where earlier He had heaped blessings on them)...they shall burn with hunger and with heat and bitter destruction. I will unleash on them beasts’ teeth filled with the poison of serpents of the dust! I will also send a sword outside, and terror inside them. I will destroy both the young man and the virgin, also the babe and the old man. I said, I would have scattered them to the corners of the earth so all remembrance of them would cease among men if it weren’t that the men of earth would claim that their own evil hand had caused this, and that all of this was not the work of the Lord; for they are a nation void of counsel!”

*What a hopeless chronicle this would be if it had to conclude here;
but ours is a God of infinite mercy and lovingkindness Who says,
“I know My thoughts toward you: thoughts of peace and not evil,
in order to give you *an expected end!” (Jer 29:11) [*Heb 8615
also defines this: “A cord (as an attachment or lifeline- like when
the two Israelites whom Joshua sent to spy out Jericho before they
entered there, blessed the prostitute, Rahab, for hiding and helping
them escape saying, “Behold, when we return to this land, if you
will tie to the window this scarlet cord with which you lowered us
to safety, you may bring your father, mother, brothers and all of
your father’s household, into your house; and if anyone goes out
of the doors of your house into the street, his blood shall be upon
his own head, and we will be guiltless! But if a hand is laid upon
anyone who is with you in your house, his blood shall be on our
head...so she tied the scarlet cord in the window.” (Jos 2:18-21)
It has long been accepted by Bible scholars that this scarlet cord
typifies the precious Blood of Jesus Christ! And our Savior says
in Rev 1:8, “Fear not for I AM The Beginning and THE END!”
The above Hebrew definition is also translated: “expectation,
HOPE, and THE END THAT I LONG FOR!” How glorious!

    Too easily we forget that Christ’s Love is unconditional and His Judgments are righteous, especially when we observe the unconscionable evils that men do, but Ps 103:14 reminds us,

“THE LORD KNOWS OUR FRAME, AND
HE REMEMBERS WE ARE BUT DUST!”

    It is for this cause that God had so much compassion on our human weakness and frailty, that “When we were yet without strength [Gk 772 ”feeble, impotent, weak, fatally sick with sin”], at a set time, Christ died for the ungodly!” (Ro 5:6) With all these things in mind, let us now hear the rest of story above.

“There is none like the God of Jeshurun (Israel),
Who rides through the heavens and the sky in
His Glorious Excellency to be your help!! This
Eternal God is your Refuge! Beneath you are
His Everlasting Arms! He will thrust out the
enemy from before you saying, Destroy them!
Israel shall then dwell in secluded safety: this
fountain of Jacob shall inhabit a land of corn
and wine; his heavens shall drop down dew.

Blessed are you, O Israel, for who is like you?
You are a people saved by the Lord! He is the
your Shield of Help and Sword of Excellency!!
Your lying enemies shall come before you but
you shalt trample down all their high places!”
(Dt 33:26-29)

There is no greater vindication than that which
our Lord and Savior has provided for all men
by the shedding of His Blood! Let His Name
be blessed and worshipped forevermore!

[TO BE CONTINUED]