By Gail Gritts
One way to enjoy Bible study is by choosing a word, looking at its the usages in the Bible, and exploring the word’s original meanings. You need a Strong’s Concordance for that or a really good website as a resource, but word study helps you discover a wealth of understanding and fall in love with the depth of God’s word.
In my blog, Beside the Well, I spent two years going through individual words drawing devotional thoughts and applications. We studied one word each week. I thought I’d share with you one of the sets of devotions that were not built on one word but used five different words that contained S’s n K’s.
The first word is Slack. 2 Peter 3:9 says, “The Lordis 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.” In one of the Back to the Futurefilms, the headmaster uses the word “slacker” to describe a pupil that is slow or not performing well. The pupil was underperforming due to his lack of intelligence. However, God is not slack. He is not slow or lacking in intelligence. He is not underperforming—especially when it comes to His promises.
He is not slack, as men think of slackness. He is tarrying on purpose, and that is the difference. God is allowing time for men to see their need and come to repentance. We may pray and pray for a loved one and feel God doesn’t seem to be working. However, the truth is—God is always at work. We may not see it ourselves, but He is always working toward the goal of drawing men and women to Himself.
Sometimes we might be tempted to believe 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. 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. 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 and scoffers; the ones who lose focus and forget that God is longsuffering.
Slackers need to repent!
The second word to consider is Stuck. “I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O Lord, put me not to shame.” (Psalm 119:31) Stick-to-itiveness is a real virtue. It demands you adhere consistently to a manner of life, an attitude, outlook, or task until completed or maybe to a belief or hope in someone or something. God’s Word promises to bless 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 according to God’s direction in His Word.
Only two other times in God’s Word does this word ‘stuck’ appear. In 1 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, just like the spear (for safekeeping), or as the boat ran aground (being unmoveable). It matches up with 1 Corinthians 15:58, “Therefore my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, 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 wrote in Psalms 119:31, “put me not to shame.” Don’t let me down, Lord; I’ve put all my eggs in Your basket. I trust You to honor Your Word.
Throughout the Bible 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 stuckinto it and leave the rest to Him. How are you doing?
You ready for another one? This time the word is Stink. “For my wounds stink and are corrupt because of my foolishness.” (Psalm 38:5) Psalm 38 is a cry from the heart of a man face to face with the reality of his sinfulness. His emotions are causing physical reactions; he experiences restlessness, he is heavy, mourning; there is weakness, turmoil of heart, and groaning. Heart palpitations, sorrows and a fear of judgment all paint a desperate picture.
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 accustomed to the stink of sin.
The word stinkhere is the Hebrew word Ba’ash,which means to be morally offensive, to smell bad, to be abhorred. He knows the odor of his life choices is not a sweet-smelling savor! Verse eighteen states, “For I will declare mine iniquity; I will be sorry for my sin.”Repentance is absolutely necessary. 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 admonished to keep our lives clean and fragrant through confession and repentance of daily sins (1 John 1:9).
No Christian should be a stinker. How about you? Are there any stinky things in your life of which you need to repent?
The next word is one of my favorites, 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 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; we worry 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. From here we 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 each time recorded the Lord’s deliverance. Psalm 34:6, “This poor man cried, and the Lordheard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” Psalm 120:1, “In my distress I cried unto the Lord, and he heard me.”
In this sinful world, we sometimes feel the influence and oppression of the mire trying to pull us under. This is the mire to which the psalmist eluded in Psalm 69, saying it was filthy, full of hate, and running deep.
Like Pilgrim in the quagmire or Pool of Despond, we also need 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!
And our final word to consider is 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 your goods, over which God has given you stewardship, as another’s security. If your friend defaults, you 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 relieve your neighbor of his debt. He is also now 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 financial practices. They were gambling against the economy and predictions of prosperity; however, those were false and eventually collapsed.
If we practice poor financial management, our lives will similarly collapse. In this verse, God warns us against co-signing loans. It would be better to give our neighbor a gift, helping him out of debt than to be bound by 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 what we have has come from our own strength?
I hope you enjoyed this little journey through God’s word, and it challenges you to open your Bible and your concordance to dig out some gems for yourself!