Moaning Like Doves; Roaring
Like Bears
Published on Facebook, November 29, 2009
By Bud Powell
"We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope
as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noonday as in the night; we are in desolate
places as dead men. We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look
for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from
us." --Isaiah 59:10,11
Men sleep the sleep of sin and indifference. They never expect the calamity to
come. It does, because God said it would [Proverbs 1:24ff] They cry to God in
the day of calamity, but God does not hear them; Wisdom laughs at him, because
all the time the wicked was being warned and xhown the way of life, he turned
his back and refused to walk the walk of faith.
Then the awful day comes. The sinful man rouses, the arousal is of the flesh,
not of the spirit. There is none of the repentance and sorrow that
characterizes the prodigal returning to his faither. No, the flesh, though it
is aroused, can only moan and roar.
Sometimes He moans like the dove. There are tears, but not of repentance; his
tears are tears of self-pity. He is looking for sympathy. Pity can be most
destructive when it assumes that people are suffering from things out of their
control. Jesus wept at the tomb of Lazarus and had compassion on the son of the
widow of Nain. But Jesus often spoke of the foolish and the sinful who brought
their calamities on their own head and said, "There shall be weeping and
gnashing of teeth." God does not pity the souls of the wicked in hell, but
the "smoke of their torment ascends up forever and ever, and they have no
rest day nor night...." --Rev. 14.1
The rebel expects to be pitied because he is filled with self-pity. I personally
do not believe that anyone has true repentance as long as self-pity reigns.
Lev. 26:40ff said that God would restore them to their land when they
"accepted" their punishment as from God and took responsibility for
their own misery. Moaning and groaning and tears and sobbing very often mean
the opposite of repentance. Even Herod was "very sorry" when he
ordered the beheading of John the Baptist.
But when the self-pity device doesn't work the rebel turns to roaring, roaring
like a bear. He expects his lies to be believed and roars when they are not.
When he doesn't get the pity he thinks he deserves he begins to roar. Now it is
everybody else's fault. He is being mistreated He blames his wife; he blames
his friends; he blames his relatives; he blames circumstances; and especially
he blames his minister.
Once, Israel was in dire straits. Samaria was surrounded by the armies of
Syria. There was a famine in the land. The king, walking on the wall, heard a
woman cry out to him for justice. "Oh king, we ate my son yesterday and
today we were supposed to eat her son. But she has hidden her son. Help and
give me justice."
The kings response: "May God curse me if I don't take off the head of
Elisha prophet." When all else fails, roar like a bear and behead the prophet.
Works every time. Elisha's crime: speaking the word of God, predicting the
troubled times, and refusing to be an enabler when the trouble came.
But what does the sinner say, "Hey, you should pity me. It is not my
fault. It is your fault and I have no respect for you You haven't loved me
enough. It is your fault. You are a scoundrel."
Amazing, that God would know so much about us, isn't it!
Roaring like bears!
