Latest / Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self / Isaiah 3:16-4:1 - Jingling Ankle Bracelets and Prideful Women

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Isaiah 3:16-4:1 - Jingling Ankle Bracelets and Prideful Women · Tabernacle Talk - A Bible Study Podcast with Pastor Bryon Self

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Welcome to Tabernacle Talk. Tabernacle Talk is a Bible study
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podcast brought from Tabernacle Baptist Church in Essex, MD.
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I'm your host, Brian Self. We hope this podcast encourages
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you to know Christ, grow in his word, and show his love to
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others. Let's dive right in.
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Hello and welcome back to Tabernacle Talk.
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For those of you watching the video podcast, you might be
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like, listen, Brian, you're not in your office.
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That is true. Today I am in the confines of my
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very own home and looking forward to diving into God's
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Word with you today. Today we are going to be in at
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least the last portion of Isaiah chapter 3, Isaiah 3, verses 16
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through 26th at the least, possibly to chapter 4 and verse
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#1 we'll see where we get to. The passage says this.
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Right now Isaiah is preaching against the sinful southern
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Kingdom of Judah with Jerusalem as its capital, which though
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they were supposed to be the people of God, the temple of
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Yahweh was there in Jerusalem. They were not worshipping God,
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they weren't worshipping Him exclusively, and they were not
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worshipping Him wholeheartedly or with a pure heart.
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Instead, they were doing a bunch of religious things and
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festivals and sacrifices, those things that got it set up for
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them, but they did it without regard to human life or
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flourishing care of others. And so it was just religious
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behavior without a devoted heart to God, to love Him and to love
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others. And so that's where we've been
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in verses 1 through 15. This is what we read now in
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verse #60 Yahweh also says because the daughters of Zion
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are haughty, they're proud, walking with heads held high and
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seductive eyes prancing along, jingling their ankle bracelets.
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Yahweh will put scabs on the heads of the Daughters of Zion,
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and Yahweh will shave their foreheads bare.
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On that day, the Lord will strip their finery.
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Ankle bracelets, headbands, crescents, pendants, bracelets,
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veils, headdresses, ankle jewelry, sashes, perfume
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bottles, amulets, signet rings, nose rings, festive robes,
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capes, cloaks, purses, garments, linen clothes, turbans and
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shawls. Instead of perfume, there will
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be a stench. Instead of a belt, a rope.
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Instead of beautifully styled hair, baldness.
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Instead of fine clothes, sackcloth instead of beauty
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branding. Your young men will fall by the
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sword, your warriors in battle. Then her gates will lament and
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mourn. Deserted, she will sit on the
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ground. On that day, seven women will
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seize one man saying we'll eat our own bread and provide our
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own clothing. Just let us bear your name.
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Take away our disgrace. Now these, this is one of those
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passages in the Bible where we are entering into a totally
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different society, totally different cultural expectations
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because any person in 21st century America is going to read
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through that and go, what in the world is going on?
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So verse #16 let's begin there. Yahweh says the daughters of
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Zion are proud. So he's talked a lot about the
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men, the rulers of Judah, and what some of their sins and some
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of their problems have been. And so now he draws attention to
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here's what the women have been doing.
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He says they are walking with heads held high.
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So there's pride here. You already mentioned that they
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are haughty. This isn't, you know, God's
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admonition against proper, you know, neck posture.
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This is saying they are proud instead of being humble, instead
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of realizing maybe who they truly are outside of wealth or
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status or possessions, even as we would read in verses 18
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through 23, like they just had an overabundance of riches that
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did not translate into, hey God, thank you for what you've given
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me and I'm going to care for others.
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But just like the men had destroyed the poor.
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And I think we'd read in verse #15 why do you crush my people
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and grind the faces of the poor? That there was this total
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abhorrence and and if you will, persecution of those that were
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in need. And instead of the daughters of
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Zion being those that would care poor the poor and give to the
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poor, instead they just heaped riches on themselves.
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So there they are. They're proud, heads held high
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and it says and seductive eyes prancing along, jingling their
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ankle bracelets. Now seductive eyes.
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You know, that translates well into today's day and age.
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You know, everyone kind of knows what that look is when someone
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is intending to be flirtatious, especially here, someone that
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they should not be flirtatious with, whether it was that the
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person doing the flirting was already married or they were
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flirting with someone that was married.
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Here you have these seductive eyes that even the way that, if
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you will, the way that we communicate with our faces, with
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our eyes, with our eyebrows, with our mouths, can actually be
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something that God pays attention to.
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Now, certainly he's not just saying, OK, they have seductive
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eyes and they're not actually doing anything about that like
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that. It's not leading them into
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saying no. No, the import here what God is
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trying to communicate through this poetic language is they
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have seductive eyes that even the way that they look at the
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world and look at people is with intent to be lustful and to
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destroy homes. And so here seductive eyes
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prancing along, jingling their ankle bracelets.
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Now that's not a thing nowadays that someone goes, oh, you have
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an ankle bracelet. You must be an immoral, A lewd,
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A lascivious person because you have an ankle bracelet and it
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doesn't translate 1 to 1 to to nowadays.
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But here these these women, they were wearing things that
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communicated to other people. Hey, I'm available and so, you
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know, flirt with me, spend time with me.
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And what God says in verse #17 is because of these people
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operating in pride, operating in lust, he says, what I'm going to
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do is I'm going to put scabs on the heads of the daughters of
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Zion, and Yahweh will shave their foreheads bare.
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God says, OK, you want to play the part of a harlot of a, of a
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prostitute, He says, I'm going to treat you like that.
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And so there's going to be shaved heads, which would be
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kind of a shameful thing. You can think even in our
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culture, though, an amount of hair thankfully doesn't have the
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same, like spiritual importance placed on it as another, you
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know, cultures in human history. You can think back to when
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perhaps Lindsay Lohan shaved her head and everyone went, wow,
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this is a giant cry for help from this particular individual.
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And so God says, I'm going to treat you shamefully as you have
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treated others with shame, as you have behaved shamefully, I
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am going to bring shame on you. And verses 18 through 23, God
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says with that giant list of clothing items, it wasn't that
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any of these items by themselves were particularly evil.
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You know, there's nothing wrong with a bracelet.
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There's nothing wrong with a headdress or a headband.
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There's nothing wrong with linen clothes or a shawl or a purse,
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but God says I'm going to take away all of your stuff.
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Can I ask you? Everything that we have will one
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day go to someone else. This house that I'm in right
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now, this microphone, unless it breaks and then no one wants it
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anymore. This laptop that I'm recording
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into, unless it breaks, everything is either going to go
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to someone else or it's going to break.
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We will not retain a single item that we have forever.
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Nothing. Everything will pass on whether
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it breaks or whether it goes to someone else.
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We can either choose with the stuff that we have that it will
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go to someone else that is in need, or we can try and hoard it
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until either we die or we throw it away because we just have too
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much stuff. Can I encourage you have
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generosity, not hoarded greed. Be the way that you think about
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your possessions. If God has given you a lot of
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clothing, man, praise the Lord. We read in First Timothy 6 that
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God has given us richly all things to enjoy.
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So enjoy the things that you have, but I want to encourage
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you, if you have more than you can use, if you have more than
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you can, you know reasonably have, then give some away.
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Like give it to the poor, give it to the needy.
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Give it to someone within your church that is in need of some
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clothing or you're like, man, that person is never dressed as
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good as I'm dressed. Well, help them out and give
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them some clothing, buy them some clothing.
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And I, I think far too often we, we value all the stuff we can
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amass and God would say to us, no, give it away.
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Like be generous with what I've given to you.
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I freely gave it to you. You can freely give it to
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others. Verse #24 he, he mentions here,
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I love some of the back and forth that he has going in here.
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Verse 24, instead of perfume, there will be a stench.
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So for these women that once had everything, God says, I'm going
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to give you a trade. And before where you perfumed
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yourself up and you smelled great.
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Now everyone that walks by you is going to go, oh man, that
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woman stinks. Says instead of a belt, a rope.
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So a belt is, you know, it's nice, it's leather, it's well
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put together for a specific intended purpose.
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And he says you're not going to get a belt anymore.
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You're going to get a rope. There could also be kind of a
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tie in there. A rope would be something that
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you would lead someone in, you know, slavery with or as you
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think about the southern Kingdom of Judah, eventually within the
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next hundred, 150 years after this was written, being deported
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to Babylon, that it was someone that was taken away.
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Instead of a belt, they have a rope.
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Instead of beautifully styled hair, there is baldness.
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I know many of my friends, even at Tabernacle have experienced
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this baldness and they would say, yes, I I should have
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appreciated my hair while I still had it, he says.
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Instead of beauty branding there, that would be an
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indication of slavery for these people.
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That just as they had no regard for the poor or for the needy,
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they only insisted on building up their own material wealth.
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That one day they would become a possession for someone else.
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Verse #25 Your men will fall by the sword, your warriors in
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battle. Then her gates will lament and
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mourn. Deserted, she will sit on the
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ground. That as Jerusalem and Judah are
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defeated and the men, many of the men are either killed or
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taken away, what would be left in the ruins of Judah and the
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ruins of Jerusalem? We would read in chapter 4 and
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verse #1 on that day, seven women will seize one man,
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saying, we'll eat our own bread and provide our own clothing.
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Let us bear your name. Take away our disgrace.
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Basically, women not wanting to be.
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And I, I want to clarify here, this is not the way that God
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views women. This is the way often that the
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world has viewed women. You can read about it several
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times in in scripture that people did not want to be like
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the quote UN quote, old true or, you know, an old forgotten maid
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or maiden that was never married.
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No one ever wanted her. They don't want to be that
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person. And so even 7 women to one man,
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that's seven is you know, that number of completion.
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It's a a fullness. It's a full week is 7 days.
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You can think in Revelation 1 where it's mentioned the seven
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spirits of God. That's actually something that
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we'll walk through that it's the fullness of who God is and his
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glory, his justice, his love, his compassion, all of that.
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And so you're 7 women go to just one guy to say like, hey, it
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would be incumbent on the husband to provide for the food
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and clothing and shelter of his wife.
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And these seven women say, hey, we'll provide for our own stuff.
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We're we're not not coming to you assuming that you will take
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care of us will take care of us. We just don't want anyone to
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say, oh, these women are totally unwanted.
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There's going to be a large population disparity in Judah
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once Babylon comes through and demolishes Israel for their
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wickedness. So what do we do with this?
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I would say we we need to remember first of all that God
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is repulsed by pride. We are told in James 4, we're
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told in Proverbs, we're told in a bunch of different places that
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God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.
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God has given us riches in whatever amount so that we would
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be thankful, we would enjoy them, and we would give out of
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our abundance to others. That we would never say.
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Until I have $1,000,000 I'm not going to be generous to someone
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else. Or until I have $100,000 I'm not
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going to be generous to someone else.
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No my friend, if God has given us 2 loaves of bread, then we
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have enough bread to be able to share with someone else.
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If God has given us 3T shirts, man, we've got enough to be able
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to give to someone else. If God gives us $2.00, we have a
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dollar to be able to give it to someone else.
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May we realize that who we are as children of God is mere
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stewards of what God has given. Everything we have belongs to
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God, and my life, my words, my time, my wallet, everything that
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I have needs to belong to God. So if God says be generous to
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that person, if God says go, serve in that area.
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If God says, I want you to spend time doing this, I want you to
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spend time in the word, whatever it is.
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I need to be faithful to say, God, you have given it all to me
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and to steward it, to manage it for the time being.
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I don't own it. And so I need to be faithful, to
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be kind, to be generous to others as you have been kind of
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generous to me. I need to eschew pride to ever
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say that I am better than anyone else.
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I need to love and to care for people.
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And I think even from this passage, as we'll see many, many
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times in the coming weeks and months as we travel through
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Isaiah, sexual immorality is something that God deeply
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judges. And so in my mind and what I
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view and what I think about and how I interact with other
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people, I need to have a purity of soul and spirit to say God
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put me together in my situation. God put me and Samantha together
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and till death do us part. That is what the Lord has put
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together. So I need to value that, not to
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be one with the seductive eyes or jingling ankle bracelets.
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So avoid ankle bracelets today, my friends, and may the Lord
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bless you. Thank you so much for tuning
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into this episode. Looking forward to continuing in
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Isaiah chapter 4. We're going to be looking at
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some great topics beginning next episode.
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Looking forward to that with you.