Are You ‘Stiff-Necked’ When It Comes To Listening To The Spirit? (Part 5)
Are You ‘STIFF-NECKED’ When It Comes To Listening To The Spirit?
(Part 5)
How many of you ever had a stiff neck? Maybe you hurt or strained your neck or simply slept on it wrong. If you even have you know how much of an inconvenience or even how painful it can be. You have a hard time turning you head on way or the other and you may even have a hard time looking up. It really limits your ability to do so many things.
Over the past couple of months I have had some problems with pain in my shoulder, my upper back, and my neck and I put off going to the doctor because I have been a bit stubborn. And because it wasn’t getting any better but rather worst, I went to the chiropractor this past Monday. He let me know that somehow I injured a muscle around my shoulder. And because of that it was causing pain in my rotator cup, and into my upper back, and it was also giving me a very tight and stiff neck.
After working on the muscle a while, and then adjusting my back, he then adjusted my neck which has loosened it up some. All that discomfort was because one muscle was out of whack which caused me to overcompensate and I twisted the rest of myself in ways that only hurt me in the long run.
What can happen in the natural body can also happen with our spirit and soul. If we do something we should not be doing, or act inappropriately and we hear that still small voice from deep down inside telling that we should not be doing it, we have one of two choices; we can do our best to make it right, fix it or change and do what is right ASAP, (I find that I always heal much faster if I go to the chiropractor right away when I hurt myself, but if I keep putting it off like I did this time, it hurts more and it takes longer to heal).
Or we can totally ignore that small voice all together, and do our best to justify the bad behavior we are doing in our own mind… which will eventually have the adverse effect of messing with our spirit and with our soul because we have become hard hearted or stiff-necked, sometimes so much so we are not even able to look up to God anymore.
In my reading, I find it interesting how many times God referred to the rebellious Israelites as being a ‘stiff-necked’ people.
Before Moses died, and the Jews entered the ‘Promised Land’ under the leadership of Joshua, Moses reminded this next generation of some of the reasons why God was so upset with their parents generation.
Read Deuteronomy 9:6-14
“6 Understand, then, that it is not because of your righteousness that the Lord your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are a stiff-necked people.
7 Remember this and never forget how you aroused the anger of the Lord your God in the wilderness. From the day you left Egypt until you arrived here, you have been rebellious against the Lord. 8 At Horeb you aroused the Lord’s wrath so that he was angry enough to destroy you. 9When I went up on the mountain to receive the tablets of stone, the tablets of the covenant that the Lord had made with you, I stayed on the mountain forty days and forty nights; I ate no bread and drank no water.10 The Lord gave me two stone tablets inscribed by the finger of God. On them were all the commandments the Lord proclaimed to you on the mountain out of the fire, on the day of the assembly.
11 At the end of the forty days and forty nights, the Lord gave me the two stone tablets, the tablets of the covenant. 12 Then the Lord told me, “Go down from here at once, because your people whom you brought out of Egypt have become corrupt. They have turned away quickly from what I commanded them and have made an idol for themselves.”
13 And the Lord said to me, “I have seen this people, and they are a stiff-necked people indeed! 14 Let me alone, so that I may destroy them and blot out their name from under heaven. And I will make you into a nation stronger and more numerous than they.”
As you read through the Bible God refers to those people as being a ‘stiff-neck’ people.
As I went to many other verses in the Bible that refer to them as being stiff-necked it usually was seen in conjunction with having some other negative traits. Here are a few. It was usually coupled with being HARD-HEARTED, ARROGANT, REBELLIOUS, it referred to them as NOT TURNING TO GOD, THEY HEARD FROM GOD BUT WOULD NOT SUBMIT TO HIM. Hence they sinned and were called wicked.
In Acts 7, when Stephen addressed the Jews, he reminded them of their history from the time of Abraham on and how some of them were still just as hard hearted. In Acts 7:51 he said, “You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!” (Who were they resisting? The HS, GOD.)
The text goes on to say, 54 When the members of the Sanhedrin heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him. 55 But Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 “Look,” he said, “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
And because of that, this man who was described as being full of the Holy Spirit was stoned to death. They were so ‘stiff-necked’ they could not see what he saw and were enrages at the truth..
As we consider our more recent topic of study on our need to get better at hearing and doing what the Spirit would have us do; I felt that before we could go any farther it is important to look at one of the greatest hindrances or road blocks to hearing and obeying God’s word, and God’s Spirit. When we become so self centered and self willed and we become arrogant ‘know it alls,’ like those Jews, we become what the Bible calls, a hard-hearted or ‘stiff-necked people.’
Do you remember the Pharaoh of Egypt who was described as having a hard heart? God told Pharaoh through Moses to let His people go, but he refused. He was arrogant, stubborn, stiff-necked, and hard-hearted. Even though he was rebuked and warned over and over he refused to submit to God’s will, and in the end he along with all of Egypt paid the price.
Proverb 29:1 states, “Whoever remains stiff-necked after many rebukeswill suddenly be destroyed—without remedy.” God will tell you to do something so many times, then watch out.
What was true for the Pharaoh and the Egyptians, and also true for those rebellious Israelites, can be true for us as well. If you are stiff-necked and if you keep ignoring God’s Spirit who may be trying to get you to change for the good, you better listen. Because if you don’t it’s going to hurt you or maybe even destroy you in the end. God will only warn you so many times.
Maybe you know that you are doing something that is not right for you to be doing. Maybe someone keeps speaking to you from deep down inside telling you that you need to stop doing something or change in some way.
If what that voice is telling to do is good and not evil, my advice is for you listen to that voice and make those changes ASAP. Just like an infection in your flesh you need to tend to it right away or it will only make matters worse.
But if you are too full of yourself, too arrogant, or hard-hearted, or stiff-necked, or just ignore and put off making those changes for the good that delay or stubbornness may cripple you if not destroy you in the long run.
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit.” He was not referring to poor in His Holy Spirit, rather blessed are the ones who are not so full of themselves, so proud, that they are no good to anyone else.
Why? Because such a person is un-teachable, they think they are right and that they know it all, and so they will not listen to anyone else including God, His written word, nor His Spirit voice from within. Just like those Jews of old, such a person is stiff-necked.
But those who do their best to humble themselves, and remain tender-hearted are teachable. Such a person is will be blessed because they are the one who will continue to grow and bring forth fruit helpful to others and pleasing to the Lord.
You are a spirit, created in the very image of God. You have a soul, and for the time being you live in this body of flesh. Do not let the flesh and it’s evil desires control your life. I encourage you today to choose to walk with and in the Spirit, in the way of God. Stop ignoring that still small voice and the stiff neck will just go away!
For more lessons click on the following link: http://granvillenychurchofchrist.org/?page_id=566
All comments can be emailed to: bfronzek@gmail.com
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