Can You Bless God and Curse His Image?

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

Shabbat shalom everybody. Welcome to Final End Ministries Fellowship. If this is your first time with us or joining us online, we're glad you're here. Thank you for joining us. Uh so a few months ago um we were in Chicago for a wedding and we had the opportunity to go to the Field Museum. It was a wonderful museum with our kids and they had this awesome Pokémon exhibit that they had up and they had all these It was really neat. They had these faux fossilized Pokémon skeletons and bones and stuff. And the idea uh is that from an educational standpoint is that they would display them next to real fossils and real bones that looked similar.

So that kids could make a connection and then they already they're going to ride the same tunnel in to learn about something new and something real, but the the mechanism is the Pokémon. Uh and it was far more effective than I expected to be, uh I must say it was pretty genius. Uh but while we were there, we explored the rest of the museum, lots of things there and of course they had an area that was devoted to ancient Egypt. And whenever you see an area of ancient Egypt in a museum what are you excited to go see? The mummies. Yeah, right? And so we went and guess what they had?

They had some remains. They had mummies and it was super cool and the kids were like, "Oh, that's cool." And yes. Uh always cool. Uh but um they had jewelry and they had clothing and all kinds of uh all kinds of stuff. It was cool. But they also had uh while we were there, they had a limestone statue. Um that was adorned with this ceremonial wig. It was beautiful. Uh it was this one, right here. Very famous. Uh but it has a a defect there and this this one has been dubbed by the media the Michael Jackson statue. Right? Is it Are you okay, Yanni? Right? So But But it has a defect.

And what's the defect? She's lost her nose. She doesn't have a nose anymore. And I bring that up because have you ever walked through any type of Egyptian museum or maybe seen documentaries online? Um when you see, you know, you've got the mummies and you've got the gold and you have the big stone statues of the kings and the gods and all this stuff. And and they're they're so old and they're incredible. But if you look, you start to notice a pattern in a lot of these statues and a lot of the statues are missing the nose. Um the king sitting on his throne, he looks beautiful. His arms are there, ears, everything's good.

The Missing Noses of Egypt

But someone knocked off his nose. Um and I used to think you know, when I was younger I used to think, "Oh, okay. Well, they just didn't know how to make noses very durable." You know, got the ears, got everything else, but something about the nose always tends to fall off. Maybe there was an earthquake and they all fell over and they hit their noses. I don't know. Um And uh and that's that's not it at all. Once you start looking, you realize that this was intentionally done to many statues. Uh Uh we have one king here, Amenhotep. He's another one, very famous. As well, same thing. I should have zoomed in, but he's missing his nose.

Someone was taking the noses off on purpose. And um and here's why. In In Egypt, uh as we've discussed about kind of the idea of the selem and the image of God and how the ancient world understood that concept. Um in Egypt, a statue of a king or a god or even a regular person of high status in a tomb, it wasn't just decoration for them. Uh they believed that their spirit somehow, someway, their essence could still reinhabit the statue. And so, if you made offerings to the statue or put prayers to the statue or just wanted to go hang out with the statue, give gifts to the statue, um the idea is that the presence is still there and that it went through the nostrils.

That's how it was able to breathe and inhabit the spirit. Um you can see where I'm going with this. Um and so you know, if um if you wanted to get rid of someone for good, right? After they're dead, you still have this vendetta. You would go over you'd go to their statue. And you'd knock their nose off. Because that like in their mind that blocks this the spirit comes back up I can't get back in. I guess I'm I guess I'm homeless now or that's the idea. You've killed the statue as a vessel for their spirit to still do whatever they thought it did. And again, you know, why put in the effort of destroying the whole statue which they did at times.

If they really didn't like you, they'd just chop your whole statue down. But yeah, all they needed to do was break your nose off. Um and that defaced the statue and made it ineffective. I love people. People are funny. Um I just I like it. I like it, you know? Yeah, you've killed it. Um and so there's a statue of uh another king uh Nectanebo um where they went um they went after his ears as well. Because that's the thing. You can't You can't hear the prayers of people if you don't have ears. Um the nose, you can't spirit, you can't do that. They cut off your hands. So the idea is that if you're a god or something, you can't receive the gifts people are trying to offer to you in their form of worship.

The Image as a Statue of the King

Uh and most of the big waves of people getting de-nosed on their statues were all based on politics. I mean I think we can kind of connect at that point. Oh, yeah. He knocked their nose off, yeah. Right? Um and so, we've been in this series for a little while now, and some of you remember back in like the first week in June, uh we said the word for image in Hebrew is the Hebrew word selem. Uh and in the ancient word world, uh that was a literal statue. The image of God, the image of a god was a statue. That's what people thought of. Um if you were a king, statue of a king standing in the land, so everyone knew who was in charge.

He's a representation of the king. And uh Genesis uses that words for human beings uh boldly. For you. You're the the statue. Let us make mankind as our image. The representation of everything that God is in his world, so that they can rule and reign over the fish and the birds. And we were meant to be the rulers with God's spirit ruling over creation. kind of exciting. That's a pretty big pretty big job description, you know? Um and then in Genesis 2, it tells you how God uh brings his statue, his selem, uh his image to life. And he says it like this in Genesis 2:7. Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils.

And the man became a living being. Into his nostrils. And so, we've talked about the um the mouth washing and the mouth opening ceremonies that the priest used to do in other cultures around ancient Israel whenever they had a new statue, and they would invoke the spirit of the statue to go in through their nostrils. It's very familiar ancient language to Israel and all of their neighbors, which is why it was so bold. Uh the story of Israel's creation story in mankind. And so, that's you. According to the Bible, that's you. You You are walking around today using the breath that God put in your nose. Hallelujah. And and so is the person next to you.

And so is the person that you cannot stand in the world. And so here's the question this morning. If every human being is a statue of the king with his breath in their nose, their nostrils, life force of God. Then what happens when we open our mouths and we talk negatively about one of them? As a pastor, sometimes you have to do messages. You're compelled to do messages cuz you know it's for the edification of the whole body, but you do have favorites. And this isn't my one of my favorites. Because this is something that is so widespread that most of us do this and behave like this on a daily basis without ever realizing it.

And that's what it's so tough and that's why it's so confrontational. But yeah, can I bless God with my mouth on Shabbat morning and then get in the car and use the same mouth to break off their noses as I go down the road in traffic. Um there's a letter in the New Testament from a man named James. And um and he's the one that ends up leading the group of believers in Jerusalem after Yeshua. And James is is a pretty straightforward practical guy. He he wants to know what your faith really looks like when your feet are on the ground, when boots on the ground, right? What is your faith actually look like?

James and the Tongue No One Tames

And in chapter 3 of James, he starts talking about the tongue. And he gives you all of these metaphoric pictures of the tongue and similes about the tongue. He says that the tongue is like the bit in in horse's mouth and this tiny little thing that can just move this wild beast all around. Just a little itty-bitty thing. He talks about it like it's the rudder of a big ship. It's just this little flap in the back and can turn the whole ship. Uh it's a little spark that'll burn down the entire forest. And then he says in verse 6, he says the tongue is a fire. A fire. and then he continues in verses 7 and 8.

He says, "Every kind of animal, bird, reptile, and fish is tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no one can tame the dang tongue. It is a restless evil full of deadly poison." So, we have a reference here. We have animals, birds, reptiles, fish. Does that bring Does that phrase, all those different animals, does that remind you of somewhere else in the Bible? Kind of Genesis 1, right? Let us make man in our image. Why? So, they can rule over the fish of the sea, the birds in the air, the livestock, and the creatures that crawl the earth. That's what the image was made to do, to rule over the other creatures on God's behalf, using God's wisdom and spirit, and so on and so forth.

And James is sitting here and he's saying, "You know what? We're we're actually pretty good at that. We're we're pretty good at ruling over the animals. I mean, we can train a horse. I don't know who the first guy was to see a horse, but somewhere along the way someone said,"I can ride it. I bet. Hold my wine, right?" We can train a horse. Uh we can tame a falcon to fly over and land and do what falconry does. Uh we can put our head in a lion's mouth in a circus and have everyone cheer us on. sometimes it doesn't work, but and other things on the internet, right? We have dogs at the mall or the airport that sniff out bombs.

Like we've we've we can tame just about anything with some wings or legs or whatever. And then he says, but no one can tame the tongue. The image of God can get a lion to sit. But it can't make it past the one Facebook post of the person that bugs you most. And then James gets to the part I think the whole chapter has kind of been orbiting or pushing towards he says this in verse 9. With the tongue we bless our Lord and Father and with it we also curse people who are made in God's likeness. Blessing and cursing come out of the same mouth. My brothers and sisters, these things should not be this way.

Now this conviction was not a new idea that James made up. There was an older Jewish wisdom that was a book of wisdom that was written before the time of Yeshua. It's called Sirach or the wisdom of Sirach, right? Extra biblical book if you will. Uh But here's here's what it says and I think it's relevant to mention these historical books because it kind of frames the culture that James and Jesus and the disciples were in at the time. It says, if you blow on a spark, it turns into flame. If you spit on it, it dies out. Yet both you do with the same mouth. So even this they're calling to this dynamic of how the mouth is just so equipped to do both ends of the scale of either producing something or taking it away.

The breath God put in your nose, you get to decide what to do with it when it comes back out. Heavy responsibility. A later rabbinic commentary of Genesis written a few centuries after Yeshua, Genesis Rabbah, um it's a it makes a clear point. It says,"Know who it is that you were disgracing. In the likeness of God he made him." Direct to the point. Don't ever say,"Let my neighbor be put to shame." Because when you shame him, do you know who you're really shaming? He's made in the likeness of God. I love that, and then I don't. But, it's the same idea. It's coming from all sides. You can't hit the statue without hitting the king the statue represents.

And again, think about how that worked back in Egypt when somebody took a chisel to the ears or the nose of the statue of Nicknamo Nicknamo. They weren't going after the rock. They didn't care about the stone. They didn't care about the statue. They went after the presence they associated with the statue. The Bible kind of works in the same dynamic. Proverbs 17:5 says,"The one who mocks the poor insults his maker. The one who rejoices over calamity will not go unpunished." Mocks the poor insults his maker. You think you're just kind of making fun of the guy at the intersection with the roadside or with the cardboard sign, right? Uh you think you're rolling your eyes at uh the family that's in need once again.

You think that you're just kind of making a judgment on that person's life who is always a mess. And they've just all made all the wrong choices. And Proverbs says,"No. You just insulted the one who made them." You took a swing at the statue. Uh and and the king felt it. Like this is it's a big deal. You want to know where God's face is? We talked about this. Where's God's face? It's on the person that you're about to tear into. That's the face of God. And then Yeshua Yeshua sits down on the mountain in Matthew 5. Um and he addresses this very same thing and he uses some pretty explosive language.

Insult Stands Next to Murder

And he says,"You have heard that it is said and it was said to our ancestors, do not murder. And whoever murders will be subject to judgment. But I tell you everyone who is angry with his brother or sister will be subject to judgment. But whoever insults his brother or sister will be subject to the court. And whoever says, 'You fool! ' is subject to hellfire." That's a big deal. Cuz that's how it's a big deal. Hellfire, right? That was a big jump. It was a big jump. You're going to go to court, but if you say,"You fool!" just fires of hell. seems like a lot, you know? I mean I mean we've I feel like I may have said something worse than calling someone a fool at some point in my life.

and Yeshua puts it right next to murder. In the same breath. Do not murder. Okay. I tell you the guy who calls his brother a fool is standing in the same courtroom. It just It climbs so fast. First, it's just anger. And that's on the inside, right? We keep that on the inside, hopefully sometimes. We got to work that out, big feelings. And then it's a word that comes out. Um the word there is raqa. It's an Aramaic insult. Uh it means you're you're an empty-headed, good-for-nothing, cotton-headed ninny muggins. Like you're just And you say it out loud where people can hear you. And then it escalates to you are a fool.

And notice what all of these things go after. None of these things are going after what the guy, whoever it is, did. Like Like you can say,"That was a terrible decision you made." Right? Um "That was wrong, what you did." You You did something that was not okay. You can do that. That's not what these are. these go after the person. These go after the person. "You're worthless." "You are nothing. There's There's nobody in there." That's an attack on the image. Not on the thing that the image did. And how easy is it? Again, when someone cuts you off, I don't know. That's just the go-to, right? When somebody cuts you off in traffic, typically it scares you.

You get startled, right? So you get scared, and a lot of times when we're scared, um fear rapidly evolves into anger. It's a key tell for someone who's always angry where they are in that dynamic. But it rises in anger. And when that anger hits you because you're scared, what comes out of your mouth typically is not you really stink at driving. Is it? Yeah. You need to learn how to drive. I mean, that would be great if we No, it No. Nope. No, because when we're scared, we're vulnerable, and when we're vulnerable, we feel weak, and we feel small, and we feel worthless, all in that wrapped up quick moment.

Long Noses and Hot Ones

So, we use anger to offset the balance because anger gives us a sense of power, which is only felt when we're filling a vacuum. So, we call them a name. In Hebrew, it's neat cuz Hebrew does a lot of word plays, and in Hebrew, the word for nose is af. Af. And the normal way um to say that somebody got angry in the Old Testament is to say in the Hebrew their nose burned hot. Right? So, in the English, it was oh, they got really mad is literally saying their nose is on fire. Okay? Lava's coming out of their nose. It's a really hot burning nose. Um when David's big brother Eliab sees him show up to battle with Goliath, the text says that Eliab got angry, and in Hebrew, it says his nose burned.

Uh when God passes in front of Moses on the mountain in Exodus 34, and proclaims his own name, it says that God that the Lord is compassionate and gracious and slow to anger. And so, in Hebrew, it it's uh slow to anger is erekh appayim, uh which which means long nostrils. So, God, he says, "I am compassionate and gracious, and I have a really long nose." Because what happens when you get angry and you're trying to process those big feelings, right? Right? You're trying to cool something down and so that was how the language constructed it. I love it. Um long Okay. God has a long nose because it takes a long, long time for it to get hot.

Um I love that. When God breathed into Adam in Genesis 2 was into his nostrils, it's the same word, af. God put his breath into the exact part of you that burns hot at times. And in James 1:19 it says um everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger. And so whenever you read that verse from now on, I want you to rephrase it as I need to be long-nosed like God. Able to cool down quickly and not get overloaded. But why does Yeshua put an insult right next to murder? Because he knows where murder starts, I think. Um violence almost always starts long before anyone picks up a stone or punches or throws, whatever.

First you get angry. And then you have a name to call them. And when you start calling people names, the objective on the subconscious level, I believe, is that you're you're trying to dehumanize them. You're trying to make them not a person anymore. That's why you call them the names. They're no longer human. They're not as good of a human as I am as other people. They're this, they're fill in the blank. You're a fool. They're an idiot. They are one of those people. They're an animal. And in our minds, once we have determined that they're not really a person anymore, well then it's really easy to justify doing whatever we want to them.

The mouth takes the nose off first. And once you start deducing the image of God down to an animal or below, then your hands can do whatever they want. Then violence becomes justified. Yeah, because it's just a rock now. It's not a person. It's not the image of God anymore. It's just a statue with a broken face. And so, what does that mean for us? Because I don't think that most of us go out in the world, um looking to destroy other people. Uh but I think a lot of times we do end up breaking some noses off all the time. Many times without realizing it. Um and it's so normal a lot of times that we don't even catch ourselves when we do it.

Politics and the Empire's Recipe

So, we're about 10 days out from an election. Oh, no. What do the historians say about ancient Egypt? The majority of the broken noses revolved around politics. Politics. And I just want to say I'm so glad at least we don't have that problem here, right? We would never turn on any channel, open any app. It doesn't matter what side or faux side or whatever team or what It doesn't matter. You'll find someone whose entire pursuit and zeal in their life, um is to take the face off of someone on the other team, someone they don't even know. And if they do know them, they've heard them talk like a few sentences, whatever the media clip to show you to get you all mad, or a Facebook post, which you yourself know is not your entire being.

It's just whatever you're zealous of in that moment that you post. Dude, it's such a game, isn't it? And we we play it so well. And when that happens, we can watch exactly what Jesus talked about uh happen so plainly if we slow down enough even just to catch ourselves. It's very familiar. When speaking about other people you disagree with during this season, it's amazing because people we disagree with can't just be wrong, right? No, they're evil. They're evil. They're not just mistaken, they're stupid. They're vermin, they're animals, they're garbage. They are the enemy within. They hate this country. And we eat it up. We eat it up because when people really desire to have that murdering spirit within them that Jesus talks about, you'll see them use the most exaggerated language that they can possibly pull from against other people.

And if we're not doing it, we're still liking it, we're still sharing it, forwarding it, holding down the button so we can select the happy face laughing emoji. Yeah, it is funny. Um yeah. It's a whole lot easier to march people into a ditch, or into a camp, or into a war, once you've convinced everyone that the people on the other side aren't really people. They are evil, immoral, disgusting, God-hating traitors. And And that's a recipe that's been implemented in so many empires verbatim. Empire teaches us to break the noses off people first. And once we do that, then we can justify having their bodies broken and supporting it. It always starts with someone's mouth.

And a follower of Yeshua should be the very last person on Earth helping with that. No matter what hat you want to wear, what color blue or red or This is beneath the follower of Christ. But yet, it's so easy to fall into the trap. And it's not just politics, right? That's the low-hanging fruit, of course. you know, it's it's the group text that we pass around of someone making fun of them. Um it's um the way we talk about pastoral relationships in front of people that we shouldn't and about people that we shouldn't. Uh it's the co-worker that we have just decided is an idiot. It's the people who believe a little bit differently than we do.

And boy, like like can we be good at that one? Can we be good at that one? We can be really, really good at that. We We learn We learn a little bit about Hebrew or the Bible. Uh we watch a YouTube video sensational about a certain topic of the Bible. Uh and we feel empowered by God to have this special status or knowledge. And uh and now we're uh we're just a little bit higher than everyone else who doesn't have it haven't seen that one YouTube video. We start following Jesus and we conjure up this attitude of disdain towards other people who are struggling to find peace in their life just like us.

And we have to stop. When we act like that, it does not look like the God that we're gathering together and worshipping here for. Um it does not look like the God that we claim to be keeping the feasts for. It does not look like the God that we claim to serve and worship. That's what the message of the prophets were all pointing out to both Judah and Israel. Uh you are weaponizing your relationship with God to cut other people down. And the irony the irony is that they, the people that you're cutting down, are closer to God than you've ever been in your life. That was the prophets'message. Yeshua spends an entire chapter, Matthew 23, talking to individuals who knew they knew they were closer to God than anyone else.

They had the Holy Spirit moments in praise and worship. Uh they had the emotional uh tingle tingles during prayer. You know what I'm talking about, right? Woo. They did the checklist perfectly. And Yeshua informs them that they fabricated all of that in their heads. It's all in your head. You You're just a bunch of dead bones in a really pretty tomb. And John John references He says in John 8,"You You are just acting perfectly like your father the devil." Convincing yourself that because you claim to know God, you're better than other people. And unfortunately, believers of Jesus have that reputation. Internationally. It's a frustrating occurrence and pattern. But why do we do this?

Why We Grade Strangers

You ever wonder sometimes why we do it? Why we instantly judge someone that we've never met before? Why do we paint a narrative about them? Not for something positive, but to kind of cut them down negatively. Make a judgement call about them. Because if you can see a pattern in your own life, then that's how you can start to stop it, right? You can start to slow it down a little bit. You can pay more attention. Um if we can catch ourselves in the middle of it, maybe we can change it. So remember Eliab, David's big brother? The one whose nose burned hot at the battle. Just one chapter before that, the prophet Samuel shows up in Bethlehem to anoint the next king of Israel.

And Jesse brings his sons out, and of course the first one Samuel sees is Eliab. He's tall. He looks the part. Pretty strong, attractive. I like it. And Samuel, prophet of God, he says, "That's him. That's the one. That's the guy I want to look like. My camera's Look at him. We're done here. This was easy." And then God says in in 1 Samuel 16, he says,"But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or his stature, because I have rejected him." Humans do not see what the Lord sees, for humans see what is visible, but the Lord sees the heart. Humans see what is visible. And it's amazing how fast and good we are at it.

So there was a study out of Princeton, where they studied this exact thing. All right? And they flashed pictures of strangers' faces at people for a very short amount of time, 1/10 of a second. Boop. Right? Just real quick. And uh they asked them some very pointed questions. Do you think this person's trustworthy? Is this person likable? Are they competent? 1/10 of a second. And then they gave people a little bit longer. They gave them a half a second to show these faces again. And the judgments got more negative. And people got more sure that they were right about their declaration of whatever person this was what they were saying about them.

And I think that's that might be a lot of us. Half a second and and you've already decided that the guy in the Walmart line or the mom whose kid is screaming in the cereal aisle, you've painted the whole narrative about their lives, right? Um, new family that shows up to church. Some of us I think the very first thought we have about every single person that we meet is a type of grade. It's a grading system. And if you pay attention to how you grade people, the first thought that goes in your mind when you see someone, you might find that it's not a good grade constantly. Why is that?

Why is it every single person we encounter or just pass by has a tendency to breed critical thoughts? And maybe this doesn't apply to you. But if it does why? And I think a lot of time it's because we're not settled on who we are. And when we're not settled with who we are we're always measuring. Always measuring. Somebody walks in and right away you're checking. Are they above me or below me? And whatever standard you fabricated, right? Are they smarter than me? Are they better looking? Are they more spiritual? Do they have more money? Do they have a better marriage? I watch them on Instagram and makes me sick how nice their house is.

Better behaved kids. And if you can find something wrong with them, whether it be their kids or their politics or their clothing or their theology, then then how does that feel? Sometimes it feels a little bit higher. You just kind of grew a little bit. For a minute anyway, and then the next person walks in. And your brain has been trained through practice to do it all over again. Every single person. Over and over again. Why does cutting someone down make us feel better? Back in the 90s, want to have another study reference. A couple of psychologists ran a set of studies where they took people and they gave them bad news about themselves.

And they they told them that they didn't do well. Just kind of was critical, knocked them down a little bit. And then, oh wait, hey, we got one more thing for you to do. Can you evaluate another person for us? It's a trap. And guess what trend they saw when the person who had just gotten critical feedback about themselves evaluated someone else. Yeah. The ones who had been knocked down rated the person even worse than them. And when they measured those same people afterwards, their self-esteem had went up after they had graded someone else lower than them. Tearing somebody else down actually made them feel better about themselves. but when researchers first did something to kind of boost up that person's sense of who they were, they found the opposite.

They found that they were less likely to go negative on First impression, they're less likely to be negative. People who feel secure don't need a hammer as much. Proverbs already told us that, right? The one who rejoices over calamity. That little lift you get when someone else fails, that's the tell. So, how do we know if this is us? If it's you. Well, the first thought about a stranger is a grade. Maybe you rehearse arguments in your head. Maybe you've got a running list of who likes you and who doesn't in the world. Maybe all the time you're on such the edge of your seat because you're so hyper vigilant.

You're always watching for someone else in the room. And if that's you, I think you're tired. I think you're exhausted from playing this game. Trying to get a verdict from every single person in a room that you're in. And Yeshua said something about this to religious leaders in John chapter 5. He said, "How can you believe, since you accept glory from one another, but don't seek glory that comes from only God? You accept glory from one another. You're living off of each other's approval or disapproval. And it's crowding out the only approval that actually matters and that you walked in the room with. And the thing is, you already have a verdict about you.

You You You had it before you came to church. You had it before you leave the house. You are made in his image. He put his breath in your nostrils. A king doesn't put his face in a statue because the statue earned it. He put his face there because it's his. So, watch yourself when you walk out in the world, especially through a politically heated climate, which we're always in. I dare you to practice something. Practice slowing down and try to see what type of thoughts you have when you look at people for the first time in public. Is that too hard? See if you can catch yourself and just kind of entertain, "Hey, did I just think something bad about that person?

That was negative for no reason?" And if you find yourself doing that, I dare you to practice noticing something awesome about the person. Whether it's their shoes, whether it's their hair, they might be losing it. They may be kind of rude. Man, they got some nice teeth. Because we become what we worship and we become what we practice, right? All right. You are made in the image of the king. You don't have to walk around worried about what other people think. You don't have to work around rock around scared, hyper-vigilant about everybody, trying to determine the narrative of everyone, if someone's going to be a threat to you. You don't have to do that.

Be Opened

You can be the image of God and you can be a source of life for people instead of perpetuating a source of negativity and criticism that the empire runs on. So, James doesn't say some people have a tongue that's hard to manage. He says it's everybody's problem. So, is it just hopeless? Is it hopeless? Cuz he says no one can tame the tongue. No one. But look at something. Look what Yeshua did with his hands. Because I think it answers this. In Mark chapter 7, Yeshua is up north and he's been in Tyre and he comes back down through a region called Decapolis, which is Gentile territory. And uh 10 cities full of people who aren't Israelites.

And some people bring him a man who can't hear. And the text also says he has a difficulty speaking. So his ears don't work and his tongue doesn't work. And they beg Yeshua to lay hands on him. And here's here's what happens. So he took him away from the crowd in private. After putting his fingers in the man's ears and spitting, he touched his tongue. Looking up to heaven, he sighed deeply and said to him, "Be opened." That's a weird healing, right? It's kind of weird. He sticks his fingers in the man's ears. And he spits and then he touches his You'd think the son of God could just, I don't know, snap his fingers, right?

Um do something from somewhere else. He can and he does that other times, but here he does it very close and very intimately. He He takes the man away from the crowd. So it's just the two of And he puts his hands right over the broken parts, the ears and the tongue. And he looks up to heaven. And he says one word in Aramaic Aramaic, "Ephphatha." And Mark actually keeps the actual word here for us. And then the ears were opened and the tongue is loosened and the man starts talking. And look at what the crowd says at the end. It says that they were They were extremely astonished and said, "He has done everything well.

He even makes the deaf hear and the mute speak." That wasn't just a nice thing to say. They were referencing the prophecies in Isaiah 35. The prophet is describing the day when God finally comes to rescue his people and he says that that's the day where the eyes of the blind will be opened and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped and the tongue of the mute will sing for joy. and Isaiah uses that same language about Israel that the prophets use about the idols that they don't work. A couple weeks ago we talked about that. The eyes that don't see, the ears that don't hear, the statue with broken parts and he says one day God is going to fix all of the broken parts on all of his images.

He's going to open them all. And here's Yeshua out in Gentile country with his fingers in a man's ears doing it. I like it. And the crowd says, "Wow, he's done it." Now, I'm not saying that Mark was thinking about Egypt when he wrote this. Uh I don't think he was, but think about where we started at the beginning of the message. The Egyptians priests stood over a statue and they had the mouth opening ceremony and a ear opening ceremony and they invoked the spirit in their images. And then other men came along with hammers and broke the nose and the ears off to try to turn the statues off in their myth.

And here's Yeshua and he doesn't break anything. He finds the broken image of God, a man with ears that don't work and a tongue that won't move and he touches the broken parts and he says, "Be opened." And it works. Somebody finally opened the mouth of the image for real. And it's Yeshua. It's Yeshua. And so I think that during this time not only of the elections, but after it and before it, we need to be on guard. We need to remember the status of what we were charged to be as the image of of God but that that's not some type of exclusive club. That's the status of the people that you love and the people that you don't.

It's the status of the people that can drive and the people that can't. and that when you get into a place where you're constantly practicing negativity and critical thoughts about other people, usually it's about something that's deeper. It's about a fear that's deeper about yourself or it's about an insecurity about yourself where you feel like you need to do that all the time. And uh and that's exactly the type of freedom that uh Yeshua came to free us from. Um we're to be conformed to his image. And that's the pursuit.