The Most Dangerous Place To Be
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And the Lord said unto Moses, When thou goest to return into Egypt, see that thou do all those wonders before Pharaoh, which I have put in thine hand: but I will harden his heart, that he shall not let the people go.
Definition: stubbornness
four Hebrew words
Seriut (ser-ree-rut): character trait, hard-hearted
If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them:
Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place;
And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard.
And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
2. Psr (pats-sow): push, press, insist on course or display arrogance in course
For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, And stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, He hath also rejected thee from being king.
Why iniquity and idolatry?
Stubbornness is self-worship
3. Ha qase (ha-kay-se): hard, difficult, strict, impudent
And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.
4. Qsi (kaw-shaw): obstinate
Remember thy servants, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; look not unto the stubbornness of this people, nor to their wickedness, nor to their sin:
People’s understanding of stubbornness is conditional and incidental.
In other words, a momentary lapse of judgement in a certain situation.
It is as though I am being stubborn in this situation and in others I am not...
That is not how this works.
So stubbornness is the character trait. (Stubbornness is a spiritual problem)
Stubbornness is the state of being hard-headed to the point of arrogance or obstinance. It is being difficult, hard and insistent on your own course of action to the detriment of all else. It is arrogant to the point of having to be pushed to do what is best or right.
Stubbornness is not just for an isolated few.
Harry Randall Truman: one of the 57 people killed when Mount St. Helens erupted spewing boulders weighing hundreds of pounds around like they were nothing, followed by 800 degree lava...
Even thought he was warned weeks in advance we went on TV saying I am 83 and lived here all my life and this molehill has smoked and rumbled all my life, you guys are acting like a bunch of wimps! This mountain ain’t gonna hurt me!
Hiroo Onoda: Japanese soldier stationed in the Philippines in WW2. The last surviving man in his unit had no way on knowing when the war ended. He continued to live in the jungle, manning his post faithfully year after year. 1945 came and went. The rest of the world is trying to recover. Years later he is discovered and is told but believes it is a ploy. The Japanese government send letters. His family sends letters. He stubbornly refuses to believe and mans his post. Finally in 1974, 29 years after the end of WW2 his governemt sends his commanding office to him with new orders - come out of the jungle, the war is over, go home!
Stubbornness is no stranger to any of us and always leaves you all alone fighting unnecessary, unproductive, useless battles that no one even cares about!
Often, what you view as a heroic last stand, history will remember as a pathetically sad unnecessary waste of time and even a life!
As I explained last Sunday, stubbornness is one of the prevailing spirits of this Spiritual Jurisdiction.
Tradition and False Doctrine
Apathy (contentment)
Stubbornness
All three intertwined and interwoven into the fabric of who we are as a people - Nebraskans, cornhuskers, aksarben
I grew up in the “Show-me State”.
The unofficial animal of the state is the Missouri mule - a huge lumbering animal known for its stubbornness.
Hence the old adage, stubborn as a Missouri Mule.
There is a quality of stubborn here that is both awe-inspiring and fearful!
Every area has a physical thread that binds the spiritual to it.
In the Ozark Mountains were I grew up that physical thread was rebellion.
Area of Taney county called no mans land - lawless out of control.
Vigilante groups predating civil war would under cover of night and in masks, drag people from their homes, from jails and hang them.
Bald Knobbers being the most famous.
It placed an ever abiding rebellion into the spirits of the people hundreds of years later.
Just like an alcoholic can trace alcoholism back generation after generation, the same can be done regions.
The physical thread that allows the spirits of tradition/false doctrine and apathy to rule here is stubbornness.
If you have lived here any length of time, you fight with it!
So how do we win.
Cultivate the opposite.
What is the opposite of stubbornness? Submission?
Submission is the action.
So yes, be intentionally submissive.
Submissive is subordinating your will, ideas and plans to another - intentionally.
BUT THAT IS THE ACTION.
The physical thread.
The physical thread of submission will introduce to your life a spirit of meekness.
Meekness is misunderstood.
Not being walked over and abused.
Meekness: having the right, ability and authority to judge someone and choosing not to!
What will ye? shall I come unto you with a rod, or in love, and in the spirit of meekness?
Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.
But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price.
Pray for meekness - go home and do a word study