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Weimar University

Don Mackintosh

Lessons from Bruises

Father in heaven, today we ask that we would draw closer to you as our leader as a result of this service.

So I wondered, should I come to church today?

I have bruises and you know, I have stitches, I have a bandage on my head, and you know, maybe it would be a good time to hang low, or maybe I should get my wife to do what some women do.

I don't know if others do this, but they put makeup on.

And I thought, you know, could you put some makeup on me?

And she goes, oh yeah, I could fix you up.

And I thought, well that would be kind of not really authentic, you know?

I'm not saying that you ladies, you know, what they say, if the barn needs paint, go ahead and paint it, but I'm just saying.

Today I thought, you know, I need to embrace who I am, you know, what has happened to me, okay?

And you're probably saying, what happened?

Well, obviously, I got bruised and I got battered.

Now, you know, Let's pray before we talk about this a little bit more.

Father in heaven, Lord, today, give us a message that can help us in our journey with you.

Did you do this for a sermon illustration?

Since I'm gonna preach this weekend and everybody has questions about my bruise, I might as well study what the Bible says about bruises.

So we're gonna look at the scripture and bruises today, and hopefully we'll get a lesson out of it.

Some of you like to read through the book of Proverbs because these pithy sayings are kind of like cognitive behavioral therapy.

Like a flitting sparrow, like a flying swallow, so a curse without cause shall not alight." You may not know where the swallow was going, you know, you might not know where the sparrow was headed, he flips here and there, But there is a purpose to what the sparrow was doing and what the swallow was doing.

Swallow was trying to find something to swallow, something to eat, right?

Just kind of like maybe you're not understanding where this sermon is headed, but there is a cause.

And when things happen, the curse or a curse, this bruise did not come causeless.

It came because I signed a consent form and then somebody, I signed this consent form and they came in with a knife and they cut on me and all that happened, right?

I'm going old school today with actually sermon notes and my Bible.

Who has wounds without cause and redness of eyes?

It looks like sometimes you can have wounds that don't have a cause, but the context of that verse tells us what the cause is.

Verse 30, those who linger long at wine and go in search of mixed drink.

You wanna see the most bruised people in America, just look at those who drink.

And they're getting bruises for different reasons.

1 is because they're changing their, you know, blood chemistry, you might say.

Their platelets are all messed up, so they don't have clotting factors, and they'll bruise easier, and if they keep lingering long at drink, like the text says, they're gonna develop fatty liver, they're gonna develop problems with their liver, and it's gonna cause even more bruising, and it's gonna cause problems with the erythropoiesis, I think it's what it's called.

And all these things are gonna mess up and they're gonna have more bruising.

So the context there even tells us, even though it says there are wounds without cause, you can tell from the context that there was a cause, and that's the drinking.

So the scripture says that bruises do not just occur.

They happen for a reason, as any good physician will tell you.

Number 2, I want to look at another passage, and this is related to our scripture reading, which was from what book?

From the sole of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but wounds and bruises and putrefying sores that have not been closed or bound up, or soothed with ointment." So this is the condition that's stated here.

They look bruised and battered, they have wounds, they look like they have not been attended to by a physician, they are in deep trouble.

Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken.

I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me.

In verse 3, the ox knows its owner, the donkey its master, master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people do not consider.

And perhaps, you know, this causes more bruising than anything.

When we lose the knowledge of God when we when we don't have him in our awareness We start to forget who we are, where we're from.

And it's very sad to see people in that situation.

You know they're going to, as my dad used to say, they're cruising for a bruising.

You're cruising for a bruising when you take God out of the picture.

Verse 4, a last sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, brood of evil doers, children who are corruptors, They have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked anger, the Holy 1 of Israel, they have turned the way backward.

The word there, Lord, is all uppercase, uppercase L, uppercase O, uppercase R, uppercase D.

I was in a taxi cab the other day coming back from ASI, and we had a taxi cab driver who had tattoos all over her arms, and she had very long fingernails and very long eyebrows or eyelashes, not eyebrows.

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Lessons from Bruises

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