The Valiant Warrior, Lesson 3, Proverbs 31:12

She does him good and not evil all the days of her life.

 Proverbs 31:12

“The word comfort is from two Latin words meaning “with” and “strong” – He is with us to make us strong. Comfort is not soft, weakening commiseration; it is true, strengthening love

 – Amy Carmichael

This week

(1) The Hebrew letter gimel

(2) Hebrew word of the week; gamal

(3) Review of Lesson 2 

(4) Barnabus

(5) Conclusion

(1) The third letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet is the gimel (rhymes with camel). Remember that the letter aleph reminds us of God the father. The letter bet pictures the son. The third letter, gimel, pictures the third person of the God-head; the Spirit. The letter gimel teaches us about kindness without making us dependent. How many of you know that the Spirit is called “the helper and the comforter”?

John 14:26 "But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.

Acts 9:31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.

Help and comfort are acts of kindness that strengthen us so that we can stand on the Word of God without fear. Gimel is represented by the number 3. Three stands for everything that is solid, real substantial, complete, and entire. (Bullinger p. 102) Three is symbolic of divine perfection. There are three persons in the God-head. I am astonished that a concept as difficult to nail down as the Spirit of God (the Ruach ha Qodesh) is what gives substance to faith. It is the Spirit who makes the things of Messiah real and solid in our daily walk (Bullinger 105). Any attempt we make to live out the commandments is nothing but religion without the life giving Spirit of God.

Gimel is the number 3.

• The third day of creation was when the waters and land were separated (a resurrection as pictured by baptism
• The third commandment tells us to not speak YHVH's name in vain (to make it worthless)
• Leviticus, the third book of scripture instructs us on how we ought to righteously worship YHVH by faith

·    I like this, in English, gimel rhymes with camel because the pictograph of gimel is of a camel. The camel represents wealth. It is able to travel long distances with cargo. The gifts the magi brought to the Messiah, when he was a child in Bethlehem, are traditionally said to have been carried by camels.

Matthew 19:24 "Again I say to you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Ever wondered what this weird verse means? Because the gimel represents the Spirit but the pictograph is the camel, and brings wealth to mind, then perhaps the Word is teaching us something about the kind of wealth that is important. When we love “things” more than we love God, even if we really love God a lot, we have a problem. Treasure, stuff, is for earth not heaven. The woman who is dependent upon Heaven, who asks God for her daily needs, has treasure in heaven. Spiritual treasure can easily pass through the eye of the needle. Earthly treasure cannot. Do you say you love God with all your heart? Is there anything you are unwilling to give up? The things you want to hang onto are the things you treasure in your heart.

Matthew 6:19-21 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. "But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Matthew 19:20-22 The young man said to Him, "All these commandments I have kept; what am I still lacking?" Jesus said to him, "If you wish to be complete, go and sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me." But when the young man heard this statement, he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.

(2) “She will do him good” is from the Hebrew word gamal, a word very similar to gimel. In fact, in Hebrew the two words look exactly alike, they just have different vowel points. Gamal (pronounced gaw-mal’) is a word that means “to mature, to wean” The valiant warrior is a woman who encourages others to grow in the Spirit, to become warriors in fellowship. To do that she has to be a spiritual woman. A woman of kindness and a woman of comfort. She has to be a woman who hopes the best for her sisters, for her family. A woman who points to the need for God, not herself, as the central point of others lives.

(3) In lesson 2 we learned that the Valiant Warrior is a woman worthy of trust. There is nothing about her as an earthling, a natural woman that makes her worthy of trust. It is the Spirit of Y'shua-Jesus who has made her heart his temple; that gives her worth. This week I want to show you a man named Barnabas who trusted the Spirit of Y'shua in Paul, even though Paul's natural self had proven to be worthless.

(4) Do you remember the story of Barnabas and Paul? Barnabas is the picture of Gamal. He was kind and comforting without making Paul weak or dependent on him. Paul had hurt many of his people. He was cruel beyond belief to the believers in Jerusalem. When he came back to Jerusalem after his salvation, people were afraid of him. There was bitterness and hurt because of who he was before he met Y’shua-Jesus. If not for Barnabas there would have been no fellowship or ministry for Paul. The world might have never known the brilliant Bible writer in not for Barnabas. 

Barnabas trusted God more then he feared Paul. It was the Holy Spirit living in Paul that he was willing to trust. Paul was living his life in submission to that Spirit but he had been so utterly wicked as a natural, though very religious man, that no one else was willing to trust him. It took a special kind of believer, a (man in this case) who was chayil! There are no books of the Bible written by Barnabas. But I wonder if you realize that if it had not been for Barnabas, we might not have any of the great epistles of Paul.

Barnabas practiced the ministry of Gamal. He did good for Paul when everyone else would do evil by withholding the love of God, and who could blame them? I do not know if Barnabas personally felt the sting of the old Paul, scripture does not say, but I know he knew about Paul's old life, I am sure that it was an often discussed subject.

Acts 9:26-31 When he came to Jerusalem, he (Paul) was trying to associate with the disciples; but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took hold of him and brought him to the apostles and described to them how he had seen the Lord on the road, and that He had talked to him, and how at Damascus he had spoken out boldly in the name of Jesus. And he was with them, moving about freely in Jerusalem, speaking out boldly in the name of the Lord. And he was talking and arguing with the Hellenistic Jews; but they were attempting to put him to death. But when the brethren learned of it, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him away to Tarsus. 

So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria enjoyed peace, being built up; and going on in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it continued to increase.

Someday, when you become a wife, there is a very good chance that you will feel deeply crushed, hurt right to the core of your soul. You will think that the person who hurt you is your husband. But even in a marriage our battle is not against flesh and blood. At that season of your life you will have to decide if you wish to be a Valiant Warrior, like Barnabas, and do good for your husband (I am sure he will have to make the same choice about you, Satan loves a soft target) or do you want to be a victim? Victims have rights, they have advocates but the Chayil woman has something far better. She has the power of the Holy Spirit.

Choose friends who make you strong. Anyone can weaken you by feeling sorry for you and encourage you to just blow off the person who caused you pain. (I am NOT talking about bruises, broken and sprained bones or the constant verbal attack that some men are fond of) But a friend who encourages you, reminding you that our battle is not against flesh and blood but against wicked spirits in dark places, is the kind of person you want around to encourage you when the invisible battle is raging.  BE THAT FRIEND! That valiant warrior.

 (5) I’ll conclude with a favorite poem-prayer from my valiant warrior hero of the faith.

From prayer that asks that I may be
Sheltered from the winds that beat on thee,
From fearing when I should aspire,
From faltering when I should climb higher
From silken self, O Captain free
Thy soldier who would follow Thee.
From subtle love of softening things,
From easy choices, weakening,
(Not thus are spirits fortified,
Not this way went the Crucified)
From all that dims Thy Calvary
O Lamb of God, deliver me.
Give me the love that leads the way,
The faith that nothing can dismay
The hope no disappointments tire,
The passion that will burn like fire;
Let me not sink to be a clod;
Make me Thy fuel, Flame of God
-- Amy Carmichael 

Mrs. Hagerty, September 29, 2014
Updated November 22, 2015 MsH