Psalm 98

Psalm 98 is a Christmas Psalm

1 Oh sing unto Jehovah a new song; For he hath done marvellous things: His right hand, and his holy arm, hath wrought salvation for him.
2 Jehovah hath made known his salvation: His righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the nations.
3 He hath remembered his lovingkindness and his faithfulness toward the house of Israel: All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.
4 Make a joyful noise unto Jehovah, all the earth: Break forth and sing for joy, yea, sing praises.
5 Sing praises unto Jehovah with the harp; With the harp and the voice of melody.
6 With trumpets and sound of cornet Make a joyful noise before the King, Jehovah.
7 Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein;
8 Let the floods clap their hands; Let the hills sing for joy together
9 Before Jehovah; for he cometh to judge the earth: He will judge the world with righteousness, And the peoples with equity.

Christmas is a time of singing and this psalm invites us in verse 4 to sing with joy. Joy to all the nations of the world for the Redeemer has come is what Isaac Watts had in mind when he wrote the Christmas carol Joy to the World

   1  Joy to the world! the Lord is come!
         Let earth receive her King;
      Let ev'ry heart prepare him room,
         And heav'n and nature sing.
   2  Joy to the earth! the Savior reigns!
         Let men their songs employ,
      While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
         Repeat the sounding joy.
   3  No more let sins and sorrows grow,
         Nor thorns infest the ground;
      He comes to make his blessings flow
         Far as the curse is found.
   4  He rules the world with truth and grace,
         And makes the nations prove
      The glories of his righteousness,
         And wonders of his love.

And of course the Christmas story would not be complete without Luke 1 where Jesus’ mother gives her Psalm of joy.  In  Psalm 98 the Redeemer is promised and Mary sang with joy for she believed that Jesus was the promised Redeemer who would save His people from their sins.

Psalm 98 and Luke 1:46-55
Psalm 98 says:  "O sing unto the Lord a new song."
Mary said:  "My soul doth magnify the Lord."
Psalm 98 says: "He hath done marvellous things."
Mary said: "He that is mighty hath done great things."
Psalm 98 says:  "With his own right hand and holy arm hath he gotten himself the victory."
Mary said: "He hath showed strength with his arm and scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts."
Psalm 98 says:  "The Lord hath made known his salvation; his righteousness hath he openly showed,"
Mary said: "His mercy is on them that fear him, from generation to generation."
Psalm 98 says:  "He hath remembered his mercy and his truth toward the house of Israel."
Mary said: "He hath received Israel his servant, being mindful of his mercy, As he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his seed for ever."

Yes, because Jesus came we do have a new song and we should sing with joy!

Psalm 91

Like me you probably memorized Psalm 91 soon after you memorized Psalm 23, the shepherd’s psalm. Psalm 91 is called the brooding psalm or  the hen-and-chick psalm by those of us who saw live chickens in our childhood. If you have never seen this let me explain it by inviting you to go to the web-search and typing in “clucking hen.” Here you will see pictures of hens with fluffed out feathers and small chicks hiding under the safety of the mother hen's wings.

Although Psalm 91 does not have a title to tell us who wrote it or where or when it was written we would like to know these things.  So may we imagine that it was composed in the time of Moses and Joshua and that they are the human characters in the text? Using that assumption we can go on to imagine we are watching a drama of four acts with Joshua and Moses as the characters, each having a single monologue part. God has the opening and closing parts where He is heard but not seen.

Here then is the plot of Psalm 91
Act 1.  The Precept, verse 1
Act 2. Joshua’s Declaration, verse 2
Act 3. Moses  Reply of Blessing, verses 3 - 13
Act 4. God’s Amen verses 14 - 16

Act 1
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.

Act 2
I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust!"

Act 3
For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper And from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His pinions, and under His wings you may seek refuge; His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark. You will not be afraid of the terror by night, or of the arrow that flies by day; of the pestilence that stalks in darkness, or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.  A thousand may fall at your side And ten thousand at your right hand, {But} it shall not approach you. You will only look on with your eyes And see the recompense of the wicked. For you have made the LORD, my refuge, {Even} the Most High, your dwelling place. No evil will befall you, nor will any plague come near your tent.  For He will give His angels charge concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. They will bear you up in their hands, that you do not strike your foot against a stone. You will tread upon the lion and cobra, the young lion and the serpent you will trample down.

Act
Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him {securely} on high, because he has known My name. He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him. "With a long life I will satisfy him And let him see My salvation.

The curtain comes down after each act and the audience, meaning every reader of this Psalm and particularly us, is given a period of time to ponder what it might mean to us, not reaching for more popcorn or gum or gab, but thinking and considering what we have seen and heard.

For Considerations

Act 1.
The word dwell is much more than a visit or short stay, it infers a permanent home. The word shelter or secret means a place separate from all distractions of things or people. My secret place with God is not a display thing. Jesus said, “And when you pray enter into your closet and pray to your Father.” Here we (you and I)  must live every day to be safe.

Act 2.
Just like Joshua did I need to make a personal choice and decide to stay close to Jesus, listening to Him speak to me through reading His Word and speaking to Him in prayer.

Act 3.
Because I love God He will deliver me from snares and pestilence and destruction. Also He will cover me and be a refuge for me from all the weapons of the enemy. I need not be afraid either by day or by night from of terror or sickness  nor enemies much bigger than I am, for He will even send His angels to help me and  keep me safe. 

Act 4.
 When I stand up for God He promises to stand up for me and satisfy me. And since He is God He will keep His promise. And since I have the opportunity I can choose to live in His presence each day with all His blessings.

Matthew 6:6-13
"But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees {what is done} in secret will reward you. And when you are praying, do not use meaningless repetition as the Gentiles do, for they suppose that they will be heard for their many words. So do not be like them; for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him. Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.Your kingdom come. Your will be done, On earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. [For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.']

The Christ

THE DOCTRINE OF JESUS CHRIST
Who He is
He Is Human
He Is Divine
Two Natures   --  One Person
The God-Man

What He has done is the Good News
What He is Doing
What He will Do

He was not merely a man doing his best before God, but God doing His best for man, through the Love revealed in the sacrifice of Himself.

 . . . When Our Blessed Lord was a Babe held by Simeon, the old man had pronounced over Him these words:

This is the Light which shall give revelation To the Gentiles, This is the glory of thy people Israel. Luke 2:32

Now as a grown man walking in the full glare of these lights, He proclaimed:

 I am the Light of the World, He who follows Me can never walk in darkness; He will possess the Light which is Life. John 8:12

Here He made a universal claim such as had been prophesied by Isaias that He would be the Light of all peoples and all nations. Not everyone would follow the Light; some would prefer to walk in darkness and would therefore hate the light. He Who was standing in the temple in which the lights were gradually dimming proclaimed Himself the Light of the World. Previously, He had called Himself the Temple; now He affirmed that He is the Glory and the Light of that Temple. He was declaring Himself more necessary for the life of souls than the light of the sun is for the life of our body. It was not His doctrine, nor His law, nor His commandments, nor His teaching, that constituted this light; it was His Person.

In the midst of Our Lord's affirmation that He was the Messias, there began some of the judicial and civil measures which were later to culminate in the Crucifixion. The Pharisees sent police officers to arrest Our Lord. Before they arrived, Our Lord made another reference to His death:

For a little while I am still with you, And then I am to go back to Him Who sent Me. You will look for Me, But you will not be able to find Me; You cannot reach the place where I am. John 7:33-34

He foresaw all that would happen. Six months remained until the Passover; there was only a little time left before He would fulfill the reason of His coming. They were already planning His death, but their plans would be unsuccessful until He delivered Himself voluntarily into their hands. Then the door would be shut and the time of their visitation would have passed. The separation between them and Him would not be distance but unlikeness in mind and heart, which is the greatest of all distance.
The police who were ordered to arrest Him returned to the chief priests and Pharisees empty-handed.

The officials asked them: "Why have you not brought Him here?" The officers answered, "Nobody has ever spoken as this Man speaks." And the Pharisees answered, "Have you, too, let yourselves be deceived? Have any of the rulers come to believe in Him yet, Or of the Pharisees? As for these common folk who have no knowledge of the law,  A curse is on them." John 7:46-49

The temple officials had contempt for the people; their assumption was that no vulgar person is pious. The very fact that the policemen had an overwhelming impression made upon them and yielded themselves to His fountains of benediction was an indication of the power He had over men of good will. The vocation of a policeman was sanctified that day when these officers refused to arrest the Savior.
There would be another moment in the Garden of Gethsemane when officers would be so impressed with Our Blessed Lord that they would cast themselves prone on the ground, when He said that He was Jesus of Nazareth. On that night, they would have their way because His Hour had come. But for the present they were powerless.
The story of the Feast of Tabernacles ends with the words, "His Hour has not yet come." A particular hour existed for everything He had to do; even His birth is described as the "fullness of time." So His Cross had its appointed hour. Every orb that rolls through the immensity of space is bound to reach a certain point at its own hour. Alan's decrees and proposals often fail, but it is otherwise with the designs of the Almighty. The unity of His life was not in His scattered deeds and parables and utterances, but in Its consummation.
Bethlehem was the foundation of Calvary and His glory. The stairs mount upward from the stable, for even then "there was no room" for Him; the "contradiction" prophesied by Simeon was another step; the Feast of the Tabernacles, another. He knew every step of the way, for He was not merely a man doing his best before God, but God doing His best for man, through the Love revealed in the sacrifice of Himself.

*The Life of Christ  ISBN: 9780385132206, Author: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Teaching the Bible or about the Bible?

It was very disturbing to hear that the teacher in a class on the Old Testament, a credentialed teacher at that, told the students that the first few chapters of Genesis speak of only generic creation and that the names Adam and Eve were not to be thought of as specific persons.

That may well be teaching about the Bible, but it is not teaching the Bible. If we teach the Bible then we interpret it by what it actually says, not what someone thinks it says. Was that not the original problem when Adam and Eve were sinless that the serpent fooled Eve to think that God did not mean what He said? The professor fell for his lie about God’s truthfulness and likely so have many of this teacher’s young students. They have been led astray from the truth.

Fundamental evangelical Christianity believes that sin came into the world when the original man disobeyed God. That as soon as he disobeyed death came into the world also. But if someone believes that the parts of the Bible that tell this story are only typical then we will be misled to believe that there is no such thing as sin against a God and that He did not mean what He said. And if there is no sin problem then why do we need a Savior from sin, although the Bible says that Jesus came to save people from their sin?

Romans 5:15 – 18 But God's free gift immeasurably outweighs the transgression. For if through the transgression of the one individual the mass of mankind have died, infinitely greater is the generosity with which God's grace, and the gift given in His grace which found expression in the one man Jesus Christ, have been bestowed on the mass of mankind. And it is not with the gift as it was with the results of one individual's sin; for the judgement which one individual provoked resulted in condemnation, whereas the free gift after a multitude of transgressions results in acquittal. For if, through the transgression of the one individual, Death made use of the one individual to seize the sovereignty, all the more shall those who receive God's overflowing grace and gift of righteousness reign as kings in Life through the one individual, Jesus Christ. It follows then that just as the result of a single transgression is a condemnation which extends to the whole race, so also the result of a single decree of righteousness is a life-giving acquittal which extends to the whole race.

How can it be that anyone with the mind of Christ, a condition that Paul attributes to born-again believers in Jesus, would imply that God contradicts Himself? Either that person is ignorant of what the Bible teaches or he has been deceived himself by false teachers, or else that he is not a believer. In any case he is not excusable and must be called a false teacher. The Bible warns us about false teachers and the book of Jude illustrates this.

Jude 1:4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed--men spoken of in ancient writings as pre-destined to this condemnation--ungodly men, who pervert the grace of our God into an excuse for immorality, and disown Jesus Christ, our only Sovereign and Lord.

Notice that these false teachers are unnoticed, which makes us wonder where did they come from but from our own ignorance and carelessness? They must have been very clever or had good degrees or perhaps they were even relatives or children of friends, but they had gotten in and were teaching false ideas. No doubt they were teaching ignorant people and new believers who swallowed what they taught and we should have noticed. The rest of the epistle goes on to mention the sins of both the false teachers and their disciples, but the epistle ends with a promise that God will keep His own.

Certainly a subjective book review of the Bible can be spoken of as teaching about the Bible, but it is not the same as teaching the Bible. To teach the Bible we must start out believing that it is the authority and that the teacher is not, How dare we infer that the good God contradicts Himself in any way? However we must realize that we and all other teachers are human and limited in what we know.

That the Bible is dependable is another subject, and fortunately there is abundant proof both internally and externally that the Bible as we have it is fully authentic and reliable. We can depend on it as being exactly what Paul told Timothy.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 Every Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for convincing, for correction of error, and for instruction in right doing; so that the man of God may himself be complete and may be perfectly equipped for every good work.

The Bible is God’s word to us today.

Psalm 82

Psalm 82

1.  God standeth in the congregation of God; He judgeth among the gods.
2.  How long will ye judge unjustly, And respect the persons of the wicked? Selah
3.  Judge the poor and fatherless: Do justice to the afflicted and destitute.
4.  Rescue the poor and needy: Deliver them out of the hand of the wicked.
5.  They know not, neither do they understand; They walk to and fro in darkness: All the foundations of the earth are shaken.
6.  I said, Ye are gods, And all of you sons of the Most High.
7.  Nevertheless ye shall die like men, And fall like one of the princes.
8.  Arise, O God, judge the earth; For thou shalt inherit all the nations.


Questions arise in our minds when we read this little psalm by Asaph.

1. The first question might be who is Asaph? Well, he was an Israeli poet or psalmist who also was a recorder or scribe and sometimes a prophet. Here is the story of his commissioning.

1 Chronicles 16:1 And they brought in the ark of God and placed it inside the tent which David had pitched for it, and they offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before God…. 4  He appointed some of the Levites {as} ministers before the ark of the LORD, even to celebrate and to thank and praise the LORD God of Israel: 5 Asaph the chief, … with musical instruments, harps, lyres; also Asaph {played} loud-sounding cymbals, 37  So he left Asaph and his relatives there before the ark of the covenant of the LORD to minister before the ark continually, as every day's work required;

So the original Asaph was commissioned and left with the continual vocation of being in charge of all the music and singing and the records for it, which he passed on to his descendents who carried on their work for hundreds of years.

From the words of this psalm we infer that this Asaph lived in the time of the worst kings of Israel, the times when Isaiah and Jeremiah were prophesying.

2. Why does he call people gods? As the word is used here it means one who has the right or privilege of position of a leader, a ruler or a judge. The priests were judges of the moral rightness of the rest of the people of Israel, having the law of God to guide them. This psalm speaks directly to the judges, the leaders, it is not directed to the common people. Not to those who suffer but to those whose unfair judgements make them suffer.

3. What is the message of the psalm? That the supreme judge is concerned about His people and they need to know that He is standing among them and judging them. Also at the end of the psalm they are reminded that they are as human as the people they are denying justice to and will die as all humans do.

Asaph would be in the place where he would know what was going on in the justice system of the nation, that it was very bad. And he could well have been reading in Jeremiah

Jeremiah 11:1 The word that came to Jeremiah from Jehovah, saying, Hear ye the words of this covenant, and speak unto the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and say thou unto them, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel: Cursed be the man that heareth not the words of this covenant, because of the evil of the house of Israel and of the house of Judah, which they have wrought for themselves in provoking me to anger by offering incense unto Baal. 18 And Jehovah gave me knowledge of it, and I knew it: then thou showedst me their doings… that they had devised devices against me, [saying], Let us destroy the tree with the fruit thereof, and let us cut him off from the land of the living, that his name may be no more remembered. 29 Shall I not visit for these things? saith Jehovah; shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? 30 A wonderful and horrible thing is come to pass in the land: 31 the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so: and what will ye do in the end thereof?

Today as we look at our justice system, our own gods if you will, we see that they also subvert moral justice by using their own standards instead of the Creator’s. Causes for good are condemned and causes of social humanism are championed. The real supreme Judge, though, is watching and He knows everything.

The warning is the same today as we read in the psalm, that those who are judging better be careful for they, we, may get away with it for a short while, but we will all die just like those we condemn, and after that the Judge of all will judge us.

Like the psalmist God's people cry out, “Arise O God and bring judgement on the earth.” And God will answer this prayer when Jesus the Saviour from sin shall reign and rule all nations.

Psalm 80

A psalm of Asaph
1 Oh, give ear, Shepherd of Israel, You who lead Joseph like a flock; You who are enthroned {above} the cherubim, shine forth!
2 Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up Your power And come to save us!
3 O God, restore us And cause Your face to shine {upon us,} and we will be saved.
4 O LORD God {of} hosts, How long will You be angry with the prayer of Your people?
5 You have fed them with the bread of tears, And You have made them to drink tears in large measure.
6 You make us an object of contention to our neighbors, And our enemies laugh among themselves.
7 O God {of} hosts, restore us And cause Your face to shine {upon us,} and we will be saved.
8 You removed a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and planted it.
9 You cleared {the ground} before it, And it took deep root and filled the land.
10 The mountains were covered with its shadow, And the cedars of God with its boughs.
11 It was sending out its branches to the sea And its shoots to the River.
12 Why have You broken down its hedges, So that all who pass {that} way pick its {fruit?}
13 A boar from the forest eats it away And whatever moves in the field feeds on it.
14  O God {of} hosts, turn again now, we beseech You; Look down from heaven and see, and take care of this vine,
15 Even the shoot which Your right hand has planted, And on the son whom You have strengthened for Yourself.
16 It is burned with fire, it is cut down; They perish at the rebuke of Your countenance.
17 Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, Upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.
18 Then we shall not turn back from You; Revive us, and we will call upon Your name.

This psalm is attributed to Asaph, which may be a family name for it is associated with many other psalms written at different times in Israel’s history. But it is very clear that this man wanted his hearers to know that God blesses only those who repent and return to Him with their whole hearts.

We may assume it was written in a very dark time in Israel’s history, perhaps just before the Assyrian king conquered the kingdom of Israel, the northern tribes, and even Judah was rejecting the ways of God. If we read the first chapters of Jeremiah to get the setting we can understand how sad and worked up the psalmist was. He like Jeremiah wanted the people to return to God all the while knowing that unless they did they would be defeated, their cities destroyed and they and their families would go into captivity.

And yet as a poet-singer-prophet he sang and taught them this psalm. The central part is a poetic illustration comparing Israel to a vine planted in the promised land which grew great and luxuriantly spread over the whole country but was now in ruins and would be rooted out of the land unless they repented. The allegory teaches a very clear message that God wanted to do even much more for them if they would not rebel.

And then in the second last verse we see Asaph’s appeal and prayer to God in a prophetic style. He knows that the present weak ungodly king cannot ever save them so He calls on God to send His strong man, yes a son of man, but the anointed one. We see this as foretelling the coming of our Lord Jesus but the psalmist lived hundreds of years before Jesus came. He must have wondered much about God’s strong son of man, but he knew that God had inspired him to use those words, and he believed. Do we who have so much more in the New Testament and history, are we as he was, sure that repentance and belief are the only road to blessing?

1 Peter 1:8-12
Him you love, though your eyes have never looked on Him. In Him, though at present you cannot see Him, you nevertheless trust, and triumph with a joy which is unspeakable and is crowned with glory, while you are securing as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls. There were Prophets who earnestly inquired about that salvation, and closely searched into it--even those who spoke beforehand of the grace which was to come to you. They were eager to know the time which the Spirit of Christ within them kept indicating, or the characteristics of that time, when they solemnly made known beforehand the sufferings that were to come upon Christ and the glories which would follow. To them it was revealed that they were serving not themselves but you, when they foretold the very things which have now been openly declared to you.

Jesus saves from sin.

Psalm 77

To the choirmaster: according to Jeduthun. A Psalm of Asaph

1 I cry aloud to God, aloud to God, and he will hear me.
2 In the day of my trouble I seek the Lord; in the night my hand is stretched out without wearying; my soul refuses to be comforted.
3 When I remember God, I moan; when I meditate, my spirit faints. Selah
4 You hold my eyelids open; I am so troubled that I cannot speak.
5 I consider the days of old, the years long ago.
6 I said, "Let me remember my song in the night; let me meditate in my heart." Then my spirit made a diligent search:
7 "Will the Lord spurn forever, and never again be favorable?
8 Has his steadfast love forever ceased? Are his promises at an end for all time?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious? Has he in anger shut up his compassion?" Selah
10 Then I said, "I will appeal to this, to the years of the right hand of the Most High."
11 I will remember the deeds of the LORD; yes, I will remember your wonders of old.
12 I will ponder all your work, and meditate on your mighty deeds.
13 Your way, O God, is holy. What god is great like our God?
14 You are the God who works wonders; you have made known your might among the peoples.
15 You with your arm redeemed your people, the children of Jacob and Joseph. Selah
16 When the waters saw you, O God, when the waters saw you, they were afraid; indeed, the deep trembled.
17 The clouds poured out water; the skies gave forth thunder; your arrows flashed on every side.
18 The crash of your thunder was in the whirlwind; your lightnings lighted up the world; the earth trembled and shook.
19 Your way was through the sea, your path through the great waters; yet your footprints were unseen.
20 You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

This psalm clearly brings out the personal individual nature of all the psalms, for they are very different from the history books of the Bible, and different from the prophetic books of the Bible and also from the books of the New Testament. The psalms are personal, they speak of me and my relations with God, of you and your conflicts and sufferings, and how you or I or any other individual can obtain rest and peace and comfort and deliverance even in the present circumstance. The psalms are not primarily for the nation of Israel or the Church or any congregation, but for us personally, for you and for me as individuals.

That does not mean the psalmist did not see the social and national troubles around him. And, yes, he knew that he lived among people who did not care about their fellowship with God while he cared and was concerned. The troubles were his. His to bear, his to overcome, his to seek atonement for, and his before God without blaming others or God for them. Yes, they were annoying and terrifying to him partly because he was a human being like others and his flesh and bones and feelings were hurting, but inward peace was his desire. And very often this is just where we find ourselves.

Fortunately the psalm does have a resolution and there is a way to peace with God. It is a matter of the will, to be willing to seek God where He can be found, in His sanctuary not in my works or worries or wonderings or blaming others. Then Asaph recounts all the wonderful things that God has done in the past for others down through the ages, proving that God can give rest and peace and deliverance. And He is the same as ever. He has not forgotten to be gracious, He is good to all.

 Perhaps the psalmist’s friends had been asking, “But how can you believe God if you do not know why He is allowing this to happen, and when you do not know what he will do next?” To which, if the author had been a New Testament believer, he might have answered, “I believe that Jesus did walk on the water of the Lake of Galilee, that His footprints were on the top of that lake, but I would not be foolish enough to try to find them today. He is God and I believe Him.”

Again in verse 15 we notice that he understands very well the difference between the rest  and peace he so desired and what the merely human sons of Abraham were concerned about. He refers not to father Abraham but to Jacob after the promise of rest had been narrowed down to him and not his brother. And then he narrows it down to the only son of Jacob that we can be sure who did find rest, to Joseph. If we compare the older brother Judah with the younger brother Joseph we see no hint that the wayward Judah ever was a true believer or that he ever was interested in finding peace with God, but to Joseph that was most important thing.  In his circumstances of bondage and slavery he rested in God knowing that God meant it for good just as he means the present circumstances that we are in for our good.

I am not a Jew as Asaph was but God had him write this psalm as much for me and my needs as it was for himself and for every other Jew. And whether or not you are a Jew the psalms are for your comfort and restoration too. They are for you without asking what your national or ethnic or religious background is. Let us each one get personal with God and cry as Asaph did at the very beginning of this psalm, “My voice is unto God.”

The old song said,

Footprints of Jesus that make the pathway glow:
I will follow the steps of Jesus where e’er they go.

And we should follow the steps of Jesus as long as they can be seen in the sand, but when they are in the water our faith will be tested and we will still believe as the Psalmist did, and we will trust in God.

Psalm 71 A Psalm for the Aged

1.  In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.
9.  Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.
18.  Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to every one that is to come.

We usually think of David as the young shepherd boy, but here he is speaking of his old age after many terrible things have happened in his life and lifetime. He has seen God deliver him from bears and lions and Goliath and false friends and evil men and many other dire circumstances, and now he is not the strong fearless man that he was. Also he has just experienced the worst thing that could happen to him, that someone close to him had conspired to kill him and take away his kingship, the very kingdom that God had promised would last forever. It had almost been usurped by a man who did not honour and trust God, by men who did not know or care about the promised King Eternal, the Messiah.

At the time he wrote this psalm he was back ruling the nation for God and holding a good testimony of righteousness before the surrounding nations, he was able to encourage and sustain the witness to his own people through the priests and the singers who ministered in the tabernacle, and he still had enough smarts to rule in fairness, but what about the future? What if his own mind gets grey like his hair and what about the morals of the one who succeeds him? No wonder that we see his concern in this psalm for the future of God’s plan for Israel and for His Messianic King. Thus his prayer "Please, God, that I never get confused about what is right and wrong."

For we all have heard of people who ‘lose it’ when they age, who used to be so correct and godly, but become so . - . - . It makes us want to memorize and repeat this prayer in the first verse of Psalm 71 that God will keep us from ever being confused about what is right and what is wrong. That we never forget that there is an eternal difference between good and evil. And that those around us who leave God out of their lives and what they do are wrong for there is a spiritual world as well as a material one, that there is a personal evil enemy of good and righteousness, the enemy of God who wants to usurp and spoil us. Many have believed his lies and have conspired with him to confuse us and our children, to spoil God’s good plans for the future and His kingdom.

O God, may I, we, live to show Your power to this generation and your strength to every one is that is to come. Let me never be confused. Amen!

Psalm 70

1 To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David: to bring to remembrance. Make haste, O God, to deliver me; Jehovah, hasten to my help.
2 Let them be ashamed and brought to confusion that seek after my soul; let them be turned backward and confounded that take pleasure in mine adversity;
3 Let them turn back because of their shame that say, Aha! Aha!
4 Let all those that seek thee be glad and rejoice in thee, and let such as love thy salvation say continually, Let God be magnified!
5 But I am afflicted and needy: make haste unto me, O God. Thou art my help and my deliverer: O Jehovah, make no delay.

This short psalm shows David in deep desperate trouble praying earnestly for immediate help and that his enemies will be turned back. He is reminding everyone that God is faithful to all who trust Him while pleading with God that the answer will come immediately. But there is no clue in the psalm what the problem was, however the fact that he lived to sing the psalm proves that God did answer and David was thankful. The only clue we have about the circumstances that brought this cry for help is the introduction title to the psalm where we find the word ‘remembrance’. But what is David remembering that he wants all who read the psalm to profit from?

We remember that David was the anointed king of Israel and we have learned that he was just as human as we are. Because he took his job as king seriously he studied and learned the mind of God, for God had given it to Abraham and Moses and the prophets. We need only read his Psalm 119 in which he mentions the law of God in almost every one of the 176 verses to see his respect for the laws of God. He knew that obedience to God would bring blessing and that disobedience would bring curses. And right now he was in an extremely desperate state. Why, he does not tell us.

So let us imagine that he is remembering the rebellion of Absalom, one of the most despicable betrayals that ever happened to David. And immediately we remember the statement that he made when he sent the army out to fight with Absalom, he said, “O Absalom my son, I wish that it had been me that died instead of you.” What was going on in his mind to say such a thing? Again since he does not tell us, let us imagine what might have triggered him saying, ‘if only’.

He knew that Moses taught the people what God expected of them after they came our of Eqypt and that Moses repeated it in the book of Deuteronomy when the wilderness wanderings were just about over, He had read that the people had promised to worship and obey God, and he knew the special instructions about what they should do to gain control of their promised land. The blessings and the curses were emphasized very strongly, Moses made very sure that they knew about both cause and effect. One of these instructions was that they should make no deals with any of the peoples that God saw were beyond hope, else there would be terrible punishment for this disobedience. David also had seen how Saul lost the kingdom because he disobeyed what God asked him to do.

Had David disobeyed? Alas, yes, he had. It started with wanting a princess as a wife, which of course would be a prideful thing and would give a poor shepherd boy some status, and no doubt there were people who urged him to take the honor of being the King’s son in law. But it was not the son of Saul’s daughter who was chasing David out of his kingdom, for she did not have a son by David, it was his son by another princess.

And was not this other princess the daughter of the king of Geshur, the king of one of those nations whom God had said should be exterminated? Yes, and in remembrance it was a terrible disobedience. And the sons of that disobedience were as bad as the people whom David calls upon God to curse. If only David had obeyed, but since he did not there were consequences, very bad ones. If only . . .

He might also have been thinking of his disobedience in stealing Uriah’s wife and having him murdered. That also would have be a very disturbing remembrance, another reason that he was not at all worthy of God’s blessing. If only . . . But David believed in spite of all these memories and God did hear him and God did answer him.

It likely was a while after the terrible experience before the psalm was composed and sung, after David was back on his throne, after deliverance had been granted by God, after the conspirators had been eliminated and the kingdom was safe from being under the control of God’s enemies. And who knows how much worse it would have been if Absalom had become king, but fortunately God heard and answered the prayer of the psalm. He always has an answer.

As we remember the things that we have failed to do and to be, the promised blessings and forfeitures, and how much we have been forgiven, may we believe in God’s goodness like David did. We need not remain at the ‘if only’, for we can be victorious like David was and sing praises to our God even using his very words in this psalm. Let God be magnified!

The Habit of Prayer

Ephesians 6:18 Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit

In this verse Paul exhorts Christians to pray always. Really? To pray the same prayers over and over again? What prayers could he be talking about? Habitual, customary prayers are not usually considered to be from the heart as prayer should be, but here are 4 habitual prayers that every believer needs to always pray every day of his life. The words need not always be the same, but the heart attitude must be consistent always lest the blessings slip away from us.

The most important and most often neglected prayer is grace before eating. We would quickly starve and die of poor health if the Creator held back His sun and His rain on the land. He is definitely worthy of our thanks for food. Are we thankful in prayer before eating each meal?

When we were young we learned to pray before going to sleep asking the Lord to keep us, nor do we need His watchcare over us any less when we are grown up. Do we thank God for the day and do we commit ourselves to Him for the night in prayer? We should always do this.

The songwriter wrote, “When morning gilds the skies, my heart awakening cries, ‘May Jesus Christ be praised’”. Each morning we should be thankful that He has refreshed us with sleep and brought us to a new day. Now that it is morning we always thank Him and ask Him to lead us.

Bible reading is another regular opportunity to always thank God that he has given us His Book and to ask Him to help us understand the written word, for we will not understand much of it unless the Holy Spirit helps us to understand it. “Help me, O Lord to understand what I am reading in the Bible” must be another one of those always prayers.

But you say that these are only personal and almost selfish prayers so that I can be healthy and enjoy a good life every day and they are not as important as other less selfish prayers! But no, if our attitudes and hearts are not right for these things and we do not pray about them, then neither will they be right when we pray about other people and other things. Listen to what Jesus said in the parable about the good Samaritan, that we must love others as we love ourselves. So if we never learn how to love ourselves we will never love others. God in His relation to me is more concerned about me than about anybody else. Yes, He is. He cares for you and for me first before what He cares about what we do for Him or for others.

So let us practice the daily habit of praying always using these 4 little prayers so that He can teach us the effectual fervent prayer that accomplishes much.

James 5:16 (c) The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.

God Who is Here

Matthew 1:23  Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.

The difference between the God of the Bible and other gods is that the God of the Bible is with us because He wants to be with us. In the Old Testament He wanted the Israelites to build a Tabernacle in their midst so He could be with them, not just to be out there somewhere but to be with His people. Jesus said that God loved the world and wanted them to know that He was present with them. That is also what this verse in Matthew tells us and why Joseph was told that Jesus would be named Emmanuel, God with us.

Of course God the Creator is everywhere else also, but He wants to be with  people whom He made in His likeness, people who can think and love and make things; moral beings.. Solomon said that His delight is with the sons of men. In theology this characteristic of God is called transcendence, meaning that He is above and beyond everything that He has created and  none of it limits Him in any way. The word used in theology for God’s interest in and presence with people and His place in history is immanence, somewhat like the word Emmanuel. We might say that God is a real person who is both there and here without any limitation. In fact He can be in Heaven and live in all our hearts. He cares.

A Jewish writer in contrasting the God of the Bible with the god of Islam points out that they worship a being who is not personal but entirely transcendent, that is he is not here at all. That is a world of difference meaning that they have no hope, no joy, no song, no saviour. But we do believe in the God of the Bible who sent His Son Jesus to be with us. To be our joy, our hope, our Redeemer, our song.

Oh that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and His lovingkindness to the children of men. Be thankful unto Him and trust Him. Jesus has come to be with us as Friend, Brother, and Sin Bearer.

A New Year and a New Life

The first month of the new year 2018 is half over and what has become of our resolutions that this year will be different? Or have we already despaired that there will ever be any difference?

The Bible talks about a new life and the old life, for there is a real difference between eternal life and temporal life, the one has to do only with this world and its calendar while everlasting life is just that, it is the life that goes on and on forever. Everybody born gets temporal life from his parents but spiritual life is quite another thing. The days and months and years pass on and are gone, but Eternity has no end. And if our aims and resolutions are only for days and months and years they will be gone and lost too like our earthly life.

What we need is a new life, a spiritual life. Jesus said we need to be born again to have changed lives that can really carry out those resolutions to be good to others and be acceptable to God. That is what we read in the Bible in John 3:3 where Jesus said you and I must be born again, and He went on to explain what He means about the second birth. The new birth is essential before we can begin a new life.

John 3:15-21. . . whoever believes will in Him have eternal life.  For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. He who believes in Him is not judged; he who does not believe has been judged already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God.

We know that Jesus came to save us from an eternity outside of Heaven in Hell, but the Bible says that He came to save us from sins. From those sins in our own lives, from the things that we think and do and practice that break our resolutions to be good and do good. He came so that we can be winners in the fight to be different in the new life and in the new year. Jesus was born to save us and make us different.

Matthew 1:21 "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."

Read and study God's Word daily to learn how to be saved from our sins and resolution failures.

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