Christianity’s most shocking claim isn’t that God exists; it’s that He communicates.  The Bible begins with the story of creation, where God created “the heavens and the earth” with a Word from His mouth (cf. Ps 33:6).  In theology, we know this as revelation—the means by which God “reveals” His nature and purpose.  And while “the heavens declare the glory of God” (Ps 19:1), it is in Scripture that God’s Word is most specifically articulated.

So when we come to Psalm 119, we find the unnamed psalmist singing a song of praise about the very nature of this inspired Word.  As we observed yesterday, the psalm is an “acrostic” poem of 22 sections of 8 lines each—each of the 22 sections corresponding to a sequential letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  In his study of this psalm, David Noel Freedman calls it“endlessly inventive,” though says there is “no more order than in a kaleidoscope.” (Freedman, Psalm 119, p. 87).  And this is true.  But our aim this week is to surface some of the features of this poem so that we can gain a better understanding of God’s Word.  Today we start by examining the terms that the psalmist uses to describe the Bible itself.

IN A WORD

The psalmist uses a total of eight precise words to describe God’s Word:

• “Law” (Hebrew: tora): This is probably the most familiar term—used about 25 times (vv. 1, 18, 29, 34, 44, 51, 53, 55, 61, 70, 72, 77, 85, 92, 97, 109, 113, 126, 136, 142, 150, 153, 163, 165, 174). The connection to “teach” (119:33) emphasizes the connection to God.  The Law is meant for obeying God—not merely intellectual satisfaction.  The Law may be used to refer to God’s specific statutes, to the Pentateuch, or to Scripture as a whole (in John 10:34, Jesus uses Law in to refer to the entire OT).

• “Word,” sometimes “Promise” (dabar, also imra): This is the preferred term to refer to the commandments of God. The word “Word” appears roughly 39 times (vv. 4, 5, 8, 17, 34, 44, 56, 57, 60, 67, 88, 100, 101, 129, 134, 136, 145, 158, 167, 168).  The term is general, but it elicits a variety of responses.

• “Testimonies” (‘edot): This term occurs 23 times, always plural with the exception of v. 88 (vv. 2, 14, 22, 24, 31, 36, 46, 59, 79, 88, 95, 99,111, 119, 125, 129, 138, 144, 146, 152, 157, 167, 168). This was a legal term that had both positive and negative connotations. Negatively, Israel was commanded to place the book of the law next to the Ark of the Covenant, ‘that it may be there as a witness against you’ (Dt 31:26).  Positively, the idea of “testimony” suggests the reliability of God’s Word.

• “Precepts” (piqqudim): This term appears 21 times (vv. 4, 15, 27, 40, 45, 56, 63, 69, 78, 87, 93, 94, 100, 104, 110, 128, 134, 141, 159, 168, 173)—always in the plural. This is a word used to refer to some type of officer or overseer.  Jeremiah 23:2 describes that God will “attend to [poqed]” the wayward shepherds.  This means that God’s Word impacts every detail of our lives.

• “Statutes” (huqqim): This term appears 21 times (vv. 5, 8, 12, 23, 26, 33, 48, 54, 64, 68, 71, 80, 83, 112, 117, 118, 124, 135, 145, 155, 171). This term speaks of the binding force of scripture and its durative character—Isaiah 30:8 speaks of God’s Word enduring forever.

• “Commandments” (miswot): Occurs 22 times (vv. 6, 10, 19, 21, 32, 35, 47, 48, 60, 66, 73, 86, 96, 98, 115, 127, 131, 143, 151, 166, 172, 176). This term simply refers to the Bible’s ability to give direct orders.

• “Judgments” or “Ordinances” (mispatim): Occurs 23 times in the plural (vv. 7, 13, 20, 30, 39, 43, 52, 62, 75, 91, 102, 106, 108, 120, 137, 156, 160, 164, 175) and four times in the singular (84, 121, 132, 149)—though in verse 84 the term is not used of the Word of God. These are most often used in a civil/legal sense—that of a wise judge presiding over His people (cf. Ex 21:1; Dt 17:8-9).  Scripture offers a glimpse of the fair dealings between God and man.

• “Way” (derek): Used 13 times (vv. 1, 3, 5, 14, 26, 27, 29, 30, 32, 33, 37, 59, 168). This term describes a pattern of life that God lays out.

THE TRUE AND BETTER WORD

In the  New Testament, John begins his biography of Jesus by cribbing the opening lines of Genesis: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God” (John 1:1).  What is John saying?  John is saying that Jesus is the exact revelation of God.  This is why the unnamed writer of Hebrews would later say that “Long ago…God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son” (Hebrews 1:1-2).  What the Bible reveals in text, Jesus reveals in flesh and blood and sinew.

In his excellent book A Clear and Present Word, Mark A. Thompson adopts a scholarly approach to the subject of language and communication.  God’s Word, he says, can never be separated from God’s redemptive work in history.  But this also means something significant: if Jesus is the embodiment of this Word, then it changes the way the Bible is seen culturally.  How?  In today’s post-everything world, our greatest prophets insist that there are no absolutes, only perceptions.  Language, whether in a sacred book or otherwise, is always colored by the agenda of its culture of origin.  We can only read the Bible as reflective of a primitive, pre-scientific era.  It’s poetry may be moving, it’s stories beautiful, but we can’t possibly apply it to everyday life.  But if Jesus is the exact embodiment of the Bible, then this changes everything.  I can “deconstruct” a text; I can’t deconstruct a person.  So even if I remain skeptical regarding God’s Word embedded in Scripture, I remain confronted by God’s Word embodied in Jesus.

For Christ’s followers, this provides added reason for celebration and worship, because the Bible bursts free from being merely a collection of precepts, but a love song that’s been playing before the needle ever dropped.

In tomorrow’s post, we’ll examine more thoroughly the ways the Bible has an impact on the lives of those who trust in its Author.

If you seek to follow Jesus, you know what it’s like to be a stranger in a strange land.  Today we live in what’s often called a “post-Christian” America.  Though the western world has never had an official religion, a generation or so ago we inhabited a society whose arts and ethics were largely shaped by Christian values.  No more.  Now, Christianity is seen as quaint, outdated—the relic of a “Leave-it-to-Beaver” style America, where women were relegated to the kitchen and blacks to the back of the bus.  We’ve moved past this era; why would anyone wish to go back again?

So it’s only understandable that those who pursue the values of the Bible would be looked down on—at best as religious fanatics; at worst as repressive bigots.

Perhaps it’s surprising, but one of the most beloved psalms of the Bible arose out of a culture not entirely unlike our own.  Psalm 119 is a famously lengthy psalm, one that has fascinated scholars and preachers alike.  Yet no one felt they could ever do justice to its rich depth.  As early as the fourth century, Augustine shied away from commenting on this psalm, feeling it required not “an expositor, but only a reader and a listener.”

Structurally, the psalm follows a basic pattern.  The psalm contains a total of 22 sections of 8 lines each.  It’s also an acrostic poem.  If you were to read the psalm in the original Hebrew, you’d notice that each of the 22 sections begins with a sequential letter of the Hebrew alphabet.  So we can actually think of this psalm as forming something of the “A to Z” of scripture’s impact in our life.

And yes, the subject of the psalm is the Bible itself.  It is the lengthiest and most renowned example of the “Torah” psalms—songs sung in celebration of God’s revealed truth in His Word.  In his commentary on psalms, Walter Brueggeman writes:

“Clearly this psalm probes beyond the simplistic formulation of Psalm 1. A life of full obedience is not a conclusion of faith. It is a beginning point and an access to a life filled with many-sided communion with God.” (Walter Brueggeman, Psalms, p. 41)

But what do we know about the man that wrote this song?  Almost nothing.  This isn’t a song written by David; the author remains a mystery.  Still, the psalm hints at the life situation of the author—and the way he seemed to inhabit a hostile world, one where God’s truth was increasingly being dismissed as irrelevant.

In our week-long exploration of this magnificent psalm, we’ll be using Derek Kidner’s excellent commentary as something of a guide.  In his commentary, Kidner identifies three specific things we can learn about the psalmist’s situation:

1.)    AN ALIEN WORLD SHOULD SADDEN US, NOT SURPRISE US

Indeed, we are strangers in a strange land.  “It is time for the Lord to act,” he laments, “for your law has been broken” (Ps 119:126).  Clearly there was more than skepticism at work.  The psalmist’s neighbors seemed literally hell-bent on living their own way.  The psalmist calls them “double-minded” (Ps 119:113), meaning they lacked the singular commitment of God’s people.  They lay in wait “to destroy me” (Ps 119:95), and may have even been rooted in derision and slander (Ps 119:22, 23, 69, 85).  The psalmist’s reaction is simple, yet relatable:

My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law. (Ps 119:136)

As God’s people, we will find ourselves surrounded by men and women who live by their own set of rules—surely not God’s.  If we’re not careful, this can lead to a sense of moral alarm and outrage.  “Can you believe what the kids are doing these days?”  “I can’t believe that the government would allow ________________!”  And you can fill in the blank yourself.  The psalmist lived in far more threatening world than ours.  Yet his hands never clenched into fists.  Instead his eyes shed tears of compassion.  In his book The Next Christians, Gabe Lyons calls Christians to be “provoked, not offended,” meaning that we react to the moral decline of our world with love.  Yes, we must remain discerning.  But we also must remember that Jesus promised that the world we live in will get worse, not better (Matthew 24).

2.)    GOD’S PEOPLE LIVE IN AN ONGOING BATTLE

The psalmist laments that “the cords of the wicked ensare” him (Ps 119:61ff).  In verse 36, he asks:

 “Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain!” (Ps 119:36)

And while the psalmist knows God’s commands (Ps 119:110), he later admits that they are hard to keep:

 “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments.” (Ps 119:176)

God made the world so, so good.  Yet there is nothing good that man can’t bend toward his own selfish gain.  In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis suggests that the devil has no power to create—only pervert.  The reason temptation is so overwhelming is because Satan is a master of taking God’s good gifts and enticing us with them in ways or degrees that are inappropriate.  Sex, for example, is a beautiful gift meant to be shared by those who have committed their lives to one another in marriage.  Yet statistics show that this boundary has been repeatedly broken by those outside and inside the walls of traditional church.

We should therefore recognize the profound pull that sin has—even in the Godliest of people.  And we should similarly learn from this writer’s own brokenness, that there will be many battles for our hearts—battles that we often lose and give in to fleshly desire.  Though it’s a lifelong struggle, we can remain confident that at the cross, Jesus won the war—and His victory is credited to our account before God.

3.)    GOD’S PEOPLE PERSEVERE

Kidner characterizes the psalmist’s prevailing attitude as one of “quiet steadfastness.” In verse 44 the psalmist uses such words as “continually, forever and ever.” He presses on, still eager to learn (“give me understanding”) and to grow (“give me life”).   For many outside the church, Christianity must seem a beautiful dream.  It grants people hope, grants them courage in the face of suffering.  But it can be nothing more than that—a dream, a wishful story meant only to numb us to the harshness of our world.  It’s no wonder Marx so famously called religion the “opiate of the people”—implant people with false hope, he said, and they will come to tolerate even the vilest oppression.

But if the gospel is true, if Jesus truly rose from the dead, then Christianity moves from the realm of fantasy into the light of certainty.  The Bible is a story of how we can experience this same victory in our lives, that this harsh world we currently reside in will eventually be transformed into God’s paradise, where we can all experience God’s kingdom like never before.

So don’t lose hope.  Don’t be discouraged by the fact that you live in a world wholly opposed to God’s truth.  Because Jesus is the true and better psalmist.  He chose to leave the security of heaven where he—like the psalmist describes—would experience rejection, ridicule, and death.  But Jesus rose again, so that we might persevere with a new identity and a new hope.

In the next few days, we’ll unpack further the truths of this psalm, and explore the ways we can see the gospel in every letter of this beautiful piece.

Any of us who have gone on a vacation with our children remember the most famous travel question of them all:  “Are we there yet?”

One of my favorite scenes in all of filmmaking is from the Shrek 2 movie when Donkey says to Shrek, “Are we there yet?” … “Are we there yet?” … “Are we there yet?”

To which Shrek responds, “The Kingdom of Far, Far Away is far, far away!”

And Donkey moans, “I’m just so darned bored; there’s no in-flight movie or nothing!”

Finally, Donkey’s “pop, pop, pop (sounds)” leads Shrek to yell “DONKEY, can you just stop being yourself?”

Vacation and travel is supposed to be a fun time for a family – an adventure. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it creates new stresses not seen at home. Everyone is living together in a packed hotel room, or, as in the case of some of my own family’s epic vacation disasters, in a tent.

Living in a tent is not always the greatest of fun—in my humble opinion. My family of origin didn’t go camping; we had the good sense of living in a vacation house or hotel. Diana’s family camped … a lot … even for an entire summer one time – touring the whole USA. So when I married Diana, I knew some camping was part of the deal; we even did it on our honeymoon … bet y’all can’t top that!

Well, we camped a lot with our boys as they grew up. No, it was not always awful, but, there were more than a couple of epic trials, especially with the weather. But it was cheap, and that was the driving motivation for doing it.

So, eight years ago we were in a tent at Yellowstone … in June. And it was so cold that there was ice on the inside of the tent walls. Nobody could sleep … in June! About 3:00 in the morning, I looked at Diana through the darkness and said, “Diana, I have something to confess to you that I’ve kept a secret from you for all of these 30 years that I’ve known you. And I want to tell you what it is … I HATE CAMPING; I’VE ALWAYS HATED CAMPING, and I only ever tolerated it because I love you. But this is the end. NO MORE CAMPING!”

Notice that our short three-verse Psalm for today has the following superscription (and remember that these words are divinely inspired, just like the verses) …

Psalm 133

A song of ascents. Of David.

Again, a Psalm of ascent was one that was sung by Jewish pilgrims at the time of the three festivals in Jerusalem when thousands of people flocked to the city for the holy days. There was no place to house them all in town . They were encamped around the hillsides ascending to Jerusalem by the thousands, living in all sorts of make-shift shelters.

Do you suppose there was some need for them to be reminded about unity? Verse one says:

1 How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!

These festivals were a time in the calendar for the whole nation to gather together as one people … one family … which they were – all of them descended from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

There are two illustrations given as to what this should be like.

The first illustration is about the oil poured over the head of Aaron, the High Priest …

2 It is like precious oil poured on the head, running down on the beard, running down on Aaron’s beard, down on the collar of his robe.

This verse looks back to an event described in Exodus 30 …

22 Then the Lord said to Moses, 23 “Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant calamus, 24 500 shekels of cassia—all according to the sanctuary shekel—and a hin of olive oil. 25 Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. 

30 “Anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them so they may serve me as priests. 31 Say to the Israelites, ‘This is to be my sacred anointing oil for the generations to come.

So this was a very special and expensive anointing that spoke of the unique relationship of God to his people, and of his people to one another.

The second illustration is about Mount Hermon …

3 It is as if the dew of Hermon were falling on Mount Zion. For there the Lord bestows his blessing, even life forevermore.

Much of Palestine is a rather arid and dry land. Mount Herman in the north is the source of moisture for four tributaries that create the Jordan River. Life flows down from Mount Herman with the heavy dews that give vitality for the entire region.

Likewise, life and vitality comes from the unity of God’s people with one another.

In the 1970s, I fell in love twice. Yes, once was with my life-long camping partner mentioned above. The other time was with the institution and family known as the Church of Jesus Christ. My local church family meant so much to me through my high school and college years; I was so blessed by so many people who cared for me and encouraged me in untold ways. They were my family, more than my family was my family. I was never tempted by the allurement of the world and the partying culture of my public high school. I had a family of friends in a youth ministry that was different and so much healthier in every way.

And so, I knew my life was going to be invested in the local church. More times than not, it has been a great blessing. Where it has not been is related to the very theme of this little Psalm. Unity makes for rich experiences; disunity makes for extreme pain and disappointment.

When we come together on Sunday, we are like pilgrims who are all a part of the same family. We have come from our homes to spend time together in our worship of the Lord – the patriarch of our family. His sacrifices for us are so great, that, when you think about it, it is really silly that we not spend our time together in harmony and unity.

Jesus cares about this; he prayed for it in his final intercessory prayer in John 17. We should care about it also.

One does not much think of Solomon when pondering the writers of the Psalms. But here is a psalm of Solomon that has the sound and feel of the book of Ecclesiastes—a late-in-life reflection upon wise living.

Though Psalm 127 is only five verses in length, it talks about the big categories of all our lives: laboring for our daily needs, living in family life, and sleeping! That pretty much sums it up.

The point is this: God is nearby in everything that we do. All of life is dependent upon his blessing.

Psalm 127

A song of ascents. Of Solomon.

1 Unless the Lord builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
2 In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat—for he grants sleep to those he loves.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t sleep well when I’m worried about something. Often it relates to church and church people and circumstances. For some reason, it will often hit me out of the blue about 3:00 in the morning that I have not seen someone in a while, and I begin to worry about them and what troubling thing might be oppressing them and taking them away from the church family. It is the dark side of being a shepherd. And I need to pause and settle myself in trusting God, because honestly there is nothing I can do about it in the wee hours of the morning.

Laboring and working in our own strength does not accomplish anything. Our need is to trust God for today and tomorrow.

There is a book called “Sleeping with Bread” by Dennis, Sheila and Matthew Linn. During the bombing raids of World War 2, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. Many were placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. They feared waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them. Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. All through the night, the bread reminded them, “Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow. All is well.”

We have the bread of God’s Word and the promise of his presence. As we hold it in our hearts and minds, we are fed by the peace it gives that God is near in every circumstance. Our labors and worries are futile apart from God’s blessing and our daily trust in him.

3 Children are a heritage from the Lord, offspring a reward from him.
4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior are children born in one’s youth.
5 Blessed is the man whose quiver is full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their opponents in court.

When I moved back East from my grad school years in Dallas (1983), my oldest son was a week short of his first birthday. We bought land within sight of the elementary school in the country township where I had grown up and began to build a house. My father-in-law and I did most of the work. It was a large house for a little family of three. My church people wondered why we wanted a place so big (2500 square feet, with four bedrooms). But then Benjamin was born the week we moved in, and 17 months later Aaron came along … three kids in 3.5 years. Two more came later – all boys, as you know. People stopped asking about the size of the house and began to ask about the size of the food budget.

Family is a blessing from God. In ancient culture, sons were a great blessing because of protection from enemies. There was the support that came along with it in civil proceedings. If I lived in those days and had a land dispute to be adjudicated at the city gate, there was an advantage I would have by showing up with five big boys surrounding me.

The point is this: God is necessary in all things of life for them to have blessing and value. Otherwise it is much in vain. The funny thing is that Solomon was something of a disaster at all of these elements of life. He depended upon riches and labor and the pleasures of a thousand wives, etc. But he had learned that all was in vain unless God was with it and blessing it.

It makes sense for us to listen to the wisest and most materially-blessed man of all time say that we need God’s blessing on anything to make it truly soul satisfying. But it is our nature to seek to hang onto it ourselves, to try to make it all work out in our own power and wisdom. It is our “family dysfunction” to attempt to make it happen ourselves, when rather we should see that trust in God, along with reasonable responsibility for the simple task immediately at hand, is what we need to find success for our labors and our lives.

Today’s Psalm 112 comes to me personally as both a thankful reflection upon the past and a life challenge for the purpose driving the remaining days of my life. It is the difference between living to gain, versus living to give. It is the difference between an absorbed focus upon self, or a determination to look to the needs of others.

My several readings of this Psalm brought back to my mind a flood of varied songs and biblical life maxims I heard from the earliest days of my childhood. The old hymn “Trust and Obey” went through the jukebox of my mind.

“But we never can prove the delights of His love until all on the altar we lay; for the favor He shows, for the joy He bestows, are for them who will trust and obey.”

And going back farther than that, to the earliest of childhood songs called “Jesus and Others and You – Joy” … where the words included: “J” is for Jesus for He has first place, “O” is for others you meet face to face, “Y” is for you, in whatever you do, Put yourself third and spell JOY.”

Trite, yes. But true? Yes, indeed.

Do you want to have success in life? Put God first by knowing, honoring and obeying his Word. Then make your life focus away from merely yourself and upon impacting the rising generations of your family and others – promoting the stuff of eternal value, and you cannot lose.

When I think back to the Christian people that I have known in family and churches over the years, the finest folks who come to mind have the common denominator of seeing their resources as God’s possession to be used in a wise stewardship as a blessing to others and the building of His kingdom, not their own. Often however, these folk’s own kingdoms were built along the way, and their families prospered also in generations of faith, service, and dependence upon God.

Tri-State is my second church as a Lead Pastor. Though very, very different in style of ministry, and people composition and history, both have adopted the same basic purpose statement: to love God, serve one another, and reach the world. TSF has added the valuable component of talking about generations … handing down the blessing of God’s truth to those coming along.

The reason this formula works is because of this timeless truth: Trust. When we really trust God, we are obeying; we are seeing all we have as from him; we are not fearing anything because we know it has all gone past God before whatever it is has gotten to us. Even the bad stuff of life we look to see how God will prosper for good in the lives of others, and likely by consequence in our own life as well.

It is timeless truth: we gain by giving, our “self” finds joy in focus upon others, and peace comes from every circumstance seen as in the hands of a faithful God and Father. That is a life of a legacy that can be passed along.

Psalm 112

1 Praise the Lord. Blessed are those who fear the Lord, who find great delight in his commands.

2 Their children will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever.
4 Even in darkness light dawns for the upright, for those who are gracious and compassionate and righteous.
5 Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely, who conduct their affairs with justice.

6 Surely the righteous will never be shaken; they will be remembered forever.
7 They will have no fear of bad news; their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
8 Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear; in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
9 They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor, their righteousness endures forever; their horn will be lifted high in honor.

10 The wicked will see and be vexed, they will gnash their teeth and waste away; the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.

(This devotional today is an article that I wrote in the late 90s for a magazine about a health crisis situation in our family in 1996.)

When your doctor takes it upon himself to personally call you first thing in the morning, you know it marks the beginning of a really bad day. “I hate making calls like this,” he began. “The X-rays picture a large abnormality in your son’s leg – possibly an aggressive benign tumor, but I must honestly tell you it looks to me like a malignancy called Ewing’s Sarcoma.”

How does one absorb such a call? You simply do not expect to hear such a thing about yourself, let alone your 14-year-old son. Just the day before, Nathan had begun his freshman year in high school. Having been homeschooled all his life, entering high school was to be the launch into a great new adventure.

An adventure, indeed! But not one of our choosing!

An occasional sharp pain in his leg and knee had consistently increased in intensity. Originally written off by the family physician as “typical growing pains,” successive tests tended toward a confirmation of the worst. The “C” word – “cancer” – crept almost innocently into the naturally flowing discussions of the specialists.

The most brutal test to observe was the bone scan. One of my elders – a nuclear medicine technologist – sat with us as the radiographic dye pulsated quickly through Nathan’s system. The problem area was painfully obvious on the screen. Even a three-year-old could have pointed to the large, bright, radiating spot of concern. My elder friend displayed a wonderful pastoral presence, but I noted how infrequently he looked at the screen, and how much he gazed distantly at the floor.

I pressed for numbers. I wanted to hear percentages and know what we were facing. “Only a biopsy will determine the nature of this with certainty,” they said. “But we feel there is sufficient clarity in the MRI and other tests to identify it as Ewing’s Sarcoma. We honestly don’t expect to hear something different.” Sounded like 99% to me!

I pressed for more numbers – survival rate figures. “About 50% survive past five years, some with amputations, and some able to salvage the leg.”  I secretly embarked on an Internet research crusade on the subject. The results were so discouraging that I chose to not tell my wife what I discovered, nor even that I had done it. I had reason for special concern for Diana. Just two weeks earlier, she sat with her sister as she died from cancer – leaving eight children behind.

Ewing’s is a rather rare form of cancer, and we were referred to Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. Regarded often as the foremost medical facility in the world, gaining an appointment is very difficult. We would have to wait a month – a month to live in a condition one author has aptly entitled, “God’s Waiting Room.”

Our family attempted to live a normal life as we waited. One night we attended the local minor league baseball game in our city – a favorite outing for us. There I saw a man whom I’d noticed at the ballpark practically every time we’d been there. He was a very loud, foul-speaking, verbally obnoxious person of about age 65; a man who had quite obviously lived a foolish life of hard drink and personal abuse. Yet there he stood, basically healthy, out in public enjoying a recreational event, while my eight nieces and nephews mourned the loss of their godly mother and my son wrestled with the issues of a deadly cancer. It didn’t just seem unfair; IT WAS UNFAIR!

I was driven into the Scriptures for any hint of perspective. My reading soon brought me to the 73^rd Psalm, which served as the anchor for my soul in the weeks to follow.

The Psalmist wrestles with the age-old question of the prosperity of the wicked. He writes, “I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong. They are free from the burdens common to man; they are not plagued by human ills” (Ps. 73:4-5). This sure sounded like a description of the guy at the stadium! And the following verses roared even more graphically, “From their callous hearts comes iniquity; the evil conceits of their minds know no limits. They scoff and speak with malice. They say, `How can God know? Does the Most High have knowledge?’” (Ps. 73:7,8,11)

The horrific injustices of this world may sometimes cause us to ponder the benefit of our efforts at righteous living. The Psalmist verbalized this sentiment by stating, “Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure; in vain have I washed my hands in innocence (Ps. 73:13).” Why do we bother to live for God when the gunk of this world finds its way to our door as indiscriminately as to the home of our wicked neighbor? Do we, as Christians, possess any real advantage?

But suddenly in the Psalm, perspective comes crashing upon the scene. Yes, there does exist an advantage in being numbered among the people of God! In fact, the Psalm writer speaks of three great perspectives for those days when the inevitable sorrows of this world claim squatter’s rights on our turf of our soul.

1. God is really, really good at keeping score!

The Psalmist says, “I entered the Sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.  You cast them down to ruin. How suddenly they are destroyed. Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you” (Ps. 73:18,19,27). The perspective is this: God is a good scorekeeper, and in the end the righteous always win.

Vince Lombardi, the famous Green Bay Packers football coach, said, “Sometimes the clock runs out, but in the end, we will win.” Even championship teams suffer some regular-season defeats. The ultimate goal is to win the playoffs, and such becomes our guarantee as believers. That really is an incredible knowledge to possess! How much else in life are we able to know with such certainty? We know the final score before the game concludes, and we know we win and the wicked lose.

2. When sorrows move in, God doesn’t move out!

The Psalm writer pens a second great perspective as he considers the nature of his relationship with God, “Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” (Ps. 73:23,24,26).

God pledges to us His constant presence, counsel and strength extending into eternity. The weight and pain of the sorrows we experience may seem to suggest that God has vacated and an ugly stranger taken up residence, but such is far from reality. Amidst such times of frail incapability, God often reveals his most real presence – at a time when there is absolutely nothing we can do but rest in Him.

3. We just plain don’t have anyone else to turn to!

The pinnacle of the Psalm is scaled in verse 25, “Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.” The fact of the matter is that we ultimately have no other options as a refuge for inclement times. But the great truth is this: we don’t need anybody else! Doctors may help, loved ones may support, but only God will pour an eternal peace into our empty and hurting souls.

My month in God’s waiting room provided the opportunity to uniquely experience the reality of His sufficient peace. I also gained a new appreciation for the incredible blessing and assistance of the prayers of God’s people. Reports of prayer support came to us from as far as Kazakhstan. Heaven surely resonated with the supplications of friends and family.

The orthopedic specialist at Johns Hopkins looked at the various magnetic images and X-rays and said, “Could be Ewing’s Sarcoma – it would look like this. But let’s not cross that bridge until we have to.” “Too late,” I thought. I was already across that bridge and well up the other side! “My gut feeling is that this is an infection rather than cancer,” he said. “A biopsy will tell us immediately what we are dealing with. If it is cancer, we’ll close it up and come back to fight another day. If it is an infection, we’ll begin cleaning it out immediately.”

An excruciating pain wracked Nathan’s leg the last several days before surgery. But an hour after sending him off, the doctor announced it was indeed an infection. The news dropped us into a limp emotional heap. It caused great excitement and rejoicing for friends and family, and left our local medical community stunned. The hospital radiology technicians posted some of the images and ultimate results on a bulletin board with a label that said, “Can You Believe This?”

Some folks have suggested we were on the receiving end of a miracle. I don’t know. Such is surely possible. The worst thing that could be said is that we received a huge answer to prayer. The greatest knowledge, however, was the experience of knowing God’s sufficient grace in some very dark days of life. He is all we have, and He is all we need!

Psalm 73

A psalm of Asaph.

¹ Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

² But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold.
³ For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.

⁴ They have no struggles; their bodies are healthy and strong.
⁵ They are free from common human burdens; they are not plagued by human ills.
⁶ Therefore pride is their necklace; they clothe themselves with violence.
⁷ From their callous hearts comes iniquity; their evil imaginations have no limits.
⁸ They scoff, and speak with malice; with arrogance they threaten oppression.
⁹ Their mouths lay claim to heaven, and their tongues take possession of the earth.
¹⁰ Therefore their people turn to them and drink up waters in abundance.
¹¹ They say, “How would God know? Does the Most High know anything?”

¹² This is what the wicked are like—always free of care, they go on amassing wealth.

¹³ Surely in vain I have kept my heart pure and have washed my hands in innocence.
¹⁴ All day long I have been afflicted, and every morning brings new punishments.

¹⁵ If I had spoken out like that, I would have betrayed your children.
¹⁶ When I tried to understand all this, it troubled me deeply
¹⁷ till I entered the sanctuary of God; then I understood their final destiny.

¹⁸ Surely you place them on slippery ground; you cast them down to ruin.
¹⁹ How suddenly are they destroyed, completely swept away by terrors!
²⁰ They are like a dream when one awakes; when you arise, Lord, you will despise them as fantasies.

²¹ When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, ²² I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.

²³ Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand.
²⁴ You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.
²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

²⁷ Those who are far from you will perish; you destroy all who are unfaithful to you.
²⁸ But as for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge; I will tell of all your deeds.

Several years ago there was a cover article in Time Magazine entitled, “Why we worry about the wrong things: the perils of risk.”

It would be a lot easier to enjoy your life if there weren’t so many things trying to kill you every day.

The problems start even before you’re fully awake. There’s the fall out of bed that kills 600 Americans each year. There’s the early-morning heart attack, which is 40 percent more common than those that strike later in the day.

There’s the fatal plunge down the stairs, the bite of sausage that gets lodged in your throat, the tumble on the slippery sidewalk as you leave the house, the high-speed automotive pinball game that is your daily commute.

Shadowed by peril as we are, you would think we’d get pretty good at distinguishing the risks likeliest to do us in from the ones that are statistical long shots. But you would be wrong.

We agonize over avian flu, which to date has killed precisely no one in the United States, but have to be cajoled into getting vaccinated for the common flu, which contributes to the deaths of 36,000 Americans each year.

We wring our hands over the mad cow pathogen that might be (but almost certainly isn’t) in our hamburger and worry far less about the cholesterol that contributes to the heart disease that kills 700,000 of us annually.

We pride ourselves on being the only species that understands the concept of risk, yet we have a confounding habit of worrying about mere possibilities while ignoring probabilities, building barricades against perceived dangers while leaving ourselves exposed to real ones.

All in all, we need to live as wisely as we know how, and trust God for the rest. The Scriptures contain quite a bit of material about how we as mankind need to be mindful of the provision and care of the Lord, and today we go to one of those places – Psalm 34.

Though there is a good bit to be distressed about in life, on the whole, there is more about which to be thankful. Now that is good; that is biblical perspective. Life here is always going to be a mixed bag of stuff on this side.

We live under the curse of sin, which makes our daily lives difficult and our bodies ultimately subject to the curse of death. Yet at the same time we live under the promise of God to meet our genuine needs. Not all our needs, as not every need will ever be met; but the biggest one will be – the redemption of our bodies at death.

As we look at Psalm 34, we see this same balance in the writing of David. He is resoundingly thankful, yet it is clear that his circumstances are far from perfect, as seen in the superscription …

Of David. When he pretended to be insane before Abimelech, who drove him away, and he left.

This story is from 1 Samuel 21… That day, David fled from Saul and went to Achish king of Gath. But the servants of Achish said to him, “Isn’t this David, the king of the land? Isn’t he the one they sing about in their dances: `Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands’?

David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish king of Gath. So he pretended to be insane in their presence; and while he was in their hands he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gate and letting saliva run down his beard.

Achish said to his servants, “Look at the man! He is insane! Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house?”

David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented gathered around him, and he became their leader. About four hundred men were with him.

The Psalm is not teaching that this is the way to extricate yourself from a problem. Rather, it sets up the degree of problem David faced, and then he extols God as the real source of his deliverance. It sets up the fact that David was a guy facing real problems, and long odds… and out of that, he was able to praise God.

This poem of David (an acrostic) can be divided into two major sections…

1. David’s TESTIMONY of Thanksgiving …1-10
2. David’s TEACHING on the fear of God …11-22
3. David’s Vow to bless the Lord at all times, 1-3

34:1 – I will extol the LORD at all times; his praise will always be on my lips.

Notice this is “at all times” – not just when the circumstances are pleasant.

34:2 – My soul will boast in the LORD; let the afflicted hear and rejoice.

34:3 – Glorify the LORD with me; let us exalt his name together.

1. David’s Experience, 4-6

34:4 – I sought the LORD, and he answered me; he delivered me from all my fears.

34:5 – Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame.

This is written in a tense called the gnomic aorist, which simply means that it speaks of something that gives the summation of a common story – like a moral of a fable … a general truth you can count upon.

34:6 – This poor man called, and the LORD heard him; he saved him out of all his troubles.

1. David’s Exhortation to Others, 7-10

34:7 – The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and he delivers them.

Here you have a picture of a military encampment with a guard around it; the wise person stays within the perimeter.

34:8 – Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.

34:9 – Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing.

Here is the real answer, the real deliverance, to fear the Lord… which means to honor, respect, and fully trust God. This will be the theme he develops in the 2nd half of the Psalm, but first an illustration from David

34:10 – The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.

The actual text indicates that the lions are “young lions,” as compared to an old one. An elderly lion is often stuck with a carcass someone else has caught, but the young lions are healthy, fully sufficient in themselves. They are the King of the Beasts – at the top of the food chain, but even they go to bed hungry sometimes. But God’s provision is better than this.

David’s Teaching of the Fear of the Lord… 11-22

Introduction to his lesson… 11-12

34:11-12 – Come, my children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Whoever of you loves life and desires to see many good days,

Three Basic Principles of Successful Living… 13-14

34:13 – keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.

1 – Control your tongue, because trouble devolves more often from what we say versus what we do.

34:14 Turn from evil and do good; seek peace and pursue it.

2 – Do what is right – oh wow, deep stuff!

3 – Pursue peace (The seed whose fruit is righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace). How do you hate a peacemaker?

The Contrast between the Way of the Wicked, and the Way of the Righteous …15-21

34:15-21 – The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their cry; the face of the LORD is against those who do evil, to cut off the memory of them from the earth. The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles. The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the LORD delivers him from them all; he protects all his bones, not one of them will be broken. Evil will slay the wicked; the foes of the righteous will be condemned.

The Final Conclusion … verse 22

34:22 The LORD redeems his servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in him.

Yes, God redeems his servants; we win in the end. We don’t win every day, nor on every play in the game of life.

To use a football illustration, we expect life to be like the guy who runs the ball back on the opening kickoff – behind a wall of blockers, never touched. But life is more like an 8-minute long sustained drive – full of hard tackles, running plays into the heart of the defensive line, face mask penalties that don’t get called, and 4th-down-and-15-yards-to-go plays.

This is all so basic, but is the challenge of the sort we often forget. We are creatures = dependent; God is the creator = provider. We should therefore trust Him in thanks and honor Him with our obedience. That is the way to be blessed.

I am going to be really honest with you here and hope you find it encouraging. I read through this Psalm today and thought to myself, “What am I going to write about that? I barely know what it is talking about.” I had to research this one a bit.

First of all, the superscription says that it is “A song of ascents.” This refers to the Psalms from 120 through 134 that were sung by pilgrim worshippers as they came to Jerusalem for various feasts (ascending to the city which sits high from any direction and approach).

In broad terms there are two main ideas: First, the writer declares that God has saved Israel from various oppressors, and secondly, he prays that those who persecuted the nation would be put to shame.

Let’s look at the first section:

Psalm 129

A song of ascents.

1 “They have greatly oppressed me from my youth,” let Israel say;
2 “they have greatly oppressed me from my youth, but they have not gained the victory over me.
3 Plowmen have plowed my back and made their furrows long.
4 But the Lord is righteous; he has cut me free from the cords of the wicked.”

There are some people that I know who have had sorrows and challenges throughout their lives. And Israel as a nation is personified in the opening verses in such a way. There was never a time where they were not pursued and afflicted by nations around them. From the exodus out of Egypt, to the conquest of the Promised Land, to the ongoing battles with the Philistines and all the “-ites” around them … Israel was continuously pressed. BUT, God had not allowed any of those nations to fully conquer them or have a victory over them.

The picture in verses three and four appears to be of a person who has been flogged with cords upon the back … a person who has been beaten and scourged, but not killed. And indeed, the righteous God had set them free from this ill treatment.

And now comes a prayer …

5 May all who hate Zion be turned back in shame.
6 May they be like grass on the roof, which withers before it can grow;
7 a reaper cannot fill his hands with it, nor one who gathers fill his arms.
8 May those who pass by not say to them, “The blessing of the Lord be on you; we bless you in the name of the Lord.”

The writer asks God (verse 5) to turn to shame all those who hate Zion – the city of God.

The visual in verses 6-7 is a picture as to how seeds blown through the air would find root and begin to grow on the roofs of ancient houses. However, in this setting there would be no depth of soil and the plant would wither and die before it was of any value for reaping. And so the prayer was that those who hated Zion would find that their efforts were short-lived and fruitless.

The final verse speaks of how those who hate Zion and the Lord’s people were not worthy of the customary greeting of a blessing upon them in the name of the Lord. In Eastern cultures, even to this day, it is rather rude to not greet someone with a blessing; but these enemies deserved to be ignored because of their hatred.

By way of application for us today, there is the broad, overarching truth that God is faithful to His own people in any era or dispensation; and God will not allow injustice to prevail ultimately. Though there may be suffering along the way, in the end God and His people triumph.

But beyond this, the reading and understanding of this Psalm makes me reflect upon much that is happening in the geo-political world today. Israel has been much in the news in the past week, often being condemned and criticized for their aggressive responses to attacks upon the Jewish State.

I believe that an accurate understanding of the Scriptures teaches that God has a future for the nation of Israel in the end times. As a country and a people, there is nothing like it in all the world in terms of endurance over centuries and millennia. Other nations and ethnicities have come and gone, but Israel remains, and so it shall because of God’s promises that date back to even Abraham—4,000 years ago.

A prominent American figure in political dialogue (who shares our biblical worldview and Scriptural interpretation) spoke of the difficulties facing Israel, saying this past week:

This week, Israel finally had enough of the terrorist strikes against their civilian population and launched a ground campaign into Gaza, the hell hole of Hamas. Twice Hamas violated a cease fire agreement and continued to launch rockets over 80% of the Israeli population. …  Hamas is a terrorist organization, not a legitimate government.

Israeli PM Netanyahu bluntly explained the difference between the so-called “2 sides.” It is indeed a tragedy that several hundred residents of Gaza have been killed. It’s an even greater tragedy that the savages who operate Hamas use innocent people as human shields to protect their weapons. None of those Palestinians would have died if Hamas didn’t insist on acting like vicious mad dogs intent on making mayhem.

And please don’t buy the lie that if Israel would give up some more land, it would be okay. Israel lives on 1/6 of 1% of the amount of land possessed by Arabs and Muslims. There are 300 million Middle Eastern Muslims and Arabs to only 5.5 million Israeli Jews. The idiotic proposal to give away more Israeli land is to assume that if you let the mad dog get closer to your face, the less likely they are to bite.

Israel has a legitimate right to the land and a legitimate right to defend itself. It is the only Middle Eastern country that gives women full rights; the only one who outlaws honor killings of women; it’s built 6 universities, 20 community colleges, and 166 clinics for Palestinians between 1979 and 2006. Israel accommodates 15 different religions. How many Christians, Hindus, or Buddhists are free to worship in Pakistan, Iran or Iraq, Saudi Arabia or Gaza?

The entire content of this piece may be found HERE.

God’s people in the world – be it his covenant people, or the people of the new covenant – are going to be hated and persecuted. But God will never allow evil to prevail in the end.

Let’s play an association game. I will mention an occasion, and you quickly think about what song/hymn immediately comes to mind. First – Christmas Eve. Secondly – Easter Sunday. Third – Thanksgiving Day.

The first is the easiest. I will bet that almost all of you answered “Silent Night.” For Easter Sunday there are maybe a couple tunes, though I would think that “Christ the Lord is Risen Today” would be a most common answer. For Thanksgiving it might be “Come, Ye Thankful People Come,” or possibly “We Gather Together.”

We immediately associate certain songs with specific events. And Psalm 118 was like that for the Jewish people. It is the final of the Hallel Psalms – those from 113-118. These were Psalms sung at the great annual festivals in Israel – Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles. During the Passover celebration, Psalms 113-114 would be sung before the meal, with 115-118 after it. You may recall how Jesus and the Disciples sang a hymn at the last supper in the upper room before going out, and it was probably this Psalm 118.

As a musician, I would really like to have heard what the melody sounded like. There are a variety of themes and cadences of style in the Psalm. It would seem to me that it would have required quite a variety to make the words, themes, and moods work out.

The opening verses have a repetition and theme on the steadfast love of God, that returns at the end. There are sections that speak of God’s victory for the nation over all the nations – quoting even from the Exodus. And there are passages that are familiar to us from our knowledge of the New Testament. Verse 26 – “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord” was of course being sung by the throngs of people upon the occasion of the entry of Christ into Jerusalem.

But let me single out one other phrase that is quoted in all four gospels as well as in Acts. And that is from verse 22 – “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone.”  Jesus is recorded in each gospel account as asking, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”  Matthew 21:42

The illustration is of the construction of a stone building. The stone masons likely have a wide variety of raw materials around them to choose from, particularly for selecting the most important stone of all—the cornerstone. And when it is all finished, there would still be stones laying around that were not included in the structure… they were rejected.

The point of the illustration is that the Jewish leaders (as the stone masons) rejected the most important stone (Christ), but that God had rectified the situation by exalting Jesus to his proper position as the foundation of God’s house. And this is the message being delivered soon after the resurrection and in the early days of the church by Peter and John before the Jewish council (Acts 4:10-12)…

“Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead–by this name this man stands here before you in good health. ‘He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief corner stone.’ And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.”

As we know all too well from our culture and world today, Jesus is rejected. Christians this day will give their lives in places like Iraq and other countries around the world, and there is little outcry against this. Faith will again today be mocked in our own country.

But there is no salvation in any other name or belief. The song says so; the song is God’s Word … from His playlist.

Psalm 118

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

2 Let Israel say: “His love endures forever.”
3 Let the house of Aaron say: “His love endures forever.”
4 Let those who fear the Lord say: “His love endures forever.”

5 When hard pressed, I cried to the Lord; he brought me into a spacious place.
6 The Lord is with me; I will not be afraid. What can mere mortals do to me?
7 The Lord is with me; he is my helper. I look in triumph on my enemies.

8 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in humans.
9 It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.
10 All the nations surrounded me, but in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
11 They surrounded me on every side, but in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
12 They swarmed around me like bees, but they were consumed as quickly as burning thorns;
in the name of the Lord I cut them down.
13 I was pushed back and about to fall, but the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation.

15 Shouts of joy and victory resound in the tents of the righteous: “The Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!
16 The Lord’s right hand is lifted high; the Lord’s right hand has done mighty things!”
17 I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.
18 The Lord has chastened me severely, but he has not given me over to death.
19 Open for me the gates of the righteous; I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
20 This is the gate of the Lord through which the righteous may enter.
21 I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation.

22 The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone;
23 the Lord has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
24 The Lord has done it this very day; let us rejoice today and be glad.

25 Lord, save us! Lord, grant us success!

26 Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. From the house of the Lord we bless you.
27 The Lord is God, and he has made his light shine on us. With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession up to the horns of the altar.

28 You are my God, and I will praise you; you are my God, and I will exalt you.

29 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his love endures forever.

I would certainly think that most of you have seen the commercial that has been on for quite a number of years now that features a guy who is really excited about his new basement. He is so happy that he attempts to get a whole variety of people to look at it – beginning with the mailman, then with a woman named “Jill” who is jogging down the street, and finally with his next door neighbor as they are both cutting grass on riding mowers.

The writer in Psalm 66 that we look at today sort of reminds of this commercial guy in terms of his enthusiasm. The Psalmist wants everyone to see and hear how great God has been and how thankful the writer is for the deliverance and subsequent blessings he has received.

Verses 1-12 talk about God’s goodness to the nation, and then verses 13-20 turn to a personal expression of thanksgiving and praise.

As we have seen in our devotional series over and over, the big event in Israel’s history that spoke of the power of God over the nations was the deliverance of the Israelites from their bondage in Egypt. And especially recalled from that event was the opening of the sea in order that the nation may pass through.

If you were from another nation at that time, and you heard and knew of this sort of power of the God of Israel, it was a frightening prospect to come up against these people. And the writer says that the nations should indeed (as in verse 3) “cringe” before God and acknowledge his grandeur.

But God’s love and care for the nation was not limited to just doing great things for Israel because of his covenant love, God also disciplined them upon their times of failure to trust and obey. But in the end, he was always faithful, and the writer was excited to talk about what could be seen in that history and relationship between the Lord and his chosen people.

But the Psalm takes a turn at verse 13 and become more reflexive and personal, as the writer recalls an event (specifically unknown) where he was in a very bad place. He cried to the Lord in that condition and made vows as to what he would do upon his rescue.

And sure enough, God was faithful and came through for the writer; and in response, he was going to fulfill his vows. In fact, he essentially says that even if he were to offer every type of animal commonly used in the sacrificial system, it would still be insufficient to express his gratitude and praise.

So are you thankful and excited about anything good that God has done in your life? Do you really desire everyone around you to know how God has blessed you and helped you through some difficulty or severe problem? I am pretty sure it would not hurt us as a church to be a bit more expressive together about our thanksgiving and praise.

Psalm 66

For the director of music. A song. A psalm.

1 Shout for joy to God, all the earth!
2 Sing the glory of his name; make his praise glorious.
3 Say to God, “How awesome are your deeds! So great is your power that your enemies cringe before you.
4 All the earth bows down to you; they sing praise to you, they sing the praises of your name.”

5 Come and see what God has done, his awesome deeds for mankind!
6 He turned the sea into dry land, they passed through the waters on foot—come, let us rejoice in him.
7 He rules forever by his power, his eyes watch the nations—let not the rebellious rise up against him.

8 Praise our God, all peoples, let the sound of his praise be heard;
9 he has preserved our lives and kept our feet from slipping.
10 For you, God, tested us; you refined us like silver.
11 You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs.
12 You let people ride over our heads; we went through fire and water, but you brought us to a place of abundance.

13 I will come to your temple with burnt offerings and fulfill my vows to you—
14 vows my lips promised and my mouth spoke when I was in trouble.
15 I will sacrifice fat animals to you and an offering of rams; I will offer bulls and goats.

16 Come and hear, all you who fear God; let me tell you what he has done for me.
17 I cried out to him with my mouth; his praise was on my tongue.
18 If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;
19 but God has surely listened and has heard my prayer.
20 Praise be to God, who has not rejected my prayer or withheld his love from me!