The Best Tears Of Our Lives (Psalm 126)

Who can keep up with all the lifehacks posted on the WorldWideWeb?

Does your hotel room smell bad? Tape a dryer sheet over the AC unit and turn it on.
Want to know if a battery is good or bad? Drop it on a table from about six inches. If it gives one small bounce and fall right over, it’s good. If it bounces around more than that, it is either dead or on its way out.
Tired of scraping ice off of your windshield? The night before freezing temperatures, rub a half of a potato over your car’s windshield.
Doritos make great kindling.

Be careful. Believe it or not, some things you read on the Internet are not true. That goes for this lifehack fail:

If you need to charge your phone but there are no plugs around, soak an onion in some Gatorade and your phone will charge once you plug it into the onion. (Because everyone carries Gatorade and onions).

Some hacks are obviously fakes:

Are the batteries dead in your smoke alarm? Set out a JiffyPop Popcorn. When you hear the kernels popping, Get out!!

Worse than fails and fakes are lifehacks that can potentially be fatal:

No pan to cook a grilled cheese sandwich? Tip your toaster onto its side and ‘grill’ the sandwich in it. Just make sure you have your fire extinguisher ready when you set everything on fire.

Back to helpful lifehacks, here is one for you to have a greener thumb: Soak seeds in water before planting. Especially larger seeds, or those that are naturally wrinkled. Soaking speeds the germination.

Presoaking seeds is an ancient hack. It is hinted at in Psalm 126. In verse five we read, “Those who sow in tears…” The psalmist is appealing to the familiar practice of sowing seeds and reaping the harvest as a metaphor. Sowing seeds “in tears” must correspond to a farming practice. It only makes sense if the farmers regularly presoaked their seeds. Just as a farmer presoaks seeds, so the believer ‘presoaks’ his or her spiritual sowing for the Lord.
The psalmist goes on to explain that the liquid for spiritual presoaking is “tears” from “weeping.”

Don’t be discouraged though. “Those who sow in tears shall reap in joy.”

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Presoaking Your Walk With The Lord In Tears Intensifies Your Hope, and #2 Presoaking Your Walk With The Lord In Tears Increases His Harvest.

#1 – Presoaking Your Walk With The Lord In Tears Intensifies Your Hope (v1-3)

Psalm 126 commemorates the joy of Israel being released from their captivity to return to the Promised Land.

This is one of the fifteen travel psalms pilgrims sang on their pilgrimage to Jerusalem to celebrate one of the annual feasts. If any psalms elicited an emotional response, it was these.

Do any particular songs move you? I’ll bet your answer is, “Yes.” National anthems… Military anthems… Maybe your school’s Alma Mater, if you’re feeling nostalgic.

Secular songs, too, can elicit emotion. Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff, And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff.

A dragon lives forever
but not so little boys
Painted wings and giant’s rings
make way for other toys
One gray night it happened
Jackie Paper came no more
And Puff, that mighty dragon,
he ceased his fearless roar

Made in the image of God, we are emotional creatures. Christians sometimes struggle with integrating emotion into their spiritual lives. One pastor put it this way:

[Our emotions can] occupy two ends of a spectrum:

One danger is emotionalism, in which we allow our feelings to interpret our circumstances and form our thoughts about God. This is putting feelings before faith.
The other danger is a kind of stoicism, where faith is rooted in theology but void of affection. This tendency removes feelings from faith altogether. While it is true that our emotions should not lead our theology, it is vital to our faith that theology lead to a deep experience of our triune God.

Doesn’t it stand to reason that songs of praise ought to genuinely move you? It’s a good self-exam to ask if songs to the Lord move you. If not, ask “Why not?”

Psa 126:1  A Song of Ascents. When the LORD brought back the captivity of Zion, We were like those who dream.

“The captivity of Zion” the psalmist had in mind was most likely their years in Babylon. It was a doozy. In a series of three sieges, King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem and, of course, Solomon’s Temple. Jews were taken to Babylon, held captive.

Their captivity ended just as God prophesied it would:

Jeremiah had previously predicted their captivity in Babylon would end after 70 years (Jeremiah 29:10).
One hundred years before he was born, the prophet Isaiah called King Cyrus of Persia by name, and predicted he would issue a decree to allow Israel return and rebuild (Isaiah 44&45).

Bible prophecy. Wow.

“We were like those who dream.” Their release from captivity, followed by the decree of Cyrus permitting their return, was like a dream come true. We’d say they were “living the dream.”

For those in-Christ, Jesus has set us free from the power of sin, Satan, and death. We’re promised that He will take us home. Unlike the Jews who returned to ruins, we’re going the the New Jerusalem, where Jesus is building our forever mansions.

Psa 126:2  Then our mouth was filled with laughter, And our tongue with singing. Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.”

Somewhere in church history, someone thought it was more ‘spiritual’ to be quiet and reserved; to speak in hushed tones in church; to wear your Sunday best; to establish tedious rituals.

I’ll admit, sometimes evangelicals can cross a line and be downright disrespectful in church. Where is that line? All I can say is that we need to be led by the Holy Spirit. We can be too formal; we can be too casual.

Maybe this will help. Jesus calls us His “friends” (John 15:15). He is our friend, and He “presents” us to God the Father. It suggests a familial, healthy respect. Not overly formal or casual, but appropriate.

When Jesus cried from the Cross, “It is finished,” simultaneously the veil in the Temple separating the Holy of Holies from the outer chamber was torn from top to bottom. It signified that believers have immediate access to God. It signified the end of ritual approach to God.

Think, too, about the Lord’s Supper. The original one, the one before Jesus was crucified.

Was it at all ritualistic? Not a bit. So why do churches try so hard to turn it into a ritual?

Sure, it replaced Passover. But the celebration of the original Passover also had very little (if any) ritual. Most of our ideas about Passover and the Lord’s Supper are traditions we have added.

The psalmist mentions “laughter.” He did not mean some crazy outpouring of holy laughter that was uncontrollable. But he certainly did mean laughing.

Don’t we try to get infants to laugh? We do it because their laughter is precious, and contagious. So is the laughter of God’s children on the earth.

“Then they said among the nations, “The LORD has done great things for them.” No one can discount the historic facts:

Greater, more powerful, empires subjected Israel. She survived them, and thrives.
Nations have tried to completely exterminate Jews. They survived.

God made unconditional promises to Israel, and despite their disobedience and disbelief, He preserved them, and will save them in the end. “All Israel” who survive the future Great Tribulation will be saved.

Psa 126:3  The LORD has done great things for us, And we are glad.

The psalmist makes it personal. In verse two, he spoke of “them.” Here he said “us.” It’s OK to make the Bible personal:

“God so loved the world” becomes, “God so loved Gene.”
“[God] is longsuffering toward [insert name of nonbeliever], not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (Second Peter 3:9).

Try it for yourself.

“And we are glad.” I have a tough time understanding the exact meaning of “glad.” It’s antonyms are sad, unhappy, and upset.

Bottom line: If I consider that my captivity to sin, Satan, and death is over, and that I’m going to Heaven in death or alive, I have no good reason to remain sad, unhappy, or upset.

It doesn’t mean we suppress our feelings. It means we process them through the lens of spiritual truth.

The apostle Paul suggested something like this to the church in Thessalonica. Believers were dying; The fellowship was crying. Paul told them to not “sorrow as others who have no hope” (4:13). Process sorrow through the lens of hope and you bring forth a sanctified sorrow.

We haven’t talked directly about presoaking thus far. The metaphor won’t be introduced until verses four and five.

We can extrapolate from what we’ve discussed that the presoaking we’ll read about intensifies your hope.

The hope we are talking about is the certainty of the return of Jesus in the clouds to resurrect the dead in Christ, and to snatch away living believers.

Do you feel strongly about that? Is that the hope that determines how you are “living the dream” as you wait?

#2 – Presoaking Your Walk With The Lord In Tears Increases His Harvest (v4-5)

Human beings are the only biological creatures on earth to shed emotional tears. Tears of emotion are chemically different than those caused by physical forces (e.g., wind, fumes, and allergies).

One scholar observed, “The Bible has no fewer than 510 references to crying and uses at least 11 words in New Testament Greek to describe crying.”

The New Testament highlights three times that Jesus wept during His brief three-and-one-half year ministry. He cried a lot more as “the Man of sorrows,” but these three are recorded:

He wept at the tomb of His friend, Lazarus, before calling him back from the dead (John 11).
He wept over Jerusalem on account of the judgment that was coming upon it for the Jewish leaders having rejected Him (Luke 13).
He shed tears when He prayed hours before His death by crucifixion (Hebrews 5:7).

You’ve most likely read a devotional by F.B. Meyer. If not, look for titles he has written. F.B. Meyer explains sowing in tears in this typically illuminating sentence: “It is well when Christian workers [soak] their lessons and addresses with their prayers and tears. It is not enough to sow; we may do that lavishly and constantly, but we must add passion, emotion, tender pity, strong cryings and tears.”

Tears are not just from pain; they can be from pity. Compassion can produce tears. Keep in mind we are talking about a gamut of emotions.

Jesus put it this way to the first century church in Ephesus: “I have this against you, that you have left your first love” (Revelation 2:4).

The church in Ephesus was doing a lot of sowing. But it lacked genuine emotion.

Let’s say you have morning devotions. Have they become mechanical? On a human level, think back to when you first fell in love, and were dating. Didn’t you think only of your beloved, and tremble when together?

A Christian’s entire time on earth is a betrothal.

The honeymoon doesn’t start till after we die, or are raptured. If we are acting as if “the honeymoon is over,” Jesus went on to say, “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works” (v5).

Psa 126:4  Bring back our captivity, O LORD, As the streams in the South.

“Streams in the South” is also an illustration borrowed from farming. Certain crops in the South depended upon the overflowing of rivers in order to irrigate. No overflow, no crop.

The psalmist, representing all of Israel, was asking God to bless the land with abundance as He had done before the captivity.

The returning Jews found harsh conditions. It was typical for the invading armies to sow the fields with rocks to make planting difficult. The land had not been worked for 70 years. Imagine coming home to your yard after a 70 year absence – and no power tools.

Psa 126:5  Those who sow in tears Shall reap in joy.

The first generation of returnees were sowing after the tears shed during their captivity. Some of them undoubtedly wept as they were sowing, tears of joy at their once again working their own inherited land.

This verse is a promise of God’s faithfulness. Yes, they had cried an ocean of tears in Babylon. But now they were reaping joy. It was like the farmer presoaking seeds before sowing to reap a greater harvest.

I wonder how many ‘got’ the illustration while sowing, before it was recorded in this psalm? God wants to ‘speak’ to you, to show you things, in ordinary, everyday activities and situations.

Psa 126:6  He who continually goes forth weeping, Bearing seed for sowing, Shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, Bringing his sheaves with him.

This makes the spiritual application. As F.B. Meyer said, “we must add passion, emotion, tender pity, strong cryings and tears” to our sowing for the Lord. The work deserves nothing less than our full heart, mind, and strength. The result will be a harvest – a spiritual harvest.

Maybe you are prone to thinking, “I see no abundant spiritual harvest through my impassioned service for Jesus.” In the Parable of the Sower, Jesus addressed the question of yield. He said of believers, “But these are the ones sown on good ground, those who hear the word, accept it, and bear fruit: some thirtyfold, some sixty, and some a hundred” (Mark 4:20).

Thirtyfold results don’t make you a loser. Some fields prove more difficult.

I sometimes think those with the smaller yield will have the greater reward for the difficulties endured. You will have the appropriate “sheaves” when you stand before Jesus to be rewarded.

No talk about tears would be complete without referring to Psalm 56:8, where we read, “Put my tears into your bottle.”

The tears of God’s children are so precious that He preserves and treasures them as a costly liquid.

Emotional tears are composed of water, salts, antibodies, and antibacterial enzymes. They also contain concentrations of stress hormones.

Allow me a bit of speculation. Could it be that God distills all the tears of your life into a single bottle that has the chemical composition of the tears you cried? Each of our formulas would be unique – either a little, or a lot, different.

Maybe it will be a fragrance, made from tears. Eternity by Jesus Christ; Jadore by Jesus Christ; Eau de Gene; Yves Saint Gene.

I don’t know. If it is a fragrance, something the apostle Paul pointed out to the Corinthian believers is encouraging:

2Cor 2:14 Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.
2Co 2:15  For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing.
2Co 2:16  To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.

You function as a diffuser. Think of your tears as Heaven Scent-ed.

Infuse your walk with the Lord with “passion, emotion, tender pity, strong cryings and tears.” Then diffuse.

Psalm 125 – Round, Round, God Surrounds, He Gets Around, Yeah, God’s Around, Round, Round, Round

Wakanda is protected by an impressive force field.

In 2018’s Infinity War, the enemy Drop Ships crashed into the force field and were immediately repelled and destroyed.

The force field is a critical technology in fictional tales. It is an energy barrier. While it can be used for containment or confinement, it’s usual function is to protect a person, area, or object from attacks or intrusions.

I can only guess how many times Captain Kirk said, “Raise shields.” It’s always followed by successive reports on the remaining percentage of shield-strength, until finally Kirk is informed, “The shields can’t take another hit.”

The invading alien armada from Independence Day had energy shields so potent they could shrug off nuclear weapons without a scratch. Spoiler alert: Humanity ultimately won by uploading a computer virus to the mothership that disabled the shields, then nuking the mothership before they could correct the problem.

Violet Parr, daughter of Bob & Helen, has the power to generate her own force fields, and often does so as one of the Incredibles.

Back in 2012, Boeing received a patent for a kind of force field. No report on their progress.

Psalm 125:2 says, “as the mountains surround Jerusalem…” At 2510 feet in elevation, Mount Zion is the mountain on which Jerusalem is built. Surrounding it are several other taller peaks, e.g., the Mount of Olives.

The psalmist uses this natural shield of the city from enemies as a metaphor for God’s supernatural shield of His chosen, saying, “As the mountains surround Jerusalem, So the LORD surrounds His people.”

As far back as The Book of Job, which is believed to be the oldest book in the Bible, we see God surrounds His people. Satan prefaced his assault upon Job by complaining to the LORD, “Have You not made a hedge around him, around his household, and around all that he has on every side?” (1:10).

The LORD is Shield, Hedge, Fortress, Hiding Place, Keeper, Refuge, Rock, Shade, Shelter, and Stronghold. They all communicate, each in their own way, His surrounding believers.

We want to rejoice in God’s surrounding as we work through this psalm. We also need to talk about those times the shields seem at 50%, or down completely, and we feel as though we can’t take another hit.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 God Will Preserve You In His Forever Surround, and #2 God Will Prove Himself To You In His Forever Surround.

#1 – God Will Preserve You In His Forever Surround (v1-2)

We always need to be cautious when applying things to ourselves that God promised Israel. We are not Israel; Israel was never the church.
For one thing, the New Testament reveals several “mysteries” about the church. A “mystery” in the Bible is something that was previously unknown until made known in the New Testament. A few of the mysteries revealed about the church are:

The church is one body (Ephesians 3:1-12).
The church is an organism (Colossians 1:26-27).
The church is the bride of Jesus (Ephesians 5:32).
The rapture of the church (First Corinthians 15:51-52).

That’s all to say, “How can Israel be the church if the church was a mystery not revealed until the New Testament?”

We’ll be careful, but since God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, we can examine His treatment of Israel and expect His treatment of us to be similar based on His nature and on His character.

The New Testament may not use the same metaphors to describe God surrounding.
But the spirit of verses one and two most definitely apply to us as being secure in Jesus.

The New Testament may not ever say that Jesus is a “hedge,” but it’s applicable, and I’d say it’s appropriate language for us to employ.

Psa 125:1  A Song of Ascents. Those who trust in the LORD Are like Mount Zion, Which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

The word “Zion” means something like fortification, or has the idea of being raised up as a monument. It is mentioned in the Bible over 150 times. It is synonymous with the city of God, with the place that God says He loves, with Jerusalem (Psalm 87:2-3).

It was David’s intent during his reign to build a Temple on this property. I wonder if they put up a sign? “Future home of God on earth.”

Solomon, David’s son, would lay the foundation and build the Temple for the LORD.

The Bible sometimes calls Mount Zion, Mount Moriah. It was the site where Abraham was asked to offer his son, Isaac, on an altar as a sacrifice. The episode makes no sense until you realize that it was on that same spot that God the Father would offer His Son, Jesus, as the sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Jerusalem, by the way, has no strategic military value. An advancing army has to go out of its way to go there. Everything that has happened there throughout history is spiritual.

Psa 125:2  As the mountains surround Jerusalem, So the LORD surrounds His people From this time forth and forever.

Technically, biblically, Mount Zion and the other peaks will not abide “forever.”

The apostle Peter tells us that, in the future, “The heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up… all these things will be dissolved” (Second Peter 3:10-11).

To quote Tazerface, “It’s metaphorical!” Standing in Jerusalem, on Mount Zion, the history and the prophecies involving the nation of Israel shouted to His gathered people of His surrounding them with wonderful, miraculous things that had transpired there, and that will again in the future. A sense of the LORD’s preservation of the nation was communicated by the mighty mountains metaphor.

Jesus promised us forever preservation when He said, “I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand” (John 10:28).

Listen to that one phrase at a time:

“I give them eternal life.” God’s salvation is entirely a gift. It cannot ever be earned or deserved. It cannot be achieved – only received.
“Eternal life” doesn’t simply mean we will live forever. Everyone lives forever – but their quality of life isn’t eternal life with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Nonbelievers will live forever in conscious torment in the Lake of Fire.
“They shall never perish” means once you’ve received eternal life, you cannot be lost to “perish” eternally like nonbelievers.
“Neither shall anyone snatch them out of My hand.” No one, either natural or supernatural, can alter your position in the Lord’s hand.
“My hand.” It is a nail-printed hand. The Cross upon which He died, and Jesus’ subsequent bodily resurrection three days later, render all the promises of God True and Amen.

Jesus followed-up His promise by insisting, in the very next verse, “My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of My Father’s hand” (v29).

Before you let your mind wander to coined, catch-phrases like “eternal security,” or “once saved, always saved,” simply read again those nineteen words Jesus spoke. You’ll conclude that Jesus preserves you. He began the work in you, and He will finish it.

#2 – God Will Prove Himself To You In His Forever Surround (v3-5)

The force field protecting Wakanda repelled the immense herd of Outriders, but the continuous pressure by the aliens allowed a few to pierce through. Once the Avengers understood they were at risk of being flanked, Black Panther ordered a section of the shield to be opened to direct their attack upon the gathered heroes.

Does Jesus open sections of His shield to expose us to attack? It sure seems that way.

Reading the opening chapters of Job, it sure seems the LORD uprooted the protective hedge, to allow Satan to rush in.
Let’s ask two preliminary questions:

Is God’s hedge about His children a promise of protection from material loss?
Is God’s hedge about His children a promise of protection from physical illness?

Nope, it’s not. Especially in the church age. We are promised trouble – and lots of it.

In The Book of Romans, in chapter eight, Paul says that God is “for us,” and that nothing can separate us from His love. Then he rattles off an incredible list of troubles that come against us.

Likewise in Hebrews chapter eleven we read of awful things that befell believers,and still do.

The life of the apostle Paul was filled with immense suffering.

Here at Calvary, we talk about trouble all the time:

For one, trouble is a major topic in the Bible. We talk about it because it comes up a lot in verse-by-verse teaching.
For two, even though we know to expect trouble, it still seems to surprise us when it comes.
For three, I believe the problem of pain and suffering is the #1 reason nonbelievers reject God. It’s for sure the #1 reason they give.

Here’s the thing: When we are assaulted, it isn’t because Jesus opened Northwest Section 17 of the force field. His promised spiritual shielding remains in place.

We need to stop thinking that Jesus quits surrounding us.

Psa 125:3  For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest On the land allotted to the righteous, Lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity.

When they are “under the scepter,” i.e., under the authority, of wicked oppressors, God preserved them.

Isn’t that the history of the nation of Israel in the proverbial nutshell? Egypt… Assyria… Babylon… Persia… Greece… Rome… Israel was “under the scepter” of all of them, but she survived.

After the destruction of the Temple in 70AD, Israel was no longer a nation. But even though dispersed all over the earth, and targeted for extermination, they survived to become a nation again in modern times.

Israel will survive a future extermination attempt by the Beast of the Revelation – the man best known as The Antichrist.

And they won’t just survive physically, making it to the end. The apostle Paul tells us all Israel will receive Jesus and be saved.

“And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “THE DELIVERER WILL COME OUT OF ZION, AND HE WILL TURN AWAY UNGODLINESS FROM JACOB“ (Romans 11:26).

Psa 125:3  For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest On the land allotted to the righteous, Lest the righteous reach out their hands to iniquity.

The “righteous” were those Jews within the nation of Israel who believed God, and to whom the LORD thereby declared “righteous.” They could absolutely trust that the LORD would keep them by overruling the wicked.

Concerning the final words of verse three, Joseph Benson writes:

[God intervenes] lest through human infirmity, and the great weight or long continuance of their troubles, [the righteous] should be driven to impatience, or to despair, or to use indirect and sinful courses to relieve themselves.
We learn from this that God considers the frail frame of his people, and proportions their trials to their strength, by the care of his providence, as well as their strength to their trials, by the power of his grace.

The New Testament counterpart is to say, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it” (First Corinthians 10:13).

Add to that this great promise in the Book of Jude: “[Jesus] is able to keep you from stumbling, And to present you faultless Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy” (v24).

Psa 125:4  Do good, O LORD, to those who are good, And to those who are upright in their hearts.
Psa 125:5  As for such as turn aside to their crooked ways, The LORD shall lead them away With the workers of iniquity. Peace be upon Israel!

Keep the nation of Israel in mind. Not all Jews were saved. You weren’t saved by birth; or by obeying the Law; or by offering sacrifices; or by pilgrimage to Jerusalem. As I mentioned a moment ago, you were saved by believing God. He credited it as righteousness.

Regarding the “good” in verse four:

They were “good” by virtue of God declaring them righteous.
Their uprightness in heart was not the basis of their salvation, but rather the result of it.

The reason that Israel was often “under the scepter of wickedness” was because the nonbelieving Jews of verse five “turned aside to their crooked ways.”

God therefore “[led] them away” by giving the nation over to the wicked nations whose morality and practices they were emulating; and whose god’s they were worshipping.

The righteous suffered greatly “under the scepter.” They were thrown into fiery furnaces; they were thrown into lion’s dens; they were thrown into cisterns and left to drown in muck and mud. How is that a hedge? How does that preserve?

Remember: The hedge is not protection from or against material affliction.

I did a quick Strong’s Concordance search of the words “surround,” “surrounds,” and “surrounded.” Here are the results in the NKJV:

Psa 5:12  For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; With favor You will surround him as with a shield.

Psalms 32:7  You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance.

Psalms 32:10  Many sorrows shall be to the wicked; But he who trusts in the LORD, mercy shall surround him.

Psalms 142:7  Bring my soul out of prison, That I may praise Your name; The righteous shall surround me, For You shall deal bountifully with me.”

Psalms 89:8  O LORD God of hosts, Who is mighty like You, O LORD? Your faithfulness also surrounds You.

God’s surround promises you all the spiritual enablement you need in the midst of trouble.

Do you need a to know God’s “favor?” Do you need “a song of deliverance?” Do you need “mercy?” Do you need the fellowship of other believers?
If so, you can count on the LORD’s “faithfulness” by providing them.

As an Incredible, Violet could extend her force field to preserve others. It’s somewhat common in SyFy for those with a force field to extend it.

“Faithfulness” surrounds the LORD and is therefore extended to surround you.

I don’t think this list exhausts the spiritual resources Jesus has to extend to you.

Grace would certainly be another shield, as would love. We sing a chorus, “Your holiness surrounds me.”

I say on the basis of God’s love for you that anything pure and spiritual you need to surround you is extended.

There’s more: It is in those times when your only shielding is spiritual that God proves to you His love, or His grace, or His mercy. You can’t experience them unless you need them.

While watching the Drop Ships explode, Bucky said, “I love this place.”

When you are shielded, but in some trouble, you are enabled to say, “I’m loved in this place.”

Nothing “shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

Psalm 124 – I AM Is On My Side…Yes He Is

Suppose Abraham Lincoln had been a vampire hunter…

It’s the premise of a novel made into the 2012 movie appropriately titled, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. Instead of Honest Abe, we’d call him Horrific Abe… Or Abe the Axe… Abraham VanHelsing…

It is an example of a genre in literature and film called Alternate History, or AH. It consists of stories in which one or more historical events occur differently. These stories usually ask What if? at crucial points in history that present outcomes other than those in the historical record.

Three of the most popular AH categories are:

Suppose the South had won the Civil War.
Suppose the Axis powers had won World War II.
Suppose JFK had not been assassinated.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen have written a novel, 1945, in which the US defeated Japan but not Germany in World War II, resulting in a Cold War with Germany rather than the Soviet Union.

Most long-running TV shows feature an AH episode. You fans of Star Trek will remember the Next Generation episode in which Picard was not stabbed in the heart as a cadet.

The change led to him becoming an unimpressive crew member rather than one of the great captains of the Enterprise.

Hulu has optioned the rights to Curtis Sittenfeld’s Alternative History book “Rodham,” which takes place in a world in which Hillary Rodham never married Bill Clinton.

It’s a Wonderful Life is AH – Suppose George Bailey had never been born.

Psalm 124 is definitely not Alternate History; but it does ask us to “suppose.”

In the opening verses, we read, “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side,” Let Israel now say – “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side…”

Another translation, the NIrV, puts it this way: “Suppose the LORD had not been on our side.

Suppose the LORD had not been on our side when our enemies attacked us.

Suppose he had not been on our side when their anger blazed out against us.”

Israel’s national history is full with events in which they would have been eradicated but for the LORD being “on [their] side.”

While they were subjects of the Persian empire, wicked Haman proposed a day upon which all the Jews would be murdered. The Book of Esther records the miraculous “on our side” of the LORD to protect and preserve His chosen ones. Esther, a Jew, had become Queen at just the right moment in history to be used to save the Jews.

Jesus “on our side” is something we, too, enjoy, along with the protection and preservation it affords.

Jesus sweetly promises believers, “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20).
The apostle Paul wonderfully exclaimed, “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

We’ll explore this as we work through the verses.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Jesus Is On Your Side In Your Troubles, and #2 Jesus Is On Your Side To Triumph Over Your Troubles.

#1 – Jesus Is On Your Side In Your Troubles (v1-2)

What was your elementary field trip anthem, sung on every bus ride? Mine was 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall.

Psalms 120-134, the Songs of Ascent, were sung by the pilgrims ascending the hill to Jerusalem on their way to the Temple to celebrate the annual feasts.

Psa 124:1  A Song of Ascents. Of David. “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side,” Let Israel now say –

This psalm is responsive. The song leader begins it, soliciting a response.

Have you ever tried to elicit a response from an audience, only to have them remain silent? That didn’t happen in Israel when it was time to sing Psalm 124.

When we worship by singing in a service, the worship team is soliciting a response. Most of you respond by singing. If you don’t sing, I’m not going to rebuke you. For all I or anyone else knows, you’re praying; or you’re reflecting on the words; or you’re reading your Bible.

I’d only ask this: If someone were to ask you, “What was your response to the worship of the Lord in song?,” what would you answer?

Worshipping in song seems to be an important activity in Heaven. That makes it important now.

Psa 124:2  “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side…”

Wouldn’t it be more biblical to say that we are on the LORD’s side? When Joshua was contemplating the attack on Jericho, “a Man stood opposite him with His sword drawn in His hand. And Joshua went to Him and said to Him, “Are You for us or for our adversaries?” So He said, “No, but as Commander of the army of the LORD I have now come.” And Joshua fell on his face to the earth and worshiped…” (Joshua 5:13-14).

We definitely want to have Joshua’s humility and be on the Lord’s side. Simultaneously, the Lord wants us to understand that He is, indeed, on our side.

Jesus is on your side in your troubles. Isn’t that a basic, elementary principle?

Doesn’t every believer already know that? Enough milk of God’s Word; serve up the meat.

A theologian I follow on twitter said, “Pastors and teachers, when it comes to the basics of Christian faith and Christian living, if we don’t continually ‘state the obvious,’ one day it will no longer be obvious.”

It does seem that we regularly forget this elementary principle in our daily walk with the Lord.

The very first church service I attended after being born-again was a Sunday morning at (then) Calvary Chapel of Riverside. The guest speaker was Pastor Romaine from CC Costa Mesa. I remember this one quote: “So you’re a Christian? Then where do you get off losing your joy over a dead battery!”

It may not sound all that deep and profound, but it was to me. It was the first time I understood that God’s Omnipresence meant more than that He was everywhere. It meant He was always with me, by my side, on my side. It is practical theology.

God is Omnipotent… Omniscient… and Omnipresent. He wants me to know it, but He also wants me to experience it firsthand.

He wanted His people, Israel, to experience His Omni-ness. So, for example, in the Esther-episode, the LORD could have intervened another way, not involving Esther or Mordecai. The way that the LORD did intervene expresses Him so much more than a raw power event. And, for their part, Esther and Mordecai experience God up close and personal.

Think of Esther. A beautiful Jewish girl, she volunteered to be a candidate to become the Queen of Persia. To be chosen, she and Mordecai knew she would have sex with the King. Now that’s wrong; it wasn’t God’s plan to pimp her out.

God used her bad decision to bring Esther to a more spiritual decision. Once the decree was issued to kill Jews, Esther was in the perfect position to save them. Would she?

She did… And now we marvel at the Omni’s of God as He intervened for His people.

Esther and Mordecai tell us that we are going to be right in the thick of things; on the front lines. Your ‘Persia’ may be your home… Or your employment. It might be your church. It’s wherever you live, so to speak. You must have skin in the game in order to experience and express the Living God.

#2 – Jesus Is On Your Side To Triumph Over Your Troubles (v3-8)

David, who scholars credit with writing this psalm, suggested an Alternate History. He asked the Israelites to look back upon their national history and “suppose” God had not been on their side.

Psa 124:2  “If it had not been the LORD who was on our side, When men rose up against us,
Psa 124:3  Then they would have swallowed us alive, When their wrath was kindled against us;

David will employ several metaphors in these remaining verses to describe the severity of various situations that Israel had faced in her national past. Looking back, if God had not been on their side, the nation would not exist.

“When men rose up against us” could apply to any number of troubles. At one point in their history, Jerusalem was surrounded by an Assyrian army that “rose up against [them]” and “would have swallowed [them] alive.” But “when their wrath was kindled against” Israel, God sent a single angel into their encampment. That angel killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers. One & done.

I can almost hear the pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem in their over-night encampments, or in homes that offered them hospitality, regaling one another with these stories. “What about that time the LORD was on Gideon’s side? Or that time He was on Elijah’s side, and fire came out of Heaven?”

Flip through the Old Testament with an eye for “on our side” stories, and you’ll find plenty.

Psa 124:4  Then the waters would have overwhelmed us, The stream would have gone over our soul;
Psa 124:5  Then the swollen waters Would have gone over our soul.”

We’ve seen footage of the devastation from floods and tsunamis. Many times in her history it seemed as though the Jews would be overwhelmed by a spiritual tsunami.

Moses and several million Jews had their backs against the impassable Red Sea. The mighty Egyptian army was on their heels, and had them trapped. It would be the end of the nation before it ever really began.

You know the story. God was on their side.

Another time, a Canaanite force featuring 900 heavy military chariots came to destroy Israel. It suddenly rained upon them, swelling and overflowing the Kishon River, sweeping the chariots away.

Psa 124:6  Blessed be the LORD, Who has not given us as prey to their teeth.

It’s dumb to speculate on how we want to die, but we do it anyway. I can tell you one way I do not want to die. Duuuunnnn duun… duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnn dunnnn.

Psa 124:7  Our soul has escaped as a bird from the snare of the fowlers; The snare is broken, and we have escaped.

Listening to the stories being told, someone -perhaps a child – might wonder about times in Isra’s past in which the Jews were defeated, and he’d captive. Was God on their side then?

David acknowledged that often Israel was caught, like a bird in the snare. This refers to the many episodes in Israel’s national history in which the LORD found it necessary to discipline the nation. It only came after much warning, urging repentance.

The prophet Jeremiah urged Israel to repent and to surrender to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. They abused him, and refused. Into captivity they went. But there was a promise from the LORD that they would be delivered after approximately seventy years. It seemed as though they were “ensnared,” but the “snare [was] broken” by the LORD, when the time was right, and they “escaped.

There is a long extra-biblical history of God being on Israel’s side. A Jewish website posted an article titled, 17 Miraculous Israeli Military Victories. It covers Israel’s modern history, from the late 1940’s through the present.

On January 16,1996, then President of Israel, Ezer Weizmann, gave a speech to both Houses of Parliament of Germany. He gave this speech in Hebrew to the Germans, fifty years after the Holocaust, and in it he appealed to Israel’s history. He said:

It was fate that delivered me and my contemporaries into this great era when the Jews returned to re-establish their homeland… I am no longer a wandering Jew who migrates from country to country, from exile to exile. But all Jews in every generation must regard themselves as if they had been there in previous generations, places and events. Therefore, I am still a wandering Jew but not along the far flung paths of the world. Now I migrate through the expanses of time from generation to generation down the paths of memory… I was a slave in Egypt. I received the Torah on Mount Sinai. Together with Joshua and Elijah I crossed the Jordan River. I entered Jerusalem with David and was exiled with Zedekiah. And I did not forget it by the rivers of Babylon. When the Lord returned the captives of Zion I dreamed among the builders of its ramparts. I fought the Romans and was banished from Spain.

I was bound to the stake in Mainz. I studied Torah in Yemen and lost my family in Kishinev. I was incinerated in Treblinka, rebelled in Warsaw, and emigrated to the Land of Israel, the country from where I have been exiled and where I have been born and from which I come and to which I return.

The very survival of the Jewish people through recorded time is nothing short of miraculous.

It is the ‘before-our-very-eyes’ fulfillment of Bible prophecy. The very fact that Jews exist as a nation today stands in testimony to the existence of God Who acts providentially. By any historical measure, the Jewish people should have disappeared long ago.

Over 300 years ago King Louis XIV of France asked Blaise Pascal, the great French philosopher, to give him proof of the supernatural. Pascal answered: “Why, the Jews, your Majesty – the Jews.”

Psa 124:8  Our help is in the name of the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.
This is certainly a nod to the LORD’s power as Creator. It is also a reminder that Creation is going somewhere. There is a plan being implemented throughout human history. His-story is progressively unfolding. It’s a plan to offer salvation to mankind by sending a Savior through the nation of Israel to them, and through them to the whole world.

The literal history in the Bible testifies to God’s providence in forwarding the plan. The apostle Paul wrote,

Gal 4:4  But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law,
Gal 4:5  to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
Gal 4:6  And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!”

The plan is yet unfolding. We have it in good detail in our New Testament, especially in the Revelation.

Psalm 124 is for and about Israel – not us. However, to the extent that it describes God, in a covenant relationship with believers, it is for every believer everywhere, anytime.

The New Testament is full of stories in which we see the Lord “on our side.” Geno is teaching insightfully through the Book of Acts on Wednesday nights. If you were there last week, he covered the story of Paul and Silas beaten and confined to the dungeon in Philippi.

If you weren’t there, you should listen to it on our site! https://vimeo.com/447630635

I can’t go into the depth he did, but luckily most of you are familiar with the story. The two missionaries were wrongfully arrested, beaten severely with rods, locked deep in the prison dungeon – in stocks.

As they sang, at midnight a ‘focused’ earthquake unlocked their chains, and opened wide the prison doors. Thinking all his prisoners had escaped, the jailer was about to commit suicide, as would be expected by Rome to maintain his honor. Paul urged him not to, seeing as all the prisoners inexplicably stayed in their cells. As the morning progressed, the jailer and his family heard the Gospel, and were saved.

In the morning, when the order was given for their release and banishment, Paul dropped a political nuke by informing the authorities that he and Silas might be Jews, but they were Roman citizens. What the magistrates had done to them was criminal.

When I say that Jesus is on our side, triumphing in our troubles – this is the kind of triumphing I mean.

In Philippi, Paul could have immediately appealed to his Roman citizenship.

He could have thereby avoided a terrible beating and the subsequent incarceration.

The Lord somehow communicated to Paul to remain silent. I doubt Jesus told him anything more than that. As Paul and Silas simply obeyed the Lord’s leading, the story unfolded, and the Gospel permeated the prison.

Not just the prison. Think of how that story must have spread throughout the region.

It has inspired multiplied millions throughout history. It is encouraging us today.

Paul exercised his right to be wronged for the sake of the Gospel. You will be asked to exercise that right, instead of your rights, on occasion. It probably won’t involve being beaten with rods nearly to death… But it will require trust and sacrifice.

It is precisely in times like that we can feel that Jesus is NOT “on our side.” He is – always – every bit as much as He was on the side of the believers whose stories are recorded in the Bible, and in Christian history.

I shudder to suppose my Alternate History had the Lord not saved me. If you’re a believer, you can relate.

If you’re not a believer… God has a glorious Alternate History for you:

He saves you by grace, through faith, apart from any woks you can perform.

He has good works for you to discover as you walk with Him.

Most of all, you will have a glorious entrance into Heaven, rather than be conscripted to Hell.

Have you received Jesus?

I Wanna Behold Your Hand (Psalm 123)

“Show me your hands.”

You’re almost certain to hear that shouted at a suspect in any cop show. One of the first things I learned as a Chaplain on a ride-along was to observe a person’s hands – because that is where they’ll be holding the weapon.

“Show me your hands” might be followed by, “Put your hands up,” then, “Put your hands behind your head.”

When Quint first meets Hooper in Jaws, he demands, “Gimme your hands.” Then Quint grabs Hooper’s wrists and looks at his hands and examines them. “You’ve got city boy hands, Hooper. You been countin’ money all your life.”

Can your remember the last time you used hand signals while driving your car?

The military utilizes tactical hand-signals. Most everyone understands that a bent-elbow, raised clenched fist means “Stop.” Raise that clenched fist with a straight arm overhead, head down, and it communicates something very different.

A good doctor observes your hands. There are many medical reasons your hands might shake. My hands shake. Is it from too much caffeine, or too little dopamine?

In Terminator 3, Arnold walks through a mini-mart filling a basket with junk food. When the clerk asks him if he is going to pay for it, Arnold ominously extends his hand and says, “Talk to the hand.”

Hands are prominent in Psalm 123. The psalmist doesn’t want to talk to the hand. He wants to behold it.

Psa 123:2  Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the LORD our God, Until He has mercy on us.

The psalmist wants to behold the LORD’s hand the way a faithful servant beholds the master’s hand in order to receive guidance and instruction.

We are servants of the Lord. We, too, ought to passionately desire to behold His hand.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Behold The Lord’s Hand Until He Signals His Mercy To You, and #2 Behold The Lord’s Hand Until You Show His Mercy Through You.

#1 – Behold The Lord’s Hand Until He Signals His Mercy To You (v1-2)

My shaking hands. It’s not from too much caffeine. You may not believe me, but I don’t drink all that much coffee in a day:

I have one cup, a pour-over, in the morning.

I might have a shot of espresso, or a Turkish, midmorning. A shot isn’t some crazy caffeine overload. It only contains the amount of caffeine in a regular 8oz cup of coffee.

I might have a mid-afternoon coffee, but not always.

I do love the different ways of making coffee, and the gadgets associated with it.

I shake because I have too little dopamine; and that is from Parkinson’s Disease.

Technically (and I quote), “The main pathological characteristics of Parkinson’s Disease are cell death in the brain’s basal ganglia.”

It confirms what you’ve always suspected: I’m brain dead.

My initial diagnosis was about two years ago. It’s no secret; I just didn’t want to make a huge deal of it.

It has opened up new ministry: This year at our annual Apples of Gold, they’ve asked me to demonstrate Shake&Bake cooking.

Honestly, I figured that one day it would be an appropriate illustration in a study. It fits today. And now we can have some fun with it.

Psa 123:1  A Song of Ascents. Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You who dwell in the heavens.

The Songs of Ascent are Psalms 120-134. They were the travel playlist for pilgrims on their way up the hill to the Temple in Jerusalem to celebrate one of the annual feasts.

In the previous psalm, the pilgrim said, “Our feet have been standing Within your gates, O Jerusalem!” (v2). Now within the city, his gaze turned even higher, to God’s dwelling in the heavens.

The psalmist looked heavenward, then, in verse two, talked about the kind of humble servant he desired to become. Seeing God, he wanted to be rededicated to serving God.

It reminds me of Isaiah. He recorded his famous vision of God:

Isa 6:1  In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple.
Isa 6:2  Above it stood seraphim; each one had six wings: with two he covered his face, with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew.
Isa 6:3  And one cried to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”

In his vision Isaiah was rededicated for service as a coal from the altar touched his lips. Isaiah uttered those famous words, “Here am I. Send me” (v8).

Your serving is an outgrowth of your ‘vision’ of Jesus. I don’t mean that you’ll be transported to Heaven, like Isaiah was. It’s how you envision His nature and character. If you are not serving the Lord; or if your service seems empty, or a burden… You’re not really looking at the Suffering Servant who substituted Himself for you, in order to save you.

Psa 123:2  Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, As the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, So our eyes look to the LORD our God, Until He has mercy on us.

The picture the psalmist refers us to is that of a servant who is so attentive to his master, or to her mistress, that they respond to subtle finger and hand signals that guests of the household may not even see. They don’t ever have to be told what to do.

If you’ve been a leader, or a supervisor… Have you had the joy of having a subordinate assistant that seemed to always know what you wanted done, and how to accomplish it?

Or are you always finding it necessary to assist your assistants?

Iron Man had Jarvis, then Friday, as his AI assistants. They could anticipate his needs. The psalmist wants to be that in tune with the LORD.

Christians tend to think of serving as if they were in an episode of Downton Abbey. Everything is expected to be absolutely perfect. They labor, they toil, to a point of exhaustion. They are constantly anxious. Inevitably, something, a drinking glass, is spotted, or spilled, to everyone’s shame.

If you ever feel as though you’re serving Jesus that way, something is wrong. You’re either putting a burden on yourself, or someone is trying to burden you.
I’ll throw out giving as an example. Churches have many techniques to burden you about your financial giving. Isn’t it better to let the Lord lead you in your giving?

As a side note: I think Christians can be afraid to let the Lord lead. I mean, what if He asks you to be extra generous, or to give in a way you’d never have dreamed of?

Jesus will lead you by His Word, reinforced by the still, small, gracious voice of the Holy Spirit Who indwells you.

There is another illustration in the Bible that captures this same idea of subtle servant signals:

Psa 32:8  I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.
Psa 32:9  Do not be like the horse or like the mule, Which have no understanding, Which must be harnessed with bit and bridle…

In this case, the horse or the mule are the servant. Some are so in tune with their rider that even the slightest turn of the head is felt by them and they respond.

Verse two ends, “So our eyes look to the LORD our God, Until He has mercy on us.”

“Mercy,” by definition, cannot be earned or deserved. Secondly, God is always merciful. Even in His righteous wrath He remembers mercy.

You may not ‘see’ the Lord’s mercy right away. In fact, you might think there is no mercy in your situation. A servant is to wait on the Lord until he or she perceives His mercy.

For example: It’s part of the fallen world that there is decay, disease, and death. At some point, you will suffer. Wait, and God will show you His mercy in it.

If nothing else, if God permits your death in a way we dislike or think premature, His mercy is shown in the fact you are absent from your decaying body and present with Jesus.

There are usually other, more subtle, mercies to discover. But you must be like the servant passionately attending to his or her master’s hand.

I want to add an important element to this idea of beholding the Lord’s hand.

When the risen Lord appeared suddenly to the disciples, He said to Thomas, “Reach your finger here, and look at My hands“ (John 20:27).

Look to THAT hand. Wait until the nail print comes into focus. Concentrate on what the Lord has done.

The hand we are beholding for guidance is nail-printed. He knows you intimately, and He loves you with everlasting love. He promised to keep you until the end. He can’t help Himself from showing you mercy – regardless your circumstances.

#2 – Behold The Lord’s Hand Until You Show His Mercy Through You (v3-4)

“Contempt” is the word repeated twice in two verses:

In verse three, the psalmist has contempt for himself, and indicates that all believers ought to hold themselves in contempt.
In verse four he points out that nonbelievers hold believers in contempt.

Psa 123:3  Have mercy on us, O LORD, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt.

What does he mean by “contempt?” Definitions are useful, but they can’t always communicate the psalmist’s intent the way an illustration can.

Earlier we were in Heaven with Isaiah. Between his vision of the LORD and the coal touching his lips, he said, “Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, The LORD of hosts” (6:5).

That is the kind of “contempt” a believer is to have for himself, or for herself. Albert Barnes writes:

This expression evidently denotes that he was a “sinner,” and especially that he was unworthy either to join in the praise of a God so holy, or to deliver a message in His name. The vision; the profound worship of the seraphim; and the attendant majesty and glory, had deeply impressed him with a sense of the holiness of God, and of his own unfitness either to join in worship so holy, or to deliver the message of so pure a God.

Holding yourself in contempt is more than an awareness that, although justified and declared righteous, you remain a sinner. It is deeply experiencing the truth of your being a sinner, but seeing through it to God’s mercy in saving you.

C.S. Lewis said, “A Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble – because the Christ-life is inside him, repairing him all the time.”

In His mercy is the incredible encouragement to serve Him. Stop and take that in. God partners with you.

The psalmist next discusses how nonbelievers hold believers in contempt.

Psa 123:4  Our soul is exceedingly filled With the scorn of those who are at ease, With the contempt of the proud.

“Proud” and at “ease” were the psalmists words describing nonbelievers. There are, of course, many other words that could be used of them.

Here is something to remember when you are being held in contempt: “Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God” (First Corinthians 6:9-11).

Nonbelievers hold you in contempt; or they should. They think you are weak and foolish for believing in Jesus. Your habits and lifestyle might cause them to scorn. Certainly your values are vastly different from those of nonbelievers… Aren’t they?

The apostle Paul categorizes believers as “foolish,” “base,” and “despised.”

1Co 1:26  For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called.
1Co 1:27  But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty;
1Co 1:28  and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are,
1Co 1:29  that no flesh should glory in His presence.

Is that how nonbelievers see you? If not, consider this: It IS possible for a believer to NOT want to be considered these ways; to not be held in any contempt.

We can avoid it by living like, by looking like, the world.

Psalm 123 seems like an odd choice for a Psalm of Ascents. It’s really perfect for the playlist.

The pilgrim has come to the presence of God, in His holy Temple. He didn’t travel there to be entertained. He traveled there to get a vision of God. Any such vision is going to reveal you as a sinner who is to be rededicated to serve the hand of your Lord.

“Gimme your hands,” demanded Quint. If we could, in the sound studio, take away the gruffness and condescension of Quint, it would be a great quote to attribute to Jesus.

Think of Jesus, with His everlasting love for you, asking you each day, “Gimme your hands,” so that our hands could, in a sense, be His hands.

Believers will stand, individually, before the Reward Seat of Jesus.
It isn’t an examination of works to see if you’ve done enough to be saved. No, you are saved by grace, through faith – not of works.
The Reward Seat is an examination of your works so that the Lord can celebrate His work in and through you. These rewards will adorn you, the way a bride is adorned for the Bridegroom in a wedding.

If the Lord, at His Reward Seat, were to say to you, “Gimme your hands,” what would He see?

You don’t want Him to see city boy hands that have been counting money all your life.

Your hands should be scarred, calloused, cut, and bruised for having responded to the subtle servant signals of Jesus.

Get Rich & Die Tryin’ (Psalm 49)

The America Pygmy Shrew is an interesting little animal. Just two inches long it reaches adulthood in about 18 days, which is good because the lifespan is less than a year and a half. That time is spent in a constant search for food. You see, the pygmy shrew’s heart beats1,000 times a minute. Its metabolism is so high that it must eat three times its weight every day. That means these shrews can never sleep for more than a few minutes because an hour without food could mean death.

That kind of existence sounds futile to us. We wouldn’t choose that sort of life for ourselves. Luckily, we don’t have to devote our entire focus to finding food. Instead, we see life before us, the wheel in our hand, and we are free to choose which horizon we will press toward. But that freedom doesn’t guarantee will will arrive at the destination of a meaningful life. God has gone to great lengths to warn us that there are many paths that will end in a ruined life, a wasted life, one with as little ultimate meaning as a pygmy shrew. A worthless life. That may sound harsh, but it’s the truth. God, says this in 2 Kings 17: “They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves.”

Mankind, in many places, has moved away from bowing before golden idols in the traditional pagan sense. But still there is a draw on the hearts of man to give himself over to other masters. So much human attention is devoted to gathering and managing wealth. Our culture is engrossed with money and richness and material gain. We want to know who has it. So, outlets like Forbes will tell us each year who has got the biggest pile. People talk about who should have it. So we have movements like Occupy Wall Street in 2011 or other groups railing against the “1%.” Economists research pay gaps and our leaders debate minimum wage levels. When it comes to the voters, each election cycle many people cite “economic issues” as important, extremely important or the most important consideration in choosing who they want to represent them in the halls of government.

It’s not all theoretical or political. It seems that, even before COVID, more and more people were becoming less likely to show generosity. In the year 2000, 2/3 of Americans donated to charity. In 2014 that number was down to 55%.

Our popular culture embraces the pursuit of wealth. We concern ourselves with who is the highest paid actor or the best-selling musician. And your social media feeds are full of ads promising you a method by which you can make thousands of dollars from home doing no work!.

The culture’s approach to wealth is like the pygmy shrew’s approach to food, crystallized by the title of 50 Cent’s debut album and then his first feature film: Get rich or die tryin’.

Don’t worry, this isn’t a study on giving. It’s a study on living. Living a life of real meaning and value in a world that’s absolutely fixated on all the wrong things. It’s also an encouragement to us in a time when many people are feeling a pinch in their wallet and the potential anxiety that follows when the days are looking lean. We’re reminded by God’s word that if we make our lives about material pursuits, we may lay hold of some pile of treasure in the here and now, but in the end, if our purpose is to “get rich,” then we will die trying.

Psalm 49 is a song that drives home not only the proper mindset God wants us to have, but also reveals what great value He has placed on the the human treasure He bought with the blood of His Son. We begin above verse 1, where we read:

Psalm 49:1-2 – For the choir director. A psalm of the sons of Korah. 1 Hear this, all you peoples; listen, all who inhabit the world, 2 both low and high, rich and poor together.

There are some Psalms directed to Jews, some to pilgrims, some to kings. But this Psalm is for everyone everywhere. All who inhabit the world. It doesn’t matter if you’re rich or poor, Jew or Gentile, slave or free. If you’re alive, God has sung this song to you.

This is an important point, because it would be easy for us to think, “Well, I’m already a Christian.” Or, “I’m not rich, at least not by my own definition. So what follows applies to the next person, but not to me.” But the song specifically lumps us all together and says we all need to listen in.

It’s also a great message considering current opinions. Today, there is a general idea that there are different rules for different people. On the one hand, the average man on the city street will probably say that the “rich” should be taxed at a much higher rate than the “poor.” Different rules. On the other hand, it’s evident that there are, in some ways, a different set of rules for those with great wealth in our society than for the average Joe.

But not so with the Lord. His truth does not apply to one group or the other, it applies to everyone. And, as His creatures, we are commanded to listen to what He says. God is a God of incredible patience and grace and understanding. But He has spoken. He has issued commands and instructions and decrees and guidance and it is not only our duty to hear Him, it’s our only hope.

Psalm 49:3-4 – 3 My mouth speaks wisdom; my heart’s meditation brings understanding. 4 I turn my ear to a proverb; I explain my riddle with a lyre.

The Psalmist is able to deliver this song because he listened to what the Lord had to say. Putting it to music he’s now hope we will all hear and sing along.

This is what we might call a “wisdom” Psalm, and that emphasizes the fact that God’s word is full of wisdom. It’s not just the Good Book, it’s a guide book. It’s not just a set of stories, it is the scout which looks through the past, far to the future and into your heart, showing you the roads to take, the dangers to avoid and how to lay hold of everlasting life. It meets the hardest questions of life with real, applicable answers and shows how you can be known by the most important Person of all time.

Sadly, fewer and fewer people are going to the Word of God to drink of its truth. In its 10th annual “State of the Bible” survey, the American Bible Society found that fewer than 1 in 10 people “use the Bible daily.” CEO Robert Briggs said, “Despite nearly every individual in the U.S. having access to the Bible, engagement has decreased. That’s been a consistent trend over the past few years, and the trend has accelerated since January 2020 throughout the pandemic.” (Emphasis added)

That’s not meant to burden you. It’s an appeal. Here is help. Here is guidance. Here is perspective. Here is truth in the midst of the world’s chaos. It’s ready to be found as we sit and listen.

Psalm 49:5 – 5 Why should I fear in times of trouble? The iniquity of my foes surrounds me.

The singer is in on a secret and he wants us to be a part of it. The times were tough. The people in power were nipping at his heels. But he’s not worried. He’s calm and sure of what is true.

Remind yourself that there is nothing too difficult for our God to accomplish. This God defeats all enemies. This God can bring revival to Nineveh. This God can bring Nebuchadnezzar to repentance or stop the sun in the sky if He needs to. No day is too dark for Him to break through with His light. No trouble in your life is too much for Him to address.

Psalm 49:6-9 – 6 They trust in their wealth and boast of their abundant riches. 7 Yet these cannot redeem a person or pay his ransom to God—8 since the price of redeeming him is too costly, one should forever stop trying—9 so that he may live forever and not see the Pit.

Verse 8 is a parenthesis, so you read verse 7 right into verse 9. The difference on display in this Psalm is between those who trust in God for their lives and wellbeing and those who trust in their wealth. It’s not just people who worship money, but we’re also talking about those who hang their lives on material things. “My paycheck will protect me.” But, for human beings, there’s more going on than just the monthly bills that come in the mail. There is a life after this one and, standing before God, mankind owes an unpayable fine. Here on earth, a person might have enough assets to be comfortable and secure and meet all their needs. But at the end of life we owe a ransom debt to God. And there is no amount of money that can clear that debt. The price is too high.

In 2017, Leonardo DaVinci’s Salvator Mundi sold at auction for $450 million. But the most expensive item ever to be sold was a yacht called the History Supreme. It was made with 220,000 pounds of 24 carat gold. One of the walls in the master bedroom was made with meteoric stone. And it contains a sculpture made from an actual T-Rex bone. It sold for $4.8 billion.

Pick any human life. Pick even the most wasted life imaginable, from the worst place in the worst time. And the Lord says, “It’s worth so much more than that.” But, not only is our value that high in His eyes, our debt is that high as well. They say that Jeff Bezos’ wealth grows by over $2,000 a second. But before God he is a pauper, powerless to pay for his sin.

We can’t buy our way out of death. God can’t be bribed or paid off. We can’t work our way out of death either. We need someone to rescue us by paying the ransom. And we need it now, because death is waiting to claim every single person. It’s estimated that every minute 120 people die. And the Bible explains that after death comes judgment.

So, before we continue, the question is: Are you ready to die? Remember, with all these thoughts on his mind, the Psalmist said, “I’m not afraid.” How can that be? It’s because his ransom had been paid. He knew the Redeemer. Do you? If you think you will stand before your Creator because you were a good person or because you worked hard in this life, listen to what’s being said here. All the effort of your life isn’t even worth half a cent on a trillion dollar invoice.

There’s a comical moment in the film Catch Me If You Can. Young Frank Abagnale has been forging checks and is being chased by the FBI. Frank’s mom is questioned by the agents and she, not understanding the gravity of the situation, grabs her check book and says, “I’ve been working part time at the church. Tell me how much he owes and I’ll pay you back.” The response? “$1.3 million.”

Whatever direction we’re sailing in life, all of us are on a crash course with with death. The Psalmist drives the point home:

Psalm 49:10-13 – 10 For one can see that the wise die; the foolish and stupid also pass away. Then they leave their wealth to others. 11 Their graves are their permanent homes, their dwellings from generation to generation, though they have named estates after themselves. 12 But despite his assets, mankind will not last; he is like the animals that perish. 13 This is the way of those who are arrogant, and of their followers, who approve of their words.

Evolutionists suggest that we’re animals, just like all the others. In a cosmic sense, we’re not special, they say, just more evolved. That’s not what verse 12 means. It simply means that we, like all the animals, are mortal. In fact, by highlighting this similarity, the truth that we are much more than just another animal is affirmed. A human life of is of infinitely more value than the life of an animal because we were made in the image of God. The birds and the fish and the monkeys were not.

Now, when we started this song, we were promised wisdom and answers. We were being serenaded by someone who was living without fear or worry. But since then we’ve gotten a non-stop reminder that we’ll all be dead soon. Not exactly the kind of DJ you’d book for your wedding.

But if the message is, “Everyone dies. There’s nothing you can do to avoid it,” then what’s to stop us from giving up and saying, “Well then who cares? Might as well eat, drink and be merry.”

The reveal comes in the next set of verses, where we find that, while everyone will die, there is one way for a person to pass through death into life. Every other way, every other plan, leads to death holding you hostage forever. But there is a way out, a way through, where death becomes a tunnel rather than a tomb.

Psalm 49:14-15 – 14 Like sheep they are headed for Sheol; Death will shepherd them. The upright will rule over them in the morning, and their form will waste away in Sheol, far from their lofty abode. 15 But God will redeem me from the power of Sheol, for he will take me.

These days people use the term “sheep” to deride their opponents. The truth is, the Bible has used this description for thousands of years, not in a derogatory way, but to show us our state. We are sheep. Helpless and in need of a shepherd. But, here’s what’s amazing about the way God has designed things: As sheep, we get to voluntarily side with one of two flocks, under one of two shepherds. There’s the grim and cruel shepherd of death. He devours his sheep without mercy.

There’s one other option: God’s redemption. Of course, the most famous Psalm, Psalm 23 begins with those 5 wonderful words: The Lord is my Shepherd. When we are in His flock, we are saved from the power of death and He promises to walk with us through life, showing us tender care every day, and then to take us to Himself at the end of this life, where we will live forever with Him in glory.

Sheep, in the Bible’s imagery, are free range animals. They’re not in the tight pens we think of in today. We have freedom to go this way or that in life, seeking one pasture or another. In our natural state, we’re told that we are all sheep who have gone astray. We’ve each turned to our own way, leaving God’s path to follow our own. In Psalm 119, the writer recognizes this and says:

Psalm 119:176 – 176 I have wandered away like a lost sheep; come and find me

That’s exactly what God has done. He searches in all times, in all places, for His lost sheep. Pleading with them to surrender and become a part of His flock. God, through His Son Jesus Christ, did all that was necessary to pay the fine, to clear the debt, to redeem and rescue us from death. And “if you openly declare that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”

When a person stops trusting in wealth or their own efforts and instead gives their life to Jesus Christ, death is no longer a danger. It is a door through which we enter eternity with our Good Shepherd. The dark of death needs not frighten us, because salvation comes like the dawn.

The consequences of this choice could not be more clear or severe:

1 Samuel 2:9 – 9 He will protect his faithful ones, but the wicked will disappear in darkness.

Job 20:25b-26 – The terrors of death are upon them. 26 Their treasures will be thrown into deepest darkness. A wildfire will devour their goods, consuming all they have left.

There is no other savior than Jesus Christ. God says in Hosea 13: “You must acknowledge no God but Me, for there is no other Savior.”

Psalm 49:16-20 – 16 Do not be afraid when a person gets rich, when the wealth of his house increases. 17 For when he dies, he will take nothing at all; his wealth will not follow him down. 18 Though he blesses himself during his lifetime—and you are acclaimed when you do well for yourself—19 he will go to the generation of his ancestors; they will never see the light. 20 Mankind, with his assets but without understanding, is like the animals that perish.

The song turns to give us some comfort and guidance when it comes to the way we think about life. While there are powerful people out there who are using their wealth for evil, we are not to be afraid of them. Rather we should pity them and pray for them. We know the end of their story.

How might this give us some day-to-day application? Here’s one: If you scroll through social media, you won’t go long before there’s some inflamed post about how Bill Gates is trying to kill us all. You know what? Maybe he is! But we don’t have to be afraid of him or anyone else. We are being shepherded by the King of all heaven and earth.“In God I have put my trust, I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?”

As the Psalm ends, it repeats what was already said in verse 12. But this time there’s a small change: “Mankind with his assets but without understanding, is like the animals that perish.”

This is important. Because the problem is not having assets. The issue is not the content of your bank account but the condition of your heart. What are you trusting in? Where is your hope?

It’s easy for us to think, “Well, I’m a Christian, I’m not rich, so I’m good.” But, remember how this song began: It’s for everyone, everywhere, whether they’re rich or poor. That means that there’s a message here we all need to pay attention to. And, while everything is relative, even a person living on minimum wage in the United States is richer than 94% of the world’s population.

So, because of that and because of what has been revealed, because we know we are only alive on this side of eternity for a very short amount of time, as redeemed people we are to go and redeem the time that we do have. That means walking in God’s wisdom and making the most of every opportunity. Not to just make a buck, but to be about the Lord’s business, proclaiming His message. It means learning to understand what the Lord wants you to do in your community and your area of influence. It means to live a life full of the Holy Spirit. In doing these things, we not only avoid the futility of a life spent pursuing wealth, but we actually lay up for ourselves treasures in heaven – great rewards that will be waiting for us.

Now, perhaps we think to ourselves, “I agree with God. He’s my Shepherd. I’ll honor Him. But can’t I also point the prow of my life to building a fortune?” This Psalm and so many other passages would caution you, in as strong language as possible.

Listen: God is not against people having assets, in some cases even very great assets. If you’re wealthy, thank God for it and use what you have for His glory. Imitate the generosity of your lavishly generous God. But we know that the love of money is a deadly trap. And, in the end, we can serve only one Master.

In 2 Kings, we have this description:

2 Kings 17:33 – 33 They feared the Lord, but they also worshiped their own gods according to the practice of the nations

The result was and always is disaster. Because: “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”

All of us, rich or poor, are commanded by God to keep a proper perspective. To keep our eyes on the leading of our Shepherd, especially when we’re worried about the condition of our pasture. We have no reason to fear, because look at what the Lord has done for us. Look at what He paid to make us His own. We can trust Him. We must trust Him, so that we can enjoy a life of real wealth, a life that lasts, a life on course for eternal peace, reward and glory.

House On Hallowed Hill (Psalm 122)

Each evening, at 6:30pm, the California Highway Patrol closed off Hwy 198 between Hwy 41 and the Avenal cut-off in order for a film production crew’s activities to be uninterrupted by regular traffic.

The film was Planes, Trains and Automobiles.

It is the story of businessman Neil Page (played by Steve Martin) desperately trying to get home to Chicago from New York City in time for Thanksgiving dinner with his family.

He encounters a series of travel setbacks and delays along the way, begrudgingly teaming up with a shower curtain ring salesman, Del Griffith (played by John Candy). Together they traverse the Midwestern United States using planes, trains and automobiles in a hilariously frustrating effort to get home. 

Hwy 198 was transformed into a wintry Midwest highway. It’s the scene where a car pulls up next to them, and the couple in the car keep shouting, “You’re going the wrong way!” Once they realize they are going the wrong way, it’s too late to avoid two semis coming right at them. They drive in-between the trucks, tearing their rental car to shreds.

The car remains comically drivable.

When they arrive at their hotel, John Candy looks at the damage and says, ”Well, this isn’t so bad – I thought it would be a lot worse than this. They’ll be able to buff this out no problem.”

Their journey resonates with us because of the common desire to be home, gathered with loved ones, in order to give thanks.

In our psalm we read, “The tribes go up [to Jerusalem]… to give thanks to the LORD” (v4).

The Israelite tribes were going home, as it were, to gather together in order to give thanks.

One of our worship choruses is,

Here we are, gathered together as a family
Bound as one, lifting our voices to the King of Kings

The lyrics resonate with us because, in our twice born hearts, we long to be one with other believers in order to lift our collective voices and give thanks to Jesus.

This psalm is an encouragement for God’s people to gather together, and to give thanks. Appropriate, don’t you think?

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Gathering Together In The House Of The Lord Encourages Gladness, and #2 Gathering Together In The House Of The Lord Evokes Gratitude.

#1 – Gathering Together In The House Of The Lord Encourages Gladness (v1-4)

Have you ever almost blown-off coming to church, only to power through and attend, and be so glad you did? That is one thing I mean when I say gathering together in the house of the Lord encourages gladness.

Wait a minute. What is this “house of the Lord” business? Doesn’t Pastor Gene know that the church is not a building? Let’s tweet about it.

This building is not the church; but the church is a building.

One passage will suffice to prove it is. The apostle Paul told the believers in Ephesus,

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit (2:19-22).

So, yes, it turns out that we are a building. We are “the household of God,” a “holy temple,” the “dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

Paul went on in his letter to describe the household, the temple, the dwelling place of God, as a regular, local gathering of believers:

He explained that God gave pastor-teachers to the church. Not pastor-teachers to believers at large, but to each local gathering.
He explained that we are to appoint elders in the church. Not elders to believers at large, but to each local gathering.

That ought to be enough for us to say that not only is the church a building, it is most a building when we are gathered together.

Should we be gathering together now – during COVID-19? What about the mandates to not meet?

There are passionate appeals both to meet and to not meet. The latest polling reports ⅔︎ of believers are neither attending in person nor are they watching online.

In the mandates, churches seem to be treated like other venues and ventures. Now I don’t fault nonbelieving government officials to think of us as less important than Costco. But the truth is, Costco is not God’s household on earth; it is not His temple, nor is it the dwelling place of God in the Spirit

It is, in fact, the most essential building on the earth.

Since those things are in fact true of us, we meet. Doesn’t mean everyone must attend. There is room for believers to shelter at home, based on their own risk assessment. But this brick-and-mortar ‘building’ should be open for the real building to meet in it.

You’ve heard this illustration. Somebody says “Christianity is a crutch.” A believer says in response, “It’s more than a crutch; it’s a hospital.”

Hospitals are open, so why not churches? If you think that is a ridiculous comparison, are we not the household, the temple, the dwelling place of God in the Spirit, on the earth? What we provide is essential.

We’ve heard the conflicting medical opinions… We’ve heard the conflicting political opinions… There are certainly constitutional issues to sort out.

Frankly, none of those should be our go-to reason(s) for gathering. We gather because when we do, we are God’s earthly temple.

Psa 122:1  A Song of Ascents. Of David. I was glad when they said to me, “Let us go into the house of the LORD.”

Psalms 120-134 are the “Song[s] of ascent.” They were sung as Israelites travelled to Jerusalem to attend one of the three major annual feasts.

I came across something that might interest you. In the Old Testament Book of Deuteronomy, we read, “Three times a year – on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, on the Feast of Weeks, and on the Feast of Booths – all your males shall appear before the LORD your God…” (16:16). According to Jewish historians, however, this was not strictly followed. Here is how one scholar put it:

During the Second Temple period these verses were not understood to mean that one was obliged to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem three times a year, but rather that pilgrimage was associated with these festivals. Pilgrimage was considered a commandment that “has no measure,” as stated in Mishnah, Peah 1:1: “The following are the things for which no definite quantity is prescribed…appearing [before the LORD]….” Thus, the commandment to “go up” to Jerusalem might be observed once every few years or perhaps only once in a lifetime.

Whether it was three times annually or less, the psalm focuses on the pilgrim being “glad” to journey with others.

Meeting together as the dwelling place of God by the Spirit encourages a kind of gladness that cannot be experienced any other way. I’ve used this illustration before. We love Disneyland. You can go on YouTube and ‘ride’ every attraction virtually. But it isn’t the same as being there, hurtling 18mph down the Matterhorn in a bobsled.

Virtual ‘church’ is not church. It’s not bad; it’s just not church. You can’t experience the same gladness any other way than by gathering.

The pilgrim-psalmist is “glad” even though foot-travel travel to Jerusalem was tedious, uncomfortable, and perilous. The pilgrims had to rely upon hospitality along the way, or camp-out. Bandits and beasts beset the byways.

He didn’t see it as a responsibility, but as a privilege.

Psa 122:2  Our feet have been standing Within your gates, O Jerusalem!

It’s a verbal expression of gladness for arriving at their destination.

Gathering with other believers ought to give you the feeling you’ve arrived at a coveted destination. You should want to take it all in.

Psa 122:3  Jerusalem is built As a city that is compact together,

Albert Barnes said,

[This] literally [means], “joined to itself together;” that is, when one part is, as it were, bound closely to another part; not scattered or separate. The walls are all joined together; and the houses are all united to one another so as to make a compact place.

Do you have a compact car? A sub-compact? Get a few people in there and you’re practically sitting on each other.

The compact construction of the city was a picture of God’s desire for His people to be connected, spiritually connected, as one. The New Testament makes this clear when we read, “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house…” (First Peter 2:5). We are individual stones that the Lord is mortaring together.

I used to think of that in a static way, meaning that once I was mortared in, that was my place. Now I see it in a more dynamic way. Every time we gather, we are put together in the way that will create the most beautiful arrangement for that meeting.

Psa 122:4  Where the tribes go up, The tribes of the LORD, To the Testimony of Israel, To give thanks to the name of the LORD.

Israel was a tribal people. Twelve tribes, to be exact. They were scattered all over the land, and some beyond its borders. But they were one in their Lord, and as they gathered this was evident.

In the Book of Exodus God said, “And you shall put into the ark the Testimony which I will give you” (Exodus 25:16). The “testimony,” or covenant, was the Law of Moses by which men might approach God and enjoy fellowship.

While pagan cultures were sacrificing their children to Molech, or performing all manner of perverted sexual practices to fertility gods, Israel had access to the living God, at Whose throne could be found mercy and grace. He had revealed “His Name” to Moses – He revealed His nature, His character.

We see, in the New Testament, that Judaism was a burden laid upon the average Jew by the Pharisees and Scribes. That is how we think of Judaism. God did not lay a burden on His people. He wanted them to be glad in their approach to Him.

How much more, today in the church, ought we be glad? Looking back on Judaism, the writer to the Hebrew believers says, “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel” (12:22-24).

That’s a lot of content. We simply note that the writer was showing his readers that the church is way better off than Israel was. If they were glad under the Old Covenant, we ought to be glad exponentially in the New Covenant.

In the Revelation, the apostle John saw seven lampstands. Then, as is typical in the Revelation, he was told that “the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.”

John also said, “I saw seven golden lampstands, and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man… (1:12-13). Jesus said, “These things says He who holds the seven stars in His right hand, who walks in the midst of the seven golden lampstands” (2:1).

To put it plainly – Jesus is present when a church gathers in a way He is not present when you are at Starbucks.

Some would object, and argue that where only two or three are gathered, Jesus in in their midst. That verse, in the Gospel of Matthew, is smack dab in the middle of the passage on church discipline. The “two or three” are gathered there representing the local church to apply church discipline. It proves what we believe – that local churches must exist and meet.

Jesus is in our midst when we do. And THAT makes me glad.

#2 – Gathering Together In The House Of The Lord Evokes Gratitude (v5-9)

The end of verse four speaks of the believer giving thanks. The remaining verses are a few things to be thankful for.

Psa 122:5  For thrones are set there for judgment, The thrones of the house of David.

Justice. When properly meted out, it is something to be thankful for. We could use some sanctified justice in our world right now.

I think the psalmist was looking further, past even our own time. The Lord promised King David, through the prophet Nathan, “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever” (Second Samuel 2:16). Jesus said, at the end of the Revelation, “I am both the source of David and the heir to his throne” (22:16).

“The thrones of the house of David” is a reminder that God will establish His Kingdom on the earth, ruled by Jesus from Jerusalem.

In the church age, God has given authority to the local churches on earth to judge matters. In his first letter to the church at Corinth, the apostle Paul dealt with the sin of believers suing. Other believers. Among other things, he argued,

Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world will be judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? Do you not know that we shall judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? If then you have judgments concerning things pertaining to this life, do you appoint those who are least esteemed by the church to judge? I say this to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you, not even one, who will be able to judge between his brethren? (6:2-5).

We don’t think of this as a reason for thanksgiving anymore because litigation between Christians is rampant. It has become acceptable.

Psa 122:6  Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: “May they prosper who love you.
Psa 122:7  Peace be within your walls…

The psalmist-pilgrim prayed for Jerusalem’s peace so he could go on ascending there to celebrate the feasts.

Again, looking forward, we are aware that Israel will have peace for three-and-one-half years when they enter a covenant with the Beast of the Revelation. After that, they will know tribulation like never before.

But then when all hope seems lost, Jesus returns. The Prince of Peace will establish peace on the earth.

Psa 122:7  “… Prosperity within your palaces.”

Prospering is mentioned twice. As Jerusalem prospered, those that love the Lord could be thankful that there was no hindrance to their pilgrimage.

We talk a lot about adversity. There are also times of prosperity. They can be dangerous; but with thankfulness at not deserving them, we can enjoy them.

Psa 122:8  For the sake of my brethren and companions, I will now say, “Peace be within you.”
Psa 122:9  Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek your good.

A peaceful Jerusalem was the necessary context to enjoy the presence of the Lord in His Temple.

This was also the greeting of one Jew to another. As they passed, they would say, “Peace be within you!”

The psalmist was inspired to seek the good of Jerusalem so that all could come and give thanks. He was also inspired to seek the good of individual Jews.

At the end of Planes, Trains and Automobiles, on the train home, Neil thinks back on things Del said (or didn’t say) and he realizes Del wasn’t on his way home to spend Thanksgiving with his family. His wife, Marie, has been dead eight years. Neil goes back, gets Del, and brings him home.

That’s what we are about, is it not? Inviting folks to salvation, to give the Lord thanks for His work on our behalf.

We are “the dwelling place of God in the Spirit” when we gather together.

Yes, the Spirit permanently dwells in a believer. Yes, God is Omnipresent. But by His own description of the church as a lampstand, Jesus said that He attends our gatherings in a special way.

It’s not mystical; it’s simply a fact.

Gather and be glad.
Gather and be grateful.

Quoth The Writer “Forevermore” (Psalm 121)

Amazon gives you the option, before you add the item to your cart. “Add a protection plan.”

I’m always uncertain if I should buy a separate protection plan for a new device or appliance. I find it extremely stressful.

Some years ago I bought a protection plan for a cell phone. I don’t want to disparage the company by mentioning them by name, but it rhymes with ‘horizon.’ My phone went on the fritz. Good thing I had purchased the protection plan. It guaranteed me a replacement phone.

When it came in the mail, I quickly learned that ‘replacement’ did not mean ‘new.’ It was a previously owned, much used, Motorola flip phone. It broke coming out of the box.

The car I’m driving now, that Toyota CHR with all the rear-window decals, has a three-year factory warranty. It’s a lease, so I will turn it in at the end of three years. In stereotypical behavior, the salesman added an extended five year warranty to the invoice. When I caught it, he said, “O, sorry; I don’t know what I was thinking.” I do. (I did get the undercoating).

There is a Hebrew word, shaw-mar, used six times in Psalm 121. You might miss the repetition because different Bible’s have chosen quite a few English words to translate it, e.g., “keep,” “protect,” “guard,” “keep watch,” “preserve,” and “watch over.”

The NKJV, for instance, translates it using three English words, “keep,” “keeper,” and “preserve,” even though it is the same Hebrew word.

If you read Psalm 121 with a single translation of the word, let’s use “protect,” it sounds like this: “… He who protects you… He who protects Israel… The LORD is your Protector… The LORD shall protect you from all evil; He shall protect your soul… The LORD shall protect your going out and your coming in From this time forth, and even forevermore.”

Psalm 121 celebrates Israel’s divine protection plan.

It’s a lifetime warranty. In fact, as we will see, it is a promise of eternal, “forevermore” protection to the believer.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 Your Protection Plan Is Guaranteed, and #2 Your Protection Plan Is Grace.

#1 – Your Protection Plan Is Guaranteed (v1-2)

Psalms 120 through 134 are the Psalms of Ascent. They were sung as the Israelites travelled from all over the land to ascend to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to attend the three major annual feasts.

Travel was mostly on foot. Jesus, for example, for most of His earthly life would have traveled one-hundred fifty miles round trip, at a speed of roughly 18mph, to attend the feasts of Unleavened Bread (Passover), Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

Travel was dangerous. The Parable of the Good Samaritan highlights one of the dangers – from robbers. A travelln’ man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. He encountered a band of robbers. They robbed him, beat him, and left him for dead.

You should immediately raise your hand and ask, “If the LORD has promised to protect a believer, how is it that the man could be robbed, beaten, and left for dead?”

Regarding His protecting His followers, Jesus prayed for us in the Gospel of John. He said to His Father, “While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Your name. Those whom You gave Me I have kept… I have given them Your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world… I do not pray that You should take them out of the world, but that You should keep them from the evil one… As You sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world” (John 17:12-22).
Jesus’ understanding of divine protection of “keeping” us – does not exclude being left in a hostile world ruled by “the evil one,” who goes about like a ravenous lion seeking whom he may devour.

Jesus told His followers, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (16:33).

Jesus’ guarantee of protection is not a promise you will be free from trouble. In fact, He promises that you will encounter lots of trouble. Jesus protects you in and through your trouble.

When the apostle Paul was first saved, he was told how much he must suffer for the sake of the Gospel. Man, did he suffer; but he declared that no suffering could separate him from the love of Jesus. The Lord kept him… Protected him.

I think of Jesus’ words to Paul as something unique, because he would have such a profound ministry. But, really, Jesus spoke those same words, in a different fashion, to every believer, when He said we would have tribulation in this world.

We live in the church age when God is glorified in our weakness. He keeps us in and through terrible troubles. The world sees a deep and abiding love.

Psa 121:1  A Song of Ascents. I will lift up my eyes to the hills – From whence comes my help?

As a child, I would anticipate that one spot on the freeway from which you could excitedly see the Matterhorn from the car.

At some point, the road weary traveler to the Temple could lift his head and excitedly see the city on the hill.

“From whence comes my help” seems more of a rhetorical than actual question. Of course your help will come from the Lord.

Simba told Zazu, “I laugh in the face of danger.” We look our dangers in the face, and remind them, “From whence comes my help.”

Psa 121:2  My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth.

Why appeal to creation? For sure, it shows God’s raw power. If He can speak the universe into existence, He can help us.

There is something more than power; there is providence. This is a reminder that God has always had a plan for creation. He created the universe… The earth… The Garden of Eden on the earth… So that we would be loved by Him.

Because love requires choice, God gave the angels, and Adam and Eve, free will to disobey Him.

Creation was ruined by that disobedience; but God immediately promised He would redeem both creation and mankind.

We would return to His original plan to love Him freely, only in the end with a sanctified free will incapable of sin.

God’s plan is guaranteed by both His power and His providence. We see it being fulfilled, and provided for, in the progressive revelation in the Bible. The plan was for God to come to earth as a man to pay the penalty for our sins by dying on the Cross. And that is precisely hat unfolds on the Bible’s pages.

A plan like that – it requires time. As we wait for its completion, evil has reign over the earth, over the hearts of men. God protects us in this world of turmoil and tribulation in order to represent His love to sinners.

The number one argument people have against God is that, if He is all-loving and all-powerful, why does He allow suffering? And terrible suffering at that. You hear it all the time in media. Usually the believer has no response, or a weak one, like, “God works in mysterious ways.”

The answer is this: God allows suffering because He is longsuffering, not willing that any should perish, but that all would come to eternal life in a relationship with Jesus. His longsuffering waits.

Maybe it waits for you?

Mean time, God’s protection of the believer is guaranteed. It doesn’t mean you won’t be robbed on the road homeward. It means that, like Job, you will say, Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.

Or like my favorite trio from the Old Testament – Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. When threatened with being executed in the fiery furnace, they said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up” (Daniel 3:17-18).

They saw no contradiction in God’s protection one way or the other. It was win-win either way.

#2 – Your Protection Plan Is Grace (v3-8)

We defer to folks who are experts in their field. Their knowledge and experience put things into proper perspective.

Pretty much every A-list Bible character is an expert in tribulations and sufferings. A great summary statement is found in the chapter in the Bible that we fondly refer to as The Hall of Faith – Hebrews 11.

Heb 11:33  who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,
Heb 11:34  quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens.
Heb 11:35  Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
Heb 11:36  Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.
Heb 11:37  They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented –
Heb 11:38  of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth.

Admittedly, the idea that being “sawn in two” is protection sounds like a hard sell. But that’s because we limit our appreciation of Heaven in favor of earth. It’s a natural thing to do; but we are of the supernatural.

Psa 121:3  He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber.
Psa 121:4  Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep.

Notice the change of speaker. The remaining verses are spoken to the traveler. They are a lyrical, poetic way of describing the Lord’s protection along the road home. Meant for the pilgrim headed for Jerusalem, true. But not without application for us, pilgrims headed for the New Jerusalem.

On earth, Jesus slept in the storm. The disciples freaked. They awoke Him, and He quieted wind and waves. No need to awaken Jesus anymore.

(I might mention that the disciples were in no real danger in the storm. They ought to have slept as well).

You are Job One with Jesus. He began a good work in you, and He will be faithful to complete it.

“He will not allow your foot to be moved.”

We read this, and the following promises, and conclude that the road will be well maintained, clearly marked, and without danger. We’ve seen that is not true in the life of a believer.

Over all of these promises I would write the famous quote from Iron Mike Tyson, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Your plan needs to be tested and proven.

I can’t be certain God is faithful to keep me from stumbling unless I encounter a stumbling block in my path. It is theoretical until I get spiritually punched.

Those of us in Christ love to quote First Corinthians 10:13, “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it. ”

It presumes we will have trouble. It promises God’s grace is sufficient in our trouble.

Psa 121:5  The LORD is your keeper; The LORD is your shade at your right hand.
Psa 121:6  The sun shall not strike you by day, Nor the moon by night.

The “sun” I can understand because we live in the Central Valley. How can the “moon” strike us?

An Israelite would immediately understand the reference. In their wilderness journey, God manifested Himself to Israel as a pillar of cloud by day, and as a pillar of fire by night. The Holy Spirit takes that reality and applies in to each Jew individually. God will similarly be with each of them.

Jesus said He would never leave us; never for a sake us. Then He left! But He didn’t leave us alone. He gave us the Promise of the Father, the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit.

We tend to think of God the Holy Spirit as a spiritual battery that can diminish in power over time. He is a Person – the third Person of the triune God. While it’s true that we can experience refreshing of the Holy Spirit, He is always at max power in us.

In the Book of Acts, we read, “And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness” (4:31). It almost sounds like a prayer to be refilled. They prayed this after Peter and John were used by God to heal a lame beggar; after being arrested; after being warned by the Jewish leaders to quit talking about Jesus.

Seems like they were pretty “full” of the Holy Spirit already. They didn’t exhaust Him.

You old comic book fans will remember the JSA – the Justice Society of America. They were the precursors to the Justice League.
The JSA had guys like Dr. Mid-Nite, Spectre, the Atom, Starman, and Black Canary. They also had Hourman. A scientist, Rex Tyler (his alter ego) developed a pill, Miraclo, which gave him superhuman strength – but only for one hour.

The power of the Holy Spirit isn’t a formula. Devotions and spiritual disciplines are necessary for a disciple to grow. But they aren’t a formula to increase the Holy Spirit. You always have the Spirit at full strength.

Our relationship to God the Holy Spirit needs to switch from begging for Him to believing Him.

Psa 121:7  The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.

“Soul” is better translated as “life.” The simple yet profound truth is that, because of Jesus, Satan, sin, and death are defeated.

The apostle Paul understood this when he said, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).

The martyrs understand this as they go calmly to their horrific deaths.

We have victory over these evils, but you can only experience it when one of them punches you in the mouth.

We who are in Christ will one day be resurrected or rapture and forever be in the likeness of our Lord

Psa 121:8  The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in From this time forth, and even forevermore.

Great words of comfort for someone almost to the Temple facing a return journey.

Albert Barnes points out the eternal when he writes:

Through this life and for ever. This is the gracious assurance which is made to all who put their trust in God. At home and abroad; in the house, in the field, and by the way; on the land and on the ocean; in their native country and in climes remote; on earth, in the grave, and in the eternal world, they are always safe. No evil that will endanger their salvation can befall them; nothing can happen to them here but what God shall see to be conducive to their ultimate good; and in the heavenly world they shall be safe forever from every kind of evil, for in that world there will be no sin, and consequently no need of discipline to prepare them for the future.

In a nutshell, a Christian always has grace sufficient for the journey. You don’t need some extended warranty in terms of a program recommended by the latest book, or video series. You need to realize who, and what, you are, and will become.

Forevermore. It is a one-word key that unlocks the wisdom of God with regards to our journey. If I’m thinking “forevermore,” I will live my life now as a “forevermore.”

Psalm 120 – Liar, Liar, Appointed For Fire

Traveling is better with a playlist:

You might create a playlist of your favorite artist or artists.

Maybe your favorite songs by various artists.

You might put together a playlist based on a theme.

Your playlist may be based on your destination, say, if you are going on vacation.

Star Trek fans will recall that before he would embark on the first successful warp flight, Zefram Cochran insisted on playing Born to Be Wild.

When we first meet Starlord in Guardians of the Galaxy, he switches on his Walkman to play Awesome Mix Volume 1.

When we are on our way to the Happiest Place on Earth, we have a playlist of all the ride and attraction theme songs. There’s nothing quite like Grim Grinning Ghosts to help get you in the mood.

Israel had a national “playlist.” They are the Psalms of Ascent – Psalms 120 through 134.

These psalms received this title because the Israelite pilgrims sang them as they traveled from their homes all over the land and ascended to the Temple in Jerusalem for the annual feasts.

If you are in Christ, it should not come as a surprise that You are a pilgrim:

The apostle Peter twice labels all believers “pilgrims” (First Peter 1:1 & 2:11).

The writer to the Hebrew Christians, in chapter eleven, identifies us with previous generations of pilgrims “looking for a [heavenly] city whose builder and maker is God” (v10).

Since we are fellow travelers, the Psalms of Ascent are a great playlist for us, too.

And let’s not forget that our Lord, Jesus, sang them many, many times in His incarnation, in His epic journey from Heaven to earth and then back to Heaven.

John Wayne once asked, “Think you can make it, Pilgrim?” The road is not easy. It is fraught with perils. When describing the road, the apostle Paul wrote, “in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils of the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren; in weariness and toil, in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness…” (First Corinthians 11:26-27).

Yes, you can, and you will make it, Pilgrim, because He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it, bringing you all the way home.

I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 You Are Imperiled By Liars And Lies, #2 You Can Be Impervious To Liars And Lies.

#1 – You Are Imperiled By Liars And Lies (v1,2 & 5-7)

The Psalms of Ascent begin with the pilgrim describing a primary peril. It is in verse two: “lying lips, and… a deceitful tongue.”

Seriously? Liars and their lies were the peril he was most concerned about?

Perhaps this will put it in perspective. In the Gospel of John, Jesus described the Devil as a “liar,” and as “the father of” lies” (8:44). It was his lying in the Garden of Eden that tempted Adam and Eve to overthrow the authority of God, thinking they would be like God.

All of the disease, destruction, and death that we experience on the earth are the consequences of a liar telling a lie.

In Revelation 12:9, the Devil is called, “the deceiver of the whole world.”

In the Book of Acts the apostle Peter says to a lying disciple, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit” (5:3).

When the psalmist talks about liars and their deceitful tongues, he isn’t only talking about people mistreating you. Sure, that is part of it. He’s also talking about something far more sinister: The fact that demonic lies surround you on your pilgrimage.

Maybe this will connect. If you have conflict in your marriage, it stems from the selfishness of the original lie our parents believed in the Garden of Eden. You remember that Adam blamed Eve – even though he was equally, if not more, responsible.

The help you need for your marriage is biblical truth – not another of the Devil’s lies.

Today his lies have undermined biblical marriage. Marriage is heterosexual and monogamous between one biological man and one biological woman. The obliteration of this standard is a major reason why human society is crumbling.

Psalms 120:1  A Song of Ascents. In my distress I cried to the LORD, And He heard me.

The cry that the “LORD” “heard” was verses two through seven. That was the psalmist’s prayer.

In our “distress,” I’d wager that most of us do go first to the Lord. We cry out to Him.

But it can be difficult to wait on the Lord. That is when we might be tempted to seek a worldly solution, or settle for non-biblical help. You need to develop a healthy caution to counsel and advice. Even if it sounds biblical, think hard on it.

The psalmist knew that the Lord “heard” him. Jesus hears you the first time, and every other time you cry out. This is a statement of spiritual contentment. You can be content, and rest, in the fact that God hears you. Any believer always has immediate access to the throne of God, to receive grace and mercy in your time of need.

I’m glad that the Keep Calm craze is (mostly) over. “Keep Content” doesn’t sound as poetic, but it is what the psalmist is saying to us. “Keep Content and Wait for Jesus.”

Psalms 120:2  Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips And from a deceitful tongue.

This speaks to us on a few levels:

For one thing, we are reminded that, on our pilgrimage, we will be distressed by other people, even by believers. To put it simply, you will be hurt; and some of the wounds may never completely heal. Like Frodo, after he was stabbed by the Witch King of Angmar on Weathertop, it will always hurt.

But, for another thing, all of us could pray, “Lord, keep me from having lying lips and a deceitful tongue.” You will hurt others.

For a third thing, we could interpret these words as the psalmist asking the Lord to shield him from being interfered with, or influenced by, a world ruled by Satan that is full of liars and lies.

Skip to verse five.

Psa 120:5  Woe is me, that I dwell in Meshech, That I dwell among the tents of Kedar!

“Meshech” was to the far north of Jerusalem; “Kedar” was in the south.

This was the psalmists way of saying, “from coast to coast.” It was a lyrical way of saying that he was surrounded.

We are on the earth, in unredeemed bodies which still have propensities to sin. The world system, as a whole, is ruled by the god of this world. His lies, the doctrines of demons, assail us on every side, seeking nothing less than our destruction on the road homeward.

The assaults may be pleasant. By that I mean, the Devil may offer us wealth, or power, or popularity. All we need to do is disobey Jesus – but just a little, and He will forgive us anyway – won’t he?

He may instead launch a Job-like assault, robbing us of family, or health.

While we are on the topic of his liars, we could name the founders of every religion. Zoroaster, Siddhartha, Confucius, Mohammed, Joseph Smith, Charles Taze Russell, L. Ron Hubbard, Sun Myung Moon, and Ajunta Pall (the first Dark Lord of the Sith).

All godless philosophies are lies propounded by liars: Nihilism, Existentialism, Stoicism, Hedonism, Marxism, Taoism, Rationalism, Humanism, Relativism, Atheism, and any “isms” that are not biblical Christianity.

There is a seemingly endless list of lying psychotherapies: Gestalt, Freudian, Behaviorism, Maslovian, Psychodynamic, Cognitive, etc., etc. They were proposed by godless men like Carl Rogers, B. F. Skinner, Sigmund Freud, and Abraham Maslow.

Following these liars and lies will lead a person not to spiritual contentment, but to a greater selfishness.

Following these liars and lies will lead a person not to the heavenly city, but to eternal, conscious punishment.

The apostle Paul insisted that, “… The weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds…” (Second Corinthians 10:4). Our thoughts go to spiritual warfare against the Devil and his allies. But Paul clarified what he meant, saying,”Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ…” (Second Corinthians 10:5).

Liars and their lies are what we are casting down. It is the doctrine of demons we need be fighting – not the demons.

Psa 120:6  My soul has dwelt too long With one who hates peace.

In Psalm 35:20 we are informed that the world around us is inhabited by nonbelievers who “do not speak peace, but they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land.”

Today this idea illustrates itself. Or maybe I should say that it is being illustrated all around us. Violence is rampant. No matter what stand you take on the current turmoil in the world, Psalm 35:20 summarizes it.

Psa 120:7  I am for peace; But when I speak, they are for war.

I want to preface my next remarks with this statement. Being a Christian does not mean you must always ignore wrongs, and always surrender your rights.

Having said that – Being a Christian does invite you to “speak” “peace” to the world at war. It starts with promoting, and supporting, the Gospel.

In our natural state… In our first birth… We are hostile enemies of God. While we were yet in this natural state, in our sins, He came as a man in order to offer us a second birth, a spiritual birth.

Only if we are at peace with God, through Jesus, can there be peace in the world. It’s old; it’s worn; but it’s a true saying: There is no peace apart from the Prince of Peace.

The mythological Sirens sang to passing ships.

Their song mesmerized the sailors, drawing them into the rocks upon which they would be dashed and destroyed.

Liar’s lies are a siren call, seeking to shipwreck your faith. In our case, the sirens aren’t confined to one location. Their songs surround us. Their songs are a worldly playlist, playing on a continuous loop.

Ulysses had his men tie him to the mast, then put wax in their ears. That way he could enjoy the Siren’s songs, but the ship and crew would be saved.

Are you tied to some mast? Indulging in something, thinking you are safe from shipwreck?

#2 – You Can Be Impervious To Liars And Lies (v3-4)

You have been tripped-up by lies. You have lied. You are not impervious to liars and lies; but you can be, to the extent you yield to the indwelling Holy Spirit.

As we teach or read God’s Word, we should concentrate more on who and what we already are. Too much of evangelical Christianity sounds like self-help steps so we can achieve God’s goals for us.
Peruse the shelves of a Christian bookstore and it seems like you are on an expedition to summit a spiritual Everest.

The apostle Paul insisted, “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:4-6).

He also noted, “God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ… has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ” (1:3).

Listen to this insightful paraphrase of Romans 6:11 from the Message Bible: “From now on, think of it this way: Sin speaks a dead language that means nothing to you; God speaks your mother tongue, and you hang on every word. You are dead to sin and alive to God. That’s what Jesus did. ”

Psa 120:3  What shall be given to you, Or what shall be done to you, You false tongue?
Psa 120:4  Sharp arrows of the warrior, With coals of the broom tree!

The title of epic finale to the Avengers saga came from something Dr. Strange said in Infinity War. He said, “We’re in the endgame now.”

He saw what was going to happen over the next few years, and the only scenario in which humanity would ultimately triumph.

In order to get to that victory, humanity must wait. Half of the population of the universe was turned to dust by the snap. Much suffering ensued until our relentless surviving heroes found the one way to reverse the snap.

Beloved, We are in the endgame now. We know, in quite a bit of detail, what is going to happen in the future: The resurrection and rapture of the church… The Seven-Year Great Tribulation… The Second Coming of Jesus… The Millennial Kingdom of God on earth… The Great White Throne Judgment of God… The creation of a new earth and new heavens… Eternity with Jesus in the New Jerusalem.

It is God’s endgame, but as we wait, it is preceded by much suffering.

I’m going to go off on a slight tangent. Many Bible teachers, and pastors, are telling their people the prophecies of the endgame are spiritual; that they are allegorical; or that they have mostly been fulfilled in the first century. Especially under attack is the Pre-Tribulation rapture of the church.

One argument I keep hearing is that no one ever spoke of the rapture of the church until a guy named John Darby in the 1800’s. One critic said, “Rapture doctrine did not exist before John Darby invented it in 1830AD. Before it “popped into John Darby’s head” no one had ever heard of a secret rapture doctrine.”

Also this: “The fact that John Nelson Darby invented the pre-tribulation rapture doctrine around 1830AD is unquestionably true. All attempts to find evidence of this wild doctrine before 1830 have failed…”

I’m going to read something: “And therefore, when in the end the church shall suddenly be caught up from this, it is said, “There shall be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, and neither shall be.” ”

Those words were written by Irenaeus, Bishop of what is now Lyon in France, in his work, Against Heresies. It wasn’t written in the 1800’s but in the 180’s – in 180AD. A mere one-hundred fifty years after Jesus rose from the dead… About one hundred years after the apostle Paul was martyred… Sixty-five years after the apostle John died… The church was teaching the rapture.

When someone tells you the early church had no doctrine of the rapture, at best they are ignorant.

Let’s read verses three and four again:

Psa 120:3  What shall be given to you, Or what shall be done to you, You false tongue?
Psa 120:4  Sharp arrows of the warrior, With coals of the broom tree!

The psalmist sees the end of the Father of lies, and of lying. He will be defeated. He will be burned by fire that cannot be quenched.

Those who have resisted the grace of God to save them will join the Devil and his angels in the Lake of Fire.

The more I focus on earthly things, elevating their importance, the more susceptible I am to the world of lies surrounding me. The psalmist was suggesting that I focus on end-things, on endings. That I focus on my destination more than anything else, allowing my heavenly future to dictate my decisions.

We read in the Revelation, “And [the angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain, and showed me the great city, the holy Jerusalem, descending out of heaven from God” (21:10).

In the Old Testament we read, “The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing” (Zephaniah 3:17). In context, the prophet was talking about God singing over Israel in the Millennial Kingdom.

I don’t think it is wrong to think God sings over the church; and over each of us who are in Christ.

I can’t wait to hear that playlist as I approach the “holiest city above the earth.”

Rebel Yell (Psalm 2)

Yay-hoo. Woo-hoo. Yee-haw. You may have used one of those in a text thread recently, but it might surprise you to learn that they are descriptions of the once-famous “rebel yell” that Confederate soldiers would shriek out as they rode into battle.

In a 1905 edition of Confederate Veteran Magazine, Confederate Colonel Keller Anderson described it this way: “[The yell was a] do-or-die expression, [a] maniacal maelstrom of sound; [a] penetrating, rasping, shrieking, blood-curdling noise…whose volume reached the heavens.”

The rebel yell wasn’t unique to the Southern States. It had similar counterparts in Native American war calls and the screams of Scottish Highlanders. But, more than that, God tells us that it is the natural expression of every human heart and every human society. A blasphemous howl, angry and violent, the noise mankind makes in rebellion against our Creator God, who rules heaven and earth.

When you go to the book of Psalms you discover many different types of songs. Songs for pilgrims and songs for kings. Songs for the temple and songs for the wilderness. Songs for victors and songs for the oppressed. At the very entrance to this wonderful book, after being told in Psalm 1 the key to living a happy life, full of purpose and growth, we’re then given something remarkable: Not a song for servants or for the faithful, but a song for rebels. The people of God aren’t addressed at all. Instead, heaven sings a melody of invitation to the treasonous enemies of God, hoping that they will lay down their arms in surrender and be saved from certain defeat.

Along the way we are introduced to the most important character of all human history: Christ the Messiah. The King, whose rule is sure, whose coming is unstoppable and who will destroy all who stand against Him. But then, we also see that this King of fierce wrath is also a King of matchless love. He’s a King who can be approached, even by traitors, and receive forgiveness.

There’s a lot of talk these days about being on “the right side of history.” Psalm 2, the song for rebels, confronts you with the question of whether you are on the right side of eternal history. The King is coming. Have you attached yourself to Him?

Our song has no introduction, but we’re told in the book of Acts that it was written by David. Though it may have been used in coronation ceremonies, it’s clear that this Psalm looks far beyond any mortal monarch to the King of all kings, the Only Begotten Son of God. It’s quoted at least 7 times in the New Testament, 3 of those in the Revelation of Jesus Christ. As it opens, we’re not shown a King on His throne, but an angry mob coming together hoping to overthrow Him.

Psalm 2:1-2 – 1 Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain? 2 The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers conspire together against the Lord and his Anointed One:

Having seen the goodness of God and His rich promises in Psalm 1, having seen how kind God is to individuals and nations who will repent from sin and give themselves to Him, whether it’s a man like Abraham or a city like Nineveh. Having seen what God is willing to do on behalf of those He loves, it is bewildering to see this reaction of the human heart to the Lord. David was bewildered. “Why?!?” That’s a question that keeps ringing like a bell in our hearts, isn’t it? Why is there so much unrest and violence and destruction laying waste to our cities and our relationships and our institutions? Why is there so much anger? Why is there such a refusal to turn from evil and embrace good?

The rage around us is not new. In fact, the Bible says it’s normal. This is the regular operation of the human heart in its unredeemed state.

Isaiah 57 says it this way:

Isaiah 57:20 (NLT) – Those who still reject [God] are like the restless sea, which is never still but continually churns up mud and dirt.

The human heart cannot stay passive when it comes to God. There are many who say they are ‘agnostic,’ they don’t know if God exists or doesn’t, but it doesn’t matter. But that’s not good enough for sin. Sin must rebel. It must destroy. It must tear down and drive a person away from God and His gentle call to reconcile. God’S desire is to heal and comfort those who do not deserve it, yet so many refuse Him and therefore find no peace.

This isn’t just an individual problem, it becomes compounded when fallen human beings group together into nations. Of course, we know that, at His second coming, all the nations of the world will literally take a stand against the Lord, but all of human history has shown this type of behavior. Whether it’s like the people there at the Tower of Babel:“Let’s make for ourselves a great tower so that we can show we have no need of God.” Or whether it’s a more modern example like the Soviet Union: “Let’s kill God in our society, and tens of millions of people along with Him.” Human rebellion churns and transforms into a purpose to fight against God.

What these kings and rulers don’t realize is that all their resistance is futile. But they are determined. And here’s their mission statement:

Psalm 2:3 – 3 “Let’s tear off their chains and throw their ropes off of us.”

The human heart is convinced that God’s desire is to enslave us and to beat us down. It’s the very first lie we fell for back in the Garden of Eden. Here we see these rebels yelling about how God is trying to tie us up and put us in chains.

Like most of Satan’s lies there is a kernel of truth. God does want to tie us, but to what and with what?

God says in Hosea that He led His people with ropes of kindness and bonds of love. His desire is to attach us to Himself, that He might bear our burdens and transform our lives and keep us from spiritual shipwreck. To save individuals and families and even nations by His grace.

It’s true, that God’s kind bonds of love include limits and boundaries. What we find in Scripture is that these do not confine us in some prison, but they protect us. They are good and beneficial. They show the way the life more abundantly. They’re described in Psalm 1 as a pathway to delight, fulfillment and purpose. These guiding lines are given to us for our personal life, our family life, our life in work and society and the wider world. And they are not simply suggestions or one potential way of getting where you want to go, they are commands from the King. A good and gracious King, but the King nonetheless.

Recently we’ve seen a dramatic and tragic real-world example of the rebel heart of man seeking to throw off all authority. It was called CHAZ. The Capital Hill Autonomous Zone. A group of rebels raging in the streets. 3 weeks, 4 shootings, 2 dead. Untold property damage. Ruined lives. The outworking of rebellion living in the heart of unredeemed man.

In the 1960’s, many young people in the counter-culture Hippie movement embraced what they called “free love.” It was a throwing off of God’s boundaries and guidelines. One that still reverberates today. In 2007, NBC News reported on the longterm fallout of this choice to tear off the chains of chastity and embrace the destructive license of sin. The article writes: “From idealism to despair…There was a price for all that free love. From 1964 through 1968, the rates of syphilis and gonorrhea in California rose 165 percent. Dr. David Smith, who founded the Haight-Ashbury Free Clinic said ‘It would be an understatement to say there was a spike in STDs. That’s like saying a hurricane is a strong wind.’” The article goes on: “Abortion was another issue that erupted during Summer of Love. By the end of the summer, many women, some of them young teenagers, needed treatment for botched abortions. Enthusiasts of the 1960s…[discovered]…that the free-love train was not going to be a smooth ride.”

The human heart, since the fall in the Garden, is ready to choose death rather than life. Which is why we have to take a careful look at who rules on the throne of our hearts. Is it King Jesus, or is it some other? The New Testament calls on us to crucify that other king and instead bow our knees to Jesus Christ, the Anointed One, and welcome Him to lead us in bonds of love, tethered to Him under His easy yoke.

This Psalm also brings out the reality that personal wickedness leads to national wickedness. Today so many leaders of so many nations have taken up the causes of rebellion against God and His ways. It’s not just in some far off land. Look at our own nation. The idols we worship. The values we promote and protect. As Christ-loving Christians, we find ourselves not in David’s Jerusalem, but Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon. A realm of hatred, violence, anger and sacrilege. We can see it all around us. And God sees it too. Here’s His response:

Psalm 2:4 – 4 The one enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord ridicules them.

God has a sense of humor. He created humor, of course, but it’s sometimes good to remind ourselves that God does express emotion. He does so perfectly and in line with His unchanging character, but our God feels. Here He is poetically described as laughing at these conspiring kings who are in such an uproar against Him.

If that seems like a distasteful image to you, remember this: This is the God who one commentator points out could “with one word or look destroy all His enemies.” And yet, He doesn’t. Because, despite their wickedness and their rage and their traitorous rebellion, God loves these people. He takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked. At the same time He does truly hate our sin.

But, from heaven’s perspective, you can’t help but laugh. Imagine, for a moment, that the dust bunnies you were sweeping up from your floor somehow communicated to you that they were going to overthrow you and become the rulers of their own domain.

As the nations rage we see God sitting. He doesn’t pace the halls, wringing His hands. Isaiah 18 says:

Isaiah 18:4 (NLT) – “I will watch quietly from my dwelling place— as quietly as the heat rises on a summer day.

God is attentive, patient and full of mercy. But one day the offers He has made to mankind will expire, His long-suffering will come to an end.

Psalm 2:5 – 5 Then he speaks to them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath:

Even this is grace. Again and again God reaches out to this world, to nations, to individuals, trying to save them from themselves and the path of destruction they are rushing down. If they will not respond to His creation or His compassion or His communications, they will be finally consumed by His wrath. It is a just wrath against the foul obscenity of man’s sin. He cannot overlook it. To do so would be an unforgivably immoral act.

Psalm 2:6 – 6 “I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.”

God is not simply reacting to things happening on earth. He is working out an eternal plan. Here He makes it know to these rebels that He already has a King in place. They may wear crowns, but they are not in charge. There is one, true King: Jesus Christ.

The term God uses in this verse for installed is one that means “poured out.” That’s an interesting image. This eternal, holy plan, included the pouring out of Jesus’ life on the cross so that He might deal with our sin once and for all. The work continued as God poured out His Holy Spirit on His people in the Church age. And now, day after day, the King’s work continues as He pours out His grace along with faith and love in us and through us. At the end of human history, the Lord will pour out His terrible fury on those who will not surrender and repent of their sin.

The King has been poured out. He has been installed. But this King is not aloof or withdrawn. He’s accessible to anyone. You are welcome to come, at any moment, and bow before Him in worship and service. That’s not just for you and me, but for even the great leaders of the world. All of us can be like Prince Jonathan, the son of Saul, who was happy to acknowledge that the throne belonged to David. No protest. No anger. No rebellion. Instead he pledged his love to God’s anointed and said, “I’ll be there beside you to lift high your kingdom.”

Psalm 2:7 – 7 I will declare the Lord’s decree. He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.

Christ Himself joins the song here and speaks until the end of verse 9. When it says that God and Messiah became Father and Son, or perhaps your version says, “today I have begotten You,” that doesn’t mean that Jesus was created or had a temporal beginning. No, it means that, in the plan of God, the Son was set in place and position. The idea is used in a similar way in Revelation chapter 1. There Jesus is identified as the “firstborn from the dead.” It’s a position and title.

Here in verse 7 Jesus takes up the duty of declaring the Father’s decrees. Of course, as Christ’s body on the earth, we Christians are now commissioned to do the same. There is a message to be proclaimed. A plan to be explained. A God of mercy to be revealed to the rebels of the earth.

Psalm 2:8 – 8 Ask of me, and I will make the nations your inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession.

All of heaven and earth belongs to the Lord. Not just the land and the air and the water, but your life and your very breath, your future and your soul. It belongs to Him. And He has asked for you to become His. What a beautiful thing to learn. In John 17 we see our Lord, in love, asking for us, that we might be made one in Him and given access to the glories of His inheritance.

We see in this verse that despite all the plotting and rage in verses 1 and 2, the Lord will be the winner. No one can take what is rightfully His. And there’s nothing too broken for Him to restore. He alone can take the scroll and make right what we and the nations of the world have made wrong for these thousands of years of human history. But the earth, from one end to the other, will be redeemed, filled with His glory, and made new.

Seeing the wide lens of God’s plan here we must accept the truth that only Christ can solve the problems of our nation. Donald Trump can’t. Black Lives Matter can’t. Christ alone is able to save.

Psalm 2:9 – 9 You will break them with an iron scepter; you will shatter them like pottery.”

One day the waiting will end and final judgment will arrive. Whether that’s for an individual unbeliever at their death, a nation at its fall or the whole world at the second coming, judgment will arrive and there will be no escape for those who will not own Jesus Christ as King.

As the Seattle police swept through CHAZ, they made about 30 arrests. There were, undoubtedly, some people who had committed crimes of one sort or another who dispersed, went back home and will not be held accountable in Washington court of law. But there is no flying under the radar of God’s judgment. Derek Kidner writes: “There is no refuge from Jesus, only in Jesus.”

But if a person will turn to Christ in surrender, if they will, by faith, repent and believe, then the Messiah will take their heart, stained and ruined with sin and wash it with His own blood, making it white as snow. When a person believes on Jesus, their guilt is removed. They are born again, not only into a new life, but into a new Kingdom. They become citizens under His throne, with all its privileges and protections, safe from the wrath to come. Are you safe?

Now, knowing what God has explained about the world and about His plan, what can a person or a nation do to be made right with God?

Psalm 2:10 – 10 So now, kings, be wise; receive instruction, you judges of the earth.

After seeing all that these ragers have done – all their hate, all their treason, all their rebellion – God comes to them with an offer of peace!

He says, “Here’s what’s coming, but here’s hope. Here’s how to avoid what you so rightly deserve.” And what a comfort it is to know that no one is too far gone to be saved by the power of the Gospel. No prodigal, no politician, no criminal or cynic is outside His loving reach if they will but lay down their weapons and receive what is being offered.

In an amazing moment of irony we remember that, these kings, who were so full of rage and who demanded to be enthroned instead of the rightful King, these very individuals are offered the chance to rule and reign along with Jesus in His future Kingdom. What a God of amazing grace!

Psalm 2:11 – 11 Serve the Lord with reverential awe and rejoice with trembling.

The Lord isn’t just looking for a ceasefire. He doesn’t just want them to submit politically, but personally. What God desires is a true love relationship with you. One in which we worship Him and serve Him, not begrudgingly but in celebration. A true, living faith which recognizes all that God is.

Psalm 2:12 – 12 Pay homage to the Son or he will be angry and you will perish in your rebellion, for his anger may ignite at any moment. All who take refuge in him are happy.

We’re invited to pay homage to this King with a kiss. It’s an intimate, personal act of embrace. It’s the closeness He wants with each of HIs people. Though this verse speaks of God’s anger against sin and the required penalty for it, the Bible makes it clear that God does not want anyone to perish, but for all to come to repentance. That all would be made His by grace through faith.

Your sin deserves death, but the price has already been paid for it. Don’t pay it a second time. And don’t live a life enslaved to sin. A slave to the rage and the destruction it brings to you and your community. Instead, choose to bow your heart to the King of kings, Jesus the Messiah. You do not know when your final day is. Your rebellion may cost you everything at any moment. Instead, take refuge in Christ. Trust in Him. Believe Him. Tie yourself to Him in love and obedience, taking the way of the righteous and happy man in Psalm 1. ALL who take refuge in Him are happy.

During the Civil War the rebel yell was a source of pride and identity for many Confederate soldiers. In some cases, it was intimidating to the opponents on the battlefield. But it could do little to change the course of history. One article says it was simply “noise…[used] in a doomed attempt to overcome the Union’s overwhelming advantages in men and resources.”

That didn’t stop some confederates from holding out, even after all had been decided. The sailors on the CSS Shenandoah sailed the Atlantic for 6 months after the war ended, refusing to come home. Many of their fellow fighters had laid down their weapons and been once again folded in to the United States. But the captain and her crew thought they wouldn’t receive amnesty or mercy for the war they had waged against the North, though there’s reason to believe they would have. Instead, with Union ships in hot pursuit, the Shenandoah fled 9,000 nautical miles from home. Ultimately surrendering in Liverpool.

Psalm 2 is a song for rebels. One that shows us what the condition of our unregenerated hearts but also God’s profound mercy. This is the God who wants to take enemy conspirators, same them from themselves, make something beautiful with their lives, use them to benefit the world and then bring them into His own forever Kingdom and allow them to rule and reign there. When we talk about the power of Jesus and the goodness of God, that’s what we’re talking about. That kind of grace and ability and kindness. That level of transformation. We need God to have His way and His rule in our hearts, in our homes, and in the halls of our government.

Psalm 144:15b – Happy are the people whose God is the Lord.

Psalm 33:12a – 12 Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord

I’ve Just Had an Antiphony (Psalm 118)

If you have a Roman Catholic heritage, you’ll know how to respond. Ready?

“The Lord be with you.”

Who said, “And also with you?”
Who said, “And with your spirit?”

They made the change from, “And also with you,” to “And with your spirit,” around 2008. I’m guessing that there was, and still is, a lot of confusion in the pews:

Lapsed Catholics who find themselves at a Mass for a funeral or a wedding are going to be confused for sure.
So probably were some Chreasters. They’re the folks who only attended twice a year, on Christmas and Easter. (They are also called CEO’s – Christmas Easter Only).

This kind of participation by the congregation is technically called either responsorial, or antiphonal:

It’s responsorial when each statement is followed by a response from the congregation.
It’s antiphonal when it is spoken or sang alternately.

I get confused on the precise use of each word. Let’s just say that there is a participatory response from the congregation.

In Psalm 118 we find participatory responses for the congregation of Israel on their annual festival day, Passover.

One of the response passages is in verses two, three, and four. Someone invited a response, asking them to “now say,” then three different groups in the assembly answered:

“Let Israel now say, “His mercy endures forever.
“Let the house of Aaron now say, “His mercy endures forever.
“Let those who fear the LORD now say, “His mercy endures forever.”

“His mercy endures forever” opens the psalm… “His mercy endures forever” ends the psalm (v29). We’ll focus on mercy as we enjoy this psalm.
I’ll organize my comments around two points: #1 “Mercy Forever” Is God’s Promise To You, and #2 “Mercy Forever” Is God’s Plan For You.

#1 – “Mercy Forever” Is God’s Promise To You (v1-13)

There are several passages in Psalm 118 that are lifted directly from the Book of Exodus. The Israelites would recognize this immediately as a Passover song.

One scholar notes, “Verse 14 quotes Exodus 15:2, and the repeated “right hand” in verses 15-16 matches the three occurrences in Exodus 15:6 & 12. Not surprisingly in this regard, Psalm 118 concludes the Hallel (Psalms 113-118), which is used at Passover, a celebration that recalls and recounts the deliverance from Egypt.”

We don’t annually celebrate Passover. The apostle Paul told us that, in the Church Age, Jesus Himself is our Passover.

The Passover symbolism is fulfilled in Jesus, the Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world.

Psa 118:1  Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.

This is responsive, each sentence spoken or sang by different people. The entire psalm is responsive – drawing the congregation into the celebration.

You could spend a long time thinking about how the Lord was merciful to Israel throughout their history. The Exodus could have as a sub-title, God’s Marvelous Manifold Mercies in the Wilderness. Though the Israelites rebelled over-and-over, God preserved them in His mercy.

See how far they’d come – here they were worshipping in the Temple, keeping the Passover as prescribed, and doing it joyfully.

BTW – God’s mercy towards the nation of Israel in the past guarantees He will be merciful to them in the future. He has not, and cannot, abandon the descendants of Abraham. In the end, they will be saved.

Psa 118:2  Let Israel now say, “His mercy endures forever.”
Psa 118:3  Let the house of Aaron now say, “His mercy endures forever.”
Psa 118:4  Let those who fear the LORD now say, “His mercy endures forever.”

Three groups were present: (1)Israelites by birth, (2)priests, and (3)non-Jews who feared the Lord, i.e., who were believers.

Salvation was exclusively through Israel. But anyone could be saved who came to God in His prescribed way. In His mercy, God has always made a way for anyone, anywhere, to be saved.

The leader, let’s call him the soloist, would sing verses five through nine:

Psa 118:5  I called on the LORD in distress; The LORD answered me and set me in a broad place.
Psa 118:6  The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me?
Psa 118:7  The LORD is for me among those who help me; Therefore I shall see my desire on those who hate me.

Time and again, after Israel rebelled, the Lord would hear their cries, and in His mercy, He would restore them. When they returned to Him, and trusted in the Lord, there was a godly confidence that victory was certain.

Israel could only be defeated by Israel. By drifting away from God, they earned His discipline.

We, too, can be our own worst enemy, if we grow apathetic, and set ourselves adrift.

With COVID-19 still affecting churches, it is an especially dangerous time.

Psa 118:8  It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in man.
Psa 118:9  It is better to trust in the LORD Than to put confidence in princes.

Do we ever “put confidence in man?” This would be a confidence in things other than the Lord and in His wisdom where He has clearly spoken.

Sure we do. We remain in unredeemed bodies, with their propensity to sin. Our minds are not totally renewed, and we don’t always set our affections on things above.

As far as putting our confidence in man, Christians and churches often adopt worldly methods, e.g., in their fund raising.

Do we ever “put confidence in princes,” i.e., in government? Sure we do. The US Supreme Court recently astonished us. Those ‘princes’ ruled that the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects gay, lesbian, and transgender employees from discrimination based on sex. The ruling was 6-3, with Justice Neil Gorsuch, President Trump’s first appointee to the court, writing the majority opinion. The opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s four liberal justices. In an article titled, Gorsuch vs Gorsuch, the Wall Street Journal noted, “An alien legal being seems to have captured… Justice [Gorsuch].”

I’m pretty sure the writer meant that last comment, about the alien, as sarcasm. But I wouldn’t be so sure.

Verses ten through thirteen – also responsive:

Psa 118:10  All nations surrounded me, But in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.
Psa 118:11  They surrounded me, Yes, they surrounded me; But in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.
Psa 118:12  They surrounded me like bees; They were quenched like a fire of thorns; For in the name of the LORD I will destroy them.

Three times the congregation exclaimed, “In the Name of the Lord I will destroy them.” His “Name” isn’t a magic word that defeats our foes. We don’t repeat it over-and-over to get a result. We don’t say “AbracaJesus.”

“In the Name of the Lord” means that we have His authority. We act on His behalf.

Acting on His behalf can get us imprisoned, or martyred. But that isn’t a defeat. It is a “W” in the cosmic struggle against God’s enemies.

Can you think of a time in Israel’s history that these words might describe? When “all nations” surrounded Israel.

The only one I can suggest for our consideration is in Israel’s future history. If you approach this passage with the Great Tribulation in mind, it makes a lot of sense.

Specifically, this could depict the Second Coming, when Jesus will be “surrounded” at Armageddon, but will easily defeat the nations of the world gathered there.

The Tribulation itself is mercy, albeit a severe mercy. By it, God offers those on earth salvation in Jesus, not willing that any should perish, but rather that they would receive eternal life.

Psa 118:13  You pushed me violently, that I might fall, But the LORD helped me.

The picture here is of someone being pushed off the edge of a cliff. No matter how violent the pushing, throughout history, Israel stands.

Do you use the expression, “push back?” It’s used when you’ve had it with some policy or practice; you push back instead of accepting it.

The Great Tribulation is God’s push back against sinners. But, always remember, it is a measured push back, because God also extends mercy to save.

#2 – “Mercy Forever” Is God’s Plan For You (v14-29)

Incidentally, Psalm 118 was Martin Luther’s favorite – “My own beloved psalm,” as he put it. Luther considered verse seventeen to be “a masterpiece,” and he asserted that “all the saints have sung this verse and will continue to sing it to the end.”

If the songs we sing are any indication, the Church likes Psalm 118. Hymns, choruses, and performance songs based on it abound. You’ll for sure recognize three of them: verse fourteen, verse nineteen, and verse twenty-four.

Psa 118:14  The LORD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.

People are looking for some kind of “strength.” Trouble is, they’re mostly looking within themselves by listening to so-called, self-appointed experts. Self-help is an $11B industry – mostly without regulation. Anyone can present themself as a life-coach. Each guru attracts you with his or her particular siren-song.

All the while, God is ready to declare you righteous and give you the Holy Spirit. I won’t cheapen the Gospel by calling Jesus your ultimate “life-coach,” but you get the idea.

Psa 118:15  The voice of rejoicing and salvation Is in the tents of the righteous; The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.
Psa 118:16  The right hand of the LORD is exalted; The right hand of the LORD does valiantly.

“Valiantly” could also be translated, “is victorious” (ISV). We know from the complete revelation of the Word of God that Jesus sits at God’s right hand. He was victorious over Satan sin, and death. That is real “strength.” The “song” is the wooing of the Holy Spirit.

Psa 118:17  I shall not die, but live, And declare the works of the LORD.
Psa 118:18  The LORD has chastened me severely, But He has not given me over to death.

Israel, as a nation, endured much disciplining by God for her many willful failures. Yet God did not destroy His chosen nation. They endured; they endure.

Psa 118:19  Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go through them, And I will praise the LORD.
Psa 118:20  This is the gate of the LORD, Through which the righteous shall enter.
Psa 118:21  I will praise You, For You have answered me, And have become my salvation.

There is a wrong way of reading this. It is not saying that you must be self-righteous to enter God’s presence. You don’t deserve for the gate to be opened for you. No, you enter because righteousness is given to you by believing in Jesus. He becomes your salvation when you receive Him as your Substitute on the Cross.

Charles Spurgeon put it in plain language when he said, “You stand before God as if you were Jesus, because Jesus stood before God as if He were you.”

Psa 118:22  The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone.
Psa 118:23  This was the LORD’s doing; It is marvelous in our eyes.

Jesus is the foundation upon which God’s household of faith must be built. When He came the first time, the leaders of Israel – the “builders” – rejected Him. Today He is the foundation of the Church, built upon by the apostles and prophets of the first century. He will yet “become the chief cornerstone,” as Israel is saved through the Great Tribulation.

Psa 118:24  This is the day the LORD has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it.
Psa 118:25  Save now, I pray, O LORD; O LORD, I pray, send now prosperity.
Psa 118:26  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD! We have blessed you from the house of the LORD.

We recognize this from the description of Palm Sunday given in the Gospels. The “day” had come… But the Jews refused to recognize their Messiah, plunging them into another time of discipline.

Psa 118:27  God is the LORD, And He has given us light; Bind the sacrifice with cords to the horns of the altar.

Remember, it was Passover. The procession had arrived at the altar of sacrifice. It was time to kill the sacrificial lamb. Lamb after lamb after lamb was slain.

There are incredible estimates of how many lambs were slain annually in the Second Temple period. One site said 1million. If they worked for ten hours, that’s 100,000 per hour. I don’t think so. But, still, multitudes of little lambies died annually, and throughout the Old Testament era. It was bloody.

Psa 118:28  You are my God, and I will praise You; You are my God, I will exalt You.

Once the sacrifice was complete, there was an acknowledgement of intimacy. The lamb took our place so that we could approach God as “my God.”

Mankind lost this intimacy in the Garden of Eden. God promised He would restore it. He established the temporary sacrifice of lambs until He could come and die Himself, for us. It is His plan of redemption, kept moving by God’s providence.

Psa 118:29  Oh, give thanks to the LORD, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.

It ends where it began – with mercy. In a previous study, I challenged you to look up verses regarding mercy, and especially different types of mercy that are described in the Bible. God’s mercy is something that is better seen, or experienced, than simply defined; one way to do that is to see it active on the pages of the Bible.

God alone is “good.” Because of Jesus, He can justify the believing sinner, and remain righteous. It is an amazing plan, inspiring gratitude.

The word endures, in italics, isn’t part of the text scholars translated from. It should read, “Mercy forever.”

If you’re a fan of the MCU, you remember T’Challa (the Black Panther) sending his forces into battle with the cry, “Wakanda Forever.”

Jesus has sent us into the fray. Hear Him say, “Mercy Forever.”