Psalms 116-117

Yes, two psalms today – but the second, Psalm 117 is only two verses long and fits nicely at the end of Psalm 116. Psalm 117 is not only the shortest psalm, it is also the shortest chapter in the entire Bible.

In today’s Psalm 116 the psalmist is concerned with death, specifically his own. See especially verses 3, 6, 8, and 15 as “death” verses woven into the text. Furthermore the deliverance prayer and the payment of vows (vv. 4, 14, 18) sound something like a “foxhole conversion”, as in “Lord, if you will deliver me from this battle, I will _____________.” (Frankly, I made my own promise to God during Catholic Mass while at our little base camp church my last week in Vietnam. Mine was more confession than deliverance, but that’s another story.) While the psalmist has a “death” focus interspersed in the psalm throughout, most of the remaining verses focus on praise and thanksgiving.

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his godly ones. (v. 15, NASB; the ESV has “saints” instead of “godly ones”) I have often thought of this verse when someone I loved and knew well died. I can even put a face to this verse, a lady from our first ever RTB at St. Andrew’s back in 2009. When she died, I remember thinking how joyful the Lord must have been to receive her. So whenever I happen upon this verse I think of that lady. What a marvelous godly person, a beautiful saint!

Psalm 115

Today’s psalm is not one with a full, inclusive theme; instead it scatter-shoots a bit. It’s a praise psalm, so many of the verses focus on praising the Lord. But other groups of verses look at idol worship and idol makers (vv. 4-8) and our trusting in the Lord and being blessed by Him (vv. 9-15).

Two verses stuck out for me. First, Why should the nations say, “Where is their God?” (v. 2) This verse troubled me for today’s world. I could easily imagine the world asking that question of the Christians they see. Much of the Christian world sends a very wrong message, from pedophile ministers to far right evangelicals to far left ECO-worshipers. There is a “silent majority” of committed Christians who are not being heard, most likely because they (we) are not speaking up. We need to be who we are!

The second verse was verse 16, The heavens are the LORD’s heavens, but the earth he has given to the children of man. Even as we need to speak to the people in the world around us, we also need to “speak” to our earth. It’s our responsibility, our stewardship. Maybe those “ECO-worshipers” are not so far off?

Psalm 114

God’s deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. We all know of the parting of the Red Sea, a favorite Sunday School story for children, Israel’s passing through and Pharaoh’s armies’ drowning. That event is referenced in verse 3: The sea looked and fled… That is, the Red Sea event is referenced in the first half of verse 3; the second half is less well known to us: …Jordan turned back. That event is the subject of Joshua 3-4, especially Joshua 3:13 (God speaking of the future event) and Joshua 3:15-16 (the actual event). Here Israel has spent 40 years in the wilderness and is now ready to occupy the Promised Land. Even as the Lord had opened up the Red Sea for His people, He now stops the waters of the Jordan River and opens the way for His people to cross over.

Have you seen miracles in your life? Yes, we can all say that the Lord is “working in our lives”, but can you say that a major positive outcome came about for you that was completely unexpected? Have you taken the time to seriously consider the possibility of the Lord truly working miracles in your life? I have. I have seen six events in my life that I fully believe are miracles. That doesn’t include another eleven times when I feel like the Holy Spirit spoke into my life. Nor does it include another nine “coincidences” in my life, times where I wondered if the Lord had set up that event. Yes, for me, six miracles. I’ve kept a list! Ask me anytime. I’m not bragging; I’m simply informing. And I challenge each and every one of you to look back on your life and begin to document where you saw the Lord working things out for you in those completely unexpected ways. Do it. Start that list. You will be blessed!

Psalm 113

This is the third in our series of eight “Hallelujah” psalms. Today’s psalm is just that: praise! The first six verses are all praise, while the last three verses speak of what the Lord has done, and His actions are praiseworthy. So yes, praise!

One pair of verses struck me: Who is like the LORD our God, Who is seated on high, Who looks far down on the heavens and the earth? (vv. 5-6) These verses follow immediately upon the psalmist’s glorification of the Lord in verse 4: The LORD is high above all nations, and His glory above the heavens! So, having exalted the Lord in His high position, the psalmist now acknowledges that the Lord is humble enough to interact with His creation. (Is it possible/reasonable to ascribe humility to the Lord? I’ve never imagined that.) My bottom line is this: God is high above all that He has created, and even in the height of His glory, He has love so strong for His creation that He “lowers” Himself to care for us so completely. In fact, the greatest demonstration of His love for us was sending Jesus to live within and among us. How can we not return His love when we consider the magnitude of His love for us? How can we not…??!!

Psalm 112

Yesterday I suggested that we spend some time reflecting on the Lord’s works in our lives. Today’s Psalm takes that a step further, essentially asking us if we are, in fact, serving the Lord as He would ask. Almost every verse calls forth an item in our lives for which, if we make the verse a question we can answer yes or no. For example, It is well with the man who deals generously and lends… (v. 5) can be reworded as “Am I someone …who deals generously…? Take that little quiz yourself; question yourself for each verse. I did. But I’ll keep the answers to myself.

Psalm 111

Today we begin a week of “Hallelujah” psalms – Psalms 111-118. You may recall way back when, as we were first reading the Psalms that so many of the Psalms were laments, often written by David during his many trials. Now we’re nearing the end of the Psalter, and we will be seeing many more praise-and-thanksgiving Psalms. It’ll be a good way to end our year’s reading.

Many of the praise Psalms that we have seen recently have focused on Creation, on the beauty and power of God’s work in speaking our Universe into existence. Today’s Psalm focuses more on what God has done specifically for His people. The Psalm mentions two items in particular, providing them food (v. 5) and bringing them deliverance from their enemies (v. 9). His works are described as full of splendor and majesty (v. 3), powerful (v. 6), and faithful and just (v. 7). This praise for His works is then followed by praise for His precepts – His rules, His commandments. They are trustworthy (v. 7) and eternal (v. 8), to be performed with faithfulness and uprightness… (v. 8).

Where do we stand with respect to His works in our lives and His commandments for us going forth? Spend some time right now recalling His works in your life. You will end up praising and thanking Him for all that He has done.

Psalm 110

The first verse has always been confusing to me. In a post from years past (which I cannot find) I attempted to shed some light on it, mostly to help my own understanding, but it still remains confusing. The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” (v. 1) My Study Bible noted that long before Jesus’ birth the Jews considered this verse to be Messianic, that “my Lord” and the “your” pronouns referred to the coming Messiah. The NASB even has the “your” pronouns capitalized.

This first clarification has to do with the first two words, “The LORD”. Clearly this reference is to God. There is only One; there is no other “The LORD”. So we can rewrite the beginning of this verse as God says to my Lord … Then we ask ourselves, who is “my Lord”? As noted above, Jews believed this verse to relate to their coming Messiah.

My Study Bible suggested something new to me. Suppose “my Lord” and the “your” pronouns refer to David’s son, Solomon – at the point where David was stepping aside and turning the kingdom over to him. (See I Kings 1:28-40.) Then Solomon would indeed (to David) be “my Lord”. So we can again rewrite the verse as God says to Solomon… Furthermore, this Study Bible suggested that this verse could have been used as a coronation verse for all later kings in David’s line. If so, then finally the most important of these “kings” in David’s line is Jesus, whom many (most?) Christian scholars believe this verse to have referenced as the coming Messiah.

If you find yourself confused with this verse, take heart. Greater minds than ours have pondered these words. Jesus knew of the confusion that this verse created; He confounded the Pharisees by challenging them to explain “my Lord” to Him. See Matthew 22:41-45, a really fun read if this verse confuses you!!

Psalm 109:21-31

John is correct in his comment yesterday that we don’t throw out Scripture simply because we don’t like (or don’t understand) what it says. Thankfully, for the most part we tend to embrace Scripture because it does reveal Truth to us. But for those difficult passages I simply claim “blessed ignorance” and move on.

Today’s passage is one that we can embrace, one to which we can easily relate. We’ve all been in situations where we need God’s help, where we pray to Him for guidance, strength, and deliverance. We acknowledge our weaknesses in those times (vv. 22-24) and ask for prayer from our family and friends. And when we are confident in the Lord’s work in those situations, when we can truly say, “Your will be done…”, then we can thank Him for His answer to our prayer before we see the outcome.

Given all that, the verse that stood out for me today was verse 27: Let them know that this is Your hand; You, O LORD, have done it! All too often I try to work things out on my own and think of prayer only as a last resort. But if I can reset my focus early and seek the Lord beforehand, then I can trust in Him more fully and see more clearly His hand in that outcome. I can know that the answer to that difficult situation will be God-ordained, not the result of my own effort. Yes, my effort is still involved, but only in my doing His will in working it out: Your hand; You, O LORD, have done it!

Psalm 109:1-20

I wonder if David had a particular person in mind in today’s Psalm, for whom he has nothing good to say. He goes back and forth between “he” and “they”. However, strangely, as he is attacking this person (or these people), most of today’s verses have to do with the evil that David wishes to be put upon them. But what have they actually done? Only three things: …speaking against me with lying tongues… (v. 2); he did not remember to show kindness, but pursued the poor and needy and the brokenhearted, to put them to death… (v. 16); and he loved to curse [and] did not delight in blessing…(v. 17). Now granted, putting people to death (v. 16) is evil, but what struck me most in today’s reading was the vengeance that David wished upon his enemies.

Looking ahead to the New Testament we see Jesus with a different perspective: But I say to you, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) We can’t have it both ways. Although “love” may be too much for us, let’s try to pray for our enemies – or for those for whom we harbor bad will. That would be a good beginning.

Psalm 108

For the first time in almost two weeks we are reading a short Psalm in its entirety instead of having the Psalm broken down into readings over a few days. Surprisingly, however, today’s Psalm could easily be split into two parts, 1-5 and 6-13. Those first few verses, in particular, constitute a song well known to some of us. It’s almost impossible to read those verses as text without singing the lyrics! An online search said that this song in the Anglican Hymnal 1982, but we don’t have that book here and I could not find it online to verify that claim. Carol and I know these verses as sung by Maranatha Music.

Give us help against the enemy, for deliverance by man is worthless. (v. 12, NASB) Here David is writing about Israel’s battles against foreign foes, but we can easily apply these words to our everyday lives. All too often we strive in our own efforts, using our own guidance, our own resources to solve a difficult problem or to work out a difficult situation. Our mantra seems to be, “When all else fails, pray!” God is ever at hand waiting to guide us. We have but to ask.