5/27/10
Psalm 121 --- Psalm 123-125 --- Psalm 128-130
Psalm 121
Assurance of God’s Protection
A Song of Ascents.
1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—
from where will my help come?
2 My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
3 He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
4 He who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.
5 The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
6 The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.
7 The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
8 The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.
I know several people who are hospital chaplains, trying to be the heart of God for families going through difficult times. I was not surprised when one told me that other than church, the hospital emergency room is where God's name is used the most. When we come to the end of ourselves we cry out, “Oh God...!”
John 3:16 is probably the best known verse in the Bible, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son ... " God and God alone understands that kind of love. There is no greater comfort in this world than knowing that God loves you.
Jesus told Nicodemus he could not see the kingdom of God unless he was born again. Jesus said we must be born of water and the Spirit. I was taught that the water was the water of baptism, but I have come to wonder if we are not all born of the water when our mother's water breaks. Silly? Maybe, but I always wonder about the things we all have in common.
Does geography based eternity seem unbiased? Does the Bible affirm favoritism? The more I read the Bible the more I wonder how a John 3:16 God would send people to hell, people who never had the opportunity to hear the Gospel. Besides, aren't we more than capable of condemning ourselves?
Can good exist apart from God? I believe every second of our life we are wooed by the Spirit of God and presented with continuous choices of whether or not to respond to the love of God or our own ego. To say the Holy Spirit waits on missionaries seems terribly short sighted. When a person responds to the promptings of the Spirit of God they think things, say things, do things out of step with their own nature. Isn't the doing part the witness of whether or not a person is in conversation, relationship with God? Who am I to separate myself from others because of some arbitrary label?
Paul writes in Romans 1:20 that none of us have an excuse for not knowing God because creation testifies to God's greatness ... if we will listen. Does Paul mean just the church or is creation God's witness to everyone? Is the person who knows God the one who crosses the road to help the wounded, the broken, the orphan, the widow? Or is the person who knows God religious? Should they not be one and the same? Are they? What does Scripture say in 1 John 1:7 or even Isaiah 2:5? What is walking in the light all about?
Should I allow your sin to separate me from you? Should you allow my sin to separate you from me? Romans 3:23 says both of us have fallen short of the glory of God. Where in Scripture are we called to compare our sins to see who has fallen furthest? Maybe it is best to leave that to God. Maybe instead of focusing on each other's sins we should focus on hearing God for our self and responding to God's Spirit. If we respond to God's Spirit, not knowing it is God's Spirit, won't God reshape, reform, transform us? Isn't obedience better than lip service?
I suppose this makes me a heretic by the standards of many. I neither deny sin nor its consequences. What I am saying is that I have not been given a plumb line to measure the sins of others, especially when there is a forest in my own eyes. Have you?
Psalm 123
Supplication for Mercy
A Song of Ascents.
1 To you I lift up my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!
2 As the eyes of servants
look to the hand of their master,
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 upon us.
3 Have mercy upon us, O Lord, have mercy upon us,
for we have had more than enough of contempt.
4 Our soul has had more than its fill
of the scorn of those who are at ease,
of the contempt of the proud.
Psalm 124
Thanksgiving for Israel’s Deliverance
A Song of Ascents. Of David.
1 If it had not been the Lord who was on our side
—let Israel now say—
2 if it had not been the Lord who was on our side,
when our enemies attacked us,
3 then they would have swallowed us up alive,
when their anger was kindled against us;
4 then the flood would have swept us away,
the torrent would have gone over us;
5 then over us would have gone
the raging waters.
6 Blessed be the Lord,
who has not given us
as prey to their teeth.
7 We have escaped like a bird
from the snare of the fowlers;
the snare is broken,
and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.
Psalm 125
The Security of God’s People
A Song of Ascents.
1 Those who trust in the Lord are like Mount Zion,
which cannot be moved, but abides forever.
2 As the mountains surround Jerusalem,
so the Lord surrounds his people,
from this time on and forevermore.
3 For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest
on the land allotted to the righteous,
so that the righteous might not stretch out
their hands to do wrong.
4 Do good, O Lord, to those who are good,
and to those who are upright in their hearts.
5 But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways
the Lord will lead away with evildoers.
Peace be upon Israel!
Psalm 128
The Happy Home of the Faithful
A Song of Ascents.
1 Happy is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in his ways.
2 You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands;
you shall be happy, and it shall go well with you.
3 Your wife will be like a fruitful vine
within your house;
your children will be like olive shoots
around your table.
4 Thus shall the man be blessed
who fears the Lord.
5 The Lord bless you from Zion.
May you see the prosperity of Jerusalem
all the days of your life.
6 May you see your children’s children.
Peace be upon Israel!
Psalm 129
Prayer for the Downfall of Israel’s Enemies
A Song of Ascents.
1 “Often have they attacked me from my youth”
—let Israel now say—
2 “often have they attacked me from my youth,
yet they have not prevailed against me.
3 The plowers plowed on my back;
they made their furrows long.”
4 The Lord is righteous;
he has cut the cords of the wicked.
5 May all who hate Zion
be put to shame and turned backward.
6 Let them be like the grass on the housetops
that withers before it grows up,
7 with which reapers do not fill their hands
or binders of sheaves their arms,
8 while those who pass by do not say,
“The blessing of the Lord be upon you!
We bless you in the name of the Lord!”
Psalm 130
Waiting for Divine Redemption
A Song of Ascents.
1 Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord.
2 Lord, hear my voice!
Let your ears be attentive
to the voice of my supplications!
3 If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities,
Lord, who could stand?
4 But there is forgiveness with you,
so that you may be revered.
5 I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
and in his word I hope;
6 my soul waits for the Lord
more than those who watch for the morning,
more than those who watch for the morning.
7 O Israel, hope in the Lord!
For with the Lord there is steadfast love,
and with him is great power to redeem.
8 It is he who will redeem Israel
from all its iniquities.