Lessons

Fear not and go forward (Exodus 14:15)

What are we to do when we perceive a threat that is greater than our resources to resist? There is danger bearing down on us and there is no place to hide. We see what feels like the proverbial “death star” on the horizon. How should we as believers respond to these situations?

One of the blessings of the word of God, the Bible, is that it is filled with teaching and stories that give us guidance for every circumstance in life. Because we are weak people living in a fallen world and we frequently encounter frightening threats, one of the most common themes in the Bible is that of overcoming overwhelming and dangerous situations with the power of the Lord. In Exodus 14, the children of Israel were in a dangerous situation.

SETTING THE STAGE FOR EXODUS 14

            The people of Israel have just escaped from Egypt after the LORD killed all the first-born in the Passover, and now they are heading out into the wilderness. The LORD directs the people to encamp in front of the Red Sea, intentionally making them vulnerable to an attack from behind. The LORD then hardens Pharaoh’s heart so that he regrets letting the people go and decides to chase after them. So, the situation is that the people of Israel have murderous Egyptians closing in behind them and the Red Sea in front of them. The people of Israel became very frightened and cried out to the LORD (Exodus 14:10).

            Was this threat real? It most certainly was! In fact, the situation appeared hopeless. The Egyptian army with chariots and horses was bearing down on defenseless Israel and they had nowhere to run or to hide. This is the nature of our God, that the Lord will sometimes ordain situations which test our obedience and that tempt us to fear. In those circumstances, we are to continue to obey Him and to do those things He has commanded us to do.

A TIME TO ACT

            Moses tells the people, “Do not fear! Stand firm and see the salvation of the LORD. The LORD will fight for you (Exodus 14:13-14).” Moses reminds the people that the LORD is with them and therefore they need not fear. Even though the danger appears to be great, “the LORD will fight for you.” If the LORD is the one fighting for you, the danger has suddenly lost its threat.

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the sons of Israel to go forward.” – Exodus 14:15

            There is a time to cry out to the LORD and there is a time to ACT. The LORD is making clear that now is the time to obey Him with action. “Go forward!” Huh? To obey the LORD’s command, the people need to begin walking out into the Red Sea.

            Of course, the LORD has a plan. “As for you . . . (14:16)” Moses will divide the sea with his staff and Israel will walk through the sea. All Israel must do is obey and go forward.

            “As for Me . . . (14:17)” For His part, the LORD will be honored through Pharaoh and his army as He destroys them in the Red Sea. “Then the Egyptians will know that I am the LORD (14:18).” Thus, the LORD delivers Israel, destroys the Egyptians, and receives honor for Himself as He displays His power.

LESSONS

“Be strong and courageous and act (1 Chronicles 28:20).”

“Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed (Joshua 1:9).”

“Tell the sons of Israel to go forward (Exodus 14:15).”

These commands in Scripture are all given because the Lord is with His people. That is, I can be strong and courageous not because I am competent and mighty, but because my Lord who guides me is all-powerful. Because the Lord is with us like a dread Champion (Jeremiah 20:11), the believer is to have these commands as a persistent attitude and is to be ready at any time to put this attitude into action.

            This world is filled with threats and dangers, and our fallen flesh fans the flames of fear, but we are called to fear not, stand firm, and courageously go forward with the Lord.     

SDG                 rmb                 12/29/2020

Psalm 110 – Part 1: The LORD speaks to the Lord

NOTE: This post is longer than most because it is intended to teach how to interpret and understand difficult and complex verses of the Bible. So the purpose is primarily INSTRUCTIVE. rmb

Jesus is the central figure in the Bible. The more a person reads and studies the Bible, the more obvious this becomes. Jesus is the subject of the prophecies and the foreshadows and the types in the Old Testament, as the people of God looked forward to the Messiah’s coming. He is the regal King of the gospels, as He displays His deity through His miracles and His teaching, and He is the suffering servant of the Lord, enduring His passion and dying His sacrificial death on the cross. He is the Firstborn from the dead as He rises victorious from the grave, the resurrected King of kings and the one who ascends to the Father’s right hand. The New Testament looks back to His death on the cross and His glorious resurrection, but the New Testament also looks forward to His Second Coming, when He will descend from heaven as the Judge of all the earth to “tread out the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty (Revelation 19:15).” From Genesis to Revelation, Jesus is the subject of the Scriptures. He is the glorious one, the star of the show.

But even though Jesus is the Person who dominates the Scriptures, it is not always easy to find Him in every passage of the Scriptures. What I mean is that sometimes Jesus is hidden by the mysterious way that a passage is written. Sometimes the Holy Spirit has inspired a passage in the Bible that is loftier than our current thoughts or that stretches our concept of who Jesus is. Because the Scripture is God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), there will be times when we can understand the words that are used in a passage, but we may not understand the full meaning of what is being communicated. For those passages, we must slow down and dig deeper to find the treasure hidden in the passage. Psalm 110 is such a passage. This psalm was written by King David about 1,000 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, and yet it tells amazing truths about the Lord Jesus and about what He will accomplish in His advents.

The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at My right hand until I make Your enemies a footstool for Your feet.” – Psalm 110:1

ASKING QUESTIONS TO UNDERSTAND THE VERSE

            At a first reading, this verse appears to be a complete mystery. The context of the verse is unclear, and the message of the verse is even less clear. What is this verse about? But before we despair, let’s see if we can ask some questions that may give us at least some direction.

            We have already established that Jesus is the central figure of the Bible. As we answer these questions, we will learn more about Jesus and about the whole flow of redemptive history and will see that this verse has a powerful message about Jesus.

  1. Who is speaking in this verse?
  2. To whom is He speaking?
  3. When does this conversation take place?
  4. What is the significance of “sitting at His right hand?”
  5. When will the promise of this verse be fulfilled?
  1. Who is speaking in this verse? First, we observe that the English text gives the name of the speaker as “LORD,” where the name is all capital letters. Why is this? We must understand that the original language of Hebrew had several names for God. The name translated as “LORD” is the Hebrew word “YHWH” or “Yahweh.” This is the covenant name for God that can also be understood as God the Father. Our God is one God in three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In the context of this verse, we would understand this “LORD” to be God the Father. So, God the Father is speaking.
  2. To whom is He speaking? Now we encounter another Person referred to as “Lord,” but notice that only the first letter of that name is capitalized. Again, the English is attempting to capture the meaning of the original Hebrew. The name translated as “Lord” is the Hebrew word “Adonai.” This is a name for God, but it is obviously different from the LORD, who is God the Father. David refers to Him as “my Lord.” Who is this? There is only one suspect for this mystery. Amazingly, in this verse God the Father is speaking to God the Son, Jesus Christ. What the psalmist, David, is relating to us in this verse is an “inter-trinitarian” conversation between God the Father and God the Son.
  3. When does this conversation take place? To answer this question, we need to look carefully at what God the Father is telling God the Son. The Father is telling the Son to “sit at His right hand” until some future date. This means that there must have been some time before this conversation when the Son was not sitting at the Father’s right hand. When was there a time when God the Son was not at the Father’s right hand? That time was when the Son was sent by the Father to earth in His first advent. Now the Son has completed His mission and has accomplished His work (John 17:4; 19:30) and He is returning to heaven. What we see, then, is that God the Father is speaking to God the Son after God the Son, Jesus Christ, has finished His work of atonement on the cross, has been resurrected and has ascended back to heaven. Thus, we see that this conversation takes place when Jesus Christ ascends to heaven after His first advent.
  4. What is the significance of “sitting at His right hand?” We have already seen that this verse, Psalm 110:1, is telling us that Jesus Christ, God the Son, has completed His work of redemption and has ascended back to heaven. God the Father is telling Him to sit at His right hand. Jesus is to sit. Sitting is what one did after you had completed your work. To be invited to sit meant that your host was inviting you to rest from your labors. “You have earned a rest. Take a load off your feet!” Jesus had perfectly accomplished His mission and had completed His work, so now God the Father invites Him to sit down. (See Hebrews 1:3.) Jesus it to sit at the LORD’s right hand. The right hand was the place of highest honor. It was the place where the king placed his most trusted and valiant counselors. Jesus, who had always occupied that seat until His first advent, assumes the place of highest honor after His mission is accomplished.
  5. When will the promise of this verse be fulfilled? God the Father not only invites God the Son to sit at His right hand after His ascension, but He also gives the Son a promise, that He will make the Son’s enemies a footstool for the Son’s feet. Up till now we have been focusing on Christ’s first advent, but now the focus shifts to His Second Coming at the end of the age. We know from other passages of Scripture that there will certainly be a time in the future when Jesus will again rise from His seat in heaven and will again come to earth, this time as a wrathful Judge and as a terrifying warrior. All of Christ’s enemies will be trampled under His feet (Revelation 14:19-20; 19:15, 20-21).

WHAT HAVE WE DISCOVERED?

            As we have carefully and deliberately gone through this difficult verse of Scripture, we have been able to discover some powerful truths. We used thoughtful questions to dig treasure out of this mysterious verse and, by bridging between what we already knew and what careful observation revealed, we uncovered new things about Jesus and about the future of the world.

            The Bible is all about Jesus Christ, and we have learned from this one verse of this ancient psalm of David, written a millennium before Christ was born, that:

  • There is evidence of the Trinity even in the psalms.
  • Jesus will be sitting at the right hand of God the Father throughout the time between His advents.
  • There will be a time in the future when Jesus Christ will return to destroy all His enemies.
  • Jesus has perfectly accomplished His mission and His work of redemption in His first advent and is therefore worthy to sit at the Father’s right hand.

Therefore, we can be encouraged as we make our way through our walk through this life, because Jesus is at the right hand of the Father and that He is soon coming from heaven to bring us home to Him.

SDG                 rmb                  12/28/2020

God demonstrates His own love (Romans 5:8)

Today, of course, is Christmas Day. It is the day of the year set aside for giving gifts to one another so that we remember God’s most valuable of all gifts when He sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to be our Savior.

Early this morning, as I waited for the rest of the family to rise and get ready for our gift-opening ritual, I considered the extravagance of God. Our God pours out His gifts on His creatures in so many ways. In His providence, God feeds all His creatures and supplies them with water and shelter. He is extravagant with the beauty He pours out onto His favored planet with sunsets and mountains and valleys and flowers and birds of every color in the rainbow. He gives us tastes and sights and sounds, and then He graces us with the senses of hearing and seeing and smelling so that we can enjoy what He has made. God is generous and patient with humans and “sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous (Matthew 5:45).” God is patient with those who have rebelled against Him and who have broken His laws and commandments and withholds His judgment during their years of wandering and their years of rejecting Him and gives them time to repent (Romans 9:22-23; 2 Peter 3:8-9). Such extravagant patience toward those who deserve His wrath!

And then, as if that were not enough, “God demonstrates His own love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ dies for us (Romans 5:8).” God’s love toward His people is not reluctantly given or disguised in obscurity, but it is vividly and boldly demonstrated in the giving of His Son to be sacrificed on a cross to atone for the sins of His people. The sacrifice of the Son of God is the central act of the entire Bible when God extravagantly demonstrated His love through Jesus Christ. This is the God we serve, the God who demonstrates His love for His people in the most extravagant way possible.

RESOLUTIONS

As I considered how God gives gifts, and thought about how He is extravagant beyond comparison, I realized that the way I give gifts is very different from the way God gives gifts. I made several resolutions as I repented of my giving habits.

Resolved: Show people you love them in tangible ways, and do this often, not just at Christmas and on their birthday. This is a LIFE LESSON. God demonstrates His love in tangible ways. Shouldn’t I do the same?

Resolved: The best use of money is in extravagant expressions of love. This is a LIFE LESSON. Make sure you don’t die with a bunch of money you could have used to demonstrate love to others.

Resolved: Seek opportunities to tangibly demonstrate my love for people in time, gifts, hugs, smiles, money, etc. Christmas is one time built into the calendar to be extravagant. Don’t miss these opportunities.

Resolved: Because I never know when my life or any other life will end, express my love TODAY. Do not wait till tomorrow to demonstrate your love. Tomorrow may be too late, and once you are gone or the loved one is gone, the opportunities to demonstrate love are also gone.

Resolved: To regularly pray to the Lord to change me and make me into a conduit for demonstrating love. PLAN WAYS to demonstrate my love. SPONTANEOUSLY demonstrate my love.

Let’s make 2021 the year that we demonstrate our love to others. Don’t let your love be a secret. Boldly let others know you love them. Let the love of Jesus Christ flow through you in extravagantly giving yourself away.

SDG                 rmb                 12/25/2020

Conditional blessings (Isaiah 8:12-14a)

12 “You are not to say, ‘It is a conspiracy!’
Regarding everything that this people call a conspiracy,
And you are not to fear what they fear or be in dread of it.
13 It is the Lord of armies whom you are to regard as holy.
And He shall be your fear,
And He shall be your dread.
14 Then He will become a sanctuary. – Isaiah 8:12-14a

As we read Isaiah 8:12-14a, it becomes clear that the Lord is a sanctuary. He has always been a sanctuary and always will be a sanctuary. This is part of who He is. The question is, “Is the LORD your sanctuary?” And the answer to that question is, “It depends.” And so we encounter the idea of conditional blessings.

To be clear, for believers, all objective blessings of salvation are unconditionally given and sealed to the believer the moment the believer places their faith in the Lord Jesus. All these blessings depend only on God’s faithfulness and are conditioned only upon the sinner’s faith in Jesus. In the parable of the workers in the vineyard in Matthew 20, all the workers received a denarius regardless of how long they had worked in the vineyard, because they had all been hired by the master of the house.

But there are conditional blessings that accrue to the believer only when the conditions for those blessings are met. For example, in Psalm 1:3, we read of the blessings that will come to a certain man, but those blessings depend on the man not doing the wrong things (1:1) and also on him doing the right things (1:2). So, the Bible does contain conditional blessings, and here in this passage we encounter one of those blessings, the blessing of the Lord being our sanctuary. Would you have the Lord of hosts be your sanctuary? Would you receive the sanctuary blessings from the Lord? Then you must meet “the sanctuary conditions.”

We see, then, in Isaiah 8:12-14a that the Lord’s offer of His sanctuary is not automatically received. Rather, it comes to us “Then.” “THEN He will become a sanctuary (8:14a).” So, the LORD will become my sanctuary WHEN certain conditions are met.

This means that all believers do not experience the LORD in the same way, and it seems that this is because all believers do not seek the LORD in the same way or serve the LORD in the same way. All of God’s blessings are made potentially available to all those who have bowed the knee to the Lord Jesus, but the actual tasting of those blessings is reserved for those who meet the Lord’s “terms of blessing.” In the same way that the breathtaking grandeur of the Grand Canyon is experienced only by those who travel to that place in search of that grandeur, so the blessings of the LORD’s sanctuary are experienced only by those whose fear and dread is the LORD.

WHAT THE WORLD FEARS AND DREADS

The Lord commands us not to fear what this people fear or to be in dread of it (8:12). But what is it that this people fear, and what do they dread? They fear all the things that people without a sanctuary fear. There is no shelter and there is no refuge, so this people fear what all threatened people fear. That means they fear death and they fear getting old. They fear any sort of loss. They fear loneliness. They fear the future, and the unseen and unknown threats that the future may bring. They fear “conspiracy (8:12),” because they always feel insecure and distrustful about the schemes of others. They fear a lot of things.

What makes this situation worse is that the world’s fears only reinforce each other, so that their fears fester and increase. Because there is no sanctuary, there is no relief and no place to hide from the fears. What the world dreads cannot be defensed or defeated, so it only looms larger. For example, for the unbeliever, death cannot be defeated, and death cannot be defensed. It lurks out there in the future and the fear of death grows stronger as death draws inevitably nearer. Thus, when you fear something other than the LORD, your fears continually grow stronger.

WHAT THE BELIEVER FEARS AND DREADS

But when the LORD is the believer’s fear and the LORD is the believer’s dread, then the believer has gained a sanctuary. “He shall be your fear and He shall be your dread. Then He will become a sanctuary (Isaiah 8:13-14a).” Meeting the “sanctuary conditions” means that you receive the “sanctuary blessings.” When the LORD is your fear, then “ordinary” fears continually grow weaker. Psalm 34:4 says, “I sought the LORD, and He answered me, and delivered me from all my fears.” The psalmist was delivered from his fears not because all his threats had gone away, but because he trusted that the LORD his Champion was greater than all his fears. When the LORD is the believer’s fear and dread, then the believer experiences the peace that comes from entering the Lord’s sanctuary.

When we encounter a “conditional blessing” in the Scripture, we should search the passage diligently to find out what the conditions must be met to receive the blessing, and then earnestly strive to meet those conditions, while asking the Lord for strength and guidance.

SDG                 rmb                 12/8/2020

A tale of two threats (Isaiah 7 and Isaiah 36-37)

Would you rather be the person who feels great fear in the face of small threats or the person who feels little fear in the face of great threats? Our Bible study today in the book of Isaiah will look at this question as we examine the lives of two of the kings of Judah who reigned in Jerusalem long before Jesus was born.

AHAZ AND HEZEKIAH

The prophecy of Isaiah contains some of the most vivid foreshadows of our Lord Jesus Christ in all the Old Testament, as well as many passages of prose of great beauty and power, but it contains only a few narrative sections in its sixty-six chapters. In those narrative chapters, however, are the stories of King Ahaz and King Hezekiah. These two kings are implicitly compared to one another, Hezekiah being the righteous king who evidently loves and serves the LORD and drives out wickedness, and Ahaz being unrighteous, a king who worships foreign gods and engages in idolatry and immorality and leads Judah into deep sin. Hezekiah walks closely with the LORD, while Ahaz ignores and despises the LORD.

LIFESTYLE HAS CONSEQUENCES

            If life went along exactly as we wanted it to go and if we were always more than competent to overpower any and every threat from the outside, then I suppose that the approach of either king would work, and maybe Ahaz would be okay. But you and I live in a world where things often go very differently from what we wanted and where threats are both common and often overwhelming. And, it turns out, Ahaz and Hezekiah lived in that kind of a world, too. Because King Ahaz had chosen a lifestyle of idolatry and disobedience and of despising the LORD, he was terrified when faced with a small threat. On the other hand, when King Hezekiah was faced with a vastly greater threat, because he trusted in the LORD and knew of the LORD’s power to save and deliver, he expresses no fear. Instead, Hezekiah seeks the LORD and cries out to Him in prayer, and he is delivered.

THE “THREAT” TO AHAZ

            In Isaiah 7, we read of the threat that came upon King Ahaz. “Rezin the king of Syria and Pekah the son of Remaliah the king of Israel came up to Jerusalem to wage war against it but could not yet mount an attack against it (Isaiah 7:1).” How will King Ahaz respond to this threat? “The heart of Ahaz and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind (7:2).” So, both the king and his people are completely distraught by these two armies. This response might make sense, until we examine the situation. First, the reign of Pekah king of Israel was noteworthy because of all the cities and territory that he lost to Tiglath-pileser, the king of Assyria (2 Kings 15:29). By that time in their history, Israel was weak and disorganized and had no army to speak of at all. In fact, in about ten years Israel would be carried away into exile by Shalmaneser, the king of Assyria. Pekah was no threat. Second, we read in 7:1 that these two armies “could not mount an attack against Jerusalem.” Whether they were incompetent or cowardly is not clear, but the fact that they could not even manage to mount the attack is rather pitiful. Finally, we read the LORD’s assessment of the situation: “Be careful, be quiet, do not fear, and do not let your heart be faint because of these two smoldering stumps of firebrands (7:4).” The LORD speaks to Ahaz about the two invading armies with derision and tells Ahaz that there is no need to fear.

            THE POINT: Ahaz faced a trivial threat, but “his heart and the heart of his people shook as the trees of the forest shake before the wind.” Because King Ahaz chose to disobey and despise the LORD, any and every threat was a terrifying threat.

THE THREAT TO HEZEKIAH

            We turn now to Isaiah 36 to read of the danger facing King Hezekiah. “Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them (36:1).” This has a haunting ring to it, since only a few years earlier Shalmaneser king of Assyria had destroyed Samaria and taken Israel into exile. And this current Assyrian king has already taken all the fortified cities of Judah and now he approaches Jerusalem “with a great army (36:2).” The Rabshakeh speaks for “the great king, the king of Assyria,” and taunts Hezekiah’s trust in the LORD and warns of the destruction that will come if they do not surrender. The spokesman then tells of all the victories Assyria has already won; Hamath and Arpad, Sepharvaim and Samaria, and says, “Their gods did not deliver their lands. How will the LORD deliver you out of my hand?” Oh, this threat is real, and it is serious. What will King Hezekiah do?

            Hezekiah’s response is a model for anyone who is facing a threat that is way beyond their ability. Because this man walked with the LORD and sought the LORD regularly as part of his lifestyle, he was ready when he needed to cry out to the LORD in distress. Notice that, despite this overwhelming threat, Hezekiah never expresses fear. You will search the text in vain to find words of fear from King Hezekiah. “As soon as King Hezekiah heard it (the words of the Rabshakeh), he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD (37:1).” WOW! What a response! But that’s just for starters. Then the king sent a contingent to the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz confessing that he was overwhelmed, and he needed the LORD to help. He also mentioned that the king of Assyria had mocked the living God. Isaiah says, “Do not be afraid. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land (Isaiah 37:6-7).” You need to read the full story yourself in Isaiah 36-37, but in the end, “the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when the people arose in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies (37:36).” So, Sennacherib went home.

            THE POINT: King Hezekiah faced an overwhelming threat, one that he could never handle on his own, but he responded with courage and trust and prayer because he walked closely with the LORD. Because King Hezekiah chose to obey and honor the LORD, even a tremendous threat was not a cause for fear. Because Hezekiah’s confidence was in the LORD, even the great threats of man produced no fear.

APPLICATION

            When you were not a follower of Jesus, you feared what the pagans feared, and you had no promise of any protection from the Lord. You were like Ahaz, and small threats produced big fears. But now, you walk with the Lord and you have all the promises of the Scripture to secure your confidence. Like Hezekiah, you are among the company of the redeemed and you can say with Jeremiah, “The LORD is with me like a dread champion (Jeremiah 20:11).” And if the Lord is with us, we are “not to fear what the people fear, nor be in dread (Isaiah 8:12).” Like Hezekiah, we make the Lord our fear, and we make Him our dread (Isaiah 8:13) and we trust our great God and cry out to Him when threats arise.

SDG                 rmb                 12/05/2020

Outmatched by great matters (Psalm 131)

Is anyone besides me feeling overwhelmed by life’s challenges these days?

            As I was considering all that is currently going on in my world in particular and in our world in general – in politics, in economics, in culture and society, and, of course, regarding COVID-19 – my soul cried out for a greater simplicity. I felt yet again how limited I am and how complex and overwhelming is the world in which I live. I am a simple man with small abilities seeking to glorify God in a world of ferocious challenges and daunting complexity. So, feeling that my abilities were entirely inadequate for the demands of my world, I once again turned to the pages of God’s word and to Psalm 131, a short psalm of David.

O LORD, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;

Nor do I involve myself in great matters,

Or in things too difficult for me. – Psalm 131:1 (NASB)

            David enters this psalm distressed and seeking quiet for his soul. “Where in this world of threats is peace to be found?” And why is David distressed? Because David has done a realistic evaluation of his abilities and has made a sober assessment of the challenges arrayed against him and humbly acknowledges that he has an “ability-deficit.” The threats against exceed the defenses in-hand, and David, in faith by an act of the will, chooses to trust the LORD for his protection and to believe that the LORD will be his shield and fortress, and will make up the deficit.

Nor do I involve myself in great matters,

Or in things too difficult for me.

            Here, David makes another resolution. By not involving himself in great matters or in things too difficult for him, David consciously chooses to let a lot of things go and entrust them to his great God. There is both wisdom and faith displayed here. Wisdom is displayed because, by humbly acknowledging that there are many things “above his pay grade,” David is freed up to not waste time or to worry about those things, and he is enabled to focus on the things that do matter. And faith is displayed because David is entrusting the great matters and the things too difficult for him to his great God, for whom nothing is too difficult (Jeremiah 32:17, 27). David is willfully casting his anxiety on the LORD (1 Peter 5:7) and believing that, because the LORD loves him and is with him and has promised to be his God, David can confidently let the great things and the too-difficult things go.

            And the result of David’s faith and trust in the LORD? “Surely I have composed and quieted my soul (131:2a).” David’s distress and anxiety have vanished like smoke, and he now rests in the LORD and hopes in the LORD in quiet trust “like a weaned child rests against its mother (131:2b).”

APPLICATION

            How can we who are simple enjoy the same composed and quieted soul that David enjoyed? Well, first we need to do what David did here in this psalm. David began by humbly realizing that he had an “ability-deficit” (also known as a “limitation-surplus”), and that the world that he faced did indeed outmatch his abilities. Once we have admitted our own ability-deficit, we need to make sure that we have a great God who has promised to bring us all the way through life to heaven (Philippians 1:6; John 10:28-29), a God who will never leave us or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5), who is able to take care of our deficits by His great power. Second, we need to surrender “the great matters and the things too difficult for us” into the hands of the Lord and get them off our radar screen so that we can focus on our “small matters.”

OTHER SUGGESTIONS

            I have a couple of other suggestions that may prove helpful as we all wrestle with the complexities of our world and with our realization of our own limitations.

  • Simplify your life by defining the essential elements of God’s calling for your life and then intentionally cutting away the rest. We can only focus on so many things, and the fewer, the better. By paring away the peripheral elements, we are left with fewer attention drains. In a personal example, I used to spend some time playing a classical guitar. I enjoyed working through a fairly complex piece of music and trying to make it sound like the recording, usually without much success. One day I realized that I would never be able to be very good and that time spent on the guitar was not “core time.” So, the guitar now sits quietly in a corner. Battle complexity by intentionally simplifying!
  • How do I make the most of my limited talents and abilities? How will I best steward my one God-given life? First, focus your energies into a narrow range. Limited talents and abilities diligently focused will produce more than great talent dissipated. Water can be used to water your ferns or to cut through steel. It all depends on the degree of focus. Also, while we all have the same amount of time, we do not all use the same time in the same way. Since life is short and our talents limited, it is best to never waste time and, instead, to make the most of the time, for the days are evil (Ephesians 5:16).

SDG                 rmb                 11/23/2020

Psalm 110: A brief lesson in Christology

The LORD says to my Lord, “Sit at My right hand . . .”

INTRODUCTION

Thus, David begins Psalm 110, a psalm that held many mysteries for those who lived before the Incarnation. “The LORD says to my Lord.” “Yahweh says to my Adonai.” Right from the start the psalm presented difficulties. God is talking to God. Yahweh is talking to Adonai, so there appear to be two persons here, but the Shammah from Deuteronomy 6:4 says, “Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.” So how can this be? There is no clear solution to this puzzle.

            Jesus Himself brings out another conundrum from the psalm, as He questions the Pharisees during Passion Week. At that time, Psalm 110 was accepted by Hebrew scholars as a messianic psalm. The images and the drama of the psalm made it obvious that it pictured the victorious exploits of the Messiah. But the Holy Spirit had inspired David to write a theological riddle. So, Jesus asks, “Whose son is the Christ (Matthew 22:42ff)?” “The Son of David,” the Pharisees reply. The trap has been set and the bait has been taken. Jesus then quotes Psalm 110 and asks the obvious question: “If (in Psalm 110) David calls him (the Messiah) ‘Lord,’ how is He his Son?” In other words, “How can the Christ (Messiah) be both David’s son and his Lord?” No answer is offered because no answer is available. The Pharisees have no solution to the riddle.

            But the mysteries are even deeper than that. While the psalm was acknowledged to be about the victories of the Messiah, the only reference for the pronouns “You” and “Your” in verses 1-4 and the only reference for the pronoun “He” is verses 5-7 is “the Lord,” which in Hebrew is Adonai, a divine name of God. Therefore, taking all this into account, from Psalm 110 we discover that the Messiah is the Lord Adonai, but He is also the human Son of David “according to the flesh (Romans 1:3),” a Man like us who “will drink from the brook by the wayside (Psalm 110:7)” to quench His thirst. Sort of like a God-Man.

            Does that sound familiar? It should because Psalm 110 points unerringly to the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, this psalm is one of the most complete pictures of Jesus Christ in both His first and second advents in the Bible. The psalm provides us with a lesson in Christology that is supported by many other Scriptures. The rest of this article will explore Psalm 110 verse-by-verse and show how it reveals Jesus to us.

FINDING JESUS IN PSALM 110

  • Verse 1 – The Lord is told to sit at the right hand of the LORD because He has accomplished something that merits the seat of honor. Christ is exalted to the right hand of the Majesty on high (Hebrews 1:3) because He has accomplished the work of redemption that He was given to do (John 17:4). He is highly exalted as a result of His perfect humiliation by his death on the cross (Philippians 2:5-11). He has been allotted a portion with the great (Isaiah 53:12).
  • Verse 1 – We have already talked (above) about the divine and human natures of the one who is the Lord (Adonai) and yet the Son of David.
  • Verse 2 – A “strong scepter” is a symbol of this King’s power. “The LORD sends forth Your strong scepter from Zion.” This scepter is the gospel that is sent forth and allows Christ through His church to rule in the midst of His enemies, “as sheep in the midst of wolves (Matthew 10:16)”. With the scepter of the gospel Christ will conquer the nations and bring many into His kingdom.
  • Verse 3 – There is a certain day in the future, “the day of Your power,” when His power will be on full display. We know that this will be the day of the Lord, the day of Christ’s return. In that day, “Your people will volunteer freely” and they will be dressed “in holy array.” This is describing the glorified saints arrayed in white robes who will come with the Lord Jesus upon His return. (See 1 Thess. 4:14; 2 Thess. 1:10; Revelation 19:14)
  • Verse 4 – The LORD has taken an oath and has sworn, and when God Himself takes an oath, it indicates the unchangeableness of the promise (Hebrews 6:13-20). This is the solemnity of the oath that the LORD has made to the Lord Jesus. The oath cannot be broken or changed.
  • Verse 4 – What is the nature of the oath? That Christ is “a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” First, then, He is a Priest as well as a King. There were no such kings in the Davidic line, for the priests were descended from Aaron in the tribe of Levi and the kings were from David in the line of Judah. Thus Christ, the Son of God, is the only one allowed to be both King and Priest because He is of the priestly order of Melchizedek. As a priest, Jesus makes intercession for His people. As priest, He is also the one who brought the blood of the eternal sacrifice to the heavenly mercy seat (See Hebrews 9-10).
  • Verse 4 – Christ is a priest forever. The priesthood of Jesus had no beginning and will have no end. In eternity past, the LORD swore with an oath that Jesus was a priest forever. He always lives to make intercession for His people (Hebrews 7:25). His people always have an advocate, a priest to intercede for them with the Father.
  • Verse 4 – For a study of Melchizedek as a type of Christ, spend time in Hebrews 7.
  • Verse 5 – “The Lord is at Your right hand.” Thus, begins the day of the Lord’s wrath. Verses 5-6 speak about the day of Christ’s return in wrath and judgment. We recall from verse 1 that the LORD invited the Lord to sit at His right hand. On the day of wrath, the Lord will still be at the LORD’s right hand as they render judgment to the unrighteous. In Revelation 6:16, the kings of the earth say to the mountains, “Hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne (the LORD), and from the wrath of the Lamb (the Lord).”
  • Verse 5 – “He will shatter kings in the day of His wrath.” From that same passage in Revelation 6:15-17, the Lord shatters kings and the great men in the day of His wrath. Psalm 110:5 is describing the events of Revelation 6:15-17.
  • Verse 6 – The Priest-King of the order of Melchizedek “will judge among the nations.” Can there be any doubt that this is the terrible day of Christ’s final judgment? This is described in Matthew 25:31-46, when Jesus separates the sheep from the goats and casts those on His left “into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels (v. 41).” We see a glimpse of this in Luke 19:27 and in Revelation 14:9-11. Psalm 2:9 also mentions that the Son “will break them with a rod of iron and shatter them like earthenware.” Finally, in Revelation 19:11-16 we see the Lord Jesus coming in His final judgment.
  • Verse 6 – “He will fill them with corpses.” In the great day of judgment, there will be many slain by the Lord Jesus as He returns to deal out retribution. In Revelation 19:17-21, the Scriptures declare that the birds in midheaven will feast on “the flesh of kings and the flesh mighty men,” and all of these will be “killed with the sword that came from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse.” The one on the horse is the Lord Jesus in His Second Coming. There will be many corpses on that day.
  • Verse 6 – “He will shatter the head over a broad country.” What would it mean for Jesus the Messiah to “shatter the head?” In Genesis 3:15, we read that the Messiah, the seed of the woman, will bruise Satan on his head. Now here we read that the great Priest-King, the Messiah “will shatter the head.” Psalm 110:6 is speaking of how Jesus crushed Satan’s head when He was crucified at The Place of a Skull. We also know that Jesus will finally “crush Satan’s head” when throws him into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).
  • Verse 7 – The final verse may be the most mysterious of all. “He will drink from the brook by the wayside.” From this phrase it is unmistakable that this Warrior is human, for He thirsts and so He must stop by the wayside to drink from the brook. He wields the divine sword of judgment, yet He also needs water to slake His thirst.
  • Verse 7 – There may be more intended from the phrase, “He will drink from the brook.” For we know that, during His first advent, Jesus the Messiah was required to drink the cup of God’s wrath which He was given (John 18:11; Matthew 20:22). We know that, while He was on the cross, the Messiah thirsted (John 19:28). It is possible, then, to understand this phrase as speaking about His suffering in His earthly life. He drank from the brook of suffering that ran by the wayside of His life.
  • Verse 7 – If drinking from the brook does, in fact, point to Jesus’ suffering in this life, then the second half of the verse fits well into Scripture. In Isaiah 53:11, “As a result of the anguish of His soul . . .” Then in 53:12, “Therefore, I will assign Him a portion with the great.” In Philippians 2:8, Jesus was “obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” But 2:9, “Therefore also God highly exalted Him and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name.” (See also Revelation 5, where the Lamb is given glory and honor because He has conquered.) Because the Messiah endured the cross, “Therefore He (the LORD) will lift up His (the Lord’s) head.” And this understanding would bring us back to the start of the psalm when Jesus ascends to the right hand of the LORD.

CONCLUSION

            Psalm 110 presents us with a powerful picture of Jesus the Messiah in His first advent as the suffering Servant, but also in His Second Coming as the Warrior-Judge. This psalm also highlights the prophetic nature of some of the psalms as clearly foreshadowing future events. Finally, the psalm reveals again the divine inspiration of the Scriptures as these words written by David a thousand years before Jesus’ Incarnation are fulfilled by our great Priest-King.

SDG                 rmb                 10/20/2020

Lessons from David’s Mistakes (1 Chronicles 13)

King David is one of the most dynamic and compelling figures in the Old Testament. He is a man of action and a man of passion. He is brave and bold, as a youth, defying giants and as a man, displaying valor and grace and compassion to his friends and even to his foes. David is a man after God’s own heart, a man who fiercely loves Yahweh and seeks to know his God with all his soul. Yet, David is also a man with weaknesses and flaws that almost destroy him. A careful study of his life and exploits provides us with many lessons of what to do and what not to do as we, too, pursue the Lord.

In 1 Chronicles 13, David is contemplating a significant decision: “What to do with the ark of God?” The king then consults with the leaders of Israel (13:1) and decides to bring up the ark of God to Jerusalem. This seems like a good idea because “the thing was right in the eyes of all the people (13:4).” But there is something wrong here, because while David consulted with men, there is not even a hint that he consulted with the LORD. David did not seek the LORD (Psalm 63:1) and David did not wait for the LORD (Psalm 27:14; 40:1), but instead he sought the counsel of those who would agree with him, which is a dangerous path (See Rehoboam’s decision in 1 Kings 12:13-14).

As a result of the unwise, godless counsel, David and all Israel come up with a bad plan. They decided to carry the ark of God on a new cart being pulled by oxen. Now, this should sound familiar, because this is exactly what the pagan Philistines had done when the ark of God was with them and the LORD was killing them and tormenting them (1 Samuel 6:7-8). The Philistines, who were completely ignorant of the Law of Moses, had placed the ark on a new cart, but now the anointed king of Israel, along with the priests and the Levites (13:2) and all the people, the very ones who have received the Law of the LORD and who have been entrusted with the oracles of God (Romans 3:2), do what the pagans did! Instead of carrying the ark as prescribed by the revealed word of God, the people throw it on the back of an ox cart (13:7) and begin celebrating before God with all their might (13:8).

While David’s heart and the hearts of the people may have been in the right place, the LORD’s anger is burning. The best of intentions does not change the fact that David is in flagrant sin. He has disobeyed the clear instruction of the word of God and has treated the ark of God without reverence or holiness. All the passionate celebrating is meaningless if the actions are disobedient and are contrary to the LORD’s revealed will. As a result of David’s disobedience, Uzzah is directly in harm’s way, and when he reaches out to touch the ark (13:9), the anger of the LORD breaks out against Uzzah and strikes him dead. Because of his disobedience and because of the outburst of the Lord’s anger, “David was afraid of God that day (13:12).” So, the ark is placed in the house of Obed-edom as David goes back to Jerusalem.

This chapter is packed with lessons and principles. What can we learn from this incident in the life of King David?

First, we can learn lessons about making decisions. We see that David is faced with a significant decision. For all of us, life is full of decisions, and some of them are significant. So, the first thing that we need to do is recognize when a decision is significant. There needs to be a voice inside our head that bellows, “This is a biggie! You want to get this one right! Don’t mess it up!” Notice that David did not treat the moving of the ark as a significant decision and so he did not work very hard to see if it was the wise thing to do. Don’t make David’s mistake! Slow down and be careful with big decisions.

Once you recognize a significant decision, you need to seek counsel and find wisdom. You must turn to the Lord and to His Word. This is the reason it is so critical to know the Word of God very well, to know how to pray for wisdom, and to surround yourself with godly people who can advise you from the mind of God. So then, you will seek the Lord directly in prayer, seek Him by careful and alert Bible study, and seek His will by listening carefully to godly counsel, even from people who may not agree with you. Again, we see that David did not seek the LORD’s will but decided that he and the priests and leaders of Israel were the ones to make this decision. “No big deal! We got this one.” As a result, David creates a bad plan that disobeys God’s Word and leads to disaster.

Next, while we seek the Lord’s direction and seek to know His will regarding a decision, we must also actively wait for the Lord’s guidance. Instead of waiting for the LORD to give His answer, David creates his plan and then rushes that plan into action. A wiser course of action would have been to create a plan and then, in a sense, offer it to the LORD for His stamp of approval. If we seek the LORD, then He will answer His people (Psalm 91:15), but if we simply plunge ahead, the LORD will often allow us to experience the consequences of our hasty decisions.

Also, we see that David and his counselors seem to listen to worldly wisdom. Notice that David’s advisers tell him to put the ark of God on a new cart. There is almost certainly a connection between what the Philistines did with the ark in 1 Samuel 6 and what David is advised to do with the ark in this chapter. The fact that in both places in Scripture the ark is placed on a new cart must be more than a coincidence. Most likely David’s advisers had heard about what the Philistines did with the ark and decided that was a good plan for David, as well. The point here is that the disciple of Jesus must be very cautious about the world’s wisdom. The world has a very different standard of honesty and the world has different goals for what the world does. The world is greedy for money and lusts after sex and fame and power, and the world is controlled by the god of this age (2 Corinthians 4:4), by the prince of the power of the air (Ephesians 2:3). Thus, the world uses different means than believers and has different objectives than believers. Because this is the case, the disciple of Jesus must be cautious with worldly advice.

Another lesson that we can learn from this passage stems from the experience Israel has with worship. Observe that, despite that fact that David and all Israel are celebrating before God as the ark is being moved to Jerusalem (good), the anger of the LORD is nevertheless burning, because they are disobeying the LORD’s clear instruction about how to transport the ark of God (BAD). The lesson is that, if the actions are sinful and opposed to the commandments of the LORD, no amount of good intention or “good” behavior will remove the LORD’s judgment. Until the sinful or disobedient behavior or belief is removed, the LORD’s displeasure remains. (Psalm 66:18) In other words, there is no amount of good that will outweigh even a small amount of “bad.” The disciple of Jesus must repent of all known sin, not try to offset the sin with some sort of “good works.” Attempts to please God through good works are filthy rags before the LORD (Isaiah 64:6).

These are some of the lessons from David’s mistakes in 1 Chronicles 13. But the next chapter shows that David learns from his mistakes and corrects his errors. I will take a look at those events in a future blog.

SDG                 rmb                 9/16/2019