Category: Psalms

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Day 107 — I Samuel 28 – 31; Psalm 18

I don’t understand about the spirit world, and I don’t believe it is wise to delve into what God forbade His Old Testament people, so I have no insight about the ability of the medium to call Samuel.

Samuel told Saul that God had not only departed from him, but had become his adversary. Saul might not have minded at the time that God had departed from him, but he minded desperately now. He was a mess. Understand that this is what the outcome of sin and departure from God looks like: ultimately it leaves the forsaken a mess.

Imagine what a relief Saul’s death was for David. He had waited for God to take vengeance on Saul, and now could take the kingdom with a clean conscience. Isn’t that so much more satisfying than taking matters into his own hands? He had waited a long time to be relieved of the awful burdens of living in exile, lacking any safe place; and now he was not only free, he was king! No wonder Psalm 18 is such a happy psalm.

Psalm 18 doesn’t exaggerate the desperation of David’s predicament while Saul was alive. If it wasn’t Saul chasing him, it was the Philistine lords lurking to entrap him. God didn’t really shake the earth and smoke didn’t really come out of His nostrils when David cried to Him; this is David’s way of relating how wonderful he saw God’s response to his cry. Have you ever seen God respond to your cry in wonderful fashion? If not, I would suggest that you haven’t cried to Him in desperation, or else you haven’t cried to Him from a clean conscience, or you haven’t looked back with thankfulness and praise for what He has done. Is there an event in your own life for which you can offer your own psalm of praise today? I believe that God wants to be a hero to each one of us as He was to David. I believe that He has done heroic deeds on behalf of each one of us, if we will only make the effort to contemplate the matter prayerfully and acknowledge them joyfully as David did here.

Note in verses 20 to 24 the righteousness for which God had rewarded David. Did he leave any room for compromise in his description? If this is the kind of righteousness for which God rewarded David, would righteousness of a lower standard (is there such a thing?) receive such reward from God?

Perhaps one of the reasons David was a man after God’s own heart is that he relied on God so much. Look in verses 30 through 36 at David’s account of what God did for him. Or perhaps David relied on God so because he was a man after God’s own heart. In any case, to know God is to be like Him, and to be like Him, we’re going to have to rely on His help. If David knew God as these verses describe, might we know Him the same way? Only if we seek to do so. Seeking will certainly involve asking God for such a privilege and placing ourselves in the place to receive God’s graces, as Richard Foster describes it. But what wonderful rewards it brings! If you haven’t experienced reward in seeking God, please don’t give up seeking. As I heard in a powerful sermon this past Sunday, if you have sought God but aren’t satisfied in Him, you haven’t reached the end of the story.

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Day 106 — Psalms 17, 35, 54, 63

The common thread in these psalms is vindication. How can we reconcile David’s frequent longing for vindication with Jesus’ teaching to love your enemies, pray for those who despitefully use you, and if someone slaps your cheek, offer the other cheek? God is a God of justice, and being made in His image, man values justice. Like David, when we are injured, we want the wrongs made right. But God is also a God of love. Out of love Jesus gave up His rights in order to come to earth and be tortured and hung on the cross. The salvation He won for us is so wonderful and abundant that we now have the power to get over ourselves enough to love others as He loved us, as He commanded us to do. The Old Testament offered justice; the New Testament offers love. So while we may long for justice with David, we have been given a better way. As we have seen from previous lessons from the psalms, one way we can follow the better way is to learn from David to take our complaints and our longing for justice to God with the expectation of leaving our burdens with Him, and ask for His help with the loving.

David certainly had reason to want vindication, but he knew that it was God who should vindicate him, and not he himself. How did he discipline himself so that he didn’t do what was in his power to do? In Psalm 17, note what David said he did and what he sought from God in the way of help. One startling thing he asked is, “Keep me as the apple of your eye.” If he can ask that, couldn’t we? Imagine yourself as the apple of God’s eye. Are you willing to hide in the shadow of His wings and take refuge in Him from your foes? With the privilege comes responsibility.

In Psalm 35 David asked God to contend with those who contend with him.  Not contending for ourselves is difficult, but God’s plan is that we yield to Him to contend, and we rest from contention. God can contend for us in wonderful fashion, in ways beyond our imagining, and we get to rest in Him and let Him do His lovely work in us. Are there contentions in your life that you should yield to God?

When we choose to obey God, we are transformed ever more into His image, and our love for Him grows, as we have seen in previous days’ reading. Look at David’s love for God: can you say that your whole being longs for God, as one longs for water in a dry land where there is none? Do you value God’s love better than life? Does He satisfy you fully? Why not ask Him to grow that love in you?

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Day 104 — Psalms 56, 120, 140-142

These psalms share the common theme of David complaining to God. Each one presents an example to us of situations in which we may find ourselves and how God would want us to respond, based on the example of the man after God’s own heart.

How does one set a guard over his mouth so that he is known as one who speaks well-spoken words, as David says in Psalm 141, and doesn’t complain or perpetuate the evil going on in this evil world? He takes his complaints and his cares to God rather than sharing them with men. I think also of Jesus, who left Heaven to live in this sin-cursed world, without a place to lay His head, with a group of followers who most of the time just didn’t get it. He probably spent so much time in prayer in part because He unburdened Himself to God. In I Peter 5:7 we are also invited to “Cast our cares on Him.” To whom do you unburden yourself?

Don’t let the repetition in Psalm 56 of David’s claim that he trusts God weary you; rather, recognize that as a key idea. My Bible has a footnote in the introduction to the psalm that references I Samuel 21:10- 12 as the incident “when the Philistines seized (David) in Gath.” Samuel tells us that David feared greatly in that situation. Was David a hypocrite, saying one pious thing in his psalm, and behaving differently in reality? Not at all. In his fear, he exercised his choice to put his trust in God and to be unafraid. We see the result in Samuel’s account: he was able to devise an ingenious scheme to escape the grasp of the oppressive, lurking Philistines.

David understood that God kept track of his tears. It’s not that God delighted in his tears, but that they were precious to Him, precious in the sense that He didn’t take them lightly, didn’t waste them. A pastor once told me that God doesn’t waste our pain; it is precious to Him. That truth arouses such love in me for Him.

David didn’t like where he was living as he wrote Psalm 120, and who could blame him, living in exile? We should experience the same in this world, because our home is in Heaven. And we shouldn’t be surprised that people want to stir up trouble with us. This psalm is a reminder that we are not alone when we are tired of life as a “stranger and alien: in a foreign land.

In Psalm 140 David asked for burning coals to fall on the heads of those who surround him, that they “be thrown into the fire, into miry pits, never to rise.” One reason he asked this isn’t necessarily for vindication, but so that “slanderers not be established in the land,” that justice be secured, and righteousness prevail. That’s one way we can reconcile the man after God’s own heart longing for evil to befall his enemies, while Jesus tells us to bless our enemies. As we are transformed by the Holy Spirit by the renewing of our minds, we will be more and more provoked by evildoers who try to stir up trouble. That’s a good thing!

Psalm 142 finds David in a cave in more ways than one. He had no refuge; what happened to God as his refuge? Again, he had to choose to let feeling follow faith. He was alone, with no one to be concerned for him. No one cared for his life. The people pursuing him were too strong for him. Do you ever feel that way? Have you ever felt so sad that there are no words? Here’s yet another example for us: he didn’t have much to say about it, but he cried out to God, in desperate need. When there are no words, we have these as a starting point: “Set me free from my prison, that I may praise your name.”

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Day 103 — Psalms 7, 27, 31, 34, 52

Aren’t the psalms more powerful when read in the context of their history?

Psalm 7 contains more examples of why Hebrew poetry can be tricky for us. The paragraph starting in verse 12 begins by talking about God, and in verse 14 changes the subject to the man to whom verse 12 referred, who doesn’t repent. The subject change is not always evident, but certainly what the text says about the subject in verse 14 is not true of God. Thus, realizing whom it is talking about might take a little consideration.

Another tricky issue with Hebrew poetry is that it takes liberties with time. Verses 14 and 15 start by talking about what the one who does not repent has done. Verse 15 says that he has fallen into the pit he has dug, when he probably hasn’t yet, or David wouldn’t be asking God to deliver him. Often Hebrew poetry talks about future events as if they had already happened. I believe one reason this is so is that the poet trusts in God’s justice so much that it isn’t a matter of if, but when. Another reason is that he is likely fantasizing about it. Can you relate to that? Have you ever longed so much for a situation to come to pass that you imagine what it would be like? In this case, the one about whom David speaks likely won’t literally fall into a pit he has dug, but that is one scenario that gives David satisfaction in imagining.

Rather than share with you my insights in the psalms, I want to guide you in gleaning your own insights from them. God has much more meaningful insights for you than I do! Since some of you may be new at this, I won’t set you loose on your own the first day, but give you some examples to follow. So as you read these psalms, consider the following:

Psalm 27:

When David says that God is his light and salvation, he isn’t just making a pious-sounding statement; he explains how that has come to be and what it looks like practically. Note what he says about that – make a list.

1) He will not fear. (v.3) This doesn’t mean that he foolishly doesn’t feel fear, but that he chooses not to be afraid and instead chooses to be confident. Recall that “feeling follows faith.”

2) He seeks (remember the importance of seeking) to live in intimacy with God and to know Him as the wonderful being that He is. (v.4) This means that when life gets messy or trials come (recall that David knew a lot about that), He has that refuge established.

3) He is prepared (he has made up his mind while he is in his right mind, before the trials come) to sing with joy in the day of trial because, since he enjoys that intimate relationship with Him, he is hidden by God and lifted to a firm place.

4) He will be quick to cry out to God for help in a time of crisis; he wouldn’t take God’s help for granted.

5) He was teachable, sought to continue being taught by God.

6) He sought leading from God and intended to follow it.

7) He chose to believe in the goodness of the Lord. Again, choosing implies that faith is employed even when the feeling isn’t there, because faith doesn’t follow feeling or else it’s not faith. “Feeling follows faith.”

8) He refused to give way to despair.

9) He intended to wait on God’s timing for deliverance. That meant not impatiently taking matters into his own hands. Isn’t it interesting that he saw the way of strength would be to wait on God, and the way of courage would be to wait on God? That is counter-intuitive to our culture.

Psalm 31:

Note the practical steps David has taken to make God his refuge. You should be able to identify steps that you could put into practice as well, since these things happened to the man after God’s own heart as an example to us. As in the previous psalm, these may look like choices he makes while he is in his right mind.

Note that beginning in verse 9 he talks about his distress. Here’s that parallelism that is such a feature of Hebrew poetry. Let each line enlarge your understanding of how distressed David was, and why. That makes his praise for God beginning in verse 19 all the more amazing to the reader. He can offer that sacrifice of praise in the midst of distress because he has taken these practical steps to make God his refuge, and that praise is actually part of his steps to make God his refuge.

Psalm 34:

The reference to Abimelech in the introduction may actually be intended to mean the incident recorded in I Samuel 21:10-15. That was a dangerous situation in which David greatly feared the king. David sought God’s help in his crisis, and possibly the idea to feign madness came from God! The king’s reaction was probably also from God.

David then would be looking desperately for a place to find refuge, but in his desperation he was so full of praise to God that he wrote this psalm. I’m sorry to say that praising God is not a strength of mine; I definitely need to practice it more. Praising Him in desperate times comes even less naturally to me. This psalm gives a great example of how to praise God. I use psalms like this as a starting point for offering God praise when I can’t come up with something on my own. The circumstances in which it was written leave me with a compelling reason not to give way to weak human reactions in desperate times as an excuse not to choose to praise God. The praise David offers here is both worship to God and balm for one’s soul. Isn’t it lovely that God works worship that way? Why not make a note to reference Psalm 34 when you need some help getting started in praising God?

Psalm 52 – I’m leaving you on your own here, because this post is already too long. What is one insight that God has especially for you in this psalm? Ask Him, expect Him to answer, and spend time considering. Please feel free to share with me your insights!

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Day 101 — I Samuel 18 – 20, Psalms 11 & 59

These events don’t seem to take place in the chronology as they are presented. My guess is that what is presented as separate events were unfolding all together.

God had an interesting way of saving David from Saul’s henchmen, didn’t He? What can God not do to keep us safe? Further, who would ever think of that except God? So why do we tell God what to do when we pray?

God had told Saul that He was taking the kingdom from him and giving it to a man after His own heart. He reiterated that description of David after he was dead. So we can believe that David truly was a man after God’s own heart. The writings of the man after God’s own heart should reveal to us something about God’s heart, don’t you think? Let’s keep this in mind as we read the psalms of David.

Having said that, David was also a man. It isn’t always easy to discern how much of what he wrote was his thoughts and feelings, and how much revealed God’s heart. The difference won’t always be clear.

The fact that the psalms are poetry also affects our understanding of what they actually teach. Poetry conveys feelings, not facts, and sometimes the two are different. For example, the poem, “Charge of the Light Brigade” gives a much different account of the battle it described than a newspaper article would give. Or the song about September 11th that asks, “Where were you when the world stopped turning that September day?” The world didn’t actually stop turning; it is figurative language that conveys much about what the people affected by those events were feeling. It is the same with the psalms. They convey the writer’s deep feelings, which we know are not always consistent with fact.

So how do we reliably gain anything from the psalms? Some guidelines I use:

  • We don’t use psalms to teach doctrine; there are other types of literature in the Bible that are more useful for that, and we will plant our standard in that ground and not in the soft ground of the emotion-laden psalms.
  • Looking at “the whole counsel of Scripture” will help us sort through what is feeling and what is fact.
  • We will seek to understand the psalmist’s feelings and glean what insights we can from those.

With that, let’s dive into these first psalms of David. Here are some lessons I see:

  • David took refuge in the Lord. This valiant warrior, leader of a thousand men who succeeded in everything he did, needed a refuge. If he did, who doesn’t need a refuge? Further, he did not rely on his own resources, but took refuge in the Lord. If the Lord made him valiant and a capable fighter and leader and gave him success in everything he did, doesn’t the Lord seem like a good place to take refuge?
  • The one whose refuge is the Lord doesn’t always respond to situations as others think wise.
  • The Lord tests or examines the righteous, as contrasted to hating the wicked. Apparently David views the testing as showing love.
  • Does God really hate the wicked? In Psalm 145 David wrote twice that God is “loving toward all he has made.” Hate is offered here as a contrast to the feelings God has for the righteous. He may not actually hate the wicked, but He doesn’t have the same feelings for them that He has for the righteous.
  • David wanted to see God rain coals on the wicked, fire and sulfur…. Sounds like hell. Hell is a place God made, and intends it for His creatures who continue in their rebellion. For God is, after all, righteous, and cannot tolerate sin in His presence.

There are likely other observations that stand out to you. Why do they stand out to you? What insights can you glean from them? Ask God for insight and trust Him to reveal to you what He wants you to understand. This is a sure way for you to grow in your love for His word, to be taught by it directly. If you have questions, I am available for guidance as you learn to understand what Scripture is saying and to apply its truth to your life.

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Day 100 — I Samuel 15 – 17, Psalm 144

Day 100! Doesn’t that feel like an accomplishment?!

God regretted that He had made Saul king because Saul had turned back from following Him and had not performed His commandments. Further, because Saul rejected God’s word, God rejected him from being king. Unlike man, God doesn’t have to live with regret; He judges what causes Him regret. Isn’t regret a sad word for God to use with regard to one He had chosen? He doesn’t have anything to regret with regard to you, does He?

Saul claimed that he had performed God’s commandment and obeyed God’s voice by going on the mission which God had sent him and devoting to destruction the people he defeated. When he was confronted about the animals that had been saved from destruction, he placed the blame on the people and said that the animals were for sacrificing to God. We aren’t given enough information to know what truly was in Saul’s heart: did he really think he had obeyed God’s command, or was he justifying his actions? God didn’t buy it, and He won’t buy our excuses, either. If Saul was confused about the details of his mission, God didn’t buy it. If he believed that partial obedience, the going and destroying of the people, was good enough to call it obedience, God didn’t buy it. If he truly felt pressured by the people, God didn’t buy it. Failure to obey was called rebellion by God. Apparently God saw the sin of presumption in Saul’s actions, that he intended to ask forgiveness later for his actions, and expected to receive it after having done what he wanted instead of what God wanted. God didn’t extend that to him. What does God’s response to Saul lead you to expect from Him if you try the same?

Saul confessed that he had sinned – was it prompted by genuine remorse? Apparently it was just words, for he asked Samuel to pardon him, when the sin had been against God. And although he said he wanted to bow before the Lord, and did bow, he did not submit to God. We know that because Samuel had to be the one to kill the Amalekite king, and although Samuel had told Saul that God had taken the kingdom from him and given it to a more worthy man, Saul made no secret about his intention to kill Samuel if he anointed another king. Another hint about the condition of Saul’s heart was that he called God “the Lord your God.”

When God told Samuel that man looks on the outward appearance, I don’t think He was just thinking about the kind of things that made Saul stand out physically, but also a person’s actions. God is not fooled by our actions. Our service, our kind gestures, our pious demeanor, and our words may favorably impress other people, but God will never be fooled by them. And even if we try to convince ourselves that our motives are pure, that we’re “doing okay,” God is not fooled. We may actually fool ourselves, but we will never fool God. That is why David in Psalm 139 invited God to search him and try him. Since Saul’s example shows that even if we fool ourselves we will not be excused by God for our rebellion or presumption, we should regularly invite Him to reveal to us if there is anything in our hearts that has fooled us, so that we can make it right. God will not do that if we don’t invite Him to. Today is a good time for that, since our reading reminds us of it!

Several clues in today’s reading reveal that David was not highly regarded by his father or brothers. Can you imagine being left out of that important feast with the renowned Samuel, when everyone else in the family got to attend? He was so unimportant in his father’s eyes that Jesse didn’t even tell Samuel that there was another son until Samuel asked, and then Jesse was dismissive of the young man. Did the hurt that must have caused him shape David to be the man after God’s own heart? I believe those kinds of hurts are allowed by God to drive us to Him. Can we appreciate them for what they are, and allow Him to use them for His intended purpose?

The Philistines weren’t far into Judah’s territory when they gathered at Socoh, for Azekah was just on the Philistine side of the boundary between Philistia and Judah. Saul had made progress in his ongoing fight against the Philistines.

David was offended by Goliath’s taunts because he was defying the armies of the living God, and in so doing had defied God Himself. In a day when every people had multiple gods, and each people group respected the gods of any other people who enjoyed wealth or success in battle, Israel’s God would have been perceived as one of many. David was taking a stand first and foremost for God’s honor above all other gods. In doing so, he trusted God to deliver Goliath into his hand, so that “all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel, and that all this assembly may know that the Lord saves….”

Goliath’s huge sword and spear and javelin meant nothing to the one who came in the name of the living God, the Lord of hosts. David must have looked tiny and naked next to Goliath in his bronze helmet, coat of mail, and greaves, protected behind his shield bearer. He must have expected that his bold words would provoke Goliath, but he spoke them unashamedly as he took his ridiculously vulnerable stand. He would have had a captive audience as he spoke them; what a witness! And God validated his witness, so that no one could deny that God saves,. God would have stood out above all other gods, not only because of David’s words, but God’s actions. What does David’s example teach you about your own witness for God? Does God want you to be jealous of His honor?

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Day 96 – I Samuel 1 – 3; Psalm 113

The account of Elkanah’s family in today’s reading is another example that shows that everyone was not “doing what was right in his own eyes” in Israel in those days. Such people were not visible to the writer(s) of Judges, but were quietly living as God intended for them to live, in the midst of the awful sin that came from each one doing what his selfish heart desired.

Any woman who knows what it’s like to suffer unfulfilled longings for children understands only a fraction of what Hannah suffered because of her infertility. On top of wanting helplessly to hold her own children, Hannah had to suffer the degradation of her personal worth for her lack of children, for in that culture the worth of a woman was measured in her ability to have children. Doubtless it was all the more difficult for her that the other woman in the home had children; where could Hannah find refuge from the hurt that confronted her even in her home? Then there was the added burden of that other wife’s “provoking her bitterly to irritate her”; could you imagine having to live with that? Can you imagine how worthless Hannah must have felt? How tortured her life must have been? Hannah’s example offers inspiration to women suffering infertility today.

I can’t imagine giving up a young child to live far away. As much as Hannah must have longed to keep that boy, waiting for him for so long and desiring so intensely to have him, she loved God more. She rejoiced in the blessings God had given rather than focusing on what she was losing by giving up Samuel. She doubtless wept for her loss as she left him in Shiloh, but her “heart exulted in the Lord.” What a witness! She testified that her strength “was exalted in the Lord.” She “rejoiced in His salvation.” She knew Him to be her firm foundation. She found all that she needed for self-worth in Him, for she recognized that all are subject to God: He can change the fortunes of anyone, so that the one exalted in society is brought low, and the low one exalted. Counter to what her culture taught her, she believed that one’s station doesn’t change one’s worth in truth. What of Hannah’s example might you need to put into practice today?

Eli was about to discover the same counter-culture truth that Hannah had discovered, because he did not esteem the office of High Priest as it merited, catering instead to his sons and allowing them to degrade the office to satisfy their sinful and selfish desires. Eli himself didn’t despise God, for he warned his sons, but the judgment was pronounced against him. Actually, as God sees it, failing to honor Him is the same as despising Him, and Eli definitely failed to honor Him in the way he allowed his sons to continue in their despicable actions. If you see any injustice in that, or anything else that makes you doubt God’s good character, please confess your doubts to Him and ask Him to enlighten you. If you are truly seeking Him, He will be found by you in a way that is unforgettable!

What a contrast Eli and Hannah are, and what a contrast their legacies are! Eli’s actions impacted his entire household and its future generations in a devastating way; Hannah has given encouragement and a godly example to countless women through the ages. Does it make you think about the legacy you are building?

Just as Samuel mistook God’s voice for Eli’s, we can miss perceiving His words to us if we’re not expecting to hear from Him. Do you expect to hear from God? He doesn’t often speak audibly, but He does communicate with us in many other ways. The problem is, He doesn’t speak loudly enough to be heard over the constant barrage of noise and/or activity with which we fill every minute of our days. If we are going to hear from Him, we must seek Him, ask Him, expect Him to answer in His way and not our own, and wait for Him in an atmosphere conducive to hearing from Him. That would be a prayerful atmosphere. What would that prayerful atmosphere look like for you? Would it be outdoors or indoors? Surrounded by nature or soft music or absolute silence? He says through the writer of Psalm 46, “Be still, and know that I am God.” If stillness is foreign to you, you are going to have to practice it to take advantage of this gracious opportunity to know God.

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Day 60 — Numbers 14 – 15, Psalm 90

God was angry with them because of their lack of faith in Him. Faith, or their lack of faith, was a choice here. They chose poorly. Do you see faith as a choice? Faith isn’t a feeling of belief; rather it is a choice to believe when the feeling is not there. It is exercising trust. If God was angry with His Old Covenant people for not exercising faith in Him, does He get angry with His New Covenant people for the same? Is He angry with you today?

Observe Moses’ approach in interceding for the people. We can learn from it how to pray more effectively. What steps can you list that he took, and how can you apply each one to your praying for others?

Caleb and Joshua didn’t contribute to the bad report, and indeed, presented a totally different picture of the land and encouraged the people to trust in God to bring them into it; they would be rewarded for that faith and faithfulness. However, they also had to wait forty years with the rest of the congregation. What does this example of God’s dealing in men’s affairs speak to you about His dealing in your affairs? Isn’t it frightening to think that worthy people, our own dear ones, might suffer unjustly because of our choices? Thank God for this compelling reminder, which is powerful encouragement to us to make better choices.

Verses 14:28-35 are key verses in the book of Numbers. The book began with a census. God promised that every man numbered in that census, those aged twenty years old and older, would die in the wilderness and not see the Promised Land. So the book is really a story about God’s faithfulness to this sad promise.

The people acknowledged that they had sinned, but rejected the consequences of their sin. They did not have the same attitude toward their sin that God had. This is far from the response that God accepts. The sinner who humbles himself before God, seeking forgiveness, intending to forsake the sin, is the one to whom God responds. His plan is that man be saved from sin, not simply acknowledge it. Their refusal to accept the consequences of their sin was the polar opposite of the humble response God would accept. What does this speak to you about your own response to sin?

Their further actions can be instructive as an object lesson for our own actions. They attempted to take possession of the Promised Land contrary to God’s plan and without God’s presence (and thus, His help). Do we try to circumvent God’s plan for our salvation and try to enjoy His promises without His help? Remembering that God’s Old Testament people are showcases for fallen human nature, we must take this story as an opportunity to search our own lives and hearts for the same responses they made, and the attitudes that those responses reveal.

So the nation of Israel was doomed to spend forty years in the wilderness. The entire generation of complainers and grumblers would die in that time and never see the Promised Land. This delayed God’s plan for that time,and  didn’t look glorious to that generation of onlookers; nevertheless, He kept them in the wilderness, outside the Promised Land for the full forty years. Isn’t that sad? Eating manna when they could have been enjoying those grapes. Surrounded by gray and brown when they could have been enjoying the green that produces milk and honey. The wilderness becomes an object lesson for us, an object lesson of living outside of God’s promises to us. You’re not doing that, are you?

God used the sad time in the wilderness for good. One good thing that came from it is that Moses used the time to write the first five books of the Bible. God also used the time to instruct them further in His desire for them. What He adds here to the Law is simply giving them the highlights, a broader perspective of what He wants, so that they understand His heart. Some of the highlights:

  • They don’t decide what the payment for sin is; God does. Bringing the offering as God specified demonstrated confession (seeing one’s sin as God sees it) and humility before Him.
  • He provided a way for them to pay for unintentional sin, but the one who sinned intentionally and deliberately was to be cut off from his people. There was no remedy for such sin.
  • He really does intend that the Sabbath be a day of complete rest for them! Punishment of death seems harsh, but it would mean that the people would do this thing that was obviously very important to God.
  • Tassels on their garments were important? No, remembrance is. Remembrance that would cause them to obey God’s commands and so be holy to God, rather than “follow after (their) own hearts and (their) own eyes”. Remembrance would cause them to see God for Who He is.

Moses also used his time in the wilderness to dabble in some poetry. Psalm 90 is all the more powerful to me when put into the context of the writer’s circumstances. It is his testimony of finding God even in the sentence of wasting a generation’s worth of time in the wilderness. A brief review of the Psalm teaches how he did so: praising God, acknowledging God’s sovereignty and submitting to it, reflecting on a realistic perspective of life, seeking for God to bring good through the suffering of life so that in the end His people have gained what is truly of value, and asking God for His good graces. What of those speaks most profoundly to you?

He is right in saying that they have been consumed by God’s anger – that is literally, as well as figuratively, true! Yet he seeks to be satisfied with God’s lovingkindness, that they “may sing for joy and be glad all (their) days (verse 14).” Lovingkindness from a God whose anger has consumed them? Satisfaction in that lovingkindness, instead of resentment for dear ones being consumed by the anger, instead of resentment for consuming hope for a life in a land of milk and honey with a sentence of a life wasted in the wilderness? Really? Expectation of joy in that circumstance? Gladness when dying in the wilderness is all they have to look forward to in this life, or for half of them, languishing in the wilderness for a full generation because of sins they didn’t commit? These are worth pondering.

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Day 1 – Genesis 1 – 4; Psalm 8

There’s so much here that we’ll never cover it all, or even scratch the surface. But a few things I choose to cover this time through:

Did God create? Did He create in a literal six days?
God did not give us an exhaustive account of creation here. Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, writing with the purpose of documenting the history of the nation of Israel, whose transformation from slavery to conquerors he was attempting to lead. The questions in their minds about origins were much different than ours are. No one in that day doubted that the earth and life are the creations of a transcendently existent, powerful and intelligent God, so Moses didn’t record all the details we would like to have to satisfy the questions raised by modern man. But just because the details aren’t there, doesn’t mean that the Bible’s account of creation is inaccurate.

If you want to know how something happened, you consult eyewitnesses. Who was present to witness creation? Only God. So why wouldn’t we accept His account as authoritative? Man’s wisdom has arrived at accounts of origins of the universe, of life, and of man, based on observations of what is present today: matter and processes he observes today. Science’s theories of origins assume that the processes we observe today have always continued as they are today, which is not necessarily true. In fact, tomorrow’s reading tells about a one-year process that formed much of what we see today. A similar modern-day experience on a smaller scale would be the Mount St. Helens eruption. The processes that they think take millions of years can in a catastrophe take a very short period of time – days, even.

The theories of origins devised by man are inconsistent with the laws of nature, such as the law of entropy, which states that everything goes from a state of order to disorder, unless energy is applied to stop that process of decay. Microbiologists no longer believe in evolution, based on discoveries of how a cell, even a simple cell works. The discoveries about the cell wall itself leave those who know the most about it in awe, unable to believe that it could happen by chance in any amount of time. They believe that a cell is evidence for intelligent design, even if they are not willing to admit that the designer is God.

This story in today’s reading confronts us with a choice: will we choose to believe God, despite what man’s most revered wisdom has devised, or will we risk man’s derision and choose to believe God? If we doubt what God (the only eyewitness) tells us about creation, how trustworthy can we consider His account of man? Of His plan to redeem man; indeed, of the actual need to redeem man? Our choice of whether or not to believe this account of creation has critical consequences for our belief of other truths of which the enemy will want to deceive us. Faith needs to be exercised to believe any account of creation, for none of us were present to witness it; who will you choose to believe, the One who is called faithful and true, or the one who is a deceiver?

What does His creation teach you about God? Creation and God’s method of creation speak to us in different ways. I challenge you to consider this today: what does God’s creation declare to you? For example, a couple observations off the top of my head: That cell wall. If the more man, even a skeptical man, knows about the cell wall alone, drives him in awe to believe in intelligent design, God’s design is truly wonderful. Usually, the more we understand about something, the less amazing it seems. Not so with God’s creation; we will never plunge the depths of understanding He demonstrates in His creation. So it is with all of God’s truth. Secondly, He evaluated His work at the end of each day, and pronounced it good. He took satisfaction in a job well done! I like that about God!

The awfulness of sin.
What’s so awful about eating a piece of fruit, we wonder. God had instructed them not to eat it; they disobeyed God. Eve disobeyed because she found the fruit attractive and because she wanted to be as wise as God. She chose to believe the deceiver’s lie that it would make her as wise as God, rather than consult God about the matter. She attempted to take what she wanted, apart from God’s provision for her, when the denial was actually for her protection. She allowed herself to be used by Satan to hurt God, and allied herself with Satan, doomed to be his pawn. Adam ate because he was influenced by Eve.

The same thing that causes modern man to leave out God from the explanation of where the earth and life came from!

Perhaps we can’t fathom the awfulness of sin because we are in the midst of it, like we can’t see our way through a maze because we are too close to it. In any case, the truth is that sin is awful. If we see it no other way, we see it in its consequences: death. The first taste of this consequence that Adam and Eve had was when God in His mercy provided coverings for their nakedness: He killed an animal. Think of the shock that would have been for Adam and Eve: that animal was doubtless loved by Adam as we love our pets. He named each one! There was no enmity between Adam and any of them, and doubtless they played together like we play with our pets. Think how Adam and Eve grieved over the lifeless body of their dear pet, and how horrible it felt to know that their choice was the cause. Think how repulsed Adam might have been that God could do something so awful, when it wasn’t God’s choice at all; it was man’s choice that brought death. These are all thoughts that are worthy of our contemplation today about our own sin and God’s provision for it.

God’s Promise to Pay Satan Back

In Genesis 3:15 God promises that while Satan will bruise man’s heel, there is a man who will be born one day who will crush Satan’s head. This is God’s announcement that He isn’t giving up on man, that He has a plan to rescue him from Satan’s clutches. Don’t miss this important verse, for it’s what the whole Bible is about!

Is God Good?

Part of sin’s consequence was that the creation was changed. Caring for it would no longer be the delight it had been; it would be toil. Tomorrow’s reading tells us about further changes to creation resulting from man’s sin. God’s creation was something He called “good” over and over again; man’s sin ruined it. So when we see something awful in creation, we are in error to think, “If God is so good, why is this awful thing part of His creation?” Isn’t it scary to realize that sin has consequences beyond the obvious, and that nature suffers for our sin?