Category: Psalm91-

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Psalm91-

The one worthy of our praise and trust

Psalm 95 is very interesting to me in that it starts out with great praise and rejoicing and concludes with a solemn warning.

You can easily hear the joy in the psalmist’s voice as he sings,

Come, let us sing for joy to the LORD;
let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before him with thanksgiving
and extol him with music and song. (Psalm 95:1–2)

Why do we praise him?

  • He’s the great God. (3)
  • He’s King of kings and God above all gods. (3)
  • He’s our Creator. (4–5)
  • Despite all these things (or perhaps it’s better to say, “because of all these things”), he loves each one of us deeply and cares for us. (7)

So the psalmist invites us,

Come, let us bow down in worship,
let us kneel before the LORD our Maker. (6)

But then he gives us warning, saying,

Today, if you hear his voice,
do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah,
as you did that day at Massah in the desert,
where your fathers tested and tried me,
though they had seen what I did.

For forty years I was angry with that generation;
I said, “They are a people whose hearts go astray,
and they have not known my ways.”

So I declared on oath in my anger,
“They shall never enter my rest.” (7–11)

Twice in the desert, the Israelites failed to trust God, complaining about the lack of water. This despite all that God had done for them in the past.

The second time complaining about water was especially egregious, leading to Moses’ sin of striking the stone that God had commanded him to speak to. (Exodus 17:1–7, Numbers 20:1–13)

These were far from the only times that the Israelites failed to trust God.

The reason they wandered for 40 years was because they refused to enter the land God had promised to give them. Instead they were determined to go back to Egypt. (Numbers 13–14)

As a result, God told them, “You will never enter my rest.”

And so the psalmist warns us, “Don’t be like them. Don’t be stiff-necked. Humble yourselves before God and trust him. For he is not only worthy of our praise, but of our trust.”

How about you? Are you trusting God in all you do? Are you doing things his way, or are you doing things your own?

If we trust him, we will find peace, rest, and joy in our lives. But we will lose all these things if we insist on trusting in ourselves.

Who are you putting your trust in?

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The God who judges, the God who disciplines

Judgment and discipline. I think a lot of times we get confused about which God is doing in our lives, particularly when bad things happen to us. It’s easy to think, “God must be judging and punishing me for what I did.”

But is that how God thinks?

I think in Psalm 94, we see a distinction between the two. Judgment comes for those who have rejected God, while discipline comes to those who are his own.

In the beginning of this psalm, the psalmist cries out for God’s judgment to come upon the wicked, saying,

Rise up, Judge of the earth;
pay back to the proud what they deserve.

How long, Lord, will the wicked,
how long will the wicked be jubilant? (Psalm 94:2–3)

He then talks about all the evil they committed, and how in their hearts, they say, “God doesn’t see all that I’m doing.”

And the psalmist rebukes them saying,

Take notice, you senseless ones among the people;
you fools, when will you become wise?

Does he who fashioned the ear not hear?
Does he who formed the eye not see?

Does he who disciplines nations not punish?
Does he who teaches mankind lack knowledge?

The Lord knows all human plans;
he knows that they are futile. (8–11)

He concludes the psalm by saying of them,

He will repay them for their sins
and destroy them for their wickedness;
the Lord our God will destroy them. (23)

But what of those whom God calls his children? How does he deal with their sin? The psalmist writes,

Blessed is the one you discipline, Lord,
the one you teach from your law;
you grant them relief from days of trouble,
till a pit is dug for the wicked.

For the Lord will not reject his people;
he will never forsake his inheritance. (12–14)

I think there are two things we learn about God’s discipline here.

First, it’s meant for our good. God disciplines us to save us from trouble, not bring us into it.

Second, no matter how much we fail, God will never reject us. He will never disown us as his children.

More than that, he will stand for us. The psalmist writes,

Who will rise up for me against the wicked?
Who will take a stand for me against evildoers?

Unless the Lord had given me help,
I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.

When I said, “My foot is slipping,”
your unfailing love, Lord, supported me.

When anxiety was great within me,
your consolation brought me joy. (16–19)

In other words, while the wicked would attack us and accuse us, God will stand up for us. When Satan himself comes to condemn us, God defends us. And so the psalmist writes,

The wicked band together against the righteous
and condemn the innocent to death.

But the Lord has become my fortress,
and my God the rock in whom I take refuge. (21–22)

So as God’s children, let us never mistake God’s judgment for his discipline.

When we sin, God will bring discipline into our lives. But it’s to help us, not to harm us. It’s to save us, not to destroy us.

And remember that no matter how much we fall, he will never leave us nor forsake us.

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The God who reigns

This is a very short psalm, and it reminds me of the old song by Jack Hayford, “Majesty.”

For it reminds us of the majesty of God and how it is he that reigns over this whole earth. The psalmist starts by proclaiming,

The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty;
the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength;
indeed, the world is established, firm and secure.
Your throne was established long ago;
you are from all eternity. (Psalm 93:1–2)

Sometimes, as we look at the world around us, things seem out of control, with wars, violence, and all kind of evil around us.

But the psalmist reminds us, “In spite of all you see with your eyes, the Lord reigns. And he is in control.

“He established this world, and long before he did that, his throne was established. So don’t panic. Don’t worry. Put your trust in him who has existed from all eternity.”

He then goes on in the following verses to say, “Do you see the power of the ocean? Do you see how it roars and pounds the rocks on the shore? Know that God is much more powerful than even nature itself.”

The psalmist concludes by singing,

Your statutes, Lord, stand firm;
holiness adorns your house
for endless days. (5)

In other words, not only is he powerful and sovereign, he is also holy in all his ways.

I don’t know about you, but that’s comforting. If God were powerful and sovereign, and yet evil, we’d be in serious trouble. But he is holy, good, and just.

And as his people, he calls us to be holy as well. For as the writer of Hebrews puts it,

Without holiness no one will see the Lord. (Hebrews 12:14)

So in light of God’s majesty, sovereignty, and holiness, let us pursue holiness in our lives. And the day will come when we will see with our own eyes this God who reigns.

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Psalm91-

Making music towards God

Psalm 92 was written for the Sabbath. As most people know, the Sabbath was a day that God told the Israelites to set aside in order to worship him. That’s exactly what this psalm does.

I like verses 1–2.

It is good to praise the Lord
and make music to your name, O Most High,
proclaiming your love in the morning
and your faithfulness at night. (Psalm 92:1–2)

Proclaiming your love in the morning.

Why is it important for us to do this? It reminds us that there is hope as we face the day. That whatever we may face during the day, that God is with us and that his hand is upon us.

Proclaiming your faithfulness at night.

At the end of the day, it’s good to look back on the day and to remember what good things God did for us. To remember that even through the problems that confronted us, God didn’t leave us behind. Rather, in love, he carried us through.

The psalmist expounds on this further, singing,

For you make me glad by your deeds, Lord;
I sing for joy at what your hands have done.

How great are your works, Lord,
how profound your thoughts! (4–5)

Then similar to Psalm 1, he contrasts the wicked and the righteous. He says first,

Though the wicked spring up like grass
and all evildoers flourish,
they will be destroyed forever.

But you, Lord, are forever exalted.

For surely your enemies, Lord,
surely your enemies will perish;
all evildoers will be scattered. (7–9)

But of the righteous, he sings,

The righteous will flourish like a palm tree,
they will grow like a cedar of Lebanon;
planted in the house of the Lord,
they will flourish in the courts of our God.

They will still bear fruit in old age,
they will stay fresh and green,
proclaiming, “The Lord is upright;
he is my Rock, and there is no wickedness in him.” (12–15)

I love the latter part of that, especially. That even into our old age, we will bear fruit, staying fresh and green.

I don’t want to be a withered shell when I grow old. I want to stay fresh and vibrant, making a difference for God in the lives of everyone I touch.

But that’s what can happen if we fail to constantly make music in our hearts toward God. If we fail to remember his love, his faithfulness, and his goodness. If instead we let bitterness, greed, or the things of this world take root in our hearts.

So let us take the time every day to praise him.

Praise him in the morning.

Praise him in the evening.

Praise him every opportunity that you have during the day.

And set apart not only our days for him, but our hearts.

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Psalm91-

Shadow of the Almighty

One of my favorite books is Shadow of the Almighty.

It’s a book that has a lot of the letters and journal entries of a man named Jim Elliot, a missionary to the Aucas in South America. If you’ve never read it, it’s well worth reading and I highly recommend it.

The ironic thing about it is that though the title of the book comes from this psalm, one can’t say that Elliot lived out this psalm at the end of his life… at least when we look at the surface.

Throughout Psalm 91, the psalmist talks about the blessings of those who live under the shadow of the Almighty.

The psalmist says that those who do will be protected from the terror by night, from the arrows that fly around them, and from the plagues that strike those around them.

He goes on to say that though thousands may fall around you because of these things, you will be preserved.

He caps this in verses 9–16, saying,

If you make the Most High your dwelling—
even the LORD, who is my refuge—
then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent.

For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard you in all your ways;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.

You will tread upon the lion and the cobra;
you will trample the great lion and the serpent.

“Because he loves me,” says the LORD, “I will rescue him;
I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call upon me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble,
I will deliver him and honor him.

With long life will I satisfy him
and show him my salvation.”

So how did Elliot end his life? By dying at the hands of the very people he was trying to reach with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

This is not just an aberration either. Many have fallen before their time in their pursuit of God. Isaiah, Peter, Paul, and James, among many others.

What am I saying? That God’s word does not hold true? Not at all.

But to say that we will never suffer in this broken world would be taking this psalm too far.

And whoever the psalmist was, whether it was Moses or someone else, I find it hard to believe that they never saw suffering in this world come to those who put themselves under God’s shadow.

But I think what this psalmist is ultimately saying is that when we put ourselves under the shadow of the Almighty, he will never abandon us no matter what we go through.

Not only will he set his angels to guard over us, he himself will be with us. And though we may go through the valley of the shadow of death, he will bring us out the other side.

As we look back, we will see that all along his hand was on us. We’ll see the times he answered our cries in our times of despair. We’ll see all the evil that he spared us while we were here. And ultimately, we will see his salvation.

That’s what I believe Jim Elliot saw when he came out the other side. His Savior smiling, saying, “Well done! Now look and see what fruit your death has brought.”

Namely, the salvation of many Aucas, including some of the very ones that had killed him.

So whatever you may be going through in life, may you place yourself in the shadow of the Almighty too.