For today, One Year Bible Online links here.
Your friends will help you become a better person in the same way in which iron can sharpen an iron knife.
This psalm points out the feedback loop which exists in serving God. If we follow God’s commands joyfully, we will gain great joy. Another way to look at the point the psalmist makes here, and elsewhere, is that once we recognize the results of following God’s commands we will not only be happy to do so, but eager to do so. Do you have the faith to eagerly do what God commands?
The writer continues to write about how our predecessors in faith acted because of their faith. They knew the joy to which the psalmist referred in today’s psalm. The writer here writes about those who were strong and victorious in ways we readily recognize because of their faith, but he, also, speaks of those who demonstrated they were strong and victorious by suffering for their faith.
I have mentioned this before, when I was growing up my family had a copy of the book titled “Martyr’s Mirror”. In it there were stories of people who suffered many terrible tortures and were killed because they would not give up their faith. The bulk of the stories in the book took place during the Reformation. Time after time there are accounts of how the first step the authorities took when torturing these Christians to death was to make sure they could not talk. Why was that? Because if they could talk, they would sing. And not just sing, they would sing so joyfully that those listening wanted to know what they knew that would give them such joy while they were clearly suffering. The faith of those martyrs was so great that those watching them burn to death wanted to emulate them. Do we have faith that inspires others?
Ezekiel prophesies against Egypt. He says that Egypt will be conquered and rendered desolate because it failed to offer the support to Judah which it had promised. The government of Egypt accepted the things which the Kingdom of Judah offered it for protection against Babylon, but when Babylon attacked Judah, Egypt did not send any aid. This is a warning to those who promise to be Israel’s allies today.