Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 105-107.

The psalmist tells us to praise the Lord and proclaim His name.  Let us make known what He has done.  That theme permeates these three psalms.  First the psalmist gives examples of what God has done to redeem His people in the past, and encourages us, no, commands us, to relay these stories to those we meet.  He talks about how those who rebelled against God were punished, although those who repented and cried out to God were delivered.  He reminds us how God’s people forgot Him again and again, only to turn back to Him when troubles arose.  The psalmist speaks of those who stood in the breach before God so that He would not destroy those who had rebelled against Him.  Those individuals both begged God to be merciful and heroically called people to turn to and obey God.  Finally, the psalmist calls on us to tell the stories of how God has redeemed us.  He gives examples of those who  suffered for their sin, then cried out to God and were delivered.  Let  us continue to tell the stories which have been passed down to us from those who served the Lord in the past.   The stories of how God worked through acts of nature and how He worked through those who stood up to others.  Let us tell the stories of how God redeemed us.  And let us be inspired to stand up like the heroes of God from the past.

He sent darkness and made the land dark—
    for had they not rebelled against his words?

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good;
    his love endures forever.

Blessed are those who act justly,
    who always do what is right.

Yet he saved them for his name’s sake,
    to make his mighty power known.

But they soon forgot what he had done
    and did not wait for his plan to unfold.

So he said he would destroy them—
    had not Moses, his chosen one,
stood in the breach before him
    to keep his wrath from destroying them.

But Phinehas stood up and intervened,
    and the plague was checked.

Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story—
    those he redeemed from the hand of the foe,
³ those he gathered from the lands,
    from east and west, from north and south.^[e]

Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 105-107.

Often when we think of the ways in which the Israelites were saved by God, and then turned away from following His commands only to cry out to Him again and be saved, we think of the first being one generation, the turning away to be another, and often the crying out to be a third generation.  However, the psalmist points out here that during Exodus, God saved the Israelites from Egypt only for the same generation to turn to idolatry, suffer for it, turn back to Him and be rescued.  Repeating this pattern multiple times.  We must strive not to repeat this pattern, but we probably will.  Let us praise God because He will forgive us our sins when we genuinely turn to Him.  The psalmist further writes that God will bless us in order that we might observe His laws.  (I actually like that phrasing because it hints at the idea that we can actually see God’s laws by looking at the world around us.)  But perhaps my favorite part of today’s psalms is in Psalm 107, where the psalmist tells those whom God has rescued from adversity to tell their story.  Or, as the King James Version translates it, “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so.”  Let us tell the story of how God has rescued us from difficult situations.  I have been in terrible situations where I cried out to God and He rescued me from them.  Yet, I am well aware that those situations were, as the saying goes, “first world problems” compared to what others have faced.  In fact, even many others have had “first world problems” which made my greatest struggles seem incidental and those in less fortunate parts of the world have suffered in ways I find hard to imagine.  I have been blessed all of my life and I still fail to be as faithful to God as I ought.  As I write this I pray to God that He transform me into someone more faithful to Him.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 105-107.

Near the beginning of Psalm 105 the psalmist tells us to make known among the nations what the Lord has done.  Then in Psalms 105 and 106 he tells the story of the people of Israel.   He writes about the good thins which God did for them, and the punishments He levied upon them for their sin.  These psalms serve both as encouragement and warning.  The psalmist tells us that despite the fact that the people sinned again and again God took pity on them when they cried out to Him and delivered them.  He will do the same for us.  But the psalmist also warns us by telling us of the punishment which God laid on the people of Israel for their sins.  God’s people failed to separate themselves from the people living in the land around them.  They adopted their customs and joined them in the worship of idols, going so far as to sacrifice their own children.  They shed innocent blood in their worship of false gods which led God to punish them harshly.

At the end of Psalm 105, the psalmist tells us that God gave the people of Israel a good land so that they might keep His precepts and obey His laws.  At the end of Psalm 106, he tells us that if the people of Israel once more turn to God after suffering His punishment He will once more restore them.  Which brings me to Psalm 107, where the psalmist tells those of us who have been redeemed by the Lord to tell our story.  So, Psalms 105 and 106 tell the story of the wondrous deeds which God has done for those who went before him, then Psalm 107 tells the story of some who were contemporaries of the psalmist.  Let us follow the example of the psalmist.  Tell the stories of the wondrous things which God did for those who went before us and then tell the story of the things which God has done for us.  Tell people about what God has done throughout history, then make it personal by telling them what He has done for you.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 105-107.

All three of today’s psalms focus on reminding us to give thanks to God for what He has done.  The first two emphasize how, as a group, the people of Israel had time and again rebelled against God, only to turn to Him once more when they faced the consequences of their rebellion.  The two things he speaks of which hit home to me are when he speaks of their sin in worshiping Baal of Peor and then adopting the evil customs of the people in the land they were promised.  The first strikes me because I know from elsewhere that the appeal of worshiping Baal of Peor was the sexual sins which were practiced as part of that worship.  The second because the psalmist calls out that one of the evil practices was killing their own children as sacrifices.  I see both the sexual sins and the killing our children in our society today.  Our society condemns as “intolerant” and “hateful” those who call us to follow God’s plans for our sexuality and those who defend the children in the womb.

The third psalm calls on us to tell our stories of redemption.  Here the psalmist focuses on how we as individuals have sinned and been brought back to God.  Whether we were lost and homeless, or suffering incarceration because of our crimes, or suffering depression (perhaps because of our sins), or facing danger from forces of nature, let us share our stories of how God redeemed us when we cried out to Him for help.

I will share one of those times when God redeemed me.  I was managing a convenience store.  It filled my time, leaving me no social life.  I could not even reliably set aside time to go to worship services.  It did not even allow me time for a job search.  The job had become a dead end and drained me of all of my joy.  I prayed earnestly to God for relief and He brought a job opening to me which gave me fresh interest in life and a regular schedule.