Tag Archives: Psalms 18-22

Daily Bible Study

June 20, 2023 Bible Study — God Deals Honestly with the Honest, But is not Fooled by the Deceitful

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 18-22.

I love the imagery the psalmist uses in Psalm 18 to show God’s power and magnificence of His action when He moves to deliver.  However, I want to write about verses 25 and 26:

To the faithful you show yourself faithful,
to the blameless you show yourself blameless,
to the pure you show yourself pure,
but to the devious you show yourself shrewd.

Here, the psalmist reminds us that God responds honestly to those with good motives, but will not be tricked by those who think they have found a loophole in His instructions.  From there the psalmist reminds us that our skills, in whatever area they lie, come from God.  Therefore let us use those skills to bring glory to His name.

The Lord lives! Praise be to my Rock!
Exalted be God my Savior!

For those who wish to justify their rebellion against God by claiming He does not exist, the psalmist states that the Universe declares that God exists; its splendor reflects God’s glory, and its very existence demonstrates His power and knowledge.  Finally, this collection of psalms reminds me why I wish to read the Bible regularly;

The law of the Lord is perfect,
    refreshing the soul.
The statutes of the Lord are trustworthy,
    making wise the simple.
The precepts of the Lord are right,
    giving joy to the heart.

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

Daily Bible Study

June 20, 2022 Bible Study — The Psalmist Could Have Written Special Effects Directions For Hollywood

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 18-22.

I love both the message of Psalm 18 and the imagery which the psalmist uses.  First, the imagery (I am just going to pull a few phrases out and paraphrase them together):

The chords of death entangled me, so I called to the Lord in my distress.  He heard my voice, the earth trembled and quaked because He was angry.  Smoke rose from His nostrils, fire came from His mouth. He parted the heavens and came down. Out of His presence clouds advanced with hailstones and lightning.  He reached down from on high, took hold of me and pulled me out of deep waters.

There is much more to this, and the psalmist says it so much better, but that imagery relates the power God will use to deliver those who put their trust in Him.  The psalmist goes on to point out that putting our faith in God is more than just calling on Him when things go bad.  God is faithful to those who faithfully follow Him, He is blameless to those who strive to be blameless, He is pure to those who seek to be pure, but to those who think they are clever enough to find loopholes in His Law, He will demonstrate that He is no less clever.

When I started writing the above I intended to write about how the psalmist tells us in Psalm 19 about how the Universe testifies to God’s greatness, and a bit about Psalm 22, which Jesus cited while He hung on the cross, but the above seems so complete I will stop here and leave those for you to read and meditate on your own.

 

The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
    night after night they reveal knowledge.
3 They have no speech, they use no words;
    no sound is heard from them.
4 Yet their voice[h] goes out into all the earth,
    their words to the ends of the world.

Keep your servant also from willful sins;
    may they not rule over me.

 

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
    but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

 

 

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

Daily Bible Study

June 20, 2021 Bible Study — Having Faith That God Will Save Us, Even In The Depths Of Despair

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Psalms 18-22.

Psalms 18 and 20 are perfect bookends for today’s reading.  Psalm 18 gives great imagery of the way in which God can, and will, exert His power when we call to Him in distress.  Psalm 22 teaches us the value of remaining faithful to God when life makes it seem as if He has abandoned us.  Often people look at Psalm 22 as a psalm of deep despair, of being abandoned by God, because Jesus quotes from it while He is on the cross.  Yet, if we read the entire psalm we see that despite feeling forsaken by God the psalmist still has faith that God will rescue him.  At the beginning of psalm 22 the psalmist seems to believe that God has abandoned him.  Later in the psalm the psalmist declares that he will praise God in the assembly. So, despite feeling that God has forsaken him, the psalmist has faith that God will rescue him, that he will have the opportunity, and reason, to praise God in the future.  When Jesus quoted the beginning of Psalm 22 He intended to communicate to us both that He was feeling complete despair and that He had faith that God had not truly abandoned Him.

I did not mean to spend so much time on Psalm 22 because there is more to be said about the other psalms in today’s passage.  In Psalm 18, we have the imagery of God coming to our rescue like one might see in an Action movie.  Then in Psalm 19 the psalmist tells us how the very universe testifies to God’s existence and His characteristics: as Elihu stated in the Book of Job, God uses the universe to speak to us of His will.  Throughout all of these psalms runs the theme that God will come to the aid of those who faithfully do His will.

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

Daily Bible Study

June 20, 2019 Bible Study — Images Which Convey God’s Power

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 18-22.

I love reading books from the Fantasy genre (think Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and Game of Thrones, although I am not a fan of the latter two for reasons of personal taste).  As a result, I love the imagery which the psalmist evokes on Psalm 18.  First we have the image of the distress in which the psalmist found himself:

  • “The ropes of death entangled me”
  • “death laid a trap in my path”

  Then we have the images of God’s response to his cry for help:

  • “the earth quaked and trembled”
  • “Smoke poured from his nostrils”
  • “He shrouded himself in darkness”
  • “rained down hail and burning coals”
  • “great bolts of lightning flashed”

The psalmist paints an image with his words of God’s power. A power which God will exert when the faithful cry out to Him, or when He deems it time to act on behalf of the oppressed.  I wish to never be on the receiving end when God strikes down those who abuse the poor and weak because, as the psalmist mentions here, then it will be too late to call out to God for rescue.

Psalm 19 speaks of how the created world testifies to God’s glory.  All of Creation speaks of God without making a sound.  No one has an excuse for believing that there is no God.  More importantly, Creation should inspire those of us who believe to praise and glorify God, just as the rest of Creation does.  But Psalm 19 tells us more than that.  It tells us of the beauty of God’s Word, and the pleasure in studying His Law.    Only by the careful study of His Law and the power of His Spirit can we be cleansed from sin.  And by “cleansed” neither I nor the psalmist just means forgiven.  Cleansed from sin means transformed so that I sin no more, a transformation I humbly pray that God completes within me soon (although I fear that it will not be soon).

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, oh Lord.

And finally, my prayer for those reading this today (from Psalm 20):

“In times of trouble, may the Lord answer your cry.
    May the name of the God of Jacob keep you safe from all harm.”

Daily Bible Study

June 20, 2018 Bible Study — Hoping, Even In the Depths of Despair

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 18-22.

    Every time I read Psalms 18 it evokes the image of a fantasy movie in my mind. Our protagonist has been trapped by his enemies. They have tied him up and placed him where the rising flood waters will drown him shortly. Even if he were to escape his bonds there are more traps between him and safety, he has no hope of escaping. In his desperation our protagonist cries out to his Protector, the Mighty Wizard King. Far away the Mighty King magically hears our protagonist’s cry. He is furious that anyone would dare attempt to bring harm to one under His protection. The entire palace trembles, even the land outside of it. The Mighty King bursts forth from His palace. Not taking time to saddle a mount, He rides storm clouds summoned by His anger to where our protagonist is trapped, firing arrows (think Legolas from Lord of the Rings, only more devastating) and lightning bolts at our protagonist’s enemies who are standing around watching him drown, scattering those who are not killed. Arriving just in time, the Mighty King reaches out His hand and plucks our protagonist from the rising waters and placed him on a high point safe from the waters.

    After this dramatic scene the psalmist tells us the unalterable characteristics of this Mighty King. He is faithful to those who are faithful. He shows His integrity to those who have integrity. His purity is revealed to those who are pure. But those who seek to take advantage of these characteristics by deceit and trickery discover that He is shrewd enough and wise enough to see through their plots. When they think they have found a loophole they can exploit by appealing to the letter of the Law, in violation of its spirit, they discover that the letter of the Law catches them out elsewhere.

    While not as dramatic, Psalms 19, 20, and 21 paint as magnificent of a picture of how God works in this world as Psalms 18. Through them we learn that following God’s commands and instructions lead to greater happiness and pleasure than can be gained from the sins they warn against. The psalmist makes clear that we do not need great training to understand what God says to us in the Bible. As I have read through the Bible over the last several years, this has become more and more clear to me. From time to time, I come across something which insight can be gained by referring to the original Greek or Hebrew words, but such is not necessary to understand the basic meaning anywhere in the Bible.

    Then there is Psalms 22, which Jesus cited as He died on the cross. Every since I became aware of the rabbinic tradition that quoting the first line or so of a Scripture passage invoked the entire passage I have found Jesus’ citing of it uplifting. The psalmist begins the psalm by expressing complete despair. He feels completely abandoned by God. He has declared his faith in God and now his enemies are mocking him with it. The psalmist is defeated and has no hope of rescue. Yet from this position of complete despair, he makes a further declaration of hope and faith. Despite feeling, and appearing, abandoned by God, he is confident that God will bring him through victorious. It appears that he is going down to defeat for the final time, but he is confident this is not the case. The psalmist declares that in the future he will declare God’s greatness before God’s assembled people. The time will come when he will share the story of what happened here as an example of God’s great power and faithfulness. Despite his feelings of great despair, when Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” He was declaring His faith that soon He would be telling people that His death was a reason to praise God. We should have similar hope and faith when we face despair. Jesus cried out so that we would know that it is OK to feel despair when we are in the midst of suffering, but we must not allow that despair to cause us to lose hope.

Daily Bible Study

June 20, 2017 Bible Study — Faith In God Turns the Horror Movie Into An Action Adventure

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 18-22.

    I love the imagery in Psalms 18 and 19. The psalmist declares that he was at his end, completely overwhelmed by the troubles which had wrapped him up. His words evoke an image from a horror movie, ropes coming up from a grave, wrapping him up, and pulling him down into the earth of the grave. There was nothing he could do but cry out to God, so he did. God heard his cry and the earth shook. I can just picture the scene in a movie (it kind of reminds me of a 50s B Horror movie). There our hero is in the graveyard. Suddenly, animated ropes come out of a grave and wrap him up completely. The ropes are dragging him back into the grave. Our hero is grasping, reaching for anything to hold onto, but failing to obtain a grip. He cries out, “God save me!” The whole scene shakes, in the distance we see smoke rising up as if out of the nostrils of a dragon. The dark clouds in the sky part, the sun shines through, and a figure rides down to earth on storm clouds. Thunder booms forth and hail strikes all around. Then in the midst of all this noise and violence the figure stretches forth its hand and gently raises our hero up from where the ropes have fallen away. The wounds the hero suffered are healed and he is sent in pursuit of his enemies. They fall before him. Now it is their turn to cry out to the Lord, but He does not answer them.
    And why did the Lord not answer the cries of our hero’s enemies? Because they did not do right. They were not faithful and did not show integrity. They were crooked and proud.

    Then Psalms 19 tells us, again with great imagery how can know what is right so that we can do it. The very world around us proclaims God’s greatness. His will and instructions are revealed in the sky above us and the world around us. God’s instructions are both a warning and a reward. They give insight into living and are sweeter than honey. The psalmist cries out to God to reveal the sins which he does not even know he is committing and to cleanse him of them. He asks God to keep his deliberate sins from controlling him. This psalm resonates with me because I know that it is only if the power of the Holy Spirit acts within me that I will be able to resist the temptation of sins. And it is only by the revealing light that I will recognize the sins which hide deep within my heart.

Daily Bible Study

June 20, 2016 Bible Study — When We Cry Out To God, He Will Come To Our Rescue

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading. Yesterday I commented how my approach to what I write each day changes. I was not entirely sure that I liked that when I wrote that yesterday. However, I realized today that I definitely like the way my writing has changed as I am reading Psalms. I am curious to see if my current approach lasts all of the way through Psalms.

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Today, I am reading and commenting on Psalms 18-22.

    Psalms 18 and 22 have a similar theme. Both psalms are written from the perspective of someone who has reached the end of their rope, who can hang on no longer. Psalms 18 is written after God has answered their cry and saved them. Psalms 20 is written from the perspective of someone who is in the middle of their trouble, feeling abandoned. I love the imagery the psalmist uses in Psalm 18 to describe God coming to the rescue of His faithful follower who has cried out to Him in desperation. In Psalms 18 the psalmist declares that he praises God for the great things God has done for him. On the other hand, Psalm 22 is a great declaration of faith. The psalmist is in the midst of his trial, unable to take any more suffering. Yet, he declares that he WILL praise God in the assembly. He declares that God has not and will not ignore the suffering of the needy. God will listen to their cries for help and save them. Lord give me the strength to trust in You when trouble finds me, and give me the faithfulness to declare to all when You have rescued me.

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    In between those two we have Psalms 19, 20, and 21. Their only common theme is the need to praise and worship God. As I sit here looking over my back yard with the trees thrusting up into the blue sky, I read Psalms 19 telling us that the heavens silently make God known and all I can say is “Amen!” In a world which is becoming scarier studying God’s instructions and commands brings us hope and joy. Yes, I will echo the psalmist’s cry, “Oh Lord, do not let the sins which lurk in my heart control me.”
    Psalms 20 I want to remember because it is one of the great blessings. If ever I need to give a toast or a blessing I want to remember to use Psalms 20:1-5. Right now I am praying it for anyone reading this blog today.