God Judges

Posted on by korgrocker

“Arise, O Lord, in anger! Stand up against the fury of my enemies! Wake up, my God, and bring justice! Gather the nations before you. Rule over them from on high. The Lord judges the nations. Declare me righteous, O Lord, for I am innocent, O Most High!”
Psalm 7:6-8 NLT

People must think that David was either very brave or very stupid, speaking to God like that. We, of course, know intuitively that our Creator God cannot be ordered around like David was trying to do, but that didn’t seem to stop him having a good rant about divine justice being meted out on his enemies. David wanted God to become angry with his enemies and bring about a universal judgement of nations, all arraigned before Him. Oh, and in the process, David demanded that God declared him righteous and innocent.

But David wasn’t wrong in his expectations, because there is coming a day when God will judge the nations. It was just that David seemed to require an immediate Godly response, so we can perhaps instead consider a prophetic message here, embedded in David’s rant. But we mustn’t forget that God had judged the sin and wickedness prevalent in the earth before. We remember the Flood, Genesis 6:5-7, “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart. And the Lord said, “I will wipe this human race I have created from the face of the earth. Yes, and I will destroy every living thing—all the people, the large animals, the small animals that scurry along the ground, and even the birds of the sky. I am sorry I ever made them””. God judged the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, and we can read the account in Genesis 18 and 19. “So the Lord told Abraham, “I have heard a great outcry from Sodom and Gomorrah, because their sin is so flagrant”(Genesis 18:20). “Then the Lord rained down fire and burning sulphur from the sky on Sodom and Gomorrah. He utterly destroyed them, along with the other cities and villages of the plain, wiping out all the people and every bit of vegetation” (Genesis 19:24-25).

Has God judged peoples today? There is the reality of what God’s present judgement looks like in Romans 1. Here are some extracts, “But God shows his anger from heaven against all sinful, wicked people who suppress the truth by their wickedness. … So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies.  … Since they thought it foolish to acknowledge God, he abandoned them to their foolish thinking and let them do things that should never be done. Their lives became full of every kind of wickedness, sin, greed, hate, envy, murder, quarrelling, deception, malicious behaviour, and gossip. … They know God’s justice requires that those who do these things deserve to die, yet they do them anyway. Worse yet, they encourage others to do them, too” (Romans 1:18, 24, 28-29, 32). Persistent and wicked people will be abandoned by God, and we can read the consequences in Romans 2:5-6, “But because you are stubborn and refuse to turn from your sin, you are storing up terrible punishment for yourself. For a day of anger is coming, when God’s righteous judgment will be revealed. He will judge everyone according to what they have done”. 

David asked God to wake up and deal with his enemies. But God is very much awake and is storing up all the information needed for that terrible day when everyone, without exception, will come before Him and be judged. Thankfully, God is extremely patient, as Paul wrote in Romans 2:4, “Don’t you see how wonderfully kind, tolerant, and patient God is with you? Does this mean nothing to you? Can’t you see that his kindness is intended to turn you from your sin?”‭‭ And that’s the issue. God wants no-one to perish and end up in hell, and He has allowed a life span for mankind to respond to Him in repentance. Once the last breath is taken a person will find that, for them, God’s patience has expired.

God judged people through the Flood and Sodom and Gomorrah, but He also judges today by abandoning people to the consequences of their wickedness in their lives on earth.

So, we pilgrims must never give up in sharing with others the Good News about Jesus. Only He can forgive our sins – there is no other name through which we can be saved. 

Dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for Calvary and Your willingness to die for mankind so that whosoever believes in You will inherit eternal life. We are so grateful, and we pray for our friends and family, that they too will find the narrow gate that leads to life. In Your precious name. Amen. 

Betrayal and Justice

Posted on by korgrocker

“O Lord my God, if I have done wrong or am guilty of injustice, if I have betrayed a friend or plundered my enemy without cause, then let my enemies capture me. Let them trample me into the ground and drag my honour in the dust.”
Psalm 7:3-5 NLT

Psalm 7 continues with David apparently still in a hard place, bothered with his conscience, persecuted by those around him, and desperately seeking God for rescue and His protection. But he started to do what we all do at times – he looked for a cause for his distress. Have we ever been in a place where the Heavens seem like brass and we feel that our prayers never reach God? Have we ever been in a place riven by troubles and wondered where God has gone. Perhaps we are in a place like the Psalmist when he wrote, “Day and night I have only tears for food, while my enemies continually taunt me, saying, “Where is this God of yours?”” (Psalms 42:3). A place that perhaps feels like David’s “darkest valley”. 

David wondered if there was something that he had done that had made God withdraw from him, and so he asked God if he had done anything wrong. Had he treated someone unjustly? Had he betrayed a friend? Had he behaved in a way to his enemies that wasn’t right? If he had done any of these things, then David invited God to let things happen to him that would count as punishment for his misdemeanours, justice for his crimes.

But thanks to Jesus, we know that God doesn’t treat us in that way. Paul wrote, “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners. … But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:6, 8). In Romans 8 we read, “Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? … And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love” (Romans 8:35, 38).

So when we find ourselves in a dark place, seemingly a long way away from God, is it God who has withdrawn from us? Of course not. He is always there for us, His loving kindness, grace and mercy beyond measure. And so once again we seek Calvary’s cross, where we look into the face of our wonderful Saviour, Jesus. There, as we cast off our burdens of sin before Him, we find once again a right relationship with God and comfort in our times of trouble. Refreshed and restored, we can prayerfully face into the issues troubling us, with God providing the care and support that we need.

Dear Lord God. Nothing can separate us from Your love. Please help us to live in the light of that every day of our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

The Lord My Protector

Posted on by korgrocker

“I come to you for protection, O Lord my God. Save me from my persecutors—rescue me! If you don’t, they will maul me like a lion, tearing me to pieces with no one to rescue me.”
Psalm 7:1-2 NLT

The introduction to this Psalm seems to be focussed on someone called “Cush the Benjamite”. Perhaps David had been having some problems with him, whoever he was, but we don’t find mention of him anywhere else in the Bible. David again was writing about problems he was having with people around him, a recurring theme in the previous few Psalms. David prayed that God would save him from his “persecutors”, so presumably this man Cush was their ringleader. 

What was there about David that caused him to spend so much time anxious and worried, even physically sick, because of those who didn’t like him and who he perceived, rightly or wrongly, as wanting to do him harm? In Psalm 7:2, one of today’s verses, he even compared the attacks of these people as being like a mauling from a wild animal. Today, with our propensity to label people, we might assign a name to David’s reaction to others as being a “social anxiety disorder”. Perhaps he was very insecure, afraid of what others thought of him. And yet this was the rising royal star of whom songs were sung, “This was their song: “Saul has killed his thousands, and David his ten thousands!”” (1 Samuel 18:7). Fearless in battle, giant killer, musician, God-worshiper – all these terms were used about David, and yet here he was, so much apparently going for him, but praying to God for relief from his persecutors.

What can we pilgrims learn from these Psalms? From David’s pen flowed verse after verse asking God for protection, for healing, for rescue from enemies, and, as we read today, safety from his “persecutors”. David of course was doing the right thing by bringing his concerns to God. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5:7, “Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about you“, but David, long before Peter wrote anything, knew that his Lord cared for him. But that didn’t stop him descending into the pits of worry and anxiety when the going got tough. We pilgrims won’t be immune from the cares of this world either. There will be times when we have to take a stand on an issue that will not win us any friends. It is not inconceivable that we may even have to stand in a court of law defending our actions over an important issue where the secular laws contradict God’s higher laws. Sometimes being a Christian will mean swimming against the tide of public opinion, but there is one factor that will sustain us through the hard times, and that is our status as children of God. We are citizens of God’s Kingdom, and it is to Him that we are accountable. 

The Psalmist wrote in Psalm 118:7, “The Lord is for me, so I will have no fear. What can mere people do to me?”. Sounds good to our ears, but there will be times when we succumb to our humanity and worry about what other people are saying about us. Pilgrims remain close to God, “trying to live at peace with everyone”, and weathering the storms of life as and when problems emerge. We stand firm, because God is on our side. He will protect our souls until the glorious day when we pass through the gates of Heaven into His presence.

Father God. You know the pain and distress that comes from living in this evil world, but, as Jesus said, You have overcome the world. Thank You that we have security in You, this day and forever. Amen. 

The Lord Has Heard

Posted on by korgrocker

“Go away, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping. The Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will answer my prayer. May all my enemies be disgraced and terrified. May they suddenly turn back in shame.”
Psalm 6:8-10 NLT

David has been on a journey in this Psalm. He started off with sickness, aching bones, weeping, even the fear of death, and in it all he reminded God of what he thought were His obligations. At no point did doubts emerge in David’s mind that God would not heal him and finally he wrote, “The Lord has heard my plea”. David’s last verses in this Psalm continue with the thought that behind it all was the fear of his enemies and what they might do to him. In the previous verse he wrote, “My vision is blurred by grief; my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies”. For a man who had fearlessly and efficiently despatched Goliath, why, all of a sudden, was he afraid of “enemies”? In the previous Psalm written by David (Psalm 5), we find, “My enemies cannot speak a truthful word. Their deepest desire is to destroy others. Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with flattery“. And in Psalm 41:5-6 we perhaps get some clarity about who these enemies were, “But my enemies say nothing but evil about me. “How soon will he die and be forgotten?” they ask. They visit me as if they were my friends, but all the while they gather gossip, and when they leave, they spread it everywhere“. 

David was being worn down by evil people claiming to be his friends but in reality they were seeking his downfall. David was a God-fearing and believing man with his first priority being the worship and following of God. David would therefore have been living a life aspiring to purity and holiness. Not for him the ways of the world of his time, with the idol worship and evil practices, and that set David apart from his peers. In Jesus’ day, the same thing happened to the Son of God. His life of purity and holiness was absolute, and even made one of His disciples, Peter, exclaim, “ … Oh, Lord, please leave me—I’m such a sinful man” (Luke 5:8b). The contrast between Jesus and the people in the world around Him was stark and it ultimately led to the people, who were healed and fed during His public ministry, crying out “Crucify Him” because they felt terminally uncomfortable in His presence. David was shunned and slandered by people who he referred to as his enemies, and it affected him deeply, to the point of sickness and depression. 

Today, a practising Christian in the office is not a popular figure. Not for a faithful believer are the smutty jokes, the lunchtime drinks, the debauched office parties. The world hates those who dare to be different, who follow God’s ways. But believers in Christ are assured that their prayers are heard. David wrote, “the Lord has heard my plea; the Lord will answer my prayer”, and ruled for many years as Israel’s king. Jesus warned His disciples, and by inference us pilgrims as well, when He said, “I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me. Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). Further on in His Priestly Prayer Jesus said, “I have given them your word. And the world hates them because they do not belong to the world, just as I do not belong to the world. I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one” (John 17:14-15). 

We pilgrims do not belong to the kingdom of the world, riven and blackened as it is by evil, wickedness and sin. David wasn’t, Jesus wasn’t and neither are we. There was a day when we crossed the border to become citizens of the Kingdom of God, and we now are subservient to a different King who has promised to never leave us or forsake us. Yes, sometimes it will be difficult to avoid the attacks of the enemy. Sometimes such hassles will affect us deeply, as they did to David. But we have a King, our Lord and God, who hears our pleas and who will answer our prayers.

Dear Father God. We ask for Your help in our fight against our enemies. Keep us all safe, we pray. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Grief and Tears

Posted on by korgrocker

“I am worn out from sobbing. All night I flood my bed with weeping, drenching it with my tears. My vision is blurred by grief; my eyes are worn out because of all my enemies.”
Psalm 6:6-7 NLT

David is in a desperate place, sobbing, weeping and grieving. David is irreconcilable, and all because of his enemies. They could have been his physical enemies, both inside and outside of Israel. They could have been the forces of the enemy, the devil, playing havoc with his mind. But whatever they were, they were so real to David that he was spending the night crying when he should have been sleeping. 

David was not in an unique place, because his experience is not uncommon. In the dark hours there are times when a problem we are facing into becomes so pressing, so hopeless, that we plunge into depressive depths and, even if not openly, we weep inside, lying awake as the waves of despair flood over us. And isn’t it strange, that a problem being faced by one person is something minor and insignificant to another. Whatever our stations in life, there is always a problem that could be facing us, one with the potential to reduce us to weeping and sobbing. 

There was a time when the Jews, exiled to Babylon, far away from home, did a lot of weeping. But Jeremiah the prophet had some encouraging Godly words for them, “For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope”(Jeremiah 29:11). And that is what afflicts so many people – a lack of hope. Many people think that the life they lead is hopeless and futile and they try to dull the pain by turning to some other remedy, like alcohol or drugs. For a time their pain and distress will be alleviated, but it will still be there in the morning. Others become so hopeless and depressed that they finally decide to take their own lives. 

Paul wrote to the Romans the following words, “I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:13). Sadly, so many people will never turn to the “Source of hope” for a solution to their distress. But Paul’s prayer provides such a different picture to the one generated by the weeping David. God is hope and as we trust in Him, the power of the Holy Spirit will provide the solution to our problems.

Dear Heavenly Father. Only You can open doors to people locked in a place of hopelessness, weeping and sobbing. As we face into distressful situations like David, please help us as we turn to You, the Source of hope. Amen.

The Finality of Death

Posted on by korgrocker

“Return, O Lord, and rescue me. Save me because of your unfailing love. For the dead do not remember you. Who can praise you from the grave?”
Psalm 6:4-5 NLT

A grim subject to write about this morning, and not one that is a popular discussion point in every day life. Death is a certainty. No-one will escape its clutches. Human beings get to a point in life when their bodies wear out and they die, and David was aware of that because he took pains to remind God of the fact. David seemed to be afraid of his enemies and prayed for rescue and salvation from death, a common prayer by anyone in fear of mortal danger. News is coming in this morning of a plane crash in South Korea with many deaths resulting. Those people would have cried out to God for rescue, whether they knew Him or not. But most people (over 90%) die peacefully in their sleep, having fulfilled their “three score years and ten” or even more if they have the strength. 

David reminded God that dead people cannot praise Him, and that is the issue. We have a short span of life available to us during which we can offer God our praise and worship. A time when we can communicate with Him, thank Him, love Him, serve Him and enjoy Him, as the Westminster Catechism records. But inevitably there will come a time when this opportunity will pass. As we read the Davidic Psalms, we can see that David had a relationship with God, birthed in the long hours while he watched his father’s sheep. Times when he praised and worshipped God with his harp, finding the sweet spot of relational bliss with his Creator. He knew that God loved him. He knew that God supplied his needs, and he knew that he could communicate directly through his prayers and conversation with his Lord. But in this moment of crisis, he appeared to be facing into death, and was appealing to God for rescue. 

We know that there comes a time when our physical bodies die and are disposed of as being of no further use to us. Most people think that there is something going to happen after we die, and there are some strange theories about what that is. We have incarnation, where we return in a different body. Some believe that everyone goes to a place they call Heaven. Others believe that when people die they enter a period of blackness, the ultimate finality. But the Bible tells us that when we die, our spirits live on and end up in a holding place we call Heaven or hell. Jesus told a story about the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke 16, and from the conversation Jesus had with the adjacent penitent thief at Calvary, we know that there is a place called paradise awaiting us. So the question facing into mankind is, without exception, “Where will your spirit go after you die?” We pilgrims have made the right choice, because we are children of God. But what about those around us, who perhaps have yet to make a decision, and for whom the clock is ticking? In Acts 2:40 we read, “Then Peter continued preaching for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation!”” And these words still reverberate today, as we repeat them to the lost and dying around us. The most important choice that a human being can make is about their post-death future. 

Dear Father God, please lead us to those who are open to Your Gospel, and are waiting for someone to share what You have done for us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Have Compassion

Posted on by korgrocker

“O Lord, don’t rebuke me in your anger or discipline me in your rage. Have compassion on me, Lord, for I am weak. Heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony. I am sick at heart. How long, O Lord, until you restore me?”
Psalm 6:1-3 NLT

David must have been in a hard place when he wrote this Psalm. Had he done something he shouldn’t and his conscience was working overtime? Had he done something that had made God angry with him? Or had he contracted some illness and thought his condition was a punishment from God? But whatever it was, David was unhappy, and he asked God for healing. Pain in our bones is not a common condition, and is usually accompanied by an injury or, in modern times, some forms of cancer, so perhaps David had indeed been damaged during an accident or battle. But whatever the reason, David  was weak and depressed through his pain and sickness. 

But where did David turn to in his distress? His Lord, of course, and the conversation was robust and demanding on David’s part. He looked to God for a solution to his woes, and, by the way, please hurry up with the remedy Lord! 

As we read these verses, what do we think? If we experience pain, what do we do? Probably we reach for the pain killers, or, if necessary, get in touch with a doctor. If depressed, we find a councillor. We research our condition on the internet. But, sadly, it is often only when all other remedial avenues have been explored before we turn to God. He has been waiting in the wings all along trying to get our attention, but to no avail. David prayed for God to have compassion on him, for healing and for restoration. His relationship with God was such that, based on his faith and previous experiences, he knew God would come through for him. 

Today, we are blessed with health remedies unheard of in David’s day. Medical technology is advancing all the time and many conditions are now treatable. But often the medics are dealing with the symptoms and not the causes. David looked to God for a reason for his conditions and concluded that his behaviour had perhaps been the instigator. In his days, the thought was that sin was judged and dealt with through something like sickness, or an unfavourable event. In Deuteronomy 11:26-28 we read, “Look, today I am giving you the choice between a blessing and a curse! You will be blessed if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today. But you will be cursed if you reject the commands of the Lord your God and turn away from him and worship gods you have not known before“. 

These verses are still in the Bible today, and it may be that sometimes sickness and ill health have their roots established in wrong choices that we have made. Wrong relationships, carelessness with finances, reliance on drugs and alcohol, crime, and more. We only have to look at society today to see the effects wrong choices have made on people’s lives. But there is a way back to a right relationship with God. He is indeed compassionate and merciful. He will help us put right the wrongs of the past. As we implement God’s commands in our own lives, we find ourselves aligned to God’s ways, just as He intended when He created us. Of course, we live in a fallen sinful world, and we will still get sick, but God is still there for His children, when they cry out to Him in prayer. 

Dear Father God. Please help us to live our lives Your way, every day. Amen.

Refuge in God

Posted on by korgrocker

“But let all who take refuge in you rejoice; let them sing joyful praises forever. Spread your protection over them, that all who love your name may be filled with joy. For you bless the godly, O Lord; you surround them with your shield of love.”
Psalm 5:11-12 NLT

As the soft tones of the accompanying flute echo in the air, David finishes this Psalm with a wonderful picture of God’s protection, a picture of a scene of peace and tranquillity as the storms of life rage unceasingly around him. A 3D cameo of a human being hanging in a maelstrom of chaos, untouchable and safe, forever buoyed up into the presence of God. To describe this place, David used words and phrases like “refuge”, “spread Your protection”, “surround”, and “shield of love”. In David’s world, perhaps he was envisaging an impregnable fortress where his enemies could not reach him. Or it was the thought that in the middle of a battle the swords and spears of his opponents were unable to pierce the circle of shields that had sprung up to protect him. And welling up within him was an indescribable joy expressed in singing as he basked in God’s love.

Have we pilgrims ever been in a place like David? Have we ever experienced God’s protection, saving us from all the enemies that would come against us? A lovely story we perhaps think but not one that matches reality. We ask why bad things happen to good people. A fellow Christian smitten with ill health. A child of believing parents snatched from them by a drunk driver motoring by. Fellow believers in other nations persecuted because of their faith. Even people who dared to believe faithfully that God would protect them from anything bad, but He didn’t. 

We can read about the saints of old in Hebrews 11. On the one hand, there were those who seemed to go through life unscathed. Hebrews 11:33-34, “By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight”. But there were others described in the verses after, ” … But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons” (Hebrews 11:35-36). 

In Jesus’ longest prayer, He declared, “During my time here, I protected them by the power of the name you gave me. I guarded them so that not one was lost, except the one headed for destruction, as the Scriptures foretold” (John 17:12). But a bit later on, Jesus prayed to His Father, “I’m not asking you to take them out of the world, but to keep them safe from the evil one” (John 17:15). And there’s the key. We, as human beings living in a world riddled with sin and wickedness, will experience the same ailments as anyone else, believers of not. Occasionally God will especially protect His children, as I can personally testify with the miraculous healing of my daughter. On other occasions He will, perhaps inexplicably, not answer the prayers in a way that we would like. But we will pray anyway. Fatalism has no part in a believer’s life. God is not capricious, however, sometimes healing a person and then on another occasion not doing so, depending on His mood. God looks at the big picture, and He has promised to keep us safe from the evil one. Living in a sinful world has its down sides, but one day we pilgrims will find ourselves in a place where, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:4). In the meantime, whatever our circumstances, sick or well, we can “sing joyful praises” to God, assured of His loving and gracious protection until we arrive home.

Dear Father God. We bring all our sicknesses and diseases, our fears and worries, to You secure in the knowledge that You have shielded us from all the attacks of the evil one. As we stand firm in Your love we praise and worship You with thanks full hearts. And we thank You that one day, sooner to later, You will take us away to a place with You. Amen.

Foul Talk

Posted on by korgrocker

“My enemies cannot speak a truthful word. Their deepest desire is to destroy others. Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with flattery. O God, declare them guilty. Let them be caught in their own traps. Drive them away because of their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.”
Psalm 5:9-10 NLT

The smell that emanates from a rotting corpse is disgusting, and it is just as well that bodies are buried today in a box or cremated and not left to decompose where there are people. However, in his day David was obviously aware of such a smell and he compared it to the “foul talk” that comes from the mouths of his enemies. But who are these enemies? There is nothing to say that they are foreign forces or nations on Israel’s borders. David’s enemies are probably those within Israel who don’t like the way he rules the country. You will always find a group of people, usually a minority, who think that the only important thing in life is their own particular ideology and anyone who disagrees with them, especially the governing authorities, then become an “enemy” of the state. Or there may have been a political party who disagreed with David and were intent on stirring up trouble in the hope that a new government could be formed, more sympathetic to their politics. And in David’s days, as in our modern societies, truth becomes a scarce commodity. But David wasn’t fazed by such people. He knew what they were about, their lies, their flattery, their plotting and scheming. If only, he thought, God would get rid of them, and then he would’t have to put up with them.

But David somehow associated what came out of their mouths with the “stench from an open grave”. The Apostle James had another view of “foul talk” In James 3:5-6, we read, “ ... the tongue is a small thing that makes grand speeches. But a tiny spark can set a great forest on fire. And among all the parts of the body, the tongue is a flame of fire. It is a whole world of wickedness, corrupting your entire body. It can set your whole life on fire, for it is set on fire by hell itself.” In David’s day, in James’ day and even in our 21st Century societies, what comes out of the mouths of human beings can, and often will, be “foul”. Jesus put His finger on the problem in Matthew 15:18-19, “But the words you speak come from the heart—that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander“. The tongue is just a tool that expresses what is happening inside someone’s head, because it is here that the “foul talk” originates.

“Foul talk” has no place in a pilgrim’s life, and the Apostle Paul wrote about the remedy in Ephesians 4:21-23, “Since you have heard about Jesus and have learned the truth that comes from him, throw off your old sinful nature and your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes.” Our minds, soaked and renewed in the power of the Holy Spirit, will find it more and more difficult to generate the lying thoughts that irritate the nostrils of those around us. Instead, truth will emanate graciously from our lips, pleasing our wonderful Heavenly Father.

Dear Father God. We pray David’s prayer in Psalm 19 before You today, “May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” Amen.

Our Patient God

Posted on by korgrocker

“My enemies cannot speak a truthful word. Their deepest desire is to destroy others. Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave. Their tongues are filled with flattery. O God, declare them guilty. Let them be caught in their own traps. Drive them away because of their many sins, for they have rebelled against you.”
Psalm 5:9-10 NLT

David returns to thoughts about his enemies. David has little positive to say about them and, reading these verses, we get the impression that he thinks that God should feel the same way as he does. So, after David points out all the bad things that his enemies do, he asks God to do something about it. “Declare them guilty” and “Drive them away”, he asks. But does God answer his petitions? Straight away? Right at that moment?

That’s the thing about God – His patience. And aren’t we glad that He was patient with us, during those times when we were wayward and guilty of rebellion against God through our sins. On Mount Sinai, Moses encountered God, and his account includes, “The Lord passed in front of Moses, calling out, “Yahweh! The Lord! The God of compassion and mercy! I am slow to anger and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness” (Exodus 34:6). God will always give His enemies time to come to their senses, because He is patient with them and slow to get angry. He never wants anyone to perish in their sins. But impatient David wanted immediate action from His powerful God. 

Isn’t that the same with us pilgrims? We encounter many injustices in our journeys through life and want God to sort them out. The scandals of homelessness, drugs, addictions, wars, poverty – the list seems endless. “Come on, God, sort them out” we cry. But Heaven is silent and nothing happens. The scandals continue, or so it seems. But then we pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that God is holding back a tide of evil and wickedness that would more than overwhelm the problems we see in life. Of course there is much happening in this world that one day will have to be judged. But God is patient. He is aware of the injustices happening before Him. But He also has allowed mankind to make their choices, and one day everyone will be called to account for the things they have done. 

David spent much time in God’s company and he learned to trust Him in all the situations he encountered. We pilgrims must also trust God, having the faith that He knows best and one day will balance the scales. So, we pray about situations we encounter, we act as God directs, and we wait for the salvation of the Lord to be manifested in what is before us. 

Dear Father God. Thank You that You have this world in Your hands. We pray that You will help us see what is happening around us through Your eyes, each and every day. In Jesus’ name. Amen.