Dealing with Injustice

“When the wicked sprout up like the grass,

and when all the workers of iniquity flourish,

it is only that they shall be destroyed forever.”

Psalm 92:7

If we remember the truth stated in this verse – the wicked shall be destroyed forever – we will not become bitter when those who turn to wickedness prosper.  In the end, nobody ever “gets by”.  Keeping that in mind gives us the strength to obey God when others do not.

In this world, the wicked sometimes prosper, and the righteous sometimes have little.  Prepare yourself to deal with both of those realities while you live in this world.  If you do, you will find the strength to overcome the oppression of the ungodly.  Your heart will rest in perfect confidence that after this vain life is over, no wicked soul will ever again be blessed and no righteous soul will ever again suffer.

Wicked Rulers

“Shall the throne of iniquity have fellowship with you,

which frames mischief by a law?

They gather themselves together against the soul of the righteous,

and condemn the innocent blood.”

Psalm 94:20–21

Those who govern in this world are sometimes very wicked, and they sometimes pass laws to promote their wickedness, laws which oppress the upright and condemn innocent people.  The Bible provides stories of such bad government, such as the story of Nebuchadnezzar making a law that required everyone in his kingdom to bow to his huge golden image.

God can be extraordinarily patient with such evil rulers, and when He is, His children can grow weary as they wait for His judgments to relieve them of the oppression of the wicked.  But be faithful.  Our heavenly Father’s righteous judgment will come.  It always comes.

The author of this wonderful Psalm 94 encouraged himself, and us, in the two verses immediately following the two quoted above.  He concluded his psalm by saying, “But the LORD is my defense, and my God is the rock of my refuge.  And He shall bring upon [wicked rulers] their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness; yea, the LORD our God shall cut them off.”

Christ, the Faithfulness of God

Paul called Jesus Christ both the power of God and the wisdom of God (1Cor. 1:24).  Jesus called himself the way, the truth and the life of God (Jn. 14:6).  Jesus is also our hope (1Tim. 1:1) and the resurrection, in person (Jn. 11:25).  He is the embodiment of God’s love and goodness, and of the grace of God that saves.  He is everything, and the only thing, that redeems man and reveals God to man, not the least of which is God’s faithfulness.  That Christ Jesus is the faithfulness of God is repeatedly suggested in Psalm 89.

Psalm 89:1: Let me sing of the Lord’s eternal mercies!  Let me make known with my mouth your faithfulness through all generations!

Christ did not come to earth merely to talk about God; the whole world was doing that before he got here.  Christ made God’s faithfulness known, by coming to earth, taking on human form, and being God’s faithfulness in person, showing us God’s faithfulness in himself.

Psalm 89:2: Truly, I say, eternal mercy shall be established; in heaven shall you establish your faithfulness.

The Father established His faithfulness in heaven when He raised Jesus from the dead and settled him at His right hand – no longer a hidden Son, as he had been since the foundation of the world, but revealed and openly occupying his appointed place.

Psalm 89:4–5: I will establish your seed forever, and I will build up your throne through all generations.  Selah.  Then heaven will praise your wonderful work, O Jehovah; how much more shall your faithfulness be praised in the assembly of the saints!

In these verses, the Son foretold that after the Father created the body of Christ (verse 4), he himself would declare God’s praise in the midst of those saints.  In Psalm 22:22, the Son said it this way: “I will declare your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation will I praise you!”

But notice as well that the Son foretold of heavenly beings praising God for His “wonderful work”.  That “wonderful work” is His Son, the only “work” God has ever done.  Everything else, the Son did (Jn. 1:3), as the Father willed it to be done.  The reason it was prophesied that angels would someday praise God for that work is that only in the future could they praise God for the Son, for until the Son was revealed in Jesus Christ, they knew nothing about him.

Psalm 89:8: O Jehovah, God of hosts!  Who around you is mighty like you and your faithfulness, O Jehovah?

The Spirit is asking the Father, “Who is like you and your Son?”

Psalm 89:24a: My faithfulness and my lovingkindness are with him.

The Father is explaining how it is that the Son could be His power and His wisdom, and His life, His goodness, His faithfulness, etc.  It is because everything that is true about God is in the Son.

Psalm 89:37: Like the moon, he shall be established forever, a faithful witness in heaven.  Selah.

The Son did not merely bear witness to God’s faithfulness; he himself became the faithful witness, settled in heaven forever at God’s right hand.  In Revelation 3:14, Jesus proclaimed himself to be “the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.”  And earlier in Revelation (1:5a), John referred to Jesus as “the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead.”

Jesus is everything that is true about God; all the wisdom and knowledge of God is in him (Col. 2:3).  Without the Son, no creature knows, or can know, God.  This is why, when Philip asked Jesus to reveal the Father to him, Jesus replied, “Have I spent so much time with you, and yet you don’t know me, Philip?  He who has seen me has seen the Father.  So, how is it you say, ‘Show us the Father’?  Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and the Father is in me?  The words I’m saying to you, I’m not saying on my own; but the Father who lives in me, He is doing the works” (Jn 14:9–10).

After reading aloud that passage from John, my father once asked a congregation, “Has anybody seen God in you lately?”  That is the real question, for Jesus was the light of the world only while he was here (Jn. 9:5).  Now, those to whom he has given the holy Spirit are supposed to be shining in his stead.  After all, it is the Spirit that was in Jesus, the same Spirit that is now in us, which is the light (Jn. 1:4).  That light shined through Jesus, and men saw God in him, but Jesus is gone now.  So, men have no way of seeing God now unless they see Him in us who have the Spirit and are still here.

Jesus was God’s way and truth and light and faithfulness for men.  He did his job and finished his work.  May God help us to be the light now “in Christ’s stead”.

Satan Knew

“He shall give His angels charge over you, 

to keep you in all your ways.

They shall bear you up in their hands,

lest you dash your foot against a stone.”

Psalm 91:11–12

During Jesus’ temptation, Satan quoted these two verses.  He knew them, and he understood that when God spoke them, He had His Son in mind.  Billions of people alive on earth today do not know that.  They do not know that the prophets spoke often, and in great detail, of the Son of God.

Satan has an advantage over those who do not both know and believe their Bibles.  In the wilderness temptation, he discovered that he had no such advantage over Jesus.  Does he have that advantage over you?

Learn your Bible.

Only What God Decides

“A thousand shall fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand,

but it shall not come near you.”

Psalm 91:7

Ordinarily, if 10,000 people fell dead at your right hand, you would say that death had come close to you.  But this man didn’t think so.  He had faith, and faith knows that if God decides that death will not touch you, then death is not close to you no matter how many people die nearby.

Consider Jesus’ example.  After his crucifixion, Jesus descended into hell, but that doesn’t mean that Jesus almost lost his soul.  Damnation was never close to Jesus, even when he was in the presence of millions of damned souls.  Likewise, death and damnation are far from those who love Jesus now, in this condemned, death-filled world.

Only what God decides matters.

No One Is Like God

“Who in the sky is comparable to the LORD?”

Psalm 89:6a

The expected answer to the Psalmist’s question was “nobody”, but there was one character in heaven who thought in his heart, “I am”.  Through Isaiah, God exposed those secret thoughts of Satan: “You have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and I will sit on the Mountain of Assembly, on the far north side.  I will ascend above the heights of the clouds.  I will be like the Most High” (Isa. 14:13–14).

That is how every proud soul secretly feels.

Jesus was humble, not proud, and every humble soul knows in himself that no one is like God.  When a wealthy young ruler came to Jesus and addressed him as “Good teacher!” Jesus replied: “Why do you call me good?  No one is good except One, that is, God” (Mk. 10:18).  This is the way every humble person feels.  For example, Moses, the humblest man on earth (Num. 12:3), boldly told mighty Pharaoh, “There is no one like the LORD our God!” (Ex. 8:10).

Flee from pride; it is a lie, and it will make you a liar.  There is none like God.

The Days of Our Years

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten,

and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,

yet is their strength labor and sorrow;

for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

Psalm 90:10

The human life span was almost a thousand years long in the generations before the Flood, but afterwards, man’s years began to decline.  Five hundred years or so after the Flood, Abraham died at 175 years; a thousand years later, David died as an old man at 70.

That age, 70, is the age Psalm 90 tells us God has chosen now for the typical human life span, or 80, if one is especially healthy.  But be encouraged.  Moses, who wrote Psalm 90 and told us that 70 years had become man’s appointed lifespan, lived to be 120 years old.  From that, we know that no matter what man’s normal life span is, we are not going to leave this world until God determines that we have finished our course down here.

God’s Secret Place

“He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High

shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”

Psalm 91:1

The “shadow of the Almighty” is not the “secret place of the Most High”.  The shadow of the Almighty is where those who dwell in God’s secret place choose to stay.

God’s secret place is in the Spirit, and those who walk in it choose to stay under God’s wing, that is, in His shadow.  They never go out and try to accomplish things on their own.  They are safe, with their lives hidden with Christ in God, and they love it.

Many have gone out on their own, “thinking to do God service,” but in the end, doing so cost them dearly.  God condemned them: “I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied” (Jer. 23:21).  Walking in the Spirit, we wait; we deny the flesh’s urging to do something before God commands it to be done.  We rest in God’s shadow, and stay acceptable in His sight.  Paul summed it up when he said, “Walk in the Spirit, and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16).

Let’s do that.  Let’s dwell in God’s secret place of the Spirit; all who do that choose to abide in the safety of His shadow.

The Joyful Shout

“Blessed are the people who know the joyful sound.

They shall walk, O LORD, in the light of your countenance.”

Psalm 89:15

The “joyful sound” mentioned in the verse above is actually a joyful shout.  Scholars define the Hebrew word used here as “a shout (of joy) with religious impulse”.  That’s a rather dry way of describing how a soul feels when he is so blessed and excited about the things of God that a loud, joyful shout bursts from his lips.  This “joyful shout” is not a silent, inner feeling.  It is public, and it is loud.  The same Hebrew word is used in other places, such as when the ark of the covenant was brought into the camp of Israel as they were about to enter into battle with the Philistines: “And when the ark of the covenant of the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted with a great [“shout of joy with religious impulse”], so that the earth rang again” (1Sam. 4:5).

Here are a some others:

2Samuel 6

14. And David danced before the LORD with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod.

15. And David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of the LORD with [“a shout of joy with religious impulse”], and the sound of the trumpet.

2Chronicles 15

12. And they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD  the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul. . . .  

. . . 

14. And they swore to the LORD with a loud voice, and with [“a shout of joy with religious impulse”], and with clarions, and with trumpets.

Ezra 3

11b. And all the people shouted with [“a shout of joy with religious impulse]” when they praised the LORD, because the foundation of the house of the LORD was laid.

Psalm 33

3. Sing to Him a new song; play skillfully with [“a shout of joy with religious impulse”].

Finally, it should be noted that sometimes, God feels so wonderful that He Himself shouts “a shout of joy with religious impulse”]!

Psalm 47

5. God has ascended with [“a shout of joy with religious impulse”]; the LORD  with the sound of a trumpet.

Now, if God does it, it cannot be a bad thing.  So, come on, everybody!  Let God’s “oil of gladness” flow down on you so that you make some holy noise for Jesus.  Be filled with the Spirit until you become so much like the Father, and His Son, and His saints, that from your lips, too, comes forth “a shout of joy with religious impulse”!

Thinking about Death

“Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wisdom.”

Psalm 90:12

Having observed people for many years now, I have concluded that in spite of all the evidence, people do not truly believe, down in their hearts, that they are going to die.  Intellectually, they know it is true, but in their hearts, they do not really believe it, and they do not want to think much about it.

Only fools do not consider their approaching death; all wise men do.  Solomon observed this and noted, “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth” (Eccl. 7:4).  You’ll find more wise men in funeral homes than in bars.

Think about death.  It is coming.  And if you do spend some time contemplating it, you’ll be a wiser person, and you’ll live a better life.

Our Dwelling Place

“O LORD, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.”

Psalm 90:1

God is our dwelling place.  If anybody asks a child of God where he lives, he can truthfully answer “in God”, for “in Him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28), and outside of God, there is no life at all, just darkness and death.  Likewise, when asked where my congregation meets, I sometimes say, “in Christ”.  God’s children come together only in Him, for outside of God and His Son, there is only division and strife.

Death’s Good Purpose

“You turn man to destruction, and say, Repent, you children of men!”

Psalm 90:3

God has turned us all over to death, and there is no escape.  “It is appointed to men once to die” (Heb. 9:27), and “there is no discharge in that war” (Eccl. 8:8).  Nothing God’s beloved Son did for us changed that awful curse on the human race.

But God did not leave us hopeless; He said, “Repent!”  That is, the curse of death does not fall on us as soon as we are born; we are given time to fear and to turn to God and receive forgiveness of sin before we die.  God’s curse of death has a good purpose!  It was to instill fear in us, to sober us up, and motivate us to seek the God who had cursed us.  All wise men take advantage of that precious opportunity to prepare their souls for the day of their death.

What the Son did was to provide eternal relief from the fear of death (Heb. 2:15).  His baptism of our spirits creates in us a fellowship with God that takes away the fear of death (1Cor. 15:55).  Receiving Christ’s baptism of life puts an end to death’s dominion because it transforms us from being mere humans, cursed by God, to being children of God, blessed forever with the Son.

God’s curse of death is still on all humans; the Son could not change that.  But he could change us into new creatures that are not under that curse.  If you are still human, do what God says and repent.  If you are a “new creature in Christ Jesus”, rejoice!  You have been promised eternal life!

Faithfulness in Heaven

“You shall establish your faithfulness in the very heavens.”

Psalm 89:2b

Why would God even have to establish His faithfulness in heaven?  Wouldn’t it always have been established in heaven?

Not if evil was allowed in heaven as well as good, which was the case before Jesus, the Son of God, was glorified to sit at the Father’s right hand and Satan and his angels were cast out of heaven.  From that day, God’s faithfulness was forever established in heaven, and all unfaithfulness was forever forbidden to enter.

Those among God’s children who are unfaithful to Christ will never behold the face of their heavenly Father because faithfulness is now the standard for all who stand in His presence.  Only those who were “called, and chosen, and faithful” will stand in God’s presence and see His face.

The Price of the Truth

“You have put away my acquaintance far from me;

you have made me an abomination to them.   I am shut up,

and I cannot come forth.  Lover and friend have you put far from me,

and my acquaintance into darkness.”

Psalm 88:8, 18

Loving the truth in Christ comes at a price.  Perhaps the hardest price to pay is that of lonely, reasonless ostracism and a cold contempt for your life and your feelings.  Jesus said that men would cast you out from their company if you loved him.  He knew.  Men cast him out for loving his Father.

The truth is an abomination to those who do not love it, and if you do love it, you will become an abomination to them, too, just as Jesus was.  Prepare your heart to pay the price of the truth.  In the long run, the truth is well worth the painful price you will pay.

Born in Zion

“And of Zion it shall be said, ‘This and that man was born in her,’

and the highest Himself shall establish her.

The Lord shall note, when He writes up the people,

‘This man was born there.’ ”

Psalm 87:5–6

Zion was a part of ancient Jerusalem, located on the northern end of the city where the temple stood.  In the Old Testament, an Israelite did not need to be born in Zion to belong to God; he could be born anywhere and still be one of God’s people.  In this New Covenant, however, only those born in Zion belong to God because in this covenant, Zion is a spiritual place.  It is the body of Christ, the Assembly of God.

Isaiah promised that the Lord would call Zion by a new name, and when He sent Jesus, Jesus renamed Zion.  He called it “my Assembly” (Mt. 16:18).  The only way to enter into the Assembly of God, the new Zion, is to be spiritually born into it.  This is why it was prophesied that “This and that man was born in her.” 

  Natural, human birth does not put anyone into Zion; only a spiritual birth.  And this is why Jesus said, “You must be born again.”  On the day of Pentecost, about 120 followers of Jesus, who had already been born naturally, were born again and entered into God’s new Zion, just as Isaiah had foretold: “Zion travailed; she brought forth her children” (Isa. 66:8).

Have you been “born there” yet?  Remember, Jesus said, “You MUST be born again.”

First Things First

“I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to those who know me.”

Psalm 87:4

If you want to understand the mysteries of the invisible kingdom of God, you must get to know Jesus first.  As he said in the scripture above, he reveals those kind of things only “to those who know me.”

You do not need to know all the mysteries of the Bible; you need only come to know Jesus.  When you have done that, Jesus will add to you all the knowledge of prophecy and other hidden things that you need, when you need it.

A United Heart

“Unite my heart to fear your name.

I will praise you, O LORD my God, with all my heart.”

Psalm 86:11–12

You can praise God with all your heart only when nothing from another god is in it.  A divided heart is a heart that believes some of what God says and some of what another god says, too.

Most of God’s people believe things Jesus said, but their heart is divided by faith in what one of Christianity's gods says, too.  Whether it be a lie from the Baptist god, or from the Methodist god, or the Catholic god, or the Pentecostal god, or one of the many others, it divides the heart.  It divides one’s faith between the true God and another one.

A “united heart” is a heart that believes nothing but what God says.  Only those whose hearts have been purged by the truth from everything false can glorify God with their whole heart.  They may glorify God most of the time, but part of their hearts still belong to the god who taught them the lies they believe.

To pray for a united heart is to pray to know all the truth.  May God give each of us a united heart so that we will praise Him with all our hearts!

Lifting Up the Soul

“Unto you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.”

Psalm 86:4

   You “lift up your soul” to whatever you pray to and trust in.  It is essential that when we pray and trust, we pray and trust in the living God instead of one of the gods that the religions of men offer.  To trust in and pray to those gods is to lift up your soul to nothing, and there is no hope of salvation in such gods:

   “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place?  He who has clean hands, and a pure heart; who has not lifted up his soul to vanity.” (Ps. 24:3–5).

Blessed by Death

“Yea, the sparrow has found an house, and the swallow a nest for herself,

where she may lay her young, even your altars,

O LORD of hosts, my King, and my God.”

Psalm 84:3

David thought that the animals were honored which were sacrificed on God's altar.  He was right.

In this covenant, we, not animals, are honored to die.  And this time, the death is death with Christ to this world and its ways.  Paul rejoiced in it:

“I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live.  Yet, not I, but Christ is living in me; and the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself up for me” (Gal. 2:20).

“But far be it from me to boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom the world is crucified to me, and I to the world” (Gal. 6:14).

And Paul exhorted us to follow him into the very great honor of this death to sin and self:

“I entreat you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Rom. 12:1).

Only the sweet Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, could make death a blessing.  But in him, everything is good, and if we are in him, even dying is desirable.

Judging among the Gods

“God stands in the congregation of the mighty; He judges among the gods.”

Psalm 82:1

“I have said, ‘You are gods,’ and all of you are children of the most High.”

Psalm 82:6

People in the world cannot judge God’s children any more than they can judge the cherubim in heaven.  If there arose a controversy between two cherubim, how foolish would it be for one of them to ask a human judge to decide which cherubim was in the right?  Humans know nothing of cherub life.  But it is even more foolish than that for God’s children to go to the world for judgment because the life they have from God is more foreign to this world than cherubim life is.

Only God can rightly judge among His people, and through the Spirit, His judgments are made known to them.  This is why Paul condemned certain believers in Corinth who had taken other believers to court: “I say this to your shame.  Is it really so, that there is not a single wise man among you, one who is able to judge between his brothers?  Instead, brother goes to court against brother, and that before unbelievers! Therefore, you have already suffered complete defeat because you are filing lawsuits against each other.  Why not rather be wronged?  Why not rather be cheated?” (1Cor. 6:5–7).

It is ungodly for a believer to sue another believer in a human court.  Jesus said the Assembly of believers is the final authority in settling disputes among God’s children (Mt. 18:17).  And the reason some believers despise the judgment of God’s Assembly and go to a court in this world instead is that they know that they are in the wrong, but they want the world to tell them they are right.