My grandsons love playing in the park.  Their city yard is postage stamp small without room for two active boys to run around much, so they enjoy a place with swings, slides, jungle gyms and seesaws. 
 
             Seesaws may be fun at the playground, but they are not God’s idea of ideal service.  Yes, we may falter once in awhile.  Many passages speak of faith in flux, but as we mature in that faith, the flux should become smaller and smaller.  David speaks of the opposite of a seesaw faith, even when he is running for his life in Psalm 57:7.  “My heart is steadfast, O God,” or, in several other versions, “My heart is fixed.”  In a time of fear when others would have wavered, David is able to keep his faith in God steady. 

              So the question is, how do we avoid the seesaws in life?  First, let’s make it clear—you can’t avoid the park altogether.  I hear people talking about life as if it is always supposed to be fun, always easy, and always good, and something is wrong when anything bad happens.  Nonsense.  We live on an earth that has been cursed because of man’s sin.  When God curses something, he does a bang-up job of it.  To think we would still be living in something resembling Eden is ridiculous. 

              We are all dying from the moment we are born.  Some of us just manage to hang on longer than others.  Some of us catch diseases because they are out there due to sin and Satan.  Some of us are injured.  Some of us have disabilities.  Some of us are never able to lead a normal life.  It has nothing to do with God being mean, or not loving us, or not paying attention to us one way or the other, and everything to do with being alive.  Everyone receives bad news once in awhile—it isn’t out of the ordinary.  Everyone experiences moments of fear and doubt.  We all go through trials.  But just because you are in the park, doesn’t mean you have to get on the seesaw.

              We must have a steadfast faith no matter what happens to us.  “The Lord is faithful; He will establish you…” 2 Thes 3:3.  Our hearts can be “established by grace,” Heb 13:9.  But those things are nebulous, nothing we can really lay our hands on in our daily struggles.  Am I supposed to just think real hard about God and grace and somehow get stronger?  Yes, it will help, but God knows we are tethered to this life through tangible things and He gives us plenty of that sort of help as well, help we sometimes do not want to recognize because of the responsibility it places upon us to act. 

              We must be willing to be guided to that steadfastness by faithful leaders, 2 Thes 3:3-5.  We must be willing to obey God’s law, James 1:22-24, and live a life of righteousness, Psa 112:6, before steadfastness makes an appearance.  We must become a part of God’s people and associate with them as much as possible, Heb 10:19-25.  We must study the lives of those who have gone before and imitate their steadfastness, laying aside sin if we hope to endure as they did, Heb 12:1-2.  Every one of those things will keep us off the seesaw.

              Yeah, right, the world says--to change one’s life and become part of God’s people, the church—for some reason those are the very things they will laugh to scorn.  And we fall for what they preach--a Jesus who “loves me as I am” without demanding any change, and divides His body from His being, labeling it a manmade placeholder for the true kingdom to come.  “I can have a relationship with God without having a relationship with anyone else,” we say, and promptly climb aboard the seesaw, Satan laughing gleefully at us from the other end.  Guess what?  That’s who we are having a relationship with.

              Get off the seesaw now before he has you sitting so high up on it, your legs dangling beneath you, that you are unable to reach the grounding your faith needs.  You may still have moments of weakness and doubt, but those things will grow less and less if you make use of the help God has given you.  You can have a steadfast faith, even if it finds you hiding in a cave from your enemies.  “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast…For your steadfast love is great to the heavens; your faithfulness to the clouds.”  Psa 57:7,10
 
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Corinthians 15:58.
 
Dene Ward

I was 18, but I might as well have been 12.  Looking back I can see the warning signs, but as naïve as I was then I was blind to them.
 
             The summer between my freshman and sophomore college years I had found a job not far from the house at a concrete plant.  I had signed on as a “tile sorter” out in the warehouse on a crew full of women, but the yard boss saw on my application that I knew how to type so the first morning he made me the office secretary. 

              The work was simple and a little scarce—I answered the phone; I made the coffee; I figured payroll from the time cards and passed out paychecks.  I might have typed three letters all summer long.  Finally I found the old directory of suppliers and other concrete plants in the area.  It was scratched out and scribbled over with address and telephone changes so I gave myself the chore of researching and re-typing that whole thing on the days when there was literally nothing else to do for hours.  I think the whole point of me being there was so the yard boss could say he had a secretary like the big guys up in the front office.

              Aside from the pride issue, he was a decent man, a Jehovah’s Witness who actually talked with me about religious things when he was free.  He seemed impressed when I showed him a passage or two he didn’t know was there. 

              But his immediate underling was not as nice a man as he pretended to be when the boss was there.  Not that I knew it at first or none of this would have happened.  I can look back on it now and hear his words and know what he was thinking as surely as if he told me out loud, but not then.  I was too innocent and trusting.

              One day late in the summer I found myself alone in the office with him.  The old clerk was sick and the yard boss had been called up to the front office on the highway, a good quarter mile walk through the hot dusty yard beneath overhead cranes.  I had gone to the front counter to look for some forms and suddenly I found myself hemmed into a corner with this six foot something, 250 lb, fifty year old man coming right at me   Before I knew it, he grabbed me by the shoulders and kissed me.

              I am not sure what he expected, but somehow I got loose, slipped around him, and ran as fast as I could to the only restroom in the place, a grimy cubbyhole about four foot square.  I locked the wooden door, grabbed a scratchy, brown paper towel and scrubbed my face over and over and over and over.  Then I re-wet the towel, added more soap and went at it again.  I couldn’t stop myself.  It’s a wonder I didn’t draw blood.

              Now look at Psalm 51:2.  Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.  This is the psalm David wrote after Nathan convicted him of the sins of adultery and murder.  I have read that in the Hebrew “wash me thoroughly” is literally “multiply my washings.”  After at least a year, long enough for Bathsheba to bear a child and that child to die, David finally realizes the enormity of his sins and feels the remorse like a knife in his heart.  One little plea for forgiveness won’t do in his mind, not for the terrible things he has done.  He feels the need for ritual cleansing over and over and over and over.  It isn’t a failure to accept God’s forgiveness; it’s an overwhelming sense of absolute filth.  

              When I read the literal meaning of “wash me thoroughly” those feelings I had standing in that grubby little bathroom over forty years ago came flooding back to me.  And now, like never before, I realize exactly how I ought to feel when I ask God’s forgiveness.  What I have done to Him is much worse than that which was done to me by a sordid lecher so many years ago.

              You need to feel it too.  If there is anything that will dowse your temptations like a bucket of water on a fire, that will.  I am not sure now how long I stood there shaking, sick to my stomach, but I did not leave that hideous little room until I heard other voices in the office.  Nothing was going to get me out there until I was sure I was safe.   

              Sin in your life will corrupt you.  Soap won’t get it out, no matter how many times you wash yourself.  Only the blood of the Lamb and the grace of God can cleanse you.  And even then, you should feel the need for more, and more, and more, and more, until finally you can face yourself in the mirror. 

              If you are having trouble with temptations today, remember this little story.  It’s not something I share lightly.
 
Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me, declares the Lord GOD, Jer 2:22.
Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness, That the bones which you have broken may rejoice, Psalm 51:7,8.
 
Dene Ward

Forget-me-nots are small unassuming plants with tiny blooms.  I read one legend in which God is busy naming the flowers and nearly finished when a small one whispers plaintively, “Forget-me-not.”  God replies, “I won’t, and that shall be your name.”  Of course that is not how it happened, but the plea for God not to “forget me” has sounded out down through the ages.
 
               How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever? Psalm 13:1. 

              Of course God does not forget His people.  But Zion said…the Lord has forgotten me.  Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb.  Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you, Isa 49:14,15.

              Everyone knows God does not forget us, but even a nursing child, when hunger strikes, wonders why his mother is not taking care of him RIGHT THIS MINUTE!  “She must have forgotten me.”

              If we do a little research, we can understand what David meant in the psalm.  The opposite of “forget” is “remember” and both words have connotations we may not realize.

              In Gen 8:1 “God remembered” Noah and the animals, and made the rain stop.

              In Gen 19:29, “God remembered” Abraham, and spared Lot from Sodom.

              In Gen 30:22, “God remembered” Rachel, and gave her a son.

              In Ex 2:24, “God remembered” his covenant with Abraham, and sent Moses to save the people

              In 1 Sam 1:19,20, “God remembered” Hannah, and gave her a son.

              Do you see it?  Every time we are told “God remembered” He acted.  If “remembering” means to act, then “forgetting” means the opposite, no action.  David could see no deliverance.  It was not that he thought God had really removed him from His mind, it was that he could not see God coming to his aid when he needed it.

              In the midst of trials we may not be able to see the hand of God.  He often works behind the scenes.  He usually uses the hands of others to accomplish His will and those hands may be slow in acting.  His timetable may not match ours.  In fact, we may even face times when it seems He “forgot” us.  Rest assured He has not. 

              It is not for us to demand explanations from an Almighty Creator.  It is for us to follow the solution David ultimately comes to in verse five:  I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.  David had not yet seen that salvation, but he trusted so implicitly it was as if it had already happened.  I will sing to the Lord because He has dealt bountifully with me, v 6.

              David began this psalm with fear and depression which fell on him because the trial was long and hard and he saw no relief in sight.  Eventually he sank into despondency.  He felt completely alone. Because he felt alone, he even looked to himself for advice.   How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart?  The worst counselor you can have is yourself.  If all you do is look inward, you will despair.  According to David, you must look outside yourself to find help and consolation.

              When David states his solution, “I will trust in the Lord,” he is making a choice:  “I will.”  That choice to trust God cannot be taken away from you by anyone, whether a physical or spiritual Enemy. 

              When we face trials—especially long, difficult ordeals—we should remember Psalm 13.  What began with a charge of God forgetting ended with a trust in His bounty so complete it is as if it had already been accomplished, even more (“bountifully”) than was necessary.

              God did not forget the tiny flower and He does not forget us either.  It is up to us to choose His help when it is offered and how it is offered, not the way we think is best, but in the manner our Wise Creator knows is best.
 
Behold the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him, on those who hope in His steadfast love, Psalm 33:18.
 
Dene Ward

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Psalm 103:1
 
              In our Psalms class we came upon this call from David to bless Jehovah, a wake-up call directed first to himself as he sat complacent and satisfied with his ho-hum worship, and then later to the people who were following their king’s lead.  The question quite naturally arose then, how can a man bless God?  So we did a little research.

              Your first thought might be that there are two distinct words for “bless”—one for God blessing men and one for men blessing God.  Not true.  Both are the same Hebrew word.  It doesn’t take a Hebrew scholar to look at the anglicized word barak in several different verses and see that it is indeed the same word.

              Here is something else we discovered with but a small amount of time searching the scriptures:  “bless” usually does not involve physical things.  We tend to think that way in our all too materialistic culture.  When asked to count our blessings, what do we list?  When we ask God to bless us, what do we expect?  Yet in the scriptures, I found that well over half the times the word “bless” was used it involved nothing more than what we might call “well wishes,” wanting good to happen to the other person.  Now think about the opposite—if someone curses a person, what is it exactly that he wants?  He wants evil to befall that person.  We understand that perfectly fine; the problem comes when we think a blessing involves a tangible gift.  Of course, we cannot do that for God, but we can give God other “blessings.”

              We checked out over 300 verses using the word “bless,” many of which involved men blessing God.  It helped enormously when we saw the various ways that word is translated in the KJV.  In fact, some of these things completely lost there punch in the newer versions.  Let that be a lesson to you not to completely ignore those older versions.  They lasted a long time for a good reason.

              Five times the word is translated “salute.”  In the newer versions that word is translated “greet.”  There is a world of difference between saluting someone and simply saying hello.  Salutations involve respect.  Especially in 1 Sam 25:14 the difference between David’s men “saluting” Nabal and just greeting him color how we view Nabal’s reaction—it was completely out of line if he had been saluted.

              One time the word is translated “congratulate” (1 Chron 18:10).  When do you usually congratulate someone?  When he has received an accolade or a well-deserved award.  This word involves honor.

              One time the word barak is translated “thanks.”  This word denotes gratitude and appreciation.

              Three times it is translated “kneel” or some variation of it.  That word signifies humility and submission. 

              All of these are other English words used to translate the word “bless” found in Psalm 103:1, Bless God, O my soul.  So how do we as mere mortal men bless an Eternal and Almighty God?  We show respect, we give Him honor, we appreciate the things He has done for us, and with humility we submit our lives to Him.

              Can a disobedient person bless God?  Read that last paragraph again.  No, he cannot.  Can a self-righteous person bless God?  No, not a chance in the world.  Can a half-hearted Christian, who somehow thinks there is a minimum he can do to get by bless God?  None of those things show honor, respect, gratitude, and humility. 

              Be careful before you read Psalm 103.  It demands a whole lot more than most people want to give.
 
Then David said to all the assembly, “Bless the LORD your God.” And all the assembly blessed the LORD, the God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and paid homage to the LORD and to the king, 1 Chron 29:20.
 
Dene Ward

Psalms 74 and 79, along with the books of Lamentations and Habakkuk, which are also national psalms of lament over the destruction of Jerusalem, will make you cringe in their horrific detail of destruction.  Women and young girls raped, leaders hung up for all to see, the Temple in ruins, dead bodies lying everywhere, far too many for the few left alive to bury. 

              Psalm 74 lists sacrilege after sacrilege:  God’s enemies standing in the meeting place; the intricate and artistic carvings of the Temple chopped to pieces by heathen axes, the sanctuary on fire, the dwelling place of God razed to the ground.  Psalm 79 uses opposites to the same effect:  the holy defiled; Jerusalem in rubble; God’s servants as carrion; and blood flowing like water in the streets.  Imagine seeing all this one horrible morning and then speaking to God in these words:  Help us, O God of our salvation, 79:9.

              God of our salvation?  How could the psalmist possibly use that description?  Where in all this nightmare does he see salvation?

              The poet understood this basic truth:  even in this dreadful event, God is still seeking the salvation of His people.  He could still see a Father’s love behind the most severe discipline.

              Again in Psalm 74, the psalmist says, Yet God is my King of Old, working salvation in the midst of the earth.  Not just in the midst of the earth, but in the middle of all this horror, he can still see the true nature of God.

              Habakkuk in his lament ends with the same thoughts:  For though the fig-tree shall not flourish, Neither shall fruit be in the vines; The labor of the olive shall fail, And the fields shall yield no food; The flock shall be cut off from the fold, And there shall be no herd in the stalls: Yet I will rejoice in Jehovah, I will joy in the God of my salvation. Hab 3:17-18.

              What do we see when evil befalls us?  If all we feel is the pain, if all we see is the sorrow, Satan already has a foothold.  We must learn to use what happens in our lives as a steppingstone to Heaven, a lift to a higher plane of spirituality. 

              Surely it isn’t always punishment from God as it was for those people, but then it becomes even more important to see events in the correct way.  We are in a world that is temporary, that is tainted with sin.  Of course we will have problems.  Are we so naïve as to think that something Satan has poisoned will ever be good?  Jeremiah tells us in his lament, that if it weren’t for God there wouldn’t be anything good left in this world at all, Lam 3:22, and we have no right to expect it to be any different. 

              If I cannot see the salvation of God even in the midst of trials as Jeremiah did, I am blind to who He is.  He is there, helping us prepare for a world where those things will be no more.  If I rail against Him when the trials come, I do not know Him.  Illness and death are the tools of Satan to lure us away, but with faith and the proper perspective--seeing the God of our salvation instead of the God of our pain--we can use Satan’s own tools against him as a road to triumph. 

              It is better to depart and be with the Lord, Paul said, Phil 1:23.  To die is gain for a Christian, v 21.  “O death where is thy victory, O death where is thy sting?  The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the Law, but thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” 1 Cor 15:55-57)  If I see death as the victor, I am giving myself away—showing that my perspective is indeed unspiritual, immature, and faithless.  

              Is it easy to have this perspective, especially in the middle of a traumatic life event?  No, because we are still in this flesh.  But while in this flesh the Lord Himself conquered all these things and expects us to follow His example, as difficult as it may be.  And He gives us the means to do it. 

              He is and always will be the God of our salvation.
 
But as for me, I will look unto Jehovah; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me, Mic 7:7.
 
Dene Ward

I came across the phrase “for thy name’s sake” in Psalm 79:  Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us and forgive our sins for thy name’s sake. 

              The whole psalm bases its appeal on the fact that God is the one being scorned when His people are defeated by the nations.  The psalmist certainly had it right—those people who had slipped so far into idolatry and all its vile and attendant practices could not possibly think that God would save them based upon how faithful and righteous they had been.  The only possibility of salvation was to throw themselves on the mercies of their God, to remind Him that it was a personal affront to Him when His people were conquered. 

              The nations have come into your inheritance…your holy temple they have defiled…the dead bodies of your servants have they given to the birds of the heavens for food…render sevenfold into the laps of our neighbors the taunts wherewith they have taunted you.  And in keeping with that, the psalmist then asks for forgiveness, not for the people’s sake, but for God’s name’s sake.

              I looked up that phrase and found it several more times in the collection.  What was God asked to do “for His name’s sake?”  Pardon sins, 25:11; lead in paths of righteousness, 23:3; preserve life, 143:11; lead and guide, 31:3; deal on my behalf and deliver, 109:21.  Herein lies a lesson we need—all these things, including pardon and deliverance, God does, not because we deserve them, but because of Who He is.  We have nothing to bargain with any more than those fickle people of old.  We, too, have sinned against a loving Father, often in a rebellious and disrespectful way.  We may not bow down to an idol, but we love the world as much as they did, follow its example as if we fear to be different from it, and let it seep into our minds to the point we no longer even recognize sin.

              I hear too many brethren in the midst of a trial ask God, “Why, when I have tried so hard to be faithful for so long?”  We just don’t get it.  One sin forever makes us unworthy to be in the presence of God.  It breaks our covenant with Him as surely as a broken contract today.   God is Holy, He is righteous, He cannot tolerate sin.  But lucky for us, God is love, too, and because of Who He is, we have hope.

              When the trials come, when the fear mounts and the sorrow overwhelms, this is what we say to Him:  We know we do not deserve it.  We know you are far above us and our frail existence.  Please show the world your essence.  Please help us and comfort us and deliver us, not for our sakes, but for your name’s sake.  Otherwise we don’t have a leg to stand on, and we know it.
 
"I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25

"For my name's sake I defer my anger, for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. Isaiah 48:9

But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ--by grace you have been saved-- and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Ephesians 2:4-7.
 
Dene Ward

It’s a classic kids’ comment, one Keith and I make to one another for laughs, but we never really had to deal with it when the boys were little.  Frankly, parents are their own worst enemies about things like this—your children know exactly what they can and cannot get away with long before they can even tell you in words.  If you don’t want to hear that particular whine, then do something about it.

              Yet still I thought of that question when I was working on Psalm 13.  “How long?” David asks, not once, but four times in the first two verses.  It was just as common then as it is now.  Habakkuk’s psalm begins, “O Lord, how long shall I cry for help and you will not hear?” Hab 1:2. The martyrs pictured around the throne of God cry out, “O Sovereign Lord...how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Rev. 6:9,10.  “How long” is indeed a common complaint in the scriptures—I found it listed 52 times!

              And the point is this, these people are undergoing not just trials, but long, drawn out trials.  “Time flies when you’re having fun,” we often say, and that means it crawls when you aren’t.

              “It is not under the sharpest, but the longest trials that we are most in danger of fainting,” Andrew Fuller, in Spurgeon’s Treasury of David.  It is so true.  Just last week I nearly lost it over something small and inconsequential. 

              Being married to a deaf man can be extremely frustrating.  Three times in one hour Keith and I had a misunderstanding based totally on the fact that he could not hear what I was saying.  If he could have heard just three words, none of it would have even mattered, but because he couldn’t, it made the situation more and more complex, and more and more exasperating as it went on.  And the reason I couldn’t handle it that morning?  Not because it was three times in one hour, but because we have been dealing with it for forty years now.

              But who am I to complain?  The woman in Luke 8 had her issue of blood for 12 years.  The woman who had the spirit of infirmity in Luke 13 had been suffering for 18 years.  The man who lay at the pool of Bethesda (John 5) had done so for 38 years.  The blind beggar in John 9 had been that way from birth.  Sarah had waited for a child for decades.  The people of God waited for a Messiah for several thousand years!  These people had far more reason than I to ask God, “How long?”

              All of us are prone to ask, “Are we there yet?”  and sometimes the answer does not come in this lifetime.  That may be the most difficult thing to deal with.  Some are born into suffering and never get out of it.  Some, due to random accident or maybe even their own bad choices, suffer for the remaining years of their lives and never see a reason.  God has His plans and we are not always privy to them.    

              But one day we will receive the answer we want to hear: “How long? Now! We are there!”  The waiting will be over, no more suffering of any sort, even the petty little annoyances that no one else can understand, that drive you up a wall on a bad day, that fill you with guilt when your mind clears and you finally recognize just how blessed you truly are. 

              Some day we will arrive, and we won’t be going on any more long difficult journeys ever again.
 
It is the LORD who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed. Deuteronomy 31:8.                                          
 
Dene Ward

The final part in the series.

The psalms are poetry.  By definition poetry is full of figurative language.  The psalms, therefore, must be full of figurative language.
 
             Simile:  As the deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God, 42:1.

              Metaphor:  The Lord is my rock, 18:2.  The Lord is my shepherd, 23:1.

              Personification:  When the waters saw you they were afraid, 77:16.

              Hyperbole:  God looks down on the children of men to see if there are any…who seek after God. They have all fallen away…there is none who does good, not even one, 53:2,3.

              We all use figurative language every day of our lives:  “He’ll give you the shirt off his back.”  “I need a new set of wheels.”  “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times.”  But for some reason we don’t get it when we find it in the scriptures.  We make up some weird gate in Jerusalem that archaeologists have never found, nor that the disciples had ever heard of, instead of understanding that Jesus was using hyperbole when he said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.”  We are not any better than our religious friends who want every item in the book of Revelation to be literal.  Maybe we should take the log out of our own eyes before we talk about them.

              We do the same thing with our hymns.  Granted there are lines in some hymns that we probably should not sing.  They teach religious dogma that is not found in the New Testament.  But far more often I have picky brethren who ignore the authority the book of Psalms gives us to use poetry, the hallmark of which is figurative language.  We follow the examples of our neighbors and make it all literal, then ban it from our assemblies. Hymns are poetry set to music just as the psalms were.  We should treat them as such.

              It would be helpful if we recognize that a figure of speech is meant to address only one specific point and stop trying to carry it beyond reason.  “A sower went forth to sow,” Jesus taught.  The point of the parable was how the seed grew based on the ground it fell on.  Who would be so silly as to ask what the bag in which the sower carried seed represented?  The same ones who wonder about camels and needles.  The same ones who want a literal thousand year kingdom on the earth instead of an eternal kingdom in Heaven.  The reason one group didn’t fall for the other fallacy was not their understanding of how to use figurative language, i.e., the same way we use it every day of lives.  The reason they stayed “sound” on one and not the other is they were indoctrinated otherwise.  It’s time we fixed that problem.

              Even denominational preachers understand the uses and abuses of figurative language when it comes down to brass tacks.  Just read Dungan’s Hermeneutics.  He has a great list of exactly how to interpret figurative language (Chapter 8).  If you follow it, you won’t fall for the strange gate OR the millennium.

              So let’s stop being ridiculous with our hymns, too.  We would not stand for anyone interpreting the things we say the way we interpret those poets. “Whatsoever you would that men should do unto you, do you also unto them.”

              And, more to the point, if we banned poetic language, we would miss a whole lot of wonderful teaching that reaches the heart in ways that straight prose never could.  Funny how God knew that so many thousands of years ago.
 
Jehovah, I have called upon you; make haste unto me: Give ear unto my voice, when I call unto thee. Let my prayer be set forth as incense before you; The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Set a watch, O Jehovah, before my mouth; Keep the door of my lips. Incline not my heart to any evil thing, To practice deeds of wickedness with men that work iniquity: And let me not eat of their dainties. Let the righteous smite me, it shall be a kindness; And let him reprove me, it shall be as oil upon the head; Let not my head refuse it: For even in their wickedness shall my prayer continue. Their judges are thrown down by the sides of the rock; And they shall hear my words; For they are sweet. As when one plows and cleaves the earth, Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol. For my eyes are unto you, O Jehovah the Lord: In you do I take refuge; leave not my soul destitute. Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me, And from the gins of the workers of iniquity. Let the wicked fall into their own nets, While I escape. Psalms 141:1-10
 
Dene Ward

Part 5 in a 6 part series
 
              I have never discovered I was so wrong about so many things in such short a time as I have since we started this Psalms study.
 
            The Psalms are mainly poems of praise to God, right?  Wrong.  Only 20% of the psalms are classified as psalms of praise.

              All Biblical psalms are collected in what we know as the “Book of Psalms” or “The Psalter.”  Wrong.  Psalms are scattered throughout the Old Testament from Exodus through the Minor Prophets.

              The Psalms were written by David.  Wrong.  Nor even the majority but only half the Psalms (in the psalter) are attributed to David.  That leaves 75 in the book of Psalms written by someone else, and most of the others scattered throughout the Bible as well.  Some were written hundreds of years before David and some hundreds of years after.  In fact, the book of Psalms covers roughly a thousand years, 1500-500 BC.

              Yes, the Psalms were inspired, but it is poetry, not something important.  Oh my, what an error that was.  The book of Psalms is quoted in the New Testament more than any other book of the Old.  Jesus himself places it right alongside the Law and the Prophets as authoritative and instructive scripture (Luke 24:44-47).  If you want a slap-in-the-face shock, read every place those psalms are quoted in the New Testament and note how the writer or the passage is described:  David was “in the Spirit.”  David wrote “by the Holy Spirit.”  Those psalms are “scripture,” “fulfilled prophecy,” and God-given “definitions.”  Then you can re-read that earlier Psalms article (Part 4) on Bible study and see once again exactly how important these passages are precisely because they are poetry.

              Misconceptions about the scriptures abound.  All you need do is talk to some skeptic for awhile.  They think they are so smart, and when it comes to worldly knowledge perhaps they are.  They would certainly outdo me on an IQ test.  But they are woefully ignorant of the scriptures, and if you ever want to look foolish, try expounding upon something you know nothing about in front of people who know quite a bit about it.  My husband, the former law enforcement officer, can hardly stand to watch crime dramas any more.  All he sees are the errors about guns, about evidence, even about the law and police procedure.  When it comes to ignorant people scorning the scriptures we should be exactly the same way--seeing their ignorance instead of falling for it.  If we aren’t, maybe it is because we are ignorant.  How can we expect to defend the Truth if we don’t know what we are talking about? 

              But for now, just consider your own misconceptions about the Psalms.  Surely I am not the only one.

              If you think the book of Psalms is nothing more than Israel’s songbook, you are mistaken right off the bat.  But for the sake of argument, if we were to pattern our own singing on this inspired work, what would we be singing?  Lately we seem to be singing nothing but hymns of praise.  At the risk of sounding irreverent let me remind you:  only 20% of the psalms are praise psalms.  What percentage do you sing?  Would you be shocked to discover that the largest group of psalms is psalms of lament?  Then we have psalms of thanks, psalms of trust, wisdom psalms, and even psalms about our earthly government—boy, do we need those these days! 

              We have instructive psalms, historical psalms, and psalms about the Law.  Sadly, many Christians today need to be reminded of the importance of following God’s law.   In fact, the theme of the whole Psalter is the covenant between God and His people, usually stated in words like, “You are my people and I am your God, therefore…”   It is the “therefore” that people do not want to deal with, including some of my brethren. Maybe we sing nothing but the new praise psalms because they demand so little of us.  Those old hymns everyone seems to be tired of make you look at yourself in painful ways.  They call for change in our character and attitudes. If we cleared up our misconceptions about the Psalms, I wonder how our singing would change.   I wonder how our approach to authority would change.  I wonder how our lives would change.

              Or are we no better than a so-called religious person who believes he can pick and choose among the passages in the Bible and still be considered one of God’s people?  Are we ignorant and happy to remain so?  God expects more from his covenant people.  He always has and He always will.
 
But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel. See that you do not refuse him who is speaking. For if they did not escape when they refused him who warned them on earth, much less will we escape if we reject him who warns from heaven.  Hebrews 12:22-25.
 
Dene Ward
 
 

Part 4 in a 6 part Series
 
              I have told my class several times as we go through these first five lessons, “Yes, you can understand the Psalms without all this specialized knowledge.  You can read a psalm and make sense of it without knowing its genre, without understanding Hebrew poetry, certainly without knowing the difference between a miktam and a maskil.  But guess what?  You will not get as much out of that psalm as you will if you go to the trouble to do the research and learn a little about a foreign culture and its poetry.”
 
             In the past I approached Psalms the same way I approach poetry, which is seldom.  I am not a poetry person.  I much prefer reading and writing prose.  To me, and to anyone from our culture, poetry is about emotion, about attitude, about the “better felt than told.”  Because of that you are not going to find pure fact in poetry.  Poetry is “feel-good-fluff” to me and I really don’t have much use for it.

              Now re-read that last paragraph and insert the word “Western” ahead of every reference to “poetry.”  You see, our attitude toward poetry is the opposite of the Oriental’s.  Orientals believe that the function of poetry is to instruct.  Did you hear that?  Poetry is a teaching method.  Its very form aids in memorization—short lines of roughly equal length and abbreviated word count.  Their poetry is reserved for subjects of the highest order, especially the Divine. 

              My Western view may say, “This is poetry.  It’s all emotion, very little, if any, fact.  Don’t take it too seriously.”  But the Oriental mind says, “This is poetry.  These are the most important, most profound subjects you will ever read.  Pay attention and think about it.”

              Do you think that hasn’t changed my approach to the Psalms?  And how do you think I learned that?  From taking the time to research a foreign culture.  From going beyond the minimum in my Bible study.  Because of that I now know even more about the Word that is supposed to be guiding my life.

              How much time do you spend in the Word of God?  How much extra effort do you go to?  If the doctor told you that you have a disease, would you spend time looking it up?  Would you care enough to know as much as possible, instead of being satisfied with the doctor’s explanation?  Would you want to have hands-on control of your life, or would you just sit back and be happy with the briefest scan of a medical dictionary?

              You do have a disease—sin.  You do have dangers in your environment, things just as deadly to your soul as secondhand smoke to your lungs.  You need to be aware of every aid, every pitfall, everything that can possibly affect the outcome of your life. 

              Do you care enough to learn the Word of God as completely as possible, or will you trust someone else with your soul and hope a verbal vitamin a day will take care of it?
 
Blessed is the man that walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stands in the way of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of scoffers:
But his delight is in the law of Jehovah;
And on his law doth he meditate day and night.
And he shall be like a tree planted by the streams of water,
That brings forth its fruit in its season,
Whose leaf also doth not wither;
And whatsoever he does shall prosper. Psalms 1:1-3                              
 
Dene Ward