August 30

Psalm 36 For just one second the light was out. It was long enough to know that I had forgotten how dark utter darkness is. We were in Hezekiah’s tunnel. If you have ever been in a cave or cavern without light or in a photographic darkroom, you know exactly what I am talking about. You can try to see all you want, but it will never happen. In the midst of Hezekiah’s tunnel, I began having thoughts of what if. What if, my cheap $1.00 dollar flash light wasn’t strong enough to make it to the end? What if, I dropped it in the water? What if I did not have the emotional stamina to walk 500 meters in utter darkness? What if, the tunnel had a fork that led you into a loop from which you could not feel your way out? The last question was leading me into unreality. I had read about Hezekiah’s tunnel, and I knew that there were no loops. Sure it twisted and turned a lot, but there were no loops. But then, right before we entered Hezekiah’s tunnel we came to the entrance of the Canaanite Tunnel or the dry path. I had never heard of that before. What if there were other such tunnels at the end, which I had not read about. What if... Darkness is unsettling. What makes the wicked, wicked? David says that it is, “There is no fear of God before His eyes. He flatters Himself in His own eyes.” The wicked takes the spiritual vacuum in his life and says, “I know what is here, and this god, who is here, is like this. . .” In reality he has no concept of the true God. Will this gracious God leave us to wander in darkness and all its attendant fears? The wicked think they know what true pleasure and delight is. They think that the true God only wants to take those pleasures away. They think that His light depletes their pleasure. They think this because there is no fear of God before their eyes. Will God leave him to wander in spiritual darkness? Will he spend his days wandering in loops of utter spiritual darkness? Have I not at times been there, and are there not times when I am there? I am convinced that this is the plight of every child ever born on the planet earth, save, of course, Jesus. But this is where the glory of the Lord Jesus comes in. He is the fountain of life. He is the fountain of true pleasure. In His light we see light! When He is before our eyes, when there is a true fear of Him, we can see reality. Yes, we see the ugliness of things around us, but we also see that His pleasures can eventually wash the ugliness away. Drinking from and walking in His waters washes away the ugly dryness of our souls. It causes true beauty to gradually emerge and begin growing. We don’t have to try to manipulate the darkness because we see His reality. Hezekiah’s tunnel was truly refreshing. As we walked through the cool waters of the tunnel with our little flashlight, we were refreshed from the heat of the day above ground. Jesus is the same way. As we walk in the waters of His cleansing fountain, in the light of His path, we are cleansed, healed and refreshed and gradually see the true nature of reality. The whispers of ‘what if’ fade away in the pleasure of the fountain of His water and the glow of His light. Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john

August 24

Psalm 35 Of all people who could legitimately claim that he was being hunted down without a cause, David is probably one of the foremost in history. He had been fiercely loyal to Saul, yet Saul sought to destroy him. After Saul’s death, he had sought to unite the kingdom, yet the northern tribes rejected him for Saul’s general. For seven years his men fought battle after battle until the enemy capitulated. Absalom should have been grateful that his father somewhat restored him to the kingdom, yet he undermined his father’s power base and started a revolt seeking to kill David. Finally there was Sheba who led a rebellion after Absalom. David had more than his share of unjust opponents. What is going on here? Shouldn’t one who sought after God with his whole heart experience a road marked with less opposition and suffering? That might be the case in our expectations, but in real life the one who seeks God experiences opposition. That is why Paul says in 2 Timothy 3:12, “Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.” So much of this Psalm is David’s complaint and his request for God to pay them back. How does David handle it? Obviously, he brings his complaint to the Lord. The Lord apparently invites our complaint, as long as it is done respectfully and in a manner that does not cast blame upon Him. But notice that while the majority of the Psalm is complaint, the last strophe of the Psalm ends in praise. Notice in particular that He says, “Let the Lord be magnified, Who has pleasure in the prosperity of His servant.” Does God really have pleasure in the prosperity of His servant? Then why did He allow David to run from Saul for more than ten years? Why did He let David be pursued by Absalom? Why did he permit Sheba to rebel? I think God defines prosperity differently than we do. Yet, He does take pleasure in my prosperity. Even in the most humbling of circumstances, His goal is our prosperity. The model is Jesus, as is recorded in Philippians 2:1-11. That is what God delights in. He is not stuck in one moment in time in order to define prosperity. Rather His is an eternal view. My problem is that I am such a creature of time. He created time. He defines prosperity from an eternal viewpoint. Lord, help me to rejoice from your eternal viewpoint! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john

August 22

Psalm 29 Constant streaking, crackling, thundering, flashing, lightning, pulsating, rumbling filled the sky from one horizon to the other. Occasionally the strikes were so close that the sound and light were simultaneous and deafening. The display lasted for about 30 minutes. It was the early fall of 1994, and I have never been so awed by a thunderstorm in my life. Oklahoma is famous for its violent weather, and this had to have been the most awesome barrage that I have ever experienced. It illumined the sky in a fireworks display that is unequalled by man. Such displays overwhelmingly speak to me about the judgment of God. “The God of glory thunders!” My personal theology leads me to believe that before the flood of Noah, certainly before the fall of Adam, such displays did not exist in our environment in a destructive form. They are the result of the curse of the fall and the radical change in the earth’s land masses and atmosphere stemming from Noah’s flood. Electrical storms are a constant reminder of God’s hatred of sin and His sovereignty over the earth. His rainbow is His promise of peace. David was a widely traveled man for his generation. He spent 10 years on the run from Saul. His travels took him from far south in the Negev to the northern limits of the promised land. Apparently from this Psalm, he had been as far north as Lebanon and Mt. Hermon (Sirion). He was a friend of Hiram, the King of Tyre, who helped David with cedar to build a palace. Early in David’s life the Philistines were the major power in the promised land. Philistines were a sea-going people. Consequently, their gods included sea gods sometimes depicted as part fish. So when David says that the voice of the Lord is over many waters, he is declaring in poetic fashion that the Lord is greater than the gods of the Philistines. The Lord controlled the great flood of Noah; He certainly controls the waters of the Philistine gods, and He certainly controls the elements of the gods around me. But He is not limited to just the sea-gods. He also is sovereign over the mountain forests. This glorious God of ours is sovereign over all things! His power makes the best lightning displays of Oklahoma seem like a mere ripple of 1.5 volt direct current. Whoopee. Just His voice is full of power and majesty. When Jesus was in the boat in the middle of the storm in the Sea of Galilee, His voice spoken firmly and once, “Peace, be still,” caused the wind and the waves to be still. I have no doubt that His voice not only calmed the sea, but it also caused the storm. Why? Because He wanted His disciples to know His voice was over many waters. He wanted His disciples to know that He is God. No wonder they said to themselves, “Who is this that even the wind and the sea obey Him?” His voice speaks storms into my life and speaks peace into my life. Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King. Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor john

August 21

Psalm 51 Just six days ago, I was staying in the New Park Hotel in Amman, Jordan. When you step out of the hotel and look up, you can see the northeast corner of the citadel of the ancient city. Down toward the western end of the citadel archaeologists have found the foundations of what they believe to be a palace belonging to an ancient king of Rabbah Ben Ammon. That was the city to which Joab was laying siege when David made his infamous decision to stay at home rather than go out to war. It was somewhere around here that David had Joab put Uriah in the hottest part of the battle and then withdraw so that Uriah would be killed. It is a rugged area to be attempting a siege. I could see how a blunder could be staged that that would yield the desired outcome without inflicting large losses upon one’s own troops. Just a few days before I was at the New Park Hotel, I was in the City of David looking at the Archeological Park. Archeologist Eilat Mazar has located there what she believes to be the remains of David’s palace. It sits at the northwest corner of David’s old city. The old City of David barely covers 12 acres, is long and skinny, and steeply slopes from the lowest point in the south to the highest in the north. At Mazar’s location David’s palace would not have to be very tall to overlook every house in town. Moreover, the archeological park indicates that a royal quarter of houses surrounded the palace, meaning David’s most trusted military men and civil officials probably lived very close by. I wonder if it was common practice for women to bathe on their rooftop. If not, what was Bathsheba doing up there? If so, David knew that being there alone would escort him into the area of lustful thoughts. He went there anyway. Whatever the causes, David was almost literally “caught with his pants down,” not only with the adultery but also with the cover-up murder. David tried to hide his sin. He denied, denied, denied, even to himself. How long had the desire for God gone dry before he knew it was gone? How long was it before he experienced the realization that he was no longer in fellowship with God? How long was it before he realized that his private sin was public knowledge? Was it really only when Nathan the prophet came to him? When and how did this overwhelming remorse take him so that he penned this Psalm? It seems to me that this sin was so premeditated that the answer to all these questions is, “He knew it all along, but refused to consciously recognize it.” If man of whom God implied was ‘a man after His own heart’ could be caught that way, how much more can I? David’s desperation for cleansing and renewal and forgiveness wash through this Psalm. His confession had to be made public for in a sense his was a public sin. O sure, the thought processes which led to the private bedroom act were all private. Sure, the arrangements for Uriah’s murder were private, but the consequences had public results. Ultimately, it was only against God that he had sinned, but in the process he sinned against Bathsheba, taking from her that which she should only have given her husband. He sinned against Uriah, taking from him that which belonged only to him as Bathsheba’s husband. He sinned against Uriah, taking his life from him. But David knew that ultimately, as the Creator, these all belonged to God. He sinned against God. The fellowship was gone, and he knew it. Here is where the Glory of Jesus comes in. Jesus does not just wink at the sin. He desires and demands truth in our hidden parts, but when He brings us to the point (which may feel like our bones are being broken) where we see and acknowledge the truth, He brings forgiveness. He does purge us. He does wash us whiter than snow. He does create in us a clean heart. He does renew a steadfast spirit—David had one before Bathsheba, and he would have one again. God does restore His presence. He does this so that other sinners may come to repentance and be converted. He does it so that we might experience true change and experience Him. He wants me to experience Him. David lived the rest of his life in the ignominious circumstances resulting from his sin, but nevertheless, he experienced God once again. Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor John

August 20

Psalm 50 “You thought I was altogether like you.” It is a principle about ourselves and all humans that we must grasp. You see we all tend to create God in our own image. We feel that we must be able to understand Him. We insist that He views things as we do; He feels as we do; He must do things the way we do them; His sense of justice must be like ours. We instinctively think that His standard of righteousness must be just like ours. By that standard, o sure, I am a sinner, but His justice will be satisfied with a sacrifice. A bull or a goat is something we can quantify, as if God could be quantified. We used to have a joke in seminary that our final examine would be to define God and give three examples. Can God be quantified? The purpose of the Old Testament Sacrifices was to teach of the awfulness of sin and look forward to the demand of God’s righteousness for forgiveness of sin as it was carried out on the cross. When I look at the cross, I see how much God hates sin. A simple sacrifice of a goat or bull does not express the awfulness unless I can identify with the animal as a sentient being who is being sacrificed for my sin. The cross also speaks of His great love, that He would give His only begotten Son to redeem those who had committed so great sin that He hated so much. He owns all the cattle. For us to give Him back something which we own is of no significance to Him. He wants us to learn from the horrible situation. He wants us to come to Him and be delivered from our horrible sin! I need to learn this every day, lest I begin to once again think that He is like me. Now that is glory! Indeed we serve a glorious King! Speak His glory to someone today! --Pastor John