rescue – Daily PBJ

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Read Numbers 9, Song of Songs 7, Psalm 119:73-96.

This devotional is about Psalm 119:73-96.

This Psalm is a long acrostic poem. Each stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in alphabetical order. It is also a love poem for God’s word. The Psalmist writes in every stanza words of praise and thanks to God for giving his law to Israel. He also claims throughout to love and live by God’s laws.

Like most Psalms, this songwriter had problems in life. Some of those problems, he felt, were afflictions from God (v. 75b). Others were persecutions (v. 84b) brought on by others. Or, perhaps, he had one major problem which he saw from two perspectives–(1) the persecutions of men (2) allowed by God’s sovereignty to afflict him for his own discipline and growth. Regardless, the Psalmist never claimed that his love for God’s word or his obedience to it gave him a trouble-free life. Instead, he found through his delight in God’s laws encouragement (v. 81b), comfort (v. 76) a basis for companionship with other godly people (v. 74, 79), guidance on how to live (v. 89, 93), and understanding about what is righteous and unrighteous in God’s sight (v. 85). Having benefited in all these ways from God’s word, he pleaded with God to rescue him according to the promises he’d read in God’s word (vv. 76b, 94) and to keep his heart faithful to obey God’s word (v. 80).

Scripture and prayer are God’s primary ways to minister grace to us while we live in this world and wait to be with Christ. We stray into sin when we stop looking for God’s help through prayer or stop looking to his word for our growth, guidance, and hope. It is possible–I know because I’ve done it–to be in God’s word each day and still have one’s heart grow cold to God’s word. This is why we should follow the Psalmist’s example and pray for God’s help to have insight to apply God’s word (v. 73), to think about God’s word (v. 95b), and to be tender to our own sinfulness so that we can be corrected by God’s word (v. 80).

I would encourage you to pray before reading these devotionals, before we worship together on Sunday, and anytime you are going to hear God’s word. Ask God to convict you, to give you insight into yourself, to give you understanding about what to do with his word once you understand it, and to give you courage to believe and obey it. This will help you keep from growing cold to the Lord and his truth.

Rumble | YouTube | SermonAudio | Calvary Bible Church

Read Exodus 36, Proverbs 12, and Psalm 84.

This devotional is about Proverbs 12:6: “The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood, but the speech of the upright rescues them.”

This cryptic little proverb takes some thinking to understand. The first part of the proverb says, “The words of the wicked lie in wait for blood….” What could that possibly mean? to “lie in wait for blood” evokes the image of a hunter. The goal of a hunter or trapper is to take the life of his prey. He goes out looking for prey and hides, lying “in wait” until that animal arrives. Unaware of the danger nearby, the animal walks into the crosshairs of the hunter’s rifle or trots into the trapper’s trap. In that moment, his life ends and he becomes the trophy of the man who plotted against him.

When Solomon wrote, “the words of the wicked lie in wait for blood,” he described someone who lays a trap for someone else and waits. This is a way to describe dishonest speech. It might be speech that misleads for a purpose or lies that entrap someone else. Either way, it is dishonesty that is deliberately calculated to take advantage of someone else.

What saves someone from this kind of verbal trap? The truth: “but the speech of the upright rescues them” (v. 6b). The truth leaves clues most of the time. The person whose words make the best sense of those clues is most likely to be believed. When we are dishonest, we might be playing into the hands of someone wicked who wants to trap us. When we tell the truth, we can escape those traps, even when we walk right to them unaware.

It is a sobering thought that there are people out there trying to use words to entrap us, but there are. Instead of being cynical about others, or becoming defensive and hyper-vigilant, just tell the truth in every situation in life. When we are always truthful, we not only save ourselves from traps, we mirror the glory of our God who IS truth. Protect yourself and glorify God by speaking the truth always and never lying.