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Tara Leigh Cobble
Hey, Bible Readers, I'm Tara Leigh Cobble, and I'm your host for the Bible Recap today. We covered eight Psalms in our first chapter, Psalm 111. There were two words that jumped out at me and reminded me of what we're doing here. The first is in verse two. It says, great are the works of the Lord, studied by all who delight in them. We're studying his works, and I bet you're finding more and more to praise him about discovering more of his greatness along the way. And did you notice the word delight in there? That connects us with the other thing that jumped out at me, which was in verse 10. It says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. All those who practice it have a good understanding. I will continue to point out that the fear of the Lord is comprised primarily of delight and awe. And this verse says that viewing God rightly is where wisdom begins and that those who practice the fear of the Lord have good understanding. I made a little note in my journal that says, what does it look like for me to practice the fear of the Lord? Psalm 112 points out again that delight is one of the components of the fear of the Lord. Verse 1 says, Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments. And that word blessed can also be translated as happy. There's a happiness in this pursuit of God. Those who delight in God's laws will surely be living them out, right? This is how righteousness takes over a person's life. It starts in the heart and works its way out through our actions. We don't create our own righteousness. It happens when God changes our hearts. Verse four is so encouraging. It says, light dawns in the darkness for the upright. I hear from so many of you who are going through dark times or even feeling the weight of the darkness of your own sin. This verse reminds us that God sends His light and brings the dawn at just the right time. And for those who walk in the commands that they delight in, the words of verses 7 through 10 serve as guideposts, reminding us that he keeps us steady in the meantime and that nothing can shake us when we're rooted in Christ. Part of this section says, he is not afraid of bad news. His heart is firm, trusting in the Lord. His heart is steady. He will not be afraid. The wicked man is even angered by how steady the godly man is in the midst of trials because it doesn't make sense to him or to the rest of the world. Psalm 113 rightly positions God as high above the earth, superior to all of it, sovereign over all of it, the ultimate authority. Through verse 5, we see how distinct and set apart he is from everything on earth. But then things shift in verse six, where we see him coming down to connect with his people on earth. Here's where that change happens. It says, who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down on the heavens and the earth. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes, with the princes of his people. From high above us, he turns his eyes toward us. He looks down. Then he doesn't just look down, he reaches down, lifts us up, and seats us with royalty. Wow. And that's exactly what he's done by letting us share in the inheritance of King Jesus. In Psalm 114, we look back at the story of the Israelites. God carried them out of Egypt. He gave them water from a rock. He parted the Red Sea when they left Egypt and the Jordan river. When they stepped into the Promised Land, the mountains shook when God appeared on them to meet with Moses. It's all such poetic imagery that it made me forget all the hardship they endured. It seems clear that the stories that got passed down through the generations weren't the ones about dehydration or how hot it was, or that time they had a quail tornado. The stories that got passed down, the ones that lodged in their collective memories, were the stories of God's provision. I want those to be the stories I tell too. In Psalm 115, Israel is being taunted by the nations around them who don't see the God they worship. Unlike other nations, Yahweh doesn't have a statue or an idol to represent him. It seems like Israel is worshiping nothing. So when the nations taunt them about this, Israel responds in verse three with, our God is in the heavens. He does whatever he pleases to me. This is one of the most comforting verses in scripture, because I know God's heart can be trusted. For him to do whatever he pleases isn't a threat to me. It's a blessing to me, because what pleases him is also good for his kids. And the psalmist knew this too. He taunted back, basically saying that their gods are lifeless and that we become like what we worship, so they're destined for death. Then he calls on Israel, the priests and the people to trust in God because He is their help and he will bless them. He's alive and he makes his people to be alive too. The psalmist who wrote Psalm 116 recounts a time when he desperately needed God's help, and God came through for him. He's looking back at that time and seeing God's deliverance and praising God for the way he delivered him out of that situation against all odds. He realizes there's no way to repay God for what he has done. But still he commits to praising and serving God forever out of the overflow of gratitude in his heart. Psalm 117 is short and sweet, but it points us to the greatness, faithfulness, and steadfast love of God and to his affection for people from every nation, not just Israel. Psalm 118 has so much going on that I don't have time to cover it all, but there are a few things I want to point out. First, I love that the psalmist praises God for disciplining him, especially since he calls it severe discipline. But when our hearts understand God's purpose behind any kind of righteous discipline, we truly are grateful for it. Usually not until it's over, though. My God shot also comes from this chapter. There are a few places where we see prophecies of Jesus in this psalm. In John 10:9, Jesus calls himself the gate, and he says, whoever enters through me will be saved. So when verses 19:20 are painting an image of the gate of righteousness, the psalmist was definitely talking about the gates in Jerusalem. But retrospectively we can see the picture of Christ here. Verse 20 says, this is the gate of the Lord. The righteous shall enter through it. Jesus is the way in. He's the gate to the Father. Verse 22 also has this kind of imagery. It says, the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This is like saying the guy who got cut from the high school football team is now the MVP of the Super Bowl. Or the girl who was left to die in an orphanage is now the Queen of England. It just turns everything on its head. And that's what Jesus did. He was rejected by the religious leaders of his day. They found him worthless, or worse than worthless, detrimental to their cause. But he is the very foundation, the cornerstone of our faith. It's all built upon him and his work. And he is the only solid foundation. He's the only thing worth building on. Everything else will crumble. But he's solid and steady. He's reliable, and he's where the joy is. Tomorrow we begin the book of 1 Kings. We've got a short video overview for you in the show Notes to help set you up for success. If you've got nine minutes to spare, check that out. Our team has worked hard to build out the help page of our website. This is a great resource for those of you with questions. You can either search by category or type your topic into the search bar and hopefully you'll find the answers you need. So when you have a question, remember to check out thebiblerecap.com help or click the link in the Show Notes.