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Part 4: Psalms 91-120 PSALM 91 By Neville V. Stevens New International Version used throughout unless otherwise specified. In these Psalms, we learn
all about the ‘knowledge of Salvation’ and what it means to Christians and
Jews today. Although ‘salvation’ is often spoken of in the
churches, does anyone really know what it means or when it will occur? The Word of God makes it very clear! Psa 91:1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This is a very specific, prophetic statement! And it means what it says. There is a shelter where
the Sons of Jerusalem will dwell and it’s high up on a mountain with an
eagle’s eye-view of everything around.
What is more, they will be dwelling in the shadow of the Majestic Glory which will cast a great light and which will
be seen by many people living in the area. This is partially explained by Jesus words
in Matt
4:12-17 “When Jesus heard that John
had been put in prison, he
returned to It was obvious at this
point that Jesus Christ would have to return to take over His
Kingdom since His reign did not begin then. His right to reign, however, did! To this end, forceful men-at-arms will take the
Kingdom by force in preparation for the Lord
Christ’s arrival. Jesus Christ
confirmed this when He spoke about
John the Baptist: Matt 11:7-15 “As
John's disciples were leaving (after
Jesus learned that John had been put in prison),
Jesus began to speak to the crowd about John: "What did
you go out into the desert to see? A reed swayed by the wind? 8
If not, what did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No,
those who wear fine clothes are in kings' palaces. 9 Then what did
you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. 10
This is the one about whom it is
written: "`I will send my messenger ahead
of you, who will prepare your way before you.'” Jesus said this after John had
been put in prison (see V2). It
was after this that Jesus returned to
Galilee and went to live in John came
alright, and prepared the way for the Lord Christ, but the At His first
appearance, Jesus Christ did not take over the reins of government on earth, but at
His next appearance He will! He will
be the same Jesus who
was born to the Virgin Mary, but this time the government will be on His
shoulders and His Kingdom will be established: Isa 9:6-7 “For
to us a child is born, to
us a son is given, and the government
will be on his shoulders. And
he will be called Wonderful
Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting
Father, Prince of Peace.
7 Of the increase of his
government and peace there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over
his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness from that time on and forever. The zeal of the LORD Almighty will
accomplish this.” As the Wonderful Counselor, He ensured that the Apostles had His Spirit which was to be sent by God in
Jesus’ Name. We can read
all about this Promised Counselor,
this Teacher of Wisdom –
the very Spirit of Christ –
in John
14:15-31. This Spirit of Christ, The Counselor, is an addition
to the Holy Spirit, which
was given as a down-payment, but The Counselor reveals all things (V26), namely the Testimony of Jesus, which
is the Spirit of Prophecy (Rev 19:10). Without the Spirit of Prophecy, no-one knows the Testimony of Jesus.
The Wonderful Counselor
is given to those who will take the Understandably, there are
now thousands of Christian churches arguing and fighting over doctrinal
issues and none of them understand anything!
And none of them ever will unless they obey the Commandments of God – as
Jesus did – and hold to the Testimony of Jesus as the offspring
of the Woman will do (Rev 12:17). Even these offspring will suffer terribly
for their tardiness in accepting the Testimony
of Jesus. Psa 91:2 I will say of the LORD,
"He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I
trust." This confirms the meaning of what is said
in V1
about dwelling in the shelter of
the Most High. Psa 91:3 Surely he will save you from
the fowler's snare and from
the deadly pestilence. A fowler’s snare is
used to catch birds. Unfortunately for
the fowler, his efforts will be in vain.
Those who dwell in
the ‘shelter of the Most High’
will be immune to the fowlers
snares. But the fowler and his
cohorts will not be immune to the weapon used against them, which
is described as a deadly pestilence. Psa 91:4 He will cover you with his feathers,
and under his wings you will find refuge; his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart. This describes a ‘great eagle’ covering its
fledglings. The fowler’s snare is a reference to this and who their target
is. Psa 91:5 You will not fear the terror of night, nor
the arrow that flies by day, Psa 91:6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,
nor
the plague that destroys at midday. There’s always some lunatic somewhere, even today, that wants to put God to the test! So they set traps and snares and fire their
‘arrows’ at the servants of God. They
lack the comprehension to know that God’s servants are under His care and
protection. For such hostile lunatics,
a quick death is not appropriate. If
they understood the Scriptures, they’d know that God has some serious weapons
in His arsenal. Although it’s a
prophecy for a later time,
God describes one of His plagues that will afflict those who attack Jerusalem: Zech 14:12-14
“This is the
plague with which the LORD will strike
all the nations that fought against Jerusalem: Their flesh will rot while
they are still standing on their feet, their eyes will rot in their
sockets, and their tongues will rot in their
mouths. 13 On that day men will be stricken by the
LORD with great panic. Each man will seize the hand of another, and they will
attack each other. 14 So those who lay traps
and snares and fire upon God’s servants will not have an easy
exit from life: Psa 91:7 A thousand may fall at your
side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not
come near you. These are serious plagues, but God’s servants will be immune from
them! Yet those who attack them will not
be immune, and they’ll have just enough time to contemplate what they have
done. Psa 91:8 You will only observe with your eyes and see
the punishment of the wicked.
In complete
contrast to the Tribes of Israel and the churches today, God’s servants know who the wicked are! And soon the Western world will know
too! God’s servants will see them die
in their thousands and ten thousands at God’s hand, so all ambiguity will be
removed. Psa 91:9 If you make the Most High your dwelling-- even the LORD, who is my refuge-- Psa 91:10 then no harm will befall you,
no disaster will come near your tent. Most Christians today
make their local preachers their refuge; they’d rather listen to them than
seek the refuge of the Most
High God. They’ll have to
learn the hard way that they are not under God’s
protection! If they don’t listen to
God then He will refuse to listen to them! The Psa 91:11 For he will command his angels concerning you
to guard
you
in all your ways; Psa 91:12 they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not
strike your foot against a stone. There’s a very
interesting story behind this. It
relates to something the devil quoted, which involved his temptation of Jesus
Christ. He tried to get Jesus to jump
off a Jesus knew that this was
speaking of a certain man who would be under God’s protection in Yet, just as
assuredly, the devil will muster forces against the servants of God. The outcome, as we’ve seen, will be a
foregone conclusion. The devil’s
forces will die horribly and no harm will come to God’s servants. Psa 91:13 You will tread upon the lion
and the cobra; you will trample the great lion and the serpent. Ferocious beasts and coiling, slimy reptiles (as they’re
euphemistically described) will be crushed by God’s servants. In fact, this is the outcome of another
prophecy that was given in the Garden of Eden: Gen 3:14-15 “So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above
all the livestock and all the wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will
eat dust all the days of your life. 15
And I will put enmity between
you and the woman, and between
your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike
his heel." Two
things you’ll quickly notice in this parable; firstly,
the devil has offspring,
and secondly, the ‘woman’ is referred to as “he”. The ‘woman’ will crush the head
of the devil and the whole array of his offspring – described as ‘wild
animals’, and the devil will strike at the heel of the “woman”. We could say that the devil’s forces will
try to nip at the
heels of the ‘woman’ like
dogs and jackals, because in Jesus own words, this is what they
are! Dogs, jackals and wild animals,
as well as snakes and vipers! The ‘woman’ of
course, is the House of David,
which
gave birth to Jesus Christ: Rev 12:13-17 “When the
dragon saw that he had been
hurled to the earth, he pursued
the WOMAN who
had given birth to the male child.” This is where the enmity
between the serpent [dragon] and the woman sets in. V14 “The WOMAN was given the TWO WINGS OF A GREAT EAGLE, so
that she might fly to the place prepared for her in the desert, where she would be
taken care of for a time, times and half a time, out of the serpent's reach. 15 Then from his
mouth the serpent spewed water like a river, to overtake the WOMAN and sweep her away with
the torrent. 16 But the earth helped the WOMAN by opening its mouth and swallowing the river that
the dragon had spewed out of his mouth. 17 Then the dragon was enraged at the WOMAN and went off to
make war against the rest of her
offspring--those who obey God's commandments and hold to the testimony of Jesus.” It goes without saying that the offspring of the WOMAN obey the Commandments of God! What is more, they also hold
to the Testimony of Jesus
which, as we all know, is the Spirit
of Prophecy (Rev 19:10).
The offspring of the WOMAN
is actually the Speaking of the WOMAN, who crushes the heads
of Satan’s offspring, God says this: Psa 91:14 "Because he loves me,"
says the LORD, "I will rescue
him; I will protect him,
for
he acknowledges my name. We just read of the first
rescue when Satan tries to destroy the ‘Woman’ with a flood. You’ll also notice that God refers to the WOMAN as ‘he’. As we all know, the Woman is the House
of David, which gave birth to Jesus Christ. Jesus, of course, is the Son of David. Psa 91:15 He will call upon me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble,
I
will deliver him and honor him.
There is no
greater honour than to be victorious in battle – especially when fighting for
God’s Kingdom! Psa 91:16 With long life will I satisfy
him and show him my
salvation." God’s servants will see God’s salvation! These are the faithful brothers of Elijah,
and the sons of God
appointed to prepare the way for
the Lord Christ. It’s these
sons who establish the House of David once
again. Elijah is a true Levite! His brothers are either true Levites or
grafted Levites, and they too will have long lives. In fact, very long lives! When we get to Psalm 103 we’ll read more about
this. But here’s a quick preview: Psa 103:2-5
“Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his
benefits-- 3 who
forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your
life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who
satisfies your desires with good things so
that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.” When God calls His servants to duty, they
sometimes have diseases and ailments, and after a period of testing, He heals
them. What is more, “their
youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
We’ve just been reading about the Great Eagle covering its fledgling
offspring. These are the ones whose
youth will be restored or renewed.
It’s not the state of our bodies that God is concerned about, but the
state of our minds. Our bodies can be
repaired, but our minds can be a world of their own, and they have to be
trained in righteousness. Only through
God’s Holy Spirit can this be achieved.
Our bodies or flesh count for nothing! John 6:63 “The
Spirit gives life; the
flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” In Psa 92:14 below we’ll see a further reference to these things. PSALM 92 A psalm. A song. For the Sabbath day. Psa 92:1 It is good to praise the LORD
and make music to your name, O Most High, Psa 92:2 to proclaim your love in the morning and
your faithfulness at night, Psa 92:3 to the music of the
ten-stringed lyre and the melody of
the harp. It’s good to be
proclaiming God’s love in the morning, in the daylight hours, because soon
the long, dark night will
descend, and this is when God’s faithfulness comes to the fore. Those who were faithful to God will find He
is faithful in return, and this is when you will need this assurance. If no preparation was made for this event,
then survival will look very doubtful.
Without proper preparation, the average Christian won’t have the chops
to handle it. And just a quick
reference to the “melody of the
harp”. Those who have proven
faithful to God will be given harps
to sing the Song of Moses
and the Song of the Lamb (Rev 15:2-3). This occurs just before the seven last plagues are
released on the world and just after the long, dark night – which,
incidentally, lasts for many years.
This will be the climax of God’s fury against the inhabitants of the
earth following the almost universal acceptance of the Mark of the Beast.
Those who are given the harps to sing the Song of Moses are the ones
who refused the Mark
of the Beast (same verse). Psa 92:4 For you make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I sing for joy at the works of your
hands. More and more people
today are despising the
work of God’s hands, preferring to believe in evolution. Whether it be through
a brain malfunction or lack of observation ability, they should have known
that the design and perfection
of every living creature proves that a Master
Designer and Creator has
been at work with His hands.
There are people in this world who crave so much to be recognized as ‘intelligent’ and ‘scientific’ that they couldn’t see reason if you pounded them
over the head with it. Oddly enough, many of
these people claim to be Christians.
And as Christians, they would surely know of God’s indictment against
them in the Scriptures: Rom 1:18-27 “The wrath of God is being
revealed from heaven against all the godlessness
and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by
their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God
is plain to them, because
God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his
eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been
made, so that men are without excuse.” This stands as a powerful indictment
against all who seek to discredit the work
of God’s hands, and cretinous and arrogant human beings should know
better. As Christian nations, we were
taught from an early age to believe in the Great Creator God. These were our formative years as
Christians and we didn’t doubt the existence of a Creator. Then along the way came the godless and wicked men, who claimed to be wise, and who
sought to suppress the truth. V21 “For although they
knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile
and their foolish hearts were
darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23
and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for
images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.” And so began the trend to worship
the creation more
than the Creator! And now
the trend is to worship, not the Creator, but ‘Mother
Earth’. All the pseudo
‘wise’ now believe that ‘Mother
Earth’ is a living breathing entity which must be assuaged from
violently punishing us all for breathing carbon dioxide into the air, and
mindless and godless lunatics believe them!
This obsessive lunacy about carbon dioxide, which represents around
.03% of the atmosphere, and which is an essential plant food, has now
degenerated to being classified as a noxious poison which must be
eliminated. The lunatics are in control of
the asylum! ‘Mother
earth’ or ‘Gaia’ the Hindu god, as some refer
to it, is not in control of the climate! God is! And now we discover the outcome
and the punishment for these mindless and pagan
beliefs! V24 “Therefore
God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading
of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged
the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things
rather
than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. 26 BECAUSE OF THIS, God gave them
over to shameful lusts. Even
their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27
In
the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were
inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed INDECENT ACTS with other men, and received in
themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” Thousands of these faggots received
their due penalty with AIDS
and other sexually transmitted diseases, and duly died. Others continue to linger with their
diseases knowing that death is inevitable. This prophecy has been
fulfilled in our time, and we’ve seen it happen in our day. This is a serious sign to all that that
should have given thanks to the
Creator God and acknowledged
and obeyed Him! Psa 92:5 How great are your works, O LORD, how profound your thoughts! Not only are the works of
God’s hands great, but His thoughts are equally great. So many Christians come to the wrong
conclusions on everything because they don’t understand the thoughts and
intentions of God. Generally speaking,
Christians will happily ‘cross the
floor’ when it comes to the question of creation versus evolution because
of peer pressure, yet they still believe God owes them something in the
afterlife. If they understood how
profound the thoughts of God were, they would realize that love and
faithfulness to Him is their primary responsibility. In other words, as a part of the creation,
they owe to their Creator and not the other
way around. Disobedience carries severe penalties – not
rewards in the afterlife.
Senselessness and disobedience will only lead to death forever. God intends to create the
perfect Kingdom, made up of perfectly obedient people. Senseless fools would never understand
this. Psa 92:6 The senseless man does not know, fools do not understand, Psa 92:7 that though the wicked spring up like grass and
all
evildoers flourish, they
will be forever destroyed. There will be no place in
God’s Kingdom for stupid, wishy-washy people who can’t even control their own
minds! And who still they continue to
believe that God owes them something.
Well, God’s advice to them is that they will be forever destroyed!
They’ll be gone forever! Why
would God want un-teachable, self-opinionated people in His Kingdom? Psa 92:8 But you, O LORD, are exalted
forever. Psa 92:9 For surely your enemies, O LORD, surely your enemies will perish;
all evildoers will be scattered. Those who become the enemies of God through disobedience will surely
know the consequences. The greater
part of the world is covered with pagans in one form or another. These have the distinct characteristics of
being like their father the devil.
They think like him and they act like him. As long as they choose to emulate the
devil, they are useless to God for any purpose – except one! And we’ll get to this in a moment. The House of Israel has a
long history of emulating the nations of the earth and adopting their
practices. This was the trend in days
of old, and it’s still the trend today.
To be sure, there were subtleties involved when the practices of
pagans were slowly introduced. Often
it was the cuisine, the eating of forbidden animals and other creatures,
which led to the adoption of pagan cultures.
Anything that heightened the senses was desirable to them, regardless
of what God had to say to the contrary.
One thing led to another, and before long, multiculturalism became the
desirable standard. The Tribes of
Israel wanted to experience all that other cultures had to offer. In fact, Western nations, who promote
multiculturalism, like to make the point that it’s the cuisine of other
nations which has enriched their lives.
Therefore, it was desirable to dilute our gene pool to accommodate the
pagan migrants. They seem to forget
that these people bring other practices with them other than their food
styles, and they never seem to assimilate to the culture of their host
countries. Long ago, God made a
distinction between the nations of the earth and His people And how does God intend
to punish them? By the same manner
which they experienced in And now we get to the
question we just posed about God’s use of His enemies and what that purpose
is. God has many enemies outside of His
chosen
people, the 12 Tribes of The warnings have always
been there, but it was intended that the penalties for disobedience would be
enacted at the end of 6,000 years.
These climactic and disastrous events would herald in the So clearly, God is going
to punish His people, the Tribes of Israel, for their sins. We can all be thankful that God has an
exit-strategy. He plans to rescue them
and bring them back to their ancestral lands where they will receive their
allotted territories and once again live in safety. Yet before this, they will be
punished in a way that has no precedence in the history of the world. Wave after wave of catastrophic events will
destroy them and their enemies will take full advantage of this until only a
remnant remains alive. How much easier it would
have been to acknowledge their Creator God and obey Him! We already know that this is not going to
happen; the trend is already heading towards the opposite spectrum. The House of Israel is determined to live
their lives in any manner they choose, and they don’t want the Creator God to
interfere. In just a little while they
will be crying out to God but He won’t be listening! Don’t think this to be too strange, because
God turned His back on our Lord Jesus immediately before He took our sins on
Himself. He paid the penalty for the past
sins
of those who would afterwards follow Him in His obedience to the Father. All have sinned and come short of the glory
of God, but it’s those who come to repentance who hold God’s interest. His plan is to regenerate the earth with
people just like His Son Jesus. It’s God’s intention to
rescue the remnant of His people This will come about when
the world has descended into chaos, and the ‘lost sheep of Psa 92:10 You have exalted my horn like that of a wild ox; fine
oils have been poured upon me.
Traditionally,
the pouring of oil was for
the anointing of kings: 1Sam 16:13 “So Samuel
took the horn of oil and anointed him in the presence
of his brothers, and from that day
on the Spirit of the LORD came upon David IN POWER.” The extent of
this POWER can be seen in
his battle with Goliath. While all the
armies of the Israelites trembled before him, David went boldly out and
killed him! This same power will be on
God’s anointed ones, and
the enemies of God will be ill-matched against them. Psa 92:11 My eyes have seen
the defeat of my adversaries;
my ears have heard the rout of my
wicked foes. That great POWER never departed from
David, and he saw his enemies routed and vanquished! This is the same assurance that God gives
to His servants when He anoints them with His Holy Spirit. God likes to make a clear
distinction between His servants who serve Him – and those who do not! Psa 92:12 The righteous will flourish
like a palm tree, they will grow
like a cedar of Lebanon; Psa 92:13 planted in the house of the
LORD, they will flourish in
the courts of our God. The ‘courts of our God’ dispense God’s Law, and those who will flourish there
will be the keepers of the Law. Obviously, these are the teachers
of God’s Law, and what they
teach
is righteousness! Like palm
trees and cedars,
they will stand taller in the eyes of God.
Even at a great age, they will remain youthful or ‘fresh and green’ as the next
verse states: Psa 92:14 They will still bear fruit in old age, they
will stay fresh and green, Psa 92:15 proclaiming, "The LORD is upright; he is my Rock, and
there is no wickedness in him." Unlike Christians today who believe God’s Law is wickedness and
shouldn’t be kept, God’s servants will obey the Rock, who gave the Law at Mount Sinai (or Horeb),
which we all know is Jesus Christ
(1Cor 10:4). Christianity today had better get their act
together and stop persecuting those who obey God’s Law! Why are they so obsessed with criticizing
obedience to God? Surely if they want
to criticize others, a more appropriate criticism should be against something
like same-sex marriage. But even in
this they disagree with God when He instituted marriage between a man and a woman – and especially since
He has condemned those who disagree and who are now proposing their own form
of ‘marriage’. Their form of ‘marriage’ is perversion, and it carries a heavy penalty. Is this the type of perversion they clamber
for? Well, they’ll see plenty of it in
the Great Tribulation, whether they be willing partners or not! As for the reference to
bearing fruit in old age, yet staying fresh and green like a palm tree or a
cedar, the Prophet Isaiah adds this reference: Isa 65:22-23 “No longer will they build houses and others live in
them, or plant and others eat. FOR AS THE DAYS OF A TREE, so
will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the works of their
hands. 23 They will not toil in vain or bear children
doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the LORD, they and their descendants with them.” PSALM 93 And now we come to the
final conclusions to six thousand years of this present creation – the time
of the establishment of the Psa 93:1 The LORD reigns, he is robed in majesty; the
LORD is robed in majesty and is armed
with strength. The world is firmly established;
it
cannot be moved. As we previously said, the
world, as we know it, will be moved and all the continents restored to their original positions, but
this will occur before the LORD
reigns over all the earth. Psa 93:2 Your throne was established
long ago; you are from all eternity. This is a difficult concept to grasp when specifically speaking of the
meaning of eternity in the
past. On the other hand, we can easily
contemplate eternity into
the future, and even visualize a world without end. To visualize these things, we need to go
back to the very beginning.
Thankfully, Almighty God has given us this insight through the wisest
man who ever lived. David’s son
Solomon is this man. Because God loved
David, His Son Jesus was born through his ancestral linage as well as the
linage of Solomon. Solomon wrote many
profound things about life and this creation and even when it all began. Like David, and like his famous descendant
Jesus, Solomon spoke in parables. And thus he takes on the persona of the One
he is speaking of and speaks in the first person tense: Pro 8:22-33 “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works,
before his deeds of old; 23 I
was appointed from eternity, from
the beginning, before the world began.” Solomon is speaking about eternity, and you’ll quickly
notice that this is not speaking about him
personally. V24 “When
there were no oceans, I was given birth, when there
were no springs abounding with water; 25 before the mountains were settled in place, before the hills, I was given birth, 26
before he made the earth or
its fields or any of the dust of the world.”
Before the
world began, before the mountains were settled in place, before there were any oceans, this is
when
this
Being was born. V27 “I was there
when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep (a
reference to the landmass of the earth), 28
when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the
deep, 29 when he gave
the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.” This Being was there when all these
things were done, and what is more, He was in the company of another, and was
a craftsman at His side: V30 “Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day,
rejoicing always in his presence,
31 rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. 32
"Now then, my sons, listen
to me; blessed are those
who keep my ways. 33
Listen to my instruction and
be wise; do not ignore it.”
This last exhortation is the
very words of the Craftsman,
the Creator at
His Father’s side. Perhaps some people don’t
know this, but as the Creator, God
continues with His work everyday: John 5:17 “Jesus
said to them, "My Father is
always at his work to this very day, and
I, too, am working." It’s quite funny that some people seem to
believe that their ‘reward’ is to become lazy lay-abouts with no duties and
no responsibilities. When God speaks
of “my
sons”, He expects them to be creative and productive – just
like Him! It’s no coincidence that
Jesus’ career while on earth was that of a carpenter and stonemason; that is,
a builder and designer. Consequently,
He was a fit and muscular man! It’s
grossly insulting to portray Him in any other way. Today we live
in a world awash with labor-saving devices and real labor has become a thing
of the past. Added to this, we have
instant entertainment, on call, 24 hours a day. Hence people clamber to be entertained, and
creativity has become a low priority.
Anyone who has a son will know their joy at building sand castles or
playing in the backyard sandpit, building roads and using a block of wood as
a vehicle. This is creativity that little
children rejoice in. They also like to
draw and design, while developing the thoughts of their minds. The more we encourage this, the more
productive and creative they become in life.
These are the sorts of children who are best equipped as productive,
problem-solvers in this world in later life.
And of course, Solomon wrote many things in support of training our
children in the Book of Proverbs. It’s worth
noting that the days are coming when life will no longer be easy. It will be only the skilful, productive and
innovative ones who will survive. The
reason being that nothing will be left of their former lives! Everything will be swept away, and survival
will depend on them being able to use basic tools to provide food, shelter
and clothing. These are some of the
problems the people of the earth will face when God restores the face of the
earth. And this is the event which the
Psalmist speaks of in the next verse: Psa 93:3 The seas have lifted up, O LORD, the seas have lifted up
their voice; the seas have lifted
up their pounding waves. In recent years we’ve
seen plenty of tsunamis which are caused by the displacement of the earth’s
mass through earthquakes at the sea floor.
These are relatively minor in comparison to the tsunamis that will
result when the continents and islands are moved back to their original
positions. The people on the earth
will be perplexed and horrified by what they see, and the prospects of
survival will seem very grim. Mariners
know the terrors of riding out a storm in a great ship, and in such
circumstances, they long for the safety of land. In that day, however, the land will offer
little protection and the death toll will be horrific. God has said that He
would never again destroy all the earth’s inhabitants with a flood as He did
in the days of Noah. But at the same
time, He was putting them on notice that destruction would be forthcoming
through other means, and as it happens, the means to do this will be through the restoration of the
earth. When the continents and
islands begin their migration back to their original form, the ‘tectonic plate theory’ will be seen as
the product of sick minds of people who’ve never been able to prove their
theory. It will be obvious in that day
that the fictitious tectonic-plate theory is not responsible
for what their eyes are seeing. For
forty years, observers have had the benefit of the satellite positioning
systems, and to this very day, they’ve been unable to demonstrate that any
continent has moved. According to their
theory, the continents should have moved somewhere between 1-2 metres in the
past 40 years, but this just hasn’t happened!
Perhaps then they’ll see their ridiculous theory as merely an
extension of their ‘mother earth’ theory, where the
creation is worshipped rather than the Creator. The theory is that the earth is alive and
slowly recycling itself, engulfing some regions and disgorging others. The real problem with their theory is that
there is no evidence for it. Almighty God intends to
get the attention of everyone who has demeaned Him as the Creator, and
they’ll certainly know when He does this!
When the continents and islands migrate back to their original
positions, the most notable evidence will be the surging of the sea as
displacement begins. It’s the mighty
power of God which will do these things. Psa 93:4 Mightier than the thunder
of the great waters, mightier
than the breakers of the sea-- the
LORD on high is mighty. Psa 93:5 Your statutes stand firm; holiness adorns your
house for endless days,
O LORD. We’ve seen too much in history to fail to
acknowledge that human beings in their natural form are not ideal candidates
for God’s Kingdom. The history of
humanity has been brutal and evil.
Every vile excess has been practiced, and rarely was the sanctity of
life ever acknowledged throughout most of history. Human beings have merely done as they
pleased and lived their lives with no regard for their Creator God, and they
certainly didn’t seek His advice in matters of conduct. As it happens, it’s their conduct for which
they will be judged. The stark reality
is that most will be judged in absentia.
There will be no formal charges for the vast majority of people on
earth. They’ll be judged by the Judge of the Earth, and He
will pay them back for what their
actions deserve. PSALM 94 Psa 94:1 O LORD, the God
who avenges, O God who
avenges, shine forth. All Christians would be
familiar with these words: “Vengeance is mine, I will repay.” This is the context of what the Book of
Hebrews says in this regard: Heb 10:26-31 “If we
deliberately keep on sinning after we have received
the knowledge of the truth,
no
sacrifice for sins is left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of judgment and
of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God. 28
Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died without mercy on the testimony of
two or three witnesses. 29 How much more severely do
you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under
foot, who has treated as an unholy thing the blood of the covenant that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30
For we know him who said, "IT
IS MINE TO AVENGE; I WILL REPAY," and again, "The Lord will
judge his people." 31 It
is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” We’ve spoken
a lot about the Song of Moses
which will be sung by the Saints to the accompaniment of harps (Rev 15:3). It was Moses who wrote the
words above about vengeance
belonging to God, as quoted in the Book of Hebrews, and even more
surprising, it’s a part of the Song
of Moses: Deut 32:35-47 “IT IS MINE TO AVENGE; I WILL REPAY. In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near
and their doom rushes upon them."
36 The LORD will judge his people and have compassion on his
servants when he sees their strength is gone and no one is left, slave or
free. 37 He will say: "Now where are their gods, the
rock they took refuge in, 38 the gods who ate the fat of
their sacrifices and drank the wine of their drink offerings? Let them rise up to help you! Let them give you shelter!” God makes no pretense about being a jealous
God (see the 2nd Commandment), and when people worship false gods,
they can expect no mercy. Vengeance
belongs to God! V39 “See now that
I myself am He! There is no god
besides me. I put to death and I bring to life, I have wounded and I
will heal, and no one can deliver out of my hand. 40 I lift my
hand to heaven and declare: As surely as I live forever, 41 when I sharpen my flashing sword
and my hand grasps it in judgment,
I will take vengeance on my
adversaries and repay those who hate me.” These are the words of the Creator God
Himself, so there is no excuse for failing to understand His intent! V42 “I
will make my arrows drunk with blood, while my sword devours flesh: the blood of the slain and
the captives, the heads of the
enemy leaders." 43 Rejoice, O nations, with his
people, for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take vengeance on his
enemies and make atonement
for his land and people.” And now Moses
concludes the words of the Song of
Moses: V44 “Moses came
with Joshua son of Nun and spoke all
the words of this SONG in the hearing of the people. 45 When
Moses finished reciting all these words to
all Israel, 46 he said to them, "Take to heart all
the words I have solemnly declared to you this day, so that you may command
your children to obey carefully all
the words of this law. 47 They are not just idle words for you--they are your life.” Yes, the words of God’s Law are not just idle
words, they are our life!
As we’ve seen, the Book of
Hebrews confirms what Moses wrote concerning God’s vengeance, and it is a dreadful thing to fall
into the hands of the Living God.
Most of the inhabitants of the earth will learn this the hard way! At the human
level, we’ve seen our Christian nations lavishing foreign aid on the
undeserving third-world countries, only to see them turn against us like snarling,
ungrateful dogs. So we understand the
ungratefulness of the undeserving.
Throughout Africa and the Muslim world, including And now we’re
seeing it throughout the Muslim world.
Insurrection and civil war is spreading around the The attitude
of the West is incomprehensible, and in particular, the White House. They scrambled to support the rebels in
their civil war in The Western
nations, that is, the Tribes of Israel, have been slow to learn who the enemy
is. The enemy are those who have
openly declared the destruction of the 12 Tribes of Israel, including the
Tribe of Judah – who have faced their venomous resolve many times in the
past! The rest of the Tribes of Israel
are already fighting two major wars with them in As things
stand, there’s an even bigger threat.
This time, it’s a nuclear-armed Freedom means
different things to different people.
Those who enjoy freedom are rarely satisfied – it’s never enough! Real freedom can only exist when justice is
served and the guilty are punished.
This ensures the freedom of the innocent. When justice breaks down, then freedom is
compromised. You can talk about
extending mercy to the guilty, but this only encourages others to commit the
same atrocities, and this only further endangers the innocent. They kill
those who should not die, and spare those who should not live. And
this is exactly what God says: Eze
13:19 “You have
profaned me among my people for a few handfuls of barley and scraps of bread.
By lying to my people, who
listen to lies, you have killed those who should not
have died and have spared those who should not live.” The interesting part about this is that
it’s referring to social justice, but the
principle extends far beyond this.
It’s actually a reference to women making themselves alluring to
entice men, and as frequently happens, especially if they encounter a rich
one, they emerge screaming “rape!”
It’s become a tidy little ‘earner’
for these wanton creatures who actually prey on men. The
principle is that a whole network of lies has led to this, and sexual
impurity is only a side-effect. The truth is
that a whole philosophy of lies and deceit are in place now to deceive the
people, and central to this are the leaders of Christianity. These are the ones who have created the
illusions. This is what God says through
the Prophet Ezekiel, concerning the House of Israel: Eze 13:8-19 “`Therefore
this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Because of your false words and lying
visions, I am against you, declares the Sovereign LORD. 9
My hand will be against the prophets who see false visions and utter lying divinations. They
will not belong to the council
of my people or be listed in the records of the HOUSE OF And now we see that God
is more concerned about their
attitude towards Jerusalem, where their white-washed flim-flam
rhetoric is designed to make the Israelis concede to their enemies, and in an
atmosphere where there is no peace: V13 “`Therefore this
is what the Sovereign LORD says: In
my wrath I will unleash a violent wind, and in my anger hailstones and
torrents of rain will fall with destructive fury. 14 I will tear down the wall you have
covered with whitewash and will level it to the ground so that its foundation
will be laid bare. When it falls, you will be destroyed in it;
and you will know that I am the LORD. 15 So I will spend my wrath against the wall
and against those who covered it
with whitewash. I will say to you, "The wall is gone and so are those who whitewashed it,
16 those prophets of
Israel who
prophesied to Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her when there was no
peace, declares the Sovereign LORD."' And isn’t this exactly
what we are seeing today? The White
House is using their white-washed lies to insist that the Israelis will have
peace if they bow to the demands of the Muslim hordes that are all around
them. Some peace! The Muslim foreigner in the White House has
set systematic strategies in place to ensure the Holy City of Jerusalem
becomes the property of Islam. His
chosen envoys have been given clear instructions of what he requires. And now we have a situation that is
rampantly escalating, with Hilary Clinton and Susan Rice making things many
times worse with their obvious bias against the Israelis. Both are ‘prostitutes par excellence’ in their pursuit of the destruction
of the Israelis and the forfeiture of the City of When Jesus
referred to Himself as the ‘bread
of life’, this is not what He had in
mind! John
6:35 “Then Jesus
declared, "I am the bread of
life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never
be thirsty.” Those who lie to His people, and those who
believe these lies, are out of touch with the ‘Bread of Life’ Jesus Christ, and such people
will know hunger and thirst on a grand scale! With their pious indifference to obedience
to God, such people have set themselves up for destruction. Those who want to believe lies should know
they have no part with Jesus Christ! It will only
take one nuclear bomb detonated over As a prophet,
David envisaged how this will all happen and what it will be like: Psa 94:2 Rise up, O Judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve. At the time of God’s judgment of the earth, the proud
and the wicked will be doing things worthy of death, and death is exactly
what they will face from the hand of God. Psa 94:3 How long will the wicked, O
LORD, how long will the wicked be
jubilant? For a little while all the
wicked will be jubilant, buoyed with the success of killing God’s people, the
House of Psa 94:4 They pour out arrogant words;
all the evildoers are full of
boasting. And you will see plenty
of their boasting when they achieve their goals of wiping out God’s people by
crushing them in murderous slaughter. Psa 94:5 They crush your people, O LORD; they oppress your inheritance. And let’s not be shy about whom God’s inheritance is! The Prophet Joel tells us in the clearest
terms that God’s inheritance is the
Tribes of After He has restored the
fortunes of The reason
for this judgment is for what they did to God’s inheritance, the Tribes of Israel. They scattered
His people among the nations – as slaves – and as we clearly see,
this was done in the immediate years prior to the Battle of Armageddon.
As we all know, the The House of Israel, or
as Jesus refers to them, ‘the lost sheep of Psa 94:6 They slay the widow and the
alien; they murder the fatherless. The evildoers will boast (see V4
above) that they can do anything they please, and nothing can restrain
them! Not even God Himself! They’ll assume that God is seeing nothing
and makes no move to restrain them.
Evil will prevail because there is nothing to stop it. Psa 94:7 They say, "The
LORD does not see;
the God of Jacob pays
no heed." This will be the general
perception, among both the victors and the vanquished. People tend to forget that Jesus Christ was
forsaken by God at the crucial time of His death. Remember the words, “My God, my God, why have you
forsaken me?” God turned His
back at this crucial time, because it had to happen this way. Jesus Christ had to pay the penalty for God’s inheritance for their past
sins! Which He did! Should, therefore, God’s inheritance escape the
penalty of their sins and their continual disobedience to God? Why would God listen to them in their
time of trouble when He didn’t
listen to the appeals of Jesus as He took their sins upon Himself? People who go on sinning after they know
better, should not expect anything different! God will not listen to
their cries! As the Book of Hebrews
puts it, this is tantamount to crucifying the Lord Christ all over again (Heb 6:4-6). Psa 94:8 Take heed, you
senseless ones among the people; you
fools, when will you become wise? Christianity needs to sharpen itself up a bit. They constantly act like fools and think
they are beguiling God with their nonsense.
Their focus is so narrow that they only care about themselves and
their perceived rewards. They have no
understanding at all of what God plans to accomplish. In short, God plans to populate the whole
world with His inheritance,
the
people of Psa 94:9 Does he who implanted the ear
not hear? Does he who formed the eye
not see? Here God is confirming that He created
the ear and the eye. You may have noticed that Jesus often used
the saying, ‘Let him who has ears let him hear’. And here we have a good example of this: Matt13:10-17
“The disciples came to him and asked, "Why do
you speak to the people in parables?" 11 He replied,
"The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of heaven
has been given to you, but not
to them. 12 Whoever has will be given more, and he will have an
abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. 13
This is why I speak to them in
parables: "Though seeing,
they do not see;
though hearing, they do not
hear or understand. 14 In
them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah: "`You will be ever
hearing but never
understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. 17
“For this people's heart has become calloused; they hardly
hear with their ears, and
they have closed their eyes.
Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear
with their ears, understand
with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them.' 16 But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear.
17 For I tell you the truth, many prophets and righteous men
longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but
did not hear it.” Psa 94:10 Does he who disciplines nations not punish? Does
he who teaches man lack knowledge? Contrary to general
perception, God does indeed discipline
nations. He can rise up and
destroy them in a moment, and their woes can come like the waves of the sea,
until they are left desolate and empty and without hope. And the other question asked in this verse
has equal weight for those who truly want to serve their
God. First they have to realize that God teaches with
a tremendous volume of knowledge. The Word of God is filled with such
knowledge, but as we just read in what Jesus had to say about closing their eyes and their ears,
most people never come to the knowledge
of the Truth. The knowledge of the secrets of the Kingdom was not
given to everyone, but only to His
servants. There are many
secrets of the Kingdom
concealed in the Scripture, but the Spirit
of Prophecy is needed to unlock them.
This Spirit of Prophecy
is indeed the Testimony of Jesus
(Rev 19:10)
and without the one you don’t have the other!
God gave the Spirit of
Prophecy to the man He chose, and it’s from this man that men should seek knowledge and instruction (Mal 2:7). In these last perilous days, it’s worthless
to be seeking knowledge from those who have no knowledge, because all they’ll
do is to make your eyes unseeing and your ears unhearing until you become calloused to the real message
of God. As the Lord Jesus pointed out,
this is the knowledge of the
secrets of the Kingdom. Didn’t the Lord Jesus and
all the Apostles teach from the only Scriptures that existed in their
time? Isn’t this where the secrets of the knowledge of the
Kingdom are hidden? On this
occasion, didn’t Jesus Christ teach from the prophecies of Isaiah?
In telling us this, He was directing us to the prophets of old, and
Isaiah in particular. It
was for this reason that the Book of Isaiah was the first to be commissioned
by God for the first full study of prophecy.
And that study is now at our website. Psa 94:11 The LORD knows the thoughts
of man; he knows that they are futile.
It’s a bad time for Christians to have futile thoughts. God has said that His people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: Hos 4:6
“My
people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. "Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject
you as my priests; because you have ignored the LAW OF YOUR GOD, I
also will ignore your children.” Some people might believe they can tough it
out and ignore God’s
knowledge and Law, but they should be aware that their children will
also suffer along with them. God is not
served through the futile thoughts
taught in the churches today. And just one
other thing while we’re on the subject!
God has said that those who lack
knowledge and ignore His
Law will be rejected as
priests. Lo and behold, God’s
servants today are a Brotherhood of Priests – Levite Priests! Jesus Christ Himself is a Priest – a High
Priest in service to the Father. By
now, the reader should be fully familiar of the Lord Jesus’ intentions, which
we’ve quoted many times: 1Cor 15:24-28 “Then the end
will come, when he hands over the
kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25
For he must reign until
he has put all his enemies under
his feet. 26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27
For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that
"everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not
include God himself, who
put everything under Christ. 28 When he has done this,
then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under
him, so that God may be all in all.” So here we find that the Greatest Priest of all has other
duties as well – as do all the Priests of God. Like the Warrior Priest Jesus Christ, God’s
chosen Priests (whom
He has not rejected) are also warrior Priests and their duty will be to fight to
establish God’s Kingdom. In this role,
they’ll be called the Sons of Jerusalem.
These are specifically taught
by God! And their knowledge comes from Him. Psa 94:12 Blessed is the man you discipline, O LORD, the man you teach from your law; Psa 94:13 you grant him relief from days of trouble, till
a pit is dug for the wicked.
God disciplines and punishes every
son He receives until they become proficient and knowledgeable to the teachings of His Law. It’s these who are granted relief from the woes of the troubles of Jacob,
their
fellow Israelites. In taking
the Kingdom by force, the result will be many dead enemies who must be
buried. And the logical place to dig this pit will be in the
Psa 94:14 For the LORD will not
reject his people; he
will never forsake his inheritance. Here we see that His people
are
His inheritance. Psa 94:15 Judgment will again be founded
on righteousness, and all
the upright in heart will follow it. While many people
continue to pontificate about the ‘sensitivities’ of the Muslim hordes over
trivial issues, like the public burning of the Koran, God’s servants will be
delivering long-overdue justice,
and their judgments
will be founded on righteousness – the type of righteousness that the
pontificators could never understand! In time to come, the
Tribes of Israel will rue the day they self-righteously defended the feigned
sensitivities of the Muslim hordes instead of burning their mosques along
with the evil creatures in them.
You’ve heard of justice, haven’t you?
Like an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth? For example, did you hear about the
church-burning in Rhwanda, with the churches full of Christians – men, women
and children? How much outrage was
expressed by you personally and all the Christians in your nation? Now we have Muslims burning churches everywhere,
most recently in Psa 94:16 Who will rise up FOR ME against the wicked? Who
will take a stand FOR ME against evildoers? Well that’s God’s question – so is it you? No, of course it isn’t! And neither would I suggest you do so
because you would be powerless against the forces of evil that prevail
today. As individuals, this is not
possible, and as far as expecting a good result, you would probably be very
disappointed. In reality, this is the
responsibility of your government through the law-enforcement agencies and
even the military, but these don’t even recognize the enemy, even
though they’ve been fighting wars with them for the past ten years! Psa 94:17 Unless the LORD had given me help, I would soon have dwelt in the silence
of death. Just remember, we’re
still considering the question God raised in the last verse about who would rise up FOR HIM against the
wicked. Anyone who does rise
up without
God’s help will finish up dead – in the silence of death! Obviously, someone must rise up for Him, and that
someone will be given God’s help! The first prerequisite for being this
‘someone’ is that he must be a servant of God. And the second prerequisite is that he must
not be weak and squeamish when dealing with God’s enemies. It’s not a job for the faint-hearted! But let’s be very clear
about a few things. God’s primary
concern is not for the plight of the ‘lost sheep of The reader will
understand that the numbers of these evil creatures that surround the Psa 94:18 When I said, "My foot is
slipping," your love, O LORD, supported me. Contrary to the inane, senseless and childish attitude of the churches
today, God’s servants will do their duty, and God’s love and support will be with them – even when the
task seems impossible. Psa 94:19 When anxiety was great within
me, your consolation brought joy to my soul.
At the present
time, the only anxiety is the anxiety to get going. To take the fight to a growing enemy, whose
numbers continue to grow exponentially! Psa 94:20 Can a corrupt throne (government) be allied
with you-- one that brings on misery by
its decrees? And
this is the other side of the coin.
Presently, the Israelis have a so-called alliance with And to get back to
something we mentioned earlier, there is no possible way that the servants of
God will have either the time or the inclination to be supportive of a mad,
morally-corrupt government that has picked a fight with God over His Holy
City Jerusalem! Psa 94:21 They band together against the righteous and condemn
the innocent to death. Well this confirms what
we’ve just said! Meanwhile, God’s servants
will be otherwise engaged with a people more attuned to their God and His
Law. The same people who have suffered
persecution and death for centuries for their faithful obedience to God’s
Law. And of course, we are speaking of
the faithful Jews. Long ago, God chose
them to be the saviours of the House of Israel. Psa 94:22 But the LORD has become my
fortress, and my God the
rock in whom I take REFUGE. Well, this is the answer
to the question posed in V16 above, about who would take a stand for God against
the enemy. Naturally
enough, the answer is the tried and tested servants of God! They will be taking REFUGE for 3½ years out of Satan’s reach
(Rev 12:14). During this time they will be trained in
the use of sophisticated weaponry (which this world has never seen or
imagined), and they will be invigorated with youthfulness as warriors. The first thing the world will notice is
that they will depart in a ‘Great
Eagle’ – a flying ‘Great Eagle’. The assumption drawn will be
that it’s an alien spacecraft and those taken were really extraterrestrial
beings. Following this, it will seem
logical to those who pose as Christians to hunt down anyone who has sought to
emulate
God’s servants and
their obedience to God’s Law. Meanwhile, Satan will
launch his fury against others and a great persecution will begin. The same people who hate the Jews today
will launch the persecution against those who keep the Commandments of God, and hold to the Testimony
of Jesus (V17).
It’s these Jew-haters that will get the ball rolling, but they’ll fail
to notice the real enemy among them, and these will be rallied by God to
administer the coup de grace, and this will be against those who killed God’s
people in the Churches of God.
Cascading disasters will be their lot for years to come until the
whole nation becomes a ruin! Too many people today
forget that the wages of sin is
death. Somehow it’s become
entrenched in their thick skulls that the wages of sin means life
everlasting. When God says He will repay them for their sins by destroying them, this is what
He means and this is what they deserve!
There’s no suggestion of any second chance being given when they have willingly
sinned against their Creator God: Psa 94:23 He will repay them for their sins and destroy them for their wickedness; the LORD our God will destroy them. And isn’t this what we just read in Zech 12:9? And yes, it is talking about the vermin that
surround the The writing was on the
wall a long time ago concerning Ephraim’s treachery towards the Tribe of
Judah and God’s To add to the madness, we
recently had a Christian Pastor publicly burning a Koran, only to see him
ostracized by the leftist media. They
condemned him for destroying a ‘holy’ book, which they consistently referred to
as the ‘holy Koran’. Have you ever seen these media lunatics
condemn anyone for destroying a Holy Bible?
No! The ‘holy Koran’, which
they are so quick to defend, is an endless harangue against Christians and
Jews and anyone else who doesn’t worship Allah the devil. The evil Koran calls for the
murder of all Christians and Jews – and they had the gall to ostracize the
Pastor for burning these ‘satanic verses’ as Salmon Rushdie
put it. Salmon Rushdie was a Muslim
until he realized just how satanic the Koran is. Now we’re seeing the
evidence of the changing wind against Christianity, and in favour of
Islam. You might have noticed that
it’s rare indeed to hear the name of Jesus Christ mentioned by the media
today, and never as a Prophet,
yet He is the greatest Prophet of all.
He’s actually called the “Word
of God”. In other words, He is
the embodiment of all the Scriptures.
On the other hand, how often do you hear the media refer to Mohammed
by any other title than the ‘Prophet Mohammed’? In their minds, Mohammed is a prophet, but
the Lord Jesus isn’t! It may seem to
very subtle, but the trend has already begun – and God has noticed! The very act of defending
‘satanic
verses’ as ‘holy’ shows the
mindset of those who control public perceptions and generate the trends. They defend evil and persecute
righteousness! And if this wasn’t
enough, Satan will drive them to kill true
Christians, who keep the
Commandments of God and hold
to the Testimony of Jesus. And
this will complete the charge-sheet and justice will run its course. PSALM 95 Psa 95:1 Come, let us sing for joy to
the LORD; let us shout aloud to the Rock
of our salvation. We’ve been speaking a lot
about salvation and where it will come from.
We already know that the Rock
which poured out water in the desert to save the Israelites was Jesus Christ. It’s this Rock which will feature prominently in saving the remnant
of the House of Israel and returning them to the Promised Land. It’s the Promised Land
which will be the safe-haven for God’s people in that day, not only from the
enemy, but also from the effects of the restoration of the earth. Mountains will crumble, inland seas will be
displaced, and landslides will devastate anything in their path. All this will occur when the landmass of
the earth is restored to its original shape. It’s as well to get a
head start on these things and understand them, because if you don’t, then
you will never understand the meaning of salvation. We all know the population of the earth
numbers in excess of six thousand million people, most of whom are not
welcome to live in God’s Kingdom. We’ve spoken of the
preparations needed for the establishment of the Promised Land, and the
displacement of those who have no right to be there. We’ve spoken about the digging of a pit in This will be a time of
rejoicing and thanksgiving, which Isaiah also mentions in V14-16
“They raise their voices, they shout for joy; from the west they acclaim the LORD's
majesty. 15 Therefore in the east give
glory to the LORD; exalt the name of the LORD, the God of All things considered and
with a world in chaos, there will be joyous singing and acclaim throughout
all the earth when the Sovereign
God reigns. The
West will rejoice, but then so will the East – where there will be some
survivors. Many of those who were
formerly dragon-worshippers in the And now the Psalmist reiterates
these things with thanksgiving and music and song: Psa 95:2 Let us come before him with
thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. Psa 95:3 For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods. Psa 95:4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. In fact, the mountains came from the depths of the earth, being mostly of diorites and
granites. When God restores the earth,
these mountains will go back to where they came from, and the earth will become
like a plain. All the useless, chaotic
mountains will be no more. All the
land will be returned to productivity.
There will still be mining, but in that day the mineralization of the
earth will be realigned and easily accessible. Not the jumbled up mess we see today! Psa 95:5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. We can therefore presume that since God made all these things, He has
the right to restore them to their acceptable beginnings. While this will result in the casualties of
billions of people outside of the The importance of the
next six verses can be seen by their inclusion in Heb 3:15-4:7. It stresses the importance of not
hardening our hearts when we hear
His voice. This is basically
what Jesus said about ears that can’t hear and eyes that cannot see. He was referencing those who have no
interest in understanding God’s
ways. For this reason, He
spoke in parables so they wouldn’t understand, lest they should turn and be
healed by Him. Christians today are
notorious for twisting the Scriptures to suit themselves. This will become evident as we begin to
read the following verses and how they relate to keeping God’s Sabbath holy. Just to summarize in advance, God is saying
that if you don’t keep His weekly Sabbath Day holy, then you will not
enter His Millennial Sabbath rest either. We’ll first consider what
the Psalmist says, before going to the Book of Hebrews: Psa 95:6 Come, let us bow down in
worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker; Psa 95:7 for he is our God and we are
the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. TODAY,
IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, Psa 95:8 DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS as you did at Meribah, as you did that day
at Massah in the desert, Psa 95:9 where your fathers tested and
tried me, though they had seen what I did. Psa 95:10 For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said,
"They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not
known my ways." Psa 95:11 So I declared on oath in my
anger, "They shall never enter
my rest." This rest is speaking of entering the Promised Land where they
will find peace. Just a quick word about
what happened at Meribah, which was a particularly sad event. The Israelites were at the point of
rebellion against Moses and complained that he had led them to the desert to
die of thirst. Moses became agitated
and made a serious mistake: Psa 106:32 “By the
waters of Meribah they angered the LORD, and trouble came to Moses because of
them; 33 for they rebelled against the Spirit of God, and rash words came from Moses' lips.
34 They did not destroy the peoples as
the LORD had commanded them, 35 but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. 36
They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them.” After all they
saw of God’s miracles in And now we come to the
Book of Hebrews, where this very episode is used to reflect on the present day, which is referred
to as “Today”. Heb 2:12 – 4:13 “See
to it, brothers, that none of you
has a sinful, unbelieving heart
that turns away from the living God. 13 But encourage one
another daily, as long as it is called Today,
so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness. 14 We
have come to share in Christ if we
hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. 15
As has just been said: "TODAY, IF YOU HEAR HIS VOICE, DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS as
you did in the rebellion." 16 Who were they who heard and
rebelled? Were they not all those Moses led out of Continuing in
the Book of Hebrews: V8 “For if
Joshua had given them rest,
God would not have spoken later about another day. 9 There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;
10 for anyone who enters
God's rest ALSO RESTS FROM
HIS OWN WORK, JUST AS GOD
DID FROM HIS. 11 Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will
fall by following their example of disobedience.” Well you can’t get any plainer than
this! If God rested on the Seventh Day from His work, so must we rest on the Seventh Day from
all our work! This, in
fact, summarizes what we’ve just read in the passage from the Book of
Hebrews. If you hope to enter God’s
Millennial Rest, you must rest on His
Sabbath-day. V12 “For the word of God is
living and active. Sharper
than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and
spirit, joints and marrow; it
judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. 13 Nothing
in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid
bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” We’re already giving our account to God in all that we say and do. He is already judging the thoughts and attitudes of our hearts and minds
to determine our suitability for salvation in the PSALM 96 In this Psalm, God makes
a plea to all the nations of the
earth to come to their senses if they hope to be spared and see salvation. Optionally, they can refuse and suffer the consequences –
which at that time, many will have already seen. The wreckage of their civilization will be
very evident from where they stand.
Their future will look very bleak indeed – unless they come to their
senses and turn to their Creator God.
To those who do, God will extend His mercy. Psa 96:1 Sing to the LORD a new song; sing to the LORD, all
the earth. The songs which most of
the world sings today are scarcely a reflection of their devotion to their
Creator God. The Prophet David was a
writer of songs, and his songs were directed to the glory
of God! Therefore, it’s David’s
example that should be followed when all the earth reconsiders their position. In other words, they have to learn some new
songs! One of these is the Song of Moses (Rev 15:3), which we often refer to. Psa 96:2 Sing to the LORD, praise
his name; proclaim his
salvation day after day. This is a good starting
point for the people of the world who want to be like David and his most
famous son, Jesus Christ. Anyone who
wants to be saved from their horrific circumstances will need to be attuned
to God when seeking His help. Psa 96:3 Declare his glory among the nations, his marvelous deeds among all peoples. If they pay close attention to what David wrote, then they will learn
a great deal about the marvelous
deeds of the Almighty. Psa 96:4 For great is the LORD and most
worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all
gods. Psa 96:5 For all the gods of the
nations are idols, but the LORD made the heavens. It’s been a problem for what seems forever in the past that men have
worshipped the sun, moon and stars. So
God is confirming He made them all,
and He also confirms that He, as the Creator,
should be worshipped – not the creation. It should not go unnoticed that Islam
glorifies the moon on their flags; the moon being the lesser light. The Lord Christ, on the other hand, is
symbolized as the Sun of
Righteousness (Mal 4:2) and the Bright Morning Star (Rev 22:16).
The Apostle Peter confirmed that when
a certain day dawns the Morning
Star will rise in our hearts (2Pet 1:19).
The context in which Peter makes this reference is in relation to the sure Word of Prophecy, which
he advises to pay attention to. Psa 96:6 Splendor and majesty are
before him; strength and glory
are in his
sanctuary. There will be a sanctuary
where people will find rest,
and the protectors of this sanctuary will be fierce adversaries to all who
oppose it. They will also be imbued
with both strength and glory
which will include invincibility
(remember Zech
12:8?). Psa 96:7 Ascribe to the LORD, O families of nations, ascribe
to the LORD glory and
strength. It will seem to the families of the nations (Gentiles)
that the glory and strength
they observe comes from transgressors
rather than God. In this, both Jesus
and Isaiah made this clear: Isa 53:12 “Therefore I
will give him a portion among the great, and he will divide the spoils with
the strong, because he poured out his life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” And now we find
out from what Jesus said that the so-called ‘transgressors’ were His own disciples: Luke 22:36-38 “He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take
it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.
37 It is written: `And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is
written about me is reaching its fulfillment." Well, soon it
will be fulfilled and the families of nations had better ascribe this glory and strength to the LORD if they know
what’s good for them. And just to
conclude what Jesus said in this regard: V38 The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords." "That is enough," he replied. If those two
swords are in the hands of the Jews and the Levites, then it will be
enough. Collectively, these will be
called the House of David –
as
they were in days of old – and as we all know, they will be like both
David and God (Zech 12:8). Once again, the House of
David will go out to battle as the ‘Armies of the Living God’ as David
described his army. Then the families
of the nations will know they are not to be
trifled with. If they behave
themselves, then they will be invited to attend God’s court. Psa 96:8 Ascribe to the LORD the
glory due his name; bring
an offering and come into his courts.
They’ll need to
ring the door bell with their elbow, because their arms will be full of the mandatory
offerings for the Psa 96:9 Worship the LORD in the
splendor of his holiness; tremble
before him, all the earth. Only those who have their priorities right will worship the LORD in
the splendor of His Holiness, and this will require the deepest respect for
Him. By this time, all the world will
know the consequences of failing to do so.
We are of course, speaking of the time when the LORD reigns and the earth has been restored and is
no longer quaking or moving: Psa 96:10 Say among the nations, "The LORD reigns." The
world is firmly established, it cannot be moved; he will
judge the peoples with equity. God’s judgment will
be equal to their conduct, and this will not
necessarily bode well for nations of the world. They will however, get a heads-up if they
abandon their gods and turn to Him and seek His Truth. Psa 96:11 Let the heavens rejoice, let
the earth be glad; let the sea resound, and all that is in it; Psa 96:12 let the fields be jubilant,
and everything in them. Then all the
trees of the forest will sing for joy; Psa 96:13 they will sing before the LORD, for he comes, he comes to judge the earth. He
will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples in his truth. As we’ve said many times, “God’s
Word is Truth!” – and so by this Word the whole
world will be judged. PSALM 97 Psa 97:1 The LORD reigns,
let the earth be glad; let the distant shores rejoice. This is speaking of shores
that are very distant from And now we get a preview
of how God’s reign comes about, and the circumstances preceding it. Psa 97:2 Clouds and thick darkness surround him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. Doom and gloom are everywhere, and there is little comfort for man or
beast. Added to this is God’s
trademark reaction to the nations who have defiled His righteous ways: Psa 97:3 Fire goes before him and
consumes his foes on every side.
You’ll recall how
God dealt with Psa 97:4 His lightning lights up the world; the earth sees and trembles. The peoples of the earth
will have a lot to contend with in that day!
When the fire starts coming down from heaven the whole world will be
trembling with fear. It won’t go unnoticed
that the earth itself is also trembling and shaking with mountains melting away and disappearing: Psa 97:5 The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the
Lord of all the earth. The prophets of old knew
that the earth had to be repaired and restored, and this is just one of the
many occasions when they referred to this.
Unlike the prophets of old, the geologists of this age are totally
confused and understand nothing about the earth. They’ll be just as shocked as everyone else
when they see the mountains melt
like wax. And as they do, the
worthless theories of this world’s ‘scientists’
will take yet another setback. We’re
already getting pretty used to this with their lunatic theories on ‘manmade global warming’, which is an
international scam of the highest order.
It seems that people are quite willing to be deceived as long as it
sounds ‘scientific’. As a real scientist said recently in regard
to this scam, “It’s merely a quest for cheap virtue”, meaning it’s a way for
people to show feigned concern for the earth and its people and appear
virtuous in doing so. You might also
note how often the name ‘Gaia’ is
mentioned in relation to the earth by many of these lunatics. Gaia is the presumed pagan ‘goddess of the earth’, who “must be obeyed”. If you love God then you’ll not
get involved with it. Leave it all to
the fools who love cheap virtue!
They’ll soon find out that their ‘virtue’
wasn’t so cheap after all. Psa 97:6 The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory.
Yes, it’s true! The whole world will see God’s Glory! What is more, when the heavens proclaim His righteousness,
it will be through catastrophic fire from the sky. While they’ll see God’s Glory – His dwelling-place, they
won’t be happy to see His Judgments. Psa 97:7 All who worship images are
put to shame, those who boast in idols-- worship him, all you
gods! Anyone who worships anything other than the
True God will be put to a lot of shame. But there will be
exceptions: Psa 97:8 Zion hears and rejoices and the villages of Psa 97:9 For you, O LORD, are the Most
High over all the earth; you are exalted far above all gods. There are presently 50
million of these on earth today.
God knows them all and
they’re called demons. Psa 97:10 Let those who love the LORD
hate evil, for he guards the lives
of his faithful ones and DELIVERS
THEM FROM THE HAND OF THE WICKED.
This is the true
meaning of the term ‘salvation’. It means to be DELIVERED FROM THE HAND OF THE ENEMY. Speaking of his son John the Baptist,
Zechariah prophesied this: Luke 1:69-79 “He has raised
up a HORN OF SALVATION for
us in the house of his servant
David 70 (as he said through his holy prophets of
long ago), 71 SALVATION
FROM OUR ENEMIES and FROM THE HAND OF ALL WHO HATE US--72
to show mercy to our fathers and to remember
his holy covenant, 73 the oath he swore to our father
Abraham: 74 TO RESCUE US
FROM THE HAND OF OUR ENEMIES, and to enable us to serve him without
fear 75 in holiness and righteousness before him all our days. 76 And you, my child, will be called a PROPHET OF THE MOST HIGH; for you will go
on before the Lord to prepare the
way for him, 77 to
give his people the KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION through the forgiveness of
their sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the RISING SUN will come to
us from heaven79 to shine on those living in darkness and
in the shadow of death, to guide
our feet into the path of peace." You could just about write a book about
what is spoken of in these few verses, but we’ll restrict it to just the
pertinent points regarding the KNOWLEDGE
OF SALVATION. I have yet to
hear any church
anywhere
detail the true meaning
of
salvation. They simply
presume they are already ‘saved’
even though they’ve never even faced the enemy. The KNOWLEDGE
OF SALVATION was destined
to come from a PROPHET OF THE MOST
HIGH just as the holy
prophets of long ago prophesied. It’s important to note
that all that Zechariah prophesied here concerns his son John, and
was a prophecy about him. He was to
precede the Lord Christ, the RISING
SUN from heaven. Jesus Christ
was born six months later – after Zechariah prophesied these words. So getting back now to
the last verse in this Psalm (V10), we can understand whose ‘lives of the faithful ones’ He
guards and delivers from the hand of the wicked. It’s the prophet of the Most High and all his faithful brothers.
It’s these who become the HORN OF SALVATION in the HOUSE OF DAVID. So
don’t be too quick to be fooled by others who offer ‘salvation’ when they don’t understand what it is! They have no light of dawn and they
understand nothing. Psa 97:11 Light is shed upon the
righteous and joy on the upright in heart. Light is shed upon the
righteous, and they know the true meaning of joy through obedience to God. Not so with the unrighteous – they have no
light at all! So don’t listen to them! Psa 97:12 Rejoice in the LORD, you who are righteous, and praise his holy name. Praising God’s Holy Name is usually done in song, which we spoke at
length about in the last Psalm and which continues in the next. PSALM 98 A psalm. Psa 98:1 Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous
things; his right hand and his holy
arm have worked salvation
for him. Psa 98:2 The LORD has MADE HIS SALVATION KNOWN and revealed his righteousness
to the nations. Contrary to popular
belief, the churches of this world don’t know anything about God’s salvation! They imagine it to be some sort of feeling
in the heart and they talk a lot about giving their hearts to the Lord. It further enhances their reputation if
they can speak in the archaic, old English language. In this way their ideas about salvation
sound so ‘spiritual’. When God makes His SALVATION KNOWN to them, they won’t be speaking so ‘spiritual’, believe me! They’ll be pounding on themselves for being
so false and stupid! As we just saw in
Zechariah’s prophecy about his son John, it was John who was to bring the KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION. John was the Elijah who preceded our Lord
Christ’s first appearance. Psa 98:3 He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to the house of As one might well
imagine, those who are enslaved in concentration camps and whose lives hang
by a thread, will rejoice to hear good tidings. Just think back to WW2 when the Allies
liberated the Nazi concentration camps.
What the Jews went through will be repeated when the ‘lost ten Tribes’
face their destiny and their punishment.
Perhaps if they had paid more attention to the prophets of long ago,
they might have known what to expect. Well, the Jews hard
service is almost over,
and soon God will be comforting
them (Isa
40:1-5). On the other hand,
Ephraim’s hard service is just about to begin. It might have spared them a lot of
heartache if they had been more supportive of We shouldn’t forget that
all of The Spanish and the
French were the first to take full of advantage of this, securing vast areas
of the Meanwhile, the Eastern
seaboard of But the trump card was
played when Ephraim established the nation through the founding fathers of the new nation with one of the most
amazing documents of all time: The Constitution of the Speaking of Ephraim, God says this: Hos 9:10 “When I found Israel,
it was like finding grapes in the
desert; when I saw your
fathers, it was like seeing
the early fruit on the fig tree.” And it is speaking of Ephraim, see V11. In fact, the whole Book of Hosea relates to
Ephraim. When God saw the founding fathers of the nation it was like finding early figs on a fig-tree. Obviously, God was very pleased with
them! On the other hand, Europe and The reader might recall
that the Lord Jesus destroyed a fig
tree that failed to produce
early figs. This was, in fact,
a prophetic sign for Ephraim, which would be enacted once the documents of
the founding fathers are no longer adhered to. This is the generation that is now taking
that stand. And now, almost on a daily
basis, the US Constitution is being violated.
The US Constitution was to be their training ground for the observance
of just law, even though it wasn’t God’s Law.
But it was a start in the right direction and God was pleased with the
founding fathers who instituted it, because they emphasized the importance of
law. Ephraim stands head and
shoulders over all of Europe, and to be perfectly honest, the European states
collectively are mere minions in relation to the might and power of And yet, Bible Prophecy
confirms that Ephraim will be taken
out of the way and left powerless to defend itself. Every Western observer knows there are
forces of evil building up today. The
West is already fighting two limited wars with these evil creatures and every
sane person knows these wars are against Islam. In days of old, the Apostles and Prophets
understood the Scriptures, and the Apostle Paul was one of these. It was he who made reference to Ephraim when he said this: 2Thess 2:5-7
“Don't you remember that when I was with
you I used to tell you these things? 6 And now you know
what is holding him (the Beast – see V3-4) back, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7 For the secret power of lawlessness is
already at work; but the one who now holds it back will continue to do so till he is taken out of the way.” Paul was recounting a conversation he had
previously had with these Christians in Thessalonica, in reference to the
coming of the prophesied beast. He
confirmed that this would not happen until ‘he’
is taken out of the way. The ‘he’
to whom he was referring is confirmed in the Scriptures
as Ephraim. Until the mighty Ephraim is taken
out of the way, the Beast will not appear. Paul may or may not
have known where Ephraim was in his day, but he certainly knew who
and what he, Ephraim, would be in the last days. Because he understood the Scriptures, he
knew that Ephraim would be a mighty force in the last days – before
the Beast arose. And he knew the Beast
would not make his appearance until Ephraim was no more the mightiest nation
and the most powerful restraining factor on earth. We have been privileged to see these
fulfillments of Bible Prophecy in our day. So Ephraim must be taken
out of the way! It would be a serious
mistake to assume that this will happen because Ephraim is the worst nation
on earth, because it isn’t so! In
Truth, they are the best nation that ever was by human standards, but they fall way short of
the standards of righteousness that
God insists upon. As this Psalm started out
speaking of salvation from
the ends of the earth, it’s
clear that God’s people, the descendants of Jacob, will be in serious need of
rescue. The halcyon days are almost over
and we are now living in the calm before the storm. It’s unimaginable the
horrors that the greatest nation on earth will encounter, but these things
are virtually engraved on stone and it has to be this way. By what other means could the nation be induced
to return to God and begin obeying Him?
At the height of their splendorous living they’ve only succeeded in
going further away to the point where they not only disobey Him, but now they
openly
challenge Him as the
Creator God. What is more,
this insanity is now being taught in the schools under the title of ‘evolution’. God intends to meet their challenge! It will be a long, dark night before they
see the Light of Dawn! Years in fact! By now, the reader should
have a fair idea of the meaning of salvation, because all the prophets spoke
of it at length – particularly David.
Since David is to be resurrected as the king over all the House of
Israel, he has a vested interest in seeing that the meaning of salvation is
clearly understood. When he wrote all
these things he knew that the Tribes of Israel would have to be rescued in
order to enter the Promised Land
and the Promised Rest. At that time, the surviving remnant will be
citizens of the And now we
come to the time when David will be raised up as king over the survivors of
the House of Israel, and they will be a physical nation, who will bear
children and live to a great age. As God puts it, like the age of a tree (Isa
65:20-23). Remember how the angels
first shouted and sang for joy
when God first created the earth and everything in it, and laid out the
continental landmass? Remember how God
spoke to the Prophet Job and reminded him?
Job
38:4-7 “Where were you when I laid the earth's foundation? Tell me, if you understand. 5 Who
marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who
stretched a measuring line across it? 6 On what were its
footings set, or who laid its
cornerstone-- 7 while
the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?” Well all this is about to
be reenacted when the earth is restored to its origin design: Psa 98:4 Shout for joy to the LORD, all
the earth, burst into jubilant song with music; Psa 98:5 make music to the LORD with
the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, Psa 98:6 with trumpets and the blast of
the ram's horn-- shout for joy before the LORD, the King. Psa 98:7 Let the sea resound, and
everything in it, the world, and all who live in it. There will be one Psa 98:8 Let the rivers clap their
hands, let the mountains sing together for joy; (the mountains will have cause to sing and
rejoice once they become productive ground) Psa 98:9 let them sing before the LORD,
for he comes to judge the earth. He
will judge the world in righteousness and the peoples with equity. PSALM 99 Psa 99:1 The LORD reigns, let the nations tremble; he sits enthroned between the cherubim,
let the earth shake. There are two cherubim who stand at God’s side. One is Michael and the other is
Gabriel. Both these Cherubim are
mentioned in relation to the endtime prophecies, and both are powerful
warriors of God. If the ruler of a
nation offends God, then these are the ones He dispatches to destroy
them. And it’s happened many times in
the past. They’re very thorough in
their work, and Psa 99:2 Great is the LORD in Psa 99:3 Let them praise your great and
awesome name-- he is holy. Psa 99:4 The King is mighty, he loves justice-- you have established equity; in Jacob you
have done what is just and right. I think we all know what
justice is. It’s the punishment for
wrong-doing, specifically disobedience to the law. But of course, God’s justice goes way
beyond this. He reserves justice for
whole nations, and even though they may not know God, these nations get the
punishment they deserve. Psa 99:5 Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy. Psa 99:6 Moses and Aaron
were among his priests, Samuel was among those who called on
his name; they called on
the LORD and he answered them.
There is an interesting
aside to this. All three, Moses, Aaron and Samuel
were all Levites. Psa 99:7 He spoke to them
from the pillar of cloud; they kept
his statutes and the decrees he gave them. David is the writer of these Psalms, and he knew that God spoke to
Moses and Aaron directly some 400 years previously. David knew Samuel very well, and it was he
that anointed David as King over all Psa 99:8 O LORD our God, you answered them (that is, Moses, Aaron and Samuel); you were to Psa 99:9 Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his holy mountain,
for the LORD our God is holy. Since we’re speaking
about Moses, Aaron and Samuel, there is a The irony of
this is that the Jews worshipped
the God of the Old Testament, which was Jesus Christ! It was Jesus Christ Himself who led the
Israelites through all their journeys and finally to the Promised Land. This is confirmed in 1Cor 10:2 as we’ve quoted many times before.
The Jews know what they
worship, as Jesus said, but lamentably, most of Christianity
does not! In fact, Christianity
generally has rejected the Law
and the Prophets – that is, the Old
Testament, and have no clear understanding of what God requires, and
are therefore incapable of worshipping God in Spirit and in Truth. How unlike Jesus they are! Jesus quoted from the Scriptures many times,
and which Scriptures were they? The Old Testament, as we call it,
was the only Scripture
in His day. And this is why
the Jews have been chosen to bring
Salvation. The Jews have
faithfully worshipped the God of
the Old Testament (Jesus Christ) for thousands
of years. Mainstream Christianity has
not! There’s even
more irony involved here. The Jews know
what they worship (as
Jesus said), but does Christianity?
The truth is they’ve been fighting over doctrinal issues for
centuries, and can’t agree on anything.
There are as many different doctrines as there are churches! Even with such a diminutive knowledge base,
you would think they could flange together some form of coherency based on
Scripture. But such is not the
case! Yet they all claim
to worship God in Spirit and in
Truth – which they don’t! PSALM 100 A psalm. For giving thanks. Psa 100:1 Shout for joy to the LORD, all
the earth. Psa 100:2 Worship the LORD with
gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Psa 100:3 Know that the
LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people,
the sheep of his pasture. Those who don’t believe God made us are
probably of the opinion that all life evolved from nothing. Therefore they should be prepared to accept
the cycle of life that exists, where the strong devour the weak, and then
philosophically accept their fate. All
life eventually ends up as dust, so when non-believers are torn to pieces by
predators, why should they be surprised?
They are merely following the path of life. After all, God hasn’t demanded that all
human beings believe Him to be the Creator; He has merely given them that
choice. And there is good reason for
this! God intends to populate the
earth with sound, rational, logical, compliant people, and as such,
intelligent people know that life
can only come from life. Therefore, there has to be a Designer, Creator Source for
the creation of life. Those who accept
this and who recognize their obligations to God for the life He has given
them are the very progenitors who will populate His Kingdom. All others must accept their fate according
to the dictates of their beliefs. As
animals die and return to dust, so must they.
As animals have no hope of an afterlife, neither have they. And this summarizes the meaning of life. It should come as no
surprise to the rational human being that God rewards those who diligently seek Him. God loves the earth and His creation, and He
intends to see it survive forever. A
lot of work went into its planning and design, and it’s worth
preserving. Jesus Christ felt so,
because He gave His life for it (John 3:16).
Therefore it’s incumbent upon all His disciples to feel the same way. Psa 100:4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with
praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. Those who enter the gates of
the Psa 100:5 For the LORD is good and his
love endures forever; his
faithfulness continues through all
generations. Jesus Christ’s unquestionable faithfulness to His Father is well known
to all Christians, and just as assuredly, His faithfulness through all generations has
been demonstrated through all who
think as He does. PSALM 101 Of David. A psalm. The life of David is an
example one of those generations,
and he now proceeds to give us some good advice. Psa 101:1 I will sing of your love and justice; to you, O LORD, I will sing praise. Psa 101:2 I
will be careful to lead a blameless life-- when
will you come to me? I will walk in my
house with blameless heart. Psa 101:3 I
will set before my eyes no vile thing.
The deeds of faithless men I hate; they will not
cling to me. We’ve seen too
many faithless men in this day and age.
These are the ones who have divested of logic and now cling to the
delusion that they are no longer accountable to a Creator God. Psa 101:4 Men
of perverse heart shall be far from
me; I will have nothing to do with evil. This is very good advice! David is telling us to stay well away from
evil. The Apostle Paul also gave us
some good advice in relation to having nothing to do with evil: 2Tim 3:1-5
“But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2
People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud,
abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3
without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not
lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of
pleasure rather than lovers of God-- 5 having a form of godliness
but denying its power. HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THEM.” Paul was speaking
of our days, the
final days before the Psa 101:5 Whoever
slanders
his neighbor in secret, him will I put to silence; whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart,
him will I not endure. You
can see the similarities here to what Paul says above, when he speaks of the slanderous, the proud and the boastful. These are the sorts of people we should have nothing to do with. They are just troublesome and
irritating! As far as having a ‘form
of godliness’ as Paul puts it, their fake hypocritical charades
is something that no sound-minded person would want anything to do with. The late Elizabeth Taylor, a Jewess, made
an interesting observation in something she said, “The problem with people who have no vices is that
generally you can be pretty sure they’re going to have some pretty annoying
virtues." -- Elizabeth
Taylor. The point is that those who
claim to have no vices and who preach virtue are frequently hypocrites and
their hidden vices sometimes make the headlines – as we’ve all seen. Psa 101:6 My
eyes will be on the faithful
in the land, that they may dwell with me; he whose walk is blameless will minister to me. David is making it clear his preferences for
those who will minister in his royal court when he once more becomes
the King over all of Psa 101:7 No
one who practices deceit will dwell in my house; no one who speaks falsely will stand in
my presence. This confirms what
David says in the previous verse.
Lying deceivers will have no place in God’s Kingdom. Psa 101:8 Every morning
I will put to silence all
the wicked in the land; I will cut off every evildoer from
the city of the LORD. The term ‘cut off’ is code
for execution. Hopefully, there will be less of these
after a period of cleansing of habitual offenders. Contrary to all the politically correct
nonsense, capital punishment is definitely a deterrent to
all would-be offenders! And justice
must be swift! There’s an old legal
saying, “Justice delayed is justice denied”. Those in God’s Kingdom
will have seen the carnage and cruelty of enemy forces and the slaughter of
millions of their countrymen, will have no tolerance for those who want to
perpetuate the cause of all this slaughter.
They’ll readily recognize that anyone who fails to remain faithful to
God and His Laws have no rights to life.
Both David and Paul attest to the type of conduct that will be
outlawed. PSALM 102 A prayer of an afflicted man. When he is faint and pours out his
lament before the LORD. As we saw in the last
verse, the wicked must be silenced
in the land, and this will be acknowledged by all who have learned
their lesson through incredible hardship and humiliation and who now desire
to serve God. So now David speaks of
the future horror that will bring them to this point. Psa 102:1 Hear my
prayer, O LORD; let my cry for help come to you. David is appealing on behalf of his future
subjects – and this is
confirmed in V18-20
below, which we’ll get to shortly. Psa 102:2 Do
not hide your face from me when I
am in distress. Turn your ear to me; when I call, answer me quickly. Psa 102:3 For
my days vanish like smoke; my bones burn like glowing embers. Life drains away when one is in deep
distress and the body begins to break down. Psa 102:4 My
heart is blighted and withered like grass; I forget to eat my food.
When your diet consists of ashes
(see V9
below) it might be easy to forget. Psa 102:5 Because
of my loud groaning I am reduced to skin and bones. Because of the stress of the
situation there won’t be much to be happy about. Generally, people in forced labor are
reduced to skin and bones. Even after
an invasion, when everything is either looted or burnt, all food sources
evaporate and there is nothing to eat.
Starvation becomes the norm. Psa 102:6 I am
like a desert owl, like an owl among
the ruins. History
tells us of the aftermath of war and the ruins
that result. I hope the reference to
the owl doesn’t mean looking for rodents to eat, but this seems to be the
implication. Rodents do tend to
survive well on rotting carcasses. Psa 102:7 I lie
awake; I have become like a bird alone on a roof. Presumably, exposed to all the
elements and at night when most birds refuse to fly. Psa 102:8 All day long my enemies taunt me; those who rail against me use my name as a curse. Under such holocaust conditions,
everyone becomes the enemy when the food wars begin. There’s an implied meaning here that the
Saints will be blamed for everything that has resulted; it’s generally called
‘scapegoating’. It results when no-one
is prepared to take responsibility for their own actions. The litigious actions of people in the
courts, even today, goes to show how quick they are to blame others for their
problems. Well, the ‘turn the other cheek’ principle is
going to come back to haunt them. Psa 102:9 For I eat ashes as my food and mingle my drink with tears Psa 102:10 because
of your great wrath, for you have taken
me up and thrown me aside. While
this is so, didn’t the House of Israel do this first to their Creator God? The wheel that goes around comes around and
this is how justice works. It’s always
a bit late to be lamenting after the event.
If you were told in advance would you listen and be warned-off from
such a fate? The truth is that most
people won’t! Some people just have to
learn the hard way because they won’t believe God. So whose fault is it? It might be of interest to know that
Abraham believed God and it
was credited to him as
righteousness (James 2:23).
So what ever you do, trust and believe God! When you find yourself thrown aside and in want of all things, just remember if
you start believing God,
then you will also be credited
with righteousness. God does
have compassion on the righteous! Psa 102:11 My
days are like the evening shadow;
I wither away like grass. An evening shadow descends into
the darkness of the night. David is
speaking of a long dark night
before the dawning of a new day. The days of punishment are not going to be
kind to anyone because this is not what punishment was
designed to do. Because of false assumptions
there are a lot of people who don’t believe they deserve punishment from
God. The Book of Hebrews would tell
you different: Heb 10:26-31 “If we deliberately
keep on sinning after
we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is
left, 27 but only a fearful expectation of
judgment and of raging fire that will consume the enemies of God.
28 Anyone who rejected the law of Moses died
without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses. 29
How much more severely do you think a man deserves to be punished who has trampled the Son of God under foot, who has treated as an unholy
thing the blood of the covenant
that sanctified him, and who has insulted the Spirit of grace? 30
For we know him who said, "It
is mine to avenge; I will repay," and
again, "The Lord will judge
his people." 31 It is a dreadful thing to fall into the
hands of the living God.” I can’t imagine dying any more severely
than dying without mercy,
but this is without taking into account the methods of the enemy. To be sure, this is speaking of those
who’ve been sanctified by
God’s Holy Spirit and then turned away from Him, so I
would imagine they can expect the worst! There is a
perception today that God should forgive everyone for everything, even those
things that are deeply offensive to Him.
Most people have heard of the ‘mark
of the Beast’ and they’re well aware that it’s something to avoid. Yet if push comes to shove and they’re
forced to accept it, then God will just have to forgive them! But will he? This is what God has to say on the subject:
Rev 14:9-12 “A third angel followed
them and said in a loud voice: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the
forehead or on the hand, 10 he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been
poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented
with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb.
11 And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There
is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of
his name." 12 This calls for patient endurance on the
part of the saints who obey God's commandments and remain faithful to Jesus.” There are no
ifs or buts about this! Accept this ‘mark’ and you’ll suffer the
penalty! It’s rated as the highest
treasonable act anyone could commit!
You’ll notice the final verse about the patient endurance
of the Saints. The Saints, which are those who have God’s
Holy Spirit, will endure whatever death is meted out to them – rather
than to defy their God! And by way of
comfort to them, God adds this: V13-14 “Then I heard
a voice from heaven say, "Write: Blessed
are the dead who
die in the Lord from now on." "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor,
for
their deeds will follow them." They will willingly die for their God, just
as Jesus did, because they didn’t love their lives so much as to shrink from
death! And now David
begins to speak of the endgame when
the Lord Christ arises. His
first objective will be to show favour to Psa 102:12 But
you, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all
generations. Psa 102:13 You will arise and have compassion on
Zion, for it is time to show favor
to her; the appointed
time has come. This is
a reference to the dawning of the new day when the Sun of Righteousness arises
with healing in His wings (Mal 4:2).
You’ll recall that the Apostle Peter also spoke of this in 2Pet 1:19
“…until the day
dawns and the Morning Star
arises
in your hearts.” The Morning Star or
Sun, of course, is Jesus
Christ (Rev
22:16). Psa 102:14 For her
(Zion or Jerusalem) stones are dear to your servants; her
very dust moves them to pity. Only
the servants of God will feel real compassion for Psa 102:15 The nations will fear the name of the
LORD, all the kings of the earth
will revere your glory. Does
anyone really believe that the nations of the earth will suddenly have an
epiphany and turn to God out of the goodness of their hearts? They’ll fear God because they’ll understand
the might and power of the ‘Armies of the Living God’ who will
wreak havoc on every nation they attack.
When “the appointed time has come” the Sons of
Jerusalem will drive hard into the neighbouring nations leaving devastation
in their wake. So of course, the nations will fear the Name of the
LORD! They’ll have no answer for
the weaponry involved! Psa 102:16 For
the LORD will rebuild Psa 102:17 He
will respond to the prayer
of the destitute; he will not despise their
plea. Obviously this follows a
period when God refused to respond to their pleas! This was when they refused to listen to Him, so He refused to listen to
them. This is something
God has warned about many times. When
God judges that they’ve suffered enough and are completely destitute, God will recognize
the sincerity of their pleas. It’s a
fact of life that when someone faces imminent death, suddenly God is very
real to them – as a last hope.
This is not ideal behaviour!
People tend to want to learn the hard way. Psa 102:18 Let this be written for a future
generation, that a people not yet
created may praise the LORD: Psa 102:19 "The
LORD looked down from his sanctuary on high, from heaven he viewed the earth, Psa 102:20 to
hear the groans of the prisoners
and release those condemned to
death." This is
what is referred to in V1 regarding David’s future subjects of future
generations. It is of course speaking
of the last days of human rule, and the future generation that will remain
when David is resurrected to rule over the 12 Tribes of Israel. But it has other ominous portent in the
reference to ‘generations’. Generally,
it’s the young and fit who survive such conditions, that is, the new
generation. The oldies, from the
present generation are the first to go in holocaust conditions. The old generation had their lifetimes,
their allotted span, and did nothing to distinguish themselves in the service
of God. God is looking for a new generation who don’t have
the baggage of the past generation.
God knows He can create in them a virtuous nation. There are precedents for
this, and these can be seen in the days of Moses, when God ensured the bodies
of the present generation fell in the desert, and they were refused entry to
the Promised Land. It was the new
generation that were led into the Promised Land. This is confirmed in the Book of Hebrews: Heb 3:16-4:1
“Who were they who heard and rebelled? Were they
not all those Moses led out of Psa 102:21 So the name of the LORD will
be declared in Psa 102:22 when the peoples and the
kingdoms assemble to worship the LORD. Psa 102:23 In the course of my life he broke my strength; he cut short my days.
This is rather
interesting, because David’s life was cut short, that is, short of the
allotted 70 years. Though it’s hard to
nail down exactly, it seems that David died around the age of 65 years. His death came after a short co-regency
with his son Solomon, who was anointed as king before David died. Jesus Christ’s life was
also cut short as were the lives of many of his disciples. It seems that only John lived to a great
age – and this was prophesied: John 21:19-24 “Jesus
said this to indicate the kind of
death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow
me!" 20 Peter turned and saw that the disciple (John) whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one
who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, "Lord, who
is going to betray you?") 21 When Peter saw him, he asked,
"Lord, what about him?" 22 Jesus answered,
"If I want him to remain alive
until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me."
23 Because of this, the rumor spread among the
brothers that this disciple (John) would not
die. But Jesus did not say that he would not
die; he only said, "If I want
him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?" And of course, this was fulfilled on the
Isle of Patmos where Jesus Christ
appeared to John some 65 years later.
V24
“This is the disciple who testifies to these things
and who wrote them down. We know
that his testimony is true.”
Psa 102:24 So I said: "Do not take me away, O my God, in the midst of my
days; your years go on through all generations. It’s clear that David was speaking for others as well, who were to
follow him, including his most famous descendant Jesus Christ. Psa 102:25 In the beginning you laid
the foundations of the earth, and
the heavens are the work of your hands. Psa 102:26 They will perish, but you
remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change
them and they will be discarded. The clothing or the
appearance of the foundations of the earth, the landmass, will be changed
like a garment and the old will be discarded.
This also includes the heavens, and most particularly the sun and the
moon. Psa 102:27 But you remain the same, and your years will never end. People seem to believe that the LORD God of the Old Testament
dramatically changed when He came to earth as the man Jesus Christ. Yet David confirms that He remained the same. The Book of Malachi confirms this: Mal 3:6
“I the
LORD do not change. So you, O
descendants of Jacob are not destroyed.” Jesus Christ is the Creator that laid the foundations of the earth, and created everything in it. All this was the work of His hands! This is confirmed by the Apostle John: John 1:1-8
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God [the
Father], and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning.
3 Through him all
things were made; without
him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The
light shines in the darkness,
but the darkness has not
overcome (see margin)
it. 6 There came a man
who
was sent from God; his name was John (John
the Baptist). 7 He came as a witness to testify
concerning that light, so
that through him all men might believe. 8 He himself was not
the light; he came only
as a witness to the light.” Jesus Christ was the Light of Life, and
John the Baptist came to bear witness to this. John was not the Light
itself. God the Father deemed it
necessary to send a man ahead of His Son Jesus to prepare the way for Him. In short, John the
Baptist was a man of God who came to prepare the way for the Creator Jesus Christ, through whom all things were made. Jesus Christ is the Light of Life, and without Him there is only darkness. Yet darkness
can never overcome
this Light, but still dark forces try incessantly to
do so! There are dark, evil forces in
this world. Remember how the Apostle
Paul referred to them? Eph 6:12
“For our struggle
is not
against flesh and blood,
but against the
rulers, against the
authorities, against the POWERS
OF THIS DARK WORLD and against THE SPIRITUAL FORCES OF EVIL IN THE
HEAVENLY REALMS.” There
is a spirit world and these
evil creatures presently
rule the whole world. But
now their days are numbered! And their
end will come with the dawning of a
new day. Psa 102:28 The children of your servants will live in your presence; their descendants will
be established before you."
We could speak a
lot about this concerning the children
and descendants of His Servants, but the time is
not right for this disclosure now. But
then, you should already understand the nature of Jesus’ birth and how He was
conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Nevertheless, the offspring
of Jesus will inherit the PSALM 103 Of David. Psa 103:1 Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being,
praise his holy name. Here we see that the soul is your body along with all its
innermost parts, but most particularly your mind. Your thoughts and your mind determine what
you are as a human being. It’s a
strange quirk of the mind that so many people believe we all have an ‘immortal soul’. God says the soul that sins shall die
(Eze 18:4),
but according to these people, the ‘immortal
soul’ lives on after death.
Somehow they believe that they discard their body when they die, and
go on living through their ‘immortal
soul’. Even Jesus didn’t discard
His Body when He died – His body was resurrected and came to life again! Noticeably, the words ‘immortal soul’ don’t appear in the Bible. The next four verses
detail the benefits of serving the Creator God, and these are things we
should not forget. All those who repent and begin to serve God have their past sins forgiven. And just as assuredly, God heals all our
diseases. And no, He doesn’t do this
through the medical profession! Surely
Jesus Christ proved this often enough!
He healed many people, and even raised Lazarus from the dead. All this was done without recourse to the
medical profession. The truth is that
the medical profession kills more people than they cure. Some of their medications are positively
dangerous, and while they might alleviate symptoms of one organ, they are
doing devastating damage to others.
Doctors freely admit that their medications are designed to ‘contain’ diseases rather than cure
them. Surgery is a slightly
different thing, particularly on the battlefield or in severe accidents. Immediate action must be taken to stem the
flow of blood or a patient will die within minutes. Stitching wounds and removing bullets and
other foreign objects are a part of surgery.
Organ transplants however, are not – and they are against all that God
teaches us. Nevertheless, it’s up to
the individual whom he will trust for his healing. God counsels us to trust in Him and no
other: Psa 103:2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-- Psa 103:3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, Psa 103:4 who redeems your life from the
pit and crowns you with love and compassion, Psa 103:5 who satisfies your desires
with good things so that your youth
is renewed like the eagle's. Notice the apostrophe
here in the word ‘eagle’ – it’s speaking of one eagle in particular – a bird
of prey! To those who are advanced in
age, do you really believe that you will live on in God’s Kingdom as old
men? God plans to demonstrate the renewing of our youth in
His servants, and this is one of the means by which you will
recognize them. Speaking of the renewing
of the youth of His servants, we now launch into the duties of God’s servants
for the purpose of righteousness
and justice: Psa 103:6 The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed. God set a precedent for this in the time of Moses. Moses and the Israelites left devastation
in their wake as they advanced against their enemies and it was all done in
the interest of righteousness and
justice: Psa 103:7 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Psa 103:8 The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow
to anger, abounding in
love. And this describes God very well in
relation to His people God made His ways known to Moses,
and this was done in the presence of all 12 Tribes of Israel – and no
others! Yet there is a caveat to
this. Gentiles who chose to live
according to the teachings of Moses are grafted into the Tree to become as
Israelites, and such people are equally loved by God. And we all know exactly what
ways God made known to Moses, don’t we? In view of this, human
beings are without excuse if they fail to follow God’s Ways. If they make their choices to oppose God’s
Ways, then those choices will lead to death – forever! The time is coming when God will punish His
people for their sins in the most horrendous time of carnage imaginable, then
at their lowest point, He will move to reassure them: Psa 103:9 He will not always accuse, nor
will he harbor his anger forever; Psa 103:10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay
us according to our iniquities. In the next verse, God
gives the proviso for this, and it’s something that doesn’t exist in the
House of Israel today. To most people
today, God is merely a vague entity, which they are conscious of, but they
certainly don’t fear Him! Psa 103:11 For as high as the heavens are
above the earth, so great is his love for THOSE WHO FEAR HIM; Psa 103:12 as far as the east is from the
west, so far has he removed our
transgressions from us. That is, from THOSE WHO FEAR HIM! Anyone who doesn’t FEAR to disobey God, don’t
FEAR Him at all. Too
many people today consider God their equal, and feel they have the right to
dictate the terms of their worship.
This is a right that has never been given to anyone. God is the Great Creator, and He dictates
the terms of worship; He always has and He always will. There is no nation on earth today that
doesn’t have laws to regulate the conduct of their citizens. Lawlessness leads to anarchy; this should
be well understood by all humanity.
Some nations have draconian penalties for the slightest infraction of
their law, and this is a fearful
deterrent to all would-be offenders.
We all know that, wherever we live, disobedience to the law carries a
penalty, and for some offences the penalty is death. Psa 103:13 As a father has compassion
on his children, so the LORD has compassion on THOSE
WHO FEAR HIM; Psa 103:14 for he knows how we are
formed, he remembers that we are dust.
So it’s those
whom God considers His children that He has compassion for. Only those who have God’s Holy Spirit will
honour their Father, their God, and they have a healthy fear of disobeying Him. Jesus Christ was such a Son, and He was
also the Firstborn of many brothers who would follow His example of obedience
to God. Even if it means death in
martyrdom! Others won’t be so
lucky. Every human being is appointed
to die once and return to dust. The
LORD God made this very clear at the outset in the Garden of Eden, and the
cemeteries are full of such people. Psa 103:15 As for man, his days are like grass, he
flourishes like a flower of the field; Psa 103:16 the wind blows over it and it
is gone, and
its place remembers it no more.
The winter
grasses of the field flourish for a season and afterwards they are gone. This is the perfect analogy for human
life. We have our season, and then we
are gone. In time, no-one will
remember us. Only those who died with
God’s Holy Spirit will be remembered, and only by
God! Only these will have
distinguished themselves enough to be included in the resurrection. The rest will remain dust forever! Psa 103:17 But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD's love is with THOSE WHO
FEAR HIM, and his righteousness with their children's children-- Psa 103:18 with those who KEEP HIS COVENANT and REMEMBER TO OBEY HIS PRECEPTS. Only those who obey God
precepts or ways, and keep
His Covenant faithfully, will experience
God’s love from everlasting to
everlasting – that is, eternity! Psa 103:19 The LORD has established his
throne in heaven, and his kingdom
rules over all. As we’ve just pointed
out, every form of government has rules
and laws, and God’s Kingdom is no different! There is a form of
worship today which mandates that obedience to the Law of God is not
required. Such people insist that God
accept them ‘just as they are’ and
with no strings attached. It’s a
lip-service form of worship, and those who participate are fully convinced that
saying a few nice things about Jesus is all the service God requires. Yet even the mighty angels of God obey His
Word! Psa 103:20 Praise the LORD, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who
obey his word. Even God’s angels obey
Him! Yet many humans, who claim to
worship Him, refuse! Anyone who thinks
otherwise can never be the servants of God! Psa 103:21 Praise the LORD, all his
heavenly hosts, YOU HIS SERVANTS
WHO DO HIS WILL. And isn’t this they type
of service God stipulates? Since the
angels of God do the will of God, why would any human servant feel themselves
to be exempt? Psa 103:22 Praise the LORD, all his works everywhere in his
dominion. Praise the LORD, O
my soul. Here the Prophet emphasizes that all the works of God’s hands
maintain their role in praise of God, with particular emphasis on the earth,
sun, moon and stars and the heavens in general, which we get to in the next
Psalm. The earth dutifully provides
the days with absolute precision, with each seven days providing a unit of
one week. The moon provides the months
to complete the year and with an accuracy that continues forever. It’s the moon that provides the timing for
the three Holyday seasons prescribed by God in the Bible. The sun provides the four seasons of the
climate we are all familiar with as the earth courses around it. It’s the sun that provides the climate for
all who dwell on earth with minimal processional variation. All these things are praiseworthy of God
and the provision He has made for His Creation. PSALM 104 The theme of this Psalm
is about water and its importance to all life, both now and forever. It may seem to be a fundamental statement
of obvious importance, but David was a prophet, and he’s setting the theme
for something of greater prophetic value.
Water has played a significant role in the overall Plan of God. Some of the major roles for water are
obvious from Biblical history, most notably the Great Flood in the days of
Noah. Then we have the departure of
the Israelites from God has provided natural
barriers of rarified air and great distances, to prevent human beings
advancing beyond the earth. Beyond the
earth is the realm of God. There is no
viable existence possible beyond the limits of earth for any of the human
kind. This is, however, not true of
His angels, who have no such barriers. Psa 104:1 Praise the
LORD, O my soul. O LORD my God, you
are very great; you are clothed with splendor and majesty. In this next verse, God
speaks of stretching out the
heavens like a tent. In the
Book of Isaiah, He mentions this, and confirms that this is where He lives: Isa 40:22
“He sits enthroned above
the circle of the earth, and
its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens
like a canopy, and spreads them out LIKE A TENT TO
LIVE IN.” Some of the verses that
follow are difficult language to explain, and the meaning supplied may relate
to the best efforts of the translators.
Either something was lost in the translation, or the prophet reported
what he saw to the best of his knowledge.
Nevertheless, the whole heavens beyond the earth are God’s realm where
He can move without restriction – as can all His angels. Psa 104:2 He wraps himself in light as with a garment; he stretches out the heavens like a
tent Psa 104:3 and lays the beams of his upper chambers on their waters.
He makes the clouds his chariot and
rides on the wings of the wind.
Today, human
beings do the same thing when they fly in an aircraft. They are literally flying on the wind in a
‘chariot’ or airplane. The Prophet would have a difficult time
explaining this in his day. Later
prophets would have had a better idea because of the account of Elijah, who
flew off in one of God’s flying ‘chariots’ or aircrafts, for want of a better
descriptive word. God “wraps
Himself in light as with a garment”. This light
cannot be seen by human beings, so God is invisible to us:
1Tim 6:15-16
“…God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of
kings and Lord of lords, 16 who
alone is immortal and who
lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see.
To him be honor and might forever. Amen.” It may seem strange that light can’t
be seen, but certain types of light, like ultraviolet light, cannot be seen
with the naked eye. Similarly, light
in a vacuum cannot be seen either. The
Tyndall Phenomenon holds that the light of a torch shone in an endless vacuum
would be invisible. Only if something
of substance was placed in the path of the light would it be seen. So although God’s Dwelling-place is
generally close to the earth, it cannot be seen. And then we find this
statement in V3
above: “lays
the beams of His upper chambers on their [the cloud’s] waters.” We’ll see a further reference to this in V13
below: Ps
104:13 “He waters the mountains
from his upper chambers; the
earth is satisfied BY THE FRUIT OF HIS WORK.” Our Lord Christ had something to say
about this in relation to the fruit of God’s work: John 5:17 “Jesus
said to them, "My Father is always AT HIS WORK to this very day, and I, too, am working." This tells us the
type of work God does every day. He
provides rain to the mountains,
controlling the weather and the climate. Everything functions according to God’s
will. Human beings have no power to
regulate either the weather or the climate! Anyone
who thinks otherwise is deluding themselves.
The upper chambers of God’s dwelling-place are above the mountains and
in the vicinity of the clouds. While
God’s dwelling-place cannot be seen by human beings, the day will come when
people will see it, as we mentioned earlier. Psa 104:4 He makes winds his messengers, flames of fire his servants. High winds and powerful storms are often the unwelcome messengers of
God, and it’s as well to take notice of this.
Frequently, God sends them to warn when He is not pleased. Raging fires can also be another warning. Lightning often starts fires that become
catastrophic. There was an occasion in
south-eastern The Creator God
micromanages all climates on the earth for good or for bad, and there is
nothing that mankind can do about it, except, of course, to acknowledge Him
as the Creator and trust in Him for good outcomes. The inhabitants of this earth should lose
the arrogance of believing they understand all about the earth’s climate as
well as the delusional state of mind where they believe they can regulate
it. Money, in the form of carbon credits, is the form of
delusional thinking that is likely to invoke God’s displeasure for their
arrogance. God knows these AGW
advocates are lying, greedy parasites, and this is why God has been hammering
the earth with the freezing conditions which has exposed them as liars. The latest demented offering from these
liars is that the freezing conditions are a sure sign of global warming,
which they’ve conveniently tagged ‘climate
change’ when circumstances refuse to cooperate with their delusional
thinking. Raving lunatics is the term
that best describes them! The problem
is that by listening to such lying deceivers the punishment falls on everyone. There is a passage in the Prophets that illustrates this principle
about those who take advantage of the people for gain: Eze 13:19
“You have profaned me among my people for a few
handfuls of barley and scraps of bread. By
lying to my people, who listen to lies, you
have killed those who should not have died and have spared those who should not live.” It’s bad enough
that these creatures are deceiving people for gain, but now they’ve become
steeped in voodoo and have begun referring to the earth as the ‘goddess Gaia’. As a matter of fact, this is Oprah
Winfrey’s religion, which illustrates the growing source of this
madness. It hasn’t gone unnoticed that
this is when Winfrey’s show started to ‘bomb’ when she began to offend many Christians,
so she played the smart card and closed down the show in an effort to salvage
her remaining credibility. The foundations of the earth are its landmass as the next couple of verses will show. Psa 104:5 He set the earth on its foundations; it
can never be moved. Oh dear! This is not what the
earth ‘scientists’ have been
saying, is it? They would have us
believe that the earth’s landmass is riding on tectonic plates that move
across the earth. Always constantly
moving, they say, and this is what is causing earthquakes. The exception, of course, is when
earthquakes occur, which they frequently do,
where there are none of these mythical tectonic plates
boundaries. This always causes
heartburn for the theorists! There was a time long ago
when the mantle of the earth went into meltdown and the continent broke up,
sliding the pieces of landmass across the earth. If you were to figuratively move all these
pieces back towards It was this stabilized
and unmovable landmass,
which was to be covered with water
in the days of Noah’s flood. Psa 104:6 You covered it with the
deep [the oceans] as with a garment; the
waters stood above the mountains.
This is the worldwide flood of Noah’s day. Noah’s ark eventually came to rest on the
top of Atheists have long
disputed the story of Noah’s Psa 104:7 But at your
rebuke the waters fled, at the sound of your thunder they took to flight; Psa 104:8 they flowed over the
mountains, they went down into the valleys, to the place you assigned for them. It took about four months for the waters to
recede into the underground vaults where God stores it. And there is a storage of water that will
one day flow again, and this will flow from the threshold of the Psa 104:9 You set a boundary they cannot
cross; never again will they cover
the earth. God also gave this
undertaking immediately after the flood in Noah’s day and He provided a sign
in support of this. Gen 9:11-17 “I establish my covenant with you: Never again will all life be cut
off by the waters of a
flood; never again will there be a
flood to destroy the earth." 12 And God said,
"This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and
every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: 13
I have set my rainbow in the clouds,
and it will be the sign of the
covenant between me and the earth. 14 Whenever I bring
clouds over the earth and the
rainbow appears in the clouds, 15 I will remember my
covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a
flood to destroy all life. 16 Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds,
I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all
living creatures of every kind on the earth." 17 So God said
to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth." So now we know that God will not
again destroy all life from the earth with a flood. Instead, God speaks of the flood of war which will
decimate the peoples of the earth in the last days, and war will continue to the end. Dan 9:26 “….The end will come like a
FLOOD: WAR will continue
until the end, and desolations have been decreed.” A result similar
to that in the days of Noah will come from the ravages of war, and very few
will be left alive: Isa 24:5-6 “The earth is
defiled by its people; they have disobeyed
the laws, violated the
statutes and broken the
everlasting covenant. 6 Therefore a curse consumes the earth; its people must bear their guilt. Therefore earth's inhabitants are burned
up, and very few are left.” There is a
lot more to this last passage from the Book of Isaiah than is immediately
evident. The earth has been defiled by
the people living on it. The reason
being, that they have disobeyed
God’s Laws, violated His
Statutes, and broken the
everlasting Covenant. You’ll
notice that Daniel said that war
would continue to the end, and that desolations have been decreed. These desolations
have been decreed by God
and will leave the earth desolate and with few survivors. These desolations were decreed from the
beginning, and relate to the restoration
of the earth as it once was, with the landmass having a precise shape
and configuration. When God restores
the earth to a single continent once more, everything manmade will be
flattened and destroyed and nothing will be left standing. This is the type of desolation that God speaks of. And now the Psalmist
begins to explain the complexities of God’s Work and how He accepts
responsibility for the care and feeding of all lifeforms. And He does it all without the need to
recruit environmentalists, greenies, and global warming advocates. Psa 104:10 He makes springs pour water
into the ravines; it flows between the mountains. First of all, He takes care of the most vital ingredient for the
sustaining of life – water! Without
water, all life would cease on earth.
A fact well-known to those who advocate interplanetary travel – an
obvious barrier to their ambitions! Psa 104:11 They [the springs and rivers] give water to all the beasts of the field; the wild
donkeys quench their thirst. Springs
and rivers provide the essential water for all the creatures of the earth,
without which, nothing would survive. Psa 104:12 The birds of the air nest by
the waters; they sing among the branches.
The branches of
the trees which grow by the waters provide the ideal nesting places for birds
to rear their young. Psa 104:13 He waters the mountains from his upper chambers; the earth is satisfied by the fruit of
his work. This was explained in V3
above. The highest clouds or water
chambers are those which water the mountains. It may seem to be a
fairly elementary description of the ecology here, but there are a number of
points to it all. The primary point is
that all living things are dependent on the Creator God who works to provide for them. Psa 104:14 He makes grass grow for the cattle, and plants for man to cultivate-- bringing forth food from the
earth: Psa 104:15 wine that gladdens the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread that sustains his heart. Fermented wine is a blessing when taken
in moderation. It relaxes us and
gladdens us and has great medicinal value as well because of the alcohol
content. Olive oil tends to make our faces shine, so it should be
everyone’s first choice for cooking and for salads. On the other hand, trans-fats are very
unhealthy. These are the types of fats
that are manufactured from things that were never meant to be a source of oil
for human consumption. As an example:
palm oil, which is highly modified and hydrogenated for human consumption,
should be avoided. Grain was designed
to make bread, and it
sustains the heart. Bread is a staple food
throughout the Bible. So in this verse
we see three well-known staples of life: wine,
olive oil and bread. All three of which have great significance
in our worship of God. Psa 104:16 The trees of the LORD are well
watered, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. The
Cedars are native to Psa 104:17 There the birds make their
nests; the stork has its home in the pine trees. All the creatures of the earth know their place, and each lives in the
place provided for them. It’s
important to note this because some human beings don’t seem to know the
limits of their boundaries. This
becomes very important when we get to Psalm 105. Psa 104:18 The high mountains belong to
the wild goats; the crags are a refuge for the coneys. The rocky crags of mountains are the natural place for these
creatures. The sure-footed goats do
very well there. Psa 104:19 The moon marks off the seasons, and the sun knows when to
go down. This is a reference to God’s seasons –
there are three. The first is the
Passover Season, the second – the Pentecost Season, and the third is the
Feast of Tabernacles Season. God’s seasons are determined by the
moon. The sun also plays a
part in God’s holy seasons; it’s when the
sun goes down at sunset that the first day of each Holy Day season
begins. The Passover season is also called the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The
Pentecost season is sometimes called either the Feast of Weeks (see Deut 16:16) or the Feast of Harvest.
The Feast of Tabernacles
is alternatively called the Feast
of Ingathering. God’s
appointed seasons are marked off according to the growing season as
it occurs in the Psa 104:20 You bring darkness, it becomes
night, and all the beasts of the
forest prowl. The nighttime is the time
for the predators to prowl. It’s under
cover of night that they seek out prey.
This is especially true of lions
who have no natural predators. Psa 104:21 The lions roar for their prey and seek their food from
God. Lions seek the prey that is provided by
God. In this, the strong devour the
weak, and this was the intended means to provide for all animals. It’s the function of natural life that the
lion’s prey breed far more prolifically than the lions, so there is always
plenty of food. This is how God
designed it to be for the allotted six thousand years. There will, however, be changes in the
Millennial rule of God. It will begin
throughout the Psa 104:22 The sun rises, and they steal
away; they return and lie down in their dens.
The predators of
this earth do their work in darkness. And this is the nature of the beast. All creatures know what
they are appointed to do, and this also includes the birds that the Prophet
Jeremiah refers to: Jer 8:7-8 “Even the stork in the sky knows her appointed seasons, and the
dove, the swift and the thrush observe
the time of their migration. But my people do not know the
requirements of the LORD. 8 " `How can you say,
"We are wise, for we
have the law of the LORD," when
actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?” And this
summarized the whole point being made.
God made the seasons, and all His creation observe these seasons, except
His people Psa 104:23 Then man goes out to his work, to his labor until evening. But not with the sure knowledge of the rest of God’s creatures, who
automatically obey the designs of God’s seasons. The animals, the birds, the sea life, all
have their seasons which they obey.
They know instinctively what God has planned for them and they live
accordingly. Psa 104:24 How many are your works, O LORD! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is
full of your creatures. There are religious
teachers and philosophers today, who would have difficulty organizing a chook
raffle, yet they presume to teach through their lying pens the ways of God or
the function of the earth. Some of
them would have difficulty changing a light bulb, yet here they are trying to
philosophize about the operations of all life. Even worse, this has crept into the schools
as a teaching called ‘evolution’. The
Truth is they refuse to acknowledge God as the Creator. The Prophet now begins to
point out their errors by reminding one and all of the complexities that
no-one, even today, can fully understand. Psa 104:25 There is the sea, vast and
spacious, teeming with creatures beyond number-- living things both large and small. Psa 104:26 There the ships go to and fro,
and the leviathan, which
you formed to frolic there. Psa 104:27 These all look to you to give them their food at the proper time. All the creatures of the earth understand the seasons, and know that
their lives depend on them. They know
of the lean times and they understand the time of plenty, and they regulate
their behaviour accordingly. Psa 104:28 When you give it
to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are satisfied with
good things. All the animals know to expect this in the
proper seasons. On the other hand,
should God withhold His blessings, then they will return to dust.
What is more, there was a time when God did this on a grand scale, and
all the former lifeforms perished. The
time of Noah’s flood was one such time, but this was minor in comparison to
the catastrophe that preceded it. This
greater event occurred before God RENEWED the face of the earth (see V30 below). Psa 104:29 When you hide your face, they
are terrified; when you take away
their breath, they die and
return to the dust. It was at this time when
all life was extinguished from the earth. Psa 104:30 When you send your Spirit, they
are created, and you RENEW
the
FACE OF THE EARTH. It was through God’s Holy
Spirit that the face of the earth
was renewed. The designing and
the planning had all been done, and all that was required was for God to
command matter to obey Him, and accordingly, this was done. God merely said, “Let there be….” And by
this means, God’s Spirit RENEWED
the FACE OF THE EARTH and everything in it. It was this new creation
that God so loved. So much so, that it
will endure forever. This present
creation is God’s preferred creation, rather than the former, the dinosaur or reptilian era,
which became hopelessly corrupted under Satan’s rule. It should come as no surprise that Satan
and his rulers are still depicted today in the Bible as serpent or reptilian-like
creatures. Satan’s rule has
continued during this past 6,000 years, but God is in the process of training
those who will replace Satan as the ruler of this earth. This was begun in the Garden of Eden, when God created mankind in His own image. Not as another animal, but as the embryonic
form of the God Family. It was from the human
kind that God would make the selections for the new ruling body in His
Family. At the appointed time, the
present rulers of this world will lose their powers and be removed. It was not God’s intention for
them to be replaced with untried, untested, incompetent rulers who were no
better than their predecessors.
Instead, the new rulers would be tried and tested in every way to
ensure their competence for the task.
God’s Kingdom will be governed by His Law, and naturally enough, the
God Family will be fully competent in understanding the Law, since
they will have a prior history of observing it. The selection process
will require not just obedience to God’s Law, but obedience under all
circumstances, even if it involves great suffering. The Lord Christ set this example for all of
us to follow, and the outcome will be the same for all who succeed in
following His example. Trials and
hardship, and even pain and suffering, will determine who is totally
committed to God’s Way. Don’t be too
surprised to learn these things, because didn’t God’s own Son have to go
through it all first? God doesn’t only
seek our verbal assurances of faithfulness, He requires us to be tested. God even likens this to silver and gold being refined in a
furnace: Mal 3:2-5 “But who can
endure
the
day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner's fire
or a launderer's soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will PURIFY THE LEVITES and
refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD
will have men who will bring
offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be
acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years. 5
"So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify
against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud
laborers of their wages, who
oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice,
but
do not fear me," says the LORD Almighty.” As we can plainly see here, this passage is
speaking about the Day of the
LORD’s coming. There’ll be a
big cleansing operation under way in Judah
and Jerusalem to get rid of the sorcerers, adulterers and
perjurers. Deceivers, liars and those
who pervert the Truth will be ejected from the region. To be sure, the Levites will be refined first,
because it’s the Levites who must be in place to prepare the way for the day of His coming (see V1). Not to be uncharitable to the churches, but
it is not their role to prepare
the way for the Lord Christ. Their
role is to follow the example of the Levites and to prepare themselves to be
tested in the refining process of fire, to hold fast and to endure to the end. Remember how the Levite John the Baptist prepared the way for Jesus
Christ? All these things were in the
planning from the very beginning. And
this is how it will be with the return of the Lord Christ. At that time, only the Levites will have
been purified and able to bring offerings in righteousness. The Jews will quickly realize this and will
become allied with the Levite Sons of Jerusalem. This will fulfill the words of Jesus Christ
when He said ‘Salvation is from the Jews’ (John 4:22). Why would God choose anyone else? The Jews have been faithful to the Holy
City Jerusalem and the With the return of the
Lord Jesus, the whole world will see Him in His Glory and His reign will last
forever. Psa 104:31 May the glory of the LORD endure forever; may the LORD rejoice in his works-- Psa 104:32 he who looks at the earth, and
it trembles, who touches the mountains, and they smoke. As we clearly see, this is a big departure from the One who originally
came as a humble carpenter. The mere
look of this Mighty One will set certain processes in progress. As we saw in the previous verse, God
intends, once again, to renew the face of the earth. The works of God is to create, that is, to
make something that doesn’t exist suddenly appear. The face of the earth is presently chaotic,
and the boundaries of the islands and continents are clearly removed from
their matching boundaries. In the days
of Adam and Eve, God renewed all life on earth, and life-forms appeared as we
know them today. And now God’s works
will involve restoring and renewing
the whole face of the earth.
When this is done, The glory of the LORD is
to endure forever, and for this to be so, many changes will need to be made. Physical changes to the face or landmass of
the earth will occur. Nations must be
conquered and brought into subjection of the Lord of lords and King of kings. This means compliance with the Laws and
Statutes of God under the We who are alive today
have been privileged to see all these things.
All the Prophets longed to see this day, but they never saw it. This was also true of the Apostles, who
were told they would not see one of the days of the Lord, and this is the day we
are now discussing: Luke 17:22 “Then he
said to his disciples, "The time is coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man,
but you will not see it.” The day will come
when the Apostles will be resurrected, but they won’t see the day when the
Lord Jesus returns to mete out the justice prophesied. We can tell you about one of these days and
it occurs in the Edomite-held
lands to the south of the Psa 104:33 I will sing to the LORD all my
life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. Like David, there will be many people who
will long to see this day and to praise Him for His actions just as Bible
Prophecy states. Psa 104:34 May my
meditation be pleasing to him, as I rejoice in the LORD. In anticipation of these events, we need to have our minds attuned to
the things of God and to be thinking and meditating about them. It’s time to lose the stupidity of political correctness and multiculturalism, and to start
believing that God’s Way has always been right. It’s the state of our minds that need an
overhaul if we are still thinking in terms of these failed political
ideologies. Failing to do so will
result on being on the wrong side of the ledger. We must always be accountable for our
thoughts as well as our actions, or we must prepare to suffer the
consequences. There will be only one
culture in the Psa 104:35 But may sinners vanish from the earth and the wicked be no more. Praise the LORD, O my soul. Praise the LORD. It stands to reason that there will be no place for sinners, and the definition of a
sinner is one who transgresses God’s Law. Along with the incorrigible wicked, these
sinners will be wiped off the face of the earth. Anyone who chooses to disobey God will have
no future in God’s Kingdom. PSALM 105 The Prophet Daniel wrote
this: Dan
2:21-22 “He
changes times and seasons; he sets up kings and deposes them. He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge
to the discerning. 22 He
reveals deep and hidden things; he knows what lies in darkness, and
light dwells with him.” This virtually sets the theme for the next
few Psalms. Psa 105:1 Give thanks to the LORD, call
on his name; make known among the
nations what he has done. The problem today is that most
people don’t know what He has done or with any degree of certainty as to whom
He is referring. He didn’t do all
these wonderful acts for
those who opposed Him; in fact, He destroyed many nations along the way. The wonderful
acts He did were on behalf of the sons of Jacob – the 12 Tribes of
Israel. The odd thing about this is
that the Israelites, that
is, the ‘lost Ten Tribes’ seem to have forgotten the wonderful acts God did on
their behalf. With this in mind, the
Psalmist begins a revision course. Psa 105:2 Sing to him, sing praise to
him; tell of all his wonderful acts. Well all these wonderful
acts are recorded in the Old Testament, and although these are the
Scriptures that the Lord Christ and all the Apostles used (the only Scriptures that existed at that
time), Christianity all but ignores them.
So they are hardly in a position to be making these things known among the nations, are
they? Did they learn anything from all
God’s wonderful acts, His miracles, and the judgments He pronounced. If they did, then it’s not evident from
what they teach! Psa 105:3 Glory in his holy name; let
the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice. You would have noticed that some of God’s wonderful acts were killing the enemy which threatened His
people In the Western world, we
have laws relating to justifiable homicide.
This usually involves self-defense or the defense of others. For instance, if some madman comes at you
with an axe, intent on cleaving your head in two, you reach for the shotgun
and blow his head off. It’s a simple
act of self-preservation that is recognized under law. Of course, if it went the other way, and
you were killed, your wife and children would have to sit through a messy
court trial listening to the defense lawyer arguing that his client is not
responsible. And the reason is he was
abused as a child. The inference being
that the murderer deserves sympathy and mercy, with no regard for the plight
of the victim. Thankfully, this ‘abused as a child’ defense is starting
to wear very thin, and juries are less inclined to listen to this form of
madness today. The point is that, today,
we’ve sacrificed justice for psychotic reasoning where the offender’s rights
outweigh that of the victim. Today we
live in a ‘nanny’ state where the
state provides ‘cradle to grave’
protection against having our feelings hurt.
The slightest infraction of the ‘political
correctness’ doctrine demonstrates everyday that there is no such thing
as free speech, except if you happen to be a left-wing looney. In which case, you have unfettered rights
to accuse and abuse everyone or anyone falsely and unjustly, without any fear
of the recourse of the law. Years
after they left office, President Bush and Dick Cheney are still the whipping
boys for these mindless fools. Psa 105:4 Look to the LORD and his
strength; seek his face always.
God doesn’t
favour emotional cripples and weaklings who can never rise above
misfortune. He favours those who have
the character and fortitude to advance against all odds. It’s called faith. Those who rely on Him and seek His face
always, are the ones who can rise above the misfortunes of life. As we wind down to the end of the age,
there will be enough misfortune to go around for everyone. The Apostle Paul spoke of these last days
with these words: 2Tim 3:1 “But mark
this: There will be terrible times
in the last days.” He was warning Christians of what to
expect. Throughout Muslim countries
today, and throughout There is a very strange
mentality permeating the Western nations today. It all began in But let’s not get too
reminiscent of the Civil War of 1861; there’s a worse one coming! This war too will involve those who are ‘strangers’,
that is, those who are not of the Tribes of
Israel. These are destined to rise up
against the American Israelites, and they include South American Indians,
Africans, Asians, and of course, the source of all the troubles in the world
– the Muslims. Even now, events are
creeping rapidly towards that day! It will be the most
testing time in all history for Christians.
It will be like a long dark night that will seemingly never end. Those who were accommodated through political correctness will rise up
against you and then you will see the futility
of the PC doctrine in all its
glory. It’s during this time
that Christians will need to reflect on many things. Chiefly, how did they get to this
point? They’ll be wondering what
happened to the salvation that they fondly spoke about for so long. Salvation seemed to offer deliverance from
all adversity, yet they’ll wonder why adversity is closing in on all
sides. As reality strikes home,
they’ll begin to realize that there was something lacking in their church
doctrine. As it happens, this will
prove to be correct. It will be time
to take stock and to start remembering
what God’s doctrine is all about. Psa 105:5 Remember the wonders
he has done, his miracles,
and the judgments he pronounced, Psa 105:6 O descendants of Abraham his servant, O sons of Jacob, his chosen ones. The sons of Jacob,
that is, the 12 Tribes of God has set down judgments
for these last days, and His
judgments will extend throughout all
the earth for the first time since the days of Noah. Psa 105:7 He is the LORD our God; his judgments are in all the earth. Some may wonder why God’s judgments will now come on all the earth. The reason is that God’s Kingdom will spread throughout the earth, and remedial measures need to be
taken to clear the way for a successful transition. As it was in the days of Noah, there are
people on this earth for whom God has no interest. These aligned with Satan generations ago,
and adopted the dubious status of becoming God’s enemies. God, on the other hand,
remembers His Covenant with Abraham and with Isaac his son, for a thousand generations. Psa 105:8 He remembers his covenant forever, the word he commanded, for a thousand generations, Psa 105:9 the covenant he made with Abraham, the oath he swore to Isaac. As an actuary might calculate a
generation, one generation would be about 22 years. So the implied thousand generations would exceed 44,000 years. It’s obvious then that God’s concern for
the children of When God mentions a thousand generations, He’s
actually using a figure of speech. He
uses it as a time scale beyond our understanding. In the next verse, He clarifies the Covenant as lasting forever! A Covenant without end! Psa 105:10 He confirmed it to Jacob as a decree, to Psa 105:11 "To you I will give the As a point of
interest, Ephraim was to be greater than Manasseh. It was As the rightful owners of
the Psa 105:12 When they were but few in number, few
indeed, and strangers
in it, Psa 105:13 they wandered from nation to
nation, from one kingdom to another. These
were perilous times and hostility was always present. Even Jacob’s twin brother Esau confronted
him, but thought better of attacking him, even though Jacob expected him
to. Esau seemed to understand that
this could be a hazardous move with unforeseen consequences, and as it turned
out, he was right! God was watching
over Jacob and his family. Psa 105:14 He allowed no one to oppress them; for their sake he rebuked kings: Psa 105:15 "Do not touch my
anointed ones; do my
prophets no harm." Of course, Esau wasn’t
fully aware of this, but his ‘spirit
handlers’ were, and they know God too well to provoke Him. As it turned out, Jacob was no slouch with
a sword and a bow either. There was a
certain ridge of land that was strategically important to him, and the
occupiers were reluctant to vacate. So
Jacob led the attack against them and drove them out (Gen 48:21-22). Sensibly, he killed their warriors with
both arrow and sword to discourage any form of retaliation. When God says, “Do not touch
my anointed ones; do my prophets no harm”
He was referring to two prophets – Jacob and Joseph. Jacob
prophesied about many things in Gen 48, but particularly about Joseph. Joseph was a prophet and was known to have
dreams. It was these dreams which
seemed to upset his brothers as well as Jacob. One dream in particular seemed to get up
everyone’s nose: Gen 37:9-11 “Then he
had another dream,
and he told it to his brothers. "Listen," he said, "I had
another dream, and this time the sun
and moon and eleven stars were bowing down to me." 10
When
he told his father as well as his brothers, his father rebuked him
and said, "What is this dream you had? Will your mother and I and your brothers actually come and bow
down to the ground before you?" 11 His brothers were
jealous of him, but his father kept
the matter in mind.”
His father Jacob rightly understood the meaning of the dream, and
lived to see it fulfilled later in All these things came
about to fulfill God’s purpose for the sons of Jacob. He intended for them to live in Psa 105:16 He called down famine on the land and destroyed all their supplies of
food; Psa 105:17 and he sent a man before them--
Joseph, sold
as a slave. It’s quite amazing how
God always seems to send a man to prepare the way, and this was the role He
chose for Joseph. However, sitting in
an Egyptian dungeon for 2 years wouldn’t have been pleasant, and especially
since he was there on trumped-up charges. Prior to this, Joseph was
sold by his jealous brothers to the Ismaelites: Gen 37:28 “So when the
Midianite merchants came
by, his brothers pulled
Joseph up out of the cistern and
sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took
him to Arabs have some cruel
methods of dealing with slaves: Psa 105:18 They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons, Psa 105:19 till what he foretold came to pass, till the word of the LORD
proved him true. And this was the point of
the severe persecution that Joseph suffered!
Eventually Joseph was proven to be a prophet. Psa 105:20 The king sent and released him, the ruler of peoples set him free. It was a lucky break for Pharaoh when he released Joseph. He managed to stumble onto the right side
of God who said this: “Do not touch my anointed ones; do my
prophets no harm”. As a
result, Pharaoh was greatly blessed through Joseph. It could easily have gone the other way! Psa 105:21 He made him (Joseph) master of his
household, ruler over all
he possessed, Psa 105:22 to instruct his princes as he pleased and teach his elders wisdom. All in all, it turned out to be a smart move by Pharaoh. God has a habit of destroying those who attempt to harm His prophets. As a matter of fact, there will be a demonstration
of this in the near future. Typically,
they will be swallowed up by the
earth (Rev 12:16). It will be
typical of what happened to Moses enemies: Num 16:28-34 “Then Moses said, "This is how you will know that
the LORD has sent me to do all these things and that it was not my idea: 29
If these men die a natural death and experience only what usually happens to
men, then the LORD has not sent me. 30 But if the LORD brings
about something totally new, and
the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything that
belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will know
that these men have treated the LORD with contempt." 31 As
soon as he finished saying all this, the ground under them split apart 32
and the earth opened its mouth and
swallowed them, with their households and all Korah's men and all
their possessions. 33 They went down alive into the grave, with
everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished and were
gone from the community. 34 At their cries, all the Israelites
around them fled, shouting, "The earth is going to swallow us too!" This account of Moses
actually became an oath used by the Levites for over a thousand years. In the days of Alexander the Great, he sought
assurances from the Levite/Celtic nation in As an interesting aside
to this, the king of Psa 105:23 Then In the days of Moses, the
Children of Israel had grown into a formidable population that caused the
Egyptians concern. They attempted to
kill all the male babies to prevent a future insurrection. Through unusual circumstances, Moses
escaped this fate and finished up a prince in Pharaoh’s household. He enjoyed a very good lifestyle there, but
concerns for his fellow Israelites began to alarm him. Psa 105:24 The LORD made his people very
fruitful; he made them too numerous for their
foes, Psa 105:25 whose hearts he turned to hate his people, to conspire
against his servants. Moses could see what was
happening, and sought to intervene but it backfired and he was forced to flee
the country, and finished up living in the After this, he was
wandering near Psa 105:26 He sent Moses his servant, and Aaron, whom he had chosen.
It was these two
men who were sent to confront Pharaoh, whom God ensured would not
listen. God had no intention of
providing Pharaoh with a lifeline or a quick exit out of his
predicament. God fully intended to
punish him severely for enslaving His people The Pharaoh in Moses day
had no intention of divesting of the cheap slave labour that he’d become
accustomed to, and which had continued for some centuries. Sure their numbers were becoming a threat,
but he’d already addressed this problem by increasing their workload and
working them to death under harsh whips.
What’s more, he could make their burden even harder if provoked. He actually did this after being confronted
by Moses and Aaron, making the biggest mistake of his life. Now he had really provoked God! Psa 105:27 They performed his miraculous
signs among them, his
wonders in the Psa 105:28 He sent darkness and made the land dark-- for had
they not rebelled against his words?
There seems to be
a subliminal message in this between a dark
land and dark forces of
evil. As we mentioned above,
this had been going on for a long time, and the Egyptians knew very well who
the Creator God was, but Pharaoh himself was the self-appointed god in place
of Him, and he had no intention of divesting of his ‘deified’ position. Pharaoh
had indeed rebelled against God’s
words a long time before this.
In fact, as a rebellious spirit being, he rebelled long ago, before
God came and said, “Let there be light”
– when He renewed the earth
with new life forms. Pharaoh typifies
the dark forces of evil that live on this earth even today. Earlier pharaohs had
shown favour to the Israelites because they believed that Joseph was a
prophet of the Most High God, but over time all this changed. In time, the chosen people of God became
the enemy, and had to be treated as such.
This tells us a whole lot about the ‘spirit rulers of the heavenly realms’. There are 50 million of these demons on
earth today, and a great many of them hold positions of power over the human
realm. Psa 105:29 He turned their waters into blood, causing their fish to die. Well fish can’t live in blood!
If it were colored water, they would have survived quite well. In some capital cities today, we have
polluted rivers which are too thick to drink yet too thin to plow, but fish
still survive very well there. I
mention this because some people seem to believe that only the color of the
water changed. God says the water turned into blood, and
He ought to know! This caused the fish to die. The Egyptians were forced
to dig beside the Psa 105:30 Their land teemed with frogs, which went up into the bedrooms of
their rulers. They were in the bedrooms, the kitchens, the
ovens, the kneading troughs and everywhere else (Ex 8:2-4). So Pharaoh agrees to a deal with Moses to
let God’s people go. But as soon as
the frogs disappeared into the Psa 105:31 He spoke, and there came
swarms of flies, and gnats throughout their country. In the outback desert parts of Pharaoh knew the source
of all these curses and calamities, but still he refused to yield to the
Creator God. Pharaoh considered
himself a god, and demanded that he be worshipped as such. So yielding to any other god, even the
Great God, was completely alien to him.
He intended to tough it out.
Such is the mentality of demons!
And Pharaoh was a demon! It’s not generally
recognized, but idols and false gods are demons,
and when people worship them, they are in fact worshipping demons.
In the Book of Revelation, God reminds everyone of the reasons for plagues, just as He reminded
Pharaoh: Rev
9:20-21 “The rest of mankind that were
not killed by these plagues
still did not repent of the work of their hands; they did not
stop WORSHIPING DEMONS, and
idols of gold, silver, bronze, stone and wood--idols that cannot see or hear or walk. 21 Nor
did they repent of their murders,
their magic arts, their sexual immorality or
their thefts.” And here we see
what results from worshipping demons!
People who worship demons are generally very superstitious people who rely
on magic tokens or supernatural signs to bring them luck. It’s these very people who have the
mentality to commit the vilest outrages, like murder, sexual
immorality, and theft. A common defense in the courtroom after
being caught is to plead insanity as justification for their actions. Insane or not, they are still guilty of
their crimes, and the purpose of this passage from the Book of Revelation is
to demonstrate that death is the penalty.
Those who succumb to the influence of demons and commit these
outrageous acts must be put to death.
Any student of the Bible would know what type of sexual immorality God finds the most abhorrent. It’s homosexuality! Those who are prone to justifying this are
literally following the doctrine of demons. The Western nations are being forced
through political correctness to accept this as a natural sexual
lifestyle. Almighty God strongly
disagrees! I think every rational
person is smart enough to know that this type of behaviour will not
exist in the Yet still people don’t
heed God’s warnings. And neither did
Pharaoh in Moses’ day. Pharaoh
continued to resist God, and so God upped the stakes. Now the Egyptians would have all their
possessions destroyed, their crops their livestock and everything that
ensured their continuing existence.
Their whole country would be brought to ruin. Psa 105:32 He turned their rain into hail, with lightning throughout their
land; Psa 105:33 he struck down their vines and
fig trees and shattered the trees
of their country. Their vines, their fruit, their
crops – all were destroyed! Psa 105:34 He spoke, and the locusts
came, grasshoppers without number; Psa 105:35 they ate up every green
thing in their land, ate up
the produce of their soil. There was literally
nothing left! No crops, no feed for
the livestock, and the situation became extremely grim for the Egyptian
population. Psa 105:36 Then he struck down all the
firstborn in their land, the firstfruits
of all their manhood (the firstborn male). The livestock that survived the lightning
and hail were yet decimated again with the destruction of the prime animals –
the firstborn of the flocks and herds.
Not only this, but on the night of the Passover, the firstfruits of all their manhood,
the
human firstborns, were also killed. As a point of interest,
the killing of all the firstborn sons of And finally, Pharaoh had
a change of heart and decided to let the Israelites go, but not before God
plundered them of all their wealth. We
talk today of economic downturns, and the ominous signs of lower standards of
living, yet our nations are not learning from the
example God made of Pharaoh. The House
of Having suffered
catastrophic calamities, the Egyptian people actually paid the Israelites to
leave: Psa 105:37 He brought out Israel, laden with silver and gold, and from among their tribes no one faltered. There were 600,000 men among the Tribes of Israel (Ex 12:37),
and a reasonable estimate of the total number of men, women and children
would be around 2,000,000. Not one of
them faltered in their exodus. What is
more, they were laden with silver and gold: Exodus 11:1-2 “Now the
LORD had said to Moses, "I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Psa 105:38 Egypt was glad when they left,
because
dread of Logically now, the
storyline would take us to the crossing of the Presently, the House of
Israel is headed for captivity and slavery once more. And although, based on human reasoning,
this may seem to be many years in the future, the truth is that it will come
like a tornado, a lashing storm, smashing and destroying everything in its
path. At that time, there will be no
peace for man or beast. Remember how
quickly Pharaoh was brought to ruin! On the way to their final
destination, which concluded some 40 years later, God provided the Israelites
with His protection and sustenance.
During this sojourn, it should be noted that God was more
accommodating towards these people than they were towards Him. After hundreds of years of slavery, they
were now free, but in terms of gratitude, they weren’t exactly faithful to
their Deliverer. In But now they were free
and it was time for righteous and
just laws to govern them. God
Himself led them to the place where they would receive them. It was Psa 105:39 He spread out a cloud as a covering, and a fire to give light at night. The pillar of fire also allowed the 12 Tribes of Israel to travel by
night (Ex
13:21). The cloud hid God
from view, but it also guided the Israelites as God led them. On occasion, this cloud also shielded them
from the enemy: Ex 14:19-22 “Then the
angel of God, who had been traveling
in front of Israel's army, withdrew and went behind them. The pillar
of cloud also moved from in front and stood behind them, 20 coming between the armies of As the Israelites
proceeded onwards, they were provided with food – the food of angels. All they had to do was gather it each
day. Yet, in no time at all, they
became dissatisfied and complained because they craved meat. Psa 105:40 They asked, and he brought them quail and satisfied them with the bread of
heaven (Manna). Well,
they had a funny way of asking, but nevertheless,
God provided them with flocks of quail and they gorged themselves on them. Their next demand was for
water, so they ‘asked’, and once
again God obliged. Psa 105:41 He opened the rock, and water
gushed out; like a river it flowed
in the desert. As we can see here, this
wasn’t a trickle of water! It was a
torrent that formed a river in the desert.
Two million people with all their flocks and herds availed themselves
of its abundance. God wasn’t pleased with
them because they never valued their liberty after generations of
slavery. They expected to be pampered
and began to become lazy lay-abouts.
They had many challenges ahead, not least of which was the
displacement of the hordes that stood between them and their destination. You might have noticed the words we just
quoted from Ex
14:19 ““Then the angel of God, who had
been traveling in front of The Tribes of Israel
should have been remembering the exploits of their forefather Abraham. What a warrior he was! As we pointed out earlier, Abraham rode out
against four kings and their armies with only 315 men, well-trained no doubt,
and slaughtered all four armies. They
should have remembered that their God, the very One who
had delivered them from the hand of their enemy, met Abraham when he returned
from the slaughter and blessed him (Gen 14:17-20). Psa 105:42 For he remembered his holy
promise given to his servant Abraham. It
was because of the exploits and the faithfulness of Abraham that God
delivered Abraham’s descendants from the hand of their enemy and freed them
from slavery. Psa 105:43 He brought out his people with
rejoicing, his chosen ones with shouts of joy; Psa 105:44 he gave them the lands of the nations, and
they fell heir to what others had toiled for-- Psa 105:45 that they might keep his precepts and observe his laws. Praise the LORD. Just as Abraham did! Gen 26:4 “I will make
your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and will give them all
these lands, and through your
offspring all nations on earth will be blessed, 5 because Abraham obeyed me and KEPT MY
REQUIREMENTS, MY COMMANDS, MY DECREES AND MY LAWS." There was no-one
closer to God than Abraham, and God frequently met him face to face. Of course Abraham knew all about God’s requirements, His Commandments, His decrees, and His Laws. What is more, Abraham obeyed
them! God gave Moses the very same
Commandments and Laws that He gave to Abraham some 430 years before. In V44
above, we find that the Israelites
fell heir to the possessions of other nations – everything they’d toiled for
– and God Himself gave it all to them.
And why did God do this? He did
it so they “might keep
His precepts and observe His Laws”. Failure to do so would not result in “all the nations of the earth being blessed”. The Israelites were to set the example for all
the inhabitants of the earth – and in this, the Israelites have failed
miserably! The only thing that holds
them in good stead today is the faithfulness of Abraham and this is the point
being made by the Psalmist. God’s promise
to Abraham can never be annulled, so while the House of Israel fails in their
duty to obey God, others will set the example – as Abraham did – and will
duly establish a righteous nation and begin to provide a homeland for the
hordes of disobedient Israelites
– which they are today! This is how
God does things and His love and care is toward those who obey
Him. It should come as no surprise that God’s army will follow after
the exploits of Abraham. PSALM 106 Psa 106:1 Praise the LORD. Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever. God’s love doesn’t extend to the
disobedient! Mercy perhaps, but not
His love! God’s love is for those who
obey Him, and this is something that God has always made very clear. Psa 106:2 Who can proclaim the mighty acts of the LORD
or fully
declare his praise? Isn’t this what we’ve been speaking
about? And isn’t this what most
Christians today baulk at? They don’t
explain it as it is, and neither do they care. Their only concern is for imaginary rewards
which they hope for. If they
concentrated too much on the mighty
acts of the LORD, they might stumble on the requirements for
obedience – and this would never do!
They’re happy to receive rewards as long as there are no strings
attached, like living according to God’s Law.
They are, however, willing to obey some laws, provided it’s not
the fourth Commandment. Their only concession to this is that God
accepts their substitute, which of course is Sunday worship. And
even then, God must accept their right to work on this day if they so
choose. God freely acknowledges their
right to work on this day, but utterly forbids working on the Sabbath Day – the
Seventh Day! So their
substituted day isn’t holy after all!
Yet God’s Sabbath Day is, and what is more, the violation of this Holy
Day carries the death penalty. So
don’t expect God’s love; instead, hope
for His mercy! Psa 106:3 Blessed are they who maintain justice, who constantly
do what is right. The blessed ones
fulfill all God’s requirements and constantly
do what is right. As for justice, it’s not
something we see much of these days.
The Laws of God tell us what justice
means, and in some cases, justice
means the death of the offender. At
the grassroots level when a murderer is convicted, public opinion usually
objects to putting the offender to death.
This is not justice!
When a family is left fatherless, they have a right to see justice
carried out according to the Creator’s instructions. It’s God’s right to determine who lives or
dies, and He Himself has set those parameters, and they must be
followed! When the authorities refuse
to do this, then they become as guilty as the one they are protecting. The reason is because they have discounted
God’s instructions in favour of their own.
On a national level all will pay the prescribed penalty. Since the Tribes of
Israel are at the forefront of denying justice as a result of disavowing
God’s instructions, they’ve now placed themselves in a vulnerable
position. It should have been obvious
to all that the judgment day would come and that they would be judged for
what they have done. The Psalmist is speaking
of justice, and justice will be done.
When the fate of God’s chosen people Psa 106:4 Remember me, O LORD, when you show favor to your people,
come to my aid when you save them, Psa 106:5 that I may enjoy the prosperity of your chosen ones, that
I may share in the joy of your
NATION and join your
inheritance in giving praise. When the House of Israel
receives their inheritance, they will become one NATION – God’s NATION. This is how God explains it all: Eze 37:15-28
“The word of the LORD came to me: 16
"Son of man, take a stick of wood and write on it, `Belonging to Continuing in
Eze 37:18 “When your countrymen ask
you, `Won't you tell us what you mean by this?' 19 say to them,
`This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph--which is in Ephraim's hand--and
of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah's stick, making them a single stick of wood,
and they will become one in my hand.'
20 Hold before their eyes the sticks you have written on 21
and say to them, `This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I will take the Israelites
out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their
own land. 22 I will make them ONE NATION in the land, on the mountains of As we all
know, David ruled over all 12 Tribes during his 40 year reign. And once again he will ruler over all 12
Tribes after he is resurrected. He
will be both King
and Prince. He will be King over the House of Israel
and a Prince under
God Himself: V24 “`My servant David will be king over
them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees.
25 They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land
where your fathers lived. They and their children and their
children's children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their PRINCE forever. 26 I
will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase
their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. 27
My dwelling place will be with them;
I will be their God, and they will be my people. 28 Then the
nations will know that I the LORD
make In the last verse from
Psalms, David spoke of the joy of
God’s nation and their
inheritance. So now he speaks
of a similar situation that occurred anciently when they were brought out of
slavery in Psa 106:6 We have sinned, even as our
fathers did; we have done wrong and acted wickedly. And now David gives us
examples of these things in order to bring them to remembrance: Psa 106:7 When our fathers were in
Egypt, they gave no thought to your
miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea. The Tribes of Israel had
just seen many miracles which enabled them to leave the forced slavery in Psa 106:8 Yet he saved them for his name's sake, to make
his mighty power known. The lesson to be learned
here is to remember that we suffer trials to build our faith in God. Nothing is impossible for Him, and through
His mighty power, He can do anything He pleases. In this particular case, the Israelites
might have considered two options.
Either God was going to remove the obstacle before them, or destroy
the threat behind them. As it turned
out, God did both! Psa 106:9 He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up;
he
led them through the depths as through a desert. After their acrimonious insults the night before, the Israelites awoke
to the mighty act of God’s Power. A highway
stood before them between two great walls of water. In jubilation they fled to safety, reaching
the Then the second stage of
God’s Mighty Power came. The
Israelites looked back to see the destruction
of their enemies: Psa 106:10 He SAVED them from the HAND OF THE FOE; FROM THE HAND OF THE ENEMY he
redeemed them. Psa 106:11 The waters covered their adversaries; not one of them survived. Here we see the classic example of the meaning of salvation – a concept that Christianity is not
familiar with! Salvation means to be delivered
from the hand of the enemy – those who hate you! The words above in V10
are virtually the same words
used by another prophet six months before the birth of our Lord Christ. This man was the Levite Priest and Prophet
Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist.
It was John’s role to prepare the way for his cousin, Jesus
Christ. This is Zechariah’s account: Luke 1:66-79
“Everyone who heard this wondered about it, asking,
"What then is this child going
to be?" For the Lord's hand was with him.
67 His father Zechariah
was filled with the Holy Spirit and
prophesied: 68 "Praise be to the Lord, the God of
Israel, because he has come and has redeemed his people. 69 He has
raised up a horn of salvation
for us in the HOUSE OF HIS SERVANT
DAVID 70 (as he said through his holy prophets of long
ago), 71 SALVATION FROM
OUR ENEMIES and from the
hand of all who hate us-- 72 to show mercy to our fathers
and to remember his holy covenant,
73 the oath he swore to our father Abraham: 74
TO RESCUE US FROM THE HAND OF OUR
ENEMIES, and to enable us to serve him without fear 75 in
holiness and righteousness before him all our days.” This tells us very clearly what salvation
means. It’s not an emotional feeling
or a vague concept; it’s exactly what David said it was in Psa 106:10
above! It means to be rescued from the hand of the enemy. David was actually prophesying about John
the Baptist, who was to be a “horn of salvation
for us in the HOUSE OF HIS SERVANT
DAVID”. The horn of salvation is a
reference to a fighting force
that will defeat the enemy
and establish the House
of David once more. All this
must be done in preparation for the return of the Mighty Jesus Christ. Continuing Zechariah’s
prophecy about his son John: V76 “And you, my
child, will be called a prophet of
the Most High; for you will go on before the Lord
to prepare the way for him,
77 to give his people the KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION through the forgiveness of their
sins, 78 because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising sun will
come to us from heaven 79 to shine on those living in
darkness and in the shadow of death, to
guide our feet into the path of peace." And this confirms what we’ve been
saying. It was the role of John’s
latter-day counterpart to give God’s people the “KNOWLEDGE OF SALVATION”. Today, Christians and Jews need to have
this knowledge, because this knowledge will affect both. It’s the House of David that is to rise up and bring them salvation through
the destruction of their enemies – just as God stated through His holy prophets long ago. The
Rising Sun, who will come from heaven,
is the One who will guide our feet in the path of peace. Without the guidance of the Mighty One
Jesus, nothing would be accomplished.
Logically, the Prophet of
the Most High, who is to prepare the way for the Lord
Christ, must have the Spirit of Christ. It’s to this man that God will impart the knowledge of Salvation. Getting back to the
Psalms: Psa 106:12 Then they believed his promises and sang his praise. They had just crossed the Well, not quite! Psa 106:13 But they soon forgot
what he had done and did not wait for his counsel. This brings to mind the Second World War. Throughout WW2, Winston Churchill was like
ferocious bulldog in defense of his nation against the evil hordes determined
to destroy them. He tirelessly
encouraged them, driving them on to action, constantly instilling the hope of
victory, steadfastly standing firm against all adversity. Churchill was like a towering rock in his
resolve to secure victory. At the end
of it all, the people forgot what he had done and rejected him, throwing him
out of office at the very next election!
Understandably, Churchill was shattered by their ingratitude towards him. After saving them from death and
destruction, they no longer sought his counsel. God feels the same way when His people forget so easily,
and refuse His counsel. Psa 106:14 In the desert they gave in to their craving; in
the wasteland they put God to the
test. No sooner were they in the This is the account of
their craving: Ex 16:1-4 “The whole Israelite
community set out from Elim and came to the As Peter said, people are
slaves to whatever has mastered them: 2Pet 2:19
“They promise them freedom, while they themselves
are slaves of depravity--for
a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him.” What Peter said
here is directed towards those who will live in the last days, and this is the context 2Pet 3:1-4 “Dear friends, this is
now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders
to stimulate you to wholesome
thinking. 2 I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy
prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your
apostles. 3 First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers
will come, scoffing and following
their own evil desires. 4 They will say, "Where
is this `coming' he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything
goes on as it has since the beginning of creation." So, it seems that time doesn’t erase the tendency
to whine and complain and to scoff and ridicule the message of the holy prophets and the Apostles. Even in these last days, people are not
thankful for the abundance of good things they enjoy. The Tribes of Israel presently live in
freedom, with a super abundance of everything, but they’ve divested of the wholesome thinking that God
requires of them. Foremost in their
minds today is the pursuit of pleasure, and they can never get enough of it
in all its forms. God knew that He had to
teach the Israelites lessons about life, including the need to be content in
whatever situation they find themselves.
This involved wholesome
thinking and appreciation for everything
He had done for them. Yet this wasn’t
their state of mind shortly after leaving Yet God made allowances
for their short-term memory in those days and overlooked their slanderous
insults. Ex 16:4-16 “Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The
people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I
will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5
On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be
twice as much as they gather on the other days." 9 Then Moses
told Aaron, "Say to the entire Israelite community, ‘Come before the
LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.'"
10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they
looked toward the desert, and there
was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud.” In the midst of all this grumbling, the Glory of the
LORD appeared in the cloud as a stark reminder to beware! God demands certain protocols to be
observed. One of these is that we ask – not demand! And this must be done with the utmost
respect! V11 “The LORD said to Moses, 12 "I have heard
the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, `At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you
will know that I am the LORD your God.'" 13 That evening
quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew
around the camp. 14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost
on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15 When the Israelites
saw it, they said to each other, “What is it?" For they did not know
what it was. Moses said to them,
"It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is
what the LORD has commanded: `Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take
an omer for each person you have in your tent.'" As we will
see, God gave them what they asked for, but it came with a penalty for their
grumbling and their wanton disrespect: Psa 106:15 So he gave them what they
asked for, but sent a wasting
disease upon them. David describes this
wasting disease in one of the earlier Psalms: Psa 78:27-32 “He rained meat down on them like dust, flying birds like
sand on the seashore. 28 He made them come down inside their camp,
all around their tents. 29 They ate till they had more than
enough, for he had given them what they craved. 30 But
before they turned from the food they craved, even while it was still in
their mouths, 31 God's anger rose against them; he put to death
the sturdiest among them, cutting down the young men of Death is not something to
be taken lightly. People should
realize that we only have one shot at life before we return to dust. It’s only the comparative few to whom God
has given His Holy Spirit, and who have lived by it, that will be brought up
in the resurrection to live again.
Jesus Christ made this qualification when He said this: Luke 13:22-30
“Then Jesus went through the towns and villages,
teaching as he made his way to After God had given them
everything they wanted, the ancient Israelites sought more. Certain individuals started to demand
status. They considered themselves as
good as Moses and Aaron, and they demanded the same privileges of counsel and
direction of their affairs. We see a
lot of this in politics as well as religious organizations. Some people are not willing to earn their
positions of leadership, instead they demand it! However, God does favour good organization,
and for this reason, seventy elders
of the Tribes were selected for responsibility in governing procedures as
counselors. (Num
11:24-25). On these men,
God placed His Spirit to guide them.
These seventy elders were chosen by God through Moses. Suddenly, there were
hundreds of councilors in addition to the seventy. These were obviously self-appointed ones
who felt they had as much clout as anyone else including Moses and
Aaron. 250 of these decided to oppose
Moses and Aaron, and they were led by four men – Korah, Dathan, Abiram and
On. Num 16:1-3 “Korah son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, and certain
Reubenites--Dathan and
Abiram, sons of Eliab, and On son of Peleth--became insolent 2 and
rose up against Moses. With them were 250 Israelite men, well-known
community leaders who had been appointed members of the council. 3
They came as a group to oppose Moses and Aaron and said to them, "You
have gone too far! The whole community is holy, every one of them, and the
LORD is with them. Why then do you set yourselves above the LORD's assembly?" It’s funny they
should say this! After all, who was it
that God spoke directly to? And
through whom was it that God did many miracles? Who was it that God used to lead the
Israelites out of slavery? God made
the choice of His faithful servants, and these were Moses and Aaron! Not content to be God’s
holy nation, these 250 self-appointed councilors sought power and influence
over God’s servants as well as all the people. Psa 106:16 In the camp they grew envious of Moses and of Aaron, who
was consecrated to the LORD. It’s the age-old disease that inflicts some people; those who are
never content unless they are exercising authority over others. Give them a little status and they want it
all! These are typically those who envy
others, and it was envy that led to their
demise. First they campaigned to build
their base of 250 men, and then they approached Moses and Aaron as a group. Today we might call it a ‘peaceful demonstration’ which accords
with the fundamental principles of democracy.
These four, in particular, wanted to establish their right to ‘free speech’ and to make it clear that
they didn’t accept
God’s authority through His servants.
They were demanding that God accept rulership through committee, and
of course, these four wanted authority in the committee. To the average person
today, this might have seemed an acceptable way of handling things. After all, this is how things are handled
today in democracy. In democracy, the
aspirations of the people are decided by the few who have the loudest voices
– those who make the most fuss! This
type of procedure can lead to the people-in-general accepting things they
formerly would never have contemplated. An obvious one is the legalization of
homosexuality! But the list is endless
today. When Jesus spoke of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets being in God’s Kingdom and
others being thrust out, He was delivering an important message. That message was: If
you want to enter into God’s Kingdom, then listen to the Prophets! When people crave things that are outside
of the parameters of God’s Law, then they are setting themselves up for
destruction, and God Himself demonstrated this very principle in the presence
of Moses and Aaron and all the
people who didn’t
participate in this form of
rebellion. It’s what might be
called today, ‘shock therapy’. Psa 106:17 The earth opened up and swallowed Dathan; it buried the company of Abiram. The Israelites who viewed this event learned a valuable lesson. They learnt that God is not to be trifled
with. Contrived human logic doesn’t
invalidate God’s instructions. He is the
Creator God and He will be obeyed!
Anyone who thinks otherwise are deluding themselves – just as these
four men and all their followers were.
This was quite an event, and as you will see, the penalty suffered
included their wives and children as well.
It demonstrates the principle that when you cut off the head of the
snake you destroy its body as well.
Because of the wickedness of the principle player, his offspring also
suffered the penalty – as with ‘the sins of the fathers are upon the
children…’ (2nd
Commandment). The account of this is
found in the Book of Numbers, and is well worth reading because it details
important information for the future time when God’s Kingdom will be
established. This is the account: Num 16:12-35
“Then Moses summoned Dathan and Abiram, the sons of
Eliab. But they said, "We will not come! 13
Isn't it enough that you have brought us up out of a land flowing with milk
and honey to kill us in the desert? And now you also want to lord it over
us? 14 Moreover, you haven't brought us into a land
flowing with milk and honey or given us an inheritance of fields and
vineyards. Will you gouge out the eyes of these men? No,
we will not come!" This alone accurately describes the mindset
of these people! Their memory of It’s not
clear what happened to On, son of Peleth, who was the fourth offender, but
perhaps he decided to shut his mouth prior to this and to fade from the
limelight. V28 “Then Moses
said, "This is how you will know that the LORD has sent me to do all these
things and that it was not my idea: 29 If these men
die a natural death and experience only what usually happens to men, then the
LORD has not sent me. 30 But if the LORD brings about something
totally new, and the earth opens its mouth and swallows them, with everything
that belongs to them, and they go down alive into the grave, then you will
know that these men have treated
the LORD with contempt." Well, you can’t be fairer than this! Either God had sent Moses or He hadn’t, and
the outcome would determine this! V31 “As soon as
he finished saying all this, the
ground under them split apart 32 and the earth opened its
mouth and swallowed them, with
their households and all Korah's men and all their possessions. 33
They
went down alive into the grave, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they
perished and were gone from the community. 34 At their
cries, all the Israelites around them fled, shouting, "The
earth is going to swallow us too!" As you can imagine, this was a terrifying
event that left the whole community of Israelites fear-stricken, and perhaps
they were feeling some degree of guilt themselves. Whole families, with their tents and all
their possessions disappeared into a huge crevasse which then closed on them,
never to be seen again. But it was not
over yet! There were still the 250 who
had joined the rebellion, and they had to be dealt with: V35 “And fire
came out from the LORD and consumed
the 250 men who were offering the incense.” Though they had no choice in the matter, it
was either burial or cremation, and this is what happened. Hundreds of years later,
David reminds us of this event: Psa 106:18 Fire blazed among their
followers; a flame consumed the wicked.
Because we live
in democracies today, people believe they are free to do as they please, even
if their actions are wicked. Most
people today are not prone to learning from such examples as taught in
the Scriptures. They’ve developed the
idea that God is obligated to accept their standards of behaviour with
perpetual forgiveness. So if
misfortune befalls them, then it’s automatically God’s fault. According to their well-rehearsed views,
God is obligated to forgive them for everything. Do the laws of the land forgive us for our
offenses when we transgress them?
No? And neither does God! Under our national laws, all offenses
remain forever unless there are statutes of limitations where they expire
after a period – usually seven years for minor offences. With God’s Law, all offences remain unless
they are forgiven following repentance.
If we make the effort to learn God’s requirements and obey them, then
God will forgive all our past offences.
Every sin against Gods’
Law carries a penalty, and unless repented of, the penalty is ultimately
death – forever! Whether or not you
worship the Creator God, it doesn’t nullify this penalty. The only thing that nullifies this penalty
is repentance and obedience
to God – and for one reason only! This
one reason is because His Son Jesus paid the ultimate Sacrifice that others
might live. This noble Sacrifice was
done out of obedience to God, and it paved the way for all those who choose
to obey God to be spared from eternal punishment through death. He didn’t say they would not die, because
all of His followers died. Rather,
it’s through His Sacrifice for our past sins that He has
enabled us to live again. Any sin that
remains unforgiven by God remains an indictment against us. There is a judgment coming, and this begins in the FAMILY OF GOD, that is, the family or House of Israel. Of
all the families of the earth, God chose just one family – the Family He brought out of Egypt: Amos 3:1-2
“Hear this word the LORD has spoken against you, O
people of Israel--against the WHOLE
FAMILY I brought up out of Egypt: 2 "You only have I chosen of all the
families of the earth; therefore I will punish you for all your
sins." The Apostle
Peter referred to verse when he wrote this account in: 1Pet 4:16 “However,
if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear
that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin with the FAMILY OF GOD; and
if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not
obey the gospel of God? 18 And, "If it is hard for the righteous to be
saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?" 19
So then, those who suffer according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and
continue to do good.” The whole Family that God
brought out of Psa 106:19 At Horeb they made a calf and
worshiped an idol cast from metal. We can’t pretend that a
servant of God, Aaron, was not involved.
He was! Sometimes the servants
of God do take missteps, or make mistakes, or even commit outright sins. In this case, it was the latter. Aaron succumbed to the mood of the people,
and decided to assuage them by giving them what they wanted. With a bit of ‘creative’ reasoning he was even able to justify it. We’re hearing plenty of ‘creative’ reasoning all the time
now. For example: “If two men are in love with each other,
why shouldn’t they marry? What have
you got against love?” The implication
being that if you don’t favour homosexual perversion, then you must be
anti-love. This example is not too far
off the mark when it relates to what the people did with Aaron’s cooperation,
because the whole purpose of the casting of the golden calf was so that the
people could get involved in naked activities. Moses returned to see the Israelites ‘running
wild’ (Ex 32:25) which doesn’t suggest quietly bowing down to an
idol, although no doubt this is how it all began! The KJV plainly states they were naked
in the same verse. The Apostle Paul
provided the association between idol-worship and sexual misconduct in 1Cor 10:6-8
“Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from
setting our hearts on evil things as they did. 7 Do
not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written:
"The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry." 8
We should not commit sexual
immorality, as some of them did--and in one day twenty-three thousand
of them died.” The truth of the matter
is that idol-worship seems to switch on certain neurons in the brain to
engage in sexual activity. This is the
fundamental attraction of it. This is
also true of mind-altering illicit drugs, which is a form of idol-worship to
those who indulge. Such people don’t
like reality; they prefer fantasy, even if it destroys them. It was on the occasion of
the worshipping of the golden calf that God took the decision to set the
Levites apart as His own Tribe. This
is the account of what happened: Ex 32:25-29 “Moses saw
that the people were running wild
and that Aaron had let them get out of control and so become a laughingstock
to their enemies. 26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and
said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.” In fact, it was only
the Levites! The rest of the Tribes liked what they did
and weren’t keen to divest of their sexual misconduct. And so God used the Levites to execute His
punishment on the ringleaders of this outrage: V27 “Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the
God of Israel, says: `Each man strap a sword to his side. Go
back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his
brother and friend and neighbor.'" 28 The Levites did as Moses commanded,
and that day about three thousand of the people died. 29 Then
Moses said, "You have been set
apart to the LORD today, for you were against your own sons and
brothers, and he has
blessed you this day." This was quite an
undertaking by the Levites, who, out of zeal for their Creator God, rose up
against their own brothers among their fellow Israelites. By this very act, they proved themselves
worthy of God. The ringleaders were
punished and the rest of the people saw justice done. Perhaps we’re reminded of the travesty of
justice that occurs when a willful murderer is convicted and suddenly the
people rise up to spare him from capital punishment. These people, who refuse to allow the law
to take its course, are on a par with those who fell under the Levites
swords. They can rationalize all they
like, but punishment must always be a deterrent to others. It goes much further than
this though. Today we have lunatics
who defend the enemy over their own people.
We have murderous, sex-driven maniacs who have only one goal, and this
is to wipe out the Israelite nations, and they do this in the name of their
religion – Islam! Anyone who doesn’t
recognize these vile, evil creatures for what they are, could hardly claim to
have anything in common with their Creator God. One thing is certain, they could never
aspire to be Levites! What happened to
their sense of justice? Don’t they
realize that by their actions they are empowering Islam? Today, most of Those who still possess a
functioning brain would know who the enemy is today. Those who have read the many examples in
the Bible would know what the fate of this enemy is. Yet while the Tribes of Israel remain so
steeped in self-righteousness and placation of the enemy, they are unlikely
to act in the manner in which the Levites did in the service of God. In the days of Moses they took the decision
to put God’s enemies to the sword. On
this particular day, it was a certain section of the Israelite community who
had defied God in disobedience, and it was these who paid the ultimate
penalty. Just before leaving this
subject, there is a future prophecy yet to be enacted, which involves a
Levite – a writer as it happens – whom God will send against the enemies
among His own people. This prophecy
will be fulfilled when the time comes to cleanse This next verse follows
on from the previous, which speaks of the golden calf. The Glory
of God was right above them, but they chose to worship the image of a
bull: Psa 106:20 They exchanged their Glory for an image of a bull, which eats
grass. As we all know, idols don’t place any
restrictions on their worshipers. How
could they when they can’t speak? So
the worshiping of an idol doesn’t relate to a code of conduct. People worship idols as a means to gain rather than to
restrict themselves to standards of conduct.
The superstitious assumption is that if they worship the idol, all
good things will flow to them. The
truth is that those who worship idols are usually the poorest and most miserable
people on earth. As we’ve pointed out
many times, those who worship idols are worshiping demons and eventually,
insanity results as superstition embeds in the minds of the worshiper. The result is that they are incapable of
making rational decisions. The question now arises
as to the means by which people worship God today. Do they do it in recognition of Him being
the Creator God? Do they acknowledge
that, as the Creator, He is the One who directs the activities of His
creation? Did He instruct His Family, His only
Family, to obey Him in
everything He says? And didn’t the
Apostle Peter confirm that judgment
would come – and that it would “begin with us”, that is, Christians? So, on what basis does God judge? Is it according to law? God is the Great Lawgiver and the Great
Judge, and He judges according to His
Law. As Jesus Christ said, “If
you want to enter into [eternal] life, keep the Commandments”: Matt 19:16-17
“Now a man came up to Jesus and asked,
"Teacher, what good thing
must I do to get eternal life?"
17 "Why do you ask me about what is good?"
Jesus replied. "There is only
One who is good. If you want to enter
[eternal] life, OBEY THE COMMANDMENTS." The man who spoke
to Jesus was of the opinion that if he did some good thing, like donating to the poor or something
similar, that this would gain him entrance to eternal life. Jesus
retorted by reining him in about what he perceived to be good. The man
actually believed that his own ‘righteousness’
would get him over the line. Perhaps
Jesus was referring to the Scripture from Isaiah when He responded to the
man: Isa
64:6-7 “All
of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all
shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away. 7 No one calls on your
name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins.” As we all know,
sin is the transgression of God’s
Law (1John 3:4) – the Ten Commandments. Jesus then had to point out to the man who
asked Him what they were, and gave a number of examples. As it happened, the man responded by saying
he’d been keeping the Ten Commandments from his youth. And now David begins to
speak about the Family of God,
that is, the 12 Tribes of Psa 106:21 They forgot the God who saved them, who had done great
things in Psa 106:22 miracles in the Psa 106:23 So he said he would destroy them-- had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in
the breach before him to keep his
wrath from destroying them. God does listen to His
faithful servants, and in this case, God listened to Moses and changed His
planned course of events. This account
is found in Ex
32:9-14. Psa 106:24 Then they despised the pleasant land; they did not
believe his promise. This was when they sent a
man from each of the Tribes (except Levi) to assess the Promised Land. Instead of sending a Levite representative,
Moses sent two representatives of Joseph – one each from the Tribes of
Ephraim and Manasseh (Num 13:1-15).
Those who went and saw the Psa 106:25 They grumbled in their tents and did not obey the
LORD. Even worse, they began to speak about stoning Moses and Aaron
and returning to We can learn a lot of
things from these words. The
Israelites had seen many miracles through the power of God, but still they
became irrational at the slightest provocation. They hadn’t even begun to fight
and they were already speaking of defeat. This is what happens when one listens to
irrational people. First someone makes
an alarmist statement, and then everyone fears the worst. Mob-rule takes over and everyone begins to
act like irrational lunatics. In our
nations today, we generally call these ‘peaceful’
demonstrations, even though they are usually anything but. Remember the Watts Riots of the
1960’s? Today we’re seeing these so-called
‘peaceful’ demonstrations,
supposedly in pursuit of democracy in Leaving aside the
decaying motivations of today and getting back to that of the ancient
Israelites, Joshua and Caleb
confirmed that the enemies
protection was gone. They
could see that the enemy was vulnerable to attack, and that through God’s
Power, the victory would be theirs.
Yet the mob-rule mentality took over, and so God withdrew His
offer. The rebels would not
go in and possess the Promised Land; instead they would die in the desert and
a new generation would enter in their stead.
For forty years they would have to endure desert living. This turned out to be quite a penalty
because of their irrational behaviour. Psa 106:26 So he swore to them with
uplifted hand that he would make them fall in the desert, Psa 106:27 make their descendants fall
among the nations and scatter them throughout the lands. And so the forty year penalty droned on – and so did their insolence! It seems they learned nothing from penalty
for their actions. In no time at all,
they were worshipping the gods of their enemies. And not just any god, but the original Baal – the devil! The occupants of the Psa 106:28 They yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate
sacrifices offered to lifeless gods; Psa 106:29 they provoked the LORD to
anger by their wicked deeds,
and a plague broke out among them. As we’ve pointed out many times, the worship of foreign gods has
strong sexual overtones. This is the
attraction of such worship. And now we see the
account of Phinehas, and what he did when an Israelite decided to couple up
with a Midianite woman of one of the tribes of Ishmael, the father of the
Arabs. Psa 106:30 But Phinehas stood up and intervened, and the plague was checked. Phinehas was of the priesthood line and was the grandson of
Aaron. There’s an interesting account
of what he did in order to end a plague that was sweeping through the
Israelite community. Num 25:6-13
“Then an Israelite man brought to his family a Midianite woman right
before the eyes of Moses and the whole assembly of Israel while they
were weeping at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting. 7 When Phinehas son of Eleazar, the
son of Aaron, the priest, saw this, he left the assembly, took a spear in his
hand 8 and followed the Israelite into the tent. He drove the spear through both of
them--through the Israelite and into the woman's body. Then
the plague against the Israelites was stopped; 9 but
those who died in the plague numbered 24,000. 10 The LORD said to
Moses, 11 "Phinehas son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron, the
priest, has turned my anger away from the Israelites; for he was as zealous as I am for my honor among them, so
that in my zeal I did not put an end to them. 12 Therefore tell him I am making my
covenant of peace with him. 13 He and his descendants will have a covenant of a lasting
priesthood, because he was zealous
for the honor of his God and made atonement for the Israelites." You can see by
the description of the Israelite man and the Midianite woman that they seemed to be engaged in coitus
when the spear went through both of them.
What is equally interesting, this Midianite
woman was an Arab of the line of Ishmael. Ishmael had 12 sons who became tribes in
their own right and the Midianites
were one of these. As we found out
earlier (Gen 37:28) the Midianites were Ishmaelites and
were slave traders. After this
episode, God passed judgment on the Midianites and instructed Moses to kill
them wherever they encountered them, and gave him the command to take a
census of the Israelites to establish
an army for the purpose: V16 “The LORD
said to Moses, 17 "Treat
the Midianites as enemies and kill them, 18 because they
treated you as enemies when they deceived you in the affair of Peor and their sister Cozbi,
the daughter of a Midianite
leader, the woman who was killed when the plague came as a result of Peor (or the Baal of Peor incident)." Num 26:1 “After the
plague the LORD said to Moses and Eleazar son of Aaron, the priest, 2
"Take a census of the whole
Israelite community by families--all those twenty years old or more
who are able to serve in the army
of Israel." Now
the Army of Israel had been
given specific instructions to kill one of the tribes of
Ishmael – the Midianites,
and it was time to organize the army into a fighting force. It’s hardly surprising that thousands of
years later, the House of Israel is still fighting wars with the descendants
of Ishmael – the Arabs. All of whom are Baal worshippers who worship the devil – Allah! This act of Phinehas in
killing the Israelite who was copulating with the Arab woman was to be
remembered favourably by God for endless
generations. It’s something we
shouldn’t forget! God even expanded on
this by requiring an army to be raised to continue the killing of the
Arabs. It sounds like good advice even
today. As for Phinehas, God greatly
blessed him for his honourable act: Psa 106:31 This was credited to him as righteousness for endless generations
to come. Phinehas exhibited all
the warrior qualities of his forefather Abraham, and this was credited to him as righteousness. These are the same words that were spoken about Abraham (Gen 15:6, Rom 4:3, James 2:23). In Gen 15:6, this was immediately after Abraham had
gone to war against four powerful kings and defeated them with just 318 men
from his own household. This is when
Melchizedek, the Priest of the Most High, met him on his return (Gen 14:17-18). We’ll be discussing this in greater detail
when we get to Psalm 110. David continues with the
many issues concerning ingratitude by the Israelites. He refers next to Meribah, the second
action by Moses in causing the Rock to bring forth water. Psa 106:32 By the waters of Meribah they
angered the LORD, and trouble came
to Moses because of them; Psa 106:33 for they rebelled against the Spirit of God, and rash words came
from Moses' lips. Moses had the Holy Spirit
of God as all true prophets do, and in a brief act of carelessness,
Moses finished up forfeiting his life over this incident. Moses was told to touch the Rock and the
water would gush out, but instead he became angry and struck the Rock. This act, together with what he said,
offended God. God’s punishment was
that he would die and be buried on Psa 106:34 They did not destroy the
peoples as the LORD had commanded them, Psa 106:35 but they mingled with the nations and adopted their customs. Well whadya know! Instead of
killing the pagan hordes, they mingled with them and adopted their customs. I wonder what the big attraction was? Surely not the worship of pagan idols that
always ended in sex orgies! Surely
not! Well, of course it was! It didn’t take much to get the Israelites
cranked up like lusty stallions. They
were prepared to worship the devil if it meant an illicit sexual
encounter. The most powerful narcotic
in those days was the sexual drive induced by pagan worship and the sex
orgies that followed. It was an
irresistible state of mind that drove them, brought on by demonic influence. Perhaps you’ve noticed that it’s also a
problem today! Now if they had killed
and destroyed these pagans the problem wouldn’t have existed. But apparently they knew better than
God! This is also a disease of the
mind today, where some pastors, priests, evangelists and religious leaders
use their position to entice others into clandestine sexual encounters. All in the name of their god of
course! Obviously they are not serving
the Creator God, though they’re expert in creating the illusion that they
are. As preachers feigning
righteousness, we can assume they are not remembering the account
of Phinehas, to whom God credited righteousness for endless
generations to come. Psa 106:36 They worshiped their idols, which became a snare to them. Idols, eh? With the Glory of God overhead in a cloud,
they still pursue idols? Once they
join the culture, their minds become warped.
Step by step they advance into greater perversions and
atrocities. You’d think it couldn’t
get much worse than this, but they soon find a way. For their perverted lifestyle to continue,
they must appease the gods. Would a
glass of sherry and some cookies do the trick? Not likely! Psa 106:37 They sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons. Demons had a vested interest in destroying the House of Israel, and
the best way to do this is to stop the breeding cycle. So the demons demanded their sons and
daughters to be sacrificed in appeasement.
With mindless solemnity, the Israelites handed over their children to
be burned alive in order that the cycle of orgies might continue. Psa 106:38 They shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols
of Psa 106:39 They defiled themselves by
what they did; by their deeds they
prostituted themselves. A rose by any other name
is still a rose! They were faggots,
harlots and degenerates and they willingly prostituted themselves – all in
the honour of demons! If you were an observer to all this, what
would be your judgment? Hopefully, you
would see things as Phinehas
did, and administer the same retribution as him. God thinks the same way! Psa 106:40 Therefore the LORD was angry
with his people and abhorred his
inheritance. God’s inheritance is the
children of Psa 106:41 He handed them over to the
nations, and their foes ruled over them. The
worship of idols and the accompanying sexual promiscuity was the tipping
point and God handed them over to the enemy to be defeated and ruled
over. I might add these were the same
enemies whose gods the Israelites worshipped – the idols of Psa 106:42 Their enemies oppressed them and
subjected them to their power. Foreigners gained control
of their country and subjected them to their rule. There were sporadic periods of this, but
the most notable period was when the Philistines
ruled over them. It was David
himself who turned the tide of battle when he killed Goliath. Psa 106:43 Many times he delivered
them, but they were bent on rebellion and they wasted away in their
sin. There were many occasions when others ruled
over them, but even when they again got the upper hand, they still failed to
wipe out all the enemy. They just
never seemed to learn, and this is true to this very day. All the Western nations are overrun by
foreigners today, and the age-old enemies, now called Muslims,
are at the forefront of incessant terror, and still no-one wipes them
out. Now they are literally gaining
the upper hand and plotting the destruction of the West. Christianity, generally
speaking, has never been compliant with God’s Law, yet they seem to be
willing to bend to Islamic Shariah law.
Since they’re so unwilling to live by Gods’ Law, perhaps they’ll find
Shariah law a welcome change. They
should be aware though, that disobedience to Shariah law carries the death
penalty for ‘infidels’ – as Islam
calls them. This is especially
applicable to Christians and Jews. The
whole purpose of satanic Islam is to target all Christians and Jews to
prevent them from worshipping the Creator God. Young women and girls will fare better than
the men because of the Muslim’s voracious appetite for sex slaves. Men will be killed in order to eliminate
the competition, except for those who are suitable to be working slaves. Islam knows all about slavery; they control
the slave trade throughout the world even today. It took a hundred years of badgering by the
Western Nations to eradicate the slave trade in In the living hell that
is coming, male slaves will be prevented from reproduction, and the method to
prevent this is castration. There’s
going to be a lot of eunuchs in the House of Israel in days to come. As a matter of fact, God actually addresses
eunuchs as having a place in His Kingdom: Isa 56:4-5 “For this is what the LORD says: "To the eunuchs who keep my Sabbaths, who choose what pleases me and
hold fast to my covenant-- 5 to them I will give within my
temple and its walls a memorial and a name better than sons and daughters; I
will give them an everlasting name
that will not be cut off.” Those who undergo forced castration for the
sake of God’s Kingdom will not be abandoned, but honoured. V7 “These I will
bring to my holy mountain and give them joy in my house of prayer. Their burnt
offerings and sacrifices will be accepted on my altar;
for my house will be called a house of prayer for all nations." Yes, well there will be burnt offerings and sacrifices on God’s Altar in the In this Psalm, we’re
presently discussing God’s deliverance, and how often He delivered the House
of Israel from adversity. As God
states in the last verse, the trend was, that after all this, they would
rebel against Him and adopt their own ways again. Throughout their entire history, they never
seemed to learn. It was always just a
remnant who remained faithful and obedient to God! Psa 106:44 But he took note of their
distress when he heard their cry; Psa 106:45 for their sake he remembered his covenant (with Abraham concerning
his descendants) and out of his great love he
relented. God’s love for
Abraham outweighed His anger for his descendants, and He showed them mercy. Psa 106:46 He caused them to be pitied
by all who held them captive. At a rough guess, their plight must have been particularly horrendous
to induce any form of pity from these evil
creatures. Satan’s hordes are not
known for their pity. Ruthlessness and
unrestrained cruelty, yes, but pity – no!
Yet, God knows how to induce pity in the most pitiless of people;
you’ll recall how the Egyptians showed pity by giving the Israelites bags of
silver and gold after they themselves began to feel vulnerable. God has ways of making anyone vulnerable,
even whole nations. And now David continues
to speak as a Prophet, speaking of the future of the House of Israel and the
outcome of their long history. As we
saw a few verses back, David foresaw the day when he would be remembered by God and stand
with the House of Israel in His Kingdom.
As a Prophet and Patriarch, he is speaking of our day. Psa 106:47 Save us, O LORD our God, and gather us from the nations,
that we may give thanks to your holy name and glory in your praise. You’ll realize that David was not saved
and gathered from the nations in his day. So he’s clearly speaking of another day at
a future time. David was still ruling
as king when he died peacefully. Psa 106:48 Praise be to the LORD, the God
of Israel, from everlasting to everlasting.
Let all the people say, "Amen!" Praise the LORD. The remnant of the House of Israel when they are saved and gathered from the nations will have a complete
change of heart towards God. In that
day they will praise Him as the God of Israel. Their destination will be
their ancestral allotments in the Promised Land from where they were driven
in 720 BC, and have never returned.
They disappeared from the region and finally settled in faraway lands
to become nations in their own right.
In the interim, they were ruled over by the pagans who had conquered
them, and they took this paganism with them when they finally settled in Centuries later, they
were visited by men of God and learned of the appearance of Jesus Christ, and
slowly Christianity was adopted as their religion. In the 4th century AD, Emperor
Constantine decreed Christianity as the official religion of the PSALM 107 This Psalm begins with
the migration to the lands where the House of Israel would settle and become
nations in their own right following their period of captivity in strange
lands and the massacre and enslavement that occurred in 720 BC. Hundreds of years of slavery ensued before
they finally gained independence and freedom. Psa 107:1 Give thanks to the LORD, for he
is good; his love endures forever.
God specifically
says for the redeemed of the LORD
to say
this! It took many
centuries before they did say this, and it was after they became Christians
that it was finally fulfilled. The
European nations eventually became Christian nations. Psa 107:2 Let the redeemed of the LORD SAY THIS-- those he REDEEMED FROM THE HAND OF THE
FOE, Psa 107:3 those he gathered from the lands, from east and west, from
north and south. Here we find that the
term ‘redeemed’ means essentially the same thing as ‘saved’. Redemption
means to be saved FROM THE HAND OF THE FOE or enemy. Psa 107:4 Some wandered in desert
wastelands, finding no way to a
city where they could settle. Following the slavery
that ensued after the 720BC defeat of the northern Ten Tribes of Israel, they
sought an escape route from where they were enslaved. No doubt many attempts
were made to escape to a far-off land where they might live in peace, but it
seems that many failed: Psa 107:5 They were hungry and thirsty,
and their lives ebbed away. For what may have been
three or four hundred years, the ‘lost
Ten Tribes of In the meantime, the
Israelites who were still in slavery heard many reports about their
fellow-Israelites, and that their codes of conduct were vastly different from
their own. These early British or
Berith-ish people were the Covenant people (‘Berith’ means ‘covenant’
in Hebrew). The original ‘Brits’ were
called Celts and they ruled the No more death and misery
through slavery and failed escapes, instead, they would trust in God for
delivery: Psa 107:6 Then they cried
out to the LORD in their trouble, and he delivered them from their
distress. What had happened in the interim was, the
Celts had spearheaded a pathway all the way from Europe to ********************** For those who have an
interest in the history of the Celts, it was the historian Strabo that gave
this account and which is reproduced in an old historic book: ‘Literature
of the Celts’ by Magnus Maclean, pages
7-8: “So formidable were the Celts during the period
of their ascendancy that it served the purpose of the classic nations –
Greeks and Romans – to keep peace with them as best they could, and even play
them off against their hereditary foes.
And so the expansive tribes were for the most part on friendly terms
with both, especially the Greeks. We
have an account in Strabo of an interview which Alexander the Great had with
their ambassadors. It is given on the
authority of Ptolemy, his general. The
young potentate knew well the advantage of cultivating good fellowship with
his powerful neighbours, and when the tribes of the While they
were drinking, says the general, Alexander asked them what was the object of
their greatest fear, thinking they would say himself. But the imaginative Celts had quite other
views. They feared no man.
One thing only alarmed them, they replied, and that was lest the heavens should one day fall
and crush them. Still, they added,
that they valued the friendship of such a man as he was above everything. (General Ptolemy
obviously misunderstood the meaning. They feared no man; they only feared the power of heaven – which
is a reference to God.) “How
vainglorious these Celts are!” muttered the young autocrat to his courtiers,
a little piqued, perhaps, at their rejoinder.
Yet, if such was really the object of their superstitious dread, the
promise they made was not without its own grim cogency. “If we fulfill not our engagement,” they
said, “may the sky falling on us crush us, may the earth opening swallow us, may the sea overflowing
its borders drown us” With Alexander
they kept their pledge, but in 280 BC, when another king ruled Thus compelled
to evacuate ********************** Just to add some comments
to this last sentence where it says that Paul supposedly wrote
the epistle to the Galatians. Paul didn’t! Whoever wrote this spurious book was trying to condemn those who were ‘Judaising’, that is, keeping
the Commandments of God. This well-known colony of Celts in
Galatia were ‘Judaising’
– they were keeping the
Commandments of God, as did Paul and all the other Apostles. The spurious epistle of Galatians was
probably written at least a century after Paul died. And it
was written by someone who had renounced obedience to God in favour of the
weird form of ‘grace’ that we all
hear so much about today. It’s the
oddest thing, but this spurious writer actually did us a favour. He proves by his words and his contempt,
beyond all doubt, that the Celts
were Commandment-keeping people.
This is the crux of the whole epistle, where the writer castigates the
well-known colony of Celtic
Galatians for obeying God’s
Law. As we have learned from
the historic record, this well-known
colony were Celts. The Celts were the
original British people and they tended to colonize far and wide. We shouldn’t however, be confusing the
Irish with the Celts (which many people
do). Most of the Irish are
descended from the Vikings – a completely different breed of people who
mainly live in southern It didn’t go unnoticed
that President Obama visited It should come as no
surprise to anyone that the Irish have been cursed for generations. Anyone with knowledge of their history will
understand why. Even more bizarre,
they seem to claim some sort of association with the Celts, though to be
fair, they did adopt many of their writing skills which they used to generate
fictional tales of superstitions and the occult. The Irish today are among the most
superstitious people on earth. One of
their most famous occultist superstitions is kissing the Blarney Stone. The Celts were a powerful
nation of people, and seemingly invincible in battle. Therefore they had many enemies. Even in the early centuries of
Christianity, the colonies of Celts were still being targeted as objects of
hatred – particularly by the growing counterfeit Christianity that had begun
its relentless pursuit of power. Hence
the spurious book of Galatians was written, which suggests the Galatian Celts
had been ‘druided’ (later versions
translate it as ‘bewitched’). The original Druids were a priesthood,
which obeyed the Commandments of God.
This is the reason for the scathing attack in the book of Galatians by
an unidentified author. This was long
after Julius Caesar invaded Mind you, when the Angles
and the Saxons finally gained ascendancy, they drove the British back into In relation to the true
identity of the Celts, since the Celts were the ‘Berith’ or Covenant people,
this narrows their identity down to just one tribe, and this was the Tribe of
Levi. The Levites had the money and the
means to charter or buy ships to transport them to the It was the Celts who
sired such great and noble men as King Arthur and his knights of the round
table. These were fabled warriors, and
they lived by codes of conduct that were previously unheard of in It was through the
pathway provided by the Celts that God had led the Israelites to the cities where they could settle: Psa 107:7 He led them by a straight
way to a city where they could settle. Those who followed the lead of the Celtic Levites found favour with
God and did migrate to the cities far from the As we all know, David was
a Prophet and a Patriarch (Acts 2:29-30), and as a prophet,
his prophecies extended thousands of years into the future. When we get to Psalm 109 we’ll see a prophecy
that predicts the demise of Judas Iscariot – a thousand years later! And we’ll see that this was David’s
intent. As a Patriarch, David is the father of future nation. In fact, David was a father of Jesus
Christ, who called Himself the Son
of David. Jesus Christ Himself
confirmed that He was both the root
and offspring of David (Rev 22:16), and urges the Churches of God to
remember this! As a Prophet, David’s writings predict the future, even though he frequently reminds us
of the past – our origins and our history.
A prophet always hopes that others will use this knowledge to better
understand what God requires of them, and how they can better get to know and
understand His ways. Importantly, it’s
incumbent upon all those who seek Him to give thanks and to honour His
decisions and His deeds. All of them
are examples for us all. The Apostle Paul makes this very point in 1Cor 10:11-12
“These things happened to them as examples and were written
down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has
come. 12 So, if you think you are standing firm, be
careful that you don't fall!” Anyone who doesn’t heed these examples that
were specifically written
down for us are in danger of falling or failing. |
